WITH ALL the development taking place in Lowell — Draper, Markley, Cabot, Cabot and Forbes — one would think that the Frontrunner City team would be announcing some kind of update on the memorandum of understanding the city signed with Solar International Core Canada Ltd., which said it would invest up to $2 billion in the city’s Jackson/Appleton/Middlesex Urban Renewal Plan Area.

The agreement grants SICC “exclusive entitlement to serve as development manager or ‘master developer’ for any project, or to limit the City’s discretionary authority to use competitive processes or to engage other parties for development service.”

Numerous attempts to reach the principals with SICC and its lobbyist Marc Kealey, as well as Urban Economy Forum leadership, which heavily promoted this partnership, have all been met with crickets.

Perhaps the Iran War has temporarily spooked overseas investment deals?

The parent company of SICC is Overseas Oil and Gas LLC, based in Oman, a country in the Middle East.

As reported by the Associated Press, U.S.-Iran negotiations had been facilitated by Oman and Qatar, but they had come under fire early in the war as Iran lashed out at Gulf countries, many of which host American forces.

On Thursday, a container ship was hit with a projectile off the coast of Oman, which sits directly across from Iran, hours after Iran threatened vessels to stop using the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. then struck Iran on Friday.

To date, the city reports that it has spent more than $466,000 to court the FRC investment, which included numerous trips to Canada and sending a large delegation to Switzerland.

The MOU remains in full effect until Feb. 28, 2031, but The Column hopes it doesn’t take that long to get a return call.

— Melanie Gilbert

THE COLUMN caught up with state Rep. Rodney Elliott at the WCAP 980 AM studios on Market Street Friday morning.

He was sporting a neon green cast on his right hand, the result of a surgery to fix a broken thumb.

Elliott said it’s been tough to navigate the world without his opposable thumb on his dominant hand.

“I can’t write, hold a pen, even,” he said during a commercial break. “But I can still talk.”

He was joined in studio by new morning host Jose Cervantes, and retired Lowell Police Sgt. and co-host Francisco Maldonado.

Elliott is hoping the cast comes off in a couple weeks, but if you see him before then, grab a marker and gently, oh so gently, sign that bad boy.

— Melanie Gilbert

LOWELL TELECOMMUNICATIONS Corporation (aka Lowell TeleMedia Center, aka LTC), is still cleaning up after a catastrophic flood in January, when a second-floor hot-water pipe burst, sending water pouring into the space below occupied by the LTC nerve center, the city’s public-access provider.

But Executive Director Adam McCune said the rehab is coming along on schedule.

“We are painting our space as of today,” McCune said by email Wednesday. “Should be ready to have people in the gallery soon.”

The staff is working from home until the painting and new carpets are finished.

The Column asked to be put on the grand reopening mailing list.

— Melanie Gilbert

THINGS HAD been ever-so-slightly quieter in the immigration enforcement debate recently for a number of reasons, but the Burlington Select Board took the time to remind us this week that the issue of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in their town is still very much of concern.

The board’s discussion Monday served mostly as an update of the town’s efforts to hold ICE to even the most basic level of accountability, something that has eluded the agency since President Trump retook office last year. Funny timing, that is.

As has been stated ad nauseam since Burlington officials first learned of the alleged poor conditions inside the facility about a year ago, there is precious little the town has in the way of power to do anything about it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be that way, but there is no reasonable argument that the town of Burlington has the power to outright end the use of the ICE facility at 1000 District Ave.

That doesn’t mean Burlington is powerless entirely in this situation, at least on paper. The primary strategy the town has employed thus far has been to aim at perceived zoning violations by the facility and its apparent use as a detention center, something town officials say they were promised would not happen when ICE set up shop there in 2007.

ICE has recently allowed members of Congress to visit the inside of the facility unannounced, something the agency should never have prohibited in the first place, but as the Burlington Select Board noted, all of their requests to inspect the facility themselves have been denied, both by the Department of Homeland Security and by the courts. In a way, that almost feels more outrageous than members of Congress being denied entry.

What exactly does ICE and DHS fear the Select Board or a building inspector may find in that building if they are allowed inside? Supposedly the conditions inside have improved since last spring and summer, at least according to reports following prearranged congressional visits. Why would ICE not want to show local officials inside if everything is truly above board? Will those officials find that immigrant detainees are still being held there in the long term in violation of local zoning? Will they see a return to inhumane conditions for those immigrants? Is Stephen Miller squatting inside the building in his vampire bed?

