Left In Lowell

I have more questions than answers. My Socratic muse drives me.

- Are the terms now public? Some of the terms were shared on WCAP. Was that a “breach” or a “Press Release.”

- The SC and UTL leadership have come to terms. Those terms must be disclosed to the membership for an up or down vote. If the rank and file can know the terms, why can’t we? Or, can we?

- If one term is 1.5% pay raise to start “immediately”, if they hit June of 2012 with no long term accord; does the current contract come back or has the SC just handed the membership a floor of 1.5%? I’m going to guess that the deal reached, if accepted by the membership, will exist in perpetuity until a 2012 deal is struck. Or 2013, 2014 …..

- Will the UTL now turn its attention on the City Manager and City Council? Really, how could UTL leadership bind its membership to a long term deal without having the “bookends” set on their health care costs?

- Did the SC miss an opportunity to stake the UTL down on wages, allowing potential health care savings to come back to taxpayers?

- Does the City Council really think they will get to play with savings on the School side, captured by “plan design,” as they see fit? Like give it back to the taxpayers?

The SC is not coached by Bill Belechick. The UTL has a better game plan. I’m not going out on a limb to say this punt was the best play available, for both sides.

Now we turn to Bernie Lynch and the importance of the City Council election.

Update: I’m rescinding my football metaphor and substituting a golf ball. Did the School Committee chip it forward into the rough, the fairway or deeper into the woods? You play the ball where it lays.

Are you sick of hearing them promise to not raises your taxes? Knowing damn well that promise is empty? Are you sick of listening to them praise the CM’s “fiscal” prowess, while pledging to subvert it?

Two week, folks. Two weeks!

The CM had his say in May 2011. Then he shut up. The “read my lips” crowd has been flapping their lips, pretty much since. Though, thankfully, some didn’t bother speaking until September. They must have gotten rest orders from “Doctor Summeroff.” :v/

Back in May:

.. Over the last month, City Manager Lynch and CFO Tom Moses have made the rounds of Neighborhood Group meetings across the City to provide an opportunity for residents to gain a better understanding of what is considered when preparing the City’s budget as well as the challenges unique to FY 12. The presentation, which has been well received, has provided a platform for residents to have their questions answered and to raise discussion around topics from property tax to city service levels. The last series of slides which illustrate the challenge presented in identifying cuts from the limited amount of discretionary budget dollars has been of particular interest to residents. …

Here is some video I recorded of his budget presentation at our CNAG meeting. Skip to 4:20, if you want red meat.

(more…)

The Sun has an article about the school committee-teacher contract negotiations. I have a few things to say about it.

First, the reported rejection of the school committee’s offer. Look, I am sympathetic of the fact that the teachers have gone without a cost of living raise (just step increases) for the more than two years there has been no contract. It’s not fair, and it’s frustrating I am sure. Teachers work hard, and should be compensated like professionals. Their job is so important to a strong community.

However, I think asking for too much right now forces the school committee to choose between raises, and JOBS. Chapter 70 money is merely level-funded right now, if even that, and the city can hardly afford to greatly increase their part of the school budget, given the amount of local aid from the state. Medical insurance and other expenses are going up, up, up. This eats into the budget every year. We’re in a serious downtown for heaven’s sake! People are getting laid off right, left, and center in both the private AND the public sector. Why doesn’t this reality sink in? Accept a modest forward-going raise that kicks in over time so the school committee can feel confident they can fund it, or watch colleagues get laid off!!

I am a public and private union sympathizer, but Paul Georges sometimes make it VERY hard for me to sympathize with the teacher’s union and their demands. This isn’t the first time that’s happened. I know his job is to be a hard ass, but enough is enough.

However, that is not the only outrage in that article, and now we come to the real reason for this post. From the article (important part in bold):

As contract negotiations continue behind closed doors between the School Committee and United Teachers of Lowell, one School Committee member tells The Sun that union leaders refused a 3 percent raise offered by the committee this week.

“They are sharks,” said the committee member, who agreed to speak anonymously because negotiations are protected by executive-session privilege. “We have really extended ourselves with the best offer we could make, but it is not enough for them.”

Who the goddamned hell broke executive session rules to comment on the rejection in the first place??

