March 5, 2023

At Tuesday night’s Council meeting, the Department of Planning and Development unveiled its plan to use more than $9mil in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to upgrade parks and playgrounds around the city. The money will be divided among eight projects which, not coincidentally, are each located in one of the eight city council districts.

The proposal, which is available on the city’s website, is well done and carries a level detail of price-estimation that is encouraging. There’s always a risk that the priority in allocating the money was to give each councilor an equal amount regardless of need. That approach would lead to money being wasted on unnecessary expenditures, however, the DPD figures appear to be solid estimates of the cost of each project.

The memo from Assistant City Manager/DPD Director Yovani Baez-Rose that accompanied the plan explained that the Covid-19 pandemic caused a substantial increase in the use of parks by city residents with accompanying wear and tear. Although ARPA funds were to be targeted at low-income census tracts, ARPA regulations also permit money to be used to rectify negative consequences of the pandemic which, by the city’s interpretation, include citywide park improvements.

Here are the eight projects and the neighborhood in which each is located. I’ve also added the name of the Councilor who represents the district in which the park is located (although I apologize in advance if I’ve mixed up one or two; the bottom line is they each get one). Approximately $1.2mil will be spent on each project, including some supplementation by funds from the state legislature:

• Father Maguire Park – Pawtucketville - Councilor Dan Rourke

• Saint Louis Park – Centralville - Councilor Corey Robinson

• Shedd Park – Belvidere - Councilor John Leahy

• O’Donnell Park – South Lowell - Councilor Kim Scott

• Clemente Park – Lower Highlands - Mayor Sokhary Chau

• North Common – Acre - Councilor Paul Ratha Yem

• Hadley Park – Upper Highlands - Councilor Erik Gitschier

• Jackson Street Park (new) – Downtown - Councilor Wayne Jenness

Per the report, work on these various projects should be completed during 2025 and 2026.

The initial proposal for spending this money during the Eileen Donoghue administration allocated most of it to renovations of Cawley Stadium and the rest to fixing up the pavilion at Shedd Park. Councilors, especially those representing other sections of the city, strenuously objected to all the money being spent in the city’s most affluent neighborhood, so DPD reworked its spending plan and arrived at the current version. Although Councilors were unified in their praise of this proposal, they also referred it to their Neighborhood Subcommittee, so there may be further modifications.  

Back when the Council rejected the “everything to Cawley and Shedd” proposal, I wrote that I agreed with the sentiments of distributing the money across the city. The importance of neighborhood identity in Lowell’s past cannot be overstated. The city was essentially a collection of villages positioned around the “downtown” central business district. But each neighborhood had its own thriving business district, its own parks, its own schools, and its own houses of worship. People identified themselves by their neighborhood (with “parish” sometime standing in for neighborhood with some Catholic residents). Reviving that sense of neighborhood would be good for the city in countless ways and using this federal funding windfall to create a signature park in each section of the city helps do that.

The downside is that Cawley Stadium and Shedd Park still need major repairs. Cawley especially, is a citywide asset that benefits everyone. At some point, substantial amounts will have to be spent on it from other city funds which will lead to greater pressure on the city’s budget in coming years.

I still think the Council was correct in pushing for a more equitable distribution of the federal funds, but we should all remember that’s a decision that will have financial consequences down the road.

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A prerequisite for having top quality municipal parks is the ability to effectively manage their use. Lowell’s ability to do that seemed shaky at best during a Tuesday evening discussion on a Councilor Erik Gitschier motion that requested information on the process of renting parks to private groups and the amount of unpaid invoices for such rentals.

The report contains thirteen pages of itemized unpaid fee charges (including the name of the person owing the money, their email address and phone number). The charges total $10,325 for invoices less than 30 days old and $15,885 for those more than 30 days old. The events range from birthday parties to softball games; the outstanding amounts go from $25 to $3,925; and the invoices stretch back to 2017.

A section of the city code itemizes charges for using various facilities. For instance, if you reside in Lowell, you can rent Cawley Stadium for four hours for $200 plus a custodial fee of $120. If you need the lights, add $100. (It’s interesting to scan through the city code, also in the motion response, because it lists charges for almost everything imaginable).

