I’ve been critical of this and prior city councils for their lack of commitment to a long-term comprehensive strategy for the city. But when it comes to its weekly meetings, the council has, for the most part, stuck to the items on its published agenda. There have been frequent motions to suspend the rules, but it’s been to take up something already on the agenda out of order, typically for the convenience of a member of the public who is at the meeting to speak on that one item.
However, there is a recent trend on the council to suspend the rules to bring up things not on the agenda. As I understand the rules, it’s permissible to do that in an emergency for something that can’t wait until the next meeting, but none of the off-agenda items recently brought up seem to pass that test. Consequently, council meetings are taking on the feel of an “open lines” segment on AM talk radio.
Councilors and the Mayor understandably want to defer to the wishes of their colleagues, but off-agenda items are essentially an ambush of the City Manager and others in the administration who must respond without the benefit of educating themselves in advance on the issue raised as they can do when something is first on the agenda. It also leaves members of the public who aren’t following the latest hot topic on social media in the dark when it comes to the supposed emergency.
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Something that comes up repeatedly at council meetings as an explanation for why things don’t get done is the number of vacancies in the city’s work force. In discussing that situation last week, City Manager Golden seemed baffled by the city’s inability to hire people. I don’t blame him. For more than 100 years, getting a “city job” has been the gold standard for employment among many city residents. For those who have sought and held elective office, having a say in who gets the next job opening was, for some, the most important part of the job. After all, once you “get somebody a job” you can count on the votes of that person and their family for many elections to come.
But that’s all changed, and like City Manager Golden, I’m not sure why. It does seem to be part of a broader societal trend in which many jobs go unfilled. I don’t think people have suddenly grown lazy or are able to live on “government handouts.” I do think there’s a major reset underway in the global economy that’s driven by several factors.
In yesterday's Boston Globe, business columnist Larry Edelman laid much of the blame on demographics: more baby boomers are retiring than there are younger people entering the work force – because there aren’t as many young people. Allowing more foreign immigration is a way to replenish the country’s workforce, but immigration reform seems unlikely given the state of Congress these days. In the meantime, employers raise wages to attract employees. That’s not an option readily available in city government given ordinances, collective bargaining agreements, and politics.
But it’s not just demographics that makes hiring new employees more difficult. The pandemic accelerated emerging trends in employment that also affect housing policy (more working from home) and economic development strategy (fewer office buildings). Maybe the council should spend more time talking about stuff like that. I’m not suggesting that city council meetings morph into a graduate school seminar, but the council should at least recognize the mammoth societal evolution now underway and with the help of experts in this area – wouldn’t it be nice if we had a major research university in our midst that could help? - craft strategies that allow the city to exploit these changes rather than become a victim of them.
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A glimpse into the changing nature of work occurred in the council’s discussion of the consolidated response to past motions by Councilors Kim Scott and Erik Gitschier on the amount and type of fines assessed for trash and recycling rule violations. The report consisted of a two-page memo and a 54-page spreadsheet. The main message of the memo was that the inability to hire employees has hampered enforcement, but the council discussion was mostly about the data in the spreadsheets, or more accurately, councilors’ inability to analyze the data because it was incomprehensible.
How we dispose of our trash is a chronic problem in Lowell. Missed or delayed pickups by vendors, contaminated recycling that results in financial penalties to the city, trash bins (both full and empty) that block sidewalks, are all issues that the council should investigate. But this “whack-a-mole” approach by the council of repeated motions on the same issues without any discernable progress being made doesn’t seem to be working. There’s a saying that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over again and expect a different result. That describes this council’s approach to trash problems. Maybe a better approach would be to have a subcommittee tackle the issue in a comprehensive way, hold multiple hearings, work with the administration and department heads to formulate a plan, set quantifiable goals to measure progress at set intervals, and then hold the City Manager and the city’s management team accountable.
But getting back to the report. The 54-pages of data attached to it is emblematic of one of those “big picture” changes underway in the American economy. For many decades, when you were hiring a clerk, being able to type reasonably well was an important qualification for the job (although it’s astounding how many people who have long held clerical positions cannot type, but that’s another issue). Changes in technology have made the ability to work with data a core competency in the modern office. That doesn’t mean a clerk should be crafting queries for SQL, but it does mean a clerk should know their way around an Excel spreadsheet (or its Google equivalent). Regrettably, too many employees don’t possess that skill. One reason is that few in leadership positions possess that skill themselves, so they reflexively avoid making that a qualification for the job. After all, they’re the boss and if they can’t do it, it can’t be that important.
If you have a choice in who you hire, selecting an applicant who is competent in basic office programs, particularly data analysis and visualization, is critical to building an effective team of office workers and managers. (And if you expect all employees to advance through the ranks and ultimately become managers, it’s a skill set that should be universal). Furthermore, having a more technologically capable workforce would allow city departments to work more efficiently and to do more with less, which seems the formula for good government these days.
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Although real estate prices remain high in Greater Lowell, that’s likely to change in the coming months due to higher interest rates. Most home buyers decide how much they can afford to pay for a house based on the monthly mortgage payment required rather than the total sales price.
Let’s say you can afford a monthly payment of principal and interest of $1,800. On a mortgage at 2.5% interest, you can borrow $450,000, but on a mortgage at 6% interest, you can only borrow $300,000. Even if buyers are willing to pay more, banks won’t loan it to them because the higher monthly payment would be unsustainable. This dynamic will at least cause prices to level off if not begin to recede.
At the same time, the rise in interest rates has all but wiped out the mortgage refinancing market. If someone now has a mortgage at 2.5%, why would they ever refinance to a new mortgage at 6%? For the past two decades, Americans have borrowed against the equity of their homes to pay for vehicles, vacations, and home renovations. With refinanced mortgages no longer a practical option, the ability to pay for these things will be greatly diminished and will cool the economy. But that’s the whole point of raising interest rates – to cool the economy. In that sense, the strategy of the Federal Reserve seems to be working.
If you’re interested in more details about real estate trends, read today’s post on richardhowe.com which is a review of Greater Lowell Real Estate in 2022.
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Although Governor Maura Healey and Lt Governor Kim Driscoll were sworn in two weeks ago, it was only on this past Wednesday that the other Constitutional Officers took their oaths of office and began their new terms as State Treasurer (Deb Goldberg); Secretary of the Commonwealth (Bill Galvin); Attorney General (Andrea Campbell); and State Auditor (Diana DiZoglio).
On the same day about 400 miles to the southwest, Wes Moore, the newly elected governor of Maryland, also took the oath of office. The 44-year-old Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, Army veteran, and author of several books including The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, a compelling 2010 nonfiction book about himself and another young man who shared the same name. The author maintained that because of the timely intervention of adults and institutions in his life, he met with great success, while the other Wes Moore, deprived of such outside supports, ended up in prison for life.
I mention all this because back in 2012, Wes Moore came to Lowell to speak to students about his experience and about the lessons of the book. As recounted in a story still on boston.com, the effort to bring Moore here began with several students at Greater Lowell Vocational High School and blossomed into a regional effort that ended with Moore’s appearance at Lowell Memorial Auditorium in front of 2,500 area high school students.
There’s always a Lowell connection.
You hit it out of the park again Dick. Just read the Sustainable Lowell plan. It is a great guide. Wondering if Golden and city counsel are even aware.
So helpful, as usual!