WHITMAN – The Department of Public Works is hoping history won’t repeat itself.
Eleven years after voters rejected an $8 million debt exclusion to fund the design and construction of a new DPW building, the town is trying again – with a warrant article and ballot question seeking to fund a build a “complete facility, including administration space,” which was not part of the last proposal.
The exact dollar figure being sought is not yet available.
The DPW hosted an open house on Saturday, April 1 – and are planning to hold a second one on Saturday, April 22, featuring a touch-a-truck area with DPW and Fire Department vehicles, for the kids; and free hot dogs and hamburgers.
The problems they pointed out are the same that confronted voters on May 7, 2012, plus a few more.
“The thing is, there’s no ‘no-cost’ solution for DPW building,” Parks and Highways Superintendent Bruce Martin, who said that, while there is not yet a firm number on the new building, it can’t be ignored as the problem it is.
“It’s out of code, it’s unsafe, all those things,” he said. “Every year we let it go [it adds up].”
Select Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said that, while there were open houses, video tours broadcast on cable access and newspaper stories, the difference this go-round is the advancing age of the building.
“No employee should be working in these conditions,” Salvucci said. “Will taxes go up for this building? Yes, of course, but the thing is this is something that the town needs.”
There are no shower facilities for water and sewer workers to clean up in after addressing situations such as main breaks, he noted. He also said it is needed to protect the town’s investment in expensive DPW trucks and heavy equipment.
“This is Whitman, we have water and sewer,” he said. “We’ve got the facilities of almost a city, as far as water and sewer are concerned.”
Now, as in 2012, visitors were able to see for themselves that the original green building, constructed in 1907, is inadequate for proper ventilation, has a poor electrical system, maintenance bays – featuring 1950s technology – are too small to work in and the building fails to meet OSHA standards. It is also the only shelter for expensive new equipment and is inadequate for that.
There was also a fire in the ceiling of the building several years ago, Martin added.
“It’s literally falling apart,” he said.
In 2012, then-Parks and Highways Superintendent Donnie Westhaver noted that the building was “built five years before the Titanic sank, to put it in perspective.”
It’s not getting any younger, DPW officials say.
“This building is smaller Martin said Saturday of the differences between the two plans. “We decided to bring the administration [offices] over just to get everybody in the same building and that building really isn’t accessible.”
The administration building was not included in the last building project proposal.
“We were actually going to get a lot more for the money,” Martin also said of the last plan. “Now, so many years later, we’re going smaller, but for similar money.”
Martin said the building subcommittee, which meets Wednesdays, has come up with the informational cards that can be handed out or mailed, and feature a QR code so people can view details of the project on a smartphone.
“How can we educate the residents?” he said has been the main discussion point. “Hopefully, we can get the message out. They’ll see all that or come down to one of the open houses and see what we’re working with here.”
The 2012 debt exclusion lost by 161 votes [293 in favor to 454 against] in a low-turnout election in which Westhaver faulted the turnout as much as the way the question was worded to voters.
“I think some people went to vote with Proposition 2 12 in mind,” he said. “People see that phrase and it scares them.” He argued that some explanation of what a yes or no voter would do was called for.
The $9 million project would have used $500,00 from stabilization; $200,000 in sewer enterprise and $200,000 in water enterprise funds in addition to the $8 million debt exclusion.
In the intervening years, additional soil borings and a site investigation were conducted [2017] to better understand soil conditions at the site. An initial foundation design and concept sketches for a new facility were created [2020] and a “shovel-ready” project passed at Town Meeting last year ad Construction Monitoring Services was retained as Owner Project Manager (OPM) in August and Helene Karl Architects was engaged to design the new facility in November.
The DPW Building Committee has voted to move forward with a concept that includes a complete facility, including administration space this year.
When the war came home
HANSON – There’s always another story inside the pages of those history books, often featuring people you never expected.
For Melrose author Jane Healey, there have been more than one untold story within the more well-known histories of World War II, fueling her storyteller’s muse for a third journey into the genre of historical fiction about that period with “Goodnight from Paris,” published on March 7.
Like her previous books, “Beantown Girls” and “The Secret Steelers” – both of which have been bestsellers and/or editors picks for historical fiction, her latest book offers a glimpse into the remarkable difference women made during the war years of 1939-45.
On Thursday, March 30, Healey discussed her latest book, the story behind it and her writing process at the Hanson Public Library. The talk will be broadcast on Whitman-Hanson Cable Access TV.
A free-lance writer for Boston Magazine and other publications after leaving a tech career, about 20 years ago, Healey had begun to scratch the fiction-writing itch she had long felt. That led to her first book, “The Saturday Evening Girls’ Club,” about a group of Jewish and Italian women in Boston’s North End. in 2017.
“I had always wanted to write a bigger story,” she said. “I had always wanted to write a WWII story, since my grandfather was in WWII.”
She researched and wrote about Red Cross “clubmobile” girls she had leaned about, which led to “Beantown Girls” being published in 2019.
“That was kind of my breakout book,” she said.
When her publisher was looking for something else for Healey to write during the COVID-19 pandemic, Healey thought of ideas she had filed away about women who worked for the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, whose ranks, incidentally included a secretary named Julia Child). That idea became “The Secret Stealers” in 2021.
When researching that book, Healey had come across stories about Drue Leyton- Tartiére from a couple of different sources.
