Lowell

(Mayor Kennedy and Councilor Leahy are absent tonight). 2018 Capital Plan presentation by City Manager Murphy. Based priorities on motions that were filed by councilors during the past year. Total is $15mil including $3.2mil for lighting which includes replacing thousands of lights with LED bulbs. This should yield a 65…

Jim Milinazzo opts out The announcement by Jim Milinazzo that he would not seek reelection to the Lowell City Council brings local politics to the forefront this week. With all eight of his council colleagues apparently running again, having a “vacancy” in the incumbent lineup changes the dynamics of the…

Parking in Lowell My Week in Review post last Sunday took up the issue of parking. It received some thoughtful comments. One disputed my assertion that from a traffic and parking perspective, Lowell was too big to operate like a small town and too small to operate like a big…

Points of Light Lantern Celebration Last night’s Points of Light Lantern Celebration was a huge success, bringing much-needed vibrancy and attention to Ecumenical Plaza, a community space first envisioned by Pat Mogan’s Model Cities Program of the 1960s. A large brick plaza that spans the Western Canal between Holy Trinity…

With Easter, Patriot’s Day, school vacation and no council meeting, it’s a slow time politically, so here are some updates on a few projects: South Common & Thorndike Street Improvements Underway Earlier this week, a platoon of DPW workers and contractors arrived at the South Common and started digging. The…

Update on last week’s flooding in Pawtucketville and Centralville. Manager Murphy says the city was very proactive in monitoring the flood levels and the related portions of the city’s action plan. Fortunately, the water did not rise to a destructive level, but the city’s emergency management operation was prepared in…

More than 250 people gathered in the lobby of the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center at UMass Lowell today to help the university honor former Steve Panagiotakos for his efforts on behalf of the university while serving in the Massachusetts State Senate. Besides Steve’s family and…

Lowell Walks Kick-off Seventy people ventured to the North Common yesterday morning for the first Lowell Walk of the 2017 season. Our route took us across the Common, down Fletcher to Pawtucket to Salem and back to the beginning. Along the way we saw and talked about The North Common,…

With weather forecasters predicting temperatures in the 70s next week, perhaps we are done with winter weather for the season. Here is a recap of the snow we received over the past few months: December 5, 2016 – Monday – 1 inch of snow December 12, 2016 – Monday –…