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

Letter to the editor: Soccer players urge ‘yes’ vote on Wang land

letter

To the editor:

There’s good news and bad news about Lincoln’s athletic fields. The good news: youth recreation is at an all-time high and our kids are using our fields more than ever. The bad news: the few fields we have in Lincoln are vastly overused. This, combined with a lack of irrigation, has created terrible playing conditions for the more than 327 families who participate in Lincoln Youth Soccer (LYS). If you’ve had the opportunity to walk our fields, you know this. If you haven’t, this may come as a surprise. A third-party report, commissioned by Parks & Rec and LYS this fall, confirmed that:

  • our fields are in terrible shape
  • despite investments in maintenance, the fields are deteriorating
  • improving the quality of our fields will require irrigation and rest.

That we find ourselves in this situation in Lincoln—a town known for its love of open spaces—is surprising. As president of LYS, the largest youth athletic association in town, I hear this frequently from our families and the many who travel to Lincoln to compete against our teams.

At the upcoming Town Meeting on March 25, we have a unique opportunity to turn this situation around. Up for consideration is a warrant article to purchase 12 acres of land—three of which would be developed as an athletic field and nine to be conserved. We will be asked to approve $1.8 million in Community Preservation Act funds to underwrite this endeavor with no negative impact to taxes or ability to bond future projects. To show our support, LYS has led a fund-raising effort to contribute $200,000 of private donations to the project.

On behalf of LYS and the hundreds of children running around our fields, I strongly encourage you to attend Town Meeting on March 25 and to vote YES. This investment allows us to increase our field inventory and ensure our recreational fields are treated with the same care as our many wonderful open spaces.

Sincerely,

Eric Harnden
20 Todd Pond Rd.

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 Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.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: Vote yes on solar array at landfill

letterTo the editor:

Without question, we Lincolnites are dedicated conservationists. Almost 35 percent of the town’s land is protected, giving us five square miles of undeveloped natural habitats for wildlife and plant life, fresh air, clean streams, and long stretches of space to walk and reflect.

It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that we also care about sustainability and the environment. In a recent Green Energy Committee survey, 90 percent of respondents indicated an interest in rooftop solar out of concern for climate change; 65 percent were concerned about the global politics of fossil fuels.

There is a direct connection between climate change and energy consumption. In Massachusetts, state law requires a minimum of 12 percent of its electricity be supplied from renewable sources in 2017, with those minimums increasing at just 1 percent each year. This means that the remainder—up to 88 percent—comes from dirtier or more dangerous sources. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, more than 63 percent of Massachusetts electricity came from burning natural gas, petroleum, and coal in 2016.

Fortunately, Lincoln has alternatives. Many volunteers have worked tirelessly over the past several years to explore supplying a portion of the municipal electricity with locally sourced clean energy. A Selectman-appointed Solar PV Working Group developed a Solar Blueprint, a detailed analysis of 25 municipally owned sites for potential solar arrays. These sites included school buildings and parking lots, public buildings, Codman Farm, and the capped landfill at the transfer station, automatically eliminating options that were located on environmentally sensitive lands, in historic districts, or with too much shade.

Two sites were ultimately selected for near-term solar installations that have the potential to generate up to 50 percent of the municipal electricity supply: a 45kW array on the Public Safety Building along Lincoln Road, and a 600-1,000kW array on the landfill at the transfer station.

Landfills have been natural first choices to host solar arrays in communities throughout the United States. Capping a landfill involves layering over a contaminated trash heap with a plastic-like drainage material, then clay and gravel, topped off with a vegetative layer to prevent soil erosion. In June 2016, Lincoln published a study on the environmental impact of using Lincoln’s capped landfill for a solar array. The study determined that the site provides low-quality habitat for wildlife and native plants.

To install solar PV at the landfill, Lincoln must identify and designate an equivalent amount of non-conservation protected land into conservation protection. The town’s proposed acquisition of An and Lorraine Wang’s property on Bedford Road provides an excellent opportunity for a win-win: using poor-quality land from a capped landfill to host solar electricity generation, and acquiring equivalent or better-quality land to contribute to Lincoln’s current Article 97-protected stock of conservation land. After a thorough review, the Conservation Commission unanimously voted in December to support the project and the removal of the capped landfill property from Article 97.

The proposed landfill solar PV generation system exemplifies Lincoln’s active engagement in and support for environmental conservation and stewardship projects. The landfill solar PV project has benefited from well-developed research, thoughtful consideration, and community engagement process. By continuing to move in the direction of clean, local, and renewable energy supplies, we will leave a more sustainable environment in Lincoln for future generations to come.