I would like to see that person LOSE the upcoming election. What. An. IDIOT. We NEED to know who that person is.

Of course, the Sun went to Paul Georges for a reaction to the anonymous comment, which included a very incendiary “they are sharks.”

If you thought the negotiations have been grueling, unproductive, and contentious up til now, just wait. Thanks to this stupid farking anonymous School Committee member, the teachers now have an excuse to be even more pissed off. And rightly so. The rules of negotiation were violated by one party. This is not negotiating in good faith. Haven’t we had enough public personnel fights fought in the pages of the Lowell Sun (the former Superintendent) to be smart enough to refrain from this sort of ethical lapse?

My god. If we do not find out what elected moron commented and leaked executive session negotiations, then we need to concentrate on ousting all the incumbents we can and replacing them with all the challengers running. Even though I am a supporter of some of the incumbents.

If I were the rest of the School Committee, I would publicly come out and state they were not the leak, so by process of elimination, we can figure out who was. Sure, there’s a chance someone might lie about it, but if we continue to have elected officials undermining delicate negotiations, I am ready with the pitchfork of my vote to retire them posthaste. And you should be too.

Yesterday, the lower body of the Massachusetts state legislature passed the casino gambling bill. Yesterday, we took a step closer to allowing predatory gambling in our state, affecting thousands of families that otherwise would have not been torn apart by gambling addiction. It is a well-documented outcome that within a 50 mile radius of slot parlors and casinos, you increase the level of addiction. Proximity to slots means new addicts.

There has not been a true cost-benefit study, nor will there be. The proponents constantly cite job numbers and state revenues, stats which come direct from the casino lobbyists and their paid consultants. We have never heard of the estimated costs associated with predatory gambling in our backyard - such as mitigating increased crime rates (and there will be increased crime, and from the unlikeliest of people). Affecting public institutions, churches, nonprofits, and small businesses especially.

In CT, a state-commissioned study showed that the rate of embezzlement has gone up 10 times the national average there.

Among other associated costs (such as the millions needed to create an oversight agency), is the loss of state revenues from other sources which are taxed, as some people spend their discretionary monies on slots and gambling instead of other goods and services. There’s only so many ways to slice the pie. You can’t create more pie matter out of thin air.

The costs only go up over time. A decade from now, the number of addicts who commit crimes to support their habit, tear their families apart, and/or require addiction services from the state will only go up. Businesses in the vicinity of a casino may well not be able to compete and shut down. Cultural institutions closest to CT already have a hard time attracting the best acts to their stages, and this will also spread and worsen. This won’t happen all in the first year the casinos begin operating. But over the next two decades we’ll see increased effects from the life-sucking casinos and slot parlors.

Casino proponents say that you get increased tourism when you open a casino. This is only true if every state doesn’t already have one. We will not pull people from NV, or CT, or PA, or RI, or anywhere where else gambling is already accessible, with our shiny new casinos. This is a false hope and gets more false with every new state that adds casinos. We’d be better off focusing on our historic and cultural offerings to attract more visitors.

They say we’ll be adding jobs. But that is finite, the jobs are mostly low-paying, and the numbers they cite are usually overblown.

Think about your disposable income. You might go out to eat, buy a new couch, or go the the movies. Each one of these things supports a whole host of services and goods (farmers, small business owners, chefs, fabric companies, woodworkers, gaffers, costume designers, camera operators). Now, decide whether or not you can afford to buy a couch, or lose a thousand at a casino. What does the casino income support? A few paltry (mostly low paying) service jobs locally, a trickle to the state, and the rest pulled out of the state but not to support other producers - no, the bulk of the money goes straight to the pockets of the casino profiteers. Casinos are empty calories, like the guy who consumes a 2-liter bottle of Coke a day, is 50 lbs overweight, and wondering why.

Never mind the questionable morality and sustainability of the state being in the position of needing to create more gambling addicts to raise funds for schools. Studies show that at least 50% of the profits a casino makes are from the problem gamblers. That means 50% of the state revenues we get from casinos is sucked from people who cannot help gambling and will do so until they destroy their own lives and the lives of others. And slots, in particular, are rigged to make them particularly addictive (similar to adding chemicals to cigarettes to increase their addictiveness).

