If Lowell is your home, this is your place

VOTES FROM THE CITY MANAGER 8.1. Vote - Confirm Executive Session Votes for Draper Laboratory HTTPS://WWW.LOWELLMA.GOV/AGENDACENTER/VIEWFILE/ITEM/36546?FILEID=107295 So, at tonight’s Lowell City Council mtg., (November 10, 2026) before the Draper Labs vote is taken, I feel this is the legally smart move to make moving forward because it will avoid a major constitutional trap and still achieve the goal of hiring local talent. Because when a city forces a developer to hire local residents as a condition for a tax break, courts often strike it down for discriminating against out-of-state workers, (as I have said in the past). But, by changing the approach so that the city uses the tax break as a “friendly” incentive and motivation to encourage a private agreement and compromise, rather than a strict legal command, you completely bypass this issue entirely. Shifting this instead to a private agreement between the developers and the Merrimack Valley Building Trades Council takes the city out of the legal scrutiny because as a private contract rather than a city mandate, it removes the constitutional risk. Structuring the local hiring goals as a private "good faith" relationship and partnership between the developer and the building unions keeps the city out of legal trouble while still achieving the community benefits the Lowell city councilors want and what the local hardworking taxpayers deserve. But here is the critical legal catch to remember for this strategy to work, the city must maintain a strict hands-off approach to enforcing that private deal as the BRILLIANT Lowell City Solicitor Corey Williams carefully and safely handled in Section C.3 of the draft TIF by using phrasing agreeing to local hiring “whenever commercially reasonable” for “anticipated employment”. This brilliant hands-off wording completely shields the city from a lawsuit and keeps the city’s hands clean. But it also means the city has absolutely zero legal power to enforce those local hiring goals if the developer falls short later. But the agreement must be signed first. The city council should not vote "Yes" tonight based on a verbal promise only, (PLEASE, let’s learn the lesson from the Senior Center "inherited legal mess" and get the hard signatures over the handshakes! Because once the city council votes to approve the tax break, the city loses all its leverage. The agreement between the developer and the unions must be signed before the city councilors vote.