Lincoln Blogs the Future

(Neil Feinberg’s April 3 Lincoln Journal column)

With the retirement of Lady Sara Mattes from the Throne of Three (aka the Selectmen), and the ascension of the, how shall we say, somewhat less loquacious Lady Renel Fredriksen to take her place, one burning question remains: will Selectmen meetings be any shorter?

The average length, gavel to gavel, of the last ten Selectmen meetings was one hour, 42 minutes and 21 seconds.  This includes, at opposite ends of the scale, one super-long meeting that ran 2 hours 29 minutes and 27 seconds and another that clocked in at only 54 minutes and 53 seconds.  That one will be tough to beat, even with Lady Sara no longer participating.  Especially with all the issues this board faces.

For now, as Lord Noah Eckhouse takes control of the Iron Throne (i.e. – becomes Chairman of the Board of Selectmen) and surveys the kingdom spread before him, he can foresee problems from the North Region and the Eastern Continent, and from palace intrigue closer to home.

His first order of business must be to do what all truly important rulers throughout history have done: he must raise an army to defend that North Region.  He may also need an air force to combat the Dothraki horse warriors who invaded our land and annexed our property at the end of Airport Road.  This invasion, done at the behest of the North Region warlord (aka the National Park Superintendent), must be avenged if the Iron Throne is to retain its sovereignty.

The Selectmen are committed, for now, to pursuing a course through the Federal Courts.  But that is because we are weak and lack the ability to repel the invaders.   To make matters worse, the Kingdom of Lincolnia must first defend itself from the warlord’s lawyers.  For only in the Seven Kingdoms of the Western Suburbs can the Dothraki occupy your land and
then sue you for making them do it.

Clearly, the ragtag militia (the Minute Men) of Lincolnia is no match for the Dothraki.  Besides, most members have jobs and are unable to serve on the front lines full-time.  Thus, a professional army must be raised.  But will the good citizens support such a bold move, especially with a new Palace of Administration (Town Office Building) and a new Temple of Education (public school building) coming down the King’s Highway?

In addition to the North Region, Lord Noah must appoint an emissary to the distant world of Sudburyland.  The recent presentation to our Revolutionary Council (Town Meeting) by the Lord of the Regional High School was downright depressing to anyone who loves education, and who doesn’t here in Lincolnia?  Apparently, the serfs of Sudburyland have revolted against the oppressive taxation imposed upon them and have refused to allow any new property taxes.  Without that, Sudburyland has had to cut back on global exploration as well as spending on their schools.

But is this a problem without a solution?  None of our neighboring kingdoms want our teenage lords and ladies.  Not Westonia, nor Concordia, both of which are in the throes of building new Temples of Education.  Perhaps Lady Renel could solve this implacable riddle on behalf of the Kingdom.   After all, she used to be the Kingdom’s Ambassador to the regional high school before Sudburyland’s serf uprising.

Speaking of tasks to accomplish, Lady Renel will have big shoes to fill when she assumes responsibility for Lady Sara’s fiefdom, the principality of HATS.  Will she be able to maintain the strong alliances forged with the neighboring Kingdoms to thwart the expansionist plans of the Massport Evil Empire?  Or will the Evil Empire form a dastardly alliance with the Dothraki?

But perhaps the most intriguing issue facing Lord Eckhouse and the Throne of Three will be how to respond to the palace intrigue and the Machiavellian tactics of the Lords of Education who continue to push their proposal for a new $49 million Temple of Education.  What
will the Throne Threesome do when this issue comes before them?  The Selectmen will have to take a stand on the new Temple just before next fall’s Revolutionary Council (Town Meeting) consideration
of the project.

The Kingdom’s fortune tellers are already predicting that if the Selectmen don’t back the project, it will be go down to defeat   Not even the normally rubber-stamping Town Meeting, they predict, would dare vote to spend all that money without the Throne of Three’s unanimous approval.

It will be important for the Throne of Three to provide guidance to the Kingdom’s Finance Committee and Capital Planning Committee as they all struggle to study the less costly alternatives. After all, supporters of the $49 million Temple of Education are already lining up to denigrate the repair option.

In this final year of the first reign of Lord Eckhouse let us all bow our heads in prayer that he may find the strength and wisdom to lead us to victory.  And maybe he can find a few magical dragon eggs while he’s at it. We could sure use ‘em.

(Neil Feinberg’s 3/22 Lincoln Journal column)

There really is only one compelling reason to attend Town Meeting this Saturday.  Sure, it’ll be Sarah Cannon Holden’s first meeting as the Moderator, but (with all due respect to our new Moderator) that’s not it.

