Left In Lowell

Lowell City Council 2007 Questionnaire

13 Responses to “Lowell City Council 2007 Questionnaire”

1. waittilnextyr Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 9:32 pm

   Thanks for all the work in putting this together, and thanks to the candidates for taking the time to respond. I am very impressed with the thoughtful and detailed responses given by the candidates. I feel these responses are far more important than all the signs, letters and ads that are prominent in the campaign. Here is hoping that they are viewed by a large portion of the electorate.

   I particularly like the way the candidates have generally taken a wider perspective to the somewhat narrow questions that were provided, such as growing the tax base as a means to provide the income that a specific service will require to expand. (However, I should point out that this tax base growth should allow a target for tax-rate growth of 0%, as councilor Elliot acknowledged)

   If our next council is comprised of 9 individuals from these 10, we will be well-served.

2. Dan MacNeil Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 9:58 pm

   Thanks for doing this.

   A couple meta questions:

   Why the PDFs?

   I’ve only downloaded the first two and already my enthusiasm is drying up.

   If this was slashdot, I’d get karma for pasting each PDF into a comment for the ease of other readers.

   Any reason not to do that ?

3. Victoria Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 8:15 am

   Great work, Lynne. I’m only sorry that you did not get resposes from all of the candidates.

4. Lynne Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 11:12 am

   RE PDF: most of the questionnaires came to us in Word, and it was simply much easier for us to do that. I also wanted them to be uniform in style for fairness.

   If I have time later on (which I may not *sigh* what a week) I’ll try posting in one long blog post each set of answers as text (if you don’t mind that I won’t have time to bold all the questions, it’d just be copy’n'paste). One thing I do regret with PDFs is that they are not as search-engine friendly on top of the problem you cite.

   I didn’t want to post the original Word docs because I didn’t want people to download and edit them and then possibly distribute elsewhere, I didn’t think that was fair to the candidates.

   We didn’t have this problem previously because we had a limited amount of answers last time around. We’re still trying to perfect our methods as we go.

5. joe Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 11:47 am

   Jim M is great, isn’t he? A real professional, and he actually answers the questions in a straightforward manner.

6. Jason Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 12:55 pm

   Thanks for all your work obtaining and posting these responses. I also appreciate that some of my questions were considered relevant enough to be included. It was very informative and at least two people I had not previously considered will be in the running for one of my votes. I can also say at least three candidates on this list eliminated themselves from my consideration. While response was farly good, the candidates who failed to respond did nothing to help themselves in my eyes.

   Because I believe Kristin still reads the blog I feel the need to correct her. Not all of city unions have endorsed a candidate or slate of candidates for city council. My union has not endorsed anyone and typically does not do so for council. It tends to create more problems than it solves.

   I know we have been advised (At multiple meetings) to vote for who we feel is best. Our leadership steadfastly refuses to tell us who they think we should vote for. Many of our members as active city residents (such as myself) do chose to display their personal choices, but that is not an endorsement by the body. Please do not confuse it as such or make inaccurate statements.

7. K-R-S Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 1:21 pm

   Yes Jason, you are correct, I still read the blog from time to time. I should have been more clear, my statements regarding union endorsement were relative to police union and 1705 (AFSCME), who had already determined whom they would be supporting.

8. City Election Roundup | richardhowe.com Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 8:52 pm

   […] l committee and 15 of 21 candidates for the city council. Left in Lowell  has candidate questionnaires online with city council responses […]

9. Jason Says:
   November 1st, 2007 at 9:24 am

   Thanks for the follow up KRS. Good luck in the election.

10. Just me Says:
    November 1st, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    Can someone tell me about the great benefits that city employees receive?
    Last time I checked I pay about 10% of my check every week into the retirement, mandatory. If I put that into an IRA I would have just as good of a retirement.

    Health care costs me $65 a week and while it is a good plan it is by no means cheap.

    My salary, PLEASE, I compared it to several similiar cities including Lawrence, Worcester and Springfield and make $10,000 less than the lowest paying city.

    Vacation is the same as private sector 2 weeks to start, 3 weeks after 5 years, 4 weeks after 10 years.

    So where are the great benefits??? Someone enlighten me

11. waittilnextyr Says:
    November 1st, 2007 at 1:35 pm

    People tend to forget the payments made by the city employees to their retirement plan when speaking about the great pensions. But those receiving 80% at age 55 or less are making out better than any private sector employee, notwithstanding the contributions they put into the system.

