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May 10th, 2006 at 7:39 am
Lynne,
I missed the tail end of the mtg about posting the CM job..who was the one dissenting vote?
May 10th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Pardon me…Mimi…
May 10th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Rita Mercier was the dissenting vote. I should have mentioned it. She wanted T.J. to be the interim City Manager until the next election.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:14 am
My viewing of last night’s meeting tells me that we are in for a lo-o-o-o-o-o-ng 20 months until the next City Council takes office especially if the Mercier-Mercier-Caulfield coalition keeps the same stance until then. I have never seen a meeting with as many non-unanimous votes as last night! I hope that come July when the CM has moved on that these three will grow up and act like adults instead of the petulant children they acted like last night! Its sound just like kids on a playground — if I can’t have my way then I’m going to take my bat and ball and go home!
And speaking of the “Kiddie Corps” — did anyone else catch C Caulfield’s comment that he, and the Merciers were in agreement that the Lichoulas eminent domain vote was not how they intended to vote? IN AGREEMENT??? Does this sound like a violation of the Open Meeting Law?
May 10th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Yes Paul, were phone calls made back and forth??
More seriously, the CC has to pull together as a whole and move on. The CM is, as should they..Petulance will get us no where fast.
May 10th, 2006 at 11:38 am
FYI
Meeting Law violations only happen if the members of the meeting (or phone/email coordination) constitute a quarum.
May 10th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Thanks Mr.Lynne..I was being facetious. : )
May 10th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
The only parking fine that was raised was increasing the fine for illegally parking in a handicapped spot from $100 to $300.
Also, C.C. A.Mercier was the only person who voted in support of raising downtown parking rates.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Rich:
From what I understood, the Council approved the Parking Fine with a change in the Administrations’ recommended handicapped-zone violation from the suggested $200 to $300. This was CC Caufield’s “motion.”
The Parking Fine proposal had other components to it. I was under the impression that these items parking within 10 feet of a fire hydrant, expired meter, etc… were also approved.
Was I wrong? I guess I am just as confused as some of the Councilors.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Mimi… isn’t it great that when we get confused about what happened in the meeting we can now ‘got to the tape’ on LTC’s site?
;)
May 10th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
…‘go to the tape’ Yeah! But do they have Slo-Mo replays?
May 10th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Lowell continues to overspend. We’re all going to be paying much higher taxes for all of this
spending. The JAM plan is bloated and the garage costs will continue to increase through
construction. There are always added expenses because of underground land conditions and
mistakes in the plans. The bottom line is that we cannot afford the garage right now. The
latest round of eminent domain land takings will end up costing the city much more in settlements
or in court.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Now that I think of it, there were multiple references about the illegal handicapped parking fine going from 100 to 200, and 200 to 300. There was some confusion about it. We need an instant replay!
May 10th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
The fine for parking in a handicapped space, is now $300.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
As I understand the handicapped parking ordinance, the original motion was to increase the fine from $100 to $200. However, upon further research C Caulfield concluded that the prevailing fine throughout the Commonwealth is $300 so the motion was ammended to change the new amount from $200 to $300 which was passed. This was another of the votes last night that should have been unanimous (or at least nearly so) but was a divided Council again. The divided vote was surprising to me because other than discussion to clarify exactly what was being voted on there was no discussion about pros and cons of raising the fine itself. Its also distrurbing that many of the motions made by councilors are difficult even for other councilors to understand. Can anyone clarify for me how these motions are writtien? My sense is that a councilor with a motion or ordinance change approaches the Legal Dept. with his/her idea(s). Then the Legal Dept. drafts the ordinance/motion that is actually voted on. If so we need some new motion drafters who can write in plain, understandable English!
May 11th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Paul:
I agree with you, the motions are not clear. I think in an effort to make them brief, the Clerk or the Law Dept. are making these critical motions too vague.
Councilwoman Donoghue had to make a correction to hers because it was not complete.
Not only are the motions not clear, they are abreviated in the posted agenda. We will probably have to wait a few weeks for the minutes to be posted for us to find out exactly what the Council voted on. They are about a month behind in posting City Council minutes.
I will wait until the video is posted on LTC’s web site and try to undertand what happened; better yet, I will ask the City Council what fines went up. They should know.
May 11th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Hello, I’ve been lurking for a while, this is a very good and informative site, I like the
interaction.
Paul, as I understand it the councilors write their own motions, I think the only time something
goes to the law dept is when the council votes to propose a change to an ordinance, then the law dept will draft
the ordinance in advance of a public hearing and final vote.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Love the nickname, Eleanor. In fact, right this second I’m listening to the Beatles…heh…anyway, welcome!
May 11th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Thanks, George was my favorite!
May 13th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
If the City Council truly wants to reduce expenses and steady the tax rate they should consider eliminating the costly perk of offering health insurance and dental insurance to members of the various boards and commisions in the city. I have heard that the city picks up 80% of the expense for these benefits for board members ,these people are collecting benefits that should be for actual employees of the city.
I wonder how many self employed board and commision members are taking advantage of this perk that we can no longer afford to offer.
The cost of a decent family plan is about $10K - if we can cut these board members off of the tax payer funded health plans the savings could be enough to cover the revenue shortfall to fund the additional $4.5 million bond.
I wonder if WCAP or the Lowell Sun could get this information into the hands of the average tax payer!
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Can you link me to the avian flu plan for lowell? Thanks