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

schools

Town Meeting warrant article list published

The list of articles for the 2017 Annual Town Meeting on March 25 includes 42 articles that will ask residents for a “year” or “nay” on numerous issues that have been in the news in Lincoln over the past year or more.

Below are links to previous Lincoln Squirrel stories about some of the items. The Squirrel will also publish new stories about Town Meeting articles in the coming days and weeks as more details become available.

Wang property acquisition (article 11)

Accessory apartments (articles 12-14)

School project (articles 33 and 34)

Community center feasibility study (article 35)

Landfill solar initiative (article 36)

Agricultural bylaw amendment (article 38)

Officials offer school recommendations, borrowing estimates

Saying “we believe it’s time to act on our own,” School Committee Chair Jennifer Glass outlined next steps for a town-funded school project at a multi-board meeting earlier this week.

Glass told the Board of Selectmen last month that her group recommended not applying again for state funding, but start the planning process for a school project that the town would pay for by itself. At the multiboard meeting, she explained the committee’s reasoning, while Finance Committee Vice Chair Jim Hutchinson outlined some funding and property tax scenarios.

There will be two warrant articles at Town Meeting next month—one on whether to spend a previously approved $750,000 on a town-funded school feasibility study, and another on whether to reapply for state funding—but “we see that as a fork in the road, an either/or choice,” Glass said. The increased competition for state grants and the immediate needs of the Lincoln School from both facilities and educational standpoints mean that waiting any longer is not the best option, she said.

Previous meetings and votes indicate that there is community consensus on four points:

  • The education value of a school project is a top priority
  • Residents understand that the town will have to spend a minimum of $30 million for a “responsible project”
  • There is “strong support” for a project that would cost $45 million to $60 million even without state funding
  • There is interest in planning collaboration for a school project and community center

The cost estimates were provided by Dore and Whitter in their report in late 2014. At that time, they outlined three groups of renovation and construction options and price ranges:

  • Option 1 – facilities needs only: $12–$29 million
  • Option 2 – facilities needs plus “a la carte” educational enhancements: $29–$47 million
  • Option 3 – facilities needs plus comprehensive educational enhancements: $54–$66 million

The new feasibility study process would again outline the school’s needs, the town’s educational and community vision and building options, as well as an eventual a decision on one option to put forward for a town vote. The Dore & Whittier report did some of this but did not include faculty input, nor did it address the overall site plan in terms of roadways, athletic fields, etc., Glass noted.

Borrowing costs

Although construction costs have climbed since 2014, interest rates have remained steady, Hutchinson said. The Finance Committee has consulted with bond advisors and concluded that the town can borrow up to $80 million without losing its AAA bond rating, which affects future borrowing costs. That level of borrowing would drive the town’s debt-to-operating ration from the 3-4% range up to 12-13%, he said.

To soften the tax impact, the Finance Committee recommends additional steps such as repaying the bonds over 30 years rather than 20. Also advisable is a “level debt” whereby annual payments would remain the same, though they would effectively decline as a percentage of revenue over time due to inflation, Hutchinson said. Although the town has a debt stabilization fund, spending all of it is not a good idea, because “there are always unanticipated things that happen to towns and we need to have some kind of buffer,” he added.

Another way to spread out the repayments would be to borrow for a community center and a school project separately “and put it in two lumps rather than one big lump,” Hutchinson said.

Voters at Town Meeting will be asked for a $150,000 appropriation for a feasibility study by a community center building committee that would work alongside the new school building committee. The Board of Selectmen would “mandate cooperation between the two,” Selectman Peter Braun said.

One advantage of not involving the MSBA is it frees the town from having to clearly separate design and planning for a school project and a community center, Glass noted.

