Rodney Elliott, who threw his hat in the ring for District 1 City Councilor after Danny Rourke’s resignation, has decided not to seek the seat.
The former Mayor, City Councilor and State Representative from Pawtucketville released a statement Wednesday afternoon, outlining the reasons for his decision. (the statement is published in its entirety below)
Elliott’s departure leaves local realtor Ray Boutin as the only declared candidate to this point.
Last night, the Lowell City Council set February 2, 2027 as the date of the special election to fill Rourke’s seat. Rourke announced his resignation at the conclusion of the September 22nd council meeting.
Statement from Rodney Elliott
“After careful consideration, I have decided not to run for the open District 1 City Council seat in Pawtucketville.
I recently began a new position as Assistant Dircetor of Finance at Collegiate Charter School, a role that requires my full attention and commitment. In addition, I continue to serve on several nonprofit boards and remain actively involved in our community.
Just a few months ago, I made the decision not to seek reelection, and after reflecting on this opportunity, I believe that decision remains the right one for me and my family at this time.
Pawtucketville and the City of Lowell will always hold a special place in my heart, i grew up in this neighborhood, have raided my family here, and will continue working to make our community stronger through my professional and volunteer efforts.
I am confident that there are other qualified candidates who will step forward and serve District 1 well. I think the many residents, friends, and supporters who encouraged me to consider running, and I look forward to continuing to support our city and neighborhood in other ways.”
3 responses to “Elliott Decides Against District 1 Run”
VERY interesting. Wanna guess who’s gonna enter the race now?
https://youtu.be/kGsza8Q6HsI?t=1032.
I think I understand why the health director hadn’t received the official paperwork yet. It comes down to a major breakdown in state to city communication. When a 75-gallon demolition spill happens, emergency teams like Clean Harbors clean it up immediately and log the data digitally into the state’s MassDEP portal to meet deadlines.
However, the state system doesn’t automatically alert local city halls, and routing the actual physical reports by mail can take weeks. Because this incident happened so recently, the paperwork may have simply not made its way to her desk yet.
Please listen to the above video of the Board of Health Mtg. 10/7/26
Just an FYI follow-up to alleviate any concerns, because I always want to present completely neutral, factual and verifiable data. The state has a public MassDEP Release Tracking Number (RTN), because every reportable spill generates an open, timestamped paper trail on the state database.
So any resident can look up the record independently. Anyone can check and see if an incident was logged transparently at the state level. So you don’t have to take anyone’s word for it. Anyone can go directly to the public MassDEP Waste Site Portal, filter the search for Lowell, and see the exact 7-digit Release Tracking Number (RTN) generated for this site.
The state logs it systematically, updating the portal data on a nightly basis once processed by the state, proving that while the physical mail may still be routing to City Hall, the data has been open and transparent to the public practically from day one.