“Goodnight from Paris” tells a familiar tale of the risks assumed by the resistance in France, as they helped downed allied fliers escape from behind German lines and back to England. Like famed American chanteuse Josphine Baker, who received the high honor of being inducted into the Panthéon – France’s mausoleum of heroes – after her death, Healey’s story revolves around real-life American actress Leyton-Tartiére.
The spark for the book came when Healey saw a story about Canadian pilot Lauren Frame, who had received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur [Legion of Honor] from France in 2020. Researching the story Healey came across the story of the woman living in the French village of Barbizon who sheltered and helped him and members of his bomber crew for seven weeks – Drue Leyton-Tartiére.
“To this day [when Frame was in his 90s], he praises the women and men of the French Underground, and in particular, Drue Leyton- Tartiére,” a speaker in the program about Frame said.
“What’s different about this [novel] is that it’s biographical fiction, inspired and based on a true story,” Healey said. “Tonight, I’m going to talk about who she was, how I learned about her and the history behind the novel – but I promise you, I’m not giving away any spoilers.”
Healey sketched a profile of a Hollywood actress, born Dorothy Elizabeth Blackman in June 1903 in Kenosha, Wisc., to well-off parents. After marrying young and having a son, she left her family and reinvented herself in the film industry – eventually following French actor Jacques Tartiére back to Paris before the war. Medically unqualified for the French army during the war, Tartiére joined British forces as a translator and was later killed during the war. Drue had refused the advice of friends and relatives to return to the U.S., staying in France for the duration.
“In the 1930s, she was a star on-the-rise in Hollywood,” Healey said, noting Drue was often described as “the next Greta Garbo.” After some rolls in “Charlie Chan” movies with Warner Oland and bit parts in other films,
One of Healey’s source materials was an out-of-print autobiography penned by Leyton-Tartiére in 1946, that she “bought for too many Euros” on eBay.
In 1942, Germans in occupied France began rounding up American expatriots following Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into the war. One of them was Drue, who had been broadcasting a radio show for France Mondiale run by the French Information Agency, back to the states up to that point, using the name in which she starred in movies – Drue Leyton. She had occasionally done broadcasts with legendary American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the first American broadcasters to be kicked out of Nazi Germany.
Leyton-Tartiére, along with several other American women in France, were first interned at the monkey house of a zoo on the outskirts of Paris using her married name Tartiére – the Germans had planned to execute Drue Leyton as soon as they occupied France – before being moved to a model concentration camp in the mountains of southern France, aimed at placating the international Red Cross inspectors. She faked an illness to receive a medical release and returned home to Barbizon, where she had farmed food for friends in Paris before her arrest, and was asked to rejoin the underground.
“It was so wild,” she said of the zoo story. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this story.”
But she resisted writing “Goodnight from Paris” at first because WWII novels is a crowded genre and she wasn’t initially interested in doing another one. But Drue won her over.
Healey said she found it more difficult to write a novel based on a real person that it would have been if she invented someone out of whole cloth.
“Out of the four books, this was the hardest ones, by far, because it’s a real person,” she said. “I didn’t want to take too many liberties. I wanted to honor her story.”
Ed the Wizard will perform “Magic for Seniors” at 10 a.m., Wednesday, April 12 at the Whitman Senior Center.
From Mind-Reading to Coins to Cards, there will be something magical for all, including the teaching of easy impromptu magic effects that the patrons can perform for their grandchildren. Be prepared to be amazed, amused, and possibly volunteer, with Ed the Wizard’s award-winning performance.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Whitman Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Whitman mulls timing of WMS vote
WHITMAN – The timing of a debt exclusion vote on the Whitman Middle School building project is still an open question, as the Select Board works through the process of deciding when to schedule a vote and how many ballots would be involved.
The Board on Tuesday, March 21, again discussed whether a separate election day should be set for a school funding vote, or whether it could be included on another voting day, since 2024 is also a state Presidential Primary election year.
The Board is slated to take up the issue again at its Tuesday, April 4 meeting.
“I’m most curious on what the impact would be on your department, either holding a special Town Election before a Presidential Primary – when we’re probably already early voting – or is it possible to have it concurrently with a single, two-ballot election?” Select Board member Justin Evans asked Town Clerk Dawn Varley.
Varley strongly cautioned against scheduling it for the same day as a March Presidential primary election day, because that election always involves more than two ballots.
“You’ve got three parties, then you have absentee/early voting ballots,” she said. “Now there’s six ballots, then you have the debt exclusion ballots, plus, that has to have an absentee ballot, so you’re talking about my office juggling eight ballots.”
A special election in conjunction with the annual Town Election is the simplest, cheapest way to accomplish the goal, Varley said, describing it as a “whole election,” including both ballots. She said if the town can’t wait that long, the best alternative is a special election.
“My position has always been that I think we need to look at what draws more of the voting population out,” Chair Randy LaMattina said. “We have to look at this and say, consistently, we have more voting population brought out during a Presidential Primary.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci agreed.
“The voices of as many town residents that we can get on the vote is the main thing,” he said.
Evans said the turnout numbers are certainly higher on the Presidential primaries, but in years where one party did not had a competitive primary, the numbers are more in line with an debt exclusion election.
Member Shawn Kain said the decision should hinge on whether it is the right thing to do.
“I’m not concerned with more work and more money,” he told Varley. “If it’s the right thing to do I think we can find a way to help you out.”
Varley said she was more concerned about confusion.
