Franklin MAtters Weekly

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