HANSON — The Board of Selectmen is seeking legal counsel to review two of the three citizen’s petitions for the Oct. 4 special Town Meeting brought forth by Brook Street resident Frank Melisi, after they discussed the articles with him Tuesday, Aug. 24.

The petitions would require that: elected town officials reside in town  — similar to one Selectmen are seeking for appointed officials — another to support local business and a third to permit retail marijuana sales in town in order to increase the town’s commercial tax base. Melisi said he has been gathering signatures for his petitions outside Shaw’s supermarket nearly every day for a month, garnering more than 320 signatures from the hours he gathered them alone.

They then voted to engage legal counsel to work on the marijuana warrants to make them legally sufficient to present on the May 2022 warrant and ballot, if so indicated by legal research. Melisi indicated that he would be willing to pass over his residency article at Town Meeting in favor of the board’s article.

Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said the Select Board’s petition was aimed at “any board or committee.”

“We didn’t differentiate between elected and appointed,” she said.

Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer also reminded residents that there are certain times when expertise is required and, if a board or committee member has recently moved out of town amid a project requiring that expertise, the town may want the leeway to retain them until the project is completed.

“It would never be intended for it to be a permanent situation,” agreed FitzGerald-Kemmett, noting she does not feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other. Dyer also pointed to the requirement in Meilsi’s petition that those residents be registered voters, recalling his service while in high school as a 17-year-old member of the Energy Committee.

“I wouldn’t want to shut out the younger generation that does want to get involved,” he said of his question on how residency is determined. He suggested a concerned person who is 15 or 16 might want to serve.

“It doesn’t mean you have to vote, you just have to register to vote,” said Melisi, pointing to state law that allows 17-year-olds to register to vote.

FitzGerald-Kemmett saw some validity in Melisi’s argument.

“I would want to think that somebody who wants to serve on a town board or committee is already engaged enough that they would have registered to vote, to the extent they’re eligible,” she said.

Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff said people who move within the state have something akin to a grace period in which they can still vote in their former community before they have to reregister in a new town. She said Hanson could consider making that form of residency immediate when a person moves in or out of town.

“I like to keep it simple, to just have it that a person has to live in the town of Hanson to serve on a board or committee,” Selectman Joe Weeks said.

FitzGerald-Kemmett said she liked Melisi’s approach which would leave that determination with the Town Clerk.

“That’s fine, that’s part of the job,” said Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan, noting that she would favor a waiver for non-residents to serve on search committees, such as with the Police Department, where the chief or another officer would be non-residents.

“I didn’t intend this to be amendment-proof,” Melisi said, holding up the petition papers. “This is the first citizen’s petition I’ve ever done. This one’s the second. This one’s the third.”

Dyer and Sloan pointed out that any amendments to the petitions would be made on the Town Meeting floor.

Selectman Jim Hickey argued that youth involvement was all well and good, but “I do not want that person voting on any committee,” he said. “I just think they don’t have the life experience to vote on some committee at 15 or 16.”

Hickey also said he could see retaining those board or committee members who move while they are in the middle of a project, otherwise they would have enough to do with where they are going than with what’s going on in Hanson.

Dyer suggested a time limit for those situations, suggesting 90 days as an example.

“We’ve got [Baseball] Hall of Famers and Olympians in this town,” Weeks said. “I’m sure we can find a way to have a great amount of talent for these committees without having to make exceptions for something.”

Resident Christine Cohen suggested committee members sign a disclosure if they move and, if they fail to do so and are found out, it should be grounds for immediate removal from a board or commission.

“This citizen’s petition is what it is, you won’t be amending this,” Feodoroff said. “What you would be amending would be your article for your own competing articles.”

Melisi said he would rather Selectmen take their petition up and, whether or not it is amended, have Town Meeting vote on it. He said he would be willing to have his passed over.

Regarding the marijuana petition, Melisi said he was not happy with the voting options open to Hanson residents regarding the school budget at the May Town Meeting — a $1.8 million override.

“I looked for some ways we could bring some revenue back into the town without me starting a business in town, which I am not in a position to do,” he said. “The obvious thing for me, since we already have a good working relationship with Impressed LLC, is to put back on the ballot for 2022 retail marijuana.”