“The whole process is very confusing,” she said.
“A single day, two-ballot election is disastrous, especially with it being a Presidential Primary,” Varley said. “What happens is, you basically run two elections. You have to have two check-ins … You can’t “sell” the ballot [ask people if they want a school election ballot when a person asks for a primary ballot]. … I would strongly recommend not to do that.”
Presidential primaries generally have a higher turnout – 34 percent in 2000, 16 percent in 2004 – and in 2002, 22 percent of Whitman voters cast ballots in an initiative for the Fire Department. Other override elections have had turnouts in the range of 39 to 48 percent, however.
Varley said that her only requirement would be 35 days’ notice in which to schedule a vote.
“If it’s advertised – which I think it would be – and the interest is there, you would have the voters come,” she said.
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter said having a single election with two ballots would save the town the cost of a separate election in some ways, and would reimburse some costs, but not for two elections.
The town does not use check-out tables any more. The town also “owns” the school referendum ballot, she said, explaining Whitman wouldn’t obtain state reimbursement for election costs and early voting would also be required because the state permits it for the primary.
Varley said mail-in ballots for absentee voting in the school election would have to be mailed separately with different labels on them. She also has them printed on different colored paper along with the needed instructions.
It would also not be possible to know – or check – to see if the ballots were put in the wrong directions, she said, adding that Town Clerk staff would not be permitted to switch ballots if they believe ballots are in the wrong envelopes.
In the last election using two separate ballots, Varley said she mailed them out separately about a week apart to help with confusion, but early ballot depositing would also necessitate the rental check-in machines to maintain separate voting lists for each ballot.
A person voting in the primary, however, could return to Town Hall to cast a vote in the school vote, because they are separate elections.
Evans asked if it would be possible to schedule the special Town Meeting required before the school project goes to the ballot, in early enough before the MSBA vote in the fall before to capture the remaining excess levy before the tax rate is set.
That would be sometime in late September, according to Building Committee member John Galvin. He and Evans both made the point that the Board could schedule the process early enough to provide the 35-day window to schedule the special election, and permit the special Town Meeting on the ballot question for 14 days before that.
Galvin said both the owner-project manager on the Whitman Middle School project, and the designer said the full financial documents could be available to the Select Board in time for an end of September Town Meeting.
Both would take place before the final MSBA vote.
“We have been told by both the OPM and the designer – the MSBA meeting is on Oct. 26 – but the meeting is pretty much a celebratory meeting,” Galvin said. Whitman would not even be scheduled for that meeting if the answer was going to be no.
Carter said she was not sure if the excess levy capacity could be known by November.
“It is definitely an artistic science,” Galvin said.
Kain said any confusion about the timing of a vote would not be helpful.
In other business, Fire Chief Timothy Clancy gave his regular COVID-19 report, saying the town had only 11 cases out of 227 tests performed, for a positivity rate of 4.85 percent.
“This number is remaining steady … since two weeks ago when it went down 50 percent,” he said. “Overall, we are trending down with our COVID numbers.”
The town has also been approved for the wastewater testing machine, which will help with the monitoring of COVID levels in wastewater.
Hanson deficit remains concern
HANSON – Based on the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District budget certified on March 15, Hanson officials have “had to re-adjust some numbers” in the budget.
But working with interim Town accountant Eric Kinsherf, Town Administrator Lisa Green said they were able to bring the deficit down from $1.38 million to $616,000.
“We’re really working diligently to bring our budget down to a balanced budget,” she said.
The Select Board, on Tuesday, March 21 voted to close the warrant for the annual Town Meeting, which will be held on Monday, May 1. Placing and/or recommending those articles completed so far.
“We are in a cash crunch this year,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett, who said she has spoken to Whitman Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina about the WHRSD budget.
“They are as concerned as we are with the school assessment being in the 7- to 8-percent [range], when we had very clearly expressed that the absolute maximum that we can pay is a 4-percent increase,” she said. “One of the concerns is that, over the last two years, the district has used one-time money – grant money – in the budget, so when we’re saying it’s a level-funded budget, that’s really not accurate. It’s level-funded plus the grant.”
She argued that keeping the budget at that level was really quite a large increase.
“With our very modest growth that we have in the town, this is beyond unsustainable,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We don’t have any sort of magic pill that’s going to change this.”
She is proposing a joint meeting between just the two select boards to talk about what finances look like for the town meetings and to find a way to speak with a united voice.
“Even with what Ms. Green has told us, that’s a large deficit,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’re all adults and I think we know that means costs need to be cut and there’s only so many ways to do that.”
She said one of the things she has liked seeing this year is the way each town board has been reaching out to their counterparts in Whitman and vice versa “to calibrate.”
“This is the way it needs to be,” she said.
Board member Jim Hickey said, while he wouldn’t suggest leaving the schools out, he supported the two towns talking first and then going to the School Committee.
FitzGerald-Kemmett agreed.
“There are things we’re putting off doing,” she said. “We’re making modest headway, thanks to creativity and grants and hard work, but we can’t gut our town government, we just can’t.”
She also suggested the town has no time at this point to even entertain an override this year.
“The Whitman [Select] Board is a good board,” Vice Chair Joe Weeks. “They’re good people, so I don’t think this is in any way a controversial thing. People elected us to have conversations, especially difficult ones and find solutions, and not just kick the can down the road.”
The minute this year’s problem is solved, he said, they have to get to work on next year’s problems.
