Mayor’s latest appointment is no joke.

In a city that prides itself on its serious governance and straight-faced officials, an unexpected twist has sent waves of laughter rippling through the town. The Mayor, known for his penchant for offbeat ideas, has appointed none other than renowned humor blogger Chuckle Master, the mastermind behind the vastly unpopular and almost non-existent blog, The Chez”, to a serious city government position.

When the Mayor called for an emergency press conference, the city council members couldn’t help but exchange puzzled glances. Little did they know that the Mayor had an ace up his sleeve—a hilarious ace, to be precise. With a sly grin, he unveiled his latest addition to the city’s administration: Chuckle Master, the guy behind belly-aching laughter and snort-inducing humor – or Bronx Cheers. Mr. Master didn’t want the job, but the mayor appointed him for fear that if he didn’t, he would make jokes about the mayor on his blog.

The council members nearly fell out of their chairs as they processed the news. Their brows furrowed, jaws dropped, and stifled chuckles escaped. Some worried about the city’s reputation, fearing it would become a laughingstock. Others wondered how a humor blogger would fare in the world of municipal governance. How could they possibly approve of this joker?

As the news trickled down to the residents, the reaction was a delightful mixture of skepticism and amusement. Some residents were initially taken aback, questioning the Mayor’s decision and pondering the potential consequences. However, others welcomed the idea with open arms, excited to inject a dose of laughter into the usually somber corridors of power.

In this digital age, the residents wasted no time taking to social media to voice their thoughts. Hilarious memes, witty one-liners, and GIFs flooded the city’s Twitter feed, showcasing the residents’ anticipation for what was to come. From sarcastic quips about council meetings turning into stand-up comedy shows to puns about “funny business” in city hall, the virtual world became a hub of laughter and anticipation.

As Chuckle Master donned his oversized, colorful tie and made his way to city hall, residents lined the streets, ready for a dose of mirth. With each step, the anticipation grew, and the council chambers became a swirling mix of anticipation and nervous giggles. The moment arrived, and the humor blogger took his seat at the council table, complaining a lot about red tape before producing a roll of red tape. “Why can’t we get clear tape around here?”, Mr. Master complained. When the Council Chair reminded Mr. Master that he had not been recognized, he replied, “Dude, I’ve known you for years…how do you not recognize me?”

Surprisingly, the presence of Chuckle Master in city government turned out to be a breath of fresh air. Did he accomplish anything useful? Of course not. But amidst the chuckles and doubts, the city council members found a renewed energy and camaraderie. They discovered that humor could bridge gaps, ease tensions, and foster a more positive work environment. The residents, too, were delighted to witness a lighter side of their local government, with meetings that were both productive and peppered with laughter.

Some have talked up a potential run for political office by Mr. Master. Others have floated the idea of a future Mayor Master. “I have not ruled out pulling papers,” Master admitted. “Yeah, there are a lot of papers cluttering up my file cabinet that I need to go through and recycle. Thank goodness we have single stream recycling.”

While many had their reservations initially, the Mayor’s decision to appoint a humor blogger to a serious city government position proved to be a stroke of genius. Chuckle Master brought a delightful twist to municipal affairs, while making sure to keep it clean and respectful. It reminded us all that laughter has its place even in the most serious of settings. So, the next time you see a funny face gracing your city’s administration, don’t fret—sit back, relax, and let hilarity ensue.

Unclassified Documents found at Mayor’s home

January 27, 2023

FRAMINGHAM, MA

Following the recent discovery of several classified documents in the home of President Joe Biden and Former Vice President Mike Pence, the National Archives and the Department of Justice have asked other high ranking government officials to conduct a thorough search of their homes and offices for any classified documents they may have overlooked.

Aides of Framingham’s mayor complied fully with the request and completed a full audit of his home and office. In the end, they did not find any classified documents, but they did uncover several pages of unclassified material.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office claimed, “There is nothing to see here. These files and documents are not top secret, not marked as sensitive or eyes-only, and in fact, are perfectly suitable for public consumption. They are simply a small sample of the myriad pages of documentation the mayor at times must bring home with him to review – in order to do his job effectively.”

A couple of city councilors were unconvinced. They called for a FOIA request, demanding to see for themselves what the mayor might be hiding.

“FOIA the documents all you want,” said the mayor’s spokesperson. “Not only will you find nothing sensational, but you will be utterly bored to tears.”

“The worst thing you might find is a bunch of doodles and quick notes on the back side of some of the documents, as they come in quite handy as scratch paper. One of them has a message that reads ‘don’t forget the milk on the way home’. Another one contains a doodle of a pine tree.”

