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

Planning Board candidates square off at well-attended forum

More than 60 residents packed a room (on Zoom) on Thursday night to hear from the three candidates running for two Planning Board seats in the June 15 election. In the forum organized by resident Sharon Antia, the trio answered questions about issues facing the Planning Board and the town more generally: South Lincoln rezoning, how to support businesses during the pandemic, affordable housing, and more.

Challenger Bob Domnitz, a former Planning Board member who was ousted by Gary Taylor in 2015, said he was running to regain his seat when “I realized the Planning Board was serious about bringing a zoning amendment before Town Meeting to make the Planning Board the decision-maker on major projects” by majority vote, he said. “That didn’t fit in with the nature of Lincoln as I knew it, and it’s antithetical to how we operate as a community.”

Under a proposal unveiled last year by a subcommittee of the former South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), mixed-use projects would be allowed in areas around the mall and the MBTA station with s site plan review and a special permit from the Planning Board. With that permit, housing projects could be up to 20 units per acre, and a greater maximum lot coverage (60% for residential and 100% for business) would be allowed. However, Town Meeting approval would not be required unless a proposed project exceeded the special-permit density.

Incumbent Rick Rundell pushed back, saying it was “an absurd position” to imply that the Planning Board could take away power from Town Meeting without residents’ consent. (The SLPIC proposal was initially slated for a Special Town Meeting vote in the fall, but the Planning Board withdrew its proposal after encountering opposition.)

“How did they misread the character of this town so much that they worked on a proposal to take away Town Meeting authority for major projects?” Domnitz asked later in the forum.

“I had no idea what was going on [with the SLPIC subcommittee proposal] or I would have fought it,” incumbent Lynn DeLisi responded.

Rundell, who said he was recruited to the board in 2013 by Domnitz, argued that its duties should not focus on “fossilizing the town in a certain state” and that it has become more transparent since he was the chairman in 2014-15. The board has also “sunsetted” the requirement for site plan reviews after five years. “Today’s Planning Board has made light-years of progress since 2015,” he said.

Some of the questions focuses on what the Planning Board could do to help the town in this time of Covid-19. Incumbent candidate Lynn DeLisi suggested a public health center somewhere in town to promote vaccination once a vaccine becomes available.

The pandemic is a major challenge for both developers and prospective occupants of affordable housing. However, changing zoning regulations now to encourage more affordable housing and demographic diversity is not a good idea, the candidates agreed.

“I think we need to take a breath, wait a few months, and see how things settle out,” Domnitz said. “We may be heading towards a totally new world or at least a new equilibrium, and we need to go cautiously at this point.”

“I’m not sure the Planning Board can necessarily take the lead and make decisions about any of this. These are dialogues we need to have with people in the town,” DeLisi said.

The bigger question, Rundell said, “is whether we want to put a wall around our community and preserve the status quo… or be a part of a larger society, and I don’t think the town is at all aligned on that choice.”

Social diversity in Lincoln is certainly desirable, “but we can’t legislate that. All we can do is set up economic possibilities to create the kind of diversity we’re talking about,” Domnitz said. However, “getting some geographic diversity on our major boards would be constructive,” he added. Few if any current town board and committee members are residents of North Lincoln — although Domnitz is — “and the view from here is a little different than the view from elsewhere in town.”

As to where and how more affordable housing should be built, “does it have to be developing more dense housing in South Lincoln? I think it can be in other ways,” DeLisi said.

The candidates agreed that the SLPIC subcommittee’s efforts to reimagine South Lincoln were flawed but not about how to fix the process. The “sprawling” nature of SLPIC and its subcommittees meant that the effort was “not as transparent or receptive to input as it could have been,” Rundell acknowledged.

The board voted on June 9 to reconstitute SLPIC as a five-member South Lincoln Planning and Advisory Committee (SLPAC) but disagreed on the size of the new panel and who should be represented on it. Four of the five board members approved a group comprising only elected officials, “but I advocated very strongly for a member to be a resident from the affected area, and I was shot down by the other board members and I don’t understand why,” DeLisi said.

