Left In Lowell

City Council Meeting 3.24.09

22 Responses to “City Council Meeting 3.24.09”

1. Maggie Says:
   March 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

   Mimi - I think you will see more Middlesex Village residents show up for the Planning Board and Zoning Board. I live in that area and I can tell you that there are times we cannot get out of our street because it is blocked by 3 - 6 pm “rush hour traffic” and God forbid an ambulance should make it;s way through there. I have not seen the latest plans - but the last ones involved an entrance right across from Cornell Street. The Mayor was correct when he said people would be unable to get into and out of the store. People simply do not yield to traffic over there. In addition this will be a 24/7 store sending traffic up and down our narrow streets at all hours. This past winter there were weeks when only one car could traverse Cornell, Columbia or Hadley Sts. I wonder how Lowell Youth Scoccer will feel if all that new paving floods their fields. Without major frainage work there will be no plce else for the water to go. It is nice to see someone express concern over the project.

2. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   March 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

   If the council votes to open the charter to look at setting deadlines is the charter open for all changes as well? Maybe Dick can answer that. One thing I found curious when traveling throughout the state is that most communities that have primary or preliminary elections have them in September, not Oct. Having the later preliminary or primary election, in my opinion, gives incumbants a big advantage since a challenger has less time to focus his/her efforts on areas they need to do well in to win.

   Then there is that question of developing a different form of government entirely that would allow for district representation, something the current council would oppose since it would mean most of them would have to run against each other for limited seats since they appear to be grouped together in the same couple of neighborhoods.

   So, my big question is if the council opens the charter to consider changing something does the charter commission that is set up have to limit debate to that one item or can they consider wholesale changes?

3. Lynne Says:
   March 25th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

   My impression is that, if the Council goes the route of introducing a Charter change via the legislature, that change would be outlined in that bill (ie, not open to other items not in the bill). If they take this to the legislature, I would lobby the Governor to veto it. On the grounds that this change is good only for incumbents and the people have not voted for the change. (I LOVE the idea of moving up the date for filing your papers, AND moving up the primary to September as well.) I am not sure the dates on filing and withdrawal, and the primary, are in the charter for Lowell or not, or if those are set in some other set of laws. Or arbitrary and based only on tradition.

   On a charter change regarding district representation, I’m guessing a bill to do this will get in front of the legislature the day Hell freezes over. A charter change like that would have to come over the protests of the incumbents and most likely, the state delegation as well. It would have to be initiated by a signature drive and the election ballot process.

   I favor partial district representation if it is possible. Say, five districts and four at-large seats. This promotes 5 larger districts rather than 9 smaller ones, and allows for some candidates to decide to run city-wide especially if in conflict with another candidate. The reason, supposedly, we went to 9 at-large seats in the first place was the ‘neighborhood-ism’ attitude of the Councilors - that no one cared about the city as a whole, but bickered about bringing home the bacon, as it were.

   Mixed district/at-large would mean whole-city representation, while still allowing neighborhood representation, and the possibility of maybe more minorities and women and newcomers to join the Council. The Council is a DISGRACE regarding its whiteness and maleness right now, and always have been. It means lower bar of entry into being elected, as it’s CHEAPER and EASIER to run for a district seat (smaller area to cover, knock on doors, put up signs). Right now it’s nigh impossible to get enough visibility as a new candidate to get anywhere, and you have to run a great campaign 2-3 times before even having a shot at making it on there, which is bloody exhausting just the FIRST time, nevermind more, just for the dubious pleasure of being considered serious enough or well known enough. Then there’s the abysmal media coverage new candidates get in the paper…

   Anyway, that’s what I would support, if we could divide Lowell into five and get five seats district, I think it would be the best of both worlds.

4. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   March 25th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   A number of years ago there was a charter change question go before voters and it was defeated. It was brought by Matt Donoughue and Steve Gendron and I recall prior to them being elected to the CC. A number of factors lead to its defeat including the fear that the incumbant mayor (I don’t recall if it was Rita or Tarsy Poulious) would take over the day to day operation of the city.

   I would support a mixed district/at large city council with a professional manager.

   As I understand the Plan E form of government it does not provide for a primary/preliminary election and it was added to the charter in the 1950’s?

