HANSON – Police Chief Michael Miksch said salary issues have already motivated one police officer to leave the department, acknowledging to the Select Board on Tuesday, July 9 that the main reason was money.
Despite the sobering personnel news, Miksch saw reason for optimism in how the department handles persistent issues of addiction and mental health needs of residents.
“It is what it is,” Miksch said of the salary motivation behind departures, adding that the department’s shared clinician, who often accompanied officers on non-violent calls involving mental health issues, also departed for the greener pastures of higher salaries city departments could offer.
“Obviously, the budget is a challenge, every year maintenance on the building is difficult,” he said. But despite two of the HVAC systems going down on the first day to go over 90 degrees, there were funds in the fiscal 2024 budget to fix it.
“Eric, don’t panic, I’ve got some money to turn back to you,” he said to Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf.
While the grant which four towns used to fund the clinician they all shared, Miksch said his department would not be able to replace the officer who recently left.
“It’s very difficult,” he said. “I can’t fill that position, at least until January.” The departure also left a supervisory position [that of a sergeant], vacant.”
During the next two weeks, he plans to hire a consulting company to come in and give a written exam, based on policies and procedures, Massachusetts case law and criminal law, followed by an assessment center for those passing the exam, which puts them through real-life scenarios geared toward assessing their skill. Within three or four months, the process should yield a new supervisor, which Miksch had already planned for and budgeted, meaning the vacancy would then be that of a patrol officer.
Another lieutenant or deputy chief assessment center may also be needed, but that would be further into the year, he said.
In the meantime, calls for service remain a challenge. But where there was some concern about the numbers, Miksch focused on the positives in how his department approaches the people making those calls, or who are the subject of the calls.
making a difference
Miksch said there have been 5,640 calls so far this year.
“Which is actually up a fair amount from last year at this time by 800 to 900 calls,” he said, chalking up some of that to the department’s increased traffic enforcement this year. But while calls are up, arrests have decreased this year, according to Micksch in his regular report to the Select Board. To date there have been 26 arrests this year.
“One of the main reasons those numbers are down is there’s been a shift – and we try to do that through training, too – to some minor, non-violent offenses, we try not to bring anyone in the station,” the chief said. “We’re doing the same amount of work, whether we summons somebody to court or we lock them up.”
Cases involving violence, obviously call for talking a person into custody, Miksch said, but charges stemming from someone not having their drivers’ license, unless the suspension involved OUI or another substance issue where they don’t present a danger to the public or a similar offense, may skew the numbers away from the higher numbers of people in custody Hanson had seen in the past.
As the Police Officers’ Standard Training (POST) Committee, established a couple of years ago to certify officers, enters its third year, Miksch said he thinks complying with the new requirements should prove to be getting easier.
“It’s not that difficult, but it is time-consuming,” he said of procedures demanded of department leadership, rather than patrol officers, and May and June have proven to be their busiest months because of training deadlines.
Hanson has partnered with Halifax, Plympton and Carver to obtain a grant to hire a clinician, who was in place for a few months.
“She was absolutely wonderful,” Miksch said. “I’m a huge fan of this co-response model … if there was a nonviolent thing, we’d bring her along and she was extremely helpful.”
But Braintree had an opening, and she took that job.
“What tends to be a problem in the small communities, we’re not going to compete with them financially, so she left” he said. “Mental health right now – if you’re trying to find a clinician or anybody in the mental health field, good luck – they’re few and far between.”
The four communities are still looking and trying to find another clinician.
The department has also partnered with a new group in the area called The Loss Team, trained volunteers who come in to assist victims of suicide, the family members and friends of people who have committed suicide, Miksch said.
“Sadly, I’ve had to already use them,” Miksch said. “But, once again, it’s another great resource. [We’re] constantly trying to find those other groups, those other entities that can help us and still serve the citizens of the town.”
Hanson has for years, also part of East Bridgewater Hope, the substance abuse interdiction program, which has received another grant for training of Hanson officers.
“The good news is our fatal overdoses last year, were zero,” he said. There were 17 overdoes that required sending an officer out with a recovery coach.
“Most of the county was up a couple of percentage points, even in fatalities,” he said. “So, we’re doing well there.”
The office of District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz is working on a grant that would enable bringing community resource dogs in with the recovery coaches to help people with their anxiety and trying to work their way through their addiction problems.
Select board member Joe Weeks lauded Miksch and his department’s support for mental health services.