The parent board rather than a subcommittee should be responsible for coming up with future rezoning proposals, even though it will create more work and long meetings, Domnitz said. “This is very important and should take place within the Planning Board itself… the board needs to realize they own what that subcommittee is doing.”

Asked about the 2009 Comprehensive Long-Range Plan that was never acted on, Domnitz said, “The plan is vague, let’s put it that way…  It’s much easier for people to deal with a tangible proposal than an abstract concept.”

“I mark it as a failure of leadership that there was not real follow-up to that plan,” Rundell said. “Absent planning, Lincoln is going to be like a ship in a storm without rudders or sails and will soon find itself on the rocks.”

From the candidates’ opening and closing statements:

“My motto is ‘Responsible planning by collaboration with neighborhoods’ — that says it all.”
— Lynn DeLisi

“The Planning Board is on the wrong track. We need to put it on a better track so something actually happens in South Lincoln.”
— Bob Domnitz

“Respect for the past and planning for the future with integrity, fairness, and transparency…
Look at today’s board and how they operate, and give your vote to a forward-looking candidate.”
— Rick Rundell

A look at procedure and agenda for Town Meeting

A diagram of drop-off and parking areas, rest rooms, etc. for Saturday’s Town Meeting (click to enlarge).

Voter check-in for Lincoln’s first al fresco Town Meeting starts at 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 13, and it’s guaranteed to be significantly shorter than the usual multi-hour affairs.

The meeting starts at 9:30 a.m. under a large tent (capacity with social distancing: 150) in the Hartwell parking lot. Voters, who must wear masks, will get a preassembled packet with handouts, a voting card, paper, and a pencil for writing down questions. There will be a first-aid station with hand sanitizer, extra masks, water, etc., and volunteers who hand things out will be wearing gloves and masks.

For those who can’t attend, the town is live-streaming Town Meeting on Facebook. This allows residents to watch and and listen remotely, but not to vote, ask questions or participate in discussions. Click here to view (a Facebook account or password are not required).

The agenda includes 22 articles, but 19 of them are on the consent calendar, meaning they will be voted on as a bloc to save time, though attendees have the option of calling out individual items for separate discussion and voting. The other three articles are appropriations for the Water Department ($270,000 in borrowing), the School Building Committee ($828,945 transfer from free cash), and an annual free-cash article to balance the budget and/or reduce the tax rate.

Normally, a quorum of 100 residents is required to make a Town Meeting official in Lincoln, but the Board of Selectmen has the option to reduce that quorum to as few as 10 residents if necessary. The option came about after Gov. Baker recently signed legislation relaxing the Massachusetts Town Meeting quorum rules.

The board will meet virtually at 8:45 a.m. on June 13 to discuss whether, with Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden’s input and approval, it should lower the quorum to ensure that Town Meeting can undertake its responsibilities. The decision will rest partly on the rate at which residents are trickling in for the Town Meeting.

Before the Covid-19 state of emergency was declared, the original warrant signed on February 24 had 40 articles. They included some nonessential financial items and several citizens’ petitions asking voters if they would:

  • hear reports from town boards on the status of the community center project
  • change the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board
  • support the proposal of the eighth-grade Warrant Article Group to support the Parkland School students’ organization, March for Our Lives, to end school shootings and shootings all over the country
  • adopt a resolution in support of various federal, state and local actions to combat climate change
  • adopt a new section in the town’s General Bylaws called the Polystyrene Reduction By-Law
  • require Lincoln retail establishments to charge a fee for non-reusable check-out bags
  • prohibit food establishments in Lincoln from using and distributing disposable plastic straws, stirrers, and splash sticks

There will be a Special Town Meeting in the fall to consider the items omitted on Saturday, as well as anything else that comes up between now and then that needs a town-wide vote.

Library to offer curbside lending soon, but FOLL takes a hit

The Lincoln Public Library is now accepting returns in its book drop and plans to offer contactless curbside pickup of books reserved online by patrons once a tent to cover its handicapped parking area has arrived.  

