Left In Lowell

Have at ye. I’ll be busy most of the weekend, so you’re on your own.

Be nice.

It’s a gorgeous night for tricks and treating, ain’t it? Hope those with kids don’t fail to take them out for the sugar rush. Halloween is a sacred kid holiday. Trick or Treating is from 6pm to 8pm, so for heaven’s sake people, make sure you have lots of candy and leave your porch light on. Make the kiddies happy. (As for me, I am donning a costume in order to give out da goods…why should the kids have all the fun??)

OK, speaking of sugar rush, someone at City Hall has had way too much Halloween candy…this is on the city’s website:

Hehe. Cute.

As Charley points out, what exactly is this going to do to address Wilkerson again? What she did was quite illegal. It even comes with possible jail sentences!

But certainly, if we can use the sad, disgusting situation with Wilkerson to gain some ground on ethics, transparency, and other reforms, great.

By the way, she withdrew from her sticker campaign. Gee, ya think?

Congrats to BMG for being the #2 largest blog fundraiser for Obama, right after DailyKos! That includes AMERICAblog, which is a huge national blog which can raise lots of dough.

All that hard work paid off!

I like the sense of humor the Sun has? Did you see the page one headliner in today’s paper, “Wilmington teens charged in Shawsheen Tech gun scare.”

And did you see the title of the article below that one? “Obama has firearm sellers worried”.

I am not sure what the motivation was for the Sun editors to assign reporter David Pevear to New Hampshire to report on this non-issue.

Obama’s position on the right of individuals to own guns is pretty clear, he believes “the Second Amendment create an individual right, and he respects the constitutional rights of American to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns.”

By the way, this was Pervear’s second article in as many days on the presidential candidates. Yesterday’s piece focused on the Lowell Republican City Committee’s optimist view on McCain’s chances in this state and this city. Sorry Cliff. McCain will not win Lowell or Massachusetts. Now Dracut, that is a different story!

So I’m strolling (being pulled?) through memory lane this afternoon, as I go through our posts from the beginning to delete old spam comments from back before comment moderation. This is in preparation for eventually moving content, comments, and posts to LiL 2.0.

Can I just say, you people jabber a lot?

One test of exportation of posts/comments that I did today indicates there may be a slim to good chance that import/export from Wordpress will be easier than previously thought. I’d been waiting patiently for the ExpressionEngine 2.0 release before committing to code, but it’s taking them too long (and they claim that we should be fine upgrading after the fact) so I’m moving forward. I know it’s been a while since LiL2.0 has even been mentioned, but it’s still very much on my mind. I have lots of cool ideas to make it a better blog.

You could go watch “Tom Dowd and the Language of Music” at the Music on Film series by the Lowell Film Collaborative, Sunday, November 2 at 5 p.m. It will be held at UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library, Room 222.

Then there are the various galleries around Lowell. If you’ve never been to the Whistler House, you have to go. I love that place (and Whistler). Though if you wait until November 5th, they are having their Annual Juried Members Exhibition, with the reception happening on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2 to 4 PM.

There, your non-political post of the week. Enjoy.

I have to frontpage this exchange in comments of our first Bernie Lynch podcast, because it’s a perfect example of how people who are engaged and interested, and government officials who are true public servants, can work together to make sure Lowell keeps moving forward. Who needs the agenda filter at the Lowell Sun? (Some typos fixed, and the comments are mixed together into Q&A format.)

waittilnextyr: On the subject of the health care trust fund, and the need to recover that to be sufficient given the escalating cost of healthcare, I understand his approach to raise the current rates into the account, but I would have a concern that a 10-12% rate of increase is unsustainable, both for the City as well as the employees who pay their share of the bill. Is there hope that State and Federal approaches to healthcare could limit this cost escalation?

