Lowell

Lowell Politics Newsletter: Feb 18, 2024

The Lowell Senior Center came up at Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting. Councilor Erik Gitschier raised the topic and the discussion covered inadequate maintenance, slow repairs, responsibilities under the lease, and the longer-term ownership status of the facility. Because the Council meeting was otherwise brief, I decided to focus today’s…

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Kisses (PIP 19)

Kisses – (PIP #19) By Louise Peloquin      Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, bouquets of roses, colorful cards and the year’s gadgets are all exchanged on Valentine’s Day. So are kisses. L’Etoile published the following photo 80 years ago. Pure joy emanates from the low-definition image. A guitarist strums a tune.…

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Lowell Politics newsletter: Feb 11, 2024

Tuesday night’s Lowell City Council meeting was largely uneventful, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There was the obligatory winter-time segment on potholes of which there are many. City Manager Tom Golden cited an enormous quantity of blacktop used by DPW workers to fill these holes which seem to…

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News Briefs from L’Etoile

News Briefs – (PIP #18) By Louise Peloquin Every day, the Prince Street linotype operators arouse L’Etoile’s five Mergenthalers (1) by tapping on their 90-character keyboards. The grand machines assemble matrices and spit out lines of hot metal to cast them into a single slug. These pieces are set to print newspaper…

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Lowell Politics Newsletter: Feb 4, 2024

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Lowell City Council moved efficiently through a short agenda, completing the meeting in just 90 minutes. One thing that contributed to the meeting’s brevity was the presence of just five motion responses on the agenda. With 15 new motions passed the same night, simple math…

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Lowell Hosts

Lowell Hosts- (PIP #17) By Louise Peloquin Lowell is known for its success in managing large crowds. To provide one example, the Lowell Folk Festival, started in 1990 after two years of hosting the National Folk Festival, is the longest-running free folk festival in the United States. Every July, thousands…

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Richard Howe Substack: Jan 28, 2024

The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday night with a potentially long agenda being handled in an expeditious 2.5 hours. Because of last week’s ruling by the City Solicitor that all unanswered motions from the last Council session died at the end of that session, this week’s agenda contained a…

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The “golden belt” called a reputation

“The “golden belt” called a reputation  (PIP #16) By Louise Peloquin Would journalists today report on elected officials as they did 106 years ago? ********* L’Etoile March 18, 1918 Lewiston, ME. Governed by Ours This city of 30,000 souls has a majority of Franco-Americans at its municipal council. – This…

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Richard Howe newsletter: Jan 21, 2024

Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting featured City Manager Tom Golden’s “State of the City” address. There’s nothing in the City Charter or the Council Rules that requires such a speech, but back in the 1990s City Managers began delivering them and that has continued. At first, the State of the…

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