I swear to you that in years past these meetings used to feature yelling matches with the city manager and accusations of assault between councilors. It seems like those days are long gone. It’s all dry government business now However, it’s not all peace and love. Last night, there was a big development in the…

1. “Essential” But Not Essential “Essential” When Congress authorized ARPA, they permitted premium pay for frontline essential workers as one of four expressly permitted ways that state and local governments can use the funds. Premium pay is intended to compensate essential employees for heightened risk due to COVID-19. It must be entirely additive to an employee’s…

Government was happening last night. Maybe not as much as some councilors would have preferred, but let’s take a look. 1. New Show at the MRT Last night, representatives from the MRT were present to plug a new show titled “Letters From Home,” currently running until February 5th. The show is written and performed by…

Apparently there’s an election this year? Big news, if true. I guess now would be a good time to check-in on the council to see where they are on the money end of things. The Office of Campaign and Political Finance is an independent state agency that administers the state’s campaign finance laws. OCPF is the…

More like half a recap. Maybe 60%? I dunno. I was streaming the LTC feed and at about 7:45 p.m. something happened to my audio. I’m not sure if the problem was on my end or theirs (though there is no replay up today, so maybe they are still having some issues). In any event…

Like most of you, I just completed my year-end review of 2022’s council motions. I would have liked to get this post up sooner, but I got sidetracked with work and holiday commitments. More importantly, this project was the wrong combination of tedious and pointless. As such, what seemed like a good idea in early…

If Council Meetings are Christmas presents, last night was a water pistol that shoots jelly. Clocking-in at about an hour, last night was one of (if not the) shortest meeting(s) of the year. As the Council voted to cancel next Tuesday’s meeting, this was also the last meeting of 2022. This may be a good…

Government was happening last night – however, I don’t have much to add in the way of a summary. Last night’s meeting didn’t lend itself very well to the type of recap I like to write. As such, I kind of don’t want to do it. It’s like the Sun over here this morning. Perhaps…

Government was happening last night – here’s my highlights: 1. Gonna Need Some Money for Parking Last Thursday, some crackpot had a post about parking wherein the City’s Comprehensive 2021 Parking Study was referenced. The timing couldn’t have been better as last night the council was asked to vote on a transfer of $2,834,616.17 from…

On November 28 Manager Golden met with the Lowell Downtown Neighborhood Association to discuss his proposal to eliminate overnight parking in the downtown neighborhood. The Manager’s argument was twofold: (1) eliminating overnight parking would make it easier to clean streets and remove snow; and (2) freeing-up spots would make the downtown more hospitable businesses. The…