As the nation concludes observances of the Civil War’s 150th anniversary and marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, communities are preparing for the 147th observance of Memorial Day to honor and remember the fallen in all wars.

Originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day began May 30, 1868 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion,” according to Gen. John A. Logan’s General Order No. 11, it is now observed on the fourth Monday in May.

Locally, parades, wreath-laying ceremonies, speeches and ceremonial rifle salutes will mark Memorial Day on Monday, May 25.

Hanson Scouts will place flags on veterans’ graves at Fern Hill Cemetery at 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 19.

Weekend of events

In Whitman, Duval Elementary School kicks off the weekend of events at 9:30 a.m., Friday, May 22 with its 12th annual We Remember Ceremony of patriotic music, student poetry, honors for deceased veterans and a reception for guest veterans and town officials. Town organizations will begin decorating veterans’ graves in town cemeteries with the help of Boy and Girl Scout troops at 9 a.m., Saturday, May 23.

Dunkin’ Donuts is contributing doughnuts, coffee and juice for the Scouts and troop leaders at the VFW Pavilion at 8 a.m. before the work of placing flags begins.

“We’ve got a good committee — us, the Legion, the DAV,” said chairman Aaron Richardson, a Navy veteran and commander of  Whitman VFW Post 697, of the planning group that has been meeting Wednesdays each week as the parade day nears. “Everything seems to be falling into place. It’s something we do for the fallen servicemen and women — it’s in honor and remembrance of them.”

A parade Grand Marshall has been selected and dignitaries have been invited to speak, including state Rep. Geoffrey Diehl, R-Whitman, and U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass. Replies are still pending, according to Richardson.

“It’s a big day for them,” he said. “I’m sure their schedules are going to be busy — they do multiple engagements.”

Scouts are also being asked to do readings of Logan’s Order, The Gettysburg Address and perhaps a prayer at the WWI Memorial Arch during the parade stops.

Morning observances ahead of the parade on Memorial Day involve wreath-laying and flag ceremonies from 7 to 8:40 a.m. starting at Hill Street Cemetery, then to the Knights of Columbus, St. James Cemetery, Mt. Zion Cemetery and Colebrook Cemetery’s veterans’ lot and the grave of Medal of Honor recipient Lt. John R. Fox.

Parades

The parade forms on Court street at 8:45 a.m. and steps off to South Avenue, stopping for ceremonies at the Town Hall Honor Roll, WWI Memorial Arch, Colebrook Cemetery and the flag pole and Civil War Soldiers Monument in Whitman Park.

In Hanson, the parade steps off from Indian Head School at 10 a.m., following a brief 9:45 a.m. ceremony and marches to Town Hall and Fern Hill Cemetery for ceremonies and speeches.

Selectmen Chairman Bruce Young will read the Gettysburg Address at Town Hall where ceremonies will include a rifle salute and “Taps.” The day’s keynote speaker will be Maj. Drew Kitchen, who will speak during ceremonies at Fern Hill Cemetery.

WHITMAN – The metaphor of an empty – or vacant – chair as a reminder of life lost in war dates back at least to a Civil War song by H.S. Washburn.

Now Whitman has its own empty chair as a POW/MIA memorial, presented by Veterans’ Services District Director James Crosby and Veterans’ Services Officer Tom McCarthy and accepted by the Board of Selectmen Tuesday.

Crosby and McCarthy found an unused chair in Whitman Town Hall, which Crosby refinished as a permanent symbol of remembrance that will be placed in a roped-off area between the Collector and Town Clerk’s offices. They are working on a similar project for Abington, which shares their services with Whitman.

“They’ve done a really fantastic job to-date addressing the needs of veterans in both communities,” Town Administrator Frank Lynam said to introduce the presentation.

“This is a POW/MIA Honor Chair – a program that’s going though the United States,” Crosby said, noting similar chairs have been presented to the Boston mayor’s office as well as Gillette Stadium, TD Garden and several police departments and town halls across the state. “It’s a chair that remains open and empty so that we can bring awareness to all our prisoners of war and those who are missing in action.”

A plaque donated by Disabled American Veterans Chapter 119 of Whitman dedicates and explains the chair’s message.

In other business, Selectmen voted to approve the transfer of $6,000 associated with benefit costs of the ratified DPW union contract, which had been assigned to the salary line, so the benefits could be paid.

And then there was pickleball.

Selectmen approved a request by COA Director Barbara Garvey to set off an unused basketball court behind the Police Station on Essex Street for the unusual low-impact sport named for a cocker spaniel who liked to chase tennis balls.

While few locally have ever heard of it, the combination of tennis, ping-pong and badminton has hundreds of thousands of devotees nationwide – especially among seniors, though it has multiple-generation appeal.

