HALIFAX — Halifax achieved a 7.8% voter turnout as 451 voters came out to choose the next member of the Halifax Board of Selectmen Saturday, May 18, the only contested race on the ballot in either Plympton or Halifax. In that contest, Gordon Andrews beat Melinda Tarsi 253 to 195.

Tarsi was disappointed with her loss, but said she was excited she did well. She plans to continue to serve the town on the Finance Committee, she said.

Andrews was sworn in to office in front of family and friends Monday, May 20.

His first official act as Selectman was to sign vendor warrants.

The board will reorganize at the next regularly scheduled meeting, May 28, and talk about their summer goals, Andrews said.

One of the policies he campaigned on, regionalization of the Council on Aging, received a warm welcome in Plympton Monday night, where Plympton Selectman Mark Russo noted that he’d be interested in exploring a similar concept.

Andrews also spoke about reopening talks for regionalization of the fire department and noted that most of Halifax’s mutual aid calls go to Plympton and Hanson, which would be logical places to start up talks or restart talks in the case of Plympton.

As for the shortage of volunteers in town, “I think we need to start walking around baseball fields and softball fields and asking around,” he said. “I’ll do it,” he added.

“If we don’t have volunteers, we have to pay for employees to do jobs,” he said.

He also said he will bring up with the board the idea of changing Town Meeting to a Saturday in an attempt to increase turnout, a change that would have to be voted on by Town Meeting. The board could place an article in the warrant, though.

Andrews plans on continuing to sit on both the Halifax Elementary School and Silver Lake Regional High School committees.

“I think I should be able to handle it,” he said. “I’ll see how it goes.”

HALIFAX — The people of Halifax held a two-night, 63-article Annual Town Meeting and 12-article Special Town Meeting Monday and Tuesday, May 13 and May 14. Most articles passed without much discussion, including a $24 million operating budget, but a “ban” on single-use plastic bags led to a standing vote because of a vocal minority of 18 who yelled their “no” votes.

Several hawk-eyed voters frequently came to the microphone to question increases in budget line items, or expenditures in articles they said were unusual or unnecessary, even veterans’ benefits.

Retiring Selectman Kim Roy received a lengthy standing ovation at the beginning of the meeting the first night, after she gave an emotional speech thanking the town for allowing her to serve. She was in tears.

The meeting was lengthy, but efficient. The moderator, Dennis Carman, was new to the job, as it was his first Annual Town Meeting and second Special Town Meeting.

A single-use plastic bag “ban” was adopted by the body, 84-18. Candy Kniffen, of the Beautification Committee and the former first female selectman in town, presented the article to Town Meeting.

She cited many governments at the local and state level, even entire countries that have enacted such laws. While the majority of Town Meeting supported the ban, the moderator required a standing vote to determine which side had won because the 18 voters opposed to the law yelled “no” so loudly he called for a standing vote to be certain.

Resident Jeffrey Bulger, of Brandeis Circle, spoke frequently against town expenditures of all sorts. At one point, he called the Veterans’ Benefits line item, 123, which had increased by $5,500 from last year a fund for town officials to play with. Kimberly King, a voter loudly opposed to Bulger’s position, moved the vote after a short clarification of how exactly that money is spent – it goes to veterans’ and their families – and the line item passed. Bulger was also one of the 18 voters most vocal in opposing the “bag ban,” and brought a lengthy handout for voters to read explaining his opposition to “bag bans.”

The Highway Surveyor, Steve Hayward, whose late father Ralph held the same position, was wearing his father’s suspenders as he asked the town for several pieces of equipment, including a truck he said he needs for himself for $30,000 and a Kubota-brand tractor or equivalent for $45,000, which was less than the amount asked for in the article.

He did not receive a $168,129 street sweeper that he requested, although he seemed in good spirits after the meeting. He said that he was pleased with how things went and thought he might get a street sweeper next year as the Finance Committee indicated in they may be more receptive in the future.

The Elementary School line item, 71, was amended up by $30,700 to $6,659,147 by Summer Schmaling, of the Halifax Elementary School Committee, because the school committee wanted a new bus. King spoke in support of the article, although the Finance Committee was not unanimous in its recommendation of the amendment. The article passed.

