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

Storm Quinn: photos by Lincolnites

The storm wasn’t particularly remarkable for the number of inches of snow, but that snow was very heavy and wet—and plentiful enough to cause major damage in Lincoln and other towns by bringing down many trees and heavy limbs onto power lines and homes. Much of the snow has since dripped off the trees and many of the closed roads have reopened, but 27 percent of Eversource customers in Lincoln were without power as of 10 p.m. on Thursday—down from a 62 percent earlier in the day. The buzz of chainsaws gave way to the steady dull roar of generators as the evening closed in. Here are photos submitted by Lincoln residents on the morning of March 8, 2018. 

snow-ballfield
snow-conduit
snow-oldwinter
snow-page1
snow-page2
snow-stopsign
snow-60weston
snow-brookshills
snow-dogs
storm-hillside
snow-6goosepond
snow-6goosepond2

[Show as slideshow]

Letter to the editor: LSSC’s Mostue supports Kasper

To the editor:

I write in support of Carole Kasper, candidate for the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee. Her background and skills reflect those characteristics of a good committee member: the conviction that public education is important, commitment to public involvement, decisiveness, belief in the democratic process, willingness to devote time and energy, acceptance of the will of the majority, courage to stand up for convictions, respect for district faculty and staff, and communication skills.

Carole’s professional experience has focused on organizational performance of public and private-sector workplace communities, with particular work in multiculturalism. Furthermore, as  the chair of the Lincoln Campus Master Planning Committee and the president of the Lincoln Parent Teacher Association, she has made clear her interest in the work of the committee through her attendance at most of the meetings in the past few months. 

The committee’s current priorities include continued support of rigorous college preparatory courses; responsible management of the school budget; ongoing support of excellent faculty; and collaboration among the Lincoln, Sudbury, and Boston communities. Her concern for those issues will serve to make her transition to the committee seamless.   

It would be a pleasure to have Carole on the L-S School Committee. I hope you will support her with your vote on Election Day: Monday March 26.

Sincerely,

Patricia Mostue, Ph.D. (L-S School Committee member)
3 Lexington Rd., Lincoln

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Letter to the editor: Hogue running for Parks & Rec

(Editor’s note: Hogue is one of three candidates running for the open seat on the Parks and Recreation Committee. The others are Rey Romero and Sarah Chester.)

To the editor:

My name is Adam Hogue and I am writing to announce my candidacy for Lincoln Parks and Recreation (Parks & Rec) Committee. I look forward to earning your vote on Election Day on Monday, March 26.

As a member of Parks & Rec, I will prioritize programs that bring our community together and increase summer and after-school programs for our town’s kids so that they have a safe place to interact with each other and learn more about themselves. I also want to promote our veterans’ events in our community because of our proud history of service and proximity to Hanscom Air Force Base.

I have been an active volunteer in our community since moving here in 2013. I am the president of the Lincoln Veterans Association and have helped plan the annual Memorial Day celebration as well as the 15th anniversary of September 11th remembrance ceremony. I have also spoken to our kids in the Lincoln schools about my military service and experiences overseas. I want to continue to serve this community as a member of this great committee.

I started my professional career as an officer in the U.S. Army Airborne, serving one combat tour in Afghanistan, and I am currently a major in the Massachusetts Army National Guard serving out of Hanscom. I also own my own financial services company, Ulen & Hogue Financial, offering individual and small business insurance and investment solutions. 

My education background includes a BA in history from UMass-Lowell, a MA in education from the University of Nebraska, and an MBA in management from Fitchburg State University, as well as a graduate certificate in financial planning from Boston University. I live on Todd Pond Road with my wife Katy (Green) Hogue, who is a lifelong Lincoln resident, our dog Woodstock, and our soon-to-be-born daughter. 

It would be my honor to serve each and every one of you on the Parks & Rec Committee and I would appreciate your vote. Thank you in advance for your consideration on Election Day!

Sincerely,

Adam M. Hogue
36 Todd Pond Rd.
Adam.m.hogue@gmail.com
978-828-6184

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Letter to the editor: Glass runs for reelection to BOS

To the editor,

I write to declare my candidacy for the 3-year term on the Board of Selectmen, and I ask for your support at the town election on Monday, March 26.

