Providing accurate and timely information about what matters in Franklin, MA since 2007. * Working in collaboration with Franklin TV and Radio (wfpr.fm) since October 2019 *
Out at Emerald Mall on Saturday, and you hear a band playing some good tunes, stop and give a listen. At least one of the band members if from Franklin! ---- Hi Steve, My son Tyler is in the School of Rock's House Band (named SOAR) and they will be performing this weekend (see below). School of Rock is a performance-based music franchise, based (loosely) on the movie "School of Rock". If you are out and about shopping this Saturday near the Emerald Square Mall in Attleboro, they are performing in the mall out in front of Sears 2pm - 3pm. No Christmas music, but they will be playing songs by these artists
With the discussion around repairing the "bandstand" (what it should be called) or "gazebo" (what it has commonly been referred to), I stopped on a gray Monday (March 9th) to take some pictures.
It was typical New England mixed precipitation day, a mix of snow and rain, which worked nicely to highlight the problems with the roof being shorter than the base. In the slide show here, you'll see that the rain drops from the edge of the roof form good sized puddles around the inside of the railings.
The railings along one side are badly peeled. Sections of the interior roof are rotten and need replacement. Sections of the exterior tile are broken and missing.
Fortunately, the Town Council approved the capital expense of about $50,000 which would cover the lowest of multiple bids for the repair work. The initial estimate of $100,000 was likely a good guess. We are fortunate that the actual bids came in significantly less. The high bid was around $88,000 and the low bid at $48,000.
The bandstand is a center piece of the town and should be fixed.
Note that this repair will use capital dollars which can not be used for operational expenses, i.e. supplies or personnel salaries. I know there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about the difference between capital dollars and operational dollars. I will be working on a slide show to try and explain the difference. If you have some suggestions, please let me know. Usually for a problem of this type, putting more heads to it will bring better results.