Property tax impact

What does this mean for Lincoln taxpayers? Hutchinson did not have final estimates this week (the committee will present them at another multi-board meeting on March 8), but an earlier analysis that assumed a 4.6% interest rate and a more aggressive repayment schedule showed that tax bills would rise by $367 per year on a median-value home for every $10 million that the town borrowed. The median home value is $883,000, so someone with a home of that value would pay an additional $1,101 per year if the town borrowed $30 million, for example.

However, Hutchinson noted that interest rates are actually lower than the projected figure (about 3.4% right now), so the repayment cost would be lower than the example—more like $300 per $10 million borrowed, he said.

Even if the town decided on a “repair-only” direction, it would not be eligible for Massachusetts School Building Authority funding, Glass said. The MSBA has two grant programs: the core program and the “accelerated repair” program, which funds individual repair projects such as roofs and boilers. However, schools who get the second type of funding have no other major facilities or educational flaws aside from the isolated issue, and Lincoln does not meet that standard.

Other area towns have done town-funded school projects in recent years, including a new elementary school in Brookline and a replacement for the Zervas School in Newton. Lexington has done several projects, some with MSBA funding and some without. Wellesley has been turned down by the MSBA several times for a project that would consolidate three elementary schools into two and is also contemplating going it alone, Glass said.

One focus of debate is sure to be which major project to do first. The Council on Aging and the Parks and Recreation Department are advocating for a community center and have suggested that if it were built first, some of its space would be used by the school while staged school construction work was taking place.

But resident Ken Hurd disagreed. “My preference would be if the focus is really the school because this is what we need the most. We’re going to attract more people if we have the school situation resolved. A community center is nice is nice and we need it, but it’s not going to bring people to Lincoln,” he said.

“Town leadership should take a position on what the priorities should be,” said Steve Perlmutter, a member of the 2014 School Building Advisory Committee.

 

School Committee recommends Lincoln-only school project; multiboard meeting Monday night

The School Committee has voted unanimously to recommend that the town move forward with a Lincoln-funded school project and not reapply for state funding.

There will be a multi-board meeting on Monday, Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. in the Brooks gym to discuss the school project. In an earlier announcement about that meeting, the committee said it would sponsor two Town Meeting warrant articles: one asking whether the town should go ahead and spend $750,000 that was appropriated in 2015 on a feasibility study for a town-funded school project, and whether to apply again to the Massachusetts State Building Authority (MSBA) for a grant.

“We view these two articles as either/or,” School Committee Chair Jennifer Glass told the Board of Selectman at its January 25 meeting. “We’re saying we’ve reached a point where there are two directions and we’re asking the town which way we should go, and our recommendation is to go the first way.”

The physical condition of the Lincoln School and the need for educational improvements means that continuing to hope for uncertain MSBA funding is no longer a good option, according to Glass. “Each year we delay in this process, we risk failure of some major system such as a roof or boiler,” she said, adding that construction costs have “gone up pretty dramatically” over the past several years.

As the School Committee has learned more about the workings of the MSBA, it’s also become less confident that it will be invited into the funding pipeline again anytime soon, Glass said. Meetings with MSBA officials after the 2016 and 2016 rejections have shown “just how competitive a process it is… and have given us a pretty clear-eyed vision of where we are in terms of those [MSBA funding] criteria,” she said.

There is also some level of community agreement that a town-funded school is the best option at this point, Glass added. “We’ve built a lot of excitement and consensus that it’s time to address this. It feels like there’s this moment of opportunity,” she said. Furthermore, those hoping for construction of a community center “will have clearer path when we figure out what’s going on with the school.”

Applying to the MSBA while also pursuing a Lincoln-funded project “would send a mixed message to the state” and would also risk wasting its $750,000 outlay, because if Lincoln eventually got invited into the MSBA funding pipeline, it would have to do a completely new feasibility study, Glass said. Similarly, the School Committee is unwilling to waste the effort of another School Building Committee in the event state money ever appeared.

