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I confess I am a Jackie-come-lately when it comes to being a Democrat. An avid voter since I was 18, I spent most of those decades unenrolled. Yesterday was the Democratic Rally at JFK Plaza, which I attended, along with more than 100 other folks who braved the unseasonably hot weather to stand outside and listen to speeches. The purpose: to come together in a united effort to elect Niki Tsongas to Congress. It was nice to be part of a powerful group joined around a candidate and common issues, but it wasn’t always that way for me. I grew up in a family which took voting seriously, and so each election, my parents would head to City Hall, do their civic duty, and cancel each other out: My father always voted Democrat (a staunch union guy), and my mother always voted Republican. Perhaps that is why, early on, I became so disillusioned with partisan politics. I was determined that for me, voting would never be about party affiliation; it would be the candidates and where they stood on the issues that concerned me. The thing is, a few years ago, I realized that I had always voted Democrat. There had never been a Republican candidate I could support on key issues, and there had never been an Independent candidate I thought could win. So I joined the party. When Deval Patrick entered the race for governor, I wanted to support him in the primary, but first I had to learn what a delegate was and how to become one. Today, I am still learning about the hierarchy and process of being a Democrat. One thing that has remained consistent, however, is when candidates talk about the issues, it is the Democrats who align with my vision for our nation—one that is centered around fair educational and economic opportunities, quality healthcare for all, environmental responsibility, and respect for individual freedom. Although Democrats do not always agree on how to deal with these issues, I have yet to meet a Republican candidate who matched my values. And so I remain, perhaps late to the game, but a Democrat and proud of it. 

The photo above shows Lowell’s Red Raiders as they are about to kick off to Taunton after scoring a touchdown within the first 10 minutes of play. The final score: Lowell 14; Taunton 7 doesn’t do justice to the aggressive play the Red Raiders demonstrated last night, including several interceptions. As a special tribute and omen for the season, the game started with the introduction of the undefeated Red Raiders team from 1967.  What a great night for a game! For a peek at some of the newest faces to LHS football–the freshmen players, see here: more »

It’s been a three-fer week in Lowell in terms of attention and recognition from the governor’s office—three visits in three days! First on Wednesday, Governor Deval Patrick attended a Democratic unity meeting at the Doubletree Hotel, then he spent another two hours touring the city with Mayor Bill Martin and Niki Tsongas, before ending his visit with lunch at the Mambo Grill. Yesterday, Greg Bialecki, assistant secretary and general counsel of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, who also serves as the Commonwealth’s first Permit Ombudsman, attended the community meeting on the Hamilton Canal District project. In his remarks to the group, Bialecki noted the state government’s support for this project and how positive he was about, “Lowell taking charge of the direction it’s going in—something that can’t be said about every community.” This morning, Undersecretary Tina Brooks of the Mass. Dept. of Housing and Community Development and co-chair of the Massachusetts Commission to End Homelessness, attended the city manager’s meeting to review progress on his task force and its 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Lowell. This local group, which began working on the issue in January, represents stakeholders from government, the schools, businesses, and social service agencies throughout the city. After listening to presentations made by the chairs of each subcommittee and asking questions, Brooks commented, “Congratulations to you all on a tremendous amount of effort. Obviously, people here care about their community and are committed to doing what they can to make it better.” In his final comments, State Senator Steve Panagiatakos told the group, “You can see we have a willing partner in the governor’s office which provides us with the opportunity, in the next few years, to make significant strides to end homelessness. To that, I would add, “and a whole lot of other important opportunities for change.” To get involved with the End Homelessness Task Force, contact Linda King, community development specialist, at Lowell City Hall. A list of subcommittees and their chairs follows: more »

Tonight’s performance of The (Female) Odd Couple at the Lowell Senior Center (276 Broadway) has sold out!! This is exciting news because the proceeds will be used to support the Move that Bus! campaign.  The goal is to buy a bus for Lowell seniors to go on field trips.  If you ever stop in at the Senior Center during one of their luncheons or other events, you know what a lively group they are and that they will take full advantage of expanded travel opportunities. 

