Voices of Franklin: Aaron Gouveia on keeping Franklin "safe and educated"

If you could pay $300 to keep your community safe and educated, would you?

When you strip away all the rhetoric and misinformation and extraneous partisan noise from the override issue, that's the question at the heart of everything.

Either you think it's worth it to pay an extra $300 to maintain the level of public safety and education we currently have in Franklin, or you don't and you're willing to cut both in order to avoid increased taxes.

For the record, I am an unenrolled voter who doesn't belong to either party and I've only been in Franklin eight years. I'm not a townie, I'm not connected, and I'm not lifelong friends with the public officials here.

So when opponents of the override started talking about the town not managing its finances well, I started poking around.

Let's be clear, a system built by humans run by humans and composed of humans will ALWAYS have human error and some stuff that doesn't pass the bs sniff test. Franklin is no exception in this regard.

But override opponents (many of them falling into the "Professional Againsters" category because they say no to everything as a default) want you to believe these isolated incidents are widespread conspiracies, and that if we just cleaned things up we'd have enough to bridge the financial gap created when revenue can't keep up with rising expenses.

This is not the case. And I don't say that as a matter of opinion, I say it as fact.

S&P Global Ratings gave Franklin a AAA bond rating for the third straight year. Think of them as a company that gives a credit score, but for municipalities instead of individuals. This is the highest possible score a city or town can achieve, and denotes sound financial practices and a commitment to long-term financial stability.

Simply put, if Franklin officials were mismanaging funds as badly as the "No" contingent says, we would absolutely not hold the highest possible bond rating.

"But what about the revenue from the apartments???"

I'm glad you asked. The revenue is there, but it's not enough. Why? Because for every dollar of property tax revenue generated by an apartment complex, you create even more money in expenses.

The people who live in those apartments have to be educated, drive on roads, consume water, require public safety calls, rely on social service programs, etc. So the increased property tax revenue that comes in is already spent paying for the people who will reside on that property.

Now, you want to talk about the wisdom of building so many apartments? I'm with you. It seems pretty excessive here in Franklin, especially since we're above our 10% affordable housing threshold. But to me, that's a separate issue from the override and should be dealt with at the ballot box (if you can get apathetic voters to show up for local elections).

Meanwhile, teachers are in unions that have contractually obligated raises and are entitled to cost of living increases, at the very least. Same with police, fire, and other municipal workers. Not to mention the ever-increasing cost of health insurance. So even though you don't add anything new to last year's budget, it's going to cost you even more just to get the same level of services.

This isn't due to mismanagement or ineptitude, it's just the world in which we live.

A world, I might add, that has seen all manner of cuts and death by a thousand papercuts since the last successful Prop 2-1/2 override in 2007.

A world in which middle school bands were conspicuously absent in this year's Memorial Day parade because we cut the band teachers last year. A world in which art and music are dangerously close to the chopping block. A world in which it will now cost parents $1,000 to play certain sports, and hundreds just to ride the bus. A world with fewer AP courses and a degraded public education experience. A world where fewer officers and firefighters (and one fewer ambulance) means less safety for residents.

I don't want to live in that world. While I certainly don't want to pay more in taxes (who does??), I think $300 is a small price to pay to make sure we don't backslide any further.

When all is said and done, a "no" vote on June 3 constitutes intentionally making Franklin a worse place to live. So I hope you'll join me in voting yes because, despite all signs pointing to a continued divide, I like to think we can all agree that quality education and ample public safety resources represent common ground.

Aaron Gouveia 

Franklin resident

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Voices of Franklin: Aaron Gouveia on keeping Franklin "safe and educated"