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My Turn: In support of Article 3 at Town Meeting

By Joan Kimball

I am supporting Article 3, the Housing Choice bylaw, at the March 23 Town Meeting.

Having voted in favor of Article C (with the majority) at the December Special Town Meeting, I have since read carefully the pros and cons, attended meetings about the Housing Choice Act and made my decision. I will vote yes on March 23 for the following reasons:

  1. Knowing that we in Massachusetts have a housing crisis, I want Lincoln to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. 
  2. I believe that we have an opportunity now, with RLF and the mall, to actually build some multiple-family housing. Building in the (relatively) near term will:
    • Actually provide housing
    • Be developed by an owner, RLF, who has a proven record of doing things for the town and an understanding of the town so that the development will fit Lincoln. I liked the conceptual drawing that we saw at the recent RLF meeting.
    • Provide more customers for our retail businesses. We need more customers. When I go to Donelan’s, there is never a line, and when I go to other businesses, I am often the only customer. This is not sustainable.
    • Create housing that is near transportation — an important aspect as we oppose climate change.
  3. If we do not include the mall with its potential for building housing, I strongly believe it will take years and years to actually build any housing. It is a complex and challenging undertaking. In addition, I have heard that developers do not want to risk time and investment in projects with the risk of going through Town Meeting.
  4. With town and private investment we can choose to increase the moderate income percentage in housing developments.
  5. As a former Conservation Commission member, I support development on already built land whenever possible to protect habitat on undeveloped land.

Bylaws are not specific housing developments; they are zoning “rules.” A great deal of time — as well as incorporating public comments — has gone into this bylaw. I think it is a good one. Therefore, I vote yes.

“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.

Fire heavily damages Old Concord Road home

The damaged house at 14 Old Concord Road looking east toward the Lindentree Farm barn (left).

A fire cause by high winds heavily damaged a home on Old Concord Road in the early-morning hours of February 29.

Neighbors saw fire shooting through the roof of 14 Old Concord Road and called the Fire Department, which responded with Engine 2 and Ladder 1 and was assisted by firefighters from Concord, Wayland, Weston, and Hanscom Air Force Base. No injuries were reported. No one was in the house, which has been unoccupied for some time.

The fire started when a large tree came down over power lines due to high wins and causing a power surge to the house, Fire Chief Brian Young said. The fire was also found to have a “significant head start” due to a lack of working smoke detectors within the home, he added.

The house, which is located behind the Lindentree Farm barn on a separate parcel, is owned by Heather McCune, according to town land records. The one-story flat-roof cinderblock home was built around 1950 and is assessed at just $103,000, though the 2.9-acre parcel is assessed for $943,900.

Draft of HCA design guidelines released

Editor’s note: This article was amended on February 29 to include a link to remarks accompanying some of the slides.

New buildings that go up in the future HCA subdistricts will have to adhere to design guidelines presented as a draft at a February 27 community forum.

The slide decks from the forum (one with notes and one without) recap the feedback received by the Housing Choice Act Working Group — feedback that has shifted over time between a preference for concentrating affordable housing at the mall vs. spreading it around town — plus resulting changes that HCAWG and the Planning Board made, and answers to some questions. (Remarks by Select Board and Housing Choice Act Working Group member Jennifer Glass in some of the slides in the deck without notes are truncated but can be accessed here.)

The guidelines beginning on page 8 of the two slide decks aim to “ensure new buildings are in keeping with the scale and character appropriate for a village center and support the high quality of design and connection to the outdoors that Lincoln values.” The slides include pictures of various types of building designs that would be acceptable and lay out guidelines with an emphasis on:

  • Open space
  • Front setbacks
  • Enhancing connectivity through sidewalks and paths
  • Minimizing the visual impact of parking
  • Thoughtful landscaping with native and drought-tolerant plants whenever possible

The required site plan review for each project will continue to include minimizing impact on trees as well as imposing controls on storm water management, lighting, and hardscape. Building guidelines also call for articulated facades and use of half stories and stepbacks to break up massing. All new developments should include accessible public space such as restaurant seating, public gathering space, and street furniture.

For mixed-use buildings:

  • Sidewalks and outdoor space adjacent to buildings should be designed to accommodate outdoor seating and gathering areas that complement the commercial space within the building.
  • Front setback areas should be designed either as a public visual amenity or accessible public space.

