 We're going to try to get started. If I can just get everyone's attention for a second here. I'm told for starters, oh, it sounds otherwise to me that these mics are primarily for recording, not for amplifying voices. But it sounds like an amplification to me. In any case, be sure to speak up, because some of the mics may be only for recording for later rebroadcast. I'm Alan Earls, I'm one of the co-founders of Franklin and Focus. Welcome to our event. It's something we're calling the candidate query. Like it sounds, we've invited candidates for all the contested races in Franklin to join us. And our moderator panel will ask them some questions about themselves, their thoughts about town issues, and so on. We're going to start with the Constable candidates. I believe we have two of the four candidates here, then town council candidates, and finally, school committee candidates. With many candidates in limited time, we'll be trying to stick closely to some time limits. We also ask that members of the audience present here hold your comments and questions till later at the end of each group of candidates, if time permits, and at the discretion of the moderators. We may invite questions from the audience, but these two will have to be time-loaded. We'd like to thank all of you who've come out for this. And of course, especially the candidates, we realize that most candidates already took time to participate in a similar event last week. And some candidates couldn't make it tonight to the town government commitments or family commitments. It's probably a good point to just mention that candidates are volunteers in almost every case. I think the town clerk is the only person who actually has a salary out of this, so we owe them our thanks for all the time they take to come out to events like this and then to serve the public. So with that out of the way, let me just introduce our moderators from the left, Monique Doyle, who's a Franklin resident, retired Medway Public School teacher. She serves on the library board. Maria Lucier, a realtor, who's a past president of Franklin Library, a friend of the Franklin Library and serves on several other town committees and boards. And Steve Sherlock, who many of you will know from his many years of work covering town activities through his Franklin Matters blog and emails. I'm, as I mentioned, Alan Earle's my role. It will be primarily to keep time or try to keep time on candidates who are speaking. For your information, we have printed out all the candidate statements that I had in hand this evening on the table by the door and they'll also be in a PDF on the franklinifocus.org website. We've worked for the past two years to organize events like this so that we hope will bring useful information to townspeople about town government and related issues. So thank you for attending. With that, I'd like to turn it over to our moderators. We'd like to invite the two gentlemen who are running for Constable, Mr. LaRosa and Mr. Cahill. And we're going to ask our first question to Mr. Cahill. So gentlemen, Mr. Cahill, would you sit by the red mic, please, and Mr. LaRosa, if you can take a seat by the yellow mic. And we'd like to thank you both for coming. Mr. Cahill is an incumbent and Mr. LaRosa is a new candidate for the position of Constable. And the first question we'd like to ask Mr. LaRosa is, what do you see as your challenges or your greatest challenge for the role of Constable and how would you deal with it? I have served before as Constable. I did fill in for a vacancy for about two and a half years. So I have had some experience. I think when you're serving court documents, we're serving citizens, they are not criminals and they deserve to be treated with some kind of dignity and respect. And at the same time, you have to enforce the papers that you need to serve. So I mean, I think the challenge is always to find that medium, being able to be courteous and decent and at the same time get the job done. I think that's part of it. Like I said, I have had experience with it. Over 30 years teaching in the public schools also prepares you for meeting people that are really not wanting to be met sometimes. And at the same time, I mean, I've run a lot of Boy Scout camps and you get the same thing. You know, parents drop the kids off for a week at summer camp and all of a sudden you don't see them for a whole week and these kids are ill-prepared. The parents are more ill-prepared. And I just have a, I think I just have a knack for being able to lead people and at the same time work with people from all walks of life. 15 seconds, if you could finish up. Okay, that's about it. I mean, I'm still active on the museum. I'm a host for that. And at the same time, I'm still a commissioner with the Boy Scouts. Thank you, Mr. LaRosa. Mr. McKayhill, excuse me, thank you. You have one minute to answer the same question. Would you like me to repeat it? No, I, yeah. Okay, yeah. I mean, I think the biggest challenge is what you're dropping off is it's not good news for most of the people. So you have to be kind of aware that, you know, maybe giving someone an eviction or divorce papers or child support. So that's the biggest challenge. It's just dealing with that type of thing. You're just gonna bring a good news. Thank you. Our next question will be, we'll give Mr. McKayhill two minutes. That one's on. Oh, I think that's working, yeah. We'll try this one. Is it working? Yeah, I think so. Many of us don't really understand the role of Constable serving papers, I get. But one thing none of us seem to understand is how you're compensated for that. Who does the, is the town pay? No, so the way it works is if someone wants to get papers served, they can call a town and the town will give them the name of the different Constables in town, there's three of us. And then the state sets the rate for what you can charge for the different services and stuff like that. So the people that pay you are the people that want the papers served. The town doesn't really pay for that. The only thing I do really for the town too much is sometimes the town will call me for different things like board of health things to serve. And I do post all the election notices in town, but I don't get paid for that. So it's a little bit of a volunteer and then you get paid basically by the people that contact you. Mr. LaRosa, same question? Well, I mean, can you explain? I think we probably have an understanding of what you do. I don't know, what's the frequency? How often? When I was doing it, it was sometimes you'll get three or four in a week or a few days. Then you can go a few weeks and not hear from anybody. Sometimes you get calls from constables in other towns needing you to serve for them. That is something that they're doing. And we only serve in Franklin here but we can't serve out of town. And what the same, they're not supposed to come into town and serve here either. But I mean, basically a lot of the, sometimes it's divorce papers, could be eviction papers. Nobody's glad to see you, are they? Yeah. Thank you, gentlemen. Are there any questions from the audience? We do have a few minutes. Any questions? Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. I know we don't want, nice to see you but we don't want to see you. Thank you. Okay, this is, what we're going to do next is we have four members of who are running for town council and we are going to choose their names at random and have them seat themselves at this row of mics starting with the red microphone will be number one, number two will be yellow, et cetera. And then we're going to use the same format. Each one will have, each candidate will have a question, two minutes to answer and then all the other candidates will have one minute to address the same question. Steve, you have, do you have everybody down? Yes. Okay. So Ted, Ayman, Debbie and the order as you were aware it's just that first question that you need to get us on first question, so. Just for this audience, before we start, would each candidate say his or her name please? Ted Cormier ledger. Debbie Pellegrini. Andrew Besanti. Ayman's missing. Ayman's missing. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It looks good with his suit. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. First question will be for Mr. Ted Cormier. Assuming Ted, assuming our expenses will continue to outpace our revenue sources in the next two years, would you support a proposition two and a half override? Thank you for the question. And many people have been asking that question as we've been going around to various meetings and talking with folks. And I would support putting forth that referendum for the voters of Franklin to decide. I don't think that it's our decision, but I do think that it's our responsibility to at least put it to the voters. And I would want to make sure that people knew exactly what the money was being used for. Those projects need to be very specifically outlined. There needs to be measureables. There needs to be a timeline. And myself and any other member of the town council would need to be accountable for making sure that the money is spent appropriately so that we are telling the citizens of town where it's going, and then we're making sure that it happens. Thank you. Mr. Earl, you have one minute. Great, thank you. So the topic of a proposition two and a half override has been circulating for a few years now. And I think it will ultimately come down to what our actual financial situation ends up being in 2020 or 2021. There's always a slim possibility we may scrape through with new growth and some positive changes going on in terms of state aid and our tax base. But if this issue does continue to emerge, I would support putting this before the citizens. This is something that's too complicated for nine people to sit around and attempt to decide themselves. I very much concur with my counterpart, Ted, that I think this is something where we need very clear objectives and very clear goals. And we need to be very considerate of people, particularly those that are living on a fixed income because they're retired or because they're receiving some kind of annuity to make sure that we can safeguard their finances as much as possible if something like this needed to go through and make sure to collect all the relevant evidence and have a really strong conversation within the community. Thank you. Mrs. Pellegrini? Do you want to repeat the question because you're asking us if we agree with an override? Okay, I'll repeat the question. Assuming our expenses will continue to outpace our revenue sources in the next two years, would you support a proposition two and a half override? Okay, I don't think that it's that easy to just say yes, I would stick by it or approve putting it on a ballot. There's a lot that we have to learn about the budget at that time and exactly what we need in what different avenues. So I mean, I can't say right now, I would vote to put a question even on the ballot. I want to make sure that what we need is what we actually need and that we will know after we stack going through the budgets. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Basanti, sorry. Yes, I think you've heard from my colleagues basically how they feel about this question. However, I'm coming at this from a different angle. As a real estate appraiser, I've seen the tax rates in the other towns and we've enjoyed a relatively low tax rate for years and I'm not saying that we've been spoiled but part of the answer to this question is yes, we have to study what the factors will be that are going to fuel the override or the tax increase. What the factors are and what I don't want to see and what I learned as a counselor over the years is we have to always think our decisions out of what is the greater good for Franklin and that's what I would intend fueling my decision for an override is the greater good. So I guess that's what I'd want to see and I'd also want to see like Ms. Pallade, we said what would fuel the override. We still are in a fact finding decision. