HANSON – It’s always welcome news for the Select Board when a town department can save people money.
The Multi-Service Senior Center saw more than 138 Hanson residents during the open enrollment period ending Dec. 7, 2023 – saving them more than $58,000 all together. One client saved $16,000 when his carrier no longer covered his insulin.
“It’s their money, and if we can save them a little bit …” said Elder Affairs Director Mary Collins, who provided the board with an update on the Senior Center and its services such as Meals on Wheels and Hanson SHINE counselors, state-certified personnel who help seniors enroll in Medicare.
“We’re not making people’s decisions for them,” Collins said. “We’re giving them options.”
SHINE counselors are certified by the state, to aid seniors in selecting Medicare advantage plans without commission from insurance companies, unlike the advantage plan brokerage firms advertised by retired celebrities on TV.
“We’re going to give you unbiased information,” Collins said. “We [also] have the ability to vet people for maybe public benefits that they’re unaware they may qualify for. We truly want them to benefit from it.”
Part-time administrative assistant Roberta Bartholdson schedules Medicare open enrollment and intake appointments. Part-time Outreach Coordinator Linda Mulrey and volunteers Fae Vitalle and Jim Hickey – who were all SHINE-certified last May, assist Collins with open enrollment, as well.
Nutritional services and food donations and help with SNAP and housing benefit applications are always available, too.
“Don’t ever feel that you are in need,” Collins said. “There’s always food available, just pick up the phone, or have somebody you know make the call.”
Over the course of a year, more than 5,400 Meals on Wheels volunteers go out to Hanson seniors. More than 200 emergency meals went out and congregate meals are served at the Multi-Service Senior Center twice a week, will “well over 1,100” served over the past year.
“Throughout COVID – before, after and for the most umpteen years – we have had four groups of people that deliver Meals on Wheels,” Collins said. “There are many reasons why it’s beneficial for people to get Meals on Wheels. Of course, nutrition and [dependable] access to food … people are seen by someone.”
Many of the Meals on Wheels drivers return to clients after they complete their route for a cup of coffee or tea and a social visit.
“It’s another set of eyes on people who might be frail in our community,” she said.
Leah’s Club, which has taken the place of the Supportive Day Program – forced to be discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic – on Tuesdays and Wednesdays offers support and activities for people with dimensia.
“The feedback from the families is tremendous,” Collins said.
She is also seeking a $300,000 grant from the Executive Office of Elder Affairs to bring back supportive day programs or estblish new ones to help expand the facility or improve use of space to help make that possible.
Music, dancing, chair yoga and other programs are also available.
Collins also thanked Camp Kiwanee for housing the center after pipes burst last February and Community Christmas for bringing cheer to elders in need at the holidays.
Police: State policy won’t support Auburn Street speed limit change
By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
[email protected]
WHITMAN – Changing a speed limit sign is not going to solve the problem concerning traffic along Auburn street police officials say.
A traffic study requested by a resident on the speeds along Auburn Street last year saw the Whitman Police concentrate on four locations along the roadway, according to Chief Timothy Hanlon in a recent report to the Select Board. The locations were along a stretch from Washington Street to the Brockton line.
“We do traffic enforcement all over town,” he said. “Sometimes it’s by request, sometimes it’s by necessity.”
Posted speed limits on that section of road are between 40 and 45. It is not considered a thickly settled district.
He gave a location on Temple Street after an overhead light that “everyone was complaining about,” as an example. “[DPW Superintendent] Bruce Martin got that posted as a school zone and then we went from there and did our best to add those traffic signals that identify it as a school zone and we’ve been doing traffic enforcement up there because it’s changed.”
Hanlon said he was aware that residents were among those asking that the speed limit be lowered on Auburn Street in the interest of pedestrian safety as he reported the study’s findings about the roadway that is also state Route 14, to the Select Board on Tuesday, Jan. 9.
“Often MassDOT is asked to address special speed limit concerns by simply changing speed limit signs,” Hanlon quoted from the mass.gov website. “Research and experience, though, have taught us that changing the posted speed limit alone does not typically change the way people drive – at least, not by itself.”
