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Pleas for school funding sway board

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Frightened and tearful parents as well as concerned teachers, town officials and a high school student spoke Wednesday, April 10 of the potentially devastating effect of cuts to the fiscal 2020 level-service school budget.

Through tears falling on the podium, a mother of a student with Down Syndrome expressed her concerns about her son’s educational future.

“The staff in Whitman have made it possible for my son, who has Down Syndrome, to be fully included within public education and that, alone, is worth more than anyone can say,” she said. “If you cut paraprofessionals — they are the heart of the program — it is detrimental to the special ed population. It’s detrimental to the population of children that are operating with social-emotional needs.”

She is a teacher herself and noted the only way to help children with trauma is on a one-to-one basis.

“The more you cut, those sick children are going to be hurting and the more they’re going to end up in an outside placement, possibly residential, or they’re going to hurt themselves,” she said noting there have recently been two suicides in the district’s middle schools.

Children who are being helped improve their grades through the work of dedicated young teachers first in line for layoffs also concerned the Bedford Street resident. Her daughter is one of them.

“She has changed my daughter this year,” she said of the teacher. “My daughter has become a phenomenal student, she has risen to the top. Her papers are coming home … with 100 on almost every test because that teacher has taken the time to pull her aside and work with her. Without her, without the paraprofessionals, my family wouldn’t be where we are today. … Don’t go lower [than 12.5 percent] tonight, just don’t go lower.”

Teachers’ union official Kevin Kavka noted there have been 100 teaching positions lost in the district since 2000.

Whitman resident Christopher George said W-H already has the second-worst foreign language program out of 31 surrounding towns.

“I know that because we took the time to email every single middle school principal and find out what they offer,” George said. “If people cared about that program, if the taxpayers cared about this program, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now, we’d be ready to pass an override.”

As a baseball coach, he said before any other educational program, athletics and other after-school programs should be “put on the chopping block.”

“People talk about sports in this town, they don’t talk about education,” he said. It’s like banging my head against a wall.”

A senior WHRHS band member spoke in support of the district’s teachers and of the music position facing cuts.

“Cutting even one position to [music] is a very emotional thing for me,” she said, noting the inspiration music teacher Devin Dondero has provided her. “That man has changed my life … He is someone who has helped me grow to the person I am today.”

Even one staff cut could be devastating for another student like her in the future.

“That could be the passion that a person has for an instrument,” she said. “To know that you could be cutting a position for someone who could have that same impact on a student as he’s had on me is hard to face.”

Residents and town officials who have been working on the budget process also spoke.

“If you feel like the town has been really with us for the last year, hand-in-hand trying to reason this out and being supportive, then I would approach this one way,” Whitman resident Shawn Kain, an advocate for capital planning said. “I do think this is a fundamental question. This is a negotiation and keep on negotiating with them, but I think they are negotiating strongly. …People are taking strong action for their departments and if you are taking a mild action because they’ve been pretty supportive over the last year, I think you are going to get a harsh result.”

Kain said there should be an override on the ballot, but Whitman officials weren’t prepared, for that lack of preparation he said he could not support an override right now.

School Committee member Christopher Howard said, while he respects Kain and his passion, he does not view the process as a negotiation.

“I don’t care whether the town can support it or not, I think we need to do what is right for the students of this district,” Howard said. “I’m not here to play games or negotiate.”

Emphasizing that he was speaking for himself, Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina said that, at last year’s Town Meeting three members of the Whitman Board of Selectmen chose to use an “unorthodox funding solution to try to make every department whole.”

“It was very clear to me that evening exactly what we were doing — that we were putting ourselves in a shortfall situation and we would require an override,” he said. “What I will agree with is [it] failed. The process failed. We should have been ahead of this. The town of Whitman absolutely should have been going for an override this year, no doubt. Time was wasted. I’m not going to point fingers at anyone — I’ll shoulder the burden myself. Maybe I should have been more vocal, but we shouldn’t be in this position again.”

But at this point, Whitman is not in the position to go for an override before the fall, he added. He said he also didn’t want the schools to be left with a 4-percent assessment increase, so he supported the proposal to pursue a debt exclusion to remove the new police station and renovations to the Town Hall and fire station from within the levy limit and seek an operational override in the fall. He did disagree with Howard’s statement that the budget situation was not a negotiation.

“If you were dealing with an infinite amount of money, no, it’s not a negotiation,” LaMattina said. “But in the position I’m in, there’s a limited source of funds and we need to negotiate those alleys to determine the best possible result.”

Finance Committee Vice Chairman Dave Codero said no motions or commitments were made after the April 9 joint meeting with Selectmen, which he said — in his opinion — was “the most anti-school meeting I have ever, ever attended.”

He said he was shocked by a selectman’s contention that “our people didn’t get cut,” in reference to town employees.

After the 12.5 percent assessment discussion, Whitman parent Leah Donovan of Old Mansion Lane said, while she was pleased that nine positions could be saved, that still meant many positions would be cut.

“I don’t think that’s true across other departments in town,” she said.  “I’m not here to consider what other departments can do. … We’re here to fight for the kid. We’re not here to be considerate of the others — there’s a time and place for that — but right now is not that time.”

Special education teacher Jill Kain also warned about the impact of cutting special education paraprofessionals, who she described as key to the success of students on IEPs.

“The next few years, if we cut these paras, there’s going to be more kids going out of district  [at more than the $20,000 paraprofessional salary],” she said.

School Committee OKs 12.5 percent

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After a lengthy debate on Wednesday, April 10, the W-H School Committee voted 7-1 to support a 12.5 percent assessment increase to the towns.

School Committee members Alexandra Taylor, who was absent, and Michael Jones, who had to leave the meeting early, were not present for the vote and Fred Small, who had supported the 6.5 percent increase Whitman officials have indicated the town could afford, voted against the new assessment. The School Committee meets next at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 24.

“The 6.5 is based on what they can give in jockeying different lines and different things,” Small said.

