HANSON – The Select Board on Tuesday, June 27, reviewed the fire department’s last six months, as it prepared for the future by celebrating the swearing in of two new fire lieutenants.
Lt. Tyler Bryant was a fire department intern when in high school in 2008, joining Halifax in 2010 and serving that department until 2014, when Chief Robert O’Brien said Hanson “stole him away from Halifax.” He was promoted to lieutenant with the retirement of Kevin Mossman.
“He is incredibly talented when it comes to hazardous materials and hazmat stuff,” O’Brien said. “He deals with all that for gas meters and we’ve got a plethora of them that have to go on all the apparatus.”
He calibrates the meters every month.
“Tyler, honestly, is always there to help people out,” he said. “He’s helped me immensely with the transition. He’s done an excellent job, he and his shift, in a short period of time training wise – as all the lieutenants have.”
He also serves as the department’s mechanic and has begun working toward an associate degree in fire science administration.
He was pinned by his fiancée Christina and children Cameron and Caden. Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan administered the oath of service to both men.
Lt. Thomas J. White also graduated W-H in 2008, is an Army reservist, where he has also served as a firefighter with the 468th Engineering Detachment, deployed to the Middle East in 2020. A Hanson native, he was hired as a Hanson call firefighter in 2015 and as a full-time firefighter in 2018. He was promoted to lieutenant in April.
“TJ is our fire prevention lieutenant,” O’Brien said. “He has hit the ground running. There’s quite a few changes that the deputy and I are starting to put together.”
On personal note, O’Brien said that when his son, Christopher was deployed with the infantry during the same operation White had served in the year before.
“TJ was able to sit him down and go through everything ahead of time,” O’Brien said. “That just goes to the type of person that TJ is. Even with Christopher home now, he’s like, ‘Here’s all the things you need to get done for the military’’”
White’s mother Susan pinned on his new badge.
We thank all of you guys for stepping up,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I know a transition’s been a little tricky, as transitions always are, but we appreciate what you guys are doing to make it happen, and everything you do every day.”
Department review
O’Brien then provided his report on the department for the board.
The department has responded to 1,008 calls – 911 or service calls only, not inspection requests – over the last six months as of 7 a.m. Tuesday. Of those, 168 have been multiple runs at the same time, and it had happened twice in the previous 24 hours – including mutual aid and ambulance being brought to both responses.
“We’re not the only department dealing with this,” he said, noting Hanson has received mutual aid 28 times and provided it to area towns 58 times so far this year. “We could be quiet for four hours and then the floodgates open up.”
The department tracks multiple runs, to the depth of multiple call runs, as there have been occasions were seven calls have come in at once, O’Brien said.
The department is currently staffed with one lieutenant and three firefighters per shift, with two new hires reporting for service in September.
“Eventually, we’re going to have to look at staffing,” O’Brien said, explaining he is looking at the prospect of putting five on a shift in order to ensure there is a lieutenant is in town to cover the station and manage responses when multiple medical calls are going on and both ambulances leave town.
“I’m asking everybody to think outside the box and let’s throw it against the wall and what sticks works, and whatever doesn’t, we go back to the way we’ve been doing it,” O’Brien said of his taking over as chief with the retirement of former chief Jerome Thompson Sr.. “It has been a big change for everybody.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the energy is palpable.
“Everybody is very engaged and forward-thinking and it’s wonderful to see,” she said.
“It’s just fun watching you guys just love being firefighters and just enjoying it,” said Vice Chair Joe Weeks. “Not that it wasn’t happening before, but sometimes shaking things up, people in new roles, everyone just seems so enthusiastic and so engaged and so positive.”
“We’re excited to see what this team can do,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
O’Brien gave Deputy Chief Charles Barends a lot of credit for that.
He also credited his firefighters and lieutenants for the creative ideas they’ve brought forward to address challenges facing the department. That includes grants such as the SAFER Grant, which covers medical insurance, cost of living costs and much more, excluding overtime costs, for the first three years of a new hires’ work.
