Left In Lowell

Although last night’s Lowell City Council meeting was dominated by a number of Councilor motions, I did learn (thanks to CC Joe Mendonca) that when traveling north on Central Street, towards Merrimack, you cannot make a left turn onto Middlesex Street. Who knew? But have no fear, thanks to the new traffic pattern, you will no longer be committing a crime.

CC Rodney Elliott motion requested that the City Manager meet with the Shelter (Lowell Transitional Living Center on Middlesex Street) Management regarding the courtyard issues. It was obvious that the majority of the City Councilors want something done about the public (out in the street) behavior of the clients of the facility as well as visitors. We really cannot go forward with a multi-million dollar plan if we do not have the full cooperation of the shelter’s management. (more…)

I would be remiss in not linking to fellow Lowell bloggers from richardhowe.com or jackiedoherty.com and their impressions. Here’s Dick’s, and here’s Jackie’s. And Tony writes about his experience with the runpolitics.com site (I too had their site up and was using it during the live blog, though without sound on the live webfeed as I was right there, and it definitely made things more interactive and interesting).

All and all, it was an exciting forum which really moved things along - in the direction I wanted, of course, which is even better. So go and find some time to volunteer!

Flabbergasted. I can’t even think of words to say. The Lowell Sun has endorsed a Democrat in the MA-05 general election! Niki Tsongas gets the nod from the editorial staff.

From the endorsement: “We were pleased to see Tsongas didn’t hesitate to state her position on President Bush’s recent veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program expansion bill…Ogonowski said he supports SCHIP, but has repeatedly refused to say whether he would support the veto or vote to override…We find his lack of candor on this issue troubling.”

SCHIP is such an important issue, even the Lowell Sun can’t tolerate Ogonowski’s total reluctance to admit what his vote on the override would be. BMG has more commentary.

I’m still just totally stunned. And, this is a huge blow to Ogonowski’s credibility, if he can’t get the generally conservative Lowell Sun’s endorsement.