“A lot of people are afraid to access [these] services because they’re afraid they’re going to be arrested or penalized, or it’s going to follow them the rest of their lives,” Weeks said. “They’re isolated for a thousand different reasons, and you’ve really tried to make sure that people feel safe – and I feel it has to be said out loud – that I really hope that this legacy continues, because you’ve done an amazing job.”
Miksch said it is the “connection with the other chiefs” in the area that has done that. The big push for the clinician, for example, came from Carver, he said, noting that the officers have bought in and understand the need.
“But that’s a legacy, too,” chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “You’ve now got officers [for whom] this is a routine part of what they’re used to – what is part of the job. It’s destigmatized [mental health], that’s important, so that’s a legacy.”
contract votes
In other business, the Select board voted to reaffirm executive session votes on:

• A three-year contract, July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2027 for Deputy Police Chief Michael Casey involing the compensation rate of $147,900 per year and a $2,00 stipend for inservice training each year; paid the last payroll each August, he is allowed detail work, but only after all other officers have been offered the details.
• A three-year contract for town Administrator Lisa Green, July 1. 2024 to June 30, 2027 to include: a 2-percent pay increase to $151,541.64 in the frst year, $154,571.88 n the secnd year, $158,43.18 for the third year; an educational stipend of a juris doctorate degree, which she holds, of $5,000 for each of the first two years and $4,500 for the third year, payable in the first payroll date of December each year; 30 vacation days with a possible carryover of not more than 10 days or a buyout with permission of the Select board; sick time accural of 1.25 days per month with a maximum carryover of 30 sick days per fiscal year and professional development and fees for professional memberships.

HANSON – The Select Board, on Tuesday, June 25, discussed next steps in the wake of the previous week’s Town Meeting vote to accept budget cuts to fund the WHRHS operating assessment.
Among the suggestions was Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett’s proposal to approach School Committee Chair Beth Stafford to meet with Hanson’s representatives on the committee to discuss the competing town and school needs. The board also suggested it might be time to take another look at K-8 de-regionalization.
In the meantime, Town Administrator Lisa Green said she was beginning to meet with Town Hall union representatives and briefed the board on them during executive session.
“Conversations need to happen with the departments that are impacted, as far as hours,” she said. With a new assessor coming on board [see related story, this page], that conversation was scheduled for June 26.
After those meetings take place, proposals will go before the union and then come back to the board.
“We’re still taking these small steps, coordinating everyone to meet,” she said, with the aim of having things wrapped up by July 1 or shortly after.
Board member Joe Weeks said he appreciated the selfless efforts of residents who tried to suggest funding options from Town Meeting floor as a way to try to save jobs, but noted the work the Select Board has done over the past two years to add hours and positions to better serve the town.
“It’s recognized, for the most part universally, that those hours and jobs were needed,” he said. “Now we find ourselves in a position where we’re taking two steps back.”
Just as hard as it’s been to recruit people, Weeks said burnout and being stretched too thin causes retention problems and suggested more ideas for funding options should be brought forth and discussed now.
“We made a decision to cut staff based on [the School District] budget, which is not written in stone yet,” member Ed Heal said, noting that more state funding will be headed for the district. “What does that do to the jobs we just cut?”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there is no do-over for the town.
Additional state funds for busing reimbursement and per-pupil costs will kept by the district and will not come back to the town.
“People need to know who they are voting for,” member David George said of School Committee members who are or have family members who work in education. FitzGerald-Kemmett said she wanted more clarity over administrative costs at the schools and senior administrative contracts and said she would like to get some Freedom of Information Act requests into the district to ask about those contracts and any re-negotiations.
“I don’t want to micro-manage the School Committee,” she said. “But what I do want to know is what is it that they’re looking at vs what we’re looking at and how is the conclusion that us cutting our staff is appropriate in light of what I believe are extraordinary increases as we have been led to believe.”
“We need a good School Committee,” George said.
Weeks, who wants to have a meeting with the entire School Committee, said he can’t understand why the board can’t have a meeting with even Hanson members. FitzGerald-Kemmett said that is something they can do.
“We need to,” he said. “We need to find a way to support them in giving the entirety of the townspeople their voice.”
Otherwise the responsibility for an override, budget management and job cuts would be shouldered by the Select Board alone, he said.
