Read — and hear — all about it
THE MEDIA scene in Lowell is thriving thanks to redundancies and innovative channels of delivery.
In a city of just under 116,000 souls, the information landscape includes the paper and digital versions of the Lowell Sun and Khmer Post; WCAP 980 AM radio; Inside Lowell, an internet-based media company; the public access channel of Lowell Telemedia Center; “City Life,” a streaming platform available on social media and public access channels; and the weekly observations and historical dives into everything Lowell found on the web at Richardhowe.com.
That information stream is supplemented by social media giants such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram that allow users to localize content under personal and community profiles such as the South Lowell Group, a public page that focuses on issues relating to that neighborhood, but is open to comment by all residents of the city.
These public and private groups provide a direct pipeline to share community news or to get the ear of district representatives.
There are even substream news sources such as the Lowell Public Schools’ districtwide newsletter, which the public can subscribe to, as well as updates from City
Hall via its website.
And there’s the news from the city’s many nonprofits such as Coalition for a Better Acre and the Greater Lowell Community
Foundation, which generate monthly digital newsletters.
Then there are all the meetings of the city’s many municipal bodies that are broadcast live and recorded by LTC.
There’s no news desert in Lowell and there’s no lack of access points for information about what is going on in the city thanks to the work, in some cases, volunteer work, of its content creators.
“City Life” is broadcast from what co-host Cliff Krieger calls John Mcdonough’s “man cave,” a large room set off from the main living space of his family home.
Mcdonough is the funeral director of Mcdonough Funeral Home on Highland Avenue, across from the Rogers STEM Academy.
The sprawling complex, which includes the funeral business and personal home of the Mcdonough family, sits on a slight rise, and has sweeping views of the city including the Lowell Justice Center and Eliot Church.
The home-based studio broadcasts live weekdays from 6 a.m. on Facebook Live, and Channel 8 in Lowell, Dracut, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro and Chelmsford.
To access the studio, guests enter through a red kitchen door, walk through another door to a sitting room filled with toys for the Mcdonough
grandchildren, through yet another door that opens to the main entrance and hallway leading to a curved staircase before passing through a final set of doors that opens into the brightly lit, but warm and inviting space of the City Life studios.
The extensive equipment is manned and monitored by Mcdonough, while Krieger conducts the interviews with local figures, though Mcdonough chimes in throughout the broadcast.
The atmosphere is loose and congenial and tempting — boxes of doughnuts, candy dishes and a coffee machine also decorate the space. All of it is brought to the viewing public through the volunteer efforts of Mcdonough and Krieger.
That kind of dedication from all media levels — large and small — for bringing news from all stripes and types to the residents of Lowell keeps the city vibrant, relevant and engaged.
Can Billerica turn the heat down?
THE TOWN of Billerica is currently in the midst of what one might call a triple election season. Voters in Billerica will be asked to go to the polls three times in the next three calendar months between the special election for the town center project Feb. 17, the presidential primaries March 5 and the annual town election April 6. Of course that is not to mention the general election in November, but for sanity’s sake we can leave that one on the backburner for now.
The most pressing election for Billerica naturally is the town center election later this month, where voters will decide whether to affirm or reject Article 14 of the fall 2023 Town Meeting that set aside $15 million in funding for the project.
Last Monday in the Town Hall auditorium, Town Manager John Curran once again gave a presentation on the details of the project, and it was largely similar to the presentation he gave before Town Meeting narrowly approved the project 12661 when it needed a twothirds majority.
Curran again had Police Chief Roy Frost and Fire Chief Robert Cole explain what they think the benefits of the project would be from a first responder’s perspective. He also invited walkability consultant Jeff Speck to talk about the apparent benefits of making part of the center a two-way street and “reducing highway elements.”
Though Curran spent much time advocating for the project in a way he hadn’t been able to in recent months, the tension from the recently-concluded civil lawsuit against the Select Board remained in the air, and on a couple of occasions boiled over a little into the arguments.
At one point during the nearly four-hour information session, Planning Board member Kelley Sardina was asking questions about a $1.1 million allocation of Chapter 90 highway funds, when she made the claim that Curran had allocated those funds to the project without transparency.
“So you took Chapter 90 money that would have went to roads and already applied it to this, without letting members know? OK,” said Sardina.
Curran immediately said that Sardina’s assertion was incorrect, and that he had presented the information about allocating Chapter 90 funds before the Town Meeting vote on Oct. 3.
“That is misinformation. I let you know in the Town Meeting presentation several months ago. Please don’t state things that are false,” said Curran. “I know you weren’t at Town Meeting, so maybe that is why.”
