WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Oct. 26 discussed the potential direction for a financial policy for the town.

Forest Street resident Shawn Kain had indicated that he would like to see some additional financial policies instituted for the town, according to Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman who said he appreciated the suggestion.

Selectmen asked Kain, who attended the meeting to sit in on discussion of the issue.

Heineman said the policies now followed are very good ones, but that he appreciated Kain’s bringing up the topic for further consideration and possible revision — the disposition of surplus property, in particular.

The town’s auditor has also recommended revising of the town’s federal awards and procurement policy.

“The current policies that we have are a cash receipt and petty cash handling policy, a fund-balance policy, an investment policy statement for investment funds and, as I mentioned, the disposition of surplus property,” Heineman said. “What Mr. Kain had been talking about having some policies dealing with the appropriate level of debt for the town and what an acceptable level of debt, in the policy view of the town, is.”

Heineman said Whitman does not have a lot of debt in comparison to other towns of its size and valuation in Massachusetts, and that many towns do not have an acceptable debt policy.

“We had a great conversation,” Kain said of his discussions with Heineman concerning the number of reasons why such a policy makes sense. “I think why this is important now … is that financial policy helps guide your spending and borrowing practices.”

These practices can affect bond ratings and set limits and signals the public that town leaders are making decisions that will maintain the town’s financial health and good standing.

“I think it’s relevant now because there are a couple of big projects on the horizon,” Kain said, noting that a new Whitman Middle School and DPW building could be on that list. “Immediately people get concerned [about] borrowing more money, another debt exclusion, that kind of thing, and I don’t think people have a good frame of reference of how much debt do we have currently on the books. Are we in good shape or are we not in good shape?”

A debt policy would provide a good frame some of the difficult financial decisions that may lie ahead, Kain said. Without it, making the arguments for needed projects when they crop up.

Heineman noted that a recommended debt level policy would effectively raise the town’s acceptable level of debt.

“Our level of debt is so low right now, as compared with similar communities, that effectively, if we … wanted a policy that laid out an acceptable level of debt — presumably somewhere around the average of like communities — then … we would be saying it was fine to have relatively significantly more debt than we do now.”

Selectman Justin Evans, a member of the budget working group in 2018, said that group drafted some financial policies, including a limit of excluded debt service costs at less than 12 percent of tax levy at all times, and that general fund debt service should be limited to 1 and 2.5 percent of general fund operating revenues.

“I don’t know if the board ever adopted those policies,” he said. “But that might be a place to start.”

Neither Kain nor Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski recalled that happening, either.

“We have to be careful and clear that the levels that we recommend have some data behind them,” Kowalski said.

Heineman reminded the board that Proposition 2 ½ limits debt to 5 percent of the total assessed value of property — whether residential personal property or industrial/commercial property – in a town.

“We’re nowhere near that,” he said.

Selectman Dan Salvucci noted that past practice was to keep in mind the conclusion of one bond before borrowing to do another project. 

WHITMAN — For many performing artists, the COVID-19 pandemic meant more than an inconvenience — it interrupted a major source of their income.

But for Whitman musicians Jon and Juli Finn, it also created opportunities to explore new avenues of teaching, and composing new music. They are also preparing for a performance — Great Guitar Night — from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 5 at the Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St., Arlington. The gathering of Boston’s finest performing guitar artists and educators, including the Jon Finn Group will primarily feature Jon’s compositions which he describes as progressive instrumental rock — with some classical blues and jazz influences. Tickets are $30 plus a $3 fee online, by phone or at the box office

Vaccinations or a negative COVID test are required to attend.

“It appeals to a very specific group of people,” Jon said of his compositions, but with the Internet, he said one finds members of that very specific group all over the world. 

“The people who do like it, love it, and the standard joke is anywhere in the world we go, there’s like three or four people in any given town that know who we are,” he said. “But that’s it.”

Generally his music is a philosophy of producing music that makes it impossible for the listener to determine if it is easy or difficult to play.

“What I want them to listen to is the story being told and all the emotions and feelings that go along with that,” he said.

Their strings want to resonate with your heartstrings in a way.

“I play all guitars,” Juli said over coffee at Whitman’s Restoration Coffee last week. “My main guitar is an electric guitar, though. The same with Jon. He’s a guitar professor.”

