WHITMAN – The draft MBTA Communities warrant article is being prepared for Town Meeting but may be postponed until an October Town Meeting.
The 2021 state law requires MBTA communities to “have at least one zoning district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right” and is intended to address the housing crisis in Massachusetts and approximately 177 communities are subject to it.
The Multi-Family Zoning Requirement also calls for these housing communities to have a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre, the housing must be no more than 0.5 miles from a commuter rail station, subway station, etc., and no age restrictions.
The Planning Board held a public hearing, on the proposed chance to the town’s protective Zoning bylaw, in Town Hall auditorium on the issue on Monday, April 8. That board also met Tuesday, April 9 to vote on putting that amendment up for a vote at the annual Town Meeting or to submit it to the Attorney General’s office for prior approval for possible revision before putting it before Town Meeting voters.
“This would take several months,” Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said. “It would need to go before a special Town Meeting in the fall.”
The deadline for compliance is Dec. 31, 2024 or affected towns will no longer be eligible for funds from the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, or the MassWorks infrastructure program.
Additionally, towns that fail to comply with the zoning changes may be subjected to civil enforcement.
Carter added that the draft language had been reviewed by town counsel, resulting in several revisions, forwarded to the Planning Board and incorporated into the draft article. She said she will update the draft article to send out for the Select Board’s review ahead of its April 23 vote.
“However, in speaking to the attorney, we were weighing out – a lot of towns are dealing with this right now – on whether or not it’s best to put forth the article and get approval from the state before we vote it,” she said. “Some towns have approved the article, sent it to the state, and then had issues.”
Select Board member Justin Evans said his understanding is that Judy Barrett, the town’s consultant tasked with drawing up the bylaw, believes the town will be in compliance with the proposed bylaw.
“Some of the minor amendments they made, even as late as yesterday, are to reduce the frontage required within the zone to 40 feet to be more aligned with properties that already exist within that bylaw,” he said. “That’s something that the attorney general has specifically called out.”
He noted that Abington had sent their revisions to the state and didn’t hear back from the state before their town meeting.
“So they voted is as-is and they will eventually get feedback from the state,” he said. “We don’t have currently a Town Meeting scheduled for the fall [and] I don’t particularly like calling it for one issue.”
But he said it was a course of action he would recommend.
He pointed to the marijuana bylaw, on which the state flagged one small provision for change after Town Meeting had voted, and that change was made.
“It was pretty much non-consequential,” he said. “The downside of putting forth an amendment that’s not pre-approved by the state would be striking small components of it.”
If those changes took the town out of compliance or ran afoul of what the town intended, it would have to be corrected at next year’s annual Town Meeting.
“I like the project,” board member Shawn Kain agreed. “I like a number of components connected to the project. I think talking about it at the Town Meeting would be helpful in many ways and the [downside] is relatively minor for doing it now as opposed to waiting.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said he had an MBTA Advisory Board meeting that day and discusses with MBTA general manager his concern that, because towns are voting on the bylaw, that safety issues need to be addressed, especially where it would mean more pedestrians and was told that is being looked into and come up with aninformational safety program.
Unsung heroes
WHITMAN – Monday, April 15 was much more than Tax Day and Marathon Monday – in Major League Baseball stadiums and ballparks it was the 20th anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day, celebrating the first time Robinson stepped on the grass at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, N.Y., – 57 years before that to officially integrate America’s game.
But was Robinson the first African-American to play professional baseball?
Ted Reinsten, a Chronicle reporter for WCVB-TV, and author of “Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier” says the answer is kind of yes and no.
In a bit of fortuitous timing, Reinstein appeared at Whitman Public Library on Saturday, April 12 to discuss his book. The program was sponsored by the Friends of the Whitman Public Library.
“Libraries need good friends,” he said. “And this library has some good friends.”
With the start of Major League Baseball’s season only two weeks before his talk, and “the Red Sox are already almost in last place,” the timing couldn’t have been too much better.
“It’s been said that time begins on Opening Day and I often feel that way,” Reinstein said. “You get a whole new shot with spring – with everything, not just baseball.
He began with a basic question to prove how a major part of the Jackie Robinson story is not really well-known – after he broke the color barrier in 1947, who was the second Black Major Lague ballplayer?
One person guessed Larry Dobey, but while he is part of the story, his name was not the correct answer
“I’ve never had anybody get the right guess,” he said. That’s because – spoiler alert – it was Jacke Robinson and the failed guesses often come from people who know baseball history.
“It’s a bit of a trick question,” he said. “The second Black ballplayer was Jackie Robinson because Jackie Robinson did not do the thing you think he did. – Jackie Robinson did not integrate Major League Baseball. He re-integrated it.”
More than 60 years before, a Negro player named Moses Fleetwood Walker.
“That tells us we’re missing out on a central fact of what Jackie Robinson did and, by missing out on the central fact that he re-inegrated baseball takes nothing away from [him]. Do you know the year of inhuman hell he went through when he was breaking the Color Barrier?”
Death threats against him and his family were a daily part of his life.
But what the Jackie Robinson story does take away is the notoriety of Walker, who was the first and others who followed him in the game.
“One of the things with this book I was interested in was getting at how we learn history,” he said. “One of the things about doing this book was to get at a way … something that often happens with history, which is we may learn an event … and we often think, ‘I know what that is, I know what that’s about,’ and very often there’s a lot more context to the story.”
Whether it is how it is learned or it’s just a question of life getting in the way, some of those lessons are forgotten.
“In this case, its really unfortunate, because this is a case where we’re talking about really, the first civil rights victory of the 20th Century and the creation of a hero known around the world in Jackie Robinson,” Reinstein said. “And yet, he didn’t do this by himself.”
Others laid the groundwork for it.
It is also a story of how, in the years following the Civil War, baseball itself was an outlier.
“It was integrated,” Reinstein said. “It looked a little more like America. … And Moses Fleetwood Walker was a transformational player.”
He was not only the first of his race to play professional baseball player, he was a catcher who transformed how the position was played – and is played to this day. Teams used the position of catcher to stick the worst players up to then – they were just something of a human backstop.
Walker was different.
“He was fast, he was a great fielder, he was what we would call in baseball today, a five-tool player – he could play all five facets of the game,” Reinstein said. “He could run, he could hit, he could hit with power, he could field his position and he had a great arm. The last time the Red Sox had a player like that was a fellow named Mookie Betts, who they promptly got rid of and they’ve been in the toilet ever since. But don’t get me started.”
