Dear Lincoln Squirrel readers,
Due to a death in the family (John S. Waugh, 1929-2014), the Squirrel will not be posting for a period of time, but it will return. Thanks for all your good wishes.
Alice Waugh
Editor, The Lincoln Squirrel
News acorns
Voter registration deadline is Aug. 20
The Massachusetts Democratic and Republican parties will choose their nominees for statewide office in the primary election on Tuesday, September 9. Polls will be open at the Smith School gym from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Massachusetts law permits unenrolled (also known as “Independent”) voters to vote either party’s ballot. The deadline to register to vote or to change your party enrollment is Wednesday, Aug. 20.
Primary election absentee ballots now available
Absentee ballots for the September 9 state primary are available now. A written request is required before receiving the ballot. The ballot may be voted at the Town Clerk’s office or the applicant may request that a ballot be mailed. Massachusetts law does not permit persons to pick up ballots for another person, although it does permit certain family members to initiate a request on behalf of another member. For further information, please call the Town Clerk’s office at 781-259-2607.
Boards looking for new members
The Lincoln Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) is seeking new members for open seats on the board. The ZBA is a land use board that interprets and applies the town’s zoning bylaw. It acts on a case-by-case basis on requests for variances, special permits and appeals of decisions by the building inspector, considering the impact on the town and neighborhoods and the requirements of the bylaw. The board, which generally meets one evening a month, has five regular members and three associate members. Click here to download an application or call the Selectmen’s Office at 781-259-2601.
The Lincoln Board of Health is also seeking a new member to fill out the three-year term for a member who has retired. Anyone interested should call Elaine Carroll at 781-259-2614 for further information.
Codman arts and crafts festival coming up
The 32nd annual Codman Fine Arts and Crafts Festival will take place on Saturday, Sept. 6 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Codman Estate. The event features the work of more than 100 local artisans and features items including wooden furniture and toys, pottery, photography, jewelry, glass, knitted sweaters and throws, children’s clothing, metalware, and folk carvings. Enjoy live music, a food court and first-floor tours of the Codman house. Free to Historic New England members and children under 12; $5 for nonmembers. Purchase tickets online or call 617-994-5900 ext. 5514 for additional information.
Correction
An August 5 Lincoln Squirrel item about trees struck by lightning in the Farrar Pond area in 2012 mistakenly indicated that the Farrar Pond Association is the owner of the blog at farrarpond.org. The error has been corrected in the article.
Weston Road trees aren’t the only ones getting hit
A closeup of a Farrar Pond pine tree shattered by lightning (click to enlarge). Photo courtesy Farrarpond.org.
In response to the July 30 Lincoln Squirrel article about trees on Weston Road that have been hit by lightning recently, Lincoln resident Alaric Naiman noted that Farrarpond.org’s blog contains some excellent photos of another tall tree that was struck in 2012 and eventually toppled into the street. The tongue-in-cheek title of the September 2012 blog post was “Weeding by Thor.”
School Committee asks House to pass bill on mandates
The Lincoln School Committee has sent a letter to the state legislature’s Ways and Means Committee in support of a bill that would create a task force to examine the ever-increasing array of statewide educational mandates that Massachusetts school districts are required to follow.
“The issue is not with a specific mandate—it’s that there have been so many coming down at once,” said committee chair Jennifer Glass. “Many have very good aims, but having to do them all at once means it’s difficult to do everything well and with the energy each initiative deserves. Also, over the years mandates get added, but none get taken away. This bill is designed to take a look at them all and analyze what’s redundant or meaningless or even contradictory.”
The letter from the School Committee is reprinted below.
An open letter to the members of the Massachusetts House Committee on Ways and Means:
On July 23, 2014, the Lincoln School Committee voted to join MASS [the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents], MASC [the Massachusetts Association of School Committees] and MASBO [the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials] in voicing its strong support for Bill H.3722. H.3722 is a bill establishing an education mandate task force designed to examine and make sense of the extraordinary number of mandates school districts are required to adhere to each year. In addition to passing the bill, the School Committee urges the appointment of active school employees (district and building administrators and classroom teachers) to such a task force.
As a committee, we fully appreciate the excellent intentions of many of the mandates, and support those that focus on ensuring all students are in high-quality learning environments. However, there are well over 100 mandated regulations and administrative reporting requirements that currently overwhelm school staff, divert necessary resources, and distract attention from our schools’ primary mission: preparing students to succeed in a rapidly changing, highly competitive global economy. This work is difficult to manage for all districts, and even more onerous for small districts, such as ours, that operate with a small team of administrators and support personnel.
