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These early days of January 2014 are days of mayoral inaugurations. Yesterday – after winning a squeaker over the former controversial mayor – it was Dan Rivera in Lawrence and there’s the upcoming swearing-in of Marty Walsh – the first new mayor of Boston in twenty years. Monday will see a new…
Read More »In taking a look back over the year 2013 in Tewksbury and other Merrimack Valley environs – the issues of politics, economics, quality of life, culture – traditional and pop, education and sports – are all vying for attention. Across the Merrimack Valley the stand-out event – in my opinion…
Read More »Our Merrimack Valley sister city of Lawrence, Massachusetts has been much in the news lately. Still struggling, the city weathered a mayoral campaign earlier this Fall that saw the toppling of the controversial administration of William Lantigua. It took a recount and some oversight from SOS Bill Galvin’s elections office…
Read More »Thanks to the more than 50 people who attended today’s Lowell Social Media Conference at LTC which was a co-sponsor of the event. Planning has already begun for the Second Annual Lowell Social Media Conference with a target date of the first Saturday in December. This morning began with a…
Read More »The Lowell Election Commission met in the Mayor’s Reception Room on Thursday, November 22, 2013. The first item on the agenda was a debrief on the November 5 election. The only reported glitch involved one of the 20 handicap voting machines. While it had been unboxed, it was not started…
Read More »At its meeting yesterday, the Lowell Election Commission certified the results of the 2013 city election. The official results will have changed slightly due to the inclusion of 19 provisional ballots that were counted after researching their viability. Listed below are the candidates in order of finish. The first number…
Read More »City Council Election Tuesday’s city council election is the top story of the week with four new councilors selected to take office in January. The newcomers (and their order of finish) are Dan Rourke (4), Jim Milinazzo (5), Bill Samaras (6), and Corey Belanger (7). They join re-elected incumbents Rita…
Read More »Today’s Guardian online in the UK has a long piece by David Runciman in which he digs deeply into the ways a democratic system of government can be exasperating to its citizens. But, as others have said, Consider the alternatives. Here’s the essay. The insights here apply to the system down…
Read More »Hanging on a nearby wall is the framed original of my great grandfather’s naturalization papers. Covering the front of the document are fading red stamps that say “Registrars of Voters, Lowell MA” with a succession of changing dates beginning with “Oct 15 1900.” Like most of his fellow immigrants from…
Read More »In the 2011 city election, just 9946 people voted. In the 2013 election, that number rose 16% to 11581, an increase of 1635 voters. The following table shows where those additional votes came from KY. The below columns are (1) ward/precinct; (2) total vote in that precinct in 2011; (3)…
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