“It is incredibly intense to be on a School Building Committee,” she said. “I’m not comfortable asking our fellow townspeople to make that kind of investment and then say ‘Whoops, sorry, we’re putting that aside and were going to start again and hire a new architect and a new OPM [owner’s project manager]… it feels like we just need to decide.”

Glass concluded by saying her panel will seek support for its position from as many town government bodies as possible, including the Board of Selectmen.

“I commend the School Committee for putting a stake in the ground on this,” Selectman Peter Braun said.

Faced with the need to borrow a substantial sum of money, selectmen said they hoped the Finance Committee would be receptive to increasing the town’s debt stabilization fund, which currently stands at about $3.7 million. “As a town, we need to start examining what strategies we can take for a large-scale [funding] process,” Selectman James Craig said.

News acorns

LSSC hosts Lincoln presentation on High Tech High

L-S faculty and staff who traveled out to High Tech High in California to delve a bit more deeply into maker spaces, innovation hubs and social entrepreneurship (areas being explored for future classes and extracurricular at L-S) will give a presentation at the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee’s meeting in the Hartwell multipurpose room on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m.

PTO talk on anxiety in kids

The PTO welcomes Jessica Minahan for an evening presentation on “Reducing Anxiety in Kids” on Monday, Feb. 6 from 7- 9 p.m. in the Brooks auditorium. Minahan—a behavior analyst, author, special educator, and consultant to schools—will discuss the importance of understanding the role anxiety plays in children’s behavior and how to use preventive strategies and interventions to help reduce anxiety and increase self-regulation and self-monitoring.

Film, talk on Zionism hosted by GRALTA

The GRALTA Foundation (Grass Roots Awareness, Learning, Travel and Action) will screen the Academy Award-Nominated documentary Promises on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. in Bemis Hall. The film, which is included in the Lincoln Public Schools’ seventh-grade curriculum, introduces seven Palestinian and Israeli children living only 20 minutes apart in a Palestinian refugee camp, a West Bank Israeli settlement, and East and West Jerusalem neighborhoods. On Sunday, Feb. 5 at 1:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Public Library, GRALTA hosts Mitchell Silver, professor of philosophy at UMass Boston, who will give a talk on “The Origins of Zionism: A History of Modern Jewish Nationalist Thought.”

Speakers sought for Lincoln Academy, sci/tech club

The Lincoln Council on Aging is looking for speakers of all ages for two of its lecture series, the Lincoln Academy and the COA Science and Technology Club.

The Lincoln Academy is a weekly lecture series held each Monday from 12:30-1:30 p.m. from September through June. Speakers generally are Lincoln residents or have a Lincoln connection of some kind. Topics range from history to travelogues to the arts and humanities to interesting projects making the world a better place to science and beyond. Speakers may talk about professional work they are doing, a fascinating trip they took, a historical, arts, or humanities subject they have studied, a moment in history they participated in, and more. The COA is happy to provide technical assistance in preparing the presentation and is particularly looking for speakers for the fall of 2017.

The COA Science and Technology Club offers presentations on a wide variety of science and technology topics in a new series on the third Thursday of each month at 10:15 a.m. Previous and scheduled subjects have included Internet security, ethics and climate change, the evolution of science, and breeding miniature sheep. Again, speakers may present on current work they are doing or a science/technology topic they have studied and would like to share. The COA, which is looking for speakers for both the spring and fall of 2017, can’t provide an honorarium for either series, but we do have enthusiastic and engaged audiences.

People of all ages are welcome to not only be presenters but also to attend presentations in either series. Information on speakers and topics for any given month is generally available on page 3 of “News from Bemis Hall” newsletter and is listed in the Lincoln Journal and the Lincoln Squirrel. If you’re interested in speaking, please call Carolyn of the COA at 781-259-8811 or bottumc@lincolntown.org.

