UPDATED: 5 Things You Need To Know Today in Framingham: Wednesday, December 22, 2021

[broadstreet zone=”53130″]

[broadstreet zone=”59946″]

1 Last night was the final City Council meeting of the 2021 year and the last one of the second session.

It was the final meeting for District 7 City Councilor Margareth Shepard and the last meeting for District 5 City Councilor Robert Case, both who chose not to seek re-election.

Shepard was elected in 2017 and served two terms. She was the first Brazilian-American elected in the City of Framingham. Her name has been circulating heavily as a candidate for state representative in the newly-created minority-majority 6th Middlesex District. That race will take place in 2022.

2. According to the Mayor’s publicly posted schedule, Mayor Yvonne Spicer has no public events today.

Last night she gave a farewell address before the City Council, that scolded the Councilors for their treatment towards her.

The City Council Chair gaveled and stopped the Mayor twice during the remarks for violating City Council rules, which do not allow personal attacks against individual Councilors by any member of the public.

Last November, the Mayor’s Chief Operating Officer Thatcher Kezer III released text messages to SOURCE, after the news outlet requested his text messaged via a FOIA. Those messages showed the Mayor did not like several of the 11-member City Councilors.

The Mayor called two of her supporters – Case & Shepard – “disappointments” and called others she did not agree with politically much worse names.

Those text messages have been sited by major Boston news outlets as one of the reasons why Mayor Spicer was not re-elected for a second term in November.

Mayor Spicer gave her City-wide farewell address last Thursday. You can read her speech here.

[broadstreet zone=”58610″]

3. CITY of FRAMINGHAM meetings:

• ACCEPT Board of Directors meeting at 10 a.m.

4. Yesterday was the official start of winter.

There is a surge in COVID cases happening in the City of Framingham and the Framingham Public Schools.

More than 70 cases reported in the Framingham Public Schools on Monday & Tuesday, with more than half at Framingham High School.

5. FLYERS in action:

• UPDATE – Swim & Dive meet has been postponed — Framingham High boys swim & dive defeated St. John’s of Shrewsbury last night. The Flyers will be back in the pool tonight at Keefe Tech against the Tigers of Newton North at 8 p.m.
• UPDATE – Wrestling match against Newton North tonight has been postponed.