Left In Lowell

The time looms upon us for the cycle of choosing our Senate candidate for the Democratic party. First stop, the February 18th caucuses in Lowell.

If you are interested in being a Lowell delegate for Warren to the Democratic convention, and in other volunteer opportunities, there’s a meeting Thursday (tomorrow) night, Jan 26, at the Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack St from 7:00-8:30pm. You need to have been registered as a Democrat by the beginning of January to be eligible to be a delegate or to vote at the caucus. Please email Geoff at Geoff.feldman.2012@gmail.com or call the campaign, 617-286-6715, if you are coming so they can get a head count.

Please note: this is an organizational meeting for interested potential volunteers, not an open campaign event. Hope to see some familiar (and not familiar) faces there!

The Tanner St meeting last night was well attended with local residents, business owners, and interested Lowellians filling up the conference room and then some (there was a funny moment when Adam Baacke was talking about the elected officials in attendance, and he mentioned Mayor Murphy was there but out in the hallway because it was standing room only). Speaking of official attendance, besides our mayor, notables included Councilors Mendonca, Martin, and Lorry.

I’ll take this rather long post to after the flip: (more…)

Don’t forget, in a couple hours the Lowell DPD is hosting a Tanner St Economic Development Meeting, 6:00PM at the LRTA Building at 100 Hale Street. (original post here). I meant to post this up sooner but forgot.

Information was sent to me for the upcoming “East Pawtucketville Neighborhood Group Meeting to Discuss Community Issues“:

Special Guests:
City and University Police Representatives!

Monday, January 23, 2012, 7:00-8:30 pm

On November 14, 2011, about 20 local residents met for the first East Pawtucketville Neighborhood Group. Here are some of the police concerns that neighbors had:

- Noise, parties, and vandalism on or near University Avenue
- Traffic patterns in the neighborhood: How are we going to be affected by the new building on North campus? What’s going to happen with the new bridge, old bridge, and University Crossing?
- Speeding on local streets
- Parking for local residents
- Who is in charge of what? Should we call university police or city police?

Friend us on Facebook @ East Pawtucketville Neighborhood Group

East Pawtucketvillers, you know what to do. (Don’t forget, for the Tanner St neighbors and interested parties, there is a Tanner St Economic Development Meeting that same night!)

If you read my November blog post A Recycling Adventure, then you know all about Lowell’s local business, Northeast Material Handling, where you can bring electronics and other items for disposal and recycling. Well, starting tomorrow, and every second Saturday of the month going forward between 8am and noon:

NorthEast Material Handling (38 Prince Ave) will host a Recycling Drop-Off event

Residents (especially those without City ‘curbside’ services) can bring “EVERYTHING WITH CORD”.

Most items have very nominal drop-off charges. NO Furniture… ie mattress/boxe spring /couch.

Visit http://www.RecycleLowell.com for more details!

Got clutter? Been waiting to figure out what to do with your electronic waste? Now you know you can get rid of it properly and that it will be fully recycled!

The Lowell DPD is hosting its first Community Workshop for the Tanner Street District Economic Development Plan on Monday, January 23, 2012 at 6:00PM at the LRTA Building - 100 Hale Street.

A bit from the press release:

The City of Lowell, through the Department of Planning & Development (DPD), scheduled the first in a series of three public meeting for the Tanner Street District Economic Development Planning process for Monday, January 23rd at 6:00pm in the public meeting room at the LRTA facility at 100 Hale Street. The meeting will focus on shaping the vision and plans for the district, primarily the industrial properties abutting Tanner Street, as an economic and job creation center for Lowell.

In November 2010, the City was awarded a $175,000 “Brownfields Area-wide Planning Grant” from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to focus on district-wide planning for the Tanner Street area of Lowell. As directed by the Lowell City Council, DPD is completing this project in an effort to support and enhance existing businesses, attract new development that creates jobs, and to explore the potential for establishing an urban renewal district for the Tanner Street area. The planning effort is designed to capitalize on Tanner Street’s ideal proximity to the Lowell Connector Highway and Gallagher Terminal in order to generate jobs and economic development, while simultaneously addressing real and perceived environmental issues of the district; a likely barrier to its economic success.

[…]

The City secured two consultant teams to inform and manage the Tanner Street planning process. Crosby | Schlessinger | Smallridge (CSS) of Boston is the lead planning consultant for this project. Over the past several months, the CSS team has completed extensive background information gathering and researching of existing conditions for the Tanner Street area. Much of this information will be presented on January 23rd.

