Left In Lowell

I was surprised when I read Matt Murphy’s article in today’s Sun. Murphy reported that Congressional staff members received bonuses. Murphy reported that “More than 200 lawmakers from both parties gave their staffs in Washington, D.C., and at home year-end bonuses totaling $9.1 million.” Are Congressional staff members underpaid? Of course, my focus is the 5th District.

Murphy writes “U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas doled out nearly $30,000 in bonuses to 16 congressional staffers last year at a time when the national economy plummeted and her constituents faced layoffs and wage freezes.”

In response to the Sun, Congressperson Tsongas stated “Whenever taxpayers’ money is involved, we need to be very thoughtful and transparent. But I decided it was important to give modest recognition tied to performance because they have worked very hard in the best interests of the district.”

Yes, but we all are working hard. But some of us are getting laid off; some of us have to take a cut in pay; others such as City employees and Sun staff needed to take a furlough. And what about the hundreds of people who were lined up in front of the Lowell’s Doubletree yesterday waiting to get in to a Foreclosure Seminar?

In this case, the $30,000 that was handed out to Congressperson Tsongas staff in bonus may not be significant in comparison to the overall office budget. But sometimes symbolism is important.

On another note. This piece by Murphy reminded me of the work the Sun’s Washington reporter, Evan Lehman, would do. I miss his work. Also, articles like this remind bloggers like me of the importance of professional and impartial journalism.

The Sun has a really great article about local blogger Marianne Gries, who writes the Art is the Handmaid of Human Good blog. It’s an interesting blog for local culture news and photos, and Marianne always has a project she’s working on. Right now it’s the $60/week project, where she shares her recipes and ideas for eating like a gourmand on only $60 a week.

For some unknown reason, I didn’t have a link to Marianne’s blog in the local blog roll. I have rectified the situation!

There’s just a couple more thoughts I have in response to some of the comments, and also, I want to go into why certain types of comments are discouraged or not allowed on this blog.

First, the PETA stuff. One of the arguments I’ve seen from people (and it’s a good argument, even if I still don’t agree with it) is that should this deal happen, the land next to the Arena (sold or given, whatever) has been promised to be developed by UML in some way (that the city will have no say in) that will somehow keep it on the tax rolls or be useful to the city.

I find this really disturbing. First, it’s a promise, not written in stone, so how are we to really know what really happens to that land? Second, if the land is being (bought, given, whatever) by or to the university, but not for university use (ie, dorms, practice arena, sports center, academic land) then why is the University purchasing it?

I was not under the impression that the business of a public university to develop lands for private use. I don’t believe this is an appropriate application of the University’s time or money (even if we give the land away, the land in question, as I recall, needs environmental rehabilitation). Also, neither is it the business of a public university, I think, to manage an arena like PETA. Although other universities have arenas, such as the Whittemore Center at UNH, the Whit was never intended to focus on general use, though it is used that way in between university uses. I also thought at the time and still think that the focus the university had on building the Whit could have been used far more wisely (I watched them lay off some of the best teachers in the liberal arts departments about that same time). Also, UNH really is in the middle of nowhere, and no other entity would ever build such a structure there if not for UNH.

Anyway, those are my responses to that argument.

Now, on to the other controversy in these pages…those of disclosure and debate and anonymity.

I admit I was harsh in comments yesterday when I discovered a (not-hidden-to-moderators-if-paying-attention) serious conflict of interest between a subject being discussed and a new anonymous commenter who has been all over these threads the last few days. Our normal mode in dealing with such things (in the rare cases that it has come up) is to send an email to the person to ask them to, at a minimum, disclose their conflict of interest, or even better, to sign their names, so that readers can decide for themselves the credibility of the person’s commentary, if they are going to continue to comment on the blog. This is especially important with new commenters, because the readers do not have a history of posting to rely on to decide such a thing.

Given the situation, and also, admittedly, a little angry over feeling this blog was being used as a shield to get points across without having to state one’s own very clear conflict of interest in the matter, I asked that person publicly in comments to either state their conflict (and in reality I put it as “sign your work” but I don’t honestly care about everyone actually knowing who the person is, if we can hear about the conflict itself, so I should have said that instead, for which I apologize). A large part of my reason for doing this publicly instead of by email was very above-board, though, which is to say, that this person’s comments have been all over said threads, and therefore, readers should understand more context of those previous comments. I will not say who it was who was commenting, unless that person cares to share.

Of course, there is no written policy on this blog about what is, in effect, a form of what is called astroturfing (though that implies some organization behind it, which I have no evidence of, though there certainly could be that too). Yes, we should have a page somewhere about the rules of posting (though I wonder if those people, new to a blog and coming to comment on a specific topic and not caring about being a part of this blog community so far as I can tell, would even have read something like that before posting).

However, how anyone could possibly think such a thing was tolerable after I have spent years, not to mention this whole week, ranting about transparency and open discussion and the level of back room dealing that many in this city condone, is beyond me. It doesn’t take an official policy to see that such behavior is not supported here, and therefore, I do stand by what I have said in comments in response to this individual. I perhaps should have been more kind, but I’m human, and honestly, felt like this blog, in which I have poured a lot of my blood, sweat and tears not to mention reputation, was being used.

We will soon work on a policy page with posting guidelines, and we were going to have one anyway once we built the new site. Officially, however, anyone posting on this blog is reminded to please, state any conflicts of interest, even if that means remaining anonymous. It can be in as general terms a statement as you like, provided that the level of your interest is conveyed to the readers. It matters little if the moderators know who you are - and we know who a great deal of the commenters are here. What matters to me is the readers, and their ability to judge the comments on here with all the information we can provide them.