Manager’s Review – Overall Grade B

Joe Smith correctly pointed out that there are some external influences that affect the ability to achieve some of these goals but here is my Review if I were a Councilor.

Government Services (B -) – Development Services still has some issues, the Library infighting and the Treasurer’s hiring and book balancing are all areas in need of improvement. Some improvement in customer service and efficiency has gotten better.

Finances (B) – Maintained reserves, but increased fees to control tax increases in light of declining State aid. Need to find ways to provide tax relief to property owners.

Public Safety (C) – Have to find ways to increase staffing levels throughout the city for both Police and Fire. Still closing fire stations on a rotating basis and need to improve the Police presence in downtown especially at closing time.

Community Development (B) –Julian Steele was just approved for more development and citywide coordinated effort to improve neighborhoods in need is good start but more needs to be done, especially in areas other than the downtown.

Economic Development (A) – Despite a weak economy development has continued at the Jam Plan Project and Appleton Mills has come online and there is some private investment on going in the city.

Education (A) – has met min. school spending for the past few years and is committed to meeting that level.

Sustainability (A) – Buying our Streetlights and the Ameresco Contracts are both long term cost savings and the Green Community designation are all good for the city.

Infrastructure (B) – Some needed road work and new water tower in Centraville, police garage on-line are all good things but schools are in need of painting and general cleaning inside and out. No noticeable work on the city wide multi-model transportation network.

Overall a Strong B with a recommendation to try to find ways to increase public safety staffing yet not raise property taxes 2.5%

Passing Plan design to decrease the city’s cost of health care may be one way of achieving this but would need the council to approve or he has no options.

Otherwise for next budget cycle should strongly look at eliminating ALL recreation programs, reducing library staff and hours, eliminating the Cultural Affairs and Neighborhood Service Divisions (and personal) and the entire marketing budget for more public safety staffing.

Grading the Manager..here’s your chance

11-01-18-Strategic-Goals-and-Objectives

At last weeks City Council Meeting a motion by Councilor Murphy was passed by the Council

21. C. Murphy – Req. Mgr. report on progress toward strategic goals and objectives and schedule, with Council, an annual performance review pursuant to the City Manager’s contract.

So I thought I would ask the readers to be a Councilor and based on the published Goals and Objectives let’s see how YOU would grade the Manager.

Be fair and try to set aside any bias one way or another.

I have included the Goals and Objectives published by the Manager on his BLOG in January of this year ( they may have been tweaked a little but these are the posted ones) along with his Introduction. Read them both and then submit grades for each and then an overall grade.

Grades should be ona scale from A-F. So an A means the Administration achieved these goals to an F which means they failed completely. The one other provision I ask is that you explain the reason for the grade you give. Why he did or did not achieve the goal in your view.

This is your chance to tell us how you grade him. I will wait and give my grade on Wednesday, so that I can’t be accused of swaying the grading.

Here is his Introduction to these goals:

Introduction

City government often requires deft actions to handle short-term, tactical problems that plague a community. One only has to look at some of the more recent items in the local newspaper to see that Lowell is no exception. Those issues brought up in local media outlets and the subject of talk around the water cooler are worthy of discussion and quick action because they have very tangible and acute effects on city residents.

There comes a point, however, when the sheer volume of these crisis moments puts a strangle-hold on any forward motion of the city. It is at this point that city government is so busy putting out the small fires that it cannot take stock of the current state of the city and address issues that may keep those fires from breaking out in the first place. It can be a dangerous position. Several Massachusetts cities such as Chelsea and most recently Lawrence have stood on the precipice of insolvency due in part to their inability or unwillingness to move away from the reactionary mindset to a proactive one.

