No surprise there -- the whole thing was basically to just correct an oversight made the first time. And again, Mayor Ken Merrifield tried to veto the measure, which again was overridden. His stance being that the City Council really didn't have the authority to override the cap under the circumstances.
Just remember to vote out the members up for re-election this year, and keep the motivation for the TEA Party alive and well in Franklin.
Budget Committee meetings are coming up starting this month. Like I said last time, there's talk of the council overriding the cap again, so make sure you go to the meetings to see what's going on.
Showing posts with label mayor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mayor. Show all posts
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Monday Inauguration Address
I tried posting this the other night, but was having some computer issues. Here is Mayor Ken Merrifield's address to the electorate on Monday night.
Father Gagnon, Members of the City Council for 2009 and 2010, honored guests, family, friends, and fellow citizens of Franklin:
Shakespeare thought that “brevity [was] the soul of wit”, but it is also an indispensible attribute for any political leader. I will attempt to make good use of “brevity” tonight.
During my campaign for mayor this fall, a great friend and supporter said to me that “some things really need to change in Franklin. And some things absolutely have to stay the same.” The trick, for us, is to figure out which is which.
I offer to you that, despite our challenges, Franklin is a very attractive destination. Recall the high school seniors from Merrimack who visited every NH city and town this past summer – and chose Franklin as their favorite! Certainly, we are blessed with abundant natural beauty, great community spirit, and a frugal city government, and you should also know that between 2001 and 2008, property values in Concord rose 71% and in Dover about 68%... in Manchester and Rochester they rose about 66%. In Bow, property values gained 44% from 2001-2008.
In Franklin, our property values rose over 90% - faster than the entire state of NH. People are clearly voting with their dollars for this great city. I plead with our city leadership to recognize that greater litigation, greater taxation, and greater regulation will only reverse this positive trend.
So how do we improve (what I like to call) the “best place on earth”? The city council has taken significant action to address great strategic issues and change the city. These plans will be a large part of their efforts in 2010. They will demand the focus and skill of the best professional municipal team in NH to become a reality. And thank God that team is in place here.
Councilors have invested heavily in a new curbside recycling program that will change the nature of a critical city service. It will require the active participation of our residents to succeed.
With a heavy financial effort from our rate-payers and assistance from outside sources, the city will implement a water filtration system that will improve our drinking water quality, ending a decades-long problem in Franklin.
We will also reconfigure the flow of downtown traffic – opening the Franklin Falls Mill District to auto traffic and subsequent capital investment and economic growth.
On a separate, but I think parallel, track with the Council, I have been very grateful for the widespread interest in the Mayor’s “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Task Force”. Thanks to the efforts of a tremendous volunteer group that seems to grow every day, our city may soon benefit from significant grant funding to combat a long-standing social problem that plagues not only Franklin, but NH and a nation beyond --- and may perhaps make Franklin a dramatic example of improving social health.
Also, a few weeks ago, I was delighted to recognize and proclaim a “sister-city” for Franklin: Pedro Afonso in the state of Tocantins in Brazil. I look forward to working with Mayor Chagas and Governor Enrique Amorim in 2010 – to explore what bonds we can create in science, commerce, and through our schools.
And last year I challenged to the City Council and the Planning Board to contact a successful business outside Franklin and invite them here. I also asked them to adopt a local business and learn their needs.
This year, I would like to expand the effort and really “go for broke”. I want to ask every citizen of Franklin to become an ambassador to a new business. Reach out to a potential employer for our people and ask them to “Choose Franklin”—where the trend-breaking example & our largest employer is Webster Valve…. now celebrating an amazing 50 years of operation and the return of manufacturing jobs to Franklin from China.
And let us all commit to support our Franklin businesses whenever and wherever we can. I hope that 2010 will see a concerted effort by the business community and our citizens to do exactly that, because it will benefit all of us if we do.
And finally, let the change that is coming this year in our school district mark a beginning-- and not an end—knowing always that student achievement is the true bottom line. And that Franklin students are capable of delivering the very best results. We know this to be true.
In closing, I hope you will allow me to rephrase Ronald Reagan a bit, when I say that we are “too great a [city] to limit ourselves to small dreams… Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength… our faith and our hope… We have every right to dream heroic dreams.”
So let’s dream “big” for 2010, Franklin, so that the words of Isaiah about Jerusalem will be true for us as well: “… [That your] heart shall thrill and be enlarged; …[because] the wealth of the nations shall come [to you].”
I wish you all a happy New Year with my best wishes, and may God bless our great city.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Important Upcoming Dates
1) Franklin City Elections are tomorrow. The Citizen has the details.