Walker was so good, he was signed by a Major League Baseball team in 1884 by the Toledo Blue Stockings of the National League.
From a social standpoint, he had been born to parents who had been born into slavery and the country was still recovering from the Civil War, but his talent for baseball could not be ignored.
But his career was short-lived because of the racism of another Major Leaguer – Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson, the captain of the Chicago Cubs the time, and the first bona fide superstar of professional baseball.
“Cap Anson happened to be quite a vicious racist,” Reinstein said. “He was a bully and didn’t like the fact that his vaunted Cubs were starting the season against a team that fielded a Black ballplayer … [but] he used another word we don’t like to say.”
Anson played the game under protest and told Major League owners the Cubs would no longer take the field against any team that fielded a Black ballplayer. While the owners tried to ignore Anson, within two years, the owners had met and taken a secret meeting and vote and a majority decided there would be no more Black players signed and those already on teams could play out their contracts, but would not be resigned.
“The Color Barrier was now a reality,” Reinstein said.
In the years 1900-20, meanwhile, the Negro Leagues and barnstorming teams criss-crossing the country, often beat white Major Leaguers in exhibition games.
It would not be until after WWII, when the Black Press in America pressured that hypocrisy after Black soldiers, including those in units like the Tuskegee Airmen and the 761st Tank Battalion within Gen. George S. Patton’s III Army Corps fought heroically to defeat the racism of Nazi Germany. The 761st had once been commanded by –Jackie Robinson after an old knee injury kept him from going overseas with his men.
It was only a matter of the right owner finding the right player to withstand the racist taunts of fans and opposing players alike.
On April 15, 1947, it happened and Robinson strode to his position in the Ebbets Field outfield.
“Amid the din of cheering fans, and of exploding flashbulbs capturing it,” Reinstein wrote, “there were also two inaudible sounds – of a wall falling, and of cheering that could not be heard with the ear, only from the heart. It rose from those not present physically, but spiritually, those who could not be seen, but were there just the same.”
What made this a topic Reinstein wanted to pursue?
“Over time, I’m saying, ‘Who are these people?’” he said. “I think the part that was probably influential for me is that, even in my Chronicle work, I’ve always loved an underdog story. I mean, who doesn’t.”
This may have been one of the biggest underdog story out there.
While Ken Burns’ 1994 documentary “Baseball,” definitely primed the pump for some fans of the game to learn more about its history.
“[It] was the first time that a lot of people heard of who these people were,” he said.
What has been the most unusual question Reinstein gets on the book circuit about “Before Brooklyn?”
“It’s always neat and memorable when somebody asks me something that I had never been asked before,” he said, noting that this reported was only the second person to ask if he thought women would ever play Major League ball. He included a slide in his PowerPoint deck of Toni Stone, a Black woman who played for several men’s Negro League teams, including the Indianapolis Clowns after the first. “So much is trial and error with doing these talks,” he continued. “So many things are the result of somebody asking me something that I wasn’t prepared for.”
His next book, “Travels Through the Heart and Soul of New England,” is something he wanted to make sure he did while still at Chronicle, because it’s based on the most memorable people that I’ve met around New England, and I knew it would be easier to tackle it while he had access to the technology at the show.
Ed budget certified
Within some 26 hours Monday and Tuesday, April 8 and 9, the School Committee certified a $62,930,345 compromise budget that includes some contract non-renewals, retirements, and $250,000 taken from excess and deficiency as well as using $100,000 in Circuit Breaker funds to close the budget gap. Then Whitman and Hanson officials then moved to fill the rest of the budget gap with override questions at town meetings and on the May annual town election ballots.
The two select boards met Tuesday, April 9, with Whitman Select Board planning to meet again today [April 11] on the matter. Voters in each community will take it from there next month.
The scenario was one of the budget-trimming proposals Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had put before the School Committee last month.
“We’re not asking for an 11 percent increase here,” Chair Beth Stafford said in her board’s meeting on Monday, April 8. “The 11 percent is the assessment, not the budget increase.”
Stafford added that the assessment to towns increased because the state did not provide the district the increase that they should have.
“It was a very low increase – $100,000 doesn’t go very far, as you know,” she said.
The School Committee voted 9-0 to approve the compromise, which would increase the operating budget by 4.04 percent. David Forth was absent from the meeting.
“Instead of being well over $1 million for both towns, if we kept the assessment as it is, it would be down to about $509,212 for Whitman and [$372,141 for Hanson],” Stafford said. “In looking at their towns, [the officials] felt those would have a better chance at passing because it would be a smaller amount. … We know it’s a Band-Aid. I know the towns are thinking about larger overrides or doing something else, we can also look at other things we can do [in the future].”
Hanson’s override would ask the voters to support a $372,141 or 2.68 percent over the 5 percent that town’s officials had indicated was feasible, and Whitman’s override would be $509,212 or 3.87 percent over the 5-percent assessment increase town officials had planned for. The Hanson Select Board voted 4-1 – member Ed Heal was unable to attend because he was traveling – to place the article and ballot question but voted to refer the issue to Town Meeting rather than make a recommendation one way or the other.
“It’s their tax money,” Hanson Select Board Vice Chair Joe Weeks said. “I want them to figure out what is the best use of their tax money. I refuse to cut any operating jobs, positions or line items to fund this. … I don’t think we should be influencing them in any way.”
Hanson’s 7.68-percent assessment increase represents $14,974,736. Based on the average home assessed value of $470,190 in fiscal 2024, Whitman taxpayers would see an annual tax increase of $95.38, according to Carter.
Hanson taxpayer would see an annual increase of $94.98 annually based on an average home assessed value of about $499,000 in fiscal 2024 to fund the override there. Hanson has plotted out the tax impact for a range of home values on the town website, hanson-ma.gov.
The original assessment increase for Whitman had been 11.3 percent and Hanson’s had been close to 10.2 percent.
The Whitman Select Board, meeting the same night, heard Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter announce that the board would meet virtually at 12:30 p.m., today [Thursday, April 11] to vote on the question pertaining to the override article being placed on Whitman’s Town Meeting warrant and on the Town Election ballot. Whitman’s 7.787 percent assessment total is $19,135,687.
Whitman FinComm opposes move
The Whitman Finance Committee, also meeting Tuesday, unanimously voted not to support the school budget as Chair Rick Anderson termed it a lose-lose proposition for the schools.
