Left In Lowell

A couple items of interest on tomorrow night’s agenda. First, under Unfinished Business, the Cultural Office vote is coming up again, having been postponed until Bernie came back. It should pass this time (it needs 6 votes), as all cronies have been reassured that their feathered nests - er, I mean, respective entities - are safe from being held to account.

I’ll be honest - I’d really like to know what the city gets for its $100,000 budget line item for the Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, and why other cities and towns in the area don’t give it any money, just us. Did the other cities and towns find they weren’t getting their money’s worth? If so, why are we such suckers? But that is a battle for another time.

I’d also like to see a reexamination of bids for the other two “nesting” entities that were up in arms over the elevation of a city Cultural Office. The Memorial Auditorium’s management company contract had been extended, no-bid, for, if I recall, five years, two years before the contract was due to expire (this was, of course, under Cox). How Cheneyesque. I wonder if there’s recourse for opening that up to bid (like, was it illegal under the Massachusetts General Laws to extend that contract without getting bids?). I mean, it could very well be that the management companies that run the Auditorium, and the one that manages the Arena, too, are doing the best job that can be expected. Then again, how do we know?

I expect to see progress and transparency on these other issues at some point, though it has nothing to do with the Cultural Office vote, and never did. It boggles the mind why this vote became entangled in these other issues - guilty conscience perhaps?

Also under Unfinished Business but on the other side of the coin from creating an office to centralize our cultural economy, is the vote to reduce the burden of governing (aka “hard work”) on the poor, put-upon City Councilors. It would have the Council meet every second and fourth Tuesdays of the month (so in rare months where there’s a fifth Tuesday, there’d be three weeks between meetings, like in July ‘08). Not only that, but this rules change also moves the start time for these meetings to 7pm. This would be, I expect, so they can jam in a couple of sub committee meetings before, and get it all done in one night.

So, a later start time for twice the work, presumably. Now, I’m as big a Bernie supporter as they come, but the Council’s most important job is overseeing the office of the City Manager. Hey, I wish to hell that back in my Cubical Land days, my bosses only bothered to oversee me every other week, but I don’t think that it’s good for the city. I urge any city councilor who cares about their job to vote against this rules change. Lowell is a city, with many issues to attend to, it can’t be governed twice a month on every other Tuesday like a garden club. I would say that, if anything, the Council needs to meet more often, not less.

If this passes, then I want a councilor paycut. You do half the job, you should get half the pay. It’s only fair, and the city’s in a tight budget situation. Be a patriot, and either shoot this ridiculous and whiny motion down or else give us back the money we spend on your salaries. Yeesh.