The board had voted during the meeting to strike four WHRSD capital requests from the warrant not recommended by the Capital Improvement Committee because the town does not have the funds to address them. The Capital Committee had about $350,000 to fund projects in the warrant.
“We really struggled to prioritize what we could, given that budget,” said Weeks, who serves on the Capital Committee, of the $350,000 they were allocated. “We recommended to the town $313,000 of the $350,000. The reason why we couldn’t get up over $350,000 because there wasn’t something that could bridge the gap in between those and we have a relatively conservative board that didn’t want to over spend what was given to us.”
He said the total cost of all the requests made for capital projects this year was about $25 million, and the committee was only able to spend $313,000.
“We were given line items with no way to prioritize,” said Board member Ed Heal, who also serves on the Captial Committee. He said no explanations about the requests were provided.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also cited a concern over equity in the district that prompted the striking of an article to regarding capital improvement articles at Indian Head School.
“I wouldn’t want Indian Head doing something that we can’t do for the other schools that we have,” she said. “We’re in a budget deficit.”
In other business, Library Director Karen Stolfer gave an update on events and activities to the board, including the application for a construction grant, which will help with the library’s expansion needs.
There is no cost to apply, she said.
Board members voted to support the grant application.
There are two project categories for the 2022-23 grant, small populations [2,500 or less] and standard. Hanson is applying for the latter.
The library’s plans require 16,000 square feet, placing Hanson in the medium tier for their plan developed in 2018. Focused on need this time out, with nine to 10 grants planned, Stolfer said the process will be more competitive this time around.
The grant covers 50 percent of costs up to $100,000 and the town is required to appropriate up to $150,000. A letter of intent is due April 28, with a full application due by May 2024. Schematic designs are due in 2025-26 with construction due for completion in 2029
Stolfer is working on the required statement of need.
“I’m happy to report that people are coming back to the library,” Stolfer said, adding that they are borrowing items and the use of digital resources, which “skyrocketed” during COVID, is continuing. “We’re getting lots of requests from local organizations for our meeting rooms and, of course, one of our biggest draws is our programming.”
A lot of programs are being slated for school vacation week in April, including the annual Family Fun Day on April 21.
She also spoke of the Library of Things, a collection of nontraditional items, including metal detectors, puzzles, a laser levels and Roku streaming sticks that can be checked out.
School panel eyes grade equity
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and school legal counsel have determined the educational opportunities for fifth-graders in the W-H district meet minimum guidelines for equity.
Referring to previous discussions on the legality of inequities tied to educational opportunities of fifth-graders, since they attend the middle school in Hanson and the elementary schools in Whitman, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said on Wednesday, March 15, that he spoke with DESE officials as well as district legal counsel about the issue during the week.
The committee will likely revisit the issue on another agenda after the civil rights concern still remained for at least one committee member.
Counsel Andrew Waugh, who found “nothing in chapter law that what we’re doing is illegal,” recommended the calls to DESE, Szymaniak said at the Wednesday, March 15 meeting.
Heather Montalto, a problem resolution team specialist with DESE, and Ann Marie Stronach an administrator, who both said the district meets minimum requirement for the equity of instruction.
“I do want to stress this is the minimum requirement,” Szymaniak said. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
Stronach said it’s up to a school committee as to whether or not schedules are changed within a district.
“I just wanted to report back that we’re not doing anything illegal … but it is up to the school committee’s purview to change the schedules of the schools. That’s what we do,” he said.
Member Hillary Kniffen noted that the district actually exceeds the minimum time on learning requirements of 900 minutes for middle schools and 990 for high schools.
“The issue ant the topic that I brought forward wasn’t necessarily, ‘Can you ask DESE if we’re meeting regulations?’” member Dawn Byers said. “It was that there’s a Civil Rights Act of 1964, so I think the question really needed to be, ‘Are we violating a human being’s civil rights by not providing the same educational opportunity?’”
She said the district policy manual includes an equal educational opportunity policy (J-b), which references the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Agreeing with that point, Whitman Finance Committee member Rosemary Connolly said the 10-percent disparity in educational time afforded to Whitman students is a deficit worth $1.4 million taxpayers were charged, but school students did not have access to, suggesting that federal educational officials be called because “there are rules to Title 1 grants.”
“You can’t create inequities because of the way the regional agreement is written,” Connolly said. “Sometimes, it’s how you ask questions that gets you the right answer.”
Member Fred Small asked for the name of the DESE attorney Byers had said she spoke with on the issue as well as the date and time of that conversation.
“When I called DESE, they referred me to attorney George Hale, and when I explained the situation, his response was this is a school committee problem,” Byers said adding that she informed him that she is a school committee member and feels it is a problem. She said he did some quick research while she was on the phone and gave her the number for the Boston office of the Civil Rights Division, saying that someone could file a lawsuit.
Chair Christopher Howard said his recollection was that a concern was voiced from DESE that the district was doing something illegal, Szymaniak follwed up with DESE and they said that was not the case.
“Correct,” Szymaniak said.
“If there’s subsequent concerns, I’m sure they could be shared with the superintendent and he’ll look into it, but that was what was said last week,” Howard said. “Certainly, that could be done. … We could chase this in all different directions. Lawsuits can happen all the time for a whole host of reasons, that’s just the nature of the American legal system.”
Member Glen DiGravio argued that what’s happened shouldn’t matter.