“They came down a little over $900,000,” said Hanson Select Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett during her board’s meeting Tuesday night. She repeated Szymaniak’s admonition that the budget would not negatively affect educational outcomes, but that they “needed to dig in in the interest of trying to meet everybody halfway.”
“It’s not our job to vote the assessment or even approve the assessment that is handed to us by the School Committee,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “But we do need to decide how we fund it, if voters want to do that. … This [budget scenario] was always on the table.”
She noted that the board had not wanted to make dire cuts to town personnel, so in order to do that, they have been talking about an override that is specifically for the schools, presenting it in the warrant as 5 percent being what the town can afford, and the budget for the schools would include an override.
“I don’t think anyone is leaving feeling victorious, but I do think it’s definitely better than it was a week ago.
Stafford outlined the meeting she and Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had on Monday, April 1 with town administrators Mary Beth Carter of Whitman and Lisa Green of Hanson as well as select board chairs Laura FitzGerald Kemmett of Hanson and Dr. Carl Kowalski of Whitman.
“It was a good meeting,” Stafford said of the meeting with administrators and select board chairs. “It went about an hour and a half, almost. I do want to say they were not trying to micromanage us. They were not putting us down. They were understanding of what our concerns were, too.”
She said that she and Szymaniak felt the session was “very collaborative” and that the group tried to come up with something that would work, hopefully, but that such an outcome would depend on what the School Committee decided.
“I would like to remind the board, because some people have said we are going backwards, that we haven’t progressed, that we haven’t had any new progress,” Stafford said. “And I want to remind everybody that we certainly have. We’ve seen that in the last couple of months with all the data on the students’ progress alone. We’ve advanced, we’ve come forward.”
Stafford also emphasized that the district has, in fact come forward with new programs, such as Innovation Pathways to prepare students for the outside world in the medical and health as well as business fields. The district has also added curriculum for grades one through 10.
“What I’m going to suggest does not impact any student growth and it, hopefully, might be the best way of getting through this year,” Stafford said. “We have talked with them about more conversations forward with the town, too, and things that they have decided that they need to do, but we all know is that one of the main problems is the state.”
The district received “a little over $100,000” from the state for fiscal 2025, Stafford said, adding that representatives in the General Court must do more. She also reminded the public that the district is like it’s own municipality, with it’s own health insurance, maintenance and facilities costs – as any community does.
“We knew both sides couldn’t do much of anything without an override,” she said. “The issue was, if we’re going to do an override – what size?”
Budget impact on learning
“This was a level-service budget,” Stafford said. “This did not include anything else.”
Szymaniak had presented the different budget tiers and the assessment costs they carried last month. The tier voted on Monday was the first on that list, which gave back about $900,000 and calls for not filling non-renewals of some contracts and retirements.
“These positions would not affect student scores, would not affect the young students’ class sizes that everybody was so concerned about,” Stafford said. “It would be a loss of positions, but positions that Jeff felt could be absorbed.”
Stafford also alluded to questions from the public on whether the interventionists hired to help students transition back to classrooms after the isolation and remote learning during the COVID pandemic were necessary.
“I think that everybody could see that the interventionists made a difference,” she said. “All our scores went up and they continue to go up. That would put us backwards if we couldn’t have them anymore.”
Residents have also questioned recent hires.
Seven of the positions recently filled by the school district are now required by the state, including English Language Learners (ELL) teachers or tutors and the district also has to retain E&D and Circuit Breaker funds for midyear special education student enrollments or placements.
School Committee Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said Monday that he was interested in hearing what some of the discussions held during the meeting with town officials on April 1 about the future.
“How does this not put us right back in the same position next year?” he asked. “I’m curious to know what, if any, plans are in the works for the future?”
Stafford said Hanson Town Administrator Lisa Green has discussed her town’s consideration of a $5 million operational override next year as recommended by their Madden Report. While Carter has not specifically stated her town’s plan, there is also “discussion ongoing with them.”
Stafford also said she did not think a large override would pass this year and could cost upwards of 20 positions if it should fail.
“The real problem is coming from the state,” Scriven said. “We’re not doing anything to move forward here.”
He asked if there was any push back from the towns on whether the shortfall is due to anything other than a failure of the state to adequately fund schools and asked what the towns’ legislative team was doing to push the state to adequately fund schools, especially regional districts.
“If we look at the 5 percent assessment that the town’s kind of lock us into, we’re never going to get out of this with a .0001-percent increase from the state every year,” Szymaniak said. “We’re just not. It’s not going to happen.”
Whitman Select Board member Shawn Kain argued that, to say the state does not adequately fund schools is something of a misconception, however.
“Through their eyes, they’re giving us too much state aid, and they’ve given us too much state aid for the last period of time,” he said. “Once we come out of the hold-harmless situation, then we get back into the typical scenario and they start to fund us with state aid that’s proportional to our budget.”
Both Scriven and Fred Small acknowledged that the current budget practices are putting an undo burden on taxpayers, especially those on fixed incomes. Small again advocated for a five-year plan to better demonstrate the need to taxpayers.
Hillary Kniffen reminded the board they have already done that and agreed the problem is the state funding and a misunderstanding among local taxpayers that the schools are overspending.
Member Dawn Byers asserted there is more of a revenue collection problem on the part of the towns than a budgeting problem with the schools.
“To recognize the concerns about the taxpayers, we’re only doing them a further disservice by using E&D of $250,000,” she said. “Because when you go to borrow for a middle school building, that interest rate’s going to go up because the district has used E&D.”
She also said, while it’s comforting that education won’t be impacted, she is still concerned about what positions will be cut.
Stafford also said residents do not realize that $600,000 of the money taken out of E&D last year went toward helping the district recover from a damaging data breach the year before, on which recovery work is still being done. That was done so the amount not covered by insurance was not billed to the towns.
“We’re not unique,” said Committee member Glen DiGravio, attending remotely. “This is happening all over the state. Every town’s going to be voting on an override, pretty much… I think this is a fair compromise proposal. I think the motion before us is something that gets us through.”
He said he knows the Committee wants to fix next year and the next five years, but they have to fix this year first.
“If an override is going to happen, no matter what, I think making it as painless as possible is what we should be doing now,” he said, advocating Szymaniak’s proposal.
Hanson’s questions
In Hanson, Weeks asked a question many residents have been wondering about: What happens if the override fails?