Jon said there is no appreciable difference between the way you play a six-string guitar vs a 12-string guitar.

“They’re different sounds,” he said.

Juli might add a four-string ukulele, which she has been teaching online during COVID. Something akin to “advanced plunking,” she said with a laugh.

“We did collaborative videos,” she said. “We did a few live streams.”

She said that she saw a lot of the trend of people spending the pandemic perfecting hobbies or trying new ones. So she offered a four-week beginner ukulele course, and a 2.0 intermediate course — “advanced plunking” — and Juli’s Ukulele Club.

“It was definitely a change,” she said. “We had to say, ‘Come on, let’s get busy,’ and do everything differently.”

For Jon, when COVID hit, his first job was to try to create a Zoom environment that allowed the best performances given the platform’s limitations. Minute time lags still exist and make live performances difficult, even while edited recordings can solve that problem.

“Instead of just becoming an awkward silence, the music just becomes out of sync,” he said. “I spent a lot of the pandemic trying to find the best way to present myself over a Zoom lesson, and I learned a couple of tricks along the way.”

The Finns both worked on improving video making skills. Jon said he wrote, authored, filmed, notated and released a video course called Blues Building Blocks.

Now, while they are, seeing more requests for gigs, they are also doing some artistic soul-searching, Juli said. After decades of performing other people’s work, she said they decided to concentrate more on writing their own music.

“This is our time to put out new music and record,” Juli said, adding they plan to produce a new album in the spring while she is working on her own project — a tribute to Bonnie Raitt.

“We’re hoping to come out of the pandemic with a more focused approach to what we’re doing,” Jon said.

Juli, who was born in South Africa and later moved to the United States, first living in Utah and then Colorado for many years. She moved to Tacoma, Wash., when she was 14 and later to Massachusetts to complete her degree in guitar performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. At the time, Jon said, Berklee was the only college in the United States offering any type of performance degree in electric guitar. 

“At the time, it was not a real instrument in their eyes,” he said. During the national tour of “Rent,” Jon played guitar and keyboards at the Boston production at the Schubert Theatre for 228 performances.

“I had the show memorized after about a month and a half,” he said, but a week after it closed, he said he forgot most of it. “My brain kind of did a massive memory dump. … There’s always a lot of projects I’m doing, so once it’s in your rearview mirror, you get used to the idea that now you’re on to the next thing.”

While practice is alwys he said he accepts the fact that he will never be fully satisfied with what he does.

“You just try to get better at it,” he said.

Juli is currently working on her master’s degree in songwriting.

Berklee is also where she met Jon, who was a professor at Berklee — but she did not study with him. His degree is in traditional performance.

“Of course, there was some concern because that’s kind of a taboo in the college [world],” he said. Jon made sure his superiors knew of the relationship and that he was dating a student, but was not a professor in any of her classes.

“Of course, in his infinite wisdom, he said, ‘Is it Juli?’” Jon said with a laugh.

He grew up in Westwood, and lived in the Boston area before buying a house in Whitman.

HANSON — The Board of Health on Tuesday, Oct. 12 voted to accept the job description and hire a contact tracer to follow up COVID-19 cases in the community. They also discussed how to control costs and increase revenues for the transfer station.

The temporary part-time contact tracer position, instead of a public health nurse, is being sought to work exclusively on contact tracing for COVID cases, paid for by the remaining funds in the Norwell VNA line of Hanson’s budget.

The position will not be filled until the board’s question about liability is clarified.

“This will ensure that all of the contact tracing is done,” said Hanson Health Board’s Administrative Assistant Theresa Cocio.

Board member Arlene Dias said they would definitely need someone past December when CDC funding closes out.

The Board of Health will be posting the position, which will be a subcontractor for the town. The board will be contacting Town Administrator Lisa Green for liability coverage for the position in the event information about a COVID-19 case gets leaked somehow.

“Who’s liable?” said Vice Chairman Kevin Perkins about the need to do what is legal to protect the town. “Is the town liable because we hired this person and now it defaults to us because they don’t have an insurance policy?”

Health Board Chairman Denis O’Connell and Perkins expressed concern about what the cost of liability insurance would be, who pays it and what happens if there is a claim against the contact tracer. Dias, who is a care provider on a contractor basis herself, said HIPAA also covers liability for such work.

