CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

To provide Hanover's veterans with as much support as possible

Hanover Mariner - 7/26/2017

To provide Hanover's veterans with as much support as possible, changing from sharing veterans agent Michael Thorp with Duxbury to a full-time agent that would work solely in Hanover is being discussed by town officials.

"There currently isn't money in the budget for one, but should the board provide direction that they want a full-time agent, in next year's budget we can propose that," Hanover Town Manager Troy Clarkson told selectmen during Monday's meeting. "Each town has to have one and we have one, but there is a population threshold at around 12,000 where they are required to be full-time."

While the town's population hovers close to 14,000, Hanover has not received any direction from the state requiring any changes.

Selectman Emmanuel Dockter asked what legal ramifications could the town anticipate if the state intervened,

Clarkson noted that it would be unlikely since Hanover is providing a high level of service to veterans. Withholding funds provided to the town by the state would be akin to "cutting off your nose to spite your face," Clarkson said.

"Our engagement and feedback from the veterans community has been that they are well-served," said Clarkson. "If there are veterans out there that feel otherwise, then by all means they should contact me so we can correct that. But by all the feedback that we have received we provide a high level of service."

Clarkson said during the July 24 selectmen's meeting that he and Duxbury Town Manager Rene Read sent a joint request to the state's veterans service office to allow them to form a district even though they aren't continuous towns.

That request was made in November 2014 and many attempts to obtain a response one way or the other have been made to no avail, according to Clarkson.

"The issue remains in limbo," he said. "I would suggest that we continue to provide a high level of service to our veterans and when the veterans agent is not in the building, our assistant town manager [Tony Marino], who himself is a veteran of the United States Navy, is able to perform those services. I don't think there is any gap in service, at least that has not been brought to my attention."

Selectmen Chairman David Delaney said he would like to have Thorp attend a selectmen's meeting and outline what he is doing to help the town and its veterans. He also suggested they come up with a way to obtain information from veterans about what they could possibly be missing by not having a full-time agent in town.

Follow Adam Silva on Twitter @AdamSMariner.