Salary increases for Commissioners in Fire District 3 were among the fire commissioner salaries approved by the Township Council on December 13. The proposed salaries passed the public’s muster at the February fire elections.

Township CDBG Coordinator Deborah Mitchell explains the proposed amendments to the Township Council. Left-over money in previous years’ Community Development Block Grant program was good news for four township organizations that had project funding approved at the December 13 Township Council meeting. The township had a total of $92,871.36 in left-over CDBG funds from 2019, 2020 and 2022, according to …

Township Recreation Director Beau Byrtus said that the department’s programs were very well-attended during 2022. The township’s recreation programs are “doing gangbusters,” the Director of Recreation said at the December 14 meeting of the Advisory Recreation Council. Director Beau Byrtus gave Council members an end-of-year update on program participation, and a look into what is planned for 2023.

Submitted by Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. Somerset County Prosecutor John P. McDonald and Somerset County Chief of County Detectives John W. Fodor announced law enforcement officials from Somerset and Hunterdon Counties will be cracking down on drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs as part of the annual end of year “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” statewide campaign.  BeginningDecember 2, …

Resolutions of appropriateness for two more retail cannabis shop applications to the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission were passed by the Township Council at its December 13 meeting. The resolutions, which state that the Council “believes the intended sites, consistent with Township Ordinances, are appropriately located and suitable for activities related to the operation of the proposed cannabis businesses,” are for …

Contracts totaling more than $40,000 for new carpeting in the Council Chamber, the Court and Police Department were awarded December 13 by the Township Council. Both contracts went to The Gillespie Group of Dayton.

Debbie Madaio says her Hamilton Street cannabis store will “cater to the cannabis-smoking woman.” To Debbie Madaio, it’s no surprise that the first two cannabis retailers in Franklin are likely to be women. “Women are in the forefront of the cannabis industry,” said Madaio, who has a conditional retail license for her store, Weed Stalk, at 646 Hamilton Street. She …

Mark Healey, the township’s Principal Planner, talks about the Master Plan during a special Town Hall meeting December 12 in the Council Chamber. Dozens of township residents showed up to a sometimes contentious December 12 town hall meeting on the process behind creating a Master Plan. The residents came armed with questions, most of them about the meeting’s topic. But …

Three township residents were scammed out of a total of $31,000, as reported to police at the end of November and beginning of December. On November 30, a township woman reported that she was scammed out of $26,000 in what policed said was a cryptocurrency scam.

A 36-year-old Millstone man has been charged with the August 22 robbery of a bank on Route 27, following a three-month investigation by local, state and federal authorities. In addition, three members of the man’s family have been charged with hindering apprehension, police said.