Whitman-Hanson Express

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So, just how cold was it?

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It sounds like the set-up line for a comedian – how cold was it?
It’s the coldest we’ve been in some time – and winter’s just getting started, but far from hostoric. And, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues forecasting a warmer than normal winter season overall for 2024-25.
Also, while the recent cold snap had the ice looking more enticing with each passing day for winter weather enthusiasts, public safety officials caution the public to be cautious on outdoor ice, particularly on lakes and ponds.
“All ice should be considered unsafe,” said Hanson Fire Chief Robert O’Brien said of the area’s ponds and lakes, adding that there hasn’t been a long enough period of freezing weather to ensure that ice is thick enough. That is true of Wampatuck Pond behind Hanson Town Hall and Maquan Pond, which is spring-fed.
Both ponds have been the sites of rescues after people have gone through the ice, accoring to O’ Brien, adding the department has also been summoned for deer and dogs that have been trapped on or fallen through the ice.
O’Brien pointed out that, as risky as ice rescues are, water rescues are more difficult because of the limited equippment for them.
“All our people are trained for ice rescues, but only a few are trained in underwater ice rescues,” O’Brien said. Those underwater rescue operations also involve longer response times – as much as 20 minutes or more – mainly because a mutual aid call is reqired.
The public’s best option is one that prevents an emergency – is to avoid one by checking ice depth, which is something public safety personnel are not able to do due to liability concerns.
“You can’t tell the strength of ice just by its appearance, the daily temperature, thickness, or whether the ice is or isn’t covered with snow,” stated information posted by the Marshfield Police Department on their website. “Strength of ice, in fact, is based upon all four factors plus the depth of water under the ice, size of water body, water chemistry, distribution of the of the ice, and local climatic factors.
Because of a dominant high-pressure area, forcasters warned of continuing cold, after the frigid morning temperature of 8 with wind chills such as -1 degrees on Dec, 23, according to a report by WBZ meteorologist Jason Mikell.
“When you think about yesterday, it’s hard to believe we’re actually colder, but we are,” Mikell said on his Monday morning forecast. “The next seven days … will be around the freezing mark in the daytime as well as the evening hours,” with a warm-up in view by the last weekend of the year.
The New York Times reported on Dec. 24 that 50 percent of the population in the United States – that’s 166 million people – “live in the areas expected to see freezing cold over the next seven days.”
That becomes a real problem as accompanying wind chills will present dangerous conditions.
“With prolonged exposure to very cold temperatures, another danger is frostbite,” The Times reported. “Your body’s survival mechanism in response to extreme cold is to protect the vital inner organs by cutting circulation to your extremities and allowing them to freeze.”
As South Shore residents woke up on Monday, Dec. 23, that caution was relatable.
Meanwhile, NOAA cautioned that its data showed no reason to panic about the cold just yet.
“Those recent trends show among the strongest warm trends across New England,” NOAA Head of Forecast Operations Scott Handel, who authored the outlook, told Boston.com. “New England has a lot of the strongest warm trends as compared to most places in the country.”
There is a 33- to 40-percent chance of above normal precipitation for the state of New Hampshire and for northern and western Massachusetts, he added.
Still, Handel said there is a lot of “variability.”
“Boston, oftentimes, gets decent snow, regardless of the year,” he said. “Be prepared for winter weather all through the season.”
NOAA’s 2024-25 winter outlook, highlighting a “slowly-developing” La Niña that could shape weather throughout the country from December through February.
“This winter, an emerging La Niña is anticipated to influence the upcoming winter patterns, especially our precipitation predictions,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

