HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, June 24 approved renewal of the contract with Whitman-Hanson Cable Access, while taking the opportunity to express a couple points of general dissatisfaction with its cable provider corporation Comcast.

“Let’s be real,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett on the subject of the paltry discount offered to the community’s elder residents.

“You’ve got to practically cut of your left arm, give a pint of blood and show all kinds of documentation to get two bucks a month off of your cable bill?” she said.

“This is less than worthless,” said Select Board member Ed Heal, “If I knew Xfinity was my only option when I moved to Hanson, I wouldn’t have moved to Hanson.”

He said he has cable outages almost daily and he works from home.

“There are meetings that I’m supposed to be attending from home that I’m disconnected from because Xfinity is my only option.”

He does not have Xfinity cable because it is to big an expense, so he has just the basic cable, which is supposed to be the best Comcast can do – spending hundreds of hours on the phone with Comcast for my cable service, and it continues to go out.

While he completely supports WHCA, he has no use for Comcast.

Heal’s experience is not isolated, other Board members attested, so Solomon offered to have Comcast Government Affairs Representative Kathy Maloney reach out about the possibility of meeting with the board on other issues.

“A lot of companies don’t give a senior discount,” said Attorney William Solomon, special cable counsel working with the town on its third licensing agreement over the past 20 years, reviewed the new contact and answered questions ahead of the board’s vote. “It’s totally voluntary. We can’t require them. They provide a discount.”

He ticked off the names of some cable companies that do not, which includes Verizon, and Charter.

“It doesn’t mean much,” Solomon said of the Comcast senior discount.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Vice Chair Ann Rein. “It’s $2. It’s rather insulting. It’s one reason why a lot of us cut that cord. Mine’s cut and it’s been cut for three years.”

But Solomon did say that if the Board voted to have Town Administrator Lisa Green, with town counsel, draft a letter to Comcast asking for a “really meaningful” payment break for seniors.

He said the way he views it, a senior discount is voluntary, and they do give something, albeit not much, “but the rest of the contract is so valuable to the town,” but the company may just be in a mental rut, and they don’t want to open a Pandora’s box.

Select Board member David George asked if Comcast offered a veterans’ discount, saying that Verizon does offer one. Comcast does a range of discounts for the military, including mobile service plans, NOW TV and Diamond member status, the highest tier available.

“That’s why I don’t have Comcast,” he said, referring to the veterans’ benefits issue.

FitzGerald-Kemmett said, all criticism aside, Solomon represented Hanson and what they are or might be getting in the contract process.

In the letter, Solomon said, he would, in a fair way, thank them for what they did do – something they don’t normally say or do – approach them on the negotiated point that, in six years, they do those things elsewhere, they’ll come to Hanson, and it can be discussed.

“Without that letter, they might just do more channels,” he said.

Other than that, Solomon said he would not defend Comcast on that point, but to be fair to the company, the new license has tremendous value that was negotiated fairly with the town of Hanson.

Solomon said the real value of the contract that is financially worth millions, is that it is good for the local economy and helps people work together.

“I always say, ‘Show me a town that doesn’t have any community television, and I’ll show you a town, where people just don’t work together.”

Rein agreed that community television is very valuable.

“That’s what we’re fighting for,” she said, “But he senior discount? That’s a virtue signal that just doesn’t signal.”

He said the new 10-year license is to Hanson’s benefit as it is the maximum length for a cable license allowed in Massachusetts, likening the benefit to a “good, long-term mortgage, you sign up for it.”

It provides the town with some certainty over 10-year period, according to Solomon.

“We have good news of completion of the Comcast cable license,” he said. “Let me just say, it’s an outstanding license. The key issues in these licenses now are PE&G and capital dollars. You’re in 4.75 percent of the company’s gross revenues – just short of the 5 percent, which actually has some benefits.”

Hanson has been at that level of revenue for the last eight years, according to Solomon, who added that’s where most of the funding comes.

Revenue is not just cable fees, its advertising, sales on Home Shopping Network, whatever comes into them, with rare exception, under the license, is revenue, of which the town gets 4.75 percent for its portion of the WHCA operating costs.

“That makes if simpler,” Solomon said. “It also prevents gamesmanship at Comcast. … Capital support, as I said, is really outstanding, and it reflects the work of Maloney. She’s known the towns, and Hanson, and working with Lisa has made a big difference at the negotiating table. We were able to get an excellent dollar number.
That is a fixed number, while he said Comcast has been taking the position elsewhere for the past five months that it doesn’t want to pay a fixed capital amount, and would rather pay on a per-subscriber basis that would lead to uncertainty and risk.

