TNA

Some visionary once attempted to meld the world of the Lowell City Council with the world of professional wrestling. As is often the case, life imitates art, and the two worlds collided at last night’s meeting. Ross Forman of TNA Wrestling was on-hand with Ash By Elegance (I don’t understand the name either), the current   TNA Knockouts World Champion and co-holder of the tag-team championship.

They were on hand to promote the upcoming “Bound for Glory” event at the Tsongas Center on Sunday, October 12, 2025.

The look of disgust and disappointment on my wife’s face when she catches me watching pro wrestling is something to behold. However, I’m willing to accept more marital scorn to go to the Tsongas on October 12th. It’s research for the blog.

Profit Over People

There was a petition by the Markley group seeking the following:

[R]equest installation of fourteen (14) six-thousand gallon and two (2) six-thousand three hundred and fifty gallon diesel fueled emergency above ground generators for a total of additional 96,700 gallons stored on site at One Markley Way.

If you are unfamiliar, the Markley Group is the current owner of a future Superfund site “light industrial” parcel of property in the Sacred Heart neighborhood of South Lowell.

As per their website, Markley “owns and operates a 352,000 square foot mission-critical data center in Lowell, MA.” Further, “Markley is a privately held company committed to making long-term strategic investments that benefit clients, not shareholders.”

Absent from this mission statement is whether Markley is committed to benefiting its neighbors in South Lowell. Based on comments made by those neighbors at last night’s meeting, Markley does not care much at all.

Markley, apparently, needs massive tanks of diesel fuel to perform its “cutting-edge, mission-critical” data operations. They are currently approved for 71,100 gallons.

They now seek council approval to bring that total to 167,800 gallons. The scope and impact of this proposal were recently well documented in an excellent post by William Lefebvre and Mikaela Hondros-McCarthy.

I have to view last night’s discussion in the context of how Markley ended up in South Lowell in the first place. Markley came to Lowell as part of a corporate welfare model of business development championed during the administration of Kevin Murphy.

[Lowell Sun, March 13, 2016]

In the case of Markley, the city agreed to a 20-year deal in which you and I would “give up” $77 million in revenue, in exchange for the “something is better than nothing” reasoning that we would receive pennies on the dollar in the form of $12 million in revenue.

[Lowell Sun, May 25, 2015]

There are, of course, well-reasoned arguments by very smart people that these deals can be defended as good policy.  I, however, do not claim to be smart and have no interest in being well-reasoned.  From my perspective, these deals are imbalanced in favor of the corporation. The profits of the deal flow largely to private interests while the risks and losses (often non-numeric) are socialized. As is always the case, politicians sell this imbalance with vague reference to “job creation.” For Markley, we would look the other way on $77 million in exchange for 100 jobs. Last I saw, they only delivered on 26 of those 100.

In addition to falling for the okie-dokie on the finances, we are now asked to further sacrifice the quality of life in a neighborhood.  If we put the citizens first, the flow of profit could be interrupted.  As demand for Markley’s services increases, so too do their profits. The neighborhood, however, bears the ugly cost of this industry. Last night, the residents of South Lowell gave passionate  speeches in defense of their neighborhood. Speaker after speaker spoke of broken promises, noise, pollution, dead and removed foliage, and other safety concerns arising out of Markley’s actions.

I don’t recall any talk of any of these issues coming to light when the city administration (at the time) was promising us that Markley was a “perfect fit” for the site and that it was necessary to give them a $77 million tax break. Indeed, one citizen speaker noted the irony in that his property taxes have steadily increased for the privilege of choking on Markley’s waste.

In the end, the council decided to refer this matter to an environmental/neighborhood subcommittee. As chair, Councilor Belanger will set the meeting in the month of October.

Stay tuned.

Epic Hot Mic Moment

During the speech of one of the residents speaking in opposition to the Markley petition, the microphone picked up what sounded like a male voice saying “Oh, you fucking piece of shit!” (at 1:06:09). Clear as [expletive] day. We were never told how this happened or who said it. It sounded like it may have come from someone joining the meeting remotely, on Zoom. Earlier in the meeting, we were advised that there was a Markley representative on Zoom. In fairness, there was also at least one registered speaker on Zoom, albeit a female.