We encourage you to vote “yes” on Article 36 at Town Meeting on March 25.

Sincerely,
The Lincoln Solar PV Working Group

(Renel Fredriksen, Board of Selectmen; Tom Gumbart, Jim Henderson, and Peter von Mertens, Conservation Commission; Tim Higgins, Town Administrator; John Snell, Green Energy Committee; and Gary Taylor, Planning Board)

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: New Hanscom School is a great model

letter

To the editor:

Back in December, I responded to a request to explain why a number of residents opposed and ultimately helped to defeat the 2012 school building project. Although many were alarmed by the proposal to cut the trees and sacrifice the central playing fields, in essence “paving paradise to put up a parking lot,” I was particularly concerned with the interior environment and the plan for an outdated, dehumanizing cell-block layout of classrooms and corridors. The ill-fated plan offered an uninspired, mediocre environment in which to develop, learn and teach.

Then on Monday, I had the good fortune of touring the newly opened Hanscom Middle School with a small group of parents and residents led by Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall and School Committee chair Jennifer Glass. This new school incorporates much of what our superintendent has been describing in her vision for the Lincoln schools for several years. Even though architecture and particularly interiors are best experienced to be truly understood and appreciated, I will highlight a few exciting features that I gleaned from the tour.

Upon entering the Hanscom facility, one feels immediately welcomed. Just past the security entrance, a long, light-colored wooden bench leads one to the two-story common area with an open stage and grand stair to the second level. Rather than traditional indestructible concrete block, the walls are painted drywall in warm color tones that mitigate the austere white of LED and occasional fluorescent lighting. The customary cool grays, blues and greens found in many institutional buildings are minimal, and used merely as accents in flooring patterns, door frames and some furniture, albeit in warmer tones. Not only do people look healthier, they generally feel better about themselves in such spaces, and the entire experience is one that evokes an implied trust that students are mature enough to appreciate and take pride in this environment.

Secondly, there is an abundance of diffused natural light from a variety of sources, including windows and skylights, some of which are visible through interior glass partitions. As a result, one is aware of the natural rhythm of the day whether it is sunny or cloudy outside, morning or afternoon.

Thirdly, there are a variety of flexible room types, sizes and shapes, all organized around age-appropriate “neighborhoods” based on the various grades. Rooms and spaces have a variety of ceiling heights and are not all rectilinear, creating interesting juxtapositions and adjacencies that do not feel institutional. Also, their adjacencies lend themselves to multiple uses ranging from larger classrooms to smaller spaces appropriate for coaching students who may need individual help. In each of the various neighborhoods, there are rooms set up to accommodate a range of instruction, from a group of students focusing on a single subject or project, to individual quiet reading areas full of comfortable cushions and benches and a teacher circulating to help students as needed.

Rather than being long and bleak, corridors are short and come in a variety of shapes as they connect various classrooms and neighborhoods. Transitions between classes are orderly, and Becky reported that students need little, if any, supervision for disruptive behavior that often accompany the cellblock model.

There is really so much more to tell, but in summary, the highly organized but relaxed layout, the variety of interior spaces and the use of color and natural light is masterful in how children and teachers are treated with dignity, visibly inspiring a passion for learning and teaching. This is the model that should guide the planning of the Lincoln School in the next year if we are to offer a viable 21st-century learning community. And I believe this should be our highest priority as we gather for Town Meeting in less than two weeks.

Thanks again to Becky and Jennifer for making the tour available. If the opportunity arises again, I urge others to visit as well.

Sincerely,

Ken Hurd
21 Lexington Rd.

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: ConComm supports Wang project

letter

To the editor:

Over the past several weeks, the Conservation Commission has received several questions about the 100 Bedford Road project (also referred to as the Wang project), which will be going before Town Meeting on March 25. The Parks and Recreation commission has put together an excellent video describing the proposal, which has two major components:

  1. The creation of an athletic field
  2. Placing 7.1 acres of land into conservation protection

There is a third aspect of the proposal related to a solar power installation that will also be presented at Town Meeting. The purpose of this letter is to explain the decisions made by the Conservation Commission regarding the proposed solar project and the processes taken that informed those decisions. The Conservation Commission strongly supports the 100 Bedford Road project and believes it represents a major benefit to conservation efforts in the Town and to the Town as a whole.

The Conservation Commission strongly supports solar energy, and the state is a proponent of using town landfills to provide solar energy. The Green Energy Committee has done extensive work in identifying potential solar sites in town and concluded that the landfill is the optimal site for a significant photovoltaic installation. At the 1995 Town Meeting, the Town voted to “permanently dedicate and restrict exclusively for active and passive recreation and open space uses, consistent with and subject to the mandate and protections of Article 97 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts… the “Landfill Parcel.”

Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution grants “people the right to a clean environment and authoriz[ed] the Commonwealth to acquire conservation easements. Article 97 was intended to be a legislative ‘check’ to ensure that lands acquired for conservation purposes were not converted to other inconsistent uses.”

It is extraordinarily difficult to remove land from Article 97 protection, and to ensure that such removal is rare and to good purpose, the state has defined a rigorous series of steps that must be taken to effect removal. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA) Article 97 Land Disposition Policy, commonly referred to as the “No Net Loss of Conservation Land Policy,” requires that the several steps be taken to effect removal of a parcel from Article 97 protection, including:

  • The Conservation Commission must vote unanimously that the parcel is surplus to municipal, conservation, and open space needs.
  • Town Meeting must support the disposition with a two-thirds vote
  • The state legislature must support the disposition with a two-thirds vote

Not surprisingly, the process that the Conservation Commission followed is also quite rigorous. I’ll go through each issue that was considered:

  1. Have all alternative sites in Lincoln not covered by Article 97 been considered and rejected as “not feasible and substantially equivalent”? The Green Energy Committee and Solar Design Associates identified approximately 25 potential sites for solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, with a ranking system for suitability. The work showed that the landfill is the most suitable and the consensus of the Commissioners was that there are not alternative sites that are “substantially equivalent.”
  1. Does the disposition and proposed use destroy or threaten a unique or sensitive resource? Rimmer Environmental Consulting was hired to prepare a Solar Site Assessment and Habitat Evaluation of the landfill site and that report was completed in June 2016. The evaluation found that the proposed use will not destroy or threaten a unique or sensitive resource, and the commissioners supported this finding.
  1. Is real estate of equal or greater fair market value, or value in use of proposed use, whichever is greater, and significantly greater resource value provided to the municipality? The Conservation Commission then considered the 7.1 acres of the 100 Bedford Road property as the property to be provided to the town in exchange for the removal of the landfill from Article 97 protection. The potential acquisition parcels have perimeter habitat, which the commission determined are of substantially greater value (with respect to both fair market value and proposed use) than the landfill. The 100 Bedford Road property offers valuable habitat, trail connections, and vegetated buffer to other uses. The commission contacted the EOEEA and town counsel about the swap, and both parties agreed that the proposed swap is appropriate.
  1. Is the conversion of the minimum acreage necessary for the proposed use and, to the maximum extent possible, does it continue to protect the resources of the parcel proposed for disposition? The commission has not been presented with a final construction plan for the installation of solar panels on the landfill site. Accordingly, the commission determined that it would condition its approval (if all the other above conditions are met) on conducting a review of the construction documents in order to ensure that the resources continue to be protected to the maximum extent possible. Items the commission will examine include staging and work sequencing, fence detailing for wildlife passage, and restoration plant specifications.
  1. Does the disposition serve an Article 97 or another public purpose? The commission concluded that the disposition does serve an important public purpose, namely the first major source of solar PV energy for the Town. The commissioners expressed their strong support for this public purpose.

This evaluations described above were conducted over approximately one year and involved the Conservation Commission, conservation director, conservation planner, Green Energy Committee, and several consultants. On December 14, 2016, the Conservation Commission voted unanimously to remove the landfill parcel from Article 97 protection for conversion to a site for solar energy. The removal was conditioned on (1) that the 100 Bedford Road land swap, and (2) Conservation Commission approval of the solar construction plans.

In my personal opinion, the town made an intelligent decision in 1995. By putting the landfill under Article 97 protection, our citizens made it difficult for later generations to remove the land from protection without having exceptionally strong reasons. As a direct result, the outcome of this lengthy exercise will provide major victories for the town: more valuable conservation land and a large solar power installation. And we should not lose sight of the fact that the driving force behind the 100 Bedford Road acquisition is a new playing field, filling a long-felt need for the town. The solar benefit is real and the processes to enable it are complex, but to be clear, the solar benefit was a positive side effect of the playing field acquisition, not the driver of the 100 Bedford Road project. All of these positives would be gained with no additional tax burden, a serendipitous sequence of events and outcomes for the town!

Sincerely,

Richard Selden, MD, PhD
Member, Conservation Commission and Community Preservation Committee

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.

GearTicks apply tech savvy to MMNHP project

Margie Coffin Brown and Roger Fuller of Minute Man National Historic Park with three of the GearTicks (Evan Lee, Dante Muzilz and Catherine Appleby) and the park’s donation lanterns.

