Left In Lowell

Maybe by now you have read the offering from Lowell’s “Blogger in Chief?”

It starts out in a rather pedestrian tone:

Executives at the U.S. National Park Service and the Lowell National Historical Park are for preservation, period.

It is their single-minded job to preserve what they consider to be national landmarks and significant articles of value that promote their cultural, historical and educational mission.

They do a good job.

But, Campi quickly turns to set up a conflict. Not so much between the Park Service and Enel, but more between Lowellians that respect history and those whose lives are turned upsidedown when the Merrimack floodwaters come:

The Park Service wants to keep the flashboards on the Pawtucket Dam because they represent early 20th century history — not because it is a good way to regulate the Merrimack River’s waterflow.

Enel North America wants to install a technologically advanced balloon crestgate system at a cost of $6 million. At the push of a button, Enel would be able to control the water’s height, produce more electricity, and increase profits.

Enel says the system would also help control flooding issues in the Pawtucketville flood plain where 12 to 15 Lowell homes are at risk of severe damage during storms.

(Bold mine.)
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Too big to bargain?

Public sentiment strongly favors union negotiations to be held in the open, with the terms disclosed to the public. During campaign season, candidates ensure the voters that they will push for more transparency. Yet, nothing happens.

Things are starting to happen around Lowell. Now is the time for the Lowell School Committee to force the issue.

DRACUT — Contract talks between the Dracut Teachers Association and School Committee were derailed last week when the School Committee asked to hold future bargaining sessions with the DTA in public, according to representatives from both sides.

At a scheduled bargaining session between the teachers union and School Committee held Tuesday at the central school offices on Lakeview Avenue, the School Committee’s attorney, Ed Morris, made a request “to enter conversation with the DTA to ask to have the negotiations go public,” said Dracut Teachers Association President Linda Dugan.

I’m going to give Dracut an “A” for sentiment, but a “D” for tactics. This attempt is flawed, as the School Committee has already begun negotiations. The “ground rules” are already established.

Westford School Committee tried it another way:

The School Committee has repeatedly been asked to supply the public with details of our negotiations with the teachers union. During the course of formal negotiations the sharing of negotiation details with the public about the offers was prohibited. After formal negotiations ended, the committee accepted the advice of the state mediator from the Division of Labor Relations, not to disclose the details of the offers over the course of the mediation with the Westford Education Association as the best process to reach an agreement. On Feb. 28, 2012, an agreement on the terms of a successor contract was reached with the negotiating team authorized to represent the teachers. This agreement was rejected by the teachers union members at a ratification vote on March 16, 2012. Therefore, in an effort to inform, we have put together the following explanation of the agreement reached on Feb. 28, including requests made by the teachers’ negotiating team that were not agreed to.

I like Westford’s approach better. This School Committee leveled the awareness of the public. Considering that the rank and file of the Westford teachers union knew the details, why should the general public not?

Ultimately, these matters need to be worked out when the negotiation ground rules are set. Transparency must be ensured before the negotiating parties begin to bargain.

If the Unions refuse ….. ? Well, they just got 3% and the sunset provision allows them to ride that for a good long time. At some point, they’ll come back. We have to give the School Committee the fortitude to be firm on this point.

This won’t be easy, folks. As voter turnout dwindles, union votes will be coveted by shallow candidates.

So often, I hear the Bernie Bashers spinning yarns of Lynch escaping to Cambridge. Well, I better get used to it!

Cambridge — Robert Healy’s over 30 year tenure running the city of Cambridge as its city manager will come to an end a little over a year from now.

“I will be 70 years old in August of ’13, not that I’m going to stop working,” Healy said in a brief interview after the City Council voted to extend his contract for another year. “We won’t be here next January talking about the same thing.”

Healy said he would not reconsider his decision to retire but thought staying on while the City Council looks for someone else to take the helm “made a lot of sense.”

Healy’s contract will end on June 30, 2013.

Maybe the Council should give Lynch a new 5 year contract, this year?
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PRESS RELEASE
March 18, 2012

Mayor Patrick Murphy is pleased to announce the hiring of Captain Greg W. Page as the Mayor’s Assistant. Page, who lives in Lowell, recently returned from a ten-month tour in Afghanistan to his wife Ratriey and one-year old daughter Lily. Awarded a Bronze Star for his meritorious work in support of a Commanding General overseeing eleven bases in Kabul, he also served three tours in Iraq as an Intelligence Officer in the Navy. Greg is a graduate of Stanford University, holds a Masters of Education from Harvard University, and has been accepted to the Sloan School of Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Captain Page brings a keen intellect, strong work ethic, energy, and unique experience to the position. He will begin work Monday on efforts to modernize the Mayor’s office, improve the budgeting process, proactively expand outreach to residents and businesses, and plan long-term projects and policy initiatives that will further the city’s progress. His skills-set fits well with many of the Mayor’s major priorities of strengthening public education, entrepreneurship and community engagement, among others. He has been an active member of the Lowell Downtown Neighborhood Association and is a founding member of the Greater Lowell Global War Veterans Group. A talented writer, Page’s ability to communicate extends beyond English to include Indonesian, Spanish, French and basic Khmer. He joins intern Gordon Halm, a resident of Centralville and UMass Lowell graduate student, in the front office.

