HANSON – Some of the business before Hanson Town Meeting will be coming back again.

Passed over items receiving some focused debate, such as salary to enable the hiring of a full-time conservation agent and funds to purchase generators for the library/senior center and to install security cameras on Town Hall property will likely be seen on the October special Town Meeting warrant.

Moderator Sean Kealy’s motion to pass over funding a strategic plan, was amended by Frank Milisi as too important to wait. 

“I think the citizens should have a chance to vote on whether they want a strategic plan now or in October,” he said.

A funding source had been lacking at the time the article was voted on by the Select Board.

“Now that were further along in this meeting, it’s clear that it looks as though it’s clear there will be the $15,000 to do the strategic plan,” Select Board member Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Perhaps we would have a different outlook.”

Voters then voted in support of funding the plan as was printed in the warrant.

Ann Rein of State Street asked why the generators would be passed over.

FitzGerald-Kemmett, who had proposed the article, said the basic reason the board passed over its own article was the uncertainty over how much free cash would be available.

“It is going to be reimbursed by ARPA (the American Recovery Plan Act), but you have to fund it upfront to get the reimbursement,” she said. “We really weren’t certain how some of these articles were going to go. We were cautioned by the Finance Committee, and rightly so, we’d be playing “Russian roulette” if we decided to include this in a budget when we didn’t know how the other articles were going to pass.”

FitzGerald-Kemmett said the article is definitely worthwhile and intends to bring it back no later than October.

Also passed over were a transfer of $25,000 in free cash to replenish the Conservation fund and to raise and appropriate funds to fund the Conservation agent as a full-time position, rather than a part-time one.

While Conservation Commissions Chairman Phil Clements said he was not opposed to passing over the article, he sought to point out that the conservation agent position is the only part-time department head in Hanson town government. 

“It used to be a full-time position until the big recession hit about 10 or 12 years ago,” he said. “All the other departments seemed to have recovered from that. We have not — we’ve been hopping on one leg for the last decade.”

He said people call the office and sometimes can’t get answers because the agent is out of hours for the week, and is a position that supports the economic development of the town.

“Every development, for business, industry and so forth, has to come before the commission and we look forward to revisiting this so we can fully support those activities in town,” he said.

Joseph O’Sullivan of West Washington Street, an abutter to a proposed project— 0 County Road — where the developer wants to put in 10 four-bedroom houses in a wetland surrounded by water on three sides, opposed passing over the funding of a full-time agent.

“Only the Conservation Commission has the authority to evaluate and use their judgment about the future impact of putting this proposed subdivision in,” he said. “Only the conservation agent can deal with the state on reviewing the Wetlands Act.”

FitzGerald-Kemmett said it was another difficult decision made with the budget in mind, especially since it was not clear how transfer station funding was going to go. The salary was also not the only financial consideration, she said, noting benefits were also involved.

Clemens said it was his hope that it could be revisited in October.

Funding an event coordinator and facilities manager at Camp Kiwanee was also passed over.

HANSON — Voters at Town Meeting on Monday, May 2 supported a marijuana bylaw amendment to clarify language now on the books, but followed that vote by rejecting articles seeking retail, currier/operators and use of property on Hawks Avenue for possible cannabis businesses.

Debate also focused on articles that proposed a senior outreach position at the Council on Aging and that sought to remove recent controls to the recall provision. The town’s $15,069,795 share of the Whitman-Hanson Regional School budget was approved without question or comment. A $32,346,578 municipal budget was also approved.

As expected, the five cannabis-related articles were the subject of most discussion during the meeting.

Moderator Sean Kealy and Town Counsel Kate Feodroff admonished voters that the issue of marijuana was not the tricky part, and that the articles one issue at a time, because “amending these bylaws is a very complicated thing,” Kealy said. “The problem is each article depends on the article before it.”

Still, much of the debate, indeed, focused on marijuana and its attractiveness to youth, its stronger potency than in the past — especially where edibles are concerned — and their concern of children being exposed to it.

All four votes required a count.

The first, Article 25, re-codifies and updates existing language and combined bylaws governing medical cannabis facilities and cannabis establishments in their current forms. They required two-thirds margins for passage. Article 25 was passed by a 144-67 vote.

Attorney General Maura Healy’s statement that medical marijuana cannot be barred from a town was a focus of debate on the article, making one resident express the wish that Article 26 — seeking to permit cannabis retailers for adult use by special permit — was up for a vote first. Article 26 was later rejected by a vote of 95-83.

“If medical can’t be barred from a town, then potentially, someone could come in and do medical and eventually switch that to retail,” one resident said.

Feodoroff said that would not be possible under the combined bylaw because, while oversight for medical and adult recreational use both fall under the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) they are still separate entities requiring entirely different host community agreements and zoning bylaws.

