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

School Building Committee offers timetable, urges public input

The School Building Committee held its first public forum last week to outline initial steps and emphasize the need for community input and participation in coming up with a school design that voters can eventually approve.

This summer, the SBC will interview, select and negotiate with an architect and owner’s project manager. Part of its work will involve close coordination with the Community Center Preliminary Planning and Preliminary Design Committee (CCPPDC), which is working in parallel with the SBC on a feasibility study for a community center on the school campus. To that end, the Board of Selectmen and School Committee have authorized a Campus Coordination Group to facilitate collaboration between the SBC and the CCPPDC. Members are Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall, Town Administrator Tim Higgins, the chairs of the PPDC and the SBC, or designees, and one other member of the SBC and CCPPDC.

The SBC hopes to develop preliminary design options starting in the fall, with a town vote to choose one of the designs in the spring. If all goes well, the next steps are producing detailed shcematic drawings and thn another town vote on bonding the project in November 2018.

Among the issues that the SBC will tackle early on are where the various functions of the school campus should go (for example, the Lincoln After-school Activities Program, school administration offices, pre-K classrooms and storage); what a “green” or “net zero” building might involve, and what roles that other boards and committees will play.

“We need your help—I can’t stress it enough,” SBC Chair Chris Fasciano said at the June 14 forum. “To bring this project to fruition, it has to be a community project. Not everyone is going to get what they want, but in order for it to succeed, the community has to embrace the process and help us get there.”

Gina Halsted, a member of the SBC Outreach Subcommittee, outlined the various avenues of communication the SBC will use, including social media and LincolnTalk as well as mailings, workshops, forums, coffees, and other traditional methods. Meetings are also live-streamed and recorded for later online playback on the town’s video website, and all meetings are open to the public. Agendas, minutes and other documents can be found here.

Halsted invited residents to submit comments or questions by email to sbc@lincnet.org, though she cautioned that “we can’t respond [via email or social media] unless it’s in a very factual way” due to the requirements of the state’s open meeting law.

The SBC has also posted an online survey asking about residents’ priorities for a school project (building shape, repairs vs. new construction, etc.) as well as how they preferred to informed. The survey is open until July 15.

Panel maintains watering restrictions

The Board of Water Commissioners voted this to keep the current one-day-a-week limitation on outdoor lawn watering.

Houses with even-numbered street addresses may water lawns by means of automatic irrigation systems or manual sprinklers on Saturdays and those with odd-numbered addresses on Sundays. Details on allowable watering uses and penalties for violations can be found on the Water Department web page.

Although the water in the Flint’s Pond has been rising during the rainy spring, it is still two feet below normal which is exactly where it was at this time last year. If the area has another dry summer, officials will have to restrict outdoor watering even further.

The board reviews current data on pond levels at each monthly meeting and considers revising the restrictions as necessary.

Drumlin Farm debuts summer music series starting June 23

Katrin Roush

The Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary will host an outdoor summer music series starting with Katrin Roush on Friday, June 23. All three concerts run from 5:30–8 p.m.

This community event, co-presented by climate action group Mothers Out Front, invites people from across the state to celebrate local music, local food, and local action in an effort to provide a hopeful future for the planet.

“We’re excited to bring music to Drumlin Farm as a way to celebrate nature and the arts in an outdoor setting,” said Drumlin Farm Sanctuary Director Renata Pomponi. “Partnering with Mothers Out Front to incorporate a hopeful message of how our community can work together to fight climate change adds a great dimension to this concert series, turning it from a scary topic to one that can bring us together in new and positive ways.”

In addition to having live music and farm-fresh food, the concert series will feature climate-related activities for kids and adults to make pledges and learn how they can make a difference in their own communities.

