Left In Lowell

Senator Kennedy, for all the derision he gets from the far right, is very well respected on both sides of the aisle. He’s one of those Senators who gets the job done, often against all odds, and works the compromises that are often the only way to do business in Washington, but without the pandering, principle-compromising style of many other Congressional leaders.

There are very few stances of Sen. Kennedy’s that I do not agree with, and he has constantly delivered for the state of Massachusetts. Though many question the wisdom of long-serving elected officials, in Kennedy’s case, he has never forgotten who has elected him, or the underprivileged whom he champions. I met him briefly during the 2006 campaign, where he had no opponent in the primary, and still he took the time to meet voters and make the effort.

Here’s to a speedy recovery for our senior Senator. I wish him and his family well.

Yesterday, when I picked up my mimi[at]leftinlowell, there was a one with the subject line that began “Congresswoman Niki Tsongas to Endorse….” I immediately jumped to conclusions that Congresswoman Tsongas finally had made her presidential choice public. Wrong!

It was a press release from Jamie Eldrige’s campaign for the Massachusetts state Senate. Congresswoman Tsongas not only is supporting Eldrige (a former opponent of hers in the 5th Congressional race this fall) but she has agreed to campaign with him on May 17th. Good for Jamie.

Now back to Congresswoman Tsongas remaining on the superdelegate “uncommitted/to be pledged” list. Granted she is not the only Mass Rep who has not made their choice public (Olver and Markey) but I would prefer that my representative did not stand on the side lines but took a firm and public stand on the Democratic Presidential race.

Although she will have an uncontested re-election race this fall, will she pay a political price down to road if she chooses the candidate that did not carry the 5th District? Are too many of her campaign supporters and staff working for her second choice?

She could be genuinely undecided but I doubt it. During the special MA-05 Election, most elected officials took a stand, I think she should do the same.

Billo the Angry One has labeled Markos of Daily Kos as “probably one of the most despicable Americans in the country” - because of a Dkos diary which never made it onto the front page or the recommended list which posted photos of Jenna Bush’s wedding and juxtaposed them with gruesome pictures from the Iraq war. The first commenter on this lowly diary actually said “Poor Taste” and most of the comments on the thread are arguments about the diary’s appropriateness. In fact, the diary garnered a mere 11 recommends, which for dkos is a paltry number, and there’s no way this diary got anywhere near the recommended list.

But to Billo, it’s Markos’ fault, end of story. He reaaaaaally doesn’t get the internets, does he? Oh, Billo. You need therapy, my friend. Before you blow an artery or something.

SJ, IHBO’R is short for “Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly,” in case you missed that.

Listen to the rant at Media Matters. It’s just…awesome. In that train wreck fascination sort of way.

Another irony to this - it took a O’Reilly rant about Daily Kos for FOX Noise to put up photos of the war that depict its sad reality. Hey, if that’s all this incident does, show the FOX viewers a little of what’s really going on instead of the usual Bush propaganda, I guess this stupid and very tasteless diary did do something useful…

Edit: By the by, Billo compares Markos to David Duke. As someone who has herself been compared with that bigot by a media personality, I offer my sympathies to Markos in this trying and troubling time. But hey, at least you didn’t get compared to NAMBLA…

Congratulations to Eleanor L. Pye, whom the Sun reports has been chosen to head up the Lowell Telecommunications Corp.

How’s about we use this thread to talk about what you’d like to see under the new director? What changes or expansions would you suggest, or what things are working great already that you would like to see kept on?

There ain’t nothing sweeter. Now, they have to fight to protect it. BMG suggests donating if you can to Equality California, as they are likely fighting a ballot initiative to amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriage in the fall. Unfortunately, it appears that a simple majority is all that is needed to amend the Constitution. That’s more screwed up than our process, even.

This is, of course, just one uphill battle in a long, neverending fight for civil rights for LGBT citizens. But a heartening one nonetheless.

