WHITMAN – The Whitman Middle School Building Committee, on Tuesday, Nov. 7 reviewed the results of the Oct. 30 special Town Meeting and the Saturday special Town Election on the project. The official election results were 1,005 in favor and 837 opposed with one blank.
Member Cristopher Scriven, who is also Vice Chair of the School Committee, attended the meeting remotely via phone.
The unofficial results were reported to the Massachusetts School Building Authority on Monday, Nov. 6.
“They were very happy to hear the support for the project,” Mike Carroll of Colliers, the owner project manager, said.
Next steps for the project include MSBA budget approval and funding agreement this month, then the work moves on to design development to be completed for submission to the MSBA in April 2024 with a 60 percent construction document submitted in August. A 90 percent construction document submitted next October and a complete construction document submitted in December 2024.
A construction bid will be awarded to a general contractor in February 2025, with construction expected to begin in March 2025. Certificate of occupancy should be received in spring 2027.
The present WMS building would be demolished beginning in the summer of 2027. Fields will be worked on in the summer of 2028.
The MSBA close-out on the project is anticipated to be in December 2028.
The next Building Committee meeting is planned for Dec. 19. A subcommittee will be selected to amend the contracts with AI3 and Colliers, both of which have expired, Small said, nominating Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter and Building Committee Vice Chair Kathleen Ottina and member Don Essen for the subcommittee. The committee approved the nominations.
Ottina said she has extensive experience on other school building project contract negotiations.
“It’s up to our subcommittee to come to an agreement within [the range of dollars included] with AI3 and Colliers and go from there,” he said.
Assistant Superintendent of Schools George Ferro publicly thanked architectural firm AI3 and management firm Colliers as well as the Building Committee.
“It has been great,” he said. “Hopefully, we move forward and I wanted to take a moment and at least go on the record to publicly thank them because all the students, in the end, and the public will greatly benefit.”
During the public comment period, resident Elizabeth Dagnall, president of the Whitman Educatiom Alliance, thanked and congratulated the committee on the win during the Saturday, Nov. 4 special election.
“Because of this committee, on the first day of school in 2027, approximately 579 students and 70 staff will walk into a beautiful, new, safe, modern, light-filled, mold-free, properly ventilated, climate-controlled, attractive learning environment,” she said, calculating that more than 7,000 students will benefit from the building in its first 50 years alone.
“We know this wasn’t an easy win,” she said about the rumors and disinformation spread on social media. “You saved this building project from derailment and sabotage multiple times.”
Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly, thanked the parents who came together and supported the project.
“It was an amazing parent movement, as well, that helped push this through,” she said. “We knew we needed this building. There was no real option, no ethical option.”
But she said, on the school tours the smell of mold in the air was hard to ignore, asking when the last air quality test was done and what was the result.
Small said that was not the purview of the Building Committee, but rather the district’s Facilities Subcommittee of the School Committee.
Connolly said releasing that information and plans on what to do with the students if it worsens during construction would be helpful.

WHITMAN – Monday’s special Town Meeting wrapped up with the near-unanimous approval of two articles pertaining to the planned DPW building project.
The first appropriated $1,143,271 to pay additional incidental and related costs for the project transferred from excess funds originally borrowed or appropriated to pay the costs of other varied capital projects at town meetings in 2017 and 2019.
The second appropriates $2,200,000 for any additional costs involved in the design, construction and equipping of the building – funded with Plymouth County ARPA funds from the sewer force main project.
Neither needs to go to a ballot question as the original $17.8 million approved at the polls last year did.
“The town has the ability to use American Rescue Plan Act funds for certain types of projects,” Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said. “The town sewer force main project is one of the eligible projects. The DPW building construction was not an eligible project.”
A paving grant for the sewer force main project, helped bring it in under budget, Carter said, and the use of $2.2 million in ARPA for the DPW building also helped.
The total increase in rates will be 70 cents for the second half of the force main project and a notice that was to go out Oct. 15 that rates were going up by $1.25 was therefore not sent out.
While a debt exclusion dies when the debt is paid, the rate increased become part of the base rate.
