HANSON – The Select Board voted on Tuesday, Sept. 26 to appoint Lianna Gagnon to the new position of assistant program coordinator at the Hanson Multi-Service Senior Center, effective Wednesday, Sept. 27.
Gagnon has been volunteering at the center for more than a year helping with some of the frailer elders in the day program, Director Mary Collins said.
“We have seen her growth over the year,” Collins said. “It’s wonderful that we have this opportunity. Our formula grant increased this year and that’s what we’re using for funding for this.”
That increase is due to the fact that Hanson’s population of residents over age 60 has jumped by “well over 1,000 people” in the last decade, according to Collins.
“I couldn’t think of a better use of the money than to bring in somebody like Lianna, who is presently in college. She plans to go into the food services industry.
A longtime Hanson resident, Gagnon has grandparents who live in town.
Gagnon said she is excited to start working at the Senior Center and everyone there.
Ballot question not needed for DPW
By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
WHITMAN – The town will not need to place a debt exclusion question for the proposed DPW building project on the Saturday, Nov. 4 special Town Election ballot.
Town Counsel had been waiting on a call from the Commonwealth’s Municipal Finance Bureau on whether or not the town could use sewer rates to fund the portion of the $2.2 million in additional debt on the project.
“They did say today that, yes, we could do that,” Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said during a remote special meeting on Friday, Sept. 29 with DPW Commission Chair Kevin Cleary, DPW Building Committee Chair Frank Lynam and Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Keefe.
“We do have to set up a document sort of to memorialize exactly what we’re doing and what percentage we will be using, but that could be done after the special Town Meeting as long as everything goes through for that borrowing,” Carter said. “We don’t need to put a ballot on, which I think, is great news today.”
“That is perfect news, actually,” Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski said. “The DPW bulding’s progress is not going to be halted and it will allow us to clear the way for a consideration of the school issue at special Town Meeting and at the ballot box, so things don’t have to get complicated, things don’t have to get confusing, and I think that was great work that was begun by you and Justin [Evans, Select Board clerk].”
Kowalski also lauded the great work done at the DPW.
“I think this is a great ending to this week,” he said.
Cleary agreed, thanking the efforts of Carter and Evans as well as Lynam and Dennis Smith for finding the funding sources that allowed the project to be funded without a debt exclusion.
“I will give all of them credit,” he said.
“A lot of work has been done by the people Kevin just mentioned,” Kowalski agreed. “I think we have a lot to be thankful for, and hopefully the special Town Meeting and the ballot will go smoothly.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain asked if the funding arrangement would still require a rate increase to the average ratepayer.
“We looked at all the numbers, and to put it very simply, already the DPW raised sewer rates $1.50 last year, and planned on raising the sewer rates an additional $1.25 this year,” Carter said. “That is just for the sewer force main project, however, I calculate with Ken [Lytel, the town accountant], that we’re going to be able to accomplish the sewer force main and this $2.2 million in debt for an overall cost, which comes in less than the $2.75 increase that was projected and the reason for that is the sewer force main project has a lot of breaks and that came in under budget to start with.”
The town’s use of $2.2 million in ARPA for the sewer project and $1.18 million in ARPA forgiveness on a $12.8 million loan authorization on the sewer force main project, drops the loan authorization to a lower amount and the trust is saying the ARPA amount will not change on the reimbursement factor, she explained.
“So, for many reasons, that debt is coming much lower,” she said. “We’re figuring approximately – and these are rough numbers – about an 80- to 90-cent increase, when it was going to be $1.25 anyway this year.”
Lynam said some of the enterprise funds would be directed toward water and this is a whole project.
“Sewer rates will be coming down in proportion to what’s going up on the water,” he said.
Kain suggested that stabilization funds could be used to address soil contamination issues at the DPW site.
“Anything that we can do to lessen the burden that’s going to be put on the taxpayer with the rate increases or a debt exclusion, I think that could be a potential option that could help, as well,” he said.
Lynam suggested that be looked at when they see what the actual costs are, so it could be an option if needed later.
A wary eye on bottom line
HANSON – How the town spends its money, drew more discussion than how much it spends during the annual special Town Meeting on Monday, Oct. 2.
Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan has already cautioned the Select Board that the town will enter the next budget cycle more than $1 million in the hole.
“You’re running into tough financial times in the spring,” Sullivan said Monday night. “We can’t just keep approving money.”
He referred to transfer station funds approved by the 2020 Town Meeting for the purchase of a compactor that has not been spent yet. The article, which passed, will use those funds to increase salaries at the transfer station to keep it running and avoid layoffs. The Town Meeting is posted on the WHCA-TV YouTube channel and is being rebroadcast on the cable access channel.
On that issue, Health Agent Gil Amado said it was due, in part to the prohibitive cost of compactors and a decision had been made that it was cheaper to rent the machines.
Changes in the salary structure for the Town Planner and to the town’s vacation by law, as well as use of town funds for repairs to a nonprofit group home and federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for a floor-to-ceiling file cabinet system were the main subjects debated, as well as revolving funds used for required mitigation plantings in conservation buffer zones were also questioned.
The group home repairs were tabled until more information could be provided by the Housing Authority, but the other articles were approved.
The only other article passed over during the evening involved the finalization of two streets in the Stonewall Estates community. The remaining 30 articles on the warrant were all approved, to varying degrees of enthusiasm by residents attending the meeting.
Planner pay
Within Article 2, which amended salaries for town employees within the Wage & Personnel Bylaw, Town Administrator Lisa Green was asked – in order to inform residents who may not be aware, and it had a direct effect on two other articles – for an explanation of the increase in salary range for the Town Planner.
