Franklin Public Schools: Summer Update

A message from FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT

Hello As summer vacation is winding down we wanted to send out an update as we prepare for the opening of the 2013-2014 academic year. Student Schedules and Class Placements All FHS, MS schedules and elementary class placement letters will go out in the afternoon mail on August 15.  At FHS the guidance staff will be back on  August  20 to handle scheduling conflicts. The HS Guidance Office has been staffed all summer and some counseling  staff will be available on August 1,6,7 and 8. A number of families have been contacted about scheduling conflicts and have not responded to calls and letters from guidance. If you have been contacted about a conflict please call the HS as soon as possible to set up a time to resolve the conflicts. New FHS The construction project is on time and we anticipate the official opening on the first day of the 2014-2015 academic year.  Franklin Public Schools summer programming that has been traditionally scheduled at the HS will be moved to the HMMS/Oak complex. Other recreational programs will also need to be relocated. We will be collaborating with all stakeholders  to schedule all summer 2014 events. Facilities Work Projects at Remington/Jefferson, Parmenter and Kennedy are progressing. We have been assured all work will be completed by the start of the school year. This e-mail has been sent to you by FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT. To maximize their communication with you, you may be receiving this e-mail in addition to a phone call with the same message. If you wish to discontinue this service, please inform FRANKLIN PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT IN PERSON, by US MAIL, or by TELEPHONE at (508) 613-1777.

Stop & Shop A+ update

The timeline sent to me that I shared earlier this week was a little misleading. The SCHOOLS can register as of August 1. We can register as of September 1.

Stop & Shop screenshot grabbed as of 8/2/13

For the post earlier this week, check here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/07/stop-shop-bonusbucks-rewards-franklin.html

In the News: couple sentenced, hospital association

Couple sentenced in doughnut shop robberies

A husband and wife accused of robbing doughnut shops with what they said was an HIV-infected syringe were sentenced following a change of plea hearing in Norfolk Superior Court on Friday.

Hospitals form regional affiliation

MetroWest Medical Center is teaming up with hospitals in Boston and Worcester to form a new affiliation aimed at improving cardiovascular care in their regions.

Farmers Market - Today, noon - 6:00 PM

on the Town Common, along the High St side.

Farmers Market today

The Pan Mass Challenge rides through Franklin

The PanMass Challenge will ride through Franklin Saturday morning. Back in January, I received this email from Martin Middelman, a regular reader of Franklin Matters. Hundreds of riders have been training for months for this weekend fund raising effort. Martin will be joined in this ride by Town Administrator Jeff Nutting, State Representative Jeff Roy and several other Franklin riders.

In a time when the TV shows negative news, it is heartening to see so many folks taking action for a worthy cause. Cancer touches all of us, directly or indirectly. Is there a person who hasn't lost a family member to this? Or doesn't know someone struggling with it?

Get up early Saturday morning and head to the Remington Jefferson School to see the riders come in. The school grounds serve as a water and rest stop on the ride.

Cheer them on!

Be encouraged by so many taking action!

Contribute to the cause.

"There is a lot riding on this!"

There's a Lot Riding on This Dear friends, Today I've committed to raising money for cancer research by riding in the 2013 Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC). On the first weekend in August, I will join 5,500 cyclists in the PMC ride, an annual bike-a-thon that raises money for research and care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DCFI) in Boston. I hope I can count on your support The PMC raises more money for charity than any other single event in the country, $375 million since 1980 and $37 million last year alone! This success is the result of a lot of people riding for, and caring about, a cure. And because every penny matters, 100 percent of your donation goes to DFCI. I've made a personal commitment to ride and raise $4,300. So I hope you can help me achieve this significant goal. Please donate to my PMC ride at one of the following links: Click here to make $25 donation Click here to make a $50 donation Click here to make a $100 donation Click here to make a $250 donation Click here to make a $500 donation Click here to make a $1,000 donation Every donation brings us closer by the mile. Thank you, Martin Middelmann Your donation is tax deductible and 100% will go to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. If you prefer to write a check, please make it out to the PMC, The Jimmy Fund or Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and mail it to me directly at: Martin Middelmann 257 Daniels St. Franklin, MA 02038 US If your employer has a matching gift program, ask your Human Resources department for a form, and follow the process for matches. To learn more about the PMC, please visit pmc.org. Presented by Media Partner The PMC donates 100% of every rider-raised dollar to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through its Jimmy Fund. Founded in 1980, the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) is an annual bike-a-thon that today raises more money for charity than any other single event in the country.

