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A Preview of the Lowell City Council Race
The Most Interesting Council Race in Years
Richard P. Howe
(06/05/07)

Despite all the attention being paid to the special election in the Fifth Congressional District, an unmistakable buzz is developing in Lowell political circles over this fall’s City Council election. Looming over this council race is the fallout from last year’s regime change at Lowell City Hall.

It was in April 2006 that six of the nine councilors publicly announced that they had lost confidence in then City Manager John Cox who soon resigned. That these six - Kevin Broderick, Eileen Donoghue, Rodney Elliott, Jim Milinazzo, George Ramirez and Mayor Bill Martin - had been largely supportive of Cox through his five-year tenure with only an occasional solo foray of criticism made this a startling development.

While there were ample reasons for them to replace Cox, there was never a public airing of their grievances, so the precipitating cause of the council action is still a bit of a mystery.

What was never a mystery was the vigorous counterattack launched by Cox’s many supporters against the six councilors. From a boisterous downtown rally that included leaflets, depicting the six councilors as rats, that rained down on the crowd from an upper floor window to the emergence of at least one council challenger who had openly vowed to extract revenge on the offending councilors, the pro-Cox forces have not let this issue fade. 

And Lowell, of course, has nine city councilors, all elected at-large in the same two-year cycle.

The remaining three – Bud Caulfield, Armand Mercier and Rita Mercier - were and remain unabashed Cox supporters. It has been no coincidence that the bulk of council votes during the past year have featured a six to three split with almost no variation on who falls on what side. It is only after acknowledging the lingering toxicity of this political feud that any analysis of the council election may proceed.

And the starting point for examining this council race has to be the premise that incumbents almost always win.  In the past three council elections, every incumbent who sought re-election won a seat.

The last time an incumbent lost was 1999 when Grady Mulligan and Larry Martin were both defeated. Martin had also lost as an incumbent in the 1997 election (he finished tenth and rejoined the council when a vacancy occurred mid-term). You must travel back to 1993, when five incumbents were defeated and one more didn’t run, to find an election that radically changed the makeup of the council. 

In the past decade, changes in the Lowell City Council have primarily occurred when one or more incumbents decided not to seek re-election. In 1995, Laurie Machado, Tarsy Poulios and Michael Geary chose not to run and were replaced by Eileen Donoghue, Rita Mercier and Peter Richards. 

In 1997, Steve Gendron and Matt Donahue did not seek re-election (and Larry Martin lost).  Replacing them were Rodney Elliott, Armand Mercier and Dan Leahy.  In 1999, Peter Richards did not run (and Martin and Grady Mulligan lost). The three new councilors were Dan Tenczar, Rithy Uong and current Mayor Bill Martin. In 2001, all incumbents ran and won. In 2003, Tenczar didn’t run and Jim Milinazzo filled the ninth seat. In 2005, Richard Howe Sr. did not seek re-election after 40 years on the council.  He was replaced by George Ramirez. Kevin Broderick, who had finished tenth in the prior election but had assumed a council seat when Rithy Uong resigned in the summer of 2005, was elected in his own right.

This year, incumbent George Ramirez recently announced that he would not run again and it is unlikely that Eileen Donoghue, who is now running for Congress, will also run for the council.

That would leave seven incumbents seeking re-election.  In order of seniority, they are Bud Caulfield who was first elected in 1987 and who has finished no worse than fourth in the last six elections; Rita Mercier who was first elected in 1995 and who has topped the ticket in each election since then; Armand Mercier and Rodney Elliott who were both elected in 1997 and who tied for fourth place in the 2005 election; Mayor Bill Martin who was elected in 1999 and who has finished in either seventh or eighth place in each subsequent election; and Jim Milinazzo, who was elected in 2003 with an impressive third place finish but who slipped to seventh in the last election.

Although the filing deadline for the council election is still months away, a number of credible challengers have already emerged. 

They include Mehmed Ali, the director of the National Park’s Mogan Cultural Center who is active in many of Lowell’s cultural organizations; Alan Kazanjian, the owner of numerous Lowell-based businesses who also serves as chair of the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals; Jo-Ann Keegan, a Registered Nurse who is chair of the city’s Board of Health (and the daughter of former Lowell City Manager Joe Tully); Curtis LeMay, who served on the council during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; Robert McMahon, a former commissioner of the Lowell Housing Authority (and the challenger who was most vociferous in his criticism of the councilors who ousted Cox last year); Joe Mendonca, a former member of the school committee who tried to make the jump to the council in the last election only to finish tenth, and Kristin Ross-Sitcawich, a co-author of the local political blog, www.leftinlowell.com, who ran unsuccessfully for council in the last election.

With the possibility of two open seats, a number of challengers who have already proven they will run aggressively, and the residual passion of the Cox ouster, this undoubtedly will the most interesting council race in years. 
           
 

Richard P. Howe Jr. is the creator of www.richardhowe.com, a blog that provides commentary on politics in Lowell.  He also serves as Register of Deeds of the Northern District of Middlesex County. 



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The June 2007 Edition of the Valley Patriot
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