WHITMAN – The inadvertent omission, or in one case, inclusion, of a vote by the full Select Board, of a few positions from the list of annual appointments voted during the June 24 meeting, led to one of the more whimsical corrective measures during the board’s Tuesday, July 8 meeting.
And then there was the film proposal for a story about a pre-teen vampire. But more on that later.
Select Board member Laura Howe was asked to leave the dais July 8,while the Board again voted on her, and a few other appointments.
Her reappointment, as animal control officer, field driver and pest control manager, had to be revoted.
“At our last meeting, we voted all of the appointments, and we were all sleeping at the time and we forgot that Laura was on that list three times,” Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski said of the June 24 meeting, “So, she actually voted to hire herself three times, which is not cool. It was a mistake. Inadvertent. What we’re doing now is just correcting it.”
The board re-voted 3-0-1, with Howe abstaining, to reappoint her.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter apologized that Howe’s reappointments were not separated from the rest of the list to avoid such a mistake, and pledged that would be done next year.
Select Board member Justin Evans was absent from the meeting due to family travel.
“It was completely inadvertent, and I appreciate your use of that language,” Howe said of the procedural error.
Howe apologized for the confusion, Carter apologized again, as did Kowalski.
“We all apologize,” he said.
The Board also voted to appoint William Hogan as assistant wiring inspector for a one-year term through June 30, 2026, as he had been erroneously omitted from the fiscal 2026 list.
The Select Board voted to appoint James Ewell as conditional inspector of buildings, building commissioner, ADA coordinator, advisory member to the Bylaw Study Committee, fence viewer, outdoor advertising division and zoning enforcement officer.
“This is the beginning of a discussion around what’s happening with the building Department,” Kowalski said.
Carter said Ewell is a certified local building inspector and has been Whitman’s assistant building inspector since 2019, has held a construction supervisor’s license for about 30 years and has operated his own business, Ewell Construction, for more than 25 years.
“I’m very pleased that Jim will be taking this very important role as conditional building commissioner and zoning enforcement officer for the town, and I look forward to working with him.”
After a letter was signed in executive session, he was beginning work in the positions the next day.
Ewell’s hiring was also approved.
The inspection rates for the assistant building inspector and building commissioners were also raised by the Board.
“This rate that I’m asking to be raised is just Tom Rubles’ rate,” Carter said. He is an assistant building inspector for Whitman, but is also a certified building commissioner for Rockland, which is his full-time job.
“As a certified building commissioner, Tom has requested an increase to his inspection rate for Whitman, [and] I’m currently requesting the Select Board increase Tom’s current rate for inspections to $50 per inspection,” she said.
He has offered to assist the town with the issuance of permits and inspections during the transition time.
“He’s thinking he may be able to do 10 to 12 hours a week while everything gets caught up and addressed, because the precious building inspector had been out most of the month of June,” she said. “While his term ended June 30, I think there has been work that has accumulated that both Jim and Tom will attack and clear through it.”
The Select Board approved the rate to Rubles’ inspections.
Sharon LoPiccolo’s appointment as temporary treasurer-collector was also rescinded by a vote of the board.
LoPiccolo, who previously held the position of assistant treasurer-collector, was appointed to that position in November 2024, when the former elected treasurer-collector vacated the position, Carter said. That appointment ended on May17, 2025 – the date of the town election.
“Since the person who was elected to the position of treasurer-collector declined the candidacy, the Board reappointed Sharon as temporary treasurer-collector for one more year,” Carter said. However, the Town Hall union voted not to reserve LoPiccolo’s right to return to the position as assistant for another year. For that reason, she has decided to return to her position as treasurer-collector at this time.
“I just want to thank Sharon for stepping up as the temporary treasurer-collector for the town,” Carter said. “She has done a wonderful job in this very important role – it’s very fast-paced, and Sharon, you are true asset to the town, and we really thank you.”
Later in the meeting, the Board also voted to retain LoPiccolo on the town’s newly established Aid to the Elderly and Disabled Fund Committee, at the request of Chair John Galvin.
