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Candidates who ran for Lowell City Council in 2009 were recently required to file their end-of-the-year reports with the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance. These reports show us how much money each candidate raised and spent during the year. By comparing this data to the election vote totals, we can calculate how much each candidate spent per vote.

In 2009, the most efficient council candidate was Patrick Murphy who spent only 71 cents for each vote he received. Next was Rita Mercier who spent $1.12 per vote. Third was Rodney Elliott who spent $1.39 per vote.

The following table shows the top twelve finishers in the council election in order of the efficiency of their campaign spending. The columns show the candidate name and order of finish in the voting; the amount of money spent in the campaign; the amount of votes received; and the cost per vote.

2009 Council Campaign Expenditures

Some other observations:

The top three fund raisers in 2009 were Alan Kazanjian ($27020), Bill Martin ($22300) and Kevin Broderick ($22140).

Many council candidates finished the race with significant amounts of money on-hand. Whereas at the start of 2009, few of the council incumbents had more than $1500 in their accounts, at the end of 2009 – right after the election was finished – most had considerable amounts still in their bank accounts. The three councilors with the biggest bank balances at the end of 2009 were Rodney Elliott $11023; Rita Mercier has $7772; and Kevin Broderick has $7478. There are many questions or implications raised by this. For example, why did these candidates judge it unnecessary to spend money they already had on the last campaign? And looking ahead, these healthy early balances give put these councilors in a more secure position should they choose to run again in 2011 (or for some other office in the interim).

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The swearing-in ceremony of the Lowell School Committee for the 2010-2011 term was made available on LTC/Channel 10 as I found out a few minutes ago. After a rendition of the national anthem by the Lowell High School Acapella Choir, members David Conway, Jackie Doherty, John Leahy, James Leary, Connie Martin along with newcomer Alison Larraba and Mayor Jim Milinazzo were sworn-in by Judge Chernoff. James “Jimmy” Leary was elected as Vice-Chair of the Lowell School Committee. Leary thanked his colleagues for electing him and noted his appreciation for Jim Milinazzo as the new Mayor and Chairman of the Committee - noting further his well-known commitment to Lowell Public School education. At the completion of the light but traditional agenda and benediction offered by Fr. Taggart Pastor of St. Patrick’s Church , the Mayor adjourned the meeting. Members gathered below the Mayor’s podium for the traditional and official “class picture.”

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At a traditional ceremony held at Lowell City Hall before a packed council chamber this morning, the nine members of the Lowell City Council for the 2010-2011 term were sworn-in by Judge Chernoff (not the City Clerk). Members included incumbents Kevin Broderick, Edward Caulfield, Rodney Elliott, William Martin, Rita Mercier and James Milinazzo with newly elected members - former Councillor Joseph Mendonca, Franky Descouteaux and Patrick Murphy.

After an invocation offered by Fr. Taggart, Pastor of St. Patrick’s Church and the national anthem sung by the Lowell High School Acapella choir, members were sworn-in by the City Clerk. The Clerk then called for a roll-call vote for the office of Mayor. Each councillor as called offered the name of James Milinazzo for Mayor and he was thus elected unanimously. Mr. Milinazzo was escorted by Councillors Martin and Elliott to the front of the well for his swearing-in by the Clerk. At the podium, Mayor Milinazzo noted that he was “humbled by your confidence” and he pledged “integrity and professionalism” during his tenure in office. The Mayor noted former mayors seated in place of honor at the ceremony - former Mayors Richard Howe, M. Brendan Fleming, Tarsey Poulios, Armand Mercier and Brian Martin. (I know I missed one.) He introduced the police and fire chiefs, GLTHS members David LaFerriere and George O’Hare and Manager Lynch. He particularly thanked outgoing Mayor Caulfield for his service and representation of the city. As I was watching the ceremonies on the Lowell SUN website - with good visuals and poor audio - the feed to the SUN site and my computer died. I’m sorry to miss the Mayor’s additional remarks and the rest of the festivities. Hopefully, there will b e a rebroadcast on LTC or the SUN website. My congratulations to all - especially the Mayor - as they begin their term of office.

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It was a busy year in Lowell politics, so I won’t limit myself to just ten items.  Here is my list of the top political events in Lowell in 2009:

Incumbents lost in all three local elected boards this November.  On the city council, Alan Kazanjian and Armand Mercier failed to win re-election.  They (and Mike Lenzi who did not run) were replaced by Franky Descoteaux, Joe Mendonca and Patrick Murphy.  On the school committee, Regina Faticanti, the longest serving elected official in Lowell at the time, was not re-election.  She was replaced by first-time candidate Alison Lariba.  And on the Vocational School Committee, long-time incumbent Mike Hayden was not re-elected with the voters choosing Fred Bahou instead. 

