Senator Eileen Donoghue shares her thoughts about her first year in office as the State Senator for the First Middlesex District in a January 2012 0n-line newsletter. Her district includes the communities of Lowell, Dunstable, Groton, Pepperell, Tyngsborough and Westford.
Read it all here.
Don’t miss this important update from the Small Business Assistance Center from Stacie Hargis the Director:
Something just happened to the Center! As the New Year unfolds, the Center is looking forward to a bright 2012 as we have had much success to build on from last year.2011 meant results that made a difference in the communities of the Merrimack Valley! … And we look forward to continuing that success, but with a new name. As of today, the Lowell Small Business Assistance Center will officially be known as theMerrimack Valley Small Business Center.
A reminder:
The Merrimack Valley Small Business Center is a program of Community Teamwork, Inc. in collaboration with Middlesex Community College, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the City of Lowell – Division of Planning & Development.
The mission:
The mission of the Merrimack Valley Small Business Center is to provide entrepreneurs from ethnically and economically diverse groups with the education, tools and resources needed to create, sustain or expand viable small businesses.
Check-out the January 2012 Newsletter here.
Town Library – Precincts 4 & 4A (photo from Town of Tewksbury website)
In a move announced by mail by the Town Clerk and sanctioned by the Board of Selectmen, some Tewksbury voters will again be moving to a new location to cast their ballots. The former Town Clerk had consolidated the voting sites to two handicapped-accessible sites – the new Senior Center on Chandler Street and the fairly new Public Library also on Chandler Street but adjacent to Route 38. It was a move that proved to be controversial with some and did see a bit of a log-jam with snow piles and an outpouring of voters for the special election for the U. S. Senate back in January, 2010.
Tewksbury Senior Center – Precincts 1 & 2 (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
In an information sheet tucked into the 2012 Census Form envelope, voters learned that Precincts 3 and 3A will be casting ballots at the Lowell Assembly of God Church on Andover Street/Rte. 133 and Precincts 2 and 2A will vote at the Recreation Center on Livingston Street. Added to the Clerk’s voter information notice - with redistricting at the most local level completed – was a list of fifty streets that have precinct changes.
Tewksbury residents and registered voters need to carefully check the Census mailer for this important information. Also, mail back the Census form ASAP.
Recreation Center – Precincts 2 & 2A (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
Lowell Assembly of God Church – Precincts 3 & 3A (photo from church website)
Election 2012, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | 
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The editorial in today’s Nashua Telegraph poses an interesting question – “Has the grand tradition of the New Hampshire primary come to an end?” Noting that the three candidates – Jon Huntsman, who bragged about holding 150 events in the state, Rick Santorum and Buddy Roemer (Buddy who?) – who campaigned in New Hampshire relentlessly fell way short in the New Hampshire primary* while Mitt Romney (albeit a New Hampshire landowner) and Ron Paul triumped in slots one and two. It seems that the retail politics enjoyed by New Hampshire voters over the last 60 years has been scooped by technology – the like of Twitter, Facebook and blogs – and definitely by Fox News and its endless candidate debates. The editorial posits:
It started with Nixon, or more accurately, with the 1960 televised debate between a handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy and a sweating Richard Nixon, whose 5 o’clock shadow made him look like a crook.
Technology continued to change presidential election campaigns, and it’s doing so in ways that are likely to soon make New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary irrelevant. Worst of all, there may be nothing New Hampshire can do about its diminished importance but grin and bear it.
One wonders as well about the importance of Iowa and those caucuses!
Read the full editorial here at nashuatelegraph.com.
*Sidebar:
The state of New Hampshire has held a presidential primary since 1916, but its current importance didn’t emerge until 1952 when – after the state simplified its ballot access laws in 1949 seeking to boost voter turnout – General Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by defeating Senator Robert A. Taft – widely known as ”Mr. Republican” – who had been favored to win the nomination and on the Democratic side when Senator Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman – leading Truman to abandon his campaign for a second term of his own. In 1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy nearly defeated President Lyndon Johnson – sending a strong message that had Johnson declaring: ”I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
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John Edward, a resident of Chelmsford who earned his master’s degree at UMass Lowell and who teaches economics at Bentley University and UMass Lowell, contributes the following column.
Many Greater Lowell legislators made a big mistake in 2011. My State Representative, James Arciero, was one of them. In this column, I will offer them a chance to do something right in 2012.
