The force is with us!
March 20th, 2007
Walking downtown yesterday, I noticed across from town hall was a freshly installed, promotional mailbox for the 30th anniversary “Star Wars” stamps out later this month.
This is one of 400 droid boxes that have been strategically placed around the country and the USPS has chosen our fair city town as one of the locations. Thanks USPS, nice to see a little treat downtown : )
Maybe R2 will use the “the force” and get downtown in better shape!
Hahaha nice striketru for city
(For those of you who don’t know, 1 of Framingham’s many claim to fame’s is we are the largest town in MA cause we refuse to change the designation to “city”)
Comment by Homer — March 20, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
Does anyone know what the advantage of not becoming a city is?
So as not to veer completely off topic, check out the promotional teaser video–it’s pretty corny.
http://www.uspsjedimaster.com/teaser/
Comment by Ethan — March 20, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
The primary city/town differences:
In a town, the top elected officers are the Board of Selectmen (usually five people). They work as a board to develop policies and budget. They typically hire an administrator (Town Manager in Framingham’s case). The Town Manager works for the Board, carrying out the policies determined by the Board at public meetings.
In a city, the top elected officer is a Mayor. The mayor has much more authority as he/she reports to no one (other than the voters every few years). There is a city council that works with the Mayor, but only on major issues - the Mayor does not report to the council. The Mayor also typically serves as Chair of the School Committee.
There are variants to the above, but that’s typical.
The advantage of a town government is the ultimate authority is spread out amongst several people, and that all big decisions are made in public. The downside is changes can happen slowly (discussion only every two weeks in most towns).
The advantage of a city government is there is one person with the authority to make major changes rapidly, instead of waiting for the next Selectmen’s meeting. Larger communities often change to cities for this reason. The downside is that one person can really screw things up, without much public oversight.
At least one Selectmen is up for election each year, so the town has the ability to make changes at the top more rapidly than changing a mayor.
I’m a big fan of the town form of government. With the power spread out amongst five elected citizens who must make decisions during open meetings, the public has much greater input and ownership of their own government.
I became such a fan of this form of government that I’m a Selectmen myself. Not in Framingham - I’m just a former resident enjoying the site.
Comment by Mitch Cohen — March 20, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
I hope they don’t put these in Boston. The bomb squad will of course assume it’s a ’suspicious device’ and blow it faster than you can say Death Star.
Comment by Moonlight — March 20, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
Call me a cynic but based on Mitch’s description of 5:1, the difference between town government and city government is that in a town government, you have the potential for five corrupt officials making decisions while in the city government, you have one all powerful corrupt official.
Comment by scott — March 29, 2007 @ 11:06 am