A Well Regarded Advocate For Senior Services Opposes Changing Framingham Council On Aging Membership Rules

With Brian Sullivan's permission, the letter he recently sent to the Framingham City Council Rules, Ordinances, & Ethics Subcommittee is reproduced here.

Hello Rules Committee members.

I am writing to request that you not support Councilor Leombruno’s proposed amendments to the membership of the Council on Aging (Order 2026-103).

Councilor Leombruno made statements at the last COA meeting suggesting that switching the COA membership to a District based membership would relieve the difficulties that the COA is having reaching quorum due to the number of vacancies on the Board. Currently, there are 5 open slots for the COA right now which could be filled by any resident regardless of where they live. The existing volunteer application already has fields where a person can specify their District and Language so that information is already known to the administration.

Committees and Boards have a responsibility for a certain area. And typically for boards to do their job, members of those boards should have experience, expertise, (or minimally a desire to learn) in the area they are responsible for. While I see things like location/languages giving “points” when comparing applications, they should not be the primary basis for choosing an applicant. In terms of the COA, do we really want to turn away people who may have experience in the various senior fields in favor of someone who essentially brings nothing to the table except their street address?

In my opinion, this whole approach is straight up petty politics. The COA took a public position against the Callahan/Library reorg and now they are being punished by having their terms expire in December, under the guise of a better way to get more COA members. It’s been reported that there have been a number of residents who have applied for the COA and essentially have been ignored by the administration. In fact, one existing COA member, who brought language skills to the table, reapplied this year and eventually resigned since the administration did not get back to her.

If the District representation approach had been proposed across the board for all boards/committees that might at least be worthy of a discussion on the pros and cons. This same argument for district-based representation can be made for every board whether it’s the Planning Board, Disability Commission, ZBA, etc. But this is only directed at the COA. It reeks of the stench of political payback against the COA who took a position based on what it believed was in the best interests of Framingham’s seniors.

Also, think about the impact of what this will do going forward and the message it sends. Board member terms basically become meaningless. Why would people consider applying for a committee near the end of a mayor’s term if there was a possibility of a new mayor just finding a “creative” way of expiring those terms? Why would people consider applying if they know that they can’t put Framingham’s residents first and instead have to “play politics” in order to keep their seat?

The COA board is basically treading water with 6 of 11 members. I would suggest that before you even consider this change that you get all the facts. And one of those facts would be how many COA applications have come in and exactly when did they come in? Another known fact would be that 2 of the remaining 6 members would be immediately eliminated because of duplicate districts. Also, the argument was made that another board uses the district model. But I’m not convinced that they are a true apples to apples comparison. Plus, it is not a guarantee for success. Just look at the 20/30 Council which uses the District representation model along with even some At Large seats and it is sitting at 14 out of 21 vacancies!

Please do not support the proposed changes, it does not fix the problem – it actually makes it worse.

Brian Sullivan, Former COA member