It’s not too late to support the Seniors in their goal and enjoy a Broadway show, champagne and chocolates.  Tickets ($25) are still available for the remaining two performances:  Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and a 2:00 p.m. matinee on Sunday.   Call 978-970-4131 for more information.  The performance is by a local theater group:  Actors, Inc.; they did this show last Spring and are bringing it back by popular demand to help the Senior Center. 

Fast forward a decade and this could be you, strolling along what is now a neglected area bordered on the north by the National Park Service lot off Dutton Street and on the south by Middlesex and Revere Streets. This morning, City Manager Bernie Lynch introduced Trinity Financial, master planner for the renovation of the Hamilton Canal District, to about 100 members of the community. The conceptual drawing shown above is a view from the lot which incorporates the original brick wall that exists today with new pedestrian-friendly bridges and wide sidewalks. Key factors of the Hamilton Canal District project include respect for the site’s historical significance, waterways, and environmental aspects, as well as making connections to the existing downtown and public transportation system. Touted as the most important development the city has undertaken since the Tsongas Arena and the baseball stadium, the completed project is expected to nearly double the size of the downtown, increase tax revenue by $2.2 million, and provide new jobs, residents, and businesses. Today’s meeting launched a series of informational sessions with the community that will continue over the next nine months. These charrettes (a French word defined by Trinity as an “intensive, collaborative, public-planning process to produce a shared vision”) are designed to get community input on the project. The planning process will include forming community groups to work on issues such as housing, retail, history, and open space. Ground breaking is projected for 2009, with the entire project taking up to 10 years to complete. Trinity, a firm that claims to “listen well,” appears to have a proven track record for accomplishing complex projects. For instance, they built an attractive, mixed-use space (housing, commercial, and parking) on top of an MBTA subway line in Boston. They also won a national award last year for a mixed-residential project in East Boston. Renovating the Hamilton Canal District will cost about a half billion dollars. (Not much was said today about financing other than the great partnership between the city, state, and private interests.) The project’s potential to transform the city makes it worth investing our own vision for what that future may be. 

Watching the democrats gather for their unity breakfast (sans food?) this morning at the Doubletree Hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that Massachusetts’ first African-American governor, Deval Patrick, was flanked by the state’s first female attorney general, Martha Coakley, and the newly elected democratic 5^th congressional district nominee, Niki Tsongas—the first woman likely to represent the district since Edith Nourse Rogers left Washington more than 40 years ago. As Coakley explained to the crowd of well wishers and media, “We’ve said it for a long time, we need a woman in the House…and that’s going to be Niki Tsongas!” While, the changing face of politics in the Commonwealth mirrors the national scene with viable candidates such as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton taking center stage, the story is not simply one of gender or race. Perhaps as voters, we have evolved enough to recognize that good voting decisions must be based on ideology and issues. As Eileen Donoghue said this morning during her pledge to support Tsongas, “Over these last few months, we spent a lot of time together, but we never forgot our principles.” Those principles, such as improving healthcare access for all Americans, ending the war in Iraq, and working to address environmental issues, are a core part of the democratic agenda—with varying ideas about how to tackle them. This morning, I was struck not only by the changing face of political candidates, but also by the different principles expressed by the nominees from each party. I heard Jim Ogonowski earlier today on WCAP express his reasons for not supporting immediate withdrawal from Iraq or any policy on illegal immigrants that would allow them to become citizens. He clearly is an articulate person with his own principles and ideas about how to take this country forward. In the end, the voters must decide who best represents their vision for the America we want to live and raise our families in. That candidate, no matter what face she-he wears, will be the one to go to Washington and represent us; our job is to pay attention, be informed, and vote!

