HANSON — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Aug. 12 took issue with a Zoning Board of Appeals vote against supplying information to interim Town Administrator Lisa Green for a grant application for Mass Housing funds.

Selectmn support the non-competitive grant application. Any community that applies, receives funding.

Green said the grant provides civil engineering services as technical assistance to municipalities going through the 40B process.

“When I approached the ZBA, the administrative assistant informed me they already had a civil engineer who was on the staff already who was overseeing all of this, so they declined going forward with the grant,” she said.

Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett asked why the ZBA would be allowed to decide whether Selectmen proceed with a grant application.

“We voted to move forward with the Mass Housing Partnership grant,” she said. “Why are we allowing the ZBA to decide whether we are going to move forward with that or not?”

Green said there was information for the application that the ZBA needed to provide. She said the ZBA felt it would only confuse things to bring on a second civil engineer.

The town pays for the ZBA engineer’s services through applicant’s fees.

“I don’t see it as competing engineering,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I see it as we’re asking for a deeper dive on environmental engineering questions. …Their engineer only takes it to a certain level and the applicant is paying for it. … With all due respect, I don’t really care what the ZBA thinks of this grant.”

As an elected board, the Selectmen have a responsibility to the town and abutters regarding environmental contamination and stormwater management through a second review by a civil engineer.

“We’re not taking orders from any board,” Selectman Jim Hickey said, noting the Mass Housing Grant is non-competitive — if the town applies, they receive the funding. “This is the board that runs the town.”

Selectman Joe Weeks agreed that the decision rests with the Selectmen.

The board also discussed improving procedures for the application and appointment procedures for filling vacancies on town committees, with an eye toward attracting more residents to getting involved.

“I’ve gotten a little bit of feedback and I’m trying to be responsive,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We always have an abundance of openings and we don’t always have people signing up for them.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she wanted to make sure there is a policy and procedure that immediately acknowledges a person’s interest and application, letting them know it will be considered by the board. They would then be invited to meet with the board and a follow up with them, if they are appointed with instructions for being sworn in and information on who the committee chairman is and how they could contact them.

“I just want to make sure that we’re hand-holding people and being super appreciative of anybody that’s stepping up to be a volunteer,” she said.

Administrative Assistant to Selectmen Greer Getzen said she always follows up with applicants, sending them a letter thanking them for their interest and a date when Selectmen would be scheduled to vote on their application to make sure they are available. She also followed up with information on being sworn in by the Town Clerk.

“During COVID, I supplied [the Town Clerk’s] information, phone number and her email, so that they could contact her to make an appointment,” Getzen said.

FitzGerald-Kemmett wondered if the Town Hall’s appointment-only phase during COVID could be where “things jumped the track a little bit.”

She also stressed it is not intended as a reflection on Getzen or Green.

“This is an inherited and historical issue,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Getzen replied that her correspondence was even more specific at that time.

“I’m glad to hear that,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, adding that the current list of vacancies could be reviewed to determine if they are, indeed, still vacant as well as whether there are vacancies not listed.

Chairman Matt Dyer suggested the town’s volunteer handbook be listed among the information offered on the town’s website.

Getzen said a link could be added for that.

More information about committee portfolios and a more straightforward assessment of time commitments required would help market the openings more effectively, FitzGerald-Kemmett suggested.

“I think when you boil it down to that, people may think, ‘I could do that. I have wanted to give back, but I didn’t know what the time commitment was,’” she said.

Curt M. Tarvis II, who was elected to the Cemetery Commission echoed the point that there is little information about committees on the website.

“If there was more information available, you may get more volunteers,” he said.

“I honestly think we are not doing ourselves any favors,” FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed. “We bemoan the fact that … we’re reading all these [vacancies], but we’re not doing anything to help the situation. … If we can get some more people on these boards, it’s more engaged citizens, and god knows, we need more engaged citizens.”

She also said it could be a path to more people running for elective office.

Getzen said that, with a dedicated IT person coming on board, there will be more information on the site.

HANSON — While it isn’t yet clear how the Delta variant of COVID-19 might effect the town’s October special Town Meeting, holding the session outside is off the table because of annual concerns about mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE).

Selectmen began taking a look at the options during the board’s Tuesday, Aug. 10 meeting.

“We are quickly approaching October, which is crazy to think — especially with the Halloween candy at Shaw’s being out for a few weeks, now,” Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer said to open the discussion on the venue and format for the Town Meeting, as well as some of the articles planned on the warrant.

Dyer suggested looking to use the gym at WHRHS again.

“That’s why I asked to have [the discussion] on the agenda,” said Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “I just thought, if we want to do that, there’s only about six weeks or something, and I thought that went very well.”

School officials helped set up the socially distanced meeting so people felt safe to attend, which helped attendance, she said.

The issues included on the warrant will likely include a residency requirement to the bylaw for all appointed volunteers, which FitzGerald-Kemmett and Selectman Joe Weeks submitted.

The deadline to submit articles for the warrant is Aug. 24.