The Board then voted to appoint Debra Ó Broin as temporary treasurer-collector through next May’s Town Election, subject to successful negotiations. Ó Broin has worked for State Street for more than 20 years, having been promoted to several different positions while at that firm. Carter said Ó Broin has strong financial, analytical and customer service skills. The Whitman resident also plans to run for the elected position in May 2026.
The board also planned to discuss the particulars of the appointment in the executive session.
In other business, an of out-of-state travel request by Fire Chief Timothy Clancy and approved at the June 24 meeting had to be re-voted because the item had not been listed on that week’s agenda.
Clancy’s request would allow him to attend the Aug. 11 to 16 Fire Rescue International conference as well as the Executive Fire Symposium Oct. 10 and 11.
“At the last meeting, the chief did speak at public forum and the board voted it, but it was not on the agenda,” Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said. “We’re just having it as an agenda item, revoting it.”
The Board members again voted to approve the request.
Npw, about that vampire …
Whitman will also become something of a minor film mecca, as the board granted permission to resident Tanya O’ Debra to film a “low-budget, independent film at a private residence,” July 21 to 25.
Board members were very curious about the film.
“I knew that question would come up,” Carter said.
“Half Pint,” is a short film about a an 11-year-old dork who is bullied at school and decides to disguise himself as a vampire to scare off the bullies.
“It’s gotten so bad that she can’t leave the house, so she acts out and elaborate vampire fantasy to take back control of her life,” Carter read from the film’s synopsis. “She orders fangs from an online Halloween store and calls her best friend, Henry, to assist her in a plan that backfires spectacularly.”
“Is it a true story, or just…” Vice Chair Dan Salvucci asked.
“Yeah, Dan,” Kowalski quipped before the board voted to grant it’s approval.

WHITMAN – A week after Town Clerk Dawn Varley’s attempt to publish the personal phone numbers of town officials in a press release concerning the decision to close the office on Thursdays, it is the phone numbers that are still being discussed more than the hours adjustment.
Ryan Tressel, of 210 Temple St., who serves on the School Committee as well as being the chair of Whitman’s Community Preservation Committee spoke about the phone numbers in the capacity of a private citizen during the Select Board’s public forum.
Noting that some of the vacancies on town committees were read at the June 24 meeting as well, he said the CPC alone has had vacancies for about two years.
“The reason I want to bring it up is because I want to tie it into the incident that happened last week, where on Monday, [June 30] your home phone numbers and cell phone numbers, as well as the Finance Committee’s were posted on the town website with a call for citizens to reach out to you with their complaints about the closing of certain town offices,” Tressel said. “This really bothered me for a number of reasons.”
With the exception of Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, all those officials listed are unpaid volunteers and the town provides them with an email address and a chance to speak at their meetings’ public forum as opportunities for residents to voice their opinions.
“I thought the choice to put the private home and cell phone numbers on the website, while obviously, I’m sure, very annoying for you guys, I think it’s damaging overall for our town,” he said. “I think all of us probably know multiple people in town who are smart and dedicated and care about this town.”
But when people are asked to run for office, Tressel noted that few take that step. He and Select Board members Justin Evans and Shawn Kain all ran unopposed in the May election.
“By any other means, it seems like it was a threat to put the personal information up of committee members and Select Board members on the internet in that way, and I think it has a deleterious effect on people’s willingness to step forward,” he said.
While he wasn’t seeking any Select Board action, Tressel “didn’t want this to be couple days’ skirmish on social media and two lines in the Express.”
“I wanted it on the public record that this happened, and that I think, as a citizen and someone who does volunteer his time in this community, that I think it’s unacceptable,” he said. “This is not to say that I think you guys are immune from criticism. I think exactly the opposite, but that’s what this podium is for and what your emails are for – to be criticized, to be questioned, to have the choices you’ve made be examined publicly that way.”
Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski, said Tressel’s comments led into a couple of remarks he wanted to make during his chairman’s report.
