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

Police chief talks about progress and challenges

Lincoln Police Chief A. Kevin Kennedy.

Lincoln Police Chief A. Kevin Kennedy.

A new “Coffee with a Cop” program, video recording of police encounters, the opioid crisis and the possible legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts are just some of the topics Chief of Police A. Kevin Kennedy  touched on in a wide-ranging interview with the Lincoln Squirrel.

Staring on September 15, Kennedy will host the Lincoln Police Department’s inaugural Coffee with a Cop program in which police will meet with residents on the third Thursday of every month at Bemis Hall from 1-2 p.m. A different officer will be on hand each month to answer questions in either  small groups or one on one.

“There’s no agenda. People can come in and talk about whatever questions or concerns they have,” Kennedy said. “It’s just a way for us to be more involved with the community and answer question residents may have, when they’re maybe not as comfortable coming into the station.”

Questions and issues that may arise range from traffic concerns, handling disputes with neighbors, difficulties with a child, or concerns about driving by an older adult, said Kennedy, adding that he was open to holding an evening session in there was enough interest.

“We mediate and arbitrate things all the time. We’re more of a community-oriented police department offering social services—how can we help people in crisis? How can we point them [victims, suspects and family members] in the right direction?”

Jail diversion coordinator

Calls involving people with mental health issues are fairly common in police work, and Lincoln has another tool to help in those situations. Eight Middlesex County towns including Lincoln got a three-year grant to fund a clinical coordinator for the Regional Jail Diversion Program.

“We know that assaults, larcenies and property crimes are often committed by those with mental health or substance abuse issues,” Acton Police Chief Francis Widmayer said in a statement when clinical coordinator Alia Toran-Burrell was hired in December. “Our goal when we began this coalition was to put residents into treatment instead of behind bars. With the assistance of our clinical coordinator, who will train officers in all our communities on how best to respond to mental health or substance abuse related incidents, we can reduce crimes and change lives.”

The opioid crisis

While Lincoln is not a hub of drug-dealing activity, some criminal activity such as house break-ins can be traced to the opioid epidemic, Kennedy said. Lincoln fire and police personnel carry Narcan, a drug that can quickly reverse an opioid overdose at the scene; the Fire Department has used Narcan on at least one call in Lincoln, though police have not, he said.

“It’s here, it’s everywhere, and no community is immune from it,” Kennedy said.

Video recording of police encounters

Millions of people in recent months have seen the videos of police shootings recorded on bystanders’ cell phones. It’s perfectly legal to film a police encounter as long as it doesn’t interfere with officers’ work, and since cell phones are everywhere, “police are always under the assumption that they’re being filmed,” Kennedy said. At the police station, interrogations and bookings in police stations are also recorded on audio and video.

Some have suggested that police wear body cameras to record encounters, something that could protect both police and civilians when a situation turns violent or the facts are in dispute. But there are legal and privacy concerns as well as possible reluctance on the part of victims and others to speak candidly to police if they know they’re being filmed, Kennedy said. Still, “it’s something we’re definitely looking into… There’s a balance there somewhere, and law enforcement is trying to work out that balance now.”

In the end, police training and preparation are the biggest factors in keeping situations from getting out of control. “You never know who you’re going to be in contact with, or their prior experiences with law enforcement, or whether they have a mental health issue, so officers rely on their training,” Kennedy said. “I can’t emphasize enough the amount of training we’ve done.”

Asked about his take on some of the recent well-publicized shootings involving police officers, Kennedy, replied, “Being on the sidelines without knowing about everything is not fair to make a comment on. Only grand juries hear all the evidence; not everything is released to the public. The public wants [a judgment] immediately, but they have to maintain the integrity of the investigation.

“It all reverts back to officer training, their involvement in the community, and officers treating people with respect and dignity no matter who they are, whether they’re victims of a crime or a suspect,” Kennedy continued.

RESIST training

RESIST, Lincoln’s self-defense class for women, has been very successful since its inception in 2013. The program, which is coordinated by Lincoln resident Jena Salon, was developed by Lincoln police officers who have undergone the more comprehensive 40-hour RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) program, and one of the officers is also a former defensive tactics police instructor. The program teaches situational awareness, confidence-building and escape from attackers rather than fighting back.

RESIST has been so successful that the Domestic Violence Services Network (DVSN) has applied for a grant to offer it, and Lincoln police have trained officers in other communities how to teach it as well. “We’ve had nothing but tremendous feedback,” Kennedy said.

