Left In Lowell

This weekend, bloggers and other new media types, as well as mainstream journalists, from all over New England will gather for a one-day conference this Saturday at UMass Lowell called THE NEW(S) ENGLAND REVOLUTION: From Politics to Courtroom to Classroom. (See who’s attending.)

The opportunity came up to be part of a special session at the conference, so Dick Howe and I will be co-moderating (he’s doing all the work, haha) a session with bloggers on the special election for the 5th district. We thought this would be a good opportunity to have bloggers, many of whom cover the race but live outside it, meet as many candidates as can attend. Councilor Eileen Donoghue was the first to confirm her attendance.

It will be an informal session of bloggers and candidates. As Dick says,

The NENF conference is on Saturday, April 7 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Wannalancit Mills, 650 Suffolk Street, Lowell. The Fifth District session will be from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Registration is still open. Please consider joining us.

Update: I have it on pretty good authority that Jamie Eldridge is also planning on attending as well.

Update II: I just found out that our portion of the conference is actually open for free to the public, from 2:45 p.m. until 4 p.m. in the “MIL Conference Room.” So even if the other subjects of the day don’t entice you (they do me, but I’m not considered normal), please join us for our Q&A with MA-05 candidates.

I just got back from the Planning Board meeting, where Karl Frey of Vespera, owner of Western Avenue where there are three floors of artist studios (with two more being built), and the artists of Western Ave, requested that the downtown-based Artist Overlay District extend down the Pawtucket Canal to encompass the building which includes 122 Western Ave. The Board voted unanimously 5-0 to recommend to the City Council that this move forward.

This would allow Vespera to build up to 52 units of permanent, affordable artist lofts. These would be sold only to artists and subsequent buyers restricted to the same. This is a huge change from other artist live-work spaces in the city, which were bought by artists, but not affordable enough to attract a high volume, which resulted in many spaces being sold to non-artists…and many of those artists who did buy lofts sold out when the property became too valuable to maintain (condos fees and property taxes went through the roof as values skyrocketed).

Concerns about the plan surfaced, such as whether or not this would set bad precedent for other neighboring light-industrial property owners, and whether or not such a zoned area is appropriate for any living spaces. The former concern was largely set at ease by the restrictive nature of the special zoning request, and the latter by the fact that so many artists (around 30 or so) were in attendance in support of it. As someone put it, we’re noisy, smelly, and messy. We’re more likely to be better neighbors in an industrial zone than a residential zone anyway. What normal person wants to smell turpentine through their vents all day?

The current commercial work studios (non-residential) would remain as such. Live-work spaces would be built on either end, where Vespera has still been unsuccessful in its attempts to get industrial tenants or buyers.

Why should the zoning be changed to allow Western Ave to become more of a center for the arts in Lowell? As I sit here, about to go back to doing some design work for clients, the Lowell Opera Company is practicing down the hall. How cool is that?

Panagiotakos’ office just let me know that tomorrow’s presentation of the nanotech funding by Governor Deval Patrick will be moved up slightly, and in a different location on the UML campus.

It will now be at Ball Hall, which is adjacent to Cumnock Hall on North Campus, at 11:45AM.

The Boston Herald’s web site is reporting an AP story that Congressman Marty Meehan will submit his letter of resignation on May 9th. He will leave office on July 1st.

So, now it is up to Secretary of State Galvin and Govenor Patrick to determine the date of the election. It needs to be 145 - 160 days after the May 9th election.

(John Greenwald has been a journalist for 45 years and was Sunday editor of The Sun in the late-1990s. He’s also an exhibited local artist. I’ve invited him to post periodically about the media, culture, and politics. Please join me in welcoming John to our little coterie! He’s calling his column at Left in Lowell “Media Maven.”)

Reading Kendall Wallace’s “Saturday Chat” column in The Sun is like reading tea leaves — full of unexpected discoveries.

Wallace, chairman and otherwise grand pooh-bah of Lowell Publishing Co., is the city’s man behind the scenes, the go-to-gent, the tastefully attired power-broker, who runs The Sun — if not day-to-day anymore, certainly where it counts.

So, in his March 31 column he notes that this is the Year of the Woman in national — and local — politics. Forget Hillary, we have Eileen and Niki, both running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. representative.

The former, Eileen Donoghue, is a long-time Lowell city councilor and two-term mayor. The latter, Niki Tsongas, widow of the late, Lowell-based U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. Both are smart, classy dames, with Eileen heavy on experience, Niki heavy on name recognition.

But Kendall’s upset. Already little smear campaigns against both have oozed up to the surface.

Eileen switched party affiliations from Democratic to non-affiliated and gave a $200 campaign contribution to an old family friend who was running as a Republican (gasp!). Niki let her membership in the Mass Bar expire a decade ago, making her unable to practice law unless the pays up her dues, which she will.

Big deal. Or, as Kendall writes: “Those are petty issues pushed by small-minded people.”

Guess where those small minds are located?

In his paper’s very newsroom.

Both stories were played big on The Sun’s local front page, looking like hot news until you read them. Then they shriveled like an anorexic movie starlet.

Maybe Kendall needs to run a little seminar in news judgment for his editors.

Heard on WUML’s Sunrise this morning, O’Brien announced his website was live as of today.

A quick review: clean design, easy to use so far. Not a lot of content up, just a fairly short bio, and the obligatory volunteer/donate pages. As web designer, I’m not sure of the use of horizontal links for those things, as new links for issues and other additional pages will not fit in that space, and I don’t see that they’ve left room for a sidebar of secondary links. Yeah, I know, I’m picky like that.

Given that we have an extra couple months for this race, I’m not as anxious to see detailed issue positions so early, but candidates had better definitely get on that soon.

Dick reports that Meehan has agreed to push out his letter of resignation so that the primary will be after Labor Day. (At some point, I’m gonna give up blogging, because he’s got like 10 important posts just since Friday, and all I’m going to end up doing is quoting him all the time. LOL)

On the one hand, I’m glad, because a longer special election will mean a better chance for voters to get to know the candidates, a longer timespan to establish strong grassroots campaigns, and in a post-summer primary, the turnout will be much better. On the other hand, this year’s municipal elections will be greatly overshadowed, which is a shame. I was looking forward to concentrating on the City Council and School Committee elections. Of course, we’ll be talking about both as much as possible, but fundraising money and volunteers for local candidates might be harder to come by.