School Committee member Robert Trotta had proposed a 10-percent assessment to begin discussion, before the committee ultimately opted on the 12.5 percent, which, in tandem with a transfer from excess and deficiency, avoids more cuts to the school budget.

A transfer of $561,237 from the $961,237 in excess and deficiency brought the assessment down from 15.1 percent to 12.5 percent. Small also advocated using $5,000 from the School Committee travel account, keeping only enough to maintain memberships. It could also help the budget.

School Committee member Steve Bois also made a motion to seek 12.5 percent from the towns after the excess and deficiency transfer closed the gap to that point.

At 12.5 percent, Whitman would see an assessment of $1,658,773 — a total of $14,928,958 — and Hanson’s would go to $1,114,168 — a total of $10,027,508.

The 12.5 percent assessment saves about nine teaching positions.

The level-service budget now stands at $53,270,534 after an initial cut of $290,000 from legal costs, supplies “everything that doesn’t live or breathe.”

E&D, as it is called, is depended on to deal with unanticipated costs such as a new special education student in the district. Individual education plans, ranging from extra time on tests to residential placements, have increased in cost by more than 50 percent over the past five years.

Special education is also among the $5 million in unfunded state educational mandates impacting the budget.

“Students learn differently, students are being emotionally challenged differently … we’re seeing more and more students not being able to cope because of anxiety, because of stress — and that’s starting in kindergarten and preschool now,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said.

Special education and related accounts, such as transportation and legal costs, are among increasing unanticipated costs, school officials said. Even with the cuts that would have to be made if the towns provide only 6.5 percent assessments, Szymaniak said new programs would have to be developed to keep more special education children in district to reduce costs long-term.

Special education costs have jumped from $2.5 million in the 2016-17 school year to $4 million this school year for out-of-district placements.

He said Hanson officials had informed him that their town could support a 7.5-percent assessment.

He repeated his breakdown of program and staff cuts that he had provided Whitman Selectmen on April 9.

The 6.5 percent assessment would mean the loss of three non-union employees, middle school foreign language, six paraprofessionals, three duty aides, the part-time elementary music teacher, a guidance staff member and 19 teachers — with 4 percent meaning a math curriculum and 23 teachers in addition to the other cuts. Special education costs have run over by $630,000 this year. There are 82 staff members paid through federal grants.

Reduction in force (RIF) notices were sent out on Thursday, April 11 to teachers and staff in line for layoffs in the event cuts are made.

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes explained once again how assessments are made based on what school officials say they need in a budget, cautioning that the original 15.1 percent assessment to the towns was not a 15.1 percent increase in the overall budget.

“[Taxpayers] are getting a Cadillac for a Yugo right now,” Szymaniak said referring to the Yugoslavian-made economy car that became the butt of jokes shortly after its introduction to the American market from 1985 to 1992. “This is the best bang for your buck around.”

Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly had made a similar argument during the April 9 Selectmen’s meeting.

“This 6.5 percent increase, even though there will be layoffs, maintains a curriculum that we’re committed to give our teachers,” Szymaniak said. “It also maintains social-emotional learning and support for our students.”

School Committee members said they were also concerned about the effect of additional budget cuts on class size and the potential of any more state funding.

“I’m happy to play ball and I’m happy to be in agreement [with the towns], but we still need a little bit more,” Bois said. “There’s still work to do here.”

Small, meanwhile, said the committee also has to be cognizant of what the towns are able to give.

“Were they prepared? No. Should things have gone differently? Probably. But if we have to, I’d be all for taking E&D money to try and supplement different things and really preparing for the fall and having a proper override presentation showing the need for everyone to reset,” Small said. “And we’d take control of that ourselves.”

Szymaniak also spoke about the budget impact of the 3.1 percent increase in the overall South Shore Tech budget approved by both towns.

“If we were to get a 3.1 percent increase to our budget, that would be an 8.5-percent assessment to both towns,” he said. “I’m just asking both towns to treat us as equals.”

The assessments SST is seeking comes to 3.12-percent increase to the towns — $48,000 for Whitman —but still must be approved by the two town meetings. W-H’s overall budget increase is 5.6 percent.

Szymaniak also noted the difference in per-pupil expenditures for both school districts — W-H now spends $12,740 per pupil while SST spends $21,142 per pupil.

“There are less kids so there is less cost [at SST],” Szymaniak said.

With special education costs factored in, W-H spends $13,385 per pupil, while SST has no out-of-district special education expenses. Thirty percent of SST students, however, are on IEPs. Equipment costs and other factors. Safety factors dictate that we have some limited student teacher ratios in some shops, which also contributes to higher per pupil costs, according to SST Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey.

“That’s the only school I wish to compare us with because we are sending students over there,” Szymaniak said. “I don’t see and apples and apples situation, I see an apples and oranges-type situation and I think South Shore Tech is a very good institution for our students if that’s their choice. I just want equal footing as far as finances for the teachers we employ as a district and for the students that decide to stay here.”

Small described his vision of an override as not just one that solves immediate problems, but returns the school services to a level where it should be.

“If we are going to go for an override, we should give the voter the opportunity to fund us to the level where we should be, and that’s a whole helluva lot more than we’re talking about tonight,” he said.

In other business, the committee approved submitting a letter to the  Commissioner of Education requesting a waiver of the 185-day requirement to the school year for Conley School following the norovirus-related closure of the school for one day last month.

Assistant Superintendent George Ferro explained that requiring Conley students to make up the day at the end of the school year could cost the district $2,800 in busing costs and that the time on learning could be made up in other ways.

Ferro said the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education  (DESE) said the number of days in school was the key measurement.

“The hours do not count,” he said of the DESE’s regulations. “It’s the showing up on the 185th day.”

“The content of an education is not in the length of days or the minutes you spend,” said Bois in making the motion for the assessment. “That is very valuable time, but I’ve seen kids that have continuity from a group of people that deserve millions of applause … for the everyday work that they do.”

O’Brien pointed out that the decision would be counter to the reasoning behind a recent vote to reject a 2019-20 school calendar which included extra days in the Christmas vacation.