She said if she makes a mistake and/or releases information, she would be liable.

Cocio also said pay would likely be on a per diem basis.

“If there’s no cases, then there’s nothing for you to do, but if there’s an influx of cases then they would have more than enough to do,” she said.

The board also discussed revenue sources and keeping the transfer station functioning while reviewing the facility’s budget.

They had previously discussed eliminating the sticker program, which brings in about $24,000 a year, but heard back from Finance Committee Chairman Kevin Sullivan that he does not want to eliminate a funding source for the town. Trip ticket items have brought in $11,000 so far this year.

“We would have to find a way to [create another] funding source if we do away with the sticker,” Cocio said.

Dias asked why the board couldn’t institute a five-year sticker plan, increasing the cost and.

“I looked at surrounding towns and what it costs to use their transfer stations, but a lot of surrounding towns [use] curbside,” Dias said. “The only towns close that [still have stickers] are Kingston, where it’s $200 a year for residential — unless you’re a senior and then it’s $90 and you pay for bags — in Carver, you pay $140 a year and you have to use the bags to go to the transfer station.”

She said that, in terms of the stickers, “everybody charges a lot more than we do.”

“People don’t care what’s going on in Halifax or Kingston or Carver, they don’t want to pay,” Cocio said.

Dias argued that, even if the sticker fee was not increased per year and made it valid for five years (at $50 total), people still have to pay for their bags. She wondered if that would be enough to hire a person to issue stickers.

Another option would be to change fees for items currently covered by trip tickets and add fees for items not charged for now, Cosio said. Propane tanks and bicycles, metals, light bulbs and several other items come under the latter category.

“You’re still not able to control who uses it,” Dias said, arguing that uncontrolled access to the transfer station would greatly increase its use.

Rockland charges $5 and $10 for propane tanks, Halifax charges $1 or $15 for the tanks. Smaller propane tanks cost less to dispose of at the transfer stations.

“I think we have to get on par with what other towns are doing,” Perkins said. “I think it’s going to reduce the abuse of our people [from other towns] using our services and we’ve got to start bringing some more money in.”

He said what the metal recycling brings in does not offset labor costs.

“We need to take a look at all the things that we do, what the costs are, what the costs are to us and how are we going to replace $24,000,” Dias said.

Just short. 

It’s what the Whitman-Hanson Regional High football team came up as against Silver Lake on Friday, Oct. 8. 

Down 13-6 with six seconds remaining, the Panthers were stuck on fourth-and-goal by the Lakers. 

Senior Jake Guiliani gave W-H a 6-0 lead in the second with a rushing TD, but it didn’t last as Silver Lake scored the next 13. 

Senior Collin Briggs added four catches for 60 yards in the loss. On defense, the linebacker combination of Guiliani and junior Evan Casey combined for 15 tackles and senior Malcolm Alcorn-Crowder racked up with two sacks and two tackles for loss. Junior Sam Pace added an interception.

W-H is now 0-5 and will travel to 4-1 Marshfield tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 15 for a 7 p.m. kickoff. 

— Nathan Rollins

 WHITMAN — Fire Chief Timothy Clancy and the Whitman Fire Department urge all residents to “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety” and to follow several basic tips to help protect their loved ones during Fire Prevention Week, which is being recognized this year from Oct. 3 to 9.

Fire Prevention Week is organized by the National Fire Protection Association, and has been recognized for over 90 years. The goal of Fire Prevention Week is to educate the public about simple but important ways they can keep themselves and those they live with safe.

This year’s theme of “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety” focuses on beeps, chirps and other noises coming from your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and how knowing what they mean could save your life.

“Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are important lifesaving devices that need to be properly maintained,” Clancy said, urging everyone to recognize these common sounds to help better understand smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

• A continuous set of three loud beeps — beep, beep, beep — means smoke or fire. Get out, call 9-1-1, and stay out.

•A single chirp every 30 or 60 seconds means the battery is low and must be changed.

• All smoke alarms must be replaced after 10 years.

• Chirping that continues after the battery has been replaced means the alarm is at the end of its life and the unit must be replaced.

