HANSON — September 22, 2026 — The Select Board voted not to recommend a special town meeting article that would let the treasurer-collector write off interest on overdue tax bills, and will move to pass it over at town meeting on Oct. 5, after the town accountant advised against it. Members also recommended $112,000 to repave the library and senior center parking lot.
The Full Story
The board locked in its recommendations on the October special town meeting warrant without the Finance Committee’s, because the informational warrant that goes to voters had to reach the printer the next day. Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said the committee expected to file its recommendations by that same deadline, too late for the board to see them.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think we ought to put a pin in these and just vote what our conscience tells us.
— Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett 3:41
In one motion the board recommended 25 articles: 1 through 6, 8 through 18, 20, 21, 24 through 26 and 29 through 31. The point was to put all five members on record, since the recommendation votes at the previous meeting were taken by three and a renumbering of the warrant had forced the board to vote each article again. Articles 7 and 32 were deferred to town meeting.
Article 19 asks for $112,000 in free cash to repave the parking lot at the library and senior center, which the board had placed on the warrant without recommending while free cash remained uncertain. Town Administrator Lisa Green said repairs have left the catch basins higher than the rest of the surface, that the back of the lot is cracked and crumbling, that Meals on Wheels drivers collect meals there, and that people have fallen. Member Joe Weeks moved to recommend it as one of the most heavily trafficked spots used by the town’s most vulnerable residents, and it carried on a voice vote.
About $1.4 million in free cash would be left going into the May Town Meeting if the warrant passes, Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf said. The town put $1.4 million toward last year’s budget, so if new revenue only matches costs Hanson faces roughly a half-million-dollar structural deficit.
Article 28 would let the treasurer-collector write off interest owed on overdue bills through a rate payment agreement. FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board started out inclined to support it, then found it tracks what state law already allows, carries no means test and reaches commercial and industrial property as well as homes. Kinsherf had told the board the write-off was not a good fiscal idea, the chair said. Members put the state-set interest rate on such plans at 8 percent, down from 16 percent. The motion not to recommend carried on a voice vote, and the FitzGerald-Kemmett asked Green to tell the treasurer-collector that the board plans to move to pass the article over at town meeting.
Two conservation commission articles, 22 and 23, total $27,500. 3:41 One is $7,500 for invasive-species treatment at Wampatuck Pond that FitzGerald-Kemmett said has to be done every year. Both were recommended on a voice vote.
Most of the meeting went to the police department’s Flock license plate cameras, with no vote possible because the item had not been posted for one. After a public forum, the board asked the chief for the department’s written procedures on custody of the data and for a reading from legal counsel and the town administrator on what an off-ramp would look like if it later voted to pause or remove them.
