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January 14, 2008
Can Baehr rack up enough votes for ed post?
KARLA BROOKS Baehr, Lowell's superintendent of schools, is finding the road to the state education commissioner's job bumpier than expected.
Baehr is acknowledged to be Gov. Deval Patrick's choice, but her track record in Lowell and elsewhere is coming under scrutiny from GOP appointees on the state's nine-member Board of Education. Baehr needs six votes to get the job.
Three Romney appointees -- Tom Fortmann, Sandy Stotsky and Chris Anderson -- are said to be concerned with Baehr's anti-charter-school stance, mediocre reform results in Lowell, and her MCAS rollback leanings.
Another GOP appointee, Ann Reale, could hold the key vote to Baehr's fortunes. Reale was budget director during the Cellucci/Swift administration and Romney's education adviser.
When the BOE interviewed the three finalists for the commissioner's job, observers said Baehr came out second best to Mitchell Dan Chester, Ohio's senior associate state superintendent.
A BOE probe into Baehr's handling of a 1991 sexual-misconduct charge against a principal while she was superintendent of schools in Wellesley is also dogging her
The BOE is expected to make a recommendation to Patrick on Jan. 17.
JUST THE facts.
Lowell City Councilor Alan Kazanjian pulled his land deal off Dracut's table recently.
The old Canney Farm, a 14-acre parcel off Lakeview Avenue, was appraised at a little more than $1 million. Town Meeting in November approved the expenditure of $1.34 million from the Community Preservation Fund for the land. The property was to be used for much-needed ball fields.
State law stipulates that the asking price cannot exceed the appraised value.
Kazanjian opted to withdraw his sale offer late last year after some in town, including Selectmen James O'Loughlin and Joe DiRocco, questioned whether the sale price would pass legal muster.
Asked last week about why he had decided not to sell, Kazanjian said he doesn't "need the aggravation."
"I feel like I'm coming out as the bad guy here," he said, "and all I was trying to do was work something out with the town. They approached me."
Kazanjian bought the land in 1998 for $575,000. The Dracut sale would have represented a 74 percent profit.
Last week, Kazanjian said he is thinking of putting 29 condominium units on the parcel.
TUESDAY MARKED Kazanjian's first City Council meeting.
Kazanjian, a business owner, real-estate investor and housing developer, twice had to recuse himself from the council chamber because of potential conflicts. He spent his time in the hallway.
"I'm spending more time out there than I am in here," a laughing Kazanjian could be overheard telling Councilor Kevin Broderick after returning from his second self-imposed exile.
The first vote was to acquire properties at 49 and 55 Rock St. from landowner Paul G. Niven, with whom Kazanjian said he has had a past business relationship, for $435,000.
The second was during the council vote on Councilor Rita Mercier's motion to begin setting parameters for deciding what constitutes a qualified bidder for a city tow contract.
Kazanjian owns the city's largest tow firm, which became ineligible to participate in the city's towing program when Kazanjian took his oath of office recently.
NO CALL, no courtesy.
Rita Mercier was dumfounded to learn last week through word of mouth that she had been replaced as a council representative to the Lowell Telecommunications Corp. board of directors. Evidently, in one of his last official acts as mayor, Bill Martin took Mercier's name off the list of appointees, and added his own name and four others. The mayor and city manager each make five appointments to the LTC board. Martin never called the city's top vote-getter about the change.
"I don't know why he did that without talking to me. I had no idea (I was off the board) until someone told me this week," Mercier told The Sun.
On Jan. 16, the 24-member board will meet to select a new executive board. Middlesex Register of Deeds Dick Howe Jr., has been lobbying to become LTC's board chairman, replacing Alan Taupier, who is stepping down. Martin is a Howe ally.
COUNCILORS ON Tuesday also spent considerable time complaining to City Manager Bernie Lynch about property taxes and the city's recent property-valuation process.
Kazanjian and Rita Mercier both complained about an senior citizen in the Acre whose bill skyrocketed. Though never mentioned by name, the resident is former Mayor Tarsy Poulios, whose assessment on his two-family home on Bowers Street rose by about $80,000 this year to $288,000. The land value alone on the 2,600-square-foot lot increased by $50,000.