Closer look at the Green Book

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WHITMAN – If not for the controversies and the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture, won by “Green Book,” many white Americans might not have heard of the annual guide (1936 to 1967) by that name, offering travel advice, lists of safe and welcoming hotels for African-American travelers across the United States and ads for businesses – especially car sales.
Dr. Gloria Greis, the executive director of the Needham History Center and Museum, spoke at the Whitman Public Library on Saturday, Dec. 14 to add some informational meat on that skeletal knowledge in her talk, “Driving While Black.”
And area towns like Hanson and Kingston have earned listings in the guide over the years – for South Hanson, 1948, to be precise. More on that in a bit.
The Green Book got its name, in part, from the color featured in its cover designs, but also for its founder, Victor Hugo Green, who founded the guide in 1936, aided by his wife Alma, who took over briefly after his 1960 death.
A postal employee and travel agent in Harlem, Green was perfectly situated to make his guidebook the one people immediately thought of – despite the existence of at east six others – he could depend on a national network of postal employees to bolster the word-of-mouth campaign and, more importantly advertising, by his fellow postal employees.
While she admitted her presentation is “a little Needham-centric,” Greis, said that a few years ago, a local resident send her a note asking is she knew Needham had an entry in the Green Book, sending her on a seearch for information on several other South Shore communities, as well.
But, initially, Greis, herself, hadn’t known what the Green Book was.
“I daresay, I was not alone in my ignorance and I daresay that my ignorance says something about the way we approach local history,” she told her audience at Whitman Public Library. “Despite general sense that modern history is comprehensive and everything is known, the historical record is surprisingly incomplete. Records get lost, or not recorded in the first place.”
She added that even towns like Needham, where today an ABC-affiliate television network is located, and has a well-regarded educational system today, was in Colonial times, considered literate, but not literary.
People could read and write, “but they didn’t spend a lot of time putting their thoughts down on paper.”
Therefore, recorded history is usually found in official documents – tax rolls. Town clerks’ records, church registers, town reports and the like.
“This is the history of the town’s leaders,” she said. “While this information is incredibly important, it’s very incomplete as a town history. It leaves out large segments of community experience.”
That is largely the experience of the working class, Greis said – “the routine rhythms of work and leisure, the accommodations of neighborhood, the attitudes, opinions and relationships that governed everybody’s everyday life.”
Often who gets to tell that history adds another layer of controversy, which is why the dramatic film “Green Book,” ran into trouble by literally putting a white character in the driver’s seat, not only of a car, but also of a Black character’s story.
“Piecing together historical information about the non-establishment groups in a town takes a number of different strategies,” Greis said. The Green Book is one of those.
In Hanson, for example was among the 36 communities in Massachusetts with a listing – a small house at 26 Reed St., once owned by a woman named Mary Pina, was listed in the 1948 Green Book as an accommodation for African-American travelers and tourists both in a guest room in her home, and for campers in her spacious back yard.
“The [accommodations] tend to follow the highways and areas we still think of as vacation spots,” Greis said. “But not all. Some of them are on byways, like Needham.” And Hanson.
Hanson Health Board Chair Arlene Dias was amazed at that bit of historical news.
“There were a lot of Pinas on South Street, but I don’t remember somebody living that far up on Reed Street,” Dias said in a phone interview Friday, Dec. 20. “I’ve never heard of [the Green Book listing]. It is interesting.”
She said she would be calling family members who were more knowledgeable of the Cape Verdean population’s history in Hanson for more information.
“I had relatives that were Pinas, but they were on Pleasant Street,” Dias said.
Greis said that, as much as the Green Book offered guidance for the safety of travelers, it also offered economic safety for small businesses.
“It is a compendium of some of the most important people, successful businesses and important political milestones of the 20th Century,” she said. “It’s a who’s who of a rising class of African-American middle-class entrepreneurs.”
Before the advent of the Green Book and similar travel guide, Black travelers had to prepare ahead, packing food and enough gasoline for the journey, because there was no certainty that they’d find a safe place to eat, lodge, fuel their cars or even use the bathrooms, Greis said.
Green had written in the forward to the Green Book that it served as a way to ensure safety and dignity in travel until African-Americans were afforded equal opportunities and privileges in the United States.
“It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication,” he wrote.
The Jim Crow South was not the only area where travel problems might be encountered.
“These limits were imposed on African-Americans all over the country – even in the North,” Greis said. “We might not have had the actual signs, but we certainly had the signals.”
Even in Harlem during it’s “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s and ’30s, the more famous nightclubs like The Cotton Club, did not allow Black customers in the audience for performances of the biggest African-Americas entertainers of the day.
As Black workers found job opportunities in the North, especially in Detroit, their economic condition improved, but that was only one reason car ownership by Black Americans grew.
“Sometimes, it was the only way of getting easily from place to place,” she said The Green Book and other guides also advised Black people to buy a car as soon as they were able to for that reason. “The Green Book guided them to services where they were welcome, reducing what Green kindly called ‘aggravation.’”
That aggravation could range from out-and-out violence to Sundown Towns, where the threat was thinly veiled.
Getting one’s kicks on Route 66, was evidently meant for whites only as there were no welcoming business along the route musically extolled from Chicago as one “motors West.”
The first Green Book in 1936 covered only New York and Westchester County in 16 pages, but shortly grew to more than 9,500 businesses in 100 pages covering the entire United States, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean.
“Esso Oil, which was notable for its progressive hiring, including African-American executives, scientists and franchisees, distributed the book throughout its station network,” Greis said.
It was also aimed at the African-American Middle Class and was relatively unknown among people of color in lower economic strata.
Once the Interstate Highway system helped spell the end of the Green Book, both by presenting a more homogeneous appearance for travel – and bypassing many of the businesses that advertised in it.

Jingles the cat vs the Christmas tree

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By Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to the Express
H ANSON — Our dad was very particular about Christmas trees and the right way to put them up.
Every December, when it was time to get our tree, the four of us kids would bundle up and follow him through the snow across our back yard and field, past the brook and blueberry patch and up into the pine grove to pick one out.
We all had a say in which tree we liked the best. Dad always seemed more patient, relaxed and happy in the woods, taking his time and even smiling. When we all agreed on which tree we wanted, he’d chop it down.
He pulled it behind him as we plowed back through the snow, following the path we had made on the way to the woods to make the going easier. When we got back home, dad propped the tree up beside a bucket of dirt near the kitchen door as it was closer to the living room. He told us to go in through the back door shed and take off our boots and hang up our coats.  
Once inside, Jingles our cat would meow and walk in front of us as if to tell us to follow her. Mom called to my younger brother and sister from the living room, saying she needed help laying an old sheet on the hardwood living room floor, then asking my sister, Penny, and I to carry the big box of ornaments in from the storage shed.
We could hear dad outside moving the dirt in the bucket around with his shovel. He opened the kitchen door and stuck his head in, asking mom if she was ready yet. When she was, Mom, Davey and Barb stepped off the sheet and Penny and I put the big box down on the hearth in front of the fireplace while dad wiped his feet on the mat and brought in the bucket of dirt. He placed it in the middle of the sheet and told us all to stand back while he brought the tree in. Jingles was perched on the arm of the couch and as the tree came in the door, she dove under the coffee table, her eyes as big as saucers. 
When dad would step down the two steps into the living room with the tree, Jingles usually took off like a shot, running into the other room. It made us laugh and we figured she was hiding under the dining room table or one of the beds. Every year it was ceremonious occasion as dad carefully carried the tree across the room, placing it snugly into the bucket of dirt he so carefully prepared. He watered it and packed it in some more until he was satisfied. He told mom to let it set while we had supper and then we could decorate it. 
Our favorie Saturday night and our favorite supper was hotdogs and beans. While mom was getting it ready and after Penny and I set the table, the four of us watched our favorite program, “Roy Rogers,” with dad. While we watched, Penny and I finished stringing popcorn and cranberries to put on the tree and trying not to eat it. Jingles quietly came out to have some of her supper and disappeared again. 
When supper was over, all of us were excited about trimming the tree.
Dad always went first, placing the star at the top and then adding the tree lights. The garlands of popcorn and cranberries were next and then came the ornaments. Each of us had a favorite one and some survived the test of time; I still have several. Mom and dad would lift Barbie and Davey up so they could hang their ornaments on the branches they chose. Mom preferred to string the tinsel herself as she used it sparingly which always made a beautiful final touch.  
We were almost finished decorating the tree when Jingles generally showed up on the two steps that came down into the living room, perched on the top one, her tail switching wildly. Dad stamped his foot and clapped his hands and away she ran.
Mom reached for the box of tinsel and dad plugged in the tree lights. I heard something and looked up. One year, before any of us could do anything, Jingles leaped off the step and was flying through the air like a crazed jet at top speed landing head first high into the tree. Dad let loose with a stream of expletives that were more colorful than the Christmas decorations. Jingles got her bearings and soared back into the air, landing on the kitchen floor, clawing the linoleum as she raced to get away and almost crashing into the wall turning the corner to get into the dining room. Mom and us kids were laughing so hard we couldn’t stop. Dad disappeared down into the cellar, slamming the door behind him. We went with mom to find Jingles to see if she was okay, which she was. She sat washing herself as if she was very proud. 
 When dad came back he had a hammer and screw driver in one hand and a metal object in the other. He went into the living room behind the tree where there were two windows. He screwed the metal piece into one of the window frames behind the curtains. He informed us that from now on there would be a rope tied to the inside of the tree attached to the metal holder that would keep it in place and withstand any mishap. It may still be there to this day. Like Jingles, dad seemed very proud of his solution. We helped mom and dad fix the tree and interestingly enough, had no more problems with Jingles. 

