Left In Lowell

I never wanted LiL to be the story. That is why I regret that Councilor Rita Mercier chose to use the City Council meeting to lash out at anonymous commentators on blogs. I think a discussion on this topic is fair and necessary but mixing it up with the election process created confusion.

First and foremost, the great majority of individuals who post on this site our known to our community. Lynne, Kristin, Bob Forrant, Dayne, Kim, Paul, Jack and others. Yes, there are some who choose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons… like their job. I know the great majority of those individuals who post with a pen name. A few, I do not know, i.e. Prince Charming. By the way, why don’t we see such visceral reactions to Backtalk, or the paper’s topix section.

Yes, some comments on this blog as well as the other local ones are at times vicious and personal. But democracy can be ugly sometimes. However, one of its major components, ‘free speech,” gives all of us the opportunity to discredit the comments as well as the commentator.

At the heart of all this public criticism is not the anonymous commentators but the emergence of the blogsphere as a political force in Lowell. No, this has nothing to do with self-importance as I was accused by a commentator recently but an opportunity to discuss my views on the blogsphere and its impact.

In the past couple of years, the Lowell blogsphere (LiL, richardhowe, mrmillicty; jackiedoherty; right-side-of-lowell, the New Englander, lowellshallot) is impacting the public debate (well, maybe not the shallot; just kidding don’t start in on me ). In the past, the selection and advancement of public policy issues was solely in the hands of the City’s two media outlets: the newspaper and the radio station. In effect, a handful of people controlled the flow of information. So if you were a politician, your options were limited. Your rise and fall depended on the whims or agendas of editors and radio hosts. I like to think that the circle of influence and access has been fractured, if not broken.

The internet and blogging, including all the social network sites, have changed all of that. Anyone and everyone [with or without an agenda] who has access to a computer can voice his/her valid or invalid opinions. The message is then read, absorbed, debated, rejected or embraced, and those messages that withstand this scrutiny are then elevated to the larger public forum. The advantage and disadvantage of the internet is that it is almost impossible to control; that is where democracy comes in.

Given a choice between 100’s of people shouting in the public square or 4-5 whispering on the pages of the newspaper and on the airwaves, I will take the former.

I find the current city council majority appalling. I suppose that’s not a secret.

The first thing that comes to mind after watching them violate the spirit, if not the law, of our city charter in firing Sheehan, and now voting to save a few tens of thousand to deny us a charter-required primary if we see more than 18 candidates, is that I wonder just where this concern for the taxpayer was in every other damned meeting this last year?

Voting to cut a single, solitary position from the budget. Voting to kill a primary. They doth protest too much about this being about money in hard times, so much so it’s obvious they know that we know that it just isn’t so. But the real, telling proof of this is the select nature of savings they’ve chosen to champion. My god, do they think the voters are stupid?

C. Armand Mercier told me to my face he didn’t think that eliminating the primary was that much of a disadvantage for the challengers. He’s wrong, so either he’s a) not thought this through or b) lying and preserving his own advantage. Either way, I find that incredibly disturbing. Having a nonthinking city councilor is almost as bad as a compromised one.

How does eliminating the primary disadvantage the challengers? Let me count the ways.

First, there’s the mixing up of the names instead of having the incumbents listed first. This is a huge point and needs to be made again and again.

Then, there’s the fact that having all comers on the general election ballot (instead of narrowing them down to 18) dilutes the anti-incumbent vote, should there be a large segment of the voters who want change. (Like, say, maybe this year?) A voter has only 9 votes, and if these are to be spread among more than 9 challengers, it is harder for any one challenger to make it to the winner’s circle. This is also a very huge disadvantage if we skip a primary. (Dick makes this same point on his own blog - both of us saw this argument independent of each other, by the way.)

Finally, there’s the publicity that a primary can bring. If a challenger does well enough, they will be taken more seriously and a buzz will be created around their campaign. It’ll be easier for them to get news coverage in the paper, on radio, and on blogs. The same dilution factor that exists for the votes exists for news coverage, after all.

The points that argue that a primary disadvantages challengers is far outweighed by these advantages for incumbents if we don’t have a primary. The mixing up of the names randomly is alone worth having our primary. As to a money disadvantage (campaign spending for two elections instead of one) no challenger I have talked to (and I’ve had the privilege of meeting some new faces this week) says they wouldn’t want that challenge. Not only for the sake of their own candidacies and their chances for election, but also for the sake of fairness, and democracy.

To be mocked and derided in breathtaking anger by the majority of city councilors for wanting that…I find this particularly reprehensible.

And then, the fact that this majority chose, instead of raising the number of candidates that would trigger a primary, to eliminate it altogether - so even if 50 people took out papers to run, there’d be no primary - is absolutely disgusting, and is reason enough for our delegation to not push for this Home Rule petition, or - for the Governor to veto it. In fact, you might just want to call the delegation, and the Governor’s office (617.725.4005 or 888.870.7770 in state), to register your opposition.

The public has not had their voice included in this decision, because once again our councilors decided to ask for a waiver via Home Rule instead of a charter change. If they had been so damned concerned about this, why not start the charter change process two years ago when this was brought up, rather than wait, once again, until the last minute, and bypass the voters?

Yes, I hide behind a fake moniker on this website. I hang my head in shame. And Mimi is a total anonymous nickname designed to lull you into a false sense of security.

All the prominent professors and community members who post here, all fake as well. We’ve been fooling you all for years.

Boy, didn’t Rita Mercier give this blog the best. Gift. Ever! at yesterday’s meeting.

The only word I can use to describe this is…unhinged.

On his blog, Dick has a concise report and analysis of yesterday’s City Council vote (5-3) to eliminate this year’s primary in order to save the City about $40,000. He writes:
Whether having a primary helps or hurts

incumbents is open to debate. One argument says a primary can serve as a wake-up call to an incumbent whose support has eroded, providing time to intensify campaign efforts before the final election. A contrary argument says that challengers are the beneficiaries of primary elections. The incumbents are constantly on TV, in the newspaper, and at official events and have an almost infinite opportunity for free media exposure. In contrast, challengers struggle for attention, exposure and, most of all, legitimacy. If the perception is that a challenger has a good shot at winning a seat, then he likely will. And what better way to create that perception than a strong finish in the primary election?

Some of the challengers were in attendance yesterday including Patrick Murphy who addressed the Council. Murphy began his speech by stating:

It is about the democratic process that I wish to speak tonight. There are differing thoughts on whether or not a primary election helps challengers or incumbents; yet this will not change how I campaign, nor is it my chief concern. Instead, what concerns me is the bypassing of our city charter which clearly calls for a primary election in the event that there are more than eighteen candidates.

Here is the clip of his 2 minute speech:

The City Council Rules Sub-Committee will have a meeting next week to begin the process of a Charter change. Hopefully, this will give the voters a chance to be part of the process and we will not need to go through this in 2 years.

Lynne, who attended last night’s meeting, will post on her observations later today.