The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

Legal notice: ZBA (91 Tower)

LEGAL NOTICE — ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS

The Zoning Board of the Appeals of the Town of Lincoln will hold a virtual online public hearing Thursday, March 5, 2026, at 7:00 P.M to hear and to act on the following petitions under the Zoning Bylaws:

New:

Shergul Arshad and Sophie Dixon, 91 Tower Rd., M/P 170-30-0 for a special permit to renovate and construct a single story detached two car garage. 

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Legal notice: Planning Board (Verizon)

LEGAL NOTICE — PLANNING BOARD

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING FOR SPECIAL PERMIT

The Lincoln Planning Board will hold a public hearing at 7:01 PM on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 via hybrid meeting to review an application for a Renewal of a Special Permit for an existing wireless communication facility located at 30 Lewis Street, Parcel 171-25-0, under Section 12.6 of the Zoning Bylaw. The applicant, Verizon Wireless, proposes to maintain the existing wireless communication facility by Special Permit for a new term.

The application is available for review by e-mailing Jennifer Parker at parkerj@lincolnma.gov. The agenda with the Zoom information and meeting location will be posted to the Town website at lincolntown.org/Calendar.aspx at least 48 hours prior to the hearing. This meeting will be converted to a fully remote meeting if the weather so dictates and appropriate notice will be provided. Anyone wishing to be heard may be present at the designated time and place, written comments will also be accepted.

Lynn DeLisi and Gary Taylor, Co-Chairs
Lincoln Planning Board

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Legal notice: Planning Board (Dark Skies)

LEGAL NOTICE — PLANNING BOARD

Notice of Public Hearing for Changes to the Zoning Bylaw

Hybrid meeting pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 which extends through June 30, 2027, the ability of public bodies to meet in a fully remote or hybrid manner.  This meeting will be converted to a fully remote meeting if the weather so dictates and appropriate notice will be provided.

In accordance with the provisions of MGL, Chapter 40A, Section 5, the Lincoln Planning Board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday March 10, 2026, at 7:15 PM, to review the following proposed changes to the Lincoln Zoning Bylaw:

To Amend the Town’s Zoning Bylaw as follows:

To see if the Town will vote to amend the Zoning Bylaw by deleting, in its entirety, Section 13.5 entitled Exterior Lighting, found on the Town’s website at https://www.lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/105110/Zoning-Bylaw-ATM-2025, and replacing it with a new Section 13.5, a copy of which is on file and available for viewing with the Town Clerk and the Planning Department, for the purposes of regulating exterior lighting and light pollution in accordance with Dark Skies principles.

Details of the proposed changes are available in the Planning Department, Town Offices, 16 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts, between 9:00am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday. This information can also be found on the Town’s website at lincolntown.org/252/Planning. Copies will be provided upon request. The agenda with the Zoom information will be posted to the Town website at lincolntown.org/calendar two days prior to the hearing date.

Lynn DeLisi and Gary Taylor, Co-Chairs
Lincoln Planning Board

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Legal notice: Historic District Commission (several properties)

LEGAL NOTICE — HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION

The Historic District Commission will hold a virtual online public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, to consider the following applications. Anyone wishing to be heard on these matters should be present at the designated time and place.

  • Estate of Dean Benner Eshleman, 89 Lexington Rd., M/P 133-52-0, to determine the significance of the structure in connection with the application for demolition. 
  • Hyde Park Nominee Trust, 59 Conant Rd., M/P 181-5-0, to determine the significance of the structure in connection with the application for demolition.
  • David Knoerr, 5 Hawk Hill Rd., M/P 182-19-0, for approval of the design for the fully demolished structure.

Anyone wishing to be heard on these matters should be present at the designated time and place.

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Legal notice: Historic District Commission (several properties)

LEGAL NOTICE — HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION

The Historic District Commission will hold a virtual online public hearing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, to consider the following applications. Anyone wishing to be heard on these matters should be present at the designated time and place.

  • Estate of Dean Benner Eshleman, 89 Lexington Rd., M/P 133-52-0, to determine the significance of the structure in connection with the application for demolition. 
  • Hyde Park Nominee Trust, 59 Conant Rd., M/P 181-5-0, to determine the significance of the structure in connection with the application for demolition.
  • David Knoerr, 5 Hawk Hill Rd., M/P 182-19-0, for approval of the design for the fully demolished structure.