His conclusion was that state officials would not likely favor reducing speeds in the area.
The last traffic study of Auburn Street was done in 2008-09, Hanlon said.
“They didn’t find much of a deviance,” he said. “The 85th percentile of the speed was 45 miles an hour and, based on what the speed limits are … between 40 and 45 miles an hour, that’s where they want to be.”
Select Board member Shawn Kain said he would like to see something done to help the Auburnville population.
For Whitman Police, that would come down to enforcement.
Hanlon said he had additional questions – about a section of Auburn Street east of Bedford Street, which showed the only real deviation, going from the 85th percentile of 38 miles an hour in 2004 to 45 miles an hour; the timing of previous studies and whether there is a specific threshhold for reducing the speeds along Auburn Street.
“They’re not exactly sure what the cause of that is,” he said. “It could be that the traffic counter was placed in a slightly different spot to register a different speed, depending upon how far down in that area that it was placed.”
Hanlon said the exact placement of previous traffic counters was evidently not recorded.
The earliest study he found was conducted in 2004 and others were done in 2008 and 2009, on traffic in both directions. There was also no specific speed threshold.
“If the cars were going a lot faster, would you want to drop it down, and the answer to that is no,” Hanlon said. “This location does have existing special speed limits and that does make it more difficult to change the speed limit, as the existing state law would have to be repealed first.”
After researching the matter on the ma.gov website, Hanlon found that lower posted speed limits “don’t affect driver behavior that much on their own.”
“It’s in combination with other things, like traffic enforcement, and we really haven’t done any traffic enforcement up there since the construction has taken place,” he said. “There was no need for it up there because the roads were all dug up, and now that it’s done, it’s let’s see how this process is going to play out.”
Whitman Police can, however, make enforcement a priority on their own, according to Hanlon.
“We’ve been running radar in various locations, one of which is Raynor Avenue,” he said. “We can slow people down while we’re there and then, when we adjust as necessary, but we can’t be everywhere all the time, so we have to decide where we’re going to do traffic enforcement and go from there.”
State’s history is a whale of a tale
WHITMAN – Considering that the whaling industry has been outlawed in the United States since 1941, whaling culture still has an impressive hold on us.
The blue, green and white logo of the erstwhile Hartford Whalers NHL team – now the Carolina Hurricanes – is still widely thought to be one of the best logos in sports. The H for Hartford sitting atop a stylized W for Whalers, both toped with cetacean flukes has always been eye-grabbing.
During the COVID lockdown of 2020, the stir-crazy global community became enthralled with a certain New Zealand whaling sea shanty, “The Wellerman,” which was written about a whaling supply ship owned by the Weller Brothers. Written in perhaps the mid-1800s – the Weller Brothers were bankrupt by the 1840s – the song relates how eagerly whaling ship crews looked forward to its ships’ visits bringing much sought-after sundries like tea, rum and perhaps letters from home.
What started as a single-voice work by Scottish tenor Nathan Evans, saw successive singers add bass, baritone and other vocal ranges as well as instruments – and the video blandishments of several popular memes.
People were bored and it was a catchy tune.
Whaling crew descendant, and New Bedford Whaling Museum docent Charles R. Chace brought a different taste of whaling’s hey day and decline to the Whitman Public Library on Saturday, Jan. 27 by way of a talk titled “Whales and Whaling History.”
“Ever since man has lived next to the seashore, they’ve been using whale products because whales die and wash ashore,” he said. “Then they learned how to hunt them a very long time ago.”
At first, that meant sending boats out after sick or dying whales close to shore and hunting them. By the time 20th-century factory ships were created, they were killing 50,000 to 60,000 whales a year, mainly to feed the post-WWII starving peoples of Europe.
A global moratorium on hunting was imposed in 1983. But Japan has since begun hunting again, Chace said.
Chace, whose grandfather Jonathan Chace and great uncle, Capt. Charles A. Chace of Westport, were both whalers, and whose great aunt had been a first mate on some of her husband’s voyages, combined tales of his family’s eexperiences with notes about whale biology and the demographic changes of whale crews to weave a story about some of the final years of whaling in America.