“If we were to hire four people, through health insurance and everything in, you’re probably looking at $100,000 a firefighter,” O’Brien said.
He also cautioned the Select Board that he grants are not awarded next until in March or April 2024, and would not actually be seen in action for two years and five years before the town would have to budget for those funds.
“If it’s not going to be sustainable, then obviously, we can’t do it,” he said, pledging to work with the board and finance committee to determine if the grant could be sustainable.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said if the five-year financial planning approach the town is moving toward, the SAFER Grant becomes something they should want to think about.
“We’re going to need to build that in,” she agreed.
October Town Meeting needs include a simple correction to one of the department’s articles for two staff members’ overtime while new recruits were attending the fire academy were mislabeled as for fiscal 2023, when it was for fiscal 2024. He also said capital improvements, including $390,000, from the ambulance account to replace Ambulance 1 is needed. The 2014 ambulance could take as long as 18 months to two years from the date an ambulance is ordered until it is delivered.
Tower 1, the department’s aerial ladder engine, dates back to 1995. Federal grants have proven elusive for this need, however, O’Brien said.
“The last two years, it has made it to the very end [of the grant process], and then been denied,” he said. “We’re going to see how far along it goes this year, because the further along it goes and the older it gets, the more likely it is that the federal government will give us some grant money toward it, up to $1 million.”
Capital plans
The price tag for such a vehicle now stands between $1.7 million and $1.8 million, however with “no frills, off the showroom floor.”
“A lot of departments are getting away from custom-ordering big pieces like that,” O’Brien said.
Engine 1, dating from 2013, is out of service as work continues to determine just what is mechanically wrong with it.
The department has also been updating its Emergency Management plan, and is offering National Incident Management System (NIMS) class for elected officials outlining their roles and responsibilities during a state of emergency.
“You’re not signing your rights away … if, god forbid, there was a massive hurricane that blew through here and now federal urban search and rescue task forces were coming through the area,” he said. “Hanson is still in control.”
Select Board members expressed enthusiasm for such training.
He also discussed creation of a medical reserve corps of volunteer nurses, doctors and others to work with shelters when they are needed.
On the subject of emergencies, O’Brien noted that hurricane season has begun and with it, the fire department is stepping up social media campaigns on generator and home oxygen safety.
He is also discussing with Whitman Fire Chief Timothy Clancy, the potential for regionalizing Whitman’s Citizen’s Emergency Response Team (CERT). Open houses are being planned for those interested.
Initiatives begun over the last six months, which the department is continuing:

• A feasibility study for fire station renovation that O’Brien said is not planned for the near future;
• Drones, which require a pilot’s license to operate and are partially grant-funded, can be used to find people lost in Burrage Wildlife Management Area or in building preplanning or in assessing buildings during an emergency; and
• Use of the Maquan School for firefighter survival and/or active shooter training.

WHITMAN – The town will a have at least a taste of the rainbow this month after all, as the Select Board voted 3-2, on Tuesday, June 20, to support a proclamation from the board to declare June as Pride Month.
The proclamation supports a project to paint a crosswalk and walkways at the Whitman Public Library parking lot in rainbow colors while displaying the Progressive Pride Flag on town buildings as a way of expressing support for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Supporting the proclamation were Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski, Justin Evans and Shawn Kain. Member Laura Howe voted no because of objections some residents had voiced over the library’s location across the street from Holy Ghost Church. She said she would support it and Pride flags elsewhere, because she had heard no opposition to the basic idea.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci opposed the proclamation because, he argued, it would open a “Pandora’s box” of organizations demanding to fly their flags and that only the U.S. flag, the state and town flags – as well as the POW/MIA banner – should fly at town buildings.
A second 3-2 vote accepted a gift of Pride flags and other supplies from the nonprofit Whitman Pride organization.
In the end, neither Salvucci nor Howe signed the proclamation.
