Orange wildlife photographed by Harold McAleer. (For those puzzled by the headline reference, click here.)
A reticulated net-winged beetle.
A red squirrel in Lincoln (though of course not THE Lincoln Squirrel).
A land deal inked last week could mean that Lincoln will get three benefits for the price of one: a new town athletic field, a new building for the Birches School, and several acres of conservation land.
The Rural Land Foundation (RLF) and Birches together exercised an option on September 30 to buy a 16-acre property at 100 Bedford Road from the estate of Lorraine Wang, who died in March at the age of 95. She was the widow of An Wang, founder of Wang Laboratories, Inc., and helped establish the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston.
Geoff McGean, executive director of the RLF, would not disclose the dollar amount of the sale, but it is expected to be below market value. The seven parcels of land along Bedford Road and Oak Knoll Road (with one piece on the east side of Bedford Road) has a total assessed value of $2.3 million and a full development value of $3 million to 4 million, he said. The RLF entered into the option with the Wang family in September, and the sale is expected to close in November, he added.
If Town Meeting approves the purchase of some of the land for an athletic field in March, the approximate division of the property will be four acres for the Birches School, three acres for the athletic field and buffer overseen by the Parks and Recreation Department, and nine acres for conservation, McGean said.
Birches School students read outside.
The Birches School has reached maximum capacity at its current home in the Stone Church across from Bemis Hall and has been looking for a larger home, preferably in Lincoln, which would be in keeping with its curriculum focus. “We couldn’t realize our nature-based mission almost anywhere else in greater Boston,” said Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, head of school.
The school’s share of the Bedford Road property will include the Wangs’ 12,000-square-foot house; once it’s renovated and brought up to school building code, the entire school hopes to move there. D.W. Arthur Architects, which is headed by Lincoln residents Woodie and Loretta Arthur, will design the renovations, ten Grotenhuis said. In the interim, the school plans a phased move-in starting in September 2017 with middle-school grades, including this year’s sixth-graders.
Birches now has 45 students in grades K-6. It will eventually include grades K-8 with a projected enrollment of no more than 95 students. “We’re a micro-school—that’s what we do,” said Cecily Wardell, director of admissions and placement and director of student services.
A Wednesday evening meeting with abutters that included RLF, Park and Rec, and Birches School representatives went well, ten Grotenhuis said. Although cars will enter and exit the property from Bedford Road rather than Oak Knoll Road, there were a few concerns about traffic, but one of the school’s first priorities is doing a traffic study.
“We want to approach everything with as much transparency as possible—open heart, open mind,” ten Grotenhuis said. Neighbors seemed generally supportive, she added, partly because “we are a Lincoln organization and we tread lightly on the ground. it’s not like we’re a foreign entity moving in.”
Like the Birches School, Parks and Rec has been looking for more space for years. When Parks and Rec Director Dan Pereira started in Lincoln 20 years ago, the town had just finished renovating its athletic fields, “but within five or six years, they were degrading so fast, just getting heavily beat up between school sports, youth community… and it was clear we weren’t going to be able to give them the rest they needed,” he said.
Parks and Rec hopes to build a full-size 1.5-acre athletic field that will be used primarily (though not exclusively) for soccer by the town and the Lincoln School. Lincoln Youth Soccer will welcome Birches students even if they are not town residents, ten Grotenhuis said.
It would be at least 18 months from the start of work until the field was ready, Pereira said. Leveling and planting the field is straightforward, but new fields require two full growing seasons before they can be used, he said.
There are no specific plans for the conservation portion other than trails west of Oak Knoll Road connecting to Flint’s Pond land, and east of Bedford Road to the Wheeler Farm land, McGean said. Eventually, older Birches School students will be able to walk from the school all the way to Walden Pond entirely through conservation land.
“We can just imagine Thoreau walking through those woods,” said ten Grotenhuis, who;s already planning field trips. “What a way to study him!”