The Lincoln GearTicks, known for their high-tech robotic wizardry, applied their talents to a historical enterprise when they recently brought two donation boxes into the 21st century.

At Minute Man National Historical Park (MMNHP), visitors often drop coins and bills into the lantern-shaped donation boxes, which have to be designed in a way that prevents tampering and theft, since the money sometimes isn’t collected for several days. To bring the donation boxes up to current security standards, the park needed to added a security baffle to each box.

Margie Coffin Brown, resource manager at MMNHP, reached out to the GearTicks, the Lincoln-based high school robotics team that qualified for the state championship in the FIRST Tech Challenge tournament held earlier this month. After reading the National Park Service specifications on donation box construction, the students felt they could build the internal components needed to bring the old boxes up to standards.

To make the baffles, the GearTicks used a wire-bending jig to make precise bends in sheets of plastic, a common component used in the construction of small, competitive robots. In previous robot projects, the team used a heat gun, but had recently acquired the new jig to improve the functionality of their robot.

The reconditioned donation boxes (whose design was inspired by the signal lanterns hung in the Old North Church on April 19, 1775) were installed at the park late last month.

News acorns

Lincoln Fire Department receives fire education grants

The Lincoln Fire Department recently received two state grants totaling more than $6,500 for fire education for children and seniors. Lincoln’s was one of 228 Massachusetts fire departments to receive Student Awareness of Fire Education (S.A.F.E.) program grants to work with classroom teachers to deliver fire and life safety lessons. Of those, 212 departments also received a Senior SAFE program grant to work with older adults on fire and life safety. The town’s grant amounts were $3,951 S.A.F.E. and $2,596, respectively.

The S.A.F.E. Program’s allows trained firefighter-educators to work with teachers to deliver age-appropriate fire and life safety lessons that also meet the requirements of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Health Curriculum Frameworks. In the 21 years of the program’s existence, the average number of children who die in fires each year in Massachusetts has dropped by over 70 percent, according to a release from the office of Gov. Charlies Baker.

Seniors are most at risk of dying in fires in Massachusetts. Using the Senior SAFE program, fire departments partner with local senior service agencies to better educate seniors on fire prevention, general home safety and how to be better prepared to survive a fire.

Middle school stages “The Lion King Jr.”

The Lincoln School production of “The Lion King Jr.” takes place in the school auditorium on March 29, 30 and 31. Seventy student actors and 20 crew members have been rehearsing the show’s drum beats and chant-filled choruses since December. Tickets will be sold at the door ($5 for students and seniors, $10 for adults). Show times are 3:30 p.m. on March 29, and 7 p.m. on March 30 and 31.

Panel looks at journalism and democracy

For a lively conversation on the state of journalism from a local, state, national and international perspective, come to the annual FELS Talk on “Breaking News: Journalism and Democracy in the 21st Century” on Wednesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. at the LSRHS auditorium. Panelists will be:

  • Deborah Becker, senior correspondent and host, WBUR
  • Isaac Feldberg, journalism major and correspondent for The Boston Globe
  • David Grace, L-S history faculty member
  • Anne Mostue, Bloomberg News radio anchor
  • Charles Sennott, founder and executive director of The GroundTruth Project
  • Alice Waugh, founder and editor of The Lincoln Squirrel, an online newspaper

Julie Dobrow, senior fellow, media and civic engagement at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, will moderate the evening. Tickets are $10 at the door. All proceeds will benefit the Foundation for Educators at Lincoln-Sudbury.

Passover seder at First Parish

The First Parish in Lincoln will celebrate Passover with a family seder service and meal on Wednesday, April 5 at 6 p.m. in the Parish House (14 Bedford Rd.). The seder will have the elements of a traditional family haggadah and a meal of hummus and tabbouleh. It will be very participatory and feature activities for everyone in the family.

Passover celebrates the foundational story of Judaism—the release of Jews from captivity in Egypt described in Exodus. The spiritual themes of Passover remain central to the spiritual themes of Christianity and Unitarian Universalism, and are very much a part of the spiritual life of the First Parish in Lincoln. RSVPs are required. Please contact Mandy Beal, ministerial intern, at mandy@firstparishinlincoln.org or 857-208-3482.

Video explains financing and plans for Wang land purchase

The site of the Wang land just south of Bedford Road’s intersection with Route 2.

Lincoln residents will be asked at Town Meeting to approve a total of $2 million for land purchase and construction that will yield the town’s first new athletic field in more than 50 years as well as new conservation land. However, because of the type of financing that’s being considered, the expenditure will not result in any additional tax burden.

