Left In Lowell

Some of you who do not subscribe to the Sun, either its paper copy or electronic version or purchase the Sunday edition, do not have had an opportunity to read the Sunday Column. In addition to providing us with some inside information, this static blog provides a lot of political rumors, commentary, spin and jabs.

If it were not for the Column, perhaps we may never had known about the on-going drama between the License Commission and Attorney Michael Zaim who was representing the Lowell bar El Rincon. The great majority of us do not have the opportunity to watch that board’s meetings, but thanks to public access television in general and LTC in particular here is the clip that set off Lowell’s latest political drama. You may need a list of the players as well as a short bio in order to understand the dynamics. Also, all Lowell government meetings, including the Boards, are archived on blip.tv.

The times I have watched the Licensing Commission, I have found Mr. [Walter] Bayliss, Chair, to be pleasant, fair, experienced and knowledgeable. El Rincon, the establishment located at 135 Central Street was facing the Commission because the LPD filed complaints of misconduct charges against for the brawl that took place on April 30th which saw every available Lowell police officer responding to the fight.

Gerry Nutter commented on his blog that he believes this was a delay tactic by Mr. Zaim. If it was, he succeeded. The hearing now will be held sometime in August by then the bar/restaurant may no longer be at that location, the paper also reported that they are having problems with their rent payments and their landlord, “the one and only.”

And as far as Mr. Bayliss is concerned, the City is standing by him and all other commissioners who sit on these kinds of boards, as they should. Any active and committed individual will personally know a number of people who come in front of these boards. I think most of them know when they may be facing a possible conflict of interest and take appropriate action by recusing themselves.

My problems with the membership of these Boards is that the City Manager and the City Council have not been able to actively recruit a wider variety of applicants. I was hoping City Councilor Kevin Broderick’s motion of May 18th asking the CM to “report/recommend on adding alternates to City Boards” would provide the opportunity to bring new faces and new ideas to these Boards.

Back to the Sun’s decision of limiting access to The Column. I still do not think it is a good business decision. I would think it attracts people to their site. Maybe down the road when they will follow the model that is coming next year, newspapers charging for selected content.

But for now, if they do not have the mechanism, I would bring it back. First of all, the electronic archives are non-existent and second, blogs cannot link to it, therefore bringing more traffic to the site and most importantly don’t you want to know what people on topix are saying; well maybe on second thought you don’t.