“After the painful jokes I made [Garvey] actually explained to me what pickleball was,” Lynam said. “But it didn’t help, so I went online.”

He found a three-minute report from the erstwhile “CBS Early Show,” which he screened for the board to explain the sport.

Local seniors currently playing in  Abington have expressed interest in a location on which to play in Whitman, according to Lynam, who said the basketball courts in question would require some rehabilitation. He said some seniors are willing to help with the work and suggested the  DPW might help fill in overgrown areas and level it out.

“It wouldn’t cost much, but it would be an opportunity to offer a program to seniors that we don’t currently have,” he said. “I think it’s worth trying to see if there’s any interest in it.”

It may not prove whether or not someone is lying to you, but a working knowledge of micro facial expressions — some crossing the face in less than a fifth of a second — can reveal clues about a person’s true feelings.

Students in Jeffrey Andrews’ AP psychology class at WHRHS on Tuesday, April 28 took a sample of the San Francisco-based Paul Ekman Group’s copyrighted Micro Expression Training Tool, or METT, program during a visit by former Secret Service Special Agent Paul Kelly.

Students — all seniors, a third of whom will be studying psychology in college next year — gave the program high marks in post-event comment forms, according to Andrews.

“I find it extremely progressive and impressive that the training is finding its way into some branches of the military,” said one student who opted to withhold her name. “You pick up on a lot more and are able to see how people truly feel about something said in everyday conversation.”

The student cautioned, however, against reading specifics into such fleeting expressions.

“Ever since participating, I have not been able to stop noticing micro expressions,” said Hannah Cotter. “A blessing and a curse!”

Hailey Hennessey found the topic exciting, too.

“I’m very into all of it,” she said. “It felt really exciting to have a professional, experienced guest give us a rare look into it.”

Maddie Scheller said she hasn’t noticed many micro expressions in daily interactions, but recognizes real-life applications of being able to do so. The students also enjoyed the hands-on nature of the workshop.

METT tested the students twice on a series of videos of people displaying neutral expressions interrupted for 1/10 of a second by one of seven expressions universal to all humans: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.

“You could say, by a stretch, that facial micro expressions since they are non verbal, could be a type of body language, but it’s really much different,” said Kelly, an Ekman Group instructor.

He said Andrews’ interest as well as that of the motivated AP students brought him to schedule the visit.

Ekman is recognized as the world’s foremost authority on facial emotion and recognized by the American Psychological Association as one of the 100 most distinguished psychologists since Sigmund Freud.

“The face is the clearest example of emotion,” Kelly said. “His (Ekman’s) work is very much science-based. … “What he’s looking at, in terms of emotion, is if the face can reveal an emotion other than what the person is presenting.”

After determining a baseline score based on the students’ answers to the first video test, Kelly went over details of each expression and the physical clues to each emotion before the students were retested. Commonly confused in the early stages of training are fear and surprise as well as contempt and disgust, he explained.

“I am watching the T, primarily the center line of the face,” he said.  “When it comes to emotion … ears are not a factor, but the wrinkles in your forehead are, the eyebrows are, the nose muscles and cheeks are, the upper lip is a factor. Teeth are a factor. The mouth itself, the jaw, the neck, the head — it’s all there, but it’s all a center line. I’m just taking it all in.”

Every student at least improved on their baseline scores, with those scoring in the average range at least doubling their score in the second test.

“In real life, once you get this in your skill set, you’re going to be picking it up all the time,” Kelly said. “Most of the time you don’t notice it about yourself because it is involuntary. The micro is in short duration because it’s stifled somehow.”

Ekman teamed with Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan, a psychologist interested in evaluating truthfulness and credibility, to study how good people are at recognizing deception. They discovered that, globally, there is only a 53 percent rate of accuracy.

“That’s not much better than chance,” Kelly said. “Only one-third of 1 percent of all the people they tested were significantly more accurate in evaluating truthfulness … why were they better?”

The Secret Service was among the higher scoring subsets in the study.  Kelly said he is convinced that is because Secret Service Agents deal with a lot of people who threaten those officials they protect. Many of those threats are from people with mental illnesses.

Secret Service agents are, therefore trained to be active listeners and observers, he said.

Macro expressions are the broad smiles or pronounced frowns people see every day — the expressions a person is trying to show you. Micros are shorter duration; almost involuntary, subtle expressions brief in duration and minis are briefer still.

“What we are really conscious of is, when a micro is displayed that is contrary to what the person is saying,” Kelly said. “That’s why this skill set is not just for cops, it’s for anybody that deals with people.”

He stressed there is no single physical clue to expose when a person is lying, or the Pinocchio Fallacy.

Registered voters in Whitman and Hanson will be asked to decide on the funding of technology upgrades to school computer systems as well as voting for town officers when they go to the polls Saturday, May 16.

