RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Congress averts government shutdown by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Congratulations to our do-little 118th Congress, which, after weeks of inactivity and chaos, has finally passed funding to keep the U.S. government open until March. It’s no surprise that only 21 percent of the American people approve of its performance. It was 19 percent in September. I’m surprised its favorability rating is that high!

The 11th-hour interference by Trump’s alter ego, Elon Musk, the unelected but de facto president at least for now, is confirmation that we now exist in a strange kind of oligarchy. With Donald Trump acting as his henchman, the unelected billionaire rules by tweet, and the worst Republican lapdogs in Congress are content to refer to themselves as the board of directors whose sole task is to ratify Trump’s and now Musk’s every whim. They were more content to keep Musk happy than to preserve the bipartisan inclusion of supplementary funding for pediatric cancer research. Thank goodness that, at the very last moment, at least there were enough Republicans to assert themselves against the holy duo’s demand that the debt limit be eliminated now so that essential government services could be maintained. For now. They’ve just put off till March dealing with the debt limit, tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and other of Trump’s expensive campaign promises. It will be ugly again in a matter of weeks.

I’m reminded of Oliver Cromwell (I was not there myself), who, when he dissolved “the long Parliament” in 1653 for its corruption and ineffectiveness, said, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately……depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Frank Bellotti: a street fighter with a liberal heart by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

Former Massachusetts Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti is dead at 101. One of my first interviews with him, shown to the left, with my six-year-old son Daniel Arons looking on, was in 1973 at a local political picnic when he was launching a campaign for Attorney General. Between 1958 and 1990, he ran for office nine times. He was elected to one term as Lieutenant Governor, was defeated once for Attorney General and three times for Governor. His ill-fated attempt to unseat fellow Democrat and Governor Endicott “Chub” Peabody in 1964 seemed to be the death knell for his political career, but running was in his DNA. And in 1974, he was elected to the first of three terms he would serve as Attorney General, demonstrating a resilience that would mark everything he did in his personal and professional life.

At first blush, Frank Bellotti was an old-style pol, a tough guy who relished the rough-and-tumble of the political arena, in it for the sport if not the policy goals. But he had a real commitment to the ideals of public service. A Boston Globe obituary cited a quote from Bellotti to the effect that “Unless I was in government or running, I was only, like, 70 percent alive.” Over his decades in political office, he fought for civil rights (he marched with Martin Luther King in the sixties), environmental and consumer protections. He prized political loyalty but also prosecuted some noteworthy cases of political corruption, which may have hurt two of his gubernatorial runs. Significantly, he professionalized the office of Attorney General, in ways that fostered a future generation of attorneys general like Scott Harshbarger, Tom Reilly, and Martha Coakley. He became a model for attorneys general nationwide, in 1981 honored as by the National Association of Attorneys General as the most outstanding A.G. in the United States.

Frank Bellotti exuded charisma, a seductive combination of power, warmth and humor. During WWII, Bellotti had served in the Navy in a unit that was a forerunner of the Navy seals. He was an Olympic-level swimmer on the Navy team. His rigorous daily workouts were legendary, and his fitness was impressive well into his eighties and nineties. He was always engaging to encounter, whether at meetings of The New England Council or political/social gatherings.

Celebrated New York white collar criminal defense attorney Charles “Chuck” Clayman, originally from Quincy, worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, was assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and General Counsel to the New York City Department of Investigation. He clerked for Bellotti in the summers of1967 and 1968. Clayman summed up Bellotti’s impact in words that I leave you with:

“I clerked for Frank the summers after my first and second years of law school.  I learned more about being a lawyer from him than all the courses I took at Penn.  He was awesome.  His commitment to his clients was full, complete and unending.  He treated everyone with dignity and respect.  He made certain that the neophyte lawyer knew a simple lesson – work harder than your adversary, don’t cut corners and prepare and prepare and prepare.  I am in my 54th year of practicing law.  He remains the best lawyer I have ever met.  May his memory be a blessing.”

Frank Bellotti may be the last of the old Old Guard among Massachusetts pols, but he’ll long be remembered as one of the most effective and enlightened ones.

Christmas With The Kanes

Christmas With The Kanes

By David Daniel

The exchanging of cards at the holidays remains a quaint, if vanishing, tradition. For a time, it gave ground to the “holiday letter”—pages of cheery mimeographed minutiae. But even those have waned, the impetus to show lives in perfect balance largely siphoned off by Facebook and made a year-round event. Still, cards do arrive.