5. The Lowell Sin Says:
   March 26th, 2009 at 7:42 am

   the change from proportional representation occurred because it allowed for a council much like the one we see today–from too few well-to-do neighborhoods. it meant to cut out the sitting councilors at the time who had been elected by the strength of their neighborhood support. provinicialism may have been the inevitable excuse, but it was not the root cause for the change. the problem is that many forms of massachusetts’ municipal governments are now considered obsolete, including our current form, plan e. and of course, the main problem is that we have councilors who’d rather hold onto what tiny turf they have, than to do the right thing as far as inclusion goes.

6. Lynne Says:
   March 26th, 2009 at 8:22 am

   I think Plan E itself was actually put in place about then, Eleanor, but I could be remembering wrong.

7. Eleanor Rigby Says:
   March 26th, 2009 at 8:39 am

   IIRC Lowell’s Plan E was modified shortly after it was implimented because of that omission, no primary or preliminary election. It was put into place after a strong mayor or two, maybe and alderman as well found themselves in jail or so I have been told.

   If I understand the process correctly, and I may not, for the CC to open the charter to change they have to appoint a charter commission. Maybe it’s time to approach Donoughue and Gendron again.

8. Victoria Says:
   March 26th, 2009 at 9:41 am

   If you look at richardhowe.com: http://richardhowe.com/elect-stats/1993CC.htm

   You will see that in 1993 four referendum questions appeared on the ballot. They were non-binding and not implemented. They are:

   Question 1 - Do you support keeping the present Plan E form of government? Yes-8,234. No-8,779.

   Question 2 - Do you support a change in the city charter to provide for an elected mayor as chief executive instead of an appointed city manager? Yes-10,0441. No-6,760.

   Question 3 - Do you support a charter change that would provide for district councilors instead of elections at large? Yes-6,841. No-9,213.

   Question 4 - Do you support a limit on terms of all elected officials in the city of Lowell to a maximum of 4 two-year terms in office? Yes-11,946. No-5,093.

   Plan E was originally proportional representation which does not require a primary election. That was changed to winner take all in 1957 by a referendum. At the time, opponents to Choice voting (the type of proportional representation used here from 1942 - 1957) claimed that with this system a communist would be elected (as occurred in NYC under this type of voting system). It was the era of McCarthyism and the Red Scare and opponents to the system used people’s fear to get the system changed. Under that system Lowell had greater geographic and ethnic representation than under any other system.

9. joe from Lowell Says:
   March 26th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

   I propose that voters in City Council elections be allowed to divide up their 9 votes any way they want.

   Right now, if you only support 4 candidates, you have the choice of casting less than 1/2 the vote of your neighbor who supports 9 candidates, or of picking 5 candidates you don’t actually like well enough to want to support.

   If a dedicated minority give all of their votes to one candidate, they can control one city council seat, but give up any influence over the other eight.

10. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Hi Victoria, that’s interesting. I recall my parents saying that when Plan E first went into effect you had to number your preference #1 through I think #4 on the ballot and that was the “proportional”? representation?

    As I said I thought the initial charter change from the old Strong Mayor/Aldermen-Council to the Plan E was brought about by a pol, or a number of them, winding up in jail.

    I do recall the charter change questions and term limit question in the early 90’s. Outside of the term limit question ultimately being overturned by voters in another election after the Sun ran articles asking voters if they wanted to “vote out” Dick Howe, Rita Mercier and Eileen Donoughue (their limits were about to expire) I don’t remember what happened that the CC ignored the other voter “suggested” changes do you?

11. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Joe, as you say you can ‘bullet’ your vote now if you’d like or vote for more than one but less than 9.

    I don’t get what you are suggesting.

12. Kim Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    I am a bit surprised by the excise tax amnesty suggestion. The city of Lawrence was just talking about going up on all their fees. Does anyone know what the fee structure is right now? I can see raising the fees and then allowing for people to fill out a form looking for an extension or reversal if they can show a financial hardship. There are many developers, companies, residents, etc that just pay late because the fees are so small to them. My NH property tax bill adds on a $35 late fee and about 14.9% interest. You can bet I get that check out right away. Let the higher late fees and interest fees help cover people having a true hardship. I think we need an increase, with stipulations, to help those in need.