The Rural Land Foundation (RLF) and the Birches School teamed up to buy the 16-acre Wang property off Bedford and Oak Knoll Roads in November 2016. The Birches School will use four acres (including an existing 12,000-square-foot house at 100 Bedford Rd.) for its new headquarters plus a public parking lot that will also serve the adjacent athletic field. Residents will be asked to approve the purchase of the other 12 acres using Community Preservation Committee (CPC) funds.

CPC funds come from a 3 percent property tax surcharge and a partial match funds from the state (26 percent last year). The fund replenishes annually by about $950,000, and the town proposes to borrow $1.3 million over 15 years against this income. Another $500,000 will come from the general balance. The purchase will have no impact on the town’s bonding ability going forward, according to an informational video about the project distributed by the Parks and Recreation Committee.

Artist’s rendering of the new athletic field.

The total cost of $2 million breaks down to $800,000 for purchase of the land (three acres for the athletic field and nine acres for conservation) and $1.2 million for construction of the field. The town will also get a permanent easement on the parking lot that the Birches School will build—something that will save the town $500,000. Users of the field will also have access to a school bathroom.

Another benefit of the town acquiring the land is that it can be used as a “solar swap.” By adding new acreage to the town’s inventory of conservation land, it can take an equal amount out of conservation for a municipal array at the capped landfill.

The town’s current athletic fields on the school campus are in poor shape due to overuse and lack of irrigation. Assuming all goes as planned, the new field will be built by September 2017 and ready for use in August 2018. Conservation officials also plan to make trail connections from the new conservation land to adjacent parcels.

After the Park and Rec video was released, the committee answered questions posed by residents on LincolnTalk. Those answers are reprinted below.

Would putting synthetic turf in help with heavy field usage? 

Yes, artificial or synthetic turf is much more durable than natural grass fields. Community Preservation Act funds, however, can’t be used to pay for an artificial turf field. There are also a number of growing concerns with artificial turf, including high temperatures for children, off-gassing of the materials as well as the fact that there are still ongoing maintenance costs. While cost savings have been highlighted as among the benefits of an artificial turf field, the life expectancy and costs savings for artificial turf fields are now being questioned.

Has anyone studied the projected traffic onto Bedford Road and Route 2? 

Yes, Birches School and the Rural Land Foundation hired MDM Transportation to perform a traffic study of the area. They found that “the expanded Birches School and adjoining soccer field use will be accommodated along Bedford Road at operating levels that are well below capacity under full enrollment and during soccer field use periods (weeknights and Saturdays).” There will be a number of site improvements made to the area, including improving sight lines and widening the existing driveway to enable two exit lanes and one entry lane.

You mention that the Selectmen, FinComm, CapComm and School Committee are supporting this project. Is the Planning Board in support? 

We specifically approached the Selectmen, the Finance Committee, the Capital Committee and School Committee for their support of the project, but did not ask the Planning Board. We, however, did receive site plan approval for the project.

Has the Chief of Police signed off on this project? 

The police chief is aware of the project and has not expressed concern, although his formal approval was not part of the site plan approval process. The fire chief has signed off on emergency access to the property and our highway superintendent, and the town’s consulting engineer (not the project engineer) have reviewed our traffic study and are informing our site management plans.

Will there be any neighbors to whom the field and parking lot will be visible, who formerly saw only woods?

There is one immediate abutter, and we have worked closely with them to make sure that they are not negatively impacted, using landscape and fencing to ensure privacy. In addition, we met early on with the immediate neighborhood to not only share the initial announcement with them, but also to solicit their questions and concerns. The current site plan reflects their feedback.

The Carroll School on the Wayland/Lincoln border is creating new athletic fields. Is it possible to rent those? 

The Carroll School will not be renting the fields to area towns or schools in response to neighborhood concerns.

Have you looked at any other single-family lots in Lincoln on which to build a field? 

We have been actively looking for the past 15 years at all opportunities; however, for a number of reasons these other lots have not panned out. The Wang property at 100 Bedford Road works for several reasons, including access from Route 2 and the center of town; low impact on neighbors; and the partnership with the Rural Land Foundation, which makes the potential acquisition feasible since they are in essence providing the town with a bridge loan, giving us the time we need to examine the transaction in the Town Meeting framework; and the partnership with Birches School provides a number of cost savings related to the parking lot and restroom facility.

Why can’t the town build an athletic field on the flat lot abutting the school by the Smith building? 

