Left In Lowell

It doesn’t get more coherent than this post by Dick Howe. The title alone speak volumes, “The Sun’s Classless Apology.” Another priceless quote: “There’s a certain nobility in acknowledging one’s mistakes because when you admit your errors you’re less likely to repeat them. The best evidence of the Sun’s insincerity is that the paper’s purported apology repeats the same mistake that prompted the ‘apology’ in the first place.”

“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?” - Pink Floyd

Tonight’s City Council agenda doesn’t really have too much controversy, to be honest, which I guess is a good thing. A famous Chinese curse is “may you live in interesting times” and if things aren’t all that interesting, they’re probably going pretty well, or at least as well as they can.

However, there is one motion by a city councilor to point out:

20. C. Kazanjian-Req. Council initiate action for Charter Change as it relates to number of candidates required for Primary Elections.

Those who listened to WCAP yesterday afternoon (I was not one of them, so this is hearsay) heard Councilor Kazanjian taking about his motion. His expressed point of view isn’t unfamiliar to observers of past city council elections: it costs too much to have a primary when you’re only just above the 18+1 needed to trigger a primary election.

Now, a primary does a couple of things. It pares down the candidates for the general election down to 18, and it also rearranges the names on the list - otherwise, the general election ballot shows the incumbents seeking reelection first, then all the challengers.

There are arguments that this severely disadvantages challengers, since the incumbents’ names are not only familiar to voters from their incumbency, but also end up first on the list of candidates. However, a primary plus general election is costly (and I don’t refer to the taxpayers, but to the candidates), and some say that is the bigger disadvantage for challengers. (Though I would make the argument that it gives the opportunity for the challenger to hone their campaign, and get out in front earlier than they might otherwise, as challengers certainly do not get the attention incumbents can get by virtue of being front of the cameras every (other) week and in the papers. A challenger that places well in the primary suddenly has credibility as a viable candidate and that can attract money and supporters and volunteers.)

Mass.gov explains the process for changing city charters thusly (bold mine):

Under the Home Rule Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution (Amendment Article 89) and the Home Rule Procedures Act (MGL Ch. 43B), cities and towns can form a charter commission to adopt a new charter; entirely revise an existing charter, or amend selected charter provisions.  As an option to the Home Rule Charter process under Ch. 43B, communities can also adopt, revise or amend a charter by a special act of the State Legislature with approval by the Governor (See Special Acts ).

Charter Commissions are created in these circumstances (bold mine):

Chapter 43B: Section 4. Order of governing body for submission of question of adoption or revision of charter; nomination and election of charter commission

Section 4. Within thirty days of receipt of certification by the board of registrars of voters that a petition contains sufficient valid signatures, the city council or board of selectmen shall by order provide for submitting the question of adopting or revising a charter to the voters of the city or town, and for the election of a charter commission, at the first regular city election, or at the first annual or biennial town meeting for the election of town officers, held on or after the sixtieth day following the adoption of the order. Said order shall also provide for the nomination of charter commission members, who shall be nominated in accordance with this chapter. Said order shall not require the concurrence of the mayor in a city and shall not be subject to referendum. If an order of the city council or board of selectmen under this section has not been adopted within the thirty days specified above, the question of adopting or revising a charter shall be submitted to the voters and charter commission members shall be elected at the first regular city election, or at the first annual or biennial town meeting for the election of town officers, held on or after the ninetieth day after receipt by the city council or board of selectmen of certification provided for in the first sentence of this section.

Of the two routes (Charter Commission, or special act of the legislature) which do you think Mr. Kazanjian would want to go?

The fact is, that it appears from the wording the motion that the Councilor is looking to push the number up from 18+1 to something higher, so that a primary isn’t triggered just to “knock off one person.” However, if we go this route, and make the threshold say, 20+1, what happens when we have 21 candidates, and once again are facing paying for a primary just to knock off one person? Any cutoff is, ultimately, arbitrary.

