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Tag: Erik Gitschier

  • Public money woos private investment in Frontrunner City Initiative

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    LOWELL — To represent Lowell on the world stage takes money, and city leadership is investing significant personnel and financial resources in a yearlong effort to bring United Nations-led investment and development to the city through its Frontrunner City for Urban Transformation designation.

    For a seat at the global table — in Geneva, Switzerland and Toronto, Canada — as well as to meet the numerous requirements in the memorandum of understanding signed with the Urban Economy Forum in August, the city has had to front considerable costs for travel, for documents and for access.

    Although the goal of those investments is clear — to position Lowell, the first city in the United States to receive Frontrunner City status, with international private development — what’s not clear, is how much taxpayer funds the city has actually invested.

    “The Frontrunner City Program is a tremendous opportunity for Lowell,” City Manager Tom Golden said by email Oct. 24. “It aligns directly with the Lowell Forward Master Plan, our Green Community designation, and our zoning and infrastructure reforms. It has already opened doors to international partnerships, philanthropic interest, and potential foreign direct investment that would otherwise be out of reach for the City of Lowell.”

    At the Oct. 28 City Council meeting, Councilor Erik Gitschier’s motion requested Golden provide the council with “a detailed report on all expenditures for the frontrunner city, including the program, travel and any other expenses.”

    That response is pending, but a look at publicly available records shows costs associated with marketing and publicity, council-approved travel expenses, UEF filings and documents, as well as broker and conference fees associated with Lowell’s participation in UEF that could exceed $1 million.

    Mayor Dan Rourke kicked off Lowell’s participation last September by attending UEF-6 in Toronto, for an international conference on financing sustainable tourism. Rourke participated as a speaker in the mayoral roundtable and his nominal travel expenses amounted to $1,300.

    “I believe this opportunity will greatly benefit our community by enhancing the City of Lowell visibility,” he said in his out-of-state travel request.

    It was at that meeting that Rourke first learned of the Frontrunner City opportunity.

    One month later, eight people were approved for out-of-state travel to attend the Front Runner Community Initiative Program in Toronto for almost $4,000. The UEF covered the travel costs for hotel, flights and lodging.

    This past February, the City Council voted to appropriate $750,000 from free cash to support economic development initiatives, including promoting the Frontrunner City Initiative.

    Free cash is composed in part of unspent, unencumbered appropriations from the prior fiscal year.

    By July, the city was hosting a UEF and World Pavilion delegation. It is not known how much the UEF contributed toward their visit, nor how much Lowell expensed to host them, which included group meals at the Athenian Corner and Cobblestones restaurants, the latter at which a memorandum of understanding was signed by the city with the UEF.

    During their three-day site visit to Lowell, the Department of Planning and Development pitched the UEF team on a dozen development sites including the Hamilton Canal Innovation District off Dutton Street in Downtown Lowell; both the vacant District and Superior Courthouses on Hurd and Gorham streets, respectively; the Gallagher Terminal area where the city owns vacant land; the South Common area in Back Central; and other locations.

    But the focus was on the development opportunities in the Jackson, Appleton and Middlesex streets area.

    “Lowell’s JAM+ project represents an area ready for transformation and includes infill housing opportunities, new retail and commercial opportunities, improved open space and recreation, improved transit and connections, and a potential geothermal project,” Assistant City Manager/DPD Director Yovani Baez-Rose said in a memo to the City Council.

    To attend the UEF and World Urban Forum at the United Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva in August, the city shelled out $33,258 to cover the costs of 11 people — seven councilors and four staff members, including Golden.

    The business trip may have included some incidental costs paid by the UEF or other partner associations, which were not disclosed.

    “Following the formal announcement of the City of Lowell as the first United States Frontrunner City, we have received outreach and communications from global businesses interested in working with Lowell and the Urban Economy Forum,” Baez-Rose said in an Oct. 7 memo. “The city’s Communications staff have been working closely with the UEF on press coverage for this continued partnership.”

    Lowell leadership returned to Toronto for more Frontrunner discussions Sept. 17-18. One week later, Lowell was represented at the Global Expert Meeting in Toronto by Rourke and Department of Public Works Sustainability Director Katherine Moses. Out-of-state travel costs could not be determined for this trip, which may have come out of free cash.

    In October, Lowell leadership again traveled to Toronto to attend the seventh annual Urban Economy Forum, a global event dedicated to reshaping urban economies. The almost $10,000 cost to the city was offset by the UEF covering some unspecified incidental costs.

    Golden, Rourke, DPD Deputy Director Camilo Espitia, Assistant City Manager for Fiscal Affairs/Chief Financial Officer Conor Baldwin and Councilors Corey Belanger, Corey Robinson, Paul Ratha Yem and Sokhary Chau attended the conference.

    The JAM project discussed in July is still in the draft phase, but it was presented during the UEF-7 sessions, which included global investors.

    Some incidental costs the UEF may not have covered was the $13,000 to register for the conference, as well as other costs to participate in the sessions and forums.

    In addition to an initial outlay of $12,000 in marketing collateral to promote the city, Lowell has purchased other public relations collateral in various real estate and financial outlets, not all of which has been disclosed to date.

