WHITMAN — The Board of Selecmen has adopted a resolution accepting the Old Colony Region Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan, developed for the Brockton-based Old Colony Planning Council’s  (OCPC) 15 member communities.

OCPC Community Planner Eric Arbeene and Council member Fred Gilmetti outlined the plan for the Board of Selectmen at its Tuesday, Sept. 15 meeting, broadcast on Whitman-Hanson Community Access TV.

The plan was financed by a FEMA grant in 2010 with the aim of  updating a plan done in 2006.

“These plans have a five-year life span,” Arbeene said. “We were hoping to get it done by 2011, but due to some logistical issues with FEMA, we didn’t even begin the plan until 2011 when we had funds.”

Because of the logistical problems, Arbeene said the next plan will not be multi-jurisdictional, but instead an individual town plan, which the state prefers. That will happen when the 2015 plan expires in 2020.

“I strongly urge the community, about three years from now, to start updating this plan,” he said because, while FEMA quotes 45 days as the typical time taken up by the process, Arbeene said it typically takes eight months.

FEMA and the Massachusetts Emergency Management  Agency (MEMA) have approved the current plan, Arbeene said. There is, he stressed, no penalty for falling short of accomplishing all the identified tasks, as the agencies are more concerned with ensuring that the town is actively addressing them.

Hazard mitigation plans are designed to avoid problems before they become emergencies to be addressed by emergency management plans, he explained. Improvements to culverts that are prone to overflow before they undermine a roadway is one example of a mitigation project.

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 encourages adoption of the plans and the state and most communities — whether independently or as part of a multi-jurisdiction group such as the OCPC — have mitigation plans in place, according to Arbeene. Adoption of the plan makes a community eligible for competitive grants to improve identified hazards.

A grant period is now open through which the town may apply for a grant for a backup generator at Whitman Middle School, which is also an emergency shelter by adopting the plan.

“You focus your resources on your greatest vulnerabilities,” he said.

The plan identifies “anything that could possibly happen” in the region, even rare occurrences such as earthquakes and tornadoes, as well as a risk assessment.

“We worked with the fire chief, the police chief and folks here in town to identify what are known as critical facilities deemed essential in an emergency,” Arbeene said. It’s an open-ended definition that, in some places includes churches as well as hospitals and DPW facilities.

Flood zones, hurricane tracks, wildfire risks and other potential treats were then mapped and overlayed on a map labeling the critical facilities so an action plan can be formed.

“Mitigation strategies are the heart of the plan to reduce loss and risk,” he said.

Selectman Dan Salvucci said the Whitman Emergency Management Agency is very active and adept at identifying risk areas in need of mitigation. But he welcomed the added benefit of the regional plan.

“I’m glad we’re doing this and we can continue to do this,” he said. “You can’t fix what you don’t know is a problem.”

HANSON — An article proposed on the special Town Meeting warrant aimed at addressing utility costs at the Hanson Food Pantry has been withdrawn as no longer necessary, according to interim Town Administrator Richard LaCamera.

The special Town Meeting convenes at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 5 at Hanson Middle School auditorium. A quorum of 100 voters is required.

Because of the Tuesday, Oct. 6 special State Primary, a second day of Town Meeting — if necessary — will be held at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 7.

“I wanted to make sure they were aware that the board certainly is in big support of the food pantry and wanted to make sure that the communication between [them and] the town was focused on one or two individuals that would let the town know if there was issues that need to be addressed,” LaCamera said.

He met recently with Food Pantry Board Chairman Paul Nicol and Director Sharon Kennedy. They informed LaCamera that there seemed to be some miscommunication with one of the volunteers about a need for additional funds for utilities, he said.

“They don’t need additional money for the utilities,” LaCamera reported at the Tuesday, Sept. 15 Board of Selectmen’s meeting. The board voted 5-0 to close and sign the amended warrant.

“The lease is very specific. It says that they’re responsible for utilities and the town is responsible for outside of that building.”

Added to the warrant is the proposal from Whitman Amateur Radio Club (WARC) and Hanson Operations Center to use the antenna at the former Plymouth County Hospital property as an emergency repeater antenna.

There were amendments to a few other articles including language changes to one and a funding request change for another.

