Town Council - Regular Meeting

2026 meeting to order. Like a moment of silence. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Note to residents, all citizens are welcome to attend public meetings in person. To view the live meeting remotely, citizens are encouraged to watch the live stream on the Franklin Town Hall TV YouTube channel or live broadcast on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. To listen to the meeting remotely, citizens may call in using the number 1-9292056099. To participate in the meeting remotely, citizens may join the Zoom webinar. Meetings are recorded and archived by Franklin TV on the Franklin Town Hall TV YouTube channel and shown on repeat on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. The Zoom webinar detail ID number is 826 8792 9129. Any participants who wish to speak must enter their full name and address when joining the webinar. All participants will be automatically muted upon joining

the webinar. In order to speak, participants will need to select a raise hand function to be requested to be unmuted. All speakers will be required to state their full name and street address before commenting. Announcements from the chair. This meeting is being recorded by Franklin TV and shown on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. The meeting may be recorded by others. There's no nobody repeat uh nobody participating remotely. Upcoming events we actually have a few. The Memorial Day parade is scheduled for Monday, May 25th at 11:00 a.m. beginning at the Harvest Man Middle School and ending at the Franklin Town Carmon. Full uh parade route is available on the town website. Memorial Memorial Day ceremony will be held at 12:00 p.m. at the World War I Memorial on the town common immediately following the parade. The ceremony will honor Franklin veterans who have passed since the last Memorial Day and as well as the town's fallen 45 heroes who died in service to the nation. In the event of inclement weather, up updates and cancellation notices will be posted on the town's veteran service web page. Uh we're going to uh mark your calendar for the month of June. Weekly farmers market begins on Friday, June 5th on the town common. Farmer Farmers markets are held every Friday, June through October from 2:00

p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on the town common. A great great time. Franklin Restaurant Week is taking place from May 31st through June 6th. All are encouraged to get out, support, and celebrate Franklin's local restaurants. More information can be found on the town website. Franklin's third annual Porchfest, which is taking place on Saturday, June 6th from 12:00 p.m. to 6 p.m. throughout the cultural district. Bands will perform on residences porches and few other favorite local sports. Rain date is Sunday, June 7th. Franklin Downtown Partnership announced the strawberry stroll is taking place in downtown Franklin on Friday, June 12th from 400 p.m. to 6 p.m. Rain date is Saturday, June 13th. Town council hours are being held next Thursday, 5 uh May 21st, 2:30 a.m. at the senior center. That's the most we had in a long time. Citizens comments. Citizens are welcome to express their view for up to three minutes on a matter that is not on the agenda. [snorts] In compliance with chapter 38, section 20, the open meeting law, the council cannot engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during citizens comments. The council may ask the town administrator to review the matter. Nothing herein shall prevent the town administrator from correcting a misstatement of fact. Is there anybody

in the audience uh for citizens comments? Just please state your name and your address, please. [clears throat]

Silia Courtright, 213 PC Street. Uh I'm here on behalf of uh Franklin Music Boosters and the Franklin Theater Boosters uh to bring awareness to our Capitol campaign. Um as you may or may not know, the our Franklin Middle School auditorium in particular has not working lights. Um [clears throat] this has been we thought at the beginning of the year that they were sort of working. Turns out that they're not working. And this has led to a number of problems with us being able to hold performances there as well as being able to rent out uh the auditorium. [clears throat] And because basically our only options are all the lights on or none of the lights on. And if anyone can go has ever been to a performance with all the lights on, it doesn't work very well. Um [clears throat] so uh we have worked together with the uh school administration. We have a dedicated account that uh our donations will be going towards to fund uh repairs to the middle school uh auditorium to get the lights back working as well as replace a number of the broken seats. Um a little bit of the flooring also need some work with it. Uh and then there are a number of other things that we need to do as well to support the music and theater program. Uh for example, we have so many kids who are interested in theater or not theater in choir now. We can't fit them all on the risers. We need more risers. Um these are things that we didn't know at the beginning of the school year. We know it now. Um and so just wanted to bring awareness to the campaign. Um, if you go to the music boosters or the Franklin theater company and you look us up particularly on social media, you will find links to uh the campaign

uh through Give Butter. You can also reach out directly to either or um via our email addresses if you wanted to do a direct donation for that. And it's all uh tax deferred. So far, we have raised 25% of our goal. Um, we're trying to raise 100,000 and we've raised a little over 25,000. I know that there is talk about getting some money from the state, but I've also heard that it is not guaranteed. So, we need to try and make it this is not a cheap repair. [clears throat] So, thank you.

Thank you. Um, any like upcoming all the upcoming fund like fundraisers are on the the website and everything like that. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Is there anybody else?

All right. Dave Callahan, 30 Plain Street. Uh I fig you guys would have been tired of hearing me talk. Uh but Jane had reached out. So I said, "Of course I'm I'm going to be here today." Uh so uh obviously you guys all know, but for the folks at home, uh you know, just last night, we had a joint school committee town council meeting. just already the second one uh in the six months since the election. Uh it was it was an amazing conversation, a long one, but an amazing one. Uh as we're all 16 of the Franklin elected officials together talking about the issues facing Franklin and how best to kind of move forward and it's fantastic and there's also a commitment to kind of continue to have these conversations and they're amazing when we're all kind of working together. We're not always going to agree on every single little thing. we're always going to kind of come together and and talk respectively, work together for the betterment of this entire community. And it was just yet another example of the amazing work that's kind of going on in these council chambers. Um the school committee continued to meet uh though after the joint session was kind of over. Uh we had a couple of great policy updates. Uh one of them was uh updating the fee uh rental policy that we have for all of the different uh school facilities. This is something that know Jamie and I have kind of talked about for a couple of years now. Um, and really kind of also highlights back to Celia's point because what's going to be happening is we're now opening the doors up to outside organizations to kind of come in and rent out some of the school uh facilities like the auditorium at the high school and other uh places and uh individuals like schools and nonprofits still kind of have like first dibs, but outside organizations can kind of come on in, rent it for a profit, and that profit is then going to be reinvested back into the school facilities to kind of help out in some of the projects like this, but also to help alleviate on kind of some of the demands from capital improvements. Cuz when I was here last, I kind of talked about food services, how they reinvest within themselves. And over a three-year period, it was over a million dollars of capital improvements

that they funded themselves. We didn't have to go to the town council to compete up against fire and police and and all the other demands. Uh this is going to be one more avenue. So that policy just kind of got approved. Um which was fantastic. Um, additionally, uh, Horseman Legacy Subcommittee, you're going to hear a lot more about us over the summer. Um, but, uh, one of the things, uh, one of our members, Miss Kathleen Brown, had worked with the Live Arts String Quartet. They have a show coming up, uh, this Sunday, 3 p.m. at the historical museum. Tickets are still on sale. And, uh, what she had done, she's working with uh, with those folks. They're including some uh, pieces from Horus Man's period. Uh, and there's also in the program, there's going to be some notes about Horus Man. So really trying to bring his story and all of history to life more and it's fantastic. And lastly, uh at the that joint meeting, I had talked about the idea of uh school committee town council kickball team uh with the Franklin fathers. They're having that kickball tournament. I already kind of heard back from a couple of school committee members. You know, we we got buy in there. If you guys are interested, I think that would be fantastic to kind of have a quorum of kickball uh team going on. And so, uh, if you are interested, please reach out to me and, uh, we'll make something happen. So, thank you guys all very much.

Thanks, Dave. Dave, uh, when's the next meeting for the Horus man?

Uh, we're going to have one. It hasn't been scheduled yet. It'll probably be in early June. Uh we are going to have though there's going to be a walking tour cuz one of the things that we had with the horseman like legacy was back in August. Uh the schools had uh voted to kind of name the all like the school properties along Oak Street and Panther Way. So, the ECDC middle school and high school as a horseman campus and uh the folks that are on kind of like the campus design team, we're going to do a walkound on May 27th just to kind of go and to walk around those grounds just to kind of get inspiration because the idea is, you know, we went we voted to name this plot of land as the Horus man campus, but how do we actually what do we how do we turn that into a reality? And so, uh, we're going to kind of go do a walkabout, get some, you know, creative juices flowing, some more conversations happening, and, uh, but, uh, when we kind of have a a full meeting, uh, like I said, probably the first or second week in June, I'll I'll kick it over to all of you guys, too.

Okay. Um, what time is it walking? Uh, it's going to be late afternoon, probably around like 4:00. Uh, we're also competing with, uh, the seniors have their senior project night as well. So, I'm trying to uh the calendar's getting more and more full, so I'm trying to figure out where I can actually make it all happen, but I'll let you know when that happens. Thanks. Sorry, Dave. Could you remind us the date of the kickball tournament? Yes. Uh June 14th. Thank you.

Uh Jason Joyce, 80 Union Street. Uh I'm here because I uh this week received a concerning email um that allegedly was from the town administrator. I know now that it was not really from the town administrator. Uh the body of the email said click here and the word here was hyperl and it said it would inform me how to spell the word maps backwards. Turns out it was spam. [laughter] That bad joke was brought to you by Franklin Fathers. We are an organization based here in Franklin for dads and caregivers rooted in community uh wellness and advocacy. And building on uh what Dave said, I wanted to let you know some of the things we've been up to uh earlier this year and uh promote some of the things coming up. So, we've had members meetups at Pizza Nerd Emporium, uh Golf X, and uh Poor Richards. A week from tomorrow, we're meeting across the street at the tavern there. All are welcome. Uh we also volunteer the third Friday of every month at the Franklin Food Pantry and we're definitely looking for more volunteers to see if we can set a PR on unloading that truck. Um and our biggest event, what we hope becomes our signature event is the kickball tournament which again is June 14th. So we got strawberry stroll day off kickball tournament or if it's the rain they're backtoback. Uh it hopes to be a fun family uh friendly communitycentric event. Teams of at least 10 20 bucks to get there. Uh, and I can't help but notice if my math is right, there are at least 10 people standing up here or sitting up here. So, I hope you'll consider uh forming a team and I appreciate the time. Thank you.

