Monday, September 12, 2016

Recap of Town Council meeting Sep 7, 2016

The Town Council meeting of Wednesday, Sep 7 is recapped as follows:

Single person appointments were made to the Conservation Commission and Citizens Advisory Committee

Liquor license suspensions to be served by Acapulco's and Joe's American Bar and Grill for one day each with two days held in abeyance for three years.

Acapulco's
Acapulco's

  • Acapulco's will not serve liquor on Wednesday, Sep 14.
  • Joe's will not serve on liquor Thursday, Sep 15
Joe's American Bar and Grill
Joe's American Bar and Grill


Liquor license transfers for Longhorn Steakhouse and 99 Restaurant were approved

School Dude which already is used by the Town for their facility work order system is also being piloted for their preventive maintenance planning tool. The application sounds really slick and easy to use. It does depend upon and inventory of the facility infrastructure (heater, lighting fixtures, etc.). There is likely to be a proposal to expand the pilot with a full rollout as part of the capital budget planning for FY 2018.

The prior Charter commission and committee reports were reviewed with leadership of the prior efforts present to answer questions. Bottom line: some of the Town Council are upset with the lack of say they have in the direct hiring process for certain personnel within the Town. This is a slippery slope. As a legislative body, they should only hire the Town Administrator and approve of the key departmental appointments (as they do today). To do otherwise, would change their role from the legislative body to one of being active in day-to-day operations and in so doing, create additional liabilities for the individual councilors. The easier solution since addressing this via the Charter is not really practical, would be to simply address the issue via better communications. Better communications is something the Council should do all around. They have occasionally made improvements but there is a whole lot of room to work with.

The Pine St legal claim was approved for settlement. A complicated issue whereby many years ago, a property was taken for tax tile by the Town which was eventually taken to court and by this agreement finally resolved.

Ribbon cutting of the new downtown improvements will open the Holiday Stroll, Thursday, October 6. 4:00 PM on the triangle. The rather large planters on the triangle (some have referred to as burial urns) will be swapped out with units that are shorter in height.


The Actions Taken document can be viewed here:




My notes from the meeting reported live on Wednesday evening can be found here by the section of the meeting they apply to:



The full agenda and associated documents (i.e. the Pine St legal issue, and the Charter commission report) can be found here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2016/09/franklin-ma-town-council-agenda-sep-7.html


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