“They’re all chipping away, they’re all looking for a chink in the armor, from what I can tell, to get marijuana in this town,” resident Dan McDonough of Carriage Road said, noting he appreciates the work the Select Board has been doing. “Any money we save in taxes, we’re going to pay for down the road in rehab.”

Bob Huston of West Washington Street said all the articles relate to a map for the overlay district plan.

“You’re taking out the restrictions on the placement of [retailers] in church zones, in school zones and other places where youth congregate,” he said.  “Our issue is to protect our families and our children.”

Kealy said he wanted to avoid arguing all the articles at once in order to have clear idea of what each article entailed.

Retired teacher Peter Travaline of Pleasant Street said it upsets him that the language “… and other places where children congregate…” would be removed from the bylaw [Article 25]. “If you’re not going to help the kids,” he said gesturing with his hand flicking outward from his chin.

Kealy, who stressed he does not vote at town meetings, said the intent of the bylaws was to place the town in compliance with the latest state legislation. 

Frank Milisi, who sponsored, and worked with town officials to develop the cannabis articles as revenue sources, said there was no intention to place a retail establishment on Hawks Avenue near Burrage Wildlife Management Area.

“Marijuana is already here in Massachusetts,” Milisi said, noting that it brought in more revenue for the state than liquor excise taxes. “This is a tax source that is not on the backs of people in this town.”

He said a bad idea for his kids would be failure to have fully funded schools and a recreation department.

Annette Benenato of Brookside Drive gave a lengthy, impassioned statement about the dangers of allowing cannabis retailers in town, touching on the risk to younger teens, the THC potency in cannabis today, the experience of other states and the relatively low amount of funds the impact fees would raise.

“Adding more drugs to our community does not add value to our community,” she said.

Article 27, which would add Hawks Avenue to the list of eligible locations for marijuana retail establishments was also rejected by a voice vote. Article 28, to permit cannabis delivery operators and couriers in the town’s industrial zone was also defeated by a vote of 67-26 and Article 29 aimed at authorizing the Select Board to enter into a 20-year lease of 3.8 acres of town-owned property at 100 Hawks Ave. for commercial and/or industrial use was also rejected.

Voters also voted against an initiative petition article seeking to again amend the town’s recall law and make it easier to seek a recall — in the interest of forging a less toxic political climate in Hanson. 

Recall change
rejected

The article brought by Kevin Cohen argued for reinstating the previous recall law, allowing residents to establish their own grounds for recalling elected officials, rather than the seven listed in the new recall under Chapter 93 of the Acts of 2019.

“The toxic political arena in this town is causing good people not to run for those seats up front,” said resident Joseph O’Sullivan of West Washington Street, gesturing to the Select Board and Finance Committee. “People should be recalled for malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance, not because the took votes, in doing their jobs, that some of you didn’t like.” 

Three present or former town officials, ex-Select Board Chair Jim McGahan, former School Committee Chair Bob Hayes and current Finance Committee member Patrick Powers outlined how they had been threatened with recall for casting unpopular votes on their respective boards.

McGahan, who ran for office during a recall effort in the past, said he had since his election been subjected to threats of recall if he voted opposite to the position of others in town.

He said the board, during his tenure, changed the rules to provide guidance for proper use of recall by listing seven reasons for a recall: conviction of a felony, admissions of misdemeanors by Mass. law, admissions to facts while in office that would lead to a conviction of felony misdemeanors, violation of any of the 29 sections of conflict of interest law, attendance of less than 50 percent of posted meetings, lack of fitness and sobriety while performing official functions, involuntary commitment to a mental health facility and/or corruption convictions.

“We modeled the town of Norwood,” he said. “We used it to protect our official to [allow them] to have ideas and present them without feeling they are under duress or influence,” McGahan said.

Hayes, who was a six-time elected member of the School Committee, serving as chair for 15 years, and had experienced threats of recall, too.

“Every time we went to build a school, or talked about it, I was getting threatening phone calls,” he said. “Changing this recall law [would be] a disaster. It’s tough enough to get five people that are up there [the Select Board] … but I ran six times unopposed. If I didn’t run, that seat would have gone vacant. … It’s not democracy. It’s pressure that is undue elected officials.”

Powers said he did not disagree with the purpose of the article, but said it was a little too wide open.

“There are folks in this room who have threatened me, threatened my family, made accusations on social media… posting disgusting things, both personal and private,” he said, noting some officials’ employers have been called, as well. “I don’t think this is the language to do it if we want to see people get up there.”

HANOVER — Both Abington and Scituate have approved the South Shore Tech budget for fiscal 2023 at their respective town meetings, Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey reported to the School Committee on Wednesday, April 13.

“We now go into a bit of a town meeting lull and we head into the first Monday of May  — the Super Monday [May 2] — where the other communities’ town meetings are scheduled,” he said. “I believe, at this point, we’re done with any finance committee or advisory committee meetings, but stand by to answer any questions between now and the town meetings that are left.”

