Franklin Public Radio - wfpr.fm schedule for Saturday, March 15, 2025

Yes, Franklin has it's own radio station -> wfpr.fm. Franklin Public Radio has a brand new schedule for the locally produced shows that fill our air waves. 

It ia available anywhere, anytime at wfpr.fm or in the local Franklin, MA area at 102.9 on the FM dial.

Tune in to listen to the following:

Time/Day	Saturday
7:00 AM	Jazz Journey 1 - Hines
8:00 AM	Jazz Journey 2 - Hines
9:00 AM	Wine - Lenzi/Simone
10:00 AM	Frank's Music - Falvey
11:00 AM	Music
12:00 Noon	Music
1:00 PM	Wine - Lenzi/Simone
2:00 PM	FM Radio - Sherlock
3:00 PM	FM Gov - Sherlock
4:00 PM	FM News - Sherlock
5:00 PM	Frank Musings/Presents - Falvey
6:00 PM	Turntable - Vibe/PaulyG
7:00 PM	Turntable - Vibe/PaulyG
8:00 PM	Blues - Derick/Remissong
9:00 PM	Blues - Derick/Remissong
10:00 PM	Music

Get this week's program guide for Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) online  http://franklin.tv/programguide.pdf 

Franklin Public Radio - wfpr.fm schedule for Saturday

What's happening in Franklin, MA: Friday, March 14, 2025 ???

Friday, March 14

* "Look Up" Gallery (Franklin Public Library during open hours)

10:00am Knitting Group (Franklin Public Library) 

1:00pm Thrifty Threads (Franklin Federated Church) 

7:00pm "The Yellow Boat" METG Benefit Show (Franklin High School) 

7:30pm FPAC: Mel Brooks "The Producers" (THE BLACK BOX)

Note the Senior Center discussion group change time from 10 AM to 9 AM per the robo call from Sarah Amaral, Senior Center Director

For additional details on Senior Center & Library events ->    

https://www.franklinma.gov/calendar.aspx?CID=37,24&showPastEvents=false

** NO Town Meetings today   **

-------------

Why are there multiple calendars?

What's happening today in Franklin? 

Respectfully, the Library and Senior Center calendars are too full of events to include all their events so we tend to focus on the major events. Town and School meetings are also kept separate. Links for all the calendars are shared here:

Find the full Community event calendar  https://bit.ly/FranklinCommunityCalendar

If you have an event to add to the calendar, you can use the form to submit it for publication:  https://bit.ly/Submit2Calendar

The Library calendar of events ->    calendar link

The Senior Center calendar of events ->   https://www.franklinma.gov/calendar.aspx?CID=37&showPastEvents=false

The Town meeting calendar is found  https://www.franklinma.gov/Calendar.aspx
The School district calendar is found  https://franklinpublicschooldistrictma.sites.thrillshare.com/o/fpsd/page/school-calendars

Voices of Franklin: Selena Cousin's statement at the Joint Budget Listening Session - Mar 12, 2025

My name is Selena Cousin and I have lived in Franklin for over two decades. Moving to Franklin to raise my family was definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made. I love our town and the wonderful people who live (and teach!) here. That said, lately I feel like Franklin has become A Tale of Two Cities. Just like in the classic work by Charles Dickens, "It was the best of times—it was the worst of times." It really just depends on our perspective and what we as a town value and support. 

Tonight I'd like to focus our attention on the stability and continuity of town leadership over the past two decades from two different angles.

First, let's look at things from the municipal side. Since moving here in 2002, Franklin has had only 2 town administrators—Jeff Nutting served here for 18 years, and before his retirement he and the town council had the foresight to hire and train his successor, and Jamie Hellen has led our town ever since. So for town administrators in the past couple decades we have had a total of 2. That's it. 2. 

This continuity and minimal turnover in town administration has afforded us the opportunity to benefit from having many experienced departmental directors who have also stayed here in Franklin for long periods of time. Recreation Director Ryan Jette has been in his position for over 25 years, Library Director Felicia Oti has served in Franklin for 20 years, and DPW Director Brutus Cantoreggi has been here for almost 20 years. 

