Left In Lowell

Heard today on WCAP news: Bernie Lynch is indeed interested in the open Cambridge City Manager position. I suppose this is the moment you come back at me saying the word “duh” and all, but color me unhappy about it!

I had a friend and colleague whose husband was a manager of a golf course. The only way to “move up” in the gold course management world is…to change jobs to a more famous, prestigious golf course. Even if it means moving hours away to a whole new state. So I’m not surprised Lynch is contemplating putting his hat in the ring (or inevitably going to do so, whichever you see fit). The only way to “move up” in your career as a municipal manager is to find a bigger city with more prestige, more responsibility, bigger budgets, etc.

But I hope that CM Lynch doesn’t take it personally when I say I hope they find many faults in his application and tell him to go back to his old job. Or that they like the Billerica town manager much better (who is also reportedly interested in the job according to ‘CAP)!

The biannual resurfacing of Mike Hayden, tooting his own horn (shocker) as a replacement for a possibly-departing Lenzi (one would hardly believe one can do worse than GOB stalwart Lenzi but…) had me reminiscing. Not only are there some great blog posts whereby we took him at his own words (and website), but…Mike…no matter how far apart we are…we’ll always have the comments.

Oh, the comments!

Here’s a little saunter down memory lane for all you crazy young kids:

Wherein I need His Holiness to pray for my sorry sinning ass.

Mike Hayden Says:
April 22nd, 2010 at 9:15 am e
The only thing pathic here Lynne is you,it is no wonder your an atheist the only thing you worship is yourself. You really are a sad person I will pray for you

and offers to have me pay him to learn about being angry from him:

Mike Hayden Says:
March 18th, 2010 at 2:19 pm e
Wow
Sounds like you could use a course in Anger Management Lynne Your temper and language are going to land you in big trouble some day Call me I will give you a discount on the course Who knows maybe you learn something
Mike Hayden

PS - if you want to advertise your business on my website I suggest learning some grammar…oh, and also, it might help if you didn’t appear to badly need your own services. It erodes and undermines any confidence in your abilities.

And then there’s this pithy comeback to the time I called him out on his pathetic GOPer talking points and called him dismissable:

Mike Hayden Says:
August 13th, 2011 at 3:23 pm e
you know Lynne you are such a dishrag

Dishrag? So quaint!

Of course, Mike’s visits here are nothing compared to his visits to the trashy Topix comments on the Lowell Sun website. But he’s tried. Lord knows, he’s tried to keep us entertained here at LiL over the long years.

That was an exceptionally great amount of fun! Let’s do it again in another two years!

.
Last Sunday, Gerry Nutter let this tidbit out:

Don’t take this has actual fact, it isn’t, its just another in the many rumors floating in the political circle but keep an eye out for a possible change to the Lowell delegation of the Greater Lowell Tech School committee.

Gerry’s teaser had a ring to it, so I stuck my nose in. The rumor mill coughed up Mike Lenzi’s name. The rumor is that Lenzi has bought a place in Dracut in what is soon to be coined, Kazanjian Village. Now, we know that Lenzi is doing alright for himself in life, so it is possible he may choose to own in Dracut, but live in Lowell. Thus, Lenzi would be able to keep his seat as one of Lowell’s Reps on The GLTHS board. (There is the “Nangle Option,” also) So, Lenzi buying in Dracut, if true, is not a slam dunk that the chess pieces will permenantly move.

But then, Mike Hayden ratcheted up speculations by sending out this email to local electeds. The pawns are moving:

I am contacting all of you to let you know that I would be greatly interested in a possible open seat of a Lowell Rep on the Greater Lowell School Board in the near future. I spent 16 years on that board as an elected official and would love to have a chance to fill out an open seat if it became available. As you know if a seat became open it would be up to a joint committee of the council and school committee to make the appointment. I would also pledge not to run for the seat when the term was up thus giving an equal chance to anyone that wished to run for the seat I would appreciate any consideration you might give me.
Sincerely Michael J Hayden

Hmmm. It’s understood that Hayden and Lenzi are thick as thieves. So, Hayden’s solicitation is likely predicated on an inside scoop into Lenzi’s intentions. Hayden is jumping the starter’s gun, trying to block out other potential “candidates.” Maybe the guys that actually put their name on the ballot in 2011 would like a shot? Maybe the City Council & School Committee will think outside “the woods” and bring in a new face?
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At the time I was ticked off:

I want to smack the Council, like Moe slapping across the stupid faces of Larry & Curly. That Chamber is a sanctum. Cut the shit, now!