“We were able to convince Ms. Maloney and – more importantly – she’s been able to convince the folks she works with, that Hanson’s license should mirror the Whitman license,” he said.

That capital payment is $212,800 over 10 years – $21,280 per year – a credit to WHCA Executive Director Eric Dresser and his ability to sell his 10-year creative vision of making sure they have the proper equipment.

“And what’s great about WHCA-TV, is that it’s not only the equipment, it’s the output,” Solomon said. “It’s the programming on all of PG&E and the programming and the product.”

“Hanson, like Whitman, has done a tremendous job with respect to community television,” Solomon said. “As you know, PE&G – public, educational and government – access has never been more important, since COVID with remote meetings, they say democracy would have ended [without it].” That tremendous job has continued in Hanson with respect to the Select Board and other committees being able to get their message out and remain visible to residents, he noted

Much of that is credited to two excellent directors at WHCA – current Executive Director Eric Dresser – “No one’s better in the state.” Solomon said – and the late Steve Roy before him.

“As we know, cable revenues are challenged, nowadays, with some people cutting the cord and going to streaming and we don’t currently share that revenue, “Solomon said, adding that, “Cable still has a great program and, frankly, there’s not a better cable company than Comcast. I know that from working with all the companies, even though they’re on the other side of the table from me.”

WHCA currently has three standard access channels and, going forward, will have those three channels upgraded to SDI – or serial digital interface – that is a better-quality picture and better audio and, in addition, Comcast is providing a high-definition channel within 24 months. After providing that channel, Comcast has 18 months before having the right, if the corporation wants to, to reclaim one of the standard definition models.

“There again, that’s not being agreed to anywhere else by Comcast,” he said. “The reason they want the channel back is to use it for internet bandwidth, and the reason we want it back, is we want everyone to be able to see the PE&G [coverage] on the standard channels, lower channels, and not have to go higher.”

He also noted there are still people who watch television on a non-HD-ready set.

“Credit to Comcast, who understood how strongly Hanson felt, and Lisa and, obviously, Eric played a crucial role in that provision that they would wait on their right to reclaim it, so it doesn’t happen right away,” Solomon said.

Hanson’s contract also has no population density requirement. They have to serve everyone in the town, he pointed out.

(Editor’s note: This version corrects information on Comcast ownership and clarifies information on available military discounts.)

HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, June 10, voted to hold a special Town Meeting on the new W-H school budget numbers on June 25 at 6:30 p.m. at WHRHS. Like, Whitman, a Wednesday evening was chosen – in Hanson’s case it was to get ahead of the prime vacation time of the first two weeks in July, when even Town Moderator Sean Kealy would not be available.
“Sometimes we have to be a little bit versatile,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Still, June 25 is not a date that Select Board member Joe Weeks can attend, although he was not opposed to the date.
“If we don’t meet [in Town Meeting] before that 45 days is up, effectively, we will have a dissonance between the fact that we’ve been given the assessment, but we have not voted on any way to fund that.”
Town Administrator Lisa Green gave the Board a brief synopsis of the Wednesday, June 4 School Committee meeting, in which Whitman’s assessment cut scenario was approved over Hanson’s [see related story].
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak recommended the option, to lower the assessment by $1,664,730.35 for Whitman to an assessment of $19,917,568.65 – or the 4.086 percentage – and lowering Hanson’s amount by $677,333.92 to $15,775,031.08 – or 5.344. The district budget will now be $64,564,205.55 – or a 2.596 percent increase over last year, and we will need to reduce by $1,742,070.64.
What was voted at Hanson’s May 5 Town Meeting in Article 5 was $15,512,363 leaving a gap of $262,669 that Hanson must appropriate by the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1 for the school district to avoid falling under a state-guided 1/12 budget.
“I want to acknowledge that … similar to the work we do to prepare our budget, the W-H Regional School District, School Committee and the district itself, put in quite a bit of work into their budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It was much debated at their last meeting whether they would, in fact, reduce the assessment to the two towns.”
While the cuts the district will be making are not largely “boots on the ground,” as teachers, there will be significant cuts in supporting roles, which does impact teachers and the quality of education, she said.
“I think there was recognition that Whitman and Hanson were both cutting, Mary Beth Carter [Whitman’s Town Administrator] got up and spoke about the fact that that they recently hired a building commissioner and a veteran’s’ agent in Whitman and she had to call both of them and tell them they were both going to be part time, as well as various other cuts,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’ve heard a lot of bantering back and forth – various comments. I’ve had a lot of people reaching out to me, saying, ‘Well. We should not give the district the additional money,’ or, ‘We should wait until after July 1 to hod the meeting and then the slchool district would have to go into a 1/12 budget…”
She noted that going into a 1/12 budget would mean a cut of roughly $3.3 million which would be 50-some-odd people that would be pink-slipped.
“There are costs that go with that, with unemployment, not to mention insecurity with staff and losing good people,” she said.
Hanson has 45 days to hold a special Town Meeting, which has to be posted 14 days in advance.
“When we look at the calendar we are looking at high vacation time during the first two weeks of July,” FitzGerald-Kemmett noted. “I question whether we’re even going to get a quorum, but if we are, it certainly won’t be after July 1.”
Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, meanwhile, has advised the Select Boar that waiting until after July 1 to hold a special Town Meeting would mean the town cannot touch free cash, because to be certified after July 1, and would be inaccessible until the certification is completed.
Select Board member Ed Heal said he would be attending the Town Meeting, but asked about an article that only includes the school budget.
“Thank you for pointing that out,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve passed a budget. All of our departments are on notice about what will be cut based on the budget that passed at the Town Meeting. It was carefully calibrated – and I can’t emphasize this enough – that the Finance Committee, Ms. Green and the Department heads spent hours and hours and hours combing through the budget, figuring out, ‘If you do this, I’ll do that, I’ll do this next year, maybe I can cut here, etc.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett acknowledged that for those attending Town Meeting, the cuts might seem arbitrary.
“I assure you that it is not,” she said. Since the schools have “come down significantly” on Hanson’s assessment and are making an over-all $1.7 million reduction in the school budget for fiscal 2025, which is not insignificant, the thought was, “Let’s be clean about it, and expeditious about it and take it from free cash – once and done, end of discussion.”
The only thing unknown is, will Town Meeting pass the article?
Finance Chair Kevin Sullivan, who was attending the meeting, confirmed his committee is on board with the proposal.
“Laura and I have had several discussions over this and this is the most expeditious way of getting this done,” he said. “Close the book on this.”
Weeks had two concerns remaining: What happens if the special Town Meeting fails to achieve a quorum or if the article is voted down?
“We’re going to really have to crank on making sure we have a quorum, otherwise, the vote is the least of our worries,” Weeks said. “You need to have enough days between now and then posted to get this figured out.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
Green added that the moderator is not available on June 26, in the event a quorum fails on the first day.
“We have it all figured out on our end,” Green said, noting that 100 people are needed to constitute a quorum. “We have the warrant ready to be posted tomorrow [June 11] and we will get it all over our social media – all the platforms possible – we’ll make sure we get it out to the Senior Center, the Library, so that people will know.”
“The only other day he’s available is the 30th, which is literally Fourth of July week,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.

Now that a Proposition 2.5 override in both Whitman and Hanson has been soundly thrashed at the ballot box, select boards, school officials and public safety officials are probably thinking what’s next – and where do we go from here?
Whitman has already begun work on a special Town Meeting at 6 p.m., Wednesday, June 11 with a brief warrant. The town’s budget working group, which includes Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter, Assistant Administrator Kathleen Keefe, Select Board members Shawn Kain and Justin Evans along with Treasurer-Collector Sharon LoPiccolo have already begun examining the town’s finances again in an effort to answer the question.
Evans noted that he spoke with Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak at Monday’s groundbreaking for the new Whitman Middle School, at which time, Szymaniak said the School Committee expects to have a certified budget number to the Select Board by June 4.
“This next step in the budget process is definitely a precarious one,” Kain said, noting the budget group has already reached out to the schools and Finance Committee chair to keep them in the loop. “I think we have to be careful about how we proceed.”
They are also mindful of the employees who might be affected by any budget cuts.
“There’s a lot riding on making sure we do things right,” Kain said.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said he was happy with the amount of people who turned out to vote.
While expressing his appreciation for the work Carter has done on the budget, Salvucci did wonder if each department were given a number to stick to and let them make their cuts, because department heads know where best to cut.
“My understanding, Mary Beth is that you have regular meetings with the department heads and discussed all of these things before Article 2 was made,” said Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski.
Carter said they had already trimmed back quite a bit, and there are smaller departments such as the assessors, where there is nowhere to cut.
“They only have a few lines, they’re a small budget, so there really isn’t anywhere other than personnel to cut,” she said. “There expenses may be only $500.”
Salvucci’s frame of reference was the Zero-based budget approach used at South Shore Tech, and Carter said that is the same budget approach she uses.
“I don’t see that we’re able to reduce the budget without reducing staffing in some areas,” she said.
In Hanson, in a brief Select Board meeting on Tuesday. May 20, Chair Laura Fitzgerald-Kemmett opened their discussion by noting that any budget cuts need to be made by July 1.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said she held a department head meeting Tuesday, at which time they, “went over the amounts departments need to look at and we’re going to be having further discussions.”
“Hopefully, we’re going to have everything in place by July 1,” Green said. “Of course, we do have to impact bargain with some of the unions for positions that may be impacted by this.”
Fitzgerald-Kemmett, said the town must continue to think outside the box in order to increase revenues.
“Is it going to solve our fiscal problem?” FitzGerald said of a recent meeting of the Economic Development. “No. But Every little bit helps.”

