Notes about Lexington

Andrei’s Resume

  • Engineer, self driving; Mathematician
  • Candidate for School Committee circa 2005
  • Appropriation Committee member for about 3 years
  • Town Meeting member about 10 years
  • Ran candidate questionnaire, 2014-2018
  • Maintainer, lex-wiki.org
  • Learning experience moving to Massachusetts from East Europe country

Boards and Committes

  • Select Board, 5 members
  • School Committee, 5 members
  • Planning Board, 5 members
  • Community Preservation Committee, 9 members
  • Town Meeting - almost 200 members
  • Town Meeting Members’ association

Ways to get information

  • Mailing lists
    • lexTMMA
    • lexington
    • lex-polrel
  • NextDoor
  • LexMedia
  • Newspapers
    • LexObserver, founded 2021 by Nicco Mele
    • Lexington Minuteman
      • Part of Gatehouse Media
      • Does not follow SB, SC, PB meetings anymore
      • For a while, one of the Selectmen wrote reports
      • Now, can read packets, watch LexMedia
        • https://dankennedy.net/2022/04/13/in-lexington-a-slice-of-local-newspaper-history/ “Adams sold his papers in 1971, according to the Globe obit. I’m not sure what their immediate fate was, but I know that at some point they were combined with another local chain called Beacon. The Beacon-Minuteman Corp., based in Acton, was eventually acquired by Fidelity’s Community Newspaper Co., then by Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell, and then GateHouse Media, which merged several years ago with Gannett.

        “Today the Lexington Minuteman is a shell of what it once was, though it was among a handful of Gannett weeklies that escaped being targeted for shutdown or a merger during a recent round of cost-cutting. Adams himself represented a different era in local journalism — one that was ethically lax in some respects, but that served as the voice of the community in ways that we rarely see anymore.”

Unique to Lexington?

  • Civic Academy: https://www.lexingtonma.gov/296/Civic-Academy

Public services

  • Schools - take 72% of budget
  • Athletic facilities
  • Community Center
  • Cary Library
  • Cary Memorial Building - shows, symphony
  • Summer - band plays
  • Street fairs, biannualy
  • July 4th Lyons Club Carnival

Other - private facilities

  • Bookstores were lost
    • Maxima Book Store
  • Cinema - will be closing https://lexobserver.org/2022/10/14/after-over-a-decade-in-lexington-center-venue-screens-could-go-dark-next-july/
  • Hayden center - children activities, camps
  • Churches organize social, religious events, concerts, poetry readings…

Budget

  • Municipal
    • Two finance committees
    • Budget Summit process
    • Voted by Town Meeting
  • Schools
    • Voted in toto by Town Meeting
    • Allocated by School Commitee (except capital expenses)

Issues

  • Representation
  • Remote vs in person Town Meeting
  • Commercial Tax Base
  • Need for new high school - was $300M, now $400M
  • Police station construction - $35.2M, over initial estimate $25.4M, very large, solar canopy additional $3.4M
    • https://lexobserver.org/2023/01/20/town-holds-ceremonial-groundbreaking-to-celebrate-ongoing-construction-of-new-police-station/
    • $171/yr tax increase for average single family home
  • Net zero
  • Affordability
  • Affordable housing
    • SPRD
    • Multi-family zoning housing for MBTA Communities
    • OSRD
    • LexHAB was subject to state procurement rules, costs doubled. Petitioned the General Court for legislation to recognize LexHAB as independent non-profit
  • Mansionization
    • Double avg footprint since 2,000
    • Reduce FaR limits
  • Loss of trees
    • Punitive fines for cutting trees for new construction, or for trees in public byway
  • Electric distribution lines