2) This Friday, October 9, the Franklin School Board will be holding another emergency hearing on the fate of Alice Rogers-Farris, the Franklin High School principal currently on administrative leave. People still don't know what happened, and I don't know if they are also going to make that issue non-public, but nothing is even leaking for credible rumors. I'm planning on being at this meeting because it might affect me next year, so watch this space.
2) This Friday, October 9, the Franklin School Board will be holding another emergency hearing on the fate of Alice Rogers-Farris, the Franklin High School principal currently on administrative leave. People still don't know what happened, and I don't know if they are also going to make that issue non-public, but nothing is even leaking for credible rumors. I'm planning on being at this meeting because it might affect me next year, so watch this space.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Last Night's Candidate's Forum
In her story that was in The Citizen today, Gail Ober focused more on the mayoral race between Ken Merrifield and Clayton Gassett. If anyone has details on what was said in the other races, let me know so I can make sure all the details are up here.
In the meantime, here is the full text from The Citizen:
It didn't take long at Monday's candidates debate before the mayoral contenders got to the nitty-gritty of what the majority of the citizens in the packed Opera House came to see — a discussion about the recent tax cap override.
In a debate sponsored by Choose Franklin, challenger and former Mayor Clayton Gassett told the crowd how he felt about incumbent Mayor Kenneth Merrifield's decision to veto the city council override of the 20-year cap.
"I didn't think the present mayor should have threatened the council before he vetoed [the override]," said Gassett, who took a question about the role of the city mayor as a chance to talk about the recent override.
"I did not believe the people had the money to give up, with 10 percent of the city unemployed," said Merrifield, who reiterated his long-held position that the tax cap should only be overridden by referendum. "And I didn't think the charter allowed us to go back and collect it."
It's been nearly 20 years since Franklin became the first New Hampshire city to vote for a tax cap and, responding to a mistake in revenue projects, the Franklin City Council became the first of the subsequent cities that adopted similar caps to break it.
In 2008 and 2009, the city fell victim to a near perfect storm of economic disaster. A $449,807 mistake on the annual revenue projections coupled with plummeting property values and a 10 percent unemployment rate left the city with a nearly $1 million shortfall.
Spending and hiring freezes were ordered by City Manager Elizabeth Corrow and cuts were made to the proposed budget, but when all was said and done, the council voted 7-1 to adopt a fiscal year 2009-2010 budget that exceed the cap by the amount of the mistake — $449,807.
Defending his veto of the budget vote, Merrifield told the audience that his goal as mayor was to see a vibrant, thriving Franklin and keeping the taxes low was one of the only way the city was going to reach his goal.
While not disagreeing with Merrifield's goals, Gassett said his issue with the override and Merrifield's veto was that it was too little, too late.
"If you knew about this mistake, why wasn't something done then?" he asked. "I don't see that as leadership."
Gassett said the finance committee was aware of the mistake "shortly after it was made" and that's when the council should have acted.
Merrifield agreed that the finance committee was aware of the mistake but noted that Corrow briefed it and the full council the next meeting after he found the mistake.
"If the council had wanted to, they could have taken action at any time," Merrifield said.
Responding to a question regarding the next budget cycle that promises little improvement over the last, Merrifield said he could continue his regular lobbying of the state government to continue distributing tax revenues to the communities.
"A robust economy and the economic development of our undervalued property is how we reach our goals," Merrifield said.
"I think if the council puts its nose to the grindstone, we can tighten next year's budget," Gassett said, adding that he had to "be careful about what he said because it could get him in trouble later."
Answering a question about the city's support of outside agencies such as the Community Action Program (CAP) and the Franklin Business and Industrial Development Corp. (FBIDC), both said they support the work of all of them.
Gassett said he especially supported CAP because of the number of people helped through its programming while Merrifield said his support for FBIDC was unwavering.
"This city needs some kind of economic development arm," he said, adding that any decision to defund the FBIDC should only be accompanied by a decision to support a similar agency.
City elections take place next Tuesday. There are contested races for all three city council seats and candidates for all open School Board seats.
In the meantime, here is the full text from The Citizen:
Tax cap discussion dominates debate
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
It didn't take long at Monday's candidates debate before the mayoral contenders got to the nitty-gritty of what the majority of the citizens in the packed Opera House came to see — a discussion about the recent tax cap override.
In a debate sponsored by Choose Franklin, challenger and former Mayor Clayton Gassett told the crowd how he felt about incumbent Mayor Kenneth Merrifield's decision to veto the city council override of the 20-year cap.
"I didn't think the present mayor should have threatened the council before he vetoed [the override]," said Gassett, who took a question about the role of the city mayor as a chance to talk about the recent override.
"I did not believe the people had the money to give up, with 10 percent of the city unemployed," said Merrifield, who reiterated his long-held position that the tax cap should only be overridden by referendum. "And I didn't think the charter allowed us to go back and collect it."