On Thursday night, Mercier appeared on NewsTalk Live hosted by Sun Editor Jim Campanini where she fielded angry calls from residents complaining about their tax bills. Several wanted to know how the bills could increase by more than $500, when Lynch said the average bill would increase $30 to $70? Mercier urged them to file an abatement.
The city Board of Assessors, which the city manager appoints, sets annual property values. The board consists of longtime members Joel Cohen, son-in-law of late Mayor Ray Rourke; Karen Golden, sister of state Rep. Tom Golden; and Chief Assessor Susan LeMay, wife of former Councilor Curtis LeMay.
It's doubtful the politically connected assessors would lose their jobs over the controversy, even if councilors aren't pleased with the job they are doing.
LYNCH HAS joined the blogosphere at lowellma.wordpress.com.
Lynch said the blog will give him the opportunity to converse directly with city residents on a multitude of city issues, while also giving him an opportunity to express his own opinion on those issues, and on what others opine about.
Besides Lynch, Methuen Mayor Bill Manzi, also blogs.
ED WALSH is off to Italy on a skiing trip, after 350 friends attended a surprise retirement party in Walsh's honor Thursday night at Mt. Pleasant Golf Club. Lowell's former Department of Public Works chief, says he isn't slowing down following his 80th birthday.
"I'll be looking for a full-time job when I get back," he quipped to John Cox, one of five former city managers who attended Walsh's bash. The others were Jim Sullivan, Jim Campbell, Richard Johnson, and Brian Martin.
EVAN DOBELLE, the former Middlesex Community College president, is back in the state system. On Friday, the state Board of Higher Education unanimously approved Dobelle as Westfield State College president from among 140 applicants
Dobelle, who lives in Pittsfield, was most recently employed by the New England Board of Higher Education. he also has left Trinity College in Hartford, City College of San Francisco and the University of Hawaii.
LAST WEEK'S Lowell School Committee meeting was full of warm and fuzzies.
Those expecting a showdown between committee members Jim Leary and Dave Conway, following a contentious week of bickering over the superintendent search process, walked away disappointed.
At Wednesday's meeting, Leary and Conway both had competing motions forwarded to the personnel subcommittee. There was no discussion, frustrating many community members who attended the meeting expecting discussion and a resolution.
Mayor Edward "Bud" Caulfield, the chairman of the School Committee, worked as a unifier, praising both members for taking on the leadership position of drafting a proposal, stating that "both of these motions have merit."
Conway congratulated Leary on the presentation of his motion, saying that they are 95 percent in agreement.
All parties said they just want the most effective process to choose the best candidate for the job. We'll see. The subcommittee consists of Chairwoman Connie Martin, Regina Faticanti and Conway.
THERE ARE bound to be local candidates for the search committee.
One name that has surfaced is that of Paul Schlichtman, the district's coordinator of research, testing and assessment. He's a veteran member of the Arlington School Committee and served as president of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees in 2004. (We got this info from Schlichtmann's Web site, in which he poses with an Elmo doll.)
This could be a good time for local applicants.
The main issue in top vote-getter Conway's School Committee campaign was Baehr's alleged preference for out-of-town hires to fill the ranks of elementary and middle-school principals.
Combined with the past rhetoric of committee members Faticanti and Leary, that certainly will create considerable pressure for the school board to include one or two local applicants among the list of finalists.
DAVID LAFERRIERE'S name was left off an invitation to Wednesday's swearing-in ceremony for recently elected Greater Lowell Tech School Committee members.
While Laferriere missed the ceremony due to a bout with pneumonia, the invitation left out the fact that he was re-elected along with Michael Lenzi last November.
Granted, Laferriere isn't as politically popular as Lenzi is, but he deserved a nod, especially considering his family attended the event.
THE CITY Council that was sworn in Monday features several firsts, according to Councilor Armand Mercier.
Kazanjian is the first councilor of Armenian descent in Lowell's history. Armand Mercier said he is oldest sitting councilor in city history. At 74, Mercier beats out former Councilor Richard Howe, who turned 73 just before he retired at the end of the 2004-2005 council term.