“Everybody brought up time in the classroom,” he said of that vote. “You’ve got to learn, got to learn, got to learn. I’m OK with applying for it, no problem at all, but we seemed to have done a 180 here. … I’m just making a point.”

Ferro said waivers have been granted to districts in the past.

Murray search leaves questions

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Maura Murray, pictured on a missing persons poster. (Courtesy image)

A lack of evidence during an excavation in a New Hampshire basement crosses something off the list of questions surrounding Hanson native Maura Murray, a family member says.

Despite a day of hope last week, no evidence was found in the search for Maura Murray, a Hanson resident and UMass Amherst student missing for 15 years. After an extensive search of a long-suspected house close to where the 21-year-old Murray was involved in a single-car crash along Route 112 in February 2004, New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey A. Strelzin made the announcement Wednesday, April 3.

Maura Murray’s half brother, Kurt Murray, 30, of Halifax, said in a later interview that his family was given less than 24 hours’ notice regarding the imminent search of the basement. He said it was important to him and his family that they be there.

No evidence was found in connection with the case, said Strelzin, and, “certainly no evidence of human remains.”

Kurt Murray said, “No scenario is a particularly good one,” when asked what the family was hoping to find.

The Murray family has been critical of law enforcement over the years, blasting authorities for not doing enough to find Maura.

Officials from the New Hampshire State Police, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office and the FBI searched the house at times over the month of March, culminating in law enforcement tearing up a basement floor April 3 with a jackhammer, with the present homeowner’s consent.

“We certainly did not believe there was any credible evidence,” but searched anyways, said Strelzin. “It was really done to cross something off a list.”

“There certainly wasn’t any probable cause to search the house,” he added.

But, he said, “Everybody involved remains committed to following every lead that’s out there. There’s a lot of information we continue to follow up on.”

Kurt Murray said of the next step for his family, “We’ll have to try to work with New Hampshire authorities.”

The nursing student’s mysterious disappearance has sparked attention in the press, on the internet and on social media over the course of the last decade-and-a-half across the world.

“The community support has really been astonishing,” said Kurt Murray.

Her father, Fred, said that the house that was searched was “astonishingly close” to the site of the accident, in a previous interview with the Express. According to him, locals first tipped him off about suspicious activity at the house in the first year after his daughter’s disappearance, including a rumor of new concrete being poured in the basement, but the owners of the house would not cooperate with the investigation.

In November and December 2018, Fred Murray brought in two trained, accredited cadaver detecting dogs to the house, after it had changed ownership, each one on separate occasions. They alerted, he says, by lying down in the same spot in the basement of the house.

Later, he brought in ground-penetrating radar which he said indicated strong findings of an abnormality in the same spot in the concrete.

“It’s astounding that this [basement] wasn’t looked at before. I told the police about this in the first year … the State Police did an inadequate job when my daughter first went missing,” he added.

Exactly where Maura Murray was headed, and why, has remained a mystery over the years. Moments after the crash, a good Samaritan stopped to assist her, but she waved him off and told him not to call the police, according to original police reports from 2004. The passerby called local police anyway, although he did drive off. A Haverhill police cruiser arrived 19 minutes later, but Maura Murray’s Saturn was locked, and she was gone. She has remained missing ever since.

“The case is still open and active.  We do receive tips and information periodically, as well as generate new information from investigative efforts,” said Streizen in a previously emailed statement.

But this does not satisfy Kurt Murray. “Not knowing for 15 years … she deserves to be home. She’s too special a person to be left unfound somewhere,” he said.

Debt exclusion now, override later

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WHITMAN — Selectmen on Tuesday, April 9 approved the presentation of a debt exclusion question at the Monday, May 6 Town Meeting and on the annual Town Election ballot on Saturday, May 18 — and to wait until the fall to seek an operational override.

The debt exclusion removes the cost of the new police station and renovations made to Town Hall and the fire station from within the levy limit. Selectmen faced an April 13 deadline to approve a ballot question. The planned pre-Town Meeting informational session has been moved to 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, April 17.

In an often-contentious joint session with the Finance Committee — attended by a large crowd of department heads, town employees, School committee members, educators and school supporters — the question of whether to seek both financial approaches at the same time or the order in which they should be approached separately.

“We’ve gone through several iterations of budget estimates,” Town Administrator Frank Lynam said. “We’ve had differing opinions on how to proceed, based on at least in part, whether we believe we will get the support we need.” He reminded Selectmen that a long-term capital plan and budget model is in the works, with completion expected at the end of the month. That work would provide an idea what kind of override would be sought in the fall.

Lynam suggested a debt exclusion would be the most effective method to start with the aim being to free up some capital money and to build a long-term plan based on increased revenue from an override.

Free cash and capital stabilization would be used to pay for previous budget commitments, which would leave a balance of $460,000 in free cash and stabilization.

That would fund essential warrant articles through Article 29, include the debt exclusion to fund the bond and adjourn the Town Meeting until June 3, after the Town Election decides on the debt exclusion question, either funding the remaining articles if it passes or making cuts if it does not.

The budget under current consideration by the Finance Committee would include $13,800,992, a 4-percent increase to the W-H school assessment — and a request that Lynam recalculate the remaining lines on Article 2. Lynam countered that his proposal gives the schools a 6.5 percent assessment increase.

Finance Committee Chairman Richard Anderson and Vice Chairman David Codero expressed reservations with the approach taken.

“The day after the Selectmen’s meeting of last week, I sent an email to the members of the board to relay the unanimous concern we have for the newest direction you appear to be taking with respect to a recommendation to Town Meeting,” Anderson said about the new Article 2 based on a meeting called by department heads and to which Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski and Vice Chairman Dan Salvucci were invited. “The biggest concern we have at this point is eliminating the Proposition 2 ½ override as part of the recommendation.”

Anderson said the Finance Committee views an override as a critical component of this year’s budget discussion. Codero was more blunt, while he commended department heads for their budget cuts made to avoid layoffs.