Family business
President of the Descendants of Whaling Masters, Chace was named for his great uncle, who spent 40 years making whaling voyages.
“I grew up listening to his stories and I learned some things about whaling from him,” Chace said, noting that his grandfather was the first member of the family to go whaling, followed by three brothers and his son, Charles. Chace’s great aunt Emily married Capt. Ed King and went to sea with him several times. Capt. Charles A. Chace’s wife Rachel went to sea as an assistant navigator on several voyages before they began their family.
Chace’s great uncle had also been a docent of the whaling museum before him.
Chace himself has developed a love for whales and has been a supporter of measures to protect them from the threats of the modern world and a changing environment. As an educational docent at the Whaling Museum, he has been trained to discuss the exhibits, the feeding, breeding and birthing of several whale species, and the equipment and methods used to hunt and process them. His talk was sponsored by the Friends of the Whitman Public Library.
“My grandfather died young, and he raised my father, [Stuart]” Chace said of the whaling captain for whom he was named. “He lived to be 93.” The elder Charles Chace died a month before he was invited to another instance of whaling in our culture, the debut of the movie adaptation of “Moby Dick,” starring Gregory Peck in 1956.
“Gregory Peck was going to pick him up and take him to the movie,” Chace recalled. Instead, he and his mother attended, sitting two seats behind Peck in the theater.
Whale biology
His talk focused on the differences between baleen and toothed whales, their ranges, eating habits and ways in which whale’s bodies helped them survive the ocean depths. He also discussed the mechanics of different types of harpoons.
Baleen whales swim along the surface, taking water in and then pushing the water back out through the baleen, licking small zooplankton caught in it, and swallowing. Baleen was used for women’s corsets, umbrella stays, buggy whips – many things that would be made of plastics today. Baleen sold for about 80 cents a pound in the 1850s.
Blue whales, humpbacks and fin whales, however, have lower-jaw skin that expands as they take in water expelling the water to sift out zooplankton as they breach.
Right whales, he noted, got their name because the now-highly endangered breed was considered the “right whale” to hunt.
“We’re trying hard to save them,” Chace said of the right whales, of which there are now only about 350 left. “They are slow swimmer, easy to catch and float after they die. Grey whales fight back – they called them devil-fish.”
Sperm whales, the largest toothed whales, live in harems and feed on the giant squid that live at depths of a mile and a half. They find their prey by sonar and swallow it whole, returning to the surface in stages because they are subject to the bends, as humans are.
To dive down there to begin with, sperm whales have a hyper-efficient bloodstream with a higher factor of hemoglobin than humans to help store oxygen. Their spines are also not directly connected to their ribs, allowing them to exhale before sounding, as their rib cage folds inward to protect their lungs.
Sperm whales are capable of sounding for more than an hour.
They were hunted for the spermaceti in their head, which is part of their sonar.
Chace offers more tales of whales and the whaling industry – including terrible food and living conditions of crews – visit the New Bedford Whaling Museum [whalingmuseum.org].
Sam Mewis announces retirement from soccer
Hanson’s hometown hero, Sam Mewis, has called it a career.
The 31-year-old Mewis announced she has retired from soccer due to a repetitive knee injury.
“With both sadness and clarity, I am retiring from professional soccer,” Mewis posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Unfortunately, my knee can no longer tolerate the impact that elite soccer requires. Though this isn’t what I wanted, it’s clear that this is the only path forward for me.”
Mewis became the talk of the town during summer of 2019, when she helped lift the United States Women’s team to a World Cup title. She played in six of seven matches and had two goals.
In 2020, Mewis was voted the U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year.
Then in 2021, the midfielder, along with her sister, Kristie, was a member of bronze medal winning team US at the Tokyo Olympics. She netted a hat trick in a 4-0 friendly victory over Colombia.
Mewis graduated from Whitman-Hanson Regional High in 2010.
Mewis out,
Sentnor in
While Mewis has called it a career, Hanson’s next soccer star has arrived in the big stage.
Her name is Ally Sentnor.
Sentnor, who graduated from Thayer Academy in 2021 before heading off to play at the University of North Carolina, was selected first overall by the Utah Royals in the 2024 National Women’s Soccer League Draft.