Anyone wishing to be heard on these matters should be present at the designated time and place.

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Dilla Tingley: Lincoln’s queen of quilts

Dilla Gooch Tingley shows some of the pillow she’s made. On the wall behind her is a quilt titled “Portraiture a la Matisse.” Click image to enlarge.

These are not your grandmother’s quilts.

Longtime Lincoln resident and quilter extraordinaire Dilla Gooch Tingley draws inspiration from well-known artworks to craft textiles with wildly varying textures and topics — and often a dash of humor. You see a selection hanging in Bemis Hall’s map room through March, with an opening reception on Thursday, March 19 at 3:00pm.

“I’m most delighted in my work when I can take an artistic subject and reinterpret it in an interesting way,” she says. Many of her quilts are based on famous paintings, such as “The Next Supper,” a takeoff on da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” where the dinner guests are religious figures including Buddha, Ganesh, Jesus, and Mother Theresa.

Then there’s “Windows on Matisse,” a 3×3 arrangement of Matisse paintings with windows, and a collage of works by Picasso. She’s also made quilts based on Inuit art, Escher, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Gauguin, “but Monet is too hard,” she says. Often there’s a humorous twist, such as a piece based on “Luncheon on the Grass” by Edouard Manet — except the gathering of picnickers now includes Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh.

Some of Tingley’s quilts are based on art forms other than painting, such as “Architextural,” a collection of famous modern buildings including the Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the Transamerica building in San Francisco. As a surprise gift to Ellen Sisco, Lincoln’s assistant librarian who retired in 2014, she made a quilt with some of Sisco’s favorite literary characters and books such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and Wallace and Gromit. Another quilt called “Ex Libris” showing characters including Babar, Humpty Dumpty, and Madeline hangs in the children’s room at library. And decidedly non-literary is “Branded,” an array of brightly colored logos of Cheez-Its, Green Giant, Morton Salt, and more.

Tingley’s quilts aren’t always rectilinear, either. There’s “Damn Everything But the Circus,” whose top has the billowy shape and texture of a circus tent, and a round piece depicting a crying sun called “Sol Says Sorry” (caption: “My life-enabling warmth is causing so much grief — I cry for you”) that was included in the global warming exhibit.

Tingley, who is self-taught, didn’t start out on an artistic path. She earned a degree in physics at Vassar and then worked in a research laboratory in Harvard University’s Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, “though it was clear I wasn’t destined to be a physicist,” she says.

Starting in 1977, she worked at a variety of jobs at Polaroid. “I started as a supervisor on the production line making SX70 film, so I told people I was a film producer. Doesn’t that sound more interesting than saying you worked on a factory floor?” she says.

In 1988, she took early retirement from Polaroid, “and I bought a sewing machine on my way home from my last day of work,” she says. She started by making pillows and eventually graduated to quilts. Her process involves finding interesting fabrics, then sketching a design, cutting out appliques, and ironing them onto pieces of fabric to guide her in cutting. When choosing a subject or theme, she’s guided foremost by practicality. “Generally when I see the image, my first thought is: how easy would that be to render?” she says.

The post-career phase of her life also included working as a business manager for a Framingham youth guidance center and volunteering in numerous capacities in Lincoln including as a member of the Planning Board and as president of the League of Women Voters.

In her former Lincoln home on Laurel Drive, Tingley’s workshop took up most of the basement and featured dozens of cubbies for fabric and a hanging quilt rack that her late husband Fred made for her. She downsized to a Ryan Estate condo after his death in 2022 but still has room on her walls for many of her quilts along with a bedroom repurposed as a workroom. Not surprisingly, her collection of fabrics includes few of the familiar cotton scraps often seen in American quilts. For textures and background, she’s used everything from batik to silk to African mud cloth (“Demoiselles d’Mud Cloth” based on the similarly titled Picasso painting).

