The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

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Black bear causes backyard havoc during Lincoln meanderings

A map showing the bear’s Lincoln whereabouts last week (click to enlarge).

There’s a bear in the woods — and it’s not a Reagan campaign ad, either. It’s in the Lincoln woods (not to be confused with Lincoln Woods, never fear).

Paula Robinson, who lives on Rockwood Lane, was the first to report seeing the young black bear on May 9 at 4:30 a.m. Her doorbell camera caught the bear in the act of vandalizing her bird feeders — apparently bears are fond of birdseed. About a week earlier, another resident spotted what appeared to be bear tracks on the trails between Bedford Road and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

“The scary thing about the whole situation is that the bear was approximately 10 feet from my bedroom window and the windows are floor to ceiling, so it was a very surreal experience,” Robinson told the Squirrel. “The bear did take the feeder into the woods but not far and we found it intact this afternoon… We’ve all heard of sightings but I never expected to have such a close encounter due to the fact that we are so close to Route 2.”

A flurry of comments, photos and videos on LincolnTalk in the following days documented sightings all over town south of Route 2, and Lincoln police said they got calls about sightings at various times, primarily north of Trapelo Road near Lexington Road, Page Road, and Old County Road.

On May 10, the bear ransacked the trash can of Jai Kaur San Antonio, who lives near the Codman Estate. “I heard something banging around outside just as I got into bed around 11 p.m. I didn’t even consider it would be the bear. But when I woke up, I saw what a mess it had made — and there were muddy bear prints on some things,” she said.

That same day, Addie Bigelow on Grasshopper Lane shot this video of the bear tackling another bird feeder and successfully spilling the contents onto the ground to eat. 

Peter Speert’s photo of the bear outside his house on Fox Run Road on May 12. 

On May 12, the bear was in the Fox Run Road neighborhood. “I usually let my kids play outside unsupervised, but since a bear roamed into our yard, I have decided to supervise my kiddos more closely. Our neighbor’s dog chased the bear out of our yard and the bear scrambled up a tree,” Fox Run Lane resident Eri Buitrago, who posted this video.

By May 13, the animal had made its way to the home of Caroline Hayes, who lives on South Great Road close to the Wayland town line. She saw him just minutes after he was reportedly seen on Williams Road in Wayland, which is very close to her house.

“My birdhouse has a camera in it, and it did a weird thing at 5:35 a.m., so I believe that’s the same bear they saw in Wayland this morning,” Hayes said. “This morning, we woke up to find both of our bluebird houses on the ground, wood broken open with force, one with metal pole bent (and broken!) down to the ground. One had another species’ eggs in it, smashed, and luckily the other had four live baby bluebirds. We were able to repair their house a bit and parents are nearby. I can’t imagine any other creature but a bear could do this and bend the metal like that. I can see how they look like bird feeders since they are on poles and about the same height.”

Black bears are expanding their range eastward from western and central Massachusetts, according to the Mass. Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife), which has received reports of a bear in Lincoln and Concord.

“Black bears spend more time in residential areas when they find food such as bird seed, trash, unprotected backyard chickens and goats, and outdoor pet food,” Nicole McSweeney, Assistant Director for Outreach and Education at MassWildlife, told the Lincoln Squirrel. Bears that are fed directly or indirectly by people can become habituated and lose their fear of people, potentially resulting in more property damage or even a threat to public safety.

Resident Linda McMillan, quoting another MassWildlife official she spoke to, said the bear was moved from Worcester where he was wandering into a very developed area not because he was aggressive or violent. “He’s about two years old and has moved about 35 miles in the last week. They have no intention of moving him out of Lincoln. He said we should get used to having bears in our town. The likelihood is that we will see more,” she reported.

“If a bear is seen in town, leave the animal alone and keep pets leashed,” McSweeney said. “A gathering of people not only stresses the animal but adds the risk of having a bear chased out into traffic or into a group of bystanders. In most situations, if left alone, bears will return to forested areas on their own.”