“I was out of town last week, and off the grid,” Kowalski said. “Where I was, the internet was really sketchy so I was not fully aware of what Ryan was talking about as far as social media was concerned.” But he did have some conversations with Carter during the week and was aware that the town clerk published the personal phone numbers and addressed of the Select Board, Finance Committee and administrative officials.
“I thought that doing that was reprehensible, it’s probably illegal and completely out of line,” he said. “If it isn’t doxxing, it’s really close, because it was sort of threatening to the people who make those decisions.”
He also said that he liked Tressel’s remarks that speaking at a meeting is the forum for airing disagreements.
“There were more than two lines in the Express,” he said, noting the paper’s article covered the whole event, and very well, “ and that was partly because of Mary Beth’s talking to [the editor] when she heard that the town clerk was having that same message, wanting it to be published in the Whitman-Hanson Express.”
The Express did not publish the phone numbers.
“And the article covered a whole lot of other things that were involved in the situation,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to say. I thought I needed to say something as Ryan did.”
Carter said her phone number on the press release was her business cell phone number. By the time the press release had been sent to the Express, the Finance Committee members’ phone numbers had been removed from it.
Carter had also sought guidance from town counsel on whether publishing personal phone numbers was appropriate.
“And you found out that it was not, and you contacted the town clerk and asked her to remove it from the town website,” Kowalski asked.
Carter said she first went to the clerk’s office to ask that the Select Board members’ numbers be removed, and Varley responded that it was public information.
“I said that doesn’t mean that, because you have access to it, you can post that kind of information,” Carter said during the Select Board meeting. She then asked if Varley had filed a public records request for the numbers and addresses.
“She said, ‘Maybe I did,’” Carter said. “I said, ‘Then I’d like a copy.’ And she said, ‘Well, no, I didn’t.’”
She then instructed Varley to take the information down.
“That’s private information,” Carter said, asking the clerk not to be difficult.
“She said, ‘Get me something from counsel,’” said Carter, who had received that information just that morning. She followed delivering the letter to Varley with an email again asking her to take down the personal information – this time instructing that it be done within an hour, or Carter would have IT do it.
“An hour and a half later, it was still up, so our IT department went in and removed the information,” she said.
Select Board member Laura Howe addressed another point that had been brought up.
“I have been asking, since I ran, for people to join [and run for office],” she said. “I was very disappointed – and I actually asked publicly, and that is no offense against my colleagues here, but there was two seats up this year and nobody ran [against them] this year,”
She said she was also pleased with how Carter handled the phone number situation, even though Howe, herself, has already “given my phone number to half the town,” as ACO.

WHITMAN – Town Clerk Dawn Varley has begun closing the office on Thursdays in response to budget cuts to her department, specifically her salary increase request of 14 percent and an operations cut of $16,000 tied to the number of elections in 2026 – a state and Congressional off year with fewer elections than 2024.
Social media in the community was busy discussing the matter Monday night.
Varley currently makes $80,000 a year, and has decided to close the clerk’s office an additional day per week, so she feels she is being paid at a part-time salary,” a post stated Varley had sought a 14 percent raise, which would have brought her salary more in line with clerks in area towns.
But, according to FinCom meeting minutes, Varley had raised the issues of pay disparity between her position and others on the South Shore as well as the “intricate demands of her job including town meetings and elections supervision and the frequent updates of the regulations governing them” during the committee’s annual review of her department budget requests on March 11.
She raised the possibility of cutting back hours without a budget increase, at which the committee had balked since the Collins Report placed the town clerk in the same salary category as the assessor.
The Finance Committee was also decreasing the department’s operations budget for fiscal 2026, a reduction in this line item is due to just one town election and one town meeting next fiscal year. Ms. Varley emphasized her role’s complexity, managing elections with 40+ workers and various updated regulations and legal requirements.
According to the minutes, of March 11, Varleye asked for the support of the finance committee to support her salary request.
