Modular classrooms back in March
Yesterday
UMass, acting as The Grinch, gave Amherst an early Christmas load of coal by destroying the town owned $215,000 portable classrooms installed behind the School of Education, aka the former "Mark's Meadow Elementary School."
Interestingly the town is still paying off the ten year $215K loan on the classrooms, which were never actually used as classrooms. Clueless Town Meeting almost unanimously authorized the expenditure in 2007, but Mark's Meadow closed down in 2010.
According to Superintendent Maria Geryk the downsizing saved $850,000 in the town's elementary budget, but was bitterly opposed by parents and some town officials with children attending Mark's Meadow.
School Committee member Catherine Sanderson became a combination Wicked Witch of the West & Joan of Arc (aka burned at the stake) for her leadership role in shuttering Mark's Meadow.
But these days even Superintendent Geryk uses it as an example of why the town should consider mothballing the Middle School building and relocating/consolidating students into the High School.
On Monday night the Select Board, with no input allowed, approved the Interim Town Manager signing a "Strategic Partnership Agreement" with UMass that for the first time in history pays something towards the 56 children from tax exempt UMass housing attending our public schools, at an estimated cost of $1,267,000.
Of course that something is a lousy $120,000 or less than ten cents on the dollar.
Wow that's pretty absurd. Seems like a call to UMass Facilities might be due.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile you wrote in the post that the town spent over $200k for portable classrooms, but I did not see a post ripping them a new one for doing so. For $200k you can build an entire house or small determinant school. For $100k the local tech school could have built 2 of those and learned something practical in the process, how to really work.
ReplyDeleteI say this having built about 100 structures in Mass, locally and otherwise, public, private and mobile. There is no way that box is worth $200k.
Bottom line, you cannot expect someone who does not actually earn the money to spend it effectively. They have no incentive to do so. There is no consequence to them if they waste it, over and over.
Perhaps this will teach the wasteful stewards of Amherst money to do a better job, if anyone actually cared about the waste, so never-mind, it will repeat, because it is your money they are spending, not theirs.
On another note, if there are 20 kids in there and a teacher for just 9 months learning just 3 basic concepts, that would cost the town $400,000 or more at $21k a student per year. Perhaps throwing this thing out saved the town quite a bit of money, especially since parents are now shifting to the better quality private and charter options.
It is also interesting to note that Amherst's Budget is about 8% of all income earned in Amherst by the citizens.... Amherst gets about 8c on the dollar from everyone who lives there.
ReplyDeleteWhich is it? Are you for saving money or not? The town of Amherst was never going to move them or have a use for them.
ReplyDeleteDoes UMass own outright the building and the grounds?
ReplyDeleteEverything belongs to UMass.
ReplyDeleteYou live in the past.
ReplyDeleteCompany town are we.
ReplyDeleteLarry, you know how UMass loves to tow -- and has a quota...
ReplyDeleteThese classrooms hadn't gotten a new parking decal...
Let this be a lesson to those old timers who complain constantly. You will be treated just like these modular buildings.
ReplyDeleteI do not go out so easily (otherwise they would have done it a long time ago).
ReplyDeleteLarry, these are three serious questions that you might want to try to get answered, even if the answers don't fit your political agenda (and add the $120,000 that UM also paid to install them in '07 -- you always double 'real world' costs for Physical Plant/Facilities Services work).
ReplyDelete1: Loans are secured by the item purchased by the loan, and even if the item becomes valueless, it must be physically retained until the loan has been repaid -- it must not be discarded. UM-OIT ran into this when the purchased a formerly-rented an IBM mainframe and then retired it 18 months later (in the 1990s) -- for years they had to keep all these refrigerator-sized components in the hallways & such.
2: You have to insure the secured property against loss. And it now has been "lost." As in "gone", like two historic structures on campus, but I digress...
3: In general, anyone may repay a loan.
Hence:
1: Did UM simply repay the rest of the debt to clear the land?
I wouldn't be surprised -- they waste student money like it isn't theirs.
2: If not, will either Amherst or the underwriters file a claim for the loss?
3: Who is paying the disposal costs? That's not cheap....
Much ado about nothing.
ReplyDeleteWe shall see.
ReplyDeleteDo you know they were destroyed? Could be moved.
ReplyDeleteTwo construction workers said "destroyed" (last week).
ReplyDeleteI have a couple questions....
ReplyDeleteAre we sure UMass and the town didn't communicate regarding this? The town did't basically say, "Yeah, we have no use for it, do what you will"?
Even if the there was no communication and UMass just went ahead and did it, the town had more than enough time to remove them. Its not UMass' problem, and thy don't want it. So bye bye.
If the town and UMass communicated about this then it would have been in a secret meeting that violates Open Meeting Law.
ReplyDeleteDid you ask the school department if they knew about it?