He stressed that he has not spoken with the owner of Impressed LLC, but the petitions he sponsored are aimed to help the town improve its revenue outlook.

“It’s an obvious moneymaker,” Melisi said of the law’s provision that towns may impose a 3-percent tax on retail marijuana sales. While he put a lot of work into the petitions, he admitted he is not a lawyer and Town Counsel has the expertise to go by.

“I’m not trying to put drugs on the street,” he said. “From what I understand, these facilities are a lot more secure and a lot more [stringent] in verification of ID that liquor stores. I’m just looking for a way to bring revenue to the town.”

He said he would be willing to have it passed over if the Select Board draws up it’s own article.

“I can tell you one reason right now why this thing is going to go down in flames,” Feodoroff said, pointing to Melisi’s petition concerning marijuana sales applicability in all zones of Hanson, including residential. The town has limited such business to the industrial park on Commercial Way off Route 27. “There are some problematic areas in here,” she said.

The time frame for the petition process for a zoning issue is also too tight, according to Feodoroff.

“If the board would get this going for the 2022 election, then I would definitely pass over this article,” Melisi said. “I want as many people as humanly possible to be informed and have a debate on this. I don’t want it to be rushed through in a month and a half.”

Melisi also said he was looking for assistance from the board in fine-tuning the petition. Dyer said he was willing to work with him, if he moved to pass it over, for presentation at the next town meeting, if necessary.

Hickey, who voted with the board to place it on the warrant, said it would be the only positive vote he would ever cast on the petition.

“I am not going to hinder you from doing this, but I am 100-percent not going to support it,” Hickey said. “I’ve said, right from the start, when this first came up that I’m against retail marijuana in the town of Hanson.”

“I’m not telling anyone to vote for this, I’m asking to have a debate about this,” Melisi said. “When I opened my tax bill from last quarter, I almost threw up. … I have interest in the money of it.”

Another citizen petition certified by Sloan which would give Selectmen the power to remove all members of the Zoning Board of Appeals at the first board meeting following the Town Meeting.

Feodoroff said the petition does acknowledge that it is a nonbinding resolution and is only advisory.

“I think there’s a question as to whether or not it’s legal because there’s another bylaw in place that doesn’t allow removal except for cause,” she said.

“I am embarrassed that it took a group of citizens coming to us with a citizen’s petition to remove ZBA members, when we’ve gotten a number of complaints and we have been hamstrung and stopped as a board from discussing it,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, stressing she was not expressing an opinion on the matter.

The School Committee presented its strategic plan working group presentations at the Wednesday, Aug. 18 meeting.

Public comment was sought in advance of the meeting and was not scheduled for the meeting itself, out of fairness to the large number of people who submitted comment in advance.

“We’ve received as much public comment as I’ve ever seen, being part of a School Committee, in advance of this meeting,” Chairman Christopher Howard said.

A number of meetings were held throughout the summer, working with the district’s leadership team and administration, to review the district’s strategic plan to identify what their priorities, as a group, should be.

“I can tell you they were here bright and early on the day after a holiday,” Howard said of the group with which he worked. “I can tell you they were here several other times, and I know other groups were here several other times. … This is a volunteer effort.”

Howard described the presentations as “point in time” shares of information, as the work is far from being completed.

Each of the three groups — one-to-one laptop initiative,  K-8 related arts curriculum and early childhood education — were given about 15 minutes in which to make their presentation, with time allotted for a brief question and answer time after each one. He also encouraged the public to send written thoughts, comments and questions about the presentations.

Howard explained that a lot of what the other two working groups were looking at depend on the district’s technology capabilities.

Assistant Superintendent George Ferro’s team — which included Steve Bois, Mike Jones and Beth Stafford — kicked things off with their presentation on a one-to-one laptop initiative. The group had two formal meetings and several subsequent meetings with the group, district IT or administrative teams, as information was gathered.

“We might be a little bit different than the other two groups, because we are actually going to enact this initiative for the start of this school year,” Ferro said. “Where we left off last year with COVID and so many Chromebooks out [with families], we had to find out if this was doable.”