The agricultural field behind the Smith School is privately owned and mostly in conservation. Taking land out of permanent conservation designation is an extremely difficult process. It requires permission of the land owner and then involves finding a lot with comparable conservation value to swap. Approval from the Conservation Commission, Town Meeting and the Commonwealth is also required. In the 15 years that we have been searching, we have not been able to find a lot that would be large enough to accommodate a field of this size with adequate parking, let alone a flat, open parcel.

Wetlands boardwalk opening set for April 2

The new wetlands boardwalk (click to enlarge).

Town officials will open a new wetlands boardwalk on Sunday, April 2 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the result of six years of planning and fundraising.

Several years ago, Lincoln School science teacher Terry Green and others envisioned a new boardwalk behind the school as a great learning experience for students. (An old boardwalk had fallen into disrepair and was pulled out.) The boardwalk is reached from a trail from behind the Smith playground running north to the town muster field at the intersection of Sandy Pond and Baker Bridge Roads. It includes an outdoor “classroom space” where groups can gather to learn about the wetlands.

The project was funded by the Lincoln Public Schools, the Lincoln Community Preservation Committee, the Lincoln School Foundation and the Lincoln Cultural Council.

Attendees at the opening  may park in the Smith parking lot; the boardwalk path begins behind the green playground.

Candidates offer views on wide range of issues

Twelve of the residents who are on the ballot for Lincoln’s local election gathered to answer questions at a moderated candidate forum at Lincoln Woods on March 11.

Before the forum, each candidate was asked by the Lincoln Woods Advisory Council, which organized the event, to respond in writing to two questions. Those answers, which were the basis for much of Saturday’s discussion, were published in the Lincoln Squirrel in three batches last week but have now been compiled into a single post here. That compilation includes a previously unpublished response from Jonathan Dwyer, candidate for the Board of Selectmen, who was not at the forum.

The videotaped event (from which these photos were taken) is available online here. Forum questions from moderator August Sanders and the candidates’ answers are excerpted below.

Melinda Abraham

Melinda Abraham

Running unopposed to reelection as a Bemis trustee (one year)

Q: What can we do to increase engagement and diversity?

Abraham noted that the Bemis Free Lecture Series has had several speakers from WGBH because one of the former trustees had a connection there. “We were taking advantage of a one-time opportunity… but we’d like to engage additional speakers. Trying to do it with our limited budget has been our challenge,” she said. One possibility is engaging people who are already in the area on a book your so the trust doesn’t have to reimburse for travel.

Jennifer Glass

Jennifer Glass

Running against Allen Vander Meulen for one-year vacancy on Board of Selectmen; current chair, School Committee

Q: How do you respond to those who might think you’re running for Selectman to get more clout to push through a school project?

A: “Certainly there’s a little piece of that that is true, in that we are on the verge as a town of making generational decisions” on issues including a community center, Parks and Recreation, affordable housing and South Lincoln, Glass said. “A school project is one of them, though clearly it represents the largest dollar amount. What I would say is I have a lot of experience, because we’ve been talking about a school project for so long [and we need to] see all of these parts in context with each other. I’ve had the opportunity to reach out to a lot of boards and citizens in town. I understand what it is to make mistakes, to learn from them, and own up to them keeping the conversation going even when it’s hard. What I’m really interested in is looking at our community as a whole… who are we going to be for the next several decades.

Q: How can we create affordable housing while being mindful of the costs associated with such as effort?

“One of our core values is trying to be as diverse a community as possible… Yes, [affordable housing] may draw on resources, but that’s OK. I think that’s an investment in who we are and who we want to be.”

Noting that the next Board of Selectmen will consist of two newcomers and a member with only one year of experience, Glass said, “I think it’s a really an opportunity. We have that chance to start a little bit from a clean slate and ask question—why is it done this way, how do we make what’s working and move it forward?”

Lynn DeLisi

Lynn DeLisi

Running unopposed for Planning Board (three years)

Q: You wrote [in your pre-forum response] that you’d like to see more enforcement of our bylaws. Can you expand on that statement? 

A: “When I volunteered four years ago [for the Planning Board], I was very excited about learning something new and contributing to our community. I found that we rigorously try to protect the bylaws put together at Town Meetings, yet we don’t have any method of enforcing what we do,” aside from the limited resources of the police and the building inspector, she said. “I think we need to open a town discussion on how we enforce the bylaws.”

Q: What is your vision for Lincoln Center and what is the role of Planning Board in that?

DeLisi noted that there had been a report on South Lincoln as well as an advisory committee and a consultant, “and we kept on thinking and talking and there was no action.” As a member of the search committee to hire a new town planner last year, “my main drive was looking at their personalities and whether this was someone who had the internal drive to do things that a planner should do. And one thing a planner should do is revitalize the town center… taking the initiative and running with it. That’s exactly what [Jennifer Burney] did. She created a vision for how we go about this” by prompting formation of the Economic Development Advisory Committee [EDAC] and the South Lincoln Implementation Planning Committee [SLPIC].