For my part, I’m not looking at the cost of running an election in order to judge whether a primary should be held. Democracy is one of our most sacred trusts with one another and is worth every penny to serve the public good. And the money to run an election is a drop in the bucket of the city’s budget. How I would judge such a change in our charter is, does it serve democracy? In this case it’s not completely clear, since there are advantages and disadvantages to challengers either way, though I lean towards any process that loosens incumbents’ chokehold on government. And, I would rather err on the side of elections, rather than saving pennies. For want of a nail…as the proverb goes.

Besides, this is being proposed by the same guy who thought culling our democracy in the form of cutting out half our city council meetings in a year was a good idea. [Clarification - what I meant was that he was in favor of this proposal, which of course was put forward by C. Lenzi. -Lynne]

Edit: Referring to my notes, I should add that there is currently a process to forgo a primary if its triggered by the 18+1 rule - a special overrule by the legislature and signed by the Governor, very probably the same process under which a charter change can be effected by the legislature. However, as someone I talked about this mentioned, this “Charter change” route is likely a response to the last-minute overrule the legislature was asked to do last time ’round, which, I have been told, made a certain senior member of our state delegation a bit disgruntled. Still, I do not think this is a good enough excuse for a change in our charter that does not go through the voters.

In a rather sudden turn of events, we hear that the plans for a Billerica power plant are on hold due to decreased demands for power in the New England area. From Billericapowerplant.com, an opposition group:

In an interesting turn of events last week relating to the Billerica power plant proposal, the plant developer ran an ad in the Lowell Sun proclaiming victory with the EFSB decision to site the plant.  And on the next day, also in the Sun, Joe Fitzpatrick, CEO of DG Clean Power, admitted that the plant would likely be delayed for some time due to decreasing demand for power overall and specifically for plants like this one.  Click here [PDF] to see the ad that ran in the Sun.  Click here to read the article in the Sun.  A second article in the Tewksbury Town Crier quotes ISO-NE’s spokesperson stating that there was far  more capacity than demand in the recent ISO-NE auction.  There is also commentary from the other partner in DG Clean Power, Ed Liston.  Click here to read the Crier article.

Now, obviously the economic downturn has a lot to do with the decreased demand, but so do efforts to conserve, and as the national and state initiatives ramp up to push conservation (and there is a lot of low-hanging fruit) and increase the use of renewables like wind and solar, demand will only decrease further. It was always bunk that “we’ll continue to need more power” in the short run - the line that the plant’s proponents liked to push. “It’ll take time for renewables to reduce the demand for carbon-based power” said they. Well, they are wrong, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that we can easily, if we put our minds to accomplishing it, start reducing demand for CO2-based energy, deliberately and systematically. And will be, because the alternative is to let the planet warm even more than it has and will.

Well, better late than never to promote tomorrow’s WCAP appearance for the blogging segment. I’ll be opposite RichardHowe.com’s Tony Accardi, around 7:15 am through the top of the hour.

That’s 980AM with Teddy Panos tomorrow morning!

Enough is enough! We all know that the editor of the Sun has a agenda and uses the thin veil of journalism to reward the sycophants and punish the rest. But the paper’s focus on the Lowell schools system borders on obsession. So I was not surprised by an editorial that appeared in yesterday’s paper. Athough the editorials for March 19th and 21st are available on their web site; the one for the 20th is not. Someone was kind enough to send me their e-edition.

This particular editorial is just another selective beating up of certain elements of the Lowell schools. But I was surprised how sloppy it was. You would think that someone would have checked the facts before they went to press but when your motivation is spite, you rush to judgment.

The Sun editorial reads in part:

And, thanks to [Paul] Georges [President of the United Teachers of Lowell] — and the School Department’s inept record-keeping
and/or lack of interest — teachers can take Mondays and Fridays off routinely without being disciplined. If they are reprimanded, who knows? The
School Department takes care of its own — no dirty laundry unless the local newspaper finds out. But here’s the rub. On Thursday, Dec. 18, 11 teachers at Greenhalge School called in sick. The school has 24 classrooms. Do you think the kids’ educations were served while the teachers were on the lam? Did the principal discipline anyone? Is the Greenhalge School on the state’s underperforming list?

