Left In Lowell

The Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Merrimack Valley Central Labor Council are cosponsoring yet another MA-05 candidates’ forum, this one focusing on labor and working family issues, this coming Monday, June 4, at the Little Theater at the Lowell High School, 50 Father Morrissette Blvd, Lowell. The doors open at 6:30 PM and the forum will start at 7:00. All announced candidates were invited, and some have confirmed as of the press release: City Councilor Eileen Donoghue, Representative James Eldridge, Representative Barry Finegold, Representative James Miceli and Niki Tsongas.

I’m hoping to attend, and the event is open to the public.

Chris Scott has an interesting article about city candidates sponsoring luncheons at the Lowell Senior Center. Apparently, Kazanjian booked eight of them, leaving little room for other candidates to do the same. (Funny how only in an odd “local” election year, the Senior Center gains so much in popularity with some folks.) So the Senior Center has limited candidate-sponsored lunches to 2 per, with a blackout period starting in September, which seems reasonable to me.

This seemed a little “doth protest too much”:

Kazanjian said he’s “behind the Brown-Zounes and the Friends 100 percent.”

He added that he wasn’t trying to keep other candidates off the calendar by booking so many events.

Either he’s lying (and really did mean to) or he’s thoughtless and didn’t think how he was elbowing in unfairly and what that would mean. Either way, I don’t want him as my city councilor.

A little much ado about very little but interesting none-the-less.

Marie has a great report on RichardHowe.com about City Councilor candidate Mehmed Ali’s first fundraiser last night. I couldn’t make it, so I was glad I could read about it. (Blogs are keen!)

Interesting was the mix of sitting elected officials and candidates, as well as mix of cultural and community leaders and residents.

Congrats to Mehmed on his first successful event! We can’t forget the city council and school committee races in the rush to elect a new Congressional representative. The future of our city rides just as much on former as the latter.

Don’t forget! Tomorrow is the congressional race Health Care debate sponsored by M&W Dems and co-sponsored by BlogLeft Massachusetts.

You can come to the free and open-to-the-public forum tomorrow, June 2, from 10am - noon. It will happen at the Hudson Portuguese Club, 13 Port Street, Hudson, MA. We’re looking for reader participation, so please add your health-care-related questions by 9am tomorrow! You can ask your questions on this Blue Mass Group thread (or if you don’t have a free BMG account, you can post them in comments here).

Bloggers will also be liveblogging the event, so if you can’t make it to the forum, check in tomorrow for comprehensive live coverage! I am hoping to work out how to get the video online sometime next week. (The Iraq War forum is being worked on as we speak, hopefully to be posted by the end of the weekend or Monday).