Alternatively, let's switch perspectives and take a look at Franklin Public School district's lack of leadership continuity. Since my family moved here in 2002, we have had 6 superintendents leading our Franklin Public Schools—Richard Warren, Dr. David Crisafulli, Wayne Ogden, Dr. Maureen Sabolinski, Dr. Sara Ahern, and Lucas Giguere.

We have also had many, many assistant superintendents, many, many principals, and many, many assistant principals serve under these 6 superintendents. I will leave the exercise of counting those up for someone else, but just to give you an idea let's consider the 3 schools that my 2 boys have attended since kindergarten. 

In just 11 years at Kennedy, my boys had 4 principals and 6 assistant principals. That is a mind-boggling amount of turnover in a very short time. 

For middle school at Horace Mann, over the past 7 years my boys have had only 1 principal (thank you Beckie Mottie!) but no less than 6 assistant principals.

Perhaps most glaringly, at Franklin High School (FHS), so far my older son has had 3 different high school principals in 4 years and an ever changing assortment of assistant principals. 

If we look back over the full 2 decades, there have been another 4 FHS principals for a total of 7 FHS principals and even more assistant principals. 7 principals in 20 years—think about that for a minute—that means most of our FHS principals weren't even at FHS long enough to see a single cohort of freshmen graduate as seniors!!! 

Meanwhile, this is only a snapshot of 3 of our 11 schools in Franklin over the past 2 decades. If we extrapolate the amount of leadership instability and turnover district wide, the numbers are indeed alarming.

It comes as no surprise that with a revolving door of educational leadership at the superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal, and assistant principal levels, we are also plagued in Franklin by a revolving door of teachers, which is particularly noticeable at the middle and high school levels.

So how does continuity of staffing (or lack thereof!) affect us all here in Franklin?

Clearly, on the municipal side our town has benefitted greatly from having very little turnover in leadership positions. These leadership positions are extremely well funded, with extraordinarily generous pay and substantial annual raises resulting in long term staff, continuity, minimal turnover, and the ability to plan effectively and even envision new ideas.

Accordingly, we have seen phenomenal growth on the municipal side over the past 2 decades. For example, our vision of becoming a cultural district has been realized and we recently funded and hired our town's first arts and culture director. Our recreation department has built new playgrounds, updated bleachers, and added pickleball courts in town. Our renowned public library underwent a major addition and renovation and hired an amazing children's librarian who creates programs and leads activities I only wish we had when my kids were little. 

We built (and later expanded!) our beautiful new 2 story senior center that enjoys a full schedule of activities M-F including a professional chef and transportation. We have built a new state of the art municipal building, and have also already updated it with new technology, carpeting and window treatments. 

We have even hired a full time assistant town administrator to help Jamie meet the ever increasing needs in our community. Undeniably, having well paid municipal professional staff with minimal turnover has allowed for some pretty impressive progress over the past 2 decades. 

And yet, at the other extreme, our schools struggle with a glaring lack of funding which compromises our ability to retain staff and minimizes opportunities for continuity, innovation, and growth in our Franklin Public Schools. Thankfully, in large part to the generosity of the state, we do have a beautiful new high school. However, a school is just a building unless we can afford to hire and retain the teachers and staff needed to fill it. Unlike our town administrator's portfolio, our school leadership does not have the luxury of visioning new ways of improving and enhancing our schools. 

Wouldn't it be great, for example, if we could help make college more affordable for families by offering programs where students can receive college credit and start college with a semester or 2 under their belts? At UMass, for example, starting college as a sophomore would save a student $38,000—at private universities a year of college credits could save upwards of $80,000. 

Unfortunately, as Superintendent Giguere has previously mentioned at school committee meetings, programs like the Early College Program and Dual Enrollment Program require stability and resources and infrastructure —luxuries we just don't have right now at FHS. Instead, we are too busy making cuts, always trying to decide which cuts will be the least noticeable and/or detrimental to the community. 