Two options were available to selectmen regarding the radio tower. One was a license to use, which allows the use with the board reserving the right to rescind it at any time, or a lease. LaCamera said an option for the lease is included in the warrant and selectmen approved that option.

A change to the explanation to an article regarding a water flow study along Main Street, capping the expense at $10,000, was approved.

Selectmen voted at their Tuesday, Sept. 22 meeting to leave a hold on that article as it and Article 11, dealing with a study of Wampatuck Pond would both likely be passed over at the Town Meeting. Selectmen voted 4 to 1, with Selectman Kenny Mitchell opposing, to recommend the Wampatuck study article, however.

Selectman James McGahan said on Sept. 15 that the $25,000 estimate originally quoted for the water flow study “was way too high,” according to engineering firm Environmental Partners.

“At this time, I can’t recommend funding it, but it will be there in front of the people,” McGahan said Sept. 22.

Language in the Wampatuck Pond study article, has also been changed to clarify it as a biological assessment study.

LaCamera reported that free cash has been certified at $1,098,611, “not as much as last year, but that’s still pretty good.”

Selectmen on Sept. 22 also voted to appoint Assonet resident Lisa McKay as regional animal control officer and Whitman resident Joshua Kimball as assistant animal control officer. Both appointments are for the year ending June 30, 2016.

The town of Whitman is the hiring authority for the regional dog officers, but Hanson Selectmen had to vote on the appointment as well. The region also includes Abington.

Owner of The Ultimate Pooch Inc., in Raynham, McKay is an experienced and certified animal control officer and animal inspector, including serving as the dog officer and inspector in Bridgewater as well as animal inspector for Halifax. She is licensed to carry a class A firearm and is certified in defensive tactics.

Kimball is a conservation agent in Whitman and Endangered Species Monitor for the Duxbury Harbormaster Dept.

Both McKay and Kimball will be on-call around the clock.

Veteran’s Agent Bob Arsenault attended the meeting to invite Selectmen to Saturday’s dedication of the Hancock Street Park to the memory of Army Sgt. James F. “Red” Harrington, who was killed in the Korean War. The half-hour ceremony is slated for 10 a.m. Arsenault thanked Highway Surveyor Bob Brown and his crew as well as veterans’ groups and Plymouth County Corrections — which provided an inmate work detail — for their help in preparing the ballfield for the ceremony.

“This is the town coming together to make something happen that has been long overdue,” Arsenault said. “This is what Hanson’s all about.”

Raising the roof over school repairs

HANSON — A resident’s question over whether the contractor of the Indian Head School roof project would be penalized for not completing work before the first day of school devolved into a heated exchange with Selectmen Chairman Bruce Young Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The flare-up of tempers came during the usually routine subcommittee reports — at the conclusion of an otherwise smooth session in which the warrant for next month’s special Town Meeting was approved and signed. When the dust-up cleared, the board adjourned before hearing three remaining subcommittee reports.

Selectmen Bill Scott and Kenny Mitchell made efforts to curtail the exchange and Selectman James McGahan defended the work Young has dedicated to the school and other projects.

Resident John Barata, 43 Meadow Lane, later apologized to the board for his part in the argument.

“I think we just got into a discussion about discussions,” Barata said. “There’s no harm, no foul … I just have a weird voice, I guess I sound mean all the time. I apologize.”

Young offered an apology, too.

“I’m only human,” he said. “I can get pushed to the edge, to a point.”

School Committee Chairman Bob Hayes was asked to repeat his report on the roof project given at that board’s Sept. 9 meeting. [See page 9]

“There’s been a few bumps in the road, but they’ve been worked out,” he said. “It seems like it’s gone fairly smooth.”

“It’s the first inter-municipal agreement that I’ve been involved in and it’s worked out quite well,” Young said.

Hayes again explained that the main outstanding work is to the smoke hatch, which required specially manufactured parts, and gutters and downspouts. During work a main roof beam was discovered to have been installed during original construction 50 years ago despite being run over and bent by heavy equipment.

“I know there has been some talk recently about it not being completed in a timely fashion,” Hayes said of the hatch delay. “But there has been some changes to some of what’s going on. It was backed up by letters from the manufacturer saying that these have been ordered but they’re taking more time than they thought because of the changes.”