FitzGerald-Kemmett sought to clarify that there may come a time, when a long-time town volunteer with a great deal of institutional knowledge, may have to sell their home as they age or are renovating a home and have to live elsewhere for a time.

“I don’t want to paint ourselves into a corner,” she said. “I’d like to have some proviso where the board could make an exception knowingly.”

Interim Town Administrator Lisa Green said neighboring Whitman recently passed a bylaw that addressed that exact issue. She said she would reach out to Town Clerk Dawn Varley to obtain a copy of the bylaw and is planning to also contact Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff for her opinion on the issue.

“This is on an exception basis, with the whole board making a decision on a majority vote,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said of the residency article.

A citizen’s petition being circulated may or may not include that proviso, she said.

“If there’s anyone that would like the town to consider a certain article of business, please check in with the town clerk to make sure that you get all the rules and guidelines on how to create a citizen’s petition,” Dyer said.

One petition, by resident Frank Melisi, has already determined to be invalid because of formatting errors, and Dyer said Selectmen were working with him to help correct the errors.

“I would like for us to talk more broadly about citizens’ petitions and come up with a process … to help people, so that they don’t have this extremely frustrating experience of trying to do what I think is the most pure form of democracy,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Selectmen’s Administrative Assistant Greer Getzen said a lot of towns have formalized a handout to help guide residents through the citizen’s petition process.

FitzGerald-Kemmett said that, in the past, even when the process had been followed, petitions have been awkwardly or inaccurately worded. She suggested that a remedy would be to pass it by town counsel or to Green to make sure the wording was correct.

Green said that would be up to the board.

“I’m just wondering if the board has an appetite to have our town counsel review these at their hourly rate,” Green said. “I’m willing to help anybody out. I don’t want to steer people in the wrong direction.”

She said some towns with larger legal services budgets can make more use of town counsel in such cases.

Selectman Kenny Mitchell said people seeking to introduce a citizen’s petition should reach out to the Selectmen chairman, send it to Green and let the board review it.

“If it’s something that makes sense, it won’t have to go through the citizen’s petition route,” Mitchell said. “We can create an article, if we agree to it.”

He did not agree with offering town counsel services.

Selectman Jim Hickey agreed, but argued that town counsel review should be allowed in cases where the board does not agree with a citizen’s petition.

Weeks agreed with those suggestions, arguing it helps protect the board as well.

“Cover all the bases,” he said. “Maybe we should have a larger, open conversation about the use of town counsel related to these things.”

Weeks also said that, while there is a recall law in Hanson related to elected officials, one does not exist pertaining to appointed officials. He argued removal authority should be built into appointing authority.

“One of the things we’ve been trying to get clarification on is removal of appointed officials at any given moment,” he said. “I think it’s time we had that conversation for the only reason being if we do put a residency requirement in there, we have no backing, from my understanding, to remove them.”

He argued a lot can happen in the span of a three- or five-year appointment if people move out of town.

Dyer suggested the wording of such an action should be ironed out for discussion at the next Selectmen’s meeting.

WHITMAN — Pedestrians trying to get safely to Whitman Park will now have a fighting chance to successfully cross Park Avenue in that effort, thanks to a traffic island and sidewalk project now underway on the road.

Thanks to a $363,000 state Complete Streets grant, the DPW is making a change to the traffic island between Colebrook Cemetery and Whitman Park, where work had initially been concentrated, but new sidewalks on the opposite side of Park Avenue are now being included in the project.

“There was never any easy way to cross there,” Parks and Highway Superintendent Bruce Martin said of the traffic island, noting that the old crosswalk was more than 70 feet long, from when the East Middle School was there.

While the actual project is expected to cost about $100,000 more when completed, Martin said Chapter 90 funds and town roadwork money will be used for parts of the project not covered by the grant, such as engineering services.

Quite a bit of money was saved, however, by having DPW personnel tear out the old sidewalk and traffic island.

Removal of the old traffic island and relocating it closer to the park will provide safer access via cement sidewalk on the traffic island.

Traffic cones and barrels have been used to get drivers accustomed to the new roadway.

“You’ll have to come down and take a 90-degree turn onto Park Avenue, where before it was almost like an on-ramp to a highway,” Martin said. The change is intended to slow people down and increase safety for pedestrians.

The Park Avenue sidewalk installation is part of that project.

“We have many sidewalks that aren’t great, but that one was really bad. It was falling, it had big chunks taken out of it, the fact that there’s the church there and they don’t have any off-street parking …” He said curbing had been chunked off.

ADA-compliant curb cuts will be located at each intersection and one from Alden Street to the park. There will also be a “bump-out” in front of All Saints Episcopal Church — where the sidewalk will extend into the roadway about five feet — providing an oasis for pedestrians crossing from the church to cross over to Hayden Avenue where they may have parked.

The competitive grant is one that the state awards to make roads more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

“We actually put in for the grant for, like, four years in a row,” Martin said. “We got denied and then, finally, we got it.”

While the town tweaked their application a little bit each time, Martin said it comes down to the fact that it’s a competitive process, with every city and town in the state putting in for funding that can only fulfill a few applications each year.