Whitman Pride official Christopher DiOrio, after the meeting, applauded the vote.
“I’m happy with the 3-2 vote. I think it’s a good step for the community to show that it’s inclusive, or at least our Board of Selectmen, speaking on behalf of the people that voted them in to create and show our community as being one of inclusivity,” DiOrio said. “Symbols do matter.”
He said people wondering if they are worthy or safe to come out in a community, they are not going to see a piece of paper on a wall – they’re going to see that flag and rainbow crosswalk.
“They’re going to see all of those things and they’re going to know that, at least for that brief moment in time that, ‘I’m OK, and that I’m worthy and that I’m somebody, and that at least somebody in the community is looking out for me.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has reported that a new record number of 417 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country since Jan. 1.
School Committee member Fred Small had suggested the proclamation itself simply be displayed in a town building instead of Pride flags or rainbow crosswalks.
But Town Counsel Peter Sumners said the proclamation, as a form of “government speech” would preclude such challenges.
“Following the advice of counsel, before [the May 23 meeting], we were being very cautious about this and we wanted to make sure that we understood the distinction between public speech and private speech,” Kowalski said. “We didn’t want to do anything that would encourage private speech we didn’t particularly care for, so we decided to take a break and look it over.”
While Sumners was researching the legal aspects of the issue, Kowalski said Evans researched what other towns were doing from which Whitman could borrow. One was that the town could simply proclaim some actions to express support for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Once such proclamation by the Braintree City Council, was used by the board almost word for word.
Whitman’s proclamation recognizes the rainbow as a symbol of “pride, inclusion and support for social movements that advocate for the LGBTQ+ community,” and that the town is “committed to supporting visibility, dignity and equity for all LGBTQ+ members in its diverse community.”
It supports the rainbow crosswalk at the Whitman Library – from the parking lot to the ramp at the rear entrance as well as from the front entrance – and progressive Pride flags on poles at Town Hall in recognition of Pride Month to encourage support and advocacy for LGBTQ+ residents and their contribution to the cultural, civic and economic success of the town.
Symbol of justice
“The symbolism of these crosswalks and flags is a reminder to all of us to embrace the principal of justice for all and to eliminate prejudice wherever it exists,” Kowalski read from the proclamation.
Salvucci objected to the inclusion of non-governmental or POW/MIA flags.
“If people want to display whatever they want to display on their house, on their private property, that’s up to them, they can do it,” he said. “As far as town property, I think they should stick to, as I said, state flags, town flags and [the] American flag.”
Sumners said the board’s proclamation prevents the “Pandora’s box” of requests that Salvucci feared.
Sumners said his understanding was that the message was to be conveyed in a way that was clear that it was from the town and not by any third-party group on town property.
“This [proclamation] is the board speaking on behalf of the town to say , ‘This is what we believe in,’” he said. “The government can choose to speak or not speak without opening up a forum for everyone to speak, or there are occasions, like public comment, when you do open up a forum for people to speak.”
He said the proclamation lands squarely in the realm of government speech.
Kowalski added he and Sumners talked about having a policy vs. a bylaw.
“This was the way to get it done now and it’s a way that we’re not going to be in any kind of jeopardy from any other group,” he said, noting that a number of towns have done a proclamation.
Kowalski noted that, while in Norton recently, he saw that town’s electronic message board was lit blue and yellow in support of Ukraine.
“The town had no problem proclaiming, ‘Pray for Ukraine,’ for probably a limited amount of time,” he said. “I personally don’t think we should have a problem proclaiming this at all.”
While the board had been under the impression that the library had signed off on the proposal, initially brought by Whitman Pride, there had been a change in leadership at the Library Trustees, and the new chair wanted more time to get the kind of information Sumners had supplied to the Select Board. They are expected to vote on it next week.