You might want to think of golf for the age that we have. [laughter]

Kimch for Barwood Road chair of your board of health. Just wanted to remind everyone that next Wednesday, the Dana Farber Mamogram van will be across the street at New England Chapel from 7:15 in in the morning to about 3:15. We still have 12 appointments available for a woman to get a mammog. So, I will leave the information there. If someone online would like to call because you do have to register, the registration number is 6176321974 to register to get a mammogram. And then the Women's Health Expo is actually at New England Chapel as well on the same day, which is next Wednesday, May 20th, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. We have probably at least 20 vendors coming. And just so that the men don't feel left out, if you want to come and get information for your favorite female, please feel free to come and join us all. We want it to be totally inclusive for for everyone. But um we're really excited because this is the first um woman's expo that we're doing and we have a lot of exciting um people coming. [snorts] So, thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody else? followed on Zoom land. Doesn't look right. Doesn't look it. All right, moving on. Council comments. Council Malloy.

Thank you. Uh just to reiterate a comment they made several weeks back and you touched on it in terms of the Memorial Day ceremony that's coming up in just a few weeks. Highly recommend people attend, especially the event at noon. The parade is great and a lot of fun, but the commemoration that we do at noon is very powerful, very, very poignant. Like I said, my favorite day in Franklin. So, highly recommend people go and to the degree you can bring your children and have their witness and watch that. I think that's really powerful. So, that's all I have, sir. Thank you.

I don't have anything uh incremental. I think that's, you know, I I like the reminder around [clears throat] Memorial Day and uh just reiterating the uh the communication and the discussions we've had uh with as a town council and with both the school committee and the finance committee. Um those who have a chance to to listen to those discussions really should take advantage of it. Um and we'll we hope to continue doing that as we as we push forward. Thanks, Carolyn.

Um I don't have much. I was going to reiterate the women's expo on the 20th at the mamogram van. I think that's an incredible um opportunity [clears throat] and there's going to be a lot of really good information there um and the um uh the capacity for the van to be here and and providing mamograms is um really wonderful and people should be taking advantage of that. So 12 more spots people should sign up. Um I also wanted to just mention that we had um a resident who had emailed the town council earlier. I was just talking to her today um earlier this week and maybe last week too about um questions she had about the number of pets that could be licensed. Um and turns out that like I think Jamie I think she worked with you too but it turns out like the town um actually should have allowed more pets like we had a limit on I can't remember if it was two or three dogs before. Um and it turns out that the state regulations were actually higher. So, um because she'd reached out and I think she talked to Max and she talked to um a couple of us and worked with Jamie and Nancy, she was able to get the um the town regulations updated to the state regulations and the couple of families that had kind of had to go get a kennel license um were able to not do that again. Um anyway, the whole point of that story is that if I I I told her that I appreciated her and admired her for seeing something and reaching out and kind of pushing forward to make sure that um it happened. And I think she did a really good thing for at least those two families and you know potentially others that might run into the same situation. So, I'm encouraging people that if you see something like that to reach out and and make, you know, make it happen and see what we can do because, you know, you guys are the residents. You are the um the driving force behind the things that happen here in town. And I encourage you to do that.

Thanks. Thank you. And it was good for the dogs, too. It's good for the dogs, too. Yes. The puppies. Um, I talked about this a couple of months ago, but I'm going to it's going to be my repetitive theme. Um, I'm going to I'm trying to shame businesses with signs that are in disrepair around town. Um, and so this is for if you have a business and your sign looks like a piece of

Okay. Please repair it. Um, and I I don't know [clears throat] if we have the ability to I think we legally I think we have the ability to find people for having things in disrepair. Um, but at a later date I want to kind of talk about that. [clears throat] Um, while Franklin's a large town, there's one thing I realized when I I've now moved three times in Franklin. I lived on this side of town. I lived on the north side of town. Now I live close to the Bellingham side. Um, when you move, you really actually don't go beyond much farther than your house. Like I used to, when I lived in the north side of town, I came to this side of town a lot. Yeah.

I don't rarely come to this side of town. My point being is that, um, where I live now, I do a lot of travel through the 495 overpass by stop and shop. [clears throat] Um, while this tech technically could be considered a new agenda item, I just want to put a I guess talk about it tonight, which is we need to fe fix the traffic lights over there. They are not on cycle. I cannot get through that traffic. It's awful.

I I cannot I I have to stop at literally four lights to get through that intersection. There has to be a better way to coordinate that. I know it's stateowned. So, uh, I I would like at some point I'm just bringing it up here if I'm saying it from my frustration and I'm sure there's others have frustrated it that that intersection just needs to be better time because it's uh as a resident who has to use that a lot. It it's it's terrible. [clears throat] Um, and then the last thing is, and I don't know if Jamie may mention it, but I'll just talk about it a little bit. Uh, we obviously have the World Cup event happening. I know that we have gotten an email or two about uh about how this the logistics are going to be about that and I know at some point in time we will be getting it. But I think that's going to be a great event for uh the town. I'm a huge uh football fan and uh I certainly will be in attendance for one if not both of those days that are there. So um I look forward to that event. I look forward to getting the update as to how the logistics are going to work that day and whatnot. So other than that, I'm good. Thank you.

Yeah, my uh I agree [clears throat] with you with the light. Maybe I I'll reach out to Representative Roy. Maybe he can do something on the state side. Maybe and I I did reach out to uh uh Ryan Jenny about that because we were going to have that on the agenda tonight, but I think we pushed it out because he didn't have enough information on that. So, we'll probably next meeting. Max.

Thank you, Chairman. Uh first, I want to recognize and welcome Officer Caleb McClean who joins Franklin Police Department this past month. He's a Franklin native and a Franklin High School graduate. I just hope he feels welcome here uh in the town of Franklin. Uh I also want to recognize the the high school library. They received a $150,000 grant for the innovation in STEM the innovation in STEM space redesign as well as the Franklin Fire Department who received a 21 approximately $21,000 grant uh for safety equipment. Uh in addition, the fire uh department is also hosting a free handsonly CPR training uh for EMS week. Uh it's May 19th from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at Franklin uh fire headquarters. If you want to save a life, it's a great thing to learn. Um I also want to acknowledge uh Councelor Cormier Ledger and I are working with the Franklin LGBTQ Alliance to plan a pride flag raising ceremony uh Sunday at May May 31st at 1:00 p.m. And everyone's welcome. I invite my fellow counselors to attend. Um, you know, discrimination is a very real threat for many of us in the LGBT community. Uh, and especially in the current political climate and and pride is is a way to show that, you know, we are who we are. We're proud of who we are and we want to be able to love the people we love or identify as we identify. And, you know, um, you know, even if you don't agree with everything, just showing your support and that you care about our community is is something that's important to me and, um, I think it's important to people going to be going to be there today or that day. Um, finally, I just want to go over some of the events that I've been doing uh since our last meeting. I had an enjoyable time at the annual uh ladybug trail springwalk. I got pictures of all the different ladybugs. Fun time. I also got to go to the uh walk the trail rail trail for celebrate trails day. Got to learn about the history uh around the rail trail. There's some interesting history about the that area of town that people may not be uh know. Um I also did even more walking with the Jane Jacobs walk. It was hosted by this group Ben for Franklin and we learned

about how zoning could lead to a more vibrant and welcoming downtown. You know, one example is how, you know, if you go to one side of downtown, all the the buildings line up sort of around the street and it feels more like a downtown, whereas if you go towards the other side, uh you see a lot more parking lots and doesn't feel as welcome. Um and finally, I also attended the Franklin Commission on Disability last Thursday to learn more about some of the great work they are doing. So, um, I just want to, like I said, give you an update what, you know, events of community and what I'm doing to try to make a difference here in Franklin. So, thank you. Thank you, man.

I have a couple things. Um, first, um, I after last night's meeting, um, I actually had a conversation um, with a resident and, um, I'm going to touch base on something that she said. And basically she said because our biggest issue above a deficit is trust. Trust is not going to be established with surveys or frequently asked questions. It's not going to solve engagement issues or established trust. These have their place 100%. But to solve what has been broken, we must respond to emails, calls, etc. If we can't respond, how can we ask for trust? We are only sending the message of the past which is your concerns are not important enough to respond to when the message should be your voice and concerns are important and even though we may not be able to give you the answer or the outcome that you want or maybe we can. But regardless, we respect you taking the time to reach out and you deserve a response and acknowledgement. we read your email and answered your call, nothing less is going to help build back what is broken. So, as hard as it is, because I know like for a lot of you, you work full-time, but even with my s and this is just a suggestion, even if you pick one day a week that you go through the emails and and just give responses. Um because I've done that and I've even got it where like I'll get back to you and then I forget and then I get the respond email. I'm like, "Oh, yeah." and I spoke with one resident at least a half a dozen times and I'm like, I still got you on my to-do list. I just haven't had a chance to get any answers. Just the

constant communication is what a lot of residents are looking for. And as residents that were not sitting here, put yourself in that situation on the amount of emails that you may have sent and didn't always get responses from any of them or only a couple. You wanted the response from every nine every person that you emailed, whether it's school committee, whether it's town council. if they put nine people or seven on that email, they should get nine responses. We just can't do a reply all. So, that was my first thing. Second reason thing is I found by accident um a bill that would allow help in funding SRO for the school. And I was going to say it last night the meeting, but our meeting was late and we left and I was not staying for citizens comments. Um, the bill got basically I guess tabled and they decided not to do it. So I reached out to Jamie and I reached out to Jeff Roy and both of them gave me the same information and then I furthered it with Jeff Roy and said, "Well, how do we get it back on the table?" So, this isn't going to do anything for us this year, but um Reproy decided that suggested I should say that we email um

I forget who. Senator Okconor. Thank you. My brain is still tired. Um and draft a letter and send it to him to ask him to put it back in for consideration. And the reason I wanted Dave to come is because I think that the school committee should do the same thing. If we can get him to put it back on the table, then we can then reach out to rep Representative Roy and he will sign on it to like help push it through. Um, and Jamie said it wouldn't be hard to do the letter. Um, and if everyone's willing to sign it that we can maybe have it for next week and that way everyone will be here. We don't have to knock anybody's doors to come get a signature. It shouldn't be that hard to do, right?

It's not that hard at all. It's a onepage letter. It's pretty It's pretty straightforward. Yeah. But if we can get this and it gets passed, that means we can get funding to put SRO's back in the school and it will help offset the operational cost of it from the town. That's if we can I mean that's going to be up until the state house, right? We're going back into committee, right? Yeah. Currently it's um it's was sent a study um and to be honest and you know it's basically dead um there is a way to resuscitate the bill council Kellaway trip articulated that correct

um you know but I think to her point her and I spoke last night um even if they realize that there's some more support for this you know um I I've seen stranger than stranger things happen you never No,

you don't get you don't get hits unless you get at bats. So, you got to kind of get in the game and do it if you do it. Um I think um you know the likelihood this session is probably low just because they end the legislative session in two months. But um but it would lend a voice from another town um to the bill. I think it would help Senator Rous and [clears throat] Rep. Roy maybe sign on to the bill. I didn't research how many other co-sponsors there were. Um, but it would provide some sort of it would basically create a grant account in the Department of Education for communities to apply to offset uh a small portion of their cost for the SRO. So, um, it doesn't hurt. I think we all know how important the SRO is here. I know the teachers union has advocated. But I think last July they came into the council meeting council Delo and councelor Cormier ledger remember when um Emily and John and a few other folks came in and said we wanted the SRO's back. Um so I think it's a good faith effort. I I know for a fact the school committee and the school community support that type of thing. So um why not give it a shot?

