Town Council may set up infrastructure stabilization fund
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Bridge in troubled water
Providing accurate and timely information about what matters in Franklin, MA since 2007. * Working in collaboration with Franklin TV and Radio (wfpr.fm) since October 2019 *
By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff
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By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff
Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.
Town officials are forging ahead with plans to renovate Franklin's aging high school building, while realizing that the economy's downturn could affect their ability to pay for the project.
The town submitted a refreshed proposal to the Massachusetts School Building Authority this month, specifying problems with the 37-year-old building and providing additional details on enrollment projections, the educational goals of a potential renovation, and past examples of the town's commitment to building maintenance.
In addition, several Franklin officials, including Town Administrator Jeffrey Nutting and Town Council chairman Chris Feeley, met with the building authority's executive director, Katherine Craven, to identify Franklin's most pressing needs. Craven called the encounter "very positive."
Read the full article in the Boston Sunday Globe West section here
An earsplitting clanging echoed from the stone bell tower of Mount St. Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, calling to prayer about a dozen nuns ending their morning shift in the convent's Candy House.
The sisters, wrapped in work clothes and aprons, walked down a wooded path and through a clearing as they made their silent way home. By noon, they were wearing the crisp, white robes of their contemplative Cistercian order, and had joined 40 others to chant and pray inside the abbey's airy church.
Up at 3, pray and work all day, retire at 8.
So it goes for these nuns and others in the order that for 900 years has emulated St. Benedict in relying on one's hands for daily sustenance.
Here in Wrentham, off a country lane not far from Interstate 495, that means tending a flock of sheep for wool to make blankets and growing a bounty of fresh vegetables in the summer, and, for these sisters who are rarely seen in public, making Trappistine Quality Candy - and lots of it.
Read the full article in the Boston Sunday Globe West section here
The Abbey web site can be found here
You can order candy via their online web store or make a donation via PayPal.
Postings about the Abbey's wind turbine can be found here
What if some nuns in Wrentham decided to put up a wind turbine? And then high school officials in Worcester? And a Canton bank chairman? And pretty soon, the question wasn't where do wind farms belong, but how many windmills can we squeeze in to every last available space? That day is coming......
"Wind power is part of that," Schulte says. "It seems to be peppered all over society right now: green, green, green. Well, this is green. This is clean energy. This is 20 years of energy with no emissions. Twenty years of energy with no pollution you have to bury in the ground. I think that's all right."
Remember the nuns? Their turbine -- another SED project -- is scheduled to be built this winter. And Sister Mariann Garrity, for one, can't wait for the moment she sees those pearly white blades spinning. "The wind is just something that we've let caress our faces," she says. "It was not something, up until now, that we had learned how to harness. And when we see that turbine go up, we'll know that we are using a gift of creation in a much more effective way."
It's just like the nuns pray on Sundays. Gathered together, all 50 of them, they thank the Lord for the rain and the dew, for the heat of summer and the cold of winter. They give thanks for the seas and the rivers and the beasts, wild and tame. And they give thanks, of course, for the wind blowing outside the abbey, just waiting for a turbine to spin. "All you winds," they say together, quoting from the book of Daniel, "bless the Lord."
Read the full article in the Boston Globe Magazine here
Outraged that some parents think it's OK for their children and friends to drink alcohol at home, a coalition of concerned residents is shedding light on the problem of underage drinking.
Franklin High School Principal Pamela Gould has helped form a group called WASTED, or When Alcohol Starts To Effect Decisions. The group will host a meeting for parents on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 7 p.m. at the high school, to share ideas to keep kids from drinking.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here.Many parents don't believe their children drink, but the problem is pervasive, Gould said.
Yes, Dolores and I found a sticker placed on the base of the "Hat's Off to Franklin" sculpture on our walk this morning.
It didn't take long for some inconsiderate soul to deface this brand new Franklin gem.
Fortunately, it removed fairly easily.
FRANKLIN - When Gabriel Dut Bethou fled his remote village in southern Sudan 14 years ago, after a raid by soldiers of the faction that controlled the country at the time, it was with fear for his own life and grief for a family he thought had been killed.
Fourteen years later, the 24-year-old is preparing to return to his homeland — this time, with unimaginable joy.
