The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday night (March 3, 2026). The meeting was dominated by a discussion of a joint motion by Councilors Corey Robinson and Rita Mercier requesting the city manager to “provide the city council with a detailed report on a pathway to secure independent legal counsel of our own choosing to review and advise concerns the council may have.” In the end, the motion passed by a large margin, but only because it requested a report on how to do it. The question of whether the council may hire an independent attorney is more divisive and will be fought out when the report comes back.

As for the “legality” of this request, clearly the council cannot hire a city employee beyond the city manager, the city clerk, and the city auditor, but this move does not try to hire a new city employee. Instead, it seeks what is essentially a consultant to advise the council. Procedurally, the council might request the city manager to issue a request for proposals for private legal work and then make the person or law firm so hired respond to the council. I don’t think that passes strict scrutiny under the limits of the Plan E form of government, but this council has freely blurred those limits before, and the city manager has chosen to acquiesce rather than take a firm stand in opposition and force the issue. The fact that other communities may have done this previously isn’t dispositive since if no one chooses to enforce a law, that precedent doesn’t make it legal or proper.

Setting aside the question of its legality, I don’t think this is a good idea for a variety of reasons. Hiring an independent attorney to advise the council is an issue that arises repeatedly, most often when the city solicitor renders an opinion that a block of councilors doesn’t like. In seeking outside counsel, they are looking for permission to do what they want to do in the first place even if that goes against the advice of the city’s lawyer. (The current trigger is the lease for the senior center.)

Legal issues are rarely black and white. This is my fortieth year as an attorney in Massachusetts and through those four decades my most frequent response to legal questions is, “it depends,” because so many variables come into play. The primary job of a lawyer is to be an advocate, to take a side and vigorously argue that side. In the setting of a trial, that zealous advocacy by the opposing sides allows the impartial tribunal – the judge or the jury – to reach the best decision. Because that’s the nature of the profession, it will be easy for the city council to find someone to render an opinion different than the city solicitor’s. But what then? The current city solicitor has always been clear that the council can do whatever it wants notwithstanding his legal advice, so this seems more about seeking political cover for councilors than anything else.

Another objection I have is a practical one: who gives the outside attorney direction? The mayor? A subcommittee of the council? A majority of the council? Or will this become 1-800-Dial-a-Lawyer every time a new idea pops into the head of a councilor? Knowing how much lawyers charge, that could get very expensive for the taxpayers of Lowell, especially considering that we are already paying for seven lawyers in the city solicitor’s office.

Back in 2008 when some newly elected city councilors began criticizing then City Manager Bernie Lynch for “failing to communicate” with councilors, Lynch presciently observed that such complaints are often a pretext for replacing a city manager. In that case, Lynch lasted another six years while the complaining councilors were gone in the next election.

In the present case, this quest for an outside lawyer could be a proxy for dissatisfaction with City Manager Tom Golden. He remains very popular so rather than firing him, which is what Plan E empowers city councilors to do, councilors express their dissatisfaction in more subtle ways.

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Last week I promised to revisit the February 24, 2026, city council meeting to discuss a couple of things. One was a joint motion by Councilor Belinda Juran and Mayor Erik Gitschier requesting the city manager “ask city solicitor to meet with rules/election subcommittee, as a follow-up to the November 19, 2024, rules subcommittee meeting, to discuss status, next steps and possible voting methods for the potential amendment of the city’s consent decree to allow the voters to elect the mayor.”

This is another recurring issue for the city council. Since the adoption of Plan E in the 1940s, the mayor of Lowell has been elected by the newly elected council by majority vote at the start of each term. Since then, the selection of a mayor has often been a divisive exercise that shatters the good feelings of the new council before it even takes office. In the aftermath of such an experience, some councilors would understandably feel, “there’s got to be a better way to do this.”

Allowing the voters to elect the mayor has come up before. The most recent proposal would allow anyone running for city council, either at large or in a district, to simultaneously run for mayor. Whoever won the mayor’s race would be the mayor, provided they also won a seat on the council.

This proposal was put to the voters in 2021 in a nonbinding referendum. The Yes side won overwhelmingly with 7,429 votes to 2,411 voting No. Of course, in that election, only 12,145 of 67,867 registered voters participated, so when councilors today say a “majority” supported this, it would be more accurate to say that a majority of the minority who vote in city elections support it. We don’t know what the vast majority of registered voters think about this issue because they didn’t vote on this referendum.

And that’s where the benign sounding “let the people elect the mayor” collides with the spirit of the voting rights lawsuit that led to the current hybrid method of electing councilors. The premise of that lawsuit was that in an all–at large system, a single neighborhood, Belvidere, decided the outcome of the election. The evidence must have supported that claim because the city settled the lawsuit and entered a consent decree granting the US District Court jurisdiction over future changes to the city’s election procedures.

The office of mayor is an important post in Lowell. The mayor automatically becomes a voting member of the school committee; chairs all council and school committee meetings; appoints all subcommittees of both bodies; and represents the city at public functions. A system that elects the mayor by a citywide vote would again be dominated by residents of that single neighborhood, an outcome that seems in conflict with the consent decree. Thus, a proposal dressed up as “letting the people decide” would instead represent backsliding to a less representative, less inclusive system.

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Some very good news from the February 24, 2026, council meeting is that MassDevelopment has designated Lowell’s Cambodia Town as a new Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) district.

Here’s how MassDevelopment describes the TDI program:

We commit intensive resources to a district for a defined time—simultaneously working on real estate development, small business stability and growth, arts, and cultural amenities, placemaking, and targeted technical assistance and strategic planning. This work is laid on a platform of community engagement and partnership development; we require that cities assemble a cross-sector partnership to apply in the first place, and over the course of the program we work to make the partnership more representative of the neighborhood and use it as a platform to grow sustaining, working relationships.

This is a very competitive process, and this is Lowell’s second TDI with the Acre having won that designation in 2022. It’s a three-year program so just as that one is coming to an end, this new one will begin. Much of the TDI work happens under the radar of public notice, but it’s critically important work done at the neighborhood level that yields great results for residents and business owners.

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Congratulations to Vanna Howard, our new state senator. In Tuesday’s special election (March 3, 2026), she defeated Republican Sam Meas and unenrolled candidate Joe Espinola. Here are the unofficial results with the district and then each community’s numbers, shown in order of finish:

Districtwide:
Howard – 4276
Meas – 1693
Espinola – 1370

Lowell
Howard – 2519
Meas – 545
Espinola – 504

Dracut
Espinola – 627
Howard – 485
Meas – 450

Pepperell
Howard – 645
Meas – 332
Espinola – 67

Tyngsborough
Howard – 382
Meas – 226
Espinola – 141

Dunstable
Howard – 245
Meas – 140
Espinola – 31

Because the senate seat is now vacant, I assume she will be sworn in as soon as the vote is made official after which she’ll immediately launch her reelection campaign since she’ll be on the ballot again this fall.

When Howard takes office as a state senator, she will resign her seat as state representative. There’s not enough time for another special election so that seat will be vacant until November. And because State Representaitve Rodney Elliott recently announced he would not seek reelection, that creates a second open state representative seat in Lowell which together should attract more candidates and greater interest among voters.

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The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation recently announced that submissions are now open for the 2026 Elinor Lipman Award for Writing. Born and raised in Lowell, Lipman is a prolific and much-loved author who graciously returns to the city each year for this contest’s awards ceremony.

More information about the rules and deadlines are available on the PML website.