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February 11, 2008
Lowell artists dealt a one-two punch
IT'S BEEN a tough two weeks for the artists in Lowell, after city councilors and the Zoning Board of Appeals dealt the community two major blows.
Here's how it went down.
First, on Jan. 28, the ZBA rejected plans to add four dozen artist live/work loft condominiums to the 118 existing artist studios at the Western Avenue Studios.
The ZBA vote was considered a perfunctory matter, but four board members -- Acting Chairman Vesna Nuon and members Corey Belanger, Kevin Cavanaugh and John Knox -- were swayed by criticism of the project lobbied by neighboring business owners and workers.
Some opponents were acting at the behest of new Councilor Alan Kazanjian, the former ZBA chairman. Kazanjian owns numerous industrial/commercial properties abutting the site, including a junkyard. Opponents said the artists' work spaces were fine, but the living spaces could eventually lead to future conflicts when residents complain about the industrial noises and traffic that occur around the clock. The ZBA agreed.
Then, on Tuesday, a split City Council rejected an ordinance proposed by City Manager Bernie Lynch -- and championed by the artists community -- to create a new city Division of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Mayor Edward "Bud" Caulfield and councilors Kazanjian, Michael Lenzi and Rita Mercier were able to defeat the ordinance, which needed six votes to pass.
The most vociferously stated pretext for the opposition votes were concerns that the measure would mean an $18,000 raise for LZ Nunn, director of the Cultural Organization of Lowell (COOL). Nunn would have been named head of the new division and seen her annual salary increase from $46,000 to $64,400.
"It boils down to finances," one of the opposition councilors said after the vote.
Opposition councilors expressed concerns about the possibility of declining state local aid to the city and rising property taxes. Rita Mercier said the timing isn't right to "expand government" when the council might be laying off workers in the near future.
Ordinance supporters weren't buying any of it. Lynch said the additional money needed for Nunn's salary this year would come from COOL.
OUTSIDE OF money, however, the opponents' had another concern: a belief that the new ordinance would extend Nunn's control over the operations now run by politically connected insiders: Deb Belanger, executive director of the Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau; Tom McKay, general manager of the Lowell Memorial Auditorium; and Andy St. Onge, the city's special events coordinator.
The ordinance clearly stated that St. Onge would report to Nunn. And while the other venues, including the Merrimack Repertory Theater, weren't mentioned, the ordinance's language was vague enough to imply that Nunn would have a say in annual budgetary matters as it impacts those venues.
If anyone believes the 5-4 vote was in opposition to the artists, he or she is politically naïve.
The ordinance vote was aimed squarely at Lynch's handling of the issue. He tried to "shove it down our throats," said one councilor, who said he wasn't given a copy of the Mt. Auburn report suggesting the changes, nor did he receive a phone call from the manager explaining the ordinance's need.
Bottom line: this council is not going to be a rubber stamp for Lynch like the previous one was. Communication is the key to reviving the ordinance; it will be up to Lynch to make it happen.
Before the election, the pro-Lynch council rarely asked the manager a question in which the answer wasn't already known in advance of Tuesday night's council meetings. In this case, Lynch had five votes -- Kevin Broderick, Bill Martin, Jim Milinazzo, Rodney Elliott and Armand Mercier -- but needed one more for it to pass under Lowell's charter. Except for speaking to Mayor Caulfield in advance of Tuesday's vote, Lynch never picked up the phone to engage Rita Mercier, Kazanjian or Lenzi.
Another concern: how does Nunn get to be become a director with a higher salary without going through a competitive search? Lynch has made it a point during his tenure to conduct a nationwide search for all his top appointments. Nunn, however, would have been handed a job that was newly created by ordinance.
"Shouldn't she reapply for the job?," asked one councilor. "Why wasn't the job posted to find the best candidate like every other top position in Lowell?"
The manager said Nunn, who lives in Lowell, has all the credentials, plus has built up valuable relationships in the arts community.
The day after the vote, Caulfield, Lynch and Jim Cook, the Lowell Plan's executive director, met with civic and business leaders at a Lowell Plan meeting in the group's Kearney Square office. According to witnesses, Cook suggested that maybe it wasn't a good day for the mayor to come to the meeting. The comment chilled the room. (The Lowell Plan paid $25,000 for the Mt. Auburn study and endorsed the new ordinance.)
Caulfield was undeterred, however. According to a source, the mayor looked at Cook and the manager, and said, "Put whatever you've got on the table."