Another important issue is recreational marijuana, which is now legal in Massachusetts, “but we as a town haven’t come up with how we’re going to handle it. This is a billion-dollar business, as we’ve seen in Colorado. We have to decide what we want. Will there be stores in South Lincoln selling it? Will there be a lot of people growing it? Marijuana used in adolescents clearly affects the brain in a bad way,” said DeLisi, who is a psychiatrist. “I don’t want to see that be more accessible to young people in our community” who could buy cookies and candy containing marijuana in Lincoln Center.

Ruth Ann Hendrickson

Ruth Ann Hendrickson

Running unopposed for Water Commission (three years)

Hendrickson displayed a graph showing water levels in Flint’s Pond over the past few years. In summer 2016, largely due to lawn watering during the drought, “we used more water than we ever have in the history of the town. Even though we’ve had a normal amount of rain this winter, we’re starting very, very low. It’s very serious and I’m asking you not to water your lawns.” She asked anyone to come to her with ideas about “how to approach wealthy people who water their lawns no matter what… they have people for that and don’t care what it costs.”

Asked what water conservation actions Lincolnites could take, she said, “Not water your lawn. Most lawns will revive when the rains come again.” She also recommended using drip irrigation and re-landscaping with ground cover and bushes, and if grass is used, using a long-root, drought-resistant variety in small areas. Indoors, toilets and the washer use about half the home’s water, and the town provides rebates for purchasing water-efficient appliances.

Lincoln should consider the recent suggestion of a town communications subcommittee, because “I don’t think we’re using the modern communications techniques of the younger generation. Asking someone to come to a meeting just isn’t working any more… We need to reach out to find other new ways to make not only information available, but also discussions, Snapchat or whatever they’re using,” she said.

Rakesh Karmacharya

Rakesh Karmacharya

Running for Housing Commission (one year)

Karmacharya is interested in exploring “nontraditional housing options” such as homeowners renting out rooms in exchange for helping around the house, shopping and other errands, etc. This would open low-cost housing opportunities in Lincoln for younger people (including, for example, teachers at LEAP) while also helping elderly residents remain in their homes for as long as possible.

“There are a lot of elderly who live alone, as well as families with young kids, but there’s not as much interaction [as there could be] between those two vibrant groups… [we might be able to] create surrogate grandparents and surrogate grandchildren” for seniors whose extended family live far away. “I see housing as part of the bigger fabric of community,” he said.

Stanley Solomon

Stanley Solomon

Running against John MacLachlan for Bemis trustee (three years)

“The people I think of that would be good speakers are people from the STEM world and people from outdoors,” said Stanley, 85. “And I promise I will not be running around in Lincoln politics for the next 15 years.”

Q: Do you see a role for trustees to collaborate wth other town commissions?

“The Bemis Trust should confine its activities to providing what the trust was established for. I think the rest of Lincoln has enough committees and people to take care of things they’re there for. I don’t see see this kind of interdisciplinary thing as being beneficial.”

John MacLachlan

John MacLachlan

Running against Stanley Solomon for Bemis trustee (three years)

“To be honest, after the last [national] election, I felt obligated to get more engaged with the community,”  MacLachlan said when asked what inspired him to run for town office after living in Lincoln for only three years. “I’ve been to a number of events where there were mainly elderly people and few young families, or the reverse. It would be nice to have more young families there, with [Bemis Lecture Series] topics that topics that would engage both the elderly and the young.”

MacLachlin has also been asked by the Parks and Recreation Commission to fill an appointed seat, and he said that he could hold both posts, but “would be happy to allow Stanley to take that position” as a Bemis trustee.

Fred Mansfield

Fred Mansfield

Running unopposed for reelection to the Board of Health (three years)

Mansfield was asked about how the town could balance its emphasis on protecting the environment with the need to protect residents’ health in the face of threats from Lyme disease and other tick-borne and mosquito-borne illnesses, and what (if anything) the Board of Health can do to mitigate those threats.

State environmental officials set traps for mosquitoes and monitor what diseases they’re carrying, which can also include West Nile virus and (perhaps eventually) Zika, Mansfield said. However, “we don’t have much in the way of mosquito control because [homes in Lincoln] are so dispersed.” There are a few catch basins in which the town could put larvicide, and if there was a major outbreak of mosquito-borne illness, helicopters could do aerial spraying of insecticide, he said.