In fact, some of you may remember way back in 2008, Superintendent Wayne Ogden left his position with 2 years remaining on his contract (and without another job!) because he "couldn't in good faith continue to lead our district." He said, "Restrictive budgets and massive layoffs in the district preclude me from moving the schools 'from good to great.' In the last two budget cycles, I have been forced to reduce school staff by more than 70 employees, the vast majority of them teachers, and to abandon plans to bring our schools to the next level academically. Our investment in the education of our students is now below average in every single category."

Well, here we all are 17 YEARS LATER and we have continued to make devastating, very noticeable cuts in our schools each and every year since. As a result of inadequate budget allocation, we are plagued by a revolving door of educators, and unfortunately, lose too many promising and dynamic teachers to other higher paying, more stable districts. 

We have cut our elementary and middle school foreign language programs despite all of the research that says the younger the better when it comes to learning foreign languages. We have eliminated options like Latin, electives, and AP courses at FHS. 

Our music programs have been hit too many times to count, but when we moved here there were 20 music teachers (and even band in our elementary schools!), and now there are only 7 left and less music opportunities at every level. We have cut our theater director and the entire theater department at FHS. 

We have cut art teachers, the dedicated full time art director position, and the unique and much loved Franklin Arts Academy. We have closed Davis Thayer Elementary School, and in just a few months, Kennedy and Parmenter will join Davis Thayer for a total of 3 buildings no longer used to house neighborhood-based elementary education here in Franklin. By now, it feels like our schools have been forced to cut just about everything unmandated that can legally be cut.

To be extremely blunt, the citizens of Franklin deserve at least the same kind of STABILITY, CONTINUITY, and WEALTH OF RESOURCES in our public schools that we enjoy in our municipal services.  

Franklin, we are now at a critical point and we have some important decisions to make that will affect our town for years to come. Somehow, despite the revolving door of educational leadership in Franklin, we are incredibly fortunate to have an amazing superintendent who started his career here in Franklin over 20 years ago. Lucas Giguere is knowledgeable, experienced, well-liked and respected, caring, visionary, and totally committed to the town of Franklin . He is all in—our superintendent lives in town, pays taxes in town, sends his own kids to Franklin Public Schools, knows the community inside and out, and is fully committed to helping Franklin Public Schools succeed. 

Let's do everything we can to keep this superintendent here as long as we can and let's FINALLY put an end to the revolving door of leadership that severely undermines the potential of our Franklin Public Schools. Let's give our amazing superintendent, his hardworking and talented leadership team, and our incredible teachers the budget needed to *FINALLY* bring our schools from good to great. 

In closing, our public schools deserve the same opportunities for leadership retention and continuity as our municipal government. How can we expect our school leadership to effect positive change and make meaningful connections with teachers, students, and families if they aren't even here long enough to make a difference?  

How can we vision and bring to fruition the newest and most innovative educational programs and activities, if we don't have the money to even fund a level service budget? How can we pay our town administrator one of the highest salaries of any town administrator in the entire state—even higher than mayor of Boston—while we begrudgingly give minimal raises, if any, to our educators. Right now, we are a "good enough" school district, but we have the potential to be great—even one of the very best districts in Massachusetts—if we as a town decide to properly fund our public schools. 

Our students and families and educators deserve better. Let's commit to a significant override and fully funding and supporting our educators and our education programs like we do for municipal town employees and services. Because really, who wants to be known as the town that has great municipal services but deteriorating public schools? 

It's been said that, "Education is our greatest opportunity to give an irrevocable gift to the next generation." (Ernie Fletcher) Let's finally commit to fully funding our Franklin Public Schools and see just how amazing our town, our *ENTIRE* town, can really be.  

Thank you. 

Selena Cousin 

Guidelines for your submission

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2011/03/introducing-voices-of-franklin.html

Voices of Franklin: Listening Session Comment

Voices of Franklin: O'Sullivan - Why I voted 'No' Wednesday night

As a result of the 9-1 vote to recommend the override amount, I was curious as to why the no vote was cast. My email query went to Ruthann and this is her response:

In response to your question about why I voted no at the meeting last night, I really appreciate you following up so that nobody misunderstands my intent. 