A $1.50 rate increase last year was entirely related to replacing the force sewer main, former Town Administrator Frank Lynam said.
Requiring a two-thirds margin to pass article 15, Town Moderator Michael Seele had ruled it achieved that threshold, but a standing vote. The resulting 213-4 counted vote vindicated that call.
Discussion of both articles centered on why, as with most articles on the warrant, funding sources were those originally approved at past Town Meetings for other purposes.
Auburnville Way resident Robert Kimball also asked why the extra $2.2 million was required.
DPW Highway Superintendent Bruce Martin said it was because the actual cost of the low bid was higher than the estimates due to soil conditions at the site as well as inflation.
“It’s across the board,” Martin said. “It’s happening to a lot of municipal projects.”
He said former Water-Sewer Superintendent Dennis Smith found leftover funds still on the books after some projects were finished. The route 18 and 27 projects came in under budget as did others listed in the article as funding sources.
Cindy Landreville of Harvard Street asked why it has taken so long for all that funding to finally come back to the town while nothing has been done to lower water and sewer rates for taxpayers.
Martin and Smith said the funds came from water-sewer enterprise accounts had to return to those accounts.
“It would be available to be spent on other water-sewer projects, but not other town projects,” Martin said.
“I’m sorry to be picking on you, but most of the monies tonight are coming from unexpected, unexpended funds from 2016 forward?” Landreville said.
“By leaving it in the articles mentioned, it’s still water and sewer money,” Smith said. “It’s a similar problem that fits within the language of the article.”
The DPW had considered using the funds from the routes 18 and 27 intersection project on emergency power supplies for traffic lights, Smith said. With nothing left on that project to spend it on after the lighting work didn’t happen, “it made sense to turn the money back in.”
Carter said the $17.8 million for the DPW was done as a debt exclusion and went onto taxes, while the $2.2 million in Article 15 will not be, but there will still be a debt payment due each year through water-sewer rates.

HANSON – The Healey-Driscoll administration is asking towns what they need from state government, and the Select Board plans to tell them just that by the Friday, Oct. 20 deadline.
Board members on Tuesday, Oct. 10 pointed to the need for more money – for schools, infrastructure, and elder services, as well as the need for equitable changes to the way regional school agreements are governed as key concerns for the town.
“I need them to give us more money for schools and infrastructure,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett.
Town Administrator Lisa Green was drafting the email to the governor’s office for the board. Green had also attended a meeting between Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and area municipal representatives at Bridgewater State University recently. Organized by the UMass Collins Center, it covered areas that impact municipalities such as laws and regulations as well as areas they want to see the administration work on to change, update or revise laws to make things easier for towns and cities to address residents’ needs.
“The administration and the governor are very interested in being partners with municipalities,” Green said. “They’re reaching out now … to get feedback on areas we would like them to focus on.”
While FitzGerald-Kemmett said she could not place enough emphasis on the schools, she agreed with board member Ann Rein that infrastructure is also key.
“The way school looks has changed dramatically in terms of the emotional support components and the number of special needs children and all of that, and it’s like a runaway train in terms of funding,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“I think we need to look at both infrastructure and the schools, because there’s a lot of infrastructure that needs help” Rein said.
“I think that we need to have them, if they’re willing to listen to it, we have a whole bunch of people who are going to look at regional agreements and things like that,” Vice Chair Joe Weeks said. “If they’re going to listen to us, I want them to look at the way in which they structure regional agreements so that they benefit everybody – not just one town.”
He also said, that while they talk about kids a lot, Hanson has a lot of elderly on fixed incomes.
“Our elder services and elder affairs need a lot more money and a lot more attention,” he said. “I think we’ve got to look at both ends of the life spectrum.”
Green said health and human services was a concern the Bridgewater State meeting also touched on, as well as school transportation.
“I really think we’re going to be coming up against a perfect storm of public safety departments vs. the schools [at the annual Town Meeting in May] and there’s not going to be enough money to go around,” Weeks said. “I really don’t want to get into a ‘who is more important’ and ‘which budget line item is more important than the next.’ We constantly have our first responders sacrificing themselves and making dedications so the town can stay afloat.”