Every year we get a card from the Kanes in Pennsylvania. I imagine it’s a lovely card. The beautiful handwriting on the envelope, and the embossed return address stamp—a circle, with “The Kanes” printed inside—and the aptly-chosen festive postage stamp suggest it. I picture a nostalgic Currier & Ives rural snow scene, or something gilt-edged and classic from Gaspari. I don’t know for sure, of course, because we never open the envelope.

I look at it, tell my wife it has arrived, then, with a smile, I take it next door where it belongs. You see, we’re at 34 Castle Brook Rd., the number written on the envelope of the card from the Kanes. The addressee is the Desmonds. The Desmonds live at 32.

The first time this simple mix-up occurred, Cori Desmond, our neighbor, grinned when I brought the card over, and thanked me and said she’d let the Kanes know they had the incorrect house number.

That was seven winters ago. Each year since, like clockwork, a week before Christmas, a card from the Kanes arrives. The street address is still number 34. And each year I take it next door and give it to the Desmonds and we have a laugh and they assure me they’ve informed the Kanes, but they promise to remind them.

What I suspect happens is that they mention this to their friends, who live near Pittsburgh. It’s probably after the holidays by that point, and good intentions being what they are, etc. One of the Kanes may even jot down the Desmonds’ correct house number on Castle Brook Rd., but in the maze of confusion that the holidays are the change doesn’t make it to the official holiday card list, which by then has been put away for the year.

If it were a computer list, a simple one-time keystroke would do the trick. But I get it, I prefer handwritten too. Old dogs, new tricks. So, it’s no one’s fault. Certainly not ours, nor the Kanes’—who don’t know we exist—nor the Desmonds’. And until such time as the USPS adds mind-reading to augment its already-impressive array of high-tech wizardry, I hold all parties innocent of blame.

And the fact is, I truly don’t mind the mix-up. The Desmonds are only a single house away. And getting the card from Pennsylvania . . . don’t laugh, it makes me think of that line in the song about a guy heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie. Perry Como, is it? Anyway, bringing the card to where it belongs provides an added opportunity to say hello to good next-door neighbors, whom we see all too seldom during the busy year.

Update: The Kanes’ card came today. The address is unchanged, written in the same fine penmanship as always: “The Desmond Family, 34 Castle Brook Rd., Westford, MA 01886.” I’ll bring it over to number 32 tonight and we’ll have a gentle laugh and wish each other happy holidays.

I’ve also made a New Year’s resolution that I’ll run by my wife first before I act on it. I’m going to ask my neighbors, if we ever move, to please tell their Pennsylvania friends that they, the Desmonds, have moved, and give the Kanes our new address. I’ll make sure the card gets back to the Desmonds eventually, of course, but I’d like to have it arrive in our mailbox first.

Christmas without the Kanes just wouldn’t be the same.

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Ps: this piece first appeared on the Richard Howe blog in Dec. 2022. Soon after, my neighbors sent a copy to their friends the Kanes. A few days later I received a delightful card correctly addressed to me and my family—from the Kanes. So . . . I guess old dogs can make new friends. Merry Christmas.

Lowell Politics: December 22, 2024

The Lowell City Council met last Tuesday night. I’ll get to that shortly, but first I want to revisit the pre-Thanksgiving news that the retail establishments in Mill No. 5 will close early in 2025, and that the space they occupy will be transferred to the Lowell Community Charter Public School. I wrote about this at length in my newsletters of December 1, 2024, and December 8, 2024. As a result of the interest I’ve shown in this news, earlier this week I found myself on a Zoom call with Jim Lichoulas Jr., the trustee of the trust which owns the Mill No. 5 space, and Robert Gignac, the Chief Operating Officer of the charter school.

During this conversation, I gained some insight into how this all came about, but first, let’s quickly review the properties involved. There are two large mill buildings, formerly of the Appleton Manufacturing Company, on Jackson Street with their backs facing Middlesex Street. The building closest to Central Street is known as Mill No. 6; the building closer to Thorndike Street is Mill No. 5. Because they are separated by a party wall, from the outside it looks like one big brick building.

The Lichoulas family has owned these buildings and other lots in the vicinity since the 1980s. In 2000, the brand-new Lowell Community Charter Public School moved into first two floors of Mill No. 6, leasing the space for the first five years, and continuing to lease it when, in 2004, Lichoulas condominiumized Mill No. 6 into three large condominium units: Floors 1 and 2 are the school unit; floors 3 and 4 are another unit that contains a separate residential condominium complex; and floors 5 and 6 are a third unit that contains still another separate residential condominium complex. (Having a condominium complex within a larger condominium unit is understandably confusing.)

