Left In Lowell

BMG, Mark Bail, and Dan Dunn have varying opinions on the Boston Globe article about Patrick’s alleged possible deal with lawmakers over control of state agencies in exchange for consideration on the pay of legislative leadership positions. This is a Frank Phillips article, so it could be really useful, or complete bullsh*t; take it with a heavy dose of salt.

What Governor Patrick is trying to do is gain control of the state’s so-called independent (read: unaccountable) agencies, such as the Mass Turnpike Authority. Once upon a time, someone decided that it would make things less “political” if these agencies were not completely part of either elected branch of government; what has resulted is that the voters have no recourse when things like the Big Dig go wrong, because no elected official has real power over them, and therefore cannot be totally blamed and tossed out of office for a better model.

This is the one area where Mitt Romney was actually right - the executive branch needs to be able to control (hire, fire, delegate funds) for these agencies, so that we voters can hold our Governor accountable for how they are run. This doesn’t mean I would have agreed with how Romney would have run those agencies if he’d had control, but his fight to oust Matt Amorello was a fight worth having, even though in my opinion all the Mittster really wanted was to put his own useless hack friends in there. (Every Republican governor before him had done it.)

The legislature is very interested in not giving up the power they do have over those agencies and granting it to the executive. It will take something extraordinary to budge them from the status quo. If this article is actually correct (and again, it’s Phillips…), to some extent we’d be handing more hack power to the leadership in the state House and Senate in exchange for taking some away. We’d be giving DiMasi and Traviglini (and their successors) one more tool to keep “the rest” of the Democratic delegation in line (a bigger reward system for loyalists). Finneran managed an iron fist on the legislature without this perk; do we really want to hand out more ability for someone to repeat Finneran?

A lot of this reads like inside baseball…most of the public tunes right out. But this is an important battle, and needs serious discussion. To be honest, I’d like to see Patrick use his considerable grassroots power to fight this one with legislative pressure from below, rather than negotiate for staying even. Patrick has a way of explaining a problem that makes it understandable and puts on the right emphasis. If he came to us and asked us for help, I think the grassroots have had enough rest. In fact, we’re getting bored. Give us something to do!

Please join Greater Lowell for Peace and Justice and other local groups for a rally in support of the Jan. 27 National Peace March in Washington, D.C. organized by United for Peace and Justice.

Date: Saturday, January 27th, 11:00 AM - Noon
Place: In front of Martin Meehan’s office,
11 Kearney Square, Lowell, MA

To voice support for:
o No funds for escalation
o Bringing the troops home
o Diplomacy not war

To thank Meehan for:
o Opposing supplemental Iraq funding in the past three years
o His Jan. 9, 2007 (H. Res. 41) resolution opposing a surge in US Forces in Iraq
o Earning a 100% voting record rating by the Peace Action Education Fund.

Sponsored by Grassroots Actions for Peace, www.grassrootsconcord.org

My interview with Darcie Boyer today was helpfully posted at Community Connections and linked to by Jim in a previous thread. The whole website is interesting, by the way, and is where you can find archives of Thinking Out Loud and other shows. Hopefully in the future, this will be the repository of all of TOL’s Friday shows.

The Governor’s first of a promised weekly podcast series. You can listen via the player below or go to the podcast page.

(Yes, this is the first tentative step towards my ability to embed audio files in the blog!)

Update: Yes, I can now do audio files on this blog, but not Gov. Patrick’s…it seems that the encoding on their files and the Flash player that PodPress (and most other audio plugins) use do not get along. Hence, Patrick’s voice sounds slloooow and deeeep. (A word to the Patrick IT Team - here’s some info on that bug.)

The Lowell Democratic caucuses which will elect delegates to the state issues convention (an off-year convention to determine changes to the state party platform among other things) will be on Saturday, February 3, at 10 am at the East End Club, 15 W. Fourth Street.

All wards (1 through 11) will meet. If you don’t know how caucuses work, each ward is responsible for sending several delegates (equal in number between female and male, plus alternates) to the convention (to be held at the Mullin Center at UMass, Amherst, Saturday, May 19, 2007). For more details, here’s the offical website.