Casinos are going bankrupt and losing money in many states. States with casinos have huge budget problems as those revenues go into the tank, whereas Mass, with its infrastructure and high-level industry investments (such as in green and biotech) has seen amazing job and economic growth compared to other states. And we want to tie our future to those same gambling stars? Connecticut just raised sales and use taxes this summer to patch their big budget deficit. Oh yes, those casinos saved CT from economic ruin. (That’s sarcasm. Revenues for CT’s casinos are dropping alarmingly.)

So in sweeps DeLeo and his race track slot parlor mentality. And he begs, borrows, and twists arms to get enough votes to pass a bill includes a racino (an element that sank the last gambling bill in the Senate). But this time, closed door compromises between the Senate president, House Speaker, and Governor Patrick all but ensure there’s no hope now in the Senate, unless we see an upset.

Of course, we expect such short-sighted voting from some of our elected officials, such as Rep Tom Golden and Dave Nangle, as they have a history of such. However, my biggest disappointment is reserved for those who at least ought to know better about rosy projections that never have panned out in the past in other states. Who are smart and should be keenly interested in an independent, thorough evaluation before we commit an irreversible act to allow predatory gambling.

Politicians like Governor Deval Patrick, who I know is way smarter than this.

Progressive state reps that I have long supported, like Representative Jen Benson, who was a Yes vote on this bill.

And other progressives around the state, like Rep. Lori Ehrlich of Marblehead.

I call on our new state Senator Eileen Donoghue to vote NO on this casino bill. Donoghue, who is Chair of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, pointed out on Facebook, the other day, a Sun article outlining some meager possible protections for cultural institutions.

I hope this does not mean she is already a “Yes” vote. Senator Donoghue, you are not only Chair of that committee, but you are also on the committees for Community Development and Small Businesses, and Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. I entreat you to look at the casinos bill with your small business, cultural institution, and constituent eyes. Question what you have been told about the revenues for the state and the jobs numbers - look at what is happening to casino states all over the country right now. Understand that allowing casinos comes at a huge cost - not only to our citizens and our economic development, but to our politics, which will be further spoiled by the corruption that comes with the casino lobby parking itself permanently in our state.

Do you want to be noted in history as a person who enabled our state go from the strong economic engine that we are, which invests in its own people and businesses, to a state with many of the serious problems of others, states who thought they could make a quick and easy buck…by gambling? It doesn’t work for the poor schlub who thinks buying a lottery ticket every week is a good retirement plan, and it won’t work for Massachusetts, either.

You can’t make this stuff up. Senator Scott Brown wrote an op ed in the Boston Globe, noting that in after the 2001 dot-com crash, Massachusetts got itself out of recession with spending cuts and no tax hikes (bold added):

In 2001 to ’02, the bursting of the technology bubble hit the Massachusetts economy hard. Our unemployment rate was growing faster than any other state in the country, and we faced a fiscal crisis that many experts said was the worst since World War II. The projected deficit for 2003 was nearly $3 billion.

But instead of raising taxes, Democrats and Republicans worked across the aisle: We tightened our belts and balanced the books by cutting spending. It wasn’t easy, but after some tough negotiations and re-setting of priorities, we turned our deficit into a surplus and the economy and jobs started coming back.

Except, “hesterprynne” points out in her post, it isn’t true (bold mine):

A pretty story that neatly coincides with the Senator’s campaign platform. The only problem is that it’s not true. The state did raise taxes on income, capital gains and cigarettes in 2002, increasing revenues by $1 billion.

David, in promoting the diary, also points out that while Scott Brown appears to claim that S&P’s 2005 upgrade of Massachusetts’ credit rating had nothing to do with spending increases (since they didn’t happen according to him) but all because of the cuts, he’s wrong there too. From the op-ed:

In 2005, when S&P upgraded Massachusetts’ credit rating, it cited two key factors: reduced spending and greater budget certainty. Washington needs to do the same thing.

Funny, how that also isn’t true. In fact, that “greater budget certainty” cited had a lot to do with tax hikes (bold mine).

