Hingham Cents

10/06/2026

September 29, 2026 By Carol Britton Meyer The Oct. 29 Hingham Special Town Meeting warrant will include three articles – two related to funding the proposed Plymouth River and South School roof projects and the other related to amending the scope of the earlier approved Hingham High School roof an...

10/06/2026

Reminder – the first community forum for our School Building Projects is set for tomorrow night, 7p at Hingham High School!

The Hingham Public Schools is hosting three community forums for School Building Projects, the focus of Special Town Meeting set for Thursday, October 29.

Forums are scheduled as follows:

• Wednesday, October 7 – 7:00 PM, at Hingham High School, Room 103
• Thursday, October 15 – 7:00 pm, by Zoom
• Wednesday, October 21 – 7:00 PM, by Zoom

For details, visit the 2025 School Building Committee page, at https://www.hinghamschools.org/o/hps/page/school-building-committee

10/06/2026

HINGHAM — September 28, 2026 — Weekend storm leaks at South School and Hingham High School required cleanup by facilities crews, the superintendent told the School Committee Monday, weeks before voters take up roof projects at both buildings and Plymouth River.

10/02/2026

09/28/2026

Special Town Meeting 2026 - Save the Date!
October 29, 7:00 PM, at Hingham High School

The Town of Hingham will host its Special Town Meeting on Thursday, October 29, at Hingham High School. The start time is 7:00 PM.

For more information, including current Warrant Articles, visit our Town Meeting web page: https://www.hingham-ma.gov/241/Town-Meeting

09/25/2026

Water restrictions still in effect; scofflaws could face higher fines, service shutoff

September 24, 2026

By Carol Britton Meyer

The Weir River Water System board of water commissioners, comprised of the Hingham select board, this week heard an update about drought restrictions and a proposed new fine schedule for violations, subject to approval by the WRWS Citizen Advisory Board (CAB) and the commissioners. The water company serves Hingham, Hull, and part of Cohasset.

A total water ban – Level 2, representing a “significant drought” – remains in effect for non-essential outdoor usage (lawn irrigation, washing vehicles, exterior building surfaces, parking lots, driveways, and sidewalks and filling swimming pools).

Handheld watering for gardens, landscape plantings, and other essential needs is allowed but could be restricted if necessary.

WRWS Managing Director/Superintendent Russell Tierney explained that the current $50 and $100 fines are not high enough to stop customers from ignoring water restrictions – in particular the prohibited use of irrigation systems – and suggested fines as high as $750 for the first offense and $1,000 for the second offense and termination of water service, and a $1,000 fine for each subsequent offense and a potential termination of service, but nothing has yet been decided. The water commissioners delayed their vote pending CAB input.

The fines are tied to the state drought level the town is in at the time. These proposed fines are for a Level 3 drought, which Tierney said the region could find itself in at a future time.

Commissioner William Ramsey said more discussion is needed about whether to shut off water service for violators.

“Fines first,” he said.

CAB members include Hingham representatives Dave Anderson, Jim Broderick, and Charles Culpin; Select Board Chair Brian McCarthy and Director of Wastewater Operations/Assistant Director of Public Works John Struzziery represent Hull; and Stephen Girardi, Cohasset.

Tierney also encouraged customers to provide their email addresses to the water company for easy notification of water restrictions, emergencies, and other information.

“Out of 12,500 customers, only 8,000 are on our email list,” he noted. Other customers receive letters.

“The water levels, including Accord Pond, are low for this time of year,” Tierney said. “We plan to get the word out earlier next year – March or sooner, as suggested by the CAB – including notifying irrigation system companies so they are aware [of the restrictions] at the beginning of the season.” The next CAB meeting is in mid- to late-October. All CAB meetings are public and posted on the Hingham town website calendar.

‘New irrigation systems take weather into consideration’

Tierney also noted that some newer models of irrigation systems “take the weather into consideration” so they don’t, for example, turn on automatically when there’s a 50% or higher chance of rain.