Pedestrian dies after crash in Hanson

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A pedestrian was struck and killed by a motor vehicle in Hanson, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz and Hanson Police Chief Michael Miksch have announced.
At approximately 6:08 p.m. Tuesday, Dec, 3, Hanson Police received a 911 call for a report of a car versus pedestrian crash in the area of 22 Main St. Hanson Police and emergency personnel responded and located the female victim lying on the roadway with obvious trauma to her lower extremities. Hanson EMS was in the process of transporting the victim to a designated landing zone to meet a Medflight helicopter when the victim’s condition changed. She was then taken by ambulance to South Shore Hospital where she was pronounced deceased. She has been identified as 76-year-old Donna Mark of Pembroke.
Hanson Police contacted the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, and an investigation commenced.
Preliminarily, it appears that Mark was attempting to cross the roadway, when a motorist driving east stopped to allow her to pass.
Mark traveled north across the eastbound lane and walked in front of a white Honda CRV which then struck Mark. The female operator of the white Honda CRV stopped at the scene.
The investigation is ongoing at this time.
Hanson Police officials said the State Police are the investigative lead agency. A call for an update to DA Cruz’s office had not been returned as of press time.

Whitman board mulls meal tax change

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WHITMAN – The Select Board on Tuesday, Nov. 12, heard updates on the school assessment and town budget from board member Shawn Kain, who sought feedback on his proposal to use a portion of the meals tax revenue to help fund that assessment.
“I don’t think it’’s the ideal situation, obviously, but the hold-harmless situation makes things less ideal,” Kain said. “It’s a better situation and more predictable and controlled. That is where I’m leaning.
The town’s budget projections – and formal budget process – begin in December.
“It’s important to emphasize that the School Committee has the authority to set the assessment, I don’t want to send the wrong message about that,” Kain said at the meeting, which was attended by Superintendent of Schools Szymaniak, noting the board should work to improve communication and improve the budget process with the school district. “We should inform the committee about what we can afford and show them the details about that decision, so they can make an informed decision during the budget cycle.”
Transparency and directness are also important to foster budgetary cooperation, Kain said in his budget presentation.
Kain then presented his suggestion for a compromise.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I still believe in using the revenue-based formula so that, if the School District currently makes up 44 percent of the budget, then it seems fair that they should receive 44 percent of any new revenue.”
That would make it easier to compute and understand budget decisions. The bottom line is that, while fair, it still doesn’t give the district what it needs to maintain level services, which they would not support.
“We could dig our heels in and move forward in a negative way, or we can try to find a compromise,” he said. “So that’s what I’ve been working on.”
While the district remains in the hold-harmless situation, they need additional funds to retain level services, but the town also cannot afford to take funds from other departments in order to do that.
The town currently uses the local meals tax in a negative way, using it to contribute to the OPEB (other post-employment benefits) liability, instead of funding the operating budget.
OPEB liability is a key factor in the calculations of town’s financial rating, but, while being careful, Kain suggested something the town can do is use the revenue formula to calculate what Whitman can afford to pay the district. While the district is still in the hold-harmless Whitman should designate the meals tax as an additional revenue source for them.
“The OPEB liability, in turn, would go into the queue with the capital items and such, to be funded by free cash,” he said. “We would likely make the argument that the OPEB contribution should be at the top of the list, but, ultimately, the decision will be up to Town Meeting.”
Last year’s school assessment increased by 5 percent, with the meals tax revenue bringing in about 6 percent. He asked for the board’s feedback on his proposal.
Board member Justin Evans expressed concern over deviating on the meals tax/OPEB payment arrangement.
“My thought had always been, once we fully fund our pension obligations to Plymouth County, maybe we can kick some of that effort over to the OPEB liabilities, thinking that even half of what we contribute in a year would be huge burden off of us, and that might be a time to consider breaking away from our pattern of $140,000 a year of the meals tax to OPEB,” he said. “Before that, it risks getting to the point where, maybe Town Meeting doesn’t go for it, and it risks our bond rating.”
He said there is still a place to enter the conversation, looking at the proportional Chapter 70 that would have gone to either town had Whitman and Hanson not become a region and consider that such revenue would probably mean 65 percent-range of what revenue would go to the district.
“I like where you’re going, I just don’t like that approach,” he said.
“It’s definitely something I’m not thrilled about,” Kain said, noting he had discussed it with Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter. “It kind of hurts, it’s part of the compromise that I think we’re making.”
He said he agreed the town’s financial rating should not be risked
“Shawn and I have been very honest in both sides of this,” Carter said. “I understand that this would be until [the schools] were out of hold-harmless.” But she referred to a recent phone call with rating services, who were “thrilled” with seeing the town make a dedicated source of funds to secure a solid bond rating.
“I would not want to see that $140,000 not going in,” she said, indicating she would want to reach out and get more information about whether free cash would be an accepted source of funds.
“I do worry about our Moody’s ratings,” she said. “Yet I understand that we’re looking at anything and everything for a creative way [to meet the financial obligations]. It’s if we knew, for sure that free cash could go to this and replace the funding source.”
The Plymouth County liability had been scheduled to be paid by 2029, but was pushed out another year, she said in response to a question from Vice Chair Dan Salvucci.
“They may be looking to push it out another year,” Carter said. “We though we saw light at the end of the tunnel, but, already, that has changed … it’s not freeing up as fast as we thought it was.”
Salvucci said he looks at free cash as one-time money.
“You never know how much free cash you’re going to have,” he said.
Carter had indicated an initial wish to boost Plymouth County payments as the revenue from the meals tax began to rise, but it was decided that, at $140,000, the town is at least getting the difference.
Salvucci urged using that revenue for capital costs instead of the assessment.
“The alternative is we go into Town Meeting or the budget process at odds,” Kain said. “This is just a way for us to compute what we can afford early in the budget season and communicate that openly to the school district and the School Committee so they can make a more informed decision.”