Obviously we are not in such dire straits as the two prior examples. But Lowell has certainly been faced with its fair share of obstacles, especially in the recent past. And all indications are that the immediate future may be no different. The economic crisis we find ourselves emerging from has severely impacted our already limited revenue stream, while fixed costs such as health insurance skyrocket. This situation goes beyond simple dollars and cents; it filters down and affects our ability to provide quality public services that Lowell residents feel they can afford. This means less cops on the street and a possible increase in crime, fewer teachers in the school which can correlate to poor student performance and high dropout rates, and longer lines while waiting to accomplish simple transactions in City Hall.

In spite of this negative climate, we have been able to move the city forward in a positive direction in a number of ways. Even though our free cash balance fell to negative territory last year, we were able to resume the positive trend of prior years with a recently certified free cash balance of $1.3 million. Furthermore, we have been able to accomplish this while still keeping an excess levy capacity balance of almost $5 million. We have made several organizational changes within city government, most recently in Planning and Development with the formation of the new Development Services Division. The Hamilton Canal project continues to make progress when many large-scale developments in other cities have been halted. It can be quite tempting to look at these accomplishments and rest on our laurels. However, that is the point when a community starts looking backwards and stops looking forward and eventually that community ends up in the reactionary state described above.

That is why we need to take time to assess our current status and reflect on the direction we want to take the city. In order to facilitate this process, I have developed a set of strategic goals that can be used to set idealistic destinations and several objectives that provide a roadmap to get there. It represents a significant shift in the way the city approaches and handles critical decisions in both emergency and non-emergency situations alike. To the best of my knowledge, the City of Lowell has never developed a set of strategic goals that pertain to government operations on this scale. Lowell created a comprehensive master plan, but that is primarily a land-use and planning document, written to set a structure for the City’s physical growth and development well into the future.

We hear that government should be run more “like a business”. This document is more in keeping with a strategic plan for a business. While the differences between public and private entities prevent one from identically mirroring the other, there are certainly some aspects of business that can be emulated. This is certainly one of those cases.

As you examine this document, it is important to keep a few things in mind. We must try to accomplish these goals and objectives within the context of continuing to provide existing city services. While the vast majority of these objectives are forward-thinking and will result in better service, we will continue to need time to perform day-to-day operations. Streets must be plowed, calls need to be responded to, and counters need to be manned.

Second, even though a majority of the objectives detailed here are low- or no-cost activities, some may require extra resources including both time and money. Now, this does not necessarily equate to an increase in taxes or the addition of new personnel. However, if a project or an upgrade helps us achieve our defined goals, it must be explored. Ideally those activities undertaken would help us achieve even greater efficiencies and possibly savings.

Finally, I hope the City Council can think of and treat this as a work plan for the next year to eighteen months. This means a significant level of forethought needs to be put into this document. Regularly throughout the year, motions are brought forth asking the City Administration to provide services that go above and beyond what is budgeted prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. This puts a significant amount of pressure on our already strained resources. While we can all appreciate that unexpected issues come up from time to time that need to be addressed, I also hope that we can be more cognizant of this situation moving forward.

In fact, as mentioned previously these strategic goals should serve as a way to reduce the number of unexpected issues. If done correctly, strategic planning and goal setting can anticipate and prevent minor problems from becoming major problems requiring immediate intervention.

Format

The Strategic Goals document is broken down into several parts. There are eight broad strategic goals listed for the city, including goals that pertain to city services, city finances, public safety, community development, economic development, education, sustainability, and infrastructure. These are broad statements that do not necessarily have tangible results associated with them.

Next, each goal has up to six strategic objectives listed underneath. Strategic objectives typically, though not always have multi-year timeframes for their achievement and are multi-functional, i.e. they require concerted efforts by people from many different parts of the organization developing the goals.

Finally, for several strategic objectives there is a list of department-specific action steps and performance indicators. The completion of these action steps and performance indicators will help us determine how we are doing at certain points in time. Some of these are date-specific, while some use other criteria. You will see that some are marked “TBD”. This is because we currently do not have accurate data that pertains to these objectives and indicators. Once we are able to collect that information we will be able to set proper benchmarks and targets.

