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

Letter to the editor: information on Japanese knotweed

letter

To the editor,

At Town Meeting on March 19, there was discussion of Japanese knotweed and using chemical herbicide to deal with it. The Gardens section of the March 18 Financial Times has a fascinating article on the global history of the plant. Two excerpts for your info:

“This is a plant that is perfectly adapted for world domination. It grows rapidly from an incredibly strong rootstock, so robust it is capable of pushing through tarmac and, reputedly, through concrete and building foundations. Try to dig it out and you’ll find the roots go down deep and are near [sic] impossible to remove by hand.  Leave a tiny fragment of root behind and—boom—back it comes.  Allowed to spread unchallenged, it can colonize vast areas, not only potentially causing damage to the built environment but also wiping out native plants and displacing the wildlife that relies on them…

“How to beat the pest: if Japanese knotweed is on your property, seek specialist know-how…. Control of the pest often involves chemical herbicide whose application requires careful timing to coincide with flowering if it is to work effectively. One cycle of herbicide is unlikely to make any significant impact and, typically, treatment can continue for two or three years…”

I wish our Conservation Commission luck and hope they will consider posting sightings of the pest so neighbors can be on the lookout.

Sincerely,

Roy Harvey
Stonehedge Road

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 Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Voters OK buying land for possible solar swap

The lighter green protion of the Hargreaves-Heald property will be purchased by the town for conservation land.

The lighter-green portion of the Hargreaves-Heald property will be purchased by the town for conservation land.

By Alice Waugh

Thanks to a vote at the March 19 Town Meeting, Lincoln will buy a new piece of conservation land that could be used as part of a “land swap” with the state to allow a solar array to be built on the capped landfill.

Voters approved spending $225,000 on a three-acre portion of the seven-acre Hargreaves-Heald property in Sandy Pond Road, which includes the meadow just to the east of the Old Town Hall Exchange. Converting the three acres into town-owned conservation land means that it will be preserved as open space and that the town can run a conservation trail through it.

The purchase was one of 11 projects to be funded by a Community Preservation Committee (CPC) allocation of $897,882. Housing and recreation reserves brought the total for the CPC measure (which was approved with a few “nay” votes) to $1,030,162.

According to state law, if the town decides to remove the conservation designation from a parcel such as the landfill for purposes of installing a solar array, it must compensate by designating an equivalent amount of other land as conservation property. While a solar array will not be proposed for the Hargreaves-Heald land itself, that land could potentially be “swapped” for the landfill in exchange for permission to site a solar array on the landfill conservation land.

The idea of putting solar panels on the landfill site was discussed at the State of the Town meeting in November 2015, though no concrete proposals have been put forth yet.

Green Energy Committee chair John Snell proposed amending the CPC motion to specify that the Hargreaves-Heald purchase could be counted as a conservation land swap in a future application to the state. “It would really help if this was an option… it would be a good forward-thinking thing to do,” he said.

Town officials huddle in front of Town Counsel Joel Bard to craft amended wording for the Hargreaves-Heald motion as Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden (left) waits.

Town officials huddle in front of Town Counsel Joel Bard to craft amended wording for the Hargreaves-Heald motion as Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden (left) waits. 

After a lengthy on-stage huddle among Lincoln officials, Town Counsel Joel Bard drafted amended wording for the motion. “It’s just a paper designation, if you will—the acquisition and use of the parcel is not going to change,” he said, adding that the amendment conferred “the option but not the obligation” to use the property as part of a future conservation land swap.

“We’ve done such a good job with conservation land that we don’t really have any fungible municipal land” to use in a swap, said Selectman Noah Eckhouse, who along with Snell is a members of the Landfill Solar Steering Committee. “The state is trying to keep towns from cracking into conservation land they already have.”

 

Town Meeting news acorns

ballotThe Lincoln Squirrel will publish more stories about the March 19 Town Meting in coming days. Meanwhile, here are a few other warrant articles that were discussed.

