Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was a business-like gathering with no overt controversies. However, a couple of innocuous items on the agenda shed some light on the workings of local government and some important public policy considerations so I’ll discuss them first.

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A routine public hearing on a request by Boston Gas to replace an existing gas main on Fletcher Street generated an interesting discussion. Several members of the public spoke, recommending that instead of replacing an entire stretch of pipe, that the gas company just fix the leak. The reasoning is that replacing the entire pipe is more expensive than plugging the leak but because the gas company just passes the cost onto its customers, it doesn’t have an incentive to do the less expensive repairs.

Mayor Gitschier countered that these gas pipes are likely 50 years old and if a pipe starts leaking in one place, it’s likely to have a second and subsequent leak nearby, so replacing the entire stretch of pipe can be cheaper in the long run. Also, the gas company tries to replace pipes just before the city repaves a street. If the “just plug the leak whenever it happens” approach is used, a newly paved street could be dug up repeatedly which devalues that benefit of the repaving project.

As I understand it, most of the gas pipes buried beneath Lowell’s streets are made of cast iron which is brittle and prone to cracking from ground movement caused by freeze-thaw cycles and heavy surface traffic. Utilities now use plastic pipe which is more durable in that it does not rust, corrode or react to acidic soil, while also being flexible which allows it to move with the ground as it freezes and thaws.

I also believe this pipe replacement effort is partially in response to the 2018 gas explosions in Lawrence and Andover. In that incident, a series of fires and explosions ripped through those communities killing one, injuring two dozen, and damaging or destroying over 100 structures. The catastrophe occurred when a gas crew that was replacing old cast iron pipes with new plastic ones botched the job which caused gas to flow through the old iron pipes at a pressure level far higher than the system could tolerate. This in turn caused gas regulators on appliances in countless homes and buildings to fail which allowed gas to flow into those places. Wherever it found an ignition source, it exploded, hence all the destruction.

In response, the state of Massachusetts, among other things, significantly accelerated the time in which utility companies must replace older gas pipes since the newer pipes and their ancillary fittings reduce the risk of a similar occurrence.

However, the state has also imposed rules that will help move away from our reliance on natural gas which is used primarily for home heating. Although gas hookups in new construction have not yet been banned, state policy provides strong incentives for shifting from gas heat and cooking to an “all electric” home that relies on heat pumps and induction stovetops.

Which is all to say that public policy, particularly at the local level, is quite complicated with many moving parts. Nothing major came out of this public hearing, but it provided insight into the balance that must be struck between safety and cost.

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The second policy issue arose with twin votes by the council to accept deeds for the real estate parcels located at 251 Church Street and at 60 Clairmont Street. Both were “deeds in lieu of foreclosure” only the foreclosure contemplated would have been for unpaid taxes.

In general, a deed in lieu of foreclosure is a mechanism whereby a homeowner who is facing the foreclosure of their mortgage “hands over the keys” to the house in exchange for the lender releasing them from their mortgage debt and halting further legal action. This is done by the homeowner executing a deed which conveys ownership of the property to the lender who then becomes the outright owner of the property.

In the two deeds on the Tuesday agenda, the city stepped into the shoes of the mortgage lender, except instead of the delinquent debt being an unpaid mortgage, it was unpaid real estate taxes. Once the deed is signed by the homeowner, the city will record it at the registry of deeds, and the city will own the property.

Historically under Massachusetts law, the city would “take” property for the nonpayment of taxes by recording a Notice of Taking at the registry of deeds. However, that did not mean the city immediately owned the property. Instead, it kicked off a long, complicated legal process which would end up with the city owning the property provided the property owner did not bring their tax payments (along with fines and interest) up to date.

Instead of getting cash for the unpaid taxes, the city would get the property itself. This was a draconian remedy since if the tax liability was just $500 but the property was worth $500,000, the city would end up owning a property worth $500,000 and the property owner would get nothing despite having $495,500 in equity in the property.

