July 17, 2022
The City Council met last Tuesday night. Mayor Sokhary Chau and Councilors Dan Rourke and Paul Yem were absent so there were just eight councilors present. Vice Chair Erik Gitschier capably ran the meeting in the mayor’s absence.
Early in the evening, City Manager Tom Golden introduced Greg Pappas, the new city Director of Elections. Although a Dracut resident, Pappas has strong ties to Lowell. Additionally, for nearly two decades previously, he worked in the Elections Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office. Prior to that, he was employed by Middlesex County government. He begins in the Lowell position shortly. That office has been without a permanent director for some time. The interim director, Elliot Veloso, who was also an assistant city solicitor, resigned in May to take a job in another community.
Speaking of elections, earlier this week the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the state’s newly enacted VOTES law which makes permanent the expansion of early voting and voting by mail that were instituted as an emergency response to the pandemic. The Massachusetts Republican Party had challenged the legality of the VOTES act in a lawsuit that ended up before the SJC. With the state primary scheduled for Tuesday, September 6, 2022, and other laws requiring absentee ballot applications to be available very soon, the SJC issued an order stating it would uphold the law in the face of the Republican challenge and that a formal written opinion would be forthcoming.
The SJC holding permitted Secretary Galvin to mail applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters as required by law. Mine arrived on Friday. It’s an 8” by 6” trifold card that says, “Official 2022 Vote by Mail Application.” One-third of the piece is a detachable postcard that has my name, street address, and party affiliation. The card has check boxes to select vote by mail for just the September 6 primary, just the November 8 general election, or all 2022 elections. It also has a section that allows unenrolled voters to request a Democratic or Republican primary election ballot since an unenrolled voter can participate in either primary.
One you complete the form you sign and date it and mail it. The form is already addressed to the Lowell Elections Commission and has postage prepaid. The postcard is in English, Spanish, and Khmer.
If you did not get a Vote by Mail application in the mail, just go to the Secretary of State’s website to request one.
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Also in state government news, all the emergency pandemic legislation that allowed virtual government meetings and permitted the use of electronic documents and signatures was scheduled to expire on Friday. I believe the sentiment to make these measures permanent was widespread but a bit of drama entered the legislative process. Rather than enact a noncontroversial extension of the existing practices, some enterprising legislators attached to the extension some other things that would significantly expand the Covid measures. Personally, I liked much of what was being proposed but not everyone felt that way, so the extra stuff threatened to derail the much-desired extension. But I do believe that the less controversial extension was enacted by itself at the last minute so we’ll continue to see the occasional Zoom participant at upcoming city council meetings.
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Having an even number of councilors at Tuesday’s meeting created an awkward situation with a proposed zoning change. This was a seemingly innocuous amendment that would allow a homeowner to operate more than one business from their residence. (I say it was “seemingly innocuous” because in all the prior discussion on the measure, I don’t recall anyone raising any objections).
Some background: Proponents of this measure have cited internet-based businesses as the reason for enacting this proposal, but it originated with a unique set of circumstances. A city resident was acting as the administrator of multiple youth baseball leagues. Each of the leagues needed a separate bank account but the league administrator wanted all the accounts to use his or her residence for a mailing address. However, before a bank will open a business account, the business must be registered with the city. This created a dilemma for the baseball administrator since the existing city ordinance permitted only one business to be registered at an address. This left the baseball administrator unable to open more than one bank account. He brought this problem to the attention of a city councilor who got this all started.
The proposed amendment would eliminate the “one business only” language in the existing city ordinance. It seemed to have council support heading into the public hearing but a member of the public spoke in opposition to the measure, or at least in opposition to the unlimited businesses part of it, stating that a neighbor operated an internet business on the web platform Etsy and that the neighbor constantly had delivery vehicles coming to the house for drop offs and pickups. The added traffic and congestion disrupted the neighborhood.
In response to the resident’s concerns, Councilor Vesna Nuon moved to amend the proposed ordinance to limit the number of home businesses to three. Several councilors voiced their support for setting such a limit, but other councilors spoke up saying that such a limit would not help someone in the position of the baseball league administrator. DPD Director Christine McCall added that delivery traffic of the type described by the resident who spoke was already prohibited under the current ordinance and the initial proposal to allow for an unlimited number of businesses would not change that.