“What is going to end up happening, and this is not a threat, this is a fact, I’m going to go down to two days a week,” she said. “You’re going to pay me part time; you’re going to get part time. I’ve been overlooked for so many years, and I don’t think it’s fair.”
As an elected position, the Select Bard cannot make a change to her position.
Varley reached out to residents to explain her stance.
“As a result of reorganization /reduction in staff and salary in the Town Clerk’s Office, I am forced to close its window for the first time in over 50 years,” she stated in a press release Tuesday.  “This decision does not fall lightly on my Heart but is solely the decision made by the Select Board, the Finance Committee and the Town Administration not to fully fund this office.”
Initially, she had included home telephone (or personal cell phone numbers) of members of the Select Board and Finance Committee, but Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter intervened.
“I have instructed the Town Clerk to remove this information from her recent posting immediately after I consulted with Town Counsel,” Carter stared. “I have also instructed the IT Department to remove the personal cell phone and home telephone numbers from the posting, if not removed by the Town Clerk.”
Varley then re-issued the press release minus the phone numbers.
Meanwhile, the Select Board, meeting on Tuesday, June 24, Finance Chair Kathleen Ottina, speaking for herself, as the committee has not met since the Town Meeting, expressed her own dismay at the announcement made at the start of the June 11 special Town Meeting, that the Select Board had voted unanimously to appropriate $150,000 from ambulance receipts at a fall special Town Meeting in order to restore $75,000 each to the Fire Department and Police Department for their fiscal 2026 budget.
Not only was that decision last-minute, there was no time to communicate it to the committee because of that, leading to “a great deal of consternation” among Finance Committee members.
“On May 17, the voters of Whitman voted overwhelmingly to reject a Proposition 2.5 override of $2 million,” she said. “The result left us with a $2,053,431 deficit that needed to be closed.”
The decision was then made to split the deficit – with the town paying 48 percent and the schools picking up the tab for the remaining 52 percent, which translated to $98,000 paid by the town and $1,064,000 by the school district.
“The town proceeded to close the gap by using $340,000 in free cash to pay OPEB and Plymouth County retirement, which we all knew about ahead of time,” she noted. “Now, this proposal to use $150,000 in projected fiscal 2026 ambulance receipts results in a deficit to the town of not the $988,000, but $498,665.”
Recalculating the deficit translates into a 32 percent debt deficit handled by the town and 68 percent handled by the W-H Regional School District.
“[That’s not the 68 to 48 that we agreed on prior to Town Meeting,” Ottina said. “Whitman-Hanson voted to cut the assessment by the $1,064,000 that we asked them to,” she said. “We aksed them to. They didn’t have to. We all know how we fund regional schools. They cooperated with us. I anticipate that future W-H school budget votes will not be so cooperative,” because this is not fair.”
In three public forums prior to May 17, residents were told that a failed override would lead to cuts to police, fire, DPW, Town Hall, Library and the schools and the voters voted no.
“I sympathize with the Police and Fire departments,” Ottina said. “I don’t want to see them undermanned. I do not want to see citizens’ health and safety jeopardized, but if voters do not realize the impact of a failed override because they don’t see what happens.”
A clerk missing from one or two offices does not impact their day-to-day living, Ottina said.
“I’m not calling for dangerous levels of manpower,” she added. “I’m simply stating this is not fair.”
Ottina said she trusts that the FinCom and Select Board will be able to work on Article 2 over the summer and that they can arrive at a solution that is “as fair as a $2 million deficit can be.”
While Select Board member Shawn Kain said he obviously respects Ottina’s opinion [see guest column, page 7] he sees a difference between a $2 million deficit and how it’s spread out so services that have to be cut are evenly distributed.
The view at Town Meeting was likely that most of the revenue was going to the schools and very little was going to public safety.
“I feel the difference in those perspectives is where we feel the big rift in our community,” Kain said noting that how funds are distributed in ways that are both equitable and do the least harm is difficult. “Just going back to the drawing board early and thinking about strategies, I think, would be helpful.”