Live reporting - Action items

J. LEGISLATION FOR ACTION
1. Resolution 10-59: Confirmatory Taking – Land at 459 Pleasant Street


This is the DelCarte property, confirming that the deed will be clear when we file for the purchase






Franklin, MA

Live reporting - Town Council

Present; Vallee, Whalen, Mason, Pfeffer, McGann, Zollo, Powderly
Absent: Jones, Kelly

A. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – September 29, 2010 and October 6, 2010
motion to approve, passed 7-0

B. ANNOUNCEMENTS -Meetings of the Town Council are Recorded
Jim Dacey, Treasurer/Collector license renewed through 2015

C. PROCLAMATIONS/RECOGNITIONS

D. CITIZEN COMMENTS
Larry Bennedetto, Paul Cheli
Reminder of ballot questions on Nov 2 election
Ballot question 4 - house keeping items
Ballot question 5 - recommend Treasurer/Collector to move to appointed position


15 years since last time of charter review, no major changes
suggest to review earlier than 15 years for next time


recommend for future changes to go the Charter Commission route
takes longer but gets more involvement from the public


Jim Dacey, Treasurer/Collector
how important that this election is, especially with question 5
Am I okay with appointment? Yes, I am okay with it. Should have been done 15 years ago
I plan on working for Franklin until I retire, a few years
This position should not be filled by election, should be done by 'world-wide' search
back ground check, experience with the package we use to keep our finances
The whole thing is not about me and job security, it is about who will replace me
In the past several years, a number of position have gone from elected to appointed, none have gone the other way



E. APPOINTMENTS
Design Review Commission - Chris Baryluk
motion to approve, passed 7-0



Franklin, MA

Franklin, MA: Election Nov 2 - State Question #3

QUESTION 3

Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or House of Representatives before May 4, 2010?

*** "This proposed law would reduce the state sales and use tax rates (which were 6.25% as of September 2009) to 3% as of January 1, 2011. It would make the same reduction in the rate used to determine the amount to be deposited with the state Commissioner of Revenue by non-resident building contractors as security for the payment of sales and use tax on tangible personal property used in carrying out their contracts. The proposed law provides that if the 3% rates would not produce enough revenues to satisfy any lawful pledge of sales and use tax revenues in connection with any bond, note, or other contractual obligation, then the rates would instead be reduced to the lowest level allowed by law. The proposed law would not affect the collection of moneys due the Commonwealth for sales, storage, use or other consumption of tangible personal property or services occurring before January 1, 2011. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect. "

A YES VOTE would reduce the state sales and use tax rates to 3%.

A NO VOTE would make no change in the state sales and use tax rates.

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You can find the complete set of ballot questions and candidates for office on the Secretary of the Commonwealth's web site here:  http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php


You can put your Franklin address into this form and receive a full set of the candidates and ballot questions (3 state wide and 2 specific to Franklin).


Franklin, MA

In the News - EPA storm water

State gives $100,000 to help with runoff mandate

by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff


Prior posts on the current EPA regulation pilot for Bellingham, Franklin and Milford can be found here:
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/08/epa-storm-water-proposal-information.html

http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2010/09/epa-to-help-towns-meet-run-off-rules.html



Franklin, MA

Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness

The Center for American Progress has published the following report on teacher effectiveness that I have not read yet but seems to be a good one to share.


Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness

What do you think of the report?


Franklin, MA

Franklin, MA: Election Nov 2 - State Question #2

QUESTION 2

Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or House of Representatives before May 4, 2010?

