Franklin Matters: Town Council - Summary and notes - March 13, 2019 "need more than a bandaid"

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Town Council - Summary and notes - March 13, 2019 "need more than a bandaid"

The Town Council meeting Wednesday was a roller coaster ride. Opening with elation and joy on the new police officers sworn in, one promotion also recognized and the canine member introduced - Ben Franklin.

five new police officers introduced

five new police officers sworn in by Town Clerk Teresa Burr

five new police officers pinned by family members

The newest canine member Ben Franklin is as cute in person as he is in photos

The meeting took its gloomy turn as the fiscal budget situation was reviewed with challenges all around and not enough funding to do what is needed. How it will be resolved remains to be seen. There was mention of the 'override' word but more in context of a necessity for FY 2021 than for this budget cycle. Which would mean that unless it becomes a reality, the school budget which was just approved by the School Committee on Tuesday, March 12 will need to be reduced by about $2.6M to meet the funding available.

Oh in case you didn't catch it previously: the school budget is meant to be level funded and the additions were prioritized to meet 'critical' needs (not all of which we added to this budget). So while it was proposed to be a compromise on critical needs, those will need to be further compromised to meet the current funding.

L - R: Mark Cerel, Jamie Hellen, Jeff Nutting

As the meeting got into the Legislation for Action the discussion around a potential bylaw change to be referred to the Planning Board started tip toeing in legal waters. The Council was cautioned by Attorney Mark Cerel to be careful in their comments and replies to Joel D'Errico as he has a current suit against the Planning Board for a proposal that would potentially be affected by this measure.

There is more in this matter than was revealed in the meeting. The zoning bylaw had been before the Council a couple of years ago to change from R4 to R5. Now it is back again, to be changed back to R5. Why was not fully explained, or if it was, I missed it. I will need to go to the video replay for this as soon as it is available from Franklin TV.

The official "Actions Taken" as published by the Town can be found
https://www.franklinma.gov/sites/franklinma/files/uploads/town_council_actions_taken_for_march_13_2019.pdf