Got nothing to lose. You got nothing to lose. It's literally like it's a 30inut letter for me to write. I mean it's not that it's very easy. The saying is you can't fight city hall, but I'm a firm believer as you can fight all of them. Sure. You just have to have the loudest voice in the room. Maybe advocate instead of fight. No, I'm just kidding. [laughter] I get it, too. I know. I know. I will I will make a huge statement. My voice they don't even need to give me a microphone. I will make sure that they hear us.

So, I totally in support of the of the idea of the of the principal. I think that makes a lot of sense. We want to be thoughtful though and careful that what that what we end up asking for isn't them taking money away from the schools already and and advocate you know and putting it towards SRO's kind of I read I think it's it's not if it's coming from if it's coming from a different pocket yeah basically so if that's coming from somewhere else

that we're comfortable with it coming from I don't know absolutely unimportant but I think that's the thing to just keep an eye on is you know money doesn't come fall from trees as everyone knows. So um is where is where is where is that resource going to come from? But it's worth asking and it's worth having a discussion. That's what the committee does. Yeah. Yeah. So all right and that's it. I'm done. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, first off, I want to say congratulations to the Franklin Food Pantry um on their recent celebration and uh was lucky enough to attend with a few other counselors when we recognized uh their hundreds of volunteers and the thousands of hours that they give to make the food pantry run. It was held across the street at the uh New England Chapel. It was a great event. So, congratulations to all of them and thank you for for the work. Um I wanted to touch quickly on um LA, it's been brought up already, but last night we did have a joint meeting with the school committee and it was trying to talk a little bit more about strategic planning and about sort of you know coming together and there was some confusion about the money that was being allocated to perhaps pay for a consultant. So I went back and there was two pockets of money. We had a state grant through Jeffroy's office that allowed us to do some marketing and work on the logo and as a good faith effort the council took money from free cash capital program to match it so that we could show the state that we were also contributing to the marketing project. So, I just wanted everyone to understand because there was a little confusion last night. So, the state money got spent on the marketing project and the logo and the different things that we did and the capital money that was left over is what was going to possibly pay for the consultant in the strategic plan. But if we decide to not go down that route and take that money back and use it for something else that is within our purview to do. But there was quite a bit of everyone sort of scratching their heads last night and wondering and I was trying to zoom come in from Zoom and I

don't think I articulated that quite as as good as I should have. But that's where that money uh those two pockets of money come from for that project. Um, and finally, Jane, I I really welcome hearing you yell at the state house. I I want to I want to I want I want I want I I want to go and I want a front seat and I'll bring the popcorn cuz I think that would be a hoop. Um and uh I'm not sure they'll like it.

And and lastly, uh just to reiterate again, uh Council Morangelo brought it up, but we are planning our third annual uh pride flag raising at the end of the month. Um, it's I think it's very important if council members can come and show their support. Um, I know from the community standpoint, it's a big deal uh to see that flag go up on town property and show the values of Franklin for um a group of people that are sometimes uh not treated as well as they should be. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yep. I have uh three things. First want to start um just basically seconding the point that Steve brought up about Memorial Day. I think it's a um a great day for our families. I know a lot of us like to do cookouts and things like that. I'm someone who has since 1999 I've been doing Memorial Day services um not here in Franklin but other towns because of the um reenactment work that I do. And it was um you know Memorial Day is a a day that was started just after the Civil War um decoration day to decorate the graves of those who had um who had died during the Civil War. And just interesting to see over the years kind of who turned out and who's been turning out for this. And I remember after 9/11 um that you know two of 2001 um the amount of people who showed up was amazing like at you know Memorial Day services and then you know the next year was a little bit less and then it's tapered off and I it'd be great to see um our community come out. So, just I just want to say to everyone, think about coming out for that um that event uh at the World War I Memorial where we do the dedications and I'll be there this year in Franklin. Um number two, want to speak about uh Jane's um just also comment on Jane's point about the email. Um she gave me the speech before she gave it to everybody else [laughter] and I went back and I did my email. I even went back to February email about the snowstorm and the garbage and all that. um and answered someone. So um so I will be answering all the emails um going forward. Um and then I want to just last thing is just to speak a little bit about last night. Um very positive event um for uh the town council school committee. Great to see everybody working together. That's really I think when we um ran for for town office that's really kind of what we were looking to see. So that's really positive. I'll say there's just one little piece I'll be critical about is that for you know a lot of us just an improvement we can do is that we before

we put out an RFP if there's some of us who don't want to hire a consultant then let's not do the let's stop it at the RFP point let's not you know once we do the RFP and we put that out there and then you know it means that you know we want to go forward and hire the the consultant. So um so I was a little bit disappointed in that but I'm you know I'm ready to work with everybody. I think what I'm going to do is is work on basically put my ideas on paper as far as what I think that strategic plan should be, what we should be getting out of that. Let everyone, you know, share that with everyone and you guys give your comments, too. And hopefully we can make um progress in that because I think that'll be really positive for our community. That's it for me.

Thanks, J. Um yeah, everybody just about covered it out. The Memorial Day is kind of special for me, especially around here because, you know, I most of my relatives left here and went and fought in war, you know, so their names are on the plaques up there. They're on the they're on the [snorts] walkways. And so there was, as my father would say, there was nobody here. No, everybody left. There was nobody here when, you know, that was during World War II. And um they all went and they all came back and just went to work the next day and that was it. It was amazing. But, you know, I I I remember driving my father around when he was older and and you know, like he went by uh Jerry Pment and you know, my father's 81 and he knew him very well. And uh I remember him saying, "Jesus, that kid never got to see, you know, he's calling him a kid even though he grew up with him." You know what I mean? So, for the people that have didn't make it home, you know what I mean? It kind of hit me kind of funny, you know. It was like, well, he's still calling him a kid because he never he never got to grow up, you know what I mean? So, that's kind of special. Uh and and I want to uh say that um during this little sbatical we had here with the safe coalition had their galler and um myself and uh councelor Callaway trip and ledger we all went there and we attended and uh it was an amazing amazing night for me. It was sort of something special because I have come off the board because I'm getting into retirement and trying to cut down things. But for a founder, uh, as Jen said that night, um, you know,

sitting on the porch the first night we had our first overdose, it was Representative Roy, myself, Jim, Derek, and her. To see 10 years later what that has come to, it was very amazing to me. It it it really was uh I mean there was thousands and thousands of people there. I mean there was I mean Gillette was filled. It was a lot of Franklin residents, right? A great event. It was a great event. Cost me 2500 bucks, but that [laughter] was all right. Well, I shouldn't have said that. I told my wife it was 15. [laughter] They won't tell.

Nobody. But it was a great event and it, you know, I wish them all luck and I'll always be part of SAFE, but it's just I won't be doing what I normally do. You know, just a quick question. On the Memorial Day, what time do the roads get closed off? Good question. Sure about that, but I can get you an answer. Um, I think the parade starts at 10:00 if I'm not mistaken. I think it's 11. 11. Probably a little bit 11:00 a.m. It starts at 11:00 a.m. So, I feel like they close an hour early. Yeah, I think it's an hour. I wasn't sure if it was 11 or 10, but 10:00 is probably the time. That's probably what I'm thinking of is the road closure. And can I just say one more quick thing to Jason?

Dave, I'll come to your kickball tournament only. I can't run the bases. I have cervical spine issues. So, I'll kick the ball for everybody and you guys can run. Absolutely. [laughter] That would also be worth seeing. [laughter] You've given me a social event to look forward to now. Jean, this is amazing. Watch out for the hamstrings. [laughter] All right, moving on. Subcommittees. Uh, joint budget subcommittee. Uh,

yeah, we held our first session. Um, yeah, again, [cough and clears throat] I don't like you on the day. I didn't write it down. Uh we held our first session on April 15th, I want to say, I'm sorry, April 16th. Um you know, the session was really designed to just make sure we all were aligned in terms of uh the goals of the of the committee. Um I won't go into the detail on that on it now but high level you know we were thinking about what's the time frame what issues we are we going to focus on how do we actually you know how are we actually going to approach the problem that I think we all recognize we have um you know it was a it was a very good first session uh we we have not yet scheduled the followup recognizing that there's a though we recognize that there's a lot of work to do um you know at The a in our next session, we intend to just codify the you know the strategic goal of the joint budget subcommittee and think and and talk through the plan for both uh identifying the issues uh imple you know implementing the solution that we that we want and communicating th that solution to the broader community. It was definitely a worthwhile first session. For those who uh have have an opportunity, I do highly suggest taking the the taking a look at it on YouTube.

Okay. And you will let us know when the next meeting and I'll let you know when the next meeting is. EDC Mike. Um next meeting is tomorrow. Um while I'm Well, I won't be there. My other three esteemed counselors will be there to uh go over the agenda. Other than that, that's the update right now. Thank you. communications.

All right, I've got a list. Um, so we met a few weeks ago and um, we actually had some really good suggestions that came out of it. We had a great conversation about how um, this subcommittee is focused not just on communications, but um, community engagement and making sure that we are um, hearing from the town and getting back to them and and really um, doing some outreach to to get people involved and hear some of the voices that we don't always hear. and also to get information to the people who might not be getting it already. So, we had several um suggestions that came out of it. I'm just gonna hit them really quickly because we have one at least one that um I'd like to bring up. So, we're just maybe us to think about in the future. But so some of the things that we suggested um were putting together like a one pager after each town council meeting just um something that kind of sums up quick hits on what went what happened things that can be dropped really easily into like social media um for people who aren't going to watch 4 hours of a town council meeting to get that information. They might not watch um you know Franklin Matters um interview later but just something really quick. Um, and so, um, our communications director, Liz, is creating that for us. So, we can, there'll be a template we can just drop things in. So, we're gonna work on that. Um, and it'll have like, you know, things that are coming up and links to like the town um, newsletter and and also maybe a spotlight on things that are things are people in town. Um, there was a suggestion to have like the big book of savings on um, the town website. I think that was um councelor Morenella's idea so that people can easily find um discounts or ways you know the like um tax work off program things like that um so that they are

front and center on our town website they can find that easily.