Most bear sightings do not need to be reported to MassWildlife or law enforcement, she added. If a bear is seen in a densely populated area, contact the Environmental Police Radio Room at 800-632-8075 or the nearest MassWildlife District Office to report the sighting and get advice.  

And of course there’s always plenty of advice to be found on LincolnTalk as well. Resident Margaret Olson posted this old adage: “If the bear is black, fight back; if the bear is brown, hit the ground; if the bear is white, say good night.” To which another resident added, tongue in cheek, “If the bear is pink, put down that drink.”

If there’s one thing that captures the attention of Lincolnites, it’s wild animals (remember Bruno the serval in 2022?), so news media including the Lincoln Squirrel faithfully report on these incidents — as do local TV news stations (OK, not really; that’s a parody video from The Onion with a few naughty words, so be warned).

Eversource arborist explains roadside tree removal

One of several trees on Sandy Pond Road that’s been marked for removal.

Residents may have noticed temporary signs attached to numerous roadside trees in town that are being targeted for removal by Eversource. The town is required to hold a public hearing to invite comments or objections to removal of specific trees; it will take place on Wednesday, May 22 at 7 p.m. at the DPW office (30 Lewis St.). Anyone who can’t attend may email or call DPW Superintendent Chris Bibbo at bibboc@lincolntown.org or 781-259-8999 (he will read aloud the emailed comments at the hearing).

The Lincoln Squirrel asked Eversource Arborist Matthew Mitchell some questions about this process; here are his answers.

Why has Eversource not done this in Lincoln in several years?

A few aspects to this question. Our tree program is two-pronged; we have a trimming program and a removal program. The trimming program maintains space around the primary wires at the top of the electric poles, usually as close to 10 feet to the sides and bottom and 15 feet above as we can while following safety regulations and proper pruning practices. This program prunes each circuit every four to five years. There are several circuits in Lincoln that get pruned in different years, with a large Lincoln circuit having been pruned just last year. So we are around town regularly, even if the trimming work isn’t as dramatic as outright tree removal.

Our removal program is not cyclical and is a little more subjective. Circuits with recently poor outage rates are targeted, but we also try to do removal work on circuits that aren’t getting outages yet but in my opinion have a strong potential to see a spike in the future. We want to be removing potentially hazardous trees before they cause outages or cause a danger to general public safety. If I do my job correctly, nobody will have known there was a possible issue at all.

It has been a while since we have removed public trees in Lincoln, but last year we were fairly active in town removing hazard trees on private property. The motivation for this project happening now is that I think the Lincoln forest is aging out of a young forest into a more middle-aged one, and part of that process involves trees accumulating injuries or poor structure that make overall failure more likely. Tree injury, mortality, or failure is a natural part of the forest life cycle, and it is all well and good when it happens in the middle of the woods, but when these trees are situated next to power lines, sidewalks, and homes then human action is needed to intervene and prevent them from interrupting the power we depend on or causing property or bodily injury.

A specific issue in the Lincoln forest is that in the last few years, Lincoln has lost the majority of its ashes to emerald ash borer (EAB). This bug is an invasive species from eastern Asia and because our native ashes did not evolve alongside it, they do not have the evolutionary adaptations of Asian ashes. The beetle causes a near 100% fatality rate in native ash in any locality it has been introduced, and it is why when you go camping you will often see signage asking campers to not bring off-site wood for campfires as this is the beetle’s main avenue of spreading. Other than expensive pesticide treatments on individual large and significant trees, the only cure for EAB is preventing it from arriving. Ashes with EAB make up the single most common species on our Lincoln removal list.

What are the criteria for selecting trees to remove?

Circuits are profiled by our certified arborists to assess trees along the power lines for removal and then reviewed and edited by myself. Obviously, dead standing trees are immediately added. When the tree is still alive, it is visually assessed from root to shoot for signs of stress, poor stem structure that makes failure more likely, open or hidden rot cavities that could be a breakage point, the presence of tree pests that pose significant risk to the tree’s survival such as EAB (but there are others that affect more than just ashes), and overall form and vigor. The majority of non-undergrowth, larger diameter trees on the list are on there because I believe they are likely to fail in the short to mid term future and I would like to get them removed before they do.