Cranberry play bogs down Thanksgiving

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By Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to The Express
My Grandfather Cyril, better known as “Spud,” and his two brothers owned a local cranberry bog in the 1960s. Grampa and my grandmother Edrice also worked for the National Cranberry Association in Hanson that eventually was renamed Ocean Spray. Grampa worked the press and Gram screened the berries. The berries were picked by hand back then, scooped and put in wooden boxes where they stayed dry and protected until they were taken to Ocean Spray to be made into juice and sauce. Grampa stored the boxes of berries in the loft of his barn which was across the street from their house and diagonally across from ours.  
My friend Donna, who was 12 and a year younger than me, lived next door with her aunt and uncle and their four sons. One Friday after school, I asked my mom if Donna could come to supper and stay overnight. She said it was okay if it was okay with Ann, Donna’s aunt, which it was. It was a warm November afternoon and Donna and I went for a walk in the pine grove off of Elm street. On the way back we passed by my Grampa’s barn and walked into the barn yard to visit Mike the ram who was a big white sheep with no horns. He was gentle and let the smaller kids ride on him.  
I opened the barn door so Mike could go in. The smell of hay greeted us and brought back memories. I remembered Grampa putting me on a three-legged stool when I was about five. He put his big hands over my little ones and we milked one of the cows. He turned our hands to one side where the barn cats were waiting for a taste and we squirted milk into their mouths. They were so cute and funny that we laughed. Donna brought me back to the present when she said, “Let’s go up to the loft.” We climbed the stairs and saw wooden boxes full of cranberries stacked on both sides of the loft. We looked at each other. “I got this side, you take that side!” I said and so it began. I saw something move as I ran to the other side of the loft. Mike was perched on top of a pile of hay watching us. 
Through shouts and squeals of laughter we threw handfuls of berries at each other. There were berries strewn all over both sides of the loft and the floor below. I saw the sun setting through the window and knew it was getting close to supper time. I told Donna we better get going or we’d be late. It was getting dark when we left the barn and walked down the street the short distance to my house. Mom greeted us with a big smile and the aroma of spaghetti sauce filled the kitchen, making me very hungry. Donna and I washed up and set the table for mom. 
When we were almost finished eating, the phone rang. There was a wall phone in the kitchen near the dining room and Dad got up to answer it. He didn’t say much, just listened, ending with, “Yup, I agree.” He sat down at the table, looking across at mom, then at me and Donna while my siblings looked on.
The phoNe call
“That was Grampa on the phone,”, he stated, giving us a harsh look. My heart sank and my stomach churned; Donna hung her head. “It seems when Grampa got home tonight he noticed the barn lights were on and his neighbor came out to tell him he heard a lot of noise in the barn this afternoon. Do you know why he’s upset?” Donna and I nodded in unison. “Grampa is meeting you both over there in five minutes, good luck.” 
Donna grabbed my hand and was shaking and crying as we walked over. I was trying to calm her down even though I was scared myself. Grampa didn’t raise his voice but was very stern, telling us every single berry that wasn’t damaged needed to go back in the boxes and to make sure there was no hay on any of them. He explained how important the berries were to people who made their living growing and selling them and what trouble he would be in and how much it would cost him if the berries were damaged and couldn’t be delivered. He told us how important it was that this get done tonight because they were being taken to Ocean Spray tomorrow morning to be processed. He also told us that each berry cost a penny and whatever we didn’t get back in the boxes, we would owe him. Before he left, he said he’d see us in the morning at eight o’clock at the barn and to be on time. We counted the berries that were ruined, and we owed Grampa a total of 92 cents. We both took money out of our piggy banks to pay him. We finally got to bed that night at midnight. 
We were at the barn on time the next morning and Grampa was outside waiting for us. He was a slender man, and a bit of light red hair was still visible through the strands of white and grey. He commended us for a job that he said was done even better than the mess we had made, which made us blush. He was looking at me and there was a twinkle in his blue eyes and a smile he was trying to hold back.
“You are a true Ibbitson”, he said, “now you both take your money and put it back where it came from; I think you’ve learned your lesson well.” With that, his brothers, Hollis and Edwin, who were my grand uncles, drove up in their trucks. After greetings and goodbyes Donna and I each went home to our own houses, we were exhausted. 
Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away and we were going next door to my grandparents that year. I was still feeling bad and ashamed at what I had done and so was Donna, even after we had apologized. I was also thinking about all I had found out about my grandparents that I hadn’t known. I knew they both worked but didn’t realize it was in the same place or that Grampa was part owner of a cranberry bog. I was also still perplexed about what Grampa said to me about being a true Ibbitson. 
When Thanksgiving Day finally came, we could smell the turkey before we entered the house. Once inside, the mood was festive, and we all sat at the big round table with enough leaves in it to accommodate all of us. Grace had been said and we all dug into the delicious meal. Every year that I can remember, my four uncles, my dad and Grampa would start telling stories. That year it was about things they did growing up. The stories were funny, entertaining, some a bit daring and some tender and it dawned on me, I was just like them and that’s what Grampa meant. A very nice feeling encompassed me. I felt safe, accepted, loved and very thankful for my family. 
 