    “It is important to emphasize that the city has not paid the UEF for a title or designation,” Golden said in his October email. “Rather, we have invested in the infrastructure necessary to support our role as a Frontrunner City. This includes the creation of a comprehensive profile of the City of Lowell to be used to attract investors. These are investments in capacity, not fees.”

    Golden emphasized that financial outlays were investments similar to creating Lowell’s Master Plan.

    “Lowell’s designation as the first U.S. Frontrunner City was not purchased — we are continuing to work and earn it,” he said. “It reflects over 12 months of work by our planning, sustainability, and economic development teams, and it positions our city to compete globally for resources and recognition. There has been continuous communication and collaboration between the city and UEF staff throughout this time.”

    The council is expected to receive an update on its Frontrunner City investment status in the coming weeks, and Golden told the council at its Oct. 28 meeting that a dashboard will be posted to the city’s website soon “with everything that’s been happening with the Frontrunner City.”

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    Melanie Gilbert

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  • Lowell’s Back Central neighborhood a ‘mini Mass and Cass’

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    LOWELL — During last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilor Corey Belanger called the city’s Back Central neighborhood a “mini Mass and Cass,” referring to the area of Boston plagued by the same homeless, drug and crime crisis that has been growing for several years in Lowell’s poorest neighborhood.

    “On the back of Charles Street … the sidewalk was completely overrun, tents on the sidewalk, open-air drug use going on,” he said. “We need help.”

    Between March and September, the Lowell Police Department recorded a staggering 10,000 police dispatch entries in the densely populated neighborhood, which is roughly bounded by Appleton Street to the north, Chambers Street to the south, Thorndike Street to the west and Lawrence Street to the east.

    The police calls resulted in more than 18,000 officer call-offs, reflecting the significant resources required to manage incidents in this area. During this same period, 606 arrests were made — or on average, 100 per month — with 117 individuals arrested two or more times, and 20 individuals arrested five or more times.

    Councilors Corey Robinson and Erik Gitschier’s motion requested City Manager Tom Golden have a conversation between the council and key stakeholders centered around “challenges with our transient community.”

    Golden said he was trying to “work toward a solution” on what he described as a “revolving door” of people being arrested by the police only to be released back out on the streets by the judges at Lowell District Court.

    “There’s a lot going on here,” he said. “I can report back.”

    But councilors, while praising the city’s policing and social outreach efforts, were exasperated by the lack of coordination between the courts, state-level departments and other social and legislative agencies.

    “We need everybody together to help on this, otherwise we’re just going to spin our tires,” Gitschier said. “Send them down to the courthouse, they’re going to come right out of the courthouse and these numbers are just going to continue to escalate and escalate and no one really gets help. And that’s the sad part — people are not getting help.”

    Although not exclusively a homeless problem, based on figures released by the LPD and the Office of Homeless Initiatives, which is under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, the rise in arrests of homeless people tracked with the rise in homelessness.

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines individuals as homeless if they lack a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime address.” Last winter’s federally mandated point-in-time count, conducted during the early morning hours of Jan. 30, reported 250 homeless people in Lowell.

    Two hundred were sheltered through Community Teamwork Inc.’s hotel program in Chelmsford, and in both regular and emergency beds provided through the Lowell Transitional Living Center on Middlesex Street in Downtown Lowell. There were 50 unsheltered people living outdoors.

    Those unsheltered people were mostly living in squalid encampments scattered throughout the city, including South Common Park, a 22.5-acre public green space in the city’s Back Central neighborhood.

    The City Council passed an ordinance in November 2024 making it unlawful to camp on public property in the city of Lowell. The civil ordinance is enforceable through the LPD, and the city sanctioned so-called “sweeps” of numerous homeless encampments, including South Common.

    In early October, one person was killed and another person hospitalized after a garbage truck backed over them on Spring Street. Witnesses said the two homeless individuals had been sleeping on the narrow, alley-like street after they had been repeatedly told to leave other parts of the city, most recently South Common.

    But even homeless people with an emergency bed at night become unsheltered during the day when the LTLC, the largest adult emergency shelter north of Boston, asks its clients to leave the premises.

    According to the LPD, complaints about trespassing increased from 519 complaints in 2021 to 1,369 complaints in 2024, a more than 150% increase.

    The shelter clients generally congregate in the Jackson Street, Appleton Street, Middlesex Street, Summer Street, and Gorham Street corridors.

    “These areas have experienced a high concentration of transient individuals, which has led to recurring public safety and quality-of-life issues,” Assistant City Manger Shawn Machado said in the motion response dated Oct. 21.

    Councilor Vesna Nuon suggested that the task force approach the city took to address gang violence in the city almost 20 years ago may be a guide to Lowell’s current crisis.

    “When we had a gang issue in the city, the juvenile court judge and others participated in this,” Nuon said. “The [District Attorney] the [Middlesex] Sheriff’s Office, [Department of Children and Families] and all those entries, joined in. The court plays an important role in this.”

    Machado’s motion response noted that the city’s Community Opioid Outreach Program had been active in the neighborhood, offering outreach and services to individuals in need.