“Boring or not, we want to see them,” demanded one city councilor. “These documents surely must be more interesting than any of the crap we have to read through. If I have to take home one more packet detailing the ins and outs of municipal zoning laws, I’m going to tear my hair out!”

Another city councilor wasn’t so concerned about the content of the documents so much as the fact that they might have been mishandled.

“It is my understanding that the mayor kept these documents in a very neat folder in a secure filing cabinet. To me, this is a serious problem because I resent the fact that he is far more fastidious than I am when it comes to managing all that paper. I mean my house looks like a veritable paper tornado hit it,” said another councilor.

Incidentally, an audit of the city councilor’s home revealed no classified documents there, either. Not that anyone could possibly find anything amidst that pile of $%#@&*!

City Councilors Seen Panhandling

Framingham, MA

Just days after the City Council voted to restrict panhandling activity on some city roadways, several City Councilors have been spotted in the streets of Framingham pleading for spare cash from drivers.

“Please, I beg you,” said one councilor to a woman commuting to work. “As an elected official, I only get a stipend of about $5,000. How can anyone expect me to get by on that?”

One driver scoffed at the whole charade, yelling, “all you politicians are rich. What do you need more money from us for?” Another councilor rebutted, “While there may be several of us city councilors who are independently wealthy and frankly, we don’t need some measly stipend, that is by no means a sufficient reason to stop grifting!”

A number of city councilors voted against a resolution supporting the Fair Share Amendment, or Question 1 on the November ballot. Despite their opposition, the measure stands to have a good chance of passage.

“When that Fair Share passes and some city councilors end up having to pay an extra 4% on their 7-figure income, I mean that’s going to take a real bite. So can you blame any of us for politely asking motorists for just a few bucks here and there?”

Said one motorist, “No, I can’t say as I blame them…so long they don’t blame me if my vehicle…accidentally runs over a councilor’s foot.”

Rain Wins Primary

In what was a very hotly contested and closely watched race, the election was called for The Rain at about 9:20 pm on September 6th.

Had another candidate actually emerged victorious, they might have “Blamed it on The Rain”, but alas, The Rain reigned. Unofficial results showed The Rain winning by a margin of some 150 votes. Not exactly a landslide, but certainly enough for some local flooding, to say the least.

While the opposition won’t be singing in The Rain anytime soon, they did call to congratulate the Rain on its triumph.

“I want to thank all those who worked so hard on this campaign,” said the Rain just before the clouds dissipated. “When the doubters said we were all wet, we proved them wrong!

It’s all too easy to forget that this was only the primary. Now it’s on to the general election in November, but the newly minted nominee is confident. “I feel right as, well rain,” said the candidate. This should be no problem as there is no opponent.

Campaign cash has all but dried up, but with election in November all but guaranteed, supporters are not going to have to pony up again and make it rain. They can save their money for a rainy day.

For now, rest assured that democracy prevailed. Let freedom…rain?

Vote for Candidate A for This Office

TO THE EDITOR

I am writing to voice my support for Candidate A in the upcoming primary on September 6th. Candidate A is the only candidate in this race who has proven able to pick their nose while patting themselves on the back. Nobody else can say that, certainly not their opponents, Candidates B, C, or D.

Candidate A has also taken no money from corporations. This is truly a grassroots campaign. I’ve seen Candidate A often pull up grass roots in their garden. It’s phenomenal. There is no outside money coming in, well aside from the PAC money that has poured into their campaign, but hush hush…nobody has to know that unless they look at the campaign finance website. Sure, Candidate A has donated hundreds of thousands of their own money to their campaign, but they’re not trying to buy this election at all. To be willing to mortgage their own future on winning this high and important office shows that they are committed. We need more dedicated people like that.

Candidate A deserves to be elected because they have accomplished so much. Their track record speaks for itself. They were instrumental in naming a brand new health clinic in Boston. They led the fight during the Free Tom Brady campaign. Do you like the fact that when you ride the T, the upholstery is still the same as it has been for a decade or more? Well, you can thank Candidate A. They did that! Some think Candidate A is just looking to climb the political ladder. It doesn’t matter that they served only a few days in their previous positions or that they ran for an entirely different office four years ago and then decided this current position was the one they really wanted. And did you know that Candidate A served for a while in the Obama White House and for Governor Deval Patrick? I mean for that reason alone, they must be cool, so you should vote for them!

