So far as I know, this important item I am about to write about has not been reported upon since the event took place nearly two weeks ago. So, now that I am back to blogging in some capacity, I will report it.
At a recent fundraiser for Robert McMahon (I am to understand it took place on August 15th), the object of this discussion, one John Cox, made a speech. It’s a speech to me so amazing in its blatant linking of his (Cox’s) fortunes and ambitions to certain council candidates, so open and honest, that the fact this has not been made public shocks me. I only hope that the Lowell Sun’s denizens didn’t even know about it, not that editor and Cox adherent Jim Campanini purposefully sat on it and muzzled his reporters.
This is from a very reliable source, and to the Coxites, don’t even try to figure out who…all I can say is, you might want to look around at your friends…people who depend on the kindness of cronies never know who might be angry enough to turn. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
I have been informed that Mr. Cox stood up to speak at the McMahon fundraiser. Here is what he said (paraphrased but in quotes to set it apart with bold for emphasis):
Bob [McMahon]’s a part of the puzzle…I am…Alan [Kazanjian] is…and come election day all the puzzle pieces will come together and we’ll take the city back.
Everyone paying attention knows that Cox and the GOB (Good Ol’ Boy) candidates (Lenzi, Byrne, Kazanjian, and McMahon, specifically) are inextricably linked (some say, Cox’s BBFs! aka Best Best Friends), along with sitting councilors Rita and Armand Mercier and Bud Caulfield, and that this election for them is all about the City Manager’s position (or, why else howl and wail about the 2-year contract addition for Bernie Lynch, which would extend him beyond the reach of the next City Council should the unthinkable happen and the GOB gets another shot at effing up the city). However, they deny him thrice before the Cox crows, as they say…quotes in the Sun show Kazanjian and Company willing to distance themselves from Cox in public to try and trick voters into believing in an altruistic motive for their campaigns (oh, it’s not about the past! I just want to serve the city…yadda yadda *gag*)
Elections matter, and this one is about the future and past of Lowell - will the future become the past, and the past become the way of doing business again in the city?
A friend of mine recently explained it to my thusly. It used to be that nothing got done very well in Lowell, unless you greased the wheel. Trash wasn’t picked up properly, you couldn’t get a busted street lamp fixed, or a street plowed correctly. Except, of course, if you knew the right people. Rita and Bud and Armand come from a world where this is their power…the power to deliver services to their friends and friends’ friends. To be reelected by this same system, rewarded for doling out favors small and large. This has been the way of things in GOB-infested Lowell. Some years worse, some years better, but always with an undercurrent of a smoky back room where the real power lived. And Lowell has stumbled along with varying results, taxpayers paying the biggest price.
In swoops Lynch, a results guy (with a degree related to his job description!). Now, I’ve mentioned before that it’s hardly Bernie’s fault Cox got run out; Lynch merely applied for an open position after the fact, and therefore doesn’t deserve the grief that he’s been getting from certain quarters. But I did overlook Lynch’s overhauling of job positions in the last year and some months; for which he has earned the GOB enmity all on his own. Like the ending of the illegal gravy-train of bennies for board members, the movement of some into new positions, and the retirement of others.
To the GOB, this business-as-usual isn’t immoral. They suckled at the teat of cronyism all their lives, and were raised on it. They really do think they know better than the rest of us, and are doing what’s right for the city, I’m certain of it. Some are more greedy than others. I pity them as much as I abhor what they stand for, if I can be candid.
But the end results for the city of this sort of game are detrimental. We’ve been standing still for years…if we’re lucky, merely treading water. Advances in the great ideas from over a decade ago regarding the downtown renaissance have more than stalled - we’ve gone backwards. Empty store fronts greet visitors, jobs flee, neighborhoods deteriorate. My own new neighborhood cries out with neglect, a century-old stately middle working class residential area beset on all sides with dirty struggling businesses.
So this election matters. Transparency and open government matters. Good choices and long term thinking matters. We had none of this under Cox, and what’s more, we had cronyism, we had the hiding of important information from our elected officials like a state DOR audit letter sent twice to Cox and shut into a drawer. We had a tow-the-line-or-get-shut-out policy imposed on our citizens, our nonprofits, and our businesses. We had anger and revenge as policy drivers for far too long.
It’s time. For once, for all, let’s resoundingly reject the old life. Over the next couple of months, people of good faith will tell you how you can help. You can start by looking carefully at all the candidates before you cast your vote. We’ll be talking about it here on Left in Lowell, I can assure you of that.
This is about taking sides and doing what’s right. Where do you stand?