On the lam? Well guess what? LiL has been told that only two teachers called in sick that day; the rest each donated a day’s sick leave to a colleague who is seriously ill and had used up all of their own sick time. The facts are getting in the way of the editor’s campaign so let’s skew the facts.

The editor of the Sun wants to be top dog in this city and he has a publisher whose motivation is the bottom line. We all blame him but the Sun Publisher and President is equally culpable. By the way, if the Sun really cared about Lowell public school children, they would not have been on the band wagon to drive Dr. Karla Brooks- Baehr out of town. Oh yeah, I forgot she did not socialize enough, so go she must.

Somehow I do not think Friday’s editorial is going to be an award winner.

“What could James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the League of Women Voters possibly have in common?” writes Frederick Clarkson at ReligionDispatches. And maybe politics makes strange bedfellows - or maybe, it’s that groups that can get quite heated in the debates about social policy and taxes can occasionally bridge that gap to work on an issue the crosses those boundaries.

The article highlights that coalition in Mass and has many other good tidbits - all important to remember as it appears that casinos and slots in some form will at least be proposed in the legislature once again, putting that coalition to the test a second time.

A lot of you probably remember from past casino posts why I’ve come out vehemently against casinos - so probably repeating them will bore you. But this article goes into stark details and I encourage you to read it. Some highlights:

“Predatory gambling,” Bernal says, “is the practice of using gambling to prey on human weaknesses for profit.” He points to the highly addictive nature of contemporary electronic slot machines and video poker as the primary source of the profound “social costs” related to gambling addition. “Slots are,” he says, “designed to make you play as fast as possible for as long as possible,” and in gambling industry parlance, “to play to extinction.”
[…]
The addictive nature of the electronic slots and their role as the main revenue stream of the gambling industry is not widely understood. Industry data show that 70-80% of the revenue of casinos come from these machines, and investors are not very interested in casinos without slots.
[…]
In a powerful video recently posted by Casino Free Mass in anticipation of the next round of debate over introducing casinos in the state, a prominent medical researcher compares a multicolored brain scan of a cocaine addict about to receive a fix and that of someone sitting at a slot machine. The same sections of each brain light up in ways that are indistinguishable.

“I think it’s cowardly,” said Laura Everett. ”We are going to sacrifice our citizens. We know that there are people in Massachusetts who will become addicted. What Patrick is saying is ‘you are expendable.’”

There are so many reasons to reject state-sponsored addiction (and yes, I have my issues with the lottery and other such state-as-pushers revenue), but the best reason is that, once you place a casino somewhere, you will develop addicts that otherwise would not have become addicted. There are practical questions, yes, such as how much these unfortunate souls would cost the state because of increased need for law enforcement, courts, and treatment - and how much net gain of revenue you would have from the casino with this in mind - but the true argument against casinos and slots (of any kind) is moral. A question of what, as the article states, “do we want our government to do”?

Trying to catch up on work work, left little time for blog work. Er. Blog fun. Whatever. Well, all work and no play makes me grouchy…

So here’s some stuff I’ve wanted to point out but didn’t have time. Then it’s back to the grind for me, as I have a deadline this week.

• First up, I thought this was a lovely post by jen+tommy, about their canal walk last Saturday. It includes photos and a link to a Flickr stream. Flickr annoys the crap out of me because for some reason, the photos don’t ever show up on my Firefox installs (I have two) but I could view it on one of my other installs (Safari or IE6) so it’s all good. I just wish there was a better way to navigate Flickr pics. I tend to prefer Shutterfly’s interface…which is trying to head in Flickr’s direction of developing a community of shared photos, but has a ways to go before catching up.

  Anywhos, I look forward to jen+tommy’s accounts of their future tours and larks in and around Lowell, because it’s great to see someone writing about that sort of thing around here.

