Sophomore Forward Ben Lofstrom looks for the rebound. (Photo by Aaron Duke)

The Silver Lake High boys’ basketball team was dominant in the second half against a tough opponent, and their prowess from the floor made the difference.

The Lakers hosted the Quincy High Presidents on Wednesday, Jan. 30 and walked away with a 61-47 win. With the win, they improved to 7-6 on the season, according to MaxPreps.

The Lakers found themselves in an early hole with the opposition leading 15-6 late in the first quarter. However, a Ben Lofstrom fast break and layup gave the team some momentum–which carried over into the second quarter.

A couple of minutes into it, Lotstrom hit a three-pointer, bringing the Lakers within two points 18-16. Still, the Lakers would not end up holding the lead just yet. That happened as the third quarter progressed.

Down 39-35 early in the third quarter, Silver Lake’s offense exploded. They went on a 26-5 run which extended well into the fourth quarter and ended up being the difference maker in the bout.

Lofstrom tied the game at 39 apiece while a Josh Gilbert three pointer at the end of the third quarter gave the Lakers a 42-39 run. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, a three pointer from Danny Duggan extended the team’s lead to 45-41, and they continued pulling away.

Duggan and Matthew Bettle sank back-to-back three pointers in a 12-0 run which put the Lakers up 57-43 with a few minutes left in the game, essentially putting the contest out of reach for Quincy.

In the win, the Lakers hit 53 percent of their shots, including 62 percent of their three pointers and 85 percent of their free throws. Meanwhile, they held Quincy to a 38 percent field goal rate.

The Lakers next bout is this upcoming Tuesday, Feb. 11 on the road against the Falmouth Clippers (6:30 p.m. start time).

The Silver Lake High girls’ swim team will have some competitors at the state championship meet later on this month.

That is because they have had strong performances during Patriot League meets this season, showing their talent in a number of categories.

Junior Alexis Connors will make it back to states for the third straight year and will show off her versatility in the process. She qualified for the state championship in three different events through the Lakers first five meets of the season (in which they went 2-3).

Leading the way for the team, she has earned the right to compete in the  200 freestyle, the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle. Plus, qualified to compete in sectionals in the 100 breaststroke.

To qualify in the 200 freestyle, she swam a 1:56.71 in the team’s meet against Duxbury last month; in the 200 IM, her first place finish against Quincy (2:17.56) got the job done; and in the 500 freestyle, her winning time against Duxbury (5:08.55) also got the job done. She qualified for sectionals in the 100 breaststroke against Rockland (1:14.71).

Connors will not be going to the state meet alone. Senior Katherine Morrissey has also qualified to compete there for the Lakers in the 100 butterfly. She swam a 1:01.13 against Duxbury in order to earn the nod. She will also compete in the sectionals meet in the 100 breaststroke.

The girls 200 freestyle relay team also qualified for sectionals earlier in the season. In addition to Morrisey and Connors, junior Chloe Duran and sophomore Aly Truckenmiller round out that team.

The Lakers wrapped up their regular season on Wednesday, Jan. 30, against Hanover. Now, a handful of their swimmers will continue practicing to prepare for sectionals and states–although those dates have not yet been announced.

An empty nip, or small bottle of alcohol, litters the side of the road on Jan. 25, 2019.

HALIFAX — The Halifax Board of Selectmen met Tuesday, Jan. 22, and discussed banning nips (small liquor bottles), a possible room tax option on AirBnB rentals and other such related services, as well as had a volatile discussion with Scott Clawson, of Plymouth Street (Route 106), and his attorney regarding a possible increase in the number of horse show days allowed at Fieldstone Farm, which he owns.

Clawson request not denied, but derided

Although not a formal public hearing, the board continued to hear from Scott Clawson and his attorney regarding a request for more horse show days than is allowed under a modified consent agreement approved by the Superior Court. The judgement between the Town of Halifax and Clawson, first agreed to in 1993, was signed and then updated following at least nine lengthy board meetings before August 2017, when a new agreement was signed into force.