Then in 2015, several things happened. Lichoulas sold the Mill No. 6 school condominium to the charter school which went from a rent-paying tenant to the owner of the condominium. Lichoulas also declared a condominium in Mill No. 5, only in this instance he created just two units: a “school unit” of the first two floors; and a “commercial unit” of the third, fourth, and fifth floors (as well as portions of the first two floors). Lichoulas sold the “school unit” to the expanding charter school and retained ownership of the commercial unit. At the same time, Lichoulas also sold several vacant parcels on the other side of Middlesex Street to the charter school.

Thus ends the review. Everyone with me so far? Here’s what I learned this week:

The charter school had purchased the vacant lots on Middlesex Street with the intent of building a new structure there. Back in 2015, I recall hearing that the new building would be a gymnasium with parking for staff underneath it, however, I think the plans evolved to be mostly more classrooms and other common areas such as a performance space. Whatever was to be built across Middlesex Street, the students would get to it via an elevated pedestrian walkway over Middlesex Street that would connect the Mill No. 5 & 6 complex and the new structure (just as the two main buildings of Lowell High School are connected by a pedestrian bridge over the Merrimack Canal). Detailed architectural plans for the charter school’s new building and the pedestrian bridge were completed I think in early 2024, and the cost of the project was re-estimated.

However, when the new cost estimates came back, the cost of construction had exploded beyond earlier estimates. For anyone who has followed the saga of the Lowell High addition, or the delay in the Lupoli project in the Hamilton Canal District, this drastic rise in construction costs is a familiar occurrence. The new price tag exceeded the budget, so the charter school was stuck.

At about the same time, the revenue being generated by the retail portion of Mill No. 5 was proving inadequate to keep the place running. Five or so years ago when the Mill No. 5 space first opened, that wasn’t a problem because business there was booming. But then the Covid-19 pandemic struck and everything shut down. However, even after businesses reopened, the volume of customers from before did not return. Cost-saving measures were implemented but they proved inadequate to achieve solvency in the operating cost of the space. Finally, Jim Lichoulas made the difficult decision to shut down the businesses and do something else with the space.

It was only then that the charter school and Lichoulas each learned of the other party’s dilemma. My sense is that there is more than a business relationship between the two. Back in 2000 the charter school almost failed before it started due to difficulty finding a space for the school until the Lichoulas family stepped up and offered Mill No. 6. For the intervening 24 years, there seems to have been an excellent, on-going relationship between Lichoulas and the school. Consequently, when each learned of the other’s predicament, this new deal came together very quickly.

The school will take ownership of the rest of Mill No. 5 and expand into it instead of in new construction on the other side of Middlesex Street, and Lichoulas will convey the Mill No. 5 retail space to an entity with which he’s had a long and positive relationship. The deal is a complicated one and will not become completely clear until later in January when the closing occurs. Let’s just say that like any real estate transfer of this scale, it’s complicated with many details that won’t be known until title passes.

One detail I did learn is that the charter school intends to retain the storefronts that now line the main corridor of the fourth floor of Mill No. 5, except instead of a record store or a cheese shop behind the unique facades, there will be classrooms. And Luna Theater will be retained and used as a theater and performance space. There may even be a public use component to it.

As for the Mill No. 5 businesses that need new homes, I understand that the city is working with them all. Hopefully they will remain clustered together wherever they end up. The massing of complementary businesses together was likely one of the keys to the early success of Mill No. 5. If you disperse the same businesses one per block throughout the downtown, it’s not the same. A cluster of retail establishments together will draw more people and each business will build on the success of the others. But that’s a topic for another day.

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On Tuesday, the city council unanimously passed Mayor Dan Rourke’s motion to work with Congresswoman Trahan’s office on getting the Lowell City of Learning Community recognized by UNESCO as a designated “city of learning.” Retired UMass Lowell political science professor John Wooding, who I identified in last week’s newsletter as one of the founders of the Lowell City of Learning initiative, spoke on the motion and shared some of the history of the effort and the obstacles that have been faced.

Although the United States was once part of UNESCO (which stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the country withdrew from the organization during the first Trump presidential term. Although President Biden returned the US to the organization, the State Department never created the advisory board required by UNESCO to be in place before a US community could be designated a “city of learning.” While there was no overt opposition within the US government to doing this, it sounds like it just slipped through the cracks and didn’t get done. Although Wooding did not expressly address it, I assume the second Trump Administration will treat UNESCO the same as it was treated during the first so that official City of Learning designation for Lowell could remain elusive, at least for the next four years. But that’s no reason to stop the local Learning City events. After all, continuing this effort would be completely consistent with the vision that Pat Mogan had for the city.

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Merry Christmas to all. Thanks for reading the newsletter. Be sure to catch next week’s edition which will cover the top Lowell political events of 2024.