WRWS and Veolia, which operates the water company, continue to place tags on the front doors of homeowners who use their irrigation systems despite the restrictions.

Ramsey thanked the many residents who have abided by the restrictions.

“I know it’s painful to see newly-planted lawns die out,” he said. “At the same time, many customers have not complied with the restrictions, and that needs to be addressed.”

He agrees that more aggressive fines are in order after the first warning and more enforcement. “This drought situation is unprecedented,” he said. “All you have to do is drive by Accord Pond to see the water level.”

It takes “extra effort to go to [the same] houses a number of times to [put tags on doors],” Tierney said. “Why should someone have four or five chances to not shut off their irrigation systems?”

Citizen concerned about irrigation of town’s athletic fields

Hingham resident Mark Rockoff asked whether WRWS has jurisdiction over private wells, the use of which “also reduces the amount of water in the aquifer.” Tierney’s response was no – “that would need to be a discussion as a whole town, and not just a WRWS decision.”

Rockoff also asked why the town continues to irrigate its athletic fields when citizens are told not to irrigate their lawns.

The cost to replace athletic fields is “astronomical,” Tierney responded. “When fields [dry up], they need to be reseeded the following season. In our opinion, a home lawn is not as important as open space and recreation areas.”

Nevertheless, Rockoff said, “using so much water to keep the fields in great shape is putting the town in a more critical position.”

‘We need a different approach’

Hingham resident John Borger, who is writing a series of articles for the Hingham Anchor on the water crisis, said he believes more needs to be done and that for many, fines are ineffective. “Some people will suck up the fines after investing thousands of dollars in irrigation systems, and green lawns say ‘upscale.’”

“We are [facing] a very serious public safety emergency” due to the shortage of water to fight fires, Borger added. “The fire chief is not crying wolf. Fines and penalties won’t do it. We need a different approach.”

09/22/2026

HINGHAM HIGH'S VENTILATION IS FAILING, AND ITS REPLACEMENT IS AT LEAST THREE YEARS OUT

JUSTIN EVANS
SEP 22, 2026

HINGHAM — September 14, 2026 — Thirteen rooftop units, five heating and ventilation units and every exhaust fan at Hingham High School are at the end of their life and moving toward complete failure, the district’s facilities director told the School Committee. The chiller is running at about 60 percent and has to be power-cycled constantly. The project that would replace all of it is at least three years away.

The Full Story

Matthew Meehan, Director of Facilities, separated the two problems: the boilers are heating, and heating is the smaller one.

“If we replace the boilers, great. All we’re doing is replacing the heat that is provided to the ventilation systems,” he said. Several rooftop units failed over the winter and had to be recouped immediately.

The boilers are being dealt with anyway, because the alternative was worse. The district is procuring three or four new boilers at 3 million BTUs each to take a single 10-million-BTU unit offline, with work beginning around mid-December. The new units are roughly the size of a small refrigerator and would be craned in on the Pleasant Street side of the building. Boiler number one brought a service technician back four times last year; it has been stable since the end of February, after pump circulators and three expansion tanks were added.

The district had considered renting a backup boiler instead. That came in at about $120,000 for a single heating season, before piping into the existing building and before engineering. Multiplied across the years the high school project will take, Meehan said, the cost was extraordinary. The new boilers will instead stay in place as full backup to whatever HVAC system the project installs — though the MSBA will not fund them.

Executive Director of Business & Support Services, Aisha Oppong, added that none of this replaces the project now underway — it complements it.

Meehan also reported that every HVAC system, boiler, domestic hot water system and distribution system in the district received preventive maintenance this summer, which was not true a year ago, along with every filter, kitchen overhead and exhaust fan. HVAC runs 40 to 50 percent of the maintenance budget in any given year. The high school consumed most of this year’s maintenance spending, roughly half of it on boilers alone — a figure that excludes the town meeting articles for the life safety system.

