Town Council selects Dellorco as Chair, Grella as Vice Chair, Cormier-Leger as Clerk (audio)

FM #1579 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 1579 in the series. 

This session shares the Franklin (MA) Town Council meeting held on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. The Council held the first session of its legislative term as scheduled at 6 PM. All 9 Councilors participated during the early portion of this meeting. Councilor Cormier-Leger was traveling and joined remotely for the organizational votes. All of the other 8 councilors were in Council Chambers for this session.

 

Town Clerk Nancy Danello officially & publicly swore in the new Council

Quick recap:

• Town Clerk Nancy Danello officially & publicly swore in the new Council.

• Town Administrator Hellen opened nominations for the Chair. Cormier-Leer nominated Dellorco, second by Ojukwo. No other nominations were made. Vote on the nomination passed by 9-0

• Dellorco took the gavel and opened nominations for Vice Chair. Griffith nominated Ojukwo. Callaway-Tripp nominated Grella. No other nominations. Vote by each person for one or the other tallied as follow with Grella getting 5, Ojukwo getting 4.

• Ojukwo - Cormier-Leger, Ojukwo, Griffith, Morrongiello (4)

• Grella - Grella, Malloy, LeBlanc, Callaway-Tripp, Dellorco (5)

• Dellorco takes nominations for Clerk. and nominates Cormier-Leger. No other nominations. Vote on the motion, passes 9-0

• Vote to appoint Griffith as Clerk in Cormier-Leger's absence (2 meetings), passed by 9-0 vote.

• The remainder of the meeting covers the key items on the lengthy set of documents around Town Charter, Town Code, Conflict of Interest, Open Meeting law, etc.

The recording runs about 3 hours & 20 minutes

Audio link ->  https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1579-franklin-ma-town-council-mtg-11-12-25/

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Franklin TV video link -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsYVvhWdqWs 

The agenda doc rich with links ->   https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_11122025-2001  

My notes in one PDF -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gZpUPlE873EPMJqfT42KhLsTzxZjSLIf/view?usp=drive_link 

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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!

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Agenda for First Meeting of the newly elected Franklin (MA) Town Council - Nov 12, 2025 at 6:00 PM

Franklin Town Council 

Agenda & Meeting Packet 

November 12, 2025 6:00 PM 

Meeting will be held at the Franklin Municipal Building

355 East Central Street - 2nd Floor, Council Chambers

Link to the agenda doc PDF ->   https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knfNyfDKUUgHkLWqCG1S0DTaLVItwT8L/view?usp=sharing

 

Agenda for First Meeting of the newly elected Franklin (MA)
Town Council - Nov 12, 2025 at 6:00 PM

The Guardian: "Revealed: WHO aspartame safety panel linked to alleged Coca-Cola front group"

"Guideline on Diet Coke ingredient by consultants tied to industry is ‘obvious conflict of interest’ and ‘not credible’, report says"

"In May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults.

A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a “possible carcinogen”, then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings – people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns.

That contradiction stems from beverage industry corruption of the review process by consultants tied to an alleged Coca-Cola front group, the public health advocacy group US Right-To-Know said in a recent report."

Continue reading the article online (subscription maybe required)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/17/who-panel-aspartame-diet-coke-guidelines

‘Because of this conflict of interest, conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them,’ US Right-To-Know’s executive director says. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Town Council Summary for Nov 13, 2019

The first two items on the agenda were the swearing in of the Town Clerk and then of the new Town Council along with the organization of the new Council. This did happen albeit slightly out of order as Asst Clerk Nancy Danelo was supposed to swear in Teresa Burr who would then swear in the council. Teresa swore in the Council and then confirmed her own swearing in.
There were three individual motions and sets of votes to elect the Officers of the new Council: Chair, Vice-Chair, Clerk.

• motion by Jones to nominate Mercer, seconded, passed 9-0
• motion by Pellegri to nominate Dellorco, seconded, passed 9-0
• motion by Earls to nominate Jones, seconded, passed 9-0

License transactions

• BJ's got a manager change, everything else remains the same
• Ichigo Ichi's changed ownership so new license, otherwise menu and service remains the same
• Little Shop of Oils received a license to pair wine with their vinegar and oil gift baskets. After much discussion, the license was approved. 
• JAC Restaurant which had an application submitted for the former Dhrani Grill (or Artistry Kitchen) location withdrew their application. No additional info was provided.

