Left In Lowell

Back to work! Before I share my views on some of the political events that have occurred in the past couple of weeks, it appears that one of the small benefits of this economic downturn might be the beginning of the de-commercialization of Christmas; I hope!

In case you did not have a chance to view the December 17th meeting of the Lowell School Committee or did not read Jenn Myers article in the Sun, “Lowell school board reluctantly OKs Canada trip,” there was a spirited discussion regarding a school trip the Lowell High School International Language Club was planning to take to Quebec, Canada. By the way, a trip which has been taking place for 20 years.

Two weeks later, there are still some rumblings at the reaction of two of the SC members. I watched the replay of that meeting on LTC’s streaming video site and I am still not sure what is at the root of the anger and frustration displayed during the meeting. At the end of the day, the kids were going on a trip paid by their parents and they would only miss one day of school. There are plenty of sanctioned trip organized for the band, athletic teams, Jr. ROTC, where kids miss school, why this trip was the target of this harsh reaction is still not clear to me? I guess the School Committee felt it was ignored and disprescted. Obviously, the policy was not clear enough.

Whatever the kids would have learned on that one day, I am sure can be made up during the school year but no one can bring the experience of visiting Quebec into the classroom. I guess my definition of an “educational forum” differs from that of the School Committee. For the record, in my three years at LHS, I missed on day of school and that was to be sworn-in as a U.S. Citizen. So I do agree that it is important to be in the classroom but it isn’t as if this trip was to Cancun? One more thing, the teacher got some harsh criticism but shouldn’t the Headmaster have been the one to receive “the clear message?” If the SC did not receive enough information, whose fault is it? Isn’t it the Headmaster’s and the Superintendent’s?

Also SC Jackie Doherty presented an excellent motion to have the Superintendent present two budgets, one level funded and the other with a 10% reduction; the SC should reserve its energy for this issue. The reduction ($5 – 10 M) is “inevitable” and we will all need to focus on where to make the cuts and how to implement them.

One more thing about the School Committee, a lot of their discussion takes place in their sub-committee meetings which are not broadcast. Furthermore, when the Superintendent is requested to provide information to them, those reports are not usually made public. The School Committee should request that the Superintendent and her staff provide the same level of information on the School’s web site that the City Manager and the Administration do on the City’s web site.

I’ve already signed up to appear at the Lowell School Committee Curriculum Subcommittee regarding the replacement of abstinence-only education for our students with the Planned Parenthood’s Get Real program, a sane age-appropriate curriculum. Which, by the way, which would not cost our schools a dime. We really need your support on Wednesday, November 12th at 7pm at the School Department building on 155 Merrimack Street, 2nd floor. If you can come, you can RSVP to Planned Parenthood here.

Our kids will thank you.

Two items on fellow blogs of note: First, apparently that work will get done on the Rourke Bridge:

The Mass Highway work to the bridge deck and top support systems announced earlier this year, will be commencing this week.

All work will be done between the hours of 8pm and 4am.

For the next seven nights, ‘spot’ work will be done on bridge joints, and motorists can expect minor delays.

After October 21st, the deck/surface work will begin, which will necessitate bridge closure from 8pm to 4am Sunday through Thursday. Traffic will be detoured to the O’Donnell/School Street Bridge during this time.

All work is projected to be complete in 60 days.

Luckily for me, most of my life/work/play is south of the river. With the University Ave bridge closed and the Rourke delays at night, you couldn’t pay me to cross the river. OK, you could pay me, but it’ll cost ya. (Unluckily for me, they’ve really been ramping up the sewer/drainage work down the street from me. Fun!)

Also, if you are interested in knowing more about what’s happening with the schools these days, there’s a town hall style meeting with superintendent Dr. Chris Scott, Monday, October 20, 7:00 to 9:00 pm. It will also be broadcast live on Channel 22 for those with cable. See above link for details!

As previously written about, there is a School Committee curriculum subcommittee meeting tonight at 7pm which will take on the planning for comprehensive sex education in our schools. It’s actually being held at 155 Merrimack Street (school department headquarters) second floor, not Middlesex St. Apologies for any inconvenience! Please make sure people know about the correct location.

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts has been invited by our new superintendent to come to this Wednesday’s School Committee meeting to discuss their views on what is good sex ed in our schools. They invite any and all to come and listen to an overview of the middle school program PPLM is offering around the state.

This is a good opportunity to express your support for comprehensive sex ed in Lowell, so if you are interested, the meeting will take place this Wednesday, August 20 at 7pm in the City Council chambers.

Jackie vents (very respectfully, I thought) against the barrage of negative local press which has accompanied the vote on the assistant superintendents’ raises.

To be honest, I’m not sure which side of the issue I am on when it comes to those raises. (Personally, though there’s a small budget increase required, I think it’s bupkis in the grand scheme of things. Compared to say, the rising cost of running school buses or providing health care.) I think Jackie explained herself nicely in her previous post about the raises, and I think there’s an argument that it might not be a great idea, such as Mimi put forth earlier this week.

