Framingham City Council Meeting Summary – January 6, 2026
Framingham City Council Meeting – January 6, 2026
The Framingham City Council held its regular meeting on January 6, 2026, beginning with public participation, followed by the Mayor's report, discussion of the 2026 meeting calendar, referral of zoning amendments, and approval of minutes. The meeting included several public comments on prison development, zoning concerns, surveillance cameras, and budget issues.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Christopher Leonard (Sewell Street) urged the Council to hold a discussion and public hearing on the MCI Framingham redevelopment plan (a $360 million state project), calling for a construction moratorium on prisons due to concerns about transparency, cost, and the well-being of incarcerated women. He also expressed alarm about the Massachusetts Department of Corrections' 287G partnership with ICE, stating that Framingham must protect its immigrant community regardless of legal status.
- Mark Montague (with wife Gail) described a “hotel-sized skyscraper” being built in his neighborhood on an 8,000 sq ft lot (7,000 sq ft building, floor area ratio of 0.875 vs. 0.26 average). He proposed rezoning south of Washakem Lake from G to R1, implementing floor area ratios, limiting height to 2.5 stories, and clarifying definitions of living space to prevent future expansion of accessory dwelling units.
- Pat Krysac (20 Dead Avenue) raised concerns about Flock license plate readers installed by the police, questioning whether data is shared with ICE and requesting definitive answers about privacy protections.
- Mr. Bloomfield (via Zoom) urged the Council to cut non-essential spending, reduce salaries of top earners, assess taxes on commercial properties and state properties, and prioritize essential services. He also called for more school traffic safety officers.
- Donna Kilcoin (Apple Dor Road, via Zoom) urged the Council to revisit the proposal to shrink the downtown business district (deferred last spring), noting that reducing the MBTA zoning district to 4,300 units is still possible. She also asked for data on property tax arrears, particularly among fixed-income homeowners at risk of losing their homes.
Discussion Items
- Mayor's Report: The Mayor thanked attendees for the January 1 inauguration, which featured the Governor and Congresswoman Clark. He announced curb-side Christmas tree collection, planning board and school building committee vacancies, the Senior Heroes Award, the Black History Month exhibit, the CFO vacancy, and the State of the City address on January 26 at 7 PM. Councilors asked about the CFO search, the new Chief Sustainability Officer position (HR is developing a job description), the possibility of designating special municipal employees to attract board volunteers, and ideas for increasing budget transparency under the new charter. The Mayor also responded to a question about water billing at Bishop Street condos, explaining that the city is sending a letter about arrears and considering a second meter to split the bill between two associations.
- 2026 Meeting Calendar: The Council discussed adding meetings to accommodate an accelerated budget timeline. The January 27 meeting was already added for MSBA roof repair applications. A motion to add April 14 as a budget meeting was made and seconded. The calendar was approved unanimously (11-0).
- Zoning Amendments Referral (Clarks Hill and Eagle Rock): The Council voted to advertise public hearings and refer both zoning amendments to the Planning Board for a public hearing (required under MGL Chapter 40A). Discussion clarified that the City Council and Planning Board will hold separate hearings, but the Council cannot take a final vote until receiving the Planning Board's recommendation. The motion passed unanimously.
- $90,000 Transfer for CFO Consultant: The Mayor requested referral to the Finance Subcommittee for a $90,000 transfer from the salary reserve account to the CFO’s professional and technical consultant account. It was referred without objection.
- Approval of Draft Minutes (November 18 and December 22, 2025): Two friendly amendments were accepted: adding the phrase “destructive capacity of humankind” to a statement by Chris Leonard, and correcting a name to “Rosie Hooper Hammersley.” The minutes were approved 8-3 (three abstentions).
Key Outcomes
- Meeting Calendar Approved: The 2026 meeting schedule was adopted with the addition of January 27 and April 14 meetings. The Council warned that additional meetings may be added.
- Zoning Amendments Referred: The City Council will advertise public hearings for the Clarks Hill and Eagle Rock zoning amendments, and the Planning Board will hold separate public hearings and provide a recommendation.
- CFO Consultant Transfer Referred: The $90,000 transfer was referred to the Finance Subcommittee for further review.
- Minutes Approved: The minutes of November 18 and December 22, 2025, were approved with minor amendments.
