Kudos to Ed Cameron

Elected officials often are too coy or reticent to speak about their political intentions. Not Ed, he made them clear as day in his recent blog post. No drama. No waiting for the white smoke. Just transparency. Nice.

In that same spirit, I've been a bit disappointed the Mayor Moak hasn't used his forum on the Newburyport Today blog to address his professional intentions. It's his one outlet where his completely unedited point of view reaches the masses. I think he should have opened up on what's a very important issue.

And here's hoping he decides his political future over the next week or so so candidates like Ed, James Shanley and Donna Holladay can make their plans and align their teams.

Course, Ed probably sought to scoop the Daily News. But so be it. Unfortunately, the article suggested Ed would run against the mayor, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Time to take the Temperature

I'm planning to start running a weekly poll next week on the city's political leaders, starting with Mayor Moak.

The goal would be to establish a pre-election report card for the Mayor and the sitting council. I may do the School Committee as well, but I shamefully know very little about the board.

The poll choices likely will read.

Please indicate how satisfied you are with ______ ______'s performance.

Highly Satisfied
Somewhat Satisfied
Satisfied
Somewhat Unsatisfied
Not Satisfied

God, I'm boring myself. I may come up with some pithier offerings but I don't want to be too flip.

So the plan will be to offer up on official a week, starting with the Mayor. The City Council would follow in alphabetical order.

If anyone has any suggestions on improving the polls, please comment here.

First Church of Christ Building

Is it me or does $899k for the Christian Scientist Church on High Street sound like a really good deal? This is, afterall, a prominent High Street property.

Is it at a feasible site for the Senior Center? Hell, we could buy it, put $2 million into it and still save $2 million from the anticipated $5 million price tag, a portion of which will come from private donations. (Not certain of the private-public breakdown.)

I suppose parking would be an issue, but perhaps the adjacent lot could be used?