Chair John Bruno said that he received a letter from the Chair of the Hanson Select Board regarding regionalization of pond management as well as whether the Plymouth County Commissioners could take a role in said management. He read from the letter saying, “Currently each town has its own pond management plan and allocates funds for this purpose; we believe there may be scales of economy and thus savings if we ban together in solving this problem. We recognize that the Conservation Commission in each town would have to be part of the conversation as will the Select Boards in each town. My reason for reaching out is to gauge whether your town would be interested in opening up a dialogue with Plymouth County Commissioners.” Bruno said they weren’t looking for a commitment just yet and said he believed it was a great idea. “Yea, I view it as a strength in numbers thing,” Selectman Jonathan Selig said. Town Administrator Cody Haddad said that it came about because the County is looking to provide more services to its member communities.
Special and Annual Town Meeting Warrant
Regarding the Warrant, Haddad said, “One of the changes to note is we have historically always included the line-item budgets for the school department – Silver Lake and the elementary school; they don’t have line- item budgets so hence we cannot include those in the warrant this year.” He noted that the goal would be to have them in the next few weeks and have them available on the website as well as having them printed to give out at Town Meeting. Haddad went over each article including Article 7 which is the potential approval of the solar pilot on River St. “This is one our Assessor and Counsel are still working to fully negotiate that solar pilot. If we do not have that in the next week or so… we will just skip over.” Article 9 is the Community Preservation Act which Haddad said the Selectmen would need to decide whether to do a 1 percent surcharge or something different. “I know we’re fiscally at a tight spot right now, but I do feel like if we came in at a 1.5 percent that might be more beneficial,” Selig said. The other Selectmen agreed.
Haddad said that Article 15 is an additional $25,000 to fund an HVAC unit at the high school. He explained that $100,000 had previously been approved at Town Meeting but the project was delayed and the cost is anticipated to have risen. Haddad explained that the other towns are funding their portion through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds while Halifax is paying for it out of stabilization.
Haddad said that there was a placeholder article for Special Town Meeting. The schools are anticipating a deficit in their special education line item and they don’t yet know to what exent. “They seem to think that they are going to be able to cover the deficit with their other line items in the budget; they’ve implemented a spending freeze but they do not have that information ready so we wanted to put a placeholder article in case we do have to fund that deficit to some extent… just in case,” he explained. The Selectmen voted to approve the warrant.
Delegation of Educational Funding
Haddad said that this topic was requested by Selig. “I noticed with our education budgeting process this year, it felt challenging. To me it felt like a lot of the challenges weren’t necessarily on the municipal side but more on a lack of support at the State level so I felt like it was worth us to send letters to the State House leadership just to convey how frustrating the process is where we’re seeing these giant spikes in special education costs, but the State isn’t really meeting those costs for us so what we’re seeing happening is… general education students are often feeling the crunch,” he explained. He shared a draft of the letter he wrote with his fellow Selectmen. The Board agreed to send the letter.
Request to Raise Boards at Furnace St. culvert
Haddad told the Selectmen that he was contacted by Brad Chase with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. He said that himself, Highway Surveyor Steve Hayward, and Board of Health Agent Bob Valery met with a few individuals from the State to discuss the town’s priority to get the herring back to Monponsett. Haddad said that Chase felt that raising the Boards at the Furnace St. Culvert would assist in allowing the herring to flow through. Chase is also requesting that Halifax supports moving forward with a study on the hydraulogy, hydraulics, and conditions and operations of the Furnace St. and Elm St. culverts. Jeremy Gillespie spoke up regarding the boards saying, “they’re just slowing down the waterflow, backing it up, they’re creating eutrophic conditions in the river; it is a river that flows out of Monponsett… this needs to be done pretty quick… once the water reaches 50 degrees we’re going to see the herring come up.”
Appointments
Heather Sylvia of the Tipsy Mermaid appeared before the Board to request a one day liquor license for The Farm at Raven Brook. The event will take place on May 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. where mocktails and wine will be served. Tami Herchel also appeared before the Board to request use of the town’s roadways for the Ragnar Road New England Race. The event starts in Connecticut and ends in Quincy. The race will come through Halifax on May 17-18. Selig pointed out that the runners will be stopping in Halifax during the late hours of the night to the early morning hours. “You won’t even know we’re here,” Herchel said. The Selectmen approved the race coming through the town unanimously.
Inter Municipal Agreement with Duxbury Regarding Dispatch Services
The Selectmen voted to agree to a one year contract with Duxbury at a cost of $200,000. Haddad said that they do anticipate another municipality joining thus lowering the fee after this year.
Morse Brothers Update
Haddad told the Selectmen that the Morse Brothers had finished all work under their existing earth removal permit. He said that they would need to appear before the Board again for any further work. Bruno said that for the most part the few complaints that they had were with respect to the trucks moving too slowly. “As far as I can tell, it went smoothly,” Bruno said. There was one incident with a special education bus that was easily resolved as well. Amy Troup spoke up insisting that the Board also received “plenty of complaints” regarding the earth removal being in the aquifer protection zone. “So put it on record that there were actual complaints… our water is not the same anymore,” she said.
Town Administrator Updates
Haddad told the Selectmen that they would be bringing forth an applicant for the Town Accountant position after several successful interviews. He also told them that Halifacts was now live saying that he hoped residents would go there for information rather than believing hearsay on social media. More information can be found at https://www.halifax-ma.org/home/news/halifacts-halifaxs-online-community-forum.