ReplyDeleteOpen Meeting Law doesn't apply to UM Admin.
ReplyDeleteThere couldn't be an ACT if it did -- every one of the victims would have to have been given prior notice, opportunity to attend, with a lawyer.
And a tape recorder...
I'd just have mailed a copy of the tape to every media outlet, the FBI, US Attorney, accreditation commission & assorted professional associations -- and sat back and watched the "bloodbath" happen -- half the admin would likely have been in jail by the time it was over.
And when they go to jail, I'll go away. So folks, encourage Larry to dig because it is a list of "who" and that they go to jail -- I don't care for what....
I don't even care if they are innocent -- of this...
UMass Delenda Est
It comes down to whether the town is going to press a claim for something it didn't need or want.
ReplyDeleteEd, you deranged emails must really help your job prospects.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seemed to hurt them any, Short Lobster Co is doing very well.
ReplyDeleteHope you're willing to defend defining Biblical quotations as "deranged" though.
Oh, I understand, you consider the King James Bible to itself be "deranged."
HINT: Lots of other folk don't -- UMass Delenda Est.
These comments really demonstrate that these old goats really, really do not have a life.#oldmanslivesdon'tmatter
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the other part of the Santa Claus legend -- what happens to the bad children. They get eaten -- boiled alive and eaten.
ReplyDeleteBoiled alive and eaten. #respectyoureldersoryou'relunch
ReplyDeletePS Plural of "man" is "men", not "mans" -- unlike as in cats or guns where you just tack an "s" on the end.
You must be a UMassHack not to know that -- and in Germany, they instead slice 'n' dice the bad children and put them into the barrel of brine along with the salt pork.
"What's Yours Is Mine"
ReplyDeleteSeems to me the headline is backwards and should be "What's Mine is Yours."
I was looking at it, arrogantly, from a UMass perspective.
ReplyDeleteIt must be great to be an expert on everything, and always have the right answers.
ReplyDeleteMust be frustrating to be an ineffective troll.
ReplyDeleteWhat has to happen before we get new leadership of our schools?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Open Meeting Law has been invoked in error here.
ReplyDeleteRich Morse
I don't see that Open Meeting has anything to do with this.
ReplyDeleteIf the Select Board was informed by the Interim Town Manager and they gave their permission for the demo (in a non public meeting) that would be a violation of OML.
ReplyDeleteMaria has to retire first --- or be bought out.
ReplyDeleteGo for it Larry!
ReplyDeleteWhat was the agreement when the town turned the school back over to UMass?
ReplyDeleteThe previous agreement clearly stated that if Mark's Meadow closed the University could return to the bargaining table to pay real money for children attending our public schools from their tax exempt housing.
ReplyDeleteThat of course never happened.
Nice try, but the question is about the portable classrooms, as that's the subject you discussed in your post.
ReplyDeleteClearly interconnected.
ReplyDeleteAnd since UMass did not live up to that part of the written agreement why would they live up to anything pertaining to the portable classrooms.
ReplyDeleteThey are paying money under the new agreement, just not the amount you want.
ReplyDeleteThey were "paying money" under the old agreement, just not nearly the amount they should have been paying.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. I am sure that at some point Ms Geryk said those portables were going to be sold. No buyers?
ReplyDeleteSqueaky I'm not going to publish that. One obscenity I can deal with, but not two.
ReplyDeleteYour comments towards School officials are under a microscope these days, and I just don't need the freaking aggravation.
Why are Squeaky's comments to school officials under a microscope?!?
ReplyDeleteLarry, you are free to publish or not publish whatever you damn well please, but I think that _Cohen v. California_ spoke to obscenities, that's the case where someone wrote "Fire Truck The Draft" (with five less letters) on his coat and wore it into a courthouse "where women & children were present."
And we do have the right to criticize governmental officials, don't we?
Having heard what was said about Bush & Cheney, I ask why Maria G is entitled to be protected from such vitriol?
It'd be incredibly poor form, but one even has the right to comment on her weight or girth -- just like drawing Ted Cruz's children as monkeys -- poor form, but protected speech.
Just because I can publish something doesn't mean I should.
ReplyDeleteI'm not the government, so whatever I choose not to publish is not a First Amendment violation.
I don't have a problem if Squeaky (or anyone else) uses obscenities. I am more concerned when he seems to be making veiled threats to harm someone. Larry, do you feel an obligation to help prevent any possible acts of violence?
ReplyDeleteYes I do
ReplyDeleteAnd as I already told the Amherst police: if I think someone is a threat, I will instantly notify authorities.
"Why are Squeaky's comments to school officials under a microscope?!?"
ReplyDeleteThank you Ed.
Remember the "Larry is a pedophile" campaign? Remember when "the district"
trespassed him? Whose idea was that?