Um suggestion to have a liaison to the school committee or to share some of our communication meetings which we talked about a little bit last night. um suggestion to make very short like short videos of um explanations of topics of interest. So for example, when we um have the workshop later this year on um like a split tax rate, kind of doing a a quick little like this is what a a split tax rate is, so that before that even happens, people feel like they're a little bit more informed. Um, we recommended that, um, as a town council, we try to attend things like the strawberry stroll, harvest fest, uh, things like that. And I know that the town is putting together a booth at the or attempt at the, um, strawberry stroll. And, um, I know Marina had reached out to us to see if we wanted to, um, sit there for a while. I think that's a really good idea if we, I think we should all try to take an hour if we can to do that. Um, one thing we are actively working on is adding additional office hours. So, right now our uh town council office hours are 9:00, one Thursday a month at the senior center. It can be hard for people to get there. Um, or it's 8:30 in the morning, but either way, it's um early in the morning on a workday. So, it can be hard for people to get there. Um, so uh we're looking into different dates, times, and locations. So, um I've reached out to the library and I've reached out to the schools and they're both um finding location and dates for us. So, I think we're going to um have maybe a an evening at the at one of the schools or kind of move that around different schools and then um there's a Saturday at the library that we might be able to do so more people can attend. Um let's see. Sorry, I do have a lot of So, one thing is um having printed materials at the library and the senior center things that you know people for those people who aren't as involved in like the digital world if we have important information just making that making sure

that's available for people where they are and my two of two of the three other people from this [clears throat] communication subcommittee have already mentioned but are pushed to remind people to answer emails from the town. Um and then there was also a suggestion for us to um kind of take different um departments in town or different areas of um interest so that people want to reach out they can say oh I know that counselor call is the leazison for this specific thing and I know that if I reach out to her she will get me in touch with this person so that they're not just sending out nine emails and hoping that someone responds. That's something we can think about. Um, I don't know. We also, um, you know, don't want to say they can only talk to one person. We don't want them to feel that way, but that's something to think about. And then our next meeting is on May 28th.

Okay. I know that you you were talking about um meetings at night, you know, which which I would like because I work during the day anyway, but I mean, not for my long, but yeah. But uh but anyway, um Jamie, could could we do it could we do it up here or could we do it here? Um I mean you can use the municipal building. We've done office hours here before. Yeah. Um you know, most of the most of the meeting nights um you know, most of the chamber at least is usually used most. Yeah. But we can go to we can go to the training room. There's also 106 downstairs. That's a reservable room next to the town clerk's office. might be something you want to look

and I want I want to try to do a couple different places right around town and but yeah I think that's a really good so thank you for that that's a good time a lot of people think of the building this building as government you know what I mean so that's all right thank you um town charter ad hoc committee will our first meeting will be uh June 24th at 6 p.m. Yep. So, uh, we'll get going on that. And there's no police station building committee. We don't have anything. So, um, no, you have no proclamations or recognitions tonight. Approval of minutes. None. I don't administrative report.

Is it? It just got cut off. It got cut off, Jamie. I didn't know. I know you're trying to get out of here, but I'm sorry. You didn't have to cut off. I was so was it you that mentioned it? I was I was hoping you go really quickly uh through you Mr. Chairman through the council um to council LeBlanc the town engineer has already taken note of the request of the overpass. Um we've been through this dog and pony show many many times with the state. So um the lights up there have been tweaked at least two or three times over the years if not more. Um but it's

for 12 12 years at least. Yeah, 12 years. So, uh we'll ask uh the process is we actually request um out of mass dot district 3. They have to do an actual analysis. If you want to offer any comments as to where exact like like what light which way. Um, if it's just the backup turning on Pawn Street, um, I don't know if that's the issue, but um, feel free to anybody if you're going through that intersection, send, you know, myself or Mike the comments. Um, because you have to be specific. Can we do a video? Huh? You could a video from the car. Y just not driving. [laughter] That's right. I was just going to say

I can tell because I'm stuck all the time. So, I'm stuck texting and driving.

I'm stuck in the 18 cars pile pile up. uh going on to Pon Street. In all seriousness though, we we really need some sort of specific to ask them because then they'll go out and actually do an entire study of the intersection because there's a lot of pedestrian crossings there. You get the Tri County School where a lot of kids come out. Um it's more complicated than people would think, of course, but um but any feedback any of you have, give it to me or Mike, send us an email so we can relay that to district 3. District 3 is going to ask us specifically where are the hang-ups so that they can look at those and it just makes it more effective um for Mike to be able to work with them. Um often times in the back I I think in history it's sometimes can take a year plus for them to do a study. So the quicker you get us comments the quicker we can talk to them

uh and move on. We had that done. This is the guy right here. You're lucky he's here today for a water sewer extension. He heard the request and he already jotted it down. So what's up? We had we had that done. They came out once before, didn't they? Oh, yeah. They did a huge huge one. Uh maybe right before the pandemic. I think it was like 2019. They did a huge huge when they put that Starbucks in. I think

Yeah, that was one of them. But then there was another one after that. Yeah, there was a bigger one um after that. But um and then really quickly, uh thank you to um the board of health director Kathy Liberty as well as the board of health. Kim Wucha is a member right over there. Um this past week um they did a ban on natural and synthetic uh products. Um for those of you that don't know what that is like me um it's the latest fad in synthetic drugs. And so um the Board of Health in Franklin is now the 15th municipality out of 351 in Massachusetts to ban those. And on May 20th, every single retail outlet that's selling that stuff in Franklin um uh will be uh completely banned. So, thank you very much to Kim and the board of health for their leadership on this. Um I hope these convey some of the small stories that our government is doing all the time. Um it may not be something that people know about. Um I didn't know about this stuff. Um I still don't really know about it. I still don't even know how to pronounce it. but the fact that um they're on top of it. Uh thank you very much Kim and to Kathy um for their great work. Uh congratulations to Cali Heading. I think uh probably parents in the room probably know Cali very well. If you don't um you should anyways cuz she's amazing. She was just named uh 2026 Commonwealth Heroine uh by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. So Callie's going to get an award soon um up at the state house. I want to thank uh Rep. Roy and Senator Roush for their nominating Cali. She's a a tremendous asset. Truly, words do no justice about how incredible Cali is down at the uh Franklin Public Library. Um budget dates coming up uh next week, the town council will have their two budget hearings uh on May 20th and May 21st. Um just again to reiterate, um you'll be looking at the original town administrator's budget. healthcare numbers have not come in yet um from the GIC um and so we will not

have a revised TA budget at that meeting. However, um there will be a revised TA budget uh based on the healthc care numbers and a few other tweaks um probably on June 3rd at the finance committee. Uh so the finance committee will look at those list of changes and then we anticipate the council will take action on the final budget proposal on June 10th. So, anybody out there that's curious about the budget, um, again, now's the time to pay attention. Um, also just want to announce and thank um, CSX um, and Mike Magio, our town engineer in DPW. The track is now officially gone um, on the CSX railed um, which is incredibly good news. Um, I will also say and just make sure it's clear to everybody um, there is no driving. Yep. because we've had a car try to go down there. Um, you cannot get through if you drive down it. So, do not drive. There are no ATVs. There's nothing that is allowed on there other than walking and biking. I also there will be some signage going up asking people to not walk down the trail yet. Um, the grading they did was actually way better than we thought. It was great.

Um, it was actually they left it in immaculate condition. They took away all the hazardous ties and track. Um, but just for public safety purposes, it's really important that people do not use that trail bed yet. Um, there'll be more news coming when I have it about um the easement uh agreement I have with the Department of Conservation and Recreation at the state level where they're going to be giving us a million dollars um of state ARPA money for that. Um I have also asked Rep. Roy for a $3.5 million earmark in the environmental bond bill. My goal is to try to make the state pay for the construction of that entire parcel. There will be a public process later this fall um on designing that parcel out. We anticipate a parking lot at the top um which is good for the entire Franklin Crossing neighborhood. Um some signage. There'll be some marketing. It'll take a few years. Um but we're asking people to please stay off that trailway for right now. Um, I know I know the vice president of curiosity and persistence, Bob Ammerch, is probably really excited about this, but for the Bellingham Rail Trail uh committee, this is not the time to get that excited and walk down that trail. Um, there's just uh it's just for public safety purposes. And finally, I just want to thank um Julie and Mark and Liz and Sandy in my office and all the town staff. And I want to thank your uh temporary acting town administrator, the chief of police, TJ Lynch um for an amazing job over the last two weeks while I was on vacation. I just want to thank them for holding down the fort. Um it was amazing that uh over two weeks I did not get one email from one department head. So that was actually really impressive and that was the first time that's ever happened. But I want to thank Chief Lynch um for his leadership. The entire staff was extraordinarily well behaved. It might have been the gun he has or the Kevlar vest, but um I just want to thank uh Julie and everybody in the office for holding down the Ford and thank you all of you um for a very restful vacation and and trying not to call me. So um thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, don't drive down that. I I I might know somebody that did that when they were young [laughter] with the tracks. Another cousin of yours. Yeah, he's son of a gun. [laughter] All right. Proclamation and recognitions. No approvals of minutes. Appointments. The commission on disability. We have a John Lynch. Uh clerk will read the appointment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an appointment to the Franklin Commission on Disability. The town administrator has appointed the following individuals to serve on the Franklin Commission on Disability with terms to become effective May 13, 2026, and to expire as stated below. The first person is John Lynch of 90 East Central Street, Unit 2011, termed to expire June 30th, 2028. Second person is Steve Papsis of 124 Highwood Drive, term to expire June 30th, 2028. The third person, Julie McCann of 355 East Central Street, term to expire June 30th, 2027. Motion to ratify the appointments by the town administrator of these individuals named above to serve on the Franklin Commission on Disability with terms to become effective May 13th, 2026 and to expire as stated above.

The motion. Do we have a second? Second. Discussion. Thank you. I think they're here. Just let me thank the folks. Steve and John are right here. Thank you. If you guys want to say anything, you can. Yes. Just ready to go to work, right? That's it. All right. Uh we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion pass. Congratulations. Thank you everybody for stepping up. Thank you for stepping up.