The town of Lincoln now offers the opportunity for early voting at Town Hall from October 24 to November 4. Hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Tuesday and Thursday (October 25 and 27, November 1 and 3) from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Anyone with questions may call 781-259-2607 or email brookss@lincolntown.org.
The annual State of the Town meeting—a uniquely Lincoln tradition that provides the opportunity for residents to help shape the decisions of their elected and appointed representatives—will be held on Saturday, Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The agenda will include:
Some past Lincoln Squirrel stories on these issues:
Town officials and others recently donned hardhats and wielded shovels at two different Lincoln sites: the First Parish Church, which is doing interior renovations, and Care Dimensions’ new Greater Boston Hospice House on Winter Street. (Never mind that construction activity had already begun in both places—it’s the thought that counts.)
The hospice facility, slated for completion by November 2017, will feature 18 private patient suites including two pediatric suites for terminally ill patients and their families. Last year, Care Dimensions, which also operates the Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers, cared for more than 1,300 patients living within 15 miles of the Lincoln site.
Work at the church is expected to be complete by June 1, 2017.
The Building Committee of the First Parish in Lincoln celebrates the groundbreaking of the renovation project for the church at 4 Bedford Road. Left to right: Doug Detweiler, Ken Bassett, Mary Helen Lorenz, Ken Hurd, Peter Sugar and Barbara Sampson. (Photo courtesy Kathy Harvey-Ellis)
Representatives from the town of Lincoln along with Care Dimensions president and board members at the September 27 groundbreaking ceremony for the new Greater Boston Hospice House. Left to right: Selectman Peter Braun, Town Administrator Tim Higgins, Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Joel Freedman, Care Dimensions President Diane Stringer, and Phil Cormier, Vice Chair of the Care Dimensions Board of Directors. (Photo by Mike Dean)
Larry Kroin
Larry Kroin, 70 (September 29) — former owner of kitchen and bath design firm.
Elizabeth Marble
Elizabeth Marble, 82 (September 12) — former teacher at Magic Garden Children’s Center in the early 1990s.
Edna Grason
Edna Grason, 96 (July 11) — Lincoln historian and co-founder of Grason-Stadler, Inc.
John Stankard
John Stankard, 48 (July 9) — worked in the family excavating business, Stankard Excavation in Lincoln.
The Board of Selectmen has formally thanked State Rep. Thomas Stanley in a September 13 letter for securing $100,000 for Lincoln to help offset the costs of educating the children of retired-military families living on Hanscom Air Force Base (HAFB) this year.
Gov. Charlie Baker originally vetoed the funding in the state’s fiscal 2017 budget, but Rep. Stanley successfully lobbied legislative leaders and restored the $100,000.
“The number of non-active, retiree families is projected to keep growing over time and will be unsustainable in the near future for Lincoln,” says the August issue of The Stanley Report, a monthly email newsletter produced by Stanley’s office.
HAFB has about 730 housing units, all within Lincoln’s municipal boundary, though the town cannot collect property taxes on that land, as explained in an FAQ published by the town. The federal government has an enrollment-based contract with Lincoln to educate K-8 children of active-duty Air Force and Defense Department employees living on the base.
About four years ago when the base housing was renovated, some retirees from active-duty military service began living there as well. However, the federal education contract with Lincoln does not cover their children, which now number about 30. Lincoln’s aggregate contract revenue has been sufficient to absorb the costs of the Hanscom retirees’ children in grades K-8 without additional money from the town, though costs would rise sharply if any of the students needed out-of-district special education services.
Going forward, however, the town will no longer be liable for any of those costs because the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will include the Hanscom retirees’ children in the enrollment figure that determines yearly state aid to schools.
“We were quite surprised and pleased about that,” Selectman Peter Braun said.