Hickey also asked the committee to establish a building committee for the renovation expansion program for which they are seeking MSBA funding. 

The committee, consisting of Hickey and the School Committee, was approved.

The district was advised of the invitation to into the MSBA’s Core Program last month.

“The letter basically puts us in a pretty exclusive club — at least 17 schools out of at least 58 received this letter saying, ‘Your needs that you identified and our own research confirms that you have been invited to show us in the next nine months that you are ready to begin this process,’” Hickey said at the time. “We’ve been applying since 2015.”

He said those previous applications, and the funds set aside during those years, puts SST in a position to move very quickly through this first phase.

“They want to make sure you have local support, that you have feasibility funds that you need, that you have plans that make sense,” Hickey said last month said of the MSBA’s caution not to get ahead of things. “[SST] has put some thought and time into this. I have every confidence that they’re going to fulfill all the particular requirements.”

A building committee is one of the earliest concrete steps in the process MSBA requires, but, Hickey said it is unlikely that the committee would have any tangible goals or tasks until later in the process when permission is received to appoint an owner/project manager and an engineering firm.

MSBA has approved a questionnaire to determine whether current programs should be augmented, he said.

“These are all vision statements,” Hickey stressed adding he is more interested in responses to a Chapter 74 program document comparing data from applications and wait list against programs in place or that might be offered against a labor market analysis.

“They want to know, if we had the ability to offer new programming, what might we want to offer?” Hickey said. “If we had the opportunity to expand programs that are currently here, what might we want to expand?”

Hickey said the MSBA looks at enrollment data, including the percent of total students in the district are applying for entrance, as well as attrition rates as part of enrollment projections.

At some point, MSBA would discuss the size of an expansion sought, based on the number of students the district could reasonable attract. They could set a range of students such an expansion could handle, including in the eventuality that another town might join the region.

Hickey expects to bring motion language for a feasibility study before the committee in May. He said early indications are that a reimbursement of 55 percent are to be expected at the end of the project.

“We’re in very good shape for completing the homework assignments,” he said of the process MSBA has put in place with the ability to move to the next step expected in the fall.

School district calculations on an alternative transportation formula may bring retroactive reimbursements as far back as fiscal 2021, district officials told the W-H School Committee at its April 13 meeting.

“I don’t want to speculate to put a wrinkle in what we’re talking about tonight,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said, thanking the residents who suggested new ways of looking at the problem. “But, I think this is positive for the district and for both communities in that we could get more mandates reimbursibles and we also cut the cost of non-mandated busing tremendously.”

The committee voted unanimously to amend the fiscal 2023 costs for non-mandated busing for Hanson at $55,234.19 and unanimously to amend the fiscal 2023 costs for non-mandated busing for Whitman to $216,059.44.

They also voted 8-1 amend the operating assessment to Hanson to $13,245,052.04 and to 8-1 set Whitman’s operating assessment at $16,741,119.30. Committee member Dawn Byers voted no to each operating assessment change.

“This is what being a good partner is, working together with members of the community, finding savings, passing them along,” said Committee Vice Chairman Christopher Scriven. “I don’t see the benefit to anyone of doing anything else at this time.”

After two recent Zoom meetings with DESE following a suggested alternative transportation funding formula, Szymaniak then had a conversation with “the men from MARS (the Mass. Association of Regional Schools),” who asked if the district had ever looked at busing and mileage.

“When you take an Über, you pay so much from Point A to Point B … and if it’s 10 miles further, Über charges you more,” he said. He and Committee Chairman Christopher Howard, after discussing the idea, asked Business Manager John Stanbrook to investigate the option.

“He spent quite a bit of time analyzing every student, where they live … and he came up with a theory on mileage and transportation, for mandated transportation and mileage,” Szymaniak said. “The goal … is to try to maximize the amount of state money we could get in reimbursement — and I think we found a solution.”

After running it by DESE funding expert Jay Sullivan, he suggested an easier way to do it.

“That methodology is accepted by the state, and retroactively to fiscal 2022,” Szymaniak said. When a Whitman Finance Committee member asked if the amended calculation could be applied to fiscal 2021 as well, Sullivan said it could.

“I don’t know what that means yet, so I don’t want to discuss numbers, but Jay has John working on fiscal ’21’s actuals to see what we can get for reimbursements,” he said. “Thank you [Kathleen] Ottina for throwing that suggestion out there.”

He also thanked Selectmen Randy LaMattina and Justin Evans, Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman and residents John Galvin — who also serves on the Finance Committee — and Shawn Kain for helping the district “look through a different lens” at the problem of non-mandated busing costs.

