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FRAMINGHAM – City of Framingham Mayor Charlie Sisitsky spoke at the Temple Beth Am brotherhood breakfast, this morning, November 13.
This was just the third in-person breakfast since the pandemic.
The first was in September, when Dr. Charles Steinberg, with the Worcester Red Sox spoke.
Mayor Sisitsky discuss what he has been working on during his first 11 months in office, and how thanks to an idea by First Lady Robin Kaye, he was able to transform the Farmers’ market this year.
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He spoke for about 10-15 minutes and answered questions for another 15-20 minutes.
The Mayor was asked about paving, traffic, development, a new elementary school, and when the train will be “depressed” in downtown Framingham, to which he answered community leaders have been looking at that problem for 100 years, and it will not be solved quickly or inexpensively. The mayor joked it may take another 100 years.
Temple Beth Am Rabbi Samuel Blumberg asked the Mayor what keeps him up at night?
“Rabbi, that is a great question. Robin and I talk about it all the time. What keeps us up at night, and it’s a lot of things. I’m not surprised by what I inherited because of all my years of experience in municipal government coming into this job. I knew, or I thought I knew what to expect, but it’s so much more intense. You are responsible for so much more than just as a City Counselor or a member of the Board of Selectman. We have a 360 million budget. We got 6,000 employees that we’re responsible for. We got all kinds of services. We provide public safety services, public work services, picking up your trash, plowing your street, trying to fix your roads and then all the other departments that we have to run. And that keeps me up at night worrying about getting things done and making sure that everything works and we don’t have any screw ups because anytime something doesn’t work right, it affects a lot of people and I feel personally responsible for that. So I worry about that. Luckily, I have great people working for me directly, plus all the other city employees who are very, very dedicated employees. I can’t tell you how much they care about the city and how hard they work every day to provide services to the residents. So we’re lucky and as long as we keep everything working and everybody doing their job I might get some sleep one of these days,” said Mayor Sisitsky.
More than 100 people attended this morning’s breakfast.
December’s breakfast will focus on the Hoops & Homework program, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Brotherhood membership is not restricted to Temple members, but is open to the public.
Membership in the Brotherhood includes complimentary admission to all 9 of the Brotherhood breakfasts.
The annual cost for membership is $90.
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