Like Mitt Romney, apparently John MacDonald hasn’t met an issue he isn’t on both sides of…particularly when it comes Lowell’s Plan E form of government.

In the short time between finishing in 13th place in early November, and his declaration in the Lowell Sun this month, he’s done a sharp about-face with regards to whether Lowell should stick with Plan E, or go to a strong mayor format (a move he makes pretty clear in his Sun editorial is really anti-Mayor-Murphy, and, many believe, anti-Lynch).

Lowell Resident had the sharp eyes. He found the Sun’s election page for John MacDonald with a very particular question asked and answered:

10.Would an elected strong mayor form of government serve Lowell better than the present Plan E government setup giving the council the authority to hire a city manager?

No. I believe in the Plan E form of Government and believe in having a professional city manager handling the administration of the city. A Plan E Government is the best continued direction for Lowell.

John MacDonald now?

Over the past several elections, the Plan E from of government appears to be failing to reflect the will of the electorate in Lowell …

Perhaps it’s time for a real mayor with clout and power to run the city, and not just a ceremonial mayor who is judged by how many festivals and flag raisings he or she attends? Perhaps it’s time for the city of Lowell to elect its head administrator? Perhaps it’s time for the city of Lowell to enjoy the respect that comes from an electing a mayor?

I do believe it is time to explore a Mayor-Council form of government for Lowell.

As Lowell Resident said…what changed? I think we know the answer to that.

Update: and the weirdness gets weirder. What does John MacDonald’s definition of “have felt for some time”? I guess it depends what your definition of is, is…

Watch live video from ltc-public 1 on Justin.tv

I thought, you know maybe it was time, I felt that - and have felt for some time - that, maybe it was time for Lowell to change its form of government to a strong mayor/council.

Every election cycle is a learning process, so here’s a short (and rather pithy, snarky) list of things I learned:

I learned that local elections cannot be won by robocalls.

By the same token, I learned that you cannot win elections in a local, nonpartisan race by blaming Democrats because they were being mean and talking about your public donations, sock puppeting, and campaign videos you put out yourself that made no sense (I’ll slash your taxes AND deliver more services! Because I’m magic!)

I learned that a muddled issue, wherein it is hard to figure out who really is to blame and where they made a mistake, or hard to know whether it was an honest mistake or not, the hammer will come down on the elected officials. Controversy is never good for reelection chances. The Superintendent Scott affair appeared to be handled badly by all parties (including hers, and the Sun’s), but Scott is no longer here to punish, and the incumbents were. I continue to believe that it was right to question her leadership of the schools and it probably is the case that we’re well rid of her, especially given the way she managed to burn her bridges. That sort of person we can live without. However, the voters were left with a sense of frustration and a serious lack of knowledge about “what went down” and why, and acted accordingly.

I learned that old fashioned on the ground door knocking is still the way to go. And that when a lot of challengers work hard and we have no slackers in the race, that the vote counts get really really close.

I learned hot button knee-jerk issues still appeal to voters, to my very big regret. But that’s human nature.

I learned that pink signs with funny fonts can make or break a campaign. (Note: I helped Kristin with those.)

And finally, I learned that no matter how many times you do this, either running yourself, or helping a candidate (or more than one) to run, standing and staring up at that giant board at Blue Shamrock watching the numbers come in one freaking precinct at a time is the most nerve-wracking experience ever. I don’t really know why I do this to myself. Seriously, I’m going to have an ulcer condition before too long.

What did you learn?

All videos are uploaded, and embedded in the previous post. You should check out the last two videos, as well, or all of them if you have not seen any yet.

And, VOTE ON TUESDAY!

I was a little late this year with LiL’s contribution to the political discussion vis a vis the local race, so my apologies to the candidates who weren’t able to make it, but I have 8 interviews with incumbents and challengers. Right now they are running on LTC, four episodes of a 1/2 hour each, where two candidates each got 13 minutes (some went shorter) to talk about their candidacy. I stuck with Council candidates due to time constraints (video takes a lot of time to edit and produce). Thanks to fellow blogger Jack for helping out, as well as Cindy, my cameraperson!