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Basanti. I know the question I think Amy, you get the two minutes on this one. What do you see for the future of Franklin regarding commercial and industrial growth versus residential growth? Well I think going forward we'll probably continue to see a combination of both. I know one of the things that's been very much a discussion in recent years is the pace of growth in Franklin. Certainly our community has grown rapidly since the 1960s but recently in the past decade or past 15 years we've seen an increased shift toward higher density development which has raised in some cases issues with traffic in certain parts of the town where there's a large number of people coming and going from a given development. So I think when it comes to our path forward I think it's important that we get as high in occupancy as possible with our existing commercial and industrial sites. We can continue to ensure a reasonable tax rate for our citizens here in Franklin. And we should be very careful when we consider new projects particularly with the planning board but also at the level of zoning within the town council to make sure that projects as we go forward are a good fit with our community and don't harm our underlying infrastructure, our schools, our water supply system and sewage system and don't create pulses of traffic that disrupt transit throughout our town. Thank you. One minute sir. Interestingly enough I agree with my friend Eamon on every point but I would also like to add that I think in order for us to move forward as a community we have to remember to be a community for all. And I think that includes very heartfelt discussions about affordable housing that includes very real heartfelt discussions with developers about 40B, what does that mean? What does that look like? We're hearing from many families that their children can't afford to live here once they have graduated or they have gone off to work and tried to come home. And that's both sad and something that I think we have to be able to take a look at and say we want property values to stay high and for this to be a desirable community but how can we make it a community for everybody? I think it's very important that we're going to have to keep the residential, commercial and industrial all not equal with each other but we have to look into it equally, all right? And if that means that we have to change some of our zoning bylaws then that's something we're going to have to do. If it's something to do with residential we certainly don't want residential that is going to impact our schools but we can't say no to residential if they're following all the rules and regulations except to the fact that we can change some zoning maybe that would help us out that way. Franklin people know it all over the place but years ago they didn't know Franklin mass. Today they do because we have a fantastic school system and we have industry in town. We have our two industrial parks and I want to keep them all equal with each other. Mr. Basanti. Thank you. Zoning is one of my skill sets and I've been preaching this on the social media and I've been preaching this amongst my peers. We need to think about at least residential zoning from a new different standpoint. We need to think about inclusionary affordability and inclusionary affordability and inclusionary open space in the sense that we need smaller homes, private roads, less bedrooms and with that that will also not only slow down growth because developers aren't going to like that. As far as commercial and industrial we need to create more of it. If you look at the zoning map in Franklin in concentric circles it's commercial and then it goes residential five, four, three, two. We need to create more commercial and we need to create more industrial to create a better revenue base for the town of Franklin. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have a follow up question along the same line. Mrs. Pellegrini I'm going to ask for two minutes. Would you support rezoning efforts that seek to attract revenue producing business development as opposed to single family residential development which tends to cost the town more in services than the taxes paid by the homeowner? Okay. I can't really say if I would go along with increasing for commercial or industrial even aside from the residential. We have to look at things equally. Every single division of what I just said the three of them. So to say what I would be willing to do I don't know what I would be willing to do right now but I know that whatever I decided to do would be in the best interest of the town certainly to keep the taxes down for our residents and if that includes more industrial and more commercial then that's something we would certainly look into. I have two minutes. You have two minutes but that's okay. That's okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Basanti can you please give us a one minute response to the same question? Would you like me to repeat it? Yes please. Okay sure. Would you support rezoning efforts that seek to attract revenue producing business development as opposed to single family residential development which tends to cost the town more in services than the taxes paid by the homeowner? Well I think that's where I was going. I mean we need to create more commercial and industrial revenue producing parcels of land in Franklin. We have this overlay, we have the cannabis overlay in Franklin which remains to be seen what that's gonna do for Franklin. Nothing has really gotten going yet and I don't know if that's what we want where we wanna go with our industrial overlays or industrial and commercial. I think if we create, we have very little commercial land in Franklin, as far as C1 as far as if you've ever looked at the map. We need to create more C1 and we need to create more C2 land and as far as the C2 land goes I think the work, live and play zones that have been being discussed in the town where you have office, retail and living would be something to stop exploring with some of the allowing C2 properties that we have right now. That would create revenue. Thank you. Would you please explain what you're talking about when you say C2 and C1? C2, C1 is a higher density use which you find in the centers of town, in the center of town. C2 is like Keegan Chevrolet right now that defunds car sales well a lot and it has been being discussed at a recent EDC meeting where they were talking about apartments, retail and mixed use in office. Thank you, thank you. Mr. Cormier Leger, same question. Would you like me to repeat it? No, no, no, that's okay. I absolutely support a balance of commercial, residential and industrial in town. I think like Mr. Basanti mentioned that we're going into a new time with mixed use zoning and I think that's an exciting time for the town to be able to do opportunities for businesses to share space, to look at things for artists, to look at things for musicians, to look at things for aspiring businesses that maybe can't afford such high rents right now while they're getting started. I would like us to look at some existing commercial spots and see if we can get tenants there before we talk about growth in new areas. I think there's vacant lots, abandoned businesses, abandoned restaurants throughout town that don't do anyone any good staying vacant. So I'd like us as a town council to really look at that to figure out maybe what the town would like to see there whether it be through surveys or some online things talking to folks and really put some businesses that people want. Thank you very much. And our last question. As Franklin's representative to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the regional authority that oversees much of the greater Boston areas infrastructure and planning, I would have to say that I think a mixed use approach is probably in the best interest of Franklin. Throughout much of our history, we had a mingling of businesses and homes that worked very well for many sections of our community and with the strict rules that zoning imposed from the 1950s and 60s onward, we've seen significant separation of all of those areas. So current parts of the town, some sections of the town have very, very few small businesses located there, very few convenience stores or restaurants. And that may be what residents in those parts of town would like, but perhaps not, and that may be an issue that we can begin to revisit through neighborhood meetings and consider new options for increased mingling of retail, commercial space and residential space. Thank you. Is this the last question? Last question. I'm gonna continue on this thread. Community Preservation Act. That adds a small surge charge to people's taxes to pay for such items as open space, historical rehabilitation and affordable housing. Would you support the adoption of the Community Preservation Act in Franklin? And I think it is Mr. Basanti's number one on this. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Maria. Yes, I did answer this question at the candidate's night the other night and I was excited to be able to field the question because I did attend a meeting in an X-Bridge solely with this matter at hand. It was an exciting program for the towns to look into. The funds evidently were available at the time. I did bring it back to the council and I brought it back to Brian Taberner. And I think I would definitely support it as a council member to pursue these kind of projects. I like, there's some projects that I think close to a mind in Debbie's heart are the South Church and some other older buildings in town that we could restore and definitely pursue some open space land that I'd like to see the town obtain and not disturb some neighborhoods that are lying next door to them and interfering with their properties and their just beautiful parcels of land and their farms and I'd like to see some open space obtained with that money. But the National Preservation Act is a very exciting program and I'd like to take advantage of it for the town of Franklin, thank you. Yes, thank you for the question. I absolutely would approve us pursuing that as a program that as an additional funding source. I appreciate how much open space we have having come from Medford and Dedham and places that are closer to the city where green space was very limited. I would like us to look as a town if any of those open spaces and it would require some more research certainly but maybe some of those open spaces dedicated to recreation with two small children. The fields are overused. They're incredibly over scheduled. The traffic is terrible when you're a working parent trying to get your child to those drop off sometime whether it's football or flag or baseball. And I think if a parcel was to open up that would meet those needs. I would like to try to work with council members to see if that was a possibility. So as with my counterparts, I certainly agree there's a significant need to focus on acquiring new open space and conservation lands as well as preserving our historic structures and our culture here in Franklin. When it comes to the Community Preservation Act, I think it needs a very careful look. As with so many things created up on Beacon Hill, Beacon Hill is always