First came a vote on Councilor Nuon’s motion to amend the proposal to cap the number of businesses at three. Four councilors voted for the amendment and four voted against the amendment so the amendment failed. Next, the council voted on a motion to approve the initial proposal with no cap. Four voted for it and four voted against it so it failed.
That should have been the end of it but a couple of councilors didn’t seem to understand that they had just killed the measure and asked about next steps. City Solicitor Christine O’Connor bailed them out by suggesting they treat the public hearing as still being open and continue the matter to the next council meeting when more councilors might be present and presumably the votes could be taken again. With a full complement of eleven councilors it would be unlikely it would again end in a tie. Seven of the councilors grabbed onto that procedural floatation device and voted to continue the public hearing to the next council meeting.
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It’s worth noting that the concern about this measure came not from the new proposal but from a failure to enforce existing rules. This is something that comes up quite often. During the preliminary discussion on the Accessory Dwelling Unit proposal, residents speaking on the matter expressed skepticism on the city’s ability to enforce the heavily regulated proposal.
That Accessory Dwelling Use ordinance was back on the agenda Tuesday night but as expected it was just referred to the joint Housing and Zoning Subcommittee for further deliberations. The subcommittee will discuss the ADU proposal on July 26, 2022, at 5:30 pm, right before the next city council meeting.
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Members of the Lowell Sustainability Council gave a brief presentation to the city council on “heat islands” in the city. A heat island is an urban area that experiences higher temperatures than outlying areas due to the density of buildings, roads, and other infrastructure that absorb the heat of the sun in greater amounts than places with more grass, trees and water.
The Sustainability Council took publicly available temperature data from around Lowell and used GIS (geographic information system) software to plot the temperatures on a map of the city. The map showed that the Lower Highlands has the highest temperatures in the city followed by the Acre and Downtown. The least hot (as opposed to the coolest) neighborhood is Belvidere.
In the next part of their presentation, the Sustainability Council suggested measures used elsewhere to combat heat islands. These include painting roofs light colors so they absorb less heat, replacing pavement such as driveways and patios with permeable surfaces that don’t absorb as much heat, using plantings such as vines and arbors in addition to trees to provide cooling greenery, providing overhanging cloth canopies at playgrounds to provide shade, and installing simple misting devices in warmer neighborhoods to allow people to cool off.
Gerry Frechette, a longtime member of the Planning Board, had registered to speak on this agenda item. He commended the Sustainability Council for their research and urged the City Council to integrate these remedial measures in city planning documents.
Councilor John Drinkwater made some brief comments. He also praised the Sustainability Council but cautioned everyone to not lose sight of the acute housing shortage in the city and to be sure than measures to diminish heat islands be balanced with the need for more housing.
Because there was much more to say on this matter, the council referred the presentation to its Environmental Subcommittee for further discussion.
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On Thursday night, Suffolk Construction and the other entities involved in the renovations to Lowell High School gave a public presentation on the work completed thus far and what is to be expected in the coming months. A recording of the full meeting is on the LTC YouTube channel. The presentation part takes about 35 minutes and contains interior photos of the new gym and some of the ongoing demolition which is all worth seeing. (Then there is an additional 30 minutes of questions and answers).
According to Suffolk, the new gymnasium which is built on the parcel that previously held the “dentists’ office” is on schedule to open in time for the return of the students this September. Suffolk is about to seek a “temporary occupancy certificate” which will allow them to move in furniture and do final testing of the equipment. The next step after that will be to obtain a full certificate of occupancy at which point that building will be turned over to the city.
Phase II of the project has already begun. That involves renovations of the Arcand Drive side of the “1980 building.” All school-related functions have been moved out of that portion of the building and relocated in other spaces. A temporary walkway has been constructed on the canal side of the 1980 building that leads from the rest of the school to the new gym which is how students will get to their gym classes. Underneath that walkway are pipes and conduits that will supply the portion of the 1980 building that will still be in use by the school with heat, hot water, and utilities.
Other parts of Phase II that will soon begin include the demolition of the old gym and the removal of one of the pedestrian tunnels that cross over the Merrimack Canal and connect the 1980 building to the 1922 building.
For all the tension that exists over the increased cost of the project, the photos of the new gym provide some positive news about what the city is getting for its money.