“It’s not a sustainable approach, that’s the headline,” Codero said of the new Article 2 recommendation. “It’s my understanding that the department heads’ Article 2 is reliant on both passing the override and the debt exclusion. It’s a dangerous way to play with the sustainability of our future.”

He also characterized the department heads’ meetings with Kowalski and Salvucci as being done “in the shadows of [the] Open Meeting” law, and that the first such meeting excluded the schools. Lynam vigorously countered that department heads are not governed by that provision.

“The fact that they held a meeting and I wasn’t aware of it and wasn’t invited to attend, does not shake me as being something inappropriate or untoward,” Lynam said. “If they choose to meet that way, then they meet that way. They are not obligated to post meetings, they are not obligated to invite the public, they have an opportunity to sit down and plan together.”

Whether or not the schools were invited was up to the organizers of the meeting and Lynam made sure school representatives were invited to the second department head meeting.

“We had town employees that were fearful of losing their jobs,” said Salvucci, who attended both department head meetings. “They took … your Article 2 and made cuts where they could to save people’s jobs.”

He said they agreed to make additional cuts to bring the school increase up to the 6.5-percent level Hanson is offering.

School Committee member Fred Small vigorously argued that the schools are part of the town, too.

“We’ve got high school students going to school in the black of the dark of morning because we’re able to save $300,000 on busing,” he said. “We have done so many things over the years — cutting, cutting, cutting — the only thing left to cut, for us, is bodies.”

Small also said he understood the 4-percent increase was only intended as a discussion point.

“I certainly never intended the number to be used by department heads to formulate a separate Article 2,” Anderson said. “We’re working on two separate budgets. … This is not the recommendation to Town Meeting. This is a working document for the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectman.”

He said the Selectman and Finance Committee are basically in agreement over what needs to be done, it is just a question of when.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak echoed Small’s commending of town departments, but said the 6.5 percent assessment would mean the loss of three non-union employees, middle school foreign language, six paraprofessionals, three duty aides, the part-time elementary music teacher, a guidance staff member and 19 teachers — with 4 percent meaning an elementary math curriculum and 23 teachers in addition to the other cuts. Special education costs have run over by $630,000 this year. There are 82 staff members paid through federal grants.

Rosemary Connolly noted the Finance Committee makes decisions based on demographics, rather than a whole town.

“They did it in a bubble,” she said. “It will not be in the best interests of the town … and I hope to not see things like this in the future.”

Kowalski said that, at some point the residents of town will have to agree to spend more money, but that the department head meetings could sustain the town for awhile as they build the budget sustainability by increments.

“There’s a fear that a Proposition 2 ½ override will not pass,” he said.

Selectmen, for a time Tuesday night, seemed close to opting to seek both and override and a debt exclusion at the same time, or to look toward an override first.

“I, for one, am not willing to wait to fix it in the fall,” Anderson said.

Selectman Randy LaMattina said the debt exclusion option works because departments would use it to fill their budgets and he has “seen a budget that works with a debt exclusion.” He has also advocated for the debt exclusion for years.

“The problem with an override is you can’t just ask for a blank number and that’s what I think we’d be doing with an override,” he said. “I have faith that we can pass an override. It needs to be completely detailed where the money’s going.”

LaMattina also said he had concerns after hearing about the first department head meeting, but after attending the second one, he could “only applaud the department heads.”

“I could understand where they are coming from,” he said. “When your back’s against the wall you want to fight your way out of it.”

Whitman Middle School

In other business, Selectmen approved beginning the statement of interest process to the MSBA for a new or renovated grade five to eight Whitman Middle School. The School Committee has already approved the SOI.

Szymaniak said ongoing issues represent challenges for the future health and safety of students and teachers as well as ongoing repair costs.

“This could be a short-term process — probably not — but it could also be a five- or six-year process before they accept us,” Szymaniak said. “It depends on the severity of what they deem is important to our middle school.”

South Shore Tech has been in the queue for five years on a renovation project for which they are seeking MSBA funding.

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland offered a lengthy explanation of the selection process, including the forms that must be submitted to the state. Need outlines, budget process, history of the school and past upgrades, safety concerns such as mold and vermin (termites, bees and mice) problems, and the timeline proposed must all be submitted by April 12. The MSBA Board of Directors will comprise a list of approved projects in December. If Whitman is approved, selecting and creating a schematic design and budget could take about two years more.

“We’re spending so much on repairs over there, that it’s a budget-killer,” Sandland said.

More room to grow in Hanson

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Improvements, including a fence to deter deer, are among the changes coming to the Hanson Community Garden this year. (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — There is room for you to grow at Hanson’s Community Garden.

While it has been operated exclusively for Hanson residents up to now, nonresidents can apply for the first time this year, according to Green Hanson members Evelyn Golden and Kathy Gernhardt. Non-residents will be asked to pay a higher fee than residents.

“It’s only fair, but it’s still only $15 a growing season,” Golden said. “They’re going to spend more than that on their water bill if they were to grow their vegetable garden at home.”

The non-resident fee is waived if the application comes in through the Hanson Food Pantry on behalf of a client. A small variety of seeds can also be provided for those growers.

“We’ll provide the dirt and the water and the community — and the seeds — they just have to do the labor,” Golden said.

Applications for the 24-30 potential open garden sites are available in the Selectmen’s office in Town Hall. For more information, visit hansongarden@gmail.com.

Golden and Gernhardt said improvements being made, including a fence to deter deer,   to bring more people back to the project. Soil amendments — aged manure and other quality composts — are also planned to encourage better plant growth.

Part of the fence project will include additional compost bins to improve garden sustainability in the future.

“We’ve lost gardeners because the crops were being eaten,” Golden said of the deer problem.

At least two of those who left because of deer damage have pledged to come back after learning about the planned fence. Including Scout and church groups which grew produce for the food pantry, nearly two dozen participants were involved in the Community Garden program last year.

The fence, an Eagle Scout project, will place a five-foot high chain link barrier around the garden. The Scout is still working on approval from the Eagle board, but is hoping to do it by May.