Barata asked why contracting firm Gale Engineering was not being held liable, as there was a delay in starting the job that affected the completion of work.

“How come they didn’t start immediately after school?” Barata asked. “Why did they wait three to four weeks to get it done? Now we’re into the school year. I personally feel we should be hammering them for $1,000 — or whatever — a day. We had a hard deadline.”

“The job is 98-percent complete,” Young had said earlier in the meeting. “Nobody was put out, there were no safety issues, the fence came down.”

He added the local officials bear some responsibility for the delay because ridge vent colors were not ordered until the third week in July.

Hayes said there was also a delay in the DEP’s inspection of the slate roof, on which glue containing asbestos was used in the past, and that a meeting within the next five weeks would decide any financial penalties. Young explained penalties can only be levied in cases of “willful neglect” on the part of the contractor.

“Starting four weeks late doesn’t classify [as] negligent?” Barata retorted.

Young countered that roofers were “working their tails off” in searing heat and humidity and complained that there has been a lot of armchair quarterbacking on Facebook, to which Barata took exception, sparking the heated exchange.

“This isn’t Facebook, I’m sitting right here asking a question,” Barata said.

“I’m giving him the answer and he doesn’t want to accept it,” Young said, tossing the thick contract book across the table. “It’s in here — read it.”

McGahan moved to diffuse the situation, explaining that Young has been under a lot of pressure from the number of school repair committees he chairs.

“Don’t apologize for me,” Young said. “I’ve got every reason in the world to be angry about this and I’m tired of hearing about it.”

“I’m not apologizing,” McGahan said. “My personal vote would be no, I would not penalize them and you guys know what a hard person I am — and have been — on the schools.”

He asked people to consider how long the roof leaked and why no previous board had been held accountable for that. The current board, he added, has overseen repairs to the roof, the damage caused at Hanson Middle School by a waste pipe clog, installation of new fire alarms “before Whitman,” and contribution to new computers and a hot water heater at the high school.

Resident Kimberley King, 87 Glenwood Place, said she was “absolutely disgusted” by the exchange.

“This isn’t about who’s right or who’s wrong or who’s worked harder,” she said. “These displays continue to divide the town of Hanson.”

King lauded the positive efforts of the Selectmen and School Committee to work together as a very positive step, but that gets lost amid angry displays at meetings.

Gifts policy review

The W-H School Committee will be considering an update in its policy governing the acceptance of gifts — largely to ensure that technology gifts to the district are compatible with current computer systems.

The committee also received an update on Indian Head School roof repairs and the start of the 2015-16 school year during its Wednesday, Sept. 9 meeting.

Concern over the gift policy was spurred by a Duval teacher’s donorschoose.org fund drive through which she raised money for 10 Chromebooks, which were accepted as property of the district by the committee.

“Within the last few years there are a number of websites available on the Internet that allow independent people to apply for grants for schools for Chromebooks for teaching materials,” said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner. “They can do this because they are good people and they know we have a tight budget and they’re trying to help.”

But she expressed concern that items acquired become assets of the district, which may not be compatible with the existing IT network. Gilbert-Whitner was seeking direction from the committee on how to handle that.

The Policy Subcommittee is being reconvened to review the issue, with a report due back to the full committee by the Wednesday, Oct. 14 meeting. Committee member Robert Trotta urged that principals and curriculum coordinators be represented in that review. Gilbert-Whitner agreed, noting IT director Chad Peters would also be involved.

“The technology department needs to be able to order things that are in line with what we already have,” she said, noting that many of the websites are advertising.

Committee member Dan Cullity agreed that Chromebooks, Kindles and iPads are “all different flavors” and need to be supported differently.

“You’d hate to get computers and have them sitting in an office for two years because they can’t be supported,” said committee member Robert O’Brien Jr. “I’m all for getting [the Duval gift] as long as we can support them, but we need to put something in place.”

Committee Chairman Bob Hayes said he also saw a problem with online solicitations.

“It could be through other organizations that weren’t quite done properly, though not on purpose,” he said.

Committee member Fred Small said, via remote participation, that there should be some consistency in which fundraising operations are used and why some schools participate and others do not.

“Maybe some of these concern are more narrowly confined to technology,” member Kevin Lynam cautioned. “What we have to know is how often it happens that gifts actually cause a problem.”