And yes, there is always the danger that less than 100 people will show up, thus making it impossible to reach a quorum, but that’s not it either.  Oh, there are a couple of citizens’ petitions on the Warrant.  One has to do with Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to donate to political campaigns. The article asks the Town to register its opposition to that ruling.  The other has to do with limiting the printing of annual reports as a cost-saving measure.  After all, they’re available on-line.  Interesting enough Articles, but hardly worth foregoing a trip to the dump.  Besides, no one is calling for anyone’s impeachment, so why bother?

The rest of the 42-article agenda is chock full of basic pro forma stuff: some uncontroversial bylaw changes, some new equipment and other inoccuous purchases that may or may not be on the Consent calendar, lots of reports from subcommittees you didn’t even know existed, etc.

There won’t be any big IT expenditures because there’s a new Town Office Building acomin’ and new IT equipment is part of that project.  There aren’t any school committee requests for money for maintenance or repair projects for the school building.  That’ll be part of either the school building project or the school ‘repair and renovate’ project, depending upon which way the Town votes next Fall.

So, with no major expenditures, no controversial bylaws, no impeachments, and a school building vote another six months away, what reason is there to attend Town Meeting?

Why, to pay tribute to Sara Mattes, of course!  Sara is stepping down after four glorious terms in the spotlight.  She leaves office as the all-time record-holder for longevity in that office.  John Kerr held the previous record of three terms, but Sara broke through with ease, though it didn’t start out that way.

It was twelve years ago that Sara left the Housing Commission to become a Selectman.  She has since been followed in those footsteps by first Gary Taylor and now Renel Fredriksen, who just resigned from the Housing Commission.  Sara faced formidable competition in that first race.  Long-time resident Peg Marsh, who had served on multiple boards, decided to run at the last minute.  Sara campaigned hard and won, and she had to do it again three years later when Barbara Peskin ran against her.  Since then, she’s run unopposed.

Sara replaced Peter Sugar as Selectman and took over as that board’s representative to HATS, the advocacy group comprising representatives from the four towns surrounding Hanscom.  Its job is to keep an eye out for any Air Force or Massport shenanigans taking place on either the civilian or military sides of the facility.  When Sara took on that assignment, it was a sleepy ineffectual group.  Sara used her role to broaden and amplify that group’s influence to affect the political process.  HATS has since become Massport’s nemesis, working to block its expansion efforts.

Sara brought her Planning education and background to the Selectmen’s
office.  She was a big fan of collaborative processes and knows the meaning of doing things ‘The Lincoln Way.’  Whether it was called a charrette, a public forum or a hearing, Sara believed in getting the most Lincolnites involved in any decision-making.

She’s always had strong convictions and she has stood by them, whether they had to do with parking in the center of town, the Mall in South Lincoln, the Bemis Hall paintings, the Rt. 2 construction project or affordable housing.  She took quite a bit of heat as the Selectmen point person during the planning, construction (and most importantly, selling of it to the neighbors) of the Sunnyside Lane affordable housing project.

She hasn’t been shy about expressing her opinions on these and any other subjects of town interest.  In her first year, with Roz Delori as chairman of the board, Sara kept quiet and learned the ropes.  By her fourth term she could be counted on to utter at least 40% of all the comments made at any Selectmen meeting (and I’m including audience participation)

Over the years I have given Sara a hard time in this column for one decision or another, but she’s always taken it with grace and humor.  All my sniping aside, Sara has served this town admirably.  She has been one of the hardest working Selectmen in decades, dedicated to this town of ours and she deserves all the praise and acknowledgment she will receive on Saturday.

It’s probable that the Selectmen will honor her during the Selectmen’s budget presentation, which should be late morning, when the audience is usually at its largest.  I don’t know if she’ll be a fence-sitter or a log-viewer next year, but Sara has earned her ‘retirement’ and our heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

Good luck Sara in your future endeavors.

(Neil Feinberg’s 3/15 Lincoln Journal Ccolumn

Yikes, just when I thought we’d be able to avoid the topic of the proposed Lincoln public school building project for a few weeks (or months), along comes some interesting news: At its last meeting, the Lincoln Finance Committee voted to hire an independent consultant to do a comprehensive (and did I say, hopefully independent?) review of the oft denigrated “Renovate and Repair” (RnR) approach to the public school building project.

This is a step in the right direction if the town is ever to consider this construction project in “The Lincoln Way.”  That “Way” involves careful and impartial study of all options and alternatives so that Town Meeting can debate the project on its merits, using honestly-arrived-at and therefore trustworthy cost estimates and property tax projections.  That’s how the town has always made important decisions.

It also goes a long way towards restoring the Finance Committee’s credibility, which was tarnished by the public presentations regarding this controversial project of some committee members.  How did the Finance Committee got to this point?