Last year when I sought to fill the final year of Renel Fredriksen’s term, I knew that serving as a member of the BOS would be interesting and challenging. It is both, and I would also add the adjectives “energizing” and “humbling.” Energizing because grappling with issues such as housing, the School and Community Center projects, the town budget, solar panels, traffic, and zoning policy is an intellectually engaging, nuanced process that brings me in contact with a wide variety of community members. Humbling because the range of expertise and knowledge among our professional staff and residents is truly amazing. I am fortunate to be part of a collaborative board and of a community that strives to draw on its members’ vast talents for the betterment of our town.

During the last 12 months, our board has focused on reaching out to residents through meetings, individual conversations, a series of listening sessions, and our BOS newsletter. Our goal is to be transparent about the business of the town and to foster communication among boards and with the community. As residents of Lincoln, we have many (and sometimes conflicting) issues we are all trying to balance. I believe our goal is to keep our eye on how specific projects and policies can serve our town’s broader vision and mission while we pay careful attention to the details. I look forward to staying engaged with you, to being challenged by your questions, and to being inspired by your ideas.

Please put both the March 24 Annual Town Meeting and the March 26 town election on your calendars!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Glass
11 Stonehedge Road

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Letter to the editor: Hullinger seeks write-in votes for LSSC

To the editor,

My name is Siobhan Hullinger and I am pleased to announce my candidacy for the write-in candidate opening for the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee (LSSC) in the upcoming election on Monday, March 26.

I respectfully ask for your vote because as a 27-year resident with three children who have attended and are attending L-S, I am grateful for and understand the importance to our children and town of L-S’s national reputation among colleges and universities, and the diversity of its academic and extracurricular offerings.

I have spent 27 years in Sudbury devoted to efforts to support our community and schools.   My volunteer efforts include board memberships with HOPEsudbury, the Lincoln-Sudbury Scholarship Fund, and the LSPO as well as L-S School Council member, Sudbury eown election officer, CERT volunteer, parent coordinator for the Kicks for Cancer Soccer Tournament, youth sports age group coordinator, and a participant in the Sudbury Listening Project.

My civic involvement is at the core of who I am and aligns with L-S’s core values of “fostering caring and cooperating relationships, respecting human differences, pursuing academic excellence and cultivating community.” As a longtime participant in local town issues, I understand the essential importance to continually take a fresh look at how we operate our local town organizations, including L-S. Among the key issues I would pursue are:

  • Build a stronger collaboration between L-S, Sudbury, Lincoln, and the METCO program to facilitate open, collaborative, and thoughtful discussions that will improve coordination of academic and social transitions into our high school, identify areas of operating redundancies and inefficiencies, and support reasonable class sizes.
  • Review safety measures to ensure they align with current trends and research while preserving the benefits of an open campus.
  • Enact a policy of periodic reviews of the Regional Agreement, originally enacted in 1954, to ensure it provides an effective and equitable framework reflecting the current and future public education conditions and needs for L-S to thrive.
  • Pursue the start time recommendations of the separate L-S/Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) subcommittees. We must put in the hard work to see whether adjusting our schedule is feasible and tackle obstacles that hinder student growth. Unlike past efforts, we must tackle this task collaboratively with L-S, SPS, and the METCO program.
  • Our music and arts programs currently find themselves under threat of elimination or reduction. We should instead see a growing commitment to these programs which have been proven to boost academic and social/emotional outcomes.

LSSC needs to proactively consider whether the current leadership structure of separate superintendents and administrations from SPS is the most desirable for attracting top-tier leadership at both L-S and SPS for the long term.

I will work tirelessly to represent the interests of taxpayers, families, students, faculty, staff and administration to enhance, support and foster open and constructive dialogue among our partners in education. Please contact me with any thoughts and/or questions at sioforls@gmail.com. I humbly ask for your support by writing in “Siobhan Hullinger” under L-S School Committee on March 26. 

Sincerely,

Siobhan Hullinger
55 Washington Drive, Sudbury

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Most Lincolnites have power back after strong nor’easter

Several roads in town were closed due to falling trees or utility poles from Friday’s nor’easter, but as of Sunday evening, all roads had reopened except for Hilliard Road.

Lincoln Road residents Wendy and Lem Kusik had a close call as an 80-foot spruce crashed down right next to their house, tearing out utility lines. Weston Road was also closed after a pole snapped in front of the Pierce House. Dozens of residents lost power because of the storm, notably in the Tower Road/Pierce Hill Road and Silver Hill Road areas, but only 15 customers were still without electricity as of Sunday evening, according to Eversource’s outage map.