The format for the interviews was a lot different this year. Because we had so many good forums, and other candidate venues, I wanted to do something a little looser, a little more freewheeling, and a little more candidate-driven. I’m not the best interviewer in the world and I hate being in front of the camera, but this sit-down style afforded me the ability to guide the conversation without being too specific. There is an introduction section, and four topics - Budget and Finances, Economics and Jobs, Public Services, and Professional City Management. Within each subject I had some suggested topics (which helps when you want to compare candidates) but allowed them to talk about whatever they wanted, unless they were under time, in which case I asked a few questions.

The first two episodes (candidates appear in the order they came to the studio) are uploaded, and I will upload the rest very shortly and will post. Enjoy! (Hopefully I can post these iframes…)

Don’t forget to vote TUESDAY! I will probably post more thoughts over the weekend.

LeftinLowell.com Candidate Interviews - Mayor Jim Milinazzo and challenger Van Pech

LeftinLowell.com Candidate Interviews - Marty Lorrey and Corey Belanger

LeftinLowell.com Candidate Interviews - Mendonca and Belley

LeftinLowell.com Candidate Interviews - Murphy and Nuon

It’s never pleasant when you have to do this to a friend. I stick by my comments the other day when I was angry about the leaks of executive session regarding the school committee. Never mind that it is my friend Jackie who was the source of the leak, whose motivations I believe have always been pure and whose frustrations are likely at a fever pitch with these negotiations.

Never mind, too, that there’s a huge argument to be made for opening up the union negotiations for teachers or other public employees. I had not realized that other communities have open negotiations, in part, or some even fully open. I have to wonder if it’s better than this goddamned cloak and dagger bullcrap we’ve been faced with for years, even if we’d be viewing the messy “sausage-making” commenter evelyn talked about in the previous post.

It might even benefit the teachers, if, as I have come to learn, there are remarkably awful provisions not related to money or the raise that were in the offer from the school committee. Making such provisions automatically public might help the teachers’ case that the rejection was not about the raise, it was about other things.

And I have also come to learn that Paul Georges is as responsible for leaking details of the negotiations as anyone else - in fact, did it long before Jackie did. I learned that from a first hand account. That he could be so hypocritical about the school committee leaks this weekend shows you what sort of character he has. I’m disgusted by him as well. Perhaps more so, for the hypocrisy.

And it took a lot of guts for Jackie to come out and say it was her. I’m glad she did so we can clear this up. She wrote a detailed letter to the editor about the situation, and you should read it. I’m going to leave it up to you, the readers, to figure out if you can live with her actions and reelect her to the school committee. Perhaps, for myself, I find it hard to call for the resignation of someone I know to be generally honest, smart, and good at her elected job, and maybe I still don’t know how I feel about the situation, myself, or even, how I’ll vote after this.

It’s obvious to me that she felt that the playing field was unfair with Georges dictating what went public, and perhaps the frustrations and the actions it prompted were justified. They also weren’t justified, in that it does break executive session, and as such, is a serious concern.

Whatever you as voters decide, one thing is obvious to me - the whole system is totally broken. Whether that’s because of the actions of certain individuals like Georges, who want to claim victimhood after they themselves were guilty over and over of the same misdeed, or because there is something inherently wrong with executive session negotiations and we need to address the process itself, I don’t have the answers to that. All I know is that I’m really sad we came to this point.

I spent most of Friday during the day in Boston, at Dewey Square, taking in OccupyBoston. I brought all the donations I could scrounge up (for instance, my entire adult history in mothballed bed comforters and towels) and hoped to hang around and get some video interviews and stories I could tell. Instead I wound up volunteering for a web project they needed - I thought my time would be better spent utilizing my skills as a developer rather than working on Occupy content and publicity for a small, local blog.

I haven’t written much here on the Occupy movement in the last few weeks, though I’ve been more than keenly following it online. There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head that I’ve been paralyzed from writing an essay-length post about it, although if you follow my Twitter account, the Facebook page which features many of the tweets, or keep up with @leftinlowell on the left sidebar here, you’ll know that I’ve been a very active author about OccupyBoston and OWS in the 140-character arena.

