Lincoln Select Board approves three landfill solar contracts and transportation five-year plan

LINCOLN -- September 9, 2024, Lincoln Select Board greenlights landfill solar contracts and a transportation five-year plan. The board on Sept. 9 unanimously approved a power purchase agreement, a lease and a PILOT agreement with HESP Solar for a landfill PV array, with consultant Beth Greenblatt projecting roughly $170,000 in annual benefits over a 20-year term and construction mobilization possible in October. Acting Chair Jennifer Glass, with member Kim Bodnar and Chair Jim Hutchinson, also endorsed the Transportation Coalition's eight-project FY26-30 plan, which requests no town money in year one and uses Chapter 90 and Complete Streets funds for projects including a Ballfield Road campus redesign. The board kept the commercial tax factor at the statutory maximum 1.5. Hutchinson recused on a separate Old Concord Road traffic and parking plan, citing his new home on the street; that plan passed 2-0. The Community Center project's cost estimates are now within $200,000, with a roughly $2 million gap addressed through value engineering rather than the $1.6-$1.7 million contingency.