Category Archives: Neighborhood Organizations

Downtown Demographics Myth

Posted on March 6, 2012 by | 1 comment

There is a lot being said about downtown demographics the past few days…as you might suspect it all started with a SUN story about tenants being paid to move out of complex…
http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_20103832

People who have some actual facts commented
http://mindtivo.blogspot.com/

and some opinion….
http://www.leftinlowell.com/2012/03/05/poverty-is-big-business/

You be the judge and certainly take the opportunity to add your opinion.

If you want more facts please go to the Salem State-ONE Lowell study at
http://dgl.salemstate.edu/geography/Profs/luna/projects/2010_01Spring/GPH903/LowellVoterReport2010reduced.pdf

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Posted in Community Issues, Downtown Lowell, Neighborhood Organizations, ONE Lowell

LIGHTS ON CRIME OFF

Posted on June 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Lowell residents and business owners please join Lowell Neighborhood groups and CBA for the Lights on Crime Off Campaign Kick -off and Press Event TUES June 28th 6.00 PM in front of the Lowell City Hall

In the downtown neighborhood there are a few great bright spots at night; Merrimack St. in front of LaBoniche, Mambo Grill, Trends, Humanity, even Chantilly Place on the corner of John St. has great lighting. What we need is to enlist some businesses to make an invest in our neighborhood by leaving a light on…and everyone would benefit from some light in the alleys.

Ask a Neighbor to flip on a switch and leave one light in the window. Leaving a light on overnight helps REDUCE CRIME and cost approx 7 cents a day.

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Posted in Community Issues, Crime, Downtown Lowell, Lowell, Lowell Police Department, Neighborhood Organizations

LDNA SUMMER SOCIAL

Posted on May 25, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Monday June 27th, 6:30 PM
Annual LDNA Cook-Out
(and the last time we will have use of the deck)

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Posted in Downtown Lowell, Neighborhood Organizations

Lowell Sustainability Week

Posted on May 25, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Updated schedule can be found here.

http://lowell.org/Pages/sustainabilityweek.aspx

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Posted in Community Gardens, Community Issues, Concord River;, conservation, Education, Fundraiser; Keep Lowell Beautiful, LivingGreen, Lowell, Neighborhood Organizations, Sustainability

Expanding Voter Participation

Posted on March 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Cliff Krieger has a summary of the CC Rules subcommittee meeting that I attended last night with a group of people Greg Page had asked me join to discuss ways to increase voter participation and gather ideas, suggestions about how to insure all residents of Lowell are represented by our city council.
http://right-side-of-lowell.blogspot.com/2011/03/expanding-voter-participation.html

The city council voted to create a Charter Committee made up of representatives from each of the nine active neighborhood groups. Each neighborhood representative will hold meetings within their neighborhoods to discuss how the city can encourage more voter participation as well as looking at options to encourage more people to consider summing for city council. Things as simple as physical boundaries to getting to the polls or as Councilor Mercier mentioned, possibly change the times or days of the week we hold elections. The point is to gather a variety of suggestions from the general public.

Thanks to Greg for giving me an opportunity to work on something I feel is important to all of us. Secondly the group requested that the city council appoint one representative and one alternate from each neighborhood group. Since I feel that LDNA needs a voice other than mine…I know you will all be competing for a place on this committee. It is not a huge commitment likely one meeting per month for the next 12 months. For the sake of efficiency I would like to suggest that we dedicate a portion of each LDNA meeting to the subject.

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Posted in City Council, Community Issues, Downtown, Elections, Neighborhood Organizations

Posted on February 25, 2011 by | Leave a comment

LDNA MEETING MONDAY FEBRUARY 28, 7PM
AT ALL ARTS GALLERY, 22 SHATTUCK ST.