The utility said most of its customers in the greater Boston and MetroWest area would have power restored by Sunday night, but those on the south shore may have to wait until Monday or Tuesday night. More than 50,000 customers on the South Shore and Cape Cod were still without power last night, but Eversource said they should be back on line by Wednesday night.

Click on a photo to enlarge:

storm-allen
storm-pole-lg
storm-branch
storm-sign-lg
storm-house-lg
storm-spruce-lem

 

Town Meeting warrant articles published

A total of 36 warrant articles (13 of which will be considered as a group on the consent calendar) will be presented to residents for votes at the Annual Town Meeting on Saturday, March 24. The full warrant is online here. Articles include:

  • Customary financial articles
    • The town budget (including the Lincoln School and Lincoln-Sudbury High School budgets)
    • Capital expenditures, including a new fire engine
    • Funds for routine maintenance of town facilities
    • Appropriations to a retiree health insurance trust fund, and to a debt stabilization fund
    • A variety of other smaller appropriations
  • Campus building projects — Lincoln School and community center
  • Bylaw proposals
    • Mary’s Way proposed zoning overlay (allowing planning for the Oriole Landing mixed-income housing development to move forward)
    • Historic District expansion to include modernist homes (voluntary on the part of homeowners)
    • Site plan sunset provision
  • Green initiatives
    • Vote to initiate the “electricity aggregation” process
  • Citizens’ petitions
    • A ban on the retail use of plastic bags
    • A ban on the retail sale of individual plastic water bottles
    • An alternative ban on the retail sale of individual plastic water bottles that bans the use of such bottles on town property
    • A resolution to support tighter regulation of natural gas leaks
    • A resolution to designate Lincoln as a “safe and welcoming” town; and

The Board of Selectmen is meeting with residents who submitted citizen’s petitions. They voted last week to endorse retail bans on plastic water bottles and grocery bags while removing from the warrant a petition asking for reimbursements for residents’ legal fees.

On Monday, March 5, the board will meet with Mothers Out Front, the proponents of the gas leak resolution, and on Monday, March 19, the board will meet with the proponents of the “safe and welcoming town” resolution.

Selectmen split on water bottle ban but reject legal-fee petition

The Board of Selectmen voted 2-1 to endorse a plastic water bottle measure that will be up for a Town Meeting vote on March 24. They also voted unanimously to remove a citizens’ petition seeking reimbursement for legal costs incurred by a group of residents fighting the McLean Hospital proposal on Bypass Road.

In November 2016, the Zoning Board of Appeals denied McLean’s request to use a single-family house for an outpatient facility, saying it did not meet the criteria for an educational use, which would have been permitted under the state’s Dover amendment. McLean filed suit in state land court against the town and the ZBA, and a group of residents represented by attorney Michael Fee petitioned to intervene as co-defendants. Some of those residents recently submitted a Town Meeting citizen’s petition asking the town to reimburse them for $112,000 in legal fees incurred in the court battle.

The residents originally intervened because they felt the town would not adequately represent their interests, which were more specific than those of the town—thwarting McLean Hospital’s plans for a specific property, as opposed to merely upholding the authority of the ZBA and town town’s zoning bylaws in general. They argued at last week’s Board of Selectmen meeting that the residents’ and town’s interests were identical once the trial had begun, but selectmen and special counsel Jason Talerman disagreed.

Talerman also told the board that the state’s anti-aid amendment prohibits public funding for private individuals and organizations that are not working under town control. If a town hires a private contractor for something like snow plowing, “you as community have to be able to control those services,” he said. In the McLean case, the town can’t be responsible for covering the cost of an attorney who reports only to private residents and not the town, he added.

Although the town has received some “incidental benefit” from the work of the residents’ attorney, the funding issue is “fairly clear because of the lack of [town] control,” Selectman James Craig said. “I feel the neighborhood is going to crucify me for this, but it’s more the duty I feel to the town as a whole.”

Selectman Jennifer Glass worried about setting a precedent if the funding request were allowed to go forward. Selectman James Dwyer agreed, saying, “I just think our hands are tied.”

