Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-02-19-AC-min.pdf 2/19/2026 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) February 19, 2026 Place and Time: Remote participation via a Zoom teleconferencing session that was open to the public; 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Alan Levine, Secretary; Anil Ahuja; John Bartenstein; Eric Michelson; Sean Osborne; Vinita Verma; Lily Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Man- ager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair Other Attendees: David Pinsonneault, Director, Dept. of Public Works; Maggie Peard, Sustainabil- ity and Resilience Officer; John Livsey, Town Engineer; Charles Lamb, Capital Expenditures Com- mittee (CEC); Lisah Rhodes, CEC; Tom Shiple; Betty Gau All votes recorded below were conducted by roll call. At 7:34 p.m. Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and took attendance by roll call. Announcements and Liaison Reports Ms. Kosnoff reported that yesterday, February 18, the Town sold $25 million in bonds with a 10- year term. The $11.825 million appropriated for design work on the high school project was part of the bond sale. Ms. Kosnoff further reported that there were 15 bidders for the bonds, which is more than usual, and the winning bid comes with a true interest rate of 2.03%. That winning bid also in- cludes payment of a large premium to the Town so that the coupon rate is about 5%. Discussion of Financial Articles for the 2026 Annual Town Meeting Article 23 Appropriate for Trash/Recycling Bins Ms. Peard said that this article requests $1,204,000 to purchase trash and recycling bins for the households that have Town trash and recycling service. She noted that most multifamily housing complexes have their own contracts for trash and recycling so would not be eligible to receive bins from this procurement. She noted that rising costs for solid waste collection and disposal and the desire to reduce the amount of waste have motivated the Town and the Solid Waste Task Force to look at making changes including expanding collection of food waste for composting, automated collection, new approaches to addressing excess waste, fees for bulky item collection, and additional opportunities for diversion of materials from the waste stream. There are multiple reasons to move to automated collection. The Town may be able to obtain favorable contract terms for automated collection which can be done more efficiently with fewer employees than manual collection. Haulers are phasing out manual collection, and the accident rate is high for the workers who do manual collection. Ms. Peard further stated that automated collection can only be done using compatible bins; the bins to be purchased with the funds requested under this article would be designed for use in automated collection. Bins of different sizes are available. The sizes of the bins to be purchased have not been determined but work to settle on the desired sizes is ongoing. She noted that the Town is aiming to implement automated collection beginning in the summer of 2027. 2/19/2026 AC Minutes 2 Ms. Peard further noted that MassDEP has given the Town a technical assistance grant. MassDEP prefers that communities use 35-gallon bins. If Lexington purchases 35-gallon trash bins, MassDEP would provide a subsidy of $30 per bin which would be equal to about half of the cost of the trash bins. Ms. Peard and Mr. Pinsonneault responded to a question by saying that they have been doing a lot of community outreach and soliciting public input. Most of the feedback they have received has been positive. There was discussion of some of the considerations involved in selecting bin sizes. Smaller bins are often favored by elderly residents because they are more easily maneuvered while larger bins are often favored by those with large families. There may be an option for a household to obtain a sec- ond trash bin. Mr. Pinsonneault said that they are also looking into the possibility of having a drop- off location for use when, e.g., cleaning out a house. He emphasized that food waste is the heaviest component of the trash stream and that removing it from that stream markedly reduces the volume of trash that a household generates. Mr. Pinsonneault said that the Town would like to purchase 11,000 trash bins and 11,000 recycling bins. The solid waste collection program serves about 10,500 customers, so there would be extras for replacements, new households, etc. Mr. Pinsonneault explained that the three line items in the operating budget for Refuse Collection, Refuse Disposal, and Recycling respectively fund trash collection, trash disposal, and both recy- cling collection and disposal. Ms. Peard emphasized that the ramp up of the Town’s food waste collection program over the past few years has helped to limit the increase in trash disposal costs because the Town now collects more than 1,000 tons of food waste annually that is not part of the trash stream. Mr. Pinsonneault added that mattresses and box springs must be collected separately and are no longer part of the trash stream. The Town is currently paying about $90,000 annually under the Recycling line for re- cycling of mattresses and box springs. Ms. Kosnoff reminded all that a Refuse and Recycling Revolving Fund was created several years ago after its creation was authorized by town meeting. The Select Board has not yet set any fees that would go into that fund. Article 31 Amendment - Chapter 90, Section 9 "Regulation of Refuse Disposal" Ms. Peard said that this article would amend the bylaw to permit the Select Board to impose reason- able fees