Amherst Charter Commission last night
After an hour of discussion/debate the 9 member Charter Commission split along ideological lines with a 6-3 vote to hire the Collins Center for Public Management at UMass/Boston as their guide over the next year to help bring a new and improved government structure to our little college town.
After the vote Gerry Weiss quipped that he would not "write a minority report" over this issue but earlier in the meeting described it as the, "First time we have a difficult decision to make."
Why the three Town Meeting cheerleader (Weiss, Stein & Gage) thought the KP Law consultants would better serve their agenda is anyone's guess but they did seem to think they would be better at dealing with "conflict resolution" among the group.
Which is sure to come up one of these days when the discussion to ditch Town Meeting comes to a vote.
And when they lose that one by a 6-3 vote safe bet Mr. Weiss will surely write that minority report.
5 comments:
Amherst is a town filled with indecisive people who can’t make decisions on their own so have to hire others to tell them how they can best make decisions on their own. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad town. Please God, let’s get rid of these losers and get a mayor who will have to make decisions and who will have to suffer the consequences of those decisions.
Something tells me none of the recommendations will include less government and more activity by the people, which is the only sustainable solution.
BTW - Amherst, even without students, who absolutely live there, ranks 41 out of 351 in population in the state. It is a large Massachusetts town and an even larger economy (which is not the town but the people - and their parents). If you include the students, Amherst ranks 14th in the state in population - between Somerville and Framingham. Amherst also likely has a large number of residents that are simply not counted, likely more than other communities due to its college nature - homeless, etc. I am not sure I was ever counted when there or when I "lived" elsewhere, but spent 70% of the year in Amherst for business.
My point is only that Amherst is a big college town and has a huge government....but obviously in denial. Small towns are not as dependent on their government, big towns are helpless without it, as Amherst would be. Ironically, Amherst seems to be helpless with it too....always in conflict.
Perhaps listening to some Who would be appropriate, so we don't get fooled again. Meet the new boss, same as....
The 6-3 split is permanent! Anon 1:21...if you don't "live" but just do business here you do not count. Not difficult to understand. And yes we are drawing homeless here faster and faster.
Did they really spit along ideological lines? That could be hard to do.
Well I guess that's better than my usual "pubic" for "public."
Post a Comment