The first eight months of the experience as a city councilor has been interesting. I must admit it has not been what I anticipated, as it has been at times frustrating and so far not all that rewarding. That having been said, I think some progress has been made. I am pleased with the budget we produced and its minimal impact on property taxes. To me that has been the highlight.
Transparency is an important issue to me and I believe we have made progress. All documents and agenda material by rule must be online ahead of the City Council meetings. I think this is important for full participation if people watch our meetings being able to see what specifically we are talking about. This needs to become the practice for all boards and I am hopeful it will be soon.
When I was on the Charter Commission many people felt that zoning changes would be happening rapidly in a city form of government, needing only a vote of the council. My experience to date is that the opposite may in fact be true. We are going to find it difficult to find eight votes for changes in zoning if there is any controversy to it. The TDR process was a learning experience for me and I hope we can build off it. Our next challenges for zoning are marijuana and some proposed commercial mixed-use proposals.
My general philosophy is I tend to like less regulation than more by government in private enterprise. Though I personally am not a user of marijuana, I do think given it is legal, people should be able to access it reasonably. I tend to desire less regulation than more and my votes to date have went along that line. One of the areas I find interesting is the potential number of establishments. As it stands now, we could have up to six in Framingham. That does seem a bit high to me at the outset, but the only way to address that as I understand it, is to bring it to a ballot vote. The whole thing is being discussed next week, August 21st in terms of where, how many etc. I am sure it will be interesting if nothing else.
One of the biggest questions I receive from people, activists particularly, is the relationship between the Council and the Mayor. I know some people are concerned, but I really do not see a major issue at this point. Everyone is learning their job and there has not been a ton of disagreement as best I can see, but the areas where there has been it has become very high profile. Overall, I do not see it as that bad. Compared to the Framingham political relationships I remember back in my days as Town Manager and before it seems pretty calm. Some discourse and difference, done politely and respectively, is a critical ingredient to good government process in my mind. Hopefully people will see it occurring in such a manner going forward.
On the Finance Subcommittee we are starting to look at some deeper areas of the budget that may be able to save us money or high-profile areas that people are interested in. City vehicles and who takes them home is always something that seems to interest people. I think we have a pretty good policy in place, we just have to make sure it is adhered to. I am not saying we could not be a bit more efficient with take home vehicles, but there is a good policy in place that needs to be enforced. Another issue that came up is cell phones. The City pays for about 400 cell phones between the municipal side and the school side that cost over $270,000 a year. That is an area we will be studying to see if we can save some of the cost. There are other areas too, and we will need to find a way to manage budget growth, while keeping our excellent services in place. I think we will be able to do that.
A few other brief comments and thoughts:
ü It is interesting to see the new apartment complexes starting to be built. Despite some trepidation with the numbers, to see this kind of serious construction investment in the downtown is exciting and it really may allow us to turn the corner with downtown.
ü The Nobscot Chapel bid seems to be on a delay of sorts. I credit the Mayor’s office with being cautious with this, as the developer who bid on it really wants access to the corner. If we are going to give him that economic advantage, we have to have assurances on the rest of the project.
ü The Friends of Saxonville have done an excellent job developing some good ideas for controlling traffic in the square. They are working with the city on trying to move forward with some of them. Kudos to them for the hardwork.
ü I attended the dedication of a new bus line that is going to run a reverse commute from Boston out to Framingham. It is being operated by the same company as the LimoLiner, and it is grant funded for now. I hope it takes off as it is a terrific idea.
ü The new Fuller building is coming close to the appropriation stage and should happen this fall. Looks like there will be a debt exclusion election held most likely on December 11th. There will be an update to the City Council on Tuesday night.
ü Because of the manner in which property tax bills are estimated the first quarter bills increased this year, despite the council reducing the existing tax levy. The majority of homeowners should see a decrease in their 3rdand 4th quarter bills due to that, which is a bit different than normal. Depending on how the commercial splits works out, the decrease could be significant.
I appreciate you reading this. Please respond with any comments or thoughts you may have and think I may find helpful, on these or any topics. If you have any questions I would be happy to try to answer them. Please feel free to contact me at anytime.
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