The future of the recycling center was discussed, with the costs of recycling soaring because China no longer buys our waste and state laws mandating recycling mean it costs more money each year to recycle. Some asked whether the Recycling Center should continue to be repaired at all and possibly eliminated. All items for the recycling center, including a new rug and cement slabs for roll-off containers at the center passed, though, as the items were necessary now, according to Hayward. As he put it simply, “If people want to keep walking around in mud, don’t vote for the article.”

The town’s soaring legal bills prompted Special Town Meeting Article 2, which proposed moving $20,000 from last year’s snow and ice budget into the Law Account. The number of lawsuits the town is defending itself against has ballooned and were listed for the voters on a handout.

At about $30,000,  Andrews v. Town of Halifax, a zoning dispute between Selectman-candidate Gordon Andrews regarding a development known as Amanda Estates abuting him on Elm Street, tops the list of the town’s legal expenses.

Andrews said on Town Meeting floor that the town does not need to be defending his suit and that the developer of the property in dispute should be defending it.

Town Administrator Charlie Seelig said that the town will have to find money to pay legal bills elsewhere, from line item transfers or the relatively depleted reserve fund as a last resort because the article failed.

Seelig’s contract was set for the next three years, raising it and bringing it more into line, but still significantly under, the salaries of Town Administrators with his skills, experience and qualifications nearby, according to Roy at the meeting.

A contract with the firefighter’s union with a $68,340 increase was passed, without discussion, representing a significant change in paramedic stipends and an overall 2% raise for the union personnel. Roy said this was an attempt to fight the 80% turnover at the department and retain and attract seasoned firefighters to Halifax.

A similar contract with the police officer’s union passed as well.

A number of upgrades to the town’s servers, backup batteries, telephones and other IT infrastructure also passed.

All zoning articles in the warrant were not addressed because the planning board didn’t hold a legally required hearing for the articles, Friday, and Monday shortly before Town Meeting. The board failed to get a quorum both times. Therefore, several articles were not considered by Town Meeting. They were not passed over; they were simply not addressed at all. They included such possibly controversial articles as those addressing multifamily dwellings and several marijuana articles, including a citizens’ petition on the location of marijuana establishments.

Five members of the Design Squad Global Club at Halifax Elementary School, from left, Kiera Ethier, Reese Helisek, Will Hinkley, Kai Martin, and Kullen Martin gather to recap their unique experience. (Photo by Kristy Zamagni-Twomey)

Back in 2016, a project known as Design Squad Global was launched by WGBH and funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. The project was based on the PBS Kids show Design Squad that aired originally from 2007 to 2011.

As described on pbskids.org, “Design Squad Global empowers middle school kids to solve real-world problems and understand the impact of engineering in a global context.” Anyone interested in starting their own club can sign up via the website (https://pbskids.org/designsquad/) and be matched with an international partner club. A full club curriculum guide for either 6 or 12 weeks is available on the website and includes multiple hands-on STEM related projects to be completed by both partner clubs with results being shared with one another via pictures and video chats.

Recently, students at Halifax Elementary School had the opportunity to participate in a Design Squad Global club at their school led by teachers Lisa Whitney and Jen Reidy. The Halifax students were partnered with a school in Kenya.

Nicki Sirianni, the Outreach and Marketing Manager for Design Squad Global, explained, “Our goal is to get into as many pockets of the world as possible.” Design Squad Global is well on its way to this goal with over 700 clubs from 40 different countries, including 46 states in the United States. “We don’t ever want to limit who is allowed to use our materials. We have clubs in libraries, museums, boys and girls clubs, the YMCA, and also a lot of institutions and schools,” Sirianni said.

According to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, only 14% of engineers in the U.S. are women with about 18-20% of engineering students being women. Likewise, according to the NACME (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering), in 2013 minorities accounted for only 12 percent of employed engineers, a number that paled in comparison to their representation in the overall population.

While these numbers are up from past decades, clubs like Design Squad Global hope to encourage further participation in STEM fields from people of all backgrounds. Speaking to this issue, Sirianni said, “We want to make engineering relevant in their everyday lives. There are a lot of stereotypes about who is allowed to work in engineering and we want to break down those stereotypes. The whole purpose is to get kids really excited about engineering.”

Fourth grader Kullen Martin, fifth grader Kiera Ethier, and sixth graders Kai Martin, Will Hinkley, and Reese Helisek spoke to the Express about their experience in the Design Squad Global club at Halifax Elementary.