Ballot questions

There will be two questions on the March 28 town election ballot that were also discussed at Town Meeting:

  • A request for $320,000 for the Department of Public Works to buy a new street sweeper ($215,000) and an articulated loader ($105,000). The loader is a smaller vehicle used for plowing sidewalks and bike paths as well as trimming roadside vegetation.
  • A request for a Proposition 2½ override to pay for Lincoln’s share of the new Minuteman High School. This question, which was placed on the ballot pending the town’s decision on whether to withdraw from the Minuteman school district, is now moot. Residents voted at a February 23 Special Town Meeting to withdraw. Though the town will still have a representative on the Minuteman School Committee until July 2017, it will not be liable as a member town for the new building’s capital costs.
Conservation Commission funding

A motion to allow the Conservation Commission to spend $25,000 on several land stewardship projects passed at Town Meeting, though not without some “nay” votes.

The money, which comes from fees paid to the town by people who leave conservation land for agricultural purposes, will go toward repairing the muster field colvert so it can safely hold a tractor and emergency vehicles, as well as the upper Browning Field bridge. Other projects covered by the appropriation are plantings to screen the solar panels in Far Meadow near Lincoln Woods, setting up six deer “exclosures” for studying how vegetation burned in last year’s fire near Sandy Pond; doing an inventory of invasive Japanese knotweed; and controlling phragmites that grow in wetlands, especially on the Sudbury River.

It was this last project that caused some controversy, as several residents objected to possible use of chemicals to kill the phragmites. Conservation Commission chair Peter von Mertens said the preferred method would be to cut the phragmites and then cover the area with light-proof cloth to prevent regrowth, but Conservation DIrector Thomas Gumbart acknowledged that herbicides are also an option.

Right-to-farm bylaw

The town passed over an article that considered amending the 2011 right-to-farm zoning by-law to add parties who are permitted to farm by right in Lincoln and to add agricultural uses permitted by right on parcels of less than five acres.

The Agricultural Commission (AgComm) hoped to propose the changes because more and more people are doing farming on a small scale, such as raising chickens in their backyards. The group drafted some amendments to the by-law but decided to get more community input on what sort of limits there should be, such as whether there should be a limit on agricultural uses or revenue for homeowners on properties under five acres.

“We want to craft it so it won’t alarm people and so we have the proper parameters put on operations,” AgComm member Ari Kurtz said the day after Town Meeting. The AgComm has a study group examine the current agricultural by-laws, and Kurtz invited anyone interested in joining the group to email agcom@lincolnton.org.

Currently there are 16 commercial farms in Lincoln on about 500 acres of land, he said. Lincoln farms raise fruits and vegetables and livestock including chickens, cows, sheep, alpacas, but also wine grapes, horses for riding and therapy, and bees for honey and wax.

Budget approved; property taxes to drop by 0.5%

moneyBy Alice Waugh

At Saturday’s Town Meeting, residents approved a fiscal 2017 general government budget of $35.13 million, which will result in an decrease in the median property tax bill of about 0.7 percent, even after factoring in a $320,000 capital exclusion for buying DPW equipment.

The for fiscal 2017 is estimated at $13,204 based on a median property value of $939,500 in fiscal 2016, according to Finance Committee chair Peyton Marshall. It will be one of the lowest rates of increase in the past 12 years.

Tax bills for Lincoln residential property owners has risen an average of 4.5 percent since 1999, the second-lowest rate of increase among eight area towns. Although Lincoln has had the second-highest average annual tax bill during that time, it also had the cohort’s third-lowest tax rate in 2016.

Town Meeting also approved adding $284,084 to the town’s debt stabilization fund, which is drawn upon periodically to smooth the tax impact of significant capital funding, such as the expected school and community center projects, Marshall explained.

The excess from the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School appropriation will also added to the fund. The amount will not be determined until after the assessment but is estimated at $489,000, Marshall said.

Before Saturday, the fund’s total stood at $3.1 million, so the additions will bring it up to about $3.8 million. If about $3.4 million is applied to the town budget during a period when the tax burden from debt repayment from the future school building project is greatest, the maximum year-over-year increase in property tax bills would go down from 10% to 4.3%, Marshall said.

Town Meeting applauds service of Eckhouse and others

Selectmen Noah Eckhouse (right) and Peter Braun at last year's Fourth of July parade in Lincoln.

Selectmen Noah Eckhouse (right) and Peter Braun at last year’s Fourth of July parade in Lincoln.

By Alice Waugh

At an Annual Town Meeting notable for relatively little controversy, attendees were at their noisiest during several standing ovations for fellow Lincoln residents who have given volunteer service to the town in various capacities.

