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Office: Tel: (978) 677-7163 Fax: (978) 677-709245 Merrimack St. Suite 218A Lowell, MA 01852
FreematikarerOg Issue 192 11th. Jan21th. 2016
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Lowell has a Plan E form of gov-ernment.
Voters elect nine councilors whoserve for two terms.
Councilors elect one of the membersto serve as mayor and one to serve as
vice chair.
There are three major positionsthat are appointed by the City Council.
City Auditor who approves, pays,and records all financial transactions.
City Clerk who keeps all recordsof official City business.
City Manager who oversees therunning of the City.
What City Councilors Do1. Respond to citizens who need
information or help.2. Vote on financial matters such
as budgets, loans, grants, bond issues,and land acquisitions and sales.
3. Vote on zoning issues and traf-fic control issues.
4. Vote on ordinances or laws.5. Confirm trustees and board
members for various public organizations.
What does this mean to you as acitizen of Lowell?
1. Respond to citizens who needinformation or help.
Need an example here.
2. Vote on financial matters suchas budgets, loans, grants, bond issues,and land acquisitions and sales.
Budgets include how much is tobe spent on schools, police, fire andpublic safety, among other things.
3. Vote on zoning issues and trafficcontrol issues.
Zoning laws affect the quality ofour neighborhoods. Traffic controlissues make it easier or more difficultto move from one place to another.They also affect traffic safety.
4. Vote on ordinances or laws.The City Council approves, and
can change, laws affecting manyaspects of our daily lives. Here is alist of some of the areas of law con-trolled by the Council.
Adult establishmentsAdvertisingAlarm systemsAmbulancesAnimalsBicycles, skateboards and roller
skatesBuilding constructionBuildings, dangerousCanvassers and solicitorsCurfewElectrical standardsFeesFire preventionGraffitiHawkers and peddlersHealth and sanitationHousing standardsJunk and secondhand dealersLicenses and permitsNoiseParks and recreationPawnbrokersPeace and good orderProperty maintenanceSoft drink establishmentsStreets and sidewalksSwimming poolsTaxicabs and liveriesTreesVehicles and trafficWaste and recyclingWater and sewersWetlandsZoning
5. Confirm trustees and boardmembers for various public organiza-tions.
Some of these organizationsinclude the library, council on aging,hunger and homelessness commission,immigration assistance commission,commission on disability, and more.
Lowell City GovernmentbbkkEERRbbeeddaayy ³³ ttaarraayyuuTT§§
the official notice of the election,resulting in a new city councilman,Jim Leary. The nine city councilorswere sworn in by reciting the oathof this position
in office. Also elected and swornin were Lowell’s new mayor,
Edward Kennedy and electedas the Vice Chairman was councilmanDaniel Rourke.
Mayor Kennedy addressedattendees and introducing his family.Speaking to the crowd, Mayor
Kennedy named economicdevelopment as a primary focus asit is the best method to expand
the tax base and reducing the
need for further tax increaseswhen expanding or supportingmunicipal services. Other prioritiesmentioned were public safety,increasing quality of municipalservices, improving the school systems,reducing real estate taxes; all
byAunPheap | January 11, 2016As senior members of the ruling
CPP gathered in Phnom Penh thisweekend for their annual congress,the party gave itself a glowing per-formance review and noted almost noareas for improvement, according to a49-page report distributed to dele-gates at the two-day event.
The report praises the country'ssoaring economic growth and the passage
of new legislation, while only brieflytouching upon issues such as corrup-tion and lack of transparency, otherthan to note the "life-or-death" impor-tance of continued reform.
Although the CPP came underintense criticism last year for whit-tling away freedoms of expressionand association with its new NGO lawand an imminent new law governinglabor unions, its report cites both asexamples of positive democraticreform.
"The implementation of the Lawon Associations and NGOs, the prepa-ration of the union law and thestrengthening of the implementationof the Law on Documents andProcedures in Cambodia has clearlyshown the true intentions of the gov-ernment in guaranteeing the freedomof all people in society," the reportsays.
"The political determination of
the CPP has led national and interna-tional circles to fairly evaluate thesteps forward in [Cambodia's] demo-cratic process."
