THE OLD adage that no one is indispensable could be amended to some people are less dispensable than others.
That certainly seems to be the case with outgoing city employee Christine McCall, who not only holds the position of assistant city manager, but is also the director of the Department of Planning and Development, a sprawling department whose work touches the daily lives of almost every Lowellian, as well as the thousands of people who visit or work in the city.
McCall is leaving her public post at the end of the month for a position as a project manager with Milford-based construction giant Consigli. The 33-year-old director was appointed a little more than one year ago by then-City Manager Eileen Donoghue.
As head of the DPD, which has been chronically understaffed for more than a year, McCall has had her hand in virtually every aspect of the city’s portfolio, covering areas from community gardens to master plans, traffic issues and zoning regulations.
Her department is currently overseeing at least 14 major initiatives such as Downtown revitalization projects, City Hall exterior and interior improvements, and infrastructure developments like roads and bridges. McCall’s vacant traffic engineer position is responsible for managing the city’s traffic and transportation needs including signal operation, signs, flows and traffic-calming measures.
The director’s job description includes attending weekly City Council meetings at which councilor motions may contribute to her workload.
A review of the City Council motions since January shows that McCall’s department has responded to 25% of the 400 total motions already requested by the council — or almost 100 motion requests, which range from one-page answers to substantial documents running dozens of pages.
Breaking that down, McCall has signed off on an average of 13 motions per month or three motions a week, in addition to her regular and recurring duties of running a department that manages the city’s lucrative cannabis program, Lowell’s sustainability plan, ensures compliance with and the standards for the American Disabilities Act, rolling out a new business and Downtown development plan and much, much more.
And all that for a salary of around $130,000. But without asking McCall directly — we tried, but she didn’t respond — it may not just be about whether she feels she’s being paid fairly for her performance. Unless you are City Manager Tom Golden, there are limits to compensation packages for public employees, which may be a factor in the ongoing 60-something vacancies in City Hall.
It could also be about the workplace environment that forced a job change. The volume of her work — and the relentless, weekly piling on of that work in an understaffed department that serves critical citizen and business needs — may have been another tipping point in her decision.
It seems McCall’s DPD picked up a lot of the slack in the understaffed personnel system at City Hall. When motions are made, the formal language is to request the city manager to have the appropriate department provide, determine, establish, investigate, remedy, implement and otherwise fix such-and-such area.
One out of every four times, Golden determined that department was DPD.
Now, perhaps it was because the councilor motions raised issues that fell directly under her purview, but sometimes — as in the motion sent to McCall’s department to report on the condition of cultural flags in neighborhoods or snow removal in the Hamilton Canal Innovation District — it seemed “appropriate” was subject to Golden’s discretion.
And in his judgment, his go-to, problem-solving department was McCall’s DPD. No other department — not even the Department of Public Works — can touch McCall’s performance in terms of the volume of motion responses.
A management team is a vital part of the cohesive structure of government and governing. By recognizing, empowering and supporting those personnel resources, leadership maintains and builds on those relationships. Instead, yet another high-ranking staffer is leaving.
The DPW, incidentally, is led by Mark Byrne, who retired early last year as facilities director at Greater Lowell Tech and previously worked for several years as the city’s assistant commissioner of public works. Byrne came out of retirement in May to serve as interim DPW commissioner.
Then again, maybe McCall saw the proverbial handwriting on the wall — staffing crunch, crushing and rat-on-a-treadmill workload — and decided to bolt to not only greener pastures in terms of salary, but one in which managerial metrics guided equitable decision-making responsibilities.
Revamped City Council is on fire
PERHAPS THE new City Council’s zeal to represent their constituents was a factor in McCall’s departure.
The 2017 lawsuit requiring Lowell to change its municipal electoral system to ensure a fairer and more equitable election process that empowers voters of all backgrounds, was demonstrated in the last election, which saw the council grow from 9 to 11 councilors with five of them being newcomers.
Even accounting for the pandemic, this council is blowing previous council work out of the water. Pre-pandemic, the years 2018 to 2019 saw 379 total motions submitted. The pandemic years of 2020 to 2021 saw 345 motions. Year to date, this council has already submitted 400 motions.