- Councilor Reports: Councilor Long emphasized the need for zoning amendments to prevent projects that violate neighborhood character. Councilor Bryant thanked the fire department for recent responses. Councilor Malik thanked DPW and volunteers for the New Year’s Eve rail trail event and recognized the retirement of Karen Block.
Meeting Transcript
The City Council is the sole legislative body of the city of Framingham and is therefore responsible for passing city ordinances. The City Council is made up of 11 members who exercise the legislative powers of Framingham. Two of these members are known as counselors at large, and nine members are known as district counselors. The city council serves as a link between the citizens of Framingham and their municipal government. Counselors help constituents by connecting them to resources, services, and city departments. And also serve as advocates for all Framingham residents. The following city council coverage is brought to you by the government channel, a service of the City of Framingham. Okay, good evening, and welcome to the City Council meeting for January 6, 2026. We will be using version two of the agenda, which was posted in the public meeting portal uh this morning. Uh and the first item on the agenda tonight will be public participation. Uh there are three people in the room, and on Zoom we have uh one person, so everybody can have three minutes. So we will start with Mr. Leonard. My name is Christopher Leonard of Sewell Street. Thank you for recognizing me. The MCI Framingham discussion has been postponed since October 20th. On November 18th, it was cited in the agenda and briefly addressed. It was resolved that Senate President Spilka would be requested to attend the discussion to provide information to the City Council on Governor Healy's 360 million dollar development project. Yet the council has not yet announced when to expect this discussion. Advocates for carceral reform are demanding a pause to more fully examine alternatives and to give the public time to review details of the plan, which have not been released, though an overview of the plan was released last June. The campaign to free her is spearheaded by Families for Justice as Healing and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. They held a town hall meeting on October 25th, during which the host delivered a presentation about some of their major concerns, such as the well-being of the incarcerated women, the cost of the development project, the lack of transparency, and how it was determined that punitive punishment is more worth investing in than other more healing models of punishment. Another significant source of concern for this city is the Massachusetts Department of Corrections 287G partnership with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city must represent its immigrant community regardless of their legal status because immigrants are our neighbors. They reside in Framingham, pay rent and taxes in Framingham, earn livings in Framingham, and bring life to the area. Most immigrants would prefer to stay in their country of origin, but for reasons that are debatable, make the difficult decision to immigrate. The governor intends to expedite the realization of her plan, so it is imperative that the city not only hold the discussion but also call for a public hearing to collect and obtain more information from members of the public and other stakeholders. This body can enact, I believe, a construction moratorium for prisons should it be determined that using land to incarcerate people is not in the interest of Framingham residents. Holding a discussion may help to bring light to some shady aspects of the governor's project. Holding a public hearing will more completely involve Framingham residents, proponents, and opponents alike. A construction moratorium for prisons will send a message to the state that Framingham wishes to shake off its history of being a home to a retrograde practice. And we'll send a message to the federal government that Framingham welcomes immigrants. Thank you. Next is our Mark Montague. Good evening. So good evening. And we just my wife and I, Gail came down tonight. We wanted to just uh bring your attention to how the um zoning bylaw has failed us and failed our neighborhood. We have a um basically a um hotel-sized skyscraper going up in the middle of our neighborhood. And we wanted to get the you know a conversation started about um updating the uh zoning bylaws so no other no other neighborhood in the city has to ever deal with um this kind of situation that's definitely uh negatively impacting our um our lives. And we we came up with some ideas, um, you know, brainstorming this and on things that we'd like you know the the leaders um in the city to consider, you know, the first one being south of Walshakem Lake, rezoning it from um from G to um R1. Um that would help um, you know, with the multifamily issue. Uh floor area ratios. This particular building is a 7,000 square foot building on an 8,000 square foot lot. So you can imagine um the size of it on such a small lot. You know, if we had floor area ratios, which I understand, you know, is probably gonna would be a hot topic because it's usually not done in residential zones, but maybe with the current real estate environment, it's time to think about maybe possibly doing something like that. You know, it would help with uh preventing man mansionization, uh, ensure that the neighborhood characters are uh maintained, definitely increase affordability because you wouldn't have this um a building like this going in in a small neighborhood. You know, we know this guy he bought the property for 350, and we know looking at the registry of deeds, he's got a loan out for 800 to build the thing, so he's in for it to for 1.2 million, you know, and it in in a small neighborhood, it's just it's crazy. Um the average floor error ratio in our neighborhood is closer to 0.26. And this one's you know, point eight seven five.
openpublica.com