I specified size in that last point because a lot of the trees on this list are small undergrowth trees. They are healthy in and of themselves, but they have been selected for removal because they are of a species that have characteristics that make them unsuitable to be located under the wires. Cherries and elms are the two most common. These species grow faster than average, sprout aggressively when they are pruned, and usually do not take to being pruned to grow out and around the wires but stubbornly keep trying to grow straight upwards. These trees are difficult for our pruning program to control and even when pruned to arboriculturally correct and healthy standards are frankly an eyesore. It is more effective to have them removed outright as well as improving the aesthetic of the roadway.

There is a small handful of healthy, moderately sized trees on the list that do not have significant biological or structural defects. They are on there because they are actively touching our primary lines which carry thousands of volts. If/when friction wears away the wire coating, these trees will cause an outage by catching fire themselves and potentially (although very unlikely) acting as an electrical conductor for anyone who happens to be touching the tree.

What’s the timeframe for removal?

It depends on the contractor’s workload from other areas Eversource services, but I expect work to begin a few weeks after the tree hearing

What happens to all the wood?

The logs will usually linger for a week or two as the log crew is a separate crew to the removal crew. Because the trees we are targeting are often unhealthy to begin with, there is not much value in their lumber. Usually they are given to facilities that process them into chips for resale or industrial use, sometimes the town wants the wood themselves for whatever reason. It depends on each of our contractor’s individual system and geographical location, and it is not a part of the process I am much involved in.

If any abutters to trees being removed would like to keep the logs themselves or if they want chips for organic mulch, that is also an option if they let us know. Chips are measured by the truckload or so, if anyone wants them they usually need to have a full-sized garden or several yard trees.

Correction

In the April 17 article headlined “Planning Board discusses policies in wake of Town Meeting tumult,” the first paragraph on public comments had two proposed policies reversed. The corrected paragraph now reads:

For nonjudiciary issues — those having to do with general policy or zoning — members proposed following the Select Board’s policy of allowing a 15-minute public comment period at each meeting, with each speaker limited to two minutes. For issues regarding individual projects (site plan review, driveway curb cuts, etc.), the board will continue our current policy of allowing unlimited speaking time and prioritizing abutters.

My Turn: Submit comments to stop private jet expansion

By Alex Chatfield and Trisha O’Hagan

Dear Lincoln residents,

You no doubt have seen the “Stop Private Jet Expansion” yard signs throughout the town.  We need everyone’s help now that the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) has been released by the developers.

This is your opportunity to send a message to Governor Healey’s administration, through this MEPA review process, to do the right thing – to use whatever means the governor and Secretary Tepper have within their power to derail this egregious proposal which makes a mockery of genuine decarbonization efforts by thousands of people across our Commonwealth.
Now that the DEIR is released, there is a comment period open until May 10. The number of comments received matters and our coalition has prepared excellent talking points to aid you in writing a letter or email.

To access the Stop Private Jet Expansion (SPJE.org) web site, click here. You will find a button on the page for the “DEIR Toolkit.” If you have any question about the Hanscom North Airfield Project and other ways you can get involved, please contact Trisha O’Hagan (pmokiwi@comcast.net) or Alex Chatfield (adchat@aol.com).

Once you write your comment, please reach out to some friends and family and get them to do the same. Working together, we can prevent the private jet industry and Massport from continuing on its reckless course of unrestrained growth in the midst of a climate emergency.

Gratefully,
Trish and Alex

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Corrections

  • In the calendar and the March 21 edition of “News acorns,” the registration link for  “Three Unique Case Studies of Home Heating and Ventilation System Upgrades” on Monday, April 29 at 7 p.m. was incorrect. Those links have been corrected; click here to register.
  • In bullet point #7 in the April 1 story headlined “My Turn: What happened at Town Meeting?“, the editor’s insertion of a slash incorrectly implied that the “second HCAWG member” and “RLF chair” were the same person when in fact they were two different people. The article has been corrected.