In 2004 she organized a group to make a quilt to celebrate Lincoln’s 250th anniversary. It features scenes from Lincoln’s history, including the Lewis Street pickle factory and a boathouse on Sandy Pond, and now hangs in the Tarbell Room at the library. Since about 2024, she’s been a member of the Lincoln Quilters., whose members work on quilts together. They recently exhibited in the Lincoln Public Library and held a silent auction of quilts that raised nearly $8,000 for charity.

Tingley’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibits at the Depot Square Gallery in Lexington, including a 2007 show called “HOT: Artists Respond to Global Warming.” Her submissions included the slyly humorous “We Love Our Cars” with colorful background landscapes overrun with cars full of monkeys, and “Venice of Massachusetts” showing a Venetian gondola in front of a State House at the top of Beacon Hill island surrounded by water.

One of Tingley’s volunteer roles is chair of the Council on Aging & Human Services board of directors, and she’s been deeply involved for years in efforts to create a new home for the COA, most recently as a member of the Community Center Building Committee. That work will reach fruition when the community center opens sometime in 2027 — and one of its interior walls will feature the quilt of Lincoln buildings that currently hangs in the living room at Bemis Hall.

Click on the images below to see larger versions with captions.

architextural
circus
artists
kids
figures
mountains
lincoln250
eaters2
labels
next-supper
picasso-transfiguration
luncheon
picasso
venice
venus
windows
self-portrait
escher
buildings
backdrop
bed

Legal notice: Planning Board (Verizon)

LEGAL NOTICE — PLANNING BOARD

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING FOR SPECIAL PERMIT

The Lincoln Planning Board will hold a public hearing at 7:01 PM on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 via hybrid meeting to review an application for a Renewal of a Special Permit for an existing wireless communication facility located at 30 Lewis Street, Parcel 171-25-0, under Section 12.6 of the Zoning Bylaw. The applicant, Verizon Wireless, proposes to maintain the existing wireless communication facility by Special Permit for a new term.

The application is available for review by e-mailing Jennifer Parker at parkerj@lincolnma.gov. The agenda with the Zoom information and meeting location will be posted to the Town website at lincolntown.org/Calendar.aspx at least 48 hours prior to the hearing. This meeting will be converted to a fully remote meeting if the weather so dictates and appropriate notice will be provided. Anyone wishing to be heard may be present at the designated time and place, written comments will also be accepted.

Lynn DeLisi and Gary Taylor, Co-Chairs
Lincoln Planning Board

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

Legal notice: Planning Board (Dark Skies)

LEGAL NOTICE — PLANNING BOARD

Notice of Public Hearing for Changes to the Zoning Bylaw

Hybrid meeting pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025 which extends through June 30, 2027, the ability of public bodies to meet in a fully remote or hybrid manner.  This meeting will be converted to a fully remote meeting if the weather so dictates and appropriate notice will be provided.

In accordance with the provisions of MGL, Chapter 40A, Section 5, the Lincoln Planning Board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday March 10, 2026, at 7:15 PM, to review the following proposed changes to the Lincoln Zoning Bylaw:

To Amend the Town’s Zoning Bylaw as follows:

To see if the Town will vote to amend the Zoning Bylaw by deleting, in its entirety, Section 13.5 entitled Exterior Lighting, found on the Town’s website at https://www.lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/105110/Zoning-Bylaw-ATM-2025, and replacing it with a new Section 13.5, a copy of which is on file and available for viewing with the Town Clerk and the Planning Department, for the purposes of regulating exterior lighting and light pollution in accordance with Dark Skies principles.

Details of the proposed changes are available in the Planning Department, Town Offices, 16 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts, between 9:00am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday. This information can also be found on the Town’s website at lincolntown.org/252/Planning. Copies will be provided upon request. The agenda with the Zoom information will be posted to the Town website at lincolntown.org/calendar two days prior to the hearing date.

Lynn DeLisi and Gary Taylor, Co-Chairs
Lincoln Planning Board

Note that legal notices often must be posted twice by law. For previous legal notices and details on how to submit a legal notice to the Lincoln Squirrel, click here.