What happened? Witnesses said the mayor delivered a "lesson" in how to successfully present an ordinance to the council.
IF FORMER Republican Gov. Mitt Romney needs a shoulder to cry on, he can always turn to former Congressional candidate Jim Ogonowski of Dracut.
Ogonowski, newly into his campaign against Sen. John Kerry, showed his support at Romney's Boston bash on Super Tuesday. You know, the one where Romney said his presidential campaign was going all the way to the White House?
While Ogonowski didn't appear on stage during Romney's speech that night, he chatted beforehand about how impressed he was during his visits with Romney when the Belmont resident was still in the governor's office.
Romney's departure from the presidential race was disappointing for a lot of local Republicans. Possibly even more disappointing for Ogonowski? Those pesky rumors that Romney could run for Kerry's seat.
SEN. BARACK Obama may have lost the Bay State to Sen. Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's primary, but there may have been a silver lining for a local legislator and Obama supporter.
State Rep. Jamie Eldridge as he did for Gov. Deval Patrick, took a lead role in helping the Obama campaign in his district.
While Hillary was cleaning up on votes in Greater Lowell, Obama had a strong showing in towns like Acton, Boxboro and Harvard -- all part of Eldridge's uber-liberal district.
"I can't take credit for that," Eldridge told The Column on election night.
"But we did have a strong grass-roots effort in the communities going door-to-door and making the phone calls." The effort was not enough to swing the state for Obama.
But if Eldridge is that good at getting out the vote as a candidate's surrogate, just imagine what he'll be able to do when he launches his own campaign to replace one of his mentors, state Sen. Pamela Resor, who is retiring. Eldridge has not confirmed he will run for Resor's seat, but even Resor said it's all but assured.
Eldridge got only 14 percent of the vote when he ran in the Democratic primary for Congress last fall, but he took the most votes in many communities in Resor's district. He'll still be an unknown to the south end of the district, Marlboro, Northboro and Westboro.
CAULFIELD IS a man with clear priorities.
Faced with the choice of going to a meeting at the Statehouse with Lt. Gov. Tim Murray about casino revenue and a School Committee meeting, Caulfield stayed local.
Murray asked a group of mayors to come into Boston to discuss the administration's proposal to allow three resort casinos in Massachusetts, with a chunk of the proceeds going to local aid.
But an icy storm was forecast the evening of the meeting, Caulfield said, and he didn't want to miss the introduction of the new superintendent's screening committee while sitting in traffic.
For the record, Caulfield supports casino gambling, particularly because the money it would bring to schools and cities. He also called the governor's office to apologize for the no-show.
LOWELL SCHOOL Committee member Jackie Doherty last week narrowly won her battle to continue to have the committee's Lowell High School subcommittee meetings videotaped for broadcast on educational-access cable, despite the fervent objections of fellow subcommittee members Regina Faticanti and Dave Conway.
Last September, before Conway joined the school board, committee members voted to tape and broadcast the subcommittee meetings for at least one year.
The idea was to attract students to an after-school communications club and as a way to better communicate with parents and increase transparency.
The Oct. 29 subcommittee meeting -- the only one since the vote -- was televised. But last month, Doherty received an unexpected call from an administrative assistant in the superintendent's office, relaying a message from Faticanti: if Doherty held the next meeting at the high school's TV studio, she and Conway would not attend.
Faticanti and Conway cited cost: about $300 per meeting, translating to about $2,000 per year.
"I'd rather put that money into the reading program or the math program," Conway said.
Doherty said $2,000 out of a $139 million budget is a minimal price to pay for transparency in government.
Her wish was granted on a 4-3 vote, with Conway, Faticanti and Caulfield voting against.
WHO'S THE rat? That's what Tyngsboro School Committee member Burt Buchman demanded to know when the name of a losing candidate for schools superintendent was made public last week.
At a School Committee meeting, Tyngsboro High School teachers Anne-Marie Roy and Mike Woodlock complained that high-school Principal Don Ciampa wasn't picked as a finalist.
Buchman, who chaired the superintendent screening committee, beseeched Roy to tell him how she found out Ciampa had applied. The names of the nine semifinalists had not been released.
Turns out Ciampa told Roy himself. But Buchman was convinced that a screening committee member was leaking information.
Apparently, Buchman heard that someone on the committee had told Ciampa that he would be a finalist. Buchman also said that "false" rumors were surfacing that several screening committee members met in private to ensure that Ciampa wouldn't advance to the final round.