Gov. Mitt Romney lobbied the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s in 2004 to raise his state’s credit rating in part because Massachusetts had raised taxes during an economic downturn two years earlier.

The claim was part of a presentation to the ratings agency obtained by POLITICO under a state freedom of information law from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

(That article is interesting too, how Mitty is using this 2005 upgrade in his stump speech, but arguing for just spending cuts, when in reality the tax hikes had a lot to do with it. Oops, Mittsy!)

Anyway, is there any more proof you need that Scott Brown is an empty suit? Let’s hope the Globe isn’t shy about doing a followup, unless, you know, it wants to get the reputation of misleading its readers by allowing false information to go unchallenged by its op-ed writers. Just sayin’.

If you haven’t already had your “duuuuuh” moment, please watch this. If simple freaking facts can’t sway you, then nothing can, except maybe if god talks to you or something. I’m told he does to Rick Perry.

On Monday, the CM presented to the Centralville Neighborhood Action Group (CNAG), a slide show of the 2012 budget process. The slides presented can be viewed HERE.

Fortunately, I attended that meeting and brought along my trusty “shaky cam.” This will allow you to receive “the talk” that goes with the slides. The whole thing is just over an hour. So, below I have posted Part 1, fully embedded, and have links to the six following parts. Each part is, as YT makes me, under 10 minutes.

So, please, enjoy.

CM’s Budget Brief Part 2

CM’s Budget Brief Part 3

CM’s Budget Brief Part 4

CM’s Budget Brief Part 5

CM’s Budget Brief Part 6

CM’s Budget Brief Part 7

Folks, this is important stuff. We are this much closer to really knowing where the hell our money goes.

Facebook has delivered another nugget. Embedded is Mara Dolan’s interview of Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian. The video runs just short of 24 minutes. Definately enough to give you a sense of the Sheriff.

An interesting point, the Sheriff is talking up a women’s facility for Middlesex County. Currently, women prisoners are sent to Framingham. Koutoujian is convinced of the need, but is unsure how to secure the funding.

I’m going to take a bigger bite of this tomorrow and delve in. Tonight I’m sorta zoofed out from a 4:40am start. But, I wanted to get this up for your viewing pleasure.

I really like to use Facebook. That may not shock you, denizens of the blogscape or “Boggers” as Armand Mercier calls us, but suffice to say FB is often scoffed. Scoffed as a frivolous fad, and it may be. For me, however, it acts as a news aggregator. My “friends” on FB are mostly fellow polinerds. So my “wall” is a constant stream of videos, editorials, jokes and rants. My best “friends” can ball all those things together. ;v)

This morning, I found this: New Jersey Must Return $271 Million Spent on Hudson Tunnel, U.S. Insists

..
On Friday, the Transportation Department flatly rejected the state’s arguments for refusing to repay $271 million that was spent on a project, canceled last year, to build a pair of rail tunnels under the Hudson River. The message to Gov. Chris Christie was blunt: Repay now or we will collect the debt the hard way. Plus interest.
-snip
When federal transportation officials demanded that New Jersey repay money already spent on the project, Mr. Christie hired Patton Boggs, a Washington law firm, to challenge that demand. The lawyers, who reportedly have billed the state and New Jersey Transit about $800,000, argued that the state stopped the project because of unforeseen costs that were beyond its control. …

So Gov.Christie has found a conservative principle upon which he can crawl atop and strike a curious pose. Curious, I maintain, because of the unemployed construction workers languishing on “the dole,” skyrocketing fees to DC law firms and reported $50,000/day interest charges on the unpaid debt that is claim by DOT. Damn, Gov. Christie! That adds up to a lot of teachers, cops and firefighters.

If just the $50,000/day was considered, you could envision a line of NJ low salary workers walking out on a plank. Each day, one worker would step off into oblivion. How long that line is, is up to Gov.Christie and his principles.

I say this because locally we are faced with decisions to create our city and school budgets. Please consider, as our elected folks strike curious poses, what the hell the consequences will be.

I get a ton of junk email. A lot of it is real spam, which elicited a real need to install a good spam filter - and thank goodness, it works pretty well.

Some junk email is, however, from lists I either signed up for or, more often, get put on for being a blogger. In other words, political junk. Which is different from being a political junkEE.