Other guidelines in the draft:

  • Public directional signage should follow current town signage design
  • Outdoor displays must be approved by the Planning Board
  • Bicycle racks are required
  • Sustainability is required through the town’s Specialized Stretch Code and Ten Town Pilot Program.
Upcoming meetings:
  • Rural Land Foundation forum outlining latest thoughts about redevelopment of the mall via Zoom — Thursday, Feb. 29 at 7 p.m.
  • Town Meeting preview forum on Housing Choice Act — Thursday, March 14 from 7–8:30 p.m. (details TBA)
  • Planning Board meeting to review and approve design guidelines to submit to Town Meeting — Tuesday, March 19 at 7 p.m. (Zoom only)
  • Annual Town Meeting — Saturday, March 23 starting at 9:30 a.m. in Donaldson Auditorium

My Turn: Elect Sarah Postlethwait to Planning Board

By Barbara Peskin

(Editor’s note: Postlethwait is challenging incumbent Gary Taylor for a seat on the Planning Board in the March 25 town election.)

We are so fortunate that Sarah Postlethwait seeks our vote for the Lincoln Planning Board. Sarah is responsive, smart, and a team player. Should you arrive at the Planning Board with an issue for your own property, Sarah will care about your goals, consider them fairly, and work with you and the Planning Board to craft a balanced solution.

For rezoning, future planning and HCA planning, Sarah knows our bylaws and state laws for rezoning inside and out. She researches thoroughly, knowing that the details are key when making decisions that impact our town’s future. Her communication style is clear, thoughtful, and respectful. If I have any bylaw question, especially around a topic I am struggling to understand, I turn to Sarah. She finds a way to explain it so I get it. Sarah also has a great sense of humor.

Sarah understands and prioritizes the financial and environmental impacts of Planning Board decisions on you and on Lincoln. She will work with the Planning Board team, invite input, and give respect to all opinions.

If you want to vote for someone who cares deeply for Lincoln’s legacy while understanding how Planning shapes the future of living, working and raising a family in Lincoln’s present, vote for Sarah Postlethwait.

Meet Sarah at a coffee chat on Wednesday, Feb. 28 from 9-10:30 a.m., at 241 Old Concord Rd., hosted by Joanne and Jack Wise. Drop in for all or part of the time. I think you’ll learn why she wins my vote, and also deserves yours at the polls on March 25.

“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.

My Turn: 100 seconds to a better planet

By Michael Moodie and Belinda Gingrich

(Editor’s note: The following is one in a series of “Climate Minutes” posted on the Lincoln Green Energy Committee website.)

The Lincoln Green Energy Choice (LGEC) program offers residents three options for electricity from renewable (primarily wind and solar) sources:

  • Basic — 26% renewable, 14.631 cents per kWh
  • Standard Green — 62% renewable, 16.093 cents per kWh
  • 100% Green — 100% renewable, 17.348 cents per kWh

When the program started three years ago, unless an enrolling household specifically selected Basic or 100% Green, it was placed in the Standard Green program by default. The great majority of those enrolled in the program ended up with Standard. With busy lives and automatic bill payments, probably few of us have given much thought to our electricity supplier since.

About 13% of Lincoln households have chosen the 100% option, while 80% have Standard and 7% Basic. The CFREE team hopes that more households would move to 100% if they knew how easy it is to do and how minimal the extra cost would be. The 100% option is just over a penny per kilowatt-hour more than Standard. For an average home that uses 10,000kWh per year, that’s about 35 cents a day. This is one of the simplest and lowest-cost steps we can take to get at least the electricity part of our fossil fuel use out of our lives.

We’ve timed it. If you can spare 100 seconds, you can do this! First, make sure you have your Eversource bill at hand. Then click here, fill out the form, and press “Submit.” Or call LGEC customer support at 844-651-8919 and tell them you want 100% Green. They will make the change for you. (It may take several billing cycles before the change takes effect.)

If you’re uncertain which option you’re in now, click here to see where the rate and supplier information is noted on your Eversource bill. Then find your February 2024 or a later bill to compare.

Tech support will be provided free of charge in the Tarbell Room of the Lincoln Public Library on Friday, March 1 from 1–2 p.m. Volunteers will have computers set up to help anyone who’d like to make the change to 100% (or any other change). Bring your Eversource bill. We’ll also do a Q&A and provide tech support to help users make changes on Thursday, March 21 from 2–3 p.m. at Bemis Hall.

Moodie and Gingrich are writing on behalf of CFREE (Carbon-Free Residential, Everything Electric), a working group of the Lincoln Green Energy Committee.