The developer of the proposed Billerica power plant is trying to figure out how to get enough water to manage the various processes that are needed to run the plant. They need to find 180,000 gallons a day, on average. This is hard, especially from the federally protected Concord River. The river is already considered impaired, and Billerica draws its drinking water from it. However, the town is already under a Stage II water ban, and this condition has occurred for several summers. But wait, the proponent is hatching some creative ideas to get the water needed!

The developer thinks it would be a good idea for the residents of Billerica to have low flow showerheads and toilets installed so that they can offset the water needed for the plant. Of course, words such as conservation, mitigation, vouchers, etc. are being tossed about. Now, they’ve never participated in something like this before, but they’re going to throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. Hey, Billerica is going to be in a water crisis eventually anyway, the developer says, so why not start now and retrofit 3,000 homes? Thank goodness this power plant developer came along to show Billerica the way.

What does this have to do with Lowell, you ask? The developer is asking for 40 million gallons of water from the river and/or the town of Billerica. That leaves 20 million gallons that still would need to be trucked in. That’s right. More tankers on Woburn Street- right through South Lowell. On average, that’s six 9,000 gallon deliveries per day, 12 trips total in a day, 365 days a year. Purportedly, the plant will not run all days of the year, so on some days there will be no increase in traffic from water deliveries, but on others, the number will be greater than 6 deliveries. That’s on top of the diesel deliveries (18 per day or more when running on diesel), ammonia deliveries, and other materials needed, should the facility be built.

Of another particular concern is the offramp from 495 to Woburn Street, which is steep, short, and in which several accidents have occured. On a wet or snowy day, or even a sunny dry one, this ramp is dangerous even to regular traffic. Tanker trucks much more so. At the base of the ramp is a dense South Lowell neighborhood. And besides the danger, there’s also the increased air pollution from so many more trucks.

Where are the Lowell officials on this? Clearly Lowell is investing in South Lowell, evidenced by the Ducharme Park renovation. It’s regrettable that its value to the city will be greatly diminished by tanker traffic that does not belong on a residential street.

If you care about this issue, take action. Call City Manager Bernard Lynch and State Senator Steven Panagiotakos, and write to the Lowell City Council, and tell them to publicly oppose this proposal. South Lowell does not need more traffic, and certainly not tanker traffic at that.

Unfortunately, I had to miss last night’s meeting, and it’s not up at LTC’s website yet, though I plan on watching it. But last night’s “new Council schedule” apparently passed. According to the Sun, “supporters countered that meeting bimonthly will allow for lengthy subcommittee discussions on the off weeks.”

Let’s see if that actually happens. I expect a certain number of Chairs of subcommittees to still schedule their meetings right before the (now biweekly) full Council meeting, a most inconvenient time for anyone but them, and maybe retired people. For people who work, 5pm subcommittee meetings are a travesty, even more so now that they have probably increased in importance.

Subcommittee meetings are loose, unkempt, and informal. They are not run by the same rules as the full meeting. That means a whole lot less gets done, in my opinion, sometimes with members of the Council or the public bloviating without end and making viewers feel like the committee is running in unproductive circles. No rules means less civility. Also they do not have posted agendas. People trying to follow specific issues they are interested in are going to find this confusing and inaccessible.

I believe Jim when he says, “I don’t plan on working any less going forward”. However, I don’t believe that’s the goal of every one who supported this. The proof will be in the pudding, I guess.

The motion put forth by Rita Mercier, which passed, was very prudent but I suspect, nearly pointless (unfortunately). She asked that the biweekly schedule be reviewed next January. Even if the experiment is deemed a failure, is there any chance of it getting reversed? Even if CC. Martin and Milinazzo change their minds, they would need one of the others supporters to, also, as rules changes take six votes. Anyone want to take any bets againstme saying that this won’t happen no matter what?

Lowell, you got served.

The Sun has a good Chris Scott article today on the now-projected $6M budget deficit the city faces:

The city’s projected budget deficit for next year has nearly doubled from an estimated $3.6 million in early April to about $6 million today, a jump City Manager Bernie Lynch attributes primarily to departmental “wish lists” that aren’t based in fiscal reality.

