Left In Lowell

It’s always great when a candidate you gave your time to lives up to expectations. I just got a press release from the office of freshmen and newly-sworn in Representative Jen Benson, with two bills she has just filed.

The first is a special education bill, and is based on her campaign proposal.

Benson has introduced a special education reform bill that works towards identifying administrative efficiencies and cost savings for schools districts, while providing more consistency for special education students with high needs. The bill proposes tying funding to students rather than school districts. “Our current special education funding system is overly complicated and is problematic to both school districts and children,” said Benson. “I proposed a system for tying funding to students rather than school districts during my campaign and this legislation is the first step toward achieving that goal.”

This makes so much sense, it hurts my head. This would solve that constant problem for districts who happen to have a lot of special needs children proportional to their student population - funding for those sources winds up being carried by the local revenues because that funding is set per district. This adversely affects special education - often, a good public school special ed program will entice parents of a special needs child to move to the district, increasing the budgetary burden, but with no additional help from the state. That means the program will likely degrade in response. We shouldn’t punish districts with better programs.

The second one is near and dear to my heart, an environmental no-brainer.

Benson’s environmental protection bill will require customers to pay a surcharge of five cents for each plastic bag used at grocery stores. Customers would pay no surcharge for paper bags, reusable bags, or plastic bags brought from home. The surcharge would go to the Clean Environment Fund to be used for environmental projects. “Plastic bag surcharges have been shown to produce real benefits to the environment, reducing plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Benson.

Boo ya! Ireland did this and it’s virtually a no-plastic-bag zone now.

Two great no brainer practical solutions to two big problems. Thanks, Representative Benson! High marks.

Marie’s quick! Though now the Sun says they’ve confirmed, he will step down.

Even if DiMasi didn’t himself do anything wrong, one can’t have a Speaker beset by so many ethics clouds. But I worry about succession - word on the street the frontrunners are anything but progressive, and despite some of my issues with DiMasi, by and large he’s been the most liberal of Speakers in modern times.

Edit: I think the Sun scooped the crap out of Boston.com…

Dick posted a very comprehensive report from Joe on the latest public Hamilton Canal District Vision Meeting. Check it out. Some highlights:

Hank Keating, the project manager from Trinity, updated the audience on the more significant changes since the last Vision Session in May of 2008. The function of Middlesex Street through the Lord Overpass has been retained with traffic improvements, whereas initial plans, not well-received by most abutters, called for elimination of the Middlesex link through the Lord Overpass.

[…]

An interesting aspect of the work to be done is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed between CWC, Trinity, CMAA and the Building Trades to engage local workers in a Apprentice Program that would serve to grow the workforce while providing good-paying jobs. This redevelopment is not just an end in itself, but its process should help in the creation of an educated, productive workforce in the area.

For more great info, go read it!

Marie has it. So I recommend going to check it out. She also points to the Mass Dems website which has the full schedule for all towns.

I’ll reprint the Lowell info here though:
Saturday February 7, 2009
Lowell (All Wards) at 10am at East End Club
West 4th Street

You need to have been a registered Democrat as of, I believe, the new year. (I can’t seem to find that info to confirm.)

For several days now, I’ve seen people with signs at the Gallagher depot when dropping off my husband at the train. The first day I couldn’t really see what the signs said (it’s not a good idea to mill around if you want drivers, in the split second they have when turning into the Gallagher, to see what you’re standing in support of, even if it’s cold…) but the second day, it was clear they were bus drivers voicing support for a new contract.

I thought to myself, what, are they striking already? But no news of that, so I assume these are off-duty drivers hoping to put pressure on the negotiations.

I sympathize with both the LRTA drivers, and the management, at this point. Yes, the workers deserve a fair contract. And yes, the state funding for LRTA is already seeing a dip, which means previously balanced budgets are no longer. And in between are the riders, and I hope no one really wants to see the rates rise too dramatically, since the people who really rely on local public transit are often the most economically vulnerable.

The two sides, besides being in negotiations, are battling it out in the Lowell Sun, which gives the management an advantage, since the leadership at the Sun is obviously and consistently anti-union. But the point of a negotiation is for both sides to come together, and both sides will hopefully give a little. Let’s try to avoid a messy strike.