However, read through Mimi’s post, and then read through some of the idiotic Sun editorials. You’ll note a huge difference. There is a way to respectfully disagree, and then there’s the Lowell Sun, which never saw a story it couldn’t beat with a dead horse (an apt analogy given the editor’s conflict of interest regarding horse racing). Especially when that story involves the schools, teachers, administrators or the School Committee.

The fact is, that certain Sun bosses do “personal” news rather than objective. We’d all be a lot better off if The Museum closed down at this point, unless they can prove to us they can actually run a story which is dispassionate and impartial, looking carefully at the facts, and forgo the temptation to distribute rumor and innuendo, smattered with snide remarks and smears.

Let’s see…

On this story, the Sun complained about Rep. Kevin Murphy’s wife being one of the assistant supers. You have to love how they undermine their own argument (bold mine):

Murphy might not have been in violation of the conflict statutes, but his participation in the negotiations does raise questions, according to government watchdogs.

“That does raise a lot of red flags for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s a violation,” said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts.

Common Cause is one of the first groups that jumps into action with regards to ethics violations, so this “doesn’t mean it’s a violation” actually means something.

And why did the Sun choose to excoriate Jackie Doherty more than the others who voted for the raises (you can see her mentioned more than the others here, for instance)? This goes back to doing “personal” news rather than real journalism. Fact is, the Sun editor is sort of on the same side as Faticanti ideologically (by which I mean, having the same friends) but has a particular dislike for Jackie. Because what, they feel personally insulted by the fact that she doesn’t suck up to them? Oh, the pathos.

Then there’s that jewel from Dan Phelps. I admit, it isn’t a great thing that Rep. Murphy represented his wife in the negotiations, but unless there’s an actual violation, or they can prove some quid pro quo, they really need to stop smearing people based on innuendo. What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty? At the Sun, it’s the other way around, and sarcastically too. Which is, to my mind, very poor writing - it takes very little brains to make a sarcasm-filled diatribe, but a lot of brains to be fair minded, bring up the fact of a potential problem, (and I believe there is a there there), without outright accusing people of things you don’t know they are guilty of.

Bad form, Phelps, bad form.

Now, here at Left in Lowell, we have been occasionally guilty of sarcastic diatribes. If Phelps is as poor a writer as myself, a mere unpaid political blogger with no journalistic training whatsoever (I did take a lot of poetry writing classes though), this is a truly sad state of affairs for our local paper.

The Sun has gone, as they say, off the rails. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend ditching your subscription to this rag.

And they say bloggers are unaccountable. (Time for another blogger ethics panel, perhaps?)

Today’s editorial in the Lowell Sun continued the drum beat started a few weeks ago in opposition to the terms of the new contract for the four assistant superintendents.

This saga started over a month ago with leaks and accusations of secret negotiations. Well, last week the School Committee in open session voted 4-3 to give the four Assistant Superintendents a pay raise. I am sure that anyone who reads this blog is quite aware of the circumstances.

As much as I disagree with the majority decision, accusing them as the Sun did of being “ignorant to the struggles of Lowell” and “inconsiderate about the City’s fiscal future” is not true. The four (School Committee members; J. Doherty, C. Martin, J. Leahy and R. Faticanti) voted in favor of this contract because they believe that this is the way to assure Lowell’s continued growth. I do not agree with their viewpoint but I still believe these four are good public servants and do not deserve to have their reputation trashed in this fashion.

As for the three (Mayor B. Caulfield, School Committee members J. Leary and D. Conway) who voted against the contract, I understand that one of the three who voted against it, vote for it during executive session. Now that the subject matter is public, executive session discussion are also part of the record. By the way, have you kept track of how much good press those three get in the newspaper while my friend Jackie gets slammed mercilessly. I guess that is what you get for trying to be your own person.

Actually, the three who voted against the terms of the contract got the best of both worlds. The Assistant Superintendent got what their wanted so there is very little or no animosity towards the entire School Committee and the three are now heroes in some circles for trying to “save” the taxpayers. I wonder if those three would have voted against it if they were the deciding vote?

The irony, we could have saved over $20,000 if we had not chased the previous Superintendent right out of town.

The fact is that we can no longer afford these kinds of contracts; not only the salary but the benefits. The sick-time buy back component should be outlawed. If the terms of these contracts do not self-adjust, the system will eventually break.

Who is to blame for municipal contracts that are financial killers to cities and towns? The taxpayer and residents are to blame. Not enough people run for School Committee and/or City Council; not enough people vote; not enough people pay attention to the business of local government.

I remember last October when CM Bernie Lynch in an effort to save the City some money, began the process to change the type of healthcare city employees would receive. I do not recall anyone coming to the meeting to throw bouquets to CM Lynch but the union leadership was there to voice their opposition. As a matter of fact you can watch the streaming video on the LTC site; you can see which elected officials defend Lynch’s position and which ones did not.