A Camp Carlton answer in sight?

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WHITMAN – The Select Board accepted a recommendation from the Camp Alice Carlton Committee to approach Rockland with the proposal to purchase part of the land on that side of the town line.
Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Keefe updated the Board on the committee’s proposel at its Tuesday, Nov. 12 meeting. Keefe also serves as chair of the Camp Alice Carlton Committee, which has met several times over the past year.
“Initially, our goal was to have something to put forth to the [Select Board] before the last Town Meeting in May,” she said. “However, that did not happen.”
But she said the committee did vote during its last meeting this summer to recommend the Select Board that they entertain the possibility of selling the land within Rockland to the town of Rockland – with stipulation.
That stipulation would require the town of Rockland agreeing to permanently protect the 30 acres with a conservation restriction, and 10 acres on the Whitman side of the town line. Rockland would obtain an appraisal, come up with an offer, and the two select boards would negotiate a sales agreement.
The Nov. 12 meeting was the first step in that process, but entering the process does not signal the town is bound to it, Keefe said.
“There would be meetings all along the way,” she said.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said any sale would have to go before Town Meeting.
Keefe said the committee has also consulted with town counsel Peter Sumners on the logistics of adhering to any procurement laws that may apply toward the sale of land.
“There is land in Rockland that is already under a conservation restriction, and it’s comparable to the size of the Whitman parcel,” she said.
Representatives from Wildlands Trust and the Rockland Open Space Committee have attended the committee’s meetings and expressed an interest in buying the land from Whitman, with the intention of keeping it as an open and conservation-type use, according to Keefe.
“Their plan for the land is exactly in line with the wishes of the Camp Alice Carlton Committee, and the folks who actually did deed the land to the town,” she said. “So, I guess the next step would be for the Select Board, if they so-choose, is to send a letter to the town of Rockland, expressing an interest in perhaps selling the land.”
After a good deal of discussion, the Select Board approved sending a letter to Rockland, which Keefe said would be ready for them to take further action on at the Tuesday, Nov. 26 meeting.
Select Board member Shawn Kain initially said, while noting he appreciated all the work the committee has done, and that it was helpful for them to do all the due diligence required but said he still does not feel comfortable selling off land.
“I know that there’s a small financial benefit, and I do really appreciate that it would be in the conservation land, that’s very important.” he said. “It still doesn’t feel quite right to sell off land that Whitman owns. I feel like we can take it upon ourselves to make sure it stays in conservation … I feel that the only difference is we keep control of that land, and it stays within Whitman’s property.”
Keefe reminded the board that still leaves 10 acres within Whitman’s side of the town line. Walking trails could lead into the Rockland conservation land and “sort of connect the towns.”
“Well, that sounds great to me,” Kain said.
Committee member John Galvin of High Street said they had a lot of conversations about developing that land as walking trails.
“The farm that Rockland has over there already has extensive trails,” he said, noting the committee had toured the property on both sides of the town line, but the Whitman side is overgrown and difficult to access, and the committee has discussed using proceeds of the sale to develop trails.
“The walking trails – that would be huge – and I’d strongly recommend that we go ahead and consider opening the discussions with Rockland and to get it done,” Galvin said, adding that the committee’s vote was unanimous.
“For all of us to be unanimous on it was quite a feat, I would say,” he said.
Select Board member Laura Howe agreed with Keefe and Galvin, especially about the condition of access to the property.
“I couldn’t get my horse through there 20 years ago, so it’s more than you think, taking it on,” she said. “I think their plan is amazing. It’s the best plan I can think of for that area, which is very near to my heart as it is to many people’s.”
Select Board member Justin Evans reported he has spoken to Rockland’s Open Space Committee a couple of years before the process they were discussing was established.
“They kind of laid out their vision for the green belt up along the border where they have McCarthy Farm would have, ideally, acquired the Camp Alice Carlton land – I think there’s a chunk of privately owned land, by a Whitman resident – in the same area that they’d like to acquire and basically work up toward Summer street,” he said. “This is part of a larger vision Rockland’s trying to develop that I think we could help support and maintain for Whitman residents using our 10 acres.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci asked which town would be doing the trail reclamation work after a sale.
Keefe suggested the towns could work together on contiguous trails, but Salvucci was concerned about the cost of that work.
“It’s not done cheap,” he said.
Keefe said both towns could use their Community Development funds on their own side of the town line.
Kain asked if Whitman could attain the same goal of creating a green belt without selling land to Rockland.
“Sure, we could, but it’s going to cost us about $8,000 a year,” Galvin said. “Because that’s how much we have to pay for payment in lieu of taxes.”
Keefe added that she was unsure of any advantage to Whitman’s keeping the land, and estimated that Whitman has paid about $60,000 in those payments in lieu of taxes over the past 10 years.
“We can’t do anything with Whitman’s finances because it’s Rockland’s town,” Galvin said. “This is achieving what everybody wants.”