A 10-page long Board of Parks Handbook is at the end of the attachment. Contrary to what is stated in the city ordinance, the Handbook says that charges for the use of the Shedd Park Pavilion and Cawley Stadium are “to be determined by the BOP (Board of Parks).” The Handbook adds, “Additional permit fees may be required, as determined by the BOP and based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, the location of the event, the quantity of people at the event, the time of the event, and other amenities requested by the City.”

Several pages further into the Handbook, there are charges quoted for the use of Shedd and Cawley, so there’s a contradiction: are the fees for those two facilities the amounts listed in one place in the Handbook, or are they “to be determined by the BOP” as stated in another place in the same Handbook?

Councilor Gitschier has repeatedly maintained that the City Council sets the fees by ordinance and that the Board of Parks has no authority to waive them although that seems to be common practice. Tuesday, I believe Councilor Gitschier asked the Law Department for a legal opinion on that, so clarification may be forthcoming.

Regarding payment, the Handbook says “Payments are due prior to the start date of the permit.”

Regarding the cancellation policy, the Handbook says, among other things, “Issued permits are generally not refunded in the event of a cancellation by the requester.” If they’re “generally” not refunded, that means that refunds sometimes are issued although it’s not clear who decides that or under what circumstances.

But what happens if the fee has not been paid? The Handbook is silent on that. From the discussion at the Council meeting, it’s unclear who is responsible for enforcing that. It was suggested it’s the responsibility of the custodian on duty, but that would be unfair to the custodian even assuming they understood that to be part of their duties.

Also in the course of the discussion it seemed like the practice has been to let outstanding fees linger on the books until the next season when returning permit users request theirs for the next year. In order to proceed, they pay the outstanding balance, so it seems the policy is to collect money a year in arrears from recurring users. For one-time users who don’t pay, it doesn’t seem like there’s any policy to enforce payment.

Several Councilors were adamant about requiring payment in full when the permit application was submitted. The entire matter was referred to the Council’s Parks and Recreation Subcommittee, so perhaps an amendment to the ordinance regarding the timing of payment and the consequences of not paying will be forthcoming from the subcommittee.

But even if the Council does amend the ordinance, it will be nothing but a feel-good measure, an election year soundbite, unless city employees are able to effectively implement it and that seems like a big question.

We’ve heard a lot from Councilors about the need to raise the salaries of city employees to attract applicants for vacant positions; that the city’s pay structure is not competitive with nearby communities so would-be employees don’t apply to Lowell. I believe that is true and from a competitiveness in hiring perspective and from an equitable salary perspective, I concur with the need to raise pay in a thoughtful, strategic way.

However, though residents may be willing to pay what is needed to keep the city’s workforce up to strength, the same residents expect city government to work more efficiently and to do more with less. That’s possible, but it requires the use of the latest technology to leverage the workforce. But technology will never be a boost to productivity unless business practices are modified to make full use of the technology. Too often managers expect software to solve all their problems without really understanding how the software works and without modifying the operation of their department to maximize the efficiencies of the new technology. If all you do is inject a new computer system into an old way of doing things, operations will get worse, not better. Avoiding that requires nimble, forward-looking management at all levels and there is little evidence that such a culture exists in the city of Lowell.  

While the amounts of money involved in these outstanding park rental charges are a miniscule fraction of the city’s budget, their real importance is what they say about the management culture and practices that exist at City Hall. This entire discussion suggests that there are layers of inefficiency marbled into city operations. That’s a problem that will take more than a flurry of City Council motions to solve.

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The Candidate Empowerment & Readiness Training (CERT) program organized and hosted by Lowell Votes to help people thinking of running for office or working on campaigns has extended its deadline for applications to participate in this Spring’s program to March 9, 2023. More information and the application are available on the Lowell Votes website.

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On Thursday, March 9, 2023, at 6pm, the Lawrence History Center will host a book event at 275 Essex Street in Lawrence for Covid Conversations: Voices from Lawrence & Lowell, Massachusetts. Published by Loom Press, the book features oral histories of how people dealt with the global pandemic. The event is free and open to the public.

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On Saturday, March 11, 2023, at 10am, the 2023 season of Lowell Walks kicks off with a walking tour of the Acre Neighborhood led by Dave McKeon. The tour begins at the National Park Visitor Center at 246 Market Street (although I believe the VC itself is closed until April). The tour will take an hour.

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This week on richardhowe.com I posted a story about an 1890 report on the safety (or lack of safety) of the Lowell water supply. It’s a companion piece to an earlier story about the construction of the Christian Hill Reservoir.