The newspaper can beat its chest all it wants and call itself the “watchdog” of the people but if it continues to choose sides and promote a political agenda, then the only thing it will continue to only watch are the backs of those who are patrons and friends of the “museum.”

The story on the Sun’s website this morning mentions the breach of School Committee executive privilege regarding raises in the school department, stating that though Jim Leary admits to talking about the session with some individuals, it was not with anyone at the Lowell Sun or anyone who talked to the Lowell Sun:

“That was not the case, the Lowell Sun was not contacted by me under any circumstances,” Leary said, adding that Sun Editor Jim Campanini had called him to ask about the negotiations. “I told him I could not speak about it.”

He did admit, however, to mentioning the executive session to his father in the western part of the state and two unnamed individuals.

He also began telling Mayor Caulfield about the aforementioned executive meeting, though Caulfield stopped him, stating that because he did not attend (though he is on the SC), that it was a breach of executive session, a rule of which Leary was not aware.

However, someone did talk to the Lowell Sun (how circular is it to have the Lowell Sun write a piece about leaking executive session information to someone at the Lowell Sun? Who watches the watchers? There are people at the Lowell Sun who could answer this question for us, are there not? Judy Miller went to jail for this sort of thing…). If Leary did not, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find out who did.

Oh, and your Lowell Rumor Mill at work, again:

Leary said last week he was called by committee member Connie Martin, who chairs the subcommittee, and was told that someone told her that he had told The Sun the committee was in the process of negotiating new contracts for the four assistant superintendents behind closed doors.

Uh huh. Right. Someone said something about someone, so it must be true! (Not that I don’t blame SC Martin for following up, in fact she did the right thing by talking directly to Leary herself instead of whispering it in a dark corner like everyone else.)

After the last executive session leak (regarding the terms of the new superintendent’s contract under discussion at the time), we were promised an investigation into any further leaks (as mentioned in the article). Though Martin is paraphrased as noting this admitted breach by Leary doesn’t warrant an investigation (since it appears it didn’t go past private individual conversations…and I may or may not agree with Martin), I would like an investigation into the same information that was leaked to the Sun. Those conversations went far and above private conversations, and may damage future negotiations or relationships in the school department because the information went prematurely public.

The results of negotiations of city contracts are always made public before being adopted, so it’s not like the public doesn’t have a say before a decision is made. Our elected officials come before us and have to justify their budgets and contracts no matter what. However, private employment discussions are first conducted in executive session for a reason: there is a sensitive nature in coming before your bosses and negotiating a contract or dealing with a personnel problem, and a process which from the start is fully public would discourage city employees from coming forth or getting a fair hearing.

Imagine if your boss in the private sector had a policy of talking about your salary or the nature of your employment in front of all your colleagues. Imagine the chilling effect that would have on your forthrightness or ability to advocate for your salary.

For that reason, the breach to the Sun is as serious as the previous one, and should be recommended to the DA for investigation. Lowell’s city government’s reputation is at stake here. Like the rumor of election rigging which destroys our confidence in our democracy, we can lose our faith in our elected officials’ ability to follow the law. If the breaches of executive sessions in both the school committee and (in the past) the council do not stop soon, that confidence will be eroded. That is not a good situation for anyone.

This past Wednesday (June 11), the Lowell Sun editorial had a scathing denunciation of the School Committee’s consideration of a major salary adjustment for the four Lowell Public School Assistant Superintendents as well as “pay increases [that averages out to] 11 percent to 10 department heads and supervisors.”

However, the following day in an article written by the Sun’s school issues reporter, Jennifer Myers, there is an explanation why the department heads and supervisors are getting this type of raise: (more…)

This is why I just adore having three citizen blogs in the city of Lowell (besides also having the CM’s blog). There’s always something being covered that I can’t, and then I can just write about it. Jackiedoherty.org reports that:

As noted in today’s Sun, Lowell City Manager Bernie Lynch informed Superintendent Baehr yesterday that the city could provide an additional $200,000 in funds for the schools next year, enabling the restoration of four key positions to its FY09 budget. The enhanced communication between the city and its schools, along with an early commitment from the state on its education funding, have improved the school budget process—even though the approved budget required extensive staffing cuts due to limited resources.

Good news, indeed. Ah, to have professionals running the show at last…

There will be cuts, however. With a 1% increase in the budget, a very modest one considering health care and cost-of-business inflation, which is far more than 1%, Jackie notes we’ll have a loss of 60 positions. She tells us that “This is the seventh year in a row of school cuts that total 360 positions eliminated since 2002.” Though the schools are doing the best they can with what they have, we are losing the battle for quality education. The trend must reverse soon if we’re to keep making good gains for our students.

Go read the rest of Jackie’s post, which has other good info. And Margaret also writes about the Citywide Parent’s Council meeting tonight (televised on channel 22), which will feature a Q&A with school department administrators, as well as a call for interested parents to join the board of the CPC, which will be chosen tonight.