Thursday, December 29, 2016

Annual Report 2016: Town Administrator

The Town Administration works with the Town Council together to make improvements to the quality of life of our residents. While we are diligent in continuing to balance the budget and practice fiscal prudence, we also keep an eye on the Town’s future needs and maintaining its assets.

Accomplishments in FY 16 include:
• Requested the Town Council to transfer 17 acres of land behind the High School to the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust for the purpose of building new senior housing. The project will take approximately 5 years to complete.
• The Town began the legal process to bulk purchase electricity rates through a Municipal Electric Aggregation program, expected to be in place for winter 2016.
• Renovation and expansion projects for the Library and Senior Center were started and should be completed in 2017.
• The Library was temporarily moved to 25 Kenwood Circle during construction and is open regular hours. The Senior Center remains open during construction.
• The downtown revitalization project, after almost a decade, is complete. Two-way traffic is in effect in the downtown area on Emmons, Main and East Central Streets. The project has numerous public benefits including new sidewalks, new and better pedestrian friendly streets and many beautification elements. The parking meters have been removed to add free parking downtown. New parking regulations have also been established.
• We have also supported the creation of a downtown cultural district.
• Additional improvements were made to the DelCarte property by investing $100,000 to remove the invasive weeds from the pond, helping restore the ecosystem to its natural habitat.
• We added new holiday lights to the Town Common holiday display.

Personnel
Chief of Police, Stephan Semerjian, retired in June 2016 after 39 years of dedicated service to the Franklin Police Department. The Town hired a new Chief of Police, Thomas J. Lynch who took over July 1. New Deputy Police Chief James Mill was also appointed.

The Town Administrator’s office restored a Deputy Town Administrator position by hiring Jamie Hellen to help begin succession planning for the wave of retirees facing the town government. Among other things, Jamie has developed a citizen engagement program, utilizing new technology, including Twitter, Facebook and You Tube to enhance the flow of public information to the citizens.

The Town Administrator’s Office continues to be busy as the Passport Acceptance facility. You can apply for your passport here with an appointment on Monday, Wednesday or Friday.

We continually strive to provide high quality customer services at the lowest possible cost to the tax payer. With continued pressure on our budget, there will be challenges ahead. The strong leadership of the Town Council and the dedicated staff will respond to every challenge.

It is my pleasure to submit the annual report of the Town Administrator for your review, and please feel free to write, e-mail, or stop by with any questions, concerns, or comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeffrey Nutting,
Town Administrator

Town workers clearing brush along the connector between Chestnut and Pleasant Sts
Town workers clearing brush along the connector between Chestnut and Pleasant Sts


Download and read the full Annual Report for the Town of Franklin FY 2016

Prior year annual reports can be found
http://www.franklinma.gov/administrator/pages/annual-reports



No comments:

Post a Comment