Check out the new Fall 2025 issue of the Lincoln Review, Lincoln’s arts periodical. And stay tuned for the chance to buy a printed edition of all four issues of the Lincoln Review since 2024.
Community center gets going from the ground up
The driver and washed stone are in place for creating the rammed aggregate piers.
During the last few weeks, general contractor Hutter Construction has made significant progress on the beginnings of Lincoln’s community center. Demolition is complete and Hutter is moving forward with site work and ground improvements using rammed aggregate piers.
In thus technique, a driver pounds washed stone down 6–12 feet and then compacts it into a pier. There will be 279 of these piers along the outline of the building and under the interior about every 8–10 feet. This will create a stiffened mass of soil and a solid foundation for the building.
The subcontractor has begun compaction testing and mobilization to identify the rammed aggregate pier sites. As piers are installed, the contractor will begin preparing for footings in sequence. Excavation will continue into the week of November 17, with footing installation beginning shortly thereafter, marking the beginning of foundation work for the new community center. By late November, the foundation work will progress as footings are set, and the first walls begin to rise. Moving into early December, crews will continue building out the foundation with additional footings and walls, further shaping the structure.
Installation of the rammed aggregate piers will generate vibrations and noise on the project site, so these operations only occur during the times allowed by the Town of Lincoln and the Building Department.
The next Community Center Building Committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 19 in the Donaldson Roon and on Zoom. See the CCBC website for more information and images.
My Turn: supporting our neighbors this Thanksgiving
By Ursula Nowak for the SVdP Food Pantry
At our SVdP Food Pantry of Lincoln and Weston, we’ve seen how the delayed payments and recent cuts of SNAP benefits and the lingering effects of the government shutdown have affected our neighbors. Many of our pantry clients — families, seniors, and individuals who were already stretching every dollar — are now facing even tougher choices about how to put food on the table.
Reductions to SNAP funding and, in some cases job loss, have left many with smaller benefits and greater food insecurity. For families who already rely on every bit of support, that translates into skipped meals and less nutritious options. Even though our pantry faces higher demand and fewer resources, we are making every effort to meet the growing need.
That’s why our Thanksgiving gift card drive is more important than ever this year. Every November, we invite community members to purchase grocery gift cards that we distribute to local families. These cards give our clients the dignity of choosing their own Thanksgiving meal — fresh produce, a turkey, or a favorite family recipe ingredient — and help restore a sense of normalcy during difficult times.
Please help us make these holiday meals possible by donating a $35 Donelan’s gift card before Friday, Nov. 21. You may buy a gift card at Donelan’s in Lincoln and leave it at the register or donate here. To donate by check, please make it payable to ST. VINCENT DE PAUL and mail it to P.O. Box 324, Lincoln MA 01773. Remember to write “Thanksgiving Gift Cards” on the check.
This year, as SNAP benefits shrink and costs rise, that simple gesture means even more. We’re asking our community to come together once again to help make the season a little brighter for our neighbors. Together, we can ensure that everyone in our community has a reason to give thanks this year.
With gratitude,
The Society of St Vincent de Paul Food Pantry of Lincoln and Weston
“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.
Legal notice: Historic District Commission (79 Lincoln)
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PUBLIC HEARING — HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION The Historic District Commission will hold a virtual online public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, to consider the following application:
Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter should be present at the designated time and place. |
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Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.
Legal notice: Historic District Commission (241 Old Concord)
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PUBLIC HEARING — HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION The Historic District Commission will hold a virtual online public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, to consider the following application:
Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter should be present at the designated time and place. |
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Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.
News acorns
LincFam gift card drive, meetup
LincFam is organizing an urgent grocery gift card drive to help bridge the next few weeks for local families while SNAP benefits are disrupted by the government shutdown. Drop off new or partially used cards (please note remaining balance) at Erin Rist’s House (10 Hawk Hill Road, Lincoln), email e-gift cards to lincnhn@gmail.com, Venmo a donation to @erinrist (LincFam will purchase grocery cards), or give directly to the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry — drop gift cards in the locked box in garage at 10 Hawk Hill Road or email e-gift cards to lincnhn@gmail.com.
LincFam offers new and expecting parents a chance to meet for a walk on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 10:00am outside the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park’s Twisted Tree Cafe. Free beverage after the walk. Anyone with babies under age 2 are welcome. Questions? Contact Emily at 207-712-7363.
