The Town Council meet for the first time in 2026 for another long 4 hour session with all 9 members present in Council Chambers.
Franklin TV video -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Ywvi5WtP8
The agenda and doc released for this session ->
Quick recap:
- The longest discussion on a single appointment in my time reporting ultimately resulted in a unanimous vote to approve Mark Minnichelli to the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. Kudos to Mark for his careful and confident responses to the questions.
- Town and School Facilities Presentation - Kevin Harn, Facilities Director https://ma-franklin.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/8040/8a-1---MEMO---Facilities-Presentation
- This discussion was extensive as Facilities and the potential issues facing the Town are something this Council is going to need to get up to speed quickly on to make the decisions and determine the direction to go, all of which ultimately gets to funding and resources
- The Davis Thayer (DT) building future has been the Council's hands since the Advisory committee did its work. On Tuesday (Jan 6, 26) the Police Station Building Comte determined Parmenter was the best site freeing up DT for a decision on what it's future is
- The combination of the Washington St renovations, Middle School roof, and the Police Station would be approx. $50M. To do and how to fund remain questions before the Council
- The presentation doc is not on the Town page or within the Council agenda but pictures of the slides shared can be found in one album -> https://photos.app.goo.gl/1FpYnuiED36kPumw8
- 2 Zoning Bylaw amendments were referred to the Planning Board. There is likely to be an extensive discussion on these when they return as the Council was not familiar with the bylaw process (usually starting with Planning Dept (as in this case), discussion before Economic Development Subcmte (not yet in place), referral to Planning Board, and then return to Council for decision). As these 2 measure are the 'final' points to bring the Town in compliance with the MBTA Community requirements, the potential for discussion before this new Council is great
- The friendly 40b policy came back on the agenda for this Council and they juggled their agenda to get the above items out of the way before settling into this lengthy discussion. Ultimately, 2 amendments to the wording were approved first one by a 5-4 vote to require an annual review of the policy, the second to fix the confusing wording in a sentence by a 9-0 vote, and then the overall measure passed by a 9-0 vote
- Multiple personnel changes were announced in Town Administrator Jamie Hellen's report. Of note, the Council also gave the go ahead to the hiring request they had approved at the tax rate hearing and then also asked to put on hold. The Town Administrator's office which used to be 4 people is only 2, and one was sick this week. If the Council wants the Town to get work done, these resources are required. Fortunately, the Council agreed
My notes captured in one PDF file -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zmqgACh7aVrr8OnerWndCC74ehZoDuuL/view?usp=drive_link
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| The combination of the Washington St renovations, Middle School roof, and the Police Station would be approx. $50M |