Did I mention the endorsements? Candidate A has the endorsement of so many different organizations that you never heard of. It means a lot to me because it means they had to write a letter, answer a few survey questions, and ask for the endorsement. That takes a lot of work. Even better, Candidate A is also endorsed by a number of prominent political figures, including mayors and councilors in towns you’ve never heard of.

Candidate A has knocked millions of doors. Well, Candidate A isn’t knocking all those doors. The hundreds of unpaid volunteers are doing that.

Candidate A is smarter than you and better looking, too! Candidate A just simply looks the part. How can you go wrong with Candidate A?

Candidate A should definitely be our next State Auditor, Attorney General, Governor’s Councilor, or whatever position they are running for this year. Please join me in supporting Candidate A on September 6th. If you don’t, well you will just have to vote for them for the next office they seek. Whatever you do, keep those campaign contributions coming. Win or lose, Candidate A will need that head start in the money race for the next campaign.

Mayor must redo Oath

Framingham, MA

It turns out we do not officially have a new mayor. For almost three weeks, Framingham has been essentially without a mayor. This is because he apparently did not recite the full oath of office. The oath he recited on January 1, which went on for about 5 minutes or the equivalent of 7 pages of text, was actually not the full version of said oath. It was an abridged version of the official oath. The official oath of office for mayor is a full 30-page document and it can take up to 20-30 minutes to recite completely. And if any mistakes are made in the process, the mayor-elect has to start from the beginning. The mayor will re-do the oath tomorrow afternoon in a private ceremony.

A closer read of statutes indicates that the mayor is still the mayor, even if he did not recite the complete oath. He just does not get to execute any actual powers of the office until he completes the oath. Anything he has done as mayor in the past three weeks then is null and void because he didn’t actually have those powers yet. The mask mandate will still stand, however, with no apologies to the anti-science, anti-maskers.

According to one city councilor, the former mayor also never completely recited the oath, which effectively means the former mayor was in fact never actually mayor.

Until the “new” mayor completes the full oath, Framingham will not really have ever had a mayor at all. Until then, luckily the new City Council Chair of the Council or, shall we say, the Vice Mayor can step in.

And would having no mayor be such a bad thing? Legend has it, this community went 317 years without one. What if we decided to just not install a mayor? Yeah yeah, the charter says this, the charter says that…blah blah blah.

But if we just simply ignore the charter, who cares? Is there a charter police force or something? Is that another idea pushed by Ron DeSantis?

Framingham Vice

During this week’s City Council meeting, it was time to re-organize, though it would be a leap to assume that this Council has ever been organized. By re-organizing, they meant it was time to choose who would lead the Council during this next two-year cycle. Lead it to what? Out of a paper bag, presumably.

The outgoing chair did not appear to want the job anymore and probably would not have had the votes to remain in said position even if he did. The outgoing vice chair saw the writing on the wall and knew that with a 6-5 tilt against, he would not have the votes to succeed to the top job. He was probably just happy to have retained his seat after the recent special election. This paved the way for a rather anti-climactic vote for chair. This had long been rumored and it came to fruition the other night. The only nominee for chair easily defeated the non-opposition. As we all know by now, the Chair of the Council is effectively the Vice Mayor. Should the mayor step down for any reason, the City Council Chair is next in line for the throne, I mean Mayor’s office.

There is also of course a Vice Chair for the Council. A new vice-chair was also elected. There was just a tad bit more drama here. Suffice to say, a slim 6-5 vote helped avert the City Council becoming the old Planning Board.

The Vice Chair of the Council is effectively third in line to be mayor, meaning she is the Vice Vice Mayor.

But this begs the question. Who is Vice Vice Vice Mayor (or Vice Vice Chair)? What is more, who is Deputy Vice Vice Vice Mayor? And if so, how is that determined? Is there a Lieutenant Deputy Vice Vice Vice Mayor?

Seriously? What if the Mayor, City Council Chair, and Vice Chair all resign at once – or are all recalled at the same time? Who is in charge? It won’t be Charles in charge if he already resigned. Would some designated survivor who sits on the Cultural Counci or something become mayor? Maybe Tom Kirkman is available if needed. What about that dude who has a public comment at almost every meeting? Would the job fall to him?

Maybe it would be a re-animated Al Haig? “Everything is under control!”

Mayor-Elect Gets New Car

FRAMINGHAM, MA

Soon, the current mayor will be leaving office and turning over the keys to her office. She will also be turning over the keys to Ford Explorer she drove for the past four years.

Though the $43,000 Explorer has just 12 easy payments of $716 remaining on the loan, the newly elected Mayor has chosen not to keep the current Mayormobile. Instead, he has chosen to trade it in for something a bit less expensive.