He urged outlining to the governor exactly the kind of budgeting challenges small towns like Hanson with little commercial property taxation are facing when they have to lean on residential property taxes.
“We’re always putting neighbors against each other and that’s not the town we want and that’s not what I would think the governor would want,” he said.
The October Town Meeting, starting with $2,267,948 from free cash and other enterprise and stabilization accounts, and concluded with $1,486,433.56 remaining.
While that figure is good, there is still uncertainty about the fiscal 2025 budget. FitzGerald-Kemmet said she would like to see the town accountant continue to search for past allotments that were voted, but never spent and/or grant reimbursements to bolster that number.
“I think we all know that there’s a cliff that we’re about to fall off if we don’t have an override,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I don’t know what that override looks like – maybe there’ll be some rabbit pulled out of a hat – I don’t know.’
In other business, the board deferred the matter of supporting a borrowing issue for a proposed Whitman Middle School back to the School Committee as it is really not germane to Hanson.

WHITMAN – The Select Board voted 4-1 to close the warrant for the Monday, Oct. 30 special Town Meeting, at its Tuesday, Oct. 3 session after member Shawn Kain expressed concerns about article 15, which is aimed at closing a funding gap for the DPW building project after a recent cost increase. He voted against the warrant closure.
“To be honest, as I’m thinking about our borrowing situation and projects coming ahead of us, I feel like it’s not a great precedent to set for projects to come back to the table and ask for more money,” he said.
While he said he liked the way town officials have identified money sources to free up, he said he wouldn’t mind spending $500,000 to $1 million from stabilization with the remaining to come out of the project itself by reductions to things like soft costs or other areas.
“I’m really hesitant to go back to the people knowing that, even if there are some trade-offs with a past project, it’s still going to be passed on in rates,” Kain said. “I’m not really comfortable doing that right now, given our current climate.”
Carter replied that the notice has been pulled from the printing because ARPA funds will reduce one of the rate hikes officials had discussed during the borrowing authorization meeting for the sewer force main project.
“It’s going to be less of an increase than what was initially projected,” she said. “The rates of $1.25 [in a second round of increases going out Oct. 15] because of the ARPA, doesn’t need to go up quite that much.”
After running some calculations and noting that Town Accountant Karen Clancy planned to run more calculations Oct. 4.
“Because the town is applying for $2.2 million in ARPA funds, we won’t be borrowing $2.2 million for authorization for the sewer force main, and instead, will be borrowing for this project.”
The force main is being paid for through rates, which were increased $1.50 a year ago for the first half of the increase with another $1.25 in bills going out Oct. 15. Those two rate increases were 100 percent of the projection for the sewer force main project.
Doing the force main project with $2.2 million in ARPA funds being applied, as well as it’s coming in under budget, and then having $2.2 million in the new DPW project – where the rate increase will be split between water and sewer, where reductions on the force main and proposed new borrowing plus the $1.50 we went up last year will come in under what the town projected for just the sewer force main project.
Kowalski said, that, a few weeks ago, when it was discovered the DPW needed the $2.2 million because of soil problems on the property, which is a problem that had to be dealt with, the board asked them, in a joint meeting, if they could find some ways to come back in two weeks and say it’s going to be less.
He credited the DPW, Carter and Evans with working hard to come up with a solution.
“What’s really impressive is two weeks later, they come up with a solution that’s not going to cost the taxpayer any extra money,” he said. “I think they deserve a lot of credit for that. It wasn’t an easy ask for us to make of them and they came through with flying colors, from what I can see, so I personally don’t have a problem with Article 15 at all.”
Kain said it was hard for him to disagree because he thinks they did a lot of good work that is beneficial to the town in the use of ARPA funds, but in totality, the amount of borrowing the town will be doing over the next couple of years is great.
“Any way that we can lessen the burden on the taxpayer, I think is something we should really consider,” he said. “It’s OK for you to disagree, but for me, I think I would rather go into the stabilization a little bit and keep the rates lower and have them cut some things out of the project.”
He agreed making those cuts would be tough, “but I think it’s one of the hard truths of running a project,” arguing they wouldn’t want the middle school project to follow a similar path.