Polls are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Whitman, where all precincts vote in Town Hall auditorium, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Hanson, where all precincts vote at Maquan School.

Whitman voters must be sure to look for Question 1 at the bottom of the one-sided ballot. The question involves a one-year capital exclusion of $836,500 to fund technology improvements for Whitman schools and the town’s share of high school upgrades. The additional tax, based on the current tax rate and property values, is about 63 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. [see page 12]

“While technology has advanced dramatically since 2004 [when current equipment was purchased], we continue to work with the same equipment and are finding it more and more difficult to work with what we have,” stated Town Administrator Frank Lynam.

Hanson is asking voters on a two-sided ballot to approve a five-year bond exemption for its $633,500 share of tech upgrades. The School District will be borrowing the funds, which should cost, on a decreasing scale over the five years, $12.87 on a house valued at $100,000 [$38.61 for a $300,000 house] in fiscal 2017 — down to $11.63 for that $100,000 house in the final year (fiscal 2021), based on a 2-percent interest rate.

“The current smart phones that some [high school] seniors use today are more powerful than the computers in their classrooms,” Indian Head School Principal Elaine White has stated.

In Hanson, a question which would have authorized selectmen to petition the legislature for special legislation requiring two-thirds votes of town meetings to authorize school department borrowing for certain capital costs remains on the ballot — but the issue is moot as the question was rejected by the May 4 Town Meeting.

Hanson voters will also be voting for:

• Moderator [vote for one]: Sean J. Kealy.

• Selectmen [vote for two]: Annmarie Bouzan, Donald J. Howard; James McGahan; Joseph R. Weeks III.

• Assessor [vote for one]: Kathleen Keefe.

• Board of Health [vote for one]: Arlene Dias, Kimberley King.

• Cemetery Commissioner [vote for one]: No names appear on the ballot, but James Arena III is conducting a write-in campaign. The “III” is important to make sure the correct James Arena gets the vote, as both his father and grandfather both live in town, but are not running.

A college student majoring in business administration, Arena has been working summers as a caretaker at Pine Hill Cemetery in West Bridgewater as well as part-time teller/customer service representative for Harbor One Bank on a year-round basis. He decided to run when he learned there were no candidates and said he hopes “to make a difference to improve the conditions of the family residents in town.

• Planning Board [vote for one]: John F. Kemmett.

• Hanson Housing Authority [vote for one]: Marilyn J. Cardile.

• Constable [vote for two]: Charles W. Mann, August P. Silva.

• Trustee of Memorial Field [vote for one]: No candidates.

• Trustee of Public Library [vote for two]: Linda A. Wall, Corinne C. Cafardo.

• School Committee [vote for one]: Robert W. Hayes.

• Water Commissioner [three-year term, vote for two]: Andrew D. Sargent, Mary Lou Sutter.

• Water Commissioner [one-year term, vote for one]: Gilbert B. Amado.

Whitman voters will also be voting from among:

• Town Clerk [vote for one]: Dawn M. Varley, Catherine E. Gage.

• Selectmen [vote for one]: Daniel L. Salvucci.

• Assessor [vote for one]: Priscilla A. Waugh.

• School Committee [vote for two]: Kevin M. Lynam, Frederick M. Small.

• DPW Commissioner [vote for one]: Wayne T. Carroll Sr.

• Public Library Trustee [vote for two]: Michael J. Ganshirt, Elaine M. Melisi.

• Planning Board [five-year term, vote for one]: Donald M. Craven Jr.

• Planning Board [four-year term, vote for one]: Wayne A. Andrews.

Whitman resident Joshua Kimball is also conducting a write-in campaign for a seat on the Planning Board.

• Board of Health [vote for one]: Barbara J. White.

• Whitman Housing Authority [vote for one]: Patricia A. McKay.

HANSON — Candidates for town offices faced the voters for a question-and-answer session Sunday, May 3 in a forum jointly sponsored by the Democratic and Republican Town committees.

The forum, moderated by Town Moderator Sean Kealy, proved the opportunity for all candidates to present an opening statement and answer any questions asked.

Most candidates, running unopposed, received no questions, but the four candidates vying for two seats on the Board of Selectmen — incumbents Donald Howard and James McGahan and challengers Annmarie Bouzan and Joseph Weeks fielded questions from the audience for almost 90 minutes of the two-hour forum.

As in a recent Whitman Hanson Community Access TV forum, questions Sunday ranged schools to economic development and the selectmen’s role in government.

The show is being rebroadcast periodically on the Hanson local access cable channel.

Bouzan, the mother of three grown children and 26-year resident of Hanson, was first by luck of the draw. She has worked at Camp Kiwanee and on the Finance Committee before becoming administrative assistant to the Building Department.

