Left In Lowell

The Downtown Lowell Blog reports that the next JAMBRA neighborhood meeting will be all about the HCD:

The City of Lowell and VHB will be the guests at the JAMBRA neighborhood group meeting on Wednesday, May 13th at 7:00pm to review the current concept design plans for the Hamilton Canal District infrastructure work.

The meeting is Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 7:00 PM at Cappy’s Copper Kettle, 245 Central Street, Lowell, MA. Everyone is welcome, and for more information, see the Downtown Lowell Blog, where they outline what will be discussed at the meeting.

City Manager Bernie Lynch has an interesting post up about a new partnership between 7-11 and the Lowell Police Department.

Dedicated for use by Lowell police officers, the in-store PCNC consists of a work-station with a telephone, brochure display case, fax/copier/printer and suggestion box dedicated for police use. The center gives officers a place to complete paperwork and make phone calls during their shifts in an environment that allows them to interact with the residents of the neighborhoods they patrol.

To announce the opening of the Lowell 7-Eleven® “store-front” PCNC and demonstrate the sophisticated live security monitoring system, Lowell franchisee Sean Gannem, local police and city government officials will attend a special store event Wednesday, May 6, at 11 a.m. The community is invited to attend. As part of the PCNC opening festivities, 7-Eleven will donate $711 to the Lowell Boys & Girls Club, and Slurpee coupons will be distributed to youth during the event and after school.

Seems like a good idea to me! But I’m personally going to lay off the Slurpees®. All that sugar!

Meehan appears to be in hot water, with both public support, and the Attorney General of Massachusetts.

…more than 500 union tradesmen formed a moving rally from the Tsongas Arena to the steps of City Hall Wednesday, accusing UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan of bypassing the competitive bidding laws in its plan to lease a new dorm.
[…]
State Attorney General Martha Coakley says the contract with Brasi Development Corp. violates the law.

How anyone could undertake a major project like building a dorm, in a public university using public money, and not expect to go through the correct bidding process is beyond me. Does Meehan really believe he’s above such rules? Who could have possibly advised him this was a correct course of action?

As to the Lowell Superior Court judge who overturned Coakley’s ruling on this…the word “Lowell” is in the guy’s title…it makes one wonder…anyone know who the judge was in this case, and if there’s any untoward connection there? Did that ruling seem to skirt outside the law, or did that judge really have a good reason for overturning Coakley? Inquiring minds.

This needs to get outside of Lowell jurisdiction, where no appearance of conflict of interest exists, and kudos on Coakley for going for the appeal.

Tonight’s Lowell School Committee promises to be drama filled even by the standards of this mercurial group. Unfortunately, the agenda for this meeting is not available on their web site so I cannot link to it.

First there was the attempt by the School Administration to try to save some money. The school administration is evaluating contracting out the food service program. According to Jenn Myers’ article in the Sun serving food to the students “running an annual operational loss of $775,000, mostly due to the $671,000 in benefits paid out to the district’s 115 full- and part-time cafeteria workers.”

Then there was the public displeasure expressed by the Mayor at the School’s Administration for going ahead and issuing RFP; then of course there was the alleged threats made by a School Committeeperson against the Superintendent and staff.

I understand that the cafeteria workers will be in attendance tonight in full force to try to save their jobs. But the School Committee cannot have it both ways. They need to figure out where the cuts are going to be made. The more information they have, the more option they are given, the better the decision process will be.

The School Committee should listen to the person they honored earlier this year, when asked “to rank how bad the situation is on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being the worst? he [State Senator Steve Panagiatakos] said. ‘This [recession] is a 9 or a 10’.”