News-pourri

Sights and sounds of the holidays were in abundance in the township Dec. 11. The township held the annual tree lighting and holiday celebration at the municipal complex, and Middlebush Reformed Church presented its annual Living Nativity on the green at Amwell and South Middlebush roads.

The Township Council Dec. 8 presented commendations to a number of students who won a township-wide poster contest, and to two of its own. The students won commendations for their entries in the annual Red Ribbon Poster Contest. Red Ribbon Week is a national substance abuse prevention campaign run in schools.

  The two rivals for the mayor’s seat agreed on one thing at the final Township Council meeting of 2015: Donald Trump is not welcome in Franklin.

There was dancing, there was singing, there were goodies.

Submitted by Judy Werensly. On November 30, Cmdr. John Deily and Vice Cmdr. Ray Werensly put flags and wreaths on the memorial markers at the Veterans’ Memorial Park on DeMott Lane.

A township family has started an online fundraising campaign to help meet a family member’s medical expenses. Ryan Krushinski, a freshman at the Somerset County Vocational and Technical School, was seriously injured in a Nov. 29 ATV accident.

The war of words between NJ State PBA president – and township police detective – Pat Colligan and Gov. Chris Christie escalated Nov. 30, when the governor called Colligan a “pension pig” in statements made on the presidential primary campaign trail in New Hampshire. Colligan has been a long-time critic of Christie’s, mainly because of what Colligan terms Christie’s broken promises in …

One of the township’s two charter schools has received approval to move into a Pierce Street building. The Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School, now located at 92 Cortylous Lane, will next year move into about 60,000 square feet in a building at 150 Pierce Street, at the intersection of Worlds Fair Drive.

In the wake of the Veterans Day commemoration debacle, township officials have decided to take over the arrangements for that and one other commemoration. Township manager Robert Vornlocker at the Nov. 24 Township Council meeting suggested that since the township already runs the July 4 celebration, it should also handle the Veterans Day and Memorial Day observances.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment got its first peek at a proposed retail/residential development on Hamilton Street, a project township officials hope will herald the renaissance of the business district. The proposal, made by Recon Services LLC of Rocky Hill, is for a building encompassing the block of Hamilton Street between Ambrose and Home streets, the ground floor of which would …