Agenda
Election of officers.
Remainder of meeting is open discussion.
Refreshments will be served

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Posted in Community Issues, Downtown Lowell, Neighborhood Organizations

Missing Caffe’ Paradiso

Posted on February 10, 2011 by | Leave a comment

While watching this particular segment of the Newshour tonight it prompted some thoughts which I will share, but these are only mine and not a collective thought of LDNA: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/in-wake-of-tucson-shootings-program-tries-to-minimize-schizophrenias-impact.html

Watch the segment and although I have zero expertise in this area it sounded so practical and logical to me and brought me back to thoughts I commented on Greg’s blog; http://anewenglanderinlowell.blogspot.com/2011/01/286-for-105000-id-like-it.html

regarding finding a way in a stripped down budget and economy to increase the number of police officers in the city. For anyone who attended our January meeting you’ll know that asst. to CM Mr. Marchand very practically reminded me that if the city increase taxes there will be demands from every department for increased funding. I will maintain my position here; “how many kids have to die before public safety becomes our priority and everything else comes next”? According to Chief Lavallee with the current number of police officers (200, optimal number being 268) his department has become a reactive v. a proactive department. The city council has been working on goals and objectives and I would like to see finding a way to maintain our police department at the top of the list. I suspect the top of the list will be attracting new business and residents. If people do not feel safe here this might as well go to the bottom of the list.

So back to why I miss the Caffe’…for those who are new to the neighborhood you missed all those very late nights when we sat around until the wee hours of the morning discussing national/city/neighborhood issues. I miss officer (Yanni) Boutselis driving by when the caffe’ was closed and we would still be hanging around on the sidewalk talking (and sometimes singing or making up our own poems) saying, “you people really need to go home”.

Now that we are all scattered in various places around the neighborhood we rarely have an opportunity to have that collective conversation (Market St. Market on Sunday mornings is somewhat of a replacement). So as suggested by someone who will remain nameless…I would like to encourage people to attend our monthly LDNA meetings and to implement more no-agenda times for us to discuss whatever is on people’s minds. Of course this will take a commitment to going back to cookies & wine at meetings but I’m willing to find the time to make cookies to create a more communal atmosphere for everyone.

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Posted in Community Issues, Downtown Lowell, Guns, Lowell Police Department, Neighborhood Improvements, Neighborhood Organizations

City Council Public Safety Subcommittee

Posted on January 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Message from Taya Dixon Mullane, President, Lower Highlands Neighborhood Group Urging you to attend – City Council Public Safety Subcommittee – Tuesday 1/11/11 – 5.00 – 6.30PM in the City Council Chamber at City Hall.

Lower Highlands Friends,

We continue to mourn the loss of Corinna Ouer, a young woman who called the Lower Highlands home, after the heinous act of violence early on New Year’s Day. Our thoughts and prayers remain with her family and friends, for the speedy recovery of the other seven victims from that night, and for the safety of all the residents of our neighborhood and the City of Lowell.

I am unable to make sense of what happened last weekend, and I know from hearing from so many of you, that you feel the same way. In an effort to get some perspective on the violence that has affected our neighborhood and what can be done to address it, the City Council Public Safety Subcommittee will be meeting on Tuesday, January 11 from 5.00 – 6.30PM in the City Council Chamber at City Hall. The Lowell Police Superintendent and the Middlesex District Attorney have been requested to attend.

Although the Police are on the front lines of responding to crime, we as residents of the City of Lowell are all its victims. We must send a message to our City leaders that we want our neighborhoods to be safer, that we do not want to loose another young person like this, that any efforts taken by the City must include the community – and most importantly, that those efforts not wane until another senseless act of violence claims an innocent life or leaves our community in fear.

I am urging you to attend the City Council Public Safety Subcommittee Meeting on Tuesday, January 11 and to encourage your members to do that same. The meeting is scheduled for 5.00PM and will likely continue until 6.30PM. If you can attend all or even some portion of this meeting, please consider attending. By filling the City Council Chamber, we will demonstrate our unity as a community to urge our leaders to take extraordinary measures to help our City’s neighborhoods be safer by engaging all members of our community in that goal. You are welcome to address the Council, but you are not required to do so – your presence means just as much.

Thank you, and as always, if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please get in touch.

