Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Bully Pulpit indeed
2 videos = 1 pissed off Irishman.
Okay folks, according to Wednesday’s Gazette, here is the evidence for Ms. Awad’s serious charge of a “physical threat”--I kid you not. (No wonder the cops laughed):
Behold the great threat!
Select Person Stephanie's take :
Some folks get it
Proof that I explained verbally to Mr. Awad (oops, I mean Mr. Hubley) the expression "locked and loaded" well before her resignation.
God I love blogs as public records!
This post (also pre-resignation) explains it better
Not the first time 'His Lordship' has freaked over little old me (10/11/07):
This was soon after the Northwestern District Attorney agreed with me that the Select Board violated the Open Meeting Law (yet again). You could tell he rehearsed this attack as well.
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20 comments:
Give Me A Break!
She wasn't driven out of town, she bought a house and put her condo up for sale on her own free will.
If they are so concerned about legal fees they are really walking on thin ice here with the public accusations they are making. Especially the "physical threats."
Holy S***.....
Larry, with the exception of Adam Prentice, the Town of Amherst has violated your civil rights worse than any UMass student. Alisa Brewer saved the town from a multi-million dollar lawsuit....
He proposed a bill of attainer -- under color of law -- and that prohibition dates all the way back to the Revolutionary war. There are the various Anti-Klan statutes with both civil and criminal recourse for violation of your civil rights "under color of law" including Section 1983 (civil for damages) and the other one that I can never remember that was used to prosecute the cops who beat up Rodney King.
This is like proposing an ordinance that South Amherst be "white only." You simply can't do that sort of thing - I don't know what the qualifications for selectboard members are but having an IQ above 10 ought to be one....
The town manager (and town legal counsel) ought to both have been screaming the second that Weiss proposed that motion -- perhaps diplomaticly, perhaps expediently not, perhaps even by pulling the fire alarm.... Alisa Brewer saved the town from a multimillion dollar lawsuit that the town would have lost 10 seconds after Larry filed it in US District Court -- and the town is only insured for the first two millon...
Ed Cutting
(who really can't believe this...)
Grounds for firing the town manager.
Seriously, his failure to "counsel" Mr. Weiss about the legal consequences of his motion arguably constitute evidence of incompetence.
The town manager's job is to look after the best interests of the town, including keeping it from getting sued....
And in saying nothing, well....
Ed
Chilling.....
Indeed!
And it is my Free Speech (something Amherst supposedly champions) that is getting the ice pick in the back.
Larry, when are you going to stop whining?
Face it: you handed her the ticket she needed to get off the Board and at the same time blame it on someone, because you didn't know when to stop.
So you crossed a line of basic decency by calling them up on the phone and photographing her through the trees in South Hadley, which they foreseeably characterized as "stalking" and "harassment". (At the time, you had responders on this blog conscientiously warning you about this.)
And you engaged in your usual sloppy fighting talk, using military jargon like "locked and loaded" which they then characterized as "physical threats".
Then, as the master of town politics that she is, she turned around and played the victim, like a diva in an opera, and used all that stuff against you, insinuating but not actually alleging criminal conduct, so that it got the attention of media outlets way out of the area.
Now she's an object of sympathy.
You handed her the rope to hang you with it. You had a legitimate issue about her serious lack of candor, and you took it too far. So she then beat you like a drum on the law, and in the public relations game.
You, sir, are your own worst enemy.
Rich Morse
Larry, when are you going to stop whining?
Face it: you handed her the ticket she needed to get off the Board and at the same time blame it on someone, because you didn't know when to stop.
So you crossed a line of basic decency by calling them up on the phone and photographing her through the trees in South Hadley, which they foreseeably characterized as "stalking" and "harassment". (At the time, you had responders on this blog conscientiously warning you about this.)
And you engaged in your usual sloppy fighting talk, using military jargon like "locked and loaded" which they then characterized as "physical threats".
Then, as the master of town politics that she is, she turned around and played the victim, like a diva in an opera, and used all that stuff against you, insinuating but not actually alleging criminal conduct, so that it got the attention of media outlets way out of the area.
Now she's an object of sympathy.