“Just so you all know, you can’t roll a hospital bed down 3A, can you?” Sardina responded, talking to the entire room.
To the credit of both, Sardina would later come back to the podium to get clarification on different sources of the funding and when they were actually allocated, and she and Curran walked through the confusion with little further issue, though some confusion was generated seemingly by the difference between a fiscal year and a calendar year. Whoever decided that a fiscal year should start in the middle of the actual year might need a stern talking to.
Closer to the end of the lengthy information session, a woman who did not identify herself began to complain about “the aged, outstanding issues and projects that Billerica has had on the books for decades.”
“We have elementary schools and middle schools that are in total disrepair that need to be replaced. I haven’t heard one squeak about what we are doing there,” she said angrily, before Curran asked her to keep it on the topic of the town center, because it was already around 10:30 p.m.
She went on to list other issues like bad water pipes and a lack of sidewalks in certain parts of town, and how the town should focus on issues like those before starting a $20 million town center project.
As Curran had put it earlier in the session, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“We have a very comprehensive capital plan and it covers water, sewer, roads, and it also includes financing and how that is going to be done. We are constantly working on that all the time,” said Curran.
He then began to say he takes issue with someone implying that the town is not doing work it is doing, though the woman seemingly tried to talk over him, which led to Curran telling her not to interrupt him.
“These are comprehensive plans that are put forward, and you imply that nothing is going on with these things. That is absolutely false. False,” Curran said loudly.
While things got a little testy at times, it should be noted that many stood up and simply asked technical questions about the proposed project, from whether the design could even have room for more parking, to addressing rumors that the plan will require the town to take part of the O’connor Hardware property for the project, which Curran said is untrue.
Others asked about whether any of the existing monuments will be removed, which Curran said they will not, or whether the project does enough for handicapped people that wish to spend time in the center, to which Curran said the project would be Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant.
This project has brought out a great amount of anger from different directions over the last six or so months, and perhaps a moment of perspective is in order with less than two weeks to go until the special election. Now that the civil suit has ended, and Billerica gears up for the first of four visits to the polls this year, it should probably be stated for the record that at the end of the day, this is only a municipal infrastructure project.
Passion for the democratic process is understandable, but as we head into the dog days of a presidential election year that is, by any reasonable prediction, going to be one of the most vitriolic and toxic in living memory, do we need to already be at the throats of our literal neighbors?
The judge made his decision, a vote will be cast and the result will hopefully be honored by all. Take it down a few notches, because we can’t afford to have our cities and towns divided in a time like this.
Eye-popping figures
EYES ARE popping in Dracut over cost estimates for a driveway, parking lot and trail at Beaver Brook Farm. Initial estimates for that work range from $1.2 million to $1.8 million.
The Beaver Brook Farm Ad Hoc Subcommittee and the Community Preservation Committee will meet jointly Tuesday night to talk about those estimates. They’ll also be discussing the project design and options with Engineering Partners, a Quincy-based multidisciplinary engineering and consulting firm, who submitted the estimates and design.
The town acquired Beaver Brook Farm on Mammoth Road in 2015 with $2.8 million from the CPC. Included in the purchase were the Justus Richardson House, several outbuildings and about 20 acres. Planning for the property went through several iterations until the 2021 sale of the Richardson House for $100,000.
The next steps the town took were decisions about the fate of the outbuildings. Two were saved from demolition — the 1790 red seedhouse, nearest Mammoth Road, and the large squash barn. The workshop building was heavily damaged by two fires — one in the 1940s and the other in the 1970s. The seedhouse has been stabilized and mothballed until the town decides how best to use it. And the best uses for the squash barn are also under discussion
The workshop building was demolished late in 2023.
The Tuesday night joint meeting has drawn some social media comments. Finance Committee member Rich Cowen posed the question, “Is there a way to do the Beaver Brook Farm driveway without all the excavation and stormwater management that is required to lay down asphalt?”
A former chair of the Board of Selectmen was more political in the nature of his comments.
John Zimini let it be known that he objects to the lack of an opportunity for the public to speak at the upcoming meeting. Zimini was, of course, alluding to the recent move by the Zoning Review Board, acting on the recommendation of town counsel, to limit the public’s opportunity to comment on its actions. It was a decision squarely aimed at Phil Thibault — an architect in town and a critic of Alison Genest, current chair of the Select Board and member of the ZRB — who was an active nonmember participant in ZRB meetings.
This week’s Column was prepared by reporters Melanie Gilbert in Lowell, Peter Currier in Billerica, and Prudence Brighton in Dracut.