    But, the provision (generally reserved for the special few) whereby the pension is calculated based on the highest 3 years of salary creates the opportunity for abuse. (Look at how many public officials get appointed to high paying jobs late in their careers.)

    And Lowell is more reasonable than other government agencies in MA, where often health care premiums are on a 90/10 share ratio, “unused” sick leave is paid back at high percentages, and “housing allowance” is counted as salary in pension calculations, whether or not any contribution to the plan was based on that benefit, etc. Look at the golden handshakes awaiting those retiring from the airport commission.

12. Jason Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    Just some more info regarding pensions and benefits, and I only speak for public safety (police & fire) because that is what I know. In the city we make up the second and third largest departments, but not the largest union, approximately 450-75 employees total as far as retirement group purposes. Right now about half the employees in this group pay 9% plus 2% on anything over $30,000 of their weekly pay into the retirement system. Older employees can pay as little as 5% but most pay 7% or more. As time passes all employees will pay the 9+2, or possibly more.

    Those who receive 80% at 55 have to do two things:

    First, start their job at age 23 or younger to get the full 32 years of service by that age, which generally does not happen. My understanding is that you can’t even be appointed unless you are 21. I don’t know the average starting age but I’d guess it’s closer to 30, so you wouldn’t max out until around age 62. At age 55 you get the maximum multiplier (roughly 2.5 % per year) for your years of service, but you have to get the 32 years in for the 80%. After 32 years of service you can’t earn any higher amount so there is actually a disincentive to keep working, with a few exceptions, as I’ll point out.

    Second, you must be in certain retirement groups (like #4) which are eligible to retire at 55. Not all public employees are in this group. In addition, to protect your spouse and any still dependant children (benefits similar to what social security provides), you have to take less than 80%, usually 10-20% less depending on the age difference with your spouse and your life expectancy tables. If you married later in life and have a younger spouse or children (as more than a few people do these days) you have to keep working as long as you can to provide for them because of the life expectancy difference in your pension. If you take the full 80% and drop dead, your family gets nothing. Trust me the public safety life expectancy in retirement is shorter, studies have proven it.

    Public safety civil service employees can generally only get appointed by testing. So the chance to get a promotion only for the pension bump is pretty much non-existent unless you earned it and there is an open position. The number of supervisory positions is generally fixed, sometimes by contract. That said if you legitimately advance to a higher position later in your career, which is when it tends to happen most, I don’t believe you should be penalized in retirement. You don’t want to give a disincentive for good experienced people to not take a promotion. Knowing you will get the money in your pension is a reason many people will take on more responsibility and stress in a job later on in their career. Just as the average city manager tends to only last a few years, the same can be said for a lot of higher supervisory positions which are essentially 24/7/365 jobs. Think about being called in during a state of emergency, flood, fire or homicide scene and not knowing when you will get to go home again.

    By the contract I work under we can buyback 1/3 of our sick time with a actual dollar cap of $30,000. That means you need to save up quite a bit of your time to reach the dollar cap, which was set at this amount as to not adversely affect higher wage group supervisors. Most regular employees can’t even reach the dollar cap with the maximum amount of days accumulated. The max you can carry is 275 sick days (you receive 15 per year) which is over 18 years of accumulated sick leave. I do realize that if you work 32 years that means you can still take up to an average of 7 sick days a year and still hit the max, which is a very good benefit. Remember that these are physically demanding jobs, so using a few more sick days than the average worker should be expected to some extent. I do think you should be required to provide a doctor’s note if you have a history of unexcused sick days.

    No regular working stiff gets a housing or vehicle allowance. That is generally department or agency heads only, to compete with the private sector for the best people, or so I’m told, but you can draw your own conclusions.

13. waittilnextyr Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    I took some time to read all the responses, and then rated each candidate based on their responses, with priority to certain questions. So, based on these alone, I would rate the candidates as follows:

    Gold Medals: (in aphabetical order)
    Kevin Broderick
    David Koch
    Kristin Ross-Sitcawich

    Silver Medals: (in alphabetical order)
    Rodney Elliot
    Bill Martin
    Jim Millinazzo
    Lou Stylos

    Bronze Medals: (in order of finish)
    Curtis Lemay
    Joe Mendonca
    Mehmed Ali

    Of course, in my opinion all of these beat out the candidates who did not respond. And there are probably other factors that I will consider when I vote.

    Others may have different priorities, or different opinions on the answers provided, but this list is my best judgment, for what it is worth.

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