As opposed to other meetings where formal license hearings were opened for each item, there was a vote to close the Little Shop of Oils discussion (which hadn't been formally opened, nor had the prior two). Also of note, I had the vote as 6-3. The "Actions Taken" doc shows 8-1. Re-listening to the recording, the Chair counts to six approvals and stops before saying what the final total is. A review of the video may be more conclusive.

Open Meeting and Conflict of Interest overview
Also slightly out of order, this probably should have been done before the license transaction discussion but ...

Storm water Utility Fee discussion 
The first of many discussions on this topic. There has been much work done to prepare for the EPA regulation on storm water.  Check pages 11-12 for the grants obtained since 2007. Due to the estimated costs of $2M per year to manage storm water, a utility fee is proposed. More work by the Town Council and the Town is required to bring this to reality. Page 28 shows estimates for how much the proposed utility fee would cost the 'average' housing and commercial lots. 

Franklin Dept Public Works -storm water from Franklin Matters

The published agenda and documents for the Franklin Town Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday, November 13, 2019. https://www.franklinma.gov/town-council/agenda/november-13-town-council-agenda 

•  
• "Actions Taken" document (which oddly leaves out the re-organization votes)
• https://www.franklinma.gov/sites/franklinma/files/uploads/town_council_actions_taken_for_november_13_2019.pdf
• Additional info can be found in my notes reported live during the meeting
• Live reporting: Legislation through to Closing
• https://www.franklinmatters.org/2019/11/live-reporting-legislation-through-to.html
• Live reporting: Presentations - Open Meeting; Stor...
• https://www.franklinmatters.org/2019/11/live-reporting-presentations-open.html
• Live reporting: License transactions
• https://www.franklinmatters.org/2019/11/live-reporting-license-transactions.html
• Live reporting: Town Council - Nov 13, 2019

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2019/11/live-reporting-town-council-nov-13-2019.html

 

a tree well, one of the many storm water mitigations Franklin implements

Conflict of interest of public official; reporting requirement

"Any public official, as defined by section l of chapter two hundred and sixty-eight B, (read a Town Councilor) 

who in the discharge of his official duties (voting on a zoning bylaw amendment, for example) 

would be required knowingly to take an action which would substantially affect such official's financial interests, (any bylaw amendment that would affect the market value of residential or commercial property) 

unless the effect on such an official is no greater than the effect on the general public,  (when the Town Councilor is also a realtor, they would have a 'greater' effect than the general citizen) 

shall file a written description of the required action and the potential conflict of interest with the state ethics commission established by said chapter two hundred and sixty-eight B." (how many such filings have been made the realtors who are Town Councilors?)

Why do we ask such?

The potential councilor conflict of interest for realtors was raised during the Summer St zoning map change discussion. One realtor councilor had recused himself. The other realtor councilor chose not to recuse himself.

Glenn Jones after being duly elected in 2013, resigned from the Town Council in October 2014 as he had just been hired to teach at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School. As a member of the Town Council, he would be voting on the Franklin portion of the Tri-County budget. He was subsequently voted in again in 2015 and it was known that he was working at Tri-County so while the conflict potential exists, it was at least disclosed and known. He took the high road in 2014 and kudos to him for doing so.

From MA.gov:

268A:6A. Conflict of interest of public official; reporting requirement.

"Section 6A. Any public official, as defined by section l of chapter two hundred and sixty-eight B, who in the discharge of his official duties would be required knowingly to take an action which would substantially affect such official's financial interests, unless the effect on such an official is no greater than the effect on the general public, shall file a written description of the required action and the potential conflict of interest with the state ethics commission established by said chapter two hundred and sixty-eight B."

Copied from the MA page found here
http://www.mass.gov/ethics/laws-and-regulations/conflict-of-interest-law.html


From the archives:

• Jones resignation will bring special election

http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/10/jones-resignation-will-bring-special.html

G.L. c. 268A, the Conflict of Interest Law, as Amended by c. 194, Acts of 2011