“I really believe I can bring a better sense of community to the town,” she said. “We need to work together. We need to work things out and we need to work cohesively to move the town forward in a positive matter.”     

McGahan, 53, is also a parent of three and had won a recall election last summer, unseating Steven Amico.

“One of the reasons why I decided to run was I because I felt that I could being some positive change, and I believe I’ve been able to demonstrate that,” said McGahan, who has also served community sports leagues in town, focusing on his continuing commitment to overseeing repairs to Hanson’s schools.

Howard, a resident of Hanson since 1948, also has three grown children, said he is running again because he loves the town and serving the public. He is a member of the Plymouth County Advisory Board, the Plymouth County Central Water Division and attends Monponsett and Jones River watershed meetings.

“I keep myself busy,” he said and thanked his fellow volunteer elected officials for their dedication to the town.

Weeks, a 2003 WHRHS grad and father of two small children also stressed his commitment to the community as well as his status as a member of the Planning Board, Capital Improvement Committee and Housing Authority as well as being a small business owner.

“Hanson has always been the town I wanted to live in,” Weeks said. “Giving back is something I jumped into right away.”

Town Administrator Contract

While Kealy aimed to keep specific personalities out of a question asked about the town administrator’s contract, Town Administrator Ron San Angelo’s name crept into some responses. Kealy allowed responses to the general idea and called out candidates who slipped into personalities.

Howard said the town administrator is being paid to do his job as personnel and budget manager. McGahan urged people to compare the current town administrator’s contract with his predecessor’s.

“There are key differences,” he said without going into specifics, in keeping with Kealy’s instructions. “You have to ask yourself, what’s in it [and] is it good for the town of Hanson? I believe the current contract is not.”

Bouzan said, “The contract is the contract,” and said the town has the right to renegotiate it at the end of the contract’s three-year term as long as the general feeling is that the job is being done.

Weeks, who slipped into references to San Angelo from time to time, agreed with Howard and Bouzan.

“My biggest question is that the contract itself was moved up to May 19,” he said, noting there is the potential of having two new members on the board when the issue comes up. “I find that unsettling.”

McGahan countered that May 19 was selected to prevent the issue from becoming a political football.

Selectmen Liaisons

Candidates also divided along the issue of Selectmen liaisons to town departments, with Bouzan stating the recent policy has had an intimidating effect and all but McGahan opposing the policy to some degree. Howard and Weeks agreed with Bouzan.

“The people voted for us to have a town administrator to run the town,” Howard said. “I don’t believe in the liaison. If an administrator has a problem he can always go to the selectmen and ask about [it].”

“People come here, they’ve got a job to do, they get it done,” Bouzan said. “If there’s an issue, they know who to go see — the town administrator’s [door] is always open. … We’re getting to the point where we’re micro managing and it’s just not a good feeling. You can feel the tension in that building.”

She did say the idea has some merit with public safety departments, but that all departments should report to the town administrator. Weeks agreed the policy should at least be reconsidered.

McGahan said there is value in the liaison policy as it allows selectmen to learn for themselves the needs of various departments.

School issues

Weeks said he just wants to see something done — whether repairing or building new — in the most economical way possible and credited the Priority Repair Committee’s work so far. Bouzan agreed that common ground must be found. She had voted against the new school because it became so divisive, but Weeks and Howard had supported it, while Weeks allowed it would have been difficult for him financially as well as many others had argued at the time.

McGahan said, while he would love to see “a new solution to the Maquan School,” he felt the wrong path had been followed before, but since then there has been a cooperative effort to address the schools’ needs.

“We have to repair the schools for our children,” Howard said.

Weeks and Bouzan also agreed with School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes, who had also been questioned on the issue, that the two-thirds vote on school borrowing issue is one for voters to make and that they would abide by that decision. McGahan personally favors it, but Howard personally favors a majority vote.

Hayes had said residents who hold the view that, under a two-thirds requirement, one-third of Town Meeting voters could control any decision have approached him. [See related story]

Attracting business

While he said he’d love to attract a lot of business to town, Howard said Hanson’s status as a bedroom community with no sewerage system and poor drainage in many areas, makes the prospect difficult. McGahan would like to see — perhaps on a monthly basis — continued meetings between the town and businesses to permit an avenue for them to express concerns.

Bouzan and Weeks, himself a small business owner, also voiced an eagerness to work with business owners, with Bouzan suggesting a Chamber of Commerce could be established. All four agreed that businesses would be required to comply with town planning, conservation and health regulations.

Candidates also fielded questions on the town’s emergency preparedness, which all said functions well while welcoming a fledgling Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. They also agreed that a public forum during Selectmen’s meeting is an idea worth exploring, but Bouzan and Howard noted it had been tried before only to be abandoned due to lack of participation.

