HANSON – Town officials tackled questions of better communication and efficient use of town properties as the Select Board hosted another strategies planning session on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at Camp Kiwanee’s Needles Lodge.
Following brief updated from Town Administrator Lisa Green, IT Director Steve Moberg, Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf, and Planner Anthony DeFrias, the officials from town departments toward solving problems in the session that lasted about an hour.
The focus of their work was in the areas of interdepartmental and intra-departmental communication; communication with the community; and maintenance and optimization of assets such as town buildings.
“How do we make money out of the buildings that we’ve got and the assets that we have?” Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We need to take care of things, but how do we get the money out of them as well?”
Green said IT director Moberg, who was unable to attend, has worked on a new web platform for the town, which has a site map and Moberg is beginning to reach out to departments and committees to determine if links need updating with information such as committee membership.
Kinsherf provided a post-town meeting financial snapshot of town finances, including the $1.4 million, $1.4 million in stabilization, another “couple of thousand” in school stabilization for projects, $145,000 in Camp Kiwanee retained earnings and $772,000 in the ambulance fund.
“I think we’re in pretty solid shape,” he said, but still expects to see a $1.3 million shortfall when the budget process for fiscal 2025 begins. “[But], the more eyes and ears on the budget, the better. I actually like that.”
DeFrias reported that the town has received grants for pedestrian improvements near the MBTA station on Main Street and another toward the town’s master plan for which the Old Colony Planning Council had met with the Planning Committee to develop a steering committee by next June.
Green said grant funding is also pending for a new heating pumps at Town Hall and two hybrid police cruisers. Another grant is funding the capital improvement plan.
“We’re making strides in terms of getting information out there,” Green said.
Facilitator Ann Donner, instead of having officials break out into groups they were already involved in, asked the meeting as a whole to “look at particular challenges or issues … and to think outside the box,” encouraging officials to be involved in areas they may not have been involved with before.
“It’s that outside thinking that really helps advance our work in these areas,” she said, breaking the meeting into three groups to examine problem areas and come up with specific actions to help arrive at an answer or solution.
Following the 30-minute break-out sessions, the groups reported on their discussions to the meeting as a whole.
DeFrias, speaking on communication with the community pointed to social media as a major tool the town might use with links placed on the town website. Tying the town’s newsletter to the website and submitting information to the Express and cable access channel were discussed. The newspaper and cable access information could also be linked to social media in an effort to get more exposure to the public, he said.
Outreach to schools and the use of an information kiosk at Town Hall were also options.
“Obviously, as we all know, the town as well as the country and the state, are aging, and how do we get other people involved?” he said, describing the need for reaching out to the schools. “You need to get younger citizens involved. … At some point, they’re going to become voters and Hanson, like many towns, has one of the last forms of democratic government – it’s people that vote.”
Fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., reported on the discussion about internal communications. He said an ad hoc group between the fire and building departments, the Board of Health and the town administrator, has been meeting weekly for the past couple of months.
“It’s been very well-received within our departments and … we’ve been able to fix a bunch of things before they become issues,” he said. A monthly meeting between all town departments to increase the number of people involved and able to have input and the resources that can be put to work.
“It doesn’t have to be just department heads,” he said. “We’ve already got a meeting for that.”
Frank Milisi reported on the discussion about optimizing the use of town properties, beginning with making an inventory of town assets and the condition of them.
“We have to ask ourselves three questions: Is it serving a public purpose? What are the maintenance costs? And, if we’re not using it, is there an opportunity to rent, lease or sell?” he said.
“It’s a matter of prioritization,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve got a lot of good feedback, and hopefully you guys have felt like, even just from the first meeting to now, some of the ideas that have come up, you have moved on them. Lisa has moved on them, the board has moved on them, you guys have moved on them – there’s discernable progress.”