    “Despite their daily efforts, there remains a significant number of individuals who decline the services offered,” Machado’s motion response said. “This underscores the complexity of the issue and the need for a more comprehensive, multi-agency approach to address the underlying causes of chronic homelessness, substance use, and mental health challenges.”

    Machado said Golden will extend invitations to a representative from Sheriff Peter Koutoujian’s office, leadership from the LPD, district court judges serving the Lowell area, an a representative from the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

    “The goal of this discussion is to explore collaborative strategies that address the root causes of recidivism, improve outcomes for individuals experiencing homelessness or substance use disorders, and enhance public safety for all residents and businesses,” Machado said.

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    Melanie Gilbert

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  • Lowell’s City Council at-large race lacks luster

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    LOWELL — District races feature candidates representing a particular neighborhood. But the candidates for one of the three at-large seats on the City Council represent the entire city.

    In Tuesday’s general election, incumbents Erik Gitschier, Rita Mercier and Vesna Nuon defend their at-large City Council seats against challengers Sixto DeJesus and Emile Kaufman.

    Unlike the 100% participation in The Sun’s election questionnaire for the District 3 – Belvidere, District 4 – Downtown, District 5 – South Lowell, District 7 – The Acre and District 8 – Upper Highlands City Council races, only Gitschier and Nuon provided complete responses; Mercier partially responded.

    Kaufman did not respond to emails or text messages by deadline, and DeJesus declined to participate.

    Nuon and DeJesus attended Coalition for a Better Acre’s “Candidating” event at the Lowell Senior Center Aug. 27, and both Nuon and Mercier participated in the “Get to Know Your Candidates” City Council forum held Sept. 29 at Lowell TeleMedia Center in Downtown Lowell.

    The incumbents’ responses are unedited. Mercier declined to provide responses beyond the first question.

    Q: What are your top 3 priorities for the city?

    Gitschier: Public safety, schools, economic development.

    Mercier: Continue with our streets and sidewalks to be brought back to the quality and condition they were and should be, continue to watch our finances and spending habits, provide the best constituent service our residents have every right to expect and deserve, even our homeless people.

    Nuon: More affordable housing and easing homelessness, business improvement district downtown & vacancy ordinance, sustainability and climate action.

    Q: Do you support community benefits agreements for developments in Lowell?

    Gitschier: Yes, anytime a negotiation includes the stake holders within our community there can be major benefits. Many of those benefits hold contractors accountable, such as local hiring, environmental impacts, traffic concerns, living wages, and can address many negative impacts to our community.

    Nuon: Yes, I do. It offers advantages for the city. It ensures collaboration between developers and community and addresses potential negative consequences. It also ensures that developers align with the needs of the community, especially those most impacted by the development projects.

    Q: Energy costs are rising, in part due to AI infrastructure costs like those associated with the Markley Group’s data center in the Sacred Heart neighborhood. What steps will you take to mitigate those impacts on ratepayers in Lowell, especially in environmental justice communities that may also face cuts to LIHEAP and other energy subsidy programs?

    Gitschier: As a City Councilor I advocated for the creation of a sustainability department because of rising costs and environmental impacts in our community. The sustainability department has brought in more than 25 million dollars in funding to our community (Environmental Justice Community), assisted many families in our community with their energy usage through neighborhood outreach, one on one communication, and direct communication with local, state, and federal officials.

    We need better oversight on programs such as Mass Save, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A recently released study by the State Auditor’s Office on Mass Save Programs has pointed out the disparities between Environmental Justice Communities (Gateway Cities) and much wealthier communities. The study showed a skewed distribution of benefits, favoring residents of many high-income communities, and lower income communities picking up the costs. As in the past, I will advocate on the local level to voice our displeasure to our State and Federal elected Officials.

    Nuon: The resident of Lowell matter. I believe we need vigilant regulators (who) are willing to put in the time and effort to oppose the deals that pass costs on to the ratepayers.

    Q: More than 60% of Lowell residents are renters and half of those are rent burdened. Do you support rent control?

    Gitschier: When looking at rent control, I have some concerns with legislative bodies creating policy without fully vetting the effects. Rent control would have a direct impact on the housing supply, new construction, maintenance of rentals, and sources for budgeting.

    Nuon: Yes. Tenants should not have to leave their homes because of rent increases.

    Q: Do you support by-right zoning and streamlined permitting as the key to building more housing in Lowell?

    Gitschier: No, I believe in the need for a discretionary process as a special permit, variance, zoning amendment, or other discretionary zoning approvals. Without the discretionary process neighborhoods would have no voice and community concerns would not be addressed. There would be no need for any negotiations for community benefits agreements if by-right zoning was in place and the stake holders would not have a voice.

    Nuon: I fully support by-right zoning. This is one way to work towards solving our housing shortage by streamline permitting for those who want to build. In fact, the City has already had a by-right zoning permitting in and around Downtown near the train station. This process makes it as simple as possible for builder/developers to build.

    Polls open at 7 a.m. Nov. 4 and close at 8 p.m. For more voting and election day information, visit lowellma.gov/294/Election-Census.

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    Melanie Gilbert

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