WHITMAN — The Southeastern Philharmonic Orchestra comes home to Whitman Town Hall auditorium to perform a free pops concert in celebration of its centennial at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, May 10 — Mother’s Day.

Conductor Robert C. Babb said the concert is the perfect gift for mom, an afternoon of music and family.

“It’s going to be a great opportunity for people to treat their mothers to something special and make it a very special Mother’s Day,” Babb said. “It’s going to be a pops-type of concert. A lot of the music comes from around the time the orchestra started.”

Irving Berlin tunes will be included in the repertoire as he was “incredibly popular with the songs he was writing at that time,” Babb said, adding that Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” composed in 1914, will also be featured as well as other favorites the orchestra continues to play.

Now based in Weymouth for about four years, the SPO was founded in Whitman by Frank Burnett and Dr. John Coughlin in 1915 as the Whitman Orchestral Club and rehearsed as well as performed in the Town Hall auditorium. Having performed concerts for every year since its inception, the SPO is the oldest continuing community orchestra in the nation, according to the SPO website. Its purpose remains to provide fun and experience for amateur musicians of all ages and levels of accomplishment.

“I’ve been there a couple of times and the sound just bounces off the walls,” Babb said of the venue. “The acoustics are incredible.”

This is Babb’s 36th season with the SPO, which boasts musicians ranging in age from 15 to 90. Many of the musicians have been SPO members for decades

“Right now we have musicians from all over the South Shore,” Babb said. That 55-musician roster includes Whitman resident and violinist Sheila Kinch.

Sunday’s concert is supported in part by a grant from the Whitman  Cultural Council, a local ageny supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

—  Tracy F. Seelye

WHITMAN — It took several appeals to residents watching at home, Facebook posts by town officials, cell phone calls and a mention in the benediction prayer, but a quorum of 150 was eventually achieved by 8:58 p.m., Monday, May 4 to allow the business of Whitman’s special Town Meeting to convene within the annual.

The special had been posted to begin at 7:45 p.m.

It was almost 8 p.m. when the annual Town Meeting convened, still 17 short of a quorum for the special to vote on about $1 million that had to be moved in that warrant to continue this years’ operations until June 30.

The Rev. Crystal Gardner of the Whitman’s United Methodist Church included an appeal for more voters in her prayer.

“We ask that you give us the 17 people that we need,” she prayed. “If we don’t have the votes, then it’s not your place to complain … we ask that you find it in your hearts to ease on down the road and come to this meeting.”

She also prayed that each article be respectfully analyzed before it was criticized.

“It’s frustrating,” Town Administrator Frank Lynam said after adjournment. “The form of government we have is the ultimate in citizen participation. People who have something to say, can come here and say it. People who want to know what’s going on, can come here and participate. It’s great to watch it at home on cable, but you’re not participating.”

Lynam said sooner or later lack of participation will reach the point where there is not enough for government to work.

“That’s what I’m concerned about because I can see us moving to a representative form of town government and that is not something that people come here and participate in year in and year out want to see,” he said.  “The citizens who attended seemed to understand and were comfortable with all of the requests … very few items even had a lot of discussion.”

Voters during the annual Town meeting focused the bulk of discussion on a by-law change regulating open burning devices [See related story above] and a non-binding referendum petition urging the state to discontinue Common Core standards and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing.

“This is to send a message to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and to Gov. Baker,” said Michele Frank of Country Way. “Massachusetts does not want unfunded mandates. We are committed to quality education and want to keep local control.”

State Rep. Geoff Diehl, R-Whitman, said he has three issues with Common Core/PARCC: It was adopted with no public hearings; it was put through via the Governors’ Association and there is a conflict of interest DESE’s Commissioner who is also chairman of the board of the private corporation that developed the PARCC test. He said, while the ultimate decision is up to the state, the ballot question is a chance for the public to weigh in.

Vocal PARCC opponent, School Committee member Fred Small, was among the no votes in the 75-54 vote in favor of the ballot question.

“My fear is that by people authorizing that nonbinding referendum they don’t think they have to do anything else,” Small said after Town Meeting adjourned. “I personally am against PARCC and I’m against Common Core. I am for Massachusetts creating their own superior standards as we had before in our own testing.”

Small urges Common Core/PARCC opponents to write letters to the Statehouse, governor and state Board of Education — as the best method by which they might influence decision-makers on the issue.

“I’ve already written mine and sent them,” he said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth  Gilbert-Whitner said after the meeting that PARCC has been controversial.

“There are many, many concerns there,” she said. “I don’t think what happened was surprising … and at least people are thinking about student assessment.”