Craft & Chill: watercolor pumpkin cards
Give yourself a mental break and have some fun with other adults on Wednesday, Nov. 19 from 1:00–2:00pm in the Lincoln Public Library’s Tarbell Room. All supplies are provided by the library. For ages 16+. Register here.
Lincoln resident photo exhibition in R.I.
Lincoln resident Linda Hammett Ory’s is included in the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts upcoming exhibition, “Landscapes: Real or Imagined,” juried by photographer and gallery director Cara Weston (granddaughter of Edward). This show celebrates contemporary landscape photography, offering a wider lens to provide a more expansive presentation of landscape photography today. The exhibition runs from November 20 through December 12, and the opening reception is on Thursday, Nov. 20 from 5:00–8:00pm. More information can be found on RICPA’s website.
Talk by Lincoln’s Dobrow on her new book
Julie Dobrow will discuss her new book, Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage on Sunday, Nov. 30 at 3:00pm in Bemis Hall. See her Medium post on how she learned about her subjects.
“Nothing Solid” film screening and Q&A
“Nothing Solid,” a semi-autobiographical, medical dark comedy based on Sharisse Zeroonian’s real-life experience with cyclic vomiting syndrome (a rare neurological brain-gut disorder), will be screened on Thursday, Dec. 4 at 6:00pm at the Lincoln Public Library. Zeroonian will be on hand to answer questions. Open to ages 16+.
Coming up at the deCordova
Talismans: Pysanky Gift Making
Saturday, Dec. 6, 10:00am–noon
Holiday Wreath Making with Derby Farms
Saturday, Dec.6, 2:30–4:00pm
My Turn: Thanksgiving pies and pantries
By Tara Mitchell
Right now, our local food pantries need assistance more than ever before. With government aid slowing to a trickle, every little bit can help. Please consider a donation to St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry or the Sudbury Food Pantry.
Additionally, FELS (the Foundation for Educators at Lincoln-Sudbury) is in the final week of its annual Thanksgiving pie sale. You can order a pie as a donation for a family to pick up from the food pantries in Lincoln or Sudbury, to gift to teachers and staff at LSRHS, or for your own Thanksgiving table. Orders must be in by Monday, Nov. 17.
Either means of donation to our food pantries will allow local families to have a better opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving together. Thanks to both our towns for your ongoing support of our food pantries and FELS, and best wishes for a safe and festive Thanksgiving!
Mitchell, a Sandy Pond Road resident, is co-president of FELS.
“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.
Doherty’s project to accommodate new electric school buses
A map showing where the electric school buses (light blue) will be parked. The red line is the trench for the charging stations. Click image to enlarge.
Workers have begun digging a trench at the east side of the Doherty’s Garage property to install charging stations for a new fleet of electric school buses.
As part of the project, the grassy area now occupied by cars awaiting repair will be paved, expanded, and moved 21 feet closer to the tree line, though only one tree will be taken down. The EV transformer will supply electricity on two different meters for Doherty’s and the public, which will have access to two new charging stations in the adjacent dirt commuter lot.
The Lincoln Garden Club’s plants in the area were removed but will be replaced, and there will be new plantings on the Lincoln Road side of the property to partially screen the school buses from view. The Planning Board approved the addition on October 28.
“It’s going to be a huge improvement. Right now it looks like a junkyard. The site needs to be cleaned up,” said Paula Vaughn-Mackenzie, director of planning and land use.
Board members asked why the buses need to be charged and parked full-time at that location rather than at the Lincoln School or the DPW on nearby Lewis Street where they’re now stored. Scott Rodman of the Green Energy Committee, who has been working with property owner Mike Callender and Highland Electric Fleets, replied that the school had neither access to enough power nor space to park the buses with sufficient turnaround room — “much to my chagrin, because I thought was perfect place for them, too,” Rodman said. “I tried everything humanly possible.”
The buses also can’t be parked behind the garage building because it’s too close to wetlands. As for the DPW, the town expects to rebuild the site at some point, and when that happens, there won’t be room for the buses there either. It wouldn’t make fiscal sense to install the EV chargers there and then later tear them out and reinstall them elsewhere, Rodman said. “These chargers are very expensive — you can’t do it as a sort of temporary thing.”