“The library does things like support women’s rights, Native American rights, African-American rights, and to me it’s on the spectrum of civil rights and the way that the library would celebrate those kinds of things,” Kain said. “Working with the library to do something really positive in the community is something I support.”
Salvucci then suggested that painted sidewalks doesn’t mean Pride month, it’s “Pride forever.”
Kowalski noted someone had suggested using chalk.
“That would mean we’re recognizing the value of the LGBTQ+ community before it rains,” he said to Salvucci’s vocal disagreement.
“We’re all elected, and we’re only elected from the people,” Howe said, noting that she heard a lot of complaints about the proposal, “but not for the reasons people are arguing about this.”
Location concerns
She said that, while not one person who spoke to her failed to support the LGBTQ+ community, they were concerned and upset about the crosswalk’s location.
“I just wonder, and it’s just a question please don’t laugh at me, could this be put somewhere else, like at the park, which is a town property,” she asked. “I honestly don’t want to see our community torn apart over something that … has not been a single thing I have heard.”
Former Selectman Brian Bezanson, Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly and Small were permitted to speak, although the discussion was initially intended to be among the Select Board.
Bezanson, said he is an acquaintance of the man who took the city of Boston all the way to the Supreme Court – despite losing at every lower court along the way – to win the right to fly a Christian flag at City Hall after the Pride flag had been displayed. Ultimately, it led to the Satanic Temple flag being flown at Boston City Hall.
He said the Select Board has enough to do tending to the “nuts and bolts of the community” instead of social justice, an example of overstepping boundaries that opens up a Pandora’s box.
“Our charge here is to tax, spend efficiently, make this government effective for all its citizens,” he said. “It has nothing to do about anything else.”
He argued there are nine other awareness month observations and to fly the flags of any of them would be pandering while real problems such as veterans’ suicides, drug overdoses and other problems are ignored.
Kain argued that the library offers programs that further the civil rights of everyone and this was one way to support that mission.
Evans said it was not a groundbreaking move the town was making.
“In the years pre-COVID, there was a Pride flag in the library for a number of Junes,” he said. “The COA had Pride flags in flower boxes for about a year and since the killing of Sgt. [Michael] Chesna, I believe the Thin Blue Line flag has been on the back of the fire engines for a couple of years now.”
Connolly said, while she is compassionate about the veterans’ deaths, there are examples in town where veterans are honored, including monuments, even while more could be done.
But, she added that 17 percent of youths in Massachusetts identify as gay and nearly half of those have seriously considered suicide, according to the Trevor Project.
On the same day as Whitman’s proclamation was voted, the attorney general in Tennessee forced Vanderbilt University Medical Center to turn over names of transgender patients during an investigation into billing practices for trans health care. The move sent a panic through the community of trans youth in Tennessee and Kentucky, according to the advocacy group Rainbow Youth USA, which fielded more than 375 calls from youths in crisis within 10 hours.
“There’s a lack of those symbols that we love our children,” Connolly said. “We love our children the way God makes them.”
She is also a parishioner at Holy Ghost and invoked Pope Francis’ admonition to “invite and love” the LGBTQ+ community.
“In that regard, I would say that this rainbow says, ‘We love our children,’” she said.
Bezanson challenged Evans’ being included in the vote because he had to leave the room during the first meeting. But Town Counsel Michelle McNulty explained that no longer applied because the original proposal by an immediate Evans family member, as a member Whitman Pride, was not the party putting forth the proclamation for a vote. The proclamation was brought for a vote by the Select Board as a form of speech on its own behalf.
“At this point in time, what is before the board is very different,” she said. “At this point in time you are taking government speech. Government speech, you control.”
Evans said he had contacted the state Ethics Commission, whose concern was about the appearance of undo influence because his wife was one of the people making the request and he filed a disclosure of with the Town Clerk’s office saying he could continue with his duties. The fact that the Whitman Pride request is no longer before the board because it was voting on the proclamation.
“This is the smart way to do it,” DiOrio said. “If they want to create a policy down the road, they can.”