All five of the new councilors are on fire. Far and away, though, the leader of that energy is Corey Robinson, who represents the previously unrepresented Centralville neighborhood. He has submitted a whopping 90 motions, or 22% of the total requests. And it seems, he’s just getting started.
Not far behind with roughly 50 motions each — or 13% — are Councilors Vesna Nuon (at-large), Kimberly Scott (South Lowell/Sacred Heart) and Erik Gitschier (Highlands). Mayor Sokhary Chau (Lower Highlands) and Councilor Paul Ratha Yem (The Acre) have submitted 30 motions each for 7%.
Councilors Wayne Jenness (Downtown) and Rita Mercier (at-large) come in at 25 motions each or 6%, while Councilors Daniel Rourke (Pawtucketville) and John Leahy (Belvidere) have 20 motions to their names at 5%. Bringing up the rear is Councilor John Drinkwater (at-large) with 11 motions or 3%.
The leaderboard winners of Robinson, Scott and Gitschier are all new faces to the council, along with Yem and Jenness. Collectively, they have submitted 60% of the motions. And if you are Christine McCall, additional work on her already full plate.
Her vacancy is going to be hard to fill given both the scope, expectations and workload distribution already established for the position. Let’s hope Golden makes filling it — and the other departmental vacancies — priority No. 1.
Race for 16th Middlesex District state representative draws closer
LOWELL CITY Manager Tom Golden left big shoes to fill in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and the two Democratic candidates vying for his open seat in the 16th Middlesex District have just over two weeks before the primary.
Former Lowell Mayor and City Councilor Rodney Elliott is facing Zoe Dzineku, constituent services director for state Sen. Ed Kennedy’s office.
Dzineku, who also owns a health care employment agency in Lowell called Rosebud Staffing, took a leave of absence from Kennedy’s office to run in the race and said she’s sought his guidance as she learns how to canvass, advertise and market herself in other ways. She also stepped down from the Lowell Election Commission.
Though Kennedy will remain neutral in the election, Dzineku said he’s been supportive and helpful as she navigates election season — but he’s counting down the days until Sept. 6.
In his office, Dzineku helps direct residents to services and resources in the district, but her reason for running for state representative comes from a more personal place.
One of Dzineku’s family members had a mental health crisis triggered by the pandemic, she said, and it was then that Dzineku discovered how “horrendous” and “difficult” it is to find help for those in need.
With that in mind, on top of her professional background, Dzineku said it just made sense for her to seek office.
“When the seat opened up, I felt propelled to run,” she said. “I have the lived experience and legislative solutions for some of the issues that I encountered.”
Mental health is at the top of her list of priorities, as is addressing the shortage of social workers, therapists and other healthcare personnel who are driven out of an industry that is “not sustainable.”
That, Dzineku said, goes hand-in-hand with her desire to bring more nurses and therapists into schools to assist students in the difficult transition to in-person learning after the pandemic and its effects. Social-emotional learning is critical to students’ well-being and growth, she added.
“I 100% back teachers, but they’re not psychologists, they’re not social workers,” she said.
Dzineku also describes herself as “the true pro-choice candidate in this race” and supports efforts to keep the Merrimack River clean, helping unhoused people find secure, affordable homes, and making the Lowell Regional Transit Authority buses free to ride.
While discussing her predecessor, Dzineku had nothing but kind words to say and drew several parallels between him and herself.
“He was such a great representative for this district, and he was there for so long and he did so many great things for the district,” Dzineku said of Golden. “He’s extremely personable, he’s a hard worker and he builds relationships. I am extremely personable, I’m a hard worker and I build relationships.”
Before entering the legislative space, Dzineku worked at Comcast for 20 years as a customer service representative before becoming an analyst at the company. Now, she said she’s grown familiar with constituents and recognizes the issues they face.
Dzineku said it’s her “grit” and “empathy” that will push her to make a difference in the community, and unlike her opponent, this is not “a stepping stone” for her next job in politics.
“He walks around talking about experience and saying that I have none,” Dzineku said of Elliott. “I’m not looking for a title. That’s a defining difference between my opponent and myself. I’m not a career politician. I want to work and make things better and change things for my district.”
What also uniquely sets Dzineku and Elliott apart is their endorsements. Thus far, Dzineku has the support of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, Solidarity Lowell, Mass Alliance, Reproductive Equity Now and the National Association of Social Workers, among several others posted on her website.
