Browsed by
Category: Local Elections

3rd Congressional, Registrar of Deeds, State Senate, Gov Endorsements

3rd Congressional, Registrar of Deeds, State Senate, Gov Endorsements

All right. It’s time to get off the proverbial fence. There’s other phrases I won’t use about pots and getting off them, but the season is growing short, and time, tide, and primaries wait for no woman. I have no idea what kind of influence this on-again, off-again, sparsely visited little blog still has (or rather its author), but for what it’s worth, this is my official announcement about for whom I plan to vote. And let me say, as…

Read More Read More

Lowell Will Have a Plastic Bag Ban! And, On Leading From the Front

Lowell Will Have a Plastic Bag Ban! And, On Leading From the Front

If plastic bag ban enthusiasts tuned into Lowell City Council last night hoping to have an early evening, you were sorely mistaken. Two motions taken out of order—as described by Dick Howe in his CC report but which does not do any justice to the length of time the first motion out of order took—pushed the Subcommittee reports until, if I remember correctly, after 8:30pm. TBH the softball field thing took twice as long as the marijuana-in-public motion, which is…

Read More Read More

Third District and the Curse of the Open Seat

Third District and the Curse of the Open Seat

The Third Congressional District Democratic primary beat goes on, with 13 Democrats still in the race. More than enough to field a football team, or maybe host a small school dance. This race is more annoying than the ten spam phone calls a day that I get on my landline when I’m working from home. (Been meaning to get rid of that number finally.) Anyway, it’s so crowded and the candidates largely still so unknown, that at 11%, one person,…

Read More Read More

Trans Rights: Get Elliott On The Record

Trans Rights: Get Elliott On The Record

So now we’re in full swing in the state Senate campaign to replace Eileen Donoghue (and boy do I have feelings about this but I will save them for another time). Several candidates are in the running, including two sitting and one former City Councilor in Lowell, among others. But it is one specific person running for the Democratic nomination I would like to address: Councilor Rodney Elliott. First of all, a Democrat? Really?? I’ve been a member of the…

Read More Read More

Mayoral Glitch

Mayoral Glitch

In case you (probably) missed it, the behind-the-scenes mayoral selection (the phone calls, the meetings in the dead of night…erm, sorry, got carried away) just got not so behind the scenes. Yesterday, it appeared that Councilor John Leahy had the votes needed to secure the mayoral honor. (Sun article here, you don’t have to click through.) Those supporting Leahy are Councilors Rodney Elliott, Rita Mercier, David Conway, who was most recently elected to the council, Mayor Ed Kennedy and himself….

Read More Read More

On Democracy in Lowell

On Democracy in Lowell

by Santiago Rodriguez Rey Lynne invited me to participate here regarding the latest elections. But who am I? Well, besides making all those funky looking maps populating the Lowell forum on Facebook casting an eye on the results, let me tell you a couple of things as to give you an idea on who’s writing. I lived exactly two years in Lowell, until December 2015. During that time, I had some radio shows at WUML, UMass’s radio station, and participated…

Read More Read More

The Dumbing Down of Lowell

The Dumbing Down of Lowell

On Lowell Live Feed, an April [2016!] article from Jeff Speck, a highly respected professional city planner who was brought to Lowell to help build long term plans for Lowell’s development, has raised a brouhaha once again. While some off-my-lawn codgers are arguing against bike lanes (especially on Chelmsford St, where not only was that space wasted on the super-wide road, but it’s also the main thoroughfare from the Bruce Freeman Trail into the city), I was especially disgusted by the…

Read More Read More

Things I’m Reading This Week

Things I’m Reading This Week

In a world of soundbites and social media and headlines you don’t even click on (guilty sometimes), I’ve fallen in love with longform journalism. Or as it used to be called: just journalism. I’m that annoying person who will read the entire Mother Jones article, leaving it up in a tab until dammit, I’ve finished the thing! I read a lot of stuff online, and then share it on Facebook when I love it, but then I thought to myself…self,…

Read More Read More

People Making Maps

People Making Maps

So folks are starting to have some fun with the data Wayne posted yesterday (as mentioned in the previous post). In particular, Santiago Rodriguez Rey on Lowell Live Feed has created some precinct maps using shapefiles and that data. (Cue olde blogger griping: “Back in my day, sonny, we didn’t have such things as Google maps or shape files! Get off my lawn!”) Not everyone is or wants to be on LLF, so I got permission to repost the maps…

Read More Read More

Data Nerds, Start Your Engines!

Data Nerds, Start Your Engines!

The esteemed and excellent Wayne J posted an open Google spreadsheet on Lowell Live Feed with the unofficial precinct by precinct election data for all candidates and the referendum (see other tabs there) from Tuesday’s election. (He also posted the ward/precinct map on request.) I am not the numbers person generally, but geek out, nerdlings, to your heart’s content. Of course, even though I’m really the paintbrush, keyboard, and HTML type, I might have a couple observations of snark interest here…

Read More Read More