Interesting, concerning, though seemingly, something we might be able to work carefully to reduce.

However, later in the article, Scott writes about the trash budget deficit:

A growing gap between trash revenue and trash expenditures. City residents pay $100 annually for trash pickup. Last year, that generated nearly $3 million. The bill to the city, however, is closer to $6 million.

This is half of this projected budget deficit, and if addressed fully, would mean less cuts elsewhere. You can bet Lynch has his eye on it.

Of course, merely increasing our yearly fee for trash pickup would go a long way towards alleviating the deficit, but it’s not enough. I think we could even avoid raising the fee entirely if we completely reassess how trash collection works in Lowell.

First up, no other local community just picks up everything people put out. No town I’ve ever lived in ever did it. Couches and big items cost extra in other communities, but here, for just $100 per year, anything goes. That is not a reasonable expectation for service in my opinion. There is some anecdotal evidence that non-residents from surrounding communities are dumping large items on our streets because they save money, and know we pick it up. That costs the city money beyond even what we residents demand, though it’s hard to know by how much. Even though I love the convenience of full trash pickup and have taken advantage of it every single time I’ve moved, I knew that it was a matter of time before it was deemed untenable. I think now is that time.

Far from a pay-for-throw system, which I think we should seriously consider, merely having to buy stickers for large bulky items instead of getting them taken away free (or rather, as part of the basic fee) would go a ways towards closing the gap, and might be a good first step to bringing our trash services in line to reasonable expectations.

Then there’s that recycling situation. Because there’s not enough buy-in from residents on recycling, the program costs the city instead of saves it money. There are so many great ideas for improving participation, and most don’t require too much money. A slate of volunteers, maybe a twice-yearly “Recycling Day” wherein the volunteers and city employees make themselves available in various neighborhoods to give out the bins and educate residents on what can and cannot be recycled would be a start. A couple of tens of thousands in investment for an outreach program could yield hundreds of thousands in savings in our trash services. I bet there’s even a state or federal grant to run such a program.

You can’t talk upping the recycling participation, though, until you at least consider pay-for-throw, or even just limitations on the number of trash bags per family per week. In pay-for-throw, residents would have to buy special bags for a little more than they are paying for generic ones, in order for their trash to be taken away. Those bags would be available at every grocery store and other retail locations in the area. The incentive to recycle then becomes a monetary one, as families try to decrease their waste stream and spend less on the special bags

You could also mandate recycling that way. In some pay-for-throw programs, those specially-bought bags are clear, so the trash inside is visible to the sanitation worker. With clear bags, the sanitation workers could spot recyclables in the trash and refuse to pick up that bag, leaving a note indicating why the bag was refused. Personally, I’m all for this method. The city saves tons of money, and maybe we obtain a recycling participation rate to be envied the world over.

What you would then do is reduce or eliminate the yearly fee in favor of the per-bag and per-bulky-item prices we would pay. An adept recycler might be able to actually make out ahead of the deal, using less than $100 per year in trash bags and stickers. My household, with recycling and composting, averages maybe a bag a week. At, say, a $1 a bag, that’s certainly less than 100 bags a year, while the city makes up the difference by making money on the amount of recyclables I’ve not thrown in the trash. You can also reduce your waste stream by buying food or items that are not overpackaged, using canvass bags for all your shopping, not just groceries, giving away clothing and goods that are still serviceable, among other trash-saving tips.

Imagine how exciting it would be if we just took some time to redesign how we live, just a little bit.

Someone unearthed this vintage footage of O’Reilly on an old show, trying to do a taped take. His very uncool reaction (warning, some pretty bad swearing) really gives you a sense of the man - and his way of dealing with problems. It’s too bad he doesn’t do this live on FOX - oh wait…

Just something to amuse and shock you on this Monday noontime. Might make you nauseous if taken with food.

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.