UMass/Amherst: Juggernaut of the Happy Valley
Leave the torches and pitchforks behind, but do bring to the meeting a protective passion for the most important possession you own: a home. Because if you do not feel safe and comfortable in your own home then everything else is secondary.
And how can you feel safe and comfortable when the noise level in the dead of night is akin to a highway construction project, or hoards of strangers stream by, some taking the time to vomit or urinate (or worse) on your front lawn, or a drunken pair decided to kick in your front door while your family is fast asleep?
When it's your life and that of your family routinely inconvenienced, it's of no consolation that the University of Massachusetts is in the top ten for housing students on campus.
The fact of the matter is rowdy student behavior from a tiny minority of off campus UMass students is a major problem, and UMass needs to hear that loud and clear.
The answers employed -- handing out oatmeal cookies or creating whimsical cartoon characters in PR handouts -- have not worked. Neither has the discipline meted out over the past year.
So let them hear that tonight, on their home court. After all, a bitch session is better than nothing. (Maybe they will have a staff psychiatrist open the meeting with, "I'm listening.")
I would have gone, if I hadn't already known the meeting was nothing but PR and BS. I am a homeowner, who literately had their front door kick in by a UMASS student (confirmed through records, doubters) who was not only drunk as a skunk but also under suspicion of being under the influence of some mind altering narcotics of some sort. This 'individual' insisted he lived at my home (NOT) and was demanding to be let in, when I did not comply he proceeded to break down my front door. This at 2AM in the morning! Even when police arrived and confronted him, he hadn't a clue who the officers were or why they were there. This 'individual' was out of his mind! For all of those who live in this town and think it is a 'safe place, free of bad drugs and crime' you are mistaken. These kids are doing hard core mind altering drugs that make them a threat to anyone around them. Crack is here, Meth is here, Bath-salts are here, and Heroin is here, gone are the days of powder cocaine and Marijuana (once thought to be BAD) now look at what we have here! Open your eyes SHEEPLE!
ReplyDelete