Upcoming library events

  • Family movie: The Secret Life of Pets—Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 2 p.m.
  • The Lincoln Library Film Society presents The Conformist directed by Bernard Bertolucci on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m. A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident. Rated R; in Italian with English subtitles. Movie style refreshments will be served.
  • Friends of the Lincoln Library book sale—Saturday, Feb. 11 from 9 a.m. to noon in the Bemis Hall basement.
  • Valentine’s Day Dance Party for ages 6 and under—Saturday, Feb. 11 from 11 a.m. to noon. Come shake it with your kids!  We’ll have a sweet time dancing to children’s songs, oldies and some pop favorites. Drop in.

February vacation classes at Minuteman

Minuteman High School offers February vacation courses on Tuesday through Friday, Feb. 21-24 for kids in grades 1-9. Morning sessions are from 8:30-11:30 a.m. and afternoon sessions run from noon-3 p.m; you may register for one or both sessions. Programs include a mix of old favorites and new offerings: Alien Planet, Artrageous Art, Aspiring Chefs, Beginner Baking, Creative Writing, Digital Photography, Engineering and Electricity, Games Galore, Graphic Design, Kids’ Cool Chemistry, and Minuteman Sports. Register online, by phone at 781-861-7150, by fax at 781-861-7250, or in person.

L-S invites community members to give career talks

Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School is looking for community members to talk to students this spring about their career paths and the educational and professional requirements for their respective fields.

The 2016-17 speaker series began in November and has hosted speakers who work in engineering, mental health, banking, finance, alternative medicine, entrepreneurship and media/TV/film. The sessions occur in the Career Center at L-S during the Friday lunch block from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

“Students stay for as long as they can and they have the opportunity to ask questions that will hopefully clarify the skills, values, and temperament needed to be successful in a given field,” said L-S Vocational Coordinator Andrea Falzone. “Our hope is that these sessions will expand students’ awareness of the wide range of career opportunities that exist.” Speakers do not need to have a current or former student at the high school.

Future speakers and tentative dates are below. For more information, contact Falzone at andrea_falzone@lsrhs.net.

  • January 27 — Sheila Webber, organizational behavior/industrial psychology
  • February 3 — Sheryl Kelleher, nurse practitioner and professor of nursing
  • February 10 — Dawn Solowey, lawyer
  • February 17 — Jinny Van Deusen, marketing/communications/development/nonprofits
  • March 3 — Sarah Davis, media/journalism/TV
  • March 10 — Alan Greenblatt, software development/entrepreneurship
  • March 17 — Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy, criminal justice
  • March 24 — Samantha Truex, biotech
  • March 31 — Marcia Ackley, civil engineering
  • April 7 — Jeanne Rosier-Smith, artist

Town to grapple once again with future of school project

At Town Meeting in March, residents will have yet another chance to chart a course for a multimillion-dollar school project—going it alone, or seeking partial state funding for the fifth time. But barring a major crisis at the Lincoln School, state funding is looking increasingly unlikely as the competition for grants gets fiercer by the year.

Lincoln won a $21 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority in 2009, contingent on a two-thirds majority approval from residents at Town Meeting—but that eventual 2012 vote fell short. The town has reapplied three times since then and been turned down each time. Just before Christmas, officials learned that the town was again denied entry into the state school funding pipeline.

As Lincoln officials are now realizing, the 2009 MSBA approval was at least partly a matter of luck because the MSBA as a funding entity had been created only the year before, and Lincoln was ready to pounce because it had recently done a facilities study and thus happened to have its “ducks in a row” more than many competing towns, School Committee Chair Jennifer Glass said at the January 9 Board of Selectmen meeting.

Glass and other Lincoln officials learned through recent conversations with the MSBA that nowadays, there is a “very high bar” for getting state funding approval. Most schools that were invited into the funding pipeline last year have a major structural deficiency to the extent that the building is uninhabitable (for example, a collapsed roof or flooding in the entire building), severe overcrowding, or a threatened loss of accreditation. This is something that usually happens only to high schools, Glass noted, and it was a significant factor in Minuteman High School getting its $44 million state pledge last year.

