Left In Lowell

Searching For A Mayor With “Clout.”

12 Responses to “Searching For A Mayor With “Clout.””

1. Lynne Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 1:03 pm

   Gee, I’m shocked that the first 90 people MacDonald talked to want to get rid of Bernie Lynch. /snark

   Because we all know what sort of 90 people he began talking to…

   Hey, if he wants to start this little endeavor of his in a bubble, he’s in for a rude awakening, I think.

2. Lynne Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 1:14 pm

   At least the article couches it in such as way as to sort of hint that these 90 people were self-selecting…there’s not many people who would take the time to bother to contact him if they were on the other side of the issue, would they?

   There are a lot of negatives with a strong mayor election system. For one, you are electing a politician who may or may not have the skills to manage a huge budget, negotiations with unions, etc. It didn’t work out so well when we had a politician in the CM position (John Cox), so what makes it so much better to go out and guarantee you’ll get a politician instead of a person with muni management experience running things??

   It seems to me that to make a strong mayor system work, we’d need a MUCH bigger admin staff to support that. Since you need to overcome the inadequacies inherent in voting in a politician at the top of the administration. Costing the city a lot more.

   Also, I agree with Murphy, one advantage of the weak mayor system is that you do not have the nasty infighting (nasty even as compared to our cultural level of infighting in Lowell!) between the Mayor’s office and the Council. There’s a major turf battle inherent in that system - look at Menino and his Council in Boston. Can we really afford more pissing contests than we already have?

   No, even with its flaws (and all systems have ‘em), I have really liked the weak mayor/city manager system. Even notwithstanding the mistakes of hiring people like Cox for what is supposed to be a technocratic non-political position.

   What I wish MacDonald was focused on (and of course, his end game is NOT about increased participation or fairness, really, anyway) was thinking about how to get more people invested in voting and participation, like mixed districts/at-large, or some other form of boosting the voices of the underserved and underrepresented areas of the city.

3. C R Krieger Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 1:50 pm

   Well, truth in advertising, I have talked to John and am skeptical of a strong mayor.   Isn’t that what Lawrence has?  On the other hand, per Sunday’s NYT it takes $503K to be in the 1% in Lawrence and “only” about $335k in Lowell.  Who knew they were doing so well over there?

   Re Lynne’s last para, above, what about bi-cameral, like in the old days, one at large and one by districts (neighborhoods).

   Regards  —  Cliff

4. Lynne Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 2:22 pm

   Well I was thinking along the lines of divide up the seats to some at large and some district (4 at large and 5 district maybe?), but yeah.

   The nice thing about a mix of at-large and district is that you are guaranteed that all areas of the city are represented, but you avoid the problem that they claimed to have in the old days of Councilors only caring about their own section of the city. Some Councilors would technically have gotten their votes from all over. (Though we all know the reality of where at-large candidates tend to come from, and what votes they are really courting.)

5. Tim Little Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 2:57 pm

   Hey, if Plan E is good enough for Cambridge (and Worcester) it’s good enough for Lowell. There are just too many potential political pitfalls going back to a ’strong mayor’ city government.

6. Lowell Resident Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 3:25 pm

   I just find it interesting this guy who is a “blow-in” from Chelmsford, who works in Lawrence, decides after 10 years he wants to be involved in local politics, fundraises (and spends) a ton of money, finishes 13th and now all of a sudden wants to change the rules in the City of Lowell? (And yes I am biased against Chelmsford, so be it, I admit it, I embrace it.) Maybe I am mistaken, but to my knowledge, he was never actively involved in the community before his city council run. Now I’m sure I’m going to get some flak for pulling the blow-in card, but there are certain times when its relevant. For 99% of the issues, I welcome all voices, including Mr. Macdonald, and in general I do support anyone who wants to make the city better. The issue I have is when people want to come into town without respect of the past. If somebody wasn’t in Lowell during their high school years (or worse, was in Lowell but went to private school) I don’t put as much stock in their opinion when they want to turn our historic high school into a shopping mall. So its a situation like that. And the fact that he’s not originally from Lowell has a lot less meaning to me than the fact that he simply has never seemed to volunteer or do anything for the sake of community before running for council. I think in Lowell, you need to pay your dues, be active in trying to make the city better without searching for the glory of being an elected official.

