Dear Lincoln residents,

At our October 6th meeting, the Lincoln School Committee voted unanimously to recommend a “no” vote on Ballot Question 2 (you can read our resolution here). Ballot Question 2 would lift the current charter school cap and allow up to twelve new publicly-funded charter schools each year. Also, each year it would allow charter school enrollment to expand by 1% of total statewide public school enrollment. We believe that there are two main reasons for rejecting this proposal and keeping the current limits:

• Additional loss of town/city revenue—“Chapter 70” is the Commonwealth’s law that governs state funding for public education, and it provides a significant portion of the local aid package that cities and towns receive from the Commonwealth to support schools and other municipal services. When a child is enrolled in a charter school, the municipality in which the child lives is charged a per-pupil cost that is determined through a three-part formula. The resulting amount is then paid to the charter school, and is subtracted from a city’s or town’s local aid. Currently there is no impact on the town of Lincoln’s local aid, but many cities and towns, including our neighbors Bedford, Concord, Sudbury and Waltham are already experiencing a loss in local aid due to charter school tuition.
• Lack of local accountability—Although cities and towns pay for each student that attends a charter school, there is no local oversight. Despite receiving public funds, charter schools have no accountability to locally elected officials such as school committees or selectmen. In town such as ours, where we govern through Town Meeting, the charter school accountability and funding structures represent a distinct departure from the direct oversight we, as Lincoln voters, currently have over public education and municipal finance.

For these reasons, we, the members of the Lincoln School Committee, voted to join the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and over 180 school districts in urging a “no” vote on Ballot Question 2.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Glass, Chair
Tim Christenfeld, Vice-Chair
Peter Borden
Jena Salon
Al Schmertzler

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.

The October 18 accident scene on Route 117 looking north (Photo: Lincoln Police Facebook page)

A major traffic jam on Route 117 late Tuesday afternoon was caused by a two-car accident that resulted in the arrest of a Waltham man on multiple charges including OUI.

A section of Route 117 around the accident site between Codman and Old Sudbury Roads was closed for several hours after the accident occurred shortly after 3 p.m. The driver of one of the cars was a 48-year-old woman from Greenfield. Both she and the other driver were taken to the hospital.

Later on Tuesday night, police arrested the other driver, 36-year-old Christopher Ackles of Waltham, on charges of operating under the influence (second offense) causing serious bodily injury, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, driving to endanger, resisting arrest and failure to keep left.

According to Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy, Ackles tried to leave the scene on foot but was apprehended a short distance away. He was arraigned on Wednesday in his hospital bed and is due in court on October 31. His bail was set at $10,000.

The accident is being investigated by Lincoln Police, Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis Reconstruction Section and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

By Toby Frost

It happened months ago. I was wending my way down across the library lawn from where I’d parked on Bedford Road to go to the library. As I neared the precious little crab apple trees by the sidewalk along Library Lane, my feet suddenly flew out from under me and I crashed to the ground.

I managed to get up—oh, thank goodness, no broken bones—and head more directly toward the sidewalk. Walking across the slanting lawn, and even the adjacent pavement, was pretty challenging, because the area was covered with slippery little crab apples. Luckily, I didn’t fall again.

Once in the library, I went to the desk. “You’ve got to do something about those crab apples,” I said. “It’s really dangerous out there—I just fell, and I think I’m OK, but somebody could get seriously hurt.”

I was assuming it would just be a matter of cleaning up the apples a few times during the season. Some time later, I got a call from the library. The crab apple tree where I fell was to be removed. But why? Why not just clean up under the two trees?

Seven months later I learned, at the last minute, of an impending hearing at the Lincoln DPW office on the proposal to remove—yes, cut down—the trees. I found my way into the office a few minutes late. The meeting was small and informal, and I felt like an interloper, but I did manage to say, when the tree removal was brought up, that I was the one who had complained about the hazardous state of the lawn.

I don’t recall whether I mentioned that I’m a tree hugger, but the last thing I’d wanted was to see those two little trees sacrificed because of me. I did learn that keeping the ground cleared of crab apples would be expensive, not only because cleaning them up would be messy, but because the season lasts—and the apples continue to drop—for quite a long time. That meeting closed with a plan to look into the matter further, and to call a follow-up meeting.

I found out by word of mouth that the second meeting was to be held on September 27. It was referred to technically as a public hearing, but with even fewer people attending, I can only call it a meeting. This time, I came on time and was able to claim a seat at the table along with the tree warden, the deputy tree warden, the Lincoln Public Library trustee who chairs its Building and Grounds Committee, and the library director.

Some excellent thinking and planning were shared at that meeting. One proposal was to replace the crab apples with yellowwood trees, which have little fragrant white flowers in early summer, but no fall fruits (double entendre there!). As I listened, I was surprised to realize that my mind was being totally changed about the situation. Lincoln is full of senior citizens—like me!—and when I thought about the possibility of a serious injury—and the town even conceivably being sued for negligence—I was ready to welcome the new plan.

I hope you will welcome it, too.

(Editor’s note: The DPW is expected to remove the crab apples trees shortly.)