Franklin MAtters Weekly: summary

Showing posts with label summary. Show all posts

Monday, November 19, 2012

Good news on the high school front!

It is already Thursday for those in school this week. Thursday? Yes, there are only two days of school, so it is like this is Thursday and Tuesday will be Friday before the long weekend!

Last week was going to be about the high school and it was in a couple of ways. We did get the update on the budget and construction schedule for the high school building project underway. We also heard about the girls soccer team as they won on Tuesday to advance to the State Championship on Friday which they also won! Nice job ladies. It takes great team work to win a championship and to go undefeated as well! Kudos all around!

High school building update:
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/live-reporting-high-school-update.html
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/live-reporting-question-and-answer.html

Girls soccer championship game video highlights:
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/fhs-girls-soccer-championship-game.html

What is up this week? No School Committee or Town Council meeting. The Town Council closes out November with their annual tax rate hearing on Nov 28. I would guess the tax rate will go up again but by less than it did last year given the overall state of the economy and housing values. When residential housing values increase the rate goes down, when values go down the rate goes up. Just be cause the rate goes up does not mean Franklin can collect more money (aside the the automatic less than 2.5%), the tax levy is just spread over a lesser valuation which increases the rate.

I have written about this for each of the past several years. You can revisit the 2012 and 2011 rate hearing info here:
FY 2012 = http://www.franklinmatters.org/2011/11/fm-101-tax-rate-info.html
FY 2011 = http://www.franklinmatters.org/2010/12/fm-79-slidecast-tax-hearing-info-for-fy.html

Thanksgiving rolls around on Thursday. Let's pause to give thanks for all we have. I plan on getting my morning run in early and for a good cause. Feed The Need has organized a Turkey Trot 5K Family Fun Run Walk to start at 8:00 AM from the LDS Church, 91 Jordan Road. Registration can be done online or beginning at 7:00 AM Thursday morning. More information on the 5K can be found on the website here
http://www.franklinfoodpantry.org/2012/11/turkey-trot-family-5k-fun-run-nov-22.html

This 5K will benefit the Franklin Food Pantry! We appreciate their efforts to help. I am thankful that Franklin is a caring and helpful community!

This writing is my public service effort for Franklin. I can use your help. How can you help, you ask?

If you have an interest in covering the Planning Board, Conservation Commission and or the Zoning Board of Appeals meetings in Franklin, please let me know.

And as always

If you like this, please tell your friends and neighbors
If you don't like this, please tell me

Without this feedback loop, I can not improve this service.

Nov 18

Nov 17

Franklin High School Girls Soccer: 2012 State Champions!

New dorm scheduled to open in December

Nov 16

Nov 15

Nov 14

Nov 13

Nov 12

Monday, November 12, 2012

Next up: high school project status

Franklin voted on Tuesday, Nov 6th at the high school field house. 17,500 voters came out to cast their ballots an impressive turnout! While the parking lot may have been hectic, there were minimal to no lines inside as things moved smoothly. Debbie Pellegri, the Town Clerk, reported that the machine for Precinct 7 was sticking on some votes but other than that, no issues.

The results were already report here and here so we won't spend more time on those now. I updated the chart to depict the voter turnout for the elections from 2003 through to the most recent Nov 2012 results.

One of the minor complications to the parking lot situation on Tuesday was that the contractor closed off the second entrance to the parking lot during the day. I had parked at Horace Mann/Oak St and walked over to save time going through the parking lot. As I came back in the evening to get the results, I noticed that the entrance had been fenced off.

Awareness of the high school building project schedule is on tap for this week. Wednesday at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers, the project status and construction phases will be reviewed. Building Committee Chair Tom Mercer has stated that the project manager, the contractor, the architect and the Building Committee will be present for this meeting.

Tuesday evening, you can take in the hunger experience at Dean College. Additional details ate found here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/11/dean-college-hunger-awareness-banquet.html

Thursday evening, the Downtown Partnership is holding a networking event at the Six One Seven Studios. They are located at 25 Kenwood Circle. If you have not been to view their production studios, this is a good time to do that and network with other business folks in Franklin at the same time.

Other items posted in the past week include:

Nov 11

Nov 10

Nov 9

Nov 8

Nov 7

Nov 6

Nov 5

Sunday, November 4, 2012

It's time to vote - Nov 6th

Last week the summary was all about preparations for Hurricane Sandy. Franklin was spared considering how hard the folks in NY, NJ and other central Atlantic states fared Granted nationalGrid still needs to improve on how they provide support during the storm and immediate response, but this is nothing like the recovery that will take weeks in sections of NY and NJ.