As for ticks, Mansfield recommended that residents pull their socks up over their pant legs, put on insect repellant containing permethrin on their socks, and check themselves carefully for ticks. “We have no way of controlling the deer or the mice that are part of the [Lyme disease] cycle, and we won’t really have a solution other than prevention,” he said. According to Mansfield, his fellow Board of Health member Steven Kanner, an internist, has advised that anyone who finds a tick on his or her body, even without an obvious bite or bull’s-eye lesion, to “take two doxycycline pills and forget about it, trying to prevent things rather than treat them.”

The candidate was also asked about the leaf blower issue. In 2015, the Board of Health went on record as saying that airborne particles and noise from gas-powered leaf blowers are a health hazard, but later distanced itself from proposed restrictions on use of the machines by homeowners not in the South Lincoln commercial area.

“Our thought was that the Board of Health doesn’t have an enforcement arm, and Lincoln Police were not interested in taking that on,” he said. “The question is how would they do that. Do they go around with noise meters?” The board instead supports “neighborly agreements” to limit the times of year that gas-powered leaf blowers and string trimmers could be used. If this didn’t work, “we’ll probably go in front of Town Meeting and it will probably be voted down because people don’t want to pay contractors to rake by hand, and electric leaf blowers are not as powerful,” he said.

Patty Mostue

Patty Mostue

Running unopposed for reelection to the Lincoln-Sudbury School Committee (three years); former Lincoln School Committee member

“What I like about Lincoln is what I also like about the high school—the great sense of community,” Mostue said. Recent innovations at L-S include the We Are Warriors program aimed at students who may not be college-bound that helps them feel “they belong in the high school no matter what their path to higher education or work.”

“There are new people moving into Lincoln who don’t always take part in Town Meeting… I think it would be a danger to lose the sense of community that has to be guarded and nurtured all the time,” Mostue said when asked what she would like to see changed about Lincoln.

Rick Rundell

Rick Rundell

Running unopposed for reelection to the Planning Board (three years)

Q: In your written response, you said you’d like to see broader civic engagement. Is there a way the Planning Board can help with that?

Rundell noted that there are now greater opportunities for participating in the planning and economic development process with the creation of the EDAC and the SLPIC. The EDAC will be help in promote the economic health of the town by bringing together people in the business and nonprofit communities, including those who are not Lincoln residents but have an interest in seeing those businesses succeed.

Laura Sander

Laura Sander

Running unopposed for the Board of Assessors (three years); current member of the Finance Committee

As a Finance Committee member, Sander said she has “learned a lot about Lincoln finances—in particular, property taxes, which account for about 76 percent of our revenue. The oversight of that resource is really critical to how we function. We really need to be aware of our taxing capacity and how we can best utilize that. This is outside the purview of the Board of Assessors, but as a town, as we think about more commercial development or more affordable housing, we have to think about the impacts and what that means to us as taxpayers.”

Q: You wrote, “I would like to ensure that the oasis that we work hard to maintain is not an enclave that is separate from the rest of the world and its concerns.” Can you give a couple of examples of how to work harder to promote this vision?

A: “I get really concerned about the fact that we can pay a lot of lip service” to things like METCO and affordable housing, “but we need to engage with each other,” Sander said. “I don’t have specific solutions for how to do that… but if we’re not engaging somehow, we’re not getting enough out of that. We have to think about how do we create forums that allow people to really interact.”

Allen Vander Meulen

Allen Vander Meulen

Running against Jennifer Glass for one-year vacancy on the Board of Selectman; current member of Housing Commission and SLPIC

Q: Can you expand on your definition of “the Lincoln way” and how it can be improved upon?

A: “To me, the Lincoln way means that we’re all part of the community. There’s not some elite that’s driving us; everyone’s voice is important… even if you disagree with someone, [making sure] their voice is heard and taken seriously, making sure that one group doesn’t get to trump the other or create a lot of division that doesn’t need to be there,” Vander Meulen said. In his previous career as an IT manager he said he often dealt with situations where “everyone was at each other’s throat or had no idea how to get where they needed to go,” and his skill was “building consensus and a sense of camaraderie and mutual direction.”

“As a minister and a volunteer, your focus is on building the community, facilitating dialogue, and making sure the people who aren’t involved are. One thing you can’t do is just sit back and wait for people to come to you. I know too many churches that died thinking a fresh coat of paint on the front door and new carpeting would solve their problems.”

Of his opponent Glass, Vander Meulen said, “I’ve been very impressed with her. No matter who wins this election, you’ll see both of us around for a very, very long time.”

“That’s either a promise or a threat,” Glass said to laughter.