I could write a lot (and may yet) about what I found at Dewey Square on Friday - the strong sense of community, amazing solidarity, the organic means of organizing they employ - but many others have written about that already and you can find reams of pixels devoted to covering the news and day to day life of Occupiers.

But this afternoon, I found the 140 character limit failing me, and as I said in a direct response to an inquiry, needed a full blog post to explain my feelings and thoughts, specifically regarding the pressures that the Occupy movement is and will face in the coming weeks and months. Via @BostonPhoenix, I found this short description (and full video) of a Harvard political panel hastily formed to facilitate a discussion of the Occupy movement, including visiting fellow Ed Rendell, former Governor of Pennsylvania.

A far greater percentage of the audience than of the panel had actually spent signiicant time at an Occupation — Williamson has spent time at #OccupyBoston — but that didn’t stop anyone from speculating or projecting.

Rendell is not alone — especially and not surprisingly among Democratic politicians — in wishing that some of the enthusiasm of Occupy would carry over to the ballot box. What Democratic politicians have been very slow to acknowledge is that many Occupiers are as sick of Democrats as they are with banks — and are not enthusiastic about the possibilities of a two-party system they see as being hopelessly corrupted by corporate campaign contributions.

As a thoroughly committed progressive electoral political activist, I have, and will continue to, volunteer my time to electing good candidates at all levels of government, turning out the vote, encouraging voter participation, and going to the polls myself. It’s the least I can do for my democracy. But as an electoral activist, one who also has some experience in movement politics (the anti-war Bush era) I want to caution the Occupation against giving in too much to the powerful forces that would love to squeeze out this amazing energy for their own use.

There are so many pieces of evidence I could use to back that up. The most obvious is to look at what happened to the Tea Party movement. Although I am in total opposition to just about everything the TP stands for, the movement at its inception was grassroots at its core, expressing anger at the status quo. (I don’t argue about the need for such anger, but the TP is, at least in its current incarnation, gravely wrong on who was to blame.) Even one of its founders, a conservative blogger, now repudiates what it’s become - a front group for the financial backers of the Republican party and its politicians.

Or look at the Obama 2008 campaign. The enthusiasm of young volunteers and voters was part of the reason he was propelled to such heights of popularity. They were fired up, ready to go. And when they got there…they got some of what they wanted, sure. At least a modicum of health care reform. A half-measures stimulus package for jobs that turned out to be only partly effective - because the downturn was steeper than anyone knew, and because a third or more of the stimulus was ineffective tax cuts instead of direct stimulus spending. He has had a weak stomach for the fight…the opposite of a firm, demanding executive branch leader that we so need…instead, “capitulating” and “pre-compromising” are the catchphrases that come to mind about Obama’s first term.

Obama also put Wall Street execs into his economic brain trust. Wall St certainly doesn’t love this president, but if you were looking for them to enact policies against greed and corruption, you were sorely disappointed…besides the Elizabeth Warren-driven Consumer Protection Agency, we extracted no price from the financiers - not jail time pursued where possible, nor reigning their excess in, or asking them to pay their fair share of their own ridiculous bailouts.

The last of which, along with prolonged unemployment woes, prompted the Occupation movement to begin with.

If I have any advice for the burgeoning Occupy movement - if I could make any appeal at all to them that would matter (and by them, I do mean us, since I will continue to do what I can to support it), it would be this: if you allow yourselves to be coopted and pressured to work on elections, driven by the necessarily short-term thinking of electoral activism, you will be distracted from your larger goal, and you will be disappointed, time and again.

There are a few reasons for this, some inevitable in any circumstance, like the fact that we cannot all agree, even with those we agree, 100% of the time. I eased out of the anti-war movement because of the 2006 campaign for Governor Deval Patrick, swept up in the enthusiasm of what he was trying to accomplish, and believing that I could be more effective as an electoral activist than trying to change the stubborn mind of the Bush administration on its war policies. Choose between bashing my head on a wall repeatedly, or use a hammer to break through? Give me that hammer!

