Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Let The Scrutiny Begin

List of 113 candidates for Amherst Town Meeting's 80 three-year seats divided over ten precincts, eight per precinct. (Click on a name for background link.) UPDATED Thursday afternoon to include one and two year seats.

In an ideal world there are only 3 year seats available (Town Meeting is made up of 240 three year seats, so that's why 80 are up every year.)  But when a person wins a three year seat, serves one year and then leaves town, the two year balance of their term then becomes a two year seat opening, or one year opening if they served two years of the three.


Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 1 candidates for 3 year seat (8 available)

Nonny Burak, Melissa Perot, Sarah Swartz, Christian Rodrick, Jonathan Lieber, Michael Martin, David Webber, Terry Franklin, Paola DiStefano, Meg Gage, Ryan Teixeira, Philip Gosselin, Stephen King, Steven Brewer Savannah Van-Leuvan-Smith, Matthew E Cunningham-Cook.
Precinct 1 seat for two years (1 open 4 candidates:  Muthoni Magua, Lawrence Francis Quigley 3rd, Nicholas K Bromell, Richard N Calderone

Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 2 candidates for 3 year seat (8 available) 

 Nolar Anaya, Meg Rosa, Edith MacMullen, Michael Birtwistle, William Mullin, Robert Biagi, Jean Schwartz, Ira Addes, Richard Gold, Michael Turner, Cyrus Cox, Adrienne Levine, Matthew Charity
Precinct 2 for One Year seat (one seat open):  Kenneth L Hargreaves
 Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 3 candidates for 3 year seat

 
Robert Kusner, Marcy Sala, Kathleen Carroll
Precinct 3 for Two Years (3 seats open):  Pietro Tarone, Fletcher Clark, Ethan Clotfelter
Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 4 candidates for 3 year seat

Derrick Andrews, Walter Fernandez-Pereira, Patricia Blauner, Stephen George, Michael Giles, Caroline Murray, Trevor Pilkington, Christopher Stahl, Thomas Vulaj, Finn McCook, Peter R. Blies, Michael Rosson
Precinct 4 two year seat (2 open):  Katherine Troast, William M. Kendall
Precinct 4 one year seat (1 open):  Margot S O'Connor, Patrick D Sadlon
Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 5 candidates for 3 year seat

Precinct 5 two years seats (2 open):  Andrew P. Grant-Thomas, Melissa E. Giraud
Precinct 5 one year seat (1 open): Jacqueline L Maidana, Willis W. Chen, Nina Wishengrad

Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 6 candidates for 3 year seat 

Tracelee Boutilier, Ruth Smith, Richard Cairn, Michael Burkart, James Smith, Joan Logan, Paul Drummond, Mari Castaneda, Joseph Krupczynski, Renee Moss, Stephen Jefferson, Bernard Brennan, Lisa Kleinholz
Precinct 6 one year seat (1 open):  James Brissette, Andrew Melnechuk

 Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 7 candidates for 3 year seat

Richard Morse,Viraphanh Douangmany, John Boothroyd, Albert Chevan, Jim Brassord, Isabelle Callahan, Chris Hoffman, Gertrude Como, Kevin Vanderleeden, Robert Wellman, Carol Gray
Precinct 7 one year seat (1 open):  John A Hornik
Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 8 candidates for 3 year seat


Nelson Acosta, Janice Ratner, David Mullins, James Boice, Issac BenEzra, Frank Gatti, Bernard Kubiak, Julia Marcus, Geoffrey Sullivan

 Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 9 candidates for 3 year seat

Precinct 9 One Year seat (1 open):  Susan Roznoy, Diana Alsabe

Amherst Town Meeting Precinct 10 candidates for 3 year seat 

Gretchen Fox, Steven Bloom, Nancy Gordon, Paige Wilder, Stephen Brawn, Scott Keating, James Turner, Brett Butler, Kristaq Stefani, Perry Moorstein, Byron Georgellis, Christine Kline, Gabor Lukacs, Marc Boyd

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are singling out Precinct 1 because?

Larry Kelley said...

Fear not, I will get to all of them.

Waiting for a slow news day.

Or snow day.

Anonymous said...

So what's with Precinct 3, Larry?

Are you telling us that they just don't care there?

Unknown said...

Larry, Where is your name?

Larry Kelley said...

It's on everything I write; where's yours?

Every year 8 of the 24 seats are up for election. Last year I was elected to a three-year seat.

So in other words, I'm not up for reelection.

Anonymous said...

Hello, Unknown. Don't you know how this works?

Only one-third of the body is up for election to three-year terms each year.

Methinks Larry's an incumbent with a year or two to run on his term.

