UMass is the town's largest employer and a city unto itself
The town and University of Massachusetts will most likely start a one year "pilot program" in September to register off campus parties to help reduce the burden noise complaints place on the police department thus freeing them up to do more important work like taking drunk drivers off the road.
Forum this evening only attracted three neighbors but another one is scheduled for 6/15
A registered party that receives a complaint from a neighbor called in to Dispatch will get a phone call from APD warning them of the violation and giving them 20 minutes to end the party.
If they comply no arrests are made and no $300 tickets are issued for "noise" or "nuisance" or both. Thus saving the tenants money and the major hassle of being arrested while making it unnecessary for two APD cruisers to respond.
The program will cost the town nothing as UMass will do the paperwork and getting the word out by social media, advertising and messaging.
And in fact could save the town significantly in reduced calls. The program has been very successful in fellow college towns like Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado.
A similar policy was effective in Boulder, CO. I was there to see it.
ReplyDeleteBefore the policy, many students felt persecuted by neighbors... "It doesn't matter what we do, the old farts always call police even though we aren't doing anything wrong"
The registration program helped the young adults to learn that the issue is their behavior, not them personally. This helped them to act more like adults, which of course is the goal!
This is a win-win. Fosters a much better relationship with the students. Will continue to control nuisance parties, but also doesn't screw the kids over right away when something does get to big/loud. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad I graduated when I did -- the whole place is turning into a fascist gulag.
ReplyDeleteToday's Boston Globe talks about colleges engaging in an "arms race" of amenities and student enjoyment. UM-Amherst isn't going to do well in a world of shrinking high school enrollments, why would anyone want to live in Amherst?
Like "amplified music is discouraged"??? What are the kids supposed to do, listen to the peepfrogs?
Larry, all this will accomplish is encourage students to rent further away, much as they started renting in Hadley, they'll now go to Belchertown, Deerfield, Chicopee, & Ware. This not only will increase vehicle congestion downtown but when they have parties, you're going to have people driving drunk rather than walking drunk.
And what could possibly go wrong then?
You didn't graduate, Ed, except in the strictest technical sense. You were socially promoted.
ReplyDeleteYep, keep disparaging my doctorate, in doing so you inherently harm not me, but the UMass "brand" itself -- you harm "town 'n' gown." Not me.
ReplyDeleteLarry, are you old enough to remember the bankruptcy of the PennCentral Railroad and the subsequent consequences? Or what caused it?
The real students at UMass have become more insular. Everything they need to learn and live is available on campus, and alcohol/drugs is not of interest to them. And I mean the 90% of students who attend classes regularly, hold themselves accountable for their grades and behavior, and are truly here for an education.
ReplyDeleteThe 10% bad-apples, as Dr. Ed says, demean the value of our degrees and our town. However, it's in everyone's interest to teach our "yoots" gently but firmly what it means to be an adult. I believe that together with rental regulation, this program will help accomplish that without being unduly burdensome on anyone involved.
No, the administration demeans the value of our degrees, and as to the town, are you familiar with the term "parasite"?
ReplyDeleteIf you somehow think that 90% of the students are members of the WCTU, you have your head so far up your you-know-what that you are at risk of E-Coli poisoning.
Your "gunpoint" survey results may come in that way, but how many people tell the MassDOR about the tax-free stuff they bought in NH?
And as to the drugs, it's the crackdown on beer that produced them. What's easier to hide, a keg or a ziplock baggie that some girl can hide in her underwear?
But I neither said nor implied what you attributed to me.
And I believe that this is just one more hole in a leaking/sinking ship.
Larry, their Alcohol Nazi once produce a survey result that said a massive majority of UM students felt that underaged drinking should be "punished more harshly" than hate crimes. Now this made no sense to me and I called her on it -- and after first trying to intimidate me (like a certain school system is want to do), she finally conceded that the results she was trying to claim were inconsistent with just about everything known about the UM student body.
ReplyDeleteNow she neither retracted those "table tent" statements nor provided access to the basis for her bizarre claim -- and Larry, UMASS LIES!
Students don't like that place-- they tolerate it and they might like certain parts, but as a whole rhe universal consensus is UMASS SUCKS!
Anonymous Dr. Ed said...
ReplyDeleteLarry, their Alcohol Nazi
i am finding that "Dr. Ed's" use of nazi and holocaust in a lot of his postings is very offensive, Mr. Kelley I do think that you would post comments that involved the "N" word or other such things.
I hope you do not post any further comments from Dr Ed who ever this chump is or wherever he is from , when terms such as nazi are used.
thank you
If I banned every comment that somebody found "offensive" I would have to ban pretty much most of them.
ReplyDeleteDoes 5:32 know who the National Socialists were or anything about them?
ReplyDeleteI considered it an appropriate analogy. Still do.
PS: You do know what George Santana said about history, don't you?
to Dr Ed yes i know who the national socialists were....they killed 6 million Jews..including some of my relatives.
ReplyDeleteand Mr. Kelley , i think you realize the use of nazi and holocaust are more than offensive....
Does 8:49 know that Stalin killed way more Jews than Hitler?
ReplyDeleteOr that the Holocaust did NOT start with the Jews?
No, it started with the disabled, and it could have been stopped/prevented if people has spoken up then.
Or what the survivors said?
"Never again -- to anyone."
You do know that Hitler was democratically elected, don't you?
And you don't honestly believe the Holocaust was fabricated out of whole cloth, do you? Ever hear of the Pogroms and such?
For that matter, are you aware of how the American Eugenics Movement, including Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, influenced what the Nazi's did?
No, I think my references to the Nazis and their atrocities are justifiable.