13. Lynne Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 7:20 am

    Eleanor: he’s talking about weighted votes. Right now, if you bullet vote for one person, it counts once. He’s saying weigh that vote, as in, it should count as more of your votes, since you are giving up some or all of your other nine.

    I think honestly that’d be really over complicated for people. I like district-citywide mixed seats better.

14. Victoria Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 7:39 am

    Hi Eleanor,

    It was the mayor who was found guilty of corruption that brought about the change. I think that people ranked their votes 1 through 9, but under this kind of voting (called Choice Voting) you can actually rank as many candidates as you want because a lower ranking never negatively impacts a higher ranking.

    Joe is actually talking about another type of proportional representation called Cumulative Voting, where each voter has nine votes but can distribute them however they want rather than being confined to only one per candidate. It’s a better system than what we have now but is not as effective as Choice voting in electing a council that would resemble the electorate.

    I wasn’t around in the early 90’s but what I have heard is that five new councilors were elected that year also (it was a time of real turmoil in the city) and the voters were happy with the turnover and so the other changes weren’t deemed to be necessary.

    I found it interesting that two-thirds of voters didn’t want a district system even though they were obviously displeased with the current system at the time. While district is better than what we have now, there are distinct disadvantages with that system as well and while it guarantees neighborhood representation, it likely would not help with minority representation in Lowell, where there is no geographic area in which minority voters are the majority. That is due to lack of eligibility, not lack of participation.

15. Marie 133 Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 10:59 am

    I found this interesting paper presented at the NE Historical Conference at Amherst College in 1996. Lowell is mentioned a few times and the Lowell PR form of voting is described. See it at :http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/kolesar.htm
    “Cotton Was King: A History of Lowell Massachusetts” - a publication of the Lowell Historical Society - is cited in the bibliography.

16. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    Hi Victoria. I was around when there was the wholesale turnover of the CC and it had to do with the first year of TV coverage of the CC meetings! It was “Must See TV”! back then. Bud Caulfied’s re-election campaign slogan was something like ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’!

    It was the first look at what was happening by most voters and they were not happy with what they saw.

    I guess I’d need an actual example of what Joe is talking about because I still don’t understand.

17. Victoria Says:
    March 28th, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Hi Eleanor,

    Think of it like this: You have nine votes. Your favorite candidate is Mary Smith but you also like Ty Van, Josh McPherson and Al Padilla, in that order. You can give Mary 4 votes, Ty 2 votes, Josh 2 votes and Al 1 vote, or any other combination of nine - including all 9 votes to Mary. For more on cumulative voting: http://www.fairvote.org/?page=563

18. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    March 28th, 2009 at 11:43 am

    Thanks, now I got it.
    Isn’t that esentially what “bulleting” or voting for less than 9 does now? If I bullet it’s worth 9 votes because no one else gets the vote. If I vote for 4 then it’s worth 2.25 votes each because the other 5 didn’t get any votes from me.

19. Victoria Says:
    March 29th, 2009 at 7:48 am

    Similar, but not the same. When you bullet vote now, the most weight you can ever give a preferred candidate is one. Under cumulative, you could give a preferred candidate a weight of up to nine. It makes a big difference in the end when votes get counted.

20. Eleanor Rigby Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 11:53 am

    I think I’d rather go to the 5 district and 4 at large councilors (maybe even 6 and 3) route with a city manager form of government. That would make certain that representation is more evenly distributed throughout the city and not concentrated in two or three neighborhoods as is the case now.

    From Lynne’s posting re: the arena you can see that 5 CCs live in Upper Belvedere, 2 each in the Upper Highlands and Pawtucketville. No other section of the city has representation at city hall.

    I even recall having a conversation with my state rep a number of years ago in which he told me that residents of our neighborhood were calling him about city issues because they had no where else to turn! So much for At-Large CCs representing everyone!

    On that note I seem to recall that CC AK listed his address on the ballot as Dutton St., yet the residential address that Lynne found is Westview Rd. Isn’t that a violation of the laws governing elections?

21. Lynne Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    Eleanor: I got the addresses from my 2007 list of candidates addresses (gotten from the city from pulled papers) for LiL to use to send off our questionnaires, so I have no idea…but wouldn’t that be interesting to look into?

22. Kim Says:
    April 2nd, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    Yes he lives on Westview. I used to live right around the corner from him in the highlands.

Leave a Reply