Most of the time I just delete ‘em. It’s usually pretty obvious that it’s a solicitation for donations, or the standard responses to whatever thing is happening in the news. There are only a few pols whose news or newsletters I enjoy getting - like my fave state Senator Jamie Eldridge or Rep. Jen Benson. They also send out updates that are more substantive, actually writing out a nice newsletter on policy, not just spitting out some talking points about X, Y or Z. I also get the releases from the Patrick administration, another set of policies I like to keep on top of.

Then there’s the unsolicited political spam, that might catch my eye, and not in the way the sender would like…like Grace Ross updates. Yes, she’s still sending them out. I got one today, in fact, with the amateurish subject line, “TestPreGovBudget.” (Presumably the email itself was meant to be a test but went out anyway, or else they failed to clear out a previous test email’s subject line after an actual test.)

The email meanders around attacking Gov. Patrick’s proposed budget, for not being progressive enough (though I gotta wonder where she thinks the Gov is going to get the money for her priorities). It has some seriously questionable grammar like (and this is meant to be a direct quote from Ross:

“We have to look at this budget through a practical, un-spun lens. Economic analyses tell us that 70% of our economy is the economic activity and spending of people – mostly the regular people who spend every dollar to get by.” …

Un-spun lenses eh? Hmm. Anyway, she has one valid point buried in there, questioning how we use tax breaks to entice companies (a question, by the way, that is merely parroting someone else who has been out front on this issue - Senator Eldridge, whose district Evergreen Solar is abandoning), but instead of offering solutions, like say, fixing the way we do these tax break deals, or how she’s going to magically come up with thousands of jobs, she gives a lot of platitudes about it. Useful, that.

But really, I could have cared less about the little press release itself, since it has a lot of the same boring verbiage as all the other political junk I get. Except I happened (no idea how I skimmed that far without hitting delete, but there you are) to read down to the text that is “About the Person” - standard fare for press releases where at the end in italics you talk about the author - and it read:

Grace Ross, often referred to as the only “real one”, the “only one who made sense” during her runs for governor, will be to comment on and analyze the Governor’s budget.

The only real one? Really? This arrogant self-reference is the start of your press release bio?? But it gets funnier.

In 2007, working with others, she publicly predicted the crash of the world economy because of the sub-prime lending crisis, and when the Evergreen Solar investment was first announced she called out its likely failure. Her incisive analysis continues to foreshadow policy mistakes and point the way to real solutions. As more details and analysis come out in the following days, she will be available for talk show appearances and interviews.

Anyone want to find her predictive crystal balling over Evergreen or the economy? Love to see it. She must be precognitive! But that last sentence…well. If you had any inkling of this not being all about Grace Ross, toss that idea right off the side of the boat. Anyone else feel like this has a hint of Palinesque self-aggrandizement?

I once respected Grace Ross highly, back in her first run for Gov, as a G-R party member. She had some good things to say and kept the debate honest from the left side of things. But she has continually become more shrill, and less coherent, as time has worn on. Far from appearing like a fabulous public servant who just wants to help, she comes across as an attention seeker who has become increasingly desperate. Heaven forbid that I give that attention to her, but I found this whole email just rife with smugness and condescension. If you want attack a policy, of course you have that right. I just question your wisdom in the manner you chose to do it.

Ms. Ross, I recommend you start taking a page out of Senator Eldridge’s book - read his writings on this subject, like this op-ed “Evergreen Solar: Learning from Our Mistakes,” for example. It is a not-shrill, even-handed critique of a subject near and dear to his heart. Of course, Eldridge was happy when the jobs came to Devons in his district, but now is very unhappy with their short stay there. He of all people has an electoral stake in fixing the problem. He offers solutions, like making sure future tax deals have clawbacks. He’s not shrill, he’s not overwrought. But he is intelligent, thoughtful, and interested in working with everyone and anyone he can to fix it.

The impression I get from your weird little press release is that you have nothing but attacks to offer, and are really most interested in getting your name into the papers or on TV. Or blogs, I guess, if that’s all you can get.

Well, here you go, then. And…maybe this little post will result in getting taken off at least one junk political email list…I can only hope.