She outlined how Planner Antonio DeFrias had been “head-hunted” by another community offering a higher salary. The salary range had been $45,000 to $90,000 and was being increased to a range of $70,000 to $105,000.
DeFrias had resigned from his position to accept the higher salary elsewhere, which he originally turned down, only to accept an offer from that town when he was offered a higher figure.
“Based on all the really crucial projects that he had been so critical in helping us plan, and the grants that he’s helped us get … we came together with the Select Board and the Planning Board and offered Mr. DeFrais a higher salary to keep him here in Hanson,” Green said. “We actually offered him a higher salary that he did not accept. … He’s aware of the budget situation of the town and didn’t want to put us in a predicament, but losing him would have been devastating to the town.”
She said his work on grants – which has brought in about $500,000 so far – has prompted the state to look very favorably on the town.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett also stressed that, by doing a competitive analysis of salaries in similar surrounding communities, Hanson was way below what was being offered elsewhere.
“Even if Mr. DeFrais were to leave, we would need to increase this salary line,” she said.
The Town Meeting approved the salary range adjustment.
Vacation policy
While Article 15, allowing employees to carry over vacation leave was passed without comment, Article 16 to amend the vacation leave section of the Personnel Classification and Compensation Bylaw [Sec. 12D (7)] raised a question. The change grants 15 vacation days for newly hired employees with additional days possible after five years plus – in the interest of employee retention in the best interests of the town – and the Select Board and Wage and Personnel Board may grant. Currently, five more days of vacation time for existing employees. Any such decision would be final and not subject to any grievance procedure.
It takes five years of continuous service before additional vacation time is available.
The concern centered on the potential problems such a precedent for unions with contracts coming up for negotiation, but the Town Meeting approved the article without further discussion.
A proposed transfer from the Community Housing Reserve to fund exterior repairs to a group home at 53 West Washington St., raised a lengthy debate on whether the funding would be properly used in that project.
Group home repair
Corrine Cafardo of Winslow Drive said she thought such group homes were required to raise the money for repairs themselves.
“Wouldn’t this fall under something like the Housing Authority?” she asked.
CPC member John Kemmett said the Housing Authority could best answer the question, as they are supposed to approve such projects.
“I don’t believe they have,” he said, asking if someone from the Housing Authority could speak to the issue.
Housing Authority member Daniel Pardo said the authority had no comment on the matter at this time.
Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff said a restriction in the Community Preservation Act (CPA) prohibiting the use of CPC funds for affordable housing to rehabilitate existing properties not purchased through the CPA, caused her to have some initial concerns about the article.
“On digging a little further, I was provided some guidance [from state housing officials],” she said. “They drew a distinction between … rehabilitation vs preservation. … These improvements, to the project, like the roof, are considered preservation.”
She said the policy question of how the town spends its CPC money is up to Town Meeting, but it is legally compliant with the CPA, she added.
A Washington Street resident asked if the town funded a recent septic upgrade at the site last year and, if not, why the town was being asked to fund this round of repairs.
Both FitzGerald-Kemmett and Noelle Humphries the nonprofit Neighborhood Counseling Solutions, which owns the property said the town did not fund the septic work.
Speaking for himself as a private citizen, Finance Committee member Pepper Santalucia, whose wife Teresa is on the Housing Authority, said of the different affordable housing programs in the state that work with different populations, not everything that goes on regarding affordable housing in Hanson is within the purview of the Housing Authority.
Kemmett disagreed.
“Just because there isn’t a letter from the Housing Authority, doesn’t mean that this isn’t an appropriate use of CPC funding,” he said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said they applied for CPC funds like anyone else and the committee voted to support that, but she thought he CPC was under the impression that the Housing Authority had taken a vote on it and supported it, but it has since been discovered no such vote had been taken.
“If our needle had been moved on our own affordable housing that we had created in town, I’d have no problem funding a private entity to fix up their house,” she said, noting she was the dissenting vote on the article when it came before the Select Board. “But since our needle has not been moved, and we need that money desperately with the price of housing being what it is, to actually create new housing in town, I voted no.”
At that point, a motion was made to table the article until the Housing Authority could meet and discuss the issue.
Resident Frank Milisi, said he was under the impression that Camp Kiwanee had applied for CPC funds last year and was told the funds could not be used for regular maintenance.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said planned work fell under a matrix for permitted uses of the funds.
“Housing is different than rehabilitating a town building,” she said.
“Are we going to be in the business of providing $55,000 to private organizations?” Milisi asked.
Humphries said Neighborhood Counseling Solutions had met with the CPC four or five different times over the last year about the funding request. She added that, while private, it is a nonprofit organization that works with about 70 communities on the South Shore. The Hanson group home had been owned by another, Kingston-based nonprofit that built the home in the 1990s.
“The original program that it was funded under was a HUD program, but as the years went on, we were severely restricted with rents and, as most people know, expenses, utilities and everything else have increased over time,” she said. As a result, maintenance was delayed.
Still, Neighborhood Counseling paid 100-percent the $53,000 cost for the septic work done last year as well as nearly $200,000 in operating expenses over time. They felt the roof project was totally in compliance with the state’s housing rules, which led them to make the CPC application. Neighborhood Counseling estimates it would cost $600,000 for all the work they plan to do on the property. The roof and siding repair request was $55,000.
The CPC transaction would allow Neighborhood Counseling to extend the affordability of the housing there indefinitely beyond 2032 when it is expected to run out.
“Which means it stays on the town’s affordable housing,” she said. “You have to maintain 10 percent of affordable housing on the state inventory. … This preserves those eight units for the future.”
