Category: Uncategorized

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…

1. LHS Wrestlers Honored At the top of the meeting the Council took time to honor the 2023/2024 Lowell High Girls Wrestling Team. For the first time in the long and storied history of the Lowell High Wrestling program, the school had an all-girls team. Our athletes introduced themselves to the wrestling world by winning…

Many of you have been asking why the blog has been spotty to start the year [Ed. Note: Not a soul asked]. It’s been a combination of work, school vacation and boring meetings. For the most part, today will be more of the same – I have a work event, and have to spit this…

Somehow, someway, our Council and Administration made it through yesterday’s snow drifts to re-open City Hall and complete a meeting. A quick and tidy meeting begets a quick and messy blog. Let’s take a look… 1. Senior Center Councilor Gitschier kicked things off seeking a point of personal privilege to discuss recent heating woes at…

Government was happening last night. The cold dark days of January have been replaced by the cold, slightly less dark days of February and the Council seems to be coming out of it’s winter slumber. The agenda was packed with things to chew on, so I’ll have to skip around to the tastiest morsels: 1….

1. January is a Pit of Despair Thankfully we have playoff football, Bruins hockey, and council meetings to see us through. As to those council meetings, we had an absurdly long agenda to work our way through last night. As you may be aware, there’s been some talk in the local news sphere (here, here…