“What we’re going to do should matter,” he said, adding that a solution would be to find some way to get the two schools aligned.
Game for YA books
WHITMAN – They say opportunity only knocks once.
Whitman resident Coryn MacPherson was a junior at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she majored in sequential art, answered when the knock of opportunity came to her at the school in 2021.
Within that major, she specialized in comic book and graphic novel art.
“They’re a tough school, but they’re great,” the 2018 graduate of W-H Regional High said of SCAD.
“The school … had an event specifically for people wanting to get into comics,” she said. “They would bring in art directors and editors from those [publishers] and Scholastic was one of them.”
Students had the opportunity to submit their portfolios for the publishing representatives to look at and review. Two months later, she received an email with an offer from the art director.
Graphix, a graphic novel imprint of Scholastic, was looking for illustrators for its Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, based on a video game.
Was Coryn interested?
It didn’t take her long to say, “Yes.”
Her work is featured in the last story of “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights Graphic Novel Collection, Vol. 2.” That story is titled “The New Kid.”
A kid is jealous of his best friend’s new friend, makes the new kid disappear, she said of the plot line.
It was the first step on a career path which she wants to see lead to writing and illustrating her own graphic novels. MacPherson had already been working on the script for one of her own.
“It’s a fairy tale,” she said.
In a way, she’s been living one. MacPherson, who graduated magna cum laude from SCAD in June 2022, is also working from a disability, her mother Julie Ryan said.
“She can’t see out of one of her eyes, so the fact that she draws as well is pretty extraordinary,” Ryan said. “And it’s a big deal for somebody still in college to land a job like that.”
And her career is taking off since the book came out recently. MacPherson has already seen more interest in her work through social media such as LinkedIn, but the opportunity was the stuff of movie magic.
“It’s a New York Times best-seller franchise,” her mom Julie said.
Asked for details on the story line, Coryn paused and said with a laugh “It’s … um … animatronics that kill kids. It’s a really popular franchise and they’re currently filming a movie for it down in Louisiana.”
Matthew Lillard, who played “Shaggy” in the “Scooby-Doo” film is in it as well as a former member of the “Scream” cast and Josh Hutchinson from the “Hunger Games” is in it.
While MacPherson is not involved in the film project, her work on the graphic story books is keeping her busy.
She said the 10-year-old franchise is massive, with dozens of books and eight video games based on it, as well as board games, in addition to the movie.
“The books are kind of tie-ins for the games,” MacPherson said. “What’s being adapted [in the film] is the game play, whereas these are little stories that take place I the same world.”
Published for ages 12 and up and released about three weeks ago, the book is now available at area stores like Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart. The day her book came out, MacPherson said she went to Barnes & Noble and signed nine copies.
“They all sold out in a day,’ she said.
The copies had been identified by the Barnes & Noble staff so potential buyers would know they are a signed copy.
The publisher sent her an email about when the release date was.
“We were there, looking,” Ryan said.
Having just completed her third project for the Scholastic franchise, for whom she is working almost exclusively right now and is already at work on her next project. She said she has also applied for another position in Boston, doing similar work for this year’s Anime Boston convention in April.
“The art, I don’t think anyone is going to see until the actual convention,” she said.
Like a lot of careers today – especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, MacPherson can work just about anywhere she can take her tablet, but she added, it’s not really a new development in her field.
“Comics are pretty much always remote, because the artists are all over the world,” she said. “The other two artists on the book I just worked on, live in Argentina.”
MacPherson herself has studied in southern France and was briefly in Osaka, Japan, where a job teaching English didn’t work out. She’s now thinking about trying life in London.
“They’re taking away so much of the arts in school now to see something like this is uplifting for kids that are interested in art,” Julie said. “You wouldn’t have football uniforms if people weren’t around to create them. You wouldn’t have a band if somebody didn’t create the music.”
“Just let kids draw,” she said.
While Julie said Coryn had done an amazing essay during her senior year at W-H on the importance of art in people’s lives, but by that time she had already been accepted at college before her senior year of high school even started.
MacPherson has also had an essay published in one of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books on women empowerment while she was in college.
“This is dumb luck,” she insisted.
“When it comes to her work, shows through it,” Ryan said of her daughter’s self-professed tendency toward introversion.
“I try,” she said.
MacPherson said the franchise has not yet encountered any issues with book-banning efforts around the country.
“But, honestly, with the graphicness of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets affected,” she said. “It is something I worry about a little bit, because they are really graphic stories.”
Whenever she gets a new script the worry returns, she said.
“They are really violent books … but even if the book-banning wasn’t happening, I’d still be a little worried just because of the content in these and how scary they are,” she said.
Taking a point of personal privilege to leave an Easter egg in the book, MacPherson has included her former college roommates and best friends. McKenzie and Eve, as “bit players” on the last page.
“I told them, ‘You guys dealt with me when I was stressed with this, so I’m going to put you in it,” she said. “So, the three of us are on the last page.”
School Committee OKs FY ‘24 budget
The School Committee approved a fiscal 2024 budget of $60,638,657.69 an increase of 3.67 percent over last year, on Wednesday, March 15. The spending plan adds foreign language and STEM/robotics programs to a level-services package.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak had presented the level-service budget of $60,485,257.69 – an increase of 3.41 percent over last year – but said his recommendation was that $153,400 for foreign language Option 1 and a STEM/robotics curriculum be added to it.