People who should be saving for the future are instead gambling on their future. The state legislature can help solve that problem.
The savings rate in the United States is too low. After the Great Depression and through the mid eighties the personal savings rate was around 10 percent. In subsequent years, the rate fell sharply. During brief periods it even went negative – we were spending more than our income.
During the Great Recession, the savings rate increased, but only to 5 percent. Despite the recovery being weak, people are again saving less. The personal saving rate was only 3.5 percent in November.
Insufficient saving is bad for individuals and bad for the overall economy in the long run. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the problem is most severe for low-income families.
Among other reasons, the poor do not save because:
- they often have nothing left to save after spending on necessities,
- they know a modest hard-saved bank account can be wiped out with just one unexpected financial hardship,
- they typically get much lower returns or negative returns after bank fees,
- saving implies thinking about the future whereas the poor are struggling to make it through the present,
- they are encouraged to spend by both Madison Ave. and Pennsylvania Ave. read more »
There is an article in today’s Eagle Tribune on what the headline writer calls “accident alley” - Route 114 in North Andover. It is a busy road carrying all manner of traffic – at all times of the day and night. The area is layered with commerce, eateries, office parks, business, service and medical destinations. It houses the extensive campus of Merrimack College. It marks a crossroads of convergence and access from city to town to suburb and the rural – from local and side roads, parking lots and driveways to highways and by-ways. So many of us in the Valley access that area regularly – including me as it’s where three of my docs practice – that I thought a reminder of the importance of driving carefully was worth calling attention to the article.
The lessons on driving safely, paying attention, following the rules of the road, noting the particular hazards of a roadway, being courteous, having patience, avoiding the distractions of phone calls and texting and wearing your seatbelt hold true whether driving on Route 114, Route 495, Andover Street or on the Hunts Falls Bridge.
Read the Alex Bloom article “Accident alley: Rte. 114 turns from rural to deadly” here at eagletribune.com.
An article by Scott Helman in tomorrow’s Boston Sunday Globe Magazine – and on-line today – about the redistricting process and the results accepted by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Patrick is well worth a read. As someone who testified at one of the regional hearings (Lawrence) and who has been relocated as a constituent from the 5thCD – now the 3rdCD - into the 6th CD – I find this article an interesting look at the process and what it might really mean about the current state of politics in the Commonwealth.
From the article:
For the first time in decades, the Legislature managed to create new state legislative and US congressional districts that, by and large, put the voters’ interests above the politicians’.
Read it here at boston.com. – “Mass. voting maps reflect State House evolution”
Take a look at our past blog post and comments from MassMoments on the history of the gerrymander: http://www.richardhowe.com/2011/02/11/massmoments-birth-of-the-gerrymander/
I took this photo a year ago trying to give a sense of that crazy winter weather to family and friends living in Florida and elsewhere. Remnants of the snowfall of December 26, 2010 through January, February, March and April of 2012 lasted well into Spring.
This morning at 10 I’ll be speaking at the Chelmsford Public Library at 25 Boston Road about the coming of the American Civil War. The talk is free and open to the public so please join us if you’re able. More information is available on the library website.
The next regular breakfast meeting of Greater Lowell Area Democrats - the first in the New Year - will be held tomorrow – Saturday January 14, 2012 – at 8am SHARP at the Independence Grill at the Radisson Hotel in Chelmsford.
The regular agenda will include updates and discussion on: ward/town caucuses for the 2012 convention delegate selection (training at the meeting); the race for U.S Senate nomination; the Presidential Primary locally and nation-wide; dates and deadlines for local ward and town committee reorganization; redistricting results; national convention delegate selection caucuses – and other topics on the minds of members.
At 9am there will be a caucus training/discussion session for the 2012 Massachusetts Democratic Convention delegate selection caucuses scheduled to be held locally between February 11 and February 20 to be followed by a brief discussion and training session for use of Votebuilder. It’s important to review all the rules, discuss the minor changes approved by the DSC, and answer any questions about the process.
GLAD Members, Associates and interested Democrats are invited to attend the GLAD meetings along with elected and appointed officials.
Directions: Independence Grill at the Radisson Hotel – Exit 34/Rte. 495 – take right off Rte 110 at the hotel sign / parking in front and behind the hotel.
Greater Lowell, Lowell, Politics | Comments Off
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