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The mayor’s office today released the names of the Superintendent Citizens’ Screening Committee. The group will be chaired by non-voting member and former mayor Eileen Donoghue with Susan Mulligan of the school department serving as non-voting secretary. The School Committee will meet on Wed., Feb. 6, 7 p.m. at City Hall (televised on ch. 10 live) to introduce the citizens’ group and hear from the public. If you wish to speak or provide written comment, contact June Cormier before 2 p.m. on Wednesday at 978-937-7614 or email jcormier@lowell.k12.ma.us. Other issues on the agenda regard the level of transparency of the search process and clarification on televising Lowell High School subcommittee meetings, among other items. For a list of the citizens’ group, check:  more »

Perhaps there will always be homeless among us, but how our city deals with this issue has long-term implications for our entire community. While I understand some councilors’ concern about the location of the Transitional Living Center and its impact on the revitalization of the city from a business perspective, the idea that moving these folks to Tewksbury will solve the problem is shortsighted. To think we can shift our homeless population, and the associated problems of vagrancy, substance abuse, poverty, and under employment will disappear is a dangerous oversimplification that makes no attempt to develop real solutions to this complex issue. Just as it is our responsibility to educate our children and care for our elderly, a city that does not attempt to mitigate the circumstances that result in homelessness is doomed to repeat past mistakes. Under the city manager’s effort to develop a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Lowell, several groups have been meeting for a year to address key issues, such as lack of job training, employment opportunities and housing, along with substance abuse, mental illness, poor health, and limited support systems and resources. The job and education group, for example, set as its challenge: “Providing individuals who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless with the resources and support necessary to obtain and maintain a job with sufficient income to afford decent housing.” As complicated as this issue is, I prefer to focus on finding real long-term solutions rather than sweeping the problem into a more convenient corner and hoping it goes away.

I don’t know about your household, but in my family we have something I call “Post-Football Syndrome” (PFS). No matter how last night had turned out, it would have been difficult for certain family members because the end of the football season is always a tragic loss, often accompanied by feelings of emptiness, nothing good on tv, and a restless malaise that may last for months. The fact that the Patriots went down in such an upsetting loss adds to the intensity of the PFS mourning because the dream remains unfulfilled, the history-making moment gone forever. All that’s left are empty Sunday afternoons stretching endlessly until life begins anew in August.