Planning Board Chair Joseph Campbell reminded the Town Meeting that Hanson was at 4 percent for its affordable housing stock.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to get anywhere near 10 percent, where it’s going to help us with the 40Bs,” he said.
Kemmett said it would take state legislative changes to make such an expenditures legal use of CPC funds.
Residents Bob Hayes and Milisi noted that, regardless of its nonprofit status, Neighborhood Counseling has paid employees.
The Town Meeting voted to table the article.
The approval of ARPA funds for seven floor-to-ceiling file cabinets for the Select Board and town administrator’s offices left some voters exasperated.
File cabinets
Milisi moved to pass over the article, arguing that more than $19,000 for file cabinets is “absurd.”
Green countered that towns are required by law to maintain “lots of paper” files, including sensitive documents such as personnel files, legal documents, license applications and other sensitive information currently stores in file cabinets that do not lock.
It was also questioned how the file cabinets qualify for ARPA funds — intended for COVID-related capital expenses. Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf said it comes under the heading of revenue replacement, assuring some dubious residents that the use qualifies.
The file cabinet expenditure was approved.
Student transportation
A section of Article 3, calling in part, for a $63,000 transfer from Free Cash for the transportation of a student attending Norfolk County Agricultural High School also raised a question from Milisi. The article transferred a total of $114,000 to supplement an article approved at the May Town Meeting.
“I feel like I can Uber every day for less than $63,000,” he said asking if the town had options for what form of transportation they provided.
“The problem is, when you’re transporting students, they have to fall under certain criteria in the law,” Green said. “It’s a matter of availability. … We really didn’t have a lot of choices out there from people who could provide this transportation.”
The student, relocated to another town due to family issues, comes under the federal McKinney-Vento act, which requires the home community of such students to fund transportation even if it is from a greater distance than before they were relocated. Transportation firms must be vetted and go through background checks and other requirements.
“We cannot require the student to change schools,” Green said. “We are required to pay this amount.”
Whitman PD salutes new Sgt.
WHITMAN – Police officer Kevin Harrington officially became Sgt. Kevin Harrington, during a promotion ceremony held at the Tuesday, Sept. 26 Select Board meeting, with his mother and his wife pinning on his new badge.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci presided in the absence of Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski. Member Justin Evans attended virtually.
The board had voted at its previous meeting to approve Harrington’s promotion. He was administered the oath of office by Town Clerk Dawn Varley before his mother Marilyn, who attended with his dad Edward and wife Windy pinned on his sergeant’s badge.
“Oh, can I stab him?” Marilyn Harrington joked.
“Oh, go for it!” Salvucci laughed. “If you stick him, we have the service dog here.”
Harrington is the handler for the department’s therapy dog, Nola.
State Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida, R-Abington, presented him with a citation from the General Court and congratulated him on his “well-deserved” promotion.
“I know the community is going to benefit from you being a sergeant in this community that you love,” she said. “I think your post on Facebook choked me up a little bit – it could be hormones, though.”
Sullivan-Almeida had given birth to her first child recently.
In other public safety business, Fire Chief Timothy Clancy reported to the board about an unsolicited letter received in the mail by the fire department, from Donna Callahan including a gift of $5,000 in the name of her parents, James and Betty Geary, who had been Winter Street residents of Whitman and thanking the department for taking care of her parents in their later years.
“We reached out to her, and you can see the amount of money there, to make sure this is what she was looking for and what she wanted,” Clancy said. “She said she just wanted to help the fire department in any way [she could].”
After discussing it with Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, he said it was decided that the best use of the funds was to place the money in the gift account.
“We thank her very much for her generous donation,” Clancy said.
Callaghan also gave $30,019.99 in her mother’s name to the Whitman Council on Aging.
“Her mother had actually left that to the COA,” Carter said. “She really enjoyed attending the Council on Aging – playing cards, bingo, taking chair yoga were some of her favorites – and they were just very pleased to see this money go to the Council on Aging.”
“That’s an exceptional amount,” Salvucci said.
Another mystery in history
WHITMAN – Every good story needs to touch on the five W’s – and an H, when possible; the old Who, What, Where, When and Why, with How tossed in for good measure – that we all learned about in school.
But a story can be improved by canceling at least one out, usually the Why, and when the How and Who get fuzzed out, you’ve really got a yarn that stands the test of time, especially when the mystery is real.
All three of those questions come into play in the tale of Bathsheba Spooner.
Her involvement in the murder of her husband is one of those real-life mysteries historians love to delve into, and independent scholar Andrew Noone is no exception.
“It’s not just infamous for the sensationalism of it,” Noone said of the case. “But she was the first woman executed in the United States, it was the first capital case in the United States, the court transcripts are the most complete of the American 18th century. It was the first mass hanging in the United States and Prudence, an enslaved tavern maid, gave what’s likely the first [court] testimony of an African-American in the United States.”
Noone, who holds graduate degrees in musicology and art history as a Florence Fellow at Syracuse University, has also completed the U.S. Department of Education’s three-year Keepers of the Republic history program, which is hosted by the American Antiquarian Society. He has taught humanities at colleges throughout Massachusetts, is a former member of the Worcester Historical Commission and is a docent for Preservation Worcester.
He brought the tale, and his self-published book, “Bathsheba Spooner: A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy” to the Whitman Public Library on the eve of October – Saturday, Sept. 30, to be exact.
The defendant’s name alone, Bathsheba, draws one in. But add the fact that her father was loyalist colonist Timothy Ruggles (those familiar with the MBTA stop in Boston might recognize the name); her defense attorney named Levi Lincoln (yes, a distant forebear of Abe’s); who went on to become a governor and attorney general in the Bay State – and acting Gov. John Hancock had organized the trial. Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Robert Treat Paine, prosecuted the case.