You handed her the rope to hang you with it. You had a legitimate issue about her serious lack of candor, and you took it too far. So she then beat you like a drum on the law, and in the public relations game.
You, sir, are your own worst enemy.
Rich Morse
Can't comment on the content but A plus for the prose, Attny. Morse.
Three concerns, ADA Morse:
First, most victims of hate crimes have - as you so aptly state it - given the perps the rope with which to hang them. In all of the hate crimes that I am familiar with, the victim(s) could have restrained themselves and likely avoided the incident. Gay couples don't *have to* hold hands in public, etc.
So are you saying that Larry deserved to have his constitutional rights violated under color of law because he decided to exercise his rights with vigor? Is that the standard of justice in Springfield?
Second, if "locked & loaded" is a threat of violence, what the h*** do you call all the stuff that the town routinely says to the UMass students? You are an officer of the court, are you not duty bound to do something?
Third, this is a town where real violence is often ignored. I like the Awad standard -- the next time very real threats are made against me because of *my* political views, I will resort to such tactics. The next time a union - either on campus or in the town - is negotiating a contract, all management has to do is say it is frightened.
There are two sets of rules and two standards of justice here....
Ed
And I believe Mr. Morse (whom I affectionately refer to as the “grumpy prosecutor") was quick to insult one of my Anonymous commenter s a month back who pointed out that this entire charade /scam could have something to do with Ms Awad feathering her state retirement nest (at taxpayer expense of course).
An article in the Gazette soon thereafter by Mary Carey demonstrated we should not be so quick to insult Anonymous commenters. But me, I’m fair game.
Awad’s gone (or soon will be) that’s all that matters. I’m a BIG boy—I can take whatever Mr. Weiss can dish out. Or have you not been paying attention Mr. Morse? The Awad-gate PR had all but died a month ago.
Monday night’s Select Board meeting was an orchestrated effort by Weiss and BenEzra --and yes, probably Stein and Awed (probably in violation of Open Meeting Law) to bring it back up. They will regret it (not a threat, just a promise.)
Larry,
You're as shameless as Ms. Awad. You're selectively rewriting the history here AGAIN.
I'm the guy who pointed my mistake out on YOUR blog, remember?
And actually there's no necessary link between her resignation and her belated attempt to get into the county retirement system. That would be happening in any case whether she finished her term or not.
It'll be a cold day in hell before YOU admit any mistakes, Larry.
But it's inescapable: she's a martyr, thanks to you.
What happened Monday night was not orchestrated, it was spontaneous, which makes it worse. Mr. Weiss completely abdicated his role as chair and began improvising. Why? Because Mr. Ben-Ezra shamed him into feeling inadequate about not using the resolution of the Board to condemn you and support Ms. Awad. So he went completely off the issue under discussion so that Stein, Weiss, & Awad could indulge their political anger. Thankfully, Ms. Brewer calmly shut down the nonsense.
Since we're doing a full examination of mistakes here, I am quite certain that Irv Rhodes would have analyzed the setting-the-date issue differently than Ms. Stein. I say that as a Stein voter. I'm not at a "my bad" on my vote, but she was awful Monday night.
Rich Morse (Grumpy? really? just a Yankee curmudgeon)
Yes Mr. Morse, and some other commenter quickly complimented you on pointing out your mistake. It’s all a matter of public record (that I consider history) here on my little blog.
At the very least Ms Awad’s “belated attempt to get into the county retirement system” means her Select Board service count towards a full-year of retirement. According to Ms. Carey’s Gazette article a year as a SB member (who works about 42 Monday nights per year not counting “Bunker Hill Day" of course) is considered the same as a full-year of state work.
And at her current salary as CEO of Caring Health Service Agency I have to assume her retirement would be up there with Barry Del Castilho’s, around $80-K.
And she was scheduled to “retire” her SB position in late March 2009, but would be credited with the full-year of service for 2009. Either way, worth a lot more than the ridiculous $300/year we pay the Select Board.
(sounded pretty grumpy to me)
> Thankfully, Ms. Brewer calmly
> shut down the nonsense.
She did a little more than that - she saved the town from a multi-million dollar lawsuit and public humiliation. Humiliation worse than the Selectboard (Awad was there then) got for its vote on September 10, 2001....