But a city needs current revenue, not a big property portfolio, so instead of pursuing this long legal process to its end, the city instead began auctioning off its right to conduct tax foreclosures to private companies which would pay the city money upfront and then pursue the foreclosure in their own names, eventually selling the property to a third party and reaping a substantial profit.

This all came to a screeching halt in 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court held in a Minnesota case that the kind of absolute foreclosure used in Massachusetts for tax takings was an unconstitutional taking of private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Recognizing that the Massachusetts law would also be deemed unconstitutional if challenged, municipalities across the Commonwealth, including Lowell, paused any new tax lien foreclosures and delayed scheduling tax lien auctions. A Massachusetts trial court subsequently confirmed this assumption by ruling the state’s tax lien law unconstitutional under the new Supreme Court precedent.

While the Massachusetts state legislature is reportedly working on a legislative fix, the suspension of tax lien foreclosures has had practical consequences for local governments. Cities have temporarily lost one of their primary legal tools to address abandoned, dilapidated, and tax-delinquent properties, leaving local officials frustrated as problem properties remain untouched.

Consequently, it was great to see that the city is adopting new tactics in its efforts to collect back taxes. Unfortunately, the deed in lieu of foreclosure route requires (1) the homeowner to assent to it; and (2) the property to be free of any other encumbrances like an outstanding mortgage or creditor liens. Still, in the right situation – the two properties acted on Tuesday night were both relatively small undeveloped parcels – it is a useful tool for the city to use.

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The council also endorsed a motion by Mayor Erik Gitschier that that city rename the stretch of road in front of University Crossing from its current name of Pawtucket Street to the new name of Meehan Way in honor of UMass President Marty Meehan.

On Tuesday, many councilors spoke of all the good that Meehan did for UMass Lowell and for the city while he was chancellor of the school from 2007 until 2015 when he became president of the entire UMass system, and for his service in the US House of Representatives from 1993 until 2007. The catalyst for the street renaming was the recent announcement that Meehan was making a $1.5 million charitable gift to UMass Lowell to support paid internships for current students. In gratitude for the donation, UMass Lowell will rename its University Crossing building the Martin T. Meehan Student Center with a dedication ceremony on Saturday, May 2, 2026.

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One hundred sixty-five years ago today, two young men from Lowell were shot and killed in Baltimore, making them two of the first of 725,000 people to die in the American Civil War. Luther Ladd and Addison Whitney, two mill workers, were also members of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Regiment, that era’s National Guard. When, on April 12, 1861, the South Carolina militia attacked the US Army’s Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer troops to come to Washington DC to help suppress the rebellion.

The Sixth Massachusetts was among the first to mobilize and move out. As it passed through Baltimore on its way to Washington on the morning of April 19, 1861, the Massachusetts soldiers were attacked by a mob of Confederate sympathizers. Ladd, Whitney and two other soldiers were killed and a dozen were wounded.

Despite the bloodshed – the soldiers returned fire and killed more than a dozen rioters – the Sixth made it to Washington, the first northern military unit to do so, and helped protect the capital from seizure by nearby rebel forces.

The remains of Ladd and Whitney were returned to Lowell where they were memorialized as heroes and called “the first martyrs of the rebellion.” On June 17, 1865 – Bunker Hill Day – the city dedicated an obelisk monument to their memory. Known as the Ladd and Whitney monument, it stands just to the front of Lowell City Hall on Merrimack Street. The grassy triangle the monument sits atop, historically called Monument Square, is also a cemetery since Ladd and Whitney are both buried there.

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If you are interested in learning more about Lowell’s history, come to one of my Lowell Cemetery tours which will be held on Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, at 10am from the Knapp Avenue entrance of Lowell Cemetery. (Same tour both days).

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This week in Seen & Heard, I wrote a review of the book The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II; commented on an article by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic on his experience with legal sports gambling in the US; and commented on another article in New York magazine about the tragic loss in a flash blood of 37 girls attending a summer camp in Texas last summer and the controversial efforts of the camp to reopen this year.