IT MAY be the dog days of summer, but the month of August is business as usual for municipal meetings in the Mill City.

Tomorrow night, Markley Group LLC and various other entities related to the data center company, come before the Planning Board for definitive subdivision approval on several properties, including 2 Prince Ave., 48 and 56 Newhall streets, and 45 Bolt St.

Get there early for a good seat because the chamber will be probably filled with union workers and Markley employees in favor of the company’s plans, and residents, advocacy groups and others — perhaps a city councilor or two or three — speaking in opposition.

— Melanie Gilbert

SOMETIME NEXT week, the developer who purchased the long-vacant Superior Courthouse on Gorham Street for $1.9 million at auction has to close on the property with the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, which holds the title.

Shortly after he was the winning bidder on the historic building, local developer Tim Kihiko released a YouTube video to his more than 1,300 subscribers in which he offered them the opportunity to “be part of this thing.”

“The minimum to be part of the deal is $25,000,” Kihiko said in the two-minute recording. “If that’s something you’re able to do within the next couple of days, let’s say 30 days, this is a great investment. You know, you’ll be part of something great and there’s some good returns on it.”

The project, he said, was designed to create long-term value for both the community and investors.

“This is more than just another real estate deal — it’s an opportunity to help shape the future of Downtown Lowell,” he said.

The Sun will be following the progress of that deal.

— Melanie Gilbert

ALTHOUGH THE City Council is on its biweekly summer schedule, it will next meet on Aug. 25. The past few agendas have been action packed, and while it won’t post until Friday, Aug. 21, at noon, watch for councilors to continue their busy motion submission pace.

The School Building Committee will meet two days later, on Aug. 27, at which time the Merrimack Canal may already have been refilled with water.

For now, the canal, which runs through the east and west campuses of the $418 million Lowell High School rebuild and renovation project, is dry and is filled with cattails and other vegetation.

But by the time students return to school on Sept. 2, the city’s construction project manager said the project team plans to refill the waterway, despite visibly deteriorating infrastructure, including masonry that displays cracks, gaps and spalling.

“We had run into some water, whether it was relative to the canal or not, it’s hard to say, but with keeping it down, we haven’t had any water issues at all into the building,” Skanska Project Director Kevin Kane said during the June 25 School Building Committee meeting.

To mitigate potential water infiltration issues, Kane told the committee at its July meeting that Suffolk is installing drains in the perimeter walls of both buildings.

This reporter could see that trench work taking place for that drain installation during a site tour this past Wednesday.

All the city’s various municipal bodies return to their weekly or monthly schedule in September.

— Melanie Gilbert

THE LONG saga of the Talbot Mills Dam in Billerica was supposed to take another step toward a possible resolution this week with an item appearing on the Conservation Commission agenda to consider the possible dismantling of the dam, but the years-long effort by the dam’s owner gets a delay of another month.

Monday’s Conservation Commission meeting in Billerica included an item for the notice of intent for an “ecological restoration project” of the Talbot Mills Dam put forward by the dam’s owner Bob Martin and his company CRT Development Realty. Though Martin has long wished to be rid of the dam, even among the resistance to its removal, that hearing has been continued to a meeting nearly a month from now on Sept. 14.

That the public hearing on the project even made it to the Conservation Commission is a milestone in itself, as it comes after more than a year of resistance by the Billerica Historic Districts Commission, which voted three separate times to reject the project. The third rejection by the BHDC of course came after a judge ordered them to reverse their prior two decisions and allow the dam removal to go forward. When it became clear there would be consequences for violating a judge’s order, the BHDC finally reversed course and approved it.

Whether the Conservation Commission has any aspirations of putting up its own resistance to this project is not yet clear, but the legal fight that preceded this hearing meeting will surely be fresh on everybody’s mind, whenever the hearing finally takes place.

After the Conservation Commission, Martin said previously he needs approval from the Department of Public works to finally be rid of a dam he has long wished not to own. If that happens, it would cap off the local version of a years-long debate that essentially boiled down to whether infrastructure with a historical value must be preserved even if said infrastructure may impede nature or modern upgrades.

— Peter Currier

A FORMER MEMBER of the Dracut School Committee has joined a loud chorus of social media complainers about Town Hall officials, their actions and their emails.

In fact, some of Sabrina Heisey’s complaints are actually put to music on her social media account, although her singing voice isn’t always clear. Heisey joins other former officials, elected and appointed, who are using social media to challenge official activities. These include former Selectman John Zimini, who no longer actually lives in Dracut. Unlike Zimini, she is a supporter of the School Department.

Heisey has taken her complaints a step further by pummeling the Town Manager’s Office with Freedom of Information Act requests for many emails and other documents, each of which must be reviewed and redacted by town staff before release.

Recently, she has expanded her approach, adding potential Open Meeting Law violations to her toolbox. Open Meeting Law issues are handled by the state Attorney General’s Office.

She is asking that office to determine whether there were violations of that law at the June 29 joint meeting of the Board of Selectmen, the School Committee, Town Manager Kate Hodges and School Superintendent Steven Stone.

The often-raucous meeting was called to discuss next steps after voters defeated a $177 million replacement for the Greenmont Avenue and Joseph A. Campbell schools. One of the goals of the meeting was to determine whether the two boards would appeal to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a 120-day extension to revise the plan and again seek Town Meeting approval.

The meeting was held at Harmony Hall, and Dracut Access Television taped it for public viewing. It was posted more than 48 hours in advance, as required by the Open Meeting Law. Harmony Hall was crowded, but more than a dozen residents spoke both for and against extending the deadline.

Selectman Josh Taylor made a negative motion — parliamentary parlance for where “yes means no.” His motion  was “to recommend not seeking an extension.”  All those supporting the motion would have to vote “no,” but would really be voting yes.

(And one wonders why our teachers marked us down if we used a double negative in our school work.)

The meeting ended in some confusion, at least in part due to the negative structure of Taylor’s motion. Four members of the School Committee then voted to seek the extension by sending a letter to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Committee member Alison Stillion voted against an extension.

Selectman Tony Archinski supported Taylor’s motion but suggested he rephrase it “in a more positive way.” Taylor declined. Selectmen Chair Don Plummer also voted to support Taylor’s motion. Selectman Kristie Wohlander voted against Taylor’s motion and Selectman Heather Santiago Hutchings abstained. She was attending the meeting with Zoom. So, the selectmen’s vote was 3-1-1 in opposition to seeking an extension.

There seemed to be some confusion about how to record the vote. Was it 7-2-1 in favor of the extension, some asked? The answer was that each board’s vote must be counted separately.

Town Manager Kate Hodges seemed briefly puzzled. She was overheard asking, in an open mic moment, “What am I supposed to do?”

Plummer answered, “Don’t sign anything.”

The MSBA responded by delaying a decision on the extension request until Aug. 31, while asking the town to show it is serious about building a new school. Otherwise, the $177 million committed to Dracut will be allocated to another community.

— Prudence Brighton