They had to inventory the devices and make sure they could provide equipment to students and teachers.

Stafford said that, while COVID was a terrible thing, the pandemic showed what was needed for today’s education, who had it and who didn’t and how it could be provided for students who lacked access to technology.

Those students were loaned Chromebooks and internet access during last school year.

“What it has led to is that we’re able this year to provide for grades three to 12, a one-on-one Chromebook for each child to go home and to be responsible for to bring to school for the coming year,” she said. Kindergarten to grade two classess will have access to half sets of devices in the classroom.

Ferro said students in grades three to 12 will receive a loan agreement form and will, when parents return the signed form, receive a charger and a Chromebook, including care instruction for students and how to use it in instruction for teachers.

Bois said a grant will also allow the retirement or repurposing of some devices.

Ferro said the at-home learning funding is from a non-competitive federal grant must be awarded, and is administered by the FCC.

“If you have aging devices, or you have students with no connectivity, or you have students with not enough devices in the home … they can be provided with a Chromebook for at-home use,” Ferro said. The district’s aging software made them eligible for the devices they sought. Almost half the district’s more than 3,500 devices age out next year, with the goal to replace 1/6 of the stock each year.

They are working within the district and through federal funds to start a cycle of funding the estimated $270,000 per year that renewal goal with require.

“This is the new curriculum textbook in a very closed way,” Ferro said.

Heather Kniffen presented a review of the K-8 related arts curriculum group’s work. She, Christopher Sciriven, Superintendent Jeff Szymaniak and Michelle Bourgelas served on the group.

“We’re talking about long-term implementation, Kniffen said. “This is not something that we, like the tech group, would be able to work on this year. This is definitely a multi-year project.”

The goal is to engage students and make them look forward to going to school — something that now declines in middle school years — through choices of subject and equity between middle schools in each town.

“The sooner that children are exposed to different cultures and different languages, the more empathetic they become and better human beings, because they understand people,” Kniffen said of the curriculum’s benefits. She added that music and art have behavioral benefits.

A Life Skills class option, described as a Home Economics 2.0 class, is also being discussed, Szymaniak said.

“You might be learning Home Ec. Stuff, you might be learning CPR, you might learn how to change a tire, what a checkbook is — all the types of things that parents talk about ‘I wish my kid knew,’ give them an opportunity to experience some of that in middle school, so as they matriculate to the high school, they have some idea of some of those life skills” he said.

Technical skills, including robotics, are also included.

Challenges to incorporating the program include hiring qualified teachers, intricacies of a middle school schedule, available instructional time and not viewing it as a Band-Aid approach.

Some immediate action steps being taken include determining student interest.

“I’m psyched about this endeavor,” Scriven said. “Particularly in getting kids to want to come to school.”

Szymaniak acknowledged that the scheduling issue is a hurdle, but added the district has time to do that work.

“The key piece here is foreign language should be an academic course,” he said.

Dawn Byers reviewed the work she, Fred Small and David Forth did regarding early childhood education.

Their recommendations are to implement access to high-quality, no-tuition full-day kindergarten in the 2022-23 school year and — in the long-term, to form an Early Childhood Education Committee to focus on and support the short-term goal as well as expansion of universal early childhood education to 3- and 4-year-olds. Questions for administration were regarding: building/classroom space; staffing; transportation; engagement with town leadership, community and families; and financial costs.

She introduced the presentation with a trailer for the film “No Small Matter” about the challenges low-income parents, especially, are having providing their children with the best start on education with children’s earliest years.

Forth reviewed the districts current offerings of half and full-day tuition-based preschool and kindergarten. Preschool tuition costs between about $1,3000 and $6,500 with enrollment limited to 80 students. Kindergarten tuition is $3,200 for the full-day program with 238 pupils. There is no charge for half-day kindergarten.

The state average for full-day kindergarten is 98 percent, with 62 percent of Whitman kindergarten pupils attending full-day classes.

Six of seven surrounding communities offer no-tuition full-day kindergarten. Hanover charges $3,750.

Small lauded Byers’ leadership of the group before discussing its goals.

“Ms Byers did a yeoman’s share of the work here,” he said.