No public hearing. No license transaction presentation. We have a presentation on OPED by Dan Sherman. It's always fun. So, um, he's on one. All right. So, you can see Dan there. I don't see D. I don't see Dan. Oh, we're letting him in. There he is. Hey, Dan. Hey. Sorry about that. All right. Okay. Good evening. Hey, Dan. How are you? There he is. Very good. Um, so according to Terry, I need to share my screen. Nope.

Nope. You're all set, Dan. We got it up. Oh, you have it up. Okay. Excellent. Just tell me what page you want as usual. All right. So, we we fixed that. Excellent. So, um, what I'd like to do is move to, uh, page three. Dan, could you just quickly with a bunch of new members of the council just since the last time you're here, we have seven new members. I was just wondering if you could do a quick introduction to yourself and then also could you tell us what OPED what OPED is?

Yeah. What is this thing? Um, sure. So, uh, my name is Dan Sherman. Uh, I'm an actuary. I've been working in uh the public sector chapter 32 on the pension side since 1986 when chapter 697 came out. Um I got involved with postretirement medical which is what OPED basically is um about 20 years ago when it when gazby came out with a statement um basically OPED stands for other postemployment benefits and roughly 20 years ago the government accounting standards board said hey cities and towns and states you are promising to pay your retirees a portion of their uh medical coverage, life insurance, some have dental and other uh type benefits. And you're you have no idea what you have. And we don't think that's a good idea. And we want you to calculate the value of the promise that you're making to retirees and put it on your financial statements. So I've been doing OPED valuations somewhere over 25 years because the uh at the corporate level uh that had to be adopted uh under a fazby pronouncement. Um I was maybe close to 30 years ago now time flies. Um and so basically government accounting standards board said we like what the financial accounting standards board is doing and we want municipal allies to do the same thing. So every year there is a report that has to be issued regarding the value of the promise that the town of Franklin has made to all of his retirees. Um police, fire, town accountant, administration,

um school uh employees including the teachers. Um unlike the pension plan uh where teachers are under the Massachusetts state pension program um for OPED purposes um teachers are uh Franklin's um obligation. So I've been doing the work for Franklin for probably the you know 20 plus years and every year I come in and discuss um what you have for assets set aside to cover this liability uh what the liability is and I give you the figures uh for your outside auditing firm uh and for your accountant to record on your financial statements. How is that

short overview? Thanks. Okay, now you can get into it. Now we get into the numbers. Now we get into numbers.

So page three and of course the [clears throat] the government accounting stands board just can't say these are your assets. They had to make up a new term. So they call it net position restricted for OPED when they could have just said assets in the trust. It's the same thing. So, um, Franco's been putting money aside. Um, and kudos to you for doing that and building up, um, a fund. So, this first little chart just shows, um, your net position, your net assets in the trust, which by the way is invested with the state. Um the pension reserves investment management uh group at um in Boston have been managing your assets for many years. They do a great job. Um I'm u a member of the finance committee and retirement board for the town of Wakefield. Um we've been investing with the state since the beginning and their average investment return has been in excess of 9% over the last 35 years. They do excellent work. So, your assets were at 14 million a year ago. Uh, actually June 30th to 24. Um, in here I have what's labeled as employer contributions. Um, if you look on your uh budget, it's not going to say $4.7 million. It's going to be substantially less than that. Um what I include in the employer contributions is the pay go amount that you are now paying for your retirees premium. Um so it's basically a way of it's a notional account if you will but I'm showing 4.7 the actual benefit payments that went out is 4.2. So roughly uh 500,000 was

contributed um uh in the in that that particular year. You have expenses. Investment income was excellent at $1.5 million. So your your assets against this liability is $16.3 million. Let's go to the next page. So the next page shows your liability. So it was um at June 30th of 24 which was an estimate based on the 23 valuation because we do the liability calculations um to the dollar every other year and 24 was a roll forward year assuming all assumptions were met. Um the service cost of 2.8 8 million. That represents the value of a one-year acrruel for all your active employees because now they're one year closer to retirement. They've got one more year of service. There's a value to that one year um of service to the town and that's at $2.8 million and that's again just purely for the active employees. There's interest on this obligation that comes in about 6 million. you [clears throat] had a very large loss of $27 million um between 23 and 25. And I'll get into details as to why you had a very large loss of $27 million. Um and I'll get that uh into that here um in a minute. But it's um it's something that um I had some discussions with the administration, you know, what is going on, what happened um and I'll explain u later on in this report. Uh benefit payments that were actually made out to the um retirees comes in at 4.5. Um and for those that are sharpeyed may say, "Wait a second, Dan. This is 4.5 million. On the previous page, it was

less than that." Um and the reason for the difference is the Gazsby said um you need to um allocate some extra money to the retiree liability uh because what's called the implicit subsidy when you have um a premium let's say from Harvard Pilgrim um it's one rate for all ages doesn't matter there's no adjustment for age um so you know that older employees and retirees are more expensive than the younger. And so there's an implicit subsidy of younger employees costs are paying a little extra to cover the extra cost the retirees. And that's called the implicit subsidy. So on a liability side, the um Gazsby said, "Hey, you need to include that implicit subsidy in your liability." And that's why you'll see on page three and page four different numbers. the total liability increased to 110 million. Um, a very large uh increase. Um, further down in the page, the next uh table, um, the other thing that the Gazsby requires is some idea as to what happens if we change the discount rate uh by going up 1% or going down 1%. Um so for those this is something that'd be useful for um the rating agencies uh for if you issue bonds um the Wall Street will want to see well what if you have a bad period of time on your assets and you only earn 6 1/2%. What's that going to do? What if you make 8 12% which is close to where you have been making? Um what happens then? And you can see it drops down about $98 million. [clears throat] uh assets, excuse me, assets stay the same.

And um I was also requested to do the breakouts between uh water, sewer, next page, storm water and solid waste. So we just picked up um those um additional uh pieces. And at the the next at the bottom of this page, Gazsby also said, "Hey, what happens if your medical trend is higher by 1% than expected or lower by 1% versus expected? What does that do to your liabilities?" And you can see is if if your rate of increases on medical cost is lower than my assumption by 1% you can see the liability drops from 110 million down to 94 or call it 95. If your um health care costs go up faster than expected by 1% you can see it jumps up to 128 call it 129 million. So again, this is something that the auditors and rating agencies and Wall Street will look at to see what happens if um things don't work out exactly as expected. And again, it's broken out by water, sewer, storm water, solid waste. On the following page to top of page six is your expense. So this expense is not something that you'll show um as a budget item. Um this is purely a notional amount that goes on the financial statements. Um it is not dollars in the sense that this is what you have to budget. Um but this gives you um what the annual expense uh would be for fiscal year 25. And we have again the service cost which is a one-year acrruel interest on your liability. You

have amortizations of uh experience assumption changes. Um there's earnings as an offset. Um you have an expense and then you have another amortization on assets uh which are all negative numbers uh which push things down um from what it would have been. So the expense on the books is 7.1 million. Again, it's not the dollars in a budget. It's purely um an accounting entry. The bottom of the page just goes through a comparison of your liability before and after your assets before and after. Um and then the funded ratio. So the 14.8% 8%. Um, a year ago it was about 18%. But because of the big loss on um, experience it dropped down to about 14.8%. Now there are many communities out there that are zero. They're not funding anything. Um, there's a lot of communities that are above 15%. Uh, my community, Wakefield, we're about um 48 about 48% maybe 50% funded right now. We put a lot of money aside many years ago and as I said um the state has done a great job on investing your uh covered employee payroll is roughly 78 million and this last number the 120.4% 4% um gives the reader uh in this case the auditing agencies, the rating agencies of Wall Street some idea [clears throat] is how big is this liability um in comparison to the town? In other words, how do I compare Franklin to Middle Sex County, state of Massachusetts or Cleveland, Ohio? Um so this last figure of 120% uh gives a reader some idea as how you would

compare to um another community that's not of the same size as Franklin. Uh the following page just goes to the amortizations. Um we can we can go by those um and go past page seven and I would jump to page nine. So page nine on the medical premiums. This is where this is where we really came into the issue of how in the world did the liability go so much higher. And Harvard Pilgrim all um six plans that you have there for Harvard Pilgrim had increases from um June 30th to 23 to June 30th to 25 in the neighborhood of 20 to 23%. My assumption was 4% a year. So it should be about 8% not not 20. And so obviously with those huge increases in premium beyond what anybody would expected um that had a huge impact. Um the last one the Etna um Medicare

um used to be the Harvard Pilgrim Medicare plan which was at uh $290 a month. Uh this is five five call it 560 um a 93% increase um that's huge. So anybody who's all the retirees on the Medicare side saw um you know 70 80% increase in the premiums from uh 23 to 25. This is an absolutely huge driver. The following page just shows your headcount and you added um a number of people roughly 160 people were added in total. You had 1938 um last July 1st um two years prior to that you had 1771. So that's like an almost a 10% increase in the population of people um getting some kind of benefit from the program. So combined with the two of them, um you can anticipate a very large increase. So now I'm going to scroll all the way ahead to um I think it's page 13 if I got that right. So on the Medicare uh Whoops, went right by it. There you go. Right there you go. So um in here we have to do something called cu uh determination of the capital uh per capita claims cost that's incurred. So it's a weighted by age um average of the cost to premiums and it runs from age 40 um up to 85 and then it levels off and there's a change at age 65 where it's assumed that people get on Medicare. So you can see that on the third line

25,187 and 4673 is the new um age adjusted weighted average cost um for uh non-teers. Two years prior to that, it was $20,252,900 roughly um a 25% increase on the first number and a 62% increase in the second one. For teachers, similar results. It was a 19% increase um on the first number and 103% increase on the second number. The 4363 for example used to be 2760. So the entire experience increase being so large is driven by those two factors. You have much higher premiums than anybody expected and you added almost 10% to the population. So those are the drivers. So those are things that I wanted to talk about. Um and I'd be happy to take any questions um or cover anything else in the report. Uh, the rest of report just goes through assumptions and methods and what I like to call boilerplate.

Thanks. Stuff that'll put you to sleep. Thanks, Dan. Um, I'll go to the council. Do we have any questions? Mike. No, go ahead, Max. You first. Okay. Um, I just want I had a question. Uh, couple quick questions. On page four, uh you said that the plan assets represent 18.12 of the total OPED liability. Was that for FY uh for uh 2024 25? Cuz the other later on page six, it shows 14.8. It's it's 148. And if there's something on page four that says 18, it's a typo.

