 So Steve Sherlock here for Franklin Matters, Franklin Public Radio and TV in this case. Here for a candidate interview with our incumbent candidate for the town council, Ted Cormie-Eledger. Ted, how are you doing today? Great, Steve. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. So for the people who may not know, who's this guy, Ted? What is he doing? Can you give us a little bit of background? What's your kind of Franklin story? Sure. I came to Franklin with my family back in 2016. Having lived in Dedum, Stoughton, Norwood, grew up in Medford, went to college in Florida, right? So I've lived in Seattle for a while, kind of been all over. But we've really enjoyed our time in Franklin to date, it's a very great welcoming community. My boys are involved in a whole lot of activities which has made me involved in a lot of activities, right? From their youth sports to karate, to bands, to different things that they do. I served on the Franklin Cultural Council for a couple of years. I was president of my neighborhood association, so people might know me from that. I try to be out and about at activities throughout town, whether it's performances or youth games, or ribbon cuttings, or just different things. I am a business owner here in town as well. I'm just happy to give back in this role as a town councilor. Cool. Thanks for that. Clearly, we're gearing up for the town election, the biennial election every two years. We have an opportunity as voters to elect or re-elect as the case is for town council, school committee, planning board, board of assessors, board of health. There's a couple others in there, but there's a whole slate of candidates up for it. Regular voting is certainly not absolutely required, although it's certainly encouraged. Do you want to speak to that as well? Sure. I think it's our responsibility to vote locally, state elections, federal elections. It's certainly not something I take lightly. There's people all over the world that don't have those rights and privileges, so we should take the couple of minutes to make sure that we're doing our part. I think especially in a local election, where most of these roles are volunteers, most of these people are giving of their time, talent, and treasure, the least we can do as the public is come out and show them support and vote. I can't think of an election that I haven't voted in, to be honest, like going all the way back. I was really excited when I turned 18 and was able to vote for the first time and took a real interest in it. I think everybody should figure out what are the issues that matter to them, what are the candidates that best align with their own values, ask questions, attend meetings, get involved, and don't just rely on the things you hear on social media because a lot of that can be incorrect. It's good to delve into it. I pride myself on responding to everybody that reaches out and try to get them the information that they need. Good. Thank you for that. Yeah, the local election, I think, and I think we've talked elsewhere as well that the local action is really respectfully much more important than the state and federal. Yes, they do affect us, but the town budget done, voted on by the counselors. In this case, school committee does their portion, of course, but you're all volunteers. The town budget is what affects us on a daily basis in terms of our streets, roads, services, you name it. This is what we've got. It's local. There's a lot going on, so I think it's important for people to not just get involved, but ask questions, be great if more people stepped up and served on a committee or figured out a way to lend their own perspective and talents to what we have going on. But I do enjoy meeting such a wide variety of people in this role and really trying to hear all of the different challenges because everybody, whether you're a young family or your people that have been here for a while, or you're on the other end of the spectrum, the senior population that are living and doing their thing on fixed incomes, like everybody comes to things with a different perspective and it's important to be a good listener. Definitely. In particular, for your role as an incumbent coming back to the town council, for those who may not be aware of you, what experiences in the background help you to serve in this particular road? What do you bring to the table that perhaps sets you apart from some of the other candidates? Sure. Let's see. For 20-some odd years, I worked in the nonprofit sector in Boston, helping in a number of roles from program management, volunteer management, fiscal management, which included a lot of budgets and fundraising. I'd like to think that I bring that wealth of knowledge with me into this role with certainly not going to say that I'm an expert by any means, but I am able to at least comb through the data and ask questions and understand when priorities get made. Having served on the cultural council for a couple of years, that gave me unique perspective into the arts and culture scene here in town and their funding needs. Just having been involved with other nonprofits like the theater over in Jamaica Plain that we were involved in for years and serving on that board, serving on other boards, I think those experiences just help you understand how to work with staff, how to work with volunteers, how to understand and navigate budgets, and quite honestly, how to ask some of those difficult questions sometimes, with framing them in a respectful way, but still being willing to say, hey, I don't fully understand this, or can we get some more information on this and being able to do that without being belligerent or angry, or because what I try to keep in mind Steve with all of this is there are people behind every decision. There's staff that work really