As the photo shows, Niki Tsongas, newly elected democratic nominee for the 5th congressional seat, relishes her victory while happily answering questions from reporters. The election night gathering for the Tsongas campaign, which was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Lowell, ended on an ecstatic note with loud chanting and clapping, but earlier the atmosphere had been so tense, it was palpable. With tight numbers between Niki and close competitor Eileen Donoghue, the race was impossible to call until the very end. In fact, at one point when the Lowell results were first tallied and showed Eileen had beaten Niki in the city by nearly 3,000 votes (the number being spread around the room at the time), Gary Francis, WCAP news director, told me he was going to have to pack up and head to Longmeadow (where the Donoghue campaign was camped) to get his victory speech. Even Paul Marion, a UMass employee and friend of the Tsongas family, was worried that Niki would not be able to make up the votes from Eileen’s strong win in Lowell. According to Marion (whose wife’s family grew up with Paul Tsongas and held the first campaign party for him at their home), it was expected that Eileen would win Lowell but not by such a large margin. Since Lowell was one of the first cities to tally its votes, as results trickled in from other communities, the tension increased. The crowd didn’t have a reliable, up-to-date way to receive voting results, so much was left to hearsay as word spread across the room. (I noticed a guy with a laptop who proved to have access to reliable data, so I kept returning to him.) We learned that Niki had won Lawrence by about 500 votes, while Eileen had won Methuen with a 200 differential. For a complete breakdown of the results by town, check here. Most of the night, the race felt close—very close, which is a testament to the caliber of the women candidates because the race was definitely about the two of them. For additional photos and text, more »

I appeal to all citizens of the Fifth Congressional District to take advantage of the privilege we have as Americans to determine our leadership and please get out and vote today. I can’t bear the possibility of voter turnout as low as 10 percent as some media outlets have predicted. Nothing is scarier or more disheartening than a democracy where the majority of citizens do not bother to participate.

I read with interest the Sun’s article in Saturday’s paper about parents being required to attend a two-hour class as part of new regulations for junior drivers that also increased the hours of supervised driving time. I was aware that during their first six months of driving, junior drivers cannot transport passengers under 18 years of age unless they are siblings. I was not aware, however, about the zero tolerance policy until just recently, when I learned about one Lowell teen’s experience. This young woman is 17 years old and an honor student at LHS—a nice, responsible kid, who is also involved in sports (not that any of this matters in terms of her driving). She was stopped for speeding last spring because she was going 8 miles over the speed limit on Varnum Avenue. She appealed the ticket, lost, and was required to pay a $100 fee, which resulted in two points being added to her insurance rating for the next six years. My insurance agent informs that because it was her first offense, the two points will not increase her premiums, but will make her ineligible for discount credits good drivers earn. Later, the young woman received a letter in the mail informing her that her license is suspended for 90 days and that she is required to attend two courses: a driver attitudinal retraining class and a state course against road rage. She will also have to retake her written and road driver’s tests and pay a $500 reinstatement fee. Needless to say, the young woman and her family are reeling from these penalties. According to the Registry’s website, 33% of all 16-year-old drivers and 19% of 17-year-olds will be involved in a serious crash. As my insurance agent explains it, the state is serious about curbing teen driving fatalities, and the increased penalties are one way to get junior drivers to understand this. As a parent of a 14-year-old, the issue of teen drivers is on the near horizon for me, but it is also one that impacts us all. So, what do you think? Has the state gone too far? 

Every two years, City Councilor Kevin Broderick and his wife Julie open their home to the community and host an elegant fund raiser in support of our local Boys & Girls Club. This year the theme was Hawaiian and as you can see from the photo, many guests got into the spirit of the event, which was held poolside on a balmy August evening and featured the most incredibly delicious appetizers, including my particular favorite: coconut shrimp. The Brodericks support the club because they know how important the organization is, not only to the youngsters who have a safe place to play and learn after school, but also to our community. Ask anyone about programs serving at-risk youth and the organization most people immediately think of is the Boys and Girls Club. Yet in Lowell, the club is hurting financially. In the last six years, the number of youngsters using its programs and facilities has increased from 1,000 to 4,000, yet its operating budget has remained the same—this funding crisis has resulted in the recent layoff of three key staff members. We can’t all be super heroes saving the world one troubled teen at a time, and we can’t all be like the Brodericks opening our homes to the community in support of a great cause; We can, however, all open our wallets and give something to make sure these vital programs continue to help our youth and our community. And in doing that, we help ourselves. Mail donations to the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell, 657 Middlesex Street, Lowell, MA 01851 or check their website for more information.