Almost two years ago, the Lincoln School Committee appointed a subcommittee to study all options for the public school building.  That subcommittee applied to the MSBA for state funding and hired an architect and a preconstruction manager, known as the Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) to manage the front-end planning and design.  The subcommittee met with the consultants and came up with a bucket list: a school building to die for.  That became the subcommittee’s “Preferred Option (PO).”  Unfortunately, it costs almost $50 million.

All along, the subcommittee and its consultants pooh-poohed as inadequate the idea of merely renovating the building.   However, under pressure to show that it at least considered the RnR option, the subcommittee’s consultants eventually came up with a projected RnR cost that was almost exactly the same as the calculated Preferred Option cost, minus state reimbursement.  Was it mere coincidence?  The subcommittee’s OPM also warned that the RnR alternative would be way more disruptive than the PO.

But then along came Lexington, which decided last year to renovate two elementary schools for $5 million less than the projected RnR alternative (and $27 million less than the PO).  A subcommittee member recently explained why Lexington’s two school renovation projects cost less than the RnR option.  It’s because the two Lexington schools combined are roughly the same square footage as the lone Lincoln school.  Thus it isn’t
really like Lexington was getting a 2-for-1 deal compared to us.

That may be true, but each Lexington school has its own separate systems (HVAC, mechanical, electrical, etc.), which means the need to upgrade double the equipment and systems.  It also means two construction projects on two sites.  And, the Lexington schools project includes four additional classrooms, while the PO has no new classrooms. In fact, the PO’s proposed footprint shrinks the existing school by about two percent.

Remember, Lexington rejected new construction of roughly the same square footage as Lincoln’s building because it was deemed too costly.  And, I’m not even going to mention that the two Lexington schools were in far more decrepit condition than Lincoln’s school, with its finely polished floors, brightly painted walls, and skylights (I guess I mentioned it).

The subcommittee’s architect and OPM have stated emphatically that the Preferred Option can be built in 24 months without too much interruption to the students, but that the RnR option would take 36 months and be horribly disruptive.  Yet Lexington has found a way, by planning to work around the clock for two summers, during the months when school is not in session, to limit the disruption to just one year.  Jeepers, why didn’t the subcommittee’s OPM think of that?

But back to the Finance Committee.  With its public presentations showing parallel lines for tax impacts, but neglecting to reveal that the RnR option ends ten years before the PO option; and with committee members opining that borrowing almost $30 million would actually be good for our credit rating, town residents had begun to tune out or, even worse, distrust the Finance Committee’s public statements.  Something had to be done.

There are plenty of reasons why the Finance Committee may have decided to take this route.  For example, two of its members are married to School Committee members and this topic might be causing tension around the dinner table.  Imagine this conversation:

[SC member:  Honey, could you pass the mashed potatoes, and are you going to support our $49 million project?

Fincom member:  I'm concerned about the hit on taxpayer bills.  And get your own #%*# mashed potatoes.]

When contacted last week about the committee’s decision to hire a consultant, Finance Committee chairman John Koenig was unsure what would happen next.  He thought the committee would put out a request for proposals, review them and select a consultant.  It would all be done through the state-mandated bidding process, thus all proposals will be reviewed and evaluated publicly.

But what will the committee’s standards be in evaluating applicants?  What will its criteria be?  And what will the committee’s charge be to its consultant?  We’ll have to wait and see.

(Neil Feinberg’s Lincoln Journal column from 3/8)

Last week’s Selectmen meeting began as a love-fest and ended with a cautionary tale.

Officially, it started with a Public Hearing regarding the issuance of a beer
& wine license for Donelan’s.  Town Meeting had previously approved a “generic’ license and the Selectmen had received an application for it from Donelan’s.   This hearing was the next step in the process.

One of the elusive Donelan brothers, Joe, was there.  Neither of the Donelan brothers had returned numerous emails or voicemail messages left during the store’s closure.  In fact, the company had never issued a public statement about its closure or its lawsuit attempt to get out of the lease.  But there he was, live and in-person and smiling.  He was joined by the grocery chain’s general counsel and its operations manager.  They were there to discuss the store’s bona fides when it comes to selling alcohol, just in case there was any concern

But the hearing quickly turned into a celebration of the grocery store’s return to the Lincoln Mall.   Almost a year to the day since its roof collapsed, an agreement had been reached with the property owner, the Rural Land Foundation, and everyone was thanking and congratulating everyone else about the store’s return.

The Donelans operations manager explained how employees were trained in alcohol sales.  He said that the store’s policy is to card everyone, so don’t forget your driver’s license if you want to pick up a six-pack on the way home, no matter how old and decrepit you may look.  Chief Mooney concurred that Donelans’ Acton and Wayland stores also sold alcohol and that his reports confirmed that the company was committed to fully complying with state laws.

