Left In Lowell

Makes Me Wonder

by Lynne at 8:40 am.

We’ve had a rash of “new” anonymous commenters in the recent budget post by Mimi.

We’ve seen drive-by commenters before, making all sorts of anonymous accusations without much in the way of backing it up. Attacks were rampant on this blog, for instance, when the previous City Manager was…shall we say…on his way out. Those anonymous commenters were, of course, sticking up for their bud in a sort of raw, hurt way. As repulsive as some of those comments were at the time, they were actually pretty darn transparent in their motives.

We allow, and will always allow, some level of “anonymity” (of course, in this day and age of information, sometimes it’s easy to put two and two together, so there’s always risk for the anonymous writer on the web). That is not my issue.

But we’re in an election season, and we all know the lines which are drawn between the city’s “factions.” There are the people who like the current management situation, and there are people who would do anything they can to undermine it. Those city councilors claim otherwise of course…to outright state their opposition to the current CM would be a political death sentence, in my opinion. But actions speak louder than words, or rather, often their own words speak louder than their protestations to the contrary. We see over and over again the pouncing on Lynch in meetings, the aha! See! attitude every time they perceive an opening (whether or not there are facts to back them up). This has been the pattern since Lynch was hired.

That makes me wonder. Is this ambulance contract “issue,” “brought” to “light” by an anonymous commenter in that budget thread, an issue which appears to be made from whole cloth, a trial balloon for an election attack to rally around? Are they searching for the next “hasn’t moved forward on the Arena, see? see??” attack, as we saw in the last election (which, by the way, failed miserably). The Mercier(s)-Kazanjian-Caulfield-Lenzi wing of the City Council, while not monolithic in its disapproval of the CM in every case, certainly has a somewhat united agenda, if actions and words are to be believed. And they might have a majority, but they can’t seem to bring the CM down to the point of unpopularity and imminent removal. Not yet, at any case. So the war rages on.

I am all for bringing the hidden to light. I am all for questioning the City Council, the CM, the School Committee, and all government transactions; to err on the side of transparency, and to always remain vigilant of cronyism, even with those I support. What I don’t accept is the idea of making up a nonexistent issue, so that the GOB faction has something to run on.

If this is all you got, guys, it’s pretty damn lame.

[Filed under Local politics, City Council] [link]

7 Responses to “Makes Me Wonder”

Elizabeth Says:
June 16th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Actually Lynne the point of my post was not at all to “bring the CM down”. Quite honestly, I think he’s doing a good job and given our current financial crisis, I think it would be a big mistake for any of the councilors to try and get rid of him now. However, I do have an issue w/him not disclosing his close friendship w/ the owners of the ambulance company that is currently contracted to service the city. This is where the “cronyism” comes in…more on that later.
Lynne Says:
June 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
1) You might want to actually click on who I linked to, which was “A Concerned Citizen.” Unless you want to admit you posted under two different names? The IPs were different so I assume not but it still could be the case.

2) you had the silliest statement on that thread. “Ironically enough I was in city hall just last week and ran into the owners of Trinity EMS, so you know what, it was done “behind closed doors, without the input of others.” ”

Like I just posted in that other thread, are they now supposed to meet in a hallway? I mean, come on.
Shalloteer Says:
June 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Psssst… ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for, move along’
waittilnextyr Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 7:35 am
The council majority appears to have singled out Mr. Sheehan in their budget “deliberations”. With his charge to reduce costs through eliminating the least effective positions, he apparently crossed the good old boy line. Being singled out for the only cut in a nearly $300M budget, it appears that some of the councilors may have also crossed the line on Plan E restrictions on interference with personnel matters, no matter how else they may try to justify their actions.
K-R-S Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 8:51 am
waitil, I wondered the same thing. thought they could only vote it up or down.
Mr. Lynne Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 9:17 am
From Lowellma.gov:

Section 107. Neither the city council nor any of its committees or members shall direct or request the appointment of any person to, or his removal from, office by the city manager or any of his subordinates, or in any manner take part in the appointment or removal of officers and employees in that portion of the service of said city for whose administration the city manager is responsible. …Any member of the city council who violates, or participates in the violation of, any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or both, and upon final conviction thereof his office in the city council shall thereby be vacated and he shall never again be eligible for any office or position, elective or otherwise, in the service of the city.

I’m guessing that they can ‘defund’ a position by their budgetary powers, but I doubt they can direct a defunding effort at a specific position. This appears to be what they’ve done (or at least have attempted to do). I’m also guessing that the cut can only be to the department and not the specific position, and that the CM can absorb the cut however he sees fit administratively.

Even so, I think the CC is specifically prohibited for singling out a position cut in this case, and it’d be hard to argue that’s not exactly what they did here, whatever their budgetary powers.

Someone in the minority of the council needs to request a solicitor opinion, I think.
In The Know Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Lynn….do us all a favor and answer the questions, please refer bto my latest reply regarding the hotly debated 2110 Budget debate….and in the meantime….stop chasing ghosts

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June 16, 2009

Makes Me Wonder

7 Responses to “Makes Me Wonder”

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