"The government of Cambodiacontinues to push active implementa-tion of in-depth and wide reforms,with the consideration that reform is alife-and-death factor for the country,"it adds.
Pledges of extensive reform havebeen the main focus of the CPP gov-ernment since its shock near-loss inthe 2013 national election and the riseof the opposition CNRP, which cam-paigns on promises that it will raisewages and reduce corruption.
The report from the congresssays that the party's priorities for 2016include judicial reform, increasingtransparency and reducing corruption,but the document goes into almost nodetail about these issues. Instead, thebulk of the document commendsCambodia's recent economic per-formance, including a projectedupgrade from being a "low income" toa "lower middle income" country,according to World Bank rankings.
In a section on foreign policy, thereport notes the deteriorating situationin the South China Sea and appears toblame the U.S. for creating a situationthat could lead to conflict.
"In the South China Sea, theinterference of great powers and somecountries in demanding sovereigntyin South China Sea has caused the sit-uation to become increasingly com-plex," it says.
"The interference of great powersand some countries has tried to curbthe growth of the People's Republic ofChina to [become] the largest powerin the region and in the world, whichcould occur in the near future of theU.S.," the report adds.
"This point could cause armedclashes when some countries mountchallenges with weapons in order toresolve the problem of the SouthChina Sea with the People's Republicof China."
This weekend's event onKohPich island was the first partycongress Continued to Page 22
Prime Minister Hun Sen and hisVietnamese counterpart, Nguyen TanDung, will inaugurate two new borderdemarcation posts in the provinces ofRatanakkiri and Takeo on Saturday,according to KoyPisey, Cambodia'sdeputy chief of border affairs.
Ms. Pisey said the prime ministerswould appear together at a ceremonyon the border of Ratanakkiri and Gia
Lai provinces in the morning, andagain on the border of Takeo and AnGiang provinces in the evening.
The posts have been planted nearthe O'Yadaw International Checkpointin the country's northeast and near thePhnom Den International Checkpointin the southeast, Ms. Pisey said,adding that 83 percent of the sharedborder had now been officiallydemarcated.
"As compatriots know, borderaffairs is very complicated, so itrequires having agreements from thetwo countries because we plant bordermarkers in order to transform fron-tiers into peaceful and harmonizedborders," she said.
The government's work demar-cating and protecting its eastern frontierwas at the center of an oppositioncampaign earlier this year to highlightVietnamese encroachments into
Cambodia, including a series of pondsthat Vietnamese farmers dug inRatanakkiri.
Vietnamese state media reportedthat the locations of the two new borderposts were agreed to during a meetingof the Joint Border Committee inPhnom Penh in November, and thatthe "demarcation between Viet Namand Cambodia is basically completed."
Quoting Nguyen Anh Dung,deputy chairman of the VietnameseForeign Ministry's border commission,the article in Viet Nam News saysthere are six areas along the border inRatanakkiri, Mondulkiri and SvayRieng that remain contentious.
"He pointed out difficulties in thework such as border management, theuse of old-fashioned maps…that failto match realities, as well as Cambodiaopposition forces' sabotage activitiesto divide bilateral friendship," thearticle says.
CNRP lawmaker Um Sam An, whohas been at the fore of oppositionefforts to discredit the government'sdecades of work demarcating the borderwith Vietnam, said the two new postsinfringed upon Cambodian territory.
"The information we receivedfrom local villagers is that the keyborder marker No. 30 in Ratanakkiriprovince is planted deep insideCambodia's land," said Mr. Sam An,who is living outside the country forfear that he will be arrested upon hisreturn.
He said the position of the bordermarker in Takeo was based on thelocation of a canal dug by Vietnam in1979, and was not consistent with theconstitutionally mandated Frenchmaps that are supposed to determinedemarcation.
"Border markers should be plantedbased on France's legacy, not based ona treaty made in the 1980s, becauseCambodia was under Vietnam's control," he said.
Ms. Pisey said Mr. Sam An andlike-minded opposition politicianswere wrong.
"Whatever they said, I deny it,because it is incorrect," she said.
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province - Nobody here seems to knowmuch about Company 72.