The committee adopted the PROTECT Act policy on a single read, waiving its usual second, and Hingham joins neighboring South Shore districts this week to put the state-required policy in place. The state issued the requirement about three days before its own Sept. 1 deadline. The district’s procedure was already written; the policy is the paperwork catching up. It governs what happens if law enforcement officers come to a school and how students and staff are kept safe. Member Kerry Ni flagged that the model policy’s non-discrimination language did not match Hingham’s existing policy AC, and the motion carried with the district’s broader protective-class list substituted in.

The committee also removed six policies in one motion, part of what vice-chair Alyson Anderson called the year of cleaning up policies — mostly exhibits and addenda whose content now lives elsewhere, including a remote learning addendum left over from COVID.

Enrollment came in above the spring projection. The district counted a net increase of 26 students between the May 1 and Sept. 1 counts, including a kindergarten cohort six students larger than expected and an unusual number of families moving into the East School neighborhood with children in grades two through five. East now has 474 elementary students and 547 in the building counting its preschool, the largest enrollment in the district. Foster holds six sections of integrated pre-K at 75 students and will grow as three-year-olds age in, reaching 92 preschoolers and 508 in total. Out-of-district placements stand at 51, about where they were a year ago.

The old leak between eighth and ninth grade has nearly closed. The district lost a net of eight students to the private schools at that transition this year; the move now happens in sixth or seventh grade instead.

Why It Matters

Hingham is about to ask town meeting for a great deal of money for its school buildings, and this meeting is the argument for why. The high school’s ventilation is failing now, three years before the project that replaces it can be finished, and the district is spending on boilers it will keep only as backup because renting one would have cost $120,000 a heating season. If you have a student at the high school, the heat will hold this winter; the air handling is the part running on borrowed time. Separately, the PROTECT Act policy adopted tonight is now the district’s written rule for what happens if immigration or other civil law enforcement officers arrive at a school door.

Also at the Meeting

$100,000 for classroom voice amplification. A Fair Share education earmark the governor approved in June will replace aging voice amplification systems, starting at East and South and extending to the middle and high schools if the money reaches. A member noted the systems appear in some students’ IEPs but benefit whole classrooms

Auditorium overhaul finished. New rigging, LED and house lighting, lighting controls and a full electrical upgrade at the high school. The old rigging was failing. The sound booth was built in-house by maintenance staff to match the auditorium’s architecture. Administrators expect it to rebalance use between the high school and an over-used middle school, and said the high school musical is expected to move back

School-by-school work. Window reseal and four new water filling stations at the high school; bathroom overhaul on 27-year-old fixtures; FOB security upgrades at the high school and middle school; a new domestic hot water boiler and possible redundancy at the middle school; ERU replacements planned at East next summer with a new generator engine arriving; the final wall replaced at Plymouth River, plus tree work and kitchen and electrical upgrades; South’s rooftop and air handling units fully replaced; bleachers and kitchen fire suppression inspected at Foster

Source video: Harbor Media

09/16/2026

Debt Exclusion Questions Will Appear On Nov. 3 Town Election Ballot To Fund School Roofs

Photo Courtesy of the Town of Hingham
September 10, 2026 By Carol Britton Meyer

Special Town Meeting voters on Oct. 29 will decide the outcome of two warrant articles related to funding for the proposed Plymouth River and South Elementary School roof replacement projects.

Funding each of these projects is contingent on a t

wo-thirds vote of approval at the Special Town Meeting under separate warrant articles and a subsequent majority vote of approval on debt exclusion questions at the ballot box for each proposal.

The select board this week voted to include two local debt exclusion questions on the Nov. 3 special town election ballot – the same date as the state election – to fund the two roofs. This will be a separate ballot from the state ballot that lists the candidates for office and several ballot questions.

A debt exclusion is a temporary property tax increase to pay for a specific capital project over a certain number of years and requires voter approval as described above – at a Town Meeting or Special Town Meeting and also at the ballot box.

If a warrant article fails to pass at a Town/Special Town Meeting, the related ballot question(s) remain on the ballot because there would not be time to remove them, but the results wouldn’t count.

The estimate for the South School roof at this time is about $8.26 million, and the estimate for the Plymouth River roof project is about $16.06 million. Both those figures are subject to change.