Marijuana

Massachusetts is one of five states that will have a ballot question in November asking voters whether to legalize recreational marijuana (the Commonwealth has allowed medical use of the drug since 2012). But marijuana laws have been evolving for years, Kennedy noted. The drug was decriminalized in 2008, meaning that possession of less than one ounce does not result in arrest but incurs only a civil fine of $100.

“Case law has really dictated over the last couple of years what cops can or can’t do when they come in contact” with the drug, either visually or by smelling burnt or raw marijuana, Kennedy said. Odor alone does not entitle police to perform a search, and if an officer sees the drug, “it has to be immediately apparent to you that’s a criminal amount of marijuana” with an intent to distribute before they can take action, he said.

Police concerns over legalization of recreational marijuana revolve around possible increases in use by juveniles and traffic accidents resulting from driving while impaired, Kennedy said. Right now there is no legal limit for the amount of THC (marijuana’s active ingredient) in the bloodstream for driving and no quick test anyway, so officers have to rely on drug recognition training. If an officer believes a driver is impaired by a drug but is not driving to endanger, they can take the keys away but can’t make an arrest or issue a ticket, Kennedy said.

Security is already an issue for medical dispensaries because marijuana distribution is “a cash-and-carry business,” Kennedy noted. Because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level where interstate financial transactions occur, dispensaries can’t accept credit cards or checks.

“It’s very challenging for law enforcement… but we’ll enforce the law whatever it is, and whatever changes in our policies and procedures are needed, we will cert comply and get trained.”

News acorns

acornHATS meeting on Thursday

The next meeting of HATS (Hanscom Area Towns Committee) on Thursday, July 28 will host a round-table discussion of regional transportation issues. Click here for the agenda and expected guests. The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Town Offices.

Middle-school girls’ soccer clinic scheduled

The Warriors Soccer Clinic for girls entering grades 5-8 clinic will take place on August 22-24 from 9-11:30 a.m. on the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School turf field. The clinic, which is the primary fundraising event for the L-S girls’ soccer program, will be run by returning members of the L-S varsity girls’ soccer team supervised by at least one of the L-S girls’ soccer coaches. The cost is $90. The first 25 players to sign up will have an opportunity to enter a free raffle. Register online and mail a check for $90 made out to “LSRHS Girls Soccer” to LSRHS Girls Soccer c/o Hayley Barnes, 42 Mary Catherine Lane, Sudbury, MA 01776. E-mail lsgirlssoccer@gmail.com with any questions.

Trail’s End vies with Blazes for Aka Bistro space

Aka BistroThe identity of the future tenant of the AKA Bistro restaurant space is very much up in the air, as Trail’s End Cafe in Concord is also hoping to lease it, even as Richard Card of Blazes said he can’t wait much longer for an answer from the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the Mall at Lincoln Station.

“We’re still in discussions with a few potential tenants for the AKA space and we hope to have more to report in the next couple of weeks,” Geoff McGean, executive director of the RLF, in an email on July 20. Asked if Trail’s End was in the mix, he said “they are one of several who have expressed interest.”

Trail’s End Cafe has a full dinner menu and catering service as well as serving breakfast and lunch.

Bree Showalter, general manager of Trail’s End, confirmed in a July 21 email that “we are having ongoing discussions with RLF about the former AKA Bistro space” but would not comment further.

Meanwhile, Card is still waiting for an answer on his proposal for leasing the Aka Bistro space for Blazes, a combination bookstore that would also service food and cocktails as well as host events.

“We’re put in a very, very good offer,” he said in an interview on July 22. “I was told by the RLF there would be an answer a month ago and I’ve heard nothing… It’s been so frustrating to have the support of the town and the people who have come on board with this thing.”

Card said he was looking into other locations for the Blazes venture, including Sudbury, Maynard and even in Maine where he has a summer home. “I can’t continue to wait and wait,” he said. “If I found something tomorrow, the situation in Lincoln would be dead for me… but I haven’t found anything yet.”

Card was not entirely unsympathetic to the RLF, saying that “negotiations have been more protracted than either party would have liked” and that “they want to do something for the town too… they’re in a tough situation.” Emphasizing that he did not know what was going on behind the scenes, Card speculated that the holdup may be due to negotiations or legal proceedings involving Aka Bistro, which closed on May 8.