Glass, Taylor defeat challengers in town election; community center vote fairly close

In the two contested races in the March 25 town election, Select Board member Jennifer Glass defeated Frank Clark to win a third term, 64%–36%, while Gary Taylor bested Sarah Postlethwait to retain his seat on the Planning Board, 58%–42%. 

The ballot question on funding for the community center, which required a simple majority, passed by a margin of 57%–43%. The gap was much narrower than the corresponding Town Meeting vote two days earlier, when residents approved the measure 81%–19%, easily surpassing the required two-thirds threshold.

Voter turnout was 35% as 1,744 of the 5,018 Lincoln residents cast ballots.

Precinct 1Precinct 2Total
Select Board (one opening)
Jennifer Glass7053821087
Frank Clark407196603
Write-in/blank391554
Board of Assessors
Edward H. Morgan8364291265
Write-in/blank315164479
Board of Health
Patricia Eileen Miller8524341286
Write-in/blank299159458
Cemetery Commissioner
Douglas Harding8644371301
Write-in/blank287156443
Commissioner of Trust Funds
Write-in6943112
Blank1,082550550
Housing Commission
Terry Perlmutter8264111237
Write-in/blank325182507
L-S Regional School District Committee* (two openings)
Catherine Bitter8244101234
Maura Carty544282826
Write-in/blank1,867987987
Parks and Recreation Committee
Brianna Doo8404271267
Write-in/blank311166477
Planning Board (one opening)
Gerald Taylor641311952
Sarah Postlethwait459240699
Write-in/blank514293
School Committee (two openings)
Susan Taylor7593961155
Yonca Heyse592304896
Write-in/blank9514861437
Trustees of Bemis
Miriam Borden8304241254
Write-in/blank321169490
Water Commissioner
Patrick Lawler8474261273
Write-in/blank304167471
Question 1 (community center funding)
Yes646289935
No428271699
Blank7733110

* Sudbury results were not available on Monday night.

My Turn: DeLisi’s version of HCA amendment events

By Lynn DeLisi

Editor’s note: DeLisi, a member of the Planning Board, originally posted the following as a comment on the March 25 Lincoln Squirrel story headlined “HCAWG, RLF were surprised by rumored amendment to zoning motion” and is being reprinted here with her permission.)

None of what is being reported here was shared with both Eph Flint and myself. In fact, let me set this straight: after Eph and I made it very clear that the Planning Board needed more time to address the many outstanding issues residents have raised, [board chair] Margaret Olson contacted me and suggested we do an amendment and told me that [Director of Planning and Land Use] Paula [Vaughn-Mackenzie] would help me. She further added that we could discuss it as a board and maybe then present a unified board to the town meeting instead of Eph and I supporting a “no” vote.

The next day, I contacted Paula; she convinced me not to go below 15 units per acre in the mall and had Utile approve the numbers I had. She asked me to get Eph’s approval, which I did. Margaret then called a special Planning Board Meeting for last Saturday, March 16, but since I was to be out of town then, it was postponed to be discussed at the Tuesday, March 19 Planning Board meeting. However, Eph and I never understood why it was taken off of the agenda and we were not aware that Paula had mentioned it at a [Housing Choice Act Working Group] meeting.

We both talked to many other town residents in the few days before Town Meeting and decided that an amendment was not the way to go — even though it was a step in the right direction and relieved some of the density we feared at the mall. The reason is that there were many other issues not yet discussed and still not, and there has been no consensus yet in town about how to do this right. Nor, most importantly, have the current residents of the Lincoln Station area been consulted about their views for the rezoning in some cases of their own properties. We wanted more time to reach a true compromise in a democratic way. We wanted representatives of different viewpoints to sit at the same table with the Planning Board to discuss what is most important and how to zone for it.

The reporting of the Working Group meeting by Alice Waugh is a good illustration of why that working group needs to be disbanded. Their discussion was never reported to us as Planning Board members and should have been.

