Monday, February 8, 2010

FM #57 - Week ending 2/7/2010

This internet radio show or podcast is number 57 in the series for Franklin Matters.

Let's take about ten minutes to keep current with what matters in Franklin, MA as the week ends February 7, 2010

In this session I’ll cover the Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday, Feb 2, and the Town Council meeting on Weds, Feb 3.

Time: 8 minutes, 52 seconds



MP3 File

Session Notes:
This internet radio show or podcast is number 57 in the series for Franklin Matters.

Let's take about ten minutes to keep current with what matters in Franklin, MA as the week ends February 7, 2010

In this session I’ll cover the Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday, Feb 2, and the Town Council meeting on Weds, Feb 3.

1 - The Finance Committee heard the initial presentation from the major Town departments, Facilities, Schools, Technology, Fire, Police and DPW on the capital requests. Much more is on everyone's list that was actually presented. There is a prioritization being done by the departments, guided by Town Administrator Jeff Nutting.

No vote was taken on the capital requests. As Franklin uses 'free cash' to fund both the snow/ice budget and capital, we need to wait until winter passes to see what we have left for capital.

Some have asked why don't we fully budget snow/ice? Franklin has been gradually increasing the amount over the past several years. One of the risk you run is you also don't want to fully fund it for a bad winter, then the next year you can't reduce it due to state finance controls. Bringing it up higher to be closer to reality is good, getting it exact is not a good thing to do.

The free cash is a good use of coverage for snow/ice. Someday, there should be a capital budget line item but it won't be not anytime soon given the budget constraints that already exist.

The vote on the capital budget would more likely come in late March or April depending upon the winter season and how close it seems to be ending.

For additional details on each departments needs, there are posts on Franklin matters. You can also view the video archive to see the meeting and discussion for yourself.

2 - For a short Town Council meeting, there was a bit of interesting discussion.

The discussion started right away with Citizen's Comments
Michael Galvin, Vice-President of American Waste Services, LLC (the current waste contractor and a bidder on the new contract), also a Franklin resident spoke.

He referenced an 11 page document that apparently the Town Council received (at least some of them) and tried to condense his remarks to keep within the guidelines for citizen's comments (5 minute limit)

He didn't make it; he got cut off at five, but then was allocated another five minutes from another resident.

This is what I walked away with:
- The contract is still under negotiation, three bidders are involved, why is this discussion in public, shouldn't the other two have equal access?

- There is some dispute about the numbers. If the current contractor has actual numbers, why wouldn't they be considered along with the research from other communities? Why weren't the actual numbers from Franklin's experience included earlier in the discussion. (If they were, it wasn't apparent from the discussion Weds.)

- Mr Galvin's comment should have stood alone. However, when the second piece of legislation scheduled for the meeting agenda came up for discussion, the conversation deviated from the matter at hand to get into this.

- The second piece of legislation was the authorization of the purchase of the totters/bins to implement the single stream contract. The totters would be used no matter which of the three bidders won.

The argument by Councilor Vallee that this is the wrong time to spend any money is interesting. This is actually the best time to buy the totters (assuming we go with this single stream process).
* The interest rate (for financing the purchase) is as low as it can be
* The cost for the bins will be low
* The waste rate will actually be a cost savings for Franklin residents (from $244 to $220, a $24 savings)
* It will be a sort of 'stimulus purchase' for the vendor who actually sells us the bins/totters, hence a really good deal, especially at this time

Given that the waste fee second reading will come before the Council for the 2/10/10 meeting, this discussion will possibly be continued and revisited with more time wasted (yes, that pun is intended) by some folks trying to.micro-manage the situation.

Assuming the second reading does come forward, all it is supposed to do is set the rates for the Town to charge the residents. The contract will still be negotiated sometime before the current one expires on June 30th.

Stay tuned to see what happens!

Looking ahead
The School Committee meets on Tuesday
The Town Council meets on Wednesday

As I close this session this week, let me remind you that
If you like what I am doing, please tell your neighbors
If you don’t like something, please tell me
Thank you for listening!

For additional information, please visit FranklinMAtters.blogspot.com/

If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

The music for the intro and exit was provided by 
Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission
I hope you enjoy!

Note: email subscribers will need to click through to the website to listen to the audio version.



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