The current agreement allows 30 shows a year. Clawson is asking for 33 shows this year. His Stoneham-based attorney, Phil Taylor, asserted that the selectmen have the right to add additional shows under the agreement without going to court to modify the current agreement. The board said that two of the town’s attorneys disagreed with Taylor, saying that any changes to the consent agreement, should the board allow them, must be approved by the Superior Court.

The board also made a “slippery slope” argument, all asking at one point or another if they were to allow three more shows, what would stop Clawson from asking for more in the future?

Taylor argued at some length with the board, who were visibly and vocally frustrated, trying to convince them that their attorneys were wrong. He said that he did not have time to understand the town counsels’ rationale because he had not spoken with them.

At several points, Taylor asserted that the capitalization of a letter in one line of the 10-page judgement changed the meaning of the agreement, causing stifled laughter from the board and Town Administrator Charlie Seelig.

Taylor was successful in convincing the board to allow him to speak to one of the town’s attorneys– at taxpayer’s expense– to see if they could reach an agreement on whether the board or the Superior Court had the authority to change the consent agreement.

“You’re a really good lawyer for Mr. Clawson, as I’ve pointed out before, but you don’t represent the Town of Halifax,” said Selectmen Chairman Kim Roy.

Nip ‘em in the bud…

Selectmen are interested in a suggestion from Seelig to ban the sale of nips, or small liquor bottles typically containing 50 milliliters of alcohol that are intended as an individual serving of liquor. They are often used by drivers who drink and drive, and then throw them out their windows, in order to avoid charges of carrying an open container if they are stopped, according to police. They are a frequent source of litter around town, said Seelig.

He suggested that the best way to go about banning them would be to do so in concert with surrounding towns, otherwise people who intend to drink and drive while consuming nips will continue to buy them elsewhere and litter on Halifax roads.

Seelig says the City of Chelsea has already banned nips and that a Halifax ban would be as simple as ordering liquor license holders in town not to sell alcoholic beverages under a certain number of milliliters.

A rooms tax in Halifax?

Although Halifax has no motels or hotels, it could still profit from a local option on a rooms tax, said Seelig. Services such as Airbnb, a San Francisco-based company which is an online marketplace allowing members to offer lodging, primarily homestays, to strangers, is being taxed at 5.7 percent by the state beginning in July, the same as hotels. Localities will have the option of charging a local rooms tax up to a maximum of 6 percent, he said.

The tax, at the state level, has caused much controversy, and was fought by AirBnB.  Although the board took no action on the proposal yet, it is something they will continue to discuss in the future.

Next meeting

The board may hold an emergency meeting to deal with Fieldstone Farms before their next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room of  the Halifax Town Hall.

The Silver Lake High girls’ basketball team might not be enjoying the best results this season, but they have one reason to be more confident now.

That is because they had been missing one of their top players for the first seven games of the season with a torn ACL and now, junior captain Holly Reeder-Morning is back on the court for the squad.

Reeder-Morning is a third-year varsity player and made her season debut on Tuesday, Jan. 8. She came off the bench in the Lakers loss against Scituate, wearing a brace on her right leg.

The Lakers were enthusiastic about her return to the court as their official athletics account tweeted out, “Welcome back Holly!” with a video of her jogging onto the court to sub in before a Scituate player took two foul shots.

Reeder-Morning, who missed all of soccer season with her injury, was a key asset to the Lakers squad last season and is one of the few returning varsity players. She was a Patriot League All-Star as a sophomore so certainly, her ability on the court will provide the team with a boost as she works her way back into the lineup.

Reeder-Morning will also provide the girls’ soccer team with a boost next season as she missed the entire fall with her injury this season; she was also one of the soccer team’s top scorers during the fall 2017 season.

The Lakers have a chance to pick up their second win of the season in their next contest on Friday, Jan. 11. They host the Whitman-Hanson Panthers. The start time for the game has yet to be announced but presumably, it will take place at 6:30 p.m., the typical start time for the team’s varsity Friday games. Whitman-Hanson is 5-2 this season, according to MaxPreps.

Despite no major influx of new special education students to the Silver Lake district, Special Education Administrator Marie Grable said increases to tuition and transportations costs need to be addressed in next year’s budget for the 629 students in the program.

