Category: Uncategorized

Back in Time on the Smith Baker Let’s do this again. At the January 14 Council Meeting, there was a Motion Response regarding a structural assessment report on the Smith Baker Center. Though not on the agenda, Councilor Descoteaux made a motion to tear the building down. The motion passed with Councilors Belanger, Descoteaux, Gitschier,…

Members Only Government was, if fact, happening last night. However, not much of it caught my interest. Some weeks the best government happens behind closed doors. If you’re not on the list, don’t even think about coming in. Indeed, on many a Tuesday night the hottest club in the city is Executive Session. Strobe lights,…

Charge your phone and pack a lunch. This is going to be a long one. Right Person? Yes. Right Time? Depends Who You Ask and When In April of 2022, Tom Golden entered into a five year contract to serve as city manager. Last week, with 26 months remaining on that deal, Councilor Mercier filed…

State of the City: A Welcome to 2025 and Beyond Good vibes were on the agenda in the form of the “2024 year in Review” aka the Manager’s annual “State of the City” address. If you watch one meeting this winter, this should be it. Last night, Manager Golden took the opportunity to tout some…

Aw, rats. On paper, I thought this would be an entertaining meeting. As usual, I was mostly wrong. The agenda promised hot topics such as a report on the Community Preservation Committee’s 2025 funding recommendations, an update on the status of issues at the Lowell High Project, and a motion response on the establishment of…

The Winter of My Discontent Trying to “recap” an entire meeting, start to finish, can be exhausting and often boring. As such, I’m looking to change the look and focus of these blogs in 2025. It’s the new Jan Brady. I’d like to try to narrow the focus and riff on one or two issues…

Trying to Make Sense of the Smith Baker and a Smith Baker-Motion-Maker “Recap” is misleading. In truth, I watched last night’s meeting for one reason – to see how the following motions would play out: C. Yem – Req. City Mgr. have the appropriate department provide the City Council on Smith Baker’s containment, remediation and…

Finally, a meeting worth recapping! Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Government was happening. Let’s take a look. 1. The Loophole-y Companies Kindly allow me to cut and paste from my last recap of what is (or, more accurately, what is not) happening in the HCD: In the fall of 2020 (many months after COVID…

Do you know what “negging” is?  Negging is an act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes backhanded compliments or constant critical remarks to another person to undermine their confidence and attempt to engender in them a need for the manipulator’s approval. The practice had a moment in the sun a few years back when pick-up culture…

1. End of First Quarter of 2024 Last night marked the end of the first quarter of the year for our council. After twelve weeks, I’m struggling to find the words to describe this term. As baseball season is upon us, I’ll reach into the mixed bag (at best) of movies about baseball for an…