The foreign language option costs $98,400, which would add $60,083.04, or .36-percent increase for Whitman, and $38,316.96, or a .29-percent increase in grades six through eight and to add robotics in K-grade eight curricula.
STEM and robotics costs $55,000, which would add $33,583 – or a .2 percent-increase to Whitman’s budget and $21,417 to Hanson’s budget for 1.6 percent increase to Hanson.
“At minimum, I recommend this committee sets the budget at $60,485,257.69 – or a 3.41-percent increase – but seriously consider adding foreign language Option 1 and STEM and robotics, which adds $153,400, or adjusting the budget to $60,638,675.69, to put us at an overall increase of 3.67 percent over last year,” Szymaniak said. He said the committee has heard from students and curriculum administrators about how students are progressing.
“I think they need opportunities as presented, but at minimum stick with our level service and a 3.41-percent increase to our budget,” he said. “I felt I need the committee to know where we’re at. … You’ve been able to see what the towns have presented us and, I appreciate what they’ve presented us.”
“My fear is the towns just don’t have the funds,” said member Fred Small, noting that Whitman had penciled in a 5-percent increase in the assessment. “I just don’t know where they come up with the money to pay.”
Hanson’s interim Town Accountant’s letter indicated even a 3-percent increase would leave them with deficits, Small said.
“One of two things happens, it’ll get shot down on the Town Hall floor, or their going to divvy is up and push it on an override,” he said. “My opinion is, if it comes to an override I’’d rather see us hold firm.”
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said he came to discuss and vote on assessments as it stated in the agenda, to have the extra consideration of language and STEM/robotics program costs at that point made him pause and need time to consider it.
“I don’t know if I’m really ready to consider this,” Scriven said.
Chair Howard said a budget had to be voted that night.
“I’ve presented a budget with those two options in February, and they’ve been there,” Szymaniak said. “It’s something the committee doesn’t have to approve.”
He said district counsel Andrew Waugh recommended the budget not be increased after March 15.
Small, while supporting the students supported the original level-service budget minus the lanquages and STEM/robotics because the towns’ fiscal positions are so tenuous.
Member Beth Stafford stressed that, while the towns are facing financial challenges, the committee and school district are not asking the towns to foot the bill for the data breach they had last summer.
“This is level-service,” she said. “Level service is not always the greatest thing, folks [it] means you don’t go anywhere further.”
She also noted the familiar territory of the strain between town and school committee roles.
“This is the conversation that always comes up,” Stafford said. “And the conversation is, ‘What’s our job here on the School Committee?’ Yes, we represent the towns, but our main focus is the students and what we have to do.”
Member Dawn Byers noted the budget doesn’t address start times or strengthening the school-community connection, but while they could do better, she said the budget reflects the real cost of the district’s needs for education. She also argued that an increase of 3.41 percent is below what both towns have certified with the DOR as their annual municipal revenue growth factor – 4 percent for Whitman and 3.9 percent for Hanson this year.
Whitman Selectmen Shawn Kain and Justin Evans also weighed in on the school budget.
Kain said the hold-harmless situation created the “tragic dilemma” for the towns.
“Because we’ve been in hold-harmless for so long, we aren’t getting enough state aid t sustain the budget,” he said. “That’s the answer. That’s it.”
The situation frequently pits town departments and the school district against each other at Town Meeting, often forcing a decision between funding other town departments or seeking an override.
Evans said the 4.3 percent projected municipal revenue growth comes to a bit less than $1.7 million of total growth to spend everywhere.
Between the level-service plus two additional programs for the schools and the Plymouth County retirement assessment of about $300,000, all that money is used, he said.
Finance Committee member Kathlen Ottina, however urged the committee to hold fast to Szymaniak’s recommendation.
“It’s early in the budget process,” she said. “We still have budgets to be heard at the Finance Committee level and, if you don’t ask for it tonight, you can’t ask for it later.”
Member David Forth advocated for the language and technology programs to prepare for the long-term needs of educating students for the future.
“If we don’t add services now, we kick the can once again for level services,” he said. “What are we doing next year? … We really need to think about the long-term aspect.”
Howard said figures reviewed the five-year in September that included a budget with a 3.13 percent increase for level services.
“Our students are not getting anything more with this budget,” member Hillary Kniffen said. “A level-serviced budget is the best that we have. The cost of educating children has increased.”
“I will not accept that there’s a surprise when we start talking about some of these numbers because we’ve talked about them for over a year,” he said.
Szymaniak said the South Shore Superintendent’s group met with legislators and informed them how problematic a 14-percent increase in out-of-district special education tuition was, but he has not included that increase in the FY ’24 budget.
The final figure is still to be determined, he said.
“They’re bringing some of those thoughts back to the House,” Szymaniak said. “However, if nothing is done, we will receive tuition bills this summer, and we’re obligated to pay them.”
The committee, last year, decided to keep a one-year Circuit Breaker allowance in reserve to either apply to the following fiscal year’s budget or to use it for extenuating costs or circumstances.
A portion it is being used for the budget and a portion will be used for the latter, using them once they are appropriated in October to pay off the debt for that increase.
“I’m hoping it won’t be 14 percent, but I doubt that it will be the 3 percent that I allocated within the budget,” Szymaniak said. “Best case, it may be 7 [percent].”
If Circuit Breaker is not needed, it will go toward the FY ’25 budget next year.
