HANSON – The Select Board wants your [reasonable] suggestions for town priorities, including use of the Maquan property, highway department and fire department building needs and the potential need for an operational override next year.
“I thought it’s good to know where the citizens are in their thoughts toward all these different projects,” Town Administrator Lisa Green said during the Tuesday, Aug. 20 meeting, proposing a citizen’s survey to find out.
Dr. Melinda Tarsi, a professor at Bridgewater State University’s Department of Public Administration master’s degree program,
Tarsi had helped Whitman conduct a similar survey a couple of years ago.
“I thought maybe this would be a good time to conduct such a survey in Hanson,” Green explained.
There is no charge for BSU’s service to the town. The board voted to work with the university on such a survey.
“My research interest is in local government and municipal finance,” Tarsi said, joining the meeting via Zoom. Her research areas are local government and municipal finance and serves in that capacity in Mansfield and has been the Finance Committee chair in Halifax. “I really enjoy bringing my students into different projects – real world applications of principals and I find that these citizen satisfaction surveys can not only be a great tool for you as decision makers, but also a great educational tool,”
Tarsi said her students, can help with drafting the survey as well as tabulating results.
The surveys are done as a community surveys, using scientific survey techniques both online and on paper.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board would insist on some paper surveys for residents who might feel challenged or uncomfortable by filling one out online.
“We want to reach people where they’re at,” she said in urging use of survey questions asked through media they are most comfortable with as they tell the Select Board where they want to spend money.
Board member Joe Weeks said residents should be asked what they want as well as what the town needs.
“I do think there’s a huge distinction there,” he said. “We’re trying to get our foundational resources in order here.”
He argued the survey should direct the town where it can practically do with the resources available to make Hanson the best town possible.
Tarsi said that kind of priority ranking is the guidance they look to in creating surveys.
Maquan bill
The Select Board also approved a new contract agreement for the demolition costs for the razing of the former Maquan School.
When the initially town entered into a contract agreement to demolish Maquan School they had received some ARPA funds toward the demolition work, Town Administrator Lisa Green said during the Select Board’s meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
The town then needed to borrow $580,000 to cover the rest of the cost.
“What we have here now is basically the bond anticipatory note of $480,000,” Green said. “The town paid $100,000 toward that $580,000 that we borrowed before. This is the bond note to re-borrow the $480,000 at a 4.5-percent interest rate.”
Green did not have the current interest rate with her, but said she could call the treasurer-collector to the Select Board’s meeting room to provide that information. The due date is Aug. 28, 2025.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked for the additional information about what the bond rate is now, what it’s going to be
“Help us help you,” she said when Treasurer-Collector Lisa Clark joined the meeting.
“It was a one-year BAN,” Clark said. “Eric [Kinsherf] and I discussed it. To help the budget, we’re paying $100,000 out of that and rebidding for the balance. We would have had to pay the full amount this year.”
Articles clarified
In other business, the Select Board voted to close the warrant for the Monday, Oct.
The board had made that vote at its last meeting, but there were some “circumstances” that came up, according to Green involving the submission of additional articles after the warrant had already been closed.
The articles in question would: Reinstate the Health Agent as a full-time position; and a request by Green for some ARPA updates of $125,000 for the Hanson Food Pantry.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the Health Agent Article was a place-holder. because no vote had yet been made on it.
“The chair was very clear that he didn’t want anybody to think he was unilaterally placing this article in,” she said. He absolutely said he just wanted a place-holder and that the board, as a whole, would decide the next time they met.”
Weeks noted that, prior to the annual Town Meeting, the board was trying to figure out less the content of late article submissions, but why they were late.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said that Health Board Chair Kevin Perkins was not aware what the deadline was.
“He apologized profusely in his email and his conversation with me,” she said. “They had sort of touched on this as a potential article, but they didn’t know the actual deadline for the article.”
She said she did mention that “historically, perhaps that department has not been diligent about meeting deadlines,” and that, at some point, all departments need to meet the deadline.
“That was accepted and understood,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Green also submitted an application on behalf of the Food Pantry for needed updates in the amount of $125,000 in ARPA funds.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there appeared to be two different articles with different dollar amounts, asking which was the correct one. The pantry request was filed with ARPA under the negative economic impact under COVID, meaning the money had to be spent first and then seek reimbursement.
“Because I do have that email that says the application I submitted was eligible for ARPA funds, basically that article is no longer required,” Green said, noting it was a procedural issue that does not bring the need of the funds into question.
Another article concerns an easement request Green’s office just found out about involving the owner of four condominiums on Main Street next to the satellite fire station, granting the fire department access to utilities.
The article for the South Shore Tech regional agreement amendment has now been received, as well, Green said. It had been represented on the warrant as a place-holder until now.