To be clear, I am absolutely going to support this $3.9M override should the Town Council move forward. I believe another failed override will devastate our school district beyond repair. 

If not for the tremendous work of Superintendent Giguere and his team redistricting the entire school system, closing down schools, and consolidating resources, our district would be in absolute disarray. 

The reason I voted no, is because I'm concerned about the ability to pass additional overrides in the near future. There is an agreement among the committees in town that small future overrides are going to be necessary. In fact, in the Town Administrator's fiscal forecast, the town could be looking at a deficit as early as 2027. There are some unknown variables, and we can hope this will not be the case. However, this potential creates much angst among not just parents, but the teachers in our district who have endured consistent layoffs for the last decade. 

I am also concerned that if we do need to patch a gap in the town's budget through another override, it will likely be the responsibility of the School Committee and district to request and campaign for this need alone. Historically, when an override election takes place solely for our school district, it has failed. Notably, this is because parents tend to be underrepresented in local elections. 

As stated at the JBSC meeting last night, we have the ability to draft a question for the election that would present more than one option to the residents to vote on. One being level service, and one being "levels service plus" which could include an additional amount that would provide increased stability to the district. Our Superintendent has five new schools to get up and running this fall. And although the basic infrastructure remains the same, each of these five schools have new principals, teaching staff, students, bus routes, schedules, and so on. 

This is a massive undertaking, and parents want to ensure our educators have the support to execute this without unnecessary obstacles. Providing a "stabilization account" so to speak, for the school department and/or the town, would allow our leadership team to stay focused on the tasks at hand, and eliminate concerns around potential disruptions, or unforeseen events that could interfere with a smooth transition. 

I also firmly disagree that our governing body must predict what a "passable" override should be. Instead, I feel that giving the voters a choice would be the more democratic way to propose this question to the town. This idea is not novel, and I do not agree that voters will be too confused, and that confusion could result in a failed override. 

In summary, I am one-hundred percent in support of solving this structural deficit.

I will campaign my heart out, side by side with the One Franklin Committee as they educate our residents around the importance of investing and preserving our amazing community and those that serve it. 

Thanks for reaching out, I'll see you on the campaign trail!

Best,

Ruthann O'Sullivan

Franklin School Committee

Member Joint Budget Sucommittee

Guidelines for your submission

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2011/03/introducing-voices-of-franklin.html

Voices of Franklin: Joint Budget Listening Session

Joint Budget Subcommittee recommends to the Town Council a $3.862 M override for Tuesday, June 3 (audio)

FM #1404 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 1404 in the series. 

This session shares the last of the 6 Joint Budget Listening Sessions held Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at the FHS Auditorium. 10 of the 11 members participated along with Town Administrator Jamie Hellen & School Supt Lucas Giguere.

Quick recap:

• Brief statements by TA Hellen and Supt Giguere opened the session before going to the audience for questions and comments. 

• Approx 100 folks in the audience this evening, a mix of town staff, school dept and teachers, and residents

• 10 members of the Joint Budget Subcmte present on the stage along with Town Administrator Jamie Hellen and School Superintendent Lucas Giguere

• A dozen folks asked questions, some more than 1; some got long answers, some got short answers

• the Subcommittee gets their say one at a time (beginning approx 9:15 PM), then after hearing the majority for the 3.8 number with some for a pyramid (also adding a higher #, 4.9 possibly)

• Motion for the $3863,672, seconded and then after discussion it passes by a 9-1 vote (1 voting no, O'Sullivan)

• Motion for Tuesday, June 3, 2025 as the date, second, passes 10-0

• motion to adjourn, passes 10-0

The recording runs about 3 hours 20 minutes , so let’s listen in. Audio link -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1404-joint-budget-listening-session-6-03-12-25/

--------------

Franklin TV video for viewing -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3yEVAe0NHU 

Meeting agenda doc -> https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/Joint-Budget-Subcommittee-6/?#_03122025-1620

My notes captured during the session  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Afr2hGWcMvzGJX1zd_VojMpjkl9WMTU-/view?usp=drive_link 

Link to the Town page with the budget materials for both Town and School sides

https://www.franklinma.gov/Archive.aspx?ADID=500 

Updated FY 2026 budget document -> https://www.franklinma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4593/2025-03-05-Town-Council-Preliminary-Budget-Presentation-v2 

Citizen discounts and exemptions -> https://ma-franklin.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/4418/Local-and-State-Assistance-Programs-PDF 

You can find the collection of video, audio, and transcripts for the prior sessions here ->  https://www.franklinmatters.org/2025/02/joint-budget-listening-sessions-fy-2026.html 

-------------

We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial. 