The town of Bedford has also receives subsidies from both the federal and state governments to educate children of active-duty personnel in grades 9-12 at Bedford High School, partly because of a deal in the 1950s whereby Bedford agreed to educate those children in perpetuity in exchange for a federal grant to build the original high school.
However, high-school children of retirees are another matter. The first retiree-family high school student emerged two years ago, and there were three more each in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Because the students live in the town of Lincoln, Bedford argued that they should enroll at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, while Lincoln argued they should be able to go to the same high school as their Hanscom Middle School classmates. Lincoln eventually agreed to pay Bedford about $17,000 per student to allow them to enroll at Bedford High. But Bedford has said it will not allow any more retirees’ children at its high school after this year.
Bedford Superintendent Schools Jon Sills did not returns calls on Friday and Tuesday.
The Trails’ Enders (formerly the Whistle Stoppers), left to right: Barry Palu, birthday boy Bryan Ernst, Jim Nicholson, Judy Fox, John Ciraso and John Snelling. (Photos by Alice Waugh)
Trail’s End Café welcomed its first customers on Monday morning in the Lincoln space occupied by the former Whistle Stop—and just as he was for the Whistle Stop, Barry Palu was its very first customer.
Palu is one of a group of former Whistle Stop regulars who met to eat breakfast, solve the newspaper crossword puzzle and kid around over coffee. They were left without a meeting place after the Whistle Stop closed in July, but Palu eagerly anticipated its successor. He arrived half an hour after Trail’s End Café opened at 6:30 a.m. but was the only customer. But by 10:00, the place was busy, and he and his friends were ensconced at an outdoor table on the warm, early fall morning.
Trail’s End Café doesn’t look much different from the Whistle Stop except for the shiny new espresso machines, but customers were delighted with the experience. “It’s fantastic—there’s no comparison,” Palu said. His friend Judy Fox agreed as she sang the praises of the steel-cut oatmeal she had for breakfast.
“It’s a little higher [in price], but well worth it to me,” Palu added.
The café serves breakfast and lunch (primarily soups, salads and sandwiches), since it doesn’t have any cooking equipment aside from an oven. Those in search of dinner will have to wait until the debut of Trail’s End Kitchen, which will open in the former Aka Bistro space later this fall or early winter after completing renovations.
“It will be a very different feeling from what was there before,” said co-owner Elizabeth Akehurst-Moore. It will be homey, serving “carefully crafted comfort food” for lunch and dinner along with both a kids’ menu and cocktails, wine and draft beer.
General manager Bree Showalter fills an order at the Trails’ End Café.
All three eateries are owned by Akehurst-Moore and her parents, Lincoln residents Jim and Carol Wright, who opened the Concord location in 2011 as a breakfast spot and began serving dinner in 2014. Although they weren’t actively looking to open another location, they were approached by some people who encouraged them to consider the old library in Weston Center, but residents subsequently decided to turn the site into the Weston Art and Innovation Center, Akehurst-Moore said. After Aka Bistro closed, others urged them to consider that site, “and we thought it had good potential,” she said. They signed leases for both locations on August 31.
Asked how she viewed the market for her Lincoln venture, Akehurst-Moore said, “I think personally what Lincoln needs is what we’re going to provide: good food but not an overly formal, white-tablecloth setting—a place you can go on a regular basis that’s affordable but high-quality. I think we’ll be a draw for the whole area.”
Although the Concord restaurant hosts music including jazz brunches, Akehurst-Moore said it would depend on the configuration of the space at Trail’s End Kitchen as to whether they could do something similar there, though she said they would certainly be open to renting out the entire facility for private parties.
Robin Bogner (right) and her sons Mateo, 6, and Skylar, 8, enjoy breakfast.
The one thing Akehurst-Moore is sure about is that she’s going to get busier. She’s expecting a baby over the winter to go along with her five-year-old twins, and she’s also involved in developing the Concord Market, which has gotten approval to open in Millbrook Tarry, the same commercial plaza occupied by Trail’s End on Lowell Road in Concord, though not for about a year. The Lincoln venture is the latest stop in a career that began when she earned an art history degree and a master’s degree in architectural preservation and then became a lawyer.