The ‘girls’ are back in town

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WHITMAN – When John Hornstra’s family bought a portion of the former Peaceful Meadows property at auction last year, it was really a return to his roots.
The late Peaceful Meadows owner William Hogg was a mentor of Hornstra, who owns Hornstra Farms in Norwell and Whitman.
“I used to come over here, and thought this was such a neat operation, because they had the ice cream store, and the dairy and the cows, and I modeled the Norwell Farm [after Peaceful Meadows], he said Monday, Nov. 11. “It was kind of my goal to have this and that’s why I built the Norwell Store.”
Another reason he wanted to save the space was that the site of the original Hornstra farm in Hingham is now a condominium complex, developed in 1980.
“That was the heartbreak of my life, seeing that land developed and knowing there would never be cows there again,” Hornstra said. “The people in Hingham, complained about the flies, and the smell, spreading manure – the whole thing.”
As he spoke, a quartet of Holstein heifers – three red and white, and a black and white named Dill – had crowded into the front right corner of their small pasture at Hornstra Farms’ new Whitman property and were beginning to request breakfast – loudly.
The red-and-white Holsteins were named Alabama and Raindrop, with a third having lost the yellow-plastic ear tag that listed its name and birthdate.
“OK, where is he?” they seemed to say.
Hornstra had been running a bit late that morning. He had to check on one of his herd that had somehow been injured and had trouble getting up.
They watched carefully as Hornstra drove up his truck, which carried some corn silage, and the sweet smell got their attention. But they wanted grain. That much was clear as soon as he filled their feed trough to overflowing – and they just looked at it, until he added a scoop or two of grain on top.
“They’ve eaten all the grass off the field … and I hate to move them out, because people enjoy them so much,” Hornstra said, as he fed the heifers – young cows who have not yet had their first calf. “The red ones are pretty, but I was going to have red [Holsteins] in Norwell and black ones in Whitman, because they always had the black and white ones. I kind of like to keep tradition going.”
Hornstra said his aim is for people to enjoy the place that had also been coveted by a tree-removal company and several other developers as a business location.
“I feel like we’ve kind of lost our roots,” he said. “I love this business, and my son does, too, and he’s only 25 years old, but hopefully we can make something special here so people will enjoy it for years to come.”
Whitman trademark
Even after Peaceful Meadows parted with its herd of cows, one of the giant fiberglass cattle’s head sculptures the former stand had installed in later years, was a black and white one. In the lawn area between fences, where those fiberglas sculptures once were, Hornstra envisions a picnic area but is a little concerned about the safety of this cows, in doing so.
“We couldn’t let people around them,” he said. “I really am concerned about how people treat animals, now.”
Whitman has already had one close encounter with farming in late summer and the sweet-tinged smell of manure from silage-fed cows, being spread on the farm fields, wafted through the downtown area.
“They didn’t know what it was,” he said with a chuckle. But on a day-to-day basis, the farm has a containment facility that holds the manure to control the odor, and the stuff is trucked off site.
Nearby is the main barn, gutted, waiting, as the farm sorts through bids for a new floor and more comfortable stalls for the cows, as opposed to the rows of stanchions used before. A new roof had already been put on the building.
It’s a work in progress, he said as Johnny Cash could be heard singing “I Walk the Line” on a worker’s radio as they worked on a smaller barn.
“We’ve got a lot to do,” he said, including installing those new stalls.
“They’re called comfort stalls,” Hornstra said. “They’re wider and they have cushions on the bottom for the cows to lay on, but, hopefully, the cows will be out a good portion of the time.”
He said he doesn’t like to keep his cows inside if they can be outdoors, enjoying the fresh air.
“They do love to be outside,” he said. “That’s where they belong. Sometimes, in the winter it can be so cold out, you have to keep them in to raise the temperature of the barn so the pipes don’t freeze.”
But the goal is for being able to milk a few cows at the barn by next fall. Changing times at another New England Farm – Arethusa Farm in Lichfield. Conn. – has offered a break for Hornstra, who was going there Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Arethusa’s owners are changing the business model post-COVID, and the cost of running it’s showcase dairy barn was too high to justify keeping if running, according to published reports. When Arethusa sold 110 cows to other dairy farms in 2020, leaving the farm with a herd of about 350, and that opportunity Hornsta spoke of: all the milking equipment is still in that luxury barn, and the owner has told Hornstra that he wants him to have that equipment at a reasonable price.
Horsntra is also contemplating adding a couple upright silos for the corn grass silage, but for now both the silage and round bales of hay are wrapped in sturdy white plastic to preserve and ferment it for feed.
Feeding a nation
“We’re all trying to feed the country here, and people look at us as a little, tiny dairy farm, but over 5,000 people drink our milk,” he said. “It’s a weekly thing. Our milk is more expensive than the grocery store, but there are a lot of reasons why.”
He pointed to the process of pasteurizing the farm’s milk is comparable to the extra production steps that make micro-brew beer more expensive than Budweiser.
“The way we pasteurize our milk, at a lower temperature, for a longer period of time, gives our milk a real unique flavor, and people recognize that,” Hornstra said. “The Federal Market Administrator governs the price of milk, depending on the Chicago Cheese Market and that shouldn’t have very much to do with the price of milk, but it does.”
By milking cows on site in Whitman, however, Hornstra said he’ll be able to make 100-percent of his requirements, between the milk and dairy product delivery sales, the shops at both farms and the ice cream stands. Right now, his cows produce 30 percent of the required milk per week.
By milking cows on-site there will be no reason to have to buy milk on the market for their products.
“It’ll all be coming from our cows, and that’s kind of like where we want it to go,” he said. “What I’m [also] afraid of, is I might become not important enough to buy milk.”
Coop companies like Fair Life, owned by Coca-Cola, has opened a huge processing plant in upstate New York, calling on farmers all over the Northeast to supply them with milk. Most of New England milk goes to Garelik and AgriMark, which produces Cabot Farms who generally buys milk from farms in Vermont.
“I’m a little concerned that our ability to buy quality, local milk might be limited,” he said. “So I’d like to be able to milk more cows.”
He had always wanted to be a farmer to do just that and had “low-key lobbied” the Loring Farm owners in Norwell for some 22 years via Christmas card, finally reaching an agreement with him.
Other plans for the property include renovation of another, smaller barn as a space for local 4-H kids to work on their dairy animal projects in conjunction with the Plymouth County Extension Service.
“I want people to enjoy this place,” he said.
The Peaceful Meadows site had been offered to Hornstra two or three years before the land was sold at auction.
“The price they wanted for it, we couldn’t make that,” he said. “So, unfortunately, we had to buy it at auction.”