— Nathan Rollins
Hanson eyes a full-time ACO
HANSON – Town Administrator Lisa Green told the Select Board on Tuesday, Jan 9, that they should seriously consider increasing the Animal Control budget to $72,000 for fiscal 2025 – to include a full-time animal control officer, while supplying vehicle equipment to lift heavy animals, such as deer, from the roads and reopening the town’s animal shelter as a temporary holding facility.
That would be an increase of $43,034 from $28,966 for salary and costs ($2,500 for expenses; $800 for supplies; $1,800 for vehicles, none of which have ever been used) with some expenses reduced and others increased ($2,500 for supplies, $15,000 for building repair, $5,000 for utilities, and $5,000 for expenses). Green said those expenses could be adjusted if some supplies and labor were donated.
The Select Board voted to support a warrant on the matter and to explore the placement of the ACO under the auspices of the police department.
“This is not a want, this is now a requirement,” Green said.
The reason – tremendous growth of housing stock now under construction in town and the often-accompanying problem of abandoned pets when tenants move or are evicted.
“Hanson is growing tremendously and Mass. General Laws state that each town must have an animal control officer,” Green said. “We can’t ignore it anymore.”
There are now four apartment buildings going in on Main Street. Liberty Wood will have 56 units; Station Landing will have 49 units; Dakota Partners, which has been open for a year, has 48 units; Cushing Trail will have 40 units, there are nine new houses going in on County Road – a total of 206 housing units.
She said that prior to the opening of developer Dakota Partners’ Depot Station apartment complex, abandoned animals had not been a focus of the town. When there was a need, they have used the Lakeville animal shelter for the last few years.
Hanson has been sharing animal control services with other communities, which has worked well until recently, Green said, calling it a “complex area” because of the range of calls that come in, from animals of all sizes hit by vehicles to dog bites or attacks, bear sightings or livestock in crisis.
“It’s a 24/7 job because they’re on call,” she said. “Animal Control officers generally don’t patrol because, basically, we don’t have the resources to do that.”
ACO Joe Kenney, who has been working with Hanson since 2019, has done so on a part-time, 16-hour per week basis. Hanson does not provide any type of equipment for the work or resources for where to put carcasses or shelter confiscated animals or the protective apparel he might need.
The vehicle that was being used for animal control has been used recently by the Highway Department and will be redeployed to Kenney’s use.
“With the arrival of these multi-unit facilities, we’re facing new challenges,” she said, citing the example of evicted tenants. “They leave their pets behind. … It is, under the law, the town’s responsibility to remove that animal.”
Making a problem more difficult is the fact that most area shelters do not accept cats, so Kenney has been bringing abandoned felines to his home until he can find a shelter to take it in.
“We can’t have our animal control officer bringing these animals to his house,” Green said, citing liability to the town if he was bitten. He also ends up bringing abandoned or confiscated dogs to his house if Lakeville’s shelter is full. Hanson has an animal shelter, but it has been closed since 2012. Hanson pays Lakeville a rate per day for the time a dog is kept there, and that town is discussing raising the cost to $250 per dog per day when they do have room.
“Not to mention he’s not getting paid for taking care of the animal at his home,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Kenney said most of Hanson’s dogs are usually claimed because they are someone’s pet – at times before he has completed the 40-minute drive to Lakeville. Farm animals for which he is called cannot go to Lakeville anyway.
“I think the time has come, as the town grows, to seriously look at reopening that shelter,” Green said.
She has increased the ACO salary in the fiscal 2025 budget and allotted funds to reopen the animal shelter, working with South Shore Tech to have students fix it up, as well as funding the supplies Kenney needs.
“He is an excellent animal control officer, he knows the laws, he works very well with the people, he loves animals and I think we need to pay attention to this, increase the budgets, reopen the shelter and possibly partner with Abington,” Green said.
Abington also lacks a shelter, she noted adding that she has already reached out to the Abington town manager to perhaps begin discussing a partnership toward sharing costs.
Most South Shore towns either contract out, work with Boston Field Services or partner with other towns for animal control, but Green said those arrangements do not always work out.
