Background: We still need your help. Water rates in Framingham have increased steadily over the years, and they are going up significantly in 2025. Stearns requested an abatement in 2023, but we were denied because we don’t qualify under the current abatement policy. The City is currently in the process of updating its water and sewer rates, as well as the abatement policy.
How you can help: Write an email to Mayor Sisitsky to urge him to include a category in the new abatement policy that would allow Stearns Farm to qualify for an abatement. You do not need to be a Framingham resident. Your advocacy will help us sustain the farm and keep share prices affordable.
Use these bullet points as a guide to personalize your appeal:
- Talk about how important Stearns Farm is to you, your family, and the community and how long you’ve been a member.
- Mention how much you value the ability to buy locally grown produce.
- Stearns Farm is an important part of our local, sustainable food system.
- Stearns Farm donates thousands of pounds of produce to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
- Stearns Farm is one of the last remaining working farms in Framingham and one of the few remaining open spaces.
Who do you email?
- Write to Mayor Sisitsky, mayor@framinghamma.gov
- CC: Framingham’s Jennifer Pratt cfo@framinghamma.gov, Nomi Sofer president@stearnsfarmcsa.org, your City Council member (if you live in Framingham) Find your councilor here: https://webapps.framinghamma.gov/kiosk/district.html
Final notes:
Not a Framingham resident? Identify yourself as a member of Stearns Farm and talk about how important it is to support local food producers.
The conversation about the abatement policy is happening now. Please get your emails in ASAP, by the end of December at the latest.
Questions? Contact Nomi at president@stearnsfarmcsa.org or Ember at farmer@stearnsfarmcsa.org
Public comment by Nomi Sofer, at Mayor’s Water Rate Sewer hearing on 11/18/2024
Good evening. My name is Nomi Sofer, and I’m here on behalf of Stearns Farm, a community supported farm on Edmands Road. I am a Framingham resident, I’ve been a member of Stearns Farm since 2006, and I currently serve as the President of the Board.
At Stearns, we farm on less than two acres of land and grow produce that feeds over 200 families in Framingham and surrounding communities. The land we’re on has been farmed for hundreds of years, and Stearns Farm is one of the last remaining pieces of open land in Framingham. We farm organically, which means that we don’t use chemical fertilizers, insecticides, or herbicides, and our top priority is the health of the soil, our workers, our neighbors, and the people who eat the food we grow.
At Stearns Farm we are very fortunate to have irrigation, which allows us to keep our production relatively stable in the face of the increasingly common seasons of drought. As we face a changing climate and hotter and drier seasons, we are spending ever more on water. We don’t have a well, so we must use City water.
The proposed increase in the water rates represents a serious threat to our ability to sustain the farm and the community that relies on the food we grow. There is no agriculture water rate in Framingham, and we understand that creating an ag rate isn’t feasible. Instead, we are requesting a permanent abatement for Stearns Farm. We currently pay the highest rate in the City—the irrigation rate of $15/unit, and we have already spent over $7,000 on water this year, and that’s just for the first three quarters. The increase to $18/unit will threaten our fiscal stability.
An abatement would make a significant impact on our ability to continue to grow food for our community. This abatement would represent the City of Framingham’s commitment to local agriculture, to sustainable food systems, and to preserving one of the last remaining working farms in Framingham.