On his choice for the position, Mayor Murphy noted, “We have but a short period of time to make the biggest positive impact possible. I expect Greg will make significant contributions to the office during his tenure and will ultimately leave it in better shape for our city’s future and its future mayors.”

UPDATE: From WCAP Radio Replay - The mayor discusses the controversial changes in his office

The idea of war illicts a wide range of reactions. Today, we have forces abroad, as we have in the past. In the past, there were times when most of our service members were here, stationed stateside. CONUS, as we called it in my day.

Whether you agree with our nation’s past and/or current policies, or not, it is likely the words, “Support Our Troops” have crossed your lips. My wish is that you know that those serving, and their families, have answered a call to duty. They deserve our deepest gratitude, free of partisan bias. For they give, in honorable, yet simple terms. They go where we send them. They do what is asked. For that, they have earned our support. Further, I believe, we must honor the sacred trust until they are laid to rest.

My belief in this sacred trust leads me to fully support efforts like this:

Had to bring this up because, y’know, I hate poor people and immigrants. Oh, throw in kittens while you’re at it. JACK HATES KITTENS!!!!!

LOWELL — In order to help fulfill its pledge to keep Westminster Village largely affordable housing, the new owner of the 432-unit apartment complex on Pawtucket Boulevard is offering cash incentives for some of the higher-income residents to move out.

Westminster Preservation, L.P., which was able to acquire and rehab the apartment complex with a $45 million loan from MassHousing last year, sent letters early last month to residents offering to pay them $5,000 in a one-time cash payment, plus $1,000 in moving expenses, if they leave Westminster by the end of March.

To be eligible, residents’ income had to be above 60 percent of the area median income.
-snip

One of the stipulations of the MassHousing loan was that 412 of the 432 apartments remain affordable to low-income persons. The owner pledged to keep the other 20 units market rate.
To help meet that low-income requirement, the owner secured a 20-year renewal and extension of the Section 8 housing-assistance payment contract at the property from HUD. The federal agency provides funding for Section 8 tenants — who are low-income, elderly and disabled — to live in privately owned facilities.

Lowell is treading water this way. Maybe we would go under without it?

As part of his usual Sunday Notes, Gerry wrote:
When you are an elected official people see what you do and when you receive public benefits like a car and insurance it seems disingenuous to criticize others who receive a legal benefit.

I replied:

Gerry,
You seem so sure that the GLTHS committee folks take healthcare bennies legally.

I’m not convinced. The MGL:
any person in the service of a governmental unit … , and who receives compensation for such service or services, whether such person be employed, appointed or elected by popular vote.

The GLTHS committee receives no stipend, aka “compensation.” Thus, they are not by definition an “employee” and, accordingly, not eligible for bennies.

Both the Lowell CC & SC receive pay checks from the City of Lowell. They are “employees” of the City. Those that take HC bennies and participate in the fringe benefit package have pretax witholdings drawn from their checks. This makes sense, as many Americans receive employer provided HC and have the deductions taken, pre-tax.

How does a GLTHS committee person pay for their burden of the HC cost. Which may be up to ,,, 25%? Do they write a check payable to GLTHS? Kinda like a COBRA arrangement?

If the premium is $1000. The “not employee” is responsible for $250+/-. Who at GLTHS handles this transaction?

Also, if a GLTHS committee person takes the bennies, wouldn’t it be fair to say that they are getting an untaxed stipend of $750+/- per month. Approximately, $9000/year. TAX FREE?

As C. Elliott is fond of saying, ‘I’m just asking a question.’

PS. Likely a non-GIC family plan is approximately $1700. Adjust accordingly.

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In case you’ve missed it the last couple of weeks, Scott Brown has mysteriously found his line in the sand to wrap his reelection around, and it’s by signing on as a cosigner to the Blunt amendment, which reads (bold mine so we can remark on it later):

A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) … on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because— (i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or (ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.

Let’s evaluate this first from a campaign perspective, starting on the flip (this is a long post, but it includes videos!). (more…)

While the backlash over the requiring of transvaginal ultrasounds for abortions in VA has the Governor backing down (now saying he’ll “review the bill in its final format when it comes to him”) and the VA House postponing the bill two days in a row, in Texas, we can already see the results of a similar law, and others.