turning out new circuit breakers and things like that because their formulas are often broken. The assessments I've heard of the Community Preservation Act suggests that it pays out less over time the later a community joins. So I think it would be something that would be important to look at with a financial professional such as our Comptroller to see if it is in our current best interest to join a program like this, whether it would really be a financial benefit to the town or whether we would be joining the program too late and instead paying out to other communities and really not receiving much benefit back ourselves. So I think it needs a further look. I agree that we should look into this again. And I say again because it was in 19, I believe 89 that we brought it first to the council that we wanted to pass something like this because the state was giving us 100% what the townspeople were putting up and what the state would be putting up. It would be a match. Well and as Eamon said over the years it's changed. That ballot question did not pass. And as far as I'm concerned it didn't pass because we didn't do the work that we should have done to get it. We got it on the ballot but we didn't get out there and really explain to the people. Right now we're losing even though all the communities are getting less money for the CPA, we're getting fewer dollars to put into our coffers but what we're not getting and I don't know if I'm gonna explain this right but we're losing money because that money would be coming to us even if it was a small percentage but we're not even getting that small percentage now. So yes I would certainly work for a CPA question on the ballot. Thank you. We do have some time so if there are members of the audience who would like to ask questions, we would like to hear from you. Yes ma'am. How does it work? It's organic. It's a better place. By the way, it has long calls. We meet with our account regularly. It's a better place than never we did most of both there and there isn't a lot of open space left. My question is, is that a lot of our open space has been acquired through the Chapter 61 program. Those of you who don't know, Chapter 61 is Forestry, Agricultural Recreation. You get a text break, you put your lamp in, the town gets on its way. So if it's in agricultural, the idea is that hopefully we'll stay in agricultural. So for me coming from an agricultural standpoint, getting open space for more dolphins on is not really the best thing. So how would you guys go about balancing, right now, local food and all of that is a big thing. How would we go about balancing what our open space is in town? Because I don't think it's a much-designable recreational, not everybody has kids but everybody does eat. Thank you. Could you please identify yourself? Ah, for the pleasure. Thank you. Who would like to answer? Any response please? Ayman. That's a great question, Carly. And I think when it comes to the land that's currently held in 61B, I think it very much comes down to the individual parcel. I think it is really important to assess a land, a piece of property's viability for different things. I mean, if it's really rocky glacial till, perhaps with trees already on it, perhaps we keep it as forest lands. If it's a marginal sandy spot, which wouldn't be very good for gardening, perhaps that's the next great ball field for Franklin. But I think if it's good bottom land soils, nice loams and things like that, then perhaps that's the thing for coordination with the Agricultural Commission for the creation of maybe some kind of community farm space or something like that, potentially coordination with future farmers of America or other organizations like that that have an agricultural bent to them. I think it really does come down to the individual parcel. Thank you. Would any other candidate like to address the question? Yes, sir, Mr. Passanti. Yes, thank you. Carly, candidly, when it comes to a property where and I alluded to this in my last answer, when it comes to a property that's affecting several neighborhoods, I would just like it to be just left virgin land for walking spaces, trails. That's my idea of open space. I agree with you. I don't like it to see, I don't like open space land under a farm act to be turned into a baseball field. I would just like to see, and there is one in mind, I won't name it, but it's affecting several neighborhoods. It's been quite the buzz at the town hall and I candidly would like to just see it to be left open space. I don't know what the town's plans are to exercise their powers under the chapter 61A or 61B, but to me that would be a great open space candidate and whether we could float a bond or do something to raise the money to buy it, I'd like to see that happen. I think the developer's already gotten his preliminary approvals. I don't know whether we can still pull the trigger on that, but that would be a great candidate. Thank you. Ms. Pallegri. We do have first option on the 61B because I can remember them coming through my office when I was clerk. You get them on all 61, Robert. Pardon? You get the first option on a paper. Right, but I mean I remember those coming in and most times it was that families had passed on and now the land was left to their children and it's sad to say, but these children weren't per se farmers and didn't want to keep it going and that's the saddest thing that can happen. I think what you're doing now with the Agricultural Committee commission is wonderful. Just being up at the common on Fridays, selling your goods, it's just great that everybody is becoming aware and it's not only just the Franklin farmers, it's those that are around the surrounding areas too. So, and we also have to remember that some of this money can go towards historical. So, being an advocate for the museum and our old museum, I would certainly like to see the CPA go in and take care of a lot of those things. We have to just let the residents know, we have to instruct them as to what's happening. I think that sort of failed before. Exactly, absolutely and it's so little to be added to the attacks. Thank you, thank you very much. Are there any more questions from the audience? If none, we thank you, all candidates who have come tonight and given your views, we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, candidates for the school committee, would you please again give us your name so the audience will know to whom we're speaking? Joanna Lucier, Jennifer D'Angelo. Mary Jane Schofield. Dave McNeil. Tim Keenan. Ian Bergen. Thank you very much. We're gonna use the same format as we did before and question number one, we're going to ask to Miss Lucier. And the question is, should the Davis Thayer School remain open or be closed and why? Being debated, I honestly will say, if I had a made a decision today, yes or no, it would be no. There is a lot that we need to study. There's a lot of community engagement that needs to happen. And I know one of the things they mentioned was hiring an outside consultant to kind of do the study for us, but I believe the town of Franklin has the talent amongst our community members. There's a lot of people that travel to Boston to Work or Providence consultants that can help us and maybe they can volunteer their time knowing our budgetary constraints to kind of help us with the process being like, let's look at this and get a team members of parents, teachers, former students, or even people from outside the Davis Thayer communities because those students, if they have to be redistrict, have to go to the other schools. So other schools might have a opinion about the matter. So my answer is no. We don't know enough about it to make a decision today. We still have a lot of research to do and I think this upcoming school committee is gonna have to do it and it might actually even leak into the next school committee. I don't think it's a one-year project. I think it could be a long-term project. Thank you. Ms. D'Angelo, would you have one minute to respond? Sure, thanks. Same question? I think what Joanna said is pretty accurate. I think that at the end of the day we're here to make data-driven decisions. So I think it's looking at the information, looking at the impact of those decisions that we have to make and making sure that we're making the best decision for students. So I think that the impact to close a school is a community impact. It's not just a school impact and I think that sometimes we don't look at that. So yes, the most impactful recipients would be the Davis-Dare students and families but I also do think that it impacts our other schools. So I think we need to look at a bigger picture when it comes to the closing of school and really take that into consideration. Thank you. Mofield? Okay, today I don't think anybody could say that the Davis-Dare should be closed. The study that's going to be done that a fee has been approved for a consultant absolutely has to be done. That's the same approach that we used when we hired our school superintendent and what we wanted to do is it take the emotion out of it. So it was absolutely the right thing to do. And that's it? Thank you. Mr. McNeil? Yes, thank you. I think conducting a study to look into the Davis-Dare closing is the right decision to make in order for us to make an evidence-based decision. Now with the budget shortfalls we have both in the town and the school system, we need to think of big ideas and innovative ways to try to free up money in the long term and if a study reveals that it can be done in a sensible, reasonable way that it would make sense for freeing up long term finances that instead of going towards Davis-Dare could be diverted to other parts of the school system, then I think it should happen. But we first need to have a study to make sure that can be done in a reasonable way, make sure that it would make sense to do so and that it can be done the least disruptive way possible. Thank you, Mr. Keenan. All right, thanks. So from what I understand, there's three components that have been cited in terms of why we might wanna close the school is that the age and the design of the building, decreased district enrollment and economic efficiency. I think what I'd like to see, I'm also, I love when I hear things like data driven, that's my background. And I think the more that we can get clear in terms of defining a nice problem statement around those components, I think the better that study could be. What I'd love to see in that study is a lot of contextual information so we could really interpret. If we're understanding the design of the building and Davis Stayer scores like a 70% in some category, we need to really understand the context around that. Like if Kennedy, for example, was also studied, would they be a 75? So trying to interpret whatever is coming out of that study is gonna be really important and I think it's going to be important to have some contextual ability to do that in comparison to other schools or other districts. Thank you. Dr. Bergen? Yes. When I was principal of the Davis Stayer School, we had, it was a complex of over 600 students. We're now down to over, just over 200. It was a building that was designed as a high school, a three story building. And so we absolutely, it is our fiscal responsibility to conduct a study. And regarding the fee, the finance committee voted unanimously, the town council voted vote eight to one to invest money to look at the structural design of that building because if it gets turned back to the town, we have to make sure that we've checked asbestos, electrical wiring, handicap accessibility. It's a short term investment to make sure that that building, everything