The department or departments mainly responsible for the achievement of department-specific objectives and performance indicators is listed to the side of each. While we recognize that many of these will need the cooperation of other departments not listed, we decided to list that department which should have primary responsibility.

Methodology

This process began by first developing a set of long-term goals for the city. These goals attempt to encompass practically everything that involves city government. After several iterations were developed, a version of these long-term goals was delivered to the Personnel Subcommittee of the City Council at their last meeting in 2010. This meeting was important in that valuable feedback from the Council was received relative to what was missing and should be included.
This feedback was incorporated into the process and the result is the eight long-term goals you see now.

At this point a copy was presented to department heads, and they were then asked to provide goals pertaining to their own departments, as well as possible performance indicators for each. In order to tie everything then, they were asked to tie each of their goals into one of the long-term goals previously described.

The process as described takes elements from both a top-down approach as well as a bottom-up approach. This hybrid model is designed to have as many steps as possible happen concurrently. The final step is to develop a set of objectives that glued these two pieces together. Although the format is pretty much set, we are still in the stage where we are soliciting feedback and refining portions of the goals.

This Week on City Life

City Life on Comcast Channel 8 from 6 AM until 8 AM (repeated weekday afternoons from 4-6PM) George Anthes hosts with John McDonough at the controls, you are welcome to call the program or just sip your coffee.

This week’s lineup:

Monday: Our State Senator Eileen Donoghue

Tuesday: School Committee’s John Leahy, Dr. Victoria Fahlberg and Jack Mitchell

Wednesday: Linda Bown and Lowell’s neighborhood group leaders visit

Thursday: Chelmsford co-host and School Committeewoman Evelyn Thoren and Bill Hoey.

Friday: Dracut’s John Dyer

Saturday: (repeat of Friday) Dracut’s John Dyer

Sunday: (repeat of Monday) Our State Senator Eileen Donoghue

Sunday Notes November 27th 2011

Jenn Myers has a great front page profile on charities best friend Fred Simon. The piece is a nice tribute to Fred sharing his story from the boy in the acre who needed assistance to the man who assist everyone he can. This Friday Dec. 2nd is the Birthday Bash/Roast in his honor and only 25 tickets remain. That means the committee will have sold 500 tickets which in this economy and so close to Christmas is a remarkable tribute to Fred Simon and the admiration and love so many have for him.

Speaking of the Roast/Birthday bash the Committee will also be raffling off a 42″ television, conducting a 50/50 raffle and auctioning off a pair of tickets to KISS 108′s Jingle Ball featuring Kelly Clarkson, LMFAO , Demi Lovato, Joe Jonas , Pitbull and the just added Sammy Adams so if you are attending and have a teen or grandchild who wants to go, be prepared to bid big and help out the Salvation ARmy while being picking up a great pre-christmas gift.

Also in today’s Sun Jessica Wilson has a recap of the City of Lights Festivities, Jenn Myers has a look at how the spirit of charity shines a day after the theft of a Salvation Army Kettle, Rob Mills has the sad story of the death of a Billerica Teen on 128 yesterday (The Sun updates that in-line this morning with his identity), Debbie Hovanasian has a look at the many nativity sets on display at St. John Episcopal Church, 260 Gorham St., Lowell, 7-9 p.m.Thursday and Friday, Dec. 1-2; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3; noon-4 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 4. 978-453-3766 Suggested donation $5. Chaz Scoggins takes a look at Luis Tiants’ chances to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame by a vote of the Veterans Committee.

Sun Editor Jim Campanini shows off his writing skills by sharing a personal story entitled A Chianti Story.

Pick up, subscribe to the E-edition or order Home delivery of the regional newspaper that covers Lowell/Dracut. The Sun!

The Political Column this week starts off with embattled DHA Chair, current Methuen/Ayer Housing Executive Director Ken Martin stating his loyalties are to all 3 communities and mentions that Gov. Patrick removed Mike McLaughlin’s son from the Tewksbury Housing AUthority.