The NFPA offers the following tips for those who are deaf or hard of hearing:

• Purchase smoke and CO alarms that include strobe lights that flash to alert people when the smoke alarm sounds. 

• Pillow or bed shakers can also be purchased and linked to smoke and CO alarms to awaken people from their sleep. These work by shaking the pillow or bed when the alarm sounds. 

• The use of a low-frequency alarm can also wake a sleeping person with mild to severe hearing loss.

WHITMAN — The Whitman Middle School Feasibility Study Committee approved a final request for services for the owner/project manager on the Whitman Middle School building project reported during its Sept. 21 meeting.

It will now be advertised in the central register and in the local newspaper.

The Mass. School Building Authority had returned it’s comments on the district’s request that day, Feasibility Study Committee Chairman Fred Small said.

The committee also discussed the need for managing the flow of funds and invoices between the town of Whitman and the school district. Thus far, the only invoices being handled are for newspaper advertising, but the move is a way of getting ahead of things.

They voted to have a process under which the district would pay invoices up front, sending them to Whitman for the town to reimburse the district, as school capital projects are now paid. They also voted to create a five-person subcommittee to handle invoices, and requiring that payments be made in five business days. Payments would require two signatures for approval and release of payments.

“It got us thinking that we ought to have a process in which the monies flow,” Small said of the need for such a process. “The monies are held by the town of Whitman, the school district would get the invoice, present it to the town and the town will pay the school district — the school district will pay the vendor. I think that’s a pretty easy way of doing things.”

Small pointed to the larger staff at the school district to be able to facilitate invoicing.

“It’s also a nice check and balance, because the monies do have to flow through Whitman as well,” he said. “I just think we should have the ability to sign off on them before they go to the town or before they get paid.”

School District Business Manager John Stanbrook said invoices typically are turned around within 30 days.

Committee member Randy LaMattina, a selectman, suggested a smaller warrant subcommittee be appointed for signing off on payments.

Small suggested taking the School Committee’s approach of having three committee members sign warrants, with the balance of the committee voting on them at the following meeting.

But, on Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak’s suggestion that the warrants be uploaded to Google Drive so committee members can review them, Small suggested that approvals be made after invoices are placed in Google Drive, asking for questions or objections be emailed. Since the building study committee is not legally required to sign off on payment warrants with a formal vote, as the School Committee is bound to do.

Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said it is still wise to form a small subcommittee to review questions and objections.

“We’re only talking feasibility,” LaMattina said. “There really shouldn’t be a tremendous amount of invoices. We’d have to have a different process during the building phase.”

“Once we’re in the building phase, it has to be a totally different dialog,” Szymaniak said.

The opening of the 2021-22 school year on Wednesday, Sept. 1 had “no real issues,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak reported to the School Committee on Wednesday, Sept. 15.

“There were lots of happy eyes,” he said. “You couldn’t see smiles, but, with kids, you could tell how excited they were to be in school, same with teachers.”

While there were “a couple hiccups” with transportation, nothing critical as far as opening, he said.

Szymaniak also touched on the COVID protocol, it’s effect on the first days of the school year and “where we’re at right now.”

Schools throughout the state are under a mask mandate until Oct. 1, depending on a vaccine percentage of 80 percent.

“It’s frustrating for me, and reporting to the committee, that’s the extent of the information that I have to share with you about the vaccine mandate and what 80 percent is,” he said. “There are a lot of us guessing, to say is it by school? By district? Is it by teachers? Is it by community? We don’t have that information.”

Hanson figures put 38 percent of the town’s 12-to-15-year-olds vaccinated and 61 percent of 16-to-19-year-olds. In Whitman, 47 percent of 12-to-15-year-olds and 58 percent of 16-to-19-year-olds are fully vaccinated.

Both Whitman and Hanson have encouraged people to get vaccinated. A vaccine for children under age 12 is supposed to become available sometime in October, but what that exactly means and where it can be dispensed has not been provided.

“If the commissioner [of education] holds true to 80 percent, we’re not taking the masks off at this point,” Szymaniak said.

“I’m extremely frustrated because I don’t have any information to share with the community,” he said.

He said he has been asked by residents if the mandate is linked to school funding. Without directly addressing that, he said 50 percent of school funding comes from the state and it is important to follow the COVID mandates.