The sudden closure of the Whistle Stop last week is also concerning for Card. “I start to look at these serial failure and it makes me nervous, too,” he said.

The closures would seem to emphasize that market in Lincoln is not sufficient to support two restaurants, so if Trail’s End wins the bidding for the AKA Bistro space, putting Blazes in another Lincoln location (even if one were available) would not be an option.

“The short answer is, it just doesn’t seem possible to me” for both establishments succeed in Lincoln. Card said. “We would essentially serve the same type of fare as Trail’s End does. Two places like that? No.”

Card has another idea for a Lincoln establishment that might coexist with a place like Trail’s End—a combination bike shop and tap room—but it’s not something he would pursue any time soon, he said. Card’s long-term goal is to have about 10 versions of Blazes in different locations around the country, though they would look different from what Card envisioned for the business in Lincoln, such as not having the bookstore.

But Card is still hoping to open the first Blazes in his home town. “For me to start in Lincoln would be ideal because it represents everything I believe in and cherish. I think we could really make it work here,” he said. “Blazes is a big concept; it’s not just a restaurant, which in some ways is only incidental. It’s coming together for a social experience, cocktails and coffee—really making an an effort to be a community center.”

Open Space and Recreation Plan being updated

openspaceThe Conservation Commission is spearheading the effort to update the Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) and is planning a pair of public forums and an upcoming online survey.

The commission is working with a residents’ advisory group and a environmental consultant on the OSRP, which was last updated in March 2008. AS explained in the introduction, the document “re-affirms Lincoln’s core natural resource, agricultural and recreational values. It provides a guiding framework that can be used to maintain and enhance the ‘green infrastructure’ of the community, and it identifies pressures and opportunities that may influence the future character of Lincoln.”

The OSRP includes an environmental and open-space inventory and outlines how the Conservation Commission and Lincoln Land Conservation Trust (LLCT) work together to manage Lincoln’s 2,000+ acres of conservation land, as well as the community’s vision and statement of needs.

The community survey and public forums aim to gather input on residents’ priorities for open space and recreation in town. They are also an opportunity to share maps and information on Lincoln’s history of creative land development and protection. The forums will be on the following dates:

  • September 14 at 7:30 p.m. — Recreation Department
  • November 16 at 7:30 p.m. — Town Office Building

The survey is being developed and will be distributed online and at various locations around town from August 1 to September 30.

Advisory Group meetings take place in the Conservation Department in the Town Office Building on Thursday mornings at 7:30 a.m. See the Conservation Department web page for dates (under the heading “Open Space Planning”). Also on that page is a link to the Advisory Group’s timeline and tasks. Members (all of whom are Lincoln residents except Pomponi) are:

  • James Craig (Board of Selectmen)
  • Jordan McCarron, Richard Selden (Conservation Commission)
  • Patty Donahue (Parks and Recreation Commission)
  • Lynne Bower (Agricultural Commission)
  • Ellen Meadors (Board of Accessors, LLCT)
  • Buzz Constable, Gwyn Loud (LLCT/Rural Land Foundation)
  • Renata Pomponi (Mass. Audubon Society)
  • Jennifer Hashley (Codman Community Farms)
  • Michele Grzenda (Weston Conservation Agent

Property sales for June

  • House-1343 Hemlock Circle — Cynthia Williams, trustee to Michael Jordoff Trust and Nancy Jordoff, trustees for $534,100 (June 1)
  • 16 Bypass Rd. — Zachary Burnett to McLean Hospital Corp. for $1,024,500 (June 1)
  • 22 Bypass Rd. — Burnett Remodeling LLC to McLean Hiospital Corp. for $1,700,000 (June 1)
  • 35 Deerhaven Rd. — Mary Rurth Trubiano, trustee to David J. Jensen, trustee for $810,000 (June 2)
  • 25 Tabor Hill Rd. — Steven Wardell to Marc Czapczynski and Coren Milbury for $1,100,000 (June 7)
  • 332 Hemlock Circle, unit 332 — John Konvalinka to Steven Emmerich and Eve Horwitz for $545,000 (June 9)
  • 82 Virginia Rd., unit 205 — Judith Dolan to Andrew and Emily Pollack for $347,000 (June 9)
  • 12 Sunnyside Lane — Frederic Eppling, trustee to Robert Peattie and Adeline Kim for $675,000 (June 9)
  • 3 Blueberry Lane — Walter Ehrlich to George and Sonya Najarian for $1,487,000 (June 10)
  • 9 Hiddenwood Path — Susan Decapo to Andrew Frisch for $780,000 (June 16)
  • 85 Lexington Rd. — Cathryn Long, trustee to Jeremy Wilbur and Elaine Shapland for $1,345,000 (June 17)
  • 11 Boyce Farm Rd. — Mark Deck to Kurt MacLaurin for $1,395,000 (June 17)
  • 237 Old Concord Rd. — Henry Morgan, trustee to Robert and Elizabeth Orgel, trustees for $1,050,000 (June 17)
  • 113 South Great Rd. — Rebecca Hussey to Reyza Marouf for $999,000 (June 20)
  • 109 Old Sudbury Rd. — John Shupe to Sandys Bureau, trustee for $1,215,000 (June 27)
  • 49 Bedford Rd. — Brian Flaherty to Lara and John MacLachlan for $957,000 (June 29)

