HANSON – Town officials have reached a consensus on the need for finding alternative, lower-cost methods of providing street-lighting for safety, especially at street intersections.
The discussion —marred by technical difficulties caused echo on the audio feed and rendered useless a virtual connection with Planning Board Chair Joseph Campbell — hinged on changes to street-lighting at the Meadow Brook subdivision on County Road.
“Historically, the town was paying to light all kinds of public ways, like cul de-sacs, and then did some kind of a little ‘come to Jesus’ kind of a thing in the late ’90s/early 2000s, and said, ‘Why are we paying to light all of these streets?’” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said, “Many of them were shut off. I can’t say for [certain that] all of them were shut off, but the vast majority of them were shut off.”
She added that the town is in no financial position to simply decide to turn them back on and the town would pay for them.
“I think that’s where it becomes a problem,” she said.
“That’s why I’m here,” said Town Planner Anthony DeFrias. “This road is not at a point where these street lights are going to go in.”
That’s what brings the town to place the onus on developers or coming to another alternative arrangement instead of getting to the point where the town would be getting more street lights that then get turned off.
The Planning Board has already voted its approval for the new subdivision, which proposes street lights, DeFrias added, nodding to the town requirement for street lights in general and the subdivision in question
Past discussions centered on the unknowns concerning cost in relation to streetlights.
“Is that the board’s position?” he asked about the concerns. “Because, if it is, obviously it’s in conflict with the subdivision control law and, if that’s the case, now’s the time for us to talk to this developer about coming back to the Planning Board and ask for a waiver for that section and propose some alternative street-lighting.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the town would have to foot the bill for the street lights.
“Once the rule is accepted, it will be the town’s responsibility to pay for those streetlights,” he said.
Select Board member Ann Rein asked if there were plans to establish a homeowners association in the development, suggesting that such a group could be expected to shoulder the cost through fees. She pointed to Stone Bridge as such a development.
DeFrias said he believes there is some language toward establishing one.
“But there typically is and there hasn’t been one occasion when that doesn’t even come to fruition or its an ineffective arrangement,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
DeFrias said he has done subdivisions in other communities where, instead of a street light, the town went away from street lights, going with an alternative carriage lamps at the end of driveways, paid for by the homeowners. The only street lights would be put in where the subdivision road meets a main street for safety.
“I think that’’s what we’d want to do where it meets the main drag, which would be the case in this,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“What we do for one, we have to do for everybody,” Select Board member Joe Weeks said. “If we’re going to be spending taxpayer money, we have to do it so it’s fair and equitable for everybody because it’s everybody’s money.”
He asked it would be possible to switch to an alternative power source, such as solar?
DeFrias said that was another option worth exploring. The towns’ subdivision control law has not been updated since 2012, including newer engineering standards, drainage requirements and street lights.
In other business, the Select Board referred an amendment to the zoning by laws proposed by the Planning Board for review and on which to conduct hearings.
Town Planner Anthony DeFrias told the board that a zoning bylaw discussion was to center on a new battery energy storage project approved at Town Meeting last year, but “shot down” by the state attorney general’s office.
“They felt it was two issues that didn’t go [together],” he said. “One had to do, basically, with language that we have that they felt was in conflict with the Waltham case, which is regarding solar – it’s become a crucial case regarding solar. Basically, in a nutshell, there was an access road from one town into Waltham for solar.”
Waltham lost a legal battle over the issue, being found in non-compliance with the Dover Act, which exempts agricultural, religious, and educational uses from certain zoning restrictions.
“We had some language in here that the AG’s office didn’t like, so they turned down the bylaw,” he said. “I’m working with town counsel. We’re going to revise the language so that it meets with what the AG’s office will be comfortable with.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the issue came down literally to that one tweak.
“That is just a draft at this point,” DeFrias said of the adjustment she referred to and asked the Select Board to consider the change. The Planning Board had given it to the Select Board for that consideration, passing it on to the Planning Board to schedule a public hearing and finalize language with input from Town Counsel before it is returned to the Select Board for placing the issue before the October Town Meeting.
“It’s a draft copy, there’s probably going to be even more changes to it, but this is the starting point,” he said.