“They might have liked our proposal year one, but they might have also liked somebody else’s,” he said.

With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill now before Congress, Martin said he hopes that means money will trickle down to the town, and asked state officials about that likelihood.

“Their answer was they don’t know,” he said, noting it is still too early to say.

Another, $185,000 Shared Streets grant — more tied into COVID funding — received the first week in July, will be used to upgrade sidewalks for greater safety in Whitman Center, according to Martin.

Originally, the town had been interested in upgrading the town parking lot off Washington Street, but that was rejected last year. When the town reapplied this year, the focus was on bump-out areas on all four corners of the Washington-Temple streets and South Avenue intersection to reduce the distance pedestrians have to walk and allow some green space in the center, Martin said.

He admits it might be a little controversial as people are confronted with the change. No parking spaces are expected to be lost to businesses, Martin emphasizes.

“In order to receive the grant, we had to have the work done by December of this year, so we’re scrambling a bit right now,” he said, noting that there is also the usual paving projects and curb work to do as well as the two grant-funded projects.

HANSON — The Board of Selectmen, on Tuesday, July 27 voted to propose articles for special Town Meeting consideration to codify services to examine town by-laws and streamline the one-day liquor license approval process.

Town Administrator Lisa Green said there had recently been discussion about the status and condition of general and zoning by-laws and thinking about possibly having a company come in and codify, update and index them, as well as placing them on the town website.

Green said she contacted General Code, a company she had worked with through her former employer.

“I was absolutely pleased with them in the work that they put forward,” she said. “At the end of this process we will have by-laws [in which] the language is correct, there’s no question, there’s no guessing, there’s no dead end, so to speak.”

Green said she has seen some zoning by-laws, especially, that direct you somewhere but, “You get there and there’s nothing there, so it’s anybody’s guess as to what that means.”

Codification will address all that, she said.

General Code’s proposal would cost under $10,000, according to Green. The firm would also keep by-laws up-to-date online for an annual fee of $11.95.

“We can use our best judgment as far as procurement,” she said. “This is probably a two-year process.”

It would have to come back before Town Meeting in 2023 for adoption when the codification process is complete.

“I think this would be a great thing for the town of Hanson to move forward on,” said Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer. “If anyone has gone onto our town website, all our by-laws are kind of different sections, different links that you have to click on, and you can’t even do a control-find and try to find anything, because it’s just a scanned PDF.”

He did ask how the company would work with existing by-law committees.

Green said the firm would probably work through her, and send her a copy when they complete their legal analysis. She would separate and give to each committee the by-laws that pertain to them. The committees could decide how they want to proceed.

Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said the codification process could look at existing by-laws for outdated language while the Zoning By-law Committee continues to look at what the town has, not through the lens of existing regulations, but by the feedback from people trying to locate businesses in town.

“It doesn’t make sense [for the Zoning By-law Committee] to start meeting in any material way until this exercise is done,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Selectman Kenny Mitchell also noted there has been a suggestion to bring a name change for the board to Select Board, and asked how difficult that would be.

“There’s a lot of by-laws that would have to be changed as a result of that,” he said, asking if the company could help with it.

“I will say that’s a really easy fix,” Dyer said, noting that a search and replace function on a computer could make that change.

Green said gender-specific language would be changed to gender neutral at the town’s request.

Selectman Joe Weeks asked about coverage for zoning workload.

“The key in that is how are they defining ‘new laws?’” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I presume they are defining that as new state laws.”

Weeks said he wanted to be able to realistically budget for any changes.

“If it’s reasonable, then we just budget for it and it just becomes part of our cadence going forward at Town Meeting,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Green indicated she would obtain information on the cost going forward once the project is complete and the town enters the maintenance phase.

The board also voted to support special legislation that would allow the town administrator to sign one-day liquor licenses.

“[Over] the last couple of weeks, it just seems that us meeting biweekly, isn’t sufficient enough to get one-day liquor licenses signed off on,” Dyer said.

His motion was intended to allow Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff to draft special legislation for Town Meeting to consider, allowing the town administrator to approve such licenses.

I think it’s a good idea, it’s very ministerial,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “It’s not like we really have a discussion about it. … We get the paperwork from the Camp Kiwanee guys and they’re listing what type of event it is and they’re using a prescribed … bartender. There’s not a lot of variety.”

Selectman Jim Hickey said he thought the idea was a good one in light the recent situations where license were approved after the fact.

Mitchell also suggested placing an application deadline prior to an event to prevent the need for retroactive license approvals for weddings and similar events.

In other business, Police Chief Michael Miksch informed the board that officer Kevin McCarthy is retiring Saturday, July 31m but has agreed to remain as a part-time officer, to help with details and events, as of Aug. 1.

Bridgewater resident Ryan Shaugnessy, an EMT who has put himself through a part-time police academy, has been forwarded to be offered the conditional position as a student police officer effective Sept. 20. Shaugnessy is currently a Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department deputy and part-time correctional officer. When the department became part of the regional dispatch center, five dispatchers were lost and put on four full-time officers.