On top of the current requirements, right now there are more than 20 education-related bills before the House Ways and Means Committee. All but one of them, H.3722, advocate imposing additional regulations. Unless there is a task force to holistically examine education regulations, districts will be placed in the unfortunate position of treating these regulations as mere compliance exercises, negating any positive impact they were intended to have.
As outlined in the bill, H.3722 proposes establishing an eleven-member task force that, over the course of a year, would inventory all existing regulations and then recommend measures to streamline, consolidate, or eliminate specific mandates and/or reporting requirements that are outdated, duplicative, or inconsistent with current laws, regulations and practices.
We would deeply appreciate your efforts to champion H.3722 and bring it to a vote. Thank you for your continued support of all the students and educators of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sincerely,
The Lincoln School Committee:
Jennifer Glass, chair
Tom Sander, vice chair
Preditta Cedeno, METCO representative
Tim Christenfeld, member
Al Schmertzler, member
Jena Salon, member
Group to host agricultural fair in Lincoln
The Lincoln Agricultural Commission is organizing the first-ever Lincoln Agricultural Day on Saturday, Sept. 20 and invites residents to “show and tell” as well as visit. The event is designed to be a showcase for the diverse range of agricultural endeavors ongoing in Lincoln today, from fruits and vegetables to alpaca wool and herbalism. In addition to local vendors, there will be informative displays on pollinators, soil and other farm-related items.
The event takes place from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. alongside the Farmer’s Market in the parking lot in front of the Lincoln Mall. If you’re interested in selling produce or have a farm-related skill or expertise you’d like to share at the event, please email lynne@stonegategardens.com to secure your space and become part of the celebration. There are no fees for vendors and participants.
Lincoln Police warn citizens of phone scams
The following is a notice from Lt. Sean Kennedy of the Lincoln Police Department.
We would like to notify the community that we have received numerous citizen complaints over the past few months of several different telephone scams. These citizen complaints are not unique to Lincoln, as neighboring communities are fielding similar complaints. Several of these scams are specifically targeting the elderly community. Some of the scams that we and neighboring police departments have learned about include:
- A person calls reporting that they’re calling from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and are demanding that money for back taxes be paid immediately by wire transferring money from their bank account. In some cases the scammers are telling citizens that they have warrants out for their arrest and the money needs to be paid or they’re going to be arrested. The scammers are using “spoofed” phone numbers which allows them to use a computer program in which they can select a specific phone number. The scammer usually chooses a local number which appears on the citizen’s caller ID. The citizen assumes it’s a local number and it’s a legitimate phone call. In one case the scam caller spoofed a local government phone number.
- A person calls reporting that they’re calling from out of the country and their grandchild has been arrested and is sitting in a foreign jail, or they’ve been involved in a motor vehicle crash. In order to get out of jail or out of the country, they need money wire transferred or cash needs to be sent immediately via overnight mail to a specific address.
It’s important to know that the IRS and other government entities will never call citizens directly demanding money. They will send their correspondence through the mail. The most important thing to remember is: DO NOT provide any personal information to anyone over the phone such as your Social Security number, bank account number, credit card number or date of birth.
If you’re offered a “deal” over the phone or through the mail that seems too good to be true, it is. All these deals require the citizen to provide personal information. If you have provided your personal information, immediately notify the bank or the credit card company. You also want to do a credit check of your personal information using one of the credit monitoring companies (Equifax, TransUnion or Experian). It’s also a good idea to put a fraud alert on your credit.
Please call the Lincoln Police Department and report any suspicious calls of this nature.
Studies on community center, school renovations are underway
By Alice Waugh
Two design firms are now working in parallel on potential town construction projects—a community center and Lincoln School renovations—and both will be discussed at the State of the Town meeting on November 15.
After interviewing four candidate firms earlier this month, the new School Building Advisory Committee (SBAC) selected Dore & Whittier Architects to develop repair and renovation options for the Lincoln School. The firm’s work will build on previous studies commissioned by the town, as well as the work of the first SBAC to identify individual repair and renovation projects and get updated specific cost estimates for each. Voters approved spending up to $250,000 for the study (see the Lincoln Squirrel, April 3, 2014).