Elliott’s campaign website doesn’t display any endorsements, but Elliott said he is backed by several trade unions, the Lowell Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police, along with about 16 other organizations.
“It’s good to have an endorsement, but the most important endorsement to me are the voters, and I am beholden to the voters, as I have been for 24 years,” Elliott said.
Elliott does have extensive experience in local politics, having served on Lowell’s City Council for several terms, including one term as mayor in 2014-2015. Prior to that, Elliott was a legislative aide for the state Senate in the 1980s. He is now a commissioner of the Lowell Housing Authority, and works as an assistant regional manager for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Like Dzineku, Elliott said he is a strong advocate for mental health resources, and he started the Mayor’s Opioid Task Force during his term. At the LHA, Elliott said he works on implementing affordable housing, a critical need in the district.
Elliott said he saw the vacant seat as a golden — no pun intended — opportunity to fight for his neighborhood at the state level.
“I’m running because I feel we’re at an important critical juncture for this state representative district, and we’ve had strong leadership and excellent representation from Representative Golden,” Elliott said. “I feel that I can be a strong voice… I’m going to fight for the needs that we need, and I want to be the state representative who, from day one, will go to work.”
Elliott said he admired Golden’s effort to fund small businesses and park improvements in the city.
Infrastructure is another key component of Elliott’s campaign. If elected, he said he wants to see the much-needed improvements to the Rourke Bridge be made, as it is an “important thoroughfare” that drives Lowell’s economy. He’d also like to continue working on the Abandoned Housing Initiative, which beautifies properties that have become “eyesores.”
Since announcing his campaign, Elliott said he’s knocked on 2,400 doors across Pawtucketville, North Chelmsford, the Westlands and Centralville. He said his constituents want their roads improved and are worried about the high cost of living, two things Elliott hopes to address in office.
“I want to continue to hear from people in our district, to hear of the issues,” Elliott said. “We need to work on tax relief for working families and low-income families and, quite frankly, all taxpayers because inflation is clearly having an impact on their lives.”
When asked about what sets him apart from Dzineku, Elliott referred to his experience and said he prides himself on constituent services and “returning every phone call.”
“I hope voters will consider me because of my experience, my commitment, my integrity as a member of the Lowell City Council,” Elliott said. “I love my city, I love the community and I want to continue to serve and produce results. I like to get things done, and I think it’s important that the next state representative has a record of results and will continue to bring that energy, the passion to be an elected official.”
English called out Lombardo for ‘racist postcard;’ conservatives fired back
TERESA ENGLISH, a Democratic candidate for state representative in Billerica’s 22nd Middlesex District, is in some two-decades-old hot water.
The public school teacher and U.S. Air Force veteran is accused of committing a hit-and-run in Virginia back in 2003, when she allegedly sideswiped a car and did not stop. On Monday, the Mass GOP shared a copy of a police report, indicating that English caused about $800 worth of damage, fled the scene and paid $3,000 bail.
English’s Republican opponent and current state Rep. Marc Lombardo said he doesn’t take issue with the accident itself. Rather, he claims that English purposely misled voters by not disclosing her arrest.
“People make mistakes, and that’s OK,” Lombardo said. “What is not OK is intentionally lying and deceiving the voters when asked about the issue and trying to blame partisan politics instead of taking accountability for your actions.”
The incident came to light after English tweeted a picture of a mailer from Lombardo’s campaign, which informed voters about a newly passed law that allows undocumented immigrants to receive a driver’s license. Lombardo did not support the measure.
English wrote back on June 30 that Lombardo’s and other conservatives’ stance is “racist.”
Mass GOP Chairman Jim Lyons said he took issue with that characterization. After that, he said English’s arrest “came to light through some constituents over in Billerica,” but could not offer any additional information on how it landed in the Republican party’s hands.
But his opinion of English and the rest of the Democratic Party was clear from the Mass GOP’s press release, which calls English “ultra-left.”
“Teresa English is just another one of those radical Democrats that want to call us racist at the same time they want to lie to the public,” Lyons said. “I think the people of Massachusetts deserve honesty, and that’s what we’re trying to bring about.”
Lombardo said English was previously questioned about her past and had the opportunity to identify the 2003 incident and be transparent with constituents, but that didn’t happen.
