Select Board disbands Recycling Committee, endorses Zero Waste Lincoln partnership

LINCOLN -- October 4, 2021, Lincoln Select Board endorses Zero Waste Lincoln and weighs skipping a November special town meeting. The board voted 3-0 to disband the dormant Lincoln Recycling Committee and 3-0 to endorse Zero Waste Lincoln, a DPW-partnered volunteer group that has already moved more than 115 mattresses from the incinerator and helped pass plastics-reduction bylaws. Finance Committee Chair Andy Payne told the board the schools' roughly $170,000 power purchase agreement request and an $82,000 Hartwell roof transfer can both be handled through reserve fund mechanisms without calling a special town meeting, which he said costs the town $5,000 to $10,000. "Separate the need from the mechanism," Payne said. Member James Craig added the bar for calling a special meeting "has to be high," and "nothing I've heard so far" clears it. The board also heard IDEA co-chair Jen James propose narrowing the committee's charge to five tasks targeting a March 2022 report, and appointed Paula Vaughn-McKenzie to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.