The most prominent retiree was Selectman Noah Eckhouse, who decided not to run for a third three-year term (James Craig is running unopposed for the vacant seat). Selectman Peter Braun paid tribute to “the fun-loving Noah, the high-energy, full of life Noah, the Noah who brings his A game to everything he does.”

Eckhouse played a key role in the Town Office Building renovation project, Braun noted. “Noah put blood, sweat and tears into that building… this was a true labor of love and we are the true beneficiaries of a building that will last a long, long time.”

Town Administrator Tim Higgins also praised Eckhouse as “the town cheerleader and chief tone-setter” who motivated town employees, “empowering them and encouraging them to do their best work.” Both Higgins and Braun also highlighted the entire Eckhouse family’s commitment to public service.

“Noah’s been a voice in favor of giving continuous support to our volunteer culture, and we should be as grateful if not even more so for that than for the building,” Higgins said.

After thanking his colleagues and family, Eckhouse offered some advice to his fellow Lincolnites, exhorting them to keep uncivil discourse out of Lincoln, to provide solutions rather than identifying problems, and to get involved rather than default to inaction.

“Not to decide is to decide,” he said. “Consider the cost of doing nothing. Sometimes our desire to utterly dissect a decision stops us dead in our tracks. I argue that our most precious asset is not money or land or the Lincoln Way—it is our volunteer energy. Squandering that resource is something we all must guard against. Consider the opportunity cost when raising an issue.” (The full text of Eckhouse’s remarks is available here.)

Other volunteers who were recognized for their service at Town Meeting:

  • Andy Beard, who is stepping down after 15 years on the Capital Planning Committee. “I got more by serving than I gave to the town,” he said. “I got a deeper understanding of how the town works and built a set of personal relationships I wil value for many years.” He encouraged others to get involved in town service as the best way to follow the dictum “think globally, act locally.”
  • Jim Meadors, who is leaving the Conservation Commission after 12 years (11 of them as co-chair). The other co-chair, Peter Von Mertens, praised Meadors’s knowledge of natural history, hard work and dedication. “If you ever wondered who it is that picks up roadside trash, cleared all the windblown plastic bags off the fences at the Transfer Station, and stops in the middle of jogging to pick up micro trash on the trail, that’s Jim,” he said.
  • Bryce Wolf, who is stepping down after 10 years on the Planning Board. “All I can say is, what a long strange trip it’s been,” Wolf said. “Ive met a lot of very wonderful and very interesting people, and I really encourage to get involved in the town because you’ll never regret it.”
  • Retired Town Clerk Nancy Zuelke, who received the town’s annual Bright Light Award. Zuelke, who remains active with the Council on Aging and helping out at town elections, said, “I always thought [the award] was for someone with a bright idea and I’ve had no bright ideas. I’m just letting my light shine, that’s all.”
  • Deborah Dorsey, who is stepping down after 10 years on the Disability Commission. Dorsey was not able to attend Town Meeting.

Several of the honored volunteers have moved on to other important town offices for the coming year, however. Eckhouse and Beard were elected fence viewers, while Dorsey, Meadors and Wolf were elected Measurers of Wood and Bark.

Letter to the editor: Brooks seeks reelection as Town Clerk

letter

To the editor:

It has been my privilege and my pleasure to serve as your Town Clerk for the past ten years. I will again be a candidate for the office at the town election on Monday, March 28. I ask for your vote.

My view of the Town Meeting form of government as the purest form of direct democracy continues to obtain, as does my observation that it is also surely the most labor intensive for its citizens. I remain moved and energized by the role of the Town Clerk’s Office in that effort—as a gateway for resident inquiry; a repository of town data; the chronicler, conservator, and certifier of “official acts;” a resource for local officials; the administrator of elections; and as a tender of the town’s cemeteries and those families who have need of them.

I invite you to read more about the office’s activities in the year past and aspirations for the years ahead in this year’s Annual Town Report. Or check out the new and expanded Town Clerk pages on the town’s website.

I look forward to seeing you at the town election on Monday, March 28.

Sincerely,

Susan F. Brooks
138 Bedford 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: Robinson running again for Board of Assessors

letter

To the editor,

I am a candidate for re-election as a member of the Lincoln Board of Assessors. During my years on the board, we have worked to maintain an organization responsive to the town’s and citizens’ needs. At the same time, we continually refine our ability to meet our obligation to the state of Massachusetts that assessments of properties in town be fair and equitable. I seek to help the board continue with these goals.