Bernie Lynch: On Health Trust Fund. The idea of 10-12% is tough and hopefully will not need to be sustained for a long period. It is what we’ve essentially been doing the past couple of years and generally in line (maybe a bit higher) than other communities. Our problem is basically a number of years in the making. For about three years, 05-07, the Trust Fund was underfunded likely to put off the budgetary impact and to keep rates low for employees. During this time rates should have gone up by 8-9% but instead grew by only about 2%. Ultimately, there is a day of reckoning. There is a risk of the fund running out of money….a problem that has caused major issues in other communities. Because of this the state now enforces certain funding levels. Certainly, some state or federal changes could effect future costs.

waittilnextyr: On the subject of the risk to State aid for FY2009, and the likely reduced amount for FY 2010, what actions are the City taking now to build reserves to smooth out the effects of potential cutbacks? Does the City Council get quarterly financial reports to compare with the budget plan?

Bernie Lynch: On Finances, we have been issuing quarterly reports to the council for the last couple of years. We just provided a report on the first quarter that is fairly positive. Costs are running essentially as projected and revenues are doing okay primarily because of conservative budget estimates. We did anticipate some of the economic problem…but certainly not to the extent that we’ve seen over the past six weeks. If we’d have seen that coming we probably would be doing something different career-wise. I am hopeful that we will make it through this year but the bigger problems are in FY10 and FY11. We are well into preparing for various scenarios and have put certain steps into place to control costs in the hopes of making future cuts easier and building some budget surplus to help cushion the pain. Obviously, we’d be better off if reserves were already in place. I would add that we always seek cost savings through careful spending and evaluating filling positions. We are now at a point of not only seeking savings but evaluating service needs at this time given conditions.

waittilnextyr: On the subject of the Hamilton Canal, it was good to hear that the City and Trinity were to sign off on the plan today. But, will the reductions in spending by the State affect the progress with fewer or smaller grants? The manager seemed to say the Trinity’s financing was solid, so can we be sure that the design planning will start immediately and construction will begin in the Spring as planned?

And to the degree that funding is required for infrastructure development for the Hamilton Canal, is there a possibility that Federal Stimulus round 2 will be an opportunity to finance the work in the short term?

Bernie Lynch: On the Hamilton Canal project we remain confident that the project will commence in the spring. To date the developer has been successful in interesting investors. They seem to be impressed with the project, the experience of the developer and the stability/potential of Lowell. Of course things could change but so far things are moving forward. State support is in the works and we are optimistic that the current operational budget issues will not be a major impediment as the needed funding is through borrowings, and there seems to be support for projects that grow the economy.

We are watching the federal stimulus package to see what develops. Certainly the HCD project is one possibility but we also have some other infrastructure projects that are needed. We’ll likely have to see what the parameters of such a program look like.

Hope I’ve addressed all the questions raised.

Yup, I’ve got some of the most thoughtful and engaged commenters ever. You rock!

Did you watch the Obama prime time half hour commercial? What are your thoughts?

I thought it was well-done, polished, but that was hardly unexpected. I liked that they went to Obama live in Florida - logistically, what a nightmare!

I liked that they spent time on other people’s stories. I’m guessing detractors will whine that he was filmed in an office with a window in the back that vaguely appears Oval-Office-like. (If you really looked at it, it was a pretty vague reference, though it seemed blatant. Not sure why.)

I think in the end, it caps a sense of presidential quality that some Americans still needed to see to make a choice. After all, I’m not the end target audience for this, undecided voters are.

I like this ad better:

I’ve been interested in the race for Jamie Eldridge’s open Rep seat in the 37th Middlesex, partly because I know we have a great candidate to replace him, Jen Benson, but also because her opponent is the former “independent,” now Republican, Kurt Hayes (who raised a lot of his money from anti-gay forces where “nearly 40% [of his] itemized contributions come from pro-discrimination donors who live outside of the 37th Middlesex state House district”). Of course, Hayes doesn’t like to admit he’s Republican, neither putting it in prominent display on his little website, nor anywhere on his literature, but he represents some of the worst in Republicans. (I still don’t understand the state Republican tactic - run candidates who are not really moderate. They would fare better if they ran candidates palatable to the average MA voter.)

But, the question needs to be asked, is Kurt Hayes for teaching creationism in schools? Because if he is, I think the voters of 37th Middlesex should know about it.