Hanson Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff said if either town rejected the budget while the other approves it, that is considered a rejection and the School Committee may decide not to accept that, which would force another town meeting. If Hanson, for example, were to approve only the lesser amount and Whitman approves the greater amount, School Committee may opt to accept the lesser amount and adjust Whitman’s portion accordingly, Feodoroff said.
The Committee is, however, also able to force a Super Town Meeting, attended by residents, and would have to work within a 1/12 budget until it is settled.
FitzGerald-Kemmett summed up for her board that it seemed that, at the first budget certification vote in March, she felt the School Committee felt that, since the two towns were discussing an override, “We’re going for the gusto, we’re going to go for the maximum,” she said. “I’m not saying that for dramatic effect. I think their feeling was, ‘If they’re going to do an override anyway, and that’s how we’re going to fund this delta between the 5 percent and whatever we vote, then, let’s not cut back on anything and keep as much E&D and Circuit-Breaker money as we can.’ I am not defending this, nor am I trying to condemn them. I’m just stating this is the perspective.”
She also stressed that the School Committee is elected to do the job of advocating for students.
“We’re elected to do a different job,” she said. “That’s why, at budget time, it may feel like we’re at different ends of the spectrum, but they’re doing what they feel they need to do. … We’re trying to balance the town’s budget, and I don’t want to say never the twain shall meet, because I’m eternally hopeful that the twain shall meet at some point.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett also said the forensic audit is also continuing, with a meeting planned for this month perhaps as early as this week.
Hanson Little League opens the season
HANSON – “Some days you win, some days you lose, some days it rains,” off-kilter rookie phenom pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh intoned during his first big Major League news interview in the 1988 film “Bull Durham.”
Well, it rained Saturday, April 6, on the Hanson Little League’s Opening Day parade – and no one seemed to mind much, except for the fact that the Pitch, Hit & Run contest, as well as the scheduled games, had to be postponed.
The opener marked the 25th year of Hanson Little League’s charter with Little League International, and it would take more than a little rain to dampen that celebration.
The morning began with the promise of the sun peeking through clouds after a few days of sometimes heavy rain and, while the air was raw, parents and excited players – from T-ball to the Major League levels – gathered at the Town Hall green to receive new baseball caps and T-shirts, emblazoned with the name of the sponsoring business on the back, before marching to Botieri Field.
The rain held off long enough for a Hanson ambulance and fire engine to crawl up the hill on Liberty Street, sirens blaring, ahead of the teams and family members.
But just as the opening ceremonies were getting underway, a misty rain set in, and by the time Hanson Little League President Robert Kniffen began to speak, it intensified, driven by a steady wind.
“Baseball breaks your heart,” former MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote, but, as Kniffen noted, it also symbolizes community.
“Little League is a community game, played in thousands of communities across the world and there’s no better community than [the one] you are in right now – Hanson, Massachusetts,” Kniffen said. “As you can see, it’s truly a community effort, from the moms and dads, the aunts and the uncles, our first responders – so much goes into making this a special season.”
Opening ceremonies included former Hanson Little League board member and League President Paul Clark threw out the ceremonial First Pitch and a player selected from each team went to the pitchers mound to yell “Play ball!”
And the season was on.
“In addition to Paul’s 11 years serving the board, and three years as president of the board, Paul also spearheads the Damien’s 5K Freaky Road Race fundraiser, which also benefits community programs, including Hanson Little League,” Kniffen said.
He noted that Little League’s mission is to teach life lessons and build stronger individuals and communities.
“We all have an important role and an opportunity to teach and learn these life lessons through Little League baseball,” he said. “For the players, that means to … be a good teammate. To be a good friend. To do something kind – to help a teammate out. To be coachable – to listen to your coaches and what they’re teaching you.”
As glasses steamed up or got splattered with raindrops, a few umbrellas went up and several spectators turned their backs to the wind, Scouts from Troop 68 raised the flag as Brittney Prescott sang the national anthem.
Pastor Kris Skjerli of Calvary Baptist Church listed several MLB players who often credit their faith in their daily lives more than their on-field success, before offering the opening blessing.
“Thank you for men and women who have given their lives and their dreams to sports and baseball as we gather here today, and have been able to keep it in perspective,” he said in his blessing. “And I pray we can do the same this year, and have fun, play our hearts out and develop our skills. Give wisdom to the coaches, patience and understanding.”
He prayed that the players be protected from injury and that their attitudes and on-field behavior reflect respect for each other. The two attributes require no skill, but help players improve every day, Kniffen told the players ringing the ball field.
“In sports, and in anything else, there’s two things that you can control, and that’s your attitude and your effort,” Kniffen said. “It’s not how far you hit the ball. It’s not how fast you throw it. … We look for you to be a positive teammate.”
That means dependably showing up for every game and every practice, not complaining or giving up, by always trying your hardest and listening to coaches, no matter what the outcome.
“For the parents and families, it’s time to take a step back and appreciate the game in its purest form … it’s just kids, enjoying America’s pastime for the love of the game,” he said, reminding them that there are no contracts or scholarships being handed out by high-power scouts.
While there will be failures for players to experience, the consequences will be minimal, and parents were asked to keep that in mind.
“None of this would have been possible without the group and community efforts that have been put forth in the past year in preparation for today and this upcoming season,” Kniffen said. He gave a tip of the cap from the league to the players’ families’ participation and positive support; the league’s board of directors; coaches and volunteers who stepped up to lead teams this spring and the team sponsors, asking families to take note of sponsors’ advertising banners around the fields and support their businesses.
He also gave “a big thank you to the Hanson Fire and Police departments for their help in making the event a safe success.
Kniffen gave special recognition to Deputy Fire Chief Charlie Barends for donating his time to attend the annual coaches meeting to train coaches and volunteers on CPR, first aid and operating the use of AED machines as well as securing the three machines stored at the HLL fields for emergency cardiac use.
Kniffen also saluted the league’s fundraising partnership with Gold Athletics. Last year the partnership translated to $6,000 for the league, and this year they plan to exceed that.
Based on the current fundraiser’s success to date, that seems like a good bet.
Gold Athletics representative Matt Ross reported that, while, there has been success in the past two years of the partnership. Said he wanted to “address some of the pain points.”