State Rep. Dylan Fernandes, D-Falmouth, has received the endorsement of both the Sierra Club and the Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM) in his bid for State Senate. These endorsements from two of the most respected environmental organizations in the state underscore Fernandes’ strong record on environmental issues and his leadership in the fight against climate change.
“We need to protect the water resources of the Plymouth and Barnstable district and ensure that our communities are resilient in the face of climate change,” said Fernandes. “In the eight years as state representative, I’ve been a champion of clean air and water and we have more work ahead to protect our environment.”
Fernandes has been a critical leader on environmental policy in his time in the legislature, according to Casey Bowers, Executive Director of the ELM Action Fund. “He has successfully championed clean water, the blue economy, and innovative ideas to ensure that Massachusetts remains a national leader in combating climate change. We are certain that he will continue to prioritize our beautiful beaches and outdoor spaces in the Senate.”
“Dylan Fernandes has been a strong advocate for clean air, clean water, and offshore wind,” said Celia Doremus, Political Chair of the Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter.
Since his initial election in 2016, Representative Fernandes has sponsored dozens of bills advancing clean air and clean water.

The First Baptist Church of Hanson will host a Chicken barbecue from noon to 3 p.m., on Saturday, July 13. Come and enjoy a summer favorite with a half chicken, corn on the cob, various salads, and desert. The cost or donation is $25 each person. The deadline for ticket purchase is Sunday, July 7 in order to guarantee your meal. Take out available with ticket. Call this number: 617-592-7495 or FBCH Office at 781-293-3502. Proceeds will go towards building repairs.
The Church is located at 214 Main Street, Route 27, Hanson, MA 02341. Please contact the church office for more information 781-293-3502 or e-mail: [email protected] or check out our Facebook page. Watch our services Sundays 10AM on Facebook Live or watch past services on YouTube search for “First Baptist Church Hanson”.

Scituate and Cohasset will host the last South Shore Recycling Cooperative (SSRC) household hazardous waste collection this spring It will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on June 15. Fall events will start in October. Registration is required, to reduce wait times. The address and other important event details are revealed on the registration form at bit.ly/Spring24hhw.
All will take place as follows:

• Do not bring LATEX/ACRYLIC PAINT. These paints “clean up with soap and water.” They are not hazardous, just messy. It may be dried and disposed of with regular trash. For more information, review the registration form at bit.ly/ssrchhw or call 781-329-8318.

Register now for the last two spring Household Hazardous Waste collection days.
Five South Shore Recycling Cooperative (SSRC) towns will host the last two household hazardous waste collections this spring.
Registration is required, to reduce wait times.
The addresses and other important event details are revealed on the registration form at bit.ly/Spring24hhw.
All will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as follows:
Saturday, June 8 — Duxbury, Kingston & Pembroke NO LATEX/ACRYLIC PAINT
Saturday, June 15 — Scituate & Cohasset NO LATEX/ACRYLIC PAINT
Latex and acrylic paint “cleans up with soap and water.” It is not hazardous, just messy. It may be dried and disposed of with regular trash.
If you have questions after reviewing the registration form, visit bit.ly/ssrchhw or call 781-329-8318.