The question comes up first because of Hayes’ membership in Trinity Church of Bolton (no, it’s not you, their website sucks and is half broken). The tenor of the church is severely fundamentalist, and I have listened to some of the sermons (available in MP3 here). One in particular is quite disturbing, dated July 27, 2008. It starts with a reading of Genesis 1, and then the pastor David Smith begins his sermon with a list of science theories on the origins of the universe dating back to Kant in the 18th century, then goes into some length on the Big Bang Theory (emphasis is his):

The one that perhaps most of us are familiar with would be the Big Bang Theory, it’s about 50 years old now. Became very popular in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and even today, it recieves a lot of funding for those who want to research this particular theory. According to the Big Bang Theory, some 10 to 20 billion years ago, all matter and energy in the universe was compressed into a cosmic egg, or a plasma ball of some sort, consisting of sub-atomic particles and radiation. No one really knows where this cosmic egg came from, but there it was. And for no inexplicable reason, this cosmic egg exploded. As matter and radiation expanded, so this theory says, that it cooled sufficiently for elements to form as protons and neutrons, and electrons, combined to form hydrogen. These gases expanded radially, in all directions, until they collapsed upon themselves in local areas by gravitational attraction, forming an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe. How many of you have heard of the Big Bang Theory? I think probably most of us have in some form or fashion.

He then lists the “flaws” with the big bang theory (the one where it expects uniformity, not “clumping”), mentions in passing the Plasma Theory, then says,

There are many other theories of the beginning of the universe which come and go with different passing generations. Now since there was no one there to observe it, we can never know for sure how the world began. Unless there was someone there who could report back to us on how it happened.

And actually there is someone, isn’t there? God himself. And he records for us how he created the heavens and the earth in the book of Genisis. The Bible begins not trying to describe that God existed, it simply states that God exists and the very first verse in the Bible says it this way: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” The Book of Genesis stands alone for accounting for the actual creation of space and mass and time continuum.

His conclusion on the age of the earth?

Sometimes we like to try to date it. And certainly from my perspective I know that in a church like Trinity there’s a lot of different views on how old the earth is, and nobody really knows, but from my perspective and looking at the geneologies, even if they are incomplete, from Adam on, if you add a few other people along the way, you come up with an age of the universe of around 10,000 years old. Otherwise the whole geneology is worthless, and it’s pointless. Why in the world would all these names be back to Adam if it wasn’t some kind of at least close approximation of that.

Some crazy stuff. But par for the course for these churches, and certainly he can believe whatever he wants to believe, all evidence to the contrary.

But does Mr. Hayes subscribe to this belief, and if so, does he want our public schools teaching it? There are scattered reports of him approaching voters and telling them he’s for teaching creationism in schools, and given his membership, and indeed, leadership within this church (he’s head of the “Boy’s Brigade” - who came up with that militant name anyway?) it does make you wonder.

No one bothers to ask the question. So I will. Mr. Hayes, are you for or against the teaching of creationism in our public schools?

The highlight of last night’s, regularly scheduled bi-weekly meeting of the Lowell City Council was City Councilor Jim Milinazzo reminding Mayor Bud Caulfield that Lowell operates under the Plan E form of government.

So if he wants to appoint an ad-hoc committee to “Monitor the Wastewater Upgrades/Improvement” that is fine; but the definition of “monitor” does not mean that the Chair, A. Kazanjian, will be the one to assess and evaluate.

By the way, one of the reasons the Mayor gave for appointing CC Kazanjian, was that he was available in the day time. I guess those of us who have a demanding career would not qualify to be on the City Council.In addition to CC Kazanjian; the Mayor appointed CCs R. Mercier and R. Elliott. Yes, all of them his allies in the sewer fee increase/waste water improvement City Council drama. I wonder how the Waste Water Department feels about this oversight committee.

Another item that caught my attention on yesterday’s agenda was the discussion on whether to “declare surplus” City owned land on River Place so that it an be sold and developed. That in itself is innocuous but I guess there is a back story. I was a bit confused because I have heard the CC on many occasions encourage the Administration to sell excess land so that it can go on the tax roll.

Things will become clearer on Monday when a joint Sub-Committee (I think Economic and Arena) meeting will take place.

In politics, shifting alliances are not unusual. For those of us who watch the City Council meetings regularly, I think the seats are being rearranged.