Gilbert-Whitner declined to characterize it as causing a problem.

“The bottom line is you need to know what you have,” she said. “It’s all been done in good faith.”

Roof update

Hanson Selectmen Bruce Young, James McGahan, Kenny Mitchell and Bill Scott attended the School Committee meeting as a posted session of their board to review progress on the Indian Head roof. That project is 95- to 97-percent complete said Hayes, who is also a member, with Young of the Hanson Roof Repair Building Committee.

The smoke hatch, also called the “dog house” or the “penthouse,” is one of the final aspects of the project to be completed. It had to be specially fabricated and was the subject of one of the repair project’s change orders. The building’s lintels and associated masonry work has been completed.

Facilities Director Ernest Sandland shared an anecdote concerning the smoke hatch’s many names.

“I think we have a lot of names for it,” Sandland said. “[Principal] Elaine White was telling me about a third-grader on the second floor who wanted to know when the club house was going to be finished.”

Young added that for years no one knew what the smoke hatch was for because it was nailed shut, and it was the first such roof feature the contractor had encountered. The hatch was designed to vent the auditorium in case of fire.

“It’s been a project,” Hayes said.  “It’s going on and it’s going good and we’re getting the Indian Head School back in shape.”

Young noted the change orders that cropped up in the repair process were the subject of a great deal of speculation on social media, but stressed all changes were backed up with the necessary paperwork.

“The contract ran under the amount of money that the town had allocated for the entire project,” Young said. Engineering and bid process costs ran about $112,000 to $115,000 and the actual bid came in at $635,000. That left between $85,000 and $100,000 for contingencies such as change orders.

“You have people commenting on things which they have no inkling of what they are talking about, and they make these comments and people chime in so this thing feeds off itself,” Young said. “This is different than private work.”

Municipal projects are governed by the bid documents and required certifications, as well as prevailing wage laws, he noted.

“The town is protected against all those things people were worried about on social media,” he said. “Once you are a public official you have a target on your back, so it’s hard to go in and respond to these things even though you see things that are totally off the wall. That’s one of the hazards of being a town official.”

First day review

In other business, Gilbert-Whitner reported that the first day of school went smoothly, noting the start date was the same as in 2014, but that Labor Day was later this year.

“Back to school is always interesting,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen. This year it was definitely unprecedented heat.”

Food Services Director Maureen McKenzie made bottled water available, especially in the elementary schools where air-conditioning is limited, to ensure students were properly hydrated. Sandland worked with the towns to provide cooling assets for some of the schools, according to Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources/Safety and Security Patrick Dillon. High School history teacher Kevin Kavka helped identify some areas that needed attention, Dillon said.

“Pretty soon we’ll be talking to you about ‘It’s too cold out,” Gilbert-Whitman said.

WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen will soon be asked to decide if they’ll go back to the future where trash fees are concerned.

Town Administrator Frank Lynam will be meeting further with the DPW on the matter, but in the meantime plans to recommend a new pricing structure to Selectmen later this month. Residents could be paying $250 a year once more — the price charged two years ago. The fee had been $225 this year.

Lynam said he hopes that amount will be enough to cover services while a new contract with the present hauler is negotiated as service continues.

EZ Disposal of Revere, a division of Capitol Waste Services Inc., has been providing waste hauling services to the town since June. Previous hauler Delprete filed for bankruptcy.

“EZ Disposal picked up the trash without interruption when Delprete was ordered to discontinue operating [by bankruptcy court],” Lynam said this week. Both Whitman and Pembroke were affected by the ruling and are now served by EZ.

“We are in the process of negotiating with EZ for a contract,” Lynam said. “We had presented a contract, which included manual trash pickup — two employees on the truck, one driving, the other picking up the trash.”

The company has proposed moving to an automated system, such as is used in Abington. The trucks are fitted out with a mechanical device that lifts barrels to empty them into the truck.

“There is a cost associated with that,” he said. “It’s in the $320,000 to $350,000 range for the barrels.”

Each household would be provided two 64-gallon tubs, both equipped with lift-bars, which current barrels do not have. One trash barrel and one recycle barrel are included.

“I don’t know what will happen if somebody wants a second barrel, we haven’t addressed that yet,” Lynam said.