Meanwhile, following the recommendation of the Community Center Study Committee (CCSC), the Board of Selectmen has hired Abacus Architects and Planners to do a detailed study of several possible sites for a community center and offer estimates on the scope and cost for each. After being appointed by the Board of Selectmen in June, the CCSC received proposals from seven architectural firms and interviewed five.
Abacus will look at several sites identified in the 2012 report of the Community Center Feasibility Committee as well as any others that may come up. That report was a first step in identifying alternative sites for the Council on Aging, which has outgrown Bemis Hall, and the Parks and Recreation Department. While Park and Rec is happy with its location in the Hartwell pods, those buildings are due for renovation or replacement.
On the radar of both consultants will the Hartwell area, which could be repurposed as a community center and also serve as swing space for the Lincoln School to use during major renovations. The two firms are working independently, but if the town chooses to go ahead with both a school building project and a community center, the Hartwell site will certainly come into play somehow, “and we want to have an answer to how that’s going to work,” Fredriksen said.
Both committees will schedule public discussions before the State of the Town meeting. After a comprehensive $49 million school project failed to win enough support at a special Town Meeting in 2012, some residents said it was because of insufficient communication and public input beforehand.
“The primary reasons for choosing Dore & Whittier Architects were their emphasis on listening to the community—their desire to conduct separate meetings with stakeholder groups as well as their overall understanding of the importance of developing choices and providing accurate cost estimates,” the SBAC said in a statement distributed by co-chair Becky McFall, superintendent of schools. “The SBAC is striving to focus their efforts on process and community engagement, as opposed to the specifics of a particular option. Community input to the consultants will be vital and community members will be encouraged to contribute at several key points along the way.”
The CCSC will hold a town-wide charette in the fall, and while dollar figures will not be discussed, “we want see what those [community center] scenarios would look like and see what direction residents are inclined to go in,” Fredriksen said. “We’re taking it one step at a time.”
The CCSC meets every other week; its next meeting is Thursday, Aug. 7 at 8 a.m. in the Town Office Building. Agendas, minutes, documents and additional information are available on the CCSC’s web page. The SBAC will start its work with Dore and Whittier on Wednesday, Aug. 13 at 7 p.m. in the Hartwell Multipurpose Room.
Weston Road trees have been taking hits
Lightning stripped the bark off an oak tree close to Weston Road (top photos and bottom right). Bottom left: Earlier this year, across the street from the oak, a pine tree crashed across a driveway, but an anonymous neighbor stepped in to cut it up (click to enlarge). Photos/Alice Waugh
By Alice Waugh
Several trees along a stretch of Weston Road having been taking their lumps.
Earlier this year, a huge pine tree snapped and fell across the driveway at 60 Weston Rd. Shortly afterwards, however, much to the pleasant surprise of homeowner Sarah Cannon Holden, an unidentified person cut up the tree to allow cars through. Holden later found out it was the son of a neighbor after she posted a red sign on the stump saying “Thank You! Who?” Then a poplar in the side yard of an adjoining property was hit by lightning and had to be cut down.
In a severe thunderstorm in early July, lightning hit an oak across the street from the same property (the owner asked that her name not be used), blasting two long vertical strips of bark off opposite sides of the trunk.
“It’s weird—I don’t know if the lightning went up one side and down the other, or what,” said the resident, who heard the boom when poplar tree got hit but not the oak. “I don’t know what’s going on… we must be doing something,” she joked.
New boardwalk eases travel behind school
A brand-new boardwalk through the wetlands behind Codman Pool is open for business—one of several bridge/boardwalk projects to come.
The boardwalk between Sandy Pond Road and the Lincoln School campus—which opened in time for the Fourth (actually Fifth) of July fireworks—is the first to be funded by a state grant that Lincoln Land Manager Dave McKinnon applied for. It’s a year-round walkway that will accommodate walkers and families with strollers at all times of the year as well as a skiable trail in winter. Visitors can now park at the schools and walk to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, or if they’re more ambitious, all the way around Flint’s Pond.
Conservation Commission staff, Lincoln Land Conservation Trust summer interns and volunteers pitched in to do the construction work.
The Rizzo family, which lives just to the east of the trail, has been generous in allowing their property to be used as an emergency evacuation route from the schools, but this has meant that casual walkers often use their private land, said Peter von Mertens, co-chair of the Conservation Commission. Town officials hope the new boardwalk will become the sole public access.
Photos courtesy Peter von Mertens