A ballot referendum to change the method by which Lowell voters chose their city councilors called Choice Voting was defeated by a total of 6841 against to 5174 in favor.

The world fiscal crisis forced the city of Lowell to make substantial cuts to its FY09 budget including a significant number of layoffs.  Arguing that more cuts were needed, a majority of the city council voted to eliminate funding for the position of Assistant to the City Manager (held by Andy Sheehan).  The same councilors also voted to eliminate the city’s primary election.  At election time, many voters later identified the outcome of these two matters as a cause for dissatisfaction with some members of the city council.

The school committee also made substantial cuts, eliminating more than 120 jobs.  In a controversial move (to some), the committee also voted to move the school department headquarters from the Bon Marche building to the newly vacated Rogers School (which was also closed in a cost cutting measure).

Two of the elected officials who lost in November became involved in legal matters prior to the election.  Early in the year, a clerk-magistrate in the Lowell District Court issued a complaint against Regina Faticanti for threatening to commit a crime with the alleged victim being Superintendent of Schools Dr. Chris Scott.  Just before Christmas, the case was resolved short of trial with all parties agreeing that Faticanti be placed on pretrial probation with various conditions imposed but with no admission of guilt or any wrongdoing.  Back in September, a photograph of the city’s plumbing inspector sleeping at a business owned by City Council Alan Kazanjian emerged in the media along with an investigative report that revealed the inspector performing private work on city time.  Then in October, it was disclosed that a building in Chelmsford owned by Kazanjian was tied into the Lowell sewer system despite the city’s earlier denial of a request to do just that.  Finally, the Middlesex District Attorney’s office had subpoenaed all records related to all properties owned by Kazanjian, although there have been no further disclosures about the scope or progress of that investigation.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell became the owner of two of the anchor buildings of downtown Lowell, the Doubletree Hotel (which was purchased from private owners in April to become the UML Inn & Conference Center) and the Tsongas Arena (which was transferred by the city to the university in October).

In economic development news, the new Target store on Plain Street opened in October, the official ground-breaking for the Hamilton Canal development occurred in November and by Christmas, the Lowe’s on Chelmsford Street is rapidly taking shape.  In addition, the new Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union headquarters opened and a number of new stores, shops and markets opened in downtown.  And Elliot’s Hot Dog stand re-opened.

Senator Ted Kennedy died in August after an extended illness.  Controversy arose when the state legislature voted to alter the method of filling a vacancy in the Senate.  Formerly, the governor would appoint someone to fill the seat until the next state election but in the expectation of John Kerry becoming president in 2004 with a Republican governor in office, the legislature changed the law to have the seat filled by a special election.  But this year, with health care reform possibly hanging on a single vote, the governor and legislature decided to change the law once again by allowing the governor to name an interim Senator until a successor could be elected.  Governor Patrick appointed Paul Kirk who did, in fact, cast a critical vote on health care reform just last week.  As for the special election, after Joe Kennedy, Marty Meehan and Steve Lynch all decided not to run, the Democratic field ended up with Martha Coakley, Mike Capuano, Steve Pagliuca and Alan Khazai with Coakley winning by a wide margin in the December primary.  In January 2010, she will face Scott Brown who defeated Jack E Robinson in the Republican primary.

In April, TV trucks from Boston descended on the Pine Street headquarters of the Lowell Health Department to report on the first cases of the H1N1 flu in Massachusetts which were diagnosed in two boys here in Lowell.

Hollywood came to Lowell this summer as Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and a large production company spent several weeks on location filming The Fighter, the story of Lowell boxer Micky Ward.

In March, Lowell issued homeowners cranberry colored barrels and changed the way the city’s trash was collected.

In May, the city of Lowell and the Lowell Spinners entered into a new 10-year lease for Lelacheur Field.

A town hall meeting on health care reform in Chelmsford hosted by Niki Tsongas featured many opponents such reforms and previewed emotional confrontations around the country throughout the summer and fall.

Old media continued to suffer with the Boston Globe being threatened with closure if its unions didn’t make major salary and benefit concessions (which they did).  The Lowell Sun forced all employees to take furloughs in February, laid off some employees in April, raised the newsstand price of the daily paper from 50 to 75 cents, and removed The Column from its website in a move preparatory to charging for content delivered on its website.