Larry Kelley said...

Wow, we tied on that. If I were still a drinking man I would say "you owe me a beer."

Anonymous said...

I much prefer the open town meeting where any (and all) registered voters can show up.

Larry, imagine how much easier it would be to make progress if EVERY registered voter could show up and vote on something controversial. Realistic changes to zoning could actually happen.

And if everyone does show up, then you go to overflow rooms linked via AV cables. This isn't as bad as it sounds because usually most everyone has already made up their minds already and the questions get called rather quickly.

What usually happens is that most folk are sitting home watching it on CATV and debate consists largely of certain key people saying "I support this" or "I oppose this" -- not even really saying why as the folks watching really just want to see who's going which way on it.

And then everyone comes rushing in to vote. And then goes right back home. And there's usually a "gentlemen's agreement" to agree to a 15-30 minute recess between calling the question and the voting so as to prevent auto accidents and such -- and you don't have to pay for child care because as they are only going to be there for 5 minutes or so, folks can (and do) bring the children with them.

There's nothing preventing paper ballots for town meeting questions, and one rather small community I know does that to prevent violence.

Larry, imagine how different Amherst would be if the first 200 voters who showed up got to debate the questions, everyone else watching on live TV, and then EVERY registered voter had a half hour to show up and cast his/her/its paper ballot on the issue. That would be democracy.

And while somewhat chaotic, it would tend to be saner than what happens now...

Anonymous said...


Larry, I'm going to call you on this for a reason:

If I were still a drinking man I would say "you owe me a beer."

That attitude is why we have a problem with alcohol in this country. Exactly why would it be an alcoholic beverage that the person owes you? (I'm ignoring the debt and the nature of the comment itself.)

If another adult does something nice for you, such as helping you dig your car out of a snowbank, and you wish to treat the person to something, why must it involve beer?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with beer, I happen to like it very much, but I also like pizza and ice cream. Why must alcohol be involved in what is a social gesture?

Why pressure people to drink? It's probably the only thing I will agree with the prohibitionists on, and on this they are right.

Anonymous said...

9:47 said: "imagine how much easier it would be to make progress if EVERY registered voter could show up and vote on something controversial"

A lot of things could be easier, but that is not what Amherst wants. Amherst is designed so that only a few can make decision, keeping Amherst in the dark ages and preventing it from changing for the better.

kevin said...

Sorry to bother you with this, Larry, how many seats are open in each precinct? Precincts 1 & 2 say "8 available", nothing for the rest.

This would tell us how many write-in slots are open.

Good job, did you type all those names?

Larry Kelley said...

Yes I did.

I stopped at the Town Clerk 's office this morning before Joint Capital Planning meeting but they were closed (don't open till noon on Thursdays).

Heading there now.

Anonymous said...

To Feb 6 @9:58 - Typical Amherst. Creating a controversy where there is none, commenting on a non-issue to make it an issue. You people have too much time on your hands. Why on earth don't you fret about something a little more serious, like rapes on campus or child abuse or homeless people freezing to death on the street.

Anonymous said...

I think that Anon 9:58's comment must be a spoof on Amherst's hypersensitivity.

No way that's on the level. We're getting our leg pulled there.

Tom McBride said...

What's to scrutinize? I thought if you showed a library card, they'd let you vote at town meeting.

Anonymous said...

I think anyone who looks like they belong could sit at town meeting and vote. They would have to run to the bathroom during tally votes though. Confidence is a very powerful tool.

Tom McBride said...

Even a library card or chutzpah as you put it isn't necessary. If you can sit through the many meetings, not fall asleep, follow the literature, you deserve to have a vote. There were people (two or three in my precinct) who got their name on the roster, took a position away from somebody else, yet didn't attend a single meeting. Not one. There were also those that maybe attended one meeting. You can check attendance records I believe on the town website (precinct 8). There may of been cases in other precincts also.

Anonymous said...

If you think Anon 9:58 is pulling your leg, you don't know Ed. Or you're unfamiliar with the signs of Asperger's, OCD, or whatever it is that compels him to manufacture and fixate on nonissues that read like jokes to everyone else.

Now just wait and count to thirty. You can be sure that he'll fire back with something about the illegality of diagnosing without a license, or about the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, or about all the times UMass locked him into a padded room without due process, or a non sequitur (which is Latin for "ain't Ed funny?") about the time he drove a truck to the rescue of the Freedom Riders.

Anonymous said...

Um, hello? Does anyone understand REPRESENTATION? You are supposed to tell your Town Meeting members how you want them to vote. Oh, too much reading for you? Then quit your ...