*** This proposed law would repeal an existing state law that allows a qualified organization wishing to build government-subsidized housing that includes low- or moderate-income units to apply for a single comprehensive permit from a city or town’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA), instead of separate permits from each local agency or official having jurisdiction over any aspect of the proposed housing. The repeal would take effect on January 1, 2011, but would not stop or otherwise affect any proposed housing that had already received both a comprehensive permit and a building permit for at least one unit. Under the existing law, the ZBA holds a public hearing on the application and considers the recommendations of local agencies and officials. The ZBA may grant a comprehensive permit that may include conditions or requirements concerning the height, site plan, size, shape, or building materials of the housing. Persons aggrieved by the ZBA’s decision to grant a permit may appeal it to a court. If the ZBA denies the permit or grants it with conditions or requirements that make the housing uneconomic to build or to operate, the applicant may appeal to the state Housing Appeals Committee (HAC). After a hearing, if the HAC rules that the ZBA’s denial of a comprehensive permit was unreasonable and not consistent with local needs, the HAC orders the ZBA to issue the permit. If the HAC rules that the ZBA’s decision issuing a comprehensive permit with conditions or requirements made the housing uneconomic to build or operate and was not consistent with local needs, the HAC orders the ZBA to modify or remove any such condition or requirement so as to make the proposal no longer uneconomic. The HAC cannot order the ZBA to issue any permit that would allow the housing to fall below minimum safety standards or site plan requirements. If the HAC rules that the ZBA’s action was consistent with local needs, the HAC must uphold it even if it made the housing uneconomic. The HAC’s decision is subject to review in the courts. A condition or requirement makes housing uneconomic if it would prevent a public agency or non-profit organization from building or operating the housing except at a financial loss, or it would prevent a limited dividend organization from building or operating the housing without a reasonable return on its investment. A ZBA’s decision is consistent with local needs if it applies requirements that are reasonable in view of the regional need for low- and moderate-income housing and the number of low-income persons in the city or town, as well as the need to protect health and safety, promote better site and building design, and preserve open space, if those requirements are applied as equally as possible to both subsidized and unsubsidized housing. Requirements are considered consistent with local needs if more than 10% of the city or town’s housing units are low- or moderate-income units or if such units are on sites making up at least 1.5% of the total private land zoned for residential, commercial, or industrial use in the city or town. Requirements are also considered consistent with local needs if the application would result, in any one calendar year, in beginning construction of low- or moderate-income housing on sites making up more than 0.3% of the total private land zoned for residential, commercial, or industrial use in the city or town, or on ten acres, whichever is larger. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect.

A YES VOTE would repeal the state law allowing the issuance of a single comprehensive permit to build housing that includes low- or moderate-income units.

A NO VOTE would make no change in the state law allowing issuance of such a comprehensive permit.


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You can find the complete set of ballot questions and candidates for office on the Secretary of the Commonwealth's web site here:  http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php


You can put your Franklin address into this form and receive a full set of the candidates and ballot questions (3 state wide and 2 specific to Franklin).


Franklin, MA

FM #74 Week Ending 10/17/10

Let's take about 10 minutes to catch up on what matters in Franklin, MA as the week ends Oct 17th, 2010.

Time: 10 minutes, 49 seconds



MP3 File

Session Notes:

Let's take less than 10 minutes to review the week ending Oct 17 here in Franklin, MA. So what should you know from the past week?

The School Committee met on Tuesday Most of the night was spent on the high school

• The school improvement plan was reviewed http://view.liveindexer.com/ViewIndexSessionSL.aspx?indexPointSKU=HW0UW7w25OKFIuztz4K2Eg%3d%3d
• The senior project was reviewed http://view.liveindexer.com/ViewIndexSessionSL.aspx?indexPointSKU=Z6iurs7XvBmQeuYTQ5aJIA%3d%3d
• The school discipline process and statistics showing the improvements were reviewed http://view.liveindexer.com/ViewIndexSessionSL.aspx?indexPointSKU=M2eDWWFyvuaKUWPh8tPJnw%3d%3d

Copies of the presentations are posted to Franklin Matters.

Of special interest is this segment of dialog between chair Jeff Roy and Principal Peter Light discussing the effects of the Rachel's challenge event recently held at the high school.

(here is the audio clip from the meeting)

What do we have coming up this week?

The Town Council meeting is Weds. The continuation of the public hearing on the underground utilities will be held. You may recall the initial hearing 9/29. The notice was incorrect in that it left out the section of Main St hence, part 2 this week. While the council did a straw vote last time indicating that they would likely not vote to proceed with putting the utilities underground, the official vote should be this week. The council did vote last time to endorse the change from 1-way to 2-way traffic, there will be additional votes required as there is a by-law change needed before that changes. Oh and the construction downtown will begin during 2011 and complete sometime 2012.

Of most interest this weds will be a series of updates from the DPW

• Winter Road Treatments & Snow Removal
• Franklin Town Common Tree Report
• Report on the new Solid Waste and Single Stream Recycling System
• Sewer System Discussion

A series of posts covering the state wide and two local questions that the Franklin voters will see on the Nov 2 ballot will be found this week on FM. The link to the Sec of the Commonwealth page where you can put in your home address and obtain a view of the full set of ballot questions. There is not a one ballot for all of Franklin as the MA legislative districts split Franklin. You may recall for example that the “Scott Brown seat' only covers precincts 2, 3 and 4 in Franklin, Karen Spilka covers the remainder of the Franklin precincts.

 As I close this session this week, let me remind you that

• If you like what I am doing here, please tell your friends and neighbors
• If you don’t like something, please tell me

Thank you for listening!

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 and Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission

I hope you enjoy!

Note: email subscribers will need to click through to Franklin Matters to listen to the audio podcast.