Taya Dixon Mullane
President, Lower Highlands Neighborhood Group
lowerhighlands01851@gmail.com

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Posted in City Council, Community Issues, Community Problems, Lowell Police Department, Neighborhood Organizations

UTEC to attend services to honor Corinna Ouer’s memory

Posted on January 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment


From our Friends at UTEC

Please join us at the United Teen Equality Center to attend services to honor Corinna Ouer’s memory



Friday, January 7, 2011. Meet at UTEC at 2.00 PM. UTEC will provide rides to the Wake and Services from 2-4.30 pm (Dolan Funeral Home 106 Middlesex Street. North Chelmsford 01863). Following the wake, there we be a service at the Triratanaram Temple (21 Quigley Ave, N. Chelmsford) from 5-8pm. We will be back by 9 P.M and will drop off at your home.

Saturday, January 8, 2011. Arrive at UTEC at 8.00 AM. We will leave at 8.30 to join a funeral procession at 9am, starting at the Triratanaram Temple and ending at the Linwood Cemetery-Crematory (41 John Ward Avenue, Haverhill). Services will then continue back at the Temple and run from around 12-1. UTEC will provide rides to all services. Service will end by 1pm. Directly following the services, a remembrance ceremony for Corinna Oeur will be held in the UTEC gym.

Sign-up sheet for rides will be at UTEC. Please sign up and please don’t be late for rides. Message us on Facebook or call us at 978-856-3990.

Letter from Executive Director

The staff and youth members of the United Teen Equality Center are deeply saddened by the January 1st shootings on Grand Street. As you may have already heard from the various news reports, 8 young people were shot (all under the age of 21) and one young woman lost her life. We send our condolences to all of the young people who were affected that night, and especially to the family and loved ones of the late Corinna Ouer, only 20 years old.

It’s very troubling to start off 2011 with an incident of youth violence, and especially on this scale. It’s a great loss whenever young people in our city resort to violence. We take heart knowing that so many of Lowell’s young people get involved with UTEC and other positive options, to change their own lives and our community. We have to continue to prioritize the need to reach out to those young people who are the highest-risk in our community through a balanced approach and an increased investment in critically essential services such as employment, alternative education, outreach and wrap-around services.

In addition to combating gang and gun violence, we are also fighting against a variety of forces such as poverty and a lack of opportunities that create the space for such violence to occur.

UTEC thanks the Lower Highlands Neighborhood Association for their immediate action to bring together the community on Sunday afternoon. UTEC staff, teen members, and board members joined the gathering to show support and reach out to the young people in mourning. UTEC Streetworkers stayed at the homemade memorial that friends and neighbors established on Grand Street. “Every time I go to work, I give everything I have to youths like them,” Johnny, a member of the Streetworker team, told the Lowell Sun, speaking of the accused shooters.



Young people who seek a safe place and support can visit UTEC during our hours of operation (Mon-Fri from 9am-6 pm) or call UTEC any time at 978.856.3990.

Learn more about UTEC’s Streetworkers and their efforts to prevent youth violence at

http.//www.utec-lowell.org/press/pdf/jhsph_final.pdf



Gregg Croteau, MSW

Executive Director


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Posted in Community Issues, Community Problems, Lowell Police Department, Neighborhood Organizations, UTEC

LHNG TO REMEMBER NEW YEAR’S EVE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

Posted on January 2, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Please join the Lower Highlands Neighborhood Group (LHNG) on Sunday January 2nd at 2 PM in Armory Park to place purple ribbons along Grand Street in rememberance of the victims of ciolence that ocurred at 04 Grand Street on New Year’s Eve (ribbons will be provided by LHNG).

The event will begin at Armory Park at the corner of Westford and Grand Streets. The purpose of the event is to send a clear message throughout the Lower Highlands and the City of Lowell that violence will not be tolerated in our community.

For more information about LHNG go to http://sites.google.com/site/lowerhighlands/

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Posted in Community Issues, Community Problems, Events, Lowell, Neighborhood Organizations