A citizen’s petition to discontinue the Common Core and return to the MCAS test was passed over because Town Meeting lacks the authority to act on educational matters, Lynam said.

Little discussion centered on the fiscal 2016 budget.

Resident Tom Evans of Temple Street questioned what duties the assistant town administrator’s salary paid for and Lynam responded, “Everything I do with a few notable exceptions,” including Greg Enos’ function as town procurement officer.

Another resident questioned spending $7,000 on Annual Town Report books in a tight budget year, noting the same information is available online.

Lynam replied that state statute requires towns to print one for every registered voter in town.

“We do not do that,” he said. “I print 1,000 books. They are displayed and available for people who come to Town Meeting and for people who come to elections.”

He said the typical cost is $5,000 with any remaining money returned to the general fund at the end of the year.

Whitman Middle School teacher Beth Stafford called a question on the school budget for the purpose of commenting on the status of W-H schools’ finances.

“This is short about $1 million, and this has been happening year after year,” she said. “I’m standing up here because I’m making a plea to everyone on all sides — if we could please start to work together to figure out some way to make this community look at the school system … to help it out. Right now we are not at level service for next year — there will be cuts.”

Lynam flagged the line items for salaries of library staff who are members of the SEIU in light of the lack of quorum for the special Town Meeting at the time the general budget was voted.

The recently negotiated collective bargaining agreement was up for ratification in the special’s warrant, as the budget article was drafted on the predication that the contract would be approved. It was approved when 150 people had signed in so the special Town Meeting could be held.

Evans supported the article calling for a one-year capital exclusion vote to raise $836,500 for Whitman’s share of a technology upgrade for the schools

“We’ve built … the high school, renovated our middle school and our elementary schools [but] we haven’t done anything to keep up with technology,” he said. “This would be the first thing we should do. Next year we should support the schools.”

After adjournment Gilbert-Whitner said she was excited to see the technology upgrade pass so easily, while noting it still faces a ballot vote.

“We’ll be making sure that the taxpayers, parents [and] citizens are aware of the importance of replacing our aging technology,” she said of the leadership team’s next task. “If it fails in both towns we just keep limping along with what we have.”

If only one town passes it, she said they would have to look to the October town meetings.

HANSON — Voters at Town Meeting on Monday, May 4 defeated proposals to require two-thirds Town Meeting votes to approve capital borrowing for Hanson school buildings and to increase the elected Board of Health from three to five members.

Voters accepted a donation of former Lite Control land and buildings, authorized borrowing to implement a desktop virtualization and “cloud” computing method throughout the Whitman-Hanson regional school district, and endorsed a nonbinding referendum to discontinue the use of federal Common Core education standards and associated PARCC testing in Whitman-Hanson schools.

When Town Meeting was called to order in the Hanson Middle School auditorium Monday night, 202 Hanson voters were present, according to Town Moderator Sean Kealy.

Voters disposed of all 56 warrant articles over the course of four hours.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Barbara Arena thanked voters for coming out and participating in the deliberations.
“This is very important and it validates what we do as a town,” she said.

An article to petition state lawmakers for special legislation to require a two-thirds vote by Town Meeting, instead of a majority vote, to approve borrowing for capital costs for regional school projects in Hanson failed by 70 to 90 votes.

Selectmen Chairman Bruce Young said the measure would have restored the public’s trust in their government by keeping the school department in line with other town departments and closing a loophole that lets school borrowing questions bypass Town Meeting voters.

West Washington Street resident Joseph O’Sullivan said requiring majority vote is the right way to act because it takes half of the voters to stop a school capital borrowing measure. A two-thirds vote would be the wrong way to act, he said, because in that case a lesser number of voters, one-third, could stop it.

“That’s undemocratic,” he said. “Everyone should have a chance to vote on it.”

Voters approved a home rule petition for special legislation that would let the selectmen negotiate a contract for up to three years with the appointed highway surveyor.

An article that would have increased the elected Board of Health from three to five members failed by 72 to 80 votes.

Petitioner Helen M. Vess of High Street said, “Having a five-member board would create more transparency.”

Board of Health member Richard Edgehille said a five-member board would have worked better and be more professional than a three-member board and there would be no shortage of candidates.

Board of Health candidate Kimberly King said there are two health board candidates running and there is a great deal of interest in two additional positions.

Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan said she opposed the measure and believes there would be a hard time getting candidates to fill a five-member board.

“To increase this board from three to five members is only going to make the situation worse,” she said.

By a voice vote, Town Meeting accepted a gift of land and buildings from Hubbell, Inc., a portion of the former Lite Control property on Hawks Avenue.
Hubbell is offering Hanson two acres of land, an 18,000 square-foot building that could be used for a highway department barn and a 15,000 square-foot building that could be used as a salt storage building.