A key component of the Tanner Street District planning effort is the completion of a market research study, which will provide a realistic picture of the types of industries and development that can be supported and targeted for the Tanner Street district given existing and future market conditions. Bartram and Cochran (B&C) of Hartford, CT was selected as the market research consultant to complete this study.

This is definitely on my calendar! I’m particularly interested in the Tanner St development, since I am a near neighbor. (My first suggestion: tear the whole damn street up and repave it properly! Man that place is like a roller coaster. Make sure the new street surface is rated for big trucks, since it’s an industrial zone.)

More info is on the DPD’s page for this project. You can find further links and a map there.

On Dec. 8th, FERC released a DRAFT of what is called a Memorandum of Agreement.

It effectively is a correspondence that offers, ‘We’ll show you our cards, if you show us yours.’ I frame it this way because this is likely all going to Court with FERC and Dept. of Interior as litigants. They don’t mean to bloody each other, so they play it straight.

First, FERC makes an important disclosure: Based on the Keeper’s determination, we will treat the dam as individually eligible for listing in the National Register. As a result, we now believe that installation of the pneumatic crest gate system and construction of a compressor house would result in an adverse effect, …

Below is more context & detail:

Commission staff requested a formal determination of the eligibility of Pawtucket Dam as an individual historic property, and clarification of the dam’s significance as a contributing element to listed historic. districts, by letter dated September 19, 2011. National Register staff requested photographs showing the current condition of the dam on October 18, 2011;these photographs were provided by letter dated October 20, 2011.
-snip

On October 26, 2011, we received the Keeper’s Determination of Eligibility Notification. The Determination of Eligibility Notification finds the dam individually eligible because of its historic and engineering significance, and states that

under Federal law and regulations no distinction is made between properties determined individually eligible for the National Register and those determined eligible as contributing to a historic district. The Pawtucket Dam is significant as an element of an integrated historic industrial process which includes dams, canals, gates, locks, mill yards, machine shops, and managers and workers housing, which form perhaps the most historically significant extant collection of 19 century industrial buildings and structures in the country, and as such, the dam should not be evaluated individually apart from its functioning as a highly significant and integral component of a larger nationally important historic resource.

Based on the Keeper’s determination, we will treat the dam as individually eligible for listing in the National Register. As a result, we now believe that installation of the pneumatic crest gate system and construction of a compressor house would result in an adverse effect, because they will alter the architecture of the dam. To mitigate for the adverse effect, we have prepared the attached draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) regarding the management of historic properties that may be affected by the installation of a pneumatic crest gate system and construction of a compressor house at the Lowell Hydroelectric Project. We are requesting your comments on the draft MOA and the stipulations to address the adverse effects. Please provide your comments and any additional recommendations within 30 days of the date of this letter.

After FERC gave a gift, it opted to make a joke. Here is their proposal for ‘mitigating’ the destruction of our heritage:

The Commission shall ensure that, upon acceptance of the license amendment for this Project, the following mitigation measures are carried out to resolve adverse effects to historic properties.

TREATMENT OF ADVERSE EFFECTS OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES

A. INTERPRETIVE DISPLAYS
Boott will develop two interpretive exhibits, one featuring a replica of a portion of the original flashboard system and one featuring the new crest gate system, to be located at the Project to enhance visitor understanding of the history of Pawtucket dam and the Lowell Project. Boott will develop the interpretive displays, and determine their location, in consultation with the National Park Service.

B. CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
Boott will design and construct the compressor house with materials that are compatible with the historic fabric of the adjacent architecture. This stipulation will ensure that the compressor house resembles nineteenth century buildings in Lowell, specifically the nearby Northern Canal Gatehouse. To mimic the existing dam’s appearance, Boott will use a brown-colored bladder, paint the downstream side of the crest gate panels brown, and install black retaining straps an average of 20 inches on center. This stipulation will ensure that the crest gate system is similar in appearance to the existing wooden flashboards.

Yes, FERC. Interpretive displays? Like mimes and dance? How about we just let the dam display it’s historical significance. Too novel, FERC?
(more…)

I went into this editorial with a sense of dread. The Blog of Record is notoriously slanted towards the rantings of the Republican ‘bumper sticker braintrust.’ Certainly, the headline ‘’ ‘Occupy’ should get out” didn’t ease my brewing agita. But, then I saw this: “of park and into drive.” Hmmm. Color me intrigued.