I am extremely dismayed by the events of the last few weeks in our beloved town and hope our leadership can find a way to obtain a consensus among all of us for the sake of future generations of residents of Lincoln. I am also outraged that Eph and I were treated as “black sheep” and not allowed to present our wishes for the town at the podium.

I have been a member of the Planning Board for a decade and have never seen such an awful set of circumstances such as these develop — ultimately leading to a very weak and divided vote. I call now for a real vote at the polls.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Correction

The March 21 edition of “News Acorns” listed the wrong day of the week and time for the memorial for Susan Sugar. It will be held at the First Parish Church on Saturday, April 6 at 2 p.m. The original post has been corrected.

Anonymous mailbox flyer argues against Housing Choice Act

Ratcheting up the tension even further, one or more people left unsigned anti-Housing Choice Act flyers in mailboxes around town on the night of Tuesday, March 19, stirring disgust and police complaints by some of the recipients.

“It got to the point that multiple people were calling,” said Acting Police Chief Sean Kennedy. He cited calls from residents on Codman Road and Wheeler Road, “but in talking with the dispatcher, it sounded like it was all over town.”

The anonymous flyer left in the mailbox of several Lincoln residents. Click image to enlarge.The flyer lays out arguments for voting against the HCA rezoning measure, but contains a number of factual errors:

  • It says the state is requiring affected towns to put in “many low income” housing units, when in fact the law does not have any such requirement and in fact limits the portion of affordable housing in HCA districts to 10%.
  • It says that Lincoln has never applied for a state grant other than for the school, when in fact it has applied for and received several grants in recent years, including regional planning grants and $400,000 for designing expansion of the Lincoln Woods wastewater treatment plant.
  • It incorrectly states that “we are looking at 800 units” and assumes those units will be filled with families of at least three people all at the same time, leading to a “sudden massive 50% increase in the town’s population” and a $30.8 million budget deficit for the town.

The flyer also implies that illegal immigrants could occupy some of the new housing.

One of the flyer recipients said other residents had sent him copies of a different flyer expressing similar anti-HCA sentiments that was left in mailboxes, though it’s unclear if the two versions were produced and distributed by different people.

After word spread about the incident, several residents — including several who oppose Lincoln’s HCA measure that will be voted on at Town Meeting on March 23 — decried the act on LincolnTalk.

Kennedy said he would speak with Lincoln’s postmaster, since leaving non-U.S. mail in people’s mailboxes is technically illegal, though there is no law or bylaw specifically forbidding it. He added that police had identified a person of interest who was seen putting papers in mailboxes on Wheeler Road. “We’re following up with a party to let them know that the postmaster doesn’t want them doing that,” he said.

Editor’s note

A reader took issue with the March 19 headline “LRHA proponents demand podium time at Town Meeting” in a story comment and emails to the Squirrel asked that it be changed, particularly the verb: “The use of ‘demand’ is prejudicial and indicates a negative view of the petition signers, many of whom are my neighbors who simply want more information. They are not members of LRHA but just people who want to learn about the opposition to Article 3 before they vote. Are you playing to a perceived audience? I hope not!” The original headline has been changed.

It is true that the word “demand” has a different connotation than the word “request,” so the verb in the headline has been changed. However, the Lincoln Squirrel feels it is disingenuous to think that a sizable portion of the 300+ signers of the letter cited in the article have not made up their minds, as opposed to “[simply] wanting more information,” so we have let stand “LRHA proponents” (which include Smith, according to the organization’s website). The text of the letter to the Select Board is below. 

“These registered voters of the Town of Lincoln request of the Town Meeting Moderator, Planning Board and Select Board: Ten (10 ) minutes at the podium at the March 23, 2024 Town Meeting to present the perspective of the Lincoln Residents for Housing Alternatives (LRHA). As the LRHA proposal garnered a substantial percentage of the vote in the previous Town Meeting, and in light of the Planning Board’s 3-2 split vote on February 26th, we respectfully ask that the democratic process be honored. As such, we request a designated spokesperson be allowed to present the perspective of the LRHA to Article 3.”