in connection with the disposal of waste and to update the language in the code which is somewhat antiquated. She added that the current bylaw language would likely be incompatible with some of the changes to the solid waste program that are under consideration in order to reduce the waste volume and the costs to the Town. She noted that half of the landfills open in Massachusetts in 2003 have since closed and that half of the few remaining landfills may close by about 2030, which portends much higher trash disposal costs in the future. Ms. Peard stated that in the planned program each participating household would be able to put out one trash cart and one recycling cart each week without paying a fee. Excess trash beyond the first cart could incur a fee. It could be an annual fee for a second cart for households that routinely pro- duce more waste than can fit in a single bin. Another solution is having program-approved overflow bags that could be purchased at any of multiple locations. Such bags would need to be collected manually which would work as long as only a limited number of bags are put out for collection on each truck route each collection day. 2/19/2026 AC Minutes 3 In response to a question about the increase in housing in Lexington, Ms. Peard said that the larger multifamily housing developments that are being proposed will not be served by the town program; those developments will pay for their own waste collection. In response to another question, Ms. Peard said that the amount of waste disposed of per household in Lexington is about 1400 pounds per year which is in the middle when compared with the statis- tics from other cities and towns in Massachusetts. Article 12 Appropriate for Municipal Capital Projects and Equipment Mr. Livsey described the work that would be done under Article 12(k) which is intended to be a step toward installing sidewalks on North and Burlington Streets. He noted that last year funding was approved for a survey that is in progress. Installation of a full sidewalk along the entire lengths of the two streets would be a big and complex project; more than 100 trees would need to be re- moved, retaining walls would need to be built, wetlands may need to be crossed, and land outside the right of way may need to be acquired. The cost for the full project is estimated to be about $5.2 million for construction and very roughly $200,000 for land acquisition. Mr. Livsey said that the sponsors of the article will not request funding for both an alternatives anal- ysis and a design but only about $60,000 to perform the alternatives analysis. A request for the re- maining design funds may then be made at a future town meeting. Mr. Livey thought that breaking the request for pre-construction funds into two parts would not necessarily have a big effect on when construction might begin. The alternatives analysis could look at installing sidewalks in strategically chosen limited locations only, in making the streets one way, and possibly other ways to reduce the project cost. Ms. Verma stated that she had initiated the petition to call for a sidewalk on Burlington and North Streets due to safety concerns. She and several other people had explored creative design concepts. She noted that Mr. Shiple had shared several good documents and videos that are relevant to this discussion. One concept that stands out is called “edge lane roads” where bike lanes on the sides of the roadway are marked with broken lines and the middle lane for cars may not be sufficiently wide for two cars to pass without a car intruding into a bike lane which it may do if the bike lane is clear. Mr. Levine asked about parts (b) and (c) of Article 12 which involve bike and pedestrian accommo- dations. Part (b) involves design work on connections between the Minuteman Bikeway and Lex- ington High School (LHS) and part (c) would do the design work for conversion of a sidewalk on Worthen Rd. to a mixed-use path. The coordination of these improvements is being done through the Transportation Safety Group. Ms. Gau added that the Bicycle Advisory Committee supports both 12(b) and 12(c). In response to a question from Mr. Parker, Mr. Livsey said that the design work for the improve- ment of the intersections of East and Hancock Streets with Adams Street that would be funded un- der Article 12(l) is being deferred until the planning is a bit more mature and there is a better under- standing of what land may need to be acquired for the improvements. Articles 13 and 14 Appropriate for Water/Wastewater System Improvements Mr. Bartenstein asked whether there will be anything unusual in the water and wastewater capital articles this year. Mr. Livsey said that the one relatively new development is the implementation of structural lining of pipes which involves a resin that cures between two layers of fabric that are in- serted into a main. After the resin cures, there is a high-tech procedure to drill openings for service connections to the main. 2/19/2026 AC Minutes 4 Future Meeting Schedule The Committee will meet next week on February 26 with the proponents of two citizens articles. Minutes of Prior Meetings Minutes for the meeting of February 5, 2026, were approved by a vote of 8-0. Planning for the Committee’s Report to the 2026 Annual Town Meeting Mr. Levine asked if Mr. Parker and Ms. Impink could distribute directions concerning inserting links into the Committee report in Wdesk. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 9:14 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Alan M. Levine Approved: February 26, 2026 Exhibits ● Agenda, posted by Mr. Parker