“It has not historically worked for us,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve done Whitman, East Bridgewater, now Lakeville, and there’s always some issue.”
She also said that, since Kenney has been the ACO, she has heard very few, if any complaints about responsiveness or any of the problems the town has had in the past and that, compared to others in the region, he is not paid appropriately.
“And yet, here he is, doing his job and not complaining about it and doing it well,” she said.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked for an estimate of the cost to rehabilitate the shelter building an whether ARPA money could be used. The ACO salary is currently $20,566 for the year, Green said. A full-time position would be budgeted for $41,000 for the increased hours.
Green said she will look into the ARPA question, and that Town Hall facilities staffer Charlie Baker is gathering quotes to repair leaks in the roof; it should cost about $350 to clear overgrowth at the rear of the building; she is looking into having SST remove kennel fencing and gates to restore and rustproof them; and is calculating utility costs.
“I have put a budget of $15,000 in for rehabilitation of the building,” Green said. “What’s good about animal shelters is there’s a lot of interest from volunteers … so we’re reaching out to different resources for helping get that animal shelter back up and running.”
Holiday salutes for fallen at Arlington
Whitman Marine Corps veteran James Murphy recently took part in what has become an annual Christmas tradition – traveling to Arlington National Cemetery to decorate the graves of the nation’s fallen and veterans interred there for the holidays as part of the Wreaths Across America program.
He takes photos of the event to share with Express readers. Most of this year’s photo were taken on Saturday, Dec. 16, but he returned Sunday, Dec. 17 to visit the burial site of an old friend, who was buried there last June. Paul Starbile was a fellow Marine veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts, and a Bronze Star during fighting at the Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam.
“We were members of the Boston Crusaders Senior Drum & Bugle Corps for many years back in the day,” Murphy recalled. Starbile is buried in Section 78-headstone 794.
He also sought out Travis Manion and Brendan Looney, who have have been the subject of several books. Both became close friends at the Naval Academy. One became a Marine, the other chose the Navy. One died in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. They are interred in Section 60.
Staff Sgt. William Joseph Callahan, USMC was a local resident, graduated from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. (Section 60). Truman Crawford was the director of the Marine Drum & Bugle Corps at 8th & I in Washington, D.C. (Section 36).
“I just took a lot of pictures at Arlington National Cemetery,” he recalled. “It looks beautiful with the wreaths placed on the headstones. It’s a special place, words are hard to describe the range of emotions while walking the grounds of the cemetery. I really don’t think most Americans realize or they take for granted the sacrifices that were made. Just my opinion.
“I will keep doing this every December as long as I can,” he said.
Soils sampled for potential ag sites
WHITMAN – Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter on Select Board on Tuesday, Dec. 19, followed up on survey being done on farmland of local importance after the town approved a Right to Farm Bylaw at the November Town Meeting.
That vote was taken to make it possible for Hornstra Farms to return cows to the former Peaceful Meadows facility the Norwell Dairy had purchased at public auction.
Carter said a soil survey has been conducted in December by a certified soil scientist with the American Farmland Trust on certain other parcels in Whitman.
“The document recognizes the soils that have evidence of suitability for crop production within a locality but are not classified as important farmland soils in the soil survey,” Carter said. “These identified parcels can now be considered for federal agricultural land easements … funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).”
Under the federal agricultural land easement program, the landowner is paid the market value, less the agricultural value of the land in exchange for limiting non-agriculatural uses of such parcels.
“It’s a good program,” Carter said. “It’s good to have in place so that, if we do go in that direction, we’re eligible for funding.”
She said the former Peaceful Meadows land is probably the only one where the issue would arise.
Farmland of Local Importance documents are signed by local officials and the NRCS’s state conservationist. It is then recorded in the NRCS field offices’s technical guide.
“There’s no cost to the town,” Carter said. “There is no regulatory association, [and] the designation does not affect tax rates and it may not make a difference in preserving farmland.”
Carter said that, just as the Right to Farm Bylaw should raise the town’s eligibility for state funding for agricultural restriction program, so should the Farmland of Local Importance increase the eligibility for a federally-funded agricultural land designation and easement.
