The Lowell City Council resumed meeting last week for the first time since August 12, 2025. Before getting to that, let’s look at last Tuesday’s preliminary election results.

Preliminary elections were required in just three council districts. Here are the results with incumbent councilors indicated by “(I)” and the candidates who will proceed to the November ballot in bold:

DISTRICT 3

1. Belinda Juran – 465
2. Daniel Finn – 378
3. Corey Belanger (I) – 344
4. Erin Gendron – 278

DISTRICT 7

1. Sidney Liang – 148
2. Paul Ratha Yem (I) – 105
3. Jose de Jesus Cervantes – 84

DISTRICT 8

1. Marcos Candido – 272
2. John Descoteaux (I) – 265
3. Francisco Maldonado – 207

These results, and the results of recent Lowell elections, are available on the Elections and Candidates page of richardhowe.com.

The first thing that struck me about Tuesday’s results was that none of the incumbent councilors finished first in their respective districts, which might indicate some discontent with the direction of the city. It should also increase overall interest in the November election since three challengers have demonstrated the ability to beat incumbents.

Incumbents are unopposed in three council districts so there will be no drama about the outcome for Mayor Dan Rourke in District 1; Councilor Corey Robinson in District 2; and Councilor Sokhary Chau in District 6.

There are challengers to the incumbents in the remaining two districts: In District 4, incumbent Wayne Jenness is being challenged by Sean McDonough; and in District 5, incumbent Kimberly Scott is being challenged by Sherri O’Connor Barboza.

The three at-large council seats are also on the November ballot. Incumbents Erik Gitschier, Rita Mercier and Vesna Nuon are all running for re-election. They are being challenged by Sixto DeJesus and Emile Kaufman.

The general election is on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Information about voting by mail, early voting, and voting on election day are all available on the City Election Department website.

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Before reading too much into the preliminary results as a gauge of voter sentiment, the turnout must be considered. Here are some participation numbers from Tuesday’s preliminary election:

• District 3 – 10,505 registered voters – 1,472 voted Tuesday (14%)
• District 7 – 8,417 registered voters – 340 voted Tuesday (4%)
• District 8 – 9,906 registered voters – 752 voted Tuesday (8%)

Here’s a comparison of the 2023 general election turnout to the turnout Tuesday in the three districts:

• District 3 – In Nov 2023, 1,039 voted. On Tues, 1,472 voted, an increase of 433.
• District 7 – In Nov 2023, 535 voted. On Tues, 340 voted, a decrease of 195.
• District 8 – In Nov 2023, 1,266 voted. On Tues, 752 voted, a decrease of 514.

These numbers send a mixed message with the turnout in District 3 on Tuesday much higher than turnout in the 2023 general election. Conversely, the turnout in Districts 7 and 8 was considerably lower. The candidates in all three districts this year ran vigorous campaigns so candidate effort (or lack thereof) would not explain why turnout went up in one district and down in the other two. One factor that may have skewed the District 3 numbers in November 2023, was that the incumbent, John Leahy, ran unopposed.

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Dipping into Lowell political history for a moment, in the aftermath of Councilor Corey Belanger being eliminated in the preliminary election, someone asked if that had ever happened before. It has happened twice, most recently in 2021, which was the first year of the district council system. That year, three incumbent councilors faced each other in the Belvidere District. John Leahy and Bill Samaras finished in the top two and moved on to the general election, and David Conway was eliminated.

Under the old all at-large system, in the 1993 preliminary election in which the top 18 finishers moved on to the November election, incumbent Councilor Richard O’Malley finished 21st and was eliminated in the preliminary. (Notably, four other incumbents – Gerald Durkin, Bernard Lemoine, Kathleen Kelley, and Curtis LeMay – lost in the general election that year.)

This year’s outcome also comes with a caveat since Councilor Belanger was not elected by voters but had been appointed by the other councilors to fill a mid-term vacancy.

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As for Tuesday’s city council meeting, it was surprisingly low-key given the number of weeks that had passed since the council last gathered. Contributing to that was the absence of Councilors Corey Belanger, John Descoteaux, and Paul Ratha Yem (the three who were on the ballot that day) and City Manager Tom Golden.

