Left In Lowell

Back when former Rep. Marty Meehan first announced (after months of speculation) his resignation to take the helm at UMass-Lowell, I was cautiously optimistic. While Meehan is most definitely an ambitious pol, he also struck me as intelligent, and also pretty loyal to all things Lowell, including the University.

However, a lot has changed since then.

First, there’s this new Meehan letter to UML’s president saying that hey, if the city does what Meehan wants, there could still be a deal reached for UML’s acquirement of the Tsongas Arena. The Sun’s Matt Murphy notes that the paper got its hands on the letter through a FOIA (Freedom of Information) request. Oh, really?

According to Murphy,

The letter was written in response to a request from Wilson for an update on the negotiations, and indicates a greater level of interest in the deal than the chancellor’s recent public and private comments have suggested.

The letter, obtained yesterday by The Sun under a Freedom of Information request, caught City Manager Bernie Lynch by surprise.

and

Lynch, in fact, said he last spoke to Meehan last Tuesday when Meehan told him the university was no longer interested in acquiring the arena. Meehan reportedly told Lynch he planned to inform Wilson in a letter that the deal was dead.

The letter that was sent, however, shows a great deal of interest from Meehan in buying the Tsongas Arena despite a skepticism that Lynch would agree to the conditions. Meehan also had copies of the letter delivered to members of the City Council.

And bah. Just go read the rest, it’s too complicated and screwball, I’d have to quote half of Matt’s excellent article, which would go beyond fair use.

But what the hell is up with these stupid head games?

So that brings me up to my second bout of fist-shaking anger with the Chancellor. Of course, we’re all tightening our belts, and the University has been asked to come up with cuts as well as any state-funded agency. However, for weeks I have been hearing about what the shape of those cuts might look like, and though I am not willing yet to go on the record about them, rest assured that if my sources are correct, when they are made public, the community is going to be outraged by many of them. Community services are going to be the hardest hit, as is apparently an entire department which I believe is one of the University’s greatest assets. So what I want to know is, is the pain of the cuts going to be felt across the board or is the ax going to fall disproportionately on some areas more than others? And what would be the reasoning for such an action, when other solutions could be found (like across the board 1% cuts, etc). Why do the “big” departments get to escape bearing their fair share? It’s to the detriment of the University to lose some of the assets and programs that I am hearing will be totally eliminated. Which means, they will not come back after we weather this.

Couple that with the snarky comments I’ve heard from UML personnel who are disgusted by the level of personal promotion (almost like shrines to Meehan) scattered around campus, and I’m starting to believe every anonymous comment ever made deriding the former Representative’s ego. Ug.