And in some ways, in some campaigns, you can be more effective as an electoral activist; ask for, and receive, real and lasting change. I am largely proud of my Governor, and the work I did to elect him. He has been an effective economic leader to say the least, nevermind his progressive support for gay rights, and for most social programs (your mileage may vary). But even I have had my enthusiasm for his tenure brutally dampened at times, especially now, that he, who should be smart enough to know better, has been on the forefront of the impending legalization of casinos. I have been disappointed, even in the best of our leaders, enough to distract me from more far-reaching goals.

If I can be disappointed in someone like Deval Patrick, just imagine the disappointment around a second term of Obama.

You can’t take on everything. Neither individuals, nor movements, can afford to be divided in their efforts or their aims. And in the end, electing more and better leaders will not change the system. That system is so broken, electing a Patrick or a Warren or this or that individual is like a plank trying to hold back a tide. The system needs fundamental uprooting and replanting, and no amount of progressive electoral politics (save the entire corps of incumbents being ousted and replaced wholesale at once by a massive grassroots effort of small donors and volunteers) will truly address the core problem at hand.

Electoral politics is about fraying the cloth of the “system” at the edges; Occupation should be about reweaving the entire bolt.

I have some ideas to propose (well one overarching, giant idea, really) of how Occupy can do this, for once, and for all. It’s an uphill battle so massive, so stacked against us, so big of an effort that just to think it makes me shiver in fear and excitement. But it is the only inevitable conclusion I can come to when thinking about the future of our country and how to right all the wrongs. I am talking about a constitutional amendment to rescind corporate personhood and the ruling of the Supreme Court that money equals speech.

All of what is broken with our system is about money and influence in our politics. Global climate change cannot be addressed because of the massive amount of money being pumped into stopping the regulation, and reversal of, carbon dependence. Economic justice is being thwarted by financial contributions from banks and Wall Street, so that the concept of going back to Clinton-era taxes on the wealthy and capital gains (money making money, as opposed to work making money) is nigh impossible to argue. And so on, and so on, and so on. If in a democracy being elected depends on monetary support, and people with more money can support more heavily than the rest of the 99%, then who will ever listen to the 99%?

A constitutional amendment is a big hill to climb. It’s a long-term hill, it could take a decade. It could take more. The money arrayed against such an act would be astounding - if you think Wall Street spends money on politics now, wait until you try this out.

However, no amount of cash is going to convince the American people that the system is working as it is, or that Citizens United was a good idea, or that corporations should have rights as though they were people. If lasting change is what Occupy seeks, than the moment is now.

But whatever form, and eventual goal, this movement takes on (if indeed it does not peter out after we see the economy rebound after some new temporary economic bandaid that puts off the inevitable real crash that I feel is coming) it needs to think beyond 2012. Beyond 2014, or 2016. Beyond the cyclical electoral process.

If that means fighting the pressure from Democratic politicians to elect them, as well as ignoring the temptation to help enact near-term policy bandaids, then as a staunch Democrat, I say, so be it. What you lose in short term gain is far exceeded by the long term possibilities.

I can’t help thinking that much of our future is dependent on what this nascent movement called Occupation does next (but no pressure!). And, I would love to be able to say at the end of all of this, “Our Democracy is dead…long live our Democracy.”

I attended the fourth in a series of four City Council forums put on by the diligent members of Lowell’s neighborhood groups. It was this (technically yesterday now I suppose) morning at Shedd Park’s pavilion in a BYOC (bring your own chair) setup with opening statements, questions from the audience fielded to candidates one at a time, and then closing statements.

I have video of all the opening statements, and then video of most of the audience-generated questions, up until my battery ran out. The venue was backlit since it was the pavilion, so the quality is crap. Sorry about that.

I also had my audio recorder going that captured the entire event, so you can listen to the full thing.

Opening statements:

Audience questions:

And:
Full audio of the entire event

I’ve been following (mostly online) the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston protests since nearly the beginning. They got traction and coverage on blogs and Twitter long before the media was covering it - in fact, before the unprovoked pepper spray incidents that made the news, the only place to read about what was happening was online.