Each year, the MSBA evaluates a new set of applications; there is no waiting list or preference for schools like Lincoln’s that have previously won approval. “It’s a clean slate every year,” Glass said. “Our applications are very through and they understand our needs… we haven’t done anything wrong since [2009].”

Glass asked the selectmen to hold spots for two Town Meeting warrant questions: whether to reapply for MSBA funding, and whether to begin pursuing a town-funded project by spending $750,000 appropriated by voters in 2015 on a feasibility study. Theoretically, the town could do both; “we’re welcome to spend $750,000 of our own money and reapply [to the MSBA, but] if we were invited in, that feasibility study would be put on the shelf and we would start again,” since the state would require a newer one, Glass said.

Performing the feasibility study “does not commit us to any certain project or dollar amount,” Glass said. The final study would have to focus on one design for the school, but this time, there could be the “missing step [where we] narrow the choice down with a lot of public input,” Selectmen Peter Braun said. One reason cited for the 2012 defeat is that residents did not have enough say about the proposed project’s building and campus design, and many objected to the proposal for compromising the circular central ballfield.

“We need to put all the choices out there and let the people tell us,” Brain said.

Beginning with a multi-board meeting on Monday, Jan. 30, there will be a series of public conversations to consider the town’s options and to understand the choices in the context of Lincoln’s priorities and finances. These conversations will be ongoing; everyone’s input and questions are needed, and residents are encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible.

The schedule is as follows:

  • January 30 — Multi-board meeting, 7 p.m., Brooks Gym. This will be a joint meeting of the School Committee, Board of Selectmen, Finance Committee and Capital Planning Committee.
  • February 10 — Council on Aging public forum, , 12:30 p.m., Bemis Hall. Superintendent Becky McFall and School Committee Chair Jennifer Glass will discuss the Town Meeting warrant articles related to a building project, and give an overview of the FY18 school operating budget. In addition, Town Administrator Tim Higgins will give an overview of the FY18 town budget.
  • March 8 — Multi-board public forum, 7 p.m., location TBD — Hosted by the School Committee, Board of Selectmen, Finance Committee and Capital Planning Committee.
  • March 17 — Council on Aging public forum, 12:30 p.m., Bemis Hall. Superintendent Becky McFall and School Committee Chair Jennifer Glass will discuss the Town Meeting warrant articles related to a building project.

News acorns

Calling all public servants

Looking for a rewarding if occasionally vexing way to feel more connected? Willing to undertake new challenges? Unafraid to speak up? Then run for local office! The annual Town Election will take place on Monday, March 27. Nomination papers are available at the Town Clerk’s Office now, and must be returned by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7. The following offices will appear on the March ballot:

  • Board of Selectmen (two seats, one for one year and one for three years)
  • Board of Assessors (two seats, one for two years and one for three years)
  • K-8 School Committee (two seats, both for three years)
  • Water Commissioner (three years)
  • Board of Health (three years)
  • Cemetery Commission (three years)
  • Planning Board (two seats for three years each)
  • Commissioner of Trust Funds (three years)
  • deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park Trustee (four years)
  • Housing Commission (two seats, one for one year and one for three years)
  • Parks and Recreation Committee (three years)
  • Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee (two seats for three years each)
  • Bemis Trustee (three years)
  • Town Moderator (three years)

For more information, call the Town Clerk’s Office at 781-259-2607.

Museum trip with library

The Lincoln Public Library is offering a trip to the Peabody Essex Museum to see the “Shoes: Pleasure and Pain” exhibit on Saturday, Feb. 25, leaving the library at 10 a.m. and returning at 3 p.m. The museum admission and guided tour is $20, and the cost for the bus will depend on the number of riders. Lunch is not included. For more information or to sign up, contact Lisa Rothenberg at 781-259-8465 ext. 202 or email lrothenberg@minlib.net.