Even though the families involved in Hanson Little League sold more than $17,000 worth of cookies dough last year, the company wanted to make it easier this year with a pretzel and waffle fundraiser in which orders will be shipped directly to customers’ homes anywhere in the country. As a result, three people are already close to their sales goal.
“We’re hoping to beat last year’s record,” Ross said. “Another new feature is somebody can actually just donate if they’d like to.”
Kniffen also asked the crowd to consider supporting Hanson Little League in other ways, such as the snack shack and raffles. One raffle, for four seats behind home plate at a Red Sox game, which will be drawn on April 26, and for tickets to an Aug. 10 New Kids on the Block concert tickets, for which more information will be soon be available about the $20 tickets.
All fundraising proceeds go directly back to the league.
Hanson energy program to start
HANSON – Town Administrator Lisa Green on Tuesday, April 2 informed the Select Board that full approval has been received from the state Department of Public Utilities Control (DPUC) for the town’s municipal energy aggregate program to offer residents savings on their electricity bills.
Good Energy conducted the procurement bidding service and, out of three bids received, the supplier with the lowest cost was Direct Energy Services.
“There has been an electric service agreement that has been executed,” she said. “Good Energy [was] going to begin, I believe [this] week, the outreach.”
Hanson residents are being mailed informational postcards including quotes on savings and rates in order to decide what what to do, or they can visit hansoncommunitypower.com.
“This will be a savings,” Green said. “I can’t give estimates on what the savings will be, but is a significant savings, below what National Grid charges pet kilowatt.”
Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett noted that board member Ed Heal had specifically asked that outreach be done to inform residents – targeting the Senior Center in particular – to get that information out.
“What’s our plan here?” she asked.
Green said Green Energy would be developing the postcards and literature for “basically everyone in Hanson” and said her office could ensure it is delivered to the Senior Center as well.
“We can also ask them to put together a presentation that they can do by Zoom over at the Senior Center,” she said.
Energy Committee member Marianne DiMascio said there is a full community outreach schedule to which Good Energy must adhere, including postcards and literature. There will also be an in-person community information session this month, probably at the library or police station, and a virtual meeting in May. Another in-person session could also be held at the Senior Center.
The basic rate for National Grid service is currently 18.32 cents per kilowatt hour. Hanson standard is the default at 13.693 cents per KWH and 10 percent of that supply is from renewable sources. Hanson basic (no renewable sources) is 13.62 cents per KWH and Hanson 14.7 cents per KWH for 100-percent renewable sources.
The board also voted to have Green draft a letter to National Grid requesting streetlights at three utility poles along Route 58 in the center of town in the interest of pedestrian safety.
Green said she had received an email from Sgt. Michael Bearse of the Hanson Police, about streetlights at the intersections of Liberty and Winter as well as Indian Head and School streets. Bearse observed that lighting at those areas was insufficient to make it safe for pedestrians to cross.
“He has suggested that we add streetlights to the crosswalks,” she said. “ One is near the front of Town Hall on Liberty Street at Winter Street and the intersection of Indian Head Street and at the School Street side of Indian Head Street.
“Apparently, there is one streetlight on one of those poles, but it’s not operational, so I don’t know if that was one that was included in the recent LED conversion that National Grid did,” Green said. “We can get in touch with them as soon as we know exactly what pole number it is.”
Green reached out to National Grid about the process of adding streetlights to those poles and was told it was just a matter of adding the light arm and lamp to the poles. The cost is $108 per year per light annually.
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if that was an annual expense or just the cost of adding the light to each pole. Green said a 20-watt LED light plus installation done at no cost, the $108 reflects the electricity cost.
In other business, the board, had voted to appoint Highway Supervisor Steve Graham as temporary interim highway director for March 20-29. As it was not posted for that meeting, the board will vote on appointing Kurt McLean as the new interim highway director, effective April 1.
The board also voted in open session to place Highway Director Jameson Shave on paid administrative leave for the remainder of his contract – effectively no longer being employed by the town from March 20 to June 30. The board had already taken the vote during executive session.
Old Colony Elder Services marks 50 years
Old Colony Elder Services (OCES) is celebrating 50 Years of Care and Collaboration with a special luncheon and awards presentation on May 1, 2024, at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor.
Established in 1974, OCES is the largest provider of in-home and community-based services for older adults and people living with disabilities in Plymouth County and surrounding areas in Massachusetts. The agency has offices in Brockton and Plymouth.
OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon will be held at Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor, 180 Water Street in Plymouth, MA 02360 on May 1, 2024, 12:30-2:00 p.m. The luncheon will include an awards presentation; 95.9 WATD Radio Host Rob Hakala as the MC, Life Is Good Playmaker Project creator Steve Gross as the guest speaker; and an opportunity drawing. Civic and business leaders, vendors, and partner organizations, and health care professionals are invited to attend.OCES will present awards to outstanding individuals and organizations whose actions and/or leadership have exemplified Care and Collaboration.
The event is part of a campaign to raise $50,000 to expand OCES’ Behavioral Health and Wellness programs. OCES’ Elder Mental Health Outreach Team (EMHOT) provides behavioral health and wellness support to older adults and people with disabilities who may be isolated or encounter barriers limiting access to behavioral health care.
Thanks go to sponsors for their generous donations: Datalyst, LLC; Best of Care; The OCPC Ombudsman Program; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; Law Office of Paula Schlosser; Attentive Home Care, Inc.; Home Health Resources, Inc.; Brown & Brown of Massachusetts, LLC; Citrin Cooperman; Stonewell Care, LLC; Old Colony Planning Council (OCPC); Rockland Trust; Diman Laundry; isolved MP; South Coast Laundry, Inc.; and S&M Transportation.
RSVP by April 15, 2024 for OCES’ 50th Anniversary Luncheon. Registration is required.
For tickets to the event, visit ocesma.org and click on OCES’ 50th Event Page.
Talks continuing on school budget
HANSON – Town and school district officials have been talking, and – while the school budget gulf has not yet been bridged – there is a clearer focus on the budget picture.
As the Select Board reviewed the warrant on Tuesday, April 2, Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett sounded a note of cautious optimism that the gap could be bridged, or an override to span that difference would be needed. Last week the frustration over the school budget was strong [see stroy below].
Vice Chair Joe Weeks, during the warrant articles review, suggested the board not vote on recommending non-financial articles until next week.
“Does it make sense to put off this conversation until we actually know how much money we’re going to have?” he said. “Wouldn’t this conversation be better to have next week once FinCom has gone through their recommendations?”