“Basically, by having some of these properties identified with the Farmland of Importance designation, it opens up some state funding for the right to farm and, for this program, federal funding,” she said. “So, if the town wanted to pursue an agricultural restriction on any of the land in Whitman … it would give us some funding toward that.”
Other funds that could be used would be Community Preservation funds.
– Tracy F. Seelye
Duval School wraps up 2023
By Dr. Darlene Foley,
Duval School Principal
It’s been a busy fall at John H. Duval Jr Elementary School with lots of exciting things happening. Last spring, Duval had its annual Boosterthon event and raised funds for an Outdoor Classroom. The Outdoor Classroom will be a flexible learning space for teachers and students. It was purposely designed so seating (not shown) can be arranged that reflects lesson needs and the imagination of teachers and students. The project was designed and built with the support of Duval families, PTO, and WHRSD. I’d like to give special thanks to Baker and Sons Construction, Chuck Crawford, Mike Driscoll, Marshall Ottina, and Matt Price, who were instrumental during the process.
Duval held its Annual Basket Raffle on Nov. 17 at the Whitman VFW. The event was so much fun for the entire family, and we raised a staggering $15,500!
The Basket Raffle is a huge undertaking every year and includes a wide variety of themed baskets, gift certificates, entertainment tickets, and unique experience events designed and donated by the Duval staff. The Annual Basket Raffle keeps getting better due to the ongoing commitment of our volunteers and the generosity of our entire school community.
I’d like to thank the PTO board members Mrs. Dearing, Mrs. DeLaiarro, Mrs. Lyons, Mr. Ottina, and Mrs. Chester (the event chair…huge kudos!) who worked on the event about 12 months in advance. Proceeds from the event support learning enrichment programs for all of our Duval Dolphin students.
The giving keeps on giving at Duval!
Last Friday, we wrapped up our Holiday Food Drive for the Whitman Food Pantry at our All School Meeting. Students donated green beans, carrots, potatoes, yams, gravy, cranberry sauce, desserts, and quick breads. All those individual donations – those individual acts of kindness – resulted in an enormous food donation that will help many families in our community.
With the help of our grade five Student Council members, 500 pounds of food was loaded into cars destined for the Whitman Food Pantry. Former Duval teacher Mrs. Kelley, Mrs. Carpenter, Mrs. Smith, and Mr. Ward received the donation on behalf of the Whitman Food Pantry. Thank you to all the families who contributed to the food drive. At Duval, we feel that this food drive provides students with an important opportunity to learn and practice community engagement and citizenship.
These successes show that students, families, and staff are fully committed to our school. I am grateful for everyone’s attention and effort that make John H. Duval Jr. Elementary School a special place.
Public information session is held
South Shore Tech Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey is asking for people’s patience as the regional vocational school district shares what they know about the cost of a new school building.
“It may not be best marketing, but it is what we know,” Hickey said in Whitman on Thursday, Dec. 14. “We’ll [soon] know more, and at least we can start having a conversation [about what each design version might cost].”
School officials know that building costs are high these days and the building committee will be smart and practical about what they are looking for, prioritizing shop settings.
“They’re a workforce provider. There’s a lot of benefit that comes from our [vocational] schools – even after-hours – local employers and the local economy benefit,” Hickey said, noting there is a need for advocating for greater support from the Legislature. “You can support local taxpayers by juicing up the reimbursement rates in a few areas that are unique to our school.”
He said his Christmas wish would be a one-time earmark for SST to enable the school to push off the first year of costs.
“Maybe that’s too selfish,” he said. “But at the very least, systemically, we should not be reimbursed as a regular high school. Period. There should be certain categories where our reimbursement rates are higher – that would be a game-changer.”
Hickey said he does not believe for one second that anyone is opposed to the school’s building proposal.
“It’s just about threading that needle with something that will get us that next 50 years and not break everybody’s bank,” he said.
If the aggregate of the nine communities pass a single ballot question to be voted on during the same time window on the same day of January 2024, the project would be deemed approved. Hickey has met with town clerks in all nine communities concerning what the statute says about a district-wide ballot, knowing that 2024 is also a presidential election year and town clerks will have limited free time.