“The thought and the research is that we know you need eight [feet] or more for a deer to not scale it,” Golden said as the two spoke at the Community Garden site adjascent to the Hanson Food Pantry on High Street. “But, where it’s going to be chain-link [the deer] are still going to see all the white poles and it’s going to mess with their optical vision — we hope. That’s what researchers are saying.”

Gernhardt added that the higher and more closed off the fence is, it won’t be as welcoming.

“We want to make sure we’re presenting a welcoming facility,” she said.

Golden said the important thing is that, when deer don’t see a clear space in which to land, they are not going to jump a fence.

“That’s a really important project that we’re expecting to take place this year,” Gernhardt said.

A lot can be produced in the three-foot square patches based on the square-foot garden growing practice.

“It’s a little bit different from conventional gardening,” Golden said.

Take green beans, for example. Seed packets advise spacing plants two inches apart in a long row, which means 18 plants in a three-foot row. By planting crops by the square foot, you can grow 36 plants.

“It’s a more intensive way of growing,” Gernhardt said. “What we find in square-foot gardening is people tend to be more diverse [in plant selection] per box.”

It also helps deter weeds, and is very big on vertical growing, Golden said, adding that it also makes soil replenishment and crop rotation more important.

Cucumbers grown vertically can make a better crop yield as well as serving as a space-saver, she said.

Green Hanson is sponsoring a cleanup day at the gardens from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on Saturday, April 20. A new 4-H group, the United Farmers, will also be focusing some of its project work at the gardens, Golden said.

The W-H golf team also selected the garden for its community service project this year, working at the site and donating funds to the project, as well.

“To us it was a huge donation, because anything helps,” Golden said.

Green Hanson is the garden’s umbrella organization through Sustainable South Shore. Working through Green Hanson, the garden received a $500 grant last year, Gernhardt said. After the Community Garden project demonstrates its own growth as an operation and community program, organizers can reapply for the grant.

Exploring the quirks of small towns

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BOOK TALK: Hanson Selectman Wes Blauss discusses his new book ‘Murder at Town Meeting.’  (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — The residents of almost every small town, no doubt, are convinced they have the most quirky people on the planet living within their borders — which, perhaps, explains why “The Andy Griffith Show,” was one of the more popular TV shows of the 1960s, or “Newhart” in the 1980s.

This writer can vouch for that.

In my hometown of Northfield, Conn., (a village part of the larger town of Litchfield, really), our nursery school/piano teacher Eleanor Grant would hop on her bicycle for the mile or so to our house each spring to spend the day with my grandmother mapping out Miss Grant’s annual car trip to her dentist in Willimantic.

I doubt the route changed much from year-to-year.

Legend has it my grandmother once tossed a folding chair at the head of a friend during an argument at a Grange meeting.

Our local nature expert Jesse Morse, who lived (*gasp* unmarried) in a cluttered house with a lady named Grace Wheeler, enjoyed carving baskets from cherry pits for necklaces, among his other artsy-crafty hobbies.

Similar characters people Hanson Selectman Wes Blauss’ new novel, “Murder at Town Meeting.”

“We were just creating stereotypes of what people think happens in small New England towns,” he said during a talk Thursday, April 4 at a meeting of the Hanson Historical Society, of which he is a member. “Who are the characters who show up?”

A Hanson native who taught at Hanson Middle School before his retirement, Blauss’ characters live in fictional South Quagmire (just north of East Quagmire) in the novelization of his popular — and thrice staged — eponymous play with characters one might be convinced they recognize.

“There’s not a person in here who’s really identifiable, especially not anymore,” he said. “We won’t go near anybody who really exists. The fire chief will be an arsonist, we’ll have a fire station burn down — don’t think Burrage. We’ll have an abandoned library burn down — don’t think Thomas Hall — so we were not trying to get ourselves into any kind of trouble.”

His book will be available April 30 via Amazon or the Barnes & Noble websites.

“Since this is the Historical Society, I felt that this should not be a reading so much as what’s the story behind this book,” Blauss said.

“Murder at Town Meeting,” is being published by Riverhaven Books of Whitman.

The idea for the play, first staged in 1989, stemmed from the popularity at the time or murder-mystery dinner theater. James Bond creator Ian Fleming, also took an approach to writing that Blauss emulates: “Everything I write is based on precedent.”

One of the audience members on this night was Laura Donovan, was part of Blauss’ drama group in 1989 leading him to reminisce about her performance as a town Treasurer that was a bit too close to the mark.

“The night of dress rehearsal, Laura showed up with no fanfare … but she had taken her pantyhose and stuffed them with cotton batting,” he said recalling a heavyset past Town Hall official the audience immediately recognized. “A whole bunch of people in the audience gasped. … This [woman the character was based on] did have a habit of telling you that you were stupid.”

Most of the Town Hall staff of the time showed up for the performance.

“It became a contest in the course of the night … everybody who worked for Town Hall immediately decided they saw themselves in the play,” he said. While that was not necessarily the case, Blauss maintains, some actual incidents are included. The book includes a fictionalized table-flipping incident and private plane excursions in search of illegal piggeries.

“No one cared at all who killed anyone,” he laughed. “They were not the slightest bit interested in the mystery.”

A fellow teacher from Hingham who saw the play was equally convinced of the characters’ familiarity.

“When it was over, she simply said, ‘Oh my gosh, I know every one of those people. They are all in Hingham,’” he recalled.

He spoke of town meetings of the 1970s — the story is set in the Bicentennial year 1976 — being three-day ordeals, rather than the one-night sessions they have become.

The story has also been brought up-to-date in a more serious vein.

Blauss brings into the book a glimpse of the racial attitudes of the community in the 1970s that is timely for today’s racial issues nationally.

“I drew a group [in the play] that was totally white-bread,” he said, as opposed to his days at WHRHS when there were more Cape Verdeans living in Hanson in the 1950s and ’60s. “When I was writing the book I felt it needed another depth to it. When I grew up, Hanson was really diverse.”