“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 February 6 article headlined “Ogden Codman trust pledges $500K for community center” incorrectly stated that the Lincoln Council on Aging (FLCOA) has promised to match donations for the community center dollar for dollar. In fact, the FLCOA has committed to match donations to the project up to a total of $1 million. The original article has been corrected.

My Turn: Telling the climate story through poetry

By Michael Moodie

The Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) report released in November is the U.S. government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses released in November. For the first time, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy  included the arts in the process to encourage wider participation in the National Climate Assessment and help us visualize the impacts of climate change. Consequently, a book called Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States was created as a sort of companion to NCA5. 
 
When I heard about this involvement of the arts in NCA5, I wondered how that came about. Are they so frightened of what’s coming that they’ll try anything? Or are they digging deep and trying to tap into energies much older and deeper than science? Who knows? But I wanted to honor their action. I feared that the book might be exceedingly grim, and grimness there is, but when I came across this poem (and there are others like it in the book), I just had to share it. 

When we tell the story

Of how we survived the great collapse
it won’t be only kindness
or sacrifice or banning single-use plastics.

It will be imagination.
It will be flock and lift,
pull each other
up from what’s broken.

Systems in collapse
don’t stop collapsing.

No one can stomach the loss
of what must be lost
and so we hasten collapse
clinging to systems too heavy to hold.

We wrestle with Capital’s tooth and claw,
our own creation turned against us,
all the while anchored to ground
soaked in blood.

Consider the gulls
who soar on vast wings,
dipping down to feed
taking only what they need.

Birds adapt over time
to what is real.
We are now the ostrich,
knees bent backward, running

Always earth-bound.
Afraid,
we bury our head.
But all creatures can evolve.

This is our invitation.
When we tell the story
of how we survived the collapse,
we might say:

like birds, we learned
to move as one.
We grew lighter
And lengthened our wings.

— Anna Sims Bartel, from Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States

Moodie write on behalf of CFREE (Carbon-Free Residential, Everything Electric), a working group of the Lincoln Green Energy Committee.

“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.

My Turn: Updates on the town’s two solar energy projects

By Jim Hutchinson, Select Board

A number of folks have expressed interest in the status of the solar projects in progress at the transfer station and Lincoln School, so I thought I’d post an update. I am the Select overseeing the transfer station project and I was also a member of the PPA [power purchase agreement] subcommittee that advised the School Committee on the Lincoln School solar project. For this update I also got input from Buck Creel, the Lincoln School staff member overseeing the Lincoln School solar project.

What solar project is Lincoln doing at the transfer station?

After years of effort, careful negotiations with the National Park Service, discussions with neighbors on Mill Street, and a successful competitive bidding process, Lincoln is now finalizing final details of a Power Purchase Agreement (“PPA”) with the New Jersey-based firm HESP to construct and operate a 1.4MW solar PV system for our benefit on top of the capped landfill next to the transfer station, which we expect to generate enough green electricity to cover the amount of municipal electricity that has historically been used by the town net of the Lincoln School. As an added benefit to the town, while we are doing this construction work, with the input of the Conservation Commission and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, we will also construct a bikeable and walkable path connecting Mill Street to the transfer station access road.

What is the expected schedule for the transfer station solar project?

We are currently working our way through the local, state, and utility permitting processes. We received Conservation Commission approval for the project in November 2023 and hope to get Planning Board approval this March. We hope to get approval from the MassDEP by June, and from Eversource by the end of the summer. HESP will then order the equipment and begin installation, hopefully in the Fall of 2024, or Spring of 2025 at the latest. Construction is expected to take four months, and equipment startup one additional month. We hope to be generating electricity by the Fall of 2025.

What is the solar project at Lincoln School?

The School Committee signed a PPA Agreement with TotalEnergies (previously SunPower) back in 2022 to install 1.2MW of rooftop and parking lot canopy solar PV as well as 562KW of battery storage. We expect this system to generate enough electricity to cover the expected usage at Lincoln School and thereby make the school “net zero” overall. In addition, the battery system should help us minimize the dreaded “demand charges” from Eversource that occur if our generation plus battery supply doesn’t meet our spot demand and we have to draw power from the grid at peak times. The technical approach taken in this project was somewhat novel for municipal projects in that it is “behind the meter,” meaning that a good chunk of the solar power generated by the panels is used directly by the School and is not shipped out to Eversource, and thus we do not have to pay distribution charges on that amount.

I see the solar panels have been installed at Lincoln School rooftops and carport canopies. Are they live?