The goal is to share the benefits of, and create a pathway for, high-quality early childhood education for Whitman and Hanson’s 3- to-to-5-year-old pupils with a long-term vision of universal high-quality, no-tuition preschool and pre-kindergarten.

Byers said there are educational, equity and economic benefits of high-quality early childhood education. That includes a greater contribution to society as adults.

Asked about the cost, Szymaniak said his charge to the group was to come up with the reasons to support such a program.

“I didn’t want the folks to get bogged down with the dollars and cents,” he said. “This is a ‘Why?’ Why to we need to do this? You’ve given me the why, I can give you the ‘How?’”

“And the how much?” Howard said.

Howard also welcomed Whitman’s recently-appointed member Beth Stafford. The former Whitman Middle School teacher was appointed by the town’s Selectmen to fill a vacancy when Dan Cullity resigned for family matters.

“If we’re starting our children young, and we’re putting everyone on the same playing field, we’re investing in prevention, not in remediation,” Small said. “When that student’s in third grade, we don’t have to have those reading specialists.”

Teachers won’t have to be spending time in first grade trying to catch the 38 percent of half-day kindergarteners with those who attended full-day K.

“That’s a cost-savings, and that’s a direct benefit,” he said.

Whitman residents of all ages have fond memories of summer concerts at the bandstand in the park, Council on Aging programs, Youth Library events and more, all funded with grants from the Whitman Cultural Council (WCC). Unfortunately, in person events and concerts were cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Also, a lack of volunteers on the Council prevented residents who were involved from meeting in person to plan events as they didn’t have the quorum necessary (four out of seven members) to approve grant funds from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.  However, things are looking better! Outdoor restrictions have been lifted and the WCC is thrilled to have five new volunteer members appointed by Selectmen since June 8.

Since the end of June, the Council has met several times and is in the process, that is guided by the state, of approving FY21 grant funds to artists and organizations who applied last year.  Our goal is to schedule programs, shows and events as soon as possible, based on availability of the performers.

The Council is also in the process of creating grant funding priorities for 2022.  In order to do this, we are collecting feedback from residents in a Community Input Survey. We would like to hear from you about the cultural events and programs that you would be interested in attending in our community.  A link to the online survey is posted on the homepage of the town website: whitman-ma.gov and paper copies are available at the Whitman Council on Aging, Public Library and outside the Town Clerk’s office at Town Hall.  The survey is open until Aug.17.

Follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/WhitmanCulturalCouncil), Twitter @CouncilWhitman and Instagram (WhitmanCulturalCouncil) to get the latest news and updates! For more information, email: [email protected].

 The Massachusetts Cultural Council (massculturalcouncil.org) is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation. The Local Cultural Council (LCC) Program enriches the cultural life of all cities and towns in Massachusetts. Led by municipally appointed volunteers, LCCs award over $4 million every year, supporting 6,000 cultural programs that include everything from field trips to lectures, festivals, and dance performances.

The WCC is a local agency supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Current Members appointed by the Whitman BOS are: Erin Johnson, Anthony Taylor, Dawn Byers, Tina Vassil, Julia Nanigian, Will Haran and Julianna Dunn.

WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, July 20 discussed the need to set up a meeting on Aug. 24 with the town’s consultant on strategic planning.

Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman had emailed Selectmen ahead of the July 20 meeting, indicating consultant Ann Donner would like input from the board.

“What she requested was the board’s sense of the ‘long-term primary strategic initiative over the next five years,’” Heineman said.

“Frankly, I think she’s been given a lot of information already,” Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski. “I hope she’s been given our community survey we did two years ago. I hope that she’s been given the report of the override budgetary committee that [Selectman Randy LaMattina] ran. I know she’s been given the report of the Capital Planning Committee. There’s a lot of material we have that she should have had by now. She should have it.”

Heineman said Donner has been forwarded the constituent survey, job classification information, Housing Production Plan that has not yet been adopted by Town Meeting, the most recent Town Report, the most recent (through fiscal 2022) budget and the most recent capital plan.

He said he would like to see some progress made by the Aug. 24, meeting, noting she has already set up meetings with department heads.

