Two supposedly “Smart” Politicians allowed their ego’s to overtake their political sense this week and will be paying for that for a long time to come.

Mayor Murphy and the City Manager have declared war on the SUN a fight they can’t and never will win and one that may lead to both ultimately ending their service to the city.

On 3/22/2012 I posted the following: Time for Mayor to show he’s the smarter politician and suggested among other things

Stop fighting with the SUN - Don’t have a public fight with Councilor Mercier

The Mayor Ignored this and brings in a motion that not only is a shot at the SUN but one that places his fellow councilors in a no win situation and is guaranteed to LOSE on top of it.

It is one that allowed the City Manager to get dragged into speculation he is the man behind the motion and came at the cost of losing his only high placed / influential Lowell Sun supporter Kendall Wallace.

By placing the motion, Mayor Murphy put Councilor Mercier and all the Councilors in a bad spot. Either defeat and embarrass the Mayor or criticize the Sun. By throwing a temper tantrum at the SUN and filing this motion the Mayor was trying to put pressure on his fellow councilors. Support Me or support them.

Councilor Mercier has been around and knows Lowell politics, which is why she finishes #1 every Election. She smiled and not only was against it, you can hear her during the chaos that surrounded a substitute motion state “the Original motion would fail” (and we hear the Mayor saying ” I know Councilor I can count) but she insures the Mayors public humiliation by getting the substitute motion withdrawn and the original voted on and it goes down in spectacular FLAMES! 8-1

If you make her and your fellow councilors look bad, you have to expect them to do the same to you and this week they did. Learn from it.

Mr. Mayor you are playing to a SMALL Minority on Left In Lowell. They have your back but they are not part of the City Wide Survey that show 52% of us rely on the SUN for our news and information. The Sun by far reaches more people than LIL, this blog, Richardhowe.com and Right side of Lowell combined and like them of not they have far more influence than all of these blogs or bloggers.

Let’s be honest Mr. Mayor, Myself, Jack, Lynne, Marie, Dick, Paul, Cliff etc. can post and rant whatever we want but we have minimal impact on real issues. People like to read and rant at us or with us but if you look at our numbers we don’t reach a majority we play to a minority. The Sun is still the Paper and has the most influence no matter how many of my fellow Bloggers dislike them or more correctly dislike the Editor and Publisher.

If you have any future political aspirations (including another city council term) you need to learn to either play nice or at the very least NOT react when they print negative stories about you. A seasoned and smart politician has THICK SKIN it’s time you learn to take the criticism or just read Left in Lowell where Jack and Lynne will tell you how wonderful you are no matter what you do and how bad the SUN is no matter what they do.

Meanwhile You and the Clerk need to understand and enforce the council rules and get control of the Council meetings. Watching the council on the Sewer vote and the motion to post the notices on the website it appeared that You, the Vice-Mayor and the clerk had no idea what you were doing and allowing councilors to interrupt each other and change things and not knowing what was being voted on looked amateurish and unorganized. This week was NOT a shining moment for the Lowell City Council!

You have a gavel, show you know how to use it even on councilors like Marty Lorrey who you like.

Mr. Manager aside from the sewer tie-in which you know my position on, why did you allow yourself and your Administration to get dragged into this Legal Notice Fiasco?

By appearing to agree with the Mayor and by making comments indicating the SUN might not be around (I don’t thing it will be 10 years, the overall decline of the newspaper industry and we might have to find another paper with a bigger circulation and more costly ads) allowed you to take some shots at the SUN but at what cost?

Kendall Wallace has been a HUGE supporter of you and your administration and yet you take multiple shots at the business that has been his livelihood? Why? What do you gain? Because you don’t like the editor and Lyle you take shots at a longtime Lowell Business that pays taxes and is a pretty good community partner!

Did you read Mr. Wallace yesterday? You have it appears made a supporter a non-supporter and one who can make your political life a little more harder than it needed to be. Former Manager Taupier once refered to you has the smartest politician in the room on any Tuesday night.You couldn’t prove it by your actions this past Tuesday.

It was noted You didn’t correct the dollar value of how much the city spent at the Sun, knowing full well Councilor’s Kennedy and Elliot were correct that much of the legal notices are funded by people paying for them in fees included in the application process.

You should have suggested to your friend the Mayor that a motion to post on BOTH the City website and continue in the Sun would have been better and then at a later date a motion to see IF the city could NOT have to post all notices in the Sun.

Instead you seemed to support an attack that you had to know would fail. Some may speculate you wanted the Mayor to get slapped down a little to keep him in line but most will speculate you put him up to the motion.

Either way you both have had a bad week and will need some time to undo the damage you both did to your political reputations this week.

The city has that ability and technology to post the agenda and city council packet at the same time, just look at the New School Committee Agenda /Packet. So why isn’t the packet available every Friday after the Agenda is published?

I’m NOT blaming the Executive Assistant who is wonderful and does a great job. I’m pointing out that while the Mayor was looking at posting legal notices his Council information isn’t available to the public every Friday like it should be.

I find it ironic he isn’t demanding the packet which is public information be published Friday’s with Agenda. Isn’t Transparency one of his key goals?

For instance, wouldn’t you like to know a few days in advance what the Manager wants to do with the $219,000 he is suggesting gets transferred from the Snow and Ice account to “Fund various Projects”? I would!

Maybe if the general public had a few days to find out what exact projects he wants to fund instead of having only 1 day or a 1/2 day notice they would be able to contact their councilors in either support or with other suggestions they felt were more important…Say like FIXING some SCHOOL Bathrooms or Bubblers!

No Slot Parlors will be allowed in Lowell. No, no, no and NO. End of story! Lynne Lupien has spoken!
(So much for democracy and public discourse)

This week the School Committee went paperless. Well almost. School Committeeman Dave Conway apparently doesn’t want an IPAD and would prefer to have the courier deliver the packet to him. The new format that includes assigning a specific number to each item and having it available on the School Department Website for all to see is a nice feature and will make it easier to follow.

Don’t take this has actual fact, it isn’t, its just another in the many rumors floating in the political circle but keep an eye out for a possible change to the Lowell delegation of the Greater Lowell Tech School committee.

I have heard that a current member of the Greater Lowell Technical School Committee from Lowell has or is about to close on a house in the suburbs and will be moving out of Lowell and have to vacate his seat as a Lowell representative. If that occurs I believe a combination of the Lowell City Council and School Committee has to appoint someone to fill the term.

I look for Dave Laferriere , William Sheehan, Mike Hayden, Ralph Hogan and former teacher Herb Raistrick to all have an interest in the seat if it does indeed open. Three of the 5 have served on the board while Mr. Raistrick taught there and Mr. Sheehan ran for the board this past year and his wife works there.

Thank you to all who attended the Robinson School Spaghetti Supper Friday evening (including School Committee member Kristin Ross Sitcawich and her family and City Councilor Marty Lorrey.)

The Teacher’s, Principal and staff along with the PTO did an outstanding job and a good time was had by all and the School and the Cancer Walk Fund made some money.