In conjunction with the trip, the  library will host a talk on the history of shoes by fashion historian Karen Antonowicz on Thursday, Feb. 23 from 7-8:30 p.m.

Minuteman offers STEM camp for girls in February

Minuteman High School will host “Girls in STEM” (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) camp from February 21-24. from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. It is free for seventh- and eighth-grade girls from communities in the Minuteman school district (Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Bolton, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Stow, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston), and bus transportation will be provided. There is a $149 fee (and no bus) for students who live outside the district. The class will be led by female students from Minuteman who are certified in mentoring and are enrolled in STEM majors, facilitated by are Minuteman teachers Becky Quay (engineering) and Sarah Ard (horticulture and landscape technology). For more information or to register, click here or contact Director of Career and Technical Education Michelle Roche at 781-861-6500 ext. 7326 or mroche@minuteman.org. Seats are limited, so register early.

News acorns

Accident victim returns home

The October 18 accident scene (click to enlarge). Photo courtesy Lincoln Police Facebook page.

Julie Payne Britton, who was seriously injured in an October 18 car accident on Route 117 in Lincoln, finally returned to her home in Greenfield, Mass., late last month after weeks of surgery and rehabilitation, according to this article in the Greenfield Recorder. Britton was on her way home from her employer’s headquarters in Waltham when her Subaru Forester was hit head-on by an alleged drunk driver at about 3 p.m. It took first responders 40 minutes to cut Britton out of her car using the Jaws of Life, Lincoln Police Lt. Sean Kennedy told the newspaper.

Program on peer violence prevention

The Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable will kick off 2017 with a program entitled “Building Upstanders: What Violence Prevention Strategies are Working in Local High Schools” on Tuesday, Jan. 10. Led by a panel of student members of the Mentors in Violence Prevention programs at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and Wayland High School, the students will share their experiences in teaching their peers ways of identifying warning signs of abuse, preventing their peers from participating in abusive relationships, and promoting respectful interventions in their schools.

The program will be held at 3 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room of the Wayland Public Safety Building. It’s free and open to the public and is appropriate for students and adults interested in preventing abusive relationships among teens and young adults.

Mentors in Violence Prevention is a program of Northeastern University Center for Sport in Society. At L-S, the program has eight trained staff and 40 trained student leaders in grades 10-12. The members plan assemblies and programs for students, including an annual Courage to Care healthy relationship day and White Ribbon Day programming.  Students also visit middle schools to talk about healthy relationships and being an upstander.

Talk on students and sleep

Dr. Judith Owens, MD, MPH, will give a talk on the importance of sleep for students on Thursday, Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Ephraim Curtis School auditorium (40 Fairbank Road, Sudbury). The event, co-sponsored by the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee, is the first community forum for Sudbury’s School Start Time Committee (SSTC). Owens is the Director of Sleep Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and a faculty member in neurology at Harvard Medical School. She is an authority on the neurobehavioral and health consequences of sleep problems in children, sleep health education, and cultural and psychosocial issues impacting sleep.

The project is supported by a grant from the Sudbury Education Resource Fund (SERF), and the event is free and open to the public.For more information, visit the SSTC website or email sstc@sudbury.k12.ma.us.

Seal picture wins annual Mass Audubon photo contest

The winning photo from the 2016 Mass Audubon photo contest (click to enlarge).

Alex Shure of Melrose was named 2016 Grand Prize Winner for his photograph of a harbor seal pup placidly regarding him underwater during a dive in Rockport. His photo was chosen from more than 4,000 images were entered this year in Mass Audubon’s annual statewide photo contest, Picture This: Your Great Outdoors. Click here for a complete list of winners and honorable mentions along with their photographs.

2016: the year in review (part 1)

Kids enjoyed ice cream and other diversions at Lincoln’s “40 Years of Community” fair in April 2016.

June

May

April

March

February

January