“I’m OK with taking the heat, but only when it’s appropriate,” Weeks said. “For whatever reason, we’re kind of falling on the sword in a way that I don’t fully understand why we’re not pushing this harder.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett then asked Green to reach out to Stafford or inquire if the board should reach out to Hanson’s four School Committee members directly, to discuss their concerns.
“I don’t know if we can effectuate any change in the way that people are voting or the way they’re thinking about it, but I certainly like to educate people about what the downstream effect is if they continue down the road that has been [followed],” she said.
Weeks expressed frustration over that disconnect between conversations with school officials during the year and the resulting budgets.
“The disconnect is, they are not here at the [Select Board’s] meetings,” said Vice Chair Ann Rein. “We have a couple of people that frequently come to our meetings and they know what’s going on – they’re hearing what we hear. Everybody isn’t, and then they make decisions on what I consider to be faulty or inadequate information
She pointed to Facebook posts in which irate residents express the opinion that the Select Board should be “reining in that School Department.”
“They don’t get it,” she said. “We do not control the school board.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked rhetorically if anyone thought that town jobs would be cut if the Select Board had control over the school district.
She also brought up the need to revisit the de-regionalization study and consider at least kindergarten through grade eight de-regionalization.
“I’m not talking about extremists talking about this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’m just talking about ‘average Joe’s,’ the average person, saying ‘this is befuddling, I feel like the town of Hanson has no control over the fiscal spend through the schools.’”
She said that, in a sense, they are right other than who the town elects to the School Committee.
“I think we have to talk about all of it, because one of the things that stood out was just the act of the five of us voted to kick the assessment back, but the townspeople overwhelmingly voted to approve the assessment, and it makes it look like somehow we were against the schools,” Weeks said. “We all have our individual reasons for why we voted to kick it back … we were trying to strategize every which way, to do what we could to get the spending under control and to have some understanding of what the future might look like. Now, we’re playing catch-up and trying to work on Plan B.”
Master plan
The board also heard a presentation on the town’s Master Plan by the senior Comprehensive Planner Rhiannon Dugan of the Old Colony Planning Council, the regional planning agency serving Hanson.
“It’s an intense document, but hopefully everybody will have an opportunity to read it, and I would really like to use it as a reference document for our future strategic planning sessions because I think this has got a lot of good info for us,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“The Master Plan is designed to be a comprehensive plan that encompasses all other government plans that the town has put forward and is a guide for creating any bylaws or zoning changes in the future,” Dugan said. “It is also a recap of historical change in town and future projections in terms of population, land conservation, businesses … the Master Plan covers housing, economic development, land use, open space and recreation, and natural and cultural recreation resources as well as public services and facilities and public transportation.”
Hanson’s Master Plan will also include a chapter on sustainability and resiliency for the town to meet its commitment for hazard mitigation and municipal vulnerabilities. The plan will serve as a guide not only for the Select Board, but the Planning Board, Conservation Commission and all other land use boards for at least the next 10 years.
The plan includes a list of goals and actions for the town to strive for, based on community input. It also includes a community profile.
Dugan said the process included a community survey, which brought in 267 responses with each chapter of the written plan containing a preface covering relevant responses.
Three public meetings have been held, one hosted by the Planning Board and the other two held at Camp Kiwanee and the Hanson Public Library.
Information can be found on the project’s website, which has been active throughout the process, according to Dugan.
“It was one of the most-visited web pages for the CPC last quarter,” she said. “There will be digital access to the plan in PDF form there.”
It will also be posted on the town website.
Hanson was lauded for its “excellent job in having permanently conserved land” and a lot of goals work with other up-to-date plans such as the housing production plan and the creation of affordable housing and a diverse housing stock for young families and seniors in need of affordable housing in Hanson. They also spoke of the High Street Park draft plan and hopes to seek funding for it going forward.
“Funding remains elusive, particularly in light of our MBTA vote,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
In other business, Health Board Chair Arlene Dias updated the board on the process and cost involved for residents to obtain new stickers for the Transfer Station.
The stickers are available online or in the office beginning July 1, she said, for an extra $3 fee online ($68) or at the office for $65.
Residents may get one sticker per vehicle, which are valid for one year with a maximum of three, and vehicle registration is required for either method of purchase.
Dias said the town tries to keep the price low, but the hauling fees keep increasing.
“We’re always trying to keep up with the costs,” Dias said.
“You are always struggling with costs,” FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed. “I think the plan is to incrementally increase it.”
Dias confirmed that the pricing change to meet costs is a three-year program.