No. TotalEnergies has encountered a number of setbacks that have delayed the completion of this project, including supply chain issues, issues with Eversource needing to adopt new policies and procedures for our novel “behind the meter” situation, and most recently, an equipment compatibility issue between the inverters and rapid shutdown safety devices used on the project, which is the current holdup on energizing the system. None of these delays have been the fault of the Town of Lincoln, although we have done what we can to help resolve the issues quickly while protecting Lincoln’s interests.

When do we currently expect Lincoln School solar to be live?

We are working with TotalEnergies now to finalize the plan for them to replace the incompatible equipment, which will be done solely at their expense. They need snow and ice-free conditions to do this work, so the schedule is weather dependent, but we currently expect the work to be completed and the system to go live in May, and possibly sooner. TotalEnergies does not collect any revenue from Lincoln for this project until they go live, so they are just as eager as we are to do so.

Aren’t we paying more for electricity from Eversource while we wait for the Lincoln School solar PV system to go live?

Yes, although note that the cost to Lincoln for delays is not the full ~$500,000 per year we spend on electricity when sourcing solely from Eversource; it is the roughly $60,000–$100,000 per year we hope to save when we replace much of the Eversource usage with PPA usage. The exact savings we might have enjoyed are not possible to calculate since we do not know exactly how much power the panels would have produced over the period.

Can we recover that extra cost due to delays from TotalEnergies?

Possibly, for some amount related to the guaranteed production of the system, since we don’t have any actual production. We did negotiate for and got language in the PPA agreement that addresses costs associated with some delays in getting the system live. With town counsel’s help, we are reviewing the town’s rights, the expected dollar amount that might be recoverable, the likelihood such events will be judged to be force majeure and thus not be eligible for recovery, and the impact pursuing a recovery could have on what is the beginning of a 25-year relationship with this developer. Subsequently we will advise the School Committee, who will make the ultimate determination on whether the town pursues a recovery.

Once these two solar projects are live, will Lincoln be “net zero” regarding municipal electricity use?

Yes, these projects are expected to generate enough green electricity to cover our municipal electricity usage, although note that in the case of Lincoln School the sizing was done based on expected usage, and in the non-school case we are sizing while considering historical usage. Periodic reassessment of our “green coverage” will be needed. Also, new uses to the town, such as a possible community center or increased adoption of electric vehicles by the town, may require additional solar power in the future to keep the town “net zero.”

“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 February 5, 2024 article headlined “Town election challengers on ballot for Select Board, Planning Board” incorrectly stated that Jennifer Glass was appointed to fill Selectman Renel Fredriksen’s unexpired term. In fact, she was defeated Allen Vander Meulen for that post in 2017 and was reelected to full terms in 2018 and 2021. The article (which has now been updated) also failed to include a link to her “My Turn” piece announcing her candidacy.

Ralph Damico Jr., 1943–2024

Ralph Damico

Ralph P. Damico Jr., 80, a lifelong Lincoln resident, died peacefully at his Lincoln home on January 20, 2024. Born in Cambridge on October 24, 1943, he was the beloved son of Ralph P. Damico Sr. and Elvira (Perry) Damico, both late of Lincoln.

A graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, Ralph went into business with his father in excavation and construction. He met his wife Edwina at a party in Boston through a mutual friend, and they were married in 1970. In recent years, Ralph enjoyed watching the Patriots, movies, and keeping up with the news. He spent his younger years working outdoors, and loved being outside and running heavy machinery. His family will always remember him driving his beloved green 1956 Mack dump truck to and from excavation jobs in Lincoln and beyond, and in the winter, plowing snow and cutting and splitting huge mountains of firewood.

Ralph’s favorite place to be was home with his loved ones, although he took a few epic trips in his life: he took several trips to Florida, and trips out West with his wife to see their daughter by way of Las Vegas and Bryce Canyon. He was a fan of 1950s–1970s rock and roll music and classic cars from the same era. He had a big heart for animals; he had many loyal dogs throughout his life. Above all other things, Ralph loved his family, and was a dearly beloved husband, father and grandfather in return.

He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Edwina, of Lincoln, his daughter Christine and son-in-law Jim of Kirkland, Wash., his son Mark of Lincoln, and four loving grandchildren, Abigail, Jessica, Zack and Zoe. He will be deeply missed.

Services will be private. Donations in his memory may be made to Buddy Dog Humane Society, P.O. Box 296, Sudbury, MA 01776 (www.buddydoghs.org). Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this obituary. For Ralph’s online guestbook, please click here.