Estimates for next year’s budget were not ready to be discussed formally, Grable told the committee; they are still in the rough draft phase. In her presentation, she outlined some of the finances that need to be considered on a yearly basis when addressing a special education budget.

To begin the presentation, she highlighted that there isn’t a standard program that can be applied for all students in the special education program.

“Accommodations need to be individualized,” Grable said.

Specialization has its own challenges. For one, Grable said, developmental delays are often diagnosed anywhere from the age of 3 to 9. It can be hard to tell if a student is struggling with reading or if it’s because of some sort of developmental delay.

Committee Chair Jason Fraser asked about unexpected cost from students coming into the district mid-year. Unexpected cost can also affect a special education budget, she said. When a student from out of district from Plymouth for example moves to Halifax mid-school year, Grable said that student is already budgeted in Plymouth’s special education budget for the year. If the student is from out of state, the rule doesn’t apply, and Silver Lake would get an unexpected cost added to the current fiscal year’s budget.

The state does provide some relief with special education budgets, Grable explained. She said municipalities are responsible for the first $44,000 no matter what. However, the state does pay a percentage of additional dollars, but that rate is set on a yearly basis. According to Grable, she’s preparing for a rate around 55 to 60 percent.

Fraser reminded the committee that the district still needs to pay for that money because the state funding is a reimbursement given for the previous year.

Some of the district’s funding does come from state grants, though. The district gets two entitlement grants from the state. One of those grants is for a little over a $1 million statewide. The district gets a cut of that grant each year. That first grant, the district uses to help pay for the paraprofessionals at the schools. The second grant helps fund special education programs at the preschool level. Exact municipal numbers were not specified.

Grable spoke highly of the district’s special education programs. She was especially proud of the developmental learning centers at each school level (elementary, middle, high) district wide and how language-based learning programs were going. Grable said the language-based learning program has been implemented at the middle school successfully, and she hopes to do the same at the high school when the timing is right.

One thing she hopes to continue with, especially in the last years of high school, is remind students that once they turn 18, they are usually responsible for making sure they get the accommodations they need, especially at the college level.

“Colleges don’t necessarily look at IEPS, but do verify disabilities, so when students turn 18, they need to advocate for themselves,” Grable said.

A budget draft will be available at a later school committee meeting.

High School

Principal Michaela Gill presented formal requests to the school committee for some curriculum changes. One request was to remove the practical computing course. Gill spoke of students’ success in the other course computer applications, making the course unnecessary.

Another course change proposal was removing College Prep II Trigonometry from the curriculum.

“Let me explain the math behind this,” Gill joked.

Right triangle trigonometry is now taught in geometry to help students prepare for standardized testing.

“There’s not enough material to run a whole trigonometry class when it’s already in geometry,” she said.

The high school also received the following donations:

• $25 gift card from May Flower Municipal Health Group to pay for new cables for the library smartboard.

• Three residents donated vehicles for the high school’s automotive program.

Middle School

A middle school-level National Junior Honor Society is coming to the district. Pam Samford said the district will start putting this together after term two grades are in.

Samford said the honors society for seventh and eight graders will run much like the high school model.  After grades are in, eligible students will meet in the auditorium. They will have to complete community service, get teacher recommendations, and be interviewed. Students will be told if they will be inducted before April vacation and another ceremony will follow.

Number 14, Molly Terbush, prepares to make her shot. (Photo by Aaron Duke)

The Silver Lake High girls’ basketball team played hard and enjoyed success at various points in the matchup. Ultimately, however, their opponent surged in the fourth quarter and the team did not get its first victory of the season.

The game was tight after three quarters, but Hanover pulled away in the fourth and ended up winning the contest, 62-49. With the loss, the Lakers fell to 0-5 on the season.

The Lakers enjoyed a lot of success in the first quarter, taking a sizable lead. By the end of it, they found themselves up 22-12 thanks to some sharp shooting and stout defense.

In the second quarter, the Lakers were able to preserve this lead, although the game started to become a little more evenly matched. Still, they took a 34-26 lead into the second half.