There is an item stating Rita Mercier will not be in contention for Mayor of Lowell. She states in the item ” From what I heard Patrick has the votes so why would I step in?”

However the column notes that rumors have Murphy and Elliott deadlocked at three votes each. Councilor-elect Vesna Nuon committed to Murphy this week. He joins Councilor elect Marty Lorrey in support of Murphy. Mercier and Councilor Joseph Mendonca have committed to Elliott. Councilors Kevin Broderick, Bill Martin and Councilor- elect Ed Kennedy are still uncommitted

The SUN makes a point to crow about Lyle Moran and his work on the Fred Doyle inspired LHA stories while taking a shot at Councilor Broderick’s father Tom. It also mentions that Craig Gates (who was in my opinion a bust as Manager of the Arena when the city owned it) was recently hired as the new Executive Director of the Lowell Festival Foundation.

It concludes the local news with a mixed review of the welcome Assistant Collector of Taxes Robert Haley received on his return to work in the Treasurer’s Office and the movement of a couple of staffers.

Onto a few other things..

Papers are flying all over the insider political circle and media that rehash the Chelmsford Ma.Kinney lawsuit against then Chelmsford Town Manager Bernie Lynch. It includes an erroneous sum of $200,000 when in fact it was in the $20,000 range but the Bernie Bashers are hoping people won’t do their homework and believe their version.

In addition there was a wild rumor that the Manager had been served with some type of Subpoena this week but in actuality I was told by someone it was a legal claim against the city and several named individuals from a library assistant that has been complaining for years.

The speculation keeps growing that former Sen. Steve Panagiotakos does indeed want to be the next City Manager.

He is rumored to be one of the “political heavy hitters” who is looking to derail the Murphy Mayoral bid. Rumor’s remain strong that newly elected Councilor Ed Kennedy is willing to be the alternative candidate but it would take Kevin Broderick committment to make it work without forcing someone already committed to “change their vote”. Supposedly Martin will go along with Kennedy as a compromise to either Elliot or Murphy.

The latest speculation has each candidate receiving 3 votes on the first ballot then on a 2nd ballot Lorrey, Mercier and Mendonca voting for Kennedy and appointing Rodney as Vice Mayor.

Those that want Pangy for Manager will no doubt be working to undercut the Manager but will do so slowly over a long period that will also involve the resolution of a very touchy subject. Pangy will wait for the City to make a final decision regarding Plan Design and having that set along with the next budget before forcing out Manager Lynch. Why come into a no-win situation with Plan Design before allowing your predecessor to take the heat and the backlash with retirees and unions.

A 2013 Budget that will no doubt include a 2.5% increase (or higher) will be the issue that allows current councilors to say we need a new person in charge with a new outlook to find an alternative to constant tax increase.

Watch for a change in tone from Kendall Wallace as a good indication when the Manager’s time is set to expire. Wallace has been a solid supporter of Lynch but has a long history and much respect for Steve Panagiotakos and once he is convinced Steve can do the job, Bernie’s days will be numbered.

City Council Agenda Nov 29th 2011

LOWELL CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 29, 2011
CITY HALL, CITY COUNCIL CHAMBER
TIME 6:30 PM

PRESENTATION

CITY CLERK
1. Minutes of City Council Meeting November 22nd, City Council Special Meeting November 9th, Ad-Hoc Clerk Oversight S-C November 17th, and Neighborhood Traffic S-C November 22nd for acceptance.

GENERAL PUBLIC HEARINGS (Scheduled for 7PM)
2. Pole Location – National Grid-Pole location Middlesex St. @ Edwards St.
3. Loan Order – Green Repair Projects – School Dept. ($6,750,000).
4. Loan Order – Reduce $21,000,000 Loan Order (Ameresco, Inc.) by $285,000 for new amount of $20,715,000.