Later, I stopped to consider what the solution was:

The Mayor and the Clerk need to get a handle on this, ASAP.

Now, I’m shaking my head because the DRAFT minutes are wrong:

In the past, I have gone to the City Council meeting minutes to verify something. They are intended to be an accurate portrayal of events. Meeting minutes have been used for centuries. The “technology” is tried, tested and proven. To hell with all that, I guess. We have video archives. Which is a good thing because the value of proper and accurate meeting minutes is slipping, along with the decorum among our City elders.

Today in his regular recap of the Sunday Sun Gerry focused on the Mayor-Lowell Sun flap, controversy, issue, battle (pick whatever term suits you).

One of the observations he makes is that now that the Mayor has ticked off the leadership of the Sun and how his political career is essentially over.

If you have any future political aspirations (including another city council term) you need to learn to either play nice or at the very least NOT react when they print negative stories about you.

I do not know if this is the prevailing sentiment among the policial movers and shakers but Kendall Wallce did make a similar implication yesterday in his column: “There used to be an old saying in politics — “don’t fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” That may need to be amended to add “and have a website that is growing in numbers every day.” (lowellsun.com receives 3.7 million page views and nearly 400,000 unique visitors per month). ” I would not confuse hits with political influence.

I reject unequivocally the notion that the voters in Lowell are so naive and so politicall unsophisticated that we get our marching orders from the newspaper. I also do not believe that the great majority of the local elected officials feel that they need to curry favor with the Sun in order to get elected and stay in office.

It is nice to get a push from them but one can get elected without their help. Let’s take for example Mayor Patrick Murphy in the 2011 election. Not only he did not run a single ad in the paper during this past election, he ran radio ads against the Sun.

But let’s say for the sake of argument, that it is true that the Sun leadership are power brokers. Can someone give me the name of the candidate(s) in the 2011 municipal election who got elected or got defeated because the newspaper had the influence to make it happen? And when you give me the name, please list the facts that support that viewpoint.

UPDATE: 5.7.12 8:56 p.m. If you have not yet done so, please check out these other local bloggers posts on this issue. Dick, Cliff and Kad Barma.

Here is a small portion of each post:


Kad Barma: “in any case, count me among those who feel it’s good for hizzonah the mayor to have opened the discussion. public legal notices should not be costing the city so much money to post. (and, in case someone at the newspaper then would argue that it’s not so much money, then i would ask why they might be so upset about it not being given to them).

Cliff: “Is there some bad blood between City Hall and the [local] Paper of Record?  Appears so.  Should we move beyond this?  Definitely.  Let us not get into a situation where one has to pick a side.  That is a Chairman Mao Phase I Revolutionary War approach.  “Side with us or we will kill you and your family and destroy your village.”  We should all take a deep breath and step back.

Dick: “When even the most stalwart defender of the local newspaper acknowledges that only 50% of Lowell residents get their news from the Sun, it begs the question, what about the other 50% of the population? How should they be notified of legal matters that effect them? Does a system that at its best only reaches half the population meet the Due Process requirements of the state and federal Constitutions? Until a case that raises that question makes it to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, we won’t know.

.
I screen grabbed this from the “Legal Notice (Online) Paper of Record.” They also do PSA’s.

Go to 1:14:50, please.

I’m not sure what the hell C.Kennedy thinks he is doing? Does he fancy himself an extraordinary Parlimentarian? Or, is he just being a gremlin, determined to muck up the proceedings?

Clearly,
- The vote was on C. Lorrey’s original motion. C.Mercier called for a Roll Call vote. She even clarifies it prior to the vote, then seeks to suspend the rules after.
- When C.Kennedy calls for a Point of Order, the Chair tells him the vote was on the original motion. Undeterred, Kennedy snorts back that he seconded Mercier’s amendment.

That did not happen! As soon as Mercier stops stumbling through her suggested amendment, C.Lorrey objected, then he proceeded to explain why he worded his motion in the way that he did. At no point did the Chair recognize a second to Mercier’s motion.

Yet, in the heat of the moment, C.Kennedy railroads the Council into accepting his version of reality.

The Council moved on in the agenda, but C. Mendonca pulled it back, seeking to change his vote to “Nay” because he didn’t want to approve of something he didn’t know the cost of. C.Elliott jumps back in to quibble with the CM. At 1:23:30, C. Kennedy calls another Point of Order, playing ad hoc Chair from the floor.