And remember this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ28PkXShzg
See anyone you know? See a pattern?
So Ni-ni dear, the "violence" has ALWAYS been on ~your~ side
not ours.
Disgusting.
Shame on you. Shame on them.
-Squeaky Squeaks
p.s. Hope you get the promotion Nina. $$$ You've worked hard for it!
Squeeky definitely gets the award for most incoherent posts.
ReplyDeleteYou fail to see the attempted poetry in Squeaky's jottings.
DeleteI am more concerned when he seems to be making veiled threats to harm someone. Larry, do you feel an obligation to help prevent any possible acts of violence?
ReplyDeleteWillie Horton is a violent man. Willie Horton is Black. QED all Black men are violent men. Larry, don't you feel an obligation to help prevent any possible act of violence?
Hence lets go lynch all Black men to prevent White women from being raped. That was the logic of the Klu Klux Klan -- and Nina, do you have any idea of what happened next? Or do you approve of what they did?
Oh, and Larry -- two historical facts: The Klan was bigger in New England than in the South & it was Irish Catholics they disliked, burning Convents and other things on the basis of Nina's logic.
The Catholics were a threat (to the Protestant theocracy) -- it's how we define "threat" that kinda matters.
Is Squeaky threatening to murder folks -- that's a crime -- or threatening to get people indicted -- that's protected free speech. And the mere fact the Police investigate Squeaky because of the latter is a Federal Civil Rights Violation -- as she is a public employee, even Nazi Nina's spiel arguably violates The Anti-Klan Act of 1874 -- 46 USC 1983.
With a competent lawyer (or if the ACLU actually cared about the "CL" stuff), Squeaky could become very, very rich...
And hassling Larry to pressure him not to publish Squeaky's squeaks constitutes conspiring to violate civil rights -- there is case law in terms of race and elsewise. While it's Larry's choice (sort of), if he's bullied into it, it's the bullying that is illegal.
** I say "sort of" because not everyone is allowed to take pictures in the courthouse, or is exempt from driving bans -- does that put you into the category of innkeepers and bus companies? Its an interesting question -- what freedom do you surrender for the privilege to take pictures in court?
Ah yes, the KKK is brought up. The Democrat party is big in Amherst, but this part of their history they overlook.
DeleteLarry, do you feel an obligation to help prevent any possible acts of violence?
ReplyDeleteLet's eliminate school buses too -- so as to eliminate any possibility that a child might be run over by a bus. And cops walking around with guns -- we can't have that...
Nina's logic is what led to the Holocaust....
Larry, maybe trained law enforcement professionals should be deciding whether or not someone is a threat. Sounds like you have appointed yourself the arbiter.
ReplyDeleteDear Squeak'ums --
ReplyDeleteI am retired (the best possible promotion).
Ni-ni
Nina, if you perceive a threat, you shoul be the one to report it. Not to Larry, though. Call the authorities! Why not take responsibility instead of passing around your innuendo?
DeleteI have. I am the arbiter of my blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's been almost nine years with not a single resulting dead body.
Look again at the comment she's freaking out over. Perhaps the most benign he's ever launched in her direction.
I look forward to everyone going back to work tomorrow. It's getting kinda nutty round here. Too much time on your hands.
ReplyDeleteActually not much work gets done the week between Christmas and New Year.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think Squeaky was trying to say was that the school district has a demonstrated history of making false allegations of potential violence and using the Police to silence critics.
ReplyDeleteLarry Kelly is many things -- a child molester is not one of them -- and he raised a legitimate issue -- the school did not comply with legal minimum requirements for occupation. (Note how they are now saying the school needs to be replaced...)
The parents in South Hadley had legitimate concerns and they were silenced, essentially at gunpoint. (If we had an ACLU, they'd have sued -- if you have a public forum, everyone can speak at it.)
My advice to Squeaky would be to go to the FBI, I really doubt that the APD could justify harassing you -- or that they'd really want to try.
My advice to everyone else is to either admit that you are closed-minded bigots with a pathological paranoia about everything & everyone outside your own delusional clique, or start "walking the walk" on stuff like civil rights & diversity.
ReplyDeleteLook again at the comment she's freaking out over. Perhaps the most benign he's ever launched in her direction.
It's she who is threatening violence against him, and not the other way around.
There really is no difference between what she is doing in an attempt to silence him and someone pulling a fire alarm to disrupt an event, to silence a speaker.
Or calling in a bomb threat to prevent an event (e.g. Vagina Monologues). In all cases, one is alleging serious likely harm that one knows not to exist -- and all three are actually criminal offenses.
She is tying up police time that could/should be better used preventing/solving actual crimes! How is that different from pulling a false alarm and tying up equally valuable EMS/FF time? And how many times would that have to happen at school committee meetings before there was a consensus to put an end to it?