But it was a twist of justice in the end, and one may wonder why all this hasn’t been made into a movie by now.
A small crowd of history and mystery buffs attended the talk in the Library’s Community room for an overview of the history, a slide presentation on the players and the mystery and the chance to ask some questions about this fascinating case with more questions than answers hovering over it, even after nearly 250 years.
Bathsheba (Ruggles) Spooner was sixth of seven children born to Ruggles and his wife Bathsheba Newcombe, who had given birth to eight children in her first marriage. Ruggles was born in 1711 to a family long-steeped in the colony’s politics. He had been a brigadier general in the French and Indian War and was Speaker of the House in Massachusetts but became a pariah when he refused join the protest movement while a delegate to the 1765 Stamp Act Congress in New York, becoming a loyalist to the Crown.
“Few men were as detested in Massachusetts in the year 1774,” Noone said. That year, Ruggles was banished from Hardwick, the town his ancestors had founded, remaining in British-controlled Boston until Evacuation Day, March 17, 1776 when he and most other Tories were removed to Staten Island.
Bathsheba had married businessman/land speculator and lumberman Joshua Spooner of Boston, before settling in Brookfield where the couple raised four children.
Others involved in her husband’s murder – or at least executed for it were militiaman Ezra Ross of Topsfield, who was 16 in 1777, when he had been nursed back to health by Bathsheba after being wounded action in Peekskill, N.Y. and had been on his way home to Topsfield. He returned to serve in the Battle of Saratoga.
Sgt. James Buchanan and Pvt. William Brooks were escaped British prisoners of war who were being marched to Boston when they gave their American captors the slip and met in Worcester.
On Feb. 17, 1778 the three men ended up seeking shelter from a fierce storm in the Spooner home – which led to the murder of Mr. Spooner, whose body was stuffed down a well on March 1.
“It’s a Keystone Cops in reverse,” Noone said of the farcical case which involved a very dramatic and free-living main defendant. “She had a sharp temper, was involved sexually with at least two men, more likely five men, none of whom were her husband,” he said. “She willingly admitted two enemy POWs into her home – and a handsome teenager – in her husband’s presence.”
But then, that could have just been a sign of the times, Noone argued.
“We think the 18th Century is prim and proper,” he said. “No, that’s the 17th Century. The 18th Century was a whole other game. Puritanism was long gone.”
There are doubts as to whether Ross was involved at all, though he had tried to poison Mr. Spooner in the past.
Joshua Spooner, who had dined with a friend and his wife at a tavern, returned home alone through the snow, was assaulted near his well, beaten to death and thrown in (through a seemingly too-small wellhead) – while his wife at home was finishing her own dinner. The clothes he wore and all those he owned, along with his cash were distributed among the three men, who fled the area.
All four defendants, including Mrs. Spooner, were arrested the next day and the trial was held in late April in Worcester. After a trial lasting little more than a day all four defendants, including Bathsheba Spooner, were convicted and sentenced to hang.
Bathsheba claimed pregnancy and asked for enough time to bear her child, but an examination was permitted by the court, proving she was not pregnant. However, an unsanctioned examination proved she was, but the first exams results were accepted, and she was executed on July 2, along with the male conspirators.
An autopsy she had requested before her sentence was carried out, proved she had, indeed, been five months pregnant with a male child. To this day her grave in Worcester’s Green Hill Park, where she had supposedly been buried has never been found. Her case was referenced as one argument why Lizzie Borden was acquitted, Noone said. There was concern even before Borden’s trial that a jury would not convict her because Spooner had been discovered to be pregnant during her autopsy.
Spooner’s family had a checkered history after her trial. Her father had been given exile and a large farming estate in Nova Scotia. He died there in 1795.
Of Bathsheba’s surviving children, one son became a successful Boston businessman, the other died in a shipwreck off England and her daughter died “hopelessly insane” as an elderly woman, but Noone said that could mean anything from genuine bi-polarity to Alzheimer’s or dementia related to old age.
WMS project heads to voters
WHITMAN – The Whitman Middle School is officially on the ballot for the Saturday, Nov. 4 special Town Election after the Select Board on Tuesday, Sept. 26 voted to place the question before the voters.
Member Justin Evans attended the meeting remotely via Zoom and Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski was absent from the meeting.
A question for a debt exclusion to fund the DPW building project was delayed until 12:30 p.m., Friday, Sept. 29, so that the board can hear from Town Counsel on whether the town can use water/sewer rates to help fund the DPW project. [see below]. Town Counsel is seeking the opinion of a municipal finance board that only meets on Thursdays before offering advice on the matter, according to Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter.
The deadline for that decision is close of business on Friday.
Board member Shawn Kain read from a debt analysis he wrote on the town’s levy capacity [see page 7].
“The current tax levy is about $30 million,” he said after reading the analysis. “So when we’re talking about the red line, 12 percent of $30 million, that’s where that red line is.”
He said that the total levy was about $15 million when the new high school was built 20 years ago, and noted it could be $50 million 20 years from now.
The high school will come off the books in 2027, but Kain said, when it does, it will be at $350,000, but more than $8 million for the first year of the middle school will be there.
“That’s a big difference to consider,” Kain said. “The school [district] has made a very good presentation of their arguments for the school and even how much it’s going to cost individually, and people have to answer that question: ‘How much can I afford?’ The question we’re evaluating here is what can the town collectively afford – and that’s a different question, collectively, all together.”
He said that is why the town works with consultants and writes policy – to keep the town on sound financial ground.
Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly, while thanking Kain for thinking about how the town handles debt, but said that happened a long time ago and there have been times in the last 20 years when the town carried no debt.