News acorns

Family movie night

First Parish in Lincoln (stone church) is hosting a family movie night with pizza and popcorn on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 5:30pm, with the movie “Zootopia 2” screening at 6:00pm. There will be refreshments and cheese board for adults as well as gluten-free options. Organizers are also collecting diapers for the Metro-Boston Diaper Drive (loose or in packages). Click here to RSVP by Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 2:00 pm and make a suggested donation of $10/family to help cover food costs. (Note: This is not a drop-off event.)

Mocktails at the library

Aiming to keep those New Year’s resolutions but finding mocktails a bit boring? Come to the library’s Tarbell Room on Saturday, Feb. 28 from 2:30–3:30pm to mix up some new recipes and maybe find your new favorite drink. All ingredients will be provided. Registration required.

Spring/summer outdoor volunteer opportunities

Looking for an opportunity to give back to your community? Join the Lincoln Conservation Crew and help steward the trails and conservation areas of Lincoln. These volunteer events are hosted by the Conservation Department and the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust. Workdays focus on a range of stewardship tasks such as invasive plant management, data collection, native plant restoration, and trail maintenance. Click on a date for more information and to sign up.

Quirk promoted at The Commons

Nina Quirk

The Commons in Lincoln has promoted Nina Quirk to Campus Culinary Services Director. In her elevated role, Nina will oversee culinary services across The Commons in Lincoln’s entire campus, including independent living, assisted living, memory care, and the health center. She previously oversaw dining for the independent living neighborhood.

“Nina’s passion for quality ingredients, creativity, and meaningful resident connections has helped redefine dining at The Commons,” said Campus Executive Director Reynaldo LeBlanc. Quirk, who has been at The Commons since 2023, holds a master’s degree in gastronomy from Boston University.

Police log for Feb. 11–18, 2025

February 11

Lincoln Road (11:17am) — Multiple callers reported that the railroad gates were stuck in the down position. Officers checked the gates and summoned Keolis respond to the scene.

Baker Bridge Road (12:00pm) — A caller reported several packages were missing. The caller was also checking with the post office to see if they collected the items.

Bedford Road (8:57pm) — An officer asked the DPW to respond for a pothole that requires attention.

February 12

Deerhaven Road (11:35am) — An officer responded to a residence for a worker on scene who was doing maintenance work. The calling party was unsure if the work was scheduled.

Concord Road (6:32pm) — Police and fire units responded to a two-vehicle crash at the intersection of Concord Road and South Great Road. One operator was injured but refused transport at the scene. The operator who failed to yield was cited for the same. One vehicle was towed while the other was driven from the scene.

February 13

Nothing of note.

February 14

Sandy Pond Road (6:38am) — A Water Department employee reported a vehicle parked on the side of the road in a dangerous spot. An officer checked the area but the vehicle was gone on arrival.

Robbins Road, Bedford (3:22pm) — Hanscom Security Forces called to report that they had an individual in custody with an active arrest warrant. Officers responded and took into custody Nathan Nazario, 31, of Providence, R.I. He was booked then transported to the Billerica House of Correction.

February 15

Old Lexington Road(11:30am) — An officer assisted an individual with a civil matter.

Mount Misery parking lot (4:04pm) — Officers responded to the Mt. Misery parking lot and the canoe landing parking lot for two vehicles with shattered windows and missing items. An investigation is ongoing.

February 16

Long Meadow Road (1:39pm) — A caller reported seeing a water leak inside their residence. The Water Department was notified.

February 17

Hanscom Drive (5:33pm) — An officer checked on a vehicle parked on the side of the road. The operator had pulled over to use their phone.

Harvest Circle (5:43pm) — An officer helped a person with a follow-up investigation.

Lincoln Road (6:16pm) — A dispatcher spoke with Waltham police regarding a possible issue with calls being sent outside of their coverage area. There were no issues with the system.

February 18

Lincoln Road (6:29am) — An individual turned in two found items on the trails by Mt. Misery.

South Great Road (4:08pm) — A person spoke to an officer regarding a possible check fraud incident.

Old Sudbury Road (6:28pm) — A caller reported a suspicious motor vehicle parked near the railroad tracks. The vehicle was a Keolis truck performing maintenance.

Lincoln Road (6:44pm) — A motorist reported the railroad gates were stuck in the down position for an extended period of time. An officer responded, as did a Keolis representative a short time later.