• Next, Cliff had an interesting post yesterday musing about Facebook. OK, so it’s interesting to me, seeing as I’m a big Facebook addict (thanks to a friend, whose neck I would like to wring!). It outlines some of the downsides of having your life out there for all to see.

  Facebook is like everything else, you really should know how to protect yourself. You wouldn’t leave your house unlocked while on vacation, and you shouldn’t just post anything unprotected on the internet, either. If you are a Facebook user, this article is a must read for protecting yourself so you can have a good time sharing your life with your friends and family (hat tip to Felicia who posted it to her Facebook links a while back).

• Finally, there’s a fascinating action-reaction going on Blue Mass Group around an article from the Globe that hit hard on the sister of Secretary of Transportation Jim Aloisi, to which Charley and David reacted to (as “nauseating” and “depressing,” respectively), and then Mr. Aloisi himself posted his side of things. Some interesting and pertinent information comes up in comments, where people who have worked with Mr. Aloisi’s sister (who is a Dem staffer) give us some insight that backs up the idea that the Globe went a bridge or two too far in its insinuations, as well as this comment by GoldsteinGoneWild:
  

  I’ve been on the receiving end of a Globe hit piece, where the facts were twisted in almost an entire inversion of what had really happened. It’s not pleasant, and you have almost no plausible recourse.

  The Globe has been forced to lay off most of their experienced reporters and editors. So when someone calls up with a few facts and a lot of spin, the newspaper’s checks and balances are gone. The machinery is HEAVILY wired to run with any attack.

  Once upon a time, a person unhappy with the news coverage really only had one recourse - to go back to the people who attacked him and hope they would do a fairer follow-up, or else at least publish your own op-ed refuting the offending article. Score another one for the blogs about open discussion and debate, and to be honest, the Globe doesn’t come off smelling like roses here.

Congrats to the city government folks, and especially the MIS department, for getting Common Cause’s E-Government award. Oh wait, not just the award…the Award with Distinction, one of only 46 awarded to towns in Massachusetts. This is for going beyond their basic criteria for posting information about city government onto the web, including agendas, budgets, and meeting information.

Now, would we have ever qualified for such an award about transparency under previous management? I know, I know, I’m totally beating a dead horse, and it’s way water under the bridge, but when I think about where we were five years ago versus today, I’m still astonished. Sorta like watching President Obama on the T.V. answering media questions, after eight years of W. It’s like, wow, you really can make a difference with the right people in charge.

I nearly did a laughing spit-take on my computer screen just now when I read Jackie’s post on Campanini’s award from the New England Newspaper Association for “best editorial on a local subject.” Jackie reminds us,

Luckily for Campy, the judges didn’t check the facts because this editorial has the same errors and half-truths it did when it was first published in June 2008.

And people wonder why the newspaper business, which is fond of patting itself on the back but not much on self-reflection when it’s required, is dying? I guess IOKIYAN (It’s OK If You’re A Newspaper).

I bet Mr. Campanini is crowing and preening as I write this. Too bad it’s over a crappy piece of journalism (or even, editorial, for which the standards are more relaxed).

I have caught the Twitter bug. The group messaging web site has now become a heaven for micro-blogging.

Locally, Dick at richardhowe.com has set up a http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23Lowell Lowell Twitter page where we can provide community news. On the front page of his blog, Dick has set up a column for tweets

I have to admit, I am more of a “follower” than one who is “followed” but I am improving. I recently downloaded an App on my IPhone which now lets me tweet my mobile device.

In addition to Tony and Dick, one of my favorite twitters is Robert Mills, the Sun reporter who covers the police/crime beat. Mills is a prolific tweeter and often links to the breaking news section of the paper. This his latest tweet; posted at 5:30 p.m. 3/16.

Chasing more crash info, covering a meeting, and chasing a Tewksbury teacher who got arrested tonight.

Breaking local news delivered on your phone. Now that is what I call new media!