 

News acorns

Residents invited to forum/brunch on accessory apartments

The Lincoln Housing Commission invites all residents to a forum and brunch at Bemis Hall on Thursday, July 28 at 11 a.m. to participate in a discussion about developing accessory apartments in Lincoln.

The purpose of the meeting is to gather opinions about various ways to provide small or smaller units for current residents who want to stay in Lincoln. Some have houses in which they would like to remain but are larger than they need, and/or require more work than they want to continue to do.  To accomplish that goal, they would provide a small unit in their existing home at regular or subsidized rates. On the other hand, there are folks whose resources, for various reasons, are limited but who also want to remain in Lincoln and only need or can only afford smaller units.

The meeting will provide an opportunity to hear how to deal with town regulations, guidance on design and construction  issues.  Those with limited resources will hear discussions about the information they need to provide to be eligible to live in these units.

DeCordova summer activities

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum has several activities slated for the rest of the summer. For details, click on one of the events below.

Whistle Stop closes abruptly, leaving mall without a restaurant

Chairs and tables remained outside the shuttered Whistle Stop on Monday.

Chairs and tables remained outside the shuttered Whistle Stop on Monday.

The Whistle Stop restaurant has gone out of business, becoming the second Lincoln restaurant since May to close its doors.

Customers who stopped by on Monday morning were greeted with signs scrawled on small white paper bags taped to the doors saying “Closed — Thanks for the Memories” and “Closed — 08/04/04–7/16/16  — Thank You Lincoln.”

As she was leaving church on Sunday, July 17 (a day when the Whistle Stop would normally be closed), resident Sara Mattes noticed owner Brian Mehigan inside the restaurant. He told her that he was indeed closing and that it had been “a labor of love for a number of years and a lot of fun” but that he was “tired.”

Mehigan, a Stow resident, could not be reached for comment on Monday.

The Whistle Stop property, like the rest of the Mall at Lincoln Station, is owned by the Rural Land Foundation (RLF). Mehigan was “not current on his rent,” RLF Executive Director Geoff McGean said on Monday, adding that he did not know anything about his tenant’s financial situation. “We were not aware of Brian’s intention to leave until Saturday,” he said.

signSeveral weeks ago, Mehigan was served with a notice to correct sanitation code violations or be forced to close after an inspection by Assistant Public Health Director Stanley Sosnicki. Mehigan corrected the problems shortly thereafter and appeared before the Lincoln Board of Health on June 15, where board members told him he was required to take a food safety course and submit to more frequent inspections. It is not known whether this incident played any role in the Whistle Stop’s closing, however.

Mehigan bought the business in 2004 from Steve Flood, who had operated it for 12 years prior to that, McGean said. It became a social magnet for those seeking a cup of coffee, sandwich and a chat, and many of Mehigan’s regular customers helped him celebrate the fifth anniversary of his ownership in 2009. Middle-school students from the Lincoln School often walked there on Wednesdays (a half-day at school) to grab lunch, socialize and be greeted by Donk, Mehigan’s dog who hung around the outdoor tables around the restaurant.

In 2004, some Whistle Stop regulars pitched in to help a homeless family acquire and move furniture, and Mehigan contributed lunch for the gang, according to a Lincoln Journal article.

Lincoln resident Richard Card is hoping to open Blazes, a combination restaurant, cocktail bar and bookstore, in the former Aka Bistro space, but a lease agreement with RLF has not yet been finalized, Card said on Monday.