“Buildings erode, and we didn’t plan for this,” she said. “We had no rolling debt.”
She also argued, where the middle school is concerned, the town can’t give voters the “illusion that there is a choice – that there’s a cheaper option out there.”
“By law, we have to provide a building,” Connolly said. “This is the cheapest option, whether we want to pretend it’s not. Unless you figure out a way to stop inflation – and we’ve seen it with the DPW building and everything else – this is the point at which we can get the cheapest building.”
She said the real question is whether the town pays for the most it can get now, or comes back later and pays more for less building.
Renovation would trigger accessibility and fire codes that would also increase the cost, which the town would have to shoulder alone.
“We have to tell the truth to the public,” she said. “The truth is, we did not handle our capital and we did not handle our infrastructure well and now it’s come to a tipping point.”
Kain said he appreciated Connolly’s comments, but asked why the high school was so affordable and the middle school is not. While the building costs are high, he suggested that building the high school as a regional project is one of the reasons why it was more affordable.
“Did they consider a regional option?” he asked.
Building Committee Chair Fred Small, while cautioning he wasn’t trying to play Monday morning quarterback, said a regional middle school was an idea he had in 2013.
“It had been discussed in the past,” he said. “We do need a new middle school.”
The current building has outlived its useful life as far as systems – electrical, plumbing and HVAC – the major things, and special requirements have changed.
“The levy doesn’t move fast enough to encapsulate today’s construction costs,” Small said, noting that overall construction costs increased by about $7 million in the last six months.
Former WMS Building Committee member John Galvin also pointed to the building project South Shore Tech is planning, cautioning it would “catch us all by surprise.”
“We all knew they were accepted by the MSBA, but I think we were all surprised – or at least I was surprised – at how quickly they’re moving,” he said. “They were a couple of years behind us originally, but now they’re only about 10 months behind us. … They don’t have numbers yet, but they will soon.”
Galvin said SST’s website is projecting total costs at between $250 million and $300 million. Because Whitman has about 24 percent of the SST student body, 24 percent of the municipality share of that building – about $40 million – will come to the town.
“One of the things that bothers me is this debt is going to bring a lot of hardship to a lot of people,” Select Board member Laura Howe said. “I can’t speak to financial decisions of the past. … There’s nothing to be done about yesterday.”
She expressed fear that the costs of such projects would cause a “mass exodus from the town,” and said she is also concerned about the Duval and Conley schools, which are 20 years older than the middle school. “They have to look at what’s best for them,” she said of project costs vs household bills. “That’s why a voter votes.”
Lynam said he didn’t think the board was going to get anywhere with an 11th-hour discussion.
“A committee was formed,” he said. “They did an analysis. They met publicly over [three years] and they came up with a plan. The next step in that process is to present the plan to the public.”
That will be done at the Oct. 30 special Town Meeting and Nov. 4 ballot initiative.
“The discussions we’re having here are probably nothing compared to what we’re going to see at Town Meeting,” Lynam said.
The Select Board had questions as to whether a DPW ballot question should be on the same ballot as the Whitman Middle School project.
“I certainly have reservations about this,” Kain said. “I’m not comfortable going back to the voters for more money on a project … I’d rather find creative ways to get the money or be more disciplined about finding ways we can make the project work.”
Evans agreed, suggesting the decision on whether to place the question on the ballot should wait until they hear from counsel on Friday.
“My concern there is that, if the middle school project were to fail, we wouldn’t have a clear answer from the voters to say, ‘it’s because of the project,’” he said. “It could be we were confused because there were two questions on the ballot. I kind of want a clear direction from the voters on the middle school project, and I’m afraid this will muddy the waters.”
Salvucci said the question is only to provide a fallback in case Plymouth County ARPA funds were not an allowed use for completing the sewer force main project in order to free up other revenue sources for the DPW building.
He said the extra money is intended to address soil contamination at the site, which needs to be taken care of whether a building is placed there or not.
“We’re just setting [a question] so that, if something happens that we have no control over, which I don’t think is going to happen, we’re just covering ourselves to be able to get this project going and to clean up that soil.”
Howe said both questions should be left to the voters.
“We should give our voters the choice,” she said. “I think our voters are smart enough to know where they want our money to go.”
DPW building
During its joint meeting with the DPW Commissioners, the Board approved use of $2.2 million in Plymouth County ARPA funds to help pay for the sewer force main project to enable a Town Meeting article asking for the transfer of borrowing authority to the DPW building project.
A ballot question was delayed until Friday just in case the funding transfers were not approved by bonding counsel.
We are looking at the potential of not having to do a debt exclusion vote,” said Frank Lynam of the DPW Building Committee. “We may have to, it all depends how this final piece comes together. … I think, at this point, we’re all pretty confident that that’s going to work.”
The DPW committee had met just before the Select Board to discuss the need to raise additional funds for the project as Carter has been researching potential options, according to Lynam.
“This is only possible because so many previous articles came in under budget,” Evans said, thanking the DPW commissioners for conducting a well-run sewer main project. “We’ve caught every lucky break possible.”
He stressed the public is not being asked for additional money.
“We’re reallocating debt,” he said.
In addition to financial sources previously discussed, they also talked about borrowing funds, Lynam said.
“Our biggest concern was layering an additional level of borrowing on top of what is already being presented to the town,” he said. “Mary Beth suggested we look at the possibility of utilizing county ARPA funds to free up some of the debt commitment we’ve made to the sewer main replacement program.”
Discussions have been going back and forth on the issue between bond counsel and local counsel.