One of the first projects tasked to the Design Squad Global club was the creation of shoes from a variety of found materials including tape, Styrofoam, bouncy balls, foam, felt, bubble wrap, cardboard, batting, cloth, and sponges. Helisek described the differences in the Halifax students’’ approach and the Kenyan students.

“We tried to design them to be more functional so that we could actually wear them where theirs seemed like they were more focused on how they looked; a lot of them had really cool designs and colors.” Kullen Martin added, “The Kenyan students’ were more sandals for their weather where ours were more like boots and sneakers.”

Kai Martin explained another project, “We had one where we built a light pipe where we had to illuminate the inside of a cardboard box.” Ethier again stressed the Kenyan focus on design saying, “They looked like little houses. Again, with like the designing, we tried to make it functional and they tried to make it look good.”

While the Kenyan club and Halifax club came up with significantly different solutions to the same problem for some of the projects, this was not always the case. Helisek explained, “We did one where we had to shoot airplanes down the line and learn about turbulence. I was a little shocked that ours were extremely similar designs, our group and their group.”

The exchange of cultural information between the clubs was a focal point of the experience with both the Kenyan and the American students learning a lot about the way the other lives.

“They asked what the weather was right then and it was pretty cold then and I was telling them how our seasons are much more drastic than theirs. They looked a little surprised when we said how cold it was,” Ethier said. Hinkley added, “I think the reason they were so surprised was because Kenya is split by the equator so it is very warm. They have two seasons – the dry and the rainy season.”

Other differences also stood out to the groups. The Kenyan students were surprised to see that the American students were not wearing uniforms. Helisek was surprised by the age ranges in the Kenyan club saying, “I think they had from kindergarten to eighth grade. I was surprised that they had the younger grades and the older grades together.” Kai Martin added, “They were talking about how we took the bus to school and they said that they either walked or did chores in the morning or rode their bikes. They were surprised that we either took cars or rode the bus to school.”

The differences in languages spoken by the clubs also came as a surprise to both groups. For his part, Kullen Martin was impressed with the Kenyan students’ grasp of the English language saying, “Since you don’t really get to hear from people from another country often, you don’t really think they speak English as well or as fluently as they do so that was kind of cool.” Hinkley explained, “In Kenya they speak Swahili which is their national language, they speak English, and then they speak whatever their tribal language is.” The students reminisced about the Kenyan students attempts to teach them some words in their language, including jambo for hello.

A fun moment for both clubs came when Hinkley, who traveled to Kenya a few years ago with family, showed off some souvenirs from his travels during one of the video chats between the clubs. “I brought in a shirt [Kenyan soccer shirt], some money, a soapstone rhinoceros, and a bunch of animals that my grandparents brought me back many years ago,” Hinkley said. “I think they might have been the most surprised when Will had the stuff too, like the soccer shirt and the animals,” Helisek said. Kullen Martin added, “Will showed them he had just a random lego brick. They were sort of surprised when he pulled that out just to sort of see what we had as toys.”

For all the differences they discovered, the students definitely discovered some similarities as well in the form of hobbies and supervillains. “I didn’t know they could draw so well. There was this one kid that wanted to know our talents but then he showed us a picture of a drawing that he did of the joker and it was really good,” Ethier said.

When asked what was the best part of Design Squad Global was for them, the students emphasized both the cultural exchange and engineering aspects of the experience. Kullen Martin, who hopes to one day become a zoologist, said he was most excited about working with people in older grades, both at home and in Kenya. Older brother Kai, who would like to study architecture, said, “I thought the coolest part was the light pipe because we got to do something that hasn’t actually been put in place yet; that was the sort of thing that we really got to engineer and we might get to make in our later life.” Hinkley, who’s ambition is to become a civil engineer, said, “I enjoyed listening and learning from other people because other people had ideas that were so much different than mine. I learned some things from these people [motioning to his friends] but I also learned stuff from the people in Kenya.”

Both Ethier and Helisek were most enthralled by the opportunity to interact with people from another culture. Ethier who wants to one day become a veterinarian shared her thoughts.

“I think my most favorite part was interacting with the people in Kenya. The Facetime call was so amazing, I would never dream of meeting people in a whole different country. They were pretty funny and it was just cool how we got to talk to them.” Helisek, who hopes to become an elementary school teacher, said, “I liked how we got to interact with people from another country to see how they worked differently than we did.”