The book drop accepts returns of items borrowed from any library in the Minuteman Library Network. Nothing is due until June 30, and the grace period has been extended from one day to four days to allow items to be quarantined. Patrons will still not be allowed in the library building for the time being. 

Meanwhile, the Friends of the Lincoln Library (FOLL) has taken a big hit since the advent of Covid-19, when Bemis Hall was closed to donations of used books and the monthly book sales were halted. But the FOLL is once again collecting used books and is now selling them online via Amazon.com.

Residents can drop used books in the bins at the Lincoln Mall and Tracey’s Service Station, where they’ll be collected by FOLL’s online book sales partner and kept in a warehouse for several days before any of their staff touches them (no books will be handled by Lincoln’s FOLL volunteers). Books that meet the threshold for profitable sale will be offered online for buyers searching for used book titles, and FOLL will receive a percentage of the profit from the sales to support the library’s needs. Books that don’t meet the threshold will be donated by FOLL’s  partner to organizations that need books, such as prison libraries and children’s book foundations.

Please do not leave books at Bemis Hall. To protect the health of the seniors who receive services from the Council on Aging in Bemis, any books left there will be discarded immediately. CDs, DVDs, or any item other than books cannot be accepted. Anyone who would like a receipt form for donations may email FOLL@lincolntown.org.

Supporters can also have Amazon.com donate 0.5% of the price of their eligible purchases to the FOLL. Go to smile.amazon.com and specify “Friends of the Lincoln Library Inc” as your charity of choice; the donation will be made automatically for all of your Amazon purchases thereafter. Click here for more information.

The FOLL funds all of the library’s special programs, projects, and special equipment. Given the age profile of its volunteers and the cramped quarters in the Bemis Hall basement where monthly book sales take place, they don’t expect to resume the sales until a vaccine for Covid-19 becomes available. Click here to donate directly to the FOLL.

My Turn: Recommitting ourselves to addressing racism and educating our students

By the L-S Teachers’ Association

Dear communities of Boston, Lincoln, and Sudbury,

We, the members of the Lincoln-Sudbury Teachers’ Association, unequivocally condemn the senseless killing of Black people and the chronic injustices perpetrated against people of color in our country.

We are devastated by the recurring loss of Black lives, the brutalities inflicted on people of color, and the impact of these social injustices on all of our communities.

Today we recommit ourselves to addressing racism and educating our students — and one another — about the pervasiveness of racism in all its forms. We call on everyone in our communities to have the moral courage to stand with us and to work for justice.

We believe that education is among the best solutions to the scourge of racism in our country. Many of us have already engaged our students in our virtual classrooms to help them understand the complexity of current events. Furthermore, in keeping with L-S’s core values, we seek to teach our students to foster caring relationships, to respect differences, and to cultivate community with an empathetic, compassionate heart.

Today, we, the LSTA, join our administration in accepting the challenge of our times and reaffirming our commitment as educators and Americans to create a nation with liberty and justice for all.

Respectfully,

The Lincoln-Sudbury Teachers’ Association

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents to offer their 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

The June 9 “My Turn” piece by Sara Mattes endorsing Bob Domnitz for Planning Board had a misleading headline using the word “tout,” which means not only “to promote or talk up” but also “to solicit, peddle, or persuade importunately” (and “importunately” means “troublesomely urgent or overly persistent in request or demand.”) Thus, “tout” could be construed as having negative connotations. The headline has been changed to “(Re)-elect Domnitz to the Planning Board.”

The June 10 story about the Water Department forum may have given the impression that apprenticeships were definitely planned as a solution to the department’s staff vacancy. While apprenticeships are being explored for the future, the current plan is to hire another full-time, licensed operator who can immediately take on the tasks that only a licensed operator can do. On July 1, when the FY21 budget funding is available, the department will begin advertising to fill that open position. The original article has been updated.

South Lincoln panel is now a five-member “SLPAC”

The Planning Board voted on June 9 to reorganize and rename the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), but not until after a lengthy debate about the makeup and responsibilities of panel’s new incarnation.