As one who lived in NJ and worked in NYC for some period of time, to see the devastation there is heart rending.

I do want to shift gears to focus on the election Nov 6th. You are likely as sick as I am of the bombardment of robocalls and incessant ads that this campaign season has brought to us. The point of it all is that we do have choices to make on Tuesday, November 6th. To help summarize the information available to us on the candidates and their positions, I have the following to offer:

Voting for all of Franklin is at Franklin High School.

View Larger Map

The polls will open at 6:00 AM and close at 8:00 PM.

Monday, October 29, 2012

It's all about Sandy!

As much as there is scheduled for the coming week, all depends upon Hurricane Sandy. What track will it take? How much wind and rain will we get? Will our power hold out?

If you haven't subscribed to the alerts provided by Franklin, now would be a great time to do so. They send about one a day with significant updates each time. You are not going to get anything like 's*p*a*m' messages from the this service.

You can subscribe to the news alerts on the Franklin webpage here
http://town.franklin.ma.us/subscriber-news

As for what the past week brought to us and what we may have learned?

I had a bunch of conversations at the Taste of the Region on Tuesday night. Some of them will lead to posts in the coming days. Some of them will lead to additional opportunities for the Food Pantry. There are a couple of networking opportunities coming up. Both happen to be sponsored by the Downtown Partnership, consider going!

The tour of the Horace Mann, Oak St and ECDC complex on Thursday evening was interesting. Unfortunately, only two citizens took advantages of this chance to see inside three schools. I'll have my pictures from the tour later this week.

Friday, the Franklin High School girls soccer team beat Mansfield to remain undefeated. They lead at the half, 1-0 and scored three more goals in the second half to finish 4-0. I wrote about how impressed I was with their play. It is no wonder why they are undefeated when they pass like they exhibited on Friday. It was great to see a good turn out. According to a reliable source, the crowd Friday night was a couple of hundred more than normally shows up to the girls games.

The stores were busy on Saturday and Sunday as everyone heeded to warnings about the approaching storm. School is out on Monday. Most Town facilities are closed. The Food Pantry is normally closed on Monday and the pick up from BJ Warehouse will be rescheduled.

Stay tuned into the alerts and weather.
Stay safe!
Help your neighbors!

10/28

10/27

10/26

10/25

10/24

10/23

10/22

Library Book Sale - Photo essay

Bielat, Kennedy debate U.S. role in the world

Monday, October 22, 2012

Busyness time of year

Middle of October, things are getting busy now. Only a few weeks left in the campaign before the Nov 6th election. The last date to register to vote has passed. Voters can still get absentee ballots from the Town Clerk's office. The candidates have their final days to continue to get their word out. Voters also have their final chances to obtain the information needed to cast an informed ballot.

The week ahead is busy. Tuesday has a number of events happening:

The YMCA is getting 5% from the purchases at the Whole Foods Market in Bellingham.
The School Committee meeting Tuesday evening reviews the school improvement plans for the elementary schools among other items on their agenda.
The second 10th Norfolk candidate debate occurs at the Horace Mann Middle School
The Taste of the Region is held at Tri-county Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Wednesday is an early dismissal day for the schools.

Thursday has the second in the series of school tours scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM. This tour will cover the three schools in the complex of Oak St Elementary, Horace Mann Middle School and the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC).

Friday has the next to last Farmers Market at the Town Common from noon to 6:00 PM.

10/21/12

10/20/12

10/19/12

10/18/12

10/17/12

10/16/12

10/15/12

Week ending Oct 7, 2012

Catching up to the summary for the prior week.

10/14/12

10/13/12

10/12/12

10/11/12

10/10/12

10/09/12

10/08/12

Monday, October 8, 2012

A milestone reached!

On this Columbus Day, I want to share a little bit about what I have explored here and the results of those explorations. The Franklin Matters webpage achieved a milestone of sorts this week when the 7,000 post was published. A nice round number! There is a whole lot of data here. Actually, not just data. A whole lot of information. The chart here shows the yearly growth through October 7, 2012. Thus far this year we have already exceeded last years totals with the remainder of Oct, and all of Nov and Dec to report on.

The green bar shows page loads. A page load occurs when a single post is read. It can be found via a Google search, a click through from the newsletter, from Facebook or from another post on the site.