The “mile method” — assuming a 90-percent state reimbursement method and approval of the method — Whitman’s assessment could be about $17.3 million, the operating assessment $16,741,000, non-mandated busing $216,000, and capital assessments would stay the same. In Hanson, the assessment could be about $13,782,199, the operating assessment $13,245,052.04, non-mandated busing $55,234 and capital assessments would stay the same.

While the bottom line of the certified budget of $58,492,314 would not change if the mile method were approved, Whitman’s assessment would go down $420,603.92 and Hanson could see a $163,001.20.

Criteria for non-mandated busing services would not change, only the manner in which cost is calculated.

“This is a permanent change,” Howard said of the decision to be made. While that is good, the committee has to keep in mind that reimbursement rates change, he cautioned.

School district counsel, meanwhile advised the assessment breakdown forwarded to towns be continued so it is clear what the process will mean.

Committee member Dawn Byers suggested a single line item for the school costs in accordance with Mass. General Law, but member Beth Stafford urged that a detailed breakdown was needed this year to show the work the committee has done to lower costs.

“It’ just a matter of seeing it,” Stafford said.

Member David Forth, who has been critical of the implementation of the Regional Agreement in the past, suggested continuing the present method of calculating non-mandated busing costs until a Regional Agreement Amendment Committee could hash out what changes should be made.

Both Heather Kniffen and Fred Small expressed concern that the change could create an inequitable situation.

“The way it’s done right now is equitable for both towns, it distributes the costs where they should be distributed, and to whom they should be distributed,” Small said. “And that’s fair and I think both towns should feel that that’s fair.”

Forth said the 80-20 split, in place since at least 2001, is more of an inequity.

Hanson Selectman Jim Hickey agreed there have been problems with the regional agreement for a while and characterized the regional district as a “bad marriage for Hanson.” 

“I can tell you that people in Hanson think that the School Committee has somehow lost their way and forgot why they were voted into the seats,” he said. “I think it can be fixed. I think we have to sit down at the table and start from the beginning.”

He said there is a need to fix the system now in place.

“I’m a bit gobsmacked that I’m hearing for the first time about legal opinion that has been received about a busing issue, that have been received that our town has not seen,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “We have not been asked for an opinion.”

She said she has not seen either the Whitman town counsel or the school committee counsel’s opinion on the busing funding.

“That feels extremely wrong to me,” she said. Talk of breaking non-mandated busing as a separate warrant article does not help Hanson, either, as the town voted the night before to place articles onto their warrant with a deadline of Friday, April 15 to close it. Any additions past that date would require an emergency meeting.

“It feels very much like the line of communication is broken,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “What feels like a very unilateral discussion of the budget is not going to help heal the wounds that we’ve still got from the change in the methodology.”

She did agree with those who suggested the need for a new Regional Agreement.

“We need to sit down and have the hard conversations and come up with a regional agreement that we all feel accurately represents what each town should be bringing to the table, and then we just move forward,” she said. 

Howard noted that Whitman folks have been present at about four or more public budget subcommittee meetings where busing has been discussed. The School Committee received a letter from Whitman town counsel after its last meeting and then consulted its own counsel in turn.

He, too, agreed that a new Regional Agreement needs to be negotiated.

“The cleaner we can make this, the more better off we will be,” Howard said.

HANSON — The town’s budget gap has been closed to within $278,572 — down from about $1 million a little over a month ago.

“With the cuts and sharpening of the pencils that we’ve done and [despite] the surprise of the schools that came out with a 5.5 percent assessment to the town on March 16, we brought our budget deficit down,” Town Administrator Lisa Green reported to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, April 5. “The school assessment came as a surprise, where the assessment that was forwarded to us on Feb. 16 was 4.1 percent.”

Green said the jump in the school assessment was not expected. After further budget computations, the bottom line came to within $278,572 or balance.

“We do continue to look for ways to cut any way we can without impacting personnel,” she said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Green said she is still hoping the school district will lower the assessment a little bit.

She also spoke with Whitman Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman, who has indicated that, if there is a change in the non-mandated busing formula, Whitman will be able to afford their 4.87 percent assessment within their levy.

She said that would put Hanson in a difficult position.

“If Whitman is saying that they can afford their assessment within the levy, there’s not going to be a lot of leverage and ground for us to ask the schools to lower their assessment,” she said. 

Green had advised the school district that Hanson could afford no more than a 3.5 percent increase, and said 3.3 percent would work within the levy.

In speaking to district business manager John Stanbrook, Green reported he is not aware of any changes to any of the assessments at this time.

“Is there a way to reach out to Whitman, as a partner — and knowing, in part, why we are where we are — and ask if they will partner with us and ask them to lower the assessment,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Just because they can afford it, doesn’t mean they necessarily want to put things on hold and want to pay all of that money, as well.”

She noted there have been past years when Whitman could not afford what they were assessed and Hanson successfully worked with them to work with the district to lower that assessment.