“I have a great staff, obviously,” said Akehurst-Moore, who works closely with Bree Showalter, the general manager of the restaurants who also manned the counter in Lincoln on Monday. “A huge part is getting a team together that’s motivated and hard-working and talented and just as crazy as I am,” she added with a chuckle.
Trail’s End Café will be open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
To the editor:
Voters deserve and need to hear from a candidate for President who is honest about issues that concern all Americans and who provides concrete changes and solutions. They need to hear from a candidate who does not take any contributions from Wall Street bankers, corporations or billionaires. Voters are starving to hear from a candidate that believes a positive future is possible and that she is with the majority of American voters today who no longer identify with the Republican or Democratic parties. Voters also need to know that Jill Stein has been and is being stifled at every turn by the dying but very wealthy Republican and Democratic parties.
The Commission on Presidential debates provides stark evidence of just how desperate and fraudulent the democratic and republican parties have become. The debates, controlled only by the Republican and Democratic National Committees, do not include all the Presidential candidates on the ballot and do not welcome open discussion of a broad diversity of ideas.
Voters need to know that Jill Stein is highly qualified to be president and will be on the ballot in November in enough states to win the presidency, if the electoral system works fairly and if it is open to all qualified voters. I will be voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party because I truly believe that the lives of all living things on earth depend on her winning. When people, especially young people, hear what she is saying, they eagerly support her ideas. Please check her out at www.jill2016.com.
Sincerely,
Jean Palmer
Tower 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.
A coalition of Lincoln groups will hold a town-wide forum on “Generation-Based Strengths and Differences” on Sunday, Oct.16 from 2-4 p.m. at Bemis Hall. The interactive event will explore the characteristics and strengths of each generation to give attendees a greater understanding of different age groups than their own.
Facilitators for the forum will be Carolyn Bottum, director of the Lincoln Council on Aging; Sharon Antia, convenor of the Lincoln Diversity Council; Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti, Senior Minister at the First Parish in Lincoln; and Jessica Packineau, board member of the Lincoln Family Association.
In preparation for the event, the sponsoring organizations are encouraging participants to read Haydn Shaw’s book Sticking Points: How to Get 4 Generations Working Together in the 12 Places They Come Apart. The Lincoln Public Library has reserve copies for Lincoln town residents.
The Lincoln Girl Scouts will be providing childcare for families during this forum; children can choose watching a movie together (Zootopia) or participating in games and activities. As this is a fundraiser for the troop, there is a suggested voluntary donation of $5 per child. If you are planning on bringing your child(ren), please RSVP with how many kids and their ages to Jessica Packineau at jessica.packineau@gmail.com.
A training for those wishing to serve as election workers in the 2016 Presidential Election will be offered on Wednesday, Oct. 5 in the Donaldson Room at Town Hall from 7-9 p.m. Please call the Town Clerk’s Office at 781-259-2607 to pre-register; space is limited.
The Lincoln Library Film Society presents My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, rated R) on Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. in the library’s Tarbell Room. Directed by Stephen Fears, My Beautiful Laundrette is an uncommon love story that takes place between a youth South London Pakistani man (Gordon Warnecke) who decides to open an upscale laundromat to make his family proud, and his childhood friend, a skinhead (Daniel Day-Lewis) who volunteers to help make his dream a reality. The culture-class comedy is also a subversive work of social realism that addresses racism, homophobia and sociopolitical marginalization in Margaret Thatcher’s England. Refreshments will be served.
Lincoln Nursery School, a cooperative preschool at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, will hold its annual Open House on Saturday, Oct. 15 from 9-11 a.m. This is a relaxed opportunity for interested families to tour the studios and play areas as well as meet some of the current parents, teachers and director Nancy Fincke.