Locals know they are living on landthe company cultivates under a govern-ment-granted economic land concession(ELC)-some have taken menial jobs tendingthe crops, all have seen lush forests deci-
mated to make way for them-but beyondthat, Company 72 remains mostly a mystery.
"We don't know the background ofthe company; we have no information,just the name," SevH'vinh, an ethnic Jaraifarmer, said in September, looking outover a tract of land in Paknhai communethat he said belonged to his wife untilCompany 72 came along.
"The Vietnamese guys just arrived in2013 and started bulldozing," he said.
The history of this 20,000-hectareELC is complicated. So, too, are the historiesof three other concessions, which, alongwith it, run end-to-end from a 31-km frontieralong the Vietnamese border, northwest
through three districts and into the heartof this farflung province.
Initially granted separately to fouragribusiness ventures over the years, theconcessions have since made their wayinto the hands of Binh Doan 15, or Corps15, an arm of the Vietnamese People'sArmy stationed across the border in GiaLai province.
Company 72 is not the name of abusiness; it is a military unit. And the con-cessions, with their military ties, areeffectively an extension of territory con-trolled by Vietnam.
Documents obtained from govern-ment databases show that via a series ofsales and transfers, this considerableswath of Ratanakkiri -39,584 hectares, anarea larger than Kep province-is now con-trolled by Corps 15 commanders.
Three of the concessions are linkedto the Vietnamese military via their chairmen,who are identified in Vietnamese statenews reports as the heads of military unitswith names that correspond to the companiesthat have taken over the concessions.Pham Van Giang, for example, is both thechairman of AphivathCaoutchouc 72Ratanakiri Co., Ltd., which has acquiredthe Rama Khmer concession, and thecommander of the Vietnamese military'sCompany 72.
The fourth concession is not directlylinked to the Vietnamese military viacommanders and chairmen. However,Vietnamese state media has espousedCompany 72's agricultural work and phi-lanthropy on a military-controlled ELC inBakeo district, the location of theCheaChanrith concession, which hasbeen acquired in full by the firmAphivatCaoutchouc 72 OyaDav Co., Ltd.
"This is a concern," deputy provin-cial governor Nhem Sam Oeun said in aSeptember interview, denying any previousknowledge of the Vietnamese military'scontrol of the concessions. ELCs, he said,"are under the management of theAgriculture Ministry and EnvironmentMinistry, and they have the right to lookinto this issue. I know nothing about thetransfers."
As they are not inside protected areas,which are overseen by the EnvironmentMinistry, the four concessions comeunder the purview of the AgricultureMinistry, Continued to Page 20
GRAND CONCESSIONSThe Vietnamese People's Army has quietly assumed control
of nearly 40,000 hectares of land in RatanakkiriBY MATT BLOMBERG AND VAN ROEUN
Michelle Wu makes history as City Council presidentThe 30-year-old Roslindale lawyer ascended to the
rostrum after serving just one term.
By Soben PinBoston - January 4th, 2016, Michelle
Wu, the first Chinese and Asiantescend was elected as CouncilPresident. Mayor Walsh and SenatorElizabeth Warren also were in attendedand spoke. As Council President, Wuspoke goalsfor the next term - trans-parency and accessibility is first andforemost and vowed to work onreducing income inequality, reformingour criminal justice system, improvingeducational opportunities, and preparingfor climate change. Below is theinformation background I found fromMichelle Wu's campaign website atwww. michelleforboston.com
About MichelleMy name is Michelle Wu. In
2013, I was elected as a Boston CityCouncilor At-Large. I am running forre-election because I believe inBoston. I believe we can lead as anational model of an inclusive inno-vation economy that connects all ofour neighborhoods and communities.
I believe we can serve as an exampleof an urban public education systemthat creates meaningful pathways forall our students, and I believe that allof this depends on a foundation ofstrong, vibrant, local engagement ineach of our neighborhoods.