Here’s a synopsis of some of the issues discussed by councilors:

Senior Center Expansion – Councilors Kim Scott, Rita Mercier and Paul Ratha Yem had a joint motion requesting the city manager explore the feasibility of expanding the Senior Center into the adjacent space formerly occupied by Walgreens Drug Store. Several members of the public spoke in favor as did several councilors. Councilor Erik Gitschier did bring up the lingering ambiguity about current and future ownership of the Senior Center, an issue that came before the council in the spring of 2024. I wrote about the issue in my newsletters of February 18, 2024, and March 24, 2024, so please check them out if you are interested in this issue.

Sidewalks near Bailey School – The Bailey Elementary School, located off Cambell Drive in the Upper Highlands, is one of the ten Lowell schools constructed in the early 1990s because of the city’s settlement of a civil rights lawsuit brought by parents of minority students against the city. A practical challenge of that construction effort was to find places to build these new schools since so much of the city had already been built out. Consequently, some of the new schools, like the Bailey, ended up on parcels that were not otherwise attractive for new construction (if they were attractive, something else would already have been built there).

The Bailey was built on lowlands behind the houses that line the west side of Campbell Drive, a long residential street that runs from Wedge Street to West Forrest Street. Access to the school is by a driveway that runs through a gap in the houses on that side of the street. That connects to a circular driveway that runs past the school, but there is almost no parking space within it. To allow school buses to get close to the school, cars dropping off or picking up students are excluded from the driveway. That means all private drop-offs and pickups take place on Campbell Drive and other streets in the vicinity. Few of those streets have sidewalks, so children going to or coming from school must walk in the road to get to their rides or to home if they live nearby.

In the mid-1990s, my son went to the Bailey for six years (pre-K to 4). My memory is that the traffic situation was chaotic back then and not much seems to have changed. There has been an ongoing push to install sidewalks on Campbell Drive, but when the city installed hardware that approximated the width of a sidewalk as a temporary test, homeowners (according to statements from city officials) revolted against the new hardware which consisted of vertical poles at 10-foot intervals with shorter lengths of rubber curbing between them. I saw them a few times while walking my dog. They reminded me of the hardware used to create protected bike lanes that I’ve seen in other cities. The hardware was removed in just a few days.

Ensuring that children can safely walk to and from the Bailey School is a 30-year problem that has defied a solution thus far, but that is no reason to stop trying. The case does illustrate the challenges of municipal government where trying to solve one problem often creates new ones.

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The council also discussed a joint motion by Councilors Rita Mercier and John Descoteaux that would prohibit needle exchange programs from operating within 1000 feet of a school or park. Councilor Erik Gitschier had a similar motion asking for an ordinance prohibiting the distribution of needles within 1000 feet of a school. The motions launched an extended discussion on the profusion of used needles littering the community, particularly in the vicinity of the South Common and the co-located Rogers School. Councilor Wayne Jenness observed that when walking in that area recently, he observed hundreds of used needles on the ground. Other councilors offered suggestions but none that seemed destined to help much.

Lisa Golden, the city’s Director of Health and Human Services, offered some perspective. She said there are two organizations that provide needle exchange services in Lowell. Both are fully cooperative with city personnel and provide other valuable services like Narcan distribution, HIV screening, and referrals to treatment opportunities. She cautioned councilors not to lay the blame for all the needles on these two outfits since often someone will simply pull up in a car or van and hand out hundreds of needles to whoever wants them. She also urged councilors that in their search for ways to reduce the proliferation of used needles to not incidentally curtail the “harm reduction” services being provided by these organizations. Councilors referred the motions to the City Solicitor to draft a proposed ordinance.

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Some upcoming events . . .

Today (Sept 14, 2025) at 10 am, I’ll lead a free walking tour of the Tyler Park Historic District. It begins at Tyler Park on Westford Street.

On Friday, September 19, 2025, lala books at 189 Market Street will host an author talk by poets Dan Murphy, Nina Palisano, and Paul Marion. Details are on the lala books website.

On Saturday, September 20 and on Sunday, September 21, both at 10 am, I’ll lead a free walking tour of historic Lowell Cemetery. The tour, which covers the same material on both days, will begin at the Knapp Avenue entrance to the cemetery.