Proposal to add road funding removed from Franklin city budget before it passes

FRANKLIN — The Franklin City Council voted down a proposal to add $500,000 in capital reserve funds to the tax-capped budget at their meeting Monday night, in a 7-2 vote.

The original draft of the fiscal year 2025 budget did pass that night with a 6-3 vote. Ward 3 Councilor Valerie Blake, Ward 2 Councilor Olivia Zink, and Ward 1 Councilor George Dzujna voted against it.

At the special council meeting Monday at the Elks Lodge, 50 residents came to hear about the proposal. The proposal was introduced by Councilor Ted Starkweather, and was intended to invest in city roads. It would have also raised the tax rate. After more than an hour of public comment, Starkweather was one of the votes to remove the proposal from the budget. He said the comments of residents who attended influenced his final decision.

“People spoke, we vote for what the people said,” Starkweather said.

Despite the passage of the budget, the discussion was contentious. While the majority of people who spoke during public comment were against the proposed budget, there were many who believed the capital proposal was necessary.

Michael Lombardo of Ward 3, who ran for city council in 2023, spoke in favor of the proposal.

“I can predict with mathematical certainty that we will continue to not have enough money to pay for roads, schools, building improvements and other infrastructure, period,” Lombardo said. “I know that nobody wants to pay more taxes, myself as much, if not more than most. I get it, I really and truly do. I have a family to support. ... It’s just, there’s not an option. Thank you, Councilor Starkweather, for trying to do something.”

Kathy Rago, also of Ward 3, spoke, saying while the proposal doesn’t break the tax cap, raising the tax rate is doing essentially the same thing. Her comments resonated with attendees; she received applause.

“I understand what everyone’s saying because my tax, my property value of my little house almost doubled because of inflation. So now my taxes are up $1,000 a year,” she said. “You can easily say, 'Well, what’s another couple hundred dollars?' You’ll nickel and dime us to death. That’s what happens.”

While emotions ran high, the discourse remained civil, mostly. Paul Doucette, a member of the Capital Improvement Plan and the Joint Finance committees, criticized City Manager Judie Milner.

“I am hoping that every one of you, except for a few, will vote to break the tax cap. Double it, doesn’t matter. Increase it to $1 million. Do you know why? Because I’m going to take Ted Starkweather’s words about kicking the can down the road because it will ensure three conservative councilors will be elected next October. What does that mean?” Doucette said. “Instead of kicking the can down the road, we’ll be able to kick Judie Milner’s butt down the road.”

Doucette’s comment was met with a loud reaction from the audience, and a request from several councilors to have him removed from the meeting, which Mayor Desiree McLaughlin refused.

School board member LeAnne Fifield came up to the podium later in the evening to discourage such attacks.

“I’m really sad to see the attacks, personal attacks. That needs to stop,” she said. “I know everybody feels it’s free speech, but we’re better than that.”

After public comment, Councilor Leigh Webb of Ward 3 proposed a motion to remove the $500,000 capital reserve fund from the 2025 budget, as voting against such proposal would mean voting against the budget, as the two were now packaged together. This was seconded by Ward 1 Councilor Timothy Johnston.

“I'm not opposed to repairing our roads. That's not the issue here,” Webb said. “I think there might be alternative funding methods that could be used, not overnight, but there are ways that we could improve our infrastructure without taking this kind of action.”

Johnston echoed Webb's stance.

“There is a lot of bloating. We spent time trying to rearrange or redirect money from certain areas to the roads, over $350,000 that we had written down. And none of the councilors up here wanted to vote for that,” he said. “Only myself, Councilor [Ed] Prive, Councilor Webb, and Councilor [Olivia] Zink.”

After some discussion about the proposal, McLaughlin said she smelled smoke, which prompted the Fire Chief Michael Foss to call a five-minute recess to evacuate the building, while he and Police Chief David Goldstein searched for the source. The five minutes turned to 20 minutes, as an ambulance and a fire truck arrived at the scene, with firefighters also searching for the source. The smoke was eventually determined to be from a residence on a nearby hill which made its way through the air handling units of the building, and Foss eventually ruled it as not a concern.

As people waited outside in the parking lot, they began chatting, residents with councilors. The evacuation provided a break from the tensions of the meeting.

Resident Maureen Aube spoke to Johnston in the parking lot. She appreciated his clarifying inquiries during a confusing council meeting.

“When he talks, he just makes things so clear. He's very direct and we need that,” she said.

When everyone returned inside, councilors continued the budget discussion, then voted on Webb's motion as well as the budget through a roll call. While both passed, not everyone was pleased with the results. Ward 2 Councilor Vincent Ribas expressed his thoughts.

“I wish Councilor Starkweather had the foresight to make this motion at the beginning of the budget process instead of this far in the end, because then we might have gotten more feedback and been able to have a fuller discussion,” he said.

Ribas was in favor of the proposal to fix the roads, but after public comment and further discussion with the council, he changed his perspective.

“While I believe this is the right thing to do, I'm going to vote the way the populace of Franklin wants. And the feedback I've gotten, there's a majority saying this not the right time to do that.”

Starkweather came to the same conclusion. The councilor was noticeably quiet throughout the meeting, listening to constituents. It wasn’t until right before the vote he had input to offer; input that came as a surprise. He spoke to the importance of public comment, and that people’s concerns about the proposal were heard loud and clear.

“This is the biggest feedback we've had throughout our whole budget cycle. Now we know the roads have to be fixed. But the amazing thing is it wasn't towards the end of the budget process before we heard anybody say anything about paving roads. It’s one of the reasons why I brought it up,” Starkweather said. “I've got to agree with Councilor Ribas on this, and of course, surprise the hell out of our people, but I'm going to have to vote no. Which means I've got to go with Councilor Webb’s amendment to remove that $500,000 out of the budget because people spoke up, and we heard.”