Hi all; I’m back. Sure, there are boxes in various states of disarray everywhere in my new apartment, I can’t get to my stove, microwave, half of my new office, and the only place that is box-free is the bathroom, but…we are all moved. And the day we did most of the hauling was the one day that was consistently sunny and beautiful this whole long weekend, so we lucked out.
Today’s Lowell City Council blogging will be a bit shorter and less detailed than usual. For one thing, I was taking notes manually (with a what-do-you-call-it…oh, a pencil) so I only caught the highlights. And the phone rang twice while I was watching the meeting, so I did miss some stuff.
The rest is on the flip.
First up, a motion by Jim Milinazzo was moved to the beginning as there was someone registered to speak. The motion was to have the City Manager get the solicitor to report on a legality issue surrounding the issuance of a special permit for a planned residential development on Westview Road. Apparently, this development is an ongoing issue, and this is an attempt by the local residents and their advocate, Richard Howe Jr (yes, I assume he’s related to Councilor Dick Howe) to use the special permit process to derail this unwanted development. The area was rezoned for commercial prior. The developer wants to build subdivisions, and this requires a special permit, which this motion addresses. If it’s the case that the special permit is dictated by the current zoning laws, and not grandfathered in (the land itself is grandfathered into the old zoning laws, but the subdivision request may not be), then this project goes in the crapper.
I know nothing about this particular project, so I’m not injecting my opinions here, just reporting. All the councilors were for the motion to get the Law Dept to determine this legal matter (therefore making it possible to stop the development from ever occurring). It was approved with 8 councilors voting, one voting present.
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A motion for $500 to be appropriated to Veterans group for maintenance to a photocopier was passed.
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There was a motion for a variety of traffic regulations to change for a 60-day trial. Due to the first phone call, I missed the list of changes, but it at least involved one street changing to one way. After the 60 days, residents can come before the council and state their opinions (for or against I guess). Approved.
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Motion approved for the City Manager to accept a bid for 109 Branch St of $130,000, by Ming and Jing Wang.
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Mayor Mercier reappointed F. Christopher Zacherer to Conservation Commission (for three years I think). This did not need a vote to approve.
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Mayor Mercier (re?)appointed two people to the Hunger Homeless Commission; Marianne Staid from the House of Hope, and Gloria Robillard (sorry, I didn’t catch who she was with). No vote on this one either.
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Subcommittee Reports
Joint meeting of Finance and Public Safety: in regards to police contract with uniform changes - the subcomm was presented with some examples of what could be uniform changes (in particular, shorts for summer and wool caps in winter). They discussed protection issues, regulations of where badge must be displayed (which may interfere with new clothing), and cost. Current uniforms are not all standard already. There is no cost to the city on these changes (or something to that effect - because it’s part of salary negotiations?). Voted to delay the council vote on this contract.
There was an interesting catfight between Howe and Caulfield. Howe commented on several things, mostly about how this is not the sort of details a subcommittee or the council in general should be working on - it’s the province of the police chief. However, he make a comment about how a local merchant had been the one to come up and display example costumes - I guess implying cronyism. Caulfield responded to that comment, saying that the merchant in question is a good friend of his and a local businessman who has done many charitable things for the city, etc. CM John Cox also stated that the council itself requested to be shown outfits, and since the local guy had some around, he was brought in. However, he was only bringing examples, not selling them, and the city and police chief were free to do business with anyone they choose in the actual purchase.
The motion to delay was passed.
Finance Subcomm: the other three contracts (including I think the Superior Officer’s Union), other than a very minor text edit, were recommended by the subcommittee to bring to a vote. This motion passed.
Again, another Finance Subcomm: on the wastewater treatment workers union contract - also recommended to vote on, also passed.
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Donoghue then commented on the last of three installments of the Gang Summit that was recently held. She had a lot of praise, etc., mentioned some of the ideas that came out of it - getting a hotline on a local level, the fact that there’s lots of places “to go” if you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, but nothing to “stay away from gangs.”
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Then a Michael Ready (spelling?) came forward to submit a petition to create neighborhood districts within the historic districts. Phone call #2 interrupted at this point, but the gist of it as far as I can tell is that the historic districts currently in use in Lowell are not really useful for controlling development - they don’t even allow for city control of demolition or new construction in these districts. Michael (I believe he’s with a group of concerned residents, I don’t know if it has a formal name) proposes rules that will allow the limitation of demolition and new construction, such that historic houses cannot be bought and merely destroyed without some process to evaluate the value of that historic house. Councilors expressed concerns - about existing houses and restricting residents about siding, adding porches, so on. Michael assured them it was primarily about demolition and new construction - that current home owners could still work on their houses the way they want. Motion was approved.
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Donoghue then put forth a motion to get a report regarding the YWCA, its plans now that it has sold the building on Rogers St., but in particular she seeks the advice of the Law Dept regarding CDBG (City Development Building Grants I think) that the Y has received over the years, and is there any recourse for recouping that now that the building is being sold, as that grant money is given out to organizations in Lowell that are assumed to stick around a while.
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Mayor Mercier reminded people about the ad-hoc subcommittee regarding the Julian Steel Project.
He also reminded people that the next City Council meeting is June 14th, two weeks from now, as they are on their summer schedule. (In other words, no Tuesday City Council blogging next week).