The influence of new media continued to grow with a number of local candidates making YouTube and other social networking sites major components of their campaigns.  A number of new blogs such as MrMillCity, Lowell Shallot, Lowell Handmade and Art is the Handmaid of Human Good all appeared on the scene.  An entirely web-based news site, ChelmsfordMassNews.com, was launched.  Twitter users keep the city apprised on breaking news by using the #Lowell tag.  In August, more than 50 people brought together by blogs and Facebook gathered at Elliot’s Hot Dogs to celebrate the re-opening of that Lowell institution.

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The “progressive” (whatever that means these days) online publication truthout.org has a thought-provoking book review by Kirk Nielsen of Miller-McCune magazine. Truthout.org is an aggregator website. Click here for the link. For readers of this blog, the review, “Autumn of the Republic,” blends politics, history, and new media in ways that may be of interest. Living in the city, especially near downtown, one lives with the sound of sirens, so I’m somewhat hardened to the “cultural-sky-is-falling” theme of this review. There goes a siren now. On the other hand, it’s hard to argue with Nielsen’s views about a coarser, more selfish, degraded, violent culture/society at this hinge-point of two centuries. He cites facts in the review that are nothing to write home about, especially if that home is ours.

How does one assess the pessimism, the negative attitude? From our perspective in this city in the northeast corner of our 233-year-old democratic republic, I see promising signs. The ground can hold a lot of water, but it eventually overflows, and the majority of people can take a psychic beating, but the majority will eventually push back. I think that’s what happened with the election of Barack Obama nationally and the mini-revolution in city politics seen in last month’s municipal election. I believe that there is an internal social regulator that brings public affairs back into balance. That regulator absolutely must be revved up sometimes by activists—it’s best not to be left totally on its own. The mystery to me is this: At what point does the balancer kick in? How much damage is done in the meantime?

There are other indicators that suggest we can be more hopeful. Take Lowell. This city has to be one of the most generous communities around. It would be fascinating to track the generosity of this community over the course of one year. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see next December what the people, businesses, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and institutions in Lowell have contributed to various local causes in 12 months? Some weeks there seems to be a fundraising event every night. I think it is part of our community’s net worth, this “generosity mine.”

Can we track volunteer hours and cash and in-kind donations within the city for a year in order to see the scale of giving? Those who watch such activity closely have a sense of what’s going on or get a picture anecdotally. But I’ve never seen a bottom line figure. With the new year about to begin, this would be a good moment to start collecting data. The daily newspaper has been the best record of this with the reporting on community events. A content analysis of the paper would be a start, but could some organization (Nonprofit Alliance, Community Foundation, another?) be a clearinghouse where data could be reported and collected? The giving functions as a kind of collective endowment with spontaneous contributions. How can we get a picture of this and maybe use it as a match to leverage a massive grant for the city from one of the big foundations?

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State Representative Tom Golden - dean of the Lowell State House delegation - is the talk of the Merrimack Valley and beyond this morning. Golden has made it clear that the plan of House colleague and Mayor-elect of Lawrence William “Willie” Lantigua to hold both elected positions is “beyond the pale.” Lantigua’s announcement created quite a back-lash with current Mayor Michael Sullivan also calling for Lantigua to realize that being Mayor of Lawrence is a fulltime job requiring many hours of work per week. As with many other Mayors in the Commonwealth - he would also chair the School Committee. Sullivan noted in an Eagle-Tribune article:

“If you want to be mayor in the city of Lawrence, you need to treat that job as an 80-hour-a-week job,” Sullivan said. “You need to be accessible to the media. You need to let the people know what’s happening in their city. And you can’t do that being part time.”

As mayor, Lantigua will have 22 department heads reporting directly to him and about 800 city employees not involved with the School Department, which has another 2,200 employees — teachers, administrators and staff.

Representative Golden is so incensed by the double-dipping play that he will file legislation to bar the action. In an Herald article Ed Mason notes:

“This is exactly what people think is wrong with the Legislature,” said state Rep. Thomas A. Golden, a Democrat who hails from down the Merrimack River in Lowell.

Golden is filing a bill that would bar any state lawmaker from serving as a mayor or city manager simultaneously. The Lowell rep said he didn’t see how anyone could manage “a 72,000-plus city with the problems they’re facing and do a good job.”

Just the other day, Governor Patrick was in Lawrence meeting with top officials from the city to discuss its current fiscal crisis at a time when the Commonweath is short of resources to fund a big-bailout. Meanwhile, Lantigua’s attitude - while claiming not to be Superman - is he can be a better leader for Lawrence holding both positions for now. He also hasn’t ruled out running for reelection to the House next year. Detractors claim “it’s all about the money” - Lantigua looking for a big double-salary and a big pension pay-out down the road. This situation will continue to put the focus on Lawrence and its woes.