Where excess and deficiency is concerned, $1.718 million is in that account, and the district will have to access $605,000 to pay invoices in excess of our insurance coverage to make the district whole in the wake of the computer and data breach it sustained in July 2022.
“We’re not going to the towns to make us whole from that breach,” he said. “The transfer will leave $1.13 million in E&D for FY ’24.”
Whitman has made its town budget available to the district and information has been received from Hanson regarding the funds they have earmarked for the district.
Member Steve Bois agreed with Howard that the committee has had all the numbers and criteria for the budget.
“We can do better,” she said. “It’s not in this budget right now, but we have room for improvement.”
School choice gets the green light
The School Committee revisited the school choice issue on Wednesday, March 15, voting to accept school choice for all grades except 11 and 12.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said the process would only be open based on student enrollment and class size.
He reported that district legal counsel Andrew Waugh reiterated that all school districts are school choice unless they opt out.”
A tie vote, like the one cast on March 13, would mean W-H is a school choice district “because the School Committee did not make an affirmative vote to opt out,” Szymaniak explained. “We need a 6-4 vote to opt out.”
Waugh made some further recommendations for the committee to consider voting again in hopes of reaching a 6-4 decision to withdraw from K-12 school choice for the school year 2023-24.
The committee again voted 5-5 on the opt-out option.
Waugh further recommended in such an event, that a motion establishing parameters around how the district should participate in school choice.
Szymaniak suggested the motion that the district withdraw from school choice in kindergarten through grade eight, and 11 and 12, while allowing it in grades nine and 10 – and for students in any grade, whose family moves out of the district as school choice – for school year 2023-24.
The committee then voted 9-1 to accept school choice for all grades with the exclusion of grades 11 and 12. Vice Chair Christopher Scriven voted against.
It was an amended motion at the suggestion of member Dawn Byers as questions began popping up about Szymaniak’s suggestion.
Scriven asked what the rationale was in allowing high school freshmen and sophomores but not any other grade, as well as the benefits of doing so and the considerations made in offering it.
“In grades nine and 10, those students have a fresh start in coming to school,” Szymaniak said, just like any other student at the high school. “That’s what we’ve done in the past. In grades 11 and 12 [administrators] have less control of that student, graduating from school.”
Where K-eight is concerned, Szymaniak said there just hasn’t been space for school choice students and the district has been more focused on lowering class sizes in those grades.
“That, for me, facilitates the issue that is most concerning to a lot of us that oppose this,” Scriven said.
Member Hillary Kniffen said if enrollment considerations were a reason for not taking school choice in lower grades, why not allow them in so they could become part of the community, which would negate that concern among opponents of school choice.
“It sounds like we’re talking out of both sides of our mouths,” she said.
Member Dawn Byers moved to amend the motion for school choice to be open to all grades, with a cap per grade based on enrollment.
“I’ve got one seat in second grade, I’ve got four seats in fifth grade, I’ve got seven at ninth-grade … We don’t have to accept 199 kids if they all want to come here,” she said. “We have the control as a district.”
A policy limiting class size could also be used.
Member Beth Stafford said she would prefer to cap it at 10th grade, because of the possibility and incoming student might not have the credits to allow them to graduate on time.
Szymaniak said he would be looking at keeping class sizes to 20 at the elementary grades, 20-23 in middle grades and 25 at the high school, in determining how many school choice students might be allowed in.
“Our high school enrollment this year in grade nine is the lowest we’ve ever had,” Szymaniak said, noting that where they usually have 270 students, this year they are looking at 230.
If the committee voted to open school choice for all grades, he would look at the numbers in order to announce how many students would be accepted and a lottery system would be used.
If students are looking for schools with good sports teams for their school choice plans, the MIAA requires varsity athletes to apply for a waiver and the receiving administrator and athletic director have to sign off on it, or that student-athlete has to sit out the year.
“You can’t deny [acceptance] unless it’s a drugs or weapons violation,” Szymaniak said of students with disciplinary issues. Otherwise districts are not allowed to ask why students are interesting in coming.
“We’re not even supposed to meet with that family prior to,” he said.
WHRHS Principal Dr. Christopher Jones said he is very pro-school choice, as it does a lot for the school, but he asked what consideration is given a parent who wants to choice two kids – one in ninth grade and one in 11th.
“I would tell that parent it’s not an option for that 11th grader,” Szymaniak said.
In other business, Student Advisory Committee members gave a slide presentation on their findings from an outreach survey of students in all five district schools regarding multiple line items in the FY 2024 district school budget.
Students were strongly in favor of some change in start times, with Indian Head students in Hanson supporting an earlier start, Duval students nearly unanimous that some change was needed.
“A majority [of Duval students] informed us that they woke up at 7 a.m., and just watched TV or played video games with the time they had before school started,” the survey found. At Indian Head, “many told us they had busy lives afte school, and it was difficult to get to extra-curricular activities while getting home [from school] around 3:30 p.m., every day.”
Conley students also preferred an earlier start time.
Getting off a school bus in the dark during the winter wan another source of dissatisfaction with the start times.
Opinions were more mixed for Hanson Middle School students, where the older ones preferred an earlier start and younger students preferred a later start time, but there was little demand overall for a change. Whitman Middle School students, meanwhile, were split over a slightly different start time,versus no change.
A majority of high school students supported a later start time.
Whitman grapples with lean budget
WHITMAN – The town will be seeing an “extremely lean” budget – at a 5-percent school assessment – according to town officials. The budget approved by the School Committee approved last week would mean another $560,351 will have to be cut.