This is a good opportunity to come and crash the gates, as it were. Anyone interested in this, please feel free to email me, lynne [at] leftinlowell.com (replace the spaces and the [at] with @).

On in a series community meetings being held by MassEquality: Lowell, at Brew’d Awakenings, 61 Market Street, on January 25 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. I’m a huge supporter of MassEquality, and recommend attending. Our GLBT friends need our help to retain their equal rights. This is the first step in putting the last nail in the coffin of hate.

Tomorrow on WUML’s Thinking Out Loud, for the final show this month in our series on affordable housing, we’ll be talking to Darcie Boyer from the Coalition for a Better Acre, about their C.A.S.A. affordable housing campaign in Lowell.

You can stream the show live tomorrow at 10am here, or listen to it on 91.5 FM.

Kerry is remaining in his Senate seat (or, I should say, running for relection for his Senate seat in ‘08) instead of going out for president.

Frankly, I’m rather relieved.

[Via lori at BMG.]

Once again I had a good civic lesson tonight watching the City Council meeting. One City Councilor/Ex-Mayor had to remind another City Councilor/Ex-Mayor that a sub-committee’s agenda is directed by the decisions of the City Council, not the other way around.

If you missed the meeting, I do not know when you will be able to catch it on the web site of Lowell Telecommunications Corporation, (LTC). Unfortunately, they are having technical difficulties and the meetings are not being posted. As was mentioned by “Mr. Lynne”, the last CC meeting posted was the one of December 12th meeting. The other board, committee and commission meetings are not being posted either.

So if you want to watch the proceedings, the next replay on LTC, Channel 10 is today Wednesday night 3 p.m. and again at 11 p.m.

Manager’s Responses to Council Motion: As we know, City Manager Bernie Lynch has hired on occasion outside law firms who are expert in the area of need. Yes, we had City Councilors who complained that he did that. They forgot that it was done in the past by previous City Manager. You would think with all the lawsuits we lose, the backlog in the legal department and the complicated and extensive topics that face that department, the Council would unanimously encourage that approach. By the way, the money to pay for this service is a budget line item that was approved by the same City Councilors who are now questioning how and why he spent $3,000.

Home Rule Petition: On the issue of requesting a home rule petition to remove the Chief of Police selection process from the Civil Service system, the vote was 9-0 in favor. The City will do a thorough and extensive search then a contract will be offered to the selected individual. I predict the terms of that contract will be negotiated between the City Solicitor and the attorney of the Interim Superintendent of Police, Ken Lavallee. (more…)

I know a lot of detractors on this site think I’m nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Patrick administration (I’m not, and I can prove it), but this idea is so very very cool. Nothing like putting yourself out there with no one to filter you:

GOVERNOR PATRICK LAUNCHES PODCAST
Takes to the Web to communicate directly with Massachusetts citizens

BOSTON – Tuesday, January 23, 2007 – Governor Deval Patrick this week will launch a regular podcast, speaking directly to millions of residents across the Commonwealth on a broad range of topics affecting their lives. These weekly addresses will allow the public a glimpse inside the Governor’s office in a new and exciting way that recognizes a growing dependence on Web-based communication.

“During my campaign, many people from across the state who had checked out of politics and government checked back in. We have a responsibility to keep those people engaged, and one of the ways we do that is by communicating directly with them,” Governor Patrick said. “I hope to continue the conversation we have started through a weekly podcast, where I and members of my administration will fill the public in on what’s been happening in state government, in a way they’ve never experienced before. I’m excited about this new opportunity and look forward to the launch.”

The first address will air Friday, January 26 on www.mass.gov. In it, Governor Patrick will discuss his experiences during his first few weeks in office, early initiatives such as the Commonwealth Corps, and the tough choices the state faces as he and his team craft their first budget. He will touch on rejoining the New England Governors’ Conference and signing onto the Regional Greenhouse Gases Initiative. He will also discuss the administration’s efforts to reach out to cities and towns and to build partnerships with legislators, the business community, and the people who call Massachusetts home.

New podcasts will be added regularly, and will be one of many tools the Governor uses to interact directly with the public.

What would be even hipper than hip is if the Governor’s web people have figured out a You-Tube-like way to allow us bloggers (and others) to embed the podcasts into our sites if we want.