A place at the table

Myth: SNAP recipients are inner-city minorities. 

Fact: Food insecurity is neither an urban issue nor an ethnic issue. Nearly one in six people faces food insecurity, and they live in every county in the nation. In addition, 76 percent of SNAP households include a child, an elderly person or a disabled person.

Read more in this op-ed by Trish Henley






For more about the film, A Place at the Table you can visit the webpage
http://www.takepart.com/place-at-the-table

Neighbor Brigade Run

Hello:
This is not just an ordinary fundraiser but, more importantly a mission I support and take part in my Franklin community to help our neighbors in times of immediate crisis. I know through all the ways I have helped, it has changed the way I see and experience my own personal day to day challenges. I am thankful for a group of 80 volunteers and I hope you can help in  supporting the continued growth of Neighbor Brigade in Mass. and beyond.

I have a Franklin page for you to look at and if you'd like to take part in the team, please sign up! It will be a great opportunity to share what Neighbor Brigade is doing and learn about its future growth.  Thank you for anything you can offer in the way of a donation or perhaps a sponsor! 

Go to:
http://www.crowdrise.com/franklinneighborbrig 

Thanks and I hope to see you at the walk/run!
Linda

Linda Gagnon
Neighbor Brigade Inc.
617-335-5452/ FranklinMA@neighborbrigade.orgwww.neighborbrigade.orgLike Us On Facebook!

Representative Roy's August Office Hours

Boston, MA -- State Representative Jeffrey Roy (D-Franklin) announced today that constituent office hours will be held in Franklin for the Month of August on the following day: 

Franklin – August 10^th, 9:00-10:00AM, Franklin Public Library – 18 Main Street Franklin, MA

Christopher Yancich, his legislative aide, will be accompanying him.

Representative Roy stated that all office hours are open to any residents of Franklin and Medway who may have questions or concerns that they wish to bring to his attention.  Walk-ins are welcome; no appointment necessary. He looks forward to hearing from you.

He also invites all constituents to call him at his State House office at (617) 722-2400, stop by Room 134 in the State House, or email him at Jeffrey.Roy@MAhouse.gov.

Bike Tour of the SNETT - Aug 17

The Franklin and Bellingham Rail Trail Committee (FBRTC) will host a Guided Bike Tour of the Southern New England Trunkline Trail (SNETT) on Saturday, August 17, 2013 from 8:30 to noon.  

The tour will start at the Grove Street trailhead in Franklin, and travel west 7.5 miles to Blackstone to learn about the work being done on the trail.  In Blackstone, you will have a chance to see the bridge rehab construction taking place, including a temporary ramp from Church St down to the RR grade, which will give you an idea of the Purchase Street ramp.  The tour will be led by Mr. Bill DeSantis, Corporate Director Bicycle Pedestrian Transportation of  Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB Engineering).

A winter scene on the trail (to help be cool today!)

This event is free, but we ask that you register in advance. Also, parking is available across the street from the trailhead at Grove St

Register for this event now: www.franklinbellinghamrailtrail.org/calendar/aug-bike-tou

Franklin Library: How to Draw Stuff for Ages 11 & Up

How to Draw Stuff for Ages 11 and Up

animal anatomy

Franklin Public Library - 118 Main Street Franklin MA 02038 - 508.520.4940

In the News: sales tax, juvenile court

State Senate OKs tax holiday for Aug. 10-11

The state Senate voted today to authorize a sales tax holiday for Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 10 and 11.

The sale tax holiday is estimated to cost the government $20 million. So while the savings may get distributed to anyone who buys a key item this weekend, those same folks shouldn't complain if one of their pet projects doesn't get funded.

Senate agrees to increase age of juvenile court jurisdiction

The Massachusetts Senate Tuesday passed legislation that increased the age of juvenile court jurisdiction from 17 years old to 18 years old, according to a press release from state Sen. Karen Spilka’s office.

Both of these measure require Gov Patrick's approval

Live reporting - Town Council - special meeting

Copy of agenda doc to be added later - handed out as folks arrived in the 3rd Floor - Training Room




Intent of this is to do a workshop for a discussion on what changes, if any, would be desired for zoning.
A sign in sheet is being passed around. Maxine Kinhart taking the official meeting notes

Jeff Nutting provided an overview of the handout

Q - question on density consideration based upon upland acre vs. total acre
Ultimately, this is more than a quibble point for the Cooks Farm proposal as a starting point for discussion

Q - would the town consider some incentives for extra open space?
the current as right use is less dense than the proposal for Cooks Farm

Halligan - I thought we would be discussing Cooks Farm and nothing else. What I am hearing is this is bigger than that.

