To the uninitiated or those who do not know the underlying elements of our local politics, last night’s defeated vote on the creation of a city Cultural office must have seemed completely baffling. Here you have a proposal welcomed and lauded by the last City Council (made up of 75% of the same folks), on creating a city department that other Mass communities like Cambridge and Worcester have successfully leveraged to increase their cultural economic assets, and then on the other side, the opposition was nonsensical or irrelevant. It had overwhelming support from the very community that it would most affect; it was the cultivation of two years’ worth of hard work from the cultural task force and $100,000 worth of professional advice; and most of all, it was just plain common sense. But it failed, nonetheless.
And you probably won’t see a satisfying explanation of this strange phenomenon in the Lowell Sun, though I think many of its reporters know the score and would tell you about it if they were allowed to actually write anything useful. Unfortunately their boss seems to have other ideas about what information you, the citizen, should be hearing.
So I’m going to speak about it here. Someone has to. That, plus another rant on some things that bug the crap out of me about last night.
Defying Common Sense
Through the whole discussion by the Council after the public hearing was closed, it seemed like the two sides were living in different parallel universes. There was a war going on between common sense and…well…what? What was the true objection against the implementation of the first recommendation from the Mt. Auburn report that everyone was in love with a couple months ago? The faked outrage over taxpayer dollars was pretty ridiculous, as we’re already paying for a cultural outfit called COOL, and to be totally frank, the monies invested in this city in cultural affairs is stunningly thin compared with the total budget anyway. But that was moot, as - let me repeat it yet again in case it didn’t sink in the first dozen times - there would be no need for new monies. What could be so important in the face of honest logic that one would want to shoot down this motion?
Well, I can tell you. It stems from the politics of personal loyalty, that bastion of shoddy government that we’ve been living with in this city since god knows when. It appears that Councilors Rita Mercier, Kazanjian, Lenzi, and Mayor Bud “Unity” Caulfield were trying to protect someone or someones who work in the city government or with the city. The GOB (Good Ol’ Boy, for the uninitiated) network rears its ugly head once again.
How do they not see this as a insult to LZ Nunn, the Director of COOL, whose expertise and great work for the city-funded cultural organization would merely be expanded and prioritized by the transition to a city department? Do they think this is some thumbscrew on their friends who work for city government, that she would be a bad and mean director of this new department? If their friends were doing good work for the city, they have nothing to worry about. No one in the city was either getting a demotion, nor a pay cut. Job descriptions were to remain the same. But since the GOB appear to be worried, it makes you wonder if maybe said persons aren’t doing so good a job in the first place…why else the poorly-argued opposition to this motion, otherwise?
By opposing this new department with no logical explanation, they expose their GOB friends to questions about their real value to the city. Let’s be honest.
I have an apology to make. At the beginning of the last City Council, I once said that former Mayor Bill Martin lacked vision. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and I was happy to be so completely wrong. Under Martin, not only did the city move towards accountable and more effective governance, but Martin also placed a priority on economic development, especially where arts and culture were concerned. He continued and expanded the efforts of Mayor Mercier, and Martin’s leadership brought together the cultural and local business communities to contemplate a larger vision for Lowell, one that could go much further in leveraging our cultural assets. We were treading water, and Mayor Martin set us up with a successful roadmap to bring our economy to the next level. Though the opposition downplayed the importance of this vote, it is not being dramatic to say that this was a pivotal moment in the economic development movement in Lowell. Without this city cultural office, the priorities that this City Manager has set for bettering Lowell overall are in jeopardy.
No, it was not Mayor Martin who failed to have vision. But I do know a Mayor who is already a failure, only one month into his term - Mayor Bud Caulfield, who has shown that protecting his GOB friends is more important than common sense solutions to Lowell’s economic future. Mayor Caulfield was diminished yesterday by his vote, by his lack of vision, and by turning his back on the momentum of the last few years. Mayor Caulfield will not be remembered as a mayor who led Lowell’s progress, but who stood in the way. And for what? A perceived threat that would not be a threat if everyone would just do their jobs, and commit to doing the best they can for Lowell instead of themselves. This lack of leadership from the Mayor and his fellow dissenters threatens the future success of the JAM and HCD plans, to the perception that Lowell is an up-and-coming cultural and economic boomtown, and to the enthusiasm of the cultural movement itself, which worked so hard to find a path to success and to make a difference, who came and spoke with passion and common sense and who were completely ignored.
Is there a way the Mayor can redeem himself? Perhaps. But this vote has shown that he is less interested in unity, for in what circumstance could you hope for more unity than last night’s amazing support by the cultural leadership of this city, from the Lowell Sun, from local businesses, and from the experts who studied our city? No where. And yet, disunity prevailed. That is how this Mayor will be remembered.
Mystifying Hypocrisy
And now for my other rant. I need to get this off my chest.
I will never understand the cognitive dissonance that is Councilor Rita Mercier.
Beside all of the obvious things wrong with yesterday “vote against culture” stood a piece of breathless hypocrisy by Mercier. I touched on it in last night’s liveblog. She spent considerable ire on “a colleague” for mentioning their support for this motion to the newspaper. Her argument, it appears, was that no one should have an opinion before having a public hearing on a subject.
This is relatively amusing, because it was quite clear that no amount of public support or rational explanation was going to budge her, Mayor Bud “Unity” Caulfield, Kazanjian, or Lenzi from their devoted adherence to flawed arguments, when they so obviously had made up their minds before ever stepping foot into the chambers that night, nevermind waiting for the public hearing. Arguments, mind you, that were debunked over and over during the meeting (such at the illogical outrage on behalf of the taxpayer, or the fact that this new department would not affect the Tsongas, MRT, or the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, which have their own boards). So I don’t know where Rita Mercier gets off complaining about any opinion, stated publicly or not, that someone might have before coming to a public hearing.
Too many people give Rita a free pass. Personally, I’m getting tired of hypocricy and the rank, blatant cronyism.
