Selectmen authorize two-and-a-half-year Direct Energy contract for 14 town accounts

LINCOLN -- November 15, 2010, Lincoln Selectmen lock in bulk power deal and launch high school study process. The board unanimously authorized Buck Creel of the Lincoln schools to enter a roughly two-and-a-half-year Direct Energy contract through the Power Options collaborative covering 14 town accounts beginning Jan. 1, 2011, joining 10 school, library and water department accounts already on the contract. Creel said a competing Constellation New Energy bid came in about $900 cheaper on the schools' $70,000 commodity bill but lacked a parent-company guarantee and allowed open-ended credit reviews; vendors with such clauses, he said, have "changed or broken their agreements when the market prices for electricity went the wrong way." Selectmen also appointed Christopher Boudreau as a full-time 9-1-1 dispatcher, conditionally approved Conservation Restriction No. 135 on a Hilliard Road parcel pending trail-preservation confirmation, and set a Dec. 16 auction for 12 Airport Road. Chair Gary Taylor and members Sarah Mattes and Noah Eckhouse agreed to use their next meeting to launch a public process for a high school options committee, targeted to be seated by the first week of January.