As word spread on Monday morning of the Whistle Stop’s demise, residents on the LincolnTalk email list mourned the loss and mused about the reason. Some expressed the hope that the restaurant would be replaced by a business that served high-quality coffee, even as others speculated that the South Lincoln shopping area does not attract enough customers to sustain many businesses. Over the years, the mall’s tenants have included a hardware store and a flower shop, while the red building adjacent to the railroad station once housed a pharmacy.

Minuteman project going to district-wide vote

mm1Residents of all 16 towns in the Minuteman High School district will vote at a referendum on September 20 on whether to approve its new school building after officials from Minuteman and other towns determined that the Belmont Town Meeting could not be persuaded to change its “no” vote.

Minuteman needs approval from all 16 towns by November 30 to preserve a $44 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to help pay for the $145 million project. Every town except Belmont voted either to approve funding the project or to withdraw from the district to avoid incurring the capital costs levied on member towns. Belmont’s Town Meeting voted against bonding for the project on May 4, and Minuteman officials initially hoped to persuade the town to change its mind after securing an extension from the MSBA (the original deadline was May 27).

Lincoln voted in February to withdraw from the district, but the withdrawal does not take effect until July 2017, so it is still considered a member town for purposes of the September vote. Five other towns have also elected to withdraw.

State law allows the option of a district-wide referendum if the full complement of Town Meeting approvals for a regional school project isn’t achieved. There have been at least three such votes in regional school districts since 1995, all of which resulted in approvals, according to a Minuteman statement.

Asked why Lincoln should approve a project for a district it has decided to leave, Minuteman Superintendent-Director Edward Bouquillon noted that Lincoln students will still be able to enroll as out-of-district students. He also extolled the broader advantages of “having high-quality technical and vocational education” in the area.

“The value of vocational-technical education when it comes to economic development is clear,” he said. “It’s really an opportunity to express their support, and I would ask them to do that.”

The vote will be decided by a simple majority of the 16-town vote total. Polls will be open on Tuesday, Sept. 20 from noon to 8 p.m. The election will be paid for by the Minuteman school district.

 

Summer sky (Lincoln Through the Lens)

A summer sunset sky photographed by Harold McAleer.

A summer sunset sky photographed by Harold McAleer.

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.

Transfer station now accepting some commingled recyclables

recyclingResidents can now recycle paper and cardboard in the same bin with their metal and plastics after the town signed a contract with a new recycling hauler, Waste Management of Billerica, in June. Glass will still be collected at the transfer station, but it can’t be mixed with other recyclables.

Glass is heavier than other recyclables (and thus more costly to haul) while also being more difficult to separate from other materials, so it’s worth very little in today’s recycling market, as explained in this 2015 Wall Street Journal article. Waste Management charges by the ton for picking up materials from the transfer station and then pays a rebate for non-glass recyclables, so the recycling rebate and the fee for removing glass will balance out to a small net gain for the town, according to Assistant Town Administrator Mary Day.

At its facilities in Billerica and elsewhere, Waste Management separates commingled materials using machinery including suction equipment, magnets and optical detectors. One items that poses problems is plastic grocery bags, however. “They kill the machine that does the separating,” said Day, noting that residents should recycle them in bins inside supermarkets and not at the transfer station.

Town officials made the change in recycling companies because the former vendor, Integrated Paper Recyclers, was not doing the job, Day said. That company sometimes did not pick up the full containers on time, meaning that the transfer station had to either close or require residents to combine materials they had previously separated, such as putting plastics and cans in the glass container, she said.

“We had no choice because it was happening so frequently,” Day said, adding that transfer station workers were often the target of complaints from irate residents as a result of the problem. When interviewing other potential vendors, town officials were impressed by Waste Management’s “unbelievable state-of-the-art facility… we were so pleased with what they had to offer us and their responsiveness,” she said.

Sometime in the next few weeks, the transfer station will also install new bins and a larger compactor. One reason for this is the increased volume of paper and cardboard, requiring a transfer station worker to stand by almost full-time to shove down the material and run the compactor frequently to keep up.

“It has gone from way more than just paper to a lot of cardboard with everybody buying from Amazon,” Day said.

This fall, officials hope to update the procedures for recycling CRTs (cathode ray tubes such as old TVs and computer monitors) and white goods such as washing machines. “We don’t really had any hard policy and that’s one of the things that’s costing the town a lot of money,” Day said. One possibility is limiting how often residents can bring such materials. “We’ll have to see what other towns are doing that makes sense.”