The incoming Mayor is now the proud owner of a 1973 vintage Ford Pinto for the low low price of just $2400. It may not have a sunroof, but it has just half a roof. The gap in the roof is conveniently covered by an extra strength garbage bag. It is also decked out with a copper-plated meatball emblem on the front hood. The meatball represents the appetizers served at many a campaign event. The RMV also issued a special vanity plate: HAM 1.

When you factor in the trade-in value for the previous executive vehicle, the city could save roughly $20,000. That should just about cover the cost of the new Framingham Public Schools logo. It won’t make a dent in the water and sewer deficit, sadly.

It may not have a GPS system, but there are a couple of decent Fodors maps in the glove compartment.

It lacks state of the art security systems, and doesn’t even have a working horn, but a bicycle horn has been affixed to the driver’s side door. The sight of this vehicle alone should deter most from going anywhere near it.

Unfortunately, with gas prices on the rise, the diminutive Pinto will not offer much more in fuel savings versus the Explorer. The heavyweight Explorer got about 21 miles per gallon vs. about 25 mpg for the Pinto.

The new Mayor will also get a special police detail. Actually, it won’t be so much of a detail as a decal. He’ll get a special Framingham Police decal on the back bumper to honor Framingham’s finest.

“It may not be the fanciest car, but unlike the last mayor, all I need is basic transportation,” said the newly elected Mayor. “Just gotta get from point A to point B. What else does one need?”

Fit to Be Tied

FRAMINGHAM, MA (SOMEWHERE IN DISTRICT 3)

The unofficial results in the District 3 City Council race showed that the incumbent came out ahead by two votes. Following a recount, the official election results revealed a tie. There were two ballots that appeared to show that the voter intended to vote for the challenger, even though the machine did not record the vote. The incumbent’s campaign questioned those ballots on the basis that other votes on the ballot were clearly filled in compared to the markings in the council race. It could all come down to a rogue nose hair.

A judge could end up single-handedly picking the winner, or perhaps by a single foot. Either way, their judgment could be flawed given the difficulty in discerning hesitation marks from intended votes. Legal opinions vary from state to state, but complicating matters even more is what to do when a random nose hair adds to the controversy.

The Cheese obtained a copy of one of the ballots in question. According to investigators, the stray mark on that ballot appears to have been produced by residue from the dye on a small hair from someone’s nose. Clearly, this ballot must have been among those sent in by mail or via drop box given masking requirements at the polls. Attorneys from both campaigns are working to narrow down the pool of voters who may have cast ballots by mail, as it is likely they would have been mask-less whilst completing their ballot at home.

What is more, they are attempting to determine how many of those voters typically dye their nose hair. By process of elimination (of voters who fit that description, not in regards to the process of nose hair removal) they should be able to determine which voter cast that vote, even if they forgot to sign the outer envelope.

At that point, they can interview that voter and ask them what their intent was when casting that ballot. If they were filling out the ballot and they had no intention of voting in the city council race, yet the force of gravity and a gentle breeze conspired to dislodge one of their nose hairs from their nares, then they might be able to more confidently conclude that the oily residue left within the target area on that ballot was not intended as a vote by that voter. But if the voter were to tell investigators that forcibly expelling dyed hairs from their nose is one of several means by which they mark their choice for a given candidate, then that could indeed be a valid vote.

All this is to say nothing of the fact that if that imprint is not counted as a vote, then we run the risk of disenfranchising the nose hair. What’s next? Will nose hairs need to show identification in order to vote? Will they be gerrymandered out of their current districts? Will the nose hair be chosen to temporarily fill the D3 Council seat until this matter is resolved?

Whatever the outcome, whether a judge decides or this goes to a runoff, the candidate who prevails in this historically close election will have won this one by, well, a nose.

Framingham Elects Its First White Male Mayor

Framingham, MA

Earlier this month, Framingham voters turned a page and made history by electing the first white man to serve as its mayor.

“We broke that highest and hardest glass ceiling in our city!”, said a supporter at his victory rally.

“Given the long four year history of our city, we now have a mayor who doesn’t necessarily ‘look like Framingham’,” they said.

Until now, Framingham has only had Mayors who were more diverse, female, and younger than 70. The newly elected mayor breaks many new records.

For the first time in its history, Framingham also chose a mayor who had lots of government experience versus an outsider and newcomer to politics.

“Yeah, it’s so refreshing to bring in someone who has been around for a long time! There are times when you need to try something brand new, but we tried brand new for many years. For once, we needed something tried and true.”

The new Mayor will take office on January 1, 2022. He has no plans to give it back.