Sara, Do you know if those facilities are open to the public? melinda Sent from my iPhone Melinda Bruno-Smith
On Nov 12, 2022, at 3:27 PM, Sara Mattes <[email protected]> wrote: Laura, Weston is almost 3X our size and a significantly bigger tax base. For all, it should be noted that our senior population grew substantially in 2010 with the addition of what is now The Commons. It also should ne noted that The Commons has wonderful facilities for programs, exercise and recreation. Sara ------ Sara Mattes On Nov 12, 2022, at 11:41 AM, Laura Crosby <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Karla, Thanks for your message. I’d like to mention one thing….. Don’t know about your other statistics here but do have one correction: Weston MA does not have “an old building compared to Bemis.” They have a beautiful, relatively new, large building to house their community activities including space for their COA. Sent from my iPhone On Nov 12, 2022, at 11:17 AM, Karla Gravis <[email protected]> wrote: Dear fellow Lincoln residents, I have closely followed the discussion around the $25M Community Center proposal and would like to take the opportunity provided by the Committee’s Vision memorandum to expose what I see as flaws in the process of proposal selection. We need to remember that building this Center will represent an average 9% increase in property taxes, which represents an additional $1,700 for the average Lincoln homeowner every year. There needs to be a valuable need and purpose to justify this burden on our families, and it is our duty to explore more cost-responsible alternatives. The benchmarking process was based on a series of wrong assumptions. We lost track of what other towns of our size were doing, and instead created a list of requirements out of proportion to our size and needs. This project would build a more expensive and bigger building than those found in towns many times our population. Neighboring towns with populations up to three times ours do not build Community Centers; their COA and PRD’s facilities share modest dwellings with other town facilities, on a scale comparable to Bemis Hall or Pierce House. Even for those towns that do have a community center, the current Lincoln proposal is four times the median space per resident. The disproportion is similar when we consider dedicated COA space per senior resident. This morning’s letter still does not clarify the expected use of a building of this scale. As has already been mentioned, a community is built by a shared purpose, not by a building. What we need is more volunteers who are interested in amplifying or creating communities of shared interest. We already have more than enough space and facilities across our brand-new school, Bemis Hall, the library and potentially Pierce House. Why not renovate the pods and use one of them for this purpose? Even refurbishing all three pods would be less than a fifth of the expense of the proposed new community center. We struggle with a reduced commercial footprint. If folks are looking for a place to have a cup of coffee, eat something, and see some friendly faces, they can do that while they support local businesses like Twisted Tree or Tack Room. The biggest issue I see with the communication sent this morning is the so-called disqualification of Bemis Hall and Pierce House as alternatives. At a State of the Town meeting eight years ago, a series of equivalent proposals, in size and cost, were put in front of attendees and they were asked to post a yellow dot on the poster representing their preferred option. Pierce House was one of the options proposed and there was nothing that disqualified it, as evidenced by the fact it was put to a vote. Attendees were forced to make a false choice between, among others, the Hartwell campus proposal, estimated at $9.5-13.5MM at the time, and a much-inflated Pierce House proposal, estimated at $8-11MM due to the plan to build an attached facility, excessive given our size. Pierce House was never objectively disqualified, but simply passed over when presented with a much cheaper Hartwell proposal. The studies referenced in the memo were conducted as long as a decade ago. Obviously, there are a lot of new faces in town who might have different opinions on how resources should be allocated and even those who have stayed should have another say on the use of the town’s monies. Our resources now are not what they were at that time, and perhaps neither are our needs, so altered by new habits resulting from the pandemic. The cost of building the Center has also multiplied since then. I urge residents to attend the Special Town Meeting in the Donaldson Auditorium on November 30th at 7:30pm, and vote. Up until recently, the CCBC seems to have been moving towards a narrow objective; it is imperative that a wide range of perspectives be heard. Town Pop. 65+ COA/PRD/CC facility COA/PRD/CC Sqft Sqft per resident Dedicated COA space sqft Sqft per 100 seniors Notes Sherborn 4,324 692 No N/A 0 0 No dedicated COA space, shares a couple of rooms in the town hall Carlisle 5,181 958 No N/A 3,500 3.7 Old private house, approximate sqft Harvard 6,844 1,116 No N/A 4,813 4.3 19th century house Weston 11,666 2,427 Yes 22,000 1.9 9,000 3.7 Old building comparable to Bemis Hall Wayland 13,724 2,470 No N/A 2,500 1.0 The town is considering a new facility with 3,000 sqft of COA space Sudbury 19,059 2,935 Yes 22,079 1.2 5,754 2.0 Estimated cost of $600/sqft (including pool & gym) vs. $1,000 for Lincoln Concord 18,184 3,728 Yes 12,496 0.7 12,496 3.4 1917 building shared with preschool Newton 87,453 16,004 3 sports facilities N/A 33,000 2.1 COA cost of $19.5M, 20% less than Lincoln with 12x as many seniors Median 1.2 2.7 Lincoln 4,756 1,332 4,270 3.2 Bemis Hall Lincoln new proposal 23,500 4.9 11,750 8.8 Assumes 50% of space devoted to COA On Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 8:37 AM Krystal Wood <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Community Center Building Committee- November, 2022 The vision: what is a Community Center, and why would Lincoln want to build one? A Community Center not only reflects the community at whose heart it sits, it strengthens that community. A Community Center is a year-round, intergenerational gathering place and activity center. A Community Center is a locus for a wide variety of activities – health and fitness, social services, learning, eating, socializing, creating, playing, participating. A Community Center enriches the community by fostering organizational collaboration and by housing an array of programs, for all ages. At its heart, the Community Center is a home for the Lincoln Council on Aging & Human Services and the Parks & Recreation Department, both of which do much more than most people realize, and both of which run constrained programs in their current homes. The Community Center also provides a base for 25 other community organizations whose work is critical to the quality of life in Lincoln. But the vision of a Community Center on the Lincoln School campus is of a building that exists not only to serve important organizational needs and to optimize programming, though those might be adequate reasons for building a new building, it is also of a building that will attract residents of all ages to gather for coffee and meetings and informal activities. Lincoln has a sense of community – we have impromptu encounters at the transfer station and at Donelan’s, we have annual events like the Scarecrow Classic, the Girl Scouts Pancake Breakfast, the July 4 parade, and we have Town Meeting. But the everyday contribution of a Community Center to the life of the community and to the sense of community can be far greater, and the possibilities are exciting – because the number of people using the Center will be so much higher, because the range of activities will be much greater, because the opportunities for intergenerational interaction will expand, because the provision of social services will be improved and the organizations providing those services will be more robust. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Search the archives at http://lincoln.2330058.n4.nabble.com/. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]. Search the archives at http://lincoln.2330058.n4.nabble.com/. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]. Search the archives at http://lincoln.2330058.n4.nabble.com/. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]. Search the archives at http://lincoln.2330058.n4.nabble.com/. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln.
-- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]. Search the archives at http://lincoln.2330058.n4.nabble.com/. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln.
