By Alice Waugh
Two town government organizations — the Board of Selectmen and the Council on Aging — are hoping to change their names to keep up with changing times.
The Council on Aging (COA) wants to change its name to the Council on Aging and Human Services to reflect how its mission has expanded to serve Lincoln residents of all ages. A group of residents is proposing an update from Board of Selectmen (BOS) to Select Board to promote gender inclusivity and equality, in the same spirit as other title changes such as chairman to chair, fireman to firefighter and mailman to postal carrier. Both changes require Town Meeting approval in March.
Residents including Ellen Meyer Shorb, Stuart Rose, Kim Bodnar, Emily Haslett, and current Selectman Jennifer Glass organized a citizen’s petition to change the name of the BOS. The board itself is also sponsoring a warrant article that, if approved, aims to ensure that all language in the town by-laws is gender-neutral. Selectmen will discuss the issue at their next meeting on January 27.
According to the measure’s background document (which is based on similar measures enacted in 30 other Massachusetts towns including Bedford, Concord, Lexington, Sudbury, and Weston), the term “selectman” traces its history back to the early days of America. In the new open town meeting form of government, every citizen could voice opinions and vote on town matters — but “every citizen” referred to every land-owning male citizen. Soon, the notion of calling every man in town together to decide daily matters proved too cumbersome, and a group of men were selected to manage the details of town governance.
Lincoln elected Beth Ries as its first female Selectman in 1977; nine other women have since held that office.
“My personal thinking on ‘why do this and why now’ is that language matters and how we speak reflects who is included, and I’m glad that our town and towns around us are finally formalizing language that reflects this,” Shorb said.
Council on Aging
When the COA was first established, its mission was to serve seniors exclusively, but more recently, it’s been administering the Emergency Assistance Fund and the fuel assistance program, which are both open to all residents. In the past two years, the COA and other town officials have seen “a significant increase in the number of residents of all ages in various kinds of crisis,” and many of them were coming to the Council on Aging for help, COA Director Carolyn Bottum said.
in response, the town funded a community nursing position starting in 2018, and last year, with the help of grants, the COA began administering two more services for all ages: a town social worker and mental health clinics. Then in October, the Rental Assistance Program was launched in collaboration with the Housing Commission to provide help to residents of all ages who need assistance with rent.
“The current name no longer reflects the fact that a considerable portion of our services are human services provided to residents of all ages. It also doesn’t reflect the fact that the town nurse, town social worker, AARP tax aide, SHINE [a program that helps Medicare recipients with health insurance], and veterans agent, all of whom serve residents of all ages, are all housed in the COA building and organized by the COA,” Bottum said.
“In addition, we do find that younger residents, especially, are confused and sometimes reluctant to work with us because they think we only serve older adults. Finally, we do think it may help when we go to apply for grants that are for services for younger people, since gran-tmakers might be confused as to why a Council on Aging is asking for funds for a program for younger people,” she added.
The name change must be approved at Town Meeting in March. In December, the Board of Selectmen were supportive of the plan.
“It’s a signal to people of where to turn if they don’t fall into that [senior] category but need some help, so it’s a benefit to the community in that way,” Selectman Jennifer Glass said.
“It’s more comprehensive and more transparent,” Selectman Jonathan Dwyer said.
Several other Massachusetts towns including Littleton, Taunton, Foxboro, Seekonk, Norton have also updated the name of their Council on Aging “simply because there is no other human services department in town,” Bottum said.
Regardless of the change, “it’s extremely essential to note that adding Human Services to our name does not denote that we are in any way no longer focused on seniors. We are here to be the second home, voice, and advocate for Lincoln seniors just as much as we always were. Our focus is still on seniors; we have just added a service component for other ages and the name change reflects that. But we will always be a Council on Aging first,” Bottum said.
