HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-05-08-MMC-min.docx
Monuments & Memorials Committee
Meeting Minutes
Thursday, May 8, 2025, 4:00 p.m.by Zoom
Members Present: Linda Dixon, Chair; Avram Baskin, Glen Bassett, George Gamota, Leslie
Masson, Mirela Vaso.
Members Absent: Liz Huttner, Regina Sutton, Nick Wong.
Business:
Linda convened the meeting at 4:10 pm, read the Town notice regarding the conduct of
public virtual meetings, and declared that a quorum was present.
Approval of Minutes
The committee approved the minutes of its meeting of April 3, 2025 by roll call vote.
Report of Lex250 and Patriots’ Day Activities
Glen Bassett, Chair of the Town Celebrations Committee, gave a rousing summary of Patriots’
Day. Town Celebrations and Lex250 worked together in a first-ever arrangement. The
committee supported the Minute Men at the Reenactment, where the crowd watched on two
Jumbotrons. All 129 participating parade units showed up and cooperated fully and cheerfully.
A huge crowd lined the entire parade route. DPW provided excellent support. In response to
Avram’s question about the community response to the organized protest, Glen said everyone
was well behaved and there was no problem. Some parade participants handed out “No King”
signs until they were told this was not permitted.
Linda described the successful Picnic in the Park on the Monday following the parade, and
praised Leslie and Colin Masson for subsidizing the dining tent for the occasion. Linda also
described the experience of a group of Vietnam veterans on the Lexington Veterans Association
float, who received warm cheers and applause from the huge crowd for the entire length of the
parade. Leslie and George offered kudos to the Lexington Historical Society, now the Lexington
History Museums, for the transformation of their Depot headquarters into a museum. NBC has
produced a 13-hour video of Patriots’ Day and posted it on YouTube.
Next Steps
The group had a productive discussion on next steps, starting with a meeting with DPW to share
the database, learn which portions of the database will be helpful to DPW in managing their plan
for maintenance and repair of monuments, and delivering in a useful format.
Another next step discussed was to Improve the Effectiveness of the Committee Web Presence.
The website working group will try to meet before summer recess. Our database was “no way
ready to share with the public” on Patriots’ Day, according to Avram. Ways to do this include:
Recruit a key individual from several Town committees to serve as testers, and tell us
what they would need from the database. George recommends we invite these liaisons
to a future meeting; Avram suggests September.
Connect with Director of Economic Development, Sandhya Iyer, for her assessment of
the database (Avram is pretty sure that ED will require an outside vendor to create their
user interface)
Once our new Select Board Liaison is identified, set up an assistance meeting. The SB
Liaison could provide personal expertise, knowledge of Select Board process, and ideas
on ways to frame our report to the Board.
Avram believes if we do it right, one interface can meet the needs of all stakeholders.
Bill Poole suggested looking at our project as a series of stages:
l. Create a usable database (virtually completed, only a few remaining stories to be submitted.)
2. Expand to other users
3. Obtain Select Board permission to proceed
The group agreed that it would be more effective for Nick and Avram to meet with DPW Director
Dave Pinsonneault privately during the month of May, rather than invite Dave for discussion at
the June meeting. They will report at the June meeting.
Linda will include an agenda item to discuss extending the committee meeting time later in the
day, to accommodate the one third of members of who work full time.
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 pm. Next meeting: June 5, 2025
Note: no meetings in July or August
Respectfully submitted,
Linda J. Dixon, Chair