The blue bar shows total unique visitors. There is another stats that shows repeat visitors. Because that is based upon cookies, I don't rely on that one. Total visitors is a more accurate count.

What do regular readers find here?

Live reporting from important Town Council, School Committee and other meetings. There were over 50 meetings reported on live per year for 2008, 2009 and 2010. This dropped off during 2011 and 2012 to over 20 per year as I spent more time working with the Franklin Food Pantry.

Pictures: There are hundreds of photos of meetings and events in and around Franklin.

Original analysis and record keeping. The override history and attendance tracking are two good examples of information made available for the Franklin voters and residents.

The volume of visitors has continued to climb as shown in the chart above. The number of subscribers to the daily email newsletter is over 200 and growing. The number of Facebook friends is over 870 and growing.

This webpage, newsletter and Facebook page is all part of my public service effort for Franklin. I can use your help. How can you help, you ask? If you have an interest in Franklin and would like to explore the use of social media tools to create and share information, we should talk.

If you have an interest in covering any of the meetings, for example, the Planning Board, Conservation Commission and or the Zoning Board of Appeals, please let me know.

And as always -

If you like this, please tell your friends and neighbors
If you don't like this, please tell me.

Thank you for reading!

10/7

10/6

10/5

10/4

10/3

10/2

10/1

The week that once was

has come and gone. Overcome by other events, the update I could have shared would no longer make sense. The summary still stands and that can be shared. I hope to be more consistent as we go forward.

9/30

9/29

9/28

9/27

9/26

9/25

9/24

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Honey takes patience

Howard Crawford puts together some great wildflower honey at the Akin-Bak Farm here in Franklin. The values of a good honey are multiple and well written about. I'll leave that for others to focus on. You can find some of that here and here. You can get a jar of honey at the Farmers Market. I like to add dribbles of it to good bread that has been lightly toasted. Hmm, good!

Honey takes patience. Working with the bees can be a challenge but the output is well worth it.

What else takes patience? Putting together a coordination among several communities to centralize the dispatch functions for public safety. This is one of the several items on the Town Council agenda coming up with the meeting on Wednesday, Jun 20. Franklin may get together with Norfolk, Plainville and Wrentham. The communities have spent time over the past year to work out the details and are now looking for each town board to request a home rule petition from the Legislature.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Town Council requests Representative Vallee to introduce the attached Home Rule Petition for prompt consideration by the State Legislature.

With Rep Vallee's announcement that he has stepped down from his House seat earlier than anticipated, it will be interesting to see if this needs to wait until the November election, or if it can move forward anyway

Either way, more patience and hard work remains!

Jun 17

Jun 16

In the News: Electric Youth, Sweatt Beach, Fast Lane
Summer Fun at the Y...Something for Everyone!

Jun 15

Jun 14

Jun 13

“We are very thin administratively"
Flower power

Jun 12

Parmenter 5K - photo essay
Franklin teacher inspires cancer ride

Jun 11

Relay for LIfe - photo essay
Rep McGovern: 2012 Office Hours - Ashland, Hopkinton, Holliston, Medway, Franklin

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Week ending - Jun 10, 2012

This was a week were advance planning was evident all around.

The Finance Committee appropriated over $3.3M on a variety of projects that have been talked of for some time and are now taking a step forward. There is still a way to go for most of the projects but it is a start. Capital funds were established for a new fire truck, for the artificial turf fields and for the Senior Center. Money was put aside now for these items but more will be needed. A little bit at a time requires planning!

The Town Council also appropriated the same amount making the final approval that that FinCom had passed along to them. The FinCom votes were all 8-0 and the Town Council votes were all 9-0. Some discussion but everyone agreed this was good planning!

The Relay for Life was held on the high school field on Friday night into Saturday. Exactly how much money they raised to fight cancer is not known as this is written. There were dozens of teams, tents and bunches of folks still walking when Dolores and I stopped by Saturday morning. Planning for this event started months ago. Planning for this event was critical for successful execution!

The Parmenter 5K was held on Sunday. This is the 4th annual event and it has been growing in size each year. It is good to see so many folks coming out to exercise and fund raise for the school. Planning again.

Not much time left for kindergartners; school will be out for the summer soon. What are you planning to do with your summer? I hope you are planning to do something good!

The rain garden planted in a few locations around the Parmenter School is carefully planned to naturally treat rain water before it makes its way to the brooks and streams and eventually to the Charles River. Yes, planning!

Jun 10