“Together, we can mobilize to create a livable climate for our children and for generations to come,” said Emily Haslett, Mothers Out Front–Lincoln. “We invite families to join our grassroots movement of mothers, grandmothers, and caregivers who are working for the swift and just transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”

All ages are welcome and concert-goers are encouraged to bring a picnic dinner. Farm-fresh snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be on sale. Please note: no alcohol allowed on the property. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors 65+ and children ages 5–12, and free for children under 2. Purchase tickets online here. Other concerts in the series:

Clarification

The June 15 article headlined “Permanent ‘ghost bike’ memorial to be installed” incorrectly stated that bicyclist Eugene Thornberg died after being hit by a car in 2016 at the intersection of Routes 117 and 126. According to town officials, what happened was that Thornberg encountered a stopped line of traffic well back from the traffic light and rode as far as he could to pull up in the line on the right side of the traffic and road. He fell off his bike under the back right wheel of a heavy truck that was waiting in the line; when the traffic started to move immediately thereafter, he was crushed under the wheel. The original story has been updated to reflect this correction.

Committee to study future of DPW site on Lewis St.

As part of its work to revitalize Lincoln’s commercial downtown, the South Lincoln Planning Implementation Committee is seeking funds to hire a consultant to do a feasibility study of relocating the Department of Public Works site on Lewis Street.

“Every time we peel that onion back and look at South Lincoln, the subject of that site comes up,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins commented at the June 12 Board of Selectmen meeting. “They feel it’s a due-diligence item to either rule possibilities in or rule them out, because it may bear on the rest of the South Lincoln area. If you think the DPW site is in play, it takes our thinking in a certain direction.”

About 10 years ago, DPW officials were asked to evaluate other possible locations for their trucks and other equipment, and they determined that the transfer station was the only other feasible site on town-owned property. The new study will seek to “expand the aperture” and look at other options such as co-locating some DPW functions on land owned privately or by MassPort near Hanscom Field, for example.

There’s quite a bit of town-owned land in Lincoln, but most of it is under conservation restriction. However, it’s theoretically possible to “swap out” other land “if there’s an appetite in town for freeing up the DPW site for a different kind of development,” Higgins said.

But resident Robert Domnitz, a former Planning Board member and co-founder of the Northside News, indicated there might be resistance to moving the DPW to the north side of town. “This needs to not be a dollars-and-cents, square-footage exercise, but a sense of what the folks up there would like to see happen or not happen,” he said at the selectmen’s meeting.

One idea that’s come up is moving the transfer station to the Lewis Street site instead of vice versa. “The transfer station is probably the most social place in town,” Domnitz said, and having it in South Lincoln “would bring hundreds of customers to the area.”

Other topics discussed at this week’s Board of Selectmen meeting (summary courtesy of former Selectman Peter Braun):

  • The board interviewed four of the eight candidates who asked to be considered to be appointed as at-large members of the Community Center Planning and Preliminary Design Committee. Selectmen plan to appoint four at-large members at its next meeting after interviewing the other candidates.
  • The board voted to appoint ­­Lawrence Buell to the open seat on the Conservation Commission.
  • The board interviewed Evan Gorman and Bijoy Misra for the two vacant elected seats on the Housing Commission. In accordance with statutory procedures, the board and the Housing Commission jointly make the appointments for the remainder of the vacant terms.
  • The board discussed with school officials how and when to coordinate the hiring and interaction of the architectural consultants who will advise the School Building Committee and the Community Center Planning and Preliminary Design Committee.
  • Town Administrator Tim Higgins noted that the public event to celebrate completion of the Rt. 2/Crosby’s Corner project will take place at the lower parking lot of The Commons In Lincoln at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 16.

 

Permanent “ghost bike” memorial to be installed

A sketch of the ghost bike to be installed in memory of Eugene Thornberg outside the Public Safety Building (The plantings are pictured only for illustration; a landscape architect will choose the actual plantings.)

To memorialize accident victim Eugene Thornberg and call attention to road safety for bicyclists and motorists, his family will give the town a permanent “ghost bike” to be installed outside the town’s Public Safety Building.

Thornburg, a 61-year-old Wayland resident, was one of two bicyclists killed on Lincoln roads last summer when he was involved in an accident near the intersection of Routes 117 and 126. A memorial service with a temporary ghost bike was held at the scene in September 2016, but keeping it permanently at that site wouldn’t be safe because of traffic concerns, Police Chief Kevin Kennedy said at the June 12 Board of Selectmen meeting.