By not being allowed inside, what the local officials are seeing is a flagrant disrespect from a federal agency toward a community that agency is housed in. Any federal departments should be working in tandem with the state and local governments they base their employees out of, not treating everyone else like the enemy or freezing them out when they request even a modicum of transparency.

— Peter Currier

DRACUT VOTERS quashed the proposal to build a new $177 million school in town. But the problem hasn’t gone away — only any funding from the state to relieve the financial impact of a solution on taxpayers.

What remains are two schools — the Greenmont Avenue and the Joseph A. Campbell — needing help. The plan the town defeated included combining the two schools and would have created a student body of 850.

The School Committee and Board of Selectmen will meet Monday night to discuss what comes next in their quest to house and educate these students.

In the School Department’s application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority seeking reimbursement for a combined elementary school, numerous deficiencies were cited in both buildings. These included problems with mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems; building envelope; windows; roof; and accessibility issues.

Both schools are “beyond their useful life,” a term that is frequently used at meetings involving the two schools. It is borrowed from the accounting profession to indicate an asset that should be retired, replaced or declared obsolete.

The scope of the deficiencies in the Greenmont Avenue School and the School Department’s financial straits give some urgency to the situation. The school will be open for the upcoming school year, but could close in the following year to stop the hemorrhaging from the schools’ revolving funds and the town’s free cash.

This means 200 students could be in need of classroom space in the fall of 2027. There may be pockets of space in other schools — the high school is frequently mentioned — but not enough space for all 200. Questions about this situation include the feasibility of buying or leasing portable classrooms and the educational impact of increasing class sizes.

The MSBA conducted a thorough assessment of the proposal in its multi-phase review process and determined that building a new school was the only viable option. That decision effectively takes state reimbursement for an addition/renovation project off the table. Taxpayers will carry the burden of bringing all mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems up to code. They will also have to pay for structural updates.

The School Committee and Board of Selectmen will meet jointly at 6 p.m. Monday to discuss options and next steps. One of those options is to seek a 120-day extension of the deadline for final approval by a town vote. The MSBA does not like to give extensions.

News that the School Committee and Board of Selectmen are meeting Monday night spread rapidly across Dracut’s grapevine. As a result, a substantial crowd is expected at what is known as Harmony Hall, but that name might need to change when ticked-off residents express their opinions. There may be some protests outside, too.

Anyone traveling on Lakeview Avenue just beyond Dracut High School might want to consider changing their travel plans.

— Prudence Brighton

THE STATE will not accept applications for data center tax incentives until further notice, Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday as she simultaneously rolled out the guidance that she had pledged would focus on energy independence and environmental impacts.

Healey said the hold on applications for the 20-year sales and use tax exemption for qualified data centers, which she agreed to as part of a 2024 economic development law, will remain in effect “until we have strong protections in place for our residents and communities against higher gas and electric bills.” Final regulations launched the exemption last month, but Healey’s administration said it had not yet received any applications for the incentives.

“Data centers can support innovation and economic growth, but if developers want to build in Massachusetts, they need to first demonstrate that they can do so without driving up costs or harming our communities,” the governor said.

A Democrat seeking a second term this fall, Healey has both embraced the artificial intelligence industry that is driving much of the data center boom and moved to shore up state environmental protections. In a radio interview this month, she laid out her “absolutely imperative” guiding principles for data centers: “you can’t suck energy off the grid and hurt other ratepayers, and you can’t do harm to our environment, especially when it comes to water.”

The framework issued Thursday says data center projects “are expected to bring their own clean energy, avoid shifting or increasing costs to other energy consumers, protect environmental and community health, avoid placing additional environmental and social burdens on already Burdened Areas, and contribute meaningfully to the local and state economy and clean energy goals.”

The administration also announced in its new framework that it will “use this guidance to evaluate existing regulations and permitting processes to identify opportunities for alignment with the framework’s objectives, recognizing that, for some areas, additional legislative authority is required.”

Between high energy costs, state environmental regulations, a relative dearth of undeveloped space and other factors, Massachusetts has not been a major player in the national rise of data centers, or the accompanying pushback from communities where data centers have been built — except for in Lowell, where a group of residents filed a lawsuit against Markley Group LLC and the state Department of Environmental Protection, challenging the expansion of Markley’s data center in the city’s Sacred Heart neighborhood.

State officials are also in the midst of broad policy discussions about ways to reduce overall high energy costs.

— Colin A. Young, State House News Service