I watched the entire marathon session of the City Council meeting last night. Mimi on Left in Lowell has her view and Jack chimes in with a few comments has well.

1) John Leahy should have been sworn in BEFORE we had the Mayor of a sister city address the council

2)We found out that most councilor felt the Inspector General’s letter was a big deal. While I completely understand the Fire Chiefs position and I do think the RFQ was very flawed I was more upset that the Manager “didn’t know about” it but was fine with the way ‘the staff” handled it.

3)That the Manager held a staff meeting last Friday and informed all departments heads that any letter from the FBI, STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL, HEALTH DEPT., DEPT. OF REVENUE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY ETC. GET FORWARDED TO HIM AND HE gets informed directly about it.

Also all dept. must inform HIM EVERY time a city councilor calls them. He wants to now know things before they do.

4) Has happened many times in Lowell’s history, the City Council is reminding the City Manager who is boss. The Bernie defenders have their shields on protect and are shocked at this turn but those who know Lowell’s history know this happens after the Manager regardless of who it is, starts getting a large ego and thinks he runs the place and not them.

5) When the Manager was NOT connecting the bathroom at the Soccer field and when Councilor Elliot’s daughter was getting humiliated and sent home because of ‘lost’ paperwork, those who support the Manager bought that “It wasn’t Political”

Yet if Rodney ask anything that gets the Manager upset he’s the problem. Rodney NEVER went after the Manager’s family nor a youth group the Manager supports and the Manager did!

In my eyes Rodney has every right to be a huge SOB to the Manager. You don’t EVER screw with someone’s family or any kids!!!

6)The Manager seems upset that someone would bring up Julian Steele since it was before him. He seemed upset that people have a perception that he doesn’t have a handle on the departments..Gee the fact that the Library staff has been doing more infighting than Jack and I, A employee who buys DRUGS while driving a City Vehicle gets his job back, a politically connected worker not supportive of the Manager steals less than $250 in gas and gets fired while his boss the Department head uses city property and workers,gets fined $5,000 by the states ethics commission and keeps his job, another dept. head doesn’t used a system designed to monitor money, gets the city vendor to hire people he wants and covers up a theft, and then Councilor Mercier informs all that a few Department heads she spoke with say that before last Friday they went one or two months without meeting with the Manager.

I’d say that in this case perception is reality.

7)The Auditor sent a request to her bosses, the City Council that she wants to negotiate a new contract per the conditions in her current one. They have until Sept. 25th to notify her or a decent severance package kicks in. She doesn’t attend the meeting and doesn’t notify them she would not be there, yet Joe M wants another meeting before saying yes or no? WHY? Oh by the way the Mayor indicated she may not be around for a meeting next week.

8)I thought the Mayor did a great job presiding over the meeting and didn’t come across has a protector of the Manager nor did he stifle any of his fellow Councilors.

9) Is Councilor Martin getting tired, frustrated or board? For at least the 2nd time I can recall in the past few months, he votes against continuing a meeting past 10:00 pm. I understand he has a full time job and Tuesday is a long day but it seems he is disinterested.

10) I think the majority of the committee know if they send something to a sub-committee it tends to die there and not get addressed so I’d rather the entire Council address an issue than send it somewhere to rot. The Charter review committee/movement comes to mind.

That’s the view from this tired guy..Goodnight!