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Lowell Area Bloggers/Forums
Lowell Politics
Mass Bloggers
- - Leftyblogs MA Blogroll - Almost all of my favorite lefty blogs in Massachusetts can be found here. Linking here keeps my own blogroll short but still up to date! Below are some other MA blogs which are not listed at LB.
- H2Otown (Watertown, MA)
- MargeBLOG (Williamstown)
- Michael Forbes Wilcox (Western MA)
- The Gazebo (Worcester area)
Media in Lowell
- Community Connections The online archive of many of WUML's radio shows.
- LTC :: Our community cable access channel (8 & 10). Excellent people, I've worked with them before.
- Open Source :: Chris Lydon's new show, broadcast on WUML and WGBH locally.
- The Lowell Sun :: Love it or hate it, it's the big newspaper in town.
- WCAP radio :: Talk radio in Lowell - still locally owned, and in transition.
- WUML :: The student- and community-run radio station of UMass-Lowell. Lynne hosts a radio show, Thinking Out Loud, 10am on Fridays.
Media in MA
Other Daily Reads
Politics Online
- City Council Agenda Past City Council agendas, posted in a mostly timely manner
- Lowellma.gov Official city website
Progressive Local Orgs
Snark and politics
The Arts in Lowell
- 119 Gallery - Art gallery with exhibitions of many local artists, interesting events, and living, breathing culture.
- Arts League of Lowell (ALL) - Artist community group, a recent but welcome addition to the arts scene in Lowell.
- Brush Art Gallery - Come and meet working artists in their natural habitats!
- Cultural Organization of Lowell (COOL) - Great local calendar of events.
- Lowell Opera Company - Community opera.
- Lowell Philharmonic Orchestra - Local community orchestra.
- Lowell Poetry Network
- Lowell Rocks - List of live music events
- Merrimack Repertory Theatre - A local theatre "presenting an exciting mix of contemporary and new plays in historic downtown Lowell."
- OUtlET - Paper and online 'zine making a splash locally with events in art, poetry, music, and everything in between!
- Revolving Museum Contemporary, local, public art space with a plethora of children's programs and art by and for the community.
- The Fine Print - Socially aware, themed, arts and issues periodic publication available throughout Lowell.
- The Image Theater - Theatre company which puts on all original works by local playwrights.
- Whistler House Museum - A great collection of contemporaries of Whistler at his historic birthplace.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
waittilnextyr always has great posts and a great way of explaining his or her viewpoint! Always appreciate his/her posts.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Manager Lynch: “We are now at a point of not only seeking savings but evaluating service needs at this time given conditions.”
As a city employee I read this as service cuts, What can we eliminate? This likely isn’t just about the budget woes, but re-evaluating core city services. i.e. my job is now on the line if things don’t get better fast (it won’t) and probably even if it does.
Watch out 1705, DPW, LFD and possibly (Though doubtful)police and teachers. Regardless of Question 1 the writing appears to be on the wall, layoffs are coming.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:20 am
I would think a good place to look for savings would be in the snow and ice account. Business as usual leads to $2M budget deficits in that account as happened last year.
There has to be strict enforcement of no-parking bans to make the job of snow removal easier. And there should be limits on how many times a contractor plows a given street well after the snow has stopped falling.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:32 am
Is this the year we lose the police horses?
Shame, but whattyagonnado?
October 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
As a city employee, you should always be concerned whether or not some city jobs will be eliminated. As do the rest of us in the private sector. Especially in tough times. Sorry, but it’s true.
However, there’s necessary or useful cuts, and there’s mindless cutting. No one can say that there’s NO way we can’t gain some efficiencies or reduce costs by streamlining - and that includes cutting the workforce. However, I would not be for cutting the budget simply to reduce the budget - cutting off our nose to spite our collective face. I believe that there are necessary and essential services that our community needs, and I expect any process of belt-tightening to take that into account.
We’ve already lost so much ground, it’s hard to see where cutting won’t actually be cutting something essential. Let’s at least hope for level funding for the cities and towns for next year.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I don’t expect to have guaranteed job security anymore than anyone else. However either the city services are essential public goods or they aren’t, and those services are provided by the employees. You don’t need cops, teachers, 911 operators, public works and firefighters today, but not tomorrow. There isn’t much productivity to be gained especially by emergency services. You can’t create more emergencies, but you still have the same population and infrastructure to protect.
If they aren’t essential government functions we shouldn’t be paying tax money for them in the first place. I read the manager’s comments to mean future decreased service levels. They are analyzing services in light of what we will have for dollars coming in. That is an attempt to look for efficiency, but if true does it not assume we overspend on services currently? Whether that means laying off DPW and privatizing maintenance functions on a contract basis, less patrol cars, larger classes, fewer code/health inspections or closing firehouses for example, I don’t know.
Either you need an essential service or you don’t. There is a limit on how far you can cut something before it starts to cost you somewhere else. How does increased crime or a burned out building affect a neigborhood property values and thus asessments? Good luck finding a politician or department head willing to stick their neck out and risk their seat or pension saying (truthfully) you can’t go any lower, this is what we need to do our job. The concept of preparing basic/good/better/best budget scenarios is valid, but I guess I think there are some essential things you shouldn’t ever cut and some things we probably don’t need to provide in the first place. If the possibility exists that jobs need to be cut, why the rush to give raises this year?
I think expecting level funding is unrealistic from the sounds of things at the state level. I hope I’m wrong.