that needs to be done, we know, and thank you very much. That's all I can say on that, right? Thank you. Thank you very much. I didn't write everybody's name. No worries. I'm gonna screw up too bad, like, yeah. How does the school committee balance the need to provide a quality education with a need to respect a local taxpayer burden? Yeah, so that's a great question. So I think that goes back to kind of utilizing your resources wisely and making sure that everyone's informed of those decisions that you have to make. So funds are not endless. That's one of our biggest challenges is the budget. And I think that taxpayers are respectful of making those decisions when they know their dollars are used wisely to help students achieve what they need to achieve. So I think we have leadership in place. We have committees in place to make sure that we're doing that work. And I think that that needs to be at the forefront of the decisions that we make as a community. And kind of keeping that in mind. Okay, thank you. The school field? Oh, okay. One minute. Can you repeat the question? Yeah, I'm sorry. How does the school committee balance the need to provide a quality education with a need to respect the local taxpayer burden? Well, first and foremost, we always have to respect the taxpayers. We are representing them. And we can't just make decisions to go off and start new programs without looking at what it's gonna cost. And if it's going to result in this override question being turned to the voters. It's incumbent upon us to make sure that their dollars are being spent wisely. Yes, right now? Yes, thank you. So this, of course, the budget process for the school district and the town is a very delicate process. And I think the school committee did an excellent job with a very difficult task. It's important when taking a look at the budget to not only look at cuts, but also look at new revenues and try to figure out where the balance properly is. I think fiscal responsibility is identifying where you absolutely need to spend money on and also where we can afford to make cuts and in the recent school budget, identifying whether it be certain professional development or certain services that could be cut and other fees that could be raised. I think finding a balance of those and having a big picture approach to that is essential. Thank you. Mr. Keenan? Yeah, so this one, I think there's a great opportunity here for the community of Franklin to form a school committee that has people from a bunch of different backgrounds because that will allow people to ask different questions from different perspectives. So I don't come from an education background, I come from a business background. So I think part of that when it comes to thinking about the budget puts me in a position to ask questions like why do we do things certain way? Why do we allocate funds in certain ways? Ultimately, I think we're all looking for the same thing, which is how do you optimally allocate funds so that you get the best education, the best services. So I think there's a lot of data analysis that goes along with that, but you want perspective from a diverse group. I think you also want to get the perspective from the teachers, the faculty, the administration, the superintendent, the community in general, and even the kids. And people from different levels as well, I think would be really helpful because I think different groups are gonna have different perspectives on where are their surpluses, where are their opportunities, and where do they feel like expenses might be extended beyond where they should be. Dr. Burton? I think it begins with that big picture, having a vision, what do we want for our kids in terms of the whole child and having that big picture and seeing what's the best way that we can go about meeting the needs of our kids and families. But we also, as everyone has said, we have to be cognizant of finances and what we can afford. And what we've tried to do as a school committee, in addition to educating the public about the needs, is to also demonstrate all of the things we do to mitigate that. What are the things we're doing? So, for example, keeping as many special ed programs in-house as we can, forming, leveraging partnerships with collaboratives to save us money. We have to let the public know this is our vision. This is what we're doing in the most efficient and effective way to keep our schools competitive and to give the community the kind of schools our kids deserve. And we have to be competitive. We have to be competitive for our kids. Sorry, if I went over. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This is hard again. Being last is hard. Everyone said a lot of great things. So, I think the original question is, how do you balance the quality education and the tax payers, Vernon? So, someone had told me we only collect a fixed amount of tax revenues each year. And I think the majority of it goes to our education budget. And I mentioned it before, it's like any dollar we take in fun education is a dollar not spent somewhere else in the town. So, I think it needs to come almost at the town level of how to balance the budget to see where we can take money and spend money and what is a clear want, a need, a nice to have. Because many families moved to Franklin for the education system, young families. So, if the school system's not performing and our school system is not as great, people aren't gonna be moving in. Property taxes are going lower. We're not collecting as much money. So, it's like a vicious cycle. So, I think it's going to be hard. It needs to be worked with the town council to see the town budget in itself to kinda come up with a school budget to make sure we spend our money nicely. Thank you. Question number three and this goes first to Ms. Gofield. If the administration makes an educational decision and numerous community members are not supportive of this decision, it's kind of a segue back to the Davis Thayer idea, what will be your role as a school committee member in addressing those concerns? Well, we've seen this a few times over the past couple of years. Several years ago, we refined the homework policy and it took a meeting with several parents on a Saturday morning. They came and told us what wasn't working about homework that was already in and established policy. And we took all of their suggestions and came up with what we thought was a good, solid policy. And the administration followed up with a group of teachers to come up with guidelines for the homework policy, which was implemented for this 2019-20 school year. How it's working right now. We don't know how it's working. They're going to be doing surveys after the holidays at the end of the year. And we'll have our first report on the success or not of the policy and the guidelines in probably January. Thank you. Follow up one minute, please, Mr. McNeil. Yes, thank you. So the school committee is the legislative body that is in charge of the school system in Franklin. And just as with any legislative body is directly responsive to the public that it serves. And that's a vital role of community outreach and listening to the community, listening to parents, listening to all those who are involved in the school system to getting their feedback on whether it be changes or what needs to be happening or other trends or other policies that could be enacted to meet the long-term vision and strategic goals of the public school system. So having that communication and being responsive to the public when we have that communication is absolutely key. And then communicating that back with the administration to make sure that we are being responsive to the public that the school committee is here to serve. Thank you, Mr. McNeil. Mr. Kenan? Can you repeat the question? Yes, of course. I think when you asked it, I was trying to direct one of my kids to the rest. Sure. If the administration makes an educational decision, such as the closing of the Davis Thayer School, as an example, and numerous community members are not supportive of this decision, what will be your role as a school committee member in addressing the concerns? The community members are not supportive, is that what you said? Yes, the community members are, what will be your role as a school committee member in addressing the concerns if the community members are not supportive of that administrative decision? Okay, great. So I think some of the things that you heard tonight from a lot of the candidates here, you've heard things like data-driven decisions and I think any decision that the school committee makes needs to be supported from a data-driven perspective and needs to be explained in that way. And so if there's a decision, for example, related to home or policy, Davis Thayer closing or school start times, it needs to be really articulated clearly. Here's why this decision was made. And sometimes the decisions might be tough, but I think if the data is laid out there, people would at least understand the rationale that is used to make that decision. Not everybody's gonna agree on every decision, but the school committee, I think, is at least responsible for putting out a clear-cut case. Here's the data that was considered. People wanna poke holes in that in advance to when decisions are made. I think that's the right time after the fact. I think it really needs to be buttoned up in terms of what the story is and what was used to make the decision. So I would expect that the committee really presents the community what information was used to make those decisions. Thank you very much. Dr. Bergett? Yes. Just specifically regarding Davis Thayer School, when there began to be discussions about closing it, the first thing that we did, Dr. Hearn and I did, was go meet with the Davis Thayer families. We immediately had two meetings, one in the morning and one in the evening. And as Tim said, to bring very, very specific information. And we had the advantage of having the history at Davis Thayer and to know that building inside and out and I could explain the history and where we were. But it's important that when there are tough decisions like that that have to be made, we have to be out in that public as visible as possible. That's where we have community coffee hours every single month. We were at the harvest festival. We were at the strawberry stroll. We were there pleading with people. If you have questions, come talk to us. We'll give you as much information as possible. And again, as factual and as formative as we can be and explain our decisions. So that's about all I have to say on that one. But thank you. Thank you very much. Same question, one minute. Ms. Lucio. Thank you. So this is a great question. Cause I think what Tim said is great is to make sure the public understands why we made the decision that the school committee made. And one of the things that they can do is just it's more about community engagement. I know Steve asked this question. How do we get the community more engaged and more involved? I will have to say I was one of those people that didn't know what was going on in the school committee. They do have all these coffee hours that I could not attend. How are some other ways that we can get the community involved and educated on these things? Whether it's we create like a fact sheet, like executive summary, what are some of the things that are going on? Decisions being made. Whether we email it through the school system. I know we can subscribe to things on the town website. Maybe we go to local businesses. Hey, can we post something here? Or it's just we need to be able to communicate better with the community deities. And it's just really