The media complained that they weren’t cohesive enough and there wasn’t news to cover. Well, that has quickly changed and evolved. For starters, there were some very bad decisions from the NYPD - both institutionally, and by some idiot individuals - which put the protests on the map for the media, and solidified the motivation of participants and supporters. What’s more, it seems the organic sort of organizing that has sprung up has - and I have to use the word evolved again - to meet the challenges of running a protest, dealing with the media, finding a set of demands to articulate why they are angry and not going to take it any more. OWS has spokespeople and media tents and a strong online presence - all while being relatively leadersless in the traditional sense.

In some ways, my personal cynicism alert flag is up. (Yeah, I know, I’m too young to be truly cynical…) I spent years organizing with the peace movement against the Iraq war, butting my head up against the sheer stubbornness of the Bush administration and, later, Obama’s. After all, GitMo is still open, the USA PATRIOT Act was reauthorized and is being used to spy on Americans without due process, we’re still in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan though with some troop drawdown, and Obama even unilaterally bombed, for right or wrong, Libya, without the consent of Congress.

The only satisfaction we got out of our fight was that most of the American public got on our side after a while. But it still reelected Bush and let itself be lied to about Kerry’s war record and ability to lead, and we never got a truly different kind of leader to replace him in 2008, either. Obama put Wall St executives in charge of the economy even after it was evident they were full of shit.

But there is something really interesting happening with Occupy[America]. For one thing, it’s just average citizens (not diehard liberals or extremely informed people like me) who are protesting. Photo after photo, interview after interview, this is very evident.

There are so many people in this country who have been foreclosed on, laid off, unable to move forward, that a segment of them, with nothing left to lose, are truly taking the fight to the streets. Since they have nothing left to lose - no middle class lifestyle, no prospects - they have a lot to fight for. I always said the worst part about being an anti-war protester is that most of our citizens, even when sympathetic (and the majority was by the time I left that movement) are busy with their lives, making their livings, feeding their families, going to soccer games, and being generally content that things aren’t that bad for them, personally. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s totally human, and what’s more, a legacy of the last century of American progress. We built the middle class. A country with a middle class able to make ends meet is a relatively politically stable country. It’s a good thing.

Which is why I think there is something different in the air.

Gradually, we’ve seen the erosion of the buying power and the salaries of the middle class. For so many decades before, our children did at least a little better than their parents. Then, since the Reagan era, we started to see the slide. We began to only tread water…then occasionally swallowed some. Then we began drowning, but we as a people were the last to see it happen.

Even in the 2008 economic meltdown, we failed to notice our lungs filling with something other than air.

This generation of young people really are the first who truly believe - nay, who know - they are not destined to do better than their parents. Unlike the spoiled kids of my generation (raised largely in the 80s and coming of age in the 90s), they see the coming tide sweeping over them and pulling them under the water before they even get a chance to begin. They are left behind. And they know that if they do nothing, it will only get worse. They have nothing left to lose.

They join every one of their older siblings, parents, grandparents who have lost a house, a job, a future, despite being of the generations born with more promise. For some of us older ones, we’ve experienced firsthand how it’s gonna be going forward if there are no changes. For the rest of us older ones, we are beginning to understand how fragile our position of comfort is. The OccupyWallSt movement presents this to us in bas-relief - the notion that the middle class is under siege and has been for quite some time.

The thing that is different from now from these previous movements is that the situation that has caused these long term problems is not going to be alleviated by last generation’s leaders. Obama is cut off at the knees to even patch a pathetic temporary band-aid (the jobs bill) on our economic slide by Republican intransigence. And even Obama’s half-measures would probably only prove to elongate the stagnation, not solve the underlying problem. We’re now seeing the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us reach the levels seen right before the 1929 crash. Eventually, this was going to get noticed by someone. By everyone.