They proceeded through the review voting only to place several financial articles until the Tuesday, April 9 meeting.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, noting that “diplomacy is not my forte,” described the meeting she attended with Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak, School Committee Chair Beth Stafford and Whitman Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski on Monday, April 1.
“We may be having additional conversations about the school assessment and where that is by next week, which potentially could be at a different place than it is right now,” she said.
Weeks said without a firm number on several articles, “a lot of this is guessing.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board could either place and recommend non-monetary articles, place everything and remove any articles, not supported before the warrant closes. The board did, however, vote to place and recommend an article that increases zoning fines to give them more bite.
The board opted to place everything that had no monetary effect. It was in keeping with a caution sounded by Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan.
“I imagine we’ll be preparing for the worst and stripping a lot of things that we’d like to do out of the articles,” Sullivan said as his committee prepared to review the warrant. “We will not be recommending a large majority of things we can put off.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked if the lens they might be looking through is different if the school assessment were to come down or did Sullivan still feel it would be problematic.
“I think we need a safety net, always, so I still think there are things we’re going to not recommend in the articles as well as we’re still going to make cuts to the budget,” Sullivan said. “Not enough to overcome the deficit, but enough to trim things out of the current budget that are ‘nice to haves.’”
The board voted to place the article but has not yet voted on whether to recommend it.
Balancing the budget, on paper, will take using $858,000 in free cash and keeping the schools at a 5-percent increase Kinsherf said. There would be $248,000 left in free cash if that scenario proves accurate.
“We can balance the budget as we currently have it,” he said. “The thought was that next [thing] we’d be thinking of is an override above the 5 percent that the schools want.”
“We’re not going to recommend paying more than 5 percent,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We are at 5 percent. We are not moving beyond 5 percent.”
That said, she described the meeting with Whitman and school officials as having created an “understanding among everybody that, really, the towns are in a tough position” and can’t go above the 5 percent assessment increase without a school override.
“It would still be more of a partnership and much appreciated if the School Committee could take another look at the assessment that they’ve given to the towns and they have taken that under advisement and they will take it back to their School Committee,” she said. “It was a cordial conversation, everybody understood where everybody else was coming from [and] we basically said 5 percent is where it’s at.”
During that conversation, FitzGerald-Kemmett recalled that Szymaniak made a good point that “our 5 percent increase on their assessment really translates to a 3.8 percent increase” to the schools because the assessment is only a portion of the budget.
“Regardless of what we hear back from the School Committee, unless they say, ‘We’re going to go straight 5 percent, which I’m not anticipating is going to happen,” … we’re going to have a school override for the delta between the 5 percent and whatever the assessment is,” she said. “Whitman is doing the same thing.”
While she is hoping that the override is reduced and would go a long way toward helping people feel that at least some work has been done and “some ownership and mutual respect has been exhibited by everybody trying to work together on this.”
“It truly is a math problem,” she said. “Nobody was able to commit, I didn’t commit to anything, we just talked.”
Select Board member Ed Heal asked if they had to know how an override would look and if anything was being drafted.
Language for the article is preliminary according to Green who added it would be reorganized after the school district’s decision.
“Until a vote is taken by the School Committee, we ought not to be putting anything into our [warrant],” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I don’t think we should have a dollar amount at all in this. We know, if it’s anything in excess of 5 percent, whatever that dollar amount is will be in here.”
The choice is sticking to 5 percent or doing a school override for the delta between the two numbers, she said.
Schools are far from the only budget the Select Board is concerned about.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said the town also has, within the articles for the special Town Meeting Warrant, the ability to use ARPA funds for an $85,000 pond management study, for example, which could be tabled until October. The board agreed to delete that article from the May Town Meeting warrant.
Other financial
articles
The board also placed and recommended the Camp Kiwanee budget article, which largely shifts funds from retained earnings to the budget plan, according to Camp Kiwanee Commission Chair Frank Milisi. Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf echoed that by noting $50,000 would be transferred from receipts and the remainder from retained earnings.
“At the end of the day, we will have the side-by-side comparison of what the [Select Board] recommends and what FinCom recommended,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
The board had to cut the $15,000 article for an animal shelter renovation that was planned in addition to boosting the animal control officer to a full-time position. The board has discussed in depth earlier this year that the ACO has driven animals to the Lakeville shelter, which takes upwards of 40 minutes for a round-trip or brings animals, especially livestock, to his own property.
Weeks concerned about the potential liability of the ACO taking animals home.
“To me, I would like to see this handled as a project plan,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I feel it needs flushing out.”
She tasked Green with doing more research to obtain solid numbers on the cost in light of Select Board member Ann Rein’s comment that she had toured Hanson’s shelter that day and determined it would likely cost much more than $15,000 to renovate.
“Bring it back in October with a little more meat on the bone,” she said.
Hope held out for more budget talks
HANSON – While Whitman’s Select Board was hearing a list of consequences – including layoffs and shuttered departments – of a $63.5 million level-service fiscal 2025 school budget on Tuesday, March 26, Hanson officials were seeing the same handwriting on the wall, but a flicker of communication was being nursed into the flame of another joint meeting between town officials on Monday, April 1.
“We may get to a better point,” said Hanson Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “It certainly can’t get worse. … There’s not a lot of town budget to slash.”
In the meantime, the Select Board reached the consensus that, if an override of Proposition 2 ½ is necessary, it would be a contingency school override, with dual budgets proposed at Town Meeting as Whitman is doing, allowing Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan to have the ballot printed by April 12.
The W-H School Committee on Wednesday, March 20, certified the budget, first unveiled on Feb. 1, without any of the cuts discussed the previous week.
“After many conversations that [Whitman] Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter and myself had with Superintendent [of Schools Jeff Szymaniak], we really voiced our ability to afford 5 percent assessment [increase],” Town Administrator Lisa Green. They also met with Szymaniak and School Committee Chair Beth Stafford in which she and Carter reiterated the towns’ ability to afford only a 5 percent increase.
“I think we’re back where we said we were going to be last year,” said Finance Committee Chair Kevin Sullivan. “The schools are not willing to be a rational partner, in my opinion.”
He noted that financial consultant John Madden has been telling Hanson officials that a $5 million operational override has been needed to put the town on solid financial footing.
“I don’t know how this went from such a cordial relationship over the 12 years I’ve been doing this,” he said. “We’ve never had this kind of problem. … The math just doesn’t hold up in the long run.”
