Franklin Matters

Monday, August 1, 2011

Downtown Project - paving progress

On my walk downtown Sunday morning, I took these photos. Depot St looking toward the Municipal parking lot. The train station is down to the right.

Emmons St at the corner of Main St. Dean College is immediately to the left.

Additional info on the two downtown projects funded by State and Federal money can be found here
http://franklindowntownpartnership.blogspot.com/p/downtown-project.html

"are there enough people who understand the need for a school?"

The Boston Globe West captures the high school building project in part by writing:

The complexity of the current building would make renovations very invasive to the school day, officials said. With 19 different roof lines and walls primarily lined with cinder block, construction workers couldn’t possibly refurbish the school in a discreet manner.

“We would literally have to rip apart the walls to get to the plumbing,’’ said Sabolinski.

As the building committee conducted a feasibility study, it discovered that renovations would also prove very costly. In a budget document released to the public in March, the committee revealed that an extensive renovation would cost $97.9 million before state reimbursement. In the same document, the projection for a model school stood at $91.6 million. But the state allocates an additional 5 percent to the total reimbursement of the model school project, which lowers the final town cost to just under $40 million.

For years the committee debated the renovation-rebuilding quandary, until the scales tipped decidedly last month when the Massachusetts School Building Authority indicated that it would probably invite Franklin to join its model school program. A quasi-independent government agency, the state authority aims to streamline public school building projects throughout the Commonwealth.

You can read the full article here:

In the News - record destruction

Franklin Public Schools to destroy records

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by GateHouse Media, Inc.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

PanMass Challenge: Franklin riders

To help with the fund raising efforts of the Franklin riders for the PanMass Challenge, here are the links to their individual fund raising pages (in alphabet order by last name):

Tim Brightman http://www.pmc.org/profile/TB0006

Peter Lounsbury - http://www.pmc.org/profile/PL0048

Paul Metcalf http://www.pmc.org/profile/PM0053

Martin Middelmann http://www.pmc.org/profile/MM0373

Jeff Nutting http://www.pmc.org/profile/JN0077

Ethan Pearl http://www.pmc.org/profile/EP0070

Michele Pearl http://www.pmc.org/profile/MP0164

Jeff Roy http://www.pmc.org/profile/JR0142

Debbie Van Vort - http://www.pmc.org/profile/DV0016

Scott Young - http://www.pmc.org/profile/MR0067

If there are other Franklin riders, please let me know and I'll add them here.

PanMass Challenge rides through Franklin Saturday

The Remington Jefferson School complex will be busy Saturday morning. The site is a rest stop on the course for the PanMass Challenge. Hundreds of bike riders will roll through, take a quick break, some refreshments, pose for pictures with friends and family and ride on!

Slide show of photos from 2009:

The site lays out the purpose of the PMC in plain words - "When cyclists register for the PMC, they are signing up for a fundraising mission first and a bike ride second. ... Raising money for cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is the core of the PMC mission."

"We're remaining true to the mission," said Starr.

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Riders settle into their own methods of raising money. Most send out letters each year, via email and the Postal Service, but their recipients vary from 50 people who give much, to 200 people who give what they can. Some letters are personalized, some are identical form letters. Some have heart-wrenching stories, while others simply remind loyal followers that it's the time of year to give again.

To donate to any of the riders or teams in the PMC, check pmc.org and plug a name or team into the search bar.

Read more: http://www.milforddailynews.com/archive/x1764488225/Pan-Mass-Challenge-Finding-funds-for-the-fight#ixzz1TgLc8QXC

To help search for Franklin riders, I have a page set up with the links to their individual fund raising pages.
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2011/07/panmass-challenge-franklin-riders.html

If there are other Franklin riders, please let me know

"The drug containers work like a mailbox"

Medway and 12 other Norfolk County towns are using the drug containers after Morrissey wrote the county police chiefs in May and asked them to participate in the program.

Franklin and Wrentham also have the boxes, and about 300,000 people will have access to the containers across the county, Morrissey said.

Franklin Police Chief Stephen Williams said a container has been at the station for about a month.

"I think prescription drug abuse is endemic almost everywhere," Williams said. "We're seeing many of our young people become involved in it, and where are they getting the drugs from? From their mom and dad's prescriptions and friends."

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Stepping up to fill in the gap

Look closely. Franklin ball field, A sign clearly stating that the backstop was donated by the fence company to the Franklin Girls Softball Assoc. The property is owned and maintained by Franklin but as the budget shrinks from year to year, organizations and companies are stepping up to fill in the gaps. This is happening all over town. It is the little things like this that make Franklin a good place to live.