Zoning Board of Appeals - Agenda - 4/1/10

The Zoning Board of Appeals has their agenda posted to the Town website here (PDF) 

There are three major items on the agenda with hearing scheduled for the following time periods:

7:30 PM 
Lot 6A Miller St – Miller Street Realty Trust, Edward Kaiser, Trustee

Applicant is seeking a building permit to build a single family home on a lot that has 109.19 feet of street frontage where 125’ is required and lot width of 56’ where 112.5’ is required. This building permit is denied without a variance/special permit from the ZBA.



7:40 PM
691 East Central Street - Dan VanRoon

Applicant is seeking a special permit/variance to increase impervious coverage from 18.4% where the max of 15% is allowed in a water resource district. The by-law only addresses industrial and commercial zones up to 60% with a special permit. This building is in a Residential I zone and the coverage will be 19.6%. A variance/special permit will be needed from the ZBA for relief.


7:50 PM
56 Pine Street - Hope Hotchkiss and John Shea

Applicant is seeking building permits for three additions to a SFR home. The building permits are denied without variances from the ZBA for constructing an addition on the front of the house with a side setback of 20.1 where 25’ is required and a front setback of 36.5 where 40’ is required. Construct an addition on the side of the house 23.7’ from side setback where 40’ is required. Construct an addition on rear of house 37.6’ from front setback where 40’ is required.



Franklin, MA

Phil's Phriends - 8th Annual Live Music Silent Auction - April 9th

Join us for our 8th Annual Live Music Silent Auction, April 9th, at Showcase Live at Patriot Place in Foxborough, featuring live music from THE Average White Band and Sugarfoot and the Brass Kicking Horns. Help Phil’s Phriends raise funds to fight cancer through the Pan Mass Challenge and the Jimmy Fund.

Tickets are only $25 per person and must be purchased in advance. Limited tickets are available, so please reserve your spot as soon as possible. To reserve tickets, click here.

We look forward to you joining us for a great event. The doors to Showcase Live will open at 6:00pm. At that time you will be able to order food and beverages, preview auction items and make initial bids. The Average White Band will take the stage at 8:00pm and play until 9:30pm. At that time, we will open the silent auction bidding for 1 hour. At 10:00pm Sugarfoot and the Brass Kicking Horns will take the stage and complete the evening.

All ticket sale proceeds bought from Phil’s Phriends will be donated to the PMC and Cancer Research. All tickets bought through the Showcase Live Box office will be for the Average White Band Show and will not be considered a donation. Auction item bidding will be open to the entire crowd at Show Case Live. Please help Phil’s Phriends support our young PMC pedal partner – Emily Taylor – by raising money for cancer research. We look forward to seeing you at the event and thank you for your support!

The Average White Band are widely regarded as one of the best soul and funk bands in the history of music. Though perhaps best known for their timeless instrumental mega-hit ‘Pick Up the Pieces’ the band’s strength actually lay in their consistently accomplished song-writing, stretching across several gold selling albums and multi-grammy nominations for the legendary Atlantic Records. Sugarfoot & The Brass Kickin’ Horns is a 7 piece band with male & female vocalists and one of the finest horns sections around. The band plays the absolute best funk and dance hits from all eras including Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Journey and many more.

To get tickets, click here.

You can subscribe to the Phil's Phriends blog to get regular updates as they prepare for this year's Pan Mass Challenge  http://philsphriends.wordpress.com/


Franklin, MA

David Dobrzynski of Franklin - recognized by CRWA

The 2009 CRWA Stewarship Award recipients are Ken Moraff, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Mary Griffin, MA Department of Fish & Game; Richard Claytor, Horsley Witten Group; volunteer David Dobrzynski of Franklin ; and volunteer Maureen Febiger of Wellesley

I'll second the motion!

David has been a good volunteer and advocate for the Charles River Watershed Assoc. I met him last year at Whole Foods in Bellingham as he coordinated the efforts of the volunteers to cleanup. He has provided the early alert on the clean up day this year.

Way to go David!

Read the full article on the Charles River Watershed Assoc event planned for Mar 31, 2010 here.

Franklin, MA: arrest made

An Easton man was arrested yesterday on a warrant for last week's armed robbery of the Tedeschi's Market on Union Street. 

Ronald J. Doherty, 25, of 181 Purchase St., was recognized by Easton police from the surveillance image of Doherty captured early Thursday morning, Deputy Chief Stephen Semerjian said. 

You can read the full article at the Milford Daily News here

The Franklin Police had released surveillance video last week.

Where were you on Feb 19th?

Can you recall without looking at your calendar?

65 years ago, my father - then a 19 year old US Marine, had landed on the black volcanic shores of Iwo Jima on February 19th, 1945. Fierce fighting took place above and below ground on that island until March 26th.

On or about March 26th, yes, 65 years ago, Jerry made his way to the beach to await a landing craft to board, to take him back to the safety of a ship, and then back to Hawaii. Solid food, shower, clean clothes for the first time since Feb 19th. Mission accomplished.

From Jerry's Story

Jerry is the one circled.

Jerry talked about his time in the Pacific at the VA Home in Bristol, RI on Thursday. He spoke without notes. He spoke deliberately and in detail. I complimented him on it after and he said "I left out a few stories". One wouldn't have noticed.

You can view that talk on Jerry's Story here.

And when you think back on what you were doing on February 19th.
Okay, you can go look at your calendar.

And when you reflect on all that you did in the time since then, think of the men who fought on Iwo Jima (in particular as this is their time for remembering) and those who fought elsewhere, and thank a veteran for their service.

The one line I was expecting to hear from Dad at the VA Home, I actually was surprised to not hear Thursday. Whenever he has talked about his time there, and until recently - this was not often, he would usually close with: "The real heroes did not come home."

Are there any Iwo Jima veterans in Franklin?

Please let me know.


Note: this was originally posted on Steve's 2 Cents here

Crowd sourcing real time data

What does that mean?

What would you do if you heard a giant boom and you didn't know where it came from? If you're like thousands of people in Portland, Oregon, you might hit Twitter and Google Maps to participate in the city-wide exploration of a slightly frightening mystery. Last night at about 8 p.m., people in a big part of the city felt their windows shake and no one could tell them what caused it.

Some folks in Portland, OR collaborated to combine their Tweets with updates to a Google Map and help to pin point a city park where the explosion seemed to originate. The police, also following on Twitter, checked out the park and did find remains of a bomb.

Read the full post including detailed maps and screen shots here



Franklin, MA

Using Google Tools

Do you know how to use the free tools available from Google?

This guide avoids some of the obvious things, like using Google Docs for collaborative writing, and instead focuses on some of the lesser-used Google tools options like publishing an online quiz using Google Docs. In all there are 33 pages containing 21 ideas and how to instructions for creating Google Maps placemarks, directions creating and publishing a quiz with Google Docs forms, directions for embedding books into your blog, and visual aids for accessing other Google tools.

The full post and guide can be found here

My thanks to Richard Byrne for doing this.



Franklin, MA