Wiess essentially was trying to pass a bill of attainer. Larry might not have the doubleunplussgood thoughts of this town that I do but if these clowns keep at it people are going to sue and they are going to win and the town only has insurance for the first $2M of liability....
Brewer saved the town that time....
Rich Morse makes some valid points about the public relations aspect of this issue.
In Monday night events, some people saw the righteous correcting the record, some saw a three-ring circus, and still others, a lynching party.
Not everyone sees it the same way. It doesn't matter if Awad or Weiss are being honest, it matters only if they can curry public opinion to effect the result which they pursue.
It's worth understanding Morse' insights and keeping them in mind as you move forward. If you don't, you've lost an opportunity to learn.
BenEzra's complaint is with Awad for resigning, not the Select Board for accepting her resignation. There's a clue, the intellectual inconsistency should draw your attention. What is going on here?
BenEzra's, 'How can you let this happen?' plea, and his, 'This must never happen again!' demand, are high drama and likely a deception for another purpose.
Compelling moral outage, especially in Amherst, seems to be an effective way to brush over substantive argument and gain support.
A thinking person knows that until Awad convinces the police department or DA that a crime was committed, or a judge that she needs a protective order, there is no demonstrable substance to her accusation. It's ploy. How is it being used?
Weiss, Awad and Stein have common interests because none of them are so naive or so stupid as to think a resolution condeming political speech and unsubstantiated stalking and unsubstantiated threat of physical threat is in the realm of the Select Boards authority.
One way to test the theory is for the Select Board to resolve that the deadline for papers would not change, that the original papers would be accepted, and that the only thing to change is the date of the election.
The proposition is entirely reasonable and justifiable. Give it a go and see where the objections come from and the nature of them.
Alternatively, ask Weiss what he's up to, ask him to put his cards on the table rather than pulling these embarrassing unprofessional charades.
I know that there's a lot of love for Mr. Kelley on this blog, so let me state what all the scolding is about:
his viability as an advocate in this town.
Just how many hundreds, if not thousands of dollars have been saved at Cherry Hill because Mr. Kelley has acted as an effective counterweight to the Town's claims about the course?
We do not need to see Mr. Kelley marginalized as some creepy, stalker guy who's deeply disturbed.
And this year he has contributed to that image.
That's why the grumpy Yankee scolds the grumpy Irishman.
Rich Morse
who cares what ben ezzra says, he's a horse's ass. he. like o'connor speak without facts and both do not know what they are talking, perhaps that is why weiss listens to them. by the way vince, when is your umass war vetran going to announce his candidacy!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would suggest all interested parties to read The Shadow University by Kors & Silverglate, the latter of the Mass ACLU. See
http://www.shadowuniv.com/
What is going on here is very much like what happens in the more morally bankrupt of academic institutions, but only without the nuances.
There are two things going on here, first you prevent the other side from being able to speak and second you frame the argument as attacks on them instead of the facts. It is classic political correctness and I say this as one with personal knowledge of the plague of PC...
As is the fact that the ONLY tactic to take in such circumstances is to shoot back. Reason and rules won't work, this inevitably becomes a firefight with bullies on the other side. One thing about bullies, however, is that they are inherently cowards.
Ed
Ed Cutting
Larry,
This woman has not broken any residency laws, as the requirements for residency are so loose that you are basically a resident of wherever you declare yourself a resident. It doesn't matter at all where you own a home.
This was obvious years ago when George H. W. Bush declared room 271 at the Houstonian to be his residence for over 11 years when the only home he owned was in Kennebunkport, Maine.
I don't recall his resigning over this declaration or any prosecution.
If it's good enough for the Commander in Chief, it's good enough for her.
Bush v. Awad...
Bush's hotel room *and* the K'Port
property were both within the same electoral district.
It would be like someone not wanting to claim a residence in Southpoint instead claiming another -- illegal but less important because the resident (did)/(does) reside in the district.
If Awad claimed to live there and actually lived in a UM dorm, that would be one thing. But this....
No, Bush The Elder claimed a hotel suite in *Houston, Texas* as his primary residence.
Presumably to avoid state income taxes. (Texas has none.)
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1992/01/01/87059/index.htm
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