Deb Anderson
Express staff
Kingston’s Board of Selectmen met Tuesday, Jan. 16, at the Kingston Town House, to continue the earth removal permit from Dec. 19, and hear the appeal for a senior citizen who has been permanently barred from the Kingston Senior Center.
In the open forum, Pine DuBois, from the Jones River Watershed, asked selectmen to to watch the drone footage taken by Jimmy Powell in the Landing Road area, showing the dangerous flooding on Jan. 13, where water flooded the road and vehicles were trapped in standing seawater. She asked selectmen for future preventative roadblocks and traffic control to avoid the damage to vehicles in an extremely dangerous situation. “I don’t think people know that salt rots their cars.” she said. The drone footage and flooding photos can be seen on the Jones River Ecology YouTube channel.
The earth removal permit hearing was continued as the peer review company has not yet been hired. Town Administrator Keith Hickey advised selectmen to wait until the peer review was complete. The hearing was continued until Feb. 13, at 6:15 p.m.
Selectmen were next asked to consider the appeal of a Council on Aging’s suspension of a patron to enter the senior center or attend activities there. Originally a 30-day suspension, the event involved a patron and the Director of Eder Affairs, foul language and inappropriate behavior. Upon appeal to the Council on Aging Dec. 15, the COA increased the suspension to a permanent ban, all of which was within their authority.
The patron, who is a resident of Carver, appealed further to selectmen. After much discussion, with several selectmen considering that a permanent suspension was “too aggressive”, and after several votes to amend the term of the suspension, they finally agreed and voted to amend the suspension to end at January 1, 2025, at which time the term of the suspension will have been served.
Selectman Tyler Bouchard said, “I used to umpire a lot of baseball games. I’ve kicked out a lot of Dads – a couple of Moms, too.” In all of his hundreds of games he has never seen a lifetime ban.
Selectman Eric Crone said he thought the purpose of the hearing was to see if the COA Advisory Board acted within its authority in elevating the 30-day suspension to a permanent suspension. He said that reviewing the tapes and the testimony it looked like they did what was within their authority. He did not vote to overturn the lifetime suspension.

The Plympton Board of Selectmen met virtually on Thursday, Dec. 21. Selectmen Chair Christine Joy and Selectman Mark Russo were present.
Town Administrator Liz Dennehy said they have been reviewing the town’s flag policy with an intention to add a stipulation to it. “We would try to get the flags up on the telephone poles, that Highway does for us, generally from May 15 through November 15 unless there’s bad weather then obviously, we would make arrangements to have them taken down,” she told the Selectmen. Joy asked Dennehy why those dates were chosen and Dennehy said that they felt that getting them up before Memorial Day and having them remain up slightly past Veteran’s Day would be ideal. Dennehy also mentioned that the town should probably budget for the flags as they can be expensive. “We can get an inventory of our flags too as we get closer to Town Meeting time… and if there are any that need to be replaced, we could even do an article for it,” she said.
Dennehy also told the Selectmen that she is working with the Highway Superintendent on a project to have Dennett Elementary School students vote to name the three snowplows in town. “So the three trucks will get funny names… we’re trying to find ways to get our Highway Department more integrated with the community,” she explained. She also said that they are trying to coordinate a time for the trucks to be brought to the school so the students could see them and learn a bit about how they operate and what goes into plowing snow.
Dennehy said that budget season was well underway and preliminary budgets are due from town departments in mid-January. “We’re off and running on that,” she said.
“We got our Purple Heart community designation,” Dennehy told the Selectmen. She said that they coordinated with the Veteran’s Agent on it and signage would be going up soon.
The Selectmen issued Class II and III and scrap metal license renewals for 2024. Russo did the inspections on the properties and “found everything to be in good order.” Russo said he paid particular attention to the number of vehicles on display and found everything to be in compliance. The unanimous approvals were for Alby’s Salvage Inc., Angels Auto and Towing Inc., Bridge Bike Inc., Carey Auto Inc., Competition Auto Body Repair, Motorsports, and Plympton Cycles.
The Board also voted unanimously to support several appointments. Susan Vetterlein was appointed as the Clerk at Town Hall. Deborah Anderson was appointed to the Bylaw Review Committee until dissolved. Paul Johnson was appointed as a Transfer Station attendant until June 30, 2024. Caitlyn Mullaney was appointed as a full-time Police Officer and Stephen Raddatz was appointed as a part-time police officer, both until dissolved.
As customary, the Selectmen ended their meeting with their raves. “It was really neat, the Fire Department, I think with the help of the Police Department, doing the Santa over on the weekend. I know the kids on my street were really excited,” Joy said of her rave. She did note that the sirens were “really jarring” and wondered if next year they could play Christmas music instead. “Everything was awesome, but until I figured it out, I thought we had a major accident in town,” Joy explained. For her second rave, she said, “how thankful I am that we have such a great team of people who are working for the town. We really have come a long way with professionalizing departments.” She named Dennehy as well as Administrative Assistant Briggette Martins, Highway Superintendent Rob Firlotte, and the Chiefs of Police and Fire.
Russo said he wanted to underscore, emphasize, and appreciate Joy’s rave and all of the wonderful things going on in town.
He said his second rave was for the holidays. “It’s the darkest time of year; it’s the time of year when the weather is getting pretty darn cold and it’s kind of our opportunity for some agency – our opportunity to offer antidote in the form of some light and some comfort and some joy and hope for everyone, a peaceful new year,” Russo said.