Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was largely uneventful, which is often the case these days. “Uneventful” is not necessarily a bad thing for a city council meeting to be. Functioning properly, the city council is supposed to develop a strategic vision for the city, communicate that vision to the city manager, and then assess whether the city manager is effectively implementing that vision. That means giving the city manager time and space to manage.

But that’s not how it works in Lowell. Instead, this council is all about micromanaging through an endless stream of detailed motions that have the city manager and the city’s managers on a hamster wheel cycle of responding to council motions with little time left for tackling the bigger picture.

If you asked this council whether park benches should be painted green or brown, you’ll get 30 minutes of passionate debate and (self-proclaimed) expert testimony. But put a half dozen critical finance-related votes on the agenda and they’ll be speedily bundled together and voted on without comment. This inverse relationship between the strategic importance of the issue and the time spent on it will eventually become a big problem.

I suspect that the free-spending ways of this council are being carried by the enormous amount of Covid era ARPA funding the city received. While the Covid pandemic seems like it happened long ago, much of the money intended to help recover from that is still available and is still easing the strain on city finances. But the Covid money won’t last forever. Without a detailed plan of how to taper the spending that’s relied on that bonus money, the city will suddenly face major cuts that will be painful to endure. That crisis will be exacerbated by the school department, which has also been heavily subsidized by Covid funds, and which has consistently shown a lack of fiscal nimbleness when it comes to budgetary matters.

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As for the things the council did talk about, perhaps most important was a response to a Councilor Kim Scott motion asking about the cost of the April 2023 cyber-attack on city computers and what remedial measures have been taken to keep it from happening again.

According to Chief Information Officer Miran Fernandez, the total cost to the city of that attack has been $4.25 million. As for what new defenses have been emplaced, the memo sidestepped that issue, understandably, because publicly advertising the city’s cyber defenses would just make the job of the next cybercriminal that much easier.

But that does not mean the council should not dig into this. If it’s a sensitive topic, discuss it in executive session. Presumably the city’s cyber security is in a better posture now than it was 18 months ago, but other than an occasional memo like this one, how can the council be sure? Other than Scott, who was the only one who spoke on this motion, no one seemed to care much which is astounding given the high price tag from the cyber-attack.

Beyond that, greater cybersecurity, while a necessity, has a price that transcends any dollar amount. Tighter security has a way of tamping down initiative and experimentation which causes the use of technology in an organization to become stagnant. That in turn makes the organization less efficient. With the cost of government soaring, the only way to meet the expectations of taxpayers is to do more with less and greater reliance on tech is the best way to achieve that. But if the question of how much tech to use is left solely to the cybersecurity people, not much will get done since new things present new vulnerabilities. That’s why a successful organization needs constant friction between those pushing to do more with tech and those seeking to keep it as secure as possible. That doesn’t seem to be happening in Lowell.

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It wouldn’t be a Lowell City Council meeting without at least one motion on homelessness. This week we had one plus a motion response and a proposed ordinance.

The new motion was by Councilor Paul Ratha Yem who asked the city manager to look for an alternate site for the Lowell Transitional Living Center. Councilor Yem explained that he filed the motion on behalf of people who own businesses in the area. While the council seems unanimous that it would be best if the shelter went elsewhere, there was equal recognition that’s not likely to happen.

The motion response was to a past motion by Councilor Erik Gitschier about prohibiting camping on public space within 1000 feet of a school, and the proposed ordinance would prohibit camping in public spaces in most circumstances.

The ordinance is drafted to meet the requirements set out in the recent US Supreme Court decision in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson case which held that arresting a homeless person for sleeping overnight on public property when shelter space was available did not violate the US Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Lowell ordinance will apply to “all campsites and camping on public property, including, but not limited to streets, sidewalks, and public rights-of-way.” This prohibition shall not apply when a public shelter is unavailable.

As for the consequences of violating this rule, the ordinance states, “Individuals in violation of this Ordinance who refuse to remove or allow for the removal of Campsite or Camp material as described in Section E, or who reestablish a Campsite following removal pursuant to Section E, shall be subject to penalties.”

Except there are no penalties. There is no fine to be imposed for a violation, likely because it would be laughable to impose a fine on someone who circumstances require to sleep outside. Also, there is no possibility of incarceration because the city does not have the legal authority to make incarceration a penalty for violating a city ordinance.