And we need to look at the underlying bigotry & prejudice being exploited here...
Larry, remember that The Holocaust did not start with the Jews. The Nazis started with someone else first, and that was the point where it could have been stopped/prevented had folks spoken up then -- when they then came for the Jews, it was already too late...
Regardless of whether the commentator is or is not an actual physical threat to the person he comments about, anonymously posting a video about an abortion clinic, during a period of increased concerns about violence, and then soon after anonymously referring to the town employee by name, (after years of anonymous posts about her,) and saying, "and soon the whole world will know your name", is an attempt to intimidate and harass that person.
ReplyDeleteAnd I had a Select Board member try to get me arrested for using a photo of a cat with a mouse in its mouth to headline a story about her deception coming to light.
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about this, the more I find it disturbing.
ReplyDelete"Larry, maybe trained law enforcement professionals should be deciding whether or not someone is a threat."
Not "is making threats" but "is a threat" -- we are no longer talking about what a person has done, but a person's very state of being, what the person is. Only God knows that -- and as Bill Cosby appears to have shown us, people quite often are not what we think they are.
That's why Western Civilization has always gone with little things called "facts" -- why its what you have done, and not who you are, that matters in things like this. Even Judge Dredd based his decisions on what someone had done, not who he/she/it was...
...and due process is not about letting the guilty go free but making sure they really are guilty in the first place. There was a reason why it was included in the post-Civil War Amendments.
Hence, not only is law enforcement unable to determine what someone is, as opposed to what he/she/it has actually done, they have no right to! This is a free country, and folks need to remember that.
"Larry, do you feel an obligation to help prevent any possible acts of violence?"
This is obtuse -- an impossible standard to meet even were we willing to abandon any scintilla of individual freedom or civil rights.
Larry, I ask a different question -- do you not feel an obligation to preserve and protect the freedoms which we all enjoy?
And one other thought -- Nina probably knows enough about computers to be able to hack into CDH's computers and (via tampering with medical records) kill people. There is (I presume) no evidence she'd ever do that, but because she could, merely because we think she could, we need to toss her in a cage for the general good of society.
Never forget that the Salem (actually Danvers) Witch hysteria of 1691-2 only ended when the Governor's own wife was named as a witch....
"referring to the town employee by name, (after years of anonymous posts about her,) and saying, "and soon the whole world will know your name", is an attempt to intimidate and harass that person.'
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Raymond Asselin would have agreed with that -- but as it was the US Attorney and FBI who told the whole world his name, ummm....
Has Squeaky had a chat with the FBI?
Don't snitches get stitches?
ReplyDeleteNot ones who know how to handle themselves.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Squeaky, instead of leaving us to speculate about your intentions, why don't you just state them for us? What did you mean when you said that soon the whole world will love Kathy Mazur?
ReplyDeleteWhy are all the long winded debates between the same 4 or 5 people???
ReplyDeleteLooks like with one big net, we can solve every problem...
Nina,
ReplyDeleteIt's not worth it. Do what I do: scroll past.
Rich Morse
As should Kathy Mazur.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Ms. Mazur just get a promotion & a raise? Nothing like seeing the ARPS central office take care of their own.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you mean when you said that soon the whole world will love Kathy Mazur?
ReplyDeleteIf that is a threat, then I am an anorexic lesbian gymnast.
Nina, what alternate dimension of reality do you exist in?
Well you're an Anon, so for all we know you are a anorexic lesbian gymnast.
ReplyDeleteNot that there's anything wrong with that (the lesbian part that is).
Larry, am I correct to assume that if an anon persistently commented, over many years, in the very same way that Fraidy Mouse does, with the only difference being that the comments were directed toward Ms. Sanderson not Ms. Mazur, you would not have posted them?
ReplyDeleteNo you are not correct. (And you must be new here.)
ReplyDeleteNina can't report it because there isn't anything to report, but in constantly claiming "danger", she can make people believe one exists when it doesn't.
ReplyDeleteRemember Sen Joe McCarthy -- he was good at that.
At least he was drunk -- what's Nina's excuse?
"Nina Koch said...
ReplyDeleteOkay, Squeaky, instead of leaving us to speculate about your intentions, why don't you just state them for us? What did you mean when you said that soon the whole world will love Kathy Mazur?"
You don't need to know my intentions, Ni-ni.
However, whatever I do/have done
it will never/hasn't
EVER
involve(d) breaking the law.
~EVER~.
"Has Squeaky had a chat with the FBI?"
Squeaky has a lot of people "chatting".
Your little "Fraidy Mouse",
-Squeaky Squeaks
Let's not let self-importance creep in here. Other than its being a way of life in the blogosphere. I'm beginning to see where all this hot air Is in direct proportion to global warming. I'm a denier, but think i'm coming around.
ReplyDelete