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Selecting a Mayor One of my earliest memories of Lowell politics is from January 5, 1970. A new city council was being inaugurated and my dad, just reelected to his third term, was going to be mayor. Or so we thought. As our family walked into City Hall for the…
Read More »This is the first in an occasional series of posts about historic figures from Lowell. Moses Greeley Parker was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, on October 12, 1842. His father was Theodore Parker, his mother was Hannah Greeley Parker. Theodore owned a farm in Dracut and had the reputation of…
Read More »This is the 33rd weekly installment of my Lowell in World War One series which commemorates the centennial of the entry of the United States into World War One. Here are the headlines from one hundred years ago this week: November 26, 1917 – Monday – Evacuation of Cambrai begun.…
Read More »Founded as a town in 1826, Lowell’s first governing body was a board of selectmen. The rapid growth of the mills made a city form of government preferable, and so in 1836 the state legislature granted Lowell a city charter. The city charter brought a new form of government consisting…
Read More »Between Thanksgiving, a quiet council meeting last Tuesday, and no meeting this coming week, today is a good opportunity to step away from the day-to-day political life of Lowell and remember the big picture. To me, understanding the big picture is all about history, because as Harry Truman once said,…
Read More »The campaign to succeed U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas in the Third Congressional District next year has gone from start to overdrive in no time. Lately, poking around in a pile of old journals at home, I found this account of a political moment in Lowell in 1992, during another hot…
Read More »This is the 32nd weekly installment of my Lowell in World War One series which commemorates the centennial of the entry of the United States into World War One. Here are the headlines from one hundred years ago this week: November 19, 1917 – Monday – Austro-Germans hurl heavy masses…
Read More »Mayor Kennedy introduces city councilor-elect Karen Cirillo who has been attending most council meetings this year. Motion responses (see Mimi Parseghian city council meeting preview post): No discussion on Rte 38/Kittredge Park update. Regarding chemical road treatments in the winter, trucks have sophisticated devices that control the mixture of materials…
Read More »Mimi Parseghian looks at the agenda for this coming Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting, which begins at 6:30 pm and will be televised live on LTC channel 99 and streamed live on LTC’s website. And if you can’t attend the meeting in person, or watch it live, check back here…
Read More »City Election Follow-Up Last Tuesday’s city council meeting was pretty sedate, with barely a mention of the Lowell High project. That seems to reflect the will of most people in the city. This past election was like a Micky Ward v Arturo Gatti fight: the winners and the losers were…
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