However, by incorporating several state statutes, most notably, General Laws chapter 40, sections 21 and 21D; and chapter 272, section 59, the ordinance does permit the police to arrest an induvial who is in violation of the ordinance. A person so arrested would be brought to the police station and held until the next sitting of the Lowell District Court, likely the next morning. The person would then be brought to the court and then immediately released. They will then go to the police station to reclaim what is left of their belongings, and then look for some place to sleep that night.

Such an arrest would also provide Constitutional justification for the police to search the person and their belongings, so maybe illegal drugs or a weapon would be found which might bring more substantive charges, but even that is unlikely to keep the person off the street for more than a few hours.

Although this ordinance was scheduled to be voted on Tuesday night, it wasn’t tough enough for councilors so they sent it back to the City Solicitor to redraft it to eliminate the police may arrest “only when there is space in a shelter” language for spaces within 1000 feet of a school.

The redrafted ordinance will be back before the council this coming Tuesday.

While I’m cognizant of the need to get homeless encampments and the health and safety issues that accompany them away from schools in particular but also from public parks, this ordinance won’t be much help.

That seems to be the message from the Lowell Police Department. Saturday’s Lowell Sun reported on a press release issued Friday by the Police Department. Here’s the headline in the Sun: “Cracking down on South Common: LPD surpasses 200 arrests, responds to over 600 incidents since June.” Granted, I’m reading between the lines here, but I see this as a subtle message from the police department that over the past five months they’ve made an abundant number of arrests without improving the situation, so having councilors enact a feel good ordinance that will result in even more arrests won’t make any difference and, if anything, will divert resources from more effectively addressing the problem.

Finally, while the US Supreme Court may have said it’s Constitutional to arrest homeless people for outdoor camping, that only applies to the US Constitution. The Massachusetts Declaration of Rights (i.e., the state constitution) as interpreted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, might come to a very different conclusion. Arrests under this ordinance will undoubtedly be challenged as violating the State Constitution and will likely result in a costly (to the city) legal challenge.

As for what to do about homelessness in Lowell, Mayor Dan Rourke spoke for many of us when, during this overall discussion on Tuesday night, he frustratingly uttered that the council should forego further motions on homelessness to give the city manager time to deal with the issue.

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I’m a big advocate of voting by mail so I’ve already received, cast, and returned my ballot for the November 5, 2024, election. If you vote by that method, check out the Secretary of State’s “Track My Ballot” app which allows you to check the status of your ballot.

If you want to vote in person but don’t want to wait until election day, the state’s Early Voting period began yesterday. Each day until Friday, November 1, 2024, Lowell voters may cast their ballots at City Hall in the Mayor’s Reception Room. The times each day vary, so check out the online schedule to see when it is available.

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I recently stumbled upon a headline about a new exhibition in New York City featuring the art of the movie actor Johnny Depp. Titled “A Bunch of Stuff,” the exhibit features paintings, collages, scraps of paper, and other “stuff” from the artist. (The reviewer hinted that the exhibit, while credible, has more to do with Depp’s stature as an actor and his related wealth, than it does with his talent as an artist.)

Why do I mention this? Because, like everything else in the world, there is a Lowell connection.

Just last Saturday as part of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, I attended a reading at the Pollard Memorial Library that featured Paul Marion discussing his new book, Portraits Along The Way: 1976-2024. The book compiles biographical sketches written by Paul over the past 50 years. Many of the people depicted are from Lowell; others have some connection to the city.

One person in that latter category, and one who Paul chose to talk about on Saturday, is Johnny Depp. Turns out the star of more than 40 films including Edward Scissorhands and Pirates of the Caribbean is a longtime Kerouac fan. That attraction brought Depp to Lowell in 1991 to acquire a Kerouac memento.

Paul’s story, Johnny Depp: Hollywood is a Small Town, tells how Depp contacted Kerouac’s literary executor and arranged to meet in Lowell to view some of the artifacts left by the late author who died in 1969. Paul, having just edited and published Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings by Kerouac, was invited to attend the Depp meeting.

The story recounts sitting at a dining room table for hours as the actor reviewed photos, letters, and documents. That was followed by dinner out at La Boniche, a French bistro which was then on Central Street near Appleton in a space that once housed one of Kerouac’s favorite Lowell taverns.

The evening ended with the Lowell contingent dropping Depp at his chauffeured limousine and watching the actor depart with his Kerouac artifact, an old raincoat once worn by the author. A balled-up tissue lingering in the pocket likely increased the purchase price.

Portraits Along The Way is available locally at lala books at 189 Market Street, and online from Loom Press.