I’ve lived in this town for more than 30 years. When we first moved here, the transfer station was open 3 days per week.
I thought in the very early 90s it was more than 3 days per week, but my recollection is fuzzy. I do remember when it dropped to 2 days a week being, er, "annoyed". When the kids each turned ~16.5, they inherited the Saturday morning dump run, as a rite of passage. It was the Lincoln version of having kids to "work on the farm", perhaps.
With the amount of taxes we pay, and the ability to build a new school and fancy community center, etc… you’d think a couple of additional hours of transfer station opportunities would be added. [...] I’m wondering if the town can cough up a bit more of our tax money to add a day or 2 per year. I’m not asking for pick up ( although, wouldn’t THAT be nice?!)! These are BASIC services.
At the end of the day, of course, it's the residents that cough up that money. Generally, there are not buckets of money available to add new ongoing services without impacting our budget and resident tax bills. If we want to expand services in one area without paying more, what service/budget do we cut to offset the cost? That's always the $64,000 question.
(A small one I've been lobbying for: exiting the "printed matter" business for town reports and the financial warrant. We'd have a small number of reports available, printed on demand, at Town Hall for those that don't have digital access and/or prefer that format. We have to comply with various (mildly antiquated) notice/posting laws, and town staff is making progress on this. NOTE: I'm giving this as an example, not suggesting any cost offset is enough to cover additional T/S days.)
Dover, with a smaller population, offers 3 days per week. And they have a lower tax rate than Lincoln.
One general issue we run into: higher staffing costs, driven by our location. The "Metro Northwest" area of Boston, within a reasonable commute to Lincoln, is an expensive place to live. That means: to attract and keep staff, we need to pay accordingly. Otherwise, we (a) can't hire people, or (b) as soon as a comparable job opens in Weston-Concord-Sudbury-Wayland-Bedford-Lexington, employees jump, and we have a revolving door.
One "it's always a tradeoff" resident's view,
-andy