“That, to me, seems more fair and balanced, considering the overall projection of debt,” he said.
Evans suggested that, because the source of funding for a lot of these articles are prior articles being returned, it might be helpful to start a Town Meeting to explain the decisions made, so they don’t have to be revisited with everyone.

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 – 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.

The School Committee, during its Wednesday, Sept. 13 meeting, unanimously voted to approve sending the $135,289,673 plan for a new grade five to eight Whitman Middle School building — with an auditorium — intended to last and serve educational needs for 50 years, to the voters at the Oct. 30 special Town Meeting and to a Nov. 4 special election ballot.
The town stands to obtain $89,673,000 in reimbursements from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for the project.
The plan had been approved by the WMS Building Committee at its Aug. 15 meeting and survived an effort to rescind it in favor of a grade six to eight plan with a cafetorium instead of an auditorium at the building panel’s Aug. 28 meeting.
“We were accepted [by MSBA] in our first go-round because they saw the need for a new middle school,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said, asking if that was a common occurrence for school projects. “If you postpone, you start rolling the dice.”
He said the project is at a critical point, if a middle school is to open in 2027.
“If I had a district calling me today … I would say to expect to potentially get in within three to five years,” said the committee’s Owner Project Manager Michael Carroll “It’s very unusual to put a statement of interest in the first time and get accepted right away.”
Carroll attended the School Committee meeting to brief them on the plan and the events of the Aug. 28 meeting.
“The Building Committee voted 9-0, with one abstention [former member John Galvin] to move the project forward,” said Szymaniak. He noted that the Whitman Select Board, on the other hand, had voted 3 to 2 [with Justin Evans and Shawn Kain against] on Tuesday, Sept. 12 to ask the School Committee to consider not voting on the project Wednesday.
impact of delay
Carroll was also asked to explain what could happen if the School Committee postponed its vote.
“Would we be out of the queue?” Szymaniak asked. “Would MSBA turn its back to us?”
He noted that Carroll is “relatively new to us,” having come on board with the project three weeks ago, but Szymaniak added, he had hit the ground running.
“There was a lot of discussion about budgets, there was a lot of discussion about the project, and we looked at different options,” Carroll said of the Aug. 28 meeting. “At the end of that meeting there was a vote taken to move forward with the school project as it currently stands.”
Carroll described an atmosphere of urgency as the committee worked on a schematic design package to submit to the MSBA, sending it to the building authority on Aug. 31 after the Aug. 28 vote.
“They’re reviewing it, they’ve given us a few questions,” he said. “They’re actually looking to talk to us about budgets next week. [The week of Sept. 18-22].
The MSBA project coordinator and project manager, who work specifically on the WMS plans, review it first and then with authority higher-ups with the ultimate objective to bring it before the MSBA board on Oct. 25.
“The assumption here is that they would be approving us,” Carroll said. When that happens, MSBA will forward a project funding agreement to the district and town. Carroll said that defines the funding agreement and, therefore, the overall project budget, which would go to Town Meeting and then the ballot question on Nov. 4.
Szymaniak asked how a postponement, as the Select Board had urged them to do, would affect the process.
“The MSBA would have to grant us a postponement, is that correct?” he asked. “It’s not a done deal?”
“When we entered into our agreement and feasibility study, we agreed to provide them our schematic design package within a certain time period,” Connor said, noting that, while he did not have that date on him, he believed it was Oct. 17. “If we were to withdraw our proposal, or ask to withdraw our proposal, one of the first things that we’d have to do is ask for an extension of that time. We’d have to explain to them why and … if we hadn’t submitted our package already … the MSBA is very accommodating.”
He said they do not want to continue to extend and extend and extend, but if there is a logical reason you need to do some reconsideration, there’s really typically no problem there.
They have, however, already submitted the schematic design plan and, while it has not gone to the MSBA board for a vote yet, he said he would think they would allow the district to withdraw it, but “we certainly ought to have a discussion on that before I would say that we could.”
