This little tidbit was in the Lowell Sun yesterday (I hate it that they don’t update the website til the afternoon - I usually take my trip around the web in the morning, and then I have to remember to go back there in the afternoon.)
In the article, it’s mentioned that Councilor Rodney Elliot is questioning a permit issued up in Pawtucketville:
City Councilor Rodney Elliott is unwilling to accept Building Commissioner Joseph Guthrie’s contention that the permits he granted to a controversial Pawtucketville neighborhood development are legal.
“The more I look at the zoning code and the more I drive by that location, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Elliott said of the project at 5-7 Wright St. during Tuesday night’s council meeting.
“I know Mr. Guthrie has indicated it meets all the criteria, but it can’t possibly do that,” he said. “That development clearly is not what we want, and I don’t think the permit was issued correctly.”
Okay, good on Elliot, too bad the council seems to have lost all control over development before horrible things happen to the city, but at least this is a start. Here’s the part I found interesting, which a reader mentioned in comments the other day…
The issue dates to May. Paul Mercier, a local real-estate agent and the son of Mayor Armand Mercier, purchased a 12,000-square-foot corner lot at 33 Woodward Ave., which is located in an area of the city zoned for two-family homes.
A buildable lot need only measure 6,000 square feet in such a zone.
Mercier subsequently received Planning Board approval to subdivide the property into two 6,000-square-foot lots, one of which contained an existing duplex, and sold the vacant lot to O’Neill.
No, no image of impropriety in the development deals made in this city. Nothing to see here, move along.
wontNOT! points out a new blog, Idealism Without Illusions, on the Massachusetts scene. Welcome!
He starts off his blog with an excellent post:
Too often, in our current political environment, “leaders” put their finger in the air to determine their values. They test the polls and talk to the interest groups, to avoid a misstep. This is not leadership, it is timidity.
If we are to move forward in progressive manner, our leaders must be able to make tough choices and take difficult stances.
Amen to that!
I just think this is so cool! Local comic book artists! It is just nifty.
Editor-in-Chief Patrick Cook, illustrator Kris Carter and publisher Larry Doherty (the Larry of Larry’s Comics) have formed their own comic company, Wicked Good Comics. Their debut, The Original Nine, will be unveiled this weekend for what Cook calls “the real test.”
…
Wicked Good’s The Original Nine has storylines that take place with one foot in Boston, the other more than three centuries ago.And in homage to their hometown, the publishing trio plans to create for Lowell its own comic-book hero in 2006.
The initial reaction to Wicked Good from the comic community has been, like comic book justice, swift and positive, says Cook.
I might just have to pick myself up a copy! I’m not obsessed with comic books, but I know plenty of people who are. I love’s me a good super hero story, though.
If you’re interested in joining others to collect health care ballot initiative signatures, here’s the schedule that’s been put together:
Saturday, Oct. 1: two shifts, 10am - 12pm and 12pm - 2pm at various area supermarkets (the more volunteers, the more supermarkets that can be covered).
Sunday, Oct. 2: signature-gathering at the Tsongas arena after the Jericho Road Ride event from 12pm - 2pm.
If interested in any of these, contact Paulette at 978-746-7848 or email at her: rencar -at- comcast.net (change the -at- to @).
I watched the first half of last night’s city council meeting, the important part really. City Manager John Cox was up for his verbal and written reviews to determine if he deserves a 4% raise, and there were plenty of obsequious comments as well as some critiques. Most expected was Dick Howe’s rant and “Unsatisfactory” rating; others had mostly good things to say, and a couple had mixed reviews of the city manager. Jim Milinazzo might - might! - have redeemed his vote from me. Maybe. He rated “Satisfactory” which was the second lowest rating (Howe’s of course was “Unsatisfactory”).
Oh, and Cox made a touching *sniff, sniff, wipes tears away* speech at the end of the review. Maybe he should stop being city manager and run for an office. (Ha!)
I put in the rest of the agenda from last night also, so you can see what else was discussed (I just couldn’t sit still anymore, so I read down the list and nothing seemed really important so I skipped the rest of the meeting). My notes and comments as usual are in brackets []. The rest of this post is on the flip side:
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I haven’t written anything about the Jack Abramoff scandal yet, and such a huge scandal it is fast becoming. Popular dKos diarist Kagro X puts the whole shebang into its proper perspective - it’s starting to look like Abramoff is more like a mafia boss - with crooked ties into half the Republican legislators, front groups, and the Christian Coalition - in order to run an old-fashioned protection racket, only with Abramoff “protecting” clients, like the Indian casinos he’s represented and stolen money from, from government regulation he had a hand in lobbying for in the first place. And then getting a Justice Dept prosecutor demoted when he was about to investigate the allegations.
I predict, when Abramoff goes down, he takes a lot of people, like DeLay, with him. It will be the national equivalent of the current Ohio GOP scandal which is killing the Republican party there. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather then later, because this country can’t afford to be run like a mafia for long.
All right, whether or not the debate is ongoing about the Katrina response fiasco being Chertoff’s and the DHS’ fault or FEMA’s and Brownie’s, we all know that Michael Brown had no background in emergency management, right?
But what does the Bush administration do after one of their friends screws up? Why, give them a promotion - or if that’s politically untenable, give them a high paying consulting gig. At the agency they screwed up in.
CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Knocke told her that technically Brown remains at FEMA as a “contractor” and he is “transitioning out of his job.” The reason he will remain at FEMA about a month after his resignation, said the spokesman, is that the agency wants to get the “proper download of his experience.”
During that time, Brown will advise the department on “some of his views on his experience with Katrina,” as he transitions out of his job, Knocke told the Associated Press.
Dude, we’re paying him to stay on and tell us how he fucked up? Why can’t we just make him testify in front of Congress or some other investigative body? Letting New Orleans drown makes Brownie a better expert at managing crisises than before he resigned? Oh, the logic of the Bush administration. [Via AMERICAblog.]