Cerel - you can zone for a specific proposal, you can zone for all. You can't do spot zoning.

Benedetto - Whatever you adopt the Town needs some flexibility.

Nutting  - the Council is not the permitting authority, the Planning Board

Kelly - question on when developments referenced were done and what they were developed as some number of years ago

Taberner - zoning residential district 6 was created in the 1980's

Padula - subdivision regulations came out to control growth in the town. A lot of land existed then. We needed housing in and around the center. Since then, we have tried to control growth.  I don't know how many houses we could put in this with zoning as I haven't seen the proposal. How are you going to handle sewerage for this project? Are we attempting to change the zoning for this one project? There are a number of unbuilt propety that can accommodate cluster or apartment zoning. Once you open this up, you are opening this to a number of homes in this town.

Pfeffer - what would be the spot zoning rule?
Cerel - it may not be a single property, the courts will look at this in the totality

Pfeffer - I thought we had a charge to go make this work? Am I hearing this is a proposal to not make it work?
Nutting - I disagree

Pfeffer - How would you make this work?
Nutting - You have to make this a zoning bylaw.
Pfeffer - Have you drafted the bylaw?
Nutting - No, once we have this agreed upon, when we have consensus, we can go and write it.

Cornetta - we have a proposal with a specific project, there are examples of bylaws on the state site, or elsewhere that I think we can all work with. it is not good for the town to create high density all over, but maybe an overlay district for specific areas, like the Cooks Farm proposal

Developer - It is a very popular proposal. I have nine residents interested in this if we build it. We have lots with the building lots identical. A density in Medfield over 6 units to an acre. About 2 if you do it on total acreage. The road widths don't work, that is pedestrian scale. It is 20 foot roadways and 18 foot back alleys. I didn't invent this, it is elsewhere, in Celebration. I haven't met the fire chief. He'd be able to fight a fire in this. These are condominium in that the land is owned in common but they are single family homes

Halligan - I am little thrown off guard here. I would be in favor the way it was proposed.

Nutting - I am hearing about the differences in the density calculation, I am hearing about the street width difference.

Halligan - I would like to see this go forward and see what this brings to the town. It is calculated to only bring in 2 kids.

Cerel - As I indicated at the Council meeting, when you get into land use planning there is a lot of overlapping rulings. Where are you starting from? A proposal from a particular developer and a charge to the staff to make it work. There are a lot of other things being through around and confusing the issues. This type of development is good for a downtown where you want to get traffic out and bring in pedestrian traffic. Mefield cobbled together several properties to make his space work. That is not what you have here. This plot is outside the town, not downtown.

Restating: This handout would apply to the 22 acre to apply to two properties to avoid the charge of spot zoning

Nutting - i don't think there is a big disparity about what we are discussing.

The bylaw was in place and the zoning was changes because it was not yet on the map

Powderly - what about Res 6 that does not permit this project?
Nutting - it is not relevant in this day and age, no proposal is going to come forward with 25% affordable

Powderly - is it fair to say that Res 6 is outdated?
Dahlstrom - there are more differences than just the affordable

Developer - Res 7, would apply to only 2 properties at this time. I would like to work with the Fire Chief to see how the streets would work for him

Padula - with a conventional subdivision how many would you get?
about 7

Halligan - this would have to be done with a special permit, otherwise it could be sold out and have 32 log cabins down there

Nutting - you are free to talk to the Fire Chief when he gets back from vacation.

Benedetto - what about control with a 40B?
Cerel - The state agency has guidelines for that and it is more than 12 units dense

Developer - I am not concerned about a special permit

Jones - How many of these type projects were on the outside of town? What would be the sustainability of the high value?

Developer - I am very good at establishing property that high value. We have a country club right next door. there is demand for this. There is an aging population and they want this.

Powderly - I don't think anyone has argued that this isn't a quality project, we need to do this when there is not a quality project before us. I want to make sure we are reversing a path the restriction on no new development, then we do it right so we don't end up with developing elsewhere in the wrong places. I found the Mashpee Commons very nice.

Developer - you have all that here already, you don't need to create Mashpee Commons here. You already have the town center. You need infield projects to help fill the void. They should help promote each other. That is why this project is going to be good. You will want to see this elsewhere once this is built.

Cheli - speaking to stopping development, we were concerned with school age development and 40b's. I don't think there was a mandate when I was on the council. I think we needed to be proactive to get the 40b 10% level.