This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.

How can you help?

• If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors

• If you don't like something here, please let me know

• And if you have interest in reporting on meetings or events, please reach. We’ll share and show you what and how we do what we do

Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.

For additional information, please visit Franklinmatters.org/  or www.franklin.news 

If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

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!

------------------

You can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters audio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app; search in "podcasts" for "Franklin Matters"

Joint Budget Subcommittee recommends to the Town Council a $3.862 M override for Tuesday, June 3

Comment period open until March 25, 2025 on Environmental Assessment for Veterans Memorial Drive Extension

The Town has received an $850,000 Community Project Funding (CPF) grant through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The funds will be combined with a portion of our FY2023 Massachusetts MassWorks Infrastructure Program grant to construct the Veterans Memorial Drive Extension in Franklin, which will extend the existing public right-of-way through an undeveloped tract of land to support the future construction of the Franklin Ridge Senior Affordable Housing Project.

The Town has recently completed an environment assessment (EA) of the Veterans Memorial Drive Extension project’s potential impacts, and has determined that the project will have no significant impact on the human environment.

 
Anyone disagreeing with this determination or wishing to comment on the project may submit to the Town of Franklin’s Department of Planning & Community Development.  All comments received by March 25, 2025 will be considered by the Town of Franklin prior to submission of a request for release of funds.  

On or about March 26, 2025 the Town plans to submit a Request for Release of Funds and Certification to HUD for the release of the $850,000 in CPF HUD funding.

Attached is a combined Notice that satisfies two separate but related procedural requirements for activities to be undertaken by the Town: a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) notice; and a Notice of Intent to Request Release of Funds (NOI-RROF).  

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Bryan W. Taberner, AICP

Director of Planning and Community Development

355 East Central Street

Franklin, MA 02038-1352

Phone: 508-520-4907

Email: btaberner@franklinma.gov

Attached is a combined Notice ->   https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_OXYwHNKaih9PkWieLoasKT5hpziuwOT/view?usp=drive_link

Comment period open until March 25, 2025 on Environmental Assessment for Veterans Memorial Drive Extension

Senior Center closure extends 2 days, will reopen Wednesday, March 19 (audio)

Sarah Amaral, Franklin Senior Center Director, with the robocall message about the extension of the closure.

The Center will reopen March 19, and no events other than the van schedule will be held on Monday, March 17 or Tuesday, March 18.

The Party had been rescheduled to Thursday, March 20

Audio link -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1405-senior-center-extends-closure-03-13-25/

Oak St 5th Grade wins a plow name with "Mac N' Freeze"

Oak St 5th Grade wins a
plow name with "Mac N' Freeze"

"Congratulations to the 5th grade class at Oak Street Elementary School in Franklin, for their winning snow plow name "Mac N' Freeze!" @FranklinPSNews"

Video clip -> https://t.co/DqyRJoMRiN

Shared from -> https://x.com/MassDOT/status/1900269415582638562

Night Owl Farm has open spots for some good workshops this month of March

Night Owl Farm has open spots for some
good workshops this month of March

via Night Owl Farm:

"We still have some excellent workshops left this month!"

Shared from ->   https://www.instagram.com/p/DHGuMygN2BU/

Sign up for one or more of the workshops online ->    https://www.nightowlfarm.org/workshops

What are the signs of a scam?

What are the signs of a scam? By BCP Staff Though the details might change, scams usually have some things in common. And knowing what they are can help you recognize — and then avoid — scams that come your way. Read more ->  https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2025/03/what-are-signs-scam?

What are the signs of a scam?