Photo Credit: JovanI have gotten to know and love
the sense of community and familythat Boston's neighborhoods repre-sent. From advising entrepreneurs atthe WilmerHale Legal Services Centerin Jamaica Plain, to working with sur-vivors of domestic violence at theMedical-Legal Partnership at BostonMedical Center and health centersaround the city, I have seen the powerof community organizations servingcity residents. As legal guardian ofmy youngest sister, I have chaired theSchool Site Council for the Eliot K-8School in the North End and volun-teered with the Boston Latin Homeand School Association. Prior to serving
Continued to Page 23
Michelle Wu, the first Chinese and Asian tescendwas elected as Council President of Boston
Michelle Wu
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which granted and is responsible formonitoring them. In an interview at hisoffice in November, EangSophalleth, aspokesman for the Agriculture Ministry,was presented with the documents outlininghow the concessions in Ratanakkiri hadcome to be run by the Vietnamese military.
"It would be too premature for me toanswer or to acknowledge that these fourcompanies are under the Vietnamesearmy," Mr. Sophalleth said, asking reportersto refrain from publishing an article aboutthe concessions until an intergovernmentalcommittee completed a review of all con-cessions in the country.
"I have these documents from youbut I have not verified [them], the committeehas not verified [them]," he said.
The Vietnamese military did notrespond to numerous requests for comment.The numbers listed by the CommerceMinistry for the companies that controlthe concessions were either not in use, orcalls went unanswered.
In May 2012, Prime Minister HunSen ordered a stop to the granting of newconcessions as reports of abuse-of con-tracts, forests and local people-mounted.Mr. Hun Sen ordered a review of all con-cessions and, according to Mr. Sophalleth,outlawed transfers and sales. However,one caveat allows existing concessionairesto "find partners to join the development,"he said.
Much of the trading that consolidatedthe Ratanakkiri concessions in the handsof the Vietnamese People's Army occurredin the months leading up to the moratorium.However, two months after it, in July 2012,according to Commerce Ministry filings,all shares in the northernmost of the fourconcessions, Veasna Investment, werehanded over to a firm named 75 Rat-tanakiriCo., Ltd., whose chairman, Do Van Sang,is identified in Vietnamese state newsreports as commander of Company 75.
Then, in August of the same year, theborder-hugging Dai Dong Duong concessionhad all of its shares transferred to TranQuang Hang, previously a minority share-holder, who is named in Vietnamese statemedia as the commander of Company 74.
Mr. Sophalleth said the Dai DongDuong concession was due to be assessed"in the next few weeks," while the overallevaluation, led by Deputy Prime MinisterBin Chhin, would be completed in a"maximum of two months." Inspectorsare looking to certify that concessionairesare obeying the Land Law and honoringtheir agreements while contributing to thedevelopment of Cambodia, he said, butwould not focus on the source of invest-ment.
"As I know, we do not discriminatebetween army, business people, institu-tions or any countries at all. We welcomeall investment in Cambodia," Mr. Sophallethsaid. "Each country has its own sovereignty,each country has its own rule of law, andwhoever invests in the country must respect
it. And if you don't respect it, we have totake measures, we have to take actions."
(Mark Tilly/The Cambodia Daily)Totaling more than 2.14 million
hectares, ELCs now cover more than halfof Cambodia's arable land, with 57 percentof that area controlled by foreign firms,according to rights group Licadho. Underheavy criticism for the mass sell-off, bothlocally and from abroad, Mr. Hun Sen hasargued that ELCs are needed to "developthe country," explaining the ostensiblebenefits-jobs, roads, schools-that theybring to the communities on which theyare imposed.
But the reality for people living on ornear the concessions in Ratanakkiri-manyof them members of indigenous minoritieswhose lives revolve around the forests-isquite the opposite.
Over the years, rights groups andreporters have fielded a litany of abusecomplaints against the four concessions:encroaching on communal land, destroyingspirit forests and burial grounds, loggingoutside their boundaries, and illegallyexporting luxury-grade timber across theporous border with Vietnam.
"There are a lot of impacts withoutadequate solutions," said Chhay Thy,provincial coordinator for rights groupAdhoc.
Mr. Thy, who spends much of histime monitoring the province's disappearingforests, said that logging in and aroundthe four concessions peaked in 2012 and2013, shortly after the Vietnamese militarytook control of them.
"Vietnamese dealers made a businessof timber; some came through the companiesand some connived with the companies,"he said.