Even the Tea Party movement, while misguided to the extreme, is an expression of this loss of power by the average person. Why did they catch fire? Despite being such a minority of even the Republican party? Because poor and middle class Republicans too are suffering in this economic climate, this class warfare on us by the super-wealthy. They just aren’t right on who to blame for this.

Most of America, on the other hand, already knows what and who is to blame. They already overwhelmingly want to see taxes raised back up on the uberwealthy. They know that Wall St needs taking down a peg or three, and that we need to go back to regulating our economic system so that the playing field becomes level again. They just need the energy to look up from their day to day struggles against the tide, to look up, and see that horizon again.

I don’t know where the Occupy movement is going to go. It seems to change and swell bigger by the day, though it could have an upper limit, I suppose. But if this truly is the moment where the American people reach the tipping point, if this is the straw that, finally, after 30 years of straws, breaks the camel’s back, then maybe we can make the changes without the economic crash that I have been foreseeing for years. That crash (which will make 2008 look like cakewalk) could still be coming. But if we organize enough in advance, if we can offer an alternative to the American people now, perhaps we will not lose a decade like they did in the Great Depression. After all, we have history to inform us how best to rebuild the American middle class and spread prosperity around to everyone.

So, occupy on! There may not be an immediate result, but it could offer a long term solution. Hats off to the most powerless among us.

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” - V

Whatever you think of the initiative spearheaded by UTEC to allow 17 year old to vote (I am personally for it) in our local muni elections, you have the admire the organization and passion that has gone into it. As a foray into political organizing (be it for an issue, a candidate, or just organizing in general) and as civic involvement goes, I consider that they’ve already won.

Get ‘em early while they’re young, make them feel that their voice is important. Maybe this is the antidote we’ve been looking for to cure cynicism in our politics.

It’d be nice to cap this with a real win, so the kids can showcase how our political system works - organize, fight for your issue, knock on doors, and get a bill you care about passed. There’s no harm as far as I can see to give a voice to kids still in school about how we govern those schools and our city. They are as affected by the policy as anyone could be.

From the press release:

The Vote 17 campaign is unlike any similar past or current bill as it calls for the initiative to appear on Lowell’s local election ballot after full State House approval. Teen organizers are asking that the state legislature allow the voters of Lowell to decide on an issue that has already received full support from all levels of Lowell’s city government and its statehouse delegation. Throughout the bill’s journey, it has gained support from The Lowell Sun Editorial Board, the entire Lowell Statehouse Delegation and bill sponsor Rep. Kevin Murphy, the Lowell City Council, Chief of Police Ken Lavallee, and recent endorsements from SEIU 615 and IBEW 2321. As Vote 17 teen organizers have said from the beginning of their campaign, given such widespread support, they are simply asking to “Let Lowell Vote!”

There will be a press conference on their bill at the United Teen Equality Center (UTEC), 34 Hurd Street, Lowell, this Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 3:30pm.

If you are interested in such things, take a look over at Dick Howe’s blog. In the upper right hand area of the front page are several hyperlinks, each related to a subject that you may find compelling. The one I find myself frequently clicking is titled “ELECTIONS.” There you find:

Welcome to our “Politics” page where we combine our two interests, Lowell Politics and Lowell History. This page consists of two sections: The first is a link to our “lowellpols” site which is an alphabetical index of everyone who has held or sought elective office in Lowell during the past fifty years. The second section of the page consists of links to the voting results of various Lowell elections.

I have been crunching the election data for this century and the information Dick provides is very helpful, especially when looking further back than the year 2000.

I was curious about total ballots cast in city elections, particularly the ratio of that total and the number of votes garnered by the elected candidates. To get a rough idea, I plotted three values; total ballots cast, 1st place finish vote total and 9th place finish vote total against time. I used 1st and 9th as a type of bookend, as 2nd thru 8th vote totals lay between them.

Going back 20 years from the 2009 city election, you see:

The graph shows, with notable exceptions in 1993 and 2001, a downward trend in participation or roughly 10,000 less ballots cast across 8 city elections. In 2003, a “bottom” was hit and there is a slight recovery of 1,000 more ballots cast across 3 city elections.

Let’s zoom back to this century: (more…)