“I can say with great confidence that, if we got to that point, nearly all of my nine communities would have to consider a debt exclusion for that,” Hickey said.
While they do not have accurate estimates of the project cost, the design team has calculated cost estimates based on square footage.
Design 2.0 is estimated at $344.1 million to $350 million with $104.6 million reimbursable and $239.6 million divided between the member towns as the local share. For Design 2.1, the total cost is so far estimated at $349.8 million with $106.7 million reimbursable and $243.1 million on the towns.
Hickey said he hopes to be able to report, after Jan. 17, that the reimbursement amount will hold, but the total amount will drop and that the 30-percent reimbursement number they are now seeing will be higher.
“We know that MSBA reimbursement rates have improved, but it’s still not good enough and certainly not good enough for vocational schools,” Hickey said, noting the MSBA does not have a separate reimbursement scale for vocational schools. “We’ll continue to advocate with our legislative delegation in the hopes that they will be able to advocate for adjusted reimbursement rates.”
Whitman’s percentage, based on enrollment, is the highest at 25.4 percent. Hanson is currently 13.8 percent. The percentages are calculated by adding the enrollments for the last five years, dividing it by the aggregate number of in-district kids.
“If these fake numbers held, Whitman’s share could be anywhere from $58 million to $62 million,” Hickey said. “These are cost estimates that … are clocking in at $1,400 per square foot. The market, right now, is not costing $1,400 a square foot, its probably costing under $1,000 – hence the reason for some optimism at least.”
Bob Kimball, a former school committee member and proponent of vocational education, asked about whether Whitman’s 24 percent of the cost burden, based on current enrollment would be in effect if its enrollment declined during the life of the debt exclusion and how Marshfield figures into it.
Hickey said it would have to carry the 24 percent in that case. Marshfield agreed to pay a little under 18 percent of the SST existing stabilization fund – about $400,000 – based on enrollment trends.
“Their buy-in [to the building project] comes in over time – four years of adjustable debt share and then a fixed debt share after they’ve been in the building for five years,” he said.
There are currently three Marshfield seniors attending SST as non-resident students admitted before state regulations changed, and freshmen will attend as residents of a member community in the fall.
“First of all, we want this,” said Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly. “We want this for our kids, but we want to make sure that it’s equitable and fair.”
She asked how the reimbursement to communities would be handled by the MSBA.
“We’ve got the largest amount [of the cost] and we’re a poor town,” she said. “Will we be enjoying the reimbursement that would have been given to us if it was separate?”
Hickey said he didn’t think he could confidently and concisely answer that, saying he would have to look into the reimbursement model and how it is calculated. The reimbursement rate for the feasibility study
Public information session is held
was 55.5 percent.
“We’re the largest amount and we’re also now burdening in two different ways to subsidize, in a sense, other wealthier towns,” she said. “I would like you to watch that, maybe re-look at those numbers a little bit.”
Finance Committee – and Whitman Middle School Building Committee – member Kathleen Ottina followed up with a question on the reimbursement rate.
Hickey said the 55.5 percent for feasibility study would not necessarily carry over to the next phase,
“All bets are off for the construction phase,” he said. “You have to look at the situation when we’re eventually going into construction.”
While Whitman has the most students at SST, Ottina noted they have the lowest per-pupil cost based on the statutory model, because they have the highest Chapter 70 funding because Whitman as the poorest town in the district.
“You can tell, based on your fiscal 2024 budget, who can afford it and who can’t,” she said, adding that she has looked into how the MSBA calculates the reimbursement rate, and two of the three factor are similar to how the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education does reimbursement – aggregate wealth and income. “We’re going to get clobbered unless there’s a pro-rated [formula]. We’re 24 percent of the students and 24 percent of the debt, so 24 percent of the reimbursement rate should be what Whitman would get by itself.”
Hickey said those issues are something he could definitely get answers for – not only how MSBA makes the sausage, but how it cuts it up.
Project Manager Jen Carlson from the firm LeftField said the designs have been closely following the allowable space guidelines from MSBA.
