Left In Lowell

Free Concert - Friday, November 13 at 8:00 pm

Please join us for our “Northern Lights” concert on November 13 at 8:00 pm. at the Pawtucket Congregational Church on 15 Mammoth Road in Lowell. It will be an exciting concert, paying tribute to great composers of the northern latitudes, including Brahms, Prokoviev, Grieg, and Sibelius. The concert also includes the third of our three 2009 Concerto Competition winners (see below).

The concert program is available on our Web site.

The concert is free and no tickets or reservations are required. Free parking is available on the street, in the church lot, and in the bank parking lot across the street. As usual, parking facilitato

This week’s City Council packet contained a 3-page [pages 5 - 7] memo from the City’s Chief Financial Officer, Tom Moses, to City Manager Bernie Lynch regarding the status of the FY 2010 Budget. It is a realistic picture and not a pretty one.

The City Council’s Finance Sub-committee will be holding a meeting soon to discuss the necessary changes that will need to be made in this year’s budget. When it (FY 2010 Budget) was approved back in June, most of us acknowledged that given the economic situation it was a 6-month budget; that it really needed to be reviewed in December.

On the revenue side, the CFO states “that we will be making several adjustments to our original revenue estimates.” In addition to the unrealized revenue that we would have received if we had passed a local meal’s tax, the “original estimates for trash revenue and motor vehicle exercise tax proved too high.” And of course there is the loss of state aid.

The administration will provide the City Council with a revised, estimated revenue and there will be a Finance Sub-Committee meeting scheduled soon to discuss all this. What will the City Council do? They have three choices: increase revenue streams; decrease expenditures or my choice, some of both.

I do not think this City Council or the next one will approve the local meal’s tax. Are there five Councilors who favor establishing a new tax? I do not think so. At least not right now. Maybe once they face crunch time, some may change their mind. Is 0.75% a large amount?. If you were to spend $25 on a meal at restaurant, the additional tax would be 19¢ . Right now there is no political will to establish a new tax in this City, so I think I am in the minority.

Of course, another option would be to raise fees and taxes to the level that would eliminate the deficit. I do not think that will happen either.

So now let’s go to the expenditure side. If the revenues are not there, we will need to decide what service is reduced or eliminated. In his memo the CFO warns that “during the last two to three years we have reduced operating budgets to the point where most departments have difficulty maintaining service levels. The only area we have left to make meaningful reductions is in staffing.”

We, the taxpayers and City employees, will need to give a little bit more or we will all face another round of lay-offs. Of course, if someone has another idea please attend the Sub-Committee meeting and speak up. It will be greatly appreciated.

The Mr. sent me this link, and it’s worth spreading around. Who wouldn’t want to save up to 25% [edit - it takes up to 25% of your energy to heat your water, so you won’t save 25% but a lot of that] of their home energy costs, without the big buildout of solar panels or the look of all that equipment on your roof?

No brainer. If developers were smart, every new home and building with a roof vent and a roof where the sun hits would have this installed. But doing this to your existing home wouldn’t be that hard, either.

You can find more description of yesterday’s event and some photos on the City Manager’s blog. The post takes a much more narrative form than mine, describing the event and some quotes from the speakers.

Jackie posts about the Image Theatre’s 5th Annual Keep Your Kids At Home Naughty Readings night.

The event is tomorrow night, Saturday, Nov 14, upstairs at the Old Court, 29 Central Street, beginning at 8 p.m. Seating is limited, so reserve a $25 ticket by calling 978-441-0102, or $28 at the door (but this event sells out). This is Image Theatre’s big fundraiser night, and as Jackie says, “although the humor is not kid-friendly, it’s definitely not too naughty,” so leave the kids at home and get in some adult laughs! Woefully, I have a prior engagement (all right, it’s RPG night, I don’t give that up for nothin’, not even elections, though this is as tempting a reason to cancel running around medieval Europe in my head as anything!).

PS - if you’re looking for other stuff to do I’ve been trying to enter events into the Event calendar on the lefthand side.

From the Department of Planning and Development:

Please join us for a public meeting to view and comment on the preferred design alternative for South Common.

Thursday evening, November 19th
7 pm to 8:30 pm
At the Pollard Memorial Library (next to City Hall)
401 Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA 01852

Sponsored by the City of Lowell Division of Planning & Development and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Gateway City Parks Program.

For more information, please contact Diane Tradd, Chief Design Planner at 978-446-7200.