Okay. So, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it does say 18, too. That's last That's That's what it was uh a year ago. Thank you for pointing that out. I had missed that. And then uh I I just also want to point out that the um Franklin voted to join the GIC and that's not going to be reflected until next year's in the next period's report. Is that correct? Yes. And and like correct. Yeah. Yep. Any any modifications that you make after July 1st of 25 will be reflected in the 27 OPED report year. Unless you have one done late, unless you do unless you do a full evaluation earlier.

And so do you expect that our liability will go down because we're uh our premiums are going down compared to the the previous um plans? Oh, clearly. Yeah. Any any reductions in your premiums will have a direct effect uh on these numbers. Okay. So, we could see our liability go down potentially. Um yes, you could. Okay. You could. Yes. Thank you. That's all I got. For sure, man. Mike, um Dan, did you explain what the $27 million loss was? That was my question. He did. Yeah, I missed it.

It was the rise. It was the main driver where the healthc care premiums going up over 20% over two fiscal years. And obviously, I think everybody's aware of what's happened to Medicare with the not just the Etna premiums because of the cuts to Medicare. I think he said something like a 90% increase over what the Etna rates was was so was really because of the health care premiums in the Medicare premiums going skyrocketing through the roof. Did I have that correct, Dan? Yep, it is correct. And plus the increase in uh participants. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay. Um and as it relates to um it's been a practice every year uh from a free cash perspective to put about a half a million dollars into this. Correct. 10% of all of the free cash flow. Correct.

So in that employer contribution amount of 4.7, I'm assuming that is in that contribution. Is that amount reflected in that contribution? Dan, that's that's correct. Okay. So if we didn't make that contribution, it would have been a wash. The amount of benefits out would have equaled our our contribution for the year. We would have made headway in our fun. Yeah. It would have been much obviously been much closer, but you would still would have small difference because of the implicit subsidy that I described where the active employees are subsidizing retirees. You still would have had a small difference, but it wouldn't be as large as what you see. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. You're welcome.

Question.

So, uh, so where does Franklin stand with regard to our funded ratio compared to say other communities? Oh, that's that's a that's a kind of somewhat of a loaded question. Um, well, because there's 351 communities plus, you know, there's agencies, there's school regional school districts, and it's a huge population. Um, probably the best thing to do is take a look at um a report that PARK just issued um Friday. I think um OPED report was issued by the parak which is the public employees retirement commission and they issued a report based on all the reports that they received. Um what I can say is that I know many communities are sitting at zero. Um I mentioned at Wakefield we're about 48% funded. I think most communities are probably in the same position you are in terms of 15 to 20% uh funded, but I would suggest going to the state website. It's uh p a uh massachus state no mass us I think is where the website is. Um but but that that that shows um many communities that that they've received and it includes uh the funding ratios for um I don't know probably over a hundred different communities. So that'd be a good resource to take a look at.

Okay. Then my second question is with regards to the same ratio, where has Franklin been in in over the years as far as a range low and high? Um you guys have I think you you started out funding early on um like many uh like a handful of communities and others have caught on. Um so I got to believe you guys were you know at at the beginning and putting money aside. Um something I applauded you know many years ago um before this group um maybe different members but same uh organization. Um, and one of the things I pointed out back then, and I'm feeling it right now with with Wakefield, because I'm, as I said, I'm on a finance committee, is that when you put this money aside and you've got over $16 million, um, it also becomes like a reserve, not quite a, you know, stabilization account, but it's like a reserve. Um Wakefield I mentioned u we've been putting money aside and this year for the fiscal year 27 we have a budget crisis uh which is not uncommon. You've probably heard where communities such as Lexington, Watertown, Marblehead uh Winchester have laid off people, cut back. Um in Wakefield we had a $5 million shortfall in front of us. Um, we just had town meeting last week and instead of putting a half a million dollars in, we're actually going to take a million5 out of our fund. We've got about $48 million in our account um because we can't balance the budget without huge layoffs. So, we decided to take some money out to pay retiry benefits. So our healthc care account um got split between tax levy um major

portion still tax levy and a million5 is coming from available funds in this case um our OPEC trust. So if you do run into problems with your budget just remember that out of that $16.3 million and you're paying you know over 4 million to retirees. If you say, "Geez, you know, maybe we can pull a half a million dollars out of the OPEG trust to help us out in other areas of the budget." Um, it's a, you know, it's an opportunity. There are risks with doing that. Um, risk in terms of your rating. Um, you know, if the rating agency comes in and sees you're not funding it. Um, and this is something I articulated to our town meeting is that yeah, we're going to pull a million five to balance our budget, but um, we dropped from AAA to double A+ and this could hurt us further um, next time we want to do a borrowing. So, um, there is a risk of pulling that money, but um, if push comes to shove, it is something that's available. really quickly through the chair. Um, just for everybody here, what we've done here is instead of pulling out of the trust, we've obviously cut the entire OPEC contributions we've made for the last two years, right? So, instead of pulling money out of the trust, which to Dan's point

is a bond rating issue. Um, you know, I think the finance committee this year recommended um to cut the entire contribution. and it was 150,000 that was originally in my budget and they chose to cut the remainder of that to propose to you to to basically zero out the OPED contribution that's in the operating budget. As everybody remembers, our policy is, you know, was to add $50,000 a year to the OPED uh number in the operating budget and then to do 10% of the free cash total each year. Um over the last two or three fiscal years, we've contributed very very few dollars to the trust. I think there was one year where you guys did do the free cash a few years ago,

but in the budget cuts of the last two years with the failed overrides, we cut basically basically right now we'd be looking at a million dollars in the operating budget contributing to the OPED trust. And I would also note um that we're getting an 8.8% aggregate return since we've been in the um since we've been in the uh state um since we've been investing our money in the state. um accounts. So at an 8.8% return, you're getting an enormous return on that money. Right? To Dan's point earlier, he said Wakefield was like at a 9% return. We're just a hair below that at 8.8. That's a pretty good return on your investment on your money. But I also respect the fact that um it saved a lot of critical jobs, right? So I mean it's a it's kind of a shell game at some point. So um we've never in Franklin since we've started this and I wasn't here when it was started. I think council might have been the first year I think 2010 or so. Um we've never drawn any money out of the OPED trust. Um but I will say our standing relative to other communities

has definitely equaled out. We used to be up in the top 10% of communities in Massachusetts that were prepared and to council's question which many members have asked over the years. Now we're slipping down and we're slipping down

because you're getting all of these factors kind of confluencing at once, right? We're not depositing money. We're not getting the 9% return on our investment. We're not contributing any money. And also, health care and Medicare are going and spiking going through the roof. So, the obligation we have to pay um is there. But to councelor Morangello's point, um you know, um you know, at some point um that could flip, right? if GIC rates are lower or if healthc care rates nationwide stabilize, you know, our our projections could improve, right, in a couple years or so.

Yeah, I I might add um by not putting the monies in, one of the things that I have to do um part of the calculations is that you have to determine the discount rate and we're using 7 and a half%. If you continue to not put the money in, um, and this is the same issue with Wakefield because we're we're not putting the money in. Um, I may be forced to lower that discount rate from 7.5% to something less than that. And if that happens, then the liability goes up because now you're earning less money in the eyes of of Wall Street and and the rating agencies. So, there's a risk of not putting money in in in the sense that it may increase your liability that shows up on your books. When are we supposed to be fully funded?

Dan, do you know the year they they targeted to be fully funded? I know they changed the date all the time. They changed it since I started there. There is there is none on OPED. There's no date. There's no date now. I know it was like No, it never was. There never. Yeah. You're just think you and I are thinking both of the pension. Oh, yeah. Maybe I'm thinking of the pension. I'm sorry. Yeah. Pension. Pension is 2040. Yeah. That went up 10 years. That's right. Go ahead.

Thank you for the presentation. I just have a question. Is there a a year that we might be concerned just based on the you know if we sort of took a poll of the employees of the town when we may have a larger amount retiring that we may face an issue with this fund. I mean, I can't I know we look at averages, but you know, I just wondering if we've done that study to say, "Yeah, come 2040, we're going to have a real issue because we have a gigantic number of people retiring or expected to retire." Have we done that?

Yeah, it's actually the opposite of that. Um, you're part of um Norfolk County, correct? The retirement system. And I haven't looked at their latest report, but they're on they last I recall, they were on track to become fully funded in 2032 or 2034, something like that. And when that happens, your contributions to Norfolk County retirement system are going to drop like a rock. Um because uh probably 85 80% or 85% of the contributions you're putting into Norfolk County retirement is for their unfunded liability. Um so then once they're fully funded, you'll only have to pay your normal cost or your your one-year acrruel. So what many communities are doing is saying, you know, we're going to put a minimal amount into OPED and then when retirement is fully funded and we see huge savings, you know, millions of dollars in savings, some or most or at least a great portion of that savings will go into OPED and then you'll start funding that more aggressively. So, I think for Franklin, um, if you can hold steady with a zero on your contribution and not pull money out and just wait for the day when Norfolk County becomes fully funded, then you'll have an opportunity to uh take that savings and put it into the OPED trust.

Okay. Thank you, Dan. It's 2036 when we're supposed to 36 36 10 years away. Yeah. Well, you'll still be [laughter] I'll be on Beaver Street. [clears throat] Mr. Chairman, go ahead. Just one quick question.

Um, thank you for the presentation. This is very helpful. Um, especially the last part of the discussion that you that you had, Dan. What are we paying out roughly every year from the account? Well, nothing from the account, but what you pay to your retiree premiums is roughly $4.2 million. So, explain that to me. What does that mean? If we're not paying it from this account, that that 4.2 million is coming from the operating budget for Yes. Yeah. It's operating budget. Okay. That's what I was when you mentioned that number for, I wasn't sure where that came from. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay. Anybody else? Nobody else. All good. Dan, thank you. Doc, you're very welcome. Have a good evening. Thank you. You too. Thank you.

Okay, that's not moving on. Legislation for action. First legislation actually zoning bylaw amendment 26-946 a zoning bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin chapter 185 attachment 7 part six use of regulation schedule second reading cler will read it thank you Mr. Chairman, this is the Town of Franklin zoning bylaw amendment 26-946, a zoning bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin at chapter 185, attachment 7, part six, use regulation schedule. Be it enacted by the Franklin Town Council that chapter 185 of the code of the town of Franklin is hereby amended by the following additions and deletions to subsection 185 attachment 7 use regulations schedule part 7. And the foregoing zoning bylaw amendment shall take effect in accordance with the Franklin home rule charter and Massachusetts general law chapter 4A section 5.