Resident John Galvin, who has served on both the Finance Committee and WMS Building Committee, asked several questions, including the evolution of the square-footage in design plans, time between MSBA design approval and the January vote, whether any forecasting has been done on how a new building might affect enrollment, and the prospect of reviewing the SST regional agreement and the calculation of student share.
Carl Franshesci said they are working off a program that calls for a certain number of classrooms and shops and the square-footage needed, which will work for both plan options.
Starting conversations with town clerks now, and providing feedback has been important, Hickey said. The early message received has been one of timing based on the demands of those running local elections.
Carlson also noted that it is not permitted on a state or federal ballot, requiring a separate ballot and check-in process.
“The [enrollment] variable for me right now is Marshfield, because we don’t have any data on that, but Scituate and Hanover have changed in the last few years,” Hickey said, noting that those two communities’ enrollment have begun tightening up. “That means that, in some respects, Whitman’s share will likely plateau and then decline if all those factors hold true.”
Hickey said if enough communities want to review the calculations of student share a review of that portion of the regional agreement is possible, depending on how risk-averse they are to a fixed formula to something adjustable.
“I think the idea deserves to be looked at,” he said.
Whitman’s Rota in Food Network Holiday Baking finals
WHITMAN – She’s in the finals.
Whitman baker Justine Rota wowed the Food Network’’s Holiday Baking Championship judges Carla Hall and Nancy Fuller on Monday, Dec. 11 with her Kwanzaa-inspired plantain upside-down cake.
“This is another challenge where I have no idea what I’m doing, but [in] those challenges, I’ve been hovering in the top two, so I must be doing something right,” Rota said as she got to work on her cake. As she said that she is adept at upside-down cake, she opted to basically not try to fix what wasn’t broken.
Her sugar cookie kinara with the traditional red, black and green candles depicted on them for her preheat challenge, drew Hall’s special raves. The dessert had to depict the kinara in some way.
“You sure have done a good job,” Fuller said. “The upside-down cake, oh, my word – the carmelization and that battah…”
“The kinara sugar cookies? Perfect,” Hall said. “They’re so clean, the drips, the flames, the movement. Beautiful.”
They liked the taste even more.
“That carmelization that you’ve got on those plantains and into this cake is absolutely amazing,” Fuller said.
“What I love about your whole dessert, [is] it gave us all these different textures,” Hall agreed. “You get this chewiness from the plantains [and] then your cake is a dense cake that’s still moist with big crumbs, and then you finish with your sugar cookies … it’s really well done.”
Rota was the winner of the preheat challenge.
But, as sometimes happens with the advantages in such victories, Rota and her selected teammates Kevin Conniff of Alberta, Canada and Javier Trujillo of Chicago in an extra challenge to create an edible “ornament,” ran into production problems that cost them a win – and a loss of 10 minutes in the final – a Christmas-tree themed pull-apart pastry with a complimentary dipping sauce.
Celebrity baker Duff Goldman returned from his absence in time to judge the final challenge.
Rota picked raspberry for the filling flavor in her pull-apart pastry tree with an orange carmel dipping sauce.
“Last time I made a blitz puff pastry I did not bake it enough,” Rota said of an earlier challenge in the competition. This time, Goldman had a question for her.
“I don’t understand what happened.” he dead panned. “I leave for a couple weeks, I come back and all your pastries are amazing. What did you do with Justine? I’m kidding. This is really out of this world.”
“I think it’s bautiful,” Fuller said. “The colors are absolutely gorgeous. It’s so cohesive. I’m very impressed.”
Hall’s main criticism was that the trunk of Rota’s tree was a bit thick, limiting the size of the pull-apart branches, she also thought the sauce was a little acidic as a dip for a raspberry pastry.
“Delicious,” Fuller said as her eyes widened.
In the end, Rota was the second-place contestant, after Coloradan Thua Nguyen, with both of them, along with Conniff and Ashley Landerman of New Braunfels, Texas, head to the final round of baking challenges next week.
Holiday Baking Championship. Food Newtork. 8 p.m., Monday, Dec. 18.
The top prize in the contest is $25,000.
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