“I think it’s now in the hands of the umpire,” he said, but the committee expects to be able to commit about $2.2 million less on the sewer water main than previously voted and suggested extending that borrowing authority to the DPW building project. “We would not be borrowing any more money than we’ve previously committed, but we would be utilizing available funds to reduce the borrowing in one area to enable us in another without significantly increasing the cost to the ratepayer and the taxpayer.”
They are also looking at enterprise funds for a portion of the project funding.
Carter said the DPW project shortfall is $3,088,760 and by searching out remaining funds from previous projects, totalling $1,043,271.15 that there is $2.73 million remaining in Plymouth County ARPA funds. She recommended using $2.2 million of the ARPA funds toward the sewer force main project because the DPW building project is not one of the limited areas for which they can be used, but sewer/water project is.
A matching Town Meeting article for $2.2 million will ask voters to trade borrowing authority to the DPW building.
“I’ve checked with everybody, and everybody said that should work,” she said.
Public forums slated for WMS project
WHITMAN – Residents will have more opportunities to hear about the deficiencies of the current Whitman Middle School building – and tour the facility to see them first-hand – while learning details of the new school project in the weeks ahead of the Monday, Oct. 30 special Town Meeting on the proposed building project.
The Building Committee firmed up those dates and reviewed the message being put forth at its Tuesday, Sept. 19 meeting.
Christopher Scriven attended the meeting virtually.
“We’re working hard to get back on track with our outreach plan,” said WMS Principal Brandon Frost. “The biggest change that we need to make right now, is the [Select Board] meet on Sept. 26, and we don’t want to be on the same night as them. … There’s no sense to compete.”
The fifth community forum is planned on Thursday, Sept. 28 [see schedule].
It will require “yes” votes at both the Oct. 30 special Town Meeting and a Saturday, Nov. 4 ballot question.
“I think it’s good for us not to compete with the Select Board,” said Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, noting that members of both committees might want to attend each others’ meetings.
The forum on Sept. 28 was to feature a slide presentation to outline the cost of the project including the town’s contribution of $89,684,133 as well as the anticipated Mass. School Building Authority grant of $45,605,539; debt options; an overview of the project history and schedule; MSBA acceptance rate and reports and investigations conducted on the existing building.
“The existing building was constructed prior to the first state building code, back in 1975,” Frost said. The first accessibility code was published in 1967.
Vice Chair Kathleen Ottina said the existing school is assessed at $9.8 million. The accessibility code gets treated at 30 percent — $2.9 million – to fix the school. Fire protection codes get triggered at 33 percent – or $3.2 million.
The roof repair and HVAC replacement, which are the heart of the problem, are about $13 million.
“It more than triggers the need to meet the codes for the ADA and fire protection,” she said. “The base repair is throwing good money after bad. It’s not the solution.
“If a building is made before a code is established and then you have to go into it [to make major repairs or replacement] you have to bring it up to the 2023 codes?” asked Assistant Superintendent George Ferro.
“Any new work needs to be compliant with the most recent code,” said Architect Troy Randall. “There are many stipulations related to that, and there are triggers that we will go through … on what that means from an accessibility standpoint.”
Building Inspector Robert Curran explained there is a dollar amount that triggers that requirement, but if the entrance is touched, they have to make all entrances handicapped-accessible, as well.
“Then you get into the fire code if you do major renovations,” he said. “We didn’t even talk about seismic requirements.”
The new middle school would have to be built to meet seismic requirements, but any renovation to the existing school would mean it has to be brought up to that code, too.
“There are a lot of variables,” Randall said. “There are unknowns related to that.”
The cost of portable classrooms will also be discussed.
A sampling of educational shortcomings of the building are also included in the presentation as well as photos for residents who have not had a chance to tour the school.
“We sometimes get caught up in the Whitman and Hanson,” Ferro said of the educational aspect of the need for a new building. “You didn’t see a Hanson Middle School picture in there because what you saw is what other schools in the Commonwealth who have been through MSBA projects have been through.”
When eighth-graders are deciding between attending vocational or public high school and whether Whitman is providing what other students in the Commonwealth have, becomes clear “as a parent, a voter, a person” whether students in W-H have the skills to be successful in their life choices.
Building Committee member Don Esson expressed doubts that is was a good “apples to apples” comparison, arguing it would be better to compare WMS to communities with similar economic profiles to Whitman.
“I think it would be better if we could find closer like schools,” he said. “I think it sells itself that way. I think some people might get a bad impression if we tried to paint this area as a Natick or Beverly.”
Ferro said it was a good point.
School Committee member Beth Stafford said the architects were making comparisons with projects they have done but agreed that their Abington project might be a better comparison.
“I think these discussions are helpful,” Ottina said, noting they are discussions being conducted in the community.
Benefits of a new middle school will also be covered in the community forums, including academic, arts and athletic opportunities as well as community features of the site.
Traffic flow and parking will also be addressed.
Breathing some life back into history
HANSON – Canadian novelist Guy Vanderhaeghe once wrote that “History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.”
Perhaps that best explains not only how the books of Martha Hall Kelly affect her readers, but how she came to write them in the first place.
The author of the New York Times bestselling novel “The Lilac Girls,” about Polish victims of Nazi medical “research” in Ravensbrück concentration camp.
She revisited her World War II setting – and Hanson on Thursday, Sept. 21 to talk about her new novel “The Golden Doves” at Camp Kiwanee’s Needles Lodge.
Introduced by Library Trustee, and Kelly fan, Dianna McDevitt, the author spoke of her first novel “The Lilac Girls,” and how it led to her latest – “The Golden Doves,” which tells the tale of two former Resistance workers who discover that Nazis are being helped to escape Europe after the war through Rome, and with the help of the U.S. government.