The School Committee on Wednesday, May 8 voted 9-0-1 to reaffirm the April 8 vote setting the operating assessments to Whitman at $19,135, 687 and Hanson at $14,974,735 for the regional school district fiscal 2025 budget.
Member Fred Small attended the meeting remotely via phone. He abstained from the vote.
“In Whitman, we have a fully funded budget … with the operating assessment that we had asked for after we certified the assessments for both communities,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said. “However, I believe, in Whitman there will still be an override number on the ballot for May 18.”
Szymaniak explained to the Committee, that in Whitman, the Finance Committee had voted 8-0 against supporting the Select Board’s budget because they had an alternative funding source of free cash and stabilization for everything in the budget (Article 2).
“That wasn’t an opportunity for the taxpayers in Hanson, a this point,” he said. “If we don’t have a budget by July 1, I then go on a 1/12 budget based on the current fiscal 2024 budget, which is problematic for our budget … which will mean pink slips at this point.”
Whitman member Dawn Byers said she had spoken with Hanson Town Moderator Sean Kealy and was told that town’s free cash was in the bank at $1.4 million and its and stabilization account is $1.4 million, with the town only $372,141 off on the assessment for the school district.
Hanson officials said flatly on Tuesday, May 14, that the number was wrong [see story, page 1]
She said she did not support the override on Town Meeting floor because of how it was being presented to the voters, but that she supported the assessment she voted as a School Committee member.
Szymaniak noted that Hanson’s Town Meeting result was different, as an operating assessment of 5 percent was voted by the community and the override number was not voted affirmatively – which leaves the district with no budget, even though the override number is also still on the Hanson Town Election ballotfor May 18.
“I did contact our attorney today and asked which was binding … Town Meeting or the ballot,” Szymaniak said. On Wednesday, May 8, when that call was placed, the attorney was in his car on the way to court and asked Szymaniak to send the pertinent documents on Thursday, May 9. The district’s main question for their law firm is, which is binding – the ballot vote, or the vote of town meeting?
“He was not sure which supersedes,” Szymaniak said. “He didn’t have the law in front of him. … Basically, my recommendation is we don’t have a budget right now.”
If the override passes in Hanson, it could have an excess of $372,141 and they would have to figure out what they want to do with that, according to Szymaniak.
“Knowing these things, and before we have more conversation, my recommendation … is to keep the assessment as is,” said School Committee Chair Beth Stafford. “I don’t want to go over, we’ve already had one community approve it.”
Stafford recommended the committee keep the assessment as-is, because there has already been a lot of discussion and debate on it and Whitman has already passed it. She said school officials are also talking with Hanson, but they have indicated they would prefer to wait until after the May 18 election.
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said he would like to see a detailed opinion of what Hanson’s Town Meeting vote actually means, because he understood it to be a formality to avoid a Town Meeting to appropriate the funds if the override is approved.
“Even if this was basically as a formality to avoid having to reconvene a Town Meeting to appropriate the funds, if the override’s approved because if that’s the case, it’s not an either-or, it’s that they both are binding,” Scriven said, noting that he wanted to ask school district counsel about Hanson’s ballot question.
Szymaniak said it had been explained to him that, since Whitman appropriated from a different funding source, made that void.
“Hanson hasn’t appropriated from another funding source, and that’s why I asked what’s binding,” he said.
“It won’t have been appropriated,” Stafford explained. “You have Town Meeting to appropriate that money so we would hope that it would be appropriated to us, but what are the chances?”
“This is an ongoing dialog right now,” Szymaniak said.
Member Hillary Kniffen, who attended Hanson’s Town Meeting, said that was not at all how the situation was explained to Hanson’s voters.
“The way that it was explained – essentially the takeaway from Town Meeting – was that the override vote on the ballot is moot,” she said. “The consensus was, ‘there is no school budget,’ ‘they don’t get more money,’ ‘there’s no override, hooray,’ ‘we voted it down.’”
She said that perception is important because people who would come out to vote for an override, think the issue is moot and added she felt the Hanson town counsel should communicate with School Committee counsel to determine the facts and communicate them to voters.
“For us on this committee to make decisions moving forward, I think that [believing] the override will pass and they’ll have extra money, I don’t think we should put our eggs in that basket,” Kniffen said.
Committee member Glen DiGravio, also of Hanson agreed.