Nutting - we did the permit change to allow the 55+ to avoid the children issue. We extended the moratorium to 2009 but then the market kind of took over and did it for us.

Cheli - mechanism were put in place to get sustainable development.

Developer - there is 17 M coming into this project with very little going out. The roads are owned by the residents.

Nutting -

Pfeffer - if we do this by special permit, do we still need to change the zoning?
Nutting - yes

Nutting - I think we can have this in the council in the first week of Sep

Roy - I actually came tonight to get some input from this for the Master Plan. I am hearing we can do this in the 2 parcels and not all around the town. I was trying to see how this fits in with the Master Plan.

Cerel - you can have special permits by zone, you don't need to have an overlay

Padula - how much did you say were the starting price?
Developer - 2 bedrooms, about $500,000

Nutting - we'll schedule a meeting with the Fire Chief and work on the draft revisions as discussed here. We should have something ready for the first Council meeting in Sep. It will get referred to the Planning Board, and when they act on it, it would come back to the Council for two readings before being voted on.


motion to adjourn, passed

Stop & Shop A+ BonusBucks rewards Franklin schools

Last year about at this time, I reported on the Stop & Shop A+ program and how much money had been earned by Franklin residents for their schools. I went to the A+ website to find the totals for the school year that just completed and the totals had already been removed in preparation for the new year. I opened a request for the information and received the detail via email.

Annie Sullivan and Oak St are two schools that lead the pack in raising money via this channel.

All the schools need to be re-registered for the coming school year. Anyone shopping at Stop & Shop will also need to sign up again to chose which schools their purchases will contribute for. In prior years, you were able to enroll for multiple schools. I expect it will be the same process for this year.

Good Afternoon,

                With the program gearing up for another year, the website has currently removed last year's info.  Starting August 1, schools will be able to go online to re-register for the upcoming year.  Below are the Franklin, MA area schools with their totals.

$740.90	JOHN F KENNEDY SCHOOL	551 POND STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$536.48	GERALD M PARMENTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL	235 WACHUSETT STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$427.79	HELLEN KELLER ELEMENTARY	500 LINCOLN STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$570.69	HORACE MANN MIDDLE SCHOOL	224 OAK STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$444.13	DAVIS THAYER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL	137 WEST CENTRAL STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$218.58	REMINGTON MIDDLE SCHOOL	628 WASHINGTON STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$564.64	TRI-COUNTY REG VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL HS	147 POND ST	FRANKLIN	MA	02038-3810
$839.11	FRANKLIN HIGH SCHOOL	218 OAK STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$818.93	JEFFERSON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL	628 WASHINGTON STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$1,097.52	OAK STREET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL	224 OAK STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$1,925.16	ANNIE SULLIVAN MIDDLE SCHOOL	500 LINCOLN STREET	FRANKLIN	MA	02038
$882.87	Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter School	201 Main Street	Franklin	MA	02038

Thank you!

The A+ School Rewards Team

If you require further assistance, please contact us at 1-877-275-2758.  Have a Wonderful Day!!

After August September 1, you can register your Stop & Shop card for this program and one or more of the Franklin schools. You can use my step by step instructions http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/09/stop-shop-can-help-your-franklin-school.html

Concerts on the Common: 6:00 PM

This Wednesday, Concerts on the Common will present Frank Padula.

The children's program will begin at 6:00 and feature DJ Mike Rutkowski.

Concerts on the Common

There will be two more concerts in Aug (7th and 14th). The performers are listed here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/07/concerts-on-common-600-pm.html

"did raise questions and concerns"

The Milford Daily News reports on the Planning Board approval of a new downtown parking bylaw.

Most parking problems stem from people parking illegally in the Depot Street commuter rail lot and failing to put money in the parking meters. 

Primary parking structures may help alleviate the burden on business owners to provide parking for their customers. And, they may bring more customers into the downtown area. 

The next step in the bylaw’s approval process is for the Town Council to schedule two public readings of the bylaw. At these, the public will be allowed to comment on the proposed bylaw. 

Once both readings are complete, the council will close the public readings and take a vote.

Read more: http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x1580234251/New-parking-bylaw-moves-forward-in-Franklin#ixzz2ac8yvstd

With the Town Council in a special workshop/meeting Wednesday night on zoning bylaws, this is likely to be one of the topics of discussion. The meeting is scheduled for 7:00 PM in the 3rd Floor Training Room at the Municipal Bldg. This location is not enabled for broadcast unless special arrangements are made so if you do want to participate, it would be necessary to be there in person.