Hanson OK’s W. Washington site plan concept

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HANSON – Select Board on Tuesday, Oct. 29 accepted an updated concept for permitting commercial-industrial building at ) West Washington, provided it goes through; and it is is sold, with the price need to be more than, but at least close to a state grant of nearly $100,000 for reviewing the site, as well as adhering to zoning restrictions on the site.
Board member Joe Weeks moved to sell the property, following a presentation updating the project, contingent on the land-use boards approving it in their respective committees.
The board voted 4-0 to accept the motion. Vice Chair Ann Rein was absent.
Town Planner Antonio Defrias updated the board on the 0 West Washington St., (town map 67, lot 17-14), which is adjacent to the locations of the Water Department and the town’s industrial Park.
The Planning Department had received a Mass. Development One-Stop Grant of $98,826 last year to review the seven-acre town-owned site. Mass. Development has a list of “in-house doctors,” vetted engineering companies that work with the state who look at the site – a resource area, a wetlands – and what impacts that DeFrias explained.
“The state enters into an agreement with BHB, which then looks at the site and the resource area, wetlands and what impacts that has for the site and what could this site yield as far as buildings or a building,” he said. “So we’’re working with BHB. They’ve been out there and done some survey work, re-established the wetlands line.”
Based on that resource area, BHB has come up with some concepts.
Zoned in a commercial-industrial district, which requires 44,000 square feet, and a “good portion of the lot,” falls within the Zone 2 well protection district,” DeFrias said.
In any case, the town requires that 39,800 square feet be upland – 90 percent of that lot size – in order to build on the lot.
“When it comes to business or industrial, it cannot be a manufacturer that processes, stores or disposes of hazardous waste,” DeFrias said of the Zone B Wetlands protection district.
“Any type of thing going forward here is going to require a site plan, which goes to the Zoning Board of Appeals,” he said. The minimum lot frontage is 200 feet with side and back setbacks of at least 25 feet and a maximum lot coverage of 60 percent – including buildings, parking and service area – and maximum building coverage of 15 percent.
Under the town-own laws there is a 15-foot no-disturb, single-family home buffer between homes and commercial-industrial structures and a 95-foot no-disturb area required between paved areas and asphalt and the wetlands.
BHB has done some survey work and reestablished the water protection line.
“What BHB is going to do for Hanson is look at this site and look at the resource area – also known as wetlands – and what impacts that has to the site and what could this site yield as far as a building or buildings,” DeFrias said. “There is a water main that goes through that site, so there wouldn’t be anything as far as structures that can be built on top of that.”
Considering the site’s setback of 95 feet, the site’s buildable envelope is about 1.6 acres out of those 7 acres on the site, according to DeFrias.
A 50-foot setback would increase the buildable envelope to 2.33 acres, but the Conservation Commission would have to approve that.
“Based on that BHB came up with two concepts,” DeFrias said.
The first compliance option would be in compliance with the building lot coverage, all the set backs, parking spaces, leaving room for a 25,000 square-foot building.
“That’s not insignificant,” said Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett.
“This is the main concept,” DeFrias said. “The next step is looking for a blessing, in essence, from the Select Board, because we want to continue to move forward to come up with some preliminary plans.”
“Excellent work,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “If you will recall, one of the things we had discussed was what town-owned property do we have that we might be able to sell or lease for some additional revenue and what can we do to incentivize businesses to locate to Hanson? This kind of does that, really.”