Szymaniak said the School District is not seeing transmissions between kids at the schools. But there is an increase in the COVID positivity rate in both communities.

Mass. DPH numbers indicate that there have been two positive cases at the high school since Sept. 1, Whitman Middle School had three, Hanson Middle School has had four cases. Six other students in Hanson tested positive before the start of school.

Duval Elementary had three positive cases since Sept.1, Indian Head and Conley had none and the preschool had two.

Szymaniak also spoke about COVID testing.

“We were ready to go with tests Day One, and we didn’t have them,” he said. “They came in last week.”

The training that Lead Nurse Lisa Tobin was supposed to attend was canceled, so she is trying to self-train virtually.

He said the “Test and Stay” program — which administers five tests in the nurse’s office over five consecutive days — only tests students if they are in close contact within school.

“If you play Pop Warner [football] and come to school, I can’t test you,” Szymaniak said, noting the confusion surrounding the Test and Stay program.

He said mask protocol is being adhered to without incident and, the few situations at the high school have involved the need to remind students to pull the mask up over their noses.

Masks are provided to students that need them.

A severe shortage of bus drivers, limit the available buses for sports.

“We’re lucky we’re getting bus drivers to drive our kids to school,” Szymaniak said. “After school [activities] and field trips are going to be severely limited by the amount of drivers that are there.”

Class size

More parents are either opting to homeschool or take advantage of school choice, although the number is down from last year’s pandemic.

Compared to 2019, when there were 35 homeschool pupils and 58 school choice students coming into the district. In 2020-21, during the peak of the pandemic, there were 93 homeschool students and 50 school choice; In 2021-22 Szymaniak is up to 65 homeschooled and 50 school choice students coming in and 36 going out.

“We’re still choicing kids in from all over the South Shore, which is a good thing,” he said. “[Students going to other school districts] is something we’re going to dig in deeper.”

He noted that enrollment is decreasing across the district with Hanson enrollment leveling off at about 100 students per grade below grade five. In Whitman, it seems to level off at grade six at between 150 and 160 per grade.

“This committee has worked extremely hard and diligently to try to lower class size in the district,” Szymaniak said. “I’m pleased that, in our elementary schools we have some really good balance, especially in our earlier grades.”

At Duval, top class sizes range from 16-18, Indian Head is around 20-23. The middle schools average class sizes is about 20 and the high school is around 20, except for foreign languages, which average close to 30.

Public Comment

John Galvin, of High Street in Whitman, expressed concern about a “significant” transfer of $3.7 million in line item transfers voted at the previous School Committee meeting to balance the fiscal 2021 budget.

“Last year, at this time, you also took a similar vote [of $3.1 million] … to balance the budget of fiscal year ’20,” he said. “This year, $3.7 million is over 6 percent of the budget, so that means that, at the end of the year, this committee re-appropriated 6 percent of the budget.”

Glavin said he sent an analysis comparing the two transfers to the committee and administration.

“What I found was simply mind-bending,” Galvin said. “The amount of line items in one year that had a significant deficit, the next year had a significant overage. Some of the line items were $1 million from one year to the other.”

He said a new subcommittee on budgets is forming and the hiring of a new business manager is still ahead, but he said he hopes it is time the committee really takes a look at how they prepare the budget, “starting from the gound up.”

HANSON — Residents voiced concerns ranging from water problems — including potential pollutants from nearby landfill— to traffic density and parking at the Tuesday, Aug. 31 public hearing at the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Resident Timothy Qualter, of 528 Spring St., said during the public question and comment section of the meeting that, while many of his questions had already been addressed at the meeting, he brought up two failed perk tests on the property in the past.

He alleged that Webby Engineering took a depth of five extra feet of soil to test, before deciding the land was buildable.

“What it does not encompass is our backyards and houses,” Qualter said, noting that he has a vernal pond at his house in the spring. A neighbor has knee-deep water on his property after a heavy rain and yet another resident near by has to keep a sump pump running continuously to keep up with water.

“This is in a flood area,” he said. “We have an ongoing water problem now and a septic system is going to go in there? What’s going to come out of that? … It’s going to be in our basements.”

Water in basements is one of the biggest concerns for abutters, he said.