The board began discussing downsizing SLPIC last week in the wake of opposition to one of its initiatives. With the help of consultants, SLPIC’s Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee drew up proposed regulations that would rezone part of South Lincoln to allow more commercial and housing development and also allow the fate of some projects to be decided by the Planning Board rather than Town Meeting.

Originally the plan was going to be voted on at the Annual Town Meeting in March, but before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was delayed until the fall . The plan has now been permanently shelved after numerous residents objected at a forum in February.

Last week, the board acknowledged that the 12-member SLPIC was unwieldy, sometimes failing to achieve a quorum even though it met infrequently. Meanwhile, it was difficult for residents to follow the work of the five-person Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee, whose plan was unveiled at a public forum in May 2019.

“It felt very much to residents that this work was pretty finalized, set in stone, and ready for a vote at March Town Meeting,” said Jessica Packineau, a Lincoln Road resident and an organizer of a coalition protesting the rezoning and approval process proposals.

The board agreed that the next iteration of SLPIC would be more transparent and do a better job of publicizing its meetings and ramping up outreach as the latest School Building Committee did after the failed 2012 Town Meeting vote. 

At this week’s meeting, Planning Board member Lynn DeLisi initially said SLPIC should be disbanded entirely. “I just don’t see the purpose any more — it causes a lot of controversy,” she said. The full Planning Board, not SLPIC or one of its subcommittees, should be in charge of drafting rezoning proposals, she added.

But other board members objected to that idea, saying that it was too much work for the board (which meets every other week) to manage along with its regular duties of deciding on development applications. “We couldn’t have other things on our agenda, and we will all have to be meeting at least once a week and sometimes twice a week to get the work done,” chair Margaret Olson said.

“Devoting 98% of our time devoted to one part of the town doesn’t feel like it’s serving our mandate to address planning across Lincoln generally,” board member Rick Rundell said.

Eventually, members unanimously decided to keep the subcommittee but to rename it the South Lincoln Planning Advisory Committee (SLPAC). Other subcommittees of the former SLPIC can remain as well, depending on the willingness of their members to continue serving. Those teams will probably evolve in name and purview as well.

DeLisi argued that the new SLPAC should have seven or eight members rather than five, and that at least one member should be a resident of the area under rezoning discussion. But this also met with opposition. 

“It’s very dicey trying to pick one person to represent South Lincoln [residents],” said board member Steve Gladstone. For reasons of accountability with voters, all the members should be people who are already elected officials, he added.

“Once you start going down the stakeholder path, you’re on a very slippery slope,” Olson agreed. South Lincoln residents include house and condo owners as well as renters, so “who do you leave out?”

The board last week was moving toward creating a five-person successor to SLPIC consisting of two members from the Planning Board, one from the Housing Commission, one Selectman, and perhaps a fifth member to be decided. 

This week, DeLisi advocated a seven-member SPLAC with representatives from the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission as well as a resident, but the board voted down that idea 4-1. It subsequently voted by the same margin (with DeLisi voting “nay”) to go forward with the five-member plan, with the fifth coming from the Finance Committee.

Before the vote, former Planning Board member Bob Domnitz advocated postponing any decisions until after the June 15 election in which he, DeLisi, and Rundell and vying for two seats. “It would be nice if there was confidence that this [SLPAC reorganization] would still be a workable arrangement next week. I don’t think people necessarily have that confidence at this point,” he said. “Are you really sure you want to do this tonight?”

After the election, the board will write the charge for SLPAC and discuss which specific residents it will comprise.

Water Department still has plant operator vacancy

At a sparsely attended June 9 Water Commission forum on Zoom, officials explained that the Water Department is hoping to hire another water treatment plant operator after the new fiscal year starts on July 1. 