“It’s no secret that I love historical fiction, and one of my favorite authors happens to be here tonight,” McDevitt said, “We are so delighted to welcome Martha Hall Kelly again to chat with us Hanson Library patrons about her latest book, ‘The Golden Doves,’ as well as her previous books.”
She hugged Kelly as the audience welcomed her with applause. But Kelly is no stranger to Hanson, besides having visited last year to discuss her books, she spent a good deal of her childhood in Hanson after her family had moved to Mattakeesett Street, in the Bryantville section of town, when she was a very young girl.
“You may have read one of her previous books – I’ve got them all, I’m a fan,” McDevitt said, noting that “The Lilac Girls” has sold two million copies on the New York Times Bestseller list. “That’s truly a feat for a first novel.”
McDevitt said she loved how Kelly’s books not only explore the “untold stories of World War II,” but also have expanded to other periods in history.
“The Lilac Girls’” sister novels “The Lost Roses” set in Imperialist Russia and “The Sunflower Girls,” about Civil War nurses also carried on the floral theme, while the new book covers different themes.
“I have to tell you how wonderful it is to be here, and how emotional,” Kelly said on her homecoming of a sort. “I didn’t think it would be that way.”
She reviewed the process she followed in writing “The Lilac Girls” for new readers of her books.
Following her mother’s death, her husband suggested she visit the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden in Bethlehem, Conn., known for its lilac garden, which Kelly had always wanted to visit, as a way to deal with her grief. Kelly’s mother had loved lilacs, and it seemed a natural diversion.
That visit turned out to be the launchpad for her career, inspiring her first book after she spied a photo of “the rabbits,” as the Ravensbrück victims of Nazi medical experiments were known.
The surviving girls, who had been Polish Girl Scouts before the war, were brought to the Bethlehem farm by its owner at the time, New York socialite Caroline Ferriday to help them recover from their ordeal. When Kelly discovered that photo, she had found the inspiration for researching a non-fiction book that later became her first novel.
Fast-forward to a book tour stop in Florida for “The Lilac Girls,” where and she met a Hungarian Jewish woman, who told her about an encounter with the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz.
“That really changed me,” Kelly said, deciding that after the remaining books she was under contract to write for the “flower” series, would be a book on how the Nazis escaped Europe after the war.
“There were three ways the Nazis escaped,” she discovered from her early research for “The Golden Doves.” They were either released from prison by the U.S. government during the Cold War, the space program’s need for German scientists or a route through Italy and the Vatican.
“I wanted to feature all of that in my book,” she said. Her heroines were “Josie,” a fictionalized version of American WWII spy Virginia Hall, and “Arlette,” a German-French Resistance member who both ended up in Ravensbrück, like “the rabbits.” Her heroines hunt down the Ravensbrück version of Mengele after the war.
To research the book, she took her husband on a post-COVID tour of Italy and the Vatican, tracing the route the Nazis would have taken in their escape from Europe. At one point, they “blended” with a group of German families visiting a secluded cemetery where their wartime Nazi family members were interred along with clergy that aided them to sniff out information.
“If anyone ever says to you, ‘Why don’t you go see that house you always wanted to go see, or that museum, or that whatever,’ go,” Kelly said. “You never know. It might be worth it.”
Audience questions included the order in which she wrote the books, which she said were in “backward chronology” because her husband told her, after “The Lilac Girls,” that she had a moment of leverage to decide how she would write, but she had already done research on “Roses” and “Sunflowers.”
She said that, despite her exhaustive research for her novels, she said it was unlikely.
“You know, once you get used to making stuff up …” she joked. “If I know it’s true, I use that, but I really want to be able to take liberties.”
As for her next book, she said it will be another visit to WWII historical fiction, set on Martha’s Vineyard where GIs were rehearsed the D-Day invasion.
“I just today hit the send button to send it to my editor,” she said.
Great Pumpkin car show set
Whitman & Hanson Dollars for Scholars will host its fifth Annual Great Pumpkin Classic Car Show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 8 at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School followed by a trophy ceremony at 2 p.m. The rain date will be Sunday, Oct. 15. Proceeds from the event will benefit Whitman & Hanson Dollars for Scholars.
Admission fee is $5 per person or $15 per family for the event which will include a kids costume contest (beginning at noon), music, raffles, food trucks and Halloween candy. The entry fee for vehicles in the show is $10 per show car. Dash plaques will be issued for the first 50 cars registered. Show car entry begins at 8:00 AM. Awards will be given in the following categories: Best of Show; Best in Decade—pre-’40s; Best in Decade —’40s; Best in Decade — ’50s; Best in Decade —’60s; Best in Decade — ’70s; Best in Decade — ’80s; Best in Decade — ’90s; Best Special Interest Car; and Best Decorated Car.
The event is being sponsored by Platinum Auto-Abington, Sparky’s Automotive, and Trillium Fuel.
For more information, please contact Lisa Green at 781-293-2131 or email [email protected].
Hanson’s sobering financial forecast
By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
HANSON – Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan recommended that a free cash balance of 5 percent of the total be kept in reserve after Town Meeting and is recommending to his committee that they maintain the highest possible level of free cash as they vote on whether to recommend Town Meeting article requests.
Capital improvement and highway requests were among the few areas he saw room for trimming. While they are important, he said maintaining free cash was more critical and, if cuts were needed, those would have to be priority areas as opposed to other requests that appear absolutely necessary.
“We made promises in May that we’d fund in October and we’re running a razor-thin budget here,” Sullivan said.
Grants and other funding avenues would also need to be looked at, he said, and made the “unpopular statement” that, when the tax rate is set in November, he would advocate raising taxes.
“If we don’t do something now, we are going to be in significant dire straits,” he said. “It’s not sustainable.”
