Tonight, water rate setting hearing, Tuesday, how to spend fed money
The last time there was a hearing held by the Mayor, no more than 10 people showed up as I recall at the Memorial building. Yes i was there and asked the Mayor then to hold down water rate increases by using the marijuana tax revenue. Of coarse she laughed it off, but as many of you saw, in the passed budget, 1 million from mj tax revenue is being used to keep the levey below zero. There will be a 10% increase in water rates this year and next. Should be interesting to watch.
Public Hearing to Discuss FY22 Water and Sewer Rate Increases 6.21.21
https://www.framinghamma.gov/calendar.aspx?EID=38807
This meeting will feature different priorities from different sides and lot of political posturing. The rules set out by the feds are in stone.We're using 4 million this year in the water department and next year, more of the same I suspect along with another water rate increase, no matter who is mayor.
Potential Uses of ARPA Funds
https://framinghamma.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=14&ID=5061&Inline=True
http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/2353?channel=1
This url is for last night's hearing. While everyone should look at MEK's slide show, pay particular attention to the slide at 23.37, the amount of money Framingham has not spent or spent on the water and sewer infrastructure since the 60's. And guess who was at the BOS when much of this didn't happen?
Bottom line, our rates are going up by nearly 10% this next fiscal year and we are spending 6 million plus from the feds to make up the shortfall from the pandemic.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 5:09 PM
15 Comments
15 Comments:
Its live on the government channel. 3 people in the Alblondi room. It's not on Facebook.
What about tonight’s meeting. Can you go tonight hat in person
yes.. 5PM at the Memorial Bld, Blumer Room
these meeting are just another way for candidates to promote themselves. Has this group tonight ever done a public meeting on any topic before? Not that I know of, but now that one of the members is running for a district council seat suddenly they need to promote the work they do to make themselves feel important. They are just all losers in my opinion who have accomplished absolutely nothing worthwhile in their positions on this group
The administration did put out an on-line survey to the web wise folks who are on the Towns mailing list and on the home page. I don't believe everyone is fully aware of what the money can be spent on.. or not.
I did see the Council, Mayor and CFO talk about the numbers a few meetings ago. It's big money now and this time next year. And some is dedicated to the water enterprise fund this year and next.
Are we suppose to guess who was on BOS? My guesses for some would be Stefanini, Cardiff, Sistisky, Giombetti, Stoll, Smith, Murphy, Mulvey, Bower, Esty. What do I win if I am right?
Oh man..... how right you are. You get an extra sticker. Not that it matters to our newer residents perhaps but we tend to forget who was in charge over the years that helped shape in part where we are today.
as many of you were listening heard.. the money can be spent without the council's approval. It will be interesting to see if the Mayor asks the council for approval. so it's less than first anticipated, now down to 40 million for two years.
watch the meeting here:
http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/2354?channel=1
Lots of new information on "the process" on how to spend the money and who gets to decide. Looks like the usual classic battle between the Mayor and the council.
There is a lot of finger-pointing, but I wonder if we can cut through some of the noise. I understand the fact that revenues have been down because a lot less water has been used during the pandemic, especially from the commercial sector. But I have more questions about it all. So years ago, water and sewer rates were generally higher (between 7% and 9%), but since Spicer has been in office, that has dropped down to the 2% range. It sounds like they used water surplus revenue dollars to pay off some of the costs so that they could charge considerably less. While it was wonderful that they raised the rates 0% during the pandemic, the pandemic is not over and some are still struggling - so to go from 0% right up to 9.7% is quite a leap. Doesn't that essentially make the 0% increase last year moot? If you didn't have to pay more last year, but now have to pay almost 5 times more what you paid a couple years ago, if money is still tight this year, how will one afford that increase? On top of that, the city will still be spending a large chunk of our ARPA funds which could have been used in other ways. The question is did the city use surplus funds in order to keep rates at record artificial lows for short term? Maybe for short term political gain - only for us to have to pay the piper now? It's easy to point the finger at town leaders from years ago, but isn't it fair to ask whether this still could have been managed better these past four years?
Your right, looking back is always easy when faced with a crisis. I'm sure the Mayor would agree, she should have managed this better from the start. What little political gain she may have achieved is now long gone. When Breyers ice cream plant closed we lost a major consumer and if Poland Spring goes, we are in bigger trouble. Also, I thought I heard that Sanofi was moving manufacturing out of Framingham to Alston which hurt our higher tier water consumption.
Residents would be in bigger trouble if we didn't get the fed money and I agree we may have spent it elsewhere but the water enterprise fund must be shored up this year and next, even with another 10% increase for 2023.
I hope all the new apartments will help increase our water usage and then there's Sherborn a few years down the road consuming more of our water.
If the point is to gain political favor by cutting rates, then you do that near an election. Not a year before.
The Council took some money from reserves before the last election to show that they would keep taxes low and some made sure to put it in their campaign materials. Thats an example of using money to gain political points.
Isn't the apartment moratorium still in effect Jim? So not going to see those apartments help shore up our water usage, thanks to those on the district council
If anyone really believes that this mess with our water and sewer enterprise fund has all been a result of what has happened in the last 3 1/2 yrs of Mayor Spicer, then please send them my way. I have a wonderful plot of land where general chemical use to be to sell them. Come on people, wake up. This problem has existed for years, and will continue to exist because the current district councilors voted against fully funding the budget proposal submitted by that department in spite of being told that would prevent them from doing necessary fixes on pipes that have been in service since the late 1800. Who is to blame for kicking that can down the road right now? Many of the councilors were in positions of authority for many years while they refused to address these issues. Sisitsky is a very poor choice for the dems to support, and makes me appalled to think that he is the best the Framingham dems could come up with. He was a selectman for many, many years when this problem was festering, long before we became a city.
I was thinking of the already done apartments (some 1200 plus) being hopefully fully occupied. It's been a while since any of those numbers have been shared with the public.
I agree they should have fully funded them. We know as they do... it's just a matter of time before something breaks from the 1800's.
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