Left In Lowell

I really, really like Councilor Leahy’s motion, tonight.

19. C. Leahy - Req. City Mgr. provide a status report on all fire damaged homes in the City.

Unfortunately, it seems that Leahy is trying to draw just a ‘wee bit’ too much attention to the issue. Thus, to himself. By going to the biased Blog of Record, a ‘pay per view’ newspaper, Leahy has opened himself up to criticism he could have easily avoided. He turned a positive into a negative.

Worst still. The Sun can’t effectively deliver the goods. Look at this screen grab:

THAT .. is what you see when you click into the online version of the story. You’ve got to realize, in Youtube, the maker of the video has control of the image that appears on the screen, prior to activating the video. Does the cub reporter not know that? Or, just didn’t bother?

If a Councilor, Leahy or any other, is going to try to strum the Blog of Record to play their tune. They should take care that the Editors ensure it is done well. When you’re on the bubble, you can’t afford dumb mistakes.
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FERC had a brainfart.

The cub reporter quickly blurted out the bits his Editor want to float:

“We find that the proposed pneumatic crest gate system can be installed without unacceptably altering the dam or adversely affecting the park and historic districts,” FERC wrote in its ruling. “The crest gate system will also provide important benefits to recreation, fish passage, dam and worker safety, and project generation, and will help alleviate upstream backwater and flooding effects to the maximum extent possible.”

Of course, there are little gems stashed in the “Order Amending License.” (h/t Corey Sciuto)

Project Economics
47. The licensees’ proposal to install an inflatable crest gate system has an estimated capital cost of $5,980,000. This capital cost results in an average, annualized cost of $956,000. We estimate that the annual cost to operate the system would be minimal.

48. Operation of an inflatable crest gate system instead of flashboards could enable the project to generate more power, because the gates could be reinflated relatively soon after high flows. In contrast, the flashboards would be washed out for an estimated three months. The licensees estimate that project operation with the inflatable crest gates would result in an increase in annual generation of approximately 8,000 megwatt hours (MWh). Using a regional estimated alternative energy value of $38.74/MWh, as determined from the Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook for 2012, this additional generation would be valued at $310,000 annually. Therefore, the net cost of the licensee’s proposed action, including total capital costs and generation benefits, would be approximately $646,000 annually.

49. Although our analysis shows that the cost of installing the crest gates would exceed the value of the increased generation, it is the applicant who must decide whether to accept this license amendment and any financial risk that entails.
(bold mine)

There is a lot to digest. Please give it a go, then chime in here.

PS. We are about to find out, if the Dept. of Interior folks are willing to take it to the next level. The Dept. of the Interior(Parks) has a brand new Secretary and Energy(FERC) is due to get a new Secretary. So, leadership may come from the locals until Obama’s Cabinet members can find their way around. This matter may be determined by which Department has better insulated its ‘Legal Eagles’ from sequestration. :v\

Has it been “four to five years” already?

From The Column, 9/30/12 (Archived Online)

STATE REP. David Nangle held a fundraiser at Ricardo’s Restaurant on Gorham Street several days ago. And the chatter was about a hush-hush huddle between former state Sen. Steven Panagiotakos , for whom Nangle used to work, and UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan.

Meehan downplayed the conversation. He said the two talked about the many UMass Lowell building projects. Political insiders, however, speculated the political titans talked about Panagiotakos ‘ future: Specifically him becoming city manager .

As City Manager Bernie Lynch gets roughed up every Tuesday night, Panagiotakos has said privately that he would indeed consider the job, but he doesn’t want to be viewed as pushing Lynch out.

That’s in stark contrast to 2006. Following the departure of John Cox as city manager , the job was Panagiotakos ‘ for the taking. He did not enter the ring, thus opening the door for Lynch, the former Chelmsford manager.

Government has been divided since Cox was forced to resign by the City Council — remember the “six rats?” One camp holds Cox was treated unfairly, the other embracing change at the top.

Several names are circulating of possible managers to replace Lynch. None would be as welcomed by both sides of the divide as Panagiotakos .

Panagiotakos is everyone’s pol, and he relishes that. As city manager , that could erode starting day one. That’s why not everyone is buying into Panagiotakos ‘ alleged interest.

Panagiotakos is vehement: He’s not interested. “Maybe five or six years from now, but not now.” He repeated it several times.

As for Lynch, he’s playing with house money. He’s already passed six years on the job, an accomplishment particularly for a non-Lowellian.

“The clock starts ticking in this city on city managers at four to five years,” said one pol. “Bernie’s passed six.”

The manager’s contract doesn’t expire until the Aug. 2014. But with controversies in several city departments and several councilors beating him up every Tuesday, folks are wondering how much more Lynch is willing to take.

But Lynch sounded confident at the Lowell Plan annual breakfast Thursday morning, boldly proclaiming the “city is in excellent health and the prognosis is even better.”

Why leave? Lynch said he has no plans.
(bold mine)

I’m getting mixed signals from ‘the word on the street.’ I’ve got sources saying Pangi is beginning to get his ducks in a row, to make a move on the corner office. But others, in the know, say all is quite on that front. Palace intrigue can be agonizingly deceitful. :v\
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On Sunday, in Lowell, Scott Brown held a rally. (Actually, it was more like a really?) But that can happen when you use such flawed surrogates, like Kelly Ayotte:
“I absolutely support and believe in marriage as between a man and a woman, and I do think it’s unfortunate that our state has made a different decision on that. And I know that many of you who are out there working at the state level, running for state office, I commend your efforts to repeal that law here in the state of New Hampshire. And I think that’s very important.

