Wednesday, May 25, 2011

A voice for the animals

Amherst Town Meeting closed out the warrant on Wednesday night with over a two-thirds vote to allow raising chickens and rabbits in residential neighborhoods (#33) and then quickly followed up by overwhelmingly passing Article #34, an 'Animal Welfare' bylaw to protect those animals.

On Monday night Amherst Town Meeting voted down back-to-back zoning articles that would have helped to prevent the construction of non-owner occupied, rental property prone to student overcrowding, and a bylaw preventing grassy lawns from serving as a parking lot.

Amherst Town Meeting seems to care more for chickens and rabbits than they do hard working human residents who have invested their life savings to buy their piece of the American dream: a home. With the endless amounts of work required to maintain it, plus the significant annual membership fee to the town in taxes.

Chickens and rabbits in a residential neighborhood will not bring down property values or threaten public safety; a run down slum of a party house most certainly will.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Courtesy gazettenet.com-- maybe instead of chickens we can tame Umass kids....
AMHERST - Even with most college students departing Amherst at the end of the semester, student housing adjacent to the University of Massachusetts campus continues to create issues for the Police Department.

Wednesday at 2:33 a.m., police were called to a home at 15 Allen St. where loud people were reported to be disturbing the neighborhood.

When officers got there, a resident, identified as Heather M. Cannon, 23, of Kauai, Hawaii, refused to cooperate with police instructions to clear out her guests, instead arguing that there was no one in the neighborhood to disturb. According to the emergency dispatch narrative, Cannon "began to argue with officers about the legitimacy of the complaint, stating that everyone had already left for the semester."

She then went inside the home, slamming the front door and repeatedly yelled out from the windows.

Guests attempted to calm Cannon down, but were unsuccessful, and police said they placed her under arrest on a charge of violating the town's noise bylaw. The bylaw carries with it up to a $300 fine.

Coincidentally, Cannon posted on the Facebook wall of an organization called "Students Against Amherst Bylaws" in December 2009, expressing her anger toward police. This came several months after she was arrested for the second time in Amherst on a charge of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

At 4:30 a.m., police were called back to the same area when two women were seen taking items from porches on Phillips Street and throwing them into the roadway. Officers caught up with the women at a home at 29 Allen St. a short time later, and the women admitted they had created the mess and agreed to remove the items from the street.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable.

Larry Kelley said...

I'm not sure why Mr. Merzbach used the word "coincidentally" when mentioning that Ms. Cannon had posted/supported the Nitwit Facebook page "Students against Amherst bylaws".

Does not sound like a coincidence in the least.

Like the Nitwits who started the Facebook page "F_ck the fines." Then get busted a few months later for violating said fines.

Anonymous said...

So, town meeting successfully blocked two articles that would have restricted private property rights (duplexes and parking), and then approved a warrant article that removes a restriction on the use of private property (bunnies and chickens). Both of these should appeal to freedom-loving libertarians, no?

Larry Kelley said...

Yeah, the same folks who want to legalize ALL drugs because your body is YOUR body and the government should have no control.

Anonymous said...

I urge everyone to travel down the Allen St/ Phillips St area to see the slums of Amherst.
I will say the wealth of pot holes enhances the experience.

BTW- Does the town own Meadow St? No apparent attempts to fix the many pot holes there.

Larry Kelley said...

Indeed we own it.

Anonymous said...

... and it's about to get fixed.

Larry Kelley said...

Amazing what you can accomplish with $4.5 million.