“If the law is … we have no budget, so we have to reassess,” Szymaniak said. “It would be up to the committee to reassess, based on your feelings of one town actually appropriating a budget and one town not.”
He said that he placed the topic on the May 7 agenda because there is no budget because we don’t have a consensus between the two communities.
“The dangling chad out here is that we have two ballot questions of an override in both communities,” Szymaniak said. “My assumption, based on town meetings is that Whitman would probably vote no on the override because it’s always been appropriated.”
The School Committee could send the towns a budget and the towns would have to schedule a Town Meeting in that case. With 14 days needed to schedule a Town Meeting, Szymaniak said the committee could send the towns new assessments ahead of the May 18 Town Election and go from there.
Whitman Town Counsel, who Szymaniak said was very clear, said both towns have to approve a budget or there isn’t one. If the School Committee doesn’t increase the assessment, however, there would be no need for another Town Meeting in Whitman since everything has been settled outside of an override in that town.
What comes next?
Any increase in Whitman’s assessment would require Town Meeting action.
Szymaniak is concerned the override vote was voided because it went through another funding source – free cash.
“What’s binding? Is it the Town Meeting vote from Handon? Or is it the ballot which supersedes it?” he said.
“The town thinks that this is a done deal,” DiGravio said, agreeing with Kniffen. He asked what the next step would be.
While DeGravio said he was all for sending the same article back to Hanson, but he warned residents won’t be happy to see it return.
“They voted because they didn’t want to take it out of their bank account – their personal bank account – not some town bank account,” he said. “They don’t care about a town bank account.”
Szymaniak reiterated the process of reassessment and revoting, but added if the article fails again, it goes to a Super Town Meeting in which voters of both towns meet jointly.
Whitman member Dawn Byer said she supported sending the budget back for a revote because “that’s democracy.”
“Those citizens will have the opportunity to say no again,” she said.
Scriven also addressed speculation he heard all Town Meeting night and since, that people were critical of the committee for not doing enough to support an override.
“I think that’s fair,” he said. “We didn’t do anything.”
“We can encourage people to vote,” member Fred Small said. “We can’t tell them how to vote.”
Scriven said state ethics law provides more leeway to policy making officials to advocate for ballot questions.
He also asked, on the subject of re-assessing, does it negate everything the committee had done before, and is it forcing Whitman into another Town Meeting.
Szymaniak said that, because Hanson voted before Whitman, town counsel had time to explain that a return of the same assessment, or lower, would not require a town meeting in Whitman. A new town meeting would only be needed if a higher assessment was put forth.
During the meeting’s public comment period, Rosemary Connolly, a Whitman Finance Committee member running for a seat on the School Committee, spoke about the frequent use of the term “best practices” when the committee discusses budgeting.
She noted that the state Department of Local Services’ opinion on the prevailing wisdom against using free cash and non-recurring funds to balance budgets is “something very different.”
“They say you’re supposed to be going your school budget first,” she said. “We have a budgetary process, which I believe, caused this debacle and uneven assessment – we’re not supposed to be putting just a 5 percent or a percentage on anybody’s budget.”
She said doing that risked the school budget being reduces by about $1.5 million each year, restraint only applied to one school while the South Shore Tech budget increased by 11 percent with no challenge.
“I am deeply concerned about some of the rhetoric about best practices that is inaccurate,” she said, arguing the current budget put forth by select boards isolates working families. She said she appreciated the School Committee’s five-year plan as appropriate and thanked the committee for working with the Whitman Finance Committee.

Absentee/Early voting ballots for the May 18, 2024 annual Town Election are now available in the Whitman Town Clerk’s office. Voters that want to vote by absentee/early ballot for this Election are asked to fill out an application as soon as possible. 
Anyone voting by absentee/early ballot by mail must fill out an application or send a letter to the Town Clerk with their signature by Monday May 13, 2024.
 Early voting must be done by mail.
 Absentee voting may be done in person at the Town Clerk’s office during normal business hours. You can absentee until noon on May 17, 2024.
 Voters may vote absentee only if you are absent from the town during the hours the polls are open; physical disability; or religious belief. You can visit VoteinMa.com for application or information.
For more information, call Town Clerk Dawn Varley at 781-618-9710.