Bisecting the giant swath of landnow under the control of the Vietnamesemilitary is National Road 78, which runsfrom the provincial capital of BanlungCity to the barracks of Company 72 andCompany 74 across the border, just 16 kmand 26 km, respectively, from theO'Yadaw International Checkpoint.
Trucks and motorbikes loaded withluxury wood flow freely across theO'Yadaw checkpoint, though with timberbaron Try Pheap's special economic zonejust down the road, only a few kilometersinside Cambodian territory, the ownershipand legality of the hauls remains unclear.
Satellite imagery also shows thatinside the Dai Dong Duong concession,there are dozens of roads, tracks and trailscrossing the border.
"It is easy for them to go back andforth, shipping timber across the border,"Mr. Thy said.
Reporters visiting remote Ratanakkirivillages in and around the concessions inSeptember were received mostly by smilingchildren and welcoming elders. In thesecluded village of Krieng, however, anuneasiness filled the air. Children scuttledout of sight, mothers shut doors, and men
glanced around the village, seeminglysearching for reasons why visitors mightbe there.
About 15 km off an arterial road runningthrough Bakeo district, Krieng is an islandin a sea of cleared forest and rubber plan-tations-all of it inside the CheaChanrithconcession, chaired by the commander ofCompany 72 since April 2012.
"The land clearing started here in2009 and reached the edge of our village,"said RochamMoum, who previously led alosing campaign against the pillaging ofthe forest around the village.
The mood in Krieng, Mr. Moumsaid, was the result of his ethnic Tampouncommunity having had its identity stolenaway. The forest had provided them notonly with food and raw materials for shelter-it had been the resting place of theirancestors, whose spirits are believed tolive on in the trees.
When the trees were cleared all theway to the edge of Krieng, Mr. Moumsaid, their once fervent advocacy groupwas disbanded. "We no longer have aforestry community because we have noforest left to protect," he said.
The community in Krieng is notunique, however, particularly in provincessuch as Ratanakkiri with dense and potentiallylucrative forests.
Environmental watchdogs have foryears been highlighting the potential revenuedisappearing across the border in vehiclesfilled with timber, and the havoc wroughton indigenous communities as they watchthe forests fall around them. Oppositionpoliticians have campaigned heavily thisyear against alleged violations of Cambodia'ssovereignty from the east, focusing on aseries of irrigation ponds dug byVietnamese people about 500 meters intoCambodian territory on the Dai DongDuong concession. (Much of the borderarea here is designated a "white zone,"having not been properly demarcated,meaning that neither side is allowed tooccupy or use the land.)
Cambodia's Foreign Ministry delivereda terse statement in June demanding thatHanoi have the ponds filled in. Hanoipromised to oblige, but, according to theopposition's latest dispatch earlier thismonth, has not made good on its pledge.
A visit to an informal checkpoint justa few hundred meters from the pondsdemonstrated how in this part of the country,the line between Cambodia and Vietnamcan be blurred.
A Cambodian woman sellingVietnamese-labeled snacks and drinks outof a tin shack at the border had hanging inher shop a framed portrait of her youngson, dressed in a Vietnamese police uniformand photoshopped onto a tropical beach.
Reporters were treated with suspicion,and left shortly after a number of half-uni-formed soldiers started asking what theywere doing in the area. Locals said therewas only one reason to go down the roadto the border: to take timber across it.
With familiar anti-Vietnamese sentiment
heightened amid the opposition's campaignto spotlight border encroachments thisyear, government heavyweights includingInterior Minister SarKheng have delivereda series of speeches chastising those whoprivately lease land along the border toforeigners, particularly in "white zones."
In an October letter to the governorsof border provinces, Mr. Kheng said suchleases were complicating efforts todemarcate the border, and that the country's"territorial integrity and sovereignty" wasat stake.
Last month, Mr. Hun Sen issued acircular outlawing further leasing of landalong the border, citing "complexities"created in the ongoing process of finalizingborder markings and also noting the needto protect Cambodia's "territorial integrityand sovereignty."
Mr. Hun Sen's statement, whichallowed for current lawful leases to beupheld, was aimed in part at "protectingthe rights…and improving the livelihoodsof the people along the border."
