Franklin MAtters Weekly

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Leaves turning color already

It seems like school just started and yet, the end of September is upon us already. The leaves are beginning to change colors.

The modular units at Parmenter School which were supposed to be taken down before school started have indeed been removed. The last one left earlier this week. The DPW is working on landscaping the area where they were once located.

The construction bids for the new high school get opened on Tuesday of the coming week. how close will they be to the estimates? Will the competitive construction climate bring the cost in under the estimates? We'll find out Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, the School Committee will hear from Principal Peter Light on this years Improvement Plan. A copy of the plan was published and can be review in advance of the meeting. http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/09/franklin-high-school-improvement-plan.html

What caught my eye in the Executive Summary was the following:

Based on March 2012 SIMS data, the ethnic makeup of our school is: 1486-Caucasian, 13-Black/African American, 60-Asian, 4-American Indian, 3-Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 24-Hispanic or Latino. The current inclusion model has 277 members of the student body classified as special needs students. Less than 1% of the student body comes from homes where their first language is not English. In March of 2009, 52 students were provided with free/ reduced price lunches and as of June 2012, 137 Students qualified for free/reduced price lunches (62% increase over three years).

Assuming the high school is a fair representation of the community as a whole, a 62% increase in the number of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch shows what effect the economy is having upon Franklin. This is also reflected in the increase in business that the Franklin Food Pantry is seeing. While Franklin is fortunate in so many ways, the economy has not left us untouched.

Friendly reminder that there will be no school on Wednesday, Sep 26th

Let us all hope for continued good weather next weekend. The annual Harvest Festival will be held in and around downtown Franklin. It will be a good time to meet and greet your neighbors. To reconnect in some cases with those who moved from your neighborhood to another. To see the business displays, to find out how they can help you.

I am sure there will be a politician or two around. Be prepared to ask them a good question. See if their answer is what would help you decide as Nov 6th approaches.

And one more friendly reminder:

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

This feedback loop is so important. Thank you for reading and sharing!

9/23

9/22

9/21

9/20

9/19

9/18

9/17

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Reflections on the primary election results - Sep 6

Yes, I'll admit to taking the summer of for this weekly recap. With school back in session, the primary election behind us, Franklin business is beginning to get 'busy' again. This is not to say nothing was done during the summer months, no not at all! Just a recognition that the volume of traffic (i.e your interest) had declined significantly as you went about your summer.

So with the primary election results at top of mind, let's review some thoughts from the election.

I have grouped the election results by type:
Local = the biannual election for the Franklin government (light blue)
Override = includes both the operational overrides and the high school debt exclusion (light pink)
Presidential = the major election every four years
State = just the MA elections including the special election to fulfill the Kennedy seat (light yellow)

Brown vs. Warren
One could argue that the recent primary is more of a 'local' than state election and the results certainly do fit more inline with recent Franklin local elections. Given the separation of ballots (Democratic, Republican, and Green Rainbow), it really does belong in the state category. Had either Warren or Brown be contested within their party, the overall results might have been different. This campaign is already getting considerable media coverage and campaign ads have been frequent from both sides. How much of an effect did it have on this election? I would say very little given the no-contest races for both candidates.

Looking at the results for both Warren and Brown, Brown might be quite happy with what he sees. A great percent of the Republicans who came out to vote actually cast their vote for him (96%) than those on the Democratic side cast their vote for Warren (76%).

10th Norfolk District
For the 'real' local portion of the election, the 10th Norfolk seat being vacated by the retirement of Jim Vallee, the two sets of primary results are interesting. On the Democratic side, Jeff Roy took 1610 of Franklin votes with Peter Padula taking 1220. Another 39 Democrats left their ballot blank (could not decide?) and another 3 Democratic voters wrote in for another person. At the Nov 2011 election, Jeff Roy gathered over 2400 votes for his Town Council campaign. With a good vote turnout likely coming this November with the Presidential election and all the campaign ads to remind folks to vote, this could be a good sign for Jeff.

On the Republican side, Stolle Singleton took 688 votes to Richard Eustis 684 and John Jewell took 488. There were 79 blanks (Republicans who couldn't decide?) and another 14 voters who cast their ballot for a write in candidate. Unfortunately for Ms Singleton, her four vote margin was not enough to cover for the votes that the Medway voters cast in Mr Eustis home town and she finished second overall. How the Republicans may vote in November will be interesting to see. Mr Eustis is going to need to do much better in Franklin to take the head to head race against Mr Roy.

Note: the Medway totals and overall election totals can be found here:
http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2012/state-primary/house-10th-norfolk.html

Waiting for the results
Waiting for the results on election night requires patience. The Town Clerk and her team have a set process to go through to ensure accurate and fair results for the voters and candidates. For those who came out to vote, you know that the small gym (instead of the field house) was the site of the election this time. Given the warm and humid weather, it made for a warm day for all the election workers. Fortunately, the custodial staff managed to round up a number of fans from elsewhere int he high school to make the conditions tolerable!

Counting the votes is a careful process. The check in lists and the check out lists for each precinct need to be tallied to see that they agree. This confirms that the right number of voters who came into Precinct 1 (for example) actually checked out with the Precinct 1 tally and then cast their ballot in the Precinct 1 box. The box runs an electronic total reading the ballot. This total is taken and input into a spreadsheet for the official vote count. Each question or candidate gets their totals by precinct entered in by one person while one reads the total and other observes the process. This helps to avoid transposition errors in the manual entry. This entire process is done separately for each ballot and in this case you had three ballots: Democratic, Republican and Green Rainbow.

Once the totals are entered and tallied and validated, they can be printed and shared with those waiting. Among the waiting are the candidates, family members, supporters, party representatives and members of the media. The small portable printer took quite some time to print the spreadsheets. Could the Town Clerk use another printer? Yes, they could also arrange for technical support and have that individual connect the Clerk's laptop to one of the high schools printers and get a better and quicker output.

The results from the MA State Primary election on Sep 6 can be found here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/09/franklin-ma-state-primary-results.html

The spreadsheet with the summary of election results by Franklin precinct that drove the chart (above) can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkwjbnXDBhczdFU5alN5a21UYTY2LXQzcHp6akt0OFE

Please note that the November 2011 registrations by precinct were copied for both the March high school vote and the recent state primary. Once I get a full precinct total from our Town Clerk, I'll make the updates. Given that the total registered voters is just over 20,000. The percentages will not vary enough to change the thoughts.

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