He said the choice comes down to playing a “dangerous game of chicken” with the entire process and see what happens, predicting there would be another override next year and another after that; or the town can try to reach an agreement with the district this year and go for an operational override next year for FY 2026.
He said the April 1 meeting should take place after the April 1 meeting.
“If we don’t do an override, the changes are fairly draconian,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett. “I’ll be quite honest, you’re looking at library, Town Hall employees, obviously, some fire and police would be impacted. I personally don’t even want to talk about those types of cuts. … We would be talking about absolutely crippling the operations at Town Hall.”
Most of the positions residents take for granted like a full-time Building Department, Conservation and then Board of Health would all be cut.
“Why do we have to cut on our side, when the School Department doesn’t have to cut on anything?” Select Board member David George asked.
“We are not the School Committee,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
While insisting she was not trying to be critical of Szymaniak or to take potshots at anyone, FitzGerald-Kemmett, she said the Select Board “could not have been clearer any earlier than we were this year” about Hanson’s financial situation.
The town could say no and include a budget with a 5-percent in the warrant and present the school budget as contingent on an override happening. That is the avenue Whitman is taking.
Failing passage of the school budget on the town side and an override fails, cuts would be forced. If an override passes, the school budget would be funded.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said her feeling is that things would fall somewhere in the middle.
“Even if they come down a little, we literally cannot afford any more than 5 percent,” she said. “We weren’t exaggerating, we weren’t being dramatic. We cannot afford any more than that.”
Even at a 5-percent assessment increase, the town would be making cuts and “limiting spending severely,” she reminded the board. “What we’re saying is all we have is 5 percent and even that was a stretch.”
The Hanson Select Board had initially told the School Committee that all it was comfortable in allowing very moderate growth – and even negotiation with the unions – was 3.8 percent, FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
“With this 5 percent, we now have to try to deal in good faith with the unions and say we don’t know what our financial situation is going to look like next year,” she said. “It’s not a great place to be as we enter into negotiations with all of our unions this year.”
Green said it was very unfortunate after attending the School Committee meeting last week.
“To see that the committee did not take into consideration any of Superintendent Szymaniak’s scenarios for lowering the assessment, which would have included using some of their excess and deficiency and circuit breaker, cutting some positions to bring the assessments down,” Green said. “They were starting to go in the right direction, but they got to 6.69 percent, a 7.68 and a 5 percent scenario.”
The Committee’s 8-1 vote took all reductions off the table and was opposed by Whitman member Fred Small. Member Michelle Bourgelas of Hanson was absent.
Green said the School Committee’s vote leaves them needing to close the funding gap and that “an override is one of our options.”
“It’s not out of the question [that the School Committee could make cuts], but we have a very short runway right now,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve got to make a decision and lock down our warrant, really, within the next week in order for us to be able to do this.”
Hanson’s assessment increase went back to the original 10.2 percent and Whitman’s to a 11.88 percent increase.
Green has since been working with Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf to determine what that type of assessment means to the towns – roughly $15,532,479 as an assessment for Hanson, and about $20 million for Whitman. Hanson’s free cash totals only $1.486 million.
“That brings us to a shortfall of $1,579,947,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t have enough free cash to cover that amount.”
Hanson needs to find $723,176 to balance.
Green said a chart is posted on the town website: hanson.ma-gov, that gives residents an idea of the impact of an override on their real estate personal property tax based on the average assessed value – $499,873 based on FY 2024 figures. Such a home would be a tax bill of $6,688 or about $179.75 more annually. The chart covers tax changes connected to an override on property valued from $250,000 all the way to $1.5 million.
George asked if the school district had any free cash. Green noted the districts doesn’t have enough free cash to cover it. The School Committee typically cannot empty their excess and deficiency account, even as they often contribute some of that money to help balance the budget, because laws mandating the schools educate all children ages 2.5 to 22 means they need to keep some cash in reserve in case a family with a special needs child moves into the district.
Szymaniak had suggested in one of his scenarios that $250,000 of the approximately $700,000 in E&D toward lowering the school budget deficit.
“I’m a neophyte to all of this, but it just seems to me to be extremely – I don’t even know what the word is … arrogant comes to mind – to ask the towns to cut other budgets and not even take a glance at what they could have cut,” said Select Board member Ann Rein. “I don’t understand that kind of attitude, especially in this day and age, when everything has done nothing but go up and we’re just supposed to pull it out of somewhere.”
She said non-instructional staff hired with one-time funds should go – “I don’t care what they do at the school,” Rein said. “Some of them could go.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the schools don’t have to be told where to cut, but they should have to make cuts.
She pointed out that Szymaniak had presented several scenarios in which some programs would be cut and some E&D and circuit breakers funds would be transferred to help close the budget gap.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said there will be more discussion between the two towns and the district, and that she feels hopeful that the dollar amount might be reduced, but that is hard to say by how much.
“We are dealing with the most severe case … and without any further movement from the School Committee and we’re trying to make a decision,” she said. “What are our options?”
“Hope is not getting us anywhere,” Rein said.
“I just think it’s funny that they hired a lot of people over there that are not teachers that they don’t want to lay off,” George. “They got something that they can’t afford, just like if I bought something I can’t afford, I’m going to get rid of it.”
He said the district has people on the payroll they obviously can’t afford and they are trying to retain them.
“They’ve taken a stand … they’re doing what they believe is their mission … what they were elected to do and our job is to respond and say we are responsible for managing the town’s budget,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “If you want that money we have to go to an override, and it has to be for the schools because we don’t need it for the town budget.”
She called Whitman Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski and Stafford to see if there was any potential that groups from either town or the district could come together and discuss the budget and it was agreed to, with the town administrators, Szymaniak, Kowalski, Stafford and herself to have such a discussion April 1.
“I don’’t know if that will work, but I’m willing to try anything,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Vice Chair Joe Weeks said he is struggling with the issue.
“One of the things I’m struggling with is how it, ironically affects the kids that we’re trying to advocate for,” he said, noting that a lot of people will end up in a difficult position. “We go to the ballot with something like this, you’re putting a lot of stock in that it’s going to pass. … I just don’t like being in a position like that in the 11th hour.”
He said his main concern is what happens if it does not pass at the ballot.
“It really is an all-or-nothing scenario,” he said.