THERE'S A price tag for getting along.
While Westford selectmen won't be holding hands and sitting around the campfire, the town is shelling out $2,400 on a team-building seminar for the board.
The seminar at Middlesex Community College teaches selectmen to "develop mutual respect between board members and learn how to manage conflict and differences of opinion," according to Town Manager Steve Ledoux, who will leave for his new job in Acton on Feb. 22.
Ledoux said Billerica town officials completed a similar workshop in recent years.
FLAGRANT GRANDSTANDING. That is how some have characterized Selectman Marc Lombardo's nearly hourlong speech at last week's board meeting opposing the $230 million power plant proposed for North Billerica.
"I never visioned a power plant in my community, my Yankee Doodle community," he declared.
It is an election year, after all, and Lombardo's passion for the subject did win him admirers who are ready to catapult him to higher office.
As a throng of Billerica and Tewksbury residents -- many members of the anti-power-plant group Billerica Watchers -- exited the Conway hearing room, they made a bee-line for Lombardo's desk.
"If you want to run for governor we are with you," gushed one woman.
ONE OF those supporters will soon be joining Lombardo in candidate debates.
Ed Bunker, a member of Billerica Watchers, stormed out of last week's selectmen's meeting after board Chairman Mike Rosa refused to let him speak about the power plant.
Two days later he pulled papers to run for selectman.
Rosa explained that it was not a public hearing, and if he let Bunker speak he would have to let everyone speak.
"You are hiding behind the truth, you are hiding," Bunker accused.
"There is only one man on this board, and he is standing up (Lombardo)."
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Bunker muttered as he left the room.
Bunker later explained he was frustrated that Lombardo's colleagues won't make a final determination on the power-plant proposal until the final Environmental Impact Report is released.
GOV. Patrick has promised before not to hitch a ride on the Barack Obama gravy train should the presidential candidate make it to the oval office.
At least not until his term is over.
Patrick took it a step further Thursday as he unveiled his education-reform plan to the press.
"We have a responsibility to take education to the next level, and make changes which will last long after I have finished my second term. Or my third term," Patrick said while looking pointedly at reporters.
Later, Patrick mentioned again he's in it for the long haul, while discussing education changes during his "term ... s."
We get it, governor. You're no Mitt Romney. At least not until that ambassador position opens up.
DRACUT SCHOOL Business Manager Terry Wiggin's Manchester, N.H., home became Obama Central in the week leading up to the New Hampshire Primary.
"More like Obama west," said Wiggin, who said that as many as 60 volunteers were inside his home at one point.
"It was all very exciting. People were staying overnight. College students were coming by to pick up literature and canvass the streets and to work the phones on primary day.
Although he has met the Illinois senator several times in the past, Obama did not visit this time.
Several staff members spent time there, however, as did Chicago Sun-Times columnist Monroe Anderson.
THE TALK in Tyngsboro is Ashley O'Neil, daughter of town Planning Board member Steve O'Neil, is considering a run for the Board of Selectmen.
O'Neil, 21, is a political-science major in her senior year at Emmanuel College. An O'Neil candidacy could pit her against Selectmen Rich Lemoine and Jay Booth, whose terms are up this year.
Lemoine says he's looking forward to seeking a third term on the board. Booth hasn't yet decided if he's going to run for a second term. Neither has pulled nomination papers.
Steve O'Neil is a Lowell police sergeant and real-estate developer.
NUMBERS: Did you know that of the 94 city employees who earned $100,000 or more during the 2006-07 fiscal year, 56 lived outside Lowell? That's according to payroll statistics obtained by The Sun. Stay tuned for more interesting data in the weeks ahead.
Contributing to The Column this week were City Hall reporter Michael Lafleur, City Editor Christopher Scott, Billerica/Lowell schools reporter Jennifer Myers, Statehouse Bureau Chief Hillary Chabot, Dracut reporter Dennis Shaughnessey, Tyngsboro reporter Chris Camire, Washington reporter Evan Lehmann, Westford reporter Bridget Scrimenti and Sun Editor Jim Campanini.
Posted by Admin at January 14, 2008 6:41 PM