CITY MANAGER
5. Communication-From City Manager Responses to City Council Motions and Requests.
6. Communication-From City Manager, re: resignation from Hunger Homeless Commission.

REPORTS (Sub/Committee, if any)

GENERAL PETITIONS
7. Sewer Tie-In – L&J Property Mgmt., LLC, 190 Middlesex St., N. Chelmsford, MA.
8. Claims (2) – (1) claim for property damage, (1) personal injury.

MOTIONS
9. C. Mendonça – Req. Mgr. present a plan to eliminate the operating deficit in the Waste Water Enterprise Fund before the reserve funds are depleted.

10. C. Murphy – Req. Mgr. identify alternative meeting time for License Commission to allow for more community input.

11. C. Murphy – Req. Mgr. offer to host free Complete Streets workshops through the Baystate Roads Program and MassDOT in order to begin discussion toward developing a formal policy.

12. C. Murphy – Req. Mgr. report on potential for LED streetlight purchase plan in which a portion of savings generated is reinvested to incrementally increase coverage of LED streetlights.

13. C. Martin – Req. Mgr. to investigate the feasibility/advisability of a left turn arrow light from Andover St. to High St.

McLaughlin fallout starting to hit close to home

Chelsa Record: McLaughlin was let into the city, like a rat finding a comfortable home in a well stocked deli

The fallout from Mike McLaughlin’s salary revelation is starting to hit closer to home with today’s Sun story by Erin Smith on DHA Board member Ken Martin and his dual housing jobs.

Mr. Martin is director of the Methuen and Ayer public housing authorities earning him $184,057 in combined salaries and putting him on track to collect two lucrative pensions.

In the story Martin comes across a little like McLaughlin with a trace of arrogance when he says” My contracts allow me to work as many hours as I need to. If I need to work after 6 p.m., that’s up to me. I can do that,” said Martin, citing he works up to 70 hours at the two jobs and sometimes works from home. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. No one had an issue with this for 15 years. All of a sudden now it’s a big issue. If they wanted more documentation, they should have asked for it.”

However Smith points out that Former state housing director Jane Gumble in 1997 did just that. In her 1997 letter, Gumble requested Martin submit his Ayer hourly schedule for state review. State officials said they have no record of Martin’s hours for Ayer and it’s unclear if he ever submitted a schedule as requested.

Bob Moore, the elected chairman of the Ayer Housing Authority,told The Sun Martin works 3 to 8 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, 1 to 6 p.m. on Fridays, and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Martin’s current Ayer schedule would make it highly unlikely for him to be able to work the minimum required hours in Methuen during weekdays between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The accompanying story also points out Martin has the DHA Chairman gives HIS Executive Director a lot more restrictions in working hours than he has in the same position.

Karabatsos’ contract requires her to attend all board meetings and “work normal business hours established for administrative personnel as stated in the personnel policy” and any extra hours necessary. Karabatsos’ contract also prohibits her from outside employment or consultant work unless it is specifically approved by the DHA board

There is also a look at how much Martin now makes for the number of units he oversee’s $184,057 for 1105 Total Combined Units compared to Richard Sergi – The Brockton Housing Authority $166,527 for 3,234 units who according to the article is the highest paid Housing Director in the State.

Expect to see more fallout and stories with local angles because McLaughlin liked to donate to a wide variety of politicians besides Lt. Gov Tim Murray, since 2005 that list has included Gov Patrick, former Sheriff DiPaola, John Buonomo, Sen. Rich Tisei, and locally Sen. Steve Baddour, Sen. Susan Tucker , Sen./ former Rep Barry Finegold, Rep. Colleen Garry , Lowell City Councilors’ Rodney Elliot, Armand Mercier , Bill Martin and Methuen Mayor Bill Manzi.

The question is would any of this have happened IF Dracut Housing Executive Director Mary Karabatsos contract had simply been renewed without all the drama that was involved with it? Wonder if some now have second thoughts of wanting to flex their muscles and replace her?