HANSON – The saying goes that nothing’s certain except death and taxes.
Hanson might be ready to amend that to include the annual citizen’s petition on the Town Meeting warrant to try repealing a 2024 Town Meeting bylaw vote banning the sale of nip bottles by package and convenience stores.
At issue is the ongoing debate between supporting small businesses, while combatting the problems of driving littering vs basic respect for a town business regulation.
The Town Meeting run-up this time around did see some firsts, though, from an individual text-banking nip ban opponents to encourage them to attend Town Meeting, a poster campaign among friendly businesses participated in, and a stand-out by Luke’s Liquors to informally poll attendees, have more commonly been associated with election campaigns.
In the end, nothing changed but the temperature under collars as debate roiled on.
The petition, introduced by David George as a help to small business owners, was again rejected by the Town Meeting.
“The petition, upon approval, would support the struggling small businesses in the town of
Hanson,” George said.
Green Hanson chair Marianne DiMascio said that during her 16 years with the organization, the group has cleaned up “thousands and thousands” of nip bottles along Hanson roadways.
“Those thousands and thousands of nips mean that people are driving and drinking and throwing [the nip bottles] on the side of the roads, in addition to the trash,” she said.
Resident Bob Hayes shared his thought that to avoid placing “undue stress on small businesses,” Hanson could consider if it is legally possible to place a 10-cent tax or a similar revenue source on the nip bottles to ensure they are returned.
“Why don’t we get innovative instead of always saying no,” he said.
From the look on Town Counsel’s face, we do not have an answer to that at the moment,” said Town Moderator Sean Kealy.
Resident Steve Smith of 4 Monroe St., said did know the answer to Hayes’ question.
“The answer is no,” Smith said. “As of 2010 that is illegal. You cannot put taxes on alcohol, specifically. That was one of the arguments I made when I petitioned this originally last year.”
He also noted that most empties are found within an eighth of a mile from a liquor store.
One retailer put up posters advocating “Cold on the Go, and yet another one was ignoring the ban.
Kealy could attest to that, pulling an unopened nip bottle from his pocket that he said he bought at Villge MiniMart last month, despite the ban on sales.
Retailer Kenny Patel said he wished that “banning the nips would change a little problem, but it would not.” He argued it would only slap small businesses financially.
“We need to educate our people,” he said. “[It] doesn’t matter if it’s nips, paper, glass, a water bottles – anything in our town. This is our house. You cannot throw [away] anything.”
Irwin Patel, who gave his address as 904 Main St., was asked to pause as Kealy in fact brought forth his nip bottle.
“Are you here from the Village Mini-Mart?” Kealy said to a perplexed-looking Patel, who replied, “Yup.”
“Well, I think that’s the store a gentleman before you alluded to,” Kealy said. “Are you still sellig nips?”
After a pause, Patel said, “Yes,” arguing he is the store manager, not the owner.
“I bought this on April 14, and the law has been in place since January,” Kealy said. “I don’t mean any more than to just bring attention to this. I don’t care whether we ban nips or not. What bothers me, what really disgusts me, is when people don’t follow the law that this Town Meeting passed.”
Kealy said he would be seeking a conversation with the Select Board about methods of enforcing the ban and for other issues on which Town Meeting took votes.

By Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to The Express
I have many memories of my mother and an overall pride in her accomplishments as a woman and as our mother. After her high school graduation, she worked as a long-distance telephone operator in Burlington, Vt., where she grew up. During WWII, Treasure Island, Calif., needed long distance operators and Mom signed up, holding the rank of Petty Officer First Class while serving in the WAVES. Dad was in the Seabees when they met at Treasure Island.
When the war ended, they were married in the Hanson Baptist Church and by the time I was born, they had a house on Elm Street where my three siblings and I were raised along with mom’s dog, a dalmatian named Dietz they got while on their honeymoon. 
Mom was a Methodist and after she married Dad she joined the Baptist church in Hanson that he belonged to. She taught Sunday school when I was little and also when my siblings were young. It was nice having her there with us. She got involved with the church and groups within the church that were helpful to others and to the community.
When I was in my teens and began to lose interest in church, Mom talked me into joining BYF; Baptist Youth Fellowship at our church. It was a group of friends and peers I had grown up with in Sunday school. I’m glad I listened to her; I learned so much from the minister who ran it, Rev. Gil McCurdy and Rae Usher, the woman who helped him. He knew how to listen, hear, talk to and deal with young people and the things he pointed out to us made us think and to be more aware of how to keep ourselves safe out in the world. 
The first thing I became aware of about Mom when I was very small was her love for animals. One of my first memories was her finding abandoned baby bunnies in our back yard near the field behind our house. She asked dad if he would make a cage strong enough to keep away other animals, which he did. Mom fed the bunnies with a glass doll bottle I had that was made exactly like real baby bottles, only much smaller. She taught me how to feed them so I could help. When they were old enough, Mom always found good homes for them. 
Mom was as good with us as she was with the animals. When I was 6 and my sister Penny was 3, Mom was 6 months along with our brother, David. One day we went to Martha Brine’s farm stand to buy a watermelon. Penny was a plump little kid and loved to eat. She reached for a small piece of watermelon covered with seeds and was about to stuff the whole thing in her mouth when Martha took it away, telling her she needed the seeds to grow more watermelons. Penny just stared at her. Later that night, mom was cutting watermelon slices and bit into one with seeds and grabbed a cup of water to swallow it down. Penny started crying, the crying turned to sobbing. Mom asked her why she was crying and Penny kept pointing to mom’s tummy.
“I told you there’s a baby in there,” mom said.
“NO!!! Watermelon!” Penny sobbed, holding out her plump little hand full of seeds. Mom calmed her down, but whenever we had watermelon that summer, she collected the seeds and threw them away until David was born that August and then she could see he was a baby and not a watermelon. 
Three years after our brother David was born, our sister Barbara was born on his birthday. We still celebrate them together. As we got older mom tried to get us kids to call her “Mother.” We all looked at each other but didn’t say anything. When that didn’t work she tried “Mom.” She gave up when the only thing that worked was “Ma.”
It’s never changed. It was nice having a stay-at-home mom but as we got older, she ventured out and started working again. I was proud of the things she did. She got her Class 3 license to drive a school bus. Some years later she took a job as dispatcher for the Hanson Police. When she’d been there a few years Brockton Hospital hired her to be their switchboard operator. She stayed there until her retirement. 
Mom wasn’t much over five feet tall and had a nice figure. One December near Christmas when I was about 12, mom asked me and Penny, who was then 9, to keep an eye on the kids and the supper that was baking in the oven; she had one last errand to run at the five and dime store, J.J. Newberry’s in Whitman. About an hour later when she came back grinning from ear to ear, her arms full of packages, Dad was coming in the back door. They met in the dining room where I was, kissed and she rushed into their bedroom to put the bags away.
When she came back out still grinning, Dad started to smile, asking her what was going on. She broke into full laughter, trying to calm down to tell us. When David and Barb heard her laughing, they came into the dining room to listen.
“Well, when I was at Newberry’s and finished my shopping, I was walking towards the cash register line to pay and a big rat ran out in front of me and when I screamed, all my bags flew into the air and fell onto the cash register belt. I jumped and a man beside me caught me and I was in his arms screaming and then laughing when I realized I jumped into his arms and then he was laughing!
We were all laughing except Barb who kept asking, “What is a rat?”
“Why didn’t you bring him home to supper?” Dad kidded her. “He wished me a Merry Christmas and I thanked him for catching me and he said he was glad to be of service.” 
Growing up in Vermont, Mom had been an avid skier and before they were married, so had Dad. They both loved the outdoors and, in their 50s, they began to research how to create a small wildlife preserve. There was a spacious field between our backyard and the brook beyond. Dad was a bulldozer and heavy equipment operator and with a dozer and an excavator he was able to push the shale and dirt uphill towards the back side of the brook. By the time he was done, the brook was dead center, fifteen to eighteen feet deep which hit natural Springs that created its own water source.
My brother Dave stocked the pond with bluegills, perch, shiners, horn pout and more. There were all kinds of migrating birds that came to the pond at different times of the year, many returning annually such as great blue heron, wild mallard ducks and a kind of sandpiper with markings called a solitary sandpiper that always came alone.
Dad got Mom an inflatable boat to row around the pond. She gave all our kids rides in it at different times, which they loved. Dad built a small dock to make the preserve complete. It was a dream come true for Mom and the first Mother’s Day after the preserve was created was a celebration for our whole family.