ZBA Chairman Kevin Perkins asked when the perk tests failed and Qualter replied  that it had been in the 1990s. Perkins pointed to Title V septic regulations, which went into effect in 1995, but Qualter countered that the added weight of more soil added to the site during prep work countered the effects of Title V.

Qualter also pointed to contaminants such as boric acid and other carcinogenics, were originally found in test wells going back to 1993 and asked what more recent test date showed. He said his wife and several other Spring Street residents have battled cancer for which they blame the groundwater contamination.

“I really think there’s something in this area that has to be addressed that’s not being addressed,” Qualter said.

“I think a lot of what you said is speculative,” Perkins said, drawing Qualter’s ire as he demanded to know why the cancer connection he sees is speculative.

“This board has done its due diligence and gotten information from local engineers, local people, about both of your concerns,” Perkins said, responding to Qualter saying he’s lived on the street since 1974. “If that is your concern, why do you still live there?”

“I think that’s a very rude thing to say,” another member of the audience interjected to the loud agreement of several members of the audience.

Perkins gaveled for order, saying the meeting could be ended if order was not restored, and asking engineers to comment about groundwater contamination and water table issues.

Water mottling, how it stains the soil at high points was not taken into consideration in the 1970s, when perk tests were done for houses of that era, Cushing Trails attorney Michael O’Shaughnessy said.

Another area resident said his house has the same water problems as Qualter, and also pointed to the five feet of soil added to the development site as the cause of excess water being forced out of the ground into basements.

“I lost my washing machine, my dryer, two freezers — whose going to pay for that? Who’s going to buy my house?” the man asked. “The town?”

Qualter has asked for a current evaluation of any contaminants in the area and why the lowest part, subject to flooding, has been selected for a leaching field.

Consultant Bill Kenny of River Hawk Environmental said the DEP has a couple locations included on the post-closure landfill monitoring close to the project area.

“The results of monitoring those didn’t reveal boric acid,” he said. “They’re monitoring for volitile organic compounds, a variety of metals, sodium, nitrates, cyanide sulfide, chloride [among others] and nothing was outside of acceptable limits for the DEP in those southern-most landfill areas.”

There were higher numbers in the more northern area.

Joe Pignola, of the Mass. Housing Partnership, was asked if it would be overstepping to ask for more soil and groundwater samples from the landfill area that abuts the Cushing Trails project.

“The most I would advise the board would be to engage an environmental engineer of equal qualifications [to those who have already conducted those tests] to verify what needs verifying,” Pigola said. He said banks financing the project would likely also require such tests.

Town Counsel Jay Talerman said he had not seen the study already conducted, and echoed Pignola’s statement that additional peer review studies would be done during the process.

“We would not duplicate what DEP would do, but we do have the essential obligation to review issues that could affect public health and safety,” he said.

Christopher Costello, of 446 Spring St., asked if there was a buildable buffer zone beyond which construction is not permitted near a landfill. He asked if the results of site tests could be published to better inform the public.

The DEP has determined no setback applies in this case, O’Shaughnessy said.

Another resident asked if the number of permitted residents per unit had been calculated. Perkins said septic regulations are calculated based on bedroom numbers and the septic regulations will be designed based on 88 bedrooms.

The woman asked how the number of tenants would be policed.

“We can’t speculate that someone is going to have 16 kids living in a two-bedroom house,” Perkins said to the woman’s concern.

Locating extra parking at the development’s entrance, and the noise that could come with it, was another concern by area residents.

“That just made sense as far as the site layout goes,” O’Shaughnessy said, noting the added spots were at the request of the ZBA. “We looked at other spots and we just didn’t think it was conducive to add other spots throughout the site that would work.”

Parking relocations will be re-examined, however.

Another resident was concerned about whether the private road/driveway of the development is wide enough at 20 feet of driving surface, for emergency access and snow removal. Perkins said the fire department had not expressed a concern, but the driveway issue would be reviewed. Perkins also said fire officials had said street names were a concern because of the similarity to other streets in towns. Street names are being reconsidered.

Christine Cohen 493 Spring St., said the traffic study was done during COVID and asked if another study would be done. Perkins said he understands her concerns and noted peer reviews have been done, and said the issue would be reviewed again.

The ZBA supported doing another peer review of the environmental study in light of residents’ concerns.