Reading on, I was pleasantly surprised.

Thus, Dewey Square, the Boston beachhead for the national movement that decries the stranglehold of this country’s wealth and power by an elite microcosm of the population, was disassembled in a generally orderly fashion.

Those few hundred of the “99″ percent of us they aspired to represent had set up shop in September, determined to confront those working in the Financial District, in order to expose what they saw as an economic system that no longer represents the common man.

Yes, Occupy is a statement about how the game is fixed. Our Federal gov’t is so strongly lobbied by special interests, that laws and regulations disproportionately favor the enterprise and prosperity of the “elite microcosm.”

So where do the Boston and national Occupy movements go from here?

Conservatives unhappy with the Obama administration’s economic policies took out their frustrations, not by establishing encampments and beating drums, but by organizing themselves into a coherent counterpoint — the tea-party movement.

No matter what you think of it, there’s no denying the tea party’s influence among the Republican establishment.

The challenge for the “Occupiers” is to raise their angst to the level of an organized movement to effect change at the local and national levels.

In our system of government, that can only be accomplished through the political process.

Yes!

Having always followed politics, I decided to engage as a Democrat when it became painfully obvious that the Republican’s view of ‘Regulation’ is - Strong enough to keep YOU from robbing a bank, yet supple enough to allow a bank to rob YOU.

I’m working on the bumper stickers.

Not long ago, I got an e-mail from Gerry Nutter:

Good Morning,
I am writing to ask you if on Saturday Morning Dec 10th you would be willing to join us in promoting the WCAP Radiothon to Benefit the Salvation Army. We are asking you to write a short post to leave up that morning (or Friday night until the following morning at noon) asking people to call 978-454-4980 to make a donation and to add the link for LTC channel 8 which will be broadcasting and live streaming the items available for people to call and make a bid.
-snip

I’m happy to lend a hand for a good cause. Though, honestly, I’m sorta lazy and Gerry has done ALL the leg work for me.

PLEASE consider tuning into WCAP on Saturday Dec.10 from 6:00 am – 1:00 pm (or has long as is needed) and calling in to make a donation to the Salvation Army during the annual radiothon.

This year you can also tune into LTC channel 8 to see items that area businesses or individuals have contributed and you can call in and make a bid to purchase them or you can stop by the Lowell Sun building from 10:00 – Noon to listen to the music of Paul Belley and his band, get the kids picture taken with Santa, meet Bob Lobel, Mickey Ward, Mickey O’Keefe and Jim Campanini and make a donation or bid on items we will be auctioning off there.

Like last year the need is growing and all donations stay in the Greater Lowell Area for families that are in need.

So I ask you on behalf of all those involved and especially for all those in need, please consider making a donation of $5, $10,or whatever you can, call and bid on an item to give to someone for Christmas or stop by and make a dollar or two donation for a picture with Santa.

Please help us to help those in need.

If you want to see a listing of the items being auctioned for this charity, I am under the impression that THIS SITE is kept updated.

Tonight there was a hearing held at the Pollard Library, where community input was solicited over a proposed public charter school. I didn’t attend the hearing, as it was held during normal business hours. But, I’m told that supporters offered encouragement, some in person, some by letter.

Those you would know that are supporting this charter school are Joe Mendonca, Tom Wirtenan, Bill Taupier and Steve Pangiatakos. Opposing the proposal, at the event, were Jean Franco & Paul Georges.

I heard there was one particularly cranky man that took the opportunity to rant about greedy Unions, or some nonsense like that. Any microphone will do, eh?

I stated earlier that I’m not supporting this effort. There are plenty of private opportunities to educate your child in Lowell. We sent both our daughters to SJA (K-8), and then to Lowell High. I believe that school choice should be there, but that private schools should not drain public coffers. Thus, we went without some “things,” so our kids could have a solid educational foundation. There was a sting to the tuition. It should be that way.

The criticism of this proposal, backed by SABIS® Educational Systems, Inc., are:
- The educational approach and materials are proprietary, so any ‘lessoned learned’ overcoming challenges unique to Lowell would not be shared with other Lowell public schools.
- The charter school will selectively recruit students, draining talent and public money from LSS.
- That SABIS North America is HQ’d in Minnesota, with a global parent Corp out of Lebanon.
- The current board is comprised, partly, of folks associated to the troubled Lowell Community Charter School.

I used Teh Google and found some things to consider. Please view them below the fold.
(more…)