The general counsel revealed that the new beer & wine section will be located in the farthest corner of the store, where the milk used to be.  Grocers always do that with the most popular items to get shoppers to walk past all the other shelves and hopefully do some impulse shopping.  Apparently, beer and wine are the new milk.

While he didn’t indicate whether or not Donelans would still carry milk, he pointed out that the happy hour refreshment area would include five beer cooler doors and five wine cooler doors along with 60 linear feet of wine racks and two wine displays.  This seems to be a modest size and should leave plenty of room for dairy products, the bakery, the deli, all the processed foods and the beloved (by me) chicken wing cart.  But I’m not sure about the harpist.

Then the Selectmen’s meeting went on to a presentation by DPW Director Chris Bibbo and the Recycling Committee about ways to improve Transfer Station operations.  They’d like to decrease the waste stream, increase recycling and, in doing so, reduce the town’s solid waste disposal costs.  Allow me to interpret that for you: Expect more and higher fees, more hoops to jump through to dispose of your stuff, and be prepared to have your trash scrutinized.

The town currently recycles 38% of its waste, placing it solidly in the upper middle tier of municipal recyclers.  The Recycling Committee would like the town to be in the upper-upper tier.  To do that, they’d impose restrictions on types of trash that would be accepted (for example, there would be special furniture days, so you could not drop off that futon any old time, as is now the policy).  There could be additional fees, like a sticker fee, and they’d like to hire another employee.  That person would man a gate, check your sticker and peruse your trash for potential recyclables that you may be trying to throw away.  Such scofflaws could be fined, if the Recycling Committee and the Selectmen have their way.  Consider it Big Brother in your trash.

The Selectmen ended their meeting with a discussion of Lincoln-Sudbury High School.  You know, the building that was built a mere eight years ago for a gazillion million dollars.  The school building for which we’re still paying off the construction bonds.  A school building that was meant to last two generations, or fifty years, whichever comes first.

It turns out that maintenance and upkeep costs were kept to a minimum since the building opened and now the school needs a few million in fixes.  That deferral of expenses has led to problems not just with the building but with the fields and grounds.  Now things are broken, the roof will need replacement in the next few years, the computers are woefully out of date and the building’s wifi capacity needs to be expanded.  The Lincoln and Sudbury Finance Committees estimate that the school will need more than $3 million in capital improvements in the next five years.  Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching (one for each million).

Proponents of a new K-8 school building for Lincoln point to all the savings that a new building would offer.  But do their cost projections include the very real ongoing maintenance costs that would have to be built into the school’s operating budget?  Are they factoring in the possible need for another new roof after only ten or so years?

The cautionary message is that a new school building can actually cost more to maintain than an existing school building.  Proponents would have us believe that maintenance and operations costs for the new school would be less.  But that may not be true.  The town’s current experience with Lincoln-Sudbury’s building should trigger a reexamination of the School Building Committee’s long-term maintenance cost and operations assumptions.

Renel Fredriksen, candidate for the Board of Selectmen, has announced that she will hold two neighborhood coffees, one this Sunday afternoon and one next Sunday afternoon.  This is an opportunity for you to meet the candidate, who is running unopposed, and ask her the questions you’d like answered.

All Lincoln residents are invited to attend.

Here’s the schedule:
Sunday March 11, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
at the home of Bill Stason
29 Sandy Pond Road
Phone: 8939

Sunday, March 18, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
at the home of Jean Welsh and Ben Wells
23 Birchwood Lane
Phone: 9696

An ad hoc group of concerned Lincoln residents, organized by former Selectman Peter Sugar and others, has begun circulating an on-line petition asking that voters be given additional options regarding the construction of a new school building.

The current proposal put forward by the Lincoln School Committee calls for the construction of a new $49 million building.

The petition reads, in part:

“We, the undersigned citizens of Lincoln, would like to ensure that both the process leading up to October’s Town meeting vote and its outcome for our school facilities make Lincoln a stronger community now and in the future.

We want a K-8 facility that is safe, conducive to educating our children, cost effective and flexible enough to meet our needs for the foreseeable future.

We want an independent analysis of the cost of repairing/renovating our school, and believe that more options are required in order to enable our citizens to reach a fully informed decision about major changes to our school facility.

Therefore, we urge the Selectmen, the Finance Committee and the Capital Committee to take all necessary steps to rectify the limitations of the current planning process…”

To read the full petition and to sign it,  Click Here

Can’t get there?  Cut and paste this link:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/a-way-forward-for-lincoln-school-facilities.html

*                        *                          *

In a related story, the Lincoln Finance Committee has agreed to hire an independent, outside consultant to review all construction and renovation options and provide financial analyses of the different alternatives.  More developing…