Town Meeting
warrant

A week after closing the Town Meeting warrant the previous week, Selectmen voted on two articles one of which was inadvertently left off the warrant through a printing error and the other, which had been with town counsel for a clarification on wording and was returned after the warrant had closed.

One was a citizen’s petition about amending the town’s recall provision, including giving residents their own grounds for initiating recall, requiring 300 voter signatures on the requesting petition and must name the official being recalled, which is required to be on the warrant. The other would allow selectmen to enter into a lease for if an RFP was agreed to regarding the Lite Control building.

Selectmen voted to place both articles and to remove another one that would place a generator at the transfer station, but that had not originated with the Board of Health.

Another three capital articles had been previously withdrawn by the Highway Department after Green had instructed departments to pare down their budgets.

Selectmn signed the approved warrant.

Voters going to the polls in Town Elections on Saturday, May 21 will have fewer reasons to complain about a lack of choices on the ballot than in past years.

In Hanson, there are eight candidates in the running for two seats on the Board of Selectmen, and Whitman has four candidates running for two seats on the Select Board.

The lone incumbent in contention is Whitman Selectman Justin Evans, running for his second term. 

In Hanson, Water Commissioner and former Selectman Don Howard is running for re-election to the Board of Water Commissioners as well as making a bid to return to the Board of Selectmen, running for the three-year term opened when Kenny Mitchell decided not to run. Joining Howard in seeking that three-year term are Financial Advisor Kelly Woerdeman, ZBA member and Board of Health Vice Chairman Kevin Perkins and Edwin C. Heal of Pine Grove Ave.

Running for the two years remaining on Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer’s seat are Health Board member Arlene Dias, Marc M. Benjamino, Ann M. Rien of State Street and Health Board member Denis C. O’Connell.

Candidates have until Tuesday, April 19 to withdraw from the race, if they so choose.

“It feels weird to say it, but now I’m a candidate with experience,” said Evans, who is completing his first term as a Whitman Selectman. “I was a fresh face three years ago.”

He said his plan is to focus on continuing to maximize state aid.

“Getting more bang for our buck has been a huge focus and I’m happy to continue to do that and looking at some new, let’s say, creative revenue opportunities,” he said. “We’re looking at revisiting the marijuana prohibition this year; expanding services for the first time since I’ve been involved, either on the FinCom or the Board of Selectmen, we are, I think, adding positions and we’re paying for the full operating budget, including the schools’ full assessment — we can pay for the whole thing without one-time money.”

He said he still has his eye on implementation of 40R development near the MBTA station, which had been derailed by COVID, but is now the focus of the state’s MBTA Communities Law, signed by Gov. Charlie Baker last year. 

“Navigating through COVID was an incredible experience and it put off a couple of priorities I’d like to get done,” Evans sad. “I’m not finished yet.”

Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly, former Police Chief Scott D. Benton and Forest Street resident Shawn M. Kain are also seeking a three-year term. Incumbent Brian Bezanson did not return nomination papers.

Kain said his candidacy is an attempt to bring an independent voice to the Select Board as he continues his work bringing strategic planning to the town’s budget process.

“I’m really trying to do it right,” he said. “I’m from Whitman and I love our community and I love our traditions, so it’s not that I want to go into the role and change things in a big way — I really want to protect the traditions that we have and make slow improvements to the things that we can do better.”

He said the budget document remains something that requires work so the town can better communicate its financial needs.

“I think the town has made a lot of gains, financially, over the last couple of years,” he said pointing to the focus on the town’s finances as well as its relationship to the school district.

“The strategic plan and the financial policy that we recently adopted are both pieces of the puzzle that will really help us, moving forward,” Kain said.

Benton and Connolly did not return a request for comment. 

In Hanson, while there are some familiar faces running, they are pointing to the need to change things as their reason for seeking a seat on the Board of Selectmen.

“I’ve always said things need to change, and I don’t see that happening,” Dias said. “I’ve decided that maybe I need to help that change.”

She said conflict of interest in town is a problem.

“I feel like there’s so much of people being interested in doing things at Town Hall for their own personal benefit and I’m tired of it,” Dias said. “I’m tired of things being done behind closed doors and people have their little networks — and sometimes you have to break them up in order for the town to move forward.”

Perkins returned a call for comment from the Express via an email explaining why he was not in a position to be able to say much.

“Unfortunately I cannot comment due to the ongoing independent investigation the selectmen voted to conduct on the entire zoning board, myself included,” Perkins said. “It is very unfortunate that my hands are tied during a critical time where candidates are campaigning. However this investigation is still ongoing which leads me to think there is motive behind the prolonged investigation in order to sway potential voters.”

Howard, who had retired to care for his ailing wife, said he is ready to return now that she has passed and that he sees a lot of problems on the Select Board that he doesn’t like and there is a problem with water retention and detention areas not working properly. Heal, Rein and Benjamino did not return requests for comment.