The select board voted recently to submit the schematic design and associated documents for both proposed roof projects to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for partial reimbursement following a presentation by School Building Committee Chair Angela Thedinga.

The Special Town Meeting date coincides with the MSBA’s deadlines related to partial reimbursement under its Accelerated Repair Program for the elementary roof projects, at an estimated rate of 36.89%.

Both projects were submitted to the MSBA in spring 2025 and accepted into the Accelerated Repair Program in October 2025. The MSBA assigned the Owners Project Manager and designer firms in January 2026, and design work has been underway since that time.

On Sept. 22, the select board and advisory committee will discuss financing plan/debt scenarios and the expected tax impact of the PRS and South School projects.

A tax calculator will be available on the town website to help property owners determine what the impact of these two projects would be on their property taxes if the warrant articles pass and there is a majority vote in favor at the ballot box.

Information sessions will be held the first three weeks in October at the time when requested Vote-by Mail ballots will be arriving at voters’ homes, Assistant Town Administrator for Finance Katie Dugan said, noting that the figures related to the cost of the two proposed projects will not appear in the debt exclusion questions.

“There will be no figures on the ballots, but the information will be out there,” Dugan said.

For further information, go to https://www.hingham-ma.gov/719/Current-Warrant-Articles.

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Proposed warrant articles for the upcoming Town Meeting

09/16/2026

Hingham Sends Two School Roof Debt Exclusions to November 3 Ballot, Adds $1.1M to High School Project
Justin Evans
Sep 16, 2026

HINGHAM — September 8, 2026 — The Select Board placed two Proposition 2½ debt exclusion questions on the November 3 ballot for roof replacements at Plymouth River and South elementary schools, and reopened the special town meeting warrant to add $1,115,000 to the Hingham High School roof and HVAC project — three unanimous votes that hand the town’s school building costs to voters twice in five weeks.

The revised warrant article amends an appropriation town meeting approved last year under Article 34, increasing it by $1,115,000 and broadening what the money can pay for — feasibility study, schematic design, detailed design, architectural and engineering work, owner’s project management, construction documents and early bid packages — for a roof replacement, heat pump conversion or other HVAC work at Hingham High School, 17 Union Street. The board opened the warrant, replaced the article and closed the warrant in a single vote.

School Building Committee Chair Angela Thedinga told the board the additional money is not new project cost but schedule protection. “It does help us keep on schedule and minimize the impact to students,” Chair Liz Klein summarized, with completion already pushed toward 2030.

The two elementary roofs follow a different route. Both need a two-thirds vote at the October special town meeting to authorize borrowing, and then a simple majority at the ballot box to exempt that borrowing from Proposition 2½. Julie Strehle walked through the mechanics on the record, and staff confirmed it.

“In addition to a two-thirds majority vote at annual town meeting, then there’s also going to be a ballot question, which requires a majority in favor to approve this, because it is a debt exclusion. It’s outside of Prop 2½.” — Julie Strehle

The ballot questions carry no dollar figure — a point the board flagged as a communications problem, since voters will see only a description of a roof system replacement at 200 High Street and at 831 Main Street. Staff said the amounts voted at town meeting will be the gross Massachusetts School Building Authority figures, inclusive of significant contingencies, before a 36.89 percent MSBA reimbursement on approved expenditures. The final cost could fall if construction bids come in favorably.

The town has scheduled information sessions in each of the first three weeks of October, timed to when mail-in ballots reach homes, and staff said the ballot language was cleared three ways — by the MSBA, bond counsel and town counsel.

Away from the schools, the board authorized the largest single contract of the night: $358,678.20 to Axon Enterprise Inc. for 73 Taser 10 units with certification and a two-day instructor course, funded from police capital and invoiced annually. A sergeant told the board the department’s current model is out of warranty and no longer produced, and that the replacement brings virtual reality training allowing year-round practice rather than an annual recertification. The units have a five-year lifespan. Staff confirmed the price ties to the capital budget.