“If we do that, I feel that we’re looking, without a doubt, at layoffs on police, fire, DPW, Town Hall,” she said. “I just don’t know where … in this budget there is not an extra $560,351 to skim off this.
While it still needs “tweaking,” Carter said the budget is balanced at this point, with more articles yet to be voted, but that all but $316.25 of the town’s free cash has been used at this point, Carter reported.
Not all town officials see such a dire picture, but agreed more work needs to be done.
“It’s clear that the number they submitted, given the current levy that we have, is not going to work,” said Select Board member Shawn Kain, who also serves on the Budget Subcommittee, but he disagrees with the School Committee and district are making decisions solely through the lens of being an advocate for students. While admirable, he said he has to balance that with his role of being an advocate for all departments.
“The vibe I got the other night was, [the schools] are willing to come in high again and go back and forth for a couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s the old game that, we’ve played over the years that I’m hoping we can move away from.”
Kain, who is also an educator, said the subcommittee was not there to make decisions, but to do due diligence so the town’s financial team could be more informed about the decisions they make.
He argued that the best option, until the town knows with certainty that hold-harmless might end next year, the town should stick to the policy it has put in place, calculating the yearly increase of 5 percent.
“I’m looking at more slow, incremental, positive change,” he said. “No drastic, big change and I think that’s what the policy is allowing us to do.”
Not all members of the Select Board took such a negative view, however.
“This feels like a workable budget,” said Select Board member Justin Evans, who noted this is his sixth budget process. “The town has dialed back all of the department requests to level service with free cash. … I think it would not be unreasonable to ask the department to take a look and to the same.”
Evans said the current financial climate in town feels more like fiscal 2019 and 2021, than the 2020 budget when deep cuts were needed. He added this year’s budget could work if everyone worked together.
After a week of number Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter informed the Select Board, in a joint meeting with the Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 21, that with a 5-percent assessment from the schools, which they had calculated for, the town was “not close” to a balanced budget for the coming year.
“I went line-by-line with [Town Accountant Ken Lytle and interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam] and cut everything that we could possibly cut without hurting the departments,” she said. “We used the free cash that we had available for the articles.”
There were also a couple of warrant articles that have been removed and the town now plans to use ARPA funds to fund.
The budget does include 2.5percent salary increases already negotiated with the unions, as well as for department heads unless they have contracts, which might have different salary agreements.
The joint meeting was attended by several town department heads, held a sobering discussion of the municipal budget for FY 2024.
Police Chief Timothy Hanlon and Fire Chief Timothy Clancy each made presentations to the two boards during the Select Board meeting. [See page 3]
“I think we’re in a better place than we were last year,” said Finance Chair Rick Anderson, noting that they have been meeting with all departments – a process that is still ongoing. Anderson said the FinCom has been concerned from the start about the sustainability of the budget, and recognized the Budget Subcommittee for its work.
“It’s not easy to separate the wants and the needs, but I really think they did an exemplary job taking the budget submissions that were provided by the town departments and coming up with some middle ground,” he said.
Select Board Chair Randy LaMattina said there was no intention when it was formed, to have the Budget Subcommittee draft the town’s budget, but that it was designed to help develop a budget and clarify points when needed.
“That budget that you’ve all received shows some pretty key points, that diligence has been done, that budgets have been scraped to try to make this within our levy,” he said. “This is a budget created by a professional financial team.”
LaMattina said another key issue is revenue analysis.
“I don’t think you’ll see any fictitious numbers in our revenue,” he said in the first of many references during the meeting to Finance member Kathleen Ottina’s comment at the March 15 School Committee meeting that preliminary town budget figures represented “fictitious numbers,” because the town’s projections have been stable, except where the town has had to “push it a little bit more” to barely accommodate everyone.
“To basically stand up in that meeting and draw a line in the sand between departments, the town and the schools … I was just in shock,” he, criticizing Ottina’s standing to make her comments to the School Committee as a representative of the Finance Committee.
Ottina explained that she realized immediately that she had unintentionally used the wrong word, meaning to say “preliminary.”
“There’s nothing fictitious about them,” she said. “We’ve been living with these numbers every Tuesday night for the past three months, but I do believe some of these figures are preliminary.”
Anderson said Ottina was representing the Finance Committee at the meeting and, as such presents her opinions as the liaison to the committee, but there are eight other members of the Finance Committee which is still preliminarily evaluating that budget.
She said town departments should mirror the schools and present higher budgets to the Finance Committee, so decisions can be made on those needs.
LaMattina argued that the School Committee is vastly different, in that they certify a budget.
“Our department heads simply make an ask as a presentation of where they’re looking to go in the future,” he said. “[The Select Board] has the ability to tell our department heads, ‘You will not get that this year.’ We do not have that same luxury with the schools.”
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci recalled a meeting held a few years ago in which department heads had “cut their budgets to the extreme,” noting the cuts had almost been dangerous – especially where police and fire services were concerned.
“I don’t ever want to see that happen again,” he said. “I will not support a budget that the town has to cut so deeply that we lose people. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Salvucci mentioned that the fire department incurs added costs and ambulance availability for having to transport patients to hospitals further away because Brockton Hospital is temporarily closed due to recent fire damage.
“The revenue is the revenue, and I think that’s a piece that has been sadly overlooked this year,” LaMattina said. “Sadly.”
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