hard on these budgets and these priorities and these projects, and they put forth what they think is best. We look at the data from our own perspective, but we do have to understand that, okay, these folks are very intelligent, they work a lot of hours, and many times they're coming to us looking for support. Yeah. Good. I'll put it in a slight plug. I did have a recording with our controller Chris Andini and Treasurer Collector Terry Bertoni that walked through the entire budget cycle. Yeah. To your point, clearly the budget starts at that department level within the department and then the manager, then the managers review that with Jamie, and then Jamie and the finance committee go through that publicly, and then it comes to the town council. Yeah. There's a bunch of reviews, there's a bunch of questions asked, but in some cases while they may know the inside story, it may not have been public yet until whether it's a Fincom or a town council discussion and then says, well, why is that what it is? That info, that background certainly is important to understand. Oh, that's why. Yes. Yeah. People need to understand that we are a really big town with a really wide breadth of services, and services cost money. It's not just schools and roads and sidewalks. There's a lot of moving pieces to this very complicated thing called the town of Franklin. I've certainly learned a lot these last two years, asked a ton of questions, both in meetings and in what the viewers are able to see during town council itself. I think also speak to, it's not just a public role. You've got hours potentially, certainly subcommittee meetings outside of the public sessions, and all of that work is also required. It may not be visible, but it's certainly required. Yeah. I think this job is what you're willing to put into it, and everybody certainly comes to it with a different schedule. I've met countless people face-to-face over the last couple of years just for coffee. Let's get together, let's not have this engagement online, let's really sit down face-to-face and let me hear what's on your mind. I think people respect that. I think people appreciate, yeah, this guy took the time to hear me out. Maybe we didn't agree on everything, but at least we were able to shake hands at the end, and they got to know me a little better. The subcommittee meetings are important because there's a lot of work to do, there's a lot of roll your sleeves up and get into it, but then there's all that other stuff. There's the ribbon cuttings, there's the business openings, there's the just the sporting events or theater events or things when people like to see their local elected officials show up and they like to see the support and they like to see even if we're not playing an official role, we're just there. Even if I'm just sitting at the varsity football game and the stands cheering on the home team, I talk to people throughout that entire game, but they just know that I'm there supporting the kids and supporting the program and I think that's important. Yeah, in terms of one of the key responsibilities and certainly hiring the town administrator, I think it's probably the key, but then the second certainly challenging that is the budget that you approve on an annual basis. That effectively sets the priorities because as much as we wish we could do things unless it's funded, we can't actually do things. Chloe, based on some of the forecasts I know you've seen and heard party of, we're into a set of years where there's potential fiscal challenges. Chloe, we've already had the storm order fee, the sewer rate increase because of beaver, street interceptor, tri-county vote is coming up for a debt exclusion for their building. There's a lot of challenges attacking effectively the individual pocket. How are you gonna set your priorities? And Chloe, while you do have those individual conversations, we can take this few minutes here so that people at least get a broad understanding of your prioritizations and how you make your decision as to what the budget should be. Sure, I think everybody needs to understand that we all work really, really hard to make sure that the budget is fair and balanced and that the budget is giving the widest possible variety of services to everybody. So while schools take up a huge portion and certainly police and fire and DPW, I'm very mindful of the senior center, the library, veterans affairs, park and rec, all of the different things that people that live and work here and raise a family here get to enjoy. And yeah, I wish we had bigger money, right? My friend, counselor, Frangelo coined the phrase, we need a bigger pot, right? Like that's pretty obvious at this point. I mean, anybody just looking at the simple math, inflation is higher than the two and a half percent that we're allowed to raise taxes by every year. So no matter what we do, we're always behind the eight ball, essentially because of Prop two and a half, right? It really does kind of tie our hands. One of the things that I would like us to address, I brought it up at the capital subcommittee meetings, I brought it up publicly at our finance meetings is truly how do we fund police, fire and schools and DPW in particular fully so that they don't have to rely on free cash during the capital expenditure period for things that I consider to be their basic needs, right? Schools should not be asking for curriculum books during the capital expense time. Police and fire shouldn't be asking for safety equipment during capital expense time. DPW shouldn't be asking us for basic sidewalk repair during capital time, but their hands are tied, right? I understand why the requests end up there. I just fundamentally think free cash and capital should be just that it should be as defined for special one-time projects. So we