Councilor Kennedy needs to be checked, put in his place. He is pushing the envelope with his attempts to Chair the meetings from the floor. This is the second time, recently, that an angry vote was taken and the Council was confused as to what they just did. The vote on C.Elliott’s motion to tie the CM’s hands on revenue was a mess, as well. The Mayor and the Clerk need to get a handle on this, ASAP.
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The most interesting Lynch appearances on WCAP always follow the more interesting City Council meetings. Of course, lately, even the most mild-mannered meetings are turning into pitched-battle scrappers…

Anyway, this Wednesday AM WCAP appearance is well worth the listen. I only caught the tail end on the way into work so I pulled it up on my computer once I got there. PS - I can’t express enough how glad I am that WCAP now posts their interviews online!

Anyway, Lynch really gets into the details about the Council meeting brouhaha last night over the sewer hookup for the Lowell Youth Soccer Facility. If you missed it, please go back and watch it once it’s up on LTC. You get to see a huge potty meltdown (three guesses as to who), which at a minimum is entertaining, even while it’s frustrating to have to sit through it.

It’s so nice to have at least one party in this be reasonable, equitable, and who is putting out facts not crazytalk…If you listen to Bernie here, and you listen to the whining childish bitchfest by said Councilor last night, and compare the two, it’s pretty clear who’s full of hot air (putting it mildly).

I find myself really proud of my city and its accomplishments these last few years, but at the same time totally embarrassed when watching the meetings. Is Elliot really that tone deaf?? HE should watch the meeting, see himself on TV, maybe then he’d finally grok just how childish and petulant he sounds. Ugh.

I want to smack the Council, like Moe slapping across the stupid faces of Larry & Curly. That Chamber is a sanctum. Cut the shit, now!

Update: I’m just pasting this in for now. I’ll watch it,again, later tonight and point out some time stamps that highlight what caused my frustration. So far, commentors have focused on C.Elliott. I think Elliott is a big part of the general breakdown, but he is not alone in that room.

My man, Campi. The editorial ponders:

Is the Obama administration pushing for a crestgate system at the Pawtucket Dam to increase hydropower on the Merrimack River?

The illuminaries at the Blog of Record have stumbled upon a report. Maybe Bob LaRochelle FEDEX’d it over? Who knows? Anywho. This report, MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR HYDROPOWER, is relevant to the matter regarding Enel’s proposed desecration of our City’s history. Unfortunately, the Blogger in Chief, over there, missed the boat.

The editorial opted to lift a line or two directly from an online press release about the 41 page document. The editorial cherry picked from here:

“Through collaboration and partnerships among federal agencies, the hydropower industry, the research community, and numerous stakeholders, we are succeeding in advancing the development of hydropower as a clean, reliable, cost-effective and sustainable energy source,” Castle told NHA conferees. “From assessing opportunities for new generation on existing Federal facilities to developing tools to get more energy from the same amount of water, we are working on many fronts to increase the potential of the largest source of renewable energy in the country.”

Now, whether the brain trust behind this editorial was too busy, or just had enough to sling some partisan arrows with, they negated to include some pertinent lines from the MOU:

Page 4

7. Promote an environmentally responsible approach to enhancing hydropower development that recognizes the need to preserve biological diversity, ecosystem function, our natural and cultural heritage, and recreational opportunities, and also recognizes that some geographic locations are not appropriate for new hydropower development.

*Wiki-Note: Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts (cultural property) and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Cultural heritage includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally-significant landscapes, and biodiversity).

…

10.Investigate ways to responsibly facilitate the permitting process for federal and non-federal hydropower generation and other renewable energy projects at federally owned and Indian tribe facilities by increasing coordination among the agencies that have jurisdiction and reducing unnecessary delay, while ensuring that environmental impacts are fully considered.

(emphasis mine)

I’d venture to say, the NPS and DOI are prepared to play the “cultural heritage” card. There is a crumb trail a mile long. Also, my understanding is that FERC has let Enel slide on the whole “environmental impacts” thingy. So, this MOU is hardly the coup-de-grace the BOR (pronounced bore) wishes it was.

Lastly, the audible dog whistle, “the reason you are going to get shafted by the bladder dam is because of the Democrats and their damn ‘green energy’ policies!” subtext to the BOR’s editorial? That is rather scumbaggy. Just sayin.’

On second thought, maybe this MOU isn’t ALL THAT relevant?