A 2019 town study said that the DPW would have to be replaced at what was then an estimated cost of $15 million. Consultants looked at several alternate sites in town and concluded that the current Lewis Street was the most suitable.
For now, Doherty’s will keep some of its diesel buses as backups and for use on field trips and longer athletic trips; eventually they will be phased out, Callender said. He asked the board to approve the plan right away to qualify for grant funding. The project needs to be up and running by January 1, 2026; “otherwise, several million dollars in federal and state funds may go elsewhere, and given the political climate, may not return,” he added.
Doherty’s and the school agreed earlier this year to amend their contract to allow introduction of the new buses, and the change will not cost the schools or town any additional money.
Though everyone agreed that electric school buses are a good idea though not without some grumbling about the fact that the application was submitted as a “minor change” to the property’s site plan.This meant that a public hearing was not required and some board members found out about the proposal rather late in the game, though Reid McIntire, project manager at Highland Electric Fleets, said they’d been working on the plan since April.
“I’m shocked that we just found out about this — you’re putting a gun to our head,” said board member Rob Ahlert. “I feel like it came out of nowhere, though maybe it’s all good.”
“On principle, I believe this is a major modification, but I also believe that this project needs to move forward,” said board member Susan Hall Mygatt, who urged the board to have a future discussion of what exactly constitutes “major” and “minor” changes to site plans. Ultimately, though, members unanimously approved the “minor change” designation and the project itself.
“This is a real chance to do something that would be unusual for a town as small as Lincoln,” board member Gary Taylor said.
Doherty’s Garage, a three-generation business in Lincoln since 1905, was sold in 2023 to 161 Lincoln Rd. LLC. The property and business activities were split up; Cindy Murphy (granddaughter of founder Matthew Doherty) and her husband Dennis still manage the school bus transportation and rubbish collection services, while Johnny Frangieh of Lincoln Petroleum runs the gas station and auto repair shop.
Addendum
The November 9 story headlined “Bank of America to close Lincoln branch” should have included statements by RLF Executive Director Geoff McGean that “we are actively in discussions with other potential banks to replace [Bank of America]” and that “Civico or other developers have not made additional progress on drawing up proposals for redeveloping the mall.” Also, only the Cambridge Trust’s Lincoln branch closed in 2016, not the entire company. The article has been updated.Bank of America to close Lincoln branch
The Bank of America branch at the Mall at Lincoln Station.
Editor’s note: this story was updated on November 10, 2025.
Lincoln’s Bank of America customers received emails on Friday that the town’s branch would close in March 2026.
The email didn’t say why the move was being made but said those who have a safe deposit box at this location will receive a separate letter with instructions about how to close the box and collect your personal belongings. Jennings Rainey, Vice President/Consumer Banking Market Leader for the Middlesex Market, referred questions to the bank’s corporate media office, which did not return an email from the Lincoln Squirrel on Friday.
Geoff McGean, executive director of the Rural land Foundation, the mall’s owner, said Bank of America had an option to renew their lease starting in April 2026 and notified the RLF that they would decline it.
“BoA has been a valued tenant at Lincoln Station for 25 years,” McGean said. “The decision to leave was made exclusively by BoA and was a surprise to RLF. The employees at the bank have cited a lack of activity as being the reason for the closure but that is all we have been told at this time.” The RLF is actively in discussions with other potential banks to replace [Bank of America],” he added.
“I think we as a community need to look broadly at the state of retail/banks in particular and ask ourselves to really lean in and support this town in all ways possible,” said Andrew Stevenson, RLF’s board chair. “It is more important than ever that we show all local companies support and shop at them to make sure they see a viable future in Lincoln, whether they be stores at Lincoln Station or any local vendor.”
Voters approved zoning changes in December 2023 that, among other things, would allow the mall to be redeveloped as a two-story building with housing on the second floor, a project that will inconvenience the current commercial tenants in the short term. The RLF has been in discussions for some time with Civico about ideas whereby the company would redevelop the mall while adding a second and third floor for multifamily housing as stipulated in the Housing Choice Act. However, neither Civico nor any other developer have made “additional progress on drawing up proposals for redeveloping the mall,” McGean said.
A branch of the Cambridge Trust Co., which was located across Lincoln Road from the Bank of America, closed its doors in 2016.