getting it out there. And so they understand the decisions that they made. Thank you. And Ms. D'Angelo? So I think a lot of what was said, I agree with as far as communication and kind of lending to that conversation about data-driven decisions. But I think it's also when we see a community respond like that, it's because there's a surprise element that they're responding to. I don't necessarily think sometimes it's the decision. I think it's the fact that they didn't know it was coming. And there wasn't conversations happening. Prior to, that lended to that we would be at the end of the day making a tough decision. So I think I would like to see better communication happening and I know that there's outreach that happens as far as come see us at coffee hours or whatnot. I would like to see a more outward approach with that information and more fluid conversations happening. So at the end of the day, even if you aren't in favor of the decisions that we have to make as a committee and as an administration, there's some level of respect for that decision knowing that we made it in a good effort to service the students. Thank you. Question number four. A little bit of a segue here. There's been some discussions about different things. Covered a couple of them here with Davis there and with somebody mentioned school start turns. But aside from that, there's been discussions in the community about student fees for participation in sports, after school activities and then the fees for busing. Fees for busing are not new. I remember paying them myself. But what are your thoughts on those? I'm yours, thank you. So as I mentioned before when it comes to the budget discussion approaching budget shortfalls, I think fees are one avenue to look at in terms of seeing how certain monies can be raised to cover budget shortfalls in balance with cuts. I would say fees are an unfortunate way to lean on if they are a part of that balance because as they can often disproportionately affects lower income students or low income families that can't afford them as much as other families. However, in the balance approach they are worth looking at and they can be looked at in a way as long as we don't believe they are going to disproportionately harm any one student group or family group or be they actually will raise adequate money in a balanced way because there's no sense in charging fees if it's not going to raise enough money and not going to address the problem. So I would say in part of the big picture conversation keeping with the balance approach it's worth looking at but shouldn't be the first resort or the first action to be addressed and put on the table but still kept in the conversation. Thank you, Mr. Keenan. So I do think this one ties back to the budget question and one thing I didn't say last time. When we think about solutions related to the budget there's always tight budgets I think everyone recognizes that it wouldn't be wise for me to really try to offer up solutions on the budget without really immersing myself in the data and connecting with people who have deep, deep insight on it and last time I referred to connecting with faculty and administration and people who've been very close to the budget over time. I do think we want to feel comfortable that we are optimally allocating those funds and looking at trends to see where have things grown disproportionately and to see if that all makes sense and then connecting with the different levels of people in the administration, in faculty, in services to understand if they feel like there's places where we're not proportionate to what they think it should be. Thank you, Dr. Bergen. I can say two words hate them in terms of having to put fees on families' transportation. As was mentioned, you get the division between the haves and the have-nots and it's not a good thing but over the years and we've watched this happen we've made class size a priority making sure we have teachers in the classroom and that's been as MJ can attest to the priority but when the cost of everything is soaring and we have a fixed level service budget all the time when the rates are soaring on transportation, special ed costs, technology, all the unfunded curriculum mandates, these tough, awful decisions have to be made and you have to clarify those priorities, you have to stick with them and then unfortunately what we've had to do over the years is bring those fees in and I can say I absolutely hate them and I think they do impact families in an inordinate way and I think they keep kids from activities sometimes and I would do anything to get away with those and that's why I think we really have to have serious discussions about the fiscal issues our community is facing. Thank you. Ms. Lucia? Fees. So I think most of the fees that any family is paying is busing fees. I think we pay one activity fees. I'm not sure, I think Dr. Anger mentioned that they're need-based so I hope they continue to be need-based, I don't think busing is but it stings to pay fees but the way with the budget is I think we have to pay fees right now unless down the road we get more funding through the state or through the town and it's just going, it's there. I think one of the suggestions she had brought up the school committee was maybe charging a parking fee at the high school and I was pretty excited about it and I'm like, that's great if a parent can afford maybe car insurance, et cetera, they can pay it but then when we got more money, they nixed it and I asked her about it, Dr. Anger and she mentioned the stress it would have on DPW if a parent's a paying for a parking spot and it's not plowed, they would be upset. So there's an educational element to it. It's like, yes, we're gonna have a, might introduce a fee but what are all the other strains like town resources that we might have to use? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Tendulow. Yeah, so fees are, I guess they're a hot topic. I don't know, I went to school. And on certain social media. Yeah, so I guess, for me they're just the norm. I went to Franklin High School, I paid fees to participate in activities. So for me I just think that that's something if you are engaging in activity then you would pay for that activity similar to a service. If you had joined a local gym or karate classes then you would pay for that. But I do know and I agree with Dr. Bergen that we don't wanna eliminate access for students. And I do think that we do a great opportunity, we do a great job in the town of creating opportunities for those that may have some financial restrictions. And I know that there are programs out there to make sure that those families that aren't able to access to the full pay do get some financial support. So for me I think that as long as we're creating opportunities for all and accessibility to all then I don't mind the fees. Yeah. Let's go Phil. Okay, unfortunately fees are a part of the Franklin Public Schools. And in particular, yeah, fees at the high school for activities, well they're at the middle school too. That fees for athletics, it started out years ago when they were first implemented. There wasn't much of an uproar. There, you know, it was maybe $25 per sport. And then it went up to 50. And I was like, okay, what's going on here? And now the fee structure that's in place, the kids who play different sports are paying different fees. And as far as busing goes, the buses that take our kids to school, that amount is already, it is being subsidized by the Franklin Public Schools. So the fee that is being paid is not the full cost. Not that it makes it any better because for many years there were no fees for buses. And unfortunately it's where we are today. Thank you. Thank you all. Next question, we're gonna start with Mr. Keenan. And my question is, what do you feel is the greatest challenge facing the school district and how would you address it? Okay, I appreciate, I'm not gonna dodge the question but so one thing that I've answered the question like this before and I wanna answer it the same way to be consistent. So I'm not coming in with a personal perspective on what the most important issue is in terms of the schools. I see members at the table here that are gonna be part of a team and there's also a community out there and everybody has a sense of what are the biggest factors or the biggest issues that the community is facing. I don't wanna advocate for one problem over another. I wanna listen to the community and understand what people think are the areas where we should be spending our time and our efforts. It may be something like the Davis Day or it may be the budget, it may be school start times, it may be homework policies. It could be any number of things, fees. So there's a ton of different topics. So I'm not coming in with the perspective of somebody who's really trying to push for we really need to have an answer on this. I really wanna participate is in the process of solving problems and making sure that those problems are very, very clearly defined so that we could build a nice analytical research plan to get the insight that we need to solve those problems and then also as a community come together to find common ground in terms of solutions. So I think that's gonna get down to can we clearly define the problems? We have to prioritize those problems and then work collaboratively to come up with an approach to get insight that could then be used to come up with solutions. So I hope it doesn't sound like I'm avoiding the question there but I really, I wanna make it clear that I'm not coming in with a perspective of that I feel like this is the number one problem. Thank you. Dr. Bergen, same question? Sure. Just from a personal perspective and having listened to educators over the last few years and through from my career in public education, the biggest issue for me that the schools are facing that students are facing is really around social, emotional health, mental health of our kids and we're seeing such rising issues around anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation. We're seeing it just from the work with the State Coalition and the number of young people that I've interviewed through that process is that so much is stemming from this internal sort of distress that young people are experiencing for a lot of different reasons and I think that's part of what we do as a committee is when we listen to people or what are those, what are the underlying reasons that are causing our kids so much turmoil and I think because learning cannot take place unless we address the whole child and for me personally, the perspective and the lens through which I view this is around the whole child and particularly emotional well-being and social well-being. Thank you, Dr. Bergen. Ms. Lucia? So I'm a finance person so I'm gonna save the budget. I feel like, I think I was talking to the head of Franklin's DPEC and I didn't realize that we don't really fully fund some of the IEP things that need to happen. She was like, we don't have the resources. We have to bust some of the kids to other schools to utilize their resources. It might make sense to best utilize our money but I was surprised. I'm like, oh, I thought by law they had to do things. So if we don't have the money to do that, we don't have too much money to spend on social and emotional intelligence which I think is also important. So we had to cut languages. So there's a lot of program cuts because there's lack of funding. So can we solve some of these issues if we have more funding? Yes, but then it comes back to the whole town council, like our whole Franklin budget is not just us. It's all of Franklin. So it's tough to balance. Thank you. Miss D'Angelo? Yeah, so I think they're all related. I think that you can't really identify one problem. I kind of agree with Tim. At the end of the day, they're all related. They all kind of intertwine with each other. So I think it's looking at the big picture and looking at what Dr. Bergen had suggested of what is our vision? What is our goal and our mission? And how do we support that goal and mission for all students and make those decisions? Again, there's not endless resources to go around. And most of these initiatives and programming, it all ends up in a financial impact. So we just have to be really cautious about those decisions that we make and make sure that we're looking at it as a big picture, similar to the way that you would look at your household budget. Tough decisions have to be made and there's only so much money coming in every month and what do we do to get the biggest bang for our buck and help the family? Thank you. Ms. Schofield? These have all been great answers to just an amazing question. What is our biggest challenge? Every single thing that has been mentioned here is our greatest challenge. And if we can, I mean, we've done a tremendous job with what we have, but there are so many things like what Anne was talking about with the social and emotional well-being of the kids. The horror stories that we've heard, it's not just kids in high school that are dealing with anxiety and depression and suicidal ideations. We've got kids in middle school and the elementary schools and we're gonna have to look at it all, bottom line. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Mr. Keenan? I'm sorry. No, McNeil. Mr. McNeil, sorry. Did it again. Yeah, I would say the biggest immediate challenge facing the school system is the budget and because precisely that it is so interrelated with everything else that was mentioned today. Particularly balancing the, particularly addressing the budget shortfall and challenges while still keeping in line with our long-term strategic goals for school system and providing for quality education for Franklin students for making sure that student-teacher ratios are still maintained in an acceptable way. Curriculum standards are kept high, that social-emotional learning and mental health challenges are being met. And I think that the two-way communication with the administration and school administration and teachers to understand how on the ground, they see those challenges and also with the parents to understand how they perceive their students' challenges and also other research is going to be all necessary to address that. Thank you very much. Last question? Last question. Very quickly, what is your priority in being a school committee member? What's your budget priority? Or is this my question? Yes. Budget priority or professional, what do you wanna see done the most? Well, I sort of, I think when I guess what I could frame it sort of around the superintendent's evaluation because that's where we as a committee asked her to focus as her priorities. And so when you look at that, when you look at the priorities, the things we asked her to focus on the evaluation that we just completed, certainly around social-emotional learning, that we wanted to look for very, very specific, measurable ways to measure. It's one thing to say we're doing all these things. How do we know they're really happening? We're looking for monitoring that. We're looking at staff wellbeing, that's a priority. We asked her to consider that and to say, making sure that they are balancing work and life and that we're not killing them. The other thing we asked her to look at was personalized learning, to give us data to show that we are in fact differentiating enough to meet the needs of all kids. We've asked her to carefully monitor the homework policy to make sure that it's being implemented consistently across the district. We've asked her to make sure that those site-based councils are strengthened, that parents know that there's a place for them to serve in the schools, to give input on the budget, to create the culture in the schools, to help develop the school improvement plans. Some of the parents weren't fully aware of that, so we asked her to focus on that. We asked her also to make sure, and this for me is a particular priority, is that our kids in the schools see that there's more than one pathway to success, that the traditional four-year college isn't for everyone, and that we need to ask her to make sure that she encourages that our students to know about vocational options and the Franklin Arts Academy, community colleges, that there's more than one way, one way for success. And then certainly obviously the budget, as everyone said, that's a huge priority, I have to say, do all that, but make sure that we stay within a reasonable amount and we can fund it all, so good luck with that, but I'm just saying, but I think our priorities are reflected in the evaluation that we asked her to do because she's the one we hired, we hired her to do that, and we have to monitor, so that's it, that's it. That's it, that's it. What are the roles of that? My top three priorities, honestly it's doing what's best for the kids and the communities for all of them, for the majority of them, whether it's the social-emotional learning or having less fees, whatever, we put the kids first. The second thing is to come up with a five and 10-year long-term financial plan, that's something I do every day for work, but it's, we're gonna have to see where we need to spend money 10 years from now. What I always say is the high school's brand new, but 10 years from now, something might break down, we have to spend $5 million fixing it. That's not in the budget today, that's going to have to be in the budget later. The third thing is community engagement and education. I feel like the current school committee has done a great job, but there's still a lot of people out there that don't know what they do, don't know what decisions are being making, being made, and we just need to better educate them on what's going on and try to better communicate with them and that's still something we all need to learn and how to do it and improve it. Who's Angela? So I think major priority, I think there's a lot of priorities, I think sitting on the outside, I would like to be able to see the inside information before I committed to one objective as far as a major priority, but I do think overall, I think it's having a clear understanding of our district goals and what those look like for a short-term, long-term, and then looking at the sustainability of those goals and how we keep that momentum moving when we put great programming in place and new initiatives and building brand new schools and how do we then maintain what we've created as far as great opportunities for kids. So for me, I think that that's the big thing, identifying those goals and then looking at ways that we can really sustain those goals moving forward. Okay, thank you. Let's go Phil. Oh boy. Every single thing is a priority. What Dr. Bergen was talking about with the superintendent's evaluation, that's one of our only responsibilities is to hire and fire, God forbid, the superintendent. It's up to us to make sure that she carries out everything that it is that we wanna see happen. Yes, we wanna see all the kids doing well and I mean, Franklin had 98, 99% graduation rate last year. There aren't many towns that do that well. But as Dr. Bergen mentioned, it's a four-year school for everybody. Nope, it is not, definitely. And kids need to learn about what the different options are. The budget, who can say enough about the budget tonight? You know, it's going to be scary over the next few years. Mr. McNeil. I think the motivation behind the Portrait of the Graduate program kind of encapsulates my priority. Trying to understand what, when a student leaves the Franco-Publica school system, graduates through the system, what does that person look like? How do we provide for a system and policies that give an environment that's best conducive for learning, for mental health and other developmental concerns? And how do we create a school system that not only produces good learners and later on good workers, but also just good people that are well-rounded and able to go into the world and address its challenges? Mr. Kamin. Well, hey, here are my fellow candidates, talk about a lot of the challenges and hear the care and their voice about wanting to solve those issues. It helps me breathe a little because I look out in the crowd and I see my kids and I wanna do what's best for them and all the other kids in the community. And there's a lot of challenges and when I hear Dr. Bergen talk about the social and emotional well-being of kids, it's just so hard to ignore that. And I think there's a lot of great candidates here, there's also some great candidates that aren't here. And I think anybody that volunteers to enrich the lives of kids, it's great that we have a choice to select from a big group like that. So from a priority standpoint, I really wanna just do what's best for kids and their families and I can tell you that every single decision that I would be part of, if I'm fortunate enough to be elected as a member, would be, that would be on my mind. Is this in the best interests of every group of kids that we have? Thank you. Are there any questions from the audience? My question's gonna go to you. Sure, everybody might wanna chime in but let me frame it first. Concerned obviously about childhood obesity, concerned about the rise in childhood asthma, concerned about all the stress that you guys have talked before. I think that stress starts at home. I think we have parents that are overworked and children that are over-scheduled without enough resources around health and school that are affordable. I think we have schools that are underutilized after 2.30 to 8 o'clock. Many communities have shifted to where the schools become thriving after school centers with all kinds of programs whether it's run by parents, run by health side groups. There's farming that happens at schools in other towns where kids are learning about agriculture and growing crops, just as an example. Would you be in favor of some sort of program that would open up the school facilities to be used to maybe alleviate some of the stress? Put some programs back out there that are closer to home for parents that we weren't, they could walk to with a thinker before and they could really feel a part of their school beyond just the school day. I think that's gonna take over a chain of town council and the school committee even more than it is, but I just would welcome your thoughts on that. Yeah, thank you very much for the question. That's fantastic. And yes, I absolutely would favor such a program. Of course, with the budget concerns, I would need to be taken into account in terms of feasibility. But I think that you hit the nail exactly on the head in terms of mental health concerns that a lot of that starts at the home and part of that is with scheduling or with the inability of parents to schedule work and pick up kids. And also, I think such programs would be a great complement to in-school programs and be able to learn other life skills, be able to learn other developmental skills and also a third issue that we've touched upon here, communication between the school system and parents and try not to understand what the parents' needs are, how the school system and how the school system can address those and getting that information back up to the school committee. So yeah, that's a great idea. And I think innovative ideas like that are always great to consider. When