He is currently comparing the rates of surrounding communities and crunching numbers with Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf.
“Right now, out of a $34 million budget, that would require us to have a free cash reserve of $1.7 million,” he told the Select Board, on Tuesday, Sept. 12. “If we spend all the free cash that we’ve allocated for the articles, we’ll be at between $300,000 to $400,000, which is well below the 5 percent threshold.”
He said that figure has not yet been certified.
When the free cash is certified, Sullivan said the belief is that it will be at about $1 million, but the Town Meeting articles are proposing expenditures on almost $800,000.
Cutting the capital and highway improvement articles would bring the spending requests down to about $550.000, but Sullivan said that would not help the free cash reserve problem.
“We don’t even have that now,” he said. “If we didn’t spend a dime, we still don’t have it [a 5-percent reserve], because … the absolute minimum is 3 percent.”
The state recommends the 5 percent figure to maintain a community’s bond rating as well as to maintain a “rainy day fund.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said spending nothing is not an option, but spending less is an option.
“We’re estimating that, come the springtime, it will have deficit of over $1 million,” Sullivan said. “So we’re taking a hard look at a lot of the free cash [requests]. I’ve never been a proponent of using free cash in an operational budget.”
Sullivan said he understands that promises have been made and things were discussed, but he sounded a note of caution.
“October has generally been a period where we get projects done that are nice to have, [but] there’s a real concern right now with the [free cash] balance. We’re under 1 percent if everything is funded.”
He said the final decision is, of course, up to the voters and they can vote free cash down to a zero balance if they want, but he stressed he is warning them about his concern for the springtime that they run into a risk of talking about cuts and overrides and not having a revenue base to support what the town is doing now.
“To be clear, we’re going to be having that conversation, even if you trim it to the bone now,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, “I’m not saying throw caution to the wind now … but I want to be clear that [a reserve] will soften the blow a little bit, but it’s not going to completely [eliminate it].”
Sullivan said he was aware of that, but that the town finances are at a point where if free cash drops below a certain level, it’s not going to meet the town’s needs.
“None of us want to affect the bond rating,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, noting that they have not voted on it as a board. “None of us want to go below 5 percent. We’re in the process of having some financial projections done.”
While they had not previously had solid numbers from Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, now that they do, that information would definitely shape some of their decisions that night.
Sullivan said this would be the third budget cycle in which the town has not put any money in the stabilization accounts, which also has the potential to affect the bond rating.
“It looks very innocuous,” he said. “There’s really nothing very egregious in these articles … they all have their merits. I struggle because we’re approaching, I think a critical point.”
There’s also not a lot of flexibility, with some articles such as school transportation, but they will be asking if capital projects can be put off for another cycle.
“We’re at one of the tougher positions I’ve seen,” Sullivan said. “We’ve done this many times in October … it’s when we expend free cash. … Then the spring comes and we’re talking about cutting people’s jobs, and I don’t think anyone wants to do that.”
“No, we don’t want to do that,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. She noted that the town did manage to put a modest amount into stabilization in May, but agreed it was no game changer.
“That’s a good lens for us to look through,” she said.
The Board reviewed warrant articles for the Oct. 2 special Town Meeting, with Town Administrator Lisa Green saying there were no substantive changes in numbers since the previous week’s meeting.
Green said WHRSD Business Manager John Stanbrook has sent emails to Hanson regarding capital items approved at past town meetings for which money can be released – capital items that came in lower than what was budgeted for, but Kinsherf has already incorporated those figures into the free cash balance.
She said that is likely an installment of what will be released as Stanbrook’s office continues calculating.
Kinsherf, who joined the discussion late, said the 5 percent the state wants to see set aside should be a combination of savings in free cash and satbilization.
“In my opinion, you’d be at 5 percent even if you did those [capital and highway improvement] articles,” he said of the combined accounts. But, Kinsherf said, the town can’t go wrong by avoiding the use of one-time money for operational budget items.
“All through that warrant there’s operational stuff that, when you go back, that probably should have been in the budget,” he said. “Any decision you can make that saves free cash is definitely saving this yar but also projecting up to next year.”
Green also said she received some news about a transportation request for a Norfolk Agricultural student centering on which school district is responsible for the expense.
“There’s movement to the new district becoming responsible for that transportation,” she said, regarding a potential transfer of the student to the regional school district where they’re being housed right now.
“That’s awesome, but it’s still in flux right now,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
The Board made final recommendations on warrant articles and voted to close the warrant for the Monday, Oct. 2 special Town Meeting. Selectman David George was absent.
Among the articles referred to Town Meeting was a capital projects article, which included $125,000 in ARPA-eligible dirt replacement for the town’s ballfields. The remaining $322,282 of articles for school technology upgrades for the schools is sourced from free cash “that we’re getting a very strong read that FinCom is not going to recommend,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Board Vice Chair Joe Weeks said that, with in the next 12 months, maybe two budget cycles the board is going to have to be “really transparent with townspeople around where they want to spend their money and where they want to see their tax dollars go.”
“Being fiscally responsible is where we’re at right now,” he said. “Conservatism implies that we have the money and we’re just trying to spend it conservatively. We’re not. We’re trying to be responsible with it.”
By referring to Town Meeting he said he was not trying to punt a decision to be made, but that people who show up on Oct. 2 need to make a decision on where they want to see their money go.”
“We’ve done a really good job of not raising taxes through the roof,” Weeks said. “We’ve done a really good job of stretching the dollar as far as we can
The board split the ballfield portion into another ARPA-funded article to clarify the issue, but FitzGerald-Kemmett said the two ARPA articles should be separate and the board voted to recommend the infield dirt article.
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