Howard is not alone in seeking to take on extra responsibility in Hanson, as Selectman Jim Hickey — whose seat is not up for a vote this year — is running for Board of Health and Health Board member O’Connell is running for re-election to that board as well as seeking a Select Board position.

“I just want to give back to the community,” Woerdeman said.

O’Connell expressed concern with the possible loss of autonomy for the Health Board if Hickey wins a Health Board seat and Dias is elected to the Select Board.

“I just like to have a voice,” O’Connell said, noting that the Select Board would have a majority on the Board of Health should he lose. “I don’t like where this leads to. I feel the Selectmen have been micromanaging all the departments.”

A former electrician and 30-year resident, O’Connell characterized the situation as a “tangled mess,”

Hickey, for his part, cited communication problems at Town Hall as his reason for seeking a Health Board seat, noting if both boards meet on the same day, he could get information to Selectmen might need in a more timely manner.

“Nobody talks … I think this will help both boards tremendously,” he said. “It’s every department. … As a member of the Board of Selectmen and now a liaison to the Senior Center, with the population shift in town, it just makes sense.”

WHITMAN — Wear and tear, despite extensive efforts at maintaining and extending life of vehicles, equipment and facilities, has led to the School Department to make a half-dozen capital requests on the town’s Town Meeting warrant.

“When the report you see says, ‘potential fatality,’ it’s something that concerns me greatly,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said of Article W-1, involving a combined $700,000 for playground safety issues at Duval School in particular. “Is it still serviceable? Yes. Has Ernie [Facilities Director Ernest Sandland] and our facilities group done a great job to make sure it’s safe? Yes, but it’s deteriorating by the day and, come next September, it would be outstanding if we could open up a new school year, post-COVID, with something for the children of Duval.”

Another playgroud at Conley School is in need of repairs and upgrades to make it handicap-accessible.

Szymaniak and Sandland met with the committee on Thursday, March 17 to review the district’s capital projects for the Town Meeting warrant.

Szymaniak said he had a “very good” meeting the previous day with Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman and state Rep Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, to obtain at least an earmark in the state budget for playground projects at both the Duval and Conley schools.

“I’m really focused in on the Duval one, because it’s end-of-life and potentially dangerous,” he said, noting he would send Sullivan the same information he was reviewing with the committee, as she works to obtain state funding to help with it. “But our priority right now is with our capital items, is to really focus in on those playgrounds.”

A consultant — Playground Consultants of New England — has looked at the Duval playground twice, in 2020 and 2021, for an in-depth study the district had asked for to determine what was going on there in light of increasing complaints from the school nurse that children were getting hurt on the equipment.

“We had it inspected,” Sandland said. “When we have something like that done by an outside consultant, or an outside firm, we take their recommendations and put them in work orders.”

Problems seen at Conley, Duval and Indian Head schools had been addressed through work orders, then the consultant was asked out again to determine if there was something they missed or that needed correction, Sandland explained.

“When it came to the Duval School, they were just repeating themselves, because it’s at the end of useful life,” he said. “The issues that were there before have been resolved, but we have new issues at Duval School.”

Old construction techniques not used anymore, calling for the use of non-galvanized steel pipe wrapped in plastic for support structures, have begun to rot at the base up from the foundation.

“You don’t see it, because the plastic it looks great,” Sandland said. “But at stair steps, the leaping frogs that would just break off because the metal — the steel — would start to rust below ground and they would break off without any warning.”

Playground mulch is another issue.

Orders have to be timed  right so it can be leveled off before the start of school — a major safety issue. 

“Conley’s a little bit different,” Sandland said. “There’s some work there that can be done to save that playground.”

But the interior playground, relocated from the old Park Avenue School has to be removed.

At Indian Head, problems were resolve with a new playground placed there three years ago, but they are already seeing maintenance issues there.

“It goes back to the useage,” he said. “Indian Head was used very heavily. After school. Summer months. Vacation times. That playground is used.”

Playgrounds and Conley and Duval are also used constantly.

“Duval is used more heavily than Conley because of the area,” Szymaniak said. “After school we’re seeing heavy use by community members and, I think, that led to more rapid deterioration than the Conley large playground.”

Szymaniak said, however, that his priority is the Duval playground, because Conley’s main facility is still serviceable with some modifications. The interior playground, however, has to go.

“If I have to go on a need or want [basis], the Duval is need, the Conley interior playground is a want,” he said. “If that one [Duval’s] goes, the children have nothing. At Conley, at least they have the other playground.”

He added that he and Sullivan had brain-stormed fundraising ideas, in case that route is necessary and said the Duval PTO is also working on a fundraiser, but is low-level — envisioning that a couple of thousand dollars could be raised on a project that could cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

Talks with vendors have been used to get a cost estimate,  but a contract would go through the state bid list, according to Sandland.