CCC changes concern Hanson

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By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
HANSON – Changes to Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) requirements for contract consideration that will affect host community agreements (HCAs) are doing so in a way that has some town officials again protesting that the state is overreaching its authority.
For now, however, the town is working with its town counsel to determine a set of actionable items to complete, with deadlines to help them comply with the new regulation requirements.
“I think having counsel assist us will be a big help.” said Town Planner Antonio DeFrias as he and Town Counsel Liz Lydon met with the Select Board on Tuesday, Oct. 29 to discuss those changes.
“It shouldn’t be a heavy lift,” Lydon said as Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett balked at the cost of legal fees in the face of Hanson’s financial situation and she wanted the board to have time to think about and process the information presented.
“This has been going on for, roughly, about a year, so I’ve worked with counsel … to stay up to date and keep Hanson in compliance,” DeFrias said as he passes the microphone to Lydon to explain the nuances of the changes, how they affect Hanson and what, if anything, the town needs to do remain in compliance with the law.
The regulations were amended within the past year or so, according to Lydon.
“We knew that [changes were coming, but we weren’t sure to the extent, because the statute changed first, then the regulations were issued about a year ago,” she said. “The statute was unclear about what the regulations would state and how restrictive they would be.”
Town counsel then began the process of trying to renegotiate the HCAs. Only to find there were still uncertainties.
“The regulations actually went beyond what we had anticipated for restrictions on HCAs,” Lydon said. “They came up with a model HCA, they changed the whole payment structure around community impact fees, so that you could no longer charge a percentage of sales … and it has to be based on documented costs over the prior year.”
Any HCAs already negotiated, once their term expires, they would have to comply with the model agreement, or very close to it, according to Lydon, who added there is briefing case law to the effect that it’s not final because it hasn’t been appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court.
“But it’s created more uncertainty in the law because it says that the regulations are not retroactive to existing agreements,” she said. “That means all the agreements that are in place now should still be valid, however that doesn’t help with the uncertainty around payments under the existing agreement, because you still have to have documented costs related to the impacts of [an establishment].”
That boils down to: all of the existing host agreements have to be renegotiated, with fees based on documented costs and only cover impacts directly caused by a facility.
“We kind of knew that they were going to lean in this direction,” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “It wasn’t as if they took a sharp left and nobody knew. … The CCC kept saying, ‘You better document,’ and, ‘It needs to be real costs.’”
She asked if Hanson had looked at when its agreement expires and what would need to be taken into consideration in negotiating a new one.
“We’ll need to very closely mirror whatever that model agreement is,” she said.
Lydon said she didn’t have that information at hand, so FitzGerald-Kemmett asked that the firm circle back to the board with it.
But Lydon said the CCC would notify the town when the agreement does expire at which time the establishment would reach out to town counsel.
“I have plenty of models that we can use,” she said.
“At the risk of stating the obvious, to me, it’s super-frustrating that we were sold a bill of goods,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “The rules have changed mid-stream … with, as far as I can tell, very little ability for voters, or the people impacted, or the towns impacted, to even influence what ended up happening. … It’s really disappointing to see the state take that approach.”
Other board members agreed.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said that, without the community impact fee they agreed to she doubted that agreement would have been possible.
Lydon said the agreements are still discretionary with case law as well as the aspect that towns can elect not to continue relations with a marijuana establishment if it is not in the town’s best interests.
“I have not seen that happen yet, but it is an option,” she said.
Lydon added that another piece of the regulation is that there is now a requirement for a social equity policy in place, requiring prioritize consideration of social equity applications from historically disenfranchised groups such as minority-owned businesses, or those seeking permits who are persons who were impacted by the war on drugs (including arrests for marijuana) or others who might fall under the label of an historically disenfranchised group.
The policies must include streamlining the application process, providing all the materials and information needed on the town’s website, including permitting requirements and a contact person and all applications must be easily accessible and an application process for a new HCA must be made available and transparent with decisions posted as well as how many establishments exist in a town and how many are social equity applicants.
“That should have been done already, under the law,” Lydon said. “But they are not enforcing [the policy requirement] it until May. Once the policy is in place, you’ll have to move forward to implementing the policy.”
There are three options:

  • adopt a bylaw to exclusively permit social equity businesses for three years or until the exlusivity goal has been met;
  • adopt the model bylaw ordinance created by the Commission to permit social equity businesses; and the easiest option, which does not require a Town Meeting vote;
  • create a local approval process, which is required by the regulations anyway for equity applicants, that is administered on a one-to-one basis with a general applicant.
    “This is a lot to unpack, but what I’m hearing you say is we’re getting no more money, but we’re being asked to do a lot more regarding this type of business,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
    Lydon said the 3 percent fee still applies if Hanson allowed retail facilities in town, something Town Meeting did not approve.
    “I don’t see that floating,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve tried that several times and we’ve gotten a very strong message on that.”
    She did not see any incentive for the town to agree to what she called an unfunded mandate to comply with the new policy requirement.
    “My thought is, we just do what we’ve done up until this point, and take it to Town Meeting for option one or two and see if the town wants to do anything with them,” said Board member Joe Weeks. “The town really needs to have a say in this.”
    FitzGerald-Kemmett had more questions about what Town Meeting would be asked to decide.
    “We don’t need to make that decision tonight,” she said. “It seems like a lot for a little town like ours, with very few resources, to take on.”
    Lydon said, while there is assistance to applicants, there is no real assistance to towns and there is a lot of turnover going on at the CCC, which creates difficulties.
    FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the town could opt against allowing more facilities in town at all, because they lack the infrastructure to work with it effectively, and Lydon said it could be limited to the one license Hanson has already approved.
    “If someone applied, it’s still at your discretion if you want to award another HCA,” Lydon said. “That is in the Select Board’s hands.” But another way to comply is to draft a social equity business policy first.
    Lacking a policy, the town could be subject to fines if an applicant reported the town to the CCC.
    She said there are other area towns who have complied, that Hanson can refer to for policy language,
    “This is extremely concerning to me,” said Board member Ed Heal. “This sounds like a huge, huge, huge, slippery slope. We’re in the middle of an MBTA slippery slope, and it’s like, ‘Wow, they’re going to make us approve permits …’”
    FitzGerald-Kemmett broke in to explain that the policy is required only if the town allows more permits.
    “We don’t know what Town Meeting will decide,” Weeks repeated.
    “This is the state going above and beyond yet again, forcing us to do something,” Heal said, later adding, “A white male cannot start a…”
    “Well, maybe let’s not get quite…” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. But Lydon said a white male could if he had ever been arrested on marijuana charges.
    “But that’s the person that gets the business,” Heal said to Weeks. “Somebody like me or you or even you,” he said, gesturing to FitzGerald-Kemmett, “wouldn’t be able to start a marijuana business.”
    “Well, I’m a woman,” she said.
    “To put it in a nutshell, you have the policy in place, but once you have it in place, it doesn’t mean that you have to allow any more [businesses],” DeFrias said.