Plastic bags and bottles

Selectmen voted unanimously to endorse a citizen’s petition to ban retail distribution of thin-film plastic grocery bags but were divided over sales of single-serving plastic water bottles.

There are actually two Town Meeting articles relating to the bottles—one submitted by the Lincoln-Sudbury Environmental Club and the second by resident Jim White, co-owner of Lincoln Kitchen and the recently closed Trail’s End Cafe. White’s measure is more far-reaching as it would prohibit use of the disposable bottles anywhere on town property in addition to banning their sale.

Although he was “fully supportive” of restricting bottle sales in general, “I was struck by the overwhelming sense of a fair playing field for our businesses,” especially Donelan’s, “our most critical [Lincoln mall] anchor tenant operating on such thin margins,” Craig said.

Glass and Dwyer supported the measure, however. “I hope this will spread geographically and give retailers cover,” eliminating the advantage of driving to a neighboring town to buy disposal water bottles, Dwyer said. He acknowledged that Donelan’s is “a huge benefactor to this town,” especially with contributions to the July Fourth celebration, “and I’m hoping this is not going to adversely affect them.”

Selectmen voiced doubts about how White’s measure would be enforced if approved. After voting 2-1 to endorse the students’ proposal, White asked the board not to take a formal position on his alternative measure.

News acorns

Write-in candidate to join LSSC info sessions

Ellen Joachim of Sudbury will join Lincoln resident Carole Kasper at three previously announced L-S School Committee candidate forums in Lincoln. Kasper is running for the seat being vacated by Nancy Marshall. Joachim is one of three declared write-in candidates from Sudbury for the seat of Sudbury’s Gerald Quirk, who only recently announced he was not running for reelection. Forum dates and times are:

  • Friday, March 9 — Lincoln Woods Community Room, 9:30–11 a.m.
  • Wednesday, March 14 — Lincoln Library Tarbell Room, 9:30–11 a.m., and Bemis Hall, 1:30–3 p.m.

Thompson paintings on view at library

© Nancy L. Thompson

Paintings by Lincoln artist Nancy Leigh Thompson are on the view at the Lincoln Public Library through March 30. Her work also appeared recently in “Different Strokes,” a juried group exhibit at Fort Point Arts Community Gallery in Boston. See her website for more information.

Letter to the editor: Joachim runs as write-in candidate for L-S panel

(Editor’s note: L-S School Committee Gerald Quirk of Sudbury had planned to run for reelection but subsequently withdrew his name after the deadline for others to get on the ballot had passed.)

To the editor:

I am happy to announce that I am running as a write-in candidate for Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District Committee. I welcome your support on Monday, March 26.

I know first-hand the unique qualities of L-S as I myself am an L-S graduate. I have had children enrolled at L-S since 2010. Two have graduated, and my youngest is currently a junior. I understand L-S: its breadth of classes, its emphasis on learning, and its focus on building student independence.

After L-S, I went to Columbia College and Harvard Law School. I served on the Sudbury School Committee for six years, including one year as chair and two as vice chair. I will bring my knowledge of L-S, my legal training, and my School Committee experience to the L-S School Committee.

If elected, I will put students first. I will listen to and consider all perspectives before making decisions. I will collaborate with staff, parents from Boston, Lincoln, and Sudbury, and students to ensure that L-S is providing the best education possible to all students. We must ensure that students feel safe and welcome at L-S, that they are offered a broad array of classes in core subjects and the arts, and are challenged to learn and grow in each of these classes, and that they are well-prepared for their chosen path upon graduation.

I believe we need to explore options for further collaboration and sharing between L-S and the Lincoln and Sudbury public schools. Such work can only be done with interest and participation from members of both the Lincoln and Sudbury communities. We have a shared goal of ensuring that L-S provides an excellent learning experience for our students in a supportive environment, and we must partner to move forward. My six years on the Sudbury School Committee will be valuable in these discussions.

I believe that we need to continue exploring school start times for our teens. There are logistical challenges to implementing a later start time, but given the overwhelming evidence of improvements to student health, well-being, and academic performance, we must continue to focus on this issue. Finally, L-S must review its safety protocols to ensure that they address the current environment and follow best practices.

I look forward to meeting you and discussing L-S in the coming weeks and ask you to write my name on the Lincoln and Sudbury ballots on Monday, March 26.

Sincerely,

Ellen Winer Joachim
6 Craig Lane, Sudbury

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.