Research on Cape Verde residents of Hanson at the time, revealed a rainbow of racial designations, often for the same person, on birth, marriage and death certificates.

Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan edited the book and helped with research, along with Blauss’ childhood friend and Health Board Chairman Arlene Dias.

“There were people who were born black, when they married [they were recorded as] white,” he said. “There were people who, with the exact same parents, he was black, but six years later she was born white.”

They found one Cape Verdean friend was recorded as being white, another black and — strangely — another had “Portuguese” listed under the race heading.

“I never, ever heard the N-word uttered in Hanson,” he said, but students didn’t cross the color line when dating, either. “That was Hanson in the ’60s.”

Years later, Blauss’s great-aunt Ruth mentioned to him in a discussion of town and family history that the Ku Klux Klan once held meetings in the town’s Grange Hall during its national resurgence in the 1920s. The audience gasped at that revelation. He could find no records to verify the Grange Hall meetings.

“When I was writing ‘Murder at Town Meeting’ I felt I really wanted that race component in it, because I think it would be unfair to deal with the ’70s without doing so,” he said. “I think this race component is as big a part of our history as anything else.”

Budget ‘what-ifs’ reflect hard choices

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WHITMAN — When the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee meet again in joint session on Tuesday, April 9, they will be discussing a “what-if” budget scenario in which the W-H school assessment would increase by 4 percent and other departments — while making cuts — would skirt layoffs. The School Committee approved a 15-percent assessment increase last month.

The school budget in Whitman would still be $500,000 higher than fiscal 2019 Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski noted.

“It’s not what they say they need,” Kowalski said. “But at this stage of the game, there’s nothing we can do as a town to satisfy [that need].”

Town Administrator Frank Lynam said the proposal, drafted during a meeting between town department heads, Kowalski and vice chair Dan Salvucci Tuesday, April 2, is aimed at creating a budget worksheet — and should not be considered a budget projection.

“The casualty in this budget, if you can call it that, is the request for W-H vs. what we proposed to fund,” he said. “But, in this scenario, every other department goes back to 2019 and subtracts from it, rather than adding to it. Of all the options we’ve looked at, this is the one that I’d like to bring to the Finance Committee.”

That worksheet, if adopted as a budget, would hinge on getting the current bond debt approved as a debt exclusion, which could free up $1 million, according to Lynam. He also expects to have the first draft of a capital plan completed by the end of April and a final plan by late summer.

Resident Shawn Kain asked if there was a timeline for a financial policy and strategic plan. Lynam replied that the financial policy is part of the capital plan process, but the strategic plan has not yet begun.

“I feel like this stuff is important and timelines are becoming really urgent,” Kain said. “I think having them implemented sooner, rather than later, would be very helpful to people at home — or for you, even — to decide whether an override or a debt exclusion would be appropriate.”

Kain and Selectman Randy LaMattina questioned the transparency of the department head meeting with members of the Board of Selectmen.

Kowalski countered that it was a strategy session and to call it a closed-door meeting was “insulting.”’

LaMattina, who said he agreed with a large portion of the “what if” scenario, said there was also a large risk of almost $1 million in capital funds.

“I don’t view it as a great success,” LaMattina said, asking for the board’s liaison from the Finance Committee David Codero step into the meeting. “We have an Article 2 coming out every other week. … If I don’t know what’s going on, how is the public to know what’s going on?”

Lynam countered that the Finance Committee has not prepared any of the budgets yet, but when the Finance Committee voted to set the school budget at 4 percent and reset the other numbers, they asked him to adjust the budget accordingly.

“We made no vote to recommend,” Codero said when he got to the Selectmen’s meeting. “We made a vote to discuss.”

Codero said the Finance Committee voted to place a dollar value on the school budget to act as a place-holder in the budget as a whole.

Lynam said that was the information with which he worked.

“The results were very close to a scenario I had been working on,” Lynam said of the work done at the meeting Kowalski and Salvucci had with department heads. “Their recommendation is based on their belief that the likelihood of getting both an override and a debt exclusion did not hold a lot of hope.”

The schools were not represented at the meeting and Kowalski and Salvucci attended at the request of department heads, Lynam said.

“Over the last week, I’ve been working on a number of scenarios, taking different budget approaches with cuts identified by departments and reductions identified by the size of the budget’s ability to withstand the cuts,” Lynam said noting he met with the Finance Committee Tuesday, March 26 and they requested the change to a 4-percent increase for the school district.

Salvucci and Kowalski lauded the budget meeting with department heads.

“I think they did a great job of coming together as town employees working for the town, doing the job that was really good,” Salvucci said. “They know exactly where budgets should be cut that will not effect the operation — or have as little effect on their operation as possible. … They showed us another way apart from cutting staff.”

Kowalski agreed, noting that pro-school and pro-town department Selectmen were invited to the meeting.

“What pleased me about the meeting was, in working with Frank over the last week in different scenarios, one of his scenarios looked almost exactly like what the department heads came up with,” Kowalski said. “Every department accepts the responsibility for wage increases by having to cut in other areas of the department.”

Selectman Brian Bezanson said the discussion pointed to the need for a pre-Town Meeting informational meeting, which Lynam said could be slated for Saturday, April 13.

Lynam took the budget bottom line of $32,880,556 and added payment obligations of $34,280,000. The estimated available levy is $33,972,338 leaving a “small shortfall.” Free cash would be used to fund most of the capital articles on the Town Meeting warrant leaving a net available cash position of $583,000. He said he stopped at that point because “I don’t think it would make sense to vote a budget that leaves us no available funds for other issues.”

LaMattina said that, before he voted to support a budget, a policy should be adopted requiring that at least a percentage of free cash be guaranteed for capital spending.

“That’s how we will develop a capital plan,” he said. Lynam said that was a good idea.

Lynam said the problem is that the first 29 articles in the draft warrant are articles that can be funded both through the levy and other revenue sources, including the ambulance fund ($456,402), police fine account ($29,664), sewer/water enterprise fund ($918,100), the Title 5 ($7,352) revenue account that pays for septic loans the town has issued and the Chapter 90 ($388,036) funds.