Just read through this post. Between places like Texas which have already enacted similar legislation, to Idaho outlawing the mere purchase of RU-486 (which is probably unconstitutional), state laws across this country have restricted, outlawed, and put huge burdens on women and their private health care choices, up to and including medically unnecessary vaginal probing.

Unmarried, impoverished and pregnant with her fourth child, McCormack faced the problem so many American women do because nearly 90 percent of the nation’s counties have no clinics or hospitals that will perform abortions. That is an outcome of nearly four decades of attacks by anti-choice forces. For her, the closest clinic was in Salt Lake City, a 150-mile drive. Because Utah requires a waiting period, she would have had to make the five-hour round-trip twice. The expense of the trip, the procedure and follow-up medical care also worried her.

Then she found out from her sister about RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug. Her sister ordered it, and McCormack took the pill as soon as it arrived. It worked. But there were complications that brought the fact of her abortion to the notice of authorities. In Idaho, self-induced abortions are outlawed. Although the original case against McCormack were dismissed last summer, they could be reinstated.

This woman, because her private medical matters became public, is, as Meteor Blades put it, treated in her community like a modern Hester Prynne. This is akin to the sort of bullying Jessica Ahlquist received. Unbelievable.

No woman in the world should vote Republican. Unless, ladies, you want to go return to dangerous back-ally abortions and more unwanted pregnancies due to lack of access to birth control.

Wake up, America. Republicans want to screw you, and then dump you with the consequences.

This resolution under consideration by the state legislature, while symbolic, says in no uncertain terms that the state of Massachusetts wants the issue of the Citizen’s United ruling to be addressed by a constitutional amendment. It was introduced by Senator Eldridge, and is now also co-sponsored by our state Senator Eileen Donoghue. Thank you Senator Donoghue for doing it.

The text of the resolution:

1 WHEREAS, THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
2 WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT THE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS OF PEOPLE, NOT
3 CORPORATIONS;
4 WHEREAS, FOR THE PAST THREE DECADES, A DIVIDED UNITED STATES
5 SUPREME COURT HAS TRANSFORMED THE FIRST AMENDMENT INTO A
6 POWERFUL TOOL FOR CORPORATIONS SEEKING TO EVADE AND INVALIDATE
7 DEMOCRATICALLY-ENACTED REFORMS;
8 WHEREAS, THIS CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT HAS
9 REACHED ITS EXTREME CONCLUSION IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT’S
10 RECENT RULING IN CITIZENS UNITED V. FEC;
11 WHEREAS, THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT’S RULING IN CITIZENS
12 UNITED V. FEC OVERTURNED LONGSTANDING PRECEDENT PROHIBITING
13 CORPORATIONS FROM SPENDING THEIR GENERAL TREASURY FUNDS IN OUR
14 ELECTIONS;
15 WHEREAS, THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT’S RULING IN CITIZENS
16 UNITED V. FEC WILL NOW UNLEASH A TORRENT OF CORPORATE MONEY IN OUR
17 POLITICAL PROCESS UNMATCHED BY ANY CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE TOTALS IN
18 UNITED STATES HISTORY;
19 WHEREAS, THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT’S RULING IN CITIZENS
20 UNITED V. FEC PRESENTS A SERIOUS AND DIRECT THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY;
21 WHEREAS, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE PREVIOUSLY USED
22 THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROCESS TO CORRECT THOSE
23 EGREGIOUSLY WRONG DECISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
24 THAT GO TO THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY AND SELF-GOVERNMENT;
25 NOW BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
26 HEREBY CALLS UPON THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS TO PASS AND SEND TO
27 THE STATES FOR RATIFICATION A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO RESTORE
28 THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND FAIR ELECTIONS TO THE PEOPLE.

Ultimately, the only fix for Citizens United and the last few decades of rulings allowing the intrusion of big corporate money into our politics is a constitutional amendment. No laws that try to do anything substantial about this problem will pass muster with the current Supreme Court - they’ve made it clear that the speech of people with a lot of money is way more important than the speech of everyone else, and more important than a fair democracy free of corrupting influence.

A hearing is scheduled in the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, where the bill is still under review, on February 28.

What I like about this resolution, is that with it, we will know where our state legislators stand on this very crucial issue facing our country.

PS - also posted on BMG.

PPS - here is the bill on the MA legislature website - complete with history of the bill, more current list of cosponsors, and the time and place of the hearing, which is Feb 28 at 1:00 PM in room A-2.