HALIFAX — September 22, 2026 — The Select Board voted 3-0 Tuesday for a heavy-truck exclusion on the western end of Old Plymouth Street and declared it in place, redirecting traffic toward a Pine Street intersection the chair called dangerous. The meeting record does not establish whether state approval is still required before enforcement.
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The board’s measure would exclude all through trucks over 2.5 tons gross from the western section of Old Plymouth Street between Elm Street and Plymouth Street. Chair Thomas Pratt said the board had already taken a vote on the restriction, that the town had sent documents to the state and that the session was for public questions and comment.
The comment kept returning to one objection: the ban sends trucks to Pine Street. Pratt traced the alternate route to OCPC studies he dated to 2006 and called it the path of least resistance the state would approve. A resident said the exclusion stops where it does because trucks come off Elm Street from Hanson. Police Chief Joao Chaves said the department does not have the equipment to weigh vehicles or run the inspections, and that officers would not know where to begin.
Pratt did not dispute the trade-off.
Pine Street is a dangerous intersection, but for the roads and the Chapter 90 funding that we receive to protect the roads that we have and the neighborhoods we have, this was thought to be the best route.
— Chair Thomas Pratt 4:09
He credited the highway superintendent for the poles placed in the middle of the road on the south side of town and said he wants them on the north side of Pine Street too. Member Jonathan Selig said professionals from OCPC had studied the problem and he would go with their conclusion. The board closed the hearing on a roll call and approved the exclusion 3-0. Pratt announced the result as unanimous and said a heavy vehicle exclusion now exists on Old Plymouth Street.
Chief Chaves’s recommendation the board recognized Sgt. William Caprio, who began in 1999 and served through Sept. 20, for what the chief put at 27 years of service, and named him a special police officer for the town. It promoted Officer Patrick Deroo to sergeant to fill the vacancy; the chief said Deroo has been with the department since January 2015, excelled in an April 29 promotional assessment and finished behind an officer promoted July 1.
Two patrol officers were appointed on voice votes: William Beguerie, a graduate of the 79th MPOC Plymouth Academy 19:38, and Jeffrey Sampson, a Marshfield resident and lateral transfer from the Berkeley College Police Department who had spent roughly four years with the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office. Pratt recused himself from the Beguerie vote, citing a relationship with the applicant’s family, and announced that appointment as two to zero with his own abstention.