For seven of the articles the town has to raise $545,120. Articles 30 through 46 would cost and additional $973,947.

Lynam suggested adjourning the Town Meeting after Article 29 and resuming at a date after the annual election so officials would know if the money was available to appropriate for the remaining requests or to prioritize which of them the town can afford.

“If this proposed budget were adopted, and if we took no other action to increase our revenue, we would not have enough money to fund those additional articles,” Lynam said. “The issue here is sustainability. We need to reach a point where we can fund, and continue to fund, the ongoing operations of the town.”

Warm welcome home

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BLESS THIS HOUSE: Brian Austin, left, of the New England Carpenters Training Council presented veteran Paul Skarinka with a framed photo of a message from an apprentice inscribed on a partition stud blessing the family’s new home as his wife Jennifer looks on. (Photo by Tracy Seelye)

HANSON — Paul and Jennifer Skarinka received the keys to their new home on Tuesday, April 2. The occasion, exciting for any young couple, was different than for most — it is a mortgage-free, injury-specific house built through Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors for a veteran injured in action.

“It’s beautiful,” Jennifer Skarinka said. “It’s a dream home.”

“Wow,” Paul, a Plympton Fire Department firefighter-paramedic, said after his family, including children Lilliana and Noah, toured the house. “The carpenters, the Foundation, everyone did an incredible job and it was well worth the wait. It’s truly incredible.”

It was delayed a few months due to record-low temperatures, record flooding, microbursts that knocked out power for nine days, three nor’easters, delays caused by a moratorium following the Merrimack Valley natural gas explosions — and vandalism — but the Hanson community joined builders, trade union representatives and Allen to welcome Skarinka, 39, and his family to his new home.

Skarinka, an Army veteran who lost a leg and sustained severe injuries to his left arm when his unit came under attack on a mission in Sadr City, Iraq in September 2004, said he and his family are thankful for their new home and the help of Hanson police and fire departments after the project was vandalized over the winter.

“I’m just excited,” he said. “I was nervous about moving in — it looks so nice. We’re really going to enjoy this and take a minute to kind of sit back and relax, take it one day at a time and soak it all in.”

Jennifer Skarinka said the house means her husband will be able to find comfort at the end of his working day.

“There’s no more stairs,” she said. “Taking care of other people is strenuous on his body and he gets tired [by the end of his day]. Unfortunately, in the house we were at before, he couldn’t use his wheelchair. …Now he can wheel around without having to worry about bumping into things or getting stuck. It makes me happy that he can live a somewhat normal life.”

Allen, a five-time NFL Pro Bowler, said his foundation is a way to give back to those who defend our country.

“Someone told me a long time ago, you don’t have to have a uniform on to serve your country,” Allen said. “I feel like I’ve been blessed in my life with family and work and all that. I’ve gotten a lot from this country — the ability to be free and play football and live out my dreams — so I think it’s the least we can do to show our gratitude and pay our debts forward.”

Veterans go through an application process and other veterans’ organizations “lead the way” to his program, Allen said. Skarinka also had the good fortune to be a friend of Alex Karalexis, a 1992 W-H graduate and Hanson native, who is executive director of Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors. Veterans have  say in where they want their homes to be located and work with architects and designers in creating their homes.

Allen said the vandalism was horrible, setting the project back weeks and costing money.

“We haven’t had that issue before,” he said. “But I think the way the community reacted …”

“This has been a very special project and the community has been behind us from start to finish with all the hiccups that we had in between,” Karalexis said. “The high school football team raised money, local businesses raised money, had signs at the doors and things of that nature.”

Organizers thanked the Hanson Police for their work in apprehending the vandals.

The Skarinkas had originally planned on moving in for Thanksgiving or Christmas before the vandalism to windows in the home.

“All that did was galvanize the resolve of everybody who took part in this projects,” Karalexis said of the vandalism and natural disasters that delayed the move-in day. “It really made me proud to be part of this community.”

“This was a wonderful event this morning,” said state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, whose district includes Hanson. “It’s an amazing show of community for Hanson, but also the broader community, Homes for Wounded Warriors — all the folks who played a role in building this home. As other speakers have said, they built a home, but they also built a community here, that’s what’s most wonderful about this.”

Other Hanson officials present included Veterans Agent Timothy White, Town Administrator Michael McCue, Police Lt. Mike Casey, Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., Deputy Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak and Assistant Superintended George Ferro. Several officials from the Plympton Fire Department also attended, wearing their dress uniforms. Several representatives of building trades organizations also attended.

“It’s a great feeling to be able to help out a deserving veteran in the community,” said Harry Brett, of Hanson, business manager of the Plumber’s Union.

“It’s just an honor to be involved in something as meaningful as what this wounded warriors project is all about,” John Murphy, of Braintree, with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. It marked the first Jared Allen Foundation project undertaken in New England.

Brian Austin of New England Carpenters Training Council presented a framed photo of an inscription left by a second-year apprentice on an interior partition stud: “June 7 2018 — To our Warrior and his clan, Thank you for all you have done for our nation. It has been an honor to build this fortress for you all and may many great memories be made in this home. One nation under God.”

The inscription was discovered as repairs were being made two weeks after the windows had been vandalized.

“Minor road bump,” New England Carpenters Training Council representative Paul Gangemi, said of the vandalism to windows in the house. “The important ones they missed. It didn’t stop [us], we kept moving forward.”

The house featured five-foot-wide corridors and five-foot turnaround space almost everywhere inside. Gangemi said his organization had about three dozen volunteers from the council worked on the project.

“All the trades did a good job,” he said. “The painters were all apprentices — you go through that house, it looks like a professional painter’s job.”

A heart-wrenching cautionary tale

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With prom and graduation season upon us, school and law enforcement officials — along with Whitman-Hanson WILL — presented the documentary “If They Had Known,” on the dangers of mixing prescription drugs with alcohol in a program at WHRHS on Thursday, March 27.