“It’s a good start,” he said. “Strategic planning is important — it takes some energy, it takes some time,” Kowalski said, noting he had done quite a bit of it at Massasoit.

He said he also looks forward to some discussions similar to those recently undertaken by the School Committee in recent weeks.

LaMattina also said the town has been specific that the schools should be involved in strategic planning discussions.

Heineman also reviewed the MGL 40R and 40S provisions.

Local zoning, specifically density and whether it includes affordable units was reviewed.

“In one law, it’s built around a transit-oriented area — in our case a commuter rail operation,” Heineman said. “It’s certainly a complicated topic that govern this.”

He explained that the state Legislature had passed, and the governor recently signed, a bill called the MBTA Communities Act, which requires communities that have a transit station to have a particular zone within a half-mile of the station with a zoning ordinance providing one reasonably-sized district where multi-family housing is permitted as a right. Each such district must have at least 15 units per acre.

The state’s Department of Communities and Development is tasked with implementing regulations that govern the issue.

“They haven’t done this,” he said. “We not know yet when they will do that. We do not know yet when they will do that, but we do know that, at some point, they will have to, according to this new law.”

Noncompliance with the new zoning regulation would render a community ineligible for three different types of state grants MASSWorks, the Housing Choice initiative and the Local Capital Projects Fund. None of the zoning areas within the Commuter Rail zone in Whitman currently allow that kind of population density.

“This is the stick vs. the carrot,” Heineman said. “The carrot, that has previously existed for 40 years is MGL 40R, 40S and that allows … for increased density either/or and around the commuter rail station or, in our case, around our downtown business district.”

Density bonuses would be available to the town for creating more housing in the business district if the town is preapproved by the state for its plan.

Selectman Randy LaMattina said he would prefer to see something from the Planning Board on the issue before he considers any action on the proposal. Kowalski agreed that such a request made sense.

Selectmen also discussed redesigning the town website to make it more user-friendly.

“People are constantly complaining on Facebook on issues like that,” Selectman Dan Salvucci said of information residents request about notification on changes to trash schedules and the like.

“I personally don’t want people going to Facebook for answers about the town,” LaMattina. “They should be able to go to the town website to get their answer.”

Tony Reis is the new man in charge of the Whitman-Hanson Regional High boys’ soccer team.

Reis takes over for Dave Leahy, who stepped down after four seasons due to a work commitment.

Reis, who works for the Upper Cape Regional Vocational School, spent six seasons as Upper Cape’s head coach. His teams won three league titles and qualified for the MIAA tournament six years in a row.

Reis played his high school ball at Taunton High.

“Coach Reis has a passion and love for the game of soccer,” said W-H athletic director Bob Rodgers. “His success speaks for itself, but his view of the role of athletics in a student’s life is what excites me about having him joining our staff.”
Reis also owns a soccer academy down the Cape.

W-H finished the shortened 2020 campaign with a 6-7 record.

The School Committee met to discuss strategic plan working groups at its Wednesday, June 23 meeting.

“Basically, we’re just going to go around, one-by-one and we’re going to share some ideas,” said Chairman Christopher Howard. “These ideas are meant to be broad areas of focus … we’ll come back [this] week, after we’ve let those ideas soak in and everybody’s had the opportunity to think about that.”

The goal is to ultimately vote on some of the ideas on a rank-choice basis to narrow the list to three ideas, which would be discussed over the summer — through to mid-August — doing a “deep dive.”

Mike Jones, who was away with his family, and Fred Small, who was seeing to a personal family matter, did not attend the meeting.

Steve Bois kicked things off by suggesting “lets get things done that we want to get done,” specifically full-day kindergarten and a return of foreign languages to middle school curricula, if not the elementary grades, as well.

“If this is what’s working for other districts — for places across the country — let’s just do it,” Bois said, noting he has always considered Massachusetts schools to be among, if not the nation’s best. “It’s probably not only to our benefit, but obviously, to the kids’ benefit.”

Michelle Bourgelas agreed with Bois on the language issue, noting that high school students have had the option of taking AP Spanish and earning the opportunity to pass on taking a language requirement in college. Because middle schoolers do not now take a language, the AP option is not available in high school so they will have to take language requirements in college.