The balance of the 10-acre property is being donated to the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife for the Burrage Pond wildlife management area.

Hubbell is demolishing buildings and cleaning up the site and working with the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The two buildings being donated to Hanson are steel buildings built in the 1990s, with a modern septic system, are fully insulated with gas heaters and have a sprinkler system, according to Selectman William Scott.

Scott said Hanson would need to spend an estimated $1.5 million to renovate the buildings for highway department use.

The current highway department facilities do not meet required state and federal mandated codes for environmental and safety standards.

It would cost an estimated $744,000  to upgrade the current facilities and bring them up to code, Scott said.
Scott said Hubbell would take full responsibility for cleaning up the property to the satisfaction of the state Department of Environmental Protection, and Hanson could reuse the current highway department site for an added baseball field, football field, playground or for additional parking. The land donation, Scott said, is like a gift that would keep giving to the town.

The Finance Committee recommended Town Meeting pass over the article.
Arena was on the Lite Control committee, and said there are enough significant capital projects that Hanson is responsible for, and to add additional buildings is not the best fiscal use for the town.

Finance Committee member Stephen McKinnon said the town has not done its due diligence on the measure and finance committee members saw Scott’s presentation for the first time Monday night.

“Let the buyer beware,” he said.

Monponsett Street resident Jim Egan said the town already owns property it cannot maintain.

“The cautionary tale is Plymouth County Hospital,” he said.

Voters approved borrowing of as much as $633,500 to buy and upgrade computers in Hanson’s elementary and middle schools, and for Hanson’s portion to do so at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School.

Network equipment is 10 years old, at the end of its life, and no longer supported by the vendor. Instead of removing all desktop computers now being used and replacing them with new desktop computers, the same method that has been used for two decades, the plan implements a method called desktop virtualization.

According to a school district Town Meeting handout:
“After conducting a pilot program this year, virtualization was determined to be the best way to keep us current and on pace with ever changing technologies, rather than replacing each old computer with a new one. With virtualization, we anticipate a 10 year life span while replacing computers one to one would be four to five years. Virtualization centralizes the individual’s hard drive and operating system in the district’s data center, creating an on premise ‘cloud’ network. This enables users to access technology, anytime, anywhere, and with any device or platform whether they are at school or at home.

“The existing school desktops are reused as ‘thin clients’ because only the keyboard, mouse and screens are needed. Because individual hard drives are no longer needed, replacement device costs are less than $200. All items under the virtualization project will be covered under a three-year contract.”

No action was taken on an article that would have removed Hanson’s elementary and middle schools from the Whitman-Hanson regional school district.

By a voice vote, Town Meeting approved a nonbinding referendum to discontinue the use of federal Common Core education standards and associated PARCC testing in the Whitman-Hanson regional school district, and instead use pre-2009 Massachusetts standards and MCAS testing.

Article petitioners distributed a handout that included a memo to Hanson voters from state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, who has co-sponsored a billed called “An Act Relative to a Moratorium on High Stakes Testing and PARCC” (H.340).

According to Cutler, the bill would put a three-year moratorium on the use of PARCC, the test used with Common Core standards.

The bill would also put a three-year moratorium on the use of standardized testing to determine high school graduation, evaluation of teachers and assessing performance of schools or districts. It would also establish a task force of stakeholders to meet during the first 18 months to measure the use of high stakes tests as a high school graduation requirement, in evaluating educators and in assessing schools and districts against the paramount goal laid out in the Education Reform Act of 1993. Six statewide hearings would be held and a report issued at the end of the period.

“The substance of testing is a mater I believe is best left to local educators, parents and community stakeholders to determine,” states the Cutler memo. “High standards and a comprehensive assessment system for students and teachers are a critical part of our education system, but there must be an appropriate balance. I believe this legislation will help to restore this much needed balance.”

The bill is awaiting a Joint Committee on Education hearing date and has garnered broad, bipartisan support in the state legislature, according to Cutler, who has also co-sponsored another bill, H.351, which would place a broader moratorium on any new education program mandates from the state.

PLYMOUTH — Whitman-Hanson lacrosse lost a heartbreaker on the road in Plymouth Thursday, April 23. The Panthers fell in the final seconds of regulation to the Plymouth North Eagles 10-9; despite erasing an early 4-0 deficit.

Plymouth North’s Noah Cully and Jackson Haley each tossed in two first quarter goals to put the Panthers down 4-0. With less than two minutes remaining in the quarter Joe Arico put Whitman-Hanson on the board, and Colin Downing followed suit just thirty seconds later.

The Panthers fired back in the second quarter; tying the game at 6-6. Kyle Bina and Brett Connors tossed in a goal apiece in the second, while freshman Jake Long scored two to close out the half.