I am honored and pleased to have a role in overseeing this important work of the town, and to give back to the town in this way. Please consider voting for me in the town election.

Sincerely,

John G. Robinson
Trapelo Road

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

News acorns

Spelling Bee registration extended through this weekend

The Lincoln School Foundation‘s annual spelling bee is April 10, and the registration deadline has been extended until Monday morning. Kids who want to participate but don’t have a team can email bee@lincolnschoolfoundation.org to be matched with teammates. Click here to register online.

Kids can create art with Peeps

The Lincoln Public Library is holding its first annual Peeps Diorama Day on Wednesday, March 23 starting at 2 p.m. Kids ages 4 and up are invited to come create a piece of art with Peeps marshmallow candy. Registration required; call 781-259-8465 ext. 4.

Photo exhibit at library
"Plastic Bag Lady" by Ellen Morgan.

“Plastic Bag Lady” by Ellen Morgan.

“Portraits of Sudanese Women: Photographs by Ellen Morgan, 2009-2015″ is on display at the Lincoln Public Library until March 31. Morgan traveled to South Sudan in 2009 with a young refugee, one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, as he returned to pick out a wife. These photographs are of women at the bride price negotiations in Sudan and also of other village wives here in the Boston area.

Letter to the editor: vote ‘yes’ on Article 28

letter

To the editor,

I am writing to urge all to come to Town Meeting this coming Saturday and to support, with a resounding “yes” vote on Article 28.

Once again we are at a fork in the road, and we must make a choice to move forward. We have all the critical pieces in place to make the choice to begin a collaborative process to rebuild our community campus, beginning with our schools. There are two potential directions to take. One is to seek constructive and fruitful collaboration with the Commonwealth. This is a reliable path with an experienced partner, and it is critical to build what is necessary for a 21st-century education that we can be proud of. Lincoln cannot do this alone.

The other is to attempt to travel down an unpredictable path, without any financial contribution or technical support from the Commonwealth. The first choice, offered and advocated for by the School Committee in Town Meeting in Article 28, is to reaffirm our desire to seek collaboration with the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

At last year’s Town Meeting, we strongly supported an application to work with the MSBA. Now, with additional work done during the past year, we have even more pieces in place to assure the state that we are ready willing and able to commit to a project with the Commonwealth’s guidance and financial support.

We have conducted studies of the Lincoln School’s programmatic and space needs to ensure an education for the 21st century, the most recent being presented by the School Building Advisory Committee II in February 2015.

We have completed an analysis of the programmatic and space needs for the rest of our community, served through our Council on Aging and our Parks and Recreation Department. This study was finalized in March 2015. In the course of many public meetings, it was determined that the best location for expansion of services would be on the campus, in spaces already in community use.

And finally, we have just received the final report of the Campus Master Planning Committee, which was discussed at the 2015 State of the Town meeting, completed in January 2016, and will be presented at Town Meeting. This study provides a critical overview and provides technical analysis of the physical, regulatory and infrastructure challenges and opportunities offered by the 71.5 acres of our campus.

This analysis does not offer building designs but rather provides clear outlines and constraints of zones for future development. Each zone can serve separate and distinct functions, with a variety of choices for school construction zones that are separate and distinct from other community-use zones. The study and public presentations have made it clear that each zone has trade-offs. These choices will be made after we know our direction with our school building project. And it is clear that having the Commonwealth as a partner as we approach these choices would be best for our schools and the town. A “yes” vote on Article 28 is critical to allowing us to continue on this solid direction.

On the other hand, Article 29 offers an uncertain path that, because of cost, means much less design flexibility and few to no educational enhancements. The School Committee has said they will only ask for a vote on Article 29 if the town fails to pass Article 28. Choosing the path offered in Article 29 would mean embarking on a school building project on our own, without any potential for state funding. This choice is not in our children’s or the town’s best interest.

It is time for the town to come together and give the educational future of our schools a clear and resounding “yes” on Article 28, and to then support the School Committee when it asks us to pass over Article 29. This is the critical first step in realizing our shared vision for our community campus. It is an investment in all our futures. It is the choice at this fork in the road we must take now.

Please vote “yes” on Article 28 and vote to pass over (or vote “no”) on Article 29.

Sincerely,

Sara Mattes
71 Conant 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.