“Prom season, graduation season are the most stressful time for high school administrators because of the level of choices that their kids can make during those times,” Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak said. Statistics show it is the peak time for risky behavior.

“It’s not to make people sad, it’s to make people think,” he said of the documentary screening, which the school plans to repeat for high school students.

District Attorney Timothy Cruz briefed the audience of students and parents on the points of the Social Host Law.

He said parents who host teen parties where alcohol consumption takes place, risk both criminal charges and civil liabilities when accidents occur as a result of underage drinking.

“If you know a parent that may be considering doing that, tell them this,” Cruz said. “Tell them it’s illegal. Tell them that, if you provide alcohol to a minor at your home, and, if they leave your home, your responsibility is not over. If they drive their car, after being inebriated by drugs, alcohol or whatever and there is — god forbid — a terrible accident and somebody gets hurt or killed, you will be sued.”

Szymaniak said there had already been a recent incident in which a group of seniors were caught having a party at a home during the school day.

Cruz and Szymaniak warned that local police also file charges against parents or 18-year-olds who violate the Social Host Law.

Szymaniak said he has “buried probably 25 kids” in his years a school administrator and the described regret their classmates experienced over not taking their keys before they got behind the wheel after drinking.

“We all want to be friends with our kids,” Cruz said to emphasize the point. “My answer has always been, I’ll be friends with them when they’re 25. Up until that point, I’m their father.”

He urged the teens in the audience to take care of each other and stop them from taking risks in their behaviors to save lives.

“I applaud these parents who have worked so hard to get the word out,” Cruz said of Winchester parents Geoff and Genny Soper, who are taking a lead role in the fight against the party culture of mixing prescription drugs and alcohol after their eldest son, Clay, died after taking Xanax followed by a night of heavy drinking.

“Their strength really impresses me,” Cruz said. “They are doing what they can to make sure that other parents don’t [suffer] what happened to them.”

A family’s anguish

The Whitman-Hanson WILL program featured the documentary about their son’s last night alive, “If They Had Known,” during a pre-prom and graduation season program held at the Dr. John F. McEwan Performing Arts Center.

The Sopers were scheduled to appear at the program, but Whitman-Hanson WILL organizers explained they felt unable to cope with the emotion of reliving the experience in a public setting at this time.

Founded in 2014, Whitman-Hanson WILL works to bring awareness to the importance of good decision-making about the use of alcohol and/or drugs.

“We’ve transitioned into all types of decision-making that are core for our youth, including texting and driving, drunk driving and all sorts of substances,” Szymaniak said. “The organization works with us in the community in the schools and in community outreach both in Whitman and Hanson.”

Clay Soper, then 19, was home for a winter break while attending the University of Denver, when he and some friends got together at one of their homes in 2015 when they decided to try Xanax before going to another house party where Clay had too much to drink.

His friends thought it best to get him in bed to sleep it off, but the mix of the prescription anti-anxiety medication and alcohol caused his heart and respiratory system to fatally slow down.

Friends’ efforts at CPR, when he was found to be pale and unresponsive were unsuccessful. Clay was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“You know who mixes,” Szymaniak said to the teens in the audience after the documentary was shown. “You know where the parties are, who know who brings what, you know what’s out there, and you know [what can happen] if you choose to do this or not.”

Hanson School Resource Officer William Frasier, Whitman Lt. Dan Connolly, Whitman Deputy Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Hanson Lt. Mike Casey also attended the event in case parents had questions or concerns following the program.

Authorities fail to find Murray after search

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Maura Murray, pictured on a missing persons poster. (Courtesy image)

HAVERHILL, NH — Despite a day of hope, no evidence has been found in the search for Maura Murray, a Hanson resident and UMass Amherst student missing for 15 years. After an extensive search of a long-suspected house close to where the 21-year-old Murray was involved in a single-car crash along Route 112 in February 2004, New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey A. Strelzin, Wednesday, April 3, made the announcement.

Officials from the New Hampshire State Police, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office and the FBI searched the house at times over the month of March, culminating in the tearing up of a basement floor today with a jackhammer, with the present homeowner’s consent.

No evidence was found in connection with the case, said Strelzin, and, “certainly no evidence of human remains.”

The Murray family has been critical of law enforcement over the years, blasting authorities for not doing enough to find Maura.

“We certainly did not believe there was any credible evidence,” but searched anyways, said Strelzin. “It was really done to cross something off a list.”

“There certainly wasn’t any probable cause to search the house,” he added.

But, he said, “Everybody involved remains committed to following every lead that’s out there. There’s a lot of information we continue to follow up on.”

The nursing student’s mysterious disappearance has sparked attention in the press, on the internet and on social media over the course of the last decade-and-a-half.

Her father, Fred, said that the house was “astonishingly close” to the site of the accident, in a previous interview with the Express. According to him, locals first tipped him off about suspicious activity at the house in the first year after his daughter’s disappearance, including a rumor of new concrete being poured in the basement, but the owners of the house would not cooperate with the investigation.

In November and December 2018, Fred Murray brought in two trained, accredited cadaver detecting dogs to the house, after it had changed ownership, each one on separate occasions. They alerted, he says, by lying down in the same spot in the basement of the house.

Later, he brought in ground-penetrating radar which he said indicated strong findings of an abnormality in the same spot in the concrete.

“It’s astounding that this [basement] wasn’t looked at before. I told the police about this in the first year … the State Police did an inadequate job when my daughter first went missing,” he added.

Exactly where Maura Murray was headed, and why, has remained a mystery over the years. Moments after the crash, a good Samaritan stopped to assist her, but she waved him off and told him not to call the police, according to original police reports from 2004. The passerby called local police anyway although he did drive off. A Haverhill police cruiser arrived 19 minutes later, but the Saturn was locked, and Maura Murray was gone.

“The case is still open and active.  We do receive tips and information periodically, as well as generate new information from investigative efforts,” said Streizen in a previously emailed statement.

Murray’s family members could not be reached for immediate comment.