"Someone breached the confidentiality of that screening committee," said Buchman.
BUCHMAN'S INTERROGATION of Roy did not sit well with fellow committee member Barry Dick.
Dick criticized Buchman for treating Roy rudely when he asked her to divulge her source. Later in the meeting, Dick told Buchman that he, as chairman of the screening committee, should have called Ciampa to tell him he wasn't a finalist. A consultant made the call instead.
Buchman bristled at the comment and blasted Dick's performance on the board, criticizing him for not volunteering to be on the screening committee, missing meetings and not doing enough work in general.
"I take offense to being attacked like I was on TV," responded Dick.
Dick later said that although he isn't running for re-election this year, he plans to run against Buchman when his seat is up in 2010.
THE BILLERICA selectmen are taking their political sniping on the road -- all the way to Marshfield.
In an article in a Marshfield weekly newspaper, Chairman Mike Rosa blames colleagues Bob Correnti and Jim O'Donnell for running Town Manager Rocco Longo out of town and into the Marshfield town administrator's office.
In comments echoing those given to The Sun last month, Rosa told the newspaper that when Correnti returned to the board last April, "He started riding Rocco pretty hard." Rosa also pointed to the failures of Correnti and O'Donnell to submit their evaluations of Longo on time last November, which led to both men storming out of a board meeting, as well as Correnti's public dispute with Longo during a meeting regarding the time it took to receive a response to an inquiry.
"It's these constant actions by these two individuals that sent Longo elsewhere," Rosa said.
Correnti said the reporter called him for a response. Correnti turned the blame back on Rosa.
"Maybe Mr. Longo was tired of all the petty politics with the chairman," said Correnti.
After reading the story, the people of Marshfield might be congratulating Longo for fleeing Billerica.
Not a great way to market the town, gentlemen.
TO THOSE critical of The Column's characterization of Billerica Selectman Marc Lombardo's hour-long rant in opposition to the proposed North Billerica power plant last month as election-season grandstanding, consider this: On Feb. 1, Lombardo (e-mail handle, "marcinator"), posted a plea on the Internet forum hosted by the Billerica Watchers, the group of citizens fighting against the power plant, seeking campaign volunteers to hand out push cards for him at the polls on Super Tuesday.
"This is a perfect opportunity to spend a few hours handing out push cards and getting my name out for the public," he wrote. "I truly appreciate your help, this will give us a jump on the competition!"
DRACUT TOWN Manager Dennis Piendak hobbled into Town Hall Wednesday on crutches. "Those Selectmen's meetings can get a little rough," he joked.
Later, he was heard saying, "I told (DPW Director) Mike Buxton to fix that pothole."
Piendak had surgery to remove bone spurs on his left foot. He was out of work for a week. "The tough part is you can't carry a cup of coffee" while on crutches, he said. "But it's mending nicely."
We'll know if the surgery is successful in the spring when Piendak gets on the golf course and no longer pushes his drives to the right.
DRACUT FINANCE Committee Chairman Gary Marsella said he thought he was back in third grade after being scolded by School Superintendent Elaine Espindle last week during a forum on plans for a new high school.
After listening to Espindle's grand vision and hearing residents and other officials talk about a price tag in the $50 million range, Marsella asked, "How are we going to pay for this?"
Espindle firmly told him, "My job is to advocate for the schools, Mr. Marsella. Your job is to sharpen your pencil."
GROTON-DUNSTABLE Regional School Committee member Paul Funch wasn't impressed to hear High School Principal Shelley Marcus Cohen referred to the student who left a swastika graffiti in a school bathroom last month an "idiot."
During the Student-Parent Forum that Cohen hosted Thursday night to discuss solutions to hate crimes in school, Funch urged Cohen to set an example by showing sensitivity to all minority groups. As a father of a special-education student, Funch said there is stigma attached to the word "idiot."
Funch's comment angered parent Lisa Towle because she wanted people to stay focused on the topic at hand.
"How dare you to divert the attention from that?" Towle scolded.
Contributing to The Column this week are Editor Jim Campanini, City Hall reporter Michael Lafleur, Statehouse Bureau Chief Hillary Chabot, Statehouse reporter Matt Murphy, Lowell schools and Billerica reporter Jennifer Amy Myers, Tyngsboro reporter Chris Camire, Dracut reporter Dennis Shaughnessey and Groton reporter Hiroko Sato.
Posted by Admin at February 11, 2008 3:40 PM
