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.