However, despite creating many ofthe same complications, the rules for privateleasing and ELCs appear to be vastly dif-ferent.
In an interview this month, InteriorMinistry spokesman KhieuSopheak saidthat private land leases and government-granted concessions would, indeed, notbe treated as the same thing. GeneralSopheak declined to directly an-swerquestions about whether a foreign militarycontrolling nearly 40,000 hectares ofCambodian land was a threat to the country'ssovereignty.
"The Vietnamese military, they havethe right to do business," he said. "Theycan sign a contract with another countryand they are under the control of the mil-itary's high-ranking leaders in Vietnam."
Gen. Sopheak said he agreed in generalwith Cambodia's policy on ELCs, buttook exception with the terms of conces-sions, many of which were issued for 99-year periods at just a few dollars perhectare.
"The rent must be higher and theperiod of time must be shorter," he said,suggesting 30 years and $10,000 perhectare as a reasonable solution.
His grievance, he said, stemmedfrom the fact that Cambodia was makinga mere fraction of the fortune that itsneighbor is reaping from the trade in luxurytimber.
"You can see that we earn only $6million or $8 million each year" from thetimber trade, Gen. Sopheak said. "They[Vietnam] don't have big forests like us,but they do the business of timber exportsand imports for $800 million each year."
Asked where Vietnam was sourcingthe timber it was feeding into a thrivinginternational market, the general laughedand shrugged his shoulders.
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on the Council, I worked on theU.S. Senate campaign of my formerlaw professor, Elizabeth Warren,directing the campaign's statewideoutreach effort to communities ofcolor throughout all of Boston'sneighborhoods and in gateway citiesacross the Commonwealth. In my firstterm as
Boston City Councilor At-Large,I have been committed to workingtowards a city government that isaccessible, responsible, and built oncommunity, and have been a proudvoice for progressive causes thatimpact residents in all of Boston'sneighborhoods
Family has been the driving forcein my life. I'm the oldest of four kidsborn to immigrant parents fromTaiwan. Growing up, I watched myparents navigate language and culturalbarriers while pursuing the AmericanDream. I worked hard, studied hard,and got into college at Harvard, whereI fell in love with Boston. After grad-
uation, I got a great job in theFinancial District. But when mymother began to suffer from seriousmental illness, I left my job in Bostonand went to Chicago to take care ofher and my younger sisters. Whilethere, I started a small family busi-ness, a tea shop featuring weeklypoetry readings and open mic nights. Iwas fortunate to come back to Bostonfor law school, bringing my motherand sisters with me.
Through my experiences as a formersmall business owner, legal advocate,legal guardian-and most recently, asnew working mom-I have seen howcity government has a direct impacton people's lives. Previously workingfor Mayor Tom Menino and havingserved one term on the Boston CityCouncil, I have experienced thepotential for city government to beresponsive, innovative, and accessible.It is for these principles and for familiesaround the city that I hope to continueto serve.
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pledges that cannot be kept alonebut which require teamwork fromthe council.
Mayor Kennedy spoke to theformer city council working as ateam to create the progress thatLowell has seen in the past fewyears, and the importance of beingable to debate, disagree and worktogether, without being disagreeable.Mayor Kennedy spoke abou tcalled upon the council to embrace atheory of resources trickling upfrom cities and towns to the state
and federal level, and to be innovativein finding solutions to local chal-lenges.
Jack McWilliams, a Lowellnative from a family of seven,who ran a commercial photographybusiness in Chelmsford for 20 yearscame to the inauguration to seeEd Kennedy be sworn in.
Mc Williams said, "I've knownEd Kennedy since we were highschool students walking home
after class back in the mid-60s.I feel his commitment to improvinglife for people in the city of
Lowell has been a constantsince those times. Ed raised hischildren here in the city and sent
them to local schools, andboth of his adult children are suc-cessful graduates of Lowell High.
I h a v e n o d o u b t t h a t a sMayor he will be a real asset toall the people of Lowell over thenext two years".
The mood was positive andsincere, with all present united ina goal to further work to benefitthe community of Lowell, Massachusettsat large.
Continued from page 09
City Council Inauguration...
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