   Lynne, again on this issue, I agree with you, but my only quibble is that I wonder if sometimes we have to remind you that Lowell did exist before the time you moved into town. John Cox was an awful city manager and a politician, but there were a lot of other politicians turned CM throughout the years that weren’t half bad. Either way, I support the current city manager for the most part (aside from his assault on collective bargaining) and wouldn’t want to change to en elected mayor. But to think that a Steve Panagiotakos type couldnt handle the city manager job just because he had a past career in government is foolish. At the same time, Bud Caulfield was a mayor twice and as much as he was great for some things, we wouldnt want him to be a strong mayor. I just don’t want it to be another Cox bad, Lynch good, because its not that simple. But at the end of the day, if ain’t broke don’t fix it.

7. Lynne Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 3:47 pm

   I don’t mind if someone suddenly decides to further contribute to our great city, no matter where they are from, how long they’ve been here, and where they work. It happens. Even someone who has not volunteered much before or whatever. Changes of heart can happen, changes in schedule can happen.

   However, someone who appears to have a different agenda than merely serving, as it appears this case is, that bothers me. It feels pretty apparent from the manner in which his campaign was waged, the issues he put out, etc, that this really isn’t about serving as a Councilor or changing the charter to help the city, not *really* anyway. It’s sort of like Elliot and the Mayorship. It’s not that I don’t think he should be mayor, even though I think at best he would be meh, worst he would actually do some damage - it’s that he wants it so bad, he’s willing to pander, flipflop, and bullcrap his way to it.

   LR - on the whole pol-turned-CM, I agree it *can* go well. And *has* gone well. It has also gone very, very bad. But a Mayor situation, well, you won’t see a technocrat like Lynch, or the Cambridge CM, or others in their field, RUNNING for the mayor job. In other words, a true technocrat will likely not ever be in the position to be in charge.

   I do admit though that my actual experience is limited to the time since I’ve moved to Lowell.

   By the way I do not think Panagiotakos would make a good CM. He’s smart enough, certainly. But I do not like his attitude with regards to the GOB mentality. The one thing a CM needs is to be totally fair and he’s interfered often enough on behalf of his personal loyalties, when he should not have, to disqualify him in my eyes.

8. Right In Lowell Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 4:19 pm

   McD only wants to help his boss get a foothold into the city so he’d have the political clout he enjoys in Lawrence. Panagiotakos or Murphy would be disastrous CM’s. The GOB network would run the city into the ground… who you know, never what you know.

9. Christopher Says:
   January 17th, 2012 at 5:04 pm

   To be honest I’m not sure why we wouldn’t want a chief executive accountable to the people. We wouldn’t want a Governor simply hired for an indefinite term by the General Court or a President likewise hired by Congress, would we?

10. Lowell Resident Says:
    January 17th, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    http://www.lowellsun.com/election/ci_19029706

    Candidate John MacDonald
    10.Would an elected strong mayor form of government serve Lowell better than the present Plan E government setup giving the council the authority to hire a city manager?

    No. I believe in the Plan E form of Government and believe in having a professional city manager handling the administration of the city. A Plan E Government is the best continued direction for Lowell.

    What changed?

11. Lynne Says:
    January 17th, 2012 at 6:06 pm

    Ooooooooh. NICE catch, LR. Wow!

    And what changed? It’s called, “pandering.”

12. Joe Says:
    January 19th, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    Rodney Elliott has a lot nerve with ethics and conflicts at the LHA.
    1. Voted to confirm Bob McMahon, knowing he had 2 nephews already working at LHA

    2. Voted to confirm Buddy Flynn whose son Gary already works at the LHA

    3. And voted to confirm for the past 16yrs other board members, while his brother in law works there, And his father in law scored hundreds of thousands dollars in construction works.

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