Left In Lowell

This month, Left in Lowell celebrated its fourth birthday (born: May 13, 2005). In blog years, that is middle age.

Here is the link to Lynn’s inaugural blog where she states LiL’s mission “I think Lowell is a great city with lots of potential, but also a lot of problems. I’d like to be able to help out in some small way.” And she wanted this to be a “group blog.” So that is where I, all of you who comment and those of you who read, came in.

A lot has happened in 4 years including the growth and development of a healthy Lowell blog roll, commenting on the social, political and cultural life of Lowell. I will not list them because last time I made a reference to the Lowell blog family, I was correctly chastised for leaving out a segment. LiL still has ties to the Mass Lefty Blogroll but the Lowell connection is stronger.

To all of you who tell me you read the blog but do not comment, I would encourage all of you to join in the discussion; on this blog or somewhere else, if you wish. Give yourself a blog name and if the site requires an e-mail address, you can use gmail or hotmail, if you do not want to use your Comcast or Verizon account. D.J.D., this paragraph was for you.

As we begin our 5th year, I hope we have helped out in some way make Lowell a better city. That was the intent and continues to be the goal.

Now that I know how to find The Column on the Sun’s web site, I was surprised to see the title of this Sunday’s edition: “The Latest Buzz: City Manager Murphy.” The Murphy is Lowell State Representative Kevin Murphy; the City Manager refers to the position currently held by Bernie Lynch; and has for the latest buzz, well I do not know the extend of the buzz. If you read the paragraphs that follow, this latest round of rumors were sparked by Murphy’s appearance at City Councilor Rodney Elliott’s fund raiser a few weeks back.

Everything The Column reports about Murphy’s “past” interests in that position, I have also heard from primary sources. But what struck me is the quote attributed to Mayor Bud Caulfield.

I have heard that Kevin Murphy is out there snooping around…But, that’s Lowell. When you are the manager in Lowell, there is always someone waiting in the wings to take the job off of you. It has been a pattern for decades.

Wow! The Mayor may be right but usually the name is not floated publicly. And what did Murphy have to say:

First of all, there is no opening, we have a city manager…[I] very much enjoying being a state rep. I have a safe seat and even though we went though a tough budget challenge, it has been very interesting…I have to work with the city manager. I don’t want him to think I am undermining him.

If there is any truth that Murphy or anyone else is interested in the CM position and if they have allies on the City Council who are trying to undermine the current City Manager , given the economic disaster we are facing, it will not be politics as usual. This may be the tipping point. Instead of spending my time typing on my keyboard, I might start start knocking on doors to elect responsible leaders. Why would a Lowell politician want to rock the boat these days? Given the situation, they may find themselves floating in a deep and vast ocean without a life jacket.