In the second half, Hanover gained the edge in terms of momentum. They outscored the Lakers by nine points in the third quarter and ended it with a 42-41 lead. They also held onto the lead in the final frame.

Hanover went on to outscore the Lakers by 12 points in the final quarter of the bout in order to pick up the victory.

The Lakers are on the younger side this season with the overwhelming majority of their players being underclassmen. With this in mind, they have some young talent on their squad that should grow and develop over the next few seasons.

This year’s team has five seniors on it including: shooting guard Izzy Ruprecht, point guard Jessica Stas, small forward Brianna Villanova, small forward Angela King and small forward Stephanie Barrett.

The Lakers next game is on Friday, Dec. 28 at home against the Falmouth Clippers (5:00 p.m. start time). The Clippers are 0-1 to start the season, according to MaxPreps.

HALIFAX — The Halifax Fire Department was recently awarded a $3,500 Child Passenger Safety Seat Distribution grant from the Baker-Polito administration for free child car and booster seats for those in need and to replace car seats that have been damaged in motor vehicle accidents at no cost to the owner, stated Halifax Fire Chief Jason Viveiros in a Dec. 10 letter to the Board of Selectmen. The department is also offering free car seat inspections or installations by calling 781-293-1751 for an appointment, according to the announcement.

The chief, himself a fruitful grant-writer, commended Firefighter/Paramedic Peter Hogan for his work in obtaining the grant.

In 2017, the chief said, Hogan recognized the need for a certified car seat installation technician in Halifax, after seeing many situations where children were not secured properly or were in seats that were not safe.

He attended a 40-hour child passenger safety technician (CPST) certification course and the department began offering the service.

The grant, for fiscal year 2019, is from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, Office of Grants and Research-Highway Safety Division (EOPSS/OGR/HSD). The Governor and Lieutenant Governor said they were pleased to support the department’s traffic safety efforts in a Nov. 29 letter to the chief.

“We thank you for the work you do to keep children safe on our roads,” they wrote.

CARVER — The Federal Communications Commission is proposing new rules that would, among other changes, alter the way Area 58 Community Access Media— Plympton, Halifax and Carver’s local cable access provider— and other local cable access providers across the country are funded, according to Area 58 Executive Director Rich Goulart.

Currently, funds are set aside from cable franchising fees, or the fees that the cable companies pay for access to a particular community, for community television channel access, broadcasting equipment and other monies needed to run local cable television studios.

The channels are known as public, educational, and governmental or PEG channels. This is part of the Federal Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, which requires cable companies to allocate a percentage of the profits they make from subscribers toward PEG channels.

Goulart said the proposed rules would allow cable companies to deduct from their franchising fees a value for these PEG channels, at a assessment they determine, as an “in-kind” donation.

He said this could lead to a situation where, if the rules were to go into effect— and he says they would go into effect immediately if they are enacted— the studio would be able to “keep the lights on,” but would not be able to pay its two full-time salaries, part-time salaries or purchase equipment to produce and disseminate television.

“This would have a crippling effect on public access,” he said. “This [proposal] came out of left field.”

The proposal has prompted the state’s two federal senators, Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, to send a letter to the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, along with nine other senators opposing the rules:

“…[T]he proposal puts at risk critical funding for … [PEG] stations as well as broadband connections to schools and other public buildings. Our constituents watch PEG channels to monitor local government proceedings, hear the latest news from nearby college campuses, and consume other locally produced programming including emergency alerts and directives. Your proposal may jeopardize these important functions.”

PEG channels and their trade groups across the state and country have been united in their opposition to the proposed rule changes.

The rule was proposed by the FCC on Oct. 15. Although a comment period on the change has passed, comments to those already made are being accepted at fcc.gov/ regarding MB Docket No. 05-311.

Reply comments, letters of support or opposition and supporting documents have until 11:59 p.m. Dec. 14 to be submitted according to the instructions online.

“Massachusetts is one of the most vibrant states for public access,” said Goulart. “This is not good news…It’s a mess right now. It’s uncertain what it’s going to mean.”