Tracking student achievement in elementary grades is important, said Hillary Kniffen, but she asked what is being done to track it in grades six through 12.

Dawn Byers spoke of the need to analyze and address the funding decline, which began in 2009 during the Great Recession.

“My big-picture is district-wide, and it ties into kindergarten, but it’s combining grade levels,” she said. “My thought process is, it helps with equitable class sizes, if you combine all second-graders in Whitman, perhaps, in one school … it allows the teachers to collaborate and evens out the class sizes.”

She said she hoped the list would not be shelved until next year once a particular goal is selected as the primary goal for the year.

“It is going to be a multi-year plan,” Howard said.

Christopher Scriven said his decision behind his running for a seat on the School Committee, to begin with, was to affect change on the culture of the district.

“There’s been a lot going on, so I haven’t pushed hard for that, but I’ve been around long enough — I’ve worked in the district, I’ve seen enough things where … I think we could do better in areas, particularly the ‘average kid,’” Scriven said, stressing he is a “big fan of W-H.”

He said the emphasis on deliverables makes it hard to measure, but he wants kids to feel comfortable in school.

Dan Cullity said all-day kindergarten must be done. W-H is one of only about a dozen districts in the state to not have a full-day kindergarten program, as many districts that do are already shifting attention to full-day pre-K.

“We already missed the boat on that,” he said. “It’s going to be forced down our throats.”

David Forth suggested modernizing tech infrastructure as well as expansion to foreign language to the elementary level.

Small submitted written ideas pointing to full-day kindergarten as a primary goal, and Jones advocated for a deeper dive into facilities and capital goals. Howard, too advocated for early childhood education.

The full discussion can be streamed on the WHCA-TV YouTube channel.

Other ideas mentioned included social-emotional needs of children, uniform start time appropriate for all students, possible class size caps and early college credit classes targeting first-generation college students.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said the leadership team’s goals included continuing with the one-to-one technology initiative, a robust K-8 arts program — which could include languages and/or a life-skills program.

“If we’re doing what’s best for kids, then what do they need?” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said of an arts/life skills program. “I could contend that I would rather take coding than Spanish, because I’ll take Spanish when I get to college. … What do we owe students in this time frame to make them successful for all aspects of their life?”

Howard said students may not be excited about learning the material needed to pass an MCAS test, but they want to learn.

BRIDGEWATER — The W.E.B. Major Crimes and Drug Task Force, consisting of the Whitman, West Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Bridgewater and Bridgewater State University Police Departments, reports that two men were arrested on multiple drug charges this week.

Marlon Teixeira, 31, of Bridgewater, was charged with: Trafficking Fentanyl Over 200 grams; Trafficking Cocaine Over 100 grams; Trafficking Percocet; Unlawful Possession of a Firearm; Unlawful Possession of Ammunition. Additionally, Djestiny Andrade-Fonseca, 20, Brockton, was charged with:  Unlawful Distribution of a Class A Drug (Fentanyl) and Unlawful Distribution of a Class A Drug (Fentanyl).

As a result of the investigation, the State Police assigned to the Plymouth County DA’s office Narcotics Unit sought and obtained a search warrant for an apartment on High Street in Bridgewater (Teixeira’s residence). The warrant was executed on Sunday, June 13.
Teixeira was located in a camper in the rear of the property. State Police found approximately one kilogram of fentanyl inside the camper and a 9mm Glock firearm with a high-capacity magazine. State Police also seized an additional 523 grams of fentanyl, 249 grams of Percocet, 125 grams of cocaine and $142,193 in cash.
As a result, Teixeira was placed under arrest and arraigned in Brockton District Court Monday, June 21.

During the investigation, Andrade-Fonseca was also located inside the camper and was identified as an alleged runner for Teixeira. He will be arraigned in Brockton District Court at a later date.

“These arrests were the result of several weeks of investigation on behalf of multiple local and state agencies, and we are fortunate to have been able to take large quantities of drugs off the streets without incident,” East Bridgewater Police Chief Paul O’Brien said.

The investigation is ongoing.

These are allegations. All suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.