SST eyes next steps in building project
HANOVER – Back-to-back meetings of the South Shore Tech School Committee and School Building Committee on Wednesday, March 20 updated the ballot timing and reviewed the process for selecting a project construction manager.
During the School Committee’s regular meeting, Superintendent/Direction Dr, Thomas J. Hickey noted Town Meeting season was approaching rapidly for the district as Abington holds its Town Meeting on Monday, April 1 and Scituate’s is on Monday, April 8.
Hickey said his evaluation goals for the year include cyber security, the MSBA process and students receiving third party licenses.
Hickey said he planned to convene with town clerks in district communities on April 24.
“At that meeting, my hope is to get updated feedback from them.” he said, noting he has already received one request to consider moving a January vote to closer to spring 2025. “I asked if that meant something like March or April, the answer was, ‘yes.’ … so we are anywhere from 10 to 12 months from the voters of our district rendering a decision.”
Saturday, March 1 or Saturday, March 8, 2025 are both possible election dates, he said.
“We may see some of our communities, which has nothing to do with us, decide that on the same day to have a separate ballot, ask the sequence of A1) Do you support the vote project? And A2) are you willing to pay for it through a debt exclusion? … That way town financial teams would know where they stand.”
“How do we inform our communities?” Mahoney asked.
Carlson said that, aside from the usual marketing materials such as the use of a website and flyers, talking to people is the best avenue.
“To date, we’ve been trying to go to public meetings and things like that,” Carlson said. “Over the summer, there’s farmer’s markets … having conversations with people, I think will be an important part. … Nobody can advocate for the project, but we can provide facts.”
“What can we do to convince the state [that] the cost of vocational education is a lot more than a traditional regular high school?” Salvucci asked.
Franceschi said a recent project by Tri-County saw discussion of the need to get more vocational representation on the MSBA board.
The Building Committee, on which most of the School Committee also serves, heard a project update from the Construction, according to Manager Jennifer Carlson of LeftField. The Building Committee also voted to appoint OPM representative Carlson, architect representative Carl Franceschi of DRA and awarding authority representatives Hickey and School Committee members Robert Mahoney and Robert Mello to the at-risk prequalification and selection committees.
The state requires those representatives to serve on the committee approving the project moving forward with the procurement process, which the inspector general has approved.
The selection committee reviews the statement of qualifications to decide which are qualified to move on to the next round, conduct interviews and, ultimately votes to award the construction manager’s contract.
Abington School Commitee member Mahoney, of SST Dean of Students Robert Mello, who holds an unrestricted construction supervisors license, were selected based on their construction experience, said Chair Robert Heywood who represents Hanover.
“This is a process that’s based on the qualifications, but we do have to see the price before we do the final ranking,” Carlson said.
The aim is to have the process complete for the SBC to approve the construction manager by May 23.
The construction manager feasibility pre-con fee range, which gets the project through schematic design, is between $55,000 to $65,000 from the $305,565 in remaining uncommitted funds.
Whitman committee representative Dan Salvucci asked when town votes on the new school project would begin.
Bringing them back to the matter of the schematic design, Franceschi noted that, while they are not there yet, they “don’t have to wait around” to take the project to the next level.
“The basic goal of this phase is to describe the scope, the schedule and the budget so by the time we submit again to the state, those three areas are well-defined and everyone is willing to live with it because it really becomes a contract,” he said.
Now that the specific site of the new building is better known, DRA’s engineers can go back to make boring and test kits in more specific locations to know what the soils and ground water is like.
“It’s pretty important information from a design point of view,” Franchesci said.
A traffic engineer will also be more closely studying the traffic flow past the school.
“So basically, we’ll be refining the design,” he said. “There’ll certainly be fine-tuning.”
Mahoney asked when the committee would see a “drop-dead date” when they learn MSBA numbers.
Carlson said the budget is part of the schematic design submission delivered to the MSBA in August and, two weeks later, the whole schematic package, which the MSBA will have two months to provide the numbers. Officially, the date would be around Oct. 30.
Fund-raising runners are matathoners, too
Over the past few months, folks out there may have seen me, and likely a lot of other folks in the area, running at various speeds for various reasons on the streets of Whitman. Me? I’m in the final days of training to run my fourth Boston Marathon, to raise money for Mass General Hospital’s Pediatric Cancer Center. I’m a “charity runner,” which means I earn my place on the course not by speed, but by raising funds. Yesterday, someone on one of the runner’s internet boards asked whether anyone was experiencing derision for being a “charity” runner, as opposed to someone who “qualified” by running.
Well, yeah. I get negative messages about not being qualified… about not being a real runner… about being too fat to do this, and a few folks have gone so far as to say that my, and others of my ilk, running marathons is diminishing the value of the accomplishment for the “real” runners. I brush it off; it happens often enough that I kind of expect it… but I also censor myself a lot, because the underlying feeling with a good number of folks in the running community is, well, I don’t belong.
I’m not saying this comes from the elite runners. It’s more from the “everyday” folks, who have somehow taken it upon themselves to gatekeep the roads as somewhere that a person like me will never belong, regardless of what I do to get there.
Look, I know who I am. I DO own a mirror. I know that I’m likely never going to be a person who finishes a marathon in 2.5 hours, or 3, or even 4 or 5. I know that I’m “buying my way in” to marathon courses by raising money, as opposed to “earning” my way. I’m good with that.
I know some folks who have the financial means to stroke a check for the $7500.00 Boston Athletic Association charity fundraising requirement to get a bib for the run. I know folks who bust their [butt] and struggle and qualify to run because of their sheer physical and mental ability. Every single one of these runners counts, though, and here’s why: Whether you complete a mile in 6 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 14 minutes, it’s the exact same 5,280 feet.
So, sure, the hateful exclusionary stuff bothers me, but I eat it (see what I did there?). It’s exhausting, but when I’m exhausted, physically or mentally or emotionally, in the quiet and solitude of my runs, I call to mind the reason why I will keep showing up:
- My fat old body can still move, and it can do hard things.
- Not every athlete has to fit the mold of looking “athletic” or like a “runner.”
- Even if I finish last, my medal is the same as the folks who are already having a drink at the bar when they drape it around my neck.
And most importantly, every single step I take, in training or on race day, is done to help kids and families who could give a tinker’s damn about how old, or fat, or slow, or old fat and slow, the guy is who helped them out.
I’m old. I’m fat. I’m slow. I run for charity.
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