Chair Beth Stafford, who pointed out that it would cost about $60 million just to get the current building up to code, said her concern was losing time as they worked to vote on whether to trim the $5 million in Teir 1 options from the plan. Funds for repairing the current school would also not be reimbursable, nor would the cost of the portable classrooms that would be needed while work is done.
Connor confirmed that they would have to confer with MSBA on how changes might impact the project.
While MSBA has not finalized their budget form, which will feed into the project funding agreement and what the vote entailed could have lowered that number.
“If we raised the number, we’d have to withdraw it, but if we’re lowering the number, I don’t know what the answer is,” Connor said. “We’d have to have that discussion.”
If a change is made to the project, it makes the process less definitive, he said. Building costs are also escalating, he explained.
“We can’t make that decision on this without talking to them and getting advice from them,” Carroll explained. The town could reconsider and do nothing, reconsider and ask for an adjustment to the overall project, ask the MSBA for an adjustment or to withdraw the proposal, which would require their input on what that withdrawal would mean and what duration they would be thinking about.
“The important thing here is, once they vote – if we do nothing – if they’ve approved us for a funding agreement, that’s kind of the point of no return,” he said. “Once they’ve done that, we’ve got to move forward with that project.”
Carroll said contingency funds are built into the budget in case change-orders come about.
“Virtually all my jobs, I’ve had the ability to send some of that contingency back,” he said.
Parents’ support
A quartet of residents spoke in favor of the project as approved by the WMS Building Committee on Aug. 28. expressing concern about the “near certainty of increased building costs” if the project is rejected or delayed.
“As we debate this huge topic, it’s important to remember that in order to just renovate the building and get it up to code has approximately a $60 million price tag on it and that would be 100-percent on the residents of Whitman,” said Leah Donovan, of 81 Old Mansion Lane, said during the public comment period. “There’s no funding available from the state. That’s a hefty sum or money for fixes that need to be done again and again and again.”
Small pointed out that the $60 million would not be a renovation, it’s a repair of what is broken and bring things to code.
Donovan said the town wants to take advantage of available MSBA funding, and that means a new school.
“That price tag is between $73 and $89 million at this point,” she said, noting that $10 million of that is contingency that might not be needed and residents would not be taxed on that. “That’s a staggering number for sure – I get it – but that price is not going to go down.”
Contingency funds are budgeted in case an unforseen problem adds to the cost of a project after a building budget is approved.
She said her fear is that, if the district doesn’t go ahead with a new school, they will end up paying the same price for a lesser school at some point down the road.
“We have an opportunity to do what’s right for the younger residents of the town,” Donovan said, asking the committee to give residents a chance to speak through their votes at Town Meeting and a ballot question.
Elizabteh Dagnall of 316 School St., also spoke in favor of the new WSM plan during the public forum.
“There seems to be a lot of fear surrounding this project,” she said. “Fear that it’s too large in scope, fear that it won’t be voted through, and fear as the main motivation in any situation can be a very damaging thing.”
She noted that, as the mother of a 13-year-old boy, she could be scared all the time, if she allowed herself to be.
“I can tell you that worrying amounts to nothing more than a state of worry,” Dagnall said. “What I’m learning as the parent of a teen is that Trust is far better than fear. Trust. When I allow for trust, the answer to ‘Are we going to be OK?’ surprises me. It often turns out to be something like this: ‘We are going to be more than OK. We are going to be great.’”
She challenged officials to, instead of fearing that it won’t pass at the ballot box, that “we trusted that it can.”
Julia Sheehan of 38 Beal Ave., thanked the committee and the building committee for their work on the WMS project so far.
“At this point, there is no way to drastically change the scope of the project without significant delays and even risking our grant from the MSBA,” she said. “Given that, I hope this committee will move forward with the Oct. 30 Town Meeting and the Nov. 4 vote. I believe the people of Whitman should have the opportunity to get out and vote.”
Julia Nanigan of 28 Forest St., who was born and raised in Whitman, said of all the schools she attended in Whitman, only WMS is still here and exactly the same as when she grew up.
“It’s pretty awful,” she said of the need for a new middle school. “We have to do this, and kicking the can down the road, we know is going to end up costing us more money. I think we just need to do it.”