In Franklin, three mayoral candidates make their case

FRANKLIN — Ahead of municipal elections Tuesday, candidates and voters in Franklin have a largely shared understanding of the issues at stake: schools are straining under a pinched budget and a teacher shortage; roads and sidewalks are in increasingly rough shape; the historic opera house, a cherished arts space by local youth which doubles as City Hall, ought to — at least — be repaired for safe use; and as revitalization picks up steam, the city must find ways to fund these imperatives that do not overburden taxpayers. 

They do not, however, share a vision for who is best to helm the Three Rivers City.

One-term incumbent Jo Brown, a military veteran and former city councilor, is being challenged by vocal critic Desireé McLaughlin, a community organizer who operates a 24-hour laundromat downtown, and Samuel McLaughlin, a commercial painter who grew up in the city and chairs its conservation committee.

Jo Brown

“I want to keep the good work going,” Brown said in an interview. “We've got a lot of positive things happening right now in Franklin. We've got two new businesses that are getting ready to open; we have some folks that are holding onto some storefronts, trying to see how things shake out. One of our biggest projects, the redevelopment of the Stevens Mill, should be complete by the end of this year.”

Brown described herself as the steady hand best positioned to carry the city’s current revitalization push through its next chapter.

To be an effective leader for Franklin right now, “I think you need to have experience,” Brown said. She highlighted her formal leadership training, including 22 years of active-duty military work, years in city government on the council and the planning board before her 2021 election as mayor and her master's degree in public administration. 

Brown grew up in Franklin and moved back to the city in 2011. She cited lasting economic development, continuing to address homelessness and helping the school system to provide more opportunities for students in and out of the classroom as imperatives the city is already beginning — and must continue — to confront. 

At a candidate forum Monday evening, Brown spoke to those priorities, while also having one eye focused on defending her track record thus far in pursuing them.

Questions at the forum, based on voter input collected by organizer Choose Franklin, asked candidates specifically how they would get funding to support the city over the hurdles of development. 

The council and Brown have said, after intense public feedback, that they are no longer considering a $20 million bond, and Brown emphasized the city is constantly pursuing an array of funding options and economic tools.

“We will continue to listen to our citizens about their preferences,” Brown said, responding to criticism that the council under her leadership has not been sensitive to public feedback. “They shut down the $20 million bond — and that was probably the right thing to do.

“We did listen. That bond is dead.”

Brown encouraged citizens to continue engaging with the council about solutions they would support. Speaking with The Daily Sun, she described her leadership style as accessible and collective. 

“There is never one good, very best, only answer,” she said. “To me, the best answers come from compromise. ... I prefer to work as a team.”

Desireé McLaughlin

Desireé, who also goes by her given name Dominguez, is upfront about the fact she is running because she believes Franklin’s growth is being mismanaged.

“[Current councilors and the mayor] have lost the confidence of the people. So not only will I be stopping a movement, but I will be re-engaging the community in their city,” Desireé said in an interview. “I live in this community, and I've been fighting and advocating for this community for years. They trust me.” 

While she said developments — including the ambitious plans for a whitewater park — are positive, she believes the city should be more measured in pursuing this frontier. 

She would run the city, she said, the way she runs the laundromat: “I have a very conservative business model so that I can do things for other people ... we can run this city in a more financially responsible fashion.” The Central Street Laundromat is open 24 hours and has become “kind of a community center” with a free clothing swap and sandwiches available for hungry kids. After her business gave her a close view of the opioid crisis, she said, she started working in the recovery field with the Farnum Center. 

Desireé was elected to the school board last year, but has long been an animated observer of city government. She sees herself as a watchdog — submitting detailed records requests and levying her disagreements during public comment time at meetings. She spoke with pride about her ability to use social media as an organizing tool, deploying both Facebook posts and TikTok videos of city councilors during meetings to share her critiques with fellow residents.

The council’s decision to end municipal trash pickup at multi-family housing units, she said at the candidate forum, pushed her toward making her case as a mayoral candidate.

“In my opinion, the current city council is heavily weighted, and councilors have a much different definition of progress than many of our residents’ definitions, including my own,” she said. As with the trash ordinance, she continued, “two thirds of your city council ... have voted to do several things against the vocal disagreement of the residents.”

She described her bid for mayor as presenting residents with a “reset button.”

Samuel McLaughlin

“I don't want to vote for anyone who is running for mayor. So I decided that I ought to run for mayor,” Samuel, a 24-year-old alumnus of Franklin High School and George Washington University, told voters at the forum. He moved back to his hometown after college and currently works as a commercial painter in his father’s business. 

While the other two candidates offer different approaches to the track the city is currently on, he presented himself as a third way. 

“I think my ideas for revitalization are better than the ones that other people are pushing,” he said in an interview.

As he emphasized in both an interview and at the forum, Sam’s platform includes wanting schools to focus on better connecting students to the trade fields and seeking different avenues toward revitalization, such as “painting the entire downtown strip.”

He criticized the council’s direction for growth: describing the rejected bond as unpopular and the $5 million estimate the council received for updating the opera house as unrealistic. The effort, he said, “feels rushed” and “immature.” He also advocated for involving students in opera house repairs, an idea Brown disavowed.

“That’s not a good way, in my opinion, to use that money,” Sam said at the forum.

Though he described himself as the candidate who best understands Franklin’s potential, Sam acknowledged “I'm not even sure I know what the path to that future is myself.” Nevertheless, he offered himself as a uniting candidate. 

As Tuesday’s election nears, the contest has heated up. As organizers rolled out rack after rack after rack of extra chairs at Monday’s candidate forum, attendees marveled at the crowd and wondered if it foretold high turnout at the polls. 

In Franklin’s 2021 municipal election, the last time the mayor’s race appeared on the ballot, voter participation was just 5%.