Bethou, a student and employee at Dean College in Franklin, will be reunited with his mother, Ayen Aleer, and 20-year-old sister Akuot Bethou, both of whom he spent more than a decade believing to have been killed in the attack.
He will also meet for the first time two younger sisters born after Akuot and his parents — his father was later killed in other strife — relocated to the Sudanese city of Juba: Aluong, 10, and Nyakong, 14.
Read the full article in the Gazette here
Earlier this year, Franklin Matters had posted on the story as reported in the Boston Globe
How cold was it this morning?
Cold enough that the frost
protected by the shade
sugar coated the green grass
Police busted another underage drinking party Friday, arresting 20 youths at a gathering where many wore keepsakes honoring a teen who died following another beer bash, police said.
"We just arraigned all 20 (yesterday)," said Wrentham Police Sgt. William McGrath.
He said at the party Friday, many of the teens were wearing pink bracelets in memory of Taylor Meyer, the 17-year-old Plainville girl who drowned in a Norfolk swamp last month following an underage drinking party in the woods.
"Additionally, in the driveway was at least one car with a memorial painted in the back window," he said.
The rear window message read: "R.I.P. Tay. Best Friends Always. I love you angel."
McGrath said Kathi Meyer, the mother of the deceased King Philip High School senior, showed up at the arraignment and asked the teens to return the pink bracelets. Some of them were at the Oct. 17 party where Taylor Meyer was last seen alive, as well as at her funeral.
"I don't speak for the mother, but I did sense her disappointment," McGrath said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
FRANKLIN - The Franklin Art Department is hoping to highlight the work of Franklin High School alumni who continued making art after high school graduation.
Anyone who participated in the art department and is still involved with art or design is welcome to exhibit examples of their work for the students and community of Franklin to appreciate.
The department is seeking architects, industrial designers, graphic artists, photographers, illustrators, apparel designers, fine artists in any medium, as well as college students currently studying in any art related field to participate in this first-ever alumni show.
To exhibit your work in the new Gallery 218, or to volunteer to help, send an email by Jan. 5 to: Rosanne Walsh ("Mrs. Gosch"), class of 1982 at rgosch@franklin.k12.ma.us or Mike Caple, art director at caplem@franklin.k12.ma.us.
Originally posted on the Gazette web site
Agreeing to establish an area in town for industrial development was called a "no-brainer" for Town Council when the decision came before them last Wednesday.
The council unanimously voted to opt into Chapter 43D and establish a priority development site on two parcels of town-owned land adjacent to Pond Street, in the office zoning district.
Chapter 43D, signed into Massachusetts law in 2006, guarantees local permitting decisions on priority development sites within 180 days, and increases the visibility of a community and the target development site.
There are a lot of vacancies in Franklin's two industrial parks, said Bryan Taberner, Franklin's director of planning and development. He said Town Council could designate each, or portions of them, as priority development sites.
"The key benefit to having priority development sites is, the state will help you market that site. They will actually put us on the map, even internationally. That's a huge benefit," Taberner said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here.
This was part of the live reporting of the Town Council meeting November 19, 2008
Eileen Mellor, Chris Sullivan and Sharon Whalen at Stop & Shop fund raising for Friends of Mel.
They will be at Stop & Shop this afternoon, if you have a chance, stop by and help them.
A belated birthday wish to Franklin Matters!
How quickly a year passes! I created this site to separate the Franklin posts from the rest at Steve's 2 Cents. The first post on this site was November 9, 2007. Over 1200 posts later, it is still going.
Where?
That question you can help me answer.
What should there be more of?
What should there be less of?
"The Bellingham Tree Warden will conduct a public hearing on November 24, 2008 at 7:00 PM in the Cafeteria of the Paul J. Primavera Education Center, 80 Hairpin St, to review proposed tree removal and plantings along the Pulaski Blvd right of way related to the Pulaski Blvd Improvement Project, Chapter 87, section 3 for cutting of public shade trees."
By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff
Yesterday, seniors - and public officials - proved they know how to have some fun. |
Founded by Paula And William Ross, Petshop.biz has about 1,000 products to help pet owners enhance the health and relationship with their pets.
PetShop.biz offers a business opportunity in the $40 Billion Pet Industry and an on-line Pet Store for each Petshop.biz affiliate. Petshop.biz affiliates have a fully equipped customer service center at their disposal, ready to take customer orders.
