So progressive South Hadley (Mayor/Council here they come), with our cast off School Superintendent Gus Sayer, decided to ignore Federal Law on pool safety and will keep their school pool open until coming into compliance next week with a year-old law.
Of course you have to wonder if a volunteer rookie skin diver is certified to install the retrofit kit. But since the local Board of Health is not empowered to enforce the law, who the Hell cares.
And in the People's Republic of Amherst the local Board of Health doesn't seem to care that an elementary school with over 400 kids operates without hot water (a violation of state and federal law). So why be overly careful with the pool?
The Republican reports
Seems to me that you misread the article. They already have anti-entrapment devices so the kids are not at any risk. They just don't have devices that have been officially certified so they are replacing them.
ReplyDeleteYou always try to make something out of nothing.
Seems you misread Larry who obviously gives a sh*t about the safety of children and the carelessness, stupidity and corruption that puts them at risk.
ReplyDeleteI bet you always try to make nothing out of something.
Thanks Anon (2). Could not have said it any better.
ReplyDeleteActually, Not only did South Hadley Defy this requirement, so did Belchertown and Chicopee. Many other communities hustled to meet the requirement. Amherst did not. They over and under reacted. Larry is right. Sorry to bust your bubble annonymous.
ReplyDeleteDavid Farnham
The article Larry posted didn't say anything of substance about Amherst. It was about S. Hadley.
ReplyDeleteWell Anon, that's why you come here: to get information of substance.
ReplyDeleteBelchertown is ignoring the law and now so is South Hadley (who also ignored ADA law when buidling a new Wal-Mart quality Clubhouse at their $6 million White Elephant golf course.)
And since we are talking school pools, what kind of message does that send to kids when a municipality ignores Federal law?
Amherst is not going to ignore the law, but as David pointed out they had a year to get their act together and fix the problem. And they did not.
Larry, call the Dept of Education in Malden and be done with it. File a formal complaint and the bureucrats there will have to talk to the bureaucrats in Amherst and do something.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is the Mass Dept of Public Health in Northampton. And then the regional office of the US Dept of Education in Boston. THAT one would get some folks going...\
Play hardball....
Until there is a full investigation and someone rips the corruption wide open there will always be these problems. People that work in the Amherst system are just worried about keeping their jobs and NOT doing the right thing. If you report a problem you get the labelled "troublemaker". I still have to feed my kids and I'm not willing to put my ass on the line because the corruption is so deep I'll get burried--get it!!!!
ReplyDeleteI would like to suggest something. Anyone truly interested in the day to day madness of the school maintenance transportation dept (so called) can simply buy a receiver from radio shack and set it to the frequency they transmit on. I don't have one myself but I know there are people who do that in town... You just have to get the frequency (call town-hall?) and have the radio set to receive it. You will be able to listen to all communications between the office base and the vans/buses... accidents etc etc etc...
ReplyDeleteForget asking the town, just google it. The FCC lists all these frequencies on their web page, I forget the url. It is public info.
ReplyDeleteTwo things will shake up Amherst. First there is a new and likely quite aggressive newspaper - the UMass Minuteman, the unapologetically conservative campus newspaper. We are going to cover some of the town as well.
ReplyDeleteNice thing about being unapologetically conservative is that you really don't care who hates you because far too many allegedly liberal Liberals will do so out of spite. So you can cover whatever you please.
And the other thing will be the coming budget crunch which I have been worried about for about 2 years now. It is a tusami and the powers that be have been ignoring it....
People with jobs tend to keep their mouths shut and all. I undrestand - but once the layoffs start and folk start resenting the fact that it was they and not the connected schmuch who was laid off, well folks will talk.
And talk...
Look at Springfield. It took the threat of receivorship to put an end to the Asslin family. So too here...
Most of the people working there are friends since childhood...
ReplyDeleteCover-ups are very easy like this.
> Most of the people working there
ReplyDelete> are friends since childhood...
Problem is that when you get a budget crunch, a serious one like we have coming now (and where even an override won't bail everything out) you have these friends start to turn on each other.
One can look at the budget issues of the Dukakas meltdown, 1989-91, but that was solved by increased taxes and fees which likely won't be tolerated this time. This time we will have budget cuts statewide.
The analogy I look at is where the Commonwealth was circa 1973 or so, and the tumultious nature of the generational change that occurred between the WW-II/WASP clique that had been ruling thing, and the newer/younger "reformers" that moved into power in the '70s. And these are the now good-old-boys and they, too, will be ousted in the midst of this budget crunch.
Crisis also means opportunity for change...