have to get enough money into the operating budget so that that capital free cash, which isn't guaranteed by the way, that's only money that is sort of left over after the end of a given fiscal year and get certified. You have a bad year, you have a bad snow year, all of a sudden we have very little to spend in that category. So I think that's really where the challenge lies, Steve. I mean, we have tens of millions of dollars of projects on the DPW list that we can't fund. I don't think a lot of people understand because that's sort of like not the sexy stuff, right? That's the stuff that maybe we don't see, it's the stuff below the ground, it's infrastructure, but it's very critical, very critical to being able to run effective and safe town. The schools clearly need more money, right? We have to figure out a way to fund them at a level where they feel they're able to effectively do their job for the kids here in town. I've sat in on so many, not just private conversations, but some of the public conversations and we just need to do better. And that's a hard conversation to have with folks who already feel like things are strapped and their taxes are already becoming a burden for their family budgets and I get it. And that's why I feel like this whole conversation has to be handled with such an incredible amount of care and understanding of all sides. And I think it can be done. I know the finance subcommittees have been meeting and they've been talking about what is that magic number that we can come up with to present to folks. I don't think they're there yet, but I applaud that both the schools and the municipal side are trying to come together and figure that out and give us something to talk about. And that's gonna be a tough conversation, I think for people in Franklin. And we just have to be able to wrap our heads around it and say, yeah, we're confident, we know where this money is going, we know why it's needed, these are the things that we value as a town and we're willing to move it forward. But until we can all come together and do that, it's just kind of this wait and see game. And in the meantime, we do the very best that we can with what we have. And I think it's important for the public to understand that we do really an excellent job with the budget. And when you think about the AAA bond rating and the fact that the independent audits that come back have no management reports for the last couple of years, like not a lot of towns can say that. Right, so people need to understand that their money is being managed wisely, it's not being misspent, the town takes great pains with every penny and we're able to offer quite a bit here in town when you truly look at us compared to other communities similar size, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody that gives as much as we do to the people that live here. Yeah, I would agree. Certainly from my experience in reporting and then just traveling around as well, granted there may be spots here and there for some roads, but generally our roads are far better than many others. Our fields, the sports, recreation playgrounds, et cetera, they rate with the best. And then clearly the performance of the individual departments while we've certainly got the finance side with the AAA rating, et cetera, and the clean audits, you know, fire department is also the A1 rated, police department is certified, schools won again at the least at the high school level, adult and award because of their success on the fields and that really starts back as I understand it with the youth sports and the entire programs from rec through the various youth sports leagues that builds to the success of the Franklin High School. And then the kids can have success beyond that as well. We hear periodically from Hockamock sports, you know, focusing on a particular alumni here and there, whether it's in track and field or football and people are doing well, granted, we're not perfect. We do need more money because we're falling further and further behind. So we're doing some things, but not doing as much. And that's gonna be a key question. Well, and I think, you know, if we shift away from sports for a second, we're very lucky to be a cultural district. We're very lucky to have a very successful and thriving Franklin Performing Arts Company here in town, bringing Broadway talent to town. We have a Franklin Art Association. We have a very active Franklin Cultural Council. All of these things contribute to the arts in partnership with Dean College and other entities. So the art scene here is really important. And I'm proud that we continue to help fund that a little bit at a time, right? But to be able to give money in our town budget so that the state money through mass cultural council can at least be matched and we're able to give out those grants. A lot of towns aren't doing that. A lot of towns just can't find it in their budgets to put away 10, 15, $20,000 a year to help make sure the arts are thriving. And Franklin always does. And I applaud that. And I think as much as I support youth sports and, you know, all of the various sports things, it's important that we keep an eye on the arts and the cultural piece too because there's a lot of different needs here in the town. One of the things I didn't touch on that, you know I continue to be a little bit of a thorn in my friend Brutus's side about sidewalks but, you know, I really do think that's an area we could be doing a little bit better maintaining the sidewalks we have. I understand building new sidewalks is certainly important but you walk the neighborhoods of town and many of the sidewalks haven't been touched for various reasons, you know, since they were built. And I would like us to chip away at that a little bit at a time. I know they're working on a