we see a need, we should always, when we see a need in lives of our students and our system, we should always be asking, how can we improve this? And I think that we should never be scared of big ideas if that's the motivation. Can I also part on that? Just to, I serve on the Board of Managers for the YMCA and brought this problem, a good problem to them to say, can we partner? Can we, and what they are exploring is doing some bringing the Y to the schools and setting up afternoon programs there. Use the resources that we have. The Y is just this incredible resource in our community. They're already doing that in Bellingham. They're taking the programs to the middle schools after school and keeping the kids there later in the day, which is a good thing. So I think that's one of the opportunities and they're really on board with working with us and they've done a lot of partnerships with us in other areas, but they're an incredible resource in our community. So just to follow up on that, I think that that's one resource and they're really willing to work with us on that. So anyway. I actually had, Monica actually educated me on part of the policy that says that our schools can be utilized. I've been involved with said not-for-profit things, but the Y would be a great thing. I think one of the things we need to do is talk to the parents to see what kind of programs they want. It's one of the things I always said is like, it's almost like an expansion of the solutions program, like offering different things. I'm gonna make a STEM-based program and when I looked for after-school programs, I did see the Y was in Bellingham and North Adderwood, but it was not a Franklin yet. So it's like, what do the parents want? Because you can offer a bunch of things and then no one signs up for it and it ends up costing money for resources that could have been best spent elsewhere. Because I know trying to get your kid into solutions, it fills up quick too. So we do need more after-school programs to work with parents. I don't know if the town or creation department can do something. It's two seconds. Whether or not they offer an after-school program at the rec center, a really nice rec center, by the way. So, but that's also costing the students there. So there's a cost associated with that too. I thought on this, I love these ideas. Recently, I have two jobs. One's a corporate job and then I also own a business in Franklin. At my corporate job recently, we had an innovation week where essentially everybody kind of shut down their regular daytime job to focus on just generating innovative ideas. Groups kind of formed up. People worked with people that they had never worked with before. There's probably some sort of parallel that we can think about here to engage the community in generating innovative ideas. If we frame it around, how can we use our schools in a non-profitable way after hours to enlist the lives of our kids, put it out to the community and form groups and have people come up with ideas and then present those ideas out at the end. I would imagine that we could come up with a lot of interesting and cool ideas. But I just love the concept of innovation and if we could be a leading edge community and something like that, I think that would be amazing. Thank you. Another question. I just want to follow up with you guys. I just want to follow up with everyone. But anyways, I talked to the administration at my school and also the superintendent and they tell me inclusive and accepted, they accept from this is one of our core values. And yet I'm a few years into grade school. I'm not far in. And in my time there, there's been racial slurs working on here in one school. There's been swastikas on the sidewalk in another. And a couple of other incidents that were verbal. What? And then they get, we have social movement and I'm like this, associating with the color on the wall with the feelings is not really going to cut this. What can we do to walk the block, not just walk the block? I mean, I can, oh, someone want to jump in. I was just going to say from personal experience, it's something I had to address at home. And it happened to my child in first grade. He's only in third. So it was, you see all those things happening at the high school. And I know the school addresses it by a town, like a assembly or whatever. But it is, it's, I'm still trying to reconcile it as a parent. I don't know what, there's something hopefully, like the school committee can take action to help it more education or it is, it's been tough. So I've taken it upon myself to do the education at home. I don't know what else we could do at the school. Like in terms of education, it's, there's just so much to cover there. I know, I could, it is. We're talking race, we're talking religion, we're talking economics, we're talking physical, disability, we're talking mental, physical, human, it's all huge. Yes, I know they talk about bullying and I think it's still an important topic. And I think the schools are trying, but it's just like, it almost has to be tailored at each grade level because you don't see certain things and then as you get older, you see it cyber bullying through that way. Like right now it's just verbal for my kids, but as it gets older and there, it's going to be social media. So just to follow up on that, that's a good point. The World of Difference Program through the Anti-Defamation League has been introduced in the, at the middle level and with a whole emphasis on respect and tolerance and now it's being brought into the high school. But anyone who attended the social media night we had last night, you spoke to it, understands this incredible, certainly technology brings a lot of wonderful things into our kids' lives. It is awful how social media is being used and that is a town-wide problem. The, and Paul Perry was talking about the stuff that comes in from the weekend into the school from a sleepover and they, and he talked about it eloquently last night about how behind the screen what kids are saying to each other, the language that they're using to each other and the way they're setting each other up because they're doing it in anonymity and they don't even get the power of what's happening. This, it's a town-wide problem and that's why we had that night last night and it was, it was, we had tons of parents there and a lot of dads we would, we don't usually get. So people are recognizing the problem and we have to do more of those kinds of things and have those, sorry, I'm done, you know. Thank you. Any other questions from the audience? I don't know. Yes. I don't know. Next one is, is, so as a kid, I was a pretty smart mom and I didn't know about, they had different talents about fun, you know, that I carried to the top of my class. I saw him have some learning disabilities, he's not an IEP. It kind of seems now where education has gone in general is that, well, I don't know, we're teaching towards average but I'm not sure we're really challenging those ones that are out here and these ones that care kind of get, you know, it'll a little bit, if you don't advocate for pretty hard they're getting a little less behind because you're doing foundations and you can't see this part and the class is six things ahead. I don't know why I'm gonna think that this is gonna work. You know, if you advocate, you can get stuff done but, and I know a lot of it is statementated and this is a teaching to the test, they're arguing for them all. But where do you think education is going? Are we going to be able to remedy that at some point where we can get a little bit more individualized or are we going to, I mean, we're lagging behind other countries in our education system right now. How are we gonna fix that? What, I mean, just speaking specifically around, you know, personalized learning and that's one of the things that anyone who sort of followed the meetings last year, those questions, you know, particularly meeting the needs and that's one of the key part of our strategic plan and that's one of the things we're saying to Dr. Hearn is you gotta start showing us the evidence and to be able to say, you know, the highest performing kids are they being challenged? What are we doing to those who struggle? And, you know, from a personal perspective it's always, to me it's about homing in on kids' strengths. I think we do too much focus on the things they can't do in remediation. And from the second those kids walk in to the school door that we're focusing on and letting them know what their gifts and talents are and let them blossom in different ways because a lot of them aren't gonna do well on those standardized tests and we can't destroy their lives because we're focusing on that. So, you know, specifically in Franklin, what we're doing is asking and expecting, looking and monitoring progress around this whole idea of personalized learning and to say, you know, anyway, that's enough of me. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. So, I think a lot of sharing that everybody knows the whole school start kind of thing kind of blew up in kind of a bubbly way. It didn't actually blow up in a bubbly way. So, it was a little bit hard for me. I didn't care for the plan that was put forward. I thought I had a lot of holes in it that should have gotten me such to help somewhere before it got to where it did. But I was a little bit taken aback by some of the people who were like, well, we're in the rest of the process. And I'm thinking, good Lord, we're out on the gauge now. Like, hey, come there there. Is there anything ever shows up at one of my meetings? Look at them lock in the door and I'm keeping them in there. Um, you know, like I'm looking for shows of my stuff. You know, like, come on, like, chop, chop there. Here, talk to them. And it seemed that instead of saying, okay, maybe like we moved up here because this way was the best way to burn this bar. We're gonna evade them all mad. But guess what? We got like 150 people sitting here. This is awesome. It seemed like some people got a little bit more, like took it more personally than maybe they should have. You know, there was some comments that I didn't think were very friendly or welcoming or, you know, like, yes, you don't agree with me, but come on down, let's talk. And then I, it kind of scares me that only, you know, when this is a large thing of candidates, and number two that have ever been there before and were facing all this stuff. Oh, I'm going to, uh-oh, like, what happens if we don't know what's going on? So, can you guys, do you, I mean, obviously, you two came back so you think you have the muddle to deal with it. Do you think you have the, like, the personal part of things to be able to have people disagree with you greatly and still be open and welcome, you know, let's go and sit down and have a pop-in talk about this. You know, it's, I don't think, I don't think the problems are going to get you zero from here on out. That's going to come back up. It is there. It's going to be able to, you know, you're pulling down the line. It's going to keep on going. Okay, I'll take this one. I'll take this one. Go ahead, Tim. You want me to? I'm kind of obsessed on this, uh, this topic. And it was just one of the things that kind of stimulated me to throw my hand in the ring, initially. Because I was one of the people that kind of came in later on with perspective on this. I, you know, I think there's those two groups that emerged, those were for the start times, those were, you know, against changing the start times. And at the end of the day, both of those groups, really, when you think about it, are looking for the same thing. They want to do what's