A look at procedure and agenda for Town Meeting

A diagram of drop-off and parking areas, rest rooms, etc. for Saturday’s Town Meeting (click to enlarge).

Voter check-in for Lincoln’s first al fresco Town Meeting starts at 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 13, and it’s guaranteed to be significantly shorter than the usual multi-hour affairs.

The meeting starts at 9:30 a.m. under a large tent (capacity with social distancing: 150) in the Hartwell parking lot. Voters, who must wear masks, will get a preassembled packet with handouts, a voting card, paper, and a pencil for writing down questions. There will be a first-aid station with hand sanitizer, extra masks, water, etc., and volunteers who hand things out will be wearing gloves and masks.

The agenda includes 22 articles, but 19 of them are on the consent calendar, meaning they will be voted on as a bloc to save time, though attendees have the option of calling out individual items for separate discussion and voting. The other three articles are appropriations for the Water Department ($270,000 in borrowing), the School Building Committee ($828,945 transfer from free cash), and an annual free-cash article to balance the budget and/or reduce the tax rate.

Normally, a quorum of 100 residents is required to make a Town Meeting official in Lincoln, but the Board of Selectmen has the option to reduce that quorum to as few as 10 residents if necessary. The option came about after Gov. Baker recently signed legislation relaxing the Massachusetts Town Meeting quorum rules.

The board will meet virtually at 8:45 a.m. on June 13 to discuss whether, with Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden’s input and approval, it should lower the quorum to ensure that Town Meeting can undertake its responsibilities. The decision will rest partly on the rate at which residents are trickling in for the Town Meeting.

Before the Covid-19 state of emergency was declared, the original warrant signed on February 24 had 40 articles. They included some nonessential financial items and several citizens’ petitions asking voters if they would:

• hear reports from town boards on the status of the community center project
• change the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board
• support the proposal of the eighth-grade Warrant Article Group to support the Parkland School students’ organization, March for Our Lives, to end school shootings and shootings all over the country
• adopt a resolution in support of various federal, state and local actions to combat climate change
• adopt a new section in the town’s General Bylaws called the Polystyrene Reduction By-Law
• require Lincoln retail establishments to charge a fee for non-reusable check-out bags
• prohibit food establishments in Lincoln from using and distributing disposable plastic straws, stirrers, and splash sticks

There will be a Special Town Meeting in the fall to consider the items omitted on Saturday, as well as anything else that comes up between now and then that needs a town-wide vote.