sidewalk master plan but I think residents would be happy if they knew, oh, okay, my sidewalk is slated for, you know to be redone next year or the year after they, if they saw our list. Cause I don't like seeing people step off the sidewalk onto the street, walk in their baby carriage or walk in their dog or jogging. Part of being a thriving community is being able to have accessible sidewalks that get us from one place to the next. And I know we're not there yet and I know it's gonna take some money. And I know that the DPW works hard to look at grants and they have a whole list of infrastructure projects they're trying to get to but I continue to be that little sort of chirping bird in their ear and say, you know, hey, can we do a little bit here? Can we do a little bit there? And they're always really receptive to my ideas and to my thoughts. It just comes down to the funding. Yeah, I think the sidewalks is a factor of our growth and how we have grown. And yet it's also a factor that I think is kind of a hidden elephant in the room that we don't always talk about is we're not equitable in terms of sidewalks and their distribution. There are streets with two sidewalks, there are streets with one, there are streets with none. And I'm just within the mile of downtown center because that's where I'm mostly doing my walking. But you can think of, you know, almost any number of streets, even what choose it, which has car mentor on it. You've got two sidewalks on much of it but then even up at the school end, there's only a sidewalk on the one side of the school, there's no sidewalk on the other. You know, that kind of equitability, especially since the Central Park Terrace with some folks in there that are certainly handicap challenged, they're forced to cross some streets perhaps more than they should if there were sidewalks on both sides in all cases. So yeah, I don't certainly expect knowing as much of the budget as I do as you know as well. That's something that's not gonna change overnight. It's not gonna happen right away, but at least fixing the ones that we do have to your point would certainly be a step in that direction. In some cases, respectfully, where we have a street with no sidewalks, in some cases we probably shouldn't have sidewalks but at least in the downtown area where it's possible. I think that makes sense. Well, and you know, Steve, years ago, I guess there used to be sort of a ward system here in town and town officials were elected that way and that got done away with, and I understand the various reasons, but if you think back, if elected officials on the town council were truly representing a ward or a section of town, they'd be fighting really hard to make sure that like the needs of that particular area were getting met and then everybody would sort of be, you know, fighting for that little section of town and everybody would get probably a little bit done. With the system that we have now where we are looking at the total needs of the town all the time, I think some of that sort of local neighborhood stuff gets overlooked. Not criticizing anybody, just pointing out when we made that shift as a town we perhaps took a little bit of the eye off of the, that sort of very localized issue. And I think when people say, okay, I'm a tax-paying citizen here in Franklin, they're not just looking at schools and roads, they're looking at sidewalks, they're looking at parks, they're looking at the senior center, right? They're looking at all of the different services that they can tap into. Sure, yeah, and I think we should probably continue that discussion in another one because we can go a long way around that one. But being mindful of your time and the potential voter's time. I think we've covered some of the key pieces. You're out on social. Is there any particular place that people would, you would want them to reach you through too in case they want to continue this conversation on a point or two? Sure, I mean, they could certainly find me on Facebook. I pride myself on my public service announcements all the time to just make sure the public isn't formed. Contacting me via the town website is perfectly fine or the town email, my cell phone, 617-686-1265. I respond to everybody, send me a text, give me a call. If I don't get back to you right away, I promise I'll get back to you within 24 hours and we'll figure out what it is that you need and we'll make some time to get together. I think it's important that folks don't take this election for granted. I think we need everybody to show up and vote, not just the Tri-County Special Election, but the local election. And a lot of these races maybe are uncontested, but certainly the town council race is and if people just don't show up, that's sending the wrong message. I think that these, the folks including myself that are taking the time to volunteer and run, we need your support. So I certainly encourage everybody to show up. I encourage everybody to make an informed decision and I would very much appreciate their vote on November 7th. Well, thank you and quick reminder to the voters, potential voters at least. There are many times, many opportunities to vote certainly in person at the town clerk's office before the election on November 7th. Ballots are still available via mail and absentee if you're gonna be out of town that day and certainly the day of at Franklin High School from 6 a.m. through 8 p.m. And I'm sure Ted will be there at least during the day if that most of the day. I'll be around. So certainly stop by, say hi, give us some feedback in terms of this candidate series so that we can prepare for the next one even better than we're doing this time around. Well, thanks Steve and thank you to everybody watching. Thank you. And a quick reminder we do this because Franklin matters.