On Sunday, Kelly Ayotte helped Scott Brown diss on Elizabeth Warren and Federal Student Loan programs:

“Don’t let her fool you on that one,” Ayotte said, as more than 100 supporters cheered.

Brown said bills like the student-loan proposal backed by Warren are “not jobs bills, they’re tax bills.”

Yikes! 100+? The Brown clique should have kept it at the SAC club, like the last two times.

Elizabeth Warren held, what I would call, a RALLY. This rally was out in Northampton, on Sunday afternoon.

Elizabeth Warren draws 1,000 supporters in Northampton (more…)

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by his own hand.

New Year 2010, the shit had hit the fan for the Coakley campaign. Scott Brown was taking off and Democrats at local, state and national levels were piling into MA to try to stop it. Locally, we were making calls, person to person,to try to stir up Dems to go vote. Another tactic employed, frankly, overemployed, was robocalls. These taped messages were coming in from prominent Democrats, like Bill Clinton, to try to spur Dems to go vote in the special election. When I would talk to folks on the phone, I got yelled at for all the calls being done. But, worst of all, the robocalls were despised.

Since, Scott Brown doesn’t have that much organic support, he is a creature of the special interest fabricated “Tea Party,” there aren’t enough motivated Brown supporters to make person to person calls on his behalf. Enter Karl Rove and the robocalls. Thanks to the Mother Jones Blog:

TRANSCRIPT: Today, you can change your future by voting against Elizabeth Warren. A vote for Warren is a vote for the same type of government failures that got us into the situation we are currently in. Warren supports President Obama’s health-care takeover that will cut over $700 billion from Medicare spending. The health-care law backed by Warren could limit the availability of care seniors depend on from the Medicare program they paid for. Vote no on Elizabeth Warren for Senate this November. Paid for by Crossroads GPS.

This robocall was recorded here in Lowell, just a few days ago:

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Kendall Wallace has cashed the New Media!

When The Sun decided to chronicle the amazing transformation the University of Massachusetts Lowell has undergone in the past five years, we wanted to call it, “The Miracle at UMass Lowell.” UML Chancellor Marty Meehan cringed at the working title because Meehan, who was named to lead the university in March 2007, said every improvement from an ambitious expansion plan that includes new dorms, academic buildings, parking facilities and an $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, to burgeoning enrollment has been strategically planned by university leaders. Five years ago, UML received fewer than 3,500 applications per year. That number today is close to 10,000. Enrollment is up 37 percent in those five years, with more than 15,000 enrolled. And that increasing number of students are bringing with them rising SAT scores. Miraculous? Maybe not. But impressive nonetheless.

The word on the street is, Wallace gets the lions share of the fruit borne by the inserts. So, when you thumb through this new media insert, gander at the sponsors and imagine the tone & tenor of the “ask.” To this day, Wallace is afforded heavy tribute. Of course, Wallace Wannabe Campi, squirms behind his placard, as the vig sails right over his head.

It’s good to be the ….. King. (h/t to Sensei Tom)
It’s way better then being the Court Jester.

EDIT: In regards to signing the open letter as per the end of this post, they say they are having trouble with their website so if you want to be sure your signature gets on their list, send an email with full name and city to guisbond@mit.edu.

Update II: Also, see bottom of post for a video from Citizens for Public Schools, one of the orgs fighting the ballot initiative.

I don’t know if you even know who Stand for Children is. Some of you reading, however, will. I was approached by Stand via trusted local officials when they were trying to get a regional organizing group started up here. They’d hired someone to start talking and organizing up here and after coffee with them, and a long conversation, it seemed good, it came through a very trusted source, and so I signed up for small recurring donations.

This was a number of years ago, before Stand for Children turned into what appears to be a vampire.

Stand for Children has a long history, going back into the early 90s, about working on improving education for all, especially for the poor. What happened to them is nothing less than literally, the life being sucked out of its carotid artery, exchanged for diseased blood, so that the organization could rise again, faster, stronger, and ready to devour the very people it once fought to protect.

Now, they are Scott-Walkering our state with a ballot initiative, trying not only to destroy teachers unions and public schools with “reform” that we know won’t solve anything, but doing it on the backs of the stellar reputations of the state’s education advocacy groups, elected officials, and individuals. Including this blog, and myself.

But now the wheels are coming off the bus, so to speak. You might have remembered Jack’s post from October 2011 where he talks about Stand and the ballot initiative they want to foist on our state. (There are some really, really excellent comments on that post. Go read it. Also read this article linked in comments by pablo, about the funding shift and Stand’s about-face.)

There is a LOT more after the flip. (more…)

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

File this under “Plain as the nose on your face.”

“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.”

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

“When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”

(h/t Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire)

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Do what these folks did:

I’ve heard a few “important” Lowellians opine that the desecration of the Pawtucket Falls Dam is a done deal. Really? Well, for sure, if Lowellians roll over.
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