Committee Chairman Don Esson asked what $300,000 — which he characterized as basically a repair — extend the life of the Conley playground to compared to a $400,000 total replacement?

Sandland said the Conley playground, which was designed for kindergarten and first-graders, the price would be different. At Duval, pupils using the equipment would range from kindergarten to fifth-graders, so there would be different price tags. The size and footprint of the equipment would also be a lot different than at Conley.

Work to make the Conley playground safe and handicap-accessible is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $75,000, the district is working with a vendor right now because the goal is to make it safe. The manufacturer of the Conley playground is also different than the company that made Duval’s, Sandland said.

“I’m hearing if we do the repairs and make it handicap-accessible, we can get another 10 to 15 years out of [Conley’s] play structure,” he said. “To dump a boatload of money and not make it handicap-accessible, I think, is setting us up for a problem down the road, especially with the population and if we have full-day kindergarten.”

Szymaniak said the two playground projects were combined because, if Town Meeting approved the lower cost for the Conley repairs and not the funds for new equipment at Duval, it would create an equity issue within the school district.

At the moment, according to Town Administrator Lincoln Heieneman, the school district’s capital requests have been divided into three articles.

“That’s what I would recommend, but we’ll see how the Board of Selectmen feel regarding the draft warrant,” he said.

“I think we need to go back to the charge of the committee as to recommend or not recommend a project, regardless of the cost,” Committee member Fred Small said. “That’s what my interpretation of our charge is.”

Selectman Justin Evans asked if the Duval playground was the same one installed in 2000, when the school was renovated. Szymaniak confirmed that it was installed 22 years ago.

“I was moved from Holt to Duval as a fifth-grader, so this is the playground that I had at Duval?” he asked.

“So, it’s your fault,” Small joked.

“I was a big fifth-grader, I probably did some damage,” Evans replied.

Committee member Justin Casanova-Davis agreed the playgrounds are a public safety issue and getting Duval done is important, but indicated the data on the Coley equipment was insufficient. Member Josh MacNeil asked how often the playgrounds are inspected and if there would be recommended maintenance if new playgrounds are installed.

Sandland said they have had inspections of the equipment four or five times and noted the state does not require playground inspections. The district insisted on the 2020 inspection because they were receiving complaints. Any new playground equipment will be manufactured under new technology standards, for example the plastic-coated steel pipes are no longer used, replaced with electrostatic paint, which lasts longer.

Heineman suggested the School Committee might use a portion of excess and deficiency for some portion of the capital plan projects at the high school so both towns could share costs.

He suggested that perhaps use of a portion of the remaining $255,000 in the Other Schools/Capital Needs line for the Duval roof article, which is currently the largest outstanding capital article for the schools.

Esson said funding decisions were the turf of other committees, but the information he was hearing made him more comfortable about supporting the requests.

Warrant Article W-2 of the school department’s requests involves $181,000 for repaving the high school roadway and parking area, which are riddled with potholes. 

“[On] most of the roadway, both layers [of asphalt] are shattered.” Sandland said. “It’s a mess.” 

Because of the damage, parts of the pavement are plowed up during snow removal and nearly six tons of patch material has been used to make repairs at the high school alone.

“This winter, for some strange reason has done a number on the roadways, and we all see it, especially in Whitman and Hanson,” he said. “There were some roads I thought were pretty decent last year, today, not so good.”

Article W-3 is aimed at curtailing mold issues in the Whitman Middle School gym.

“I know we’re looking at a building project, but this we don’t want a recurrence of what we saw this fall,” Szymaniak said of the $100,000 sought. Consultants and other experts in the field have informed the district that the existing system is not working properly and needs to be replaced, Sandland said.

“The humidity that gets locked in there in the summer is brutal,” he said. “I ripped up some of that floor to see what was underneath, because we were having problems with dead spots … there is no vapor barrier.”

Moisture and heat comes up through the floor and needs to be ventilated out. Estimates are being gathered to determine a final cost estimate.

“It’s probably not going to be cheap, but it’s not going to be $100,000,” Sandland said.

Article W-4 is seeking $78,780 in funds for new F250 trucks for the district’s maintenance fleet. The current vehicles are breaking down as a result of age and use.

The district has to spend money out of the operating budget to make repairs to have the current vehicles pass inspection.

Evans also noted that both towns have Green Communities designations which require new vehicles to be more fuel-efficient than the ones they are replacing.

“Our police department has been quite happy buying hybrid vehicles recently, just due to the long idle times [and] the way we run them,” he said, asking if that was being considered. “They’re seeing reduced maintenance costs.”

Sandland said it was and that a dual-fuel vehicle was purchased for food services.

Article W-5 asks for approval of $45,000 for the replacement of rooftop units and chillers for the high school.

Article W-6 is seeking to transfer $6,060 to prepare a replacement schedule for rooftop units and chillers.

