Former Parks and Recreation Director Merusi Running for Charter Commissioner

Editor’s note: The following is a press release. Each candidate for Charter Commissioner is allowed to submit an announcement under Framingham Patch’s 2016 election policy.

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Former Park and Recreation Director Robert Merusi has submitted his nomination papers to the Town Clerk’s office for Framingham’s Charter Commission.

Merusi has been involved in all facets of town government since 1975, highlighted by his 25 year tenure as Division Director for the highly-successful Park and Recreation Division.

He sees both advantages and disadvantages in the present form of government. He knows what it takes to navigate through the many boards and committees to get things done.

He said “Most of his projects such as Bowditch Field, Callahan Senior Center, or Cushing Memorial Park required successfully navigating Town Meeting and its many sub committees. It is not a process to be undertaken by the faint of heart and can be a daunting task.”

However, Merusi credits that very same town meeting process with ensuring that only high quality initiatives will succeed.

He also would like to reduce some of the redundancy in the budget approval process:

“We hire a Town Manager and a CFO to review and recommend budgets to Town Meeting. But after that recommendation, those department budgets get reviewed again by as many as 5 different committees, sometimes with conflicting and unclear purpose.”

According to Merusi, local government participation should also be available to people who do not have the time to become a Town Meeting Member or serve on one of the many boards and committees. The homeowner/tax payer/resident should have a more meaningful way to participate by casting meaningful votes for positions of greater influence on the town’s direction.

Merusi would like to study various ways some of these structural issues can be improved and make voter participation more meaningful.

He has also has served during his long professional career with the town as an elected Town Meeting Member, elected Keefe Tech School Committee Member, and elected Framingham Public School Committee member, and currently an elected member of the Framingham Housing Authority.

He was last year’s recipient of the Salute to Framingham Award.

Merusi is now operating a small business with his daughter and lives on Angelica Drive with his wife Michele, an educator in the Framingham School system.