Motion to approve zoning bylaw amendment 26946. Second. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. Discussion. Just a question. The 26 946 947 948 949. These are the ones that just had to be cleaned up. Is that what I'm looking at? The ones we voted on before before they just had to do clean up like the verbiage. Okay. And if you [laughter] see a second reading, we've already seen it once. Okay. So, I have a motion and a second. All in favor? No. Roll call.

Roll call. Say roll call. Roll call. Yeah. Okay. The two3 majority 23. Okay. Roll call vote on this zoning bylaw amendment 26-946. Councelor Rejuku. Yes. Councelor Marangelo. Yes. Councelor Mallaloy. Yes. Councelor Leblank. Yes. Councelor Griffith. Yes. Councelor Callaway Trip. Yes. Myself. Yes. Vice Chair. Yes. And chairman. Yes.

90. Sir. Moving on. Zoning bylaw amendment 26-947. A zoning bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin. Chapter 185 attachment 9 schedule of lot area frontage yard and height requirements. This is the second reading. So chair, I make a motion to wave the reading. Second discussion. All in favor? I. Motion to approve zoning bylaw 26947. Second. I have a motion and a second. Discussion.

All in favor? Majority roll call vote.

Two. Majority. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. Come on. Going as fast as I can. Where did that go? We're on 26947, right? Go ahead. Go ahead. Mr. Chairman, this will be a roll call on the second reading for zoning bylaw amendment 26-947. Councelor Ajuko, yes. Councelor Morangello,

yes. Councelor Mallaloy, yes. Councelor Leblanc, yes. Councelor Griffith, yes. Councelor Callaway Trip, yes. Myself, yes. Vice Chair, yes. Councelor Chairman, yes. Motion passed. Moving on. Zoning bylaw amendment 26-948 is zoning bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin chapter 185 use regulation schedule attachment two attachment three attachment four attachment seven and attachment eight this is a second reading 2/3 majority roll call vote is required make a motion to wave the reading second. All in favor? I

I motion to approve zoning bylaw amendment 26948. Second.

I have a motion to second discussion. Roll call. Cl Mr. Chairman, this is a roll call vote to approve zoning bylaw amendment 26-948. This is a second reading. Councelor Juka, yes. Councelor Marello, yes.

Councelor Malloy, yes. Councelor Leblanc, yes. Councelor Griffith. Yes. Councelor Callaway. Trip. Yes. Myself? Yes. Vice Chair? Yes. Chairman? Yes. Motion passed. Zoning by amendment 26-949. A zoning bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin chapter 185 attachment 9 schedule of law area requirements. This is a second reading. Clerk will read the make a motion to wave the reading. Second. Second. All in favor? I I. Motion to approve zoning bylaw amendment 26949.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Clerk will the roll call vote at 2/3 required.

One second. Mr. Chairman. Get that run 26-949. Right. Mhm. We're on to 950. Oh, no. I'm sorry. 949.

949. 950. They already crossed. Yeah, I did too.

Mr. Chairman, this is a roll call vote to approve zoning bylaw amendment 26-949 as its second reading. Councelor, yes. Council Melo, yes. Councelor Malloy, yes. Councelor Leblanc. Yes. Councelor Griffith. Yes. Councelor Callaway Trip. Yes. Myself. Yes. Vice Chair. Yes. And chairman? Yes. Motion passed. Bylar amendment 26-950. Bylar amendment the code of the town of Franklin at chapter 139 section 139-14 sewer system map. This is the second reading. Motion to wave the reading. [cough]

Second. Second. I have a motion to second. All in favor? I I. Motion to approve bylaw amendment 26950. Uh, object for one second. Yes,

if I could. We did get an email earlier today from a resident who had a question about this. I think we addressed it the last time we went through the first reading, but I just would like to uh raise that and make sure that we're answering the gentleman's I think question. Um and Jamie, this might be for you and your team. Um the resident has written in and it asks the town council to review the infrastructure implications of the proposals, the water and the sewer for this project. um wants to be assured that we're not putting any additional costs on rate payers based on the project that we're doing here. From my understanding last time that was not the case that they were the developer was paying for I want to say 8 in and 12 in pipes.

Speak to a mic. I thought they were going Yeah, they were paying all the way to the That's the way I remember [laughter] it. That's what's in the documentation too. But to Jane's point about responding to people as well. Sure. M through the chair. Um so all of the proposed work to extend the water and sewer for this particular project will be done by the contract by the developer. He'll pay for all the work. In addition to that, they're also um going to be doing some work within the town system value about maybe $60,000. And in addition to that, contributing about another $35,000 on top of that to TPW for other system improvements in that area. So, all the costes by the developer in addition to about another $95,000 worth of value to the town.

That's what I recall from the the last reading and the documentation that was in here, but I just wanted to specifically raise it to assure the resident that the town is not going to take on any additional cost for this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yeah, we waited. We already Okay. And uh council seconded [cough] discussion. Okay. I don't know if I did that out of order or not. Sorry. But No, you were second. I heard it. Was there a vote on waving the reading? I don't believe there actually was a vote because he objected. I thought we did the reading. I don't think to open the discussion, right? Correct. Yeah. Correct. We did vote on

we waved it. We didn't open discussion. We didn't Well, he Well, he's kind of He seconded it. So then it was automatically go to discussion. Yep. All right. So, we're going to vote on amendment 26-950. It's a roll call vote. Two two majority. This is just a majority because it's a general bylaw, not just a one time like a one time thing, right? So, can I just ask for distinguish zoning is generally 2/3. General bylaws are are just the role majority. Okay. So, is it a typo in my document where it says 25-950? It should be should be 26, right? Yes.

I'll make a little note to Nancy that it's been edited. She'll still complain to me, but that's okay. So, Mr. Chairman, this is a roll call vote 426-950

to approve. It's a second reading for sewer system. Councelor Ajuku, yes. Councelor Marello, yes. Councelor Malloy, yes. Councelor Blank, yes. Councelor Griffith, yes. Councelor Callaway, Trip, yes. Myself, yes. Councelor Grella, yes. Councelor Devarov, yes. Moving on. Bilar amendment 26-951 bylaw amendment to the code of the town of Franklin chapter 179 section 179- 9.1 water system map second reading vote um motion to wave the reading second. All in favor?

I I motion to approve bylaw amendment 26951. Second. Second. I have a motion to second discussion on this. No discussion. Oh, sorry. Only thing I'll I'll point out uh senator what council mentioned is this was the other one that was included in that email. So, it's the same. Yeah. Just just capturing it there. Thank you. Okay. All set. Wait, this has to be roll call as well. Yes. Roll call majority. What is the last one for roll call?

Couldn't just get me a stamp. It's okay. Look who's driving now. Look who's driving now. Thanks, buddy. didn't have to interrupt the meeting, but thank you. Appreciate it. Always apparent. [laughter] All right. Raised them right. He brought me my keys. That's good. A good boy. Yeah. Okay. So, this is Mr. Chairman bylaw amendment 26-951, an amendment to the water sewer map. Roll call. Councelor Ajuku. Yes. Council Mangelo. Yes. Council Mallaloy. Yes.

Councelor Leblanc. Yes. Councelor Griffith. Yes. Councelor Callaway. Yes. Myself. Yes. Uh, councelor Gilla. Yes. And chairman. Yeah. Yes. Should pass. Resolution 26-21 amendment to the 2026 town [clears throat] council meeting schedule. Cler will be. Give me a second. Mr. Ch. trying to slow down.

I know what I mean by I can finish that one after. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment to the 2026 schedule for town council meetings and the only change is deleting October 7th and rescheduling it to October 28th. This resolution shall become effective according to the provisions of the town of Franklin home route charter discussion. Anyone have a issue with this?

What's the reason? Are we changing the date? It was it I forget what the reason was. The reason was ah it's me. Okay. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. [laughter] We need to make a motion. Yeah, we have to make a motion before we can discuss. Motion to approve resolution 2621. Second. Discussion. What's the reason? [laughter] Dave Callahan last night me. Okay. All my fault. All in favor? I I motion pass. Was there any opposed?

No. I I [laughter] want a reason on Halloween.

Resolution 26-22 gift acceptance is ventured service department $500. Clerk will read the resolution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is the Town of Franklin Resolution 26-22, acceptance of gift for the veteran service department. Whereas the Veteran Service Department has received a generous donation in the amount of $500 to be used at the discretion of the department as follows. Donation summary. Franklin Veterans Department gift fund for $500. donation to be used at the discretion of the Veteran Service Department through the Franklin Veteran Service Gift Fund in support of local veterans and their families. Donor information is included in the May 13th, 2026 Town Council meeting packet agenda. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Town Council of the Town of Franklin on behalf of the Franklin Veterans Service Department gratefully accepts this generous donation to be used at the discretion of the department for the purposes noted above. This resolution shall become effective accordance to the provisions of the town of Franklin home rule charter.

Motion to approve resolution 2622. Second motion and second. I [clears throat] just wanted to thank uh Pat and Lorie Doyle for this generous contribution to the Veterans Department. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Doyle family. Okay. Uh we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Hi.

Future agenda. I would like to tee up an item some point soon around communication expectations. Jane mentioned it earlier today. We've kicked it around several times. I don't want to get into the topic right now, but I think it's worth council's time and maybe we put a 20 minute limit on the discussion for it,

but I think we need to be a bit more organized about how we're going to handle emails to all town council members, what steps we're going to follow on that, so we all have some understanding and expectation about what will happen when those emails come in rather than all nine of us answer or none of us answer or three answer with different messages. messages or somebody else forwards it to somebody else or whatever. It just seems a little clumsy. I'd like to have a discussion about what we can do to tighten it up. A few people answer it and those a few people call out or something like that. Whatever it is, I can like prepare something and kind of offer up a couple of suggestions. I have some thoughts, but

I offer a suggestion to have the committee work work on it and then make a proposal and then we can discuss it. The sub, you know, the subcommittee subunication subcommittee. I I I would actually add that, you know, that could be included as part of the communications subcommittee because Okay. Oh, I'd like to just get a new committee. Yeah. No, no, no. I just want to specifically email responses is driven by the open meeting laws. They need to

they know that. Uh and then just following that comment, the only I I wanted to have the same discussion but let's but thinking about the various you know as we think about various venues that we're going to try to interact with community. So if we start using the library as well as a senior senator. Yeah. So just have that be part of that discussion as well. I don't have any. I give my whole list in the my Yeah. You [laughter] heard from me today. Yeah, it's a little bling.