Whitman residents John Galvin and Shawn Kain were given the opportunity to provide the School Committee with a brief presentation on Wednesday, March 16 about the non-mandated busing funding formula they had discussed with Whitman’s Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee the previous evening. Szymaniak said he had also received guidance on the matter from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Mass. Association of Regional Schools (MARS) to present at the meeting.

The session devolved, however, into accusations of whether the committee or town representatives were presenting a complete and accurate portrayal of the issue.

“The bottom line here is — and I appreciate Mr. Kain and Mr. Galvin doing some work, they did a lot of work,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “It’s awesome to see somebody looking at things through a different lens.”

But Szymaniak said state education officials told him that, the way in which the scenarios were presented were not necessarily good for the district. 

If the committee chose not to pay for non-mandated busing costs, it goes to the Board of Selectmen for their vote as to whether or not it is placed on a Town Meeting warrant, according to the regional agreement. That is how the committee voted later in the meeting. The committee voted against paying non-mandated busing costs — $121,475 for Hanson and $487,839 for Whitman — sending the cost to the individual towns as has been past practice.

“We also have to have a follow-up conversation on how the article is presented to the community,” Szymaniak said. 

He said that examination from outside affords them the chance to vet and think through the issue.

“On the short list of things the Finance Committee in Whitman has been concerned about, non-mandated busing has been one of them,” Kain said, noting that their study gave them a solid idea of how non-mandated busing worked, and the numbers behind the methodology. Previous consideration of transportation costs did not consider that cost savings did not equal is being paid for with non-mandated busing.

When Business Manager John Stanbrook recently discussed numbers, Kain said it provided further insight into the numbers and calculation method used to determining the cost of non-mandated busing.

What “didn’t sit well,” with him, Kain said, was that if the committee decided to discontinue non-mandated busing, the district could receive “significantly more” mandated state reimbursement. He said they approached it from an interest in simply finding inefficiencies, not to play a “gotcha” game with the district.

Szymaniak said he reached out to DESE and, during a “spirited conversation,” they discussed the idea. MARS, when he spoke with them, recommended using the terms eligible and not eligible rather than mandated and non-mandated. The discussions focused on a figure of $1.8 million for everybody.

“Then we bill the town[s] … the difference of  $1.8 million to what non-mandated folks are,” he said, but it wouldn’t be cut. “For Whitman that would be $400,000, and for Hanson it’s $100,000-plus.” After that deduction, the state would be billed $1.3 million.

Szymaniak said they were told that, unless the district can justify how other students were transported on the end-of-the-year report. 

He outlined the proposal to bill the state for $1.7 million, but would like to transport everyone.

“We can continue to look, but we can’t bill for one and do both,” he said, noting the DESE representative told him: “If John submits the annual report, and you have $1.3M instead of $1.7M this year, I’m going to flag you for an audit,” not giving out any money until the district could justify it.

Every student must be accounted for.

“If we make a change like this, we are going to proactively share with DESE what we’re doing, and then do it, not do it and create god-knows what kind of issue after,” said School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard.

Committee member Fred Small asked for a vote to place the recording of Szymaniak’s Zoom call with DESE and MARS on the district’s website in the interest of transparency after discussion with the DESE. The committee approved the posting. 

Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina argued that it was a public meeting and should be posted in any case. Szymaniak said it was not a posted public meeting, but he would request permission from DESE to do so.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion in the initial proposal and how it was presented to DESE,” Galvin said. “I’m disappointed that, as the author of that proposal, that Shawn and myself weren’t invited to that meeting and possibly could have had a different way of explaining it to them.”

He said their examples were not “scenarios” but were actual costs of eliminating the programs, and disagreed with Kain that their proposal can’t be used.

“I find it odd that you’re not willing to share the video [of the Zoom call],” Galvin said. “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

Information they could obtain from the call would provide the opportunity to modify their proposal, if necessary.

They are not advocating use of a new formula on the end of year fiscal 2022 report. He had emailed DESE for guidance while compiling the report and was told they had none.

“Now all of a sudden, they do?” he said.

LaMattina stressed that the numbers at issue came from the district business manager, not Galvin and Kain.

“I think we would welcome an audit at this point, because, clearly, what we see is the town of Whitman is subsidizing mandated busing,” he said, noting the public doesn’t know how the question was presented to DESE. “I’m sorry, but this feels eerily similar to a couple years ago where, [he heard] ‘It’s legal, folks. What we did was legal. We talked to DESE.’”

Howard responded “because I’m not going to have things made up.”

He said the request that was made was — what would it look like if we eliminated non-mandated busing?

Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly pointed out there is a video, from when the schools attempted to split busing costs 60-40, only to be told by former Town Administrator Frank Lynam that the towns had elected to pay more. She added that, while she is uncertain the schools did anything illegally, there is reason to question past practices in the town.