best for kids. And somehow that got lost and the conversation got very, very unproductive, which was disheartening. They're, you know, I think at any point in the decision making process, if somebody comes up and they say that they've got compelling information that they think could impact the discussion, they should be heard. I think we're a stronger community if all voices are heard at any point in the process, right? Some people thought, well, we're at the 11th hour. This is too late. But we're really, like some, you know, another perspective might be we're at the first hour. So at any point, if there's, if anyone wants to talk to me on this topic, I could talk for probably, I know I have 60 seconds, I could probably talk for about a week on it. But really, I think any voice is heard at any point in the process. If somebody thinks that they've got compelling information, they should be, they should be heard. Thank you. Yes. So I think your question was about us as candidates, correct? So I work in education. And I think that the bottom line is when you go into these discussions, it's about respecting the opinions of others. You're not an expert. You're just a contributing member of that conversation. And I think the big piece is not taking it personal. So I think that what I heard you say was that there was a lot of personal opinions offered at the end. There was a lot animosity in this. Right. And I think, you know, just to go back to my answer to previous question, I think it's about having those open conversations, being respectful of the opinions of others. So at the end of the day, even if you don't agree with the end result, there's some kind of understanding of where you came to and you knew that your voice was heard and your concerns were expressed. And that we are gonna move forward with this knowing that everyone at that table listened and was thoughtful in their consideration. So I think that personal piece is big. You know, and that's really how I kind of engage myself personally and professionally. That it's not about me. You know, it's about kind of making those good decisions for everyone. All right, any other questions? All right, what we're going to do is ask for a closing statement from each candidate. And we did not do that with our... Oh, no! I'm going to start in the middle. Yes. And we did not do that with our town council candidates. I'm sorry, but you will have a chance, the two of you who have stuck it out, to make your closing statements. So first, I'd like to hear from Mr. McNeil and then we're going to go right down and we'll go to Ms. Schofield and we'll come back up. How about that? How much time? Oh, one minute. Sorry. 20 minutes. Thank you very much for hosting us this evening. And yeah, so I grew up here in Franklin. I graduated Franklin High in 2009 and I now work at the state house as a research analyst. And I do that because I believe that public policies can make a difference for good in our society and our state and our community and people's lives. And that's why I'm running for school committee because I believe I can contribute my perspective as a former graduate and my skills at the state house to doing that, to paying it forward to the next generation of Franklin students. Thank you very much, Mr. Keenan. Okay, so some of you've seen my two kids running around here. So I've got a middle schooler and an elementary school kid. In addition to those two kids, I've got two jobs that I referenced. I work a corporate job. I'm a vice president of a big financial company for analytics and research. That's why you heard me talk about data and research a lot, making data-driven decisions. And then I also own a kid-centric business here in Franklin that's really focused on enriching the lives of our kids. That's kind of my passion job and that's why I'm running is, this is another opportunity to hopefully enrich the lives of our kids. In addition to the structured problem solving that I can bring from my corporate experience, I also want to be able to work with a great team of people and drive more collaboration between the committee and the community and those are really the areas where I want to focus. And if I am fortunate enough to be elected, the one mindset that I'll have is always to maintain the kid-centric and family-centric approach. Thank you. Dr. Bergen? Yeah, I'm condensing mine because it went a little longer than a minute. So, I did want to thank our community for the honor of having served on the school committee for the last four years, the last term as its chair. And in that time, we hired an extraordinary superintendent and implemented the comprehensive evaluation process as required by Desi. Dr. Hearn and I, as representative of the school committee, actually have been asked to present at the state conference next month as a model for the rest of the state on how to conduct a darn good evaluation process. So, we'll be representing Franklin there and that's a good thing. But I just wanted to say in conclusion, I've been a teacher, a reading specialist, elementary principal, middle school principal, and actually for about six months, I was acting department head at Franklin High School. I am a passionate advocate for public schools. They are the great equalizer. When kids from all walks of life come together, they grow not only in knowledge, but also compassion, tolerance, and respect. I would greatly appreciate your vote on November 5th. Thank you. Ms. Goldfield? Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like to go Ms. Lucio? Would you like to go Joanna? Oh, you can go. I feel appreciate it. Okay, I can go. Fine. Okay, thank you. No problem. Hi, Joanna. So, my background is in finance. I'm running to school committee to kind of help bring a fresh perspective to it. I definitely think some of the veterans are key members of the committee and we need that. They understand the policy and procedures and have institutional knowledge for us. If it was completely new, it's you losing something there. I have two young kids in the system. They're in third grade and kindergarten. So I have a vested interest in preserving and improving our school system. I also, one of the things that they're holding them accountable for is a personalized learning experience, which talks to your point as like, I don't see it happening just yet for my child anyway. So I think, you know, we're teaching to test. So I'm hoping maybe we can find some metric. I don't know what that metric is going to be, but maybe serving the parents is one of the metrics of how to see we're performing in that area. But I just really appreciate your vote to maybe help me voice my opinions on school committees. Thank you, Miss D'Angelo. Hi. So I'm a lifelong Franklin resident and proud product of the Franklin Public Schools. I had a great experience going through Franklin and I went on to college and have a couple of degrees in finance and business and then decided that that wasn't meaningful for me. So I reinvented myself and went back into education where I started through advocacy work for students and went back in and got my educational degree and started working in classrooms and now I'm currently a district administrator. So I feel I don't have any children in the system, but I do feel that I could lend to a variety of areas on the committee and lend an impartial voice to some of those decisions that need to be made. Thank you, Miss Schofield. And last but not least. Exactly. First off, I'd like to thank the folks who put this program together and the folks who are here, sticking it out for the couple of hours and anybody who's watching at home on video. I'd like to thank you truly for giving me the opportunity to serve on the school committee for the past four years, this time around. I, you know, it's entirely possible that the school committee could be completely replaced without Dr. Bergen and without me returning to it. That it's a very unusual, you know, election cycle. I really would like to encourage people to support not only your favorite new candidates, but also to support Dr. Bergen and I so that we can continue what we've been doing for the past four years and continue to move the district forward. And my door is always open. What about yours, Dr. Bergen? Yeah. Absolutely. And thank you very much. And I look forward to the opportunity of the possibility of serving for another couple of years. Thank you. Thank you candidates for the school committee. We appreciate your answers and your concerns and good luck in the election. Thank you. Thank you. I'm asking Mr. Basanti to start all close. Thank you, thank you Ted. By way of history, my family goes back in Franklin about 1911. My grandfather came here from Southern Italy and the rest is history, so to speak. I opted to get back on the council because the next two years are gonna be very difficult and I have the experience of three consecutive terms on the council, two terms as EDC chair. And I feel the council will need the experience and the leadership that I could bring. I got a lot done on the EDC and I wanna say we got a lot of accolades from Jeff Nutting who doesn't give them out too freely, but we were probably the most progressive council over the last 30 years and we got a lot done. My views have changed a lot about development and I spoke to a lot of people over the last few years and as I told you, we cannot keep going on building in this town million dollar homes that only yield about $15,000 a year in tax revenue. We're gonna get upside down really fast and I hate to sound like a broken record, but we've got to start looking at zoning from a different perspective, smaller homes, private roads, inclusionary affordability and inclusionary open space and that will be double-fold because believe it or not, the developers aren't gonna like that at first, but I have a lot of vision for Franklin and I'd appreciate your vote come November 5th. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Basanti. Mr. Cormier-Ligiere. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to come back up. Sometimes it does pay to stick these things out. People have asked me why do I wanna get involved in this race as a volunteer position, don't you have enough going on? You've got two small kids at home. I think some people have actually asked me if I'm crazy and my response has been every time that throughout my life and my career, I like to give back. I feel like I have a voice. I feel like I have experience, whether it's the 20-something years working in the nonprofit world and bringing people together and managing projects, managing budgets, but my real reason for doing this, which I think speaks to why I'm so passionate about what's going on in the school committee as well, is my children. They deserve to see leaders that can act civilly together, that can bring conversations with people from all different walks of life together. The national scene right now is showing them that people can't talk together, they can't respect each other's differences, they can't get anything done. And I wanna bring that locally. I wanna be the voice that comes up with creative ideas that bridges all committees, that bridges actually talks about diversity and inclusion and means it and tries to put some programs together that addresses just some of the concerns. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. We appreciate your attendance and your attention. And don't forget to get out and vote. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking it out. Thanks for coming in. This program was made possible by your Franklin friends and neighbors. Good folks, just like you. Thanks for supporting Franklin TV. Thanks for watching.