After an investigation, no criminal or civil motor vehicle charges were filed filed as a result of the accident. However, the town established a seven-member Cycling Safety Advisory Committee earlier this year to develop recommendations for improving cycling safety in Lincoln.

“Ghost bikes” are old bicycles that are stripped down, spray-painted white, and locked to a sign or parking meter close to the site of a fatal bike accident. The bikes are usually installed anonymously by a fellow cyclist, though members of the bicycling community sometimes hold ceremonies at ghost bike sites to commemorate the dead cyclist.. The first ghost bike appeared in St. Louis in 2003 and the movement has spread internationally as a way to raise awareness about bicycle safety and sharing the road.

A member of Thornberg’s family is fabricating the ghost bike, which will be installed along with plantings in the fall. It will also bear a plaque saying “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

“When he rode his bike, that’s kind of how he went. Any chance he had to go out there on his bike, that’s where he was, said Thornberg’s widow, Patrice Thornberg.

Selectman James Craig thanked family members for “working with town to turn this tragedy into something we hope can educate.”

Groundbreaking caps decade-long drive for new Minuteman school

Some of the many officials who took turns with the ceremonial shovels at the Minuteman High School groundbreaking were (left to right) Minuteman School Committee chair Jeffrey Stulin, State Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), MSBA Executive Director Jack McCarthy, Minuteman School Building Committee chair Ford Spalding, and Superintendent Edward Bouquillon (click to enlarge).

Almost a decade in the planning, a new Minuteman High School finally got underway at a well-attended groundbreaking ceremony on June 14. The event took place where the front door of the new building will go, at the western edge of the district-owned property in Lincoln, a few hundred yards from the existing school in Lexington.

The $145 million project cleared its last hurdle last September with a district-wide vote. The new school is expected to open in September 2019, after which the old building will be demolished and new athletic fields will be built.

“An investment in education pays the best interest,” said Jack McCarthy, executive director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), quoting Benjamin Franklin. The project has been in the MSBA planning process longer than almost any other project in the state, spanning the tenure of several state treasurers, he noted.

“This project is like Job—it went through every trial imaginable… and we were spit out of the whale on September 20″ when the project was approved last year in the district-wide vote, McCarthy remarked. The MSBA is contributing more than $44 million of the school’s cost. To secure project approval, the district also had to revise its governance structure and membership, scale back student enrollment, and change state regulations so non-members contribute to capital costs.

“This project nearly failed several times,” said Minuteman School Committee chair Jeffrey Stulin of Needham. Speaking directly to Minuteman students in reference to how he felt at the project’s beginnings, he said, ” I expect that some time in the future, you too will become involved in an idea of importance where you’re overwhelmed and in over your head… but you have no chance of success if you don’t even try. You have to have courage to accept that you may fail.”

Minuteman Superintendent Edward Bouquillon, a Lincoln resident, said he first realized that the existing building needed significant repair or replacement soon after he accepted the job as superintendent in 2007, thus starting the decade-long journey to win voter approval and state funding. At times emotional, he thanked an array of people and organization, including his wife Diana.

Bouquillon urged officials not to tinker with the existing model for career vocational-technical education. “Now is not the time to shave off the best aspects of high-quality career and vocational technical education and try to graft it onto a traditional high school schedule,” he said. “All that will do is weaken our system in Massachusetts.”

He also urged the state legislature to increase funding for similar projects. “MSBA needs another penny of the sales tax to get all the vocational technical schools rebuilt and to build new ones to fill the skills gap,” he said. Currently, MSBA is funded by 16 percent (one penny) of the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax.

Guests at the groundbreaking included a host of officials from the state and district towns as well as education officials, members of Minuteman’s business-led program advisory committees, and a representative from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

There were no Lincoln officials in attendance, however. The town’s residents voted to withdraw from the Minuteman district in early 2016, a move that takes effect on July 1. At that point, the district will go from 16 towns to 10: Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Bolton, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Needham, and Stow.

