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In the Framingham Town Election on April 1, the official results were:
Board of Selectmen: Dennis Giombetti and Laurie Lee.
Planning Board: Christine Long
Town Moderator: Ed Noonan
School Board: Phil Dinsky, David Miles, and Mike Bowers.
Housing Authority: Phyllis May
Library Trustee: Danielle Green Barney, Joanne Thompson, and Arthur M. Finstein.
Town Clerk: Valerie Mulvey
Keefe School Committee: A.J. Mulvey and Michael M. Rossi
We congratulate the winners and offer our sympathy to the losers — all the contested races were competitive and well fought. All could have gone a different way. Well done everyone!
Check out the latest and keep
up to date on our news
page and read what your neighbors have to say in Your
neighbors speak out below!
STEPPS has been mentioned in the MetroWest Daily News, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal. We have helped expose the social service industry's overconcentration in Framingham and how this has affected the town, helped expose SMOC's secret contract with the Department of Corrections to house sex offenders and arsonists, and helped spread the word about even more social service expansion in our already overburdened town (517 Winter Street, the Wayside facility on Lockland Avenue, and the Great Brook Valley health clinic on Waverly Street), helping to defeat or delay all three. We are now working to reform the way the state operates in funding and siting social service facilities.
We are your neighbors -- concerned citizens of Framingham that have witnessed Framingham's problems increase while its budget has gotten tighter, watched as parents have had to pay for their children to ride the bus to school while property taxes went up, watched as homeless people moved in and elders who raised their children here moved out. We are your neighbors looking out for all our property values and safety. We are your neighbors who have watched as the social services industry has flooded Framingham with more facilities per capita than any nearby town, and we say enough is enough.
Read our Mission Statement to learn more.
We invite you to join us or just see some simple things you can do to help stop Framingham from continuing to host a disproportionate number of the region's social service agencies.
We've posted a list of upcoming meetings to attend and will keep you posted on other events.
We have been accused of misinformation and even propaganda, mainly by SMOC. If you find factually incorrect information on our web site, please let us know. (But don't write to tell us that we're wrong about Framingham bearing an unfair burden of social services, because the Worcester Regional Research Bureau has released a study showing that we are right: Framingham does bear a disproportionate share of the social services burden.)
Thanks!
We love nonprofits! Many of us volunteer with Project Bread, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Sudbury Valley Trustees, and many others.
But enough is enough.
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Will SMOC turn this lovely historic property on a quiet residential street into a homeless drug rehab shelter? |
Framingham is becoming the center of non-profit services in Massachusetts. The South Middlesex Opportunity Council is the largest, with 81 properties, many of them tax exempt, with a total assessed value of $15,966,000 and a total of 451 units. (You can see this information at http://frambors.syslang.net/SMOC_properties.html or download it as an Excel spreadsheet at http://frambors.syslang.net/SMOC_properties.xls). But there are many others, such as Advocates, Spectrum Health, Wayside Youth & Family Support, etc. The Town of Framingham has posted a list of tax-exempt properties on its web site, and town meeting member Laurie Lee has posted a very usable list on her web site. More data can be found in the Worcester Regional Research Bureau report "Siting Residential Social Service Programs: The Process and the Options" and the Framingham PILOT Study Committee's final report.
We have more social service facilities in Framingham than any other town in the area. In fact, according to the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, Framingham ranks tenth in the state in the number of state licensed residential social service facilities, ranking well ahead of some much larger cities like Cambridge.
Each time SMOC or another nonprofit purchases a property and removes it from the tax rolls, it no longer pays taxes to the town, and we as taxpayers pick up the tab. In addition, the town has to pay more because of the added strain on schools, police, firefighters, and other services like trash collection. Both ways, you lose.
What's worse, concentrating so many social service facilities together in close proximity hurts the clients of these facilities, too. What sense does it make to house recovering substance abusers within a block of a wet shelter? How does it help families re-integrate into society when they are surrounded by so many other families like themselves? Shelters, affordable housing, and other services belong in all communities, not just a few designated "hubs."
Learn more on our issues page.
Your neighbors speak out!Winter Street resident Paul Watson shares his outrage over the home invasion perpetrated by SMOC client and 209 time offender James Corcoran, who -- incredibly! -- was released from prison into a SMOC "sober house."
Responding to a MetroWest Daily News article, Peter Adams writes about Coming together as a community and the hypocrisy of some social service industry proponents. Amazingly, while the paper ran the letter, they changed the title to "Nonprofits don't help Framingham," which not only misrepresents the letter, but has nothing whatsoever to do with its subject!
Responding to a MetroWest Daily News article, Peter Adams replies Framingham doesn't need more social services.
Responding to a MetroWest Daily News editorial, "Build the Health Center," Peter Adams replies that the paper has "printed another whopper" and gives several reasons why we don't need the health clinic.
Enzo Rotatori says that SMOC stacked the PILOT Committee hearing
Richard Weader says there is insufficient state oversight of social service contracts
It's not just Framingham residents who are upset with SMOC. Read these two letters to the MetroWest Daily News from Worcester residents:
Dick Prince points out that social service agencies’ “shoestring” budgets are enough for them to expand
Read STEPPS members' October 25 statements to the Zoning Board of Appeals:
Read Peter Adams' opening statement at the MetroWest Daily News editorial board meeting describing Framingham as a "stressed ecosystem."
Read Dana McMaster's letter Neighbors Deserve a Voice, in which he complains about the article "Anger's not the answer."
Read longtime resident Lillian Cairney's response to Jim Cuddy's claim that SMOC "made attempt after attempt to meet with neighbors" about moving a drug rehab shelter into the nursing home at 517 Winter.
Read Willy LaBarge and Paula Correia's unpublished letter to the MetroWest Daily News regarding the article "Anger's not the answer."
Read Tom O'Neil's response to the MetroWest Daily News article "Anger's not the answer."
Read Janice Skelley's response to MetroWest Daily News columnist Rick Holmes' ugly, misleading column "More than its share of ugliness."
Read Tim Alexander's letter on SMOC's misinformation
Read Charles Ziegler's letter "Holmes 'Gospel' Belied by Facts"
Read Raj Jhaveri's letter on the true cost of SMOC's expansion
Read a letter from the Rev. Paul Papas of Narrow Path Ministries in support of the PILOT program voted on by Town meeting on June 9.
Read Betty Sullivan's letter to the MetroWest Daily News, "SMOC's goals must be discussed."
Read Mary Westwater's speech to the Board of Selectmen
Read a letter from the director of the Summerville assisted living facility
Read David and Mary Westwater's Letter to the Metrowest Daily News
Many other people are paying attention to this issue. See our links page for more.
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