Um, it kind of coincides with our water and sewer map and I had mentioned this uh when we during the first reading and maybe this is something for the economic development committee or maybe it's here. I I do think that we need to come up with a standardized maybe process as it relates to making the water sewer connection. I.e. what will some what will a developer also contribute to um the infrastructure beyond just what they're doing right now? for this one. They we heard they gave 95,000. But I do think we need to come up with a kind of a method to it. If I'm putting a want to connect a 25 home subdivision uh to the water and sewer, that's a little bit different than a onesie twoosie. So, I do think we need to come up with a kind of a a slide expectation sliding fee schedule. I mean, the the land is very valuable here in Franklin. You build you have a piece of land and you build a house on it, uh it can become profitable. So, I'd rather it be somewhat standard rather than this very arbitrary thing. So, I don't know if that's necessarily it could be considered part of economic development. Um, it could be just part of this broad uh board, but um uh so I I just think that'd be a a worthwhile effort to do. So, it's not halfhazard. That's all.

That's pretty pretty pretty good idea. I just want to uh reiterate um the um sustainability committee approaching that after the uh budget discussions have winded down. Uh as well as um I think we also need to eventually hunker down and choose a time for an executive session in the future. [clears throat] Um uh I'll you know um let that stand where it is. Um but uh I think that's something that's we have to address when it need uh as as soon as we can. So J nothing at this time.

Uh the only thing I had uh Jamie, a few months ago, I had asked if we could have the investment portfolio manager come make a presentation to us just so we could see uh where the town's uh money was being invested so we could have an idea. Do we I I'm sure I I know you got a lot going on, but do we No, I think it's I I think it's I mean, we're happy to do that. It's just I think the only thing is is you got like stacked I mean agendas. I think where does that fall on the priority ladder? You know I think you got two budget hearings coming up. I will guarant basically May and June are shot because you're going to have the budget on the 10th and then any excess free cash you have to spend on June 17th

before the end of the fiscal year. So your and just to give you an idea while we're on the discussion because we get some extra time just um your July meeting has um annual excuse me um couple street acceptances um you've got uh the EPA is coming in for 300 Fisher Street which many of you may not know what that means but it's a pretty sizable super fund site that's actually been getting cleaned up and they need to start a public process. Um, and then your August meeting is probably going to end up being executive session. So, I think if you could wait to maybe the fall, but I mean I think it's just hard to that's probably a hour long

that's probably a pretty long meeting. Um, so I'll talk to the chair and figure out where we can fit it in and talk to the investment folks, but I just didn't want it to get forgotten about this. No, it's on our list. It's just trying to figure out how to manage the I know the time of the meetings. Meet longer. It's okay. That's all I had, Mr. Chairman. So, I think we started in November. Um, one of the first things we we talked about was the the um the tax hearing. It's it'll be coming up again. And so, go ahead. Are you

Yeah. No, there's I have uh placeholders um I have two workshops with the board of assessors in September, October range kind of planned out for you guys to basically take almost the whole meetings. I mean you'll do some appointments and other stuff but if if I figure two meetings council is that too I don't think that's yeah it should be and that and that's well before the tax rate hearing right so you can kind of get it's kind of giving you an on-ramp to the tax rate hearing in December so far but

is that enough time if we wanted to explore something different if we explored a split tax rate and we have those discussions in September is that enough time to hold some public hearings with some developers and others. I just I don't know the sequencing of that. I just would wonder that that might be all of a sudden it's November again or December and we have to vote on the tax rate. So

my only question on that was would be that a split tax rate is not something that we're going to be able that that if we were look to implement it. Don't know if that's something that we could implement quickly. That would that would that would like we could if we knew today that we wanted to do a split tax rate. I think there would still be a long educational period required. That's my impression of it. I don't I don't know that I don't

I mean you can I think you can do it. Um you know there's a pretty to your point council Juku I mean there's a pretty heavy you know you know the feedback isn't all going to be positive right that it's going to be a contentious issue. I'm not saying you don't do it. I'm just saying that, you know, to his point, I think we can do it, I believe, in December, but still the execution of that afterwards takes a long time and I know you'll be getting a lot of emails um about it one way or the other, both from residents as well as businesses. So, um you know, we can talk about this right now, but um I think the question for all of you is, you know, are you comfortable with 4hour meetings pretty standard across the board? I mean, you you got a lot of stuff to do. I just outlined, you know, the your May is going to be budget hearings. Your June is going to be almost all budget for those two meetings. You got one meeting in July. Um, you know, you got I had the sustainability committee. I have we have to accept a parcel of land up at Forge Park. Um, the 300 Fisher Street, the audit presentation tonight got bumped till July for the annual audit. Um, and then you're into August and I can guarantee you executive session will not be short. Um, then you're into September and I just to kind of lay out and I'm welcoming any feedback here. Um, we were trying to get the police station building committee in. Um as well as we just started our working group today internally on the Davis there RFP and um I'm working on the uh RFP for any lease or sale of 27 you know so we're getting into all this stuff. Um the representative Roy and Senator Roush have confirmed their annual visit in September. Um you're going to have to do several swearing in in and uh pinning ceremonies for fire and police. And then

I had October 14th, October 28th, those October meetings as kind of pigeon holed. But I do agree if you're looking for research, if you're looking for questions, if you're looking for followup, the October meetings probably would be a short time frame because you all then it's just November before you have to have the tax rate hearing. That's what I'm saying. And then November, you've already got a budget recap meeting that you're going to have scheduled. Um it's only May and we're talking November. So, I I'm welcoming feedback if you want me to reshuffle or you know I I don't know how to I'm just trying to give some feedback to have you understand because I do agree I understand that concern but you guys got to make some choices.

I have a question. Um are you saying so August 12th that is only going to be executive session? Is that what you're saying? Or it's going to be can I can we do that have like not no public hearing that month? Is that I thought we were supposed to have a public meeting just session first and then go into the executive session. Yeah, the executive session you technically start and open you go into executive. Okay. And that's your one meeting for August. That'll probably take the whole thing. Okay. At a minimum. So basically we open we have citizens comments, council comments. We close the open and go to executive. Yep.

Do do we have comments? Do do we uh are required to have citizens comments when we do that? you know, not required. I just, you know, it's, you know, a few months obviously early, so I'd be working with Bobby, you know, sometime over the summer to sometimes it just you're going to want all the time possible that night for that. Yeah. So, as it relates to the to the tax set rate setting, um, this was going to be something

that we were going to take up in the economic development. I've actually already started pulling the data. That's actually what I was doing last night sitting back there. um so that we can actually bring the assessors in and start it. Now, while all nine of us will not be there, there'll be four of us there. We'll it it'll lay the groundwork so that it's not a it's not this laborious session. So, I'd rather tackle that in the economic development because I think the tax rate is part of economic development. It can either kill it or it can spur it or whatever. So, um, and yes, that may mean the economic development committee meets twice a month in the month of July and August. I'm fine with doing that. I hope the the rest of the committee is as well. Um, so I'm speaking for them right now, but I do think if we can lay some of that groundwork so it's not this laborious and we can provide the summary of what we're doing and that obviously anyone can watch those meetings, but that is the goal. One of the things I would like to and I think we talked about that as one of our goals in the in the thing too. So, but to get ahead of it so that we're not coming to December and asking those questions,

right? I think it's an excellent idea. My only comment, my only point initially was whatever decision we we make on that split or no split. It's not turning the key. Yeah. You know, there's there's going to be there needs to be community uh you know, int and just you know, informing has to be that's that's going to take time. We cannot expect that to be a quick also just wanted to say I think there is a split tax rate issue but I also think we got to re look at the the elderly exemption as well because there's still an exemption we haven't implemented yet with regards to that. So I think that's going to be all part of it right do that

and this is also a list these are just the things that have come up now I think the subcommittees are going to make recommendations and then other things are going to come to the council too. So, I mean, I don't I mean, you got a pretty stacked deck already for 2026. So, I think um if you guys want to make some suggestions about, you know, if you want to have an initial conversation at EDC and then have part of one of the September meetings, I mean, we can do it September, October, November, one meeting a month, still talk about tax rates. Well, why why don't why don't we see how Mike how it works out with Mike in the summer and if we can bump it up to the September meetings, we can maybe shuffle some things around. Sure.

And move and move it around. I was going to say as far as engagement goes, if the um I'm going to say ECDC, EDC committee is going to kind of follow up on this. As long as that gets kind of broadcast out to people just like the meetings and make it very well known, get it posted on social media, put it out there. You might see community coming to those meetings and engaging there. That's and then everything gets whittleled down. So then we just have to deal with the basic facts and not all the confusion. You obviously weren't at our first meeting, Jake. This place was packed. Oh yeah. So [laughter]

I just in terms of communication committee will help advertise the in terms of what we can trim down. And I think, you know, like I said, using the subcommittees when we can instead of bring things to the full meeting first, as well as I think there's sometimes where we um going forward, I think if we have presentations that we I mean, a lot of times we don't know this stuff and it's important to know this stuff, but if there's a presentation where we already kind of know everything about the organization, maybe we shouldn't we should table that to, you know, when we're less busy. Um,

yeah, we'll work things around, just shuffle things around. Okay. All right. Uh, I have no future identity. The only thing uh Jamie, did you ever get that study in April about the sewer? Remember me and you talked about that about the sewer waste going to Medway? The uh is that about the um the sewer capacity? Yeah, the capacity. Thank you. I was thinking No, we have a follow-up meeting. Well, we have a follow-up meeting um with the town of Milis. Milis, just so you know, buys sewer from Franklin. I have a follow-up meeting with Milis in a month. Okay.

And the consultant is giving us the number of what the modern-day value rate is of sewer. That's what that's what we were trying to figure out. So, um I'm trying to deal with Milis first and then I'll go to Medway after that. We'll go to Medway. He called me so. So, the have no doubt. Um but um I got to find out the value of the rate, right?

Because you guys need when you go into this discussion if it happens with um the other sewer customers within the district, you need to know the value of your sewer capacity because you have we have an enormous amount of sewer capacity in Franklin that's permitted through D. Most other towns are completely at their max. So you have something that's extraordinarily valuable, water and sewer for that matter, but that's besides the point. It's called liquid gold. Basically, it is called liquid. No, from what I talked with, I met with the the

the head of the selement for Medway and you know, they they're ready to, you know, and uh but um and it will help us because we can maybe will help the residents. We might not have to go out on their water. I don't that's what we're trying to do. All right. So, no more no executive session. Can I have a motion to journ non debatable? I'm just looking at the clock. That's why I'm sure all in favor. [laughter]