Lantigua has made history by becoming the first Latino elected Mayor in the Commonwealth. As for Tom Golden’s legislation - he will file the bill whether or not Lantigua changes his mind.

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Our colleague and friend Mehmed Ali was mentioned in the Lowell news this week because of the changes on the Lowell City Council. He finished tenth in the voting for the Council in November 2007. Several months later he volunteered to serve with the Department of State in Iraq, working as a cultural liaison in the U.S. Embassy. He stayed on in Baghdad after wrapping up his duties on the cultural side; these days he works as a Special Advisor for Outreach for the Provincial Reconstruction Team. What some folks don’t know is that in addition to holding a Ph.D. in history, Ali writes poems and has published several. The 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams, who was a physician, famously wrote: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”  This has been a violent week in Baghdad, with three car bombs killing 127 people and wounding hundreds more in blasts near government buildings. Ali was in an armored vehicle 200 meters from one blast, but fortunately was not hurt. He sent us the following poem yesterday and agreed to have it published on this community blog. Here’s the poem. —PM

The Poetry Between Us

Mehmed Ali, December 2009

Within the Zone

I lie awake, excluded

from the real living

that is the city

the meekly, muddy flowing Tigris

the Dejlah to the knowing locals

what a thin veil

protecting me from

the other side of the river

here is us

there lie thee

here are we

far from them

And in between

runs the current

of our shared misfortunes

LIFE

with all its messy mornings

even with its

DEATH

ever present

it is still worth breathing

and seeking

and with all its sorrows

and despair

its sadness

it is still living

the Dejlah between us

the simple barrier of water

not too wide

but athwart the divide

we cannot

shall not

pass

one side vitality

one side sterility                  

Across is poetry

the fugue of creativity

awaits if only

an opportunity

a boulevard that lines

the River

named for the Baghdad Bard

Abu Nuwas

who flaunted the clerics

and spoke of women and wine…

and of men being with men

in the most intimate game

and not too far is another path

named for Al Mutanabbi

who criticized the courts of princes

and was killed for his verses

look today

in coffee houses

they hold “Poetry Chases”…

one against another

competing to skillfully add

to the previous orator’s lines

scheming to win respect

in the march of metres

but here there is none

the deadly silence

caught behind blast walls

antiseptic, dyspeptic

the gloom of a wordless world

reigns in our perfect prison

a prism refracting little light

no times for rhymes

no pen to the page, no lust allowed

fleeting thoughts never captured

we are darkened

the solitude of safety

drags us within

drowns us halfway

as we try to ford the River

seeking Lawful Magic

beseeching the foreign natives

to join us

but they cannot

we must not

 they will not

for the River

prevents us from knowing

and stops their sharing

of the common flow

that could bridge the two worlds

divided

.

—Mehmed Ali (c) 2009

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I’m a regular viewer of the evening news - usually Channel 5 at 6 o’clock and Channel 7 at 11 o’clock. I know - quite a different experience. Channel 5 has an elite reputation for news presentation with the other being more “in your face” and sensational. Well, Janet Wu’s lead-in to the Democratic Primary results story on Channel 5 had me scratching my head. She questioned whether or not there was “real” Democratic unity. Huh? What did I miss? This gathering was set-up in advance - all candidates agreed to be united behind the primary winner. John Walsh in his role as Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair worked so that the race to the January 19th election would be ready to go as they say “on day one”! It seems that runner-up Congressman Capuano was ten minutes late to the gathering. Notwithstanding his warm words, hug and sincere pledge of support (whispered words to Coakley - “I mean that”), his tardiness on this snowy morning was at the root of her skepticism. Once again “headlines” belie the truth.

Note: The event was described as a “love in” by Alison King on NECN. See the NECN video here:  http://www.necn.com/Boston/Politics/2009/12/09/Coakley-calls-on-former-rivals/1260397197.html.

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The Lowell SUN has editorially endorsed a candidate in the Republican Primary race for the U. S. Senate - choosing Scott Brown as “the clear choice.” Not a big surprise. While in the Democratic Primary the editorial declared  - “Frankly, we have found the Democratic primary campaign to be rather uninspiring.” And it continues - ”The Sun believes these candidates cannot hope to fill the shoes left by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, the “lion” of the U.S. Senate.”  That’s it folks!

Doubting that the the SUN editorial gurus will ever find the Democratic winner on Tuesday worthy, I fully expect the final endorsement for the seat to go GOP. The six-week run-up to the actual election on January 19, 2010 should be very interesting, spirited and revealing. Stay tuned.

See the full editorial text here - http://www.lowellsun.com/editorials/ci_13934061

Photo from the SUN.

Matha Coakley Greets Seniors in Lowell Yesterday

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