It's been nearly 20 years since Franklin became the first New Hampshire city to vote for a tax cap and, responding to a mistake in revenue projects, the Franklin City Council became the first of the subsequent cities that adopted similar caps to break it.
In 2008 and 2009, the city fell victim to a near perfect storm of economic disaster. A $449,807 mistake on the annual revenue projections coupled with plummeting property values and a 10 percent unemployment rate left the city with a nearly $1 million shortfall.
Spending and hiring freezes were ordered by City Manager Elizabeth Corrow and cuts were made to the proposed budget, but when all was said and done, the council voted 7-1 to adopt a fiscal year 2009-2010 budget that exceed the cap by the amount of the mistake — $449,807.
Defending his veto of the budget vote, Merrifield told the audience that his goal as mayor was to see a vibrant, thriving Franklin and keeping the taxes low was one of the only way the city was going to reach his goal.
While not disagreeing with Merrifield's goals, Gassett said his issue with the override and Merrifield's veto was that it was too little, too late.
"If you knew about this mistake, why wasn't something done then?" he asked. "I don't see that as leadership."
Gassett said the finance committee was aware of the mistake "shortly after it was made" and that's when the council should have acted.
Merrifield agreed that the finance committee was aware of the mistake but noted that Corrow briefed it and the full council the next meeting after he found the mistake.
"If the council had wanted to, they could have taken action at any time," Merrifield said.
Responding to a question regarding the next budget cycle that promises little improvement over the last, Merrifield said he could continue his regular lobbying of the state government to continue distributing tax revenues to the communities.
"A robust economy and the economic development of our undervalued property is how we reach our goals," Merrifield said.
"I think if the council puts its nose to the grindstone, we can tighten next year's budget," Gassett said, adding that he had to "be careful about what he said because it could get him in trouble later."
Answering a question about the city's support of outside agencies such as the Community Action Program (CAP) and the Franklin Business and Industrial Development Corp. (FBIDC), both said they support the work of all of them.
Gassett said he especially supported CAP because of the number of people helped through its programming while Merrifield said his support for FBIDC was unwavering.
"This city needs some kind of economic development arm," he said, adding that any decision to defund the FBIDC should only be accompanied by a decision to support a similar agency.
City elections take place next Tuesday. There are contested races for all three city council seats and candidates for all open School Board seats.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Next City Council Meeting -- August 3, 7 PM
The next City Council meeting will be on August 3 at 7 p.m. I plan on being there, because there may be a chance that the cap might not be broken.
Bob Desroschers is getting a petition together of Franklin residents who oppose the tax cap. So far, he reportedly has 200 signatures, and he plans on presenting this at the next city council meeting. If you would like to add your name to the petition, let me know and I will tell you how to get in touch with him. (I'm reluctant to give his phone number out on the website until I've talked with him myself)
Bob Desroschers is getting a petition together of Franklin residents who oppose the tax cap. So far, he reportedly has 200 signatures, and he plans on presenting this at the next city council meeting. If you would like to add your name to the petition, let me know and I will tell you how to get in touch with him. (I'm reluctant to give his phone number out on the website until I've talked with him myself)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Mayor Ken Merrifield on 2 Joes Live!
This is from last week. They finally put the video up. Unfortunately there's no embedding, but check out the video at the 2 Joes Live site here.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Waiting for Video And Some Other Thoughts
I am waiting for video of Mayor Ken Merrifield's appearance on 2 Joes Live out of Manchester. Once that is up, I will be posting about it.
In the meantime, this site has now been mentioned by the generous guys at Granite Grok (whose show Meet The New Press I've been on twice, and headed for a third time at the next Blogapalooza once that's scheduled). They mention this blog as another group starting up. That wasn't the original intention, but it could work that way if we have enough people interested in the city to do so. And we are also on the blogroll of the NH Tea Party Coalition. Thanks, guys!
Here is my appearance last week on Meet The New Press where we talked about the Franklin city councilor's decision to override the mayor's veto: Part 1 and Part 2.
In the meantime, this site has now been mentioned by the generous guys at Granite Grok (whose show Meet The New Press I've been on twice, and headed for a third time at the next Blogapalooza once that's scheduled). They mention this blog as another group starting up. That wasn't the original intention, but it could work that way if we have enough people interested in the city to do so. And we are also on the blogroll of the NH Tea Party Coalition. Thanks, guys!
Here is my appearance last week on Meet The New Press where we talked about the Franklin city councilor's decision to override the mayor's veto: Part 1 and Part 2.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mayor Merrifield Appearance
Franklin Mayor Ken Merrifield will be on Channel 23 in Manchester tomorrow. He will be on to defend the city charter as well as the tax cap. Be sure to watch for it!
Crossposted at ConChrist
Crossposted at ConChrist
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)