The department has been short-staffed for some time due to several departures last year and a statewide shortage of qualified operators. At one point there were only two on the job, although the state Department of Environmental Protection requires four in Lincoln. There are now three full-time operators; the fourth spot is being filled by part-time workers until the department can advertise for another full-time licensed operator after the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

The staff vacancies have cost the department a substantial amount of money because it’s been forced to hire expensive contractors to fill the gaps. The widespread shortage of operators “feels like it’s going to be a gating factor for some time to come, cost-wise,” resident Rick Rundell commented.

Hiring less qualified people and training them on the job would seem like a sensible plan, “but without certain credentialing, very limited in terms of what they can actually do,” Water Commissioner Michelle Barnes said. However, Minuteman Vocational Technical School has a training program for water treatment plant operators that could be a source of apprentices who can do some limited work while also studying for their licenses.

The 9 a.m. forum, which was marred by technical glitches at times, went over the Water Department’s spending requests for fiscal 2021. The department proposes to raise its operating budget by 38% and borrow $270,000 for capital items. That bonding came after two previous bonds totaling $1.98 million that were authorized in 2019 as well as significant hikes in water rates and the operating budget this year.

My Turn: donate to South Sudanese affected by pandemic and racism

Editor’s note: for more background on the SSEF, see “South Sudanese organization offering programs in Lincoln” (September 19, 2017).

By Ellen Meyer Shorb

In this time of thinking about race and what each of us can do, I’d like to acknowledge a wonderful local organization, the South Sudanese Education for Families, and suggest you consider donating to them. What they need right now is money.

SSEF was started 20 years ago by Susan Winship of Lincoln to support the “lost boys” of South Sudan who escaped a civil war to come to Massachusetts. SSEF now supports their families. Many of you have helped over the years.

Due to the pandemic, almost all of these families have at least one person who is unemployed. Several have fallen ill and two have been hospitalized because of the virus. Consider a donation to the SSEF Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund.

In addition, the Black Lives Matter protests have brought up painful thoughts of how racism has touched each of their lives. SSEF is addressing institutional racism by providing scholarships for preschool education. Many of these families are not able to send their kids to preschool because of cost. State assistance programs, such as preschool vouchers and Head Start, are overwhelmed with applicants. This year there are 31 South Sudanese children who want to go to preschool and SSEF hopes to provide up to 95% of their tuition. Contribute to the preschool program here.

For questions, text Susan Winship 781-424-8774. Thank you for your generosity.

Ellen Meyer Shorb
99 South Great Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents to offer their 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.

FinCom shares property tax information

Finance Committee chair Andy Payne gathered the following information about current property tax bills. He adds this disclaimer: “The state Department of Revenue is not providing the ‘average single-family tax bill’ for towns with senior exemption programs, notably Sudbury and Concord. The values for those towns were imputed from the tax rate.” Click any image to enlarge.

The official 2020 Town Meeting web page includes the financial section and warrant, the FinCom’s presentation of the proposed FY21 budget, and a memo on what changed in the proposed budget after Town Meeting was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

My Turn: Reelect Lynn DeLisi and Rick Rundell to Planning Board

By Ken Bassett and Mary Helen Lorenz

This delayed Town Meeting [period] includes what I consider two important elections for seats on the Planning Board: a seat held by Lynn DeLisi and one by Rick Rundell. Both Lynn and Rick are running for reelection. Mary Helen and I support their reelection based in no small part on their role in making the business of the board run more smoothly with greater reliance on professional staff, heightened respect for resident’s needs, and efforts to look to future needs of the town.

By contrast, we do not support Bob Dominitz’s run for a Planning Board seat which he lost in 2015 after 12 years on the board. During his tenure, I was before the board on two projects that Bob opposed as having the potential for significant negative impacts — the revitalization of the Mall with its accommodation of the new post office, and the replacement of the Stearns Room at First Parish Church Lincoln. Both projects were ultimately approved, but not without Bob’s numerous claims of potential impacts that in the end were not substantiated. It is Bob’s negative view of planning and problem-solving that, if he is elected, will not serve this town well as we face important challenges in a changing world.

We strongly urge your support for the reelection of Lynn DeLisi and Rick Rundell.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Bassett and Mary Helen Lorenz
37 Page Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents to offer their 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.