“We were able to come back to tie the game at halftime, after going down 4-0 to start the game” said second year head coach Rob White. “The guys never quit, and battled hard to stay in it.

Early in the third, Arico went down with an apparent knee injury, and left the game as a precaution. Senior Devin Lydon scored the only third quarter goal for the Panthers, who trailed 9-7 going into the fourth.

Cully scored the eventual game winner for the Eagles, despite goals from Ryan Kennedy and Connors late in regulation.

“This game was defined by ground balls, which we were visibly beat in” added White. “We need to come out stronger and not go down early.”

Whitman-Hanson nearly tied the game in the last thirty seconds. The Panthers recorded five shots on goal in the final seconds, including one with three seconds remaining that hit off the pipe, bounced around and was finally kicked away by North’s goaltender as the final horned sounded.

Despite the 10-9 loss, the Panthers remained over .500 with a 5-4 record. Whitman-Hanson will look to gain five wins in their final 11 to clinch a postseason berth, but suffered a setback Tuesday, as a 15-1 loss to Hingham bumped them back to 5-5 for the season.

The team defeated Milton 16-8 last week. Bina had quite a day with eight goals. Junior Captain Dylan Thomas had two goals along with Junior Arico and Long. Connors had four assists. Senior Captain Conor Campbell lead the defense all day with numerous ground balls.

BOSTON — Former Whitman Hanson soccer star Kristie Mewis and the rest of the Boston Breakers made their home debut in their new stadium on the campus of Harvard University Sunday afternoon.

The Breakers christened Soldiers Field Soccer Stadium with a 3-2 victory over the Houston Dash in front of 2, 372 roaring fans, to move to 1-1 on the season. The Breakers made the move across campus as Harvard Stadium, the clubs former home, is undergoing major renovations.

Mewis grew up just a short 40-minute drive from Soldiers Field, donning the black and red for the Panthers in high school, and lacing up her cleats on the grass soccer fields in Hanson. In a storied high school career, which she finished with 74 goals and 34 assists.

Mewis had earned many honors as Panther, including being named a three-time NSCAA All-American, three-time All-New England and All-Massachusetts team honoree and a three-time Eastern Massachusetts Girls Soccer Association Div. 1 First-Team All-Star. In 2008, Mewis was named the NSCAA Youth Player of the Year and the U.S. Soccer Young Female Athlete of the Year. In 2009, she was named to the Parade All-America team. Mewis also played for the Region 1 Olympic Development Program (ODP) team from 2003–2007.

Kristie stayed close to home in college and attended Boston College on a full soccer scholarship from 2009 – 2012. In her time at The Heights Mewis became the Eagles all-time points’ leader, finishing her collegiate career with 39 goals, 38 assists, nine game-winning goals and 21 multiple-point games. She was also one of only two players in program history to register a goal in five straight games.

After a short three week stint with Canberra United FC in 2013 where she scored her first professional goal, Mewis was selected In January 2013, third overall in the 2013 NWSL College Draft to FC Kansas City for the inaugural season of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL.)

In November 2013, FC Kansas City traded Mewis to Seattle Reign FC for Amy Rodriguez. Days later on Nov. 18 Mewis was traded alongside Michelle Betos and two 2015 NWSL College Draft picks to the Boston Breakers for Sydney Leroux.

“My dream has always been to play professionally and the fact I can do that in my hometown is the best feeling in the world” said Mewis after the Breakers 3-2 victory. “It allows my friends and family to come to the games and for me to be able to play so close to home is extremely lucky.”

Mewis signed a three-month contract with Iga FC Kunoichi of the Japanese Nadeshiko League first division during the NWSL off-season. Wearing number 31 and playing as a forward, Mewis scored five goals in seven games. During matches in which Mewis played, Iga FC recorded a 6-1 record.

“I knew I needed a confidence builder because I had a rough season last year, as well as coming off an injury so I wanted to get away and try something new and get my confidence back. Being with a new team and playing in a new environment definitely helped me and it was a great experience.”

This upcoming weekend Kristie will face younger sister Sam Mewis, who is two games into her rookie campaign with the Western New York Flash. On Saturday, May 2 the former teammates will battle for Mewis household bragging rights until Sam makes her homecoming June 28 when the WNY Flash travel to Boston.

“I never played against Sam in college, and it’s been awhile since we played with each other, but we know each other’s tendencies’ and playing style” Mewis said about playing Sam this upcoming weekend in Rochester, New York. “We will probably exchange a laugh or two during the game but it’s going to be a fun experience and I am looking forward to seeing her.”

Be sure to follow Whitman-Hanson writer Brian McLoughlin on Twitter at @bmcloughlin22 for updates from Rochester, New York all weekend long as he covers the battle of the Mewis sisters.