“I think that the voters will have to ask a serious question about my opponent,” he said. “If she’s willing to lie to them so blatantly when she’s asking for their vote, then what will she do if she actually gets their vote?”
English disputes some of the claims made in the police report, noting that she did in fact pull over but “did not encounter the other driver” and decided to just go home. She said she regrets not filing her own report after the incident to establish a true account of what happened.
In fact, she has never seen the information the other driver filed with the police, she said, and did not offer a comment specific to those details.
She said she “was a teenager” — 19 years old — and enlisted in the Air Force while working a second job. Only until a police officer arrived at her home did she think about the incident again, she said.
“I paid a fine and that was the end of it,” English wrote in a statement. “It was a mistake on my part to have handled it that way and I learned a valuable lesson.”
English also fired back at Lombardo and his claims she lacks the accountability and transparency she anchors her campaign around. She referenced a 2006 incident involving Lombardo when he was still a Select Board member in Billerica and was accused of running a sting operation targeting a liquor store owner. The situation was reported in The Sun.
“Marc has a history of being deceitful and he hasn’t been honest with the voters,” English wrote. “He’s out of step with the district — too extreme, anti-choice, and ineffective. We can do better.”
Local lawmakers upset over MCAS passing score increase
THE HIKE in the MCAS passing scores, a new measure approved by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education board on Monday, is angering local legislators just as much as superintendents, teachers and students themselves.
Ninety-eight state senators and representatives signed a letter in June opposing an increase in MCAS cutoff scores, noting that the move would likely hurt English language learners, students with disabilities and those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and its consequences.
One of those legislators was state Rep. Tami Gouveia, who is also a candidate for lieutenant governor. Gouveia, who grew up in Lowell, said the state has not been making proper investment in low-income, Black and brown communities and gateway cities where educational inequities continue to negatively impact youth.
She said she is in favor of doing away with the MCAS graduation requirement altogether, adding that lawmakers should prioritize providing other resources that help, not harm. Massachusetts is one of 11 states to require students to pass a standardized test to receive their diploma.
“It is a high-stakes test that really invokes a lot of anxiety because our young people understand what’s riding on it,” Gouveia said. “To raise the score that you need to achieve for a graduation requirement just feels incredibly cruel and tone-deaf to the issues that our students are facing every single day.”
Gouveia said she is proud to have the endorsement of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the American Federation of Teachers and will work to institute better learning resources and support for students.
“(This) is going to just exacerbate income inequality, it’s going to exacerbate the health disparities and opportunity gap that has been persisting for decades,” she said. “Here we are in a pivotal moment where we could do right by our students, and instead we’re taking a complete wrong turn on this.”
State Sen. Ed Kennedy, another co-signer on that letter, said he was “really disappointed” with the board’s decision on MCAS. The timing couldn’t be worse, he said, as the pandemic has left students far behind in the classroom.
In the past 20 years, about 52,000 students in the state failed to pass the MCAS, Kennedy said, and the test perpetually fails high schoolers.
The Student Opportunity Act, which allocated funding to districts across the commonwealth several years ago, did help “level the playing field,” Kennedy said, but there’s more that individual schools can do to support its students. MCAS doesn’t help.
“I think it’s going to have a negative impact in Lowell and probably a negative impact in my district in general,” Kennedy said. “I really wish that they would have taken a different tact about the MCAS and maybe just spent a year reassessing the exam to see if it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.”
The issue hits a personal note for state Rep. Vanna Howard, who immigrated to Greater Lowell at 11 years old with “not a word of English.” Had the high MCAS requirement been in place when she was in high school, Howard said she doesn’t think she would be able to score at or above the English and math cutoffs.
In fact, it was after she completed high school that math became her favorite subject, Howard said, so she does not believe the test provides any indication on how successful students will be.
“I just think that we are going to test our students out the door,” Howard said. “This one single test standard should not dictate our future, our career path.”
Lowell High School is home to 72 different languages, Howard said, and the city itself represents dozens of immigrant communities who come to Massachusetts and are learning English.
“This is always an immigrant city,” she said. “So, how are we going to implement this new increase in testing to our English language learners, to our low-income students, that already struggle?”
This week’s Column was prepared by reporters Melanie Gilbert in Lowell and Cameron Morsberger in Billerica, the 16th Middlesex District and on MCAS.
