HANSON – A renewed effort at a Right-to-Farm Bylaw and the proper uses of remaining ARPA funds were the focus of Select Board discussion Tuesday, Feb. 6 as the board considers the articles they are advancing for the annual Town Meeting warrant.
The board voted to allocate the remaining $1,092,514 in ARPA funds for repairs to a culvert and the purchase of a new ambulance. Another reallocation of $150,000 in unused ARPA funds from the treasury was approved for the warrant to front an applicaton for another library grant as well as another $50,000 for pond maintenance article, both of which will go to Town Meeting in May.
A vote on a Right-to-Farm Bylaw – the town’s second attempt to adopt one, will come once the language is ironed out.
“Right-to-Farm is one of the articles,” Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’ve never discussed it in-depth, but I think everybody is pretty familiar with what it is.”
She noted that a resident approached the Select Board with a citizen’s petition.
“We [told them] you don’t really need a citizen’s petition,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We’re more than glad to entertain, as a board, bringing it back to the town. It didn’t pass the first time, but I think really it got kind of torpedoed unnecessarily, and maybe there wasn’t good information about what that Right-to-Farm Bylaw would mean.”
She said the board hoped to glean some “good information and clarity” around what it really means, but that sometimes one or two people at Town Meeting who are very persuasive – and that’s what happened at that particular Town Meeting.
“They started using examples of some bad situations on farms, or around town, that had happened and sort of extrapolated that this would happen more often if we had the Right-to-Farm – which was actually not accurate,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said her office is researching Right to Farm language in other communities for a proposed Select Board warrant article.
“It turns out that towns that have adopted Right-to-Farm have been able to add in some language that provides their own restrictions,” Green said. “We’re jus gathering some articles from other towns to see what information’s been put in each and then we’ll … put something together to present to the board as we get closer to looking at articles.”
Resident Michael Flemming said the problem proponents had the last time was that the Right-to-Farm language was really written for larger dairy farms, and there are not a lot of those in Hanson. Relating it to smaller properties opened the door to other issues.
“If you’re looking into language that’s going to be added, I don’t know what can be added to include smaller home farms,” he said. The previous bylaw would have required five acres, of which the house could take up an acre.
“Ultimately, it would only affect three places in town,” Flemming said, noting that making it clear it is trying to help out people who want to have a backyard farm, might remove some of the stigma of what transpired the last time the issue came up.
“It’s why they moved here in the first place,” he said. “This town is a farming community.”
Select Board member Ann Rein, who had been active in the effort to pass a Right-to-Farm Bylaw and in the work to establish an Agricultural Commission at the time, said it is really a matter of educating people.
She had been called to deal with compaints about roosters, and when she explained to the homeowners with too many of them about the problem, they were cooperative when they realized it – and then took care of the situation.
“There are people who get mad about the roosters, and then there are people who love hearing the roosters,” she said. “It’s funny.”
She advocated for a return of the Agricultural Commission to facilitate proper animal husbandry.
“I don’t know you can do much with a bylaw that’s going to fix that,” Rein said, adding that real estate values had been another concern. “People have actually found that a Right-to-Farm bylaws in a town actually bring real estate values up.”
Determining which articles could be funded with Plymouth County ARPA money, which must be spent by Dec. 31, 2016, was also discussed.
A culvert repair on Pratt Place, an ambulance, pond management and a library project are all seeking part of the $1.9 million remaining.
Green noted that the $1.542 million in Plymouth County-administered ARPA funds are very restrictive as to how it can be used. The Pratt Place culvert and ambulance are two projects that are eligible for that money, Green said.
In 2021, the town had received a quote of $1.25 million for the culvert repair or replacement. A $450,000 pricetag [leaving $1,092,514 for the culvert project] is the way lot of towns are using their last remaining ARPA funds to purchase ambulances.
Green “highly suggested” the funds be used for the culvert.
A memo on how the town wants to use the ARPA funds would be due to Plymouth County by March 1 and a timeline by April 1 Green said.
“Right now Highway is using some metal plates to make that road passable,” she said. “That culvert is in dire condition and, since I’ve been here, people have been saying that it is in dire condition and could collapse.”
When FitzGerald-Kemmett noted that approving both projects could put the town over what is available, Green said there is a possibility that the county could be approached for more funds, but they would have to obtain Town Meeting backing before asking Plymouth County for additional funds.
“We are also chasing some grant funds that could potentially help us with Pratt Place,” she said, but she cautioned that, when the town has applied for grants in the past it has been turned down every single time. “The culvert’s either too long, too short, not wide enough – there’s always been something that disqualifies that culvert frombeing eligible for grants.”
While there are only four houses on Pratt Place, Green noted that, should the road collapse, there would be no way for those residens to access Winter Street.
“I understand that it’s a safety issue, but what I’m struggling with is we’re never again going to have this type of money to move the needle on other things,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “The grant funding is not a sure thing.”
“I think we’ve done a lot of marvelous stuff with ARPA money,” Rein said, noting that waiting for other funds while risking a road collapse was risky. “I think this is a worthy thing to spend it on.”
Vice Chair Joe Weeks said he is confident Green has done the due dilligence on the Pratt Place culvert and the restrictions on the remaining ARPA funds.
The library’s article for $200,000 in ARPA funds for an HVAC system was approved at October Town Meeting, but maintenance work has since been done on it to gain three more years of operation, freeing up the $200,000 for other projects, Green said. The library is applying for a grant due in May, meanwhile, that would require the town to front the funding.
“If we don’t get the grant, we won’t spend the money,” Library Director Karen Stolfer said, noting the grant notification would not be issued until October 2025. The $150,000 needs to be authorized, but need not be sitting in a separate account for the application to go forward. That would leave $50,000 from the October Town Meeting to apply to the pond management project.
“If you want to know if you’ve got support for a new library, I think you nee to do it as a free cash item,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. She feared people would not pay attention to it again if it comes out of ARPA funds.