The new school is designed for 628 students who will spend their Minuteman “careers” in one of two “career academies”: a Life Sciences and Services Academy, and an Engineering, Construction and Trades Academy. The curriculum’s 16 career and technical education programs will include two new ones: Multimedia Engineering (Technical Theatre) and Advanced Manufacturing.

Gilbane Building Co. is the construction manager for the project and Kaestle Boos Associates is the architect. Skanska USA Building serves as Minuteman’s project manager.

Pollen galaxy (Lincoln Through the Lens)

Nancy Selvage photographed this swirl of pollen in Valley Pond.

Readers may submit photos for consideration for Lincoln Through the Lens by emailing them to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. If your photo is published, you’ll receive credit in the Squirrel. Photos must be taken in Lincoln and include the date, location, and names of any people who are identifiable in the photo. Previously published photos can be viewed on the Lincoln Through the Lens page of the Lincoln Squirrel.

Route 2 ribbon-cutting this Friday

Lincolnites are invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of the Route 2/Crosby’s Corner highway improvement project on Friday, June 16 at 10 a.m. at The Commons (lower parking area) on the hillside overlooking the flyover bridge.

Scheduled speakers include:

  • James Craig, chair of the Lincoln Board of Selectmen
  • Mike Barrett, state senator for Lincoln and Concord
  • Cory Atkins, Concord state representative
  • Jonathan Gulliver, acting MassDOT highway administrator
  • Peter Braun, former Lincoln selectman
  • Patrick Murphy, project abutter and neighborhood organizer

Many Lincolnites participated in the project over a period of 30 years—explaining the need, lobbying for the funds, participating at every step in the design, and helping to make sure the project was constructed in accordance with the plans. Organizers hope the event will be a great way of telling the story and thanking those who participated along the way.

Two projects under way at Hanscom

Starting in August, residents who live near Hanscom Field may notice more noise than usual as air traffic is temporarily rerouted during two separate runway reconstruction projects. However, another unrelated project—construction of a new hangar for Boston MedFlight—will not result in any increase in noise or air traffic in the area

Logan Airport is now resurfacing its most heavily used runway, meaning it will be closed entirely until late June and open for arrivals only until about November 1. What this means for the Lincoln/Bedford area is that some smaller business-type flights will use Hanscom instead of Logan, according to Amber Goodspeed, MassPort’s manager for airport administration at Hanscom Field.

Beginning in August, one of Hanscom’s runways will also be resurfaced, Goodspeed added. As a result, some of Hanscom’s traffic will be rerouted so their flight paths go more over Bedford and Lincoln rather than Concord and Lexington, Goodspeed said.

Boston MedFlight project

Boston MedFlight is also moving its local base from Hanscom Air Force Base to Hanscom Field. The company is building a new hangar on the site of an older one that’s been demolished. This new facility will allow easier access for training, education, community outreach as well as helicopter maintenance, since visitors will no longer need to go through Air Force base security.

“Nothing is going to change as far as our operations go” in terms of the number of aircraft or staff on site, said Boston MedFlight General Manager of Aviation Rick Kenin.

Boston MedFlight’s fleet (click to enlarge).

Among those who will benefit from the easier access are Lincoln Fire Department paramedics, who get their first-responder training from Boston MedFlight. The company already hosts some visits from community members and groups such as Boy Scouts, “but we plan to greatly expand that once we’re on the civilian side” of the air field, Kenin said. “This will work out much better as far as community activity and outreach.”

The $17 million project is expected to be complete in about a year.

Boston MedFlight currently has two local offices, one on Hanscom Air Force Base and another in the nearby Lincoln North office building, as well as facilities in Plymouth and Lawrence. The nonprofit firm transports about 4,000 patients per year, about half of them via ground transportation and the rest by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft, Kenin said. Most of the flights take critically ill or injured patients from community hospitals (including Emerson Hospital in Concord) to Massachusetts General Hospital and other advanced-care Boston hospitals, but the company also picks up some patients directly from accident scenes.

Boston MedFlight is not taxpayer-funded, relying instead on donations and insurance reimbursements, Kenin noted.