For more info, you can buzz them at 888-303-7775, visit their website (http://www.petshop.biz), or stop in at their Franklin, MA headquarters.
For information on other businesses in Franklin check out the prior postings here
In its ongoing efforts to create a three-year financial forecast for the town, the Fiscal Planning Committee last night considered the School Department's future.
The committee kicked around the possibility of regionalizing services with nearby towns, and member Stephen Whalen asked whether anyone has thought of asking the teachers union to agree to a moratorium on step increases (but keeping cost-of-living increases) now that "times are really tough."
"If we're asking taxpayers to make sacrifices, maybe we could ask our employees to make sacrifices" to reduce the chances of their colleagues getting laid off, he said.
Committee member and Town Council Vice Chairwoman Deborah Bartlett argued that teachers would just leave Franklin for other districts.
Matt Kelly, another member from the School Committee, whose wife is a teacher, said the big question teachers always ask during budget season and when layoffs loom, is whether they have the seniority to keep their job.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
For my live reporting from this meeting check the notes here
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Now that the town-commissioned statue has been unveiled at Franklin's relocated historical museum, the Downtown Partnership is preparing to beautify downtown on Sunday and start a merchants subcommittee to help breathe life into the center of town.
The new merchants committee, spearheaded by three businesses, Jane's Frames on East Central Street, ArtBeat on Summer Street, and Fitness Together on Main Street, will have a special event every third Thursday of each month, likely starting in January, said Jane Curran, a partnership member and owner of Jane's Frames.
"We want to have the 'third Thursdays' to encourage the public to come and see what's going on in downtown," which may include discounts and special promotions, Curran said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
Help decorate downtown Franklin Sunday, 11/23/08 from noon to 4:00 PM
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Franklin's United Chamber of Commerce is merging with the Attleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, which members of both organizations hope will expand their clout and marketing reach.
The two had been discussing a merger for the past few months, as the United Chamber found itself in a tight financial situation and searched for a partner.
Attleboro's president, Jack Lank, will become president of the newly formed and re-named United Regional Chamber of Commerce, which will span more than 800 businesses in 14 towns along Interstate 495.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
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The refrigerator doors at students’ homes may appear more barren these days as school administrators try to distribute fewer hand-outs and disseminate more information through the Web.
Several school officials who send newsletters via e-mail and post grades online said recently they are looking to be both environmentally friendly and cost conscious.
Margaret Cole, a mother of three students in Bellingham schools, says less paper has come home this school year so far, although she still sees her "fair share."
With two children attending South Elementary School last year, she said she received duplicates of every hand-out.
"I would love to see more notices and homework assignments put online," Cole said. "It helps me monitor (their work) and makes it so much easier."
Read the full article in the Gazette here
With reddening ears and freezing fingers, more than 100 local dignitaries, volunteers and the entire fifth-grade class at Davis Thayer Elementary School gathered yesterday morning in the frigid cold to see the unveiling of a town-commissioned statue of a 19th century Franklin boy.
The life-sized bronze sculpture, titled "Hats Off to Franklin," depicts a young Franklin boy, whose waving arm welcomes people to the new Franklin Historical Museum, located at the old senior center at 80 West Central St. The museum is slated to open in the spring.
The Downtown Partnership found a talented sculptor, Washington, D.C.-based artist Marcia Billig, whose daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren live in Franklin, through a fox sculpture she made that she donated to Oak Street Elementary School for its grand opening.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
Review video from the complete ceremony here
Town Council last night unanimously voted to put $600,000 of the town's $2.3 million recently certified free cash into reserves.
Before approving the appropriation, Councilor Tom Doak observed that the move seemed to be "rushing to take the money off the table."
"I'm just trying to be conservative given what I see coming down the road," said Town Administrator Jeffrey D. Nutting, who proposed the move.
The council's policy is to keep at least $5 million in the town's stabilization account, which had $4.1 million in it prior to last night's appropriations, Nutting said.
The council also transferred $300,000 from hotel tax revenue into the stabilization, putting the total back at $5 million.
The $300,000 can be used in the case of a mid-year reduction in fiscal 2009 local aid, to pay for unemployment costs, or to pay off the library repairs, for instance, Nutting said.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here