Amherst: "A Welcoming Community"
Is Amherst a Sanctuary City? Well, err, sort of, kinda, maybe ... Depends who you ask.
If you ask Town Manager Paul Bockelman, as the Finance Committee did recently, he would say "No"; but, it's "complicated."
But if you ask Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer she would seem to indicate that we are but would avoid an outright yes or no answer.
Is Amherst A Sanctuary City? by Larry Kelley on Scribd
Either way a Town Meeting petition is now circulating to officially designate Amherst a "Sanctuary City" or town or community or whatever the case may be. Amherst also now shows up on internet articles as being a Sanctuary City,
Certainly the Town Meeting resolution passed in 2012 contains all the sentiments of a Sanctuary City but never actually strings together those two words.
Click to enlarge/read
So if President Trump's executive order to cut off federal funding to Sanctuary cities and towns really gets enforced how much will it cost Amherst?
Town Manager Bockelman told the Finance Committee we currently get about $200,000 from Department of Justice Grants to APD for sexual violence and alcohol education programs.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman (left) at 1/26 Finance Committee meeting
But APD has a pretty astute grant writer and they have received a number of federal grants over the past few years.
And Amherst also gets upwards of $850,000 in Community Development Block Grants, which is federal money distributed by the state.
So I would not go poking the bear so to speak with an in your face Town Meeting warrant article directed at President Trump. This being Amherst we are already probably on his radar, if only for the recent embarrassing flag incident at Hampshire College.
Anti Trump pro Muslim Rally Amherst Town Common 1/19
26 comments:
Interesting. I would imagine that federal funding would also cover federal funding used for the sanctuary city town's public schools, no?
I don't know (I said I didn't want to) but my guess is that the first thing they will do is stop the monthly electronic transfer to the Amherst Housing Auth that the AHA uses to make the Sect 8 payments to landlords. They could do this for March 1st, and the bleep would hit the fan as folks wouldn't get paid.
There is a lot of other HUD funds that they could cut off, but this monthly transfer could simply not be made.
Ed you don't Know? C'mon!
Is Amherst an SC? If the answer is yes, then it's breaking the law.
Please urge your representative to vote yes on this measure.
They are just people, who happened to have a different birthplace.
We have capacity in our schools, which we are expanding and improving and we are building new housing for people of all income levels.
There could be a great integration of college students and immigrants - cohousing, romates, etc., as both groups are working their way up in America.
Most folks in Amherst are well enough off, I think we could also circulate another measure where families, especially those with young children who can feel the positive influence of immigrants, should take these folks into their homes and help them get a leg up in the community. I assume anyone who would support the first measure would also support this one - God knows I would and I am a good Christian, I am responsible to help all of these people and as a good Christian down, we all share this responsibility.
All humans are equal and have equal right to all resources, including all finances, education, assistance, housing and security at night.
If this means no more funding for Amherst from the federal government or anyone outside town, so be it, it is worth it. We are strong enough to financially support ourselves.
Drain the swamp, or simply don't feed the scum.
Urge your rep to insist that the laws of the nation be followed. We had a lawless president who was a racist and an anti-Semite. Enough with the marxism. Incidentally, congrats Judge Goresuch.
I think Amherst should stand as it always does on principle, signal its virtue, and cut off its nose to spite its smug face.
What other option is there - to follow the law? Fat chance.
" but my guess is that the first thing"..
ed your guess is always wrong and you know nothing....and ed since you don't have a job nor live in amherst as you live in your mother's house before you bud in get a job ...and get out of our town and involved in yours...in other words Mr Ed GET LOST
How was Obama a racist?
What do you mean 'was?'
Obama, mistakenly referred to as the first black president, racialized just about every issue you can think of.
He entertained Black Lives Matter in the White House. A group that is anti-white. He supports the new black panther party. Also antiwhite. Can you think of a time that the former president called upon the families of the white man killed by the police? I'm sure if you rack your brain you'll come up with more examples. And then there is his blatant anti Semitism.
I can find no evidence that Obama had anything to do with the New Black Panther Party, lot less supports it.
Are we debating whether to let Obama have sanctuary in Amherst?
Can't he just buy a house and move in like everyone else?
It would be interesting to see how much Amherst really embraced immigrants who did not follow the standard legal process for coming here and then got caught doing something on the streets that was illegal or rubbed the police the wrong way and then what is the next step. Amherst hates the homeless, would they be ok if they were street people from another country? Would anyone in Amherst back their political stance with action like bringing someone into their home, of course not, that is a joke and people do not care that much.
When you can pull levers and get folks to do the hard stuff without you lifting a finger, people will do the dumbest of things.
Remember, this is a town that is not even friendly to the group that pays their bills, the college students. To pretend like the town will actually be friendly to potential foreign criminals is silly.
Of note, these are not just families that have decided to move to Amherst from Mexico or France. This issues surrounds those that have been arrested. This is American, once you are arrested, life goes down hill, guilty or not.
Bring them into your home or send them to theirs, seems pretty logical, not much in between.
Sounds like the ilk of ignorant popularism which backed Al Jazeer and it's tv program to clear convicted home invasion burglar Donald Perry whose gang robbed our Leverett home of family heirlooms-never returned-pawned to support drug activity-presumably the draw behind the many thousands petition supporting freeing local home invasion burglary perps-honestly-how morally bankrupt-a" Robin Hood " rob-the rich-support druggie crime mentality-must be nice-of coarse non of these losers ever expect to be robbed and victimized by these rats they drag in .. Hum..kinda makes one wonder !!!?????$$$$$
Amherst loves the homeless and have produced services that make her a magnet for downtrodden of neighboring communities!
Without wading into the sanctuary city public policy swamp, I do want every person in Amherst to fell free to cooperate with law enforcement, and not worry about their immigration status. My experience in Springfield as a prosecutor was that suspected "illegals" became easy marks for predators in the community. My cases (more than one) in this regard included breaking into homes, assaulting people as they were sleeping, stealing the cash they had just collected for weekly wages, and, in one case, burning the victims out of their homes (they leaped out of a third-floor window in order to escape the fire).
Rich Morse
Lol. Ur right we got a bit off topic there... sry.
Rich Morse, I dealt with the same thing involving 19-year-old women who had been raped. Not the "he said, she said" messes, but with a 19-year-old (female) witness. Problem is that they'd had ETOH in their room, or a keg (in one case, still did). If the victims "officially" told me what had happened to them, if they gave me (univ official) permission to call the police (and with me, it IS with the permission of the victim), they'd be prosecuted for the ETOH violations, between that and their parents/churches finding out, they'd be facing worse sanctions than the rapists.
Rich, if you've ever noticed my opposition to the 21-year-old drinking age, this is a good part of why, but I digress.
The same sotr of thing happens in high school, although to a lesser extent because of greater parental supervision. So do we ignore the fact that 14-year-old girls are drunk out of their minds, pretend not to see anything when we stumble across them drinking?
Do we totally ignore all ETOH violations (including OUI) for the greater good of facilitating the reporting of other crimes? That's what you are saying here.
"So if President Trump's executive order to cut off federal funding to Sanctuary cities and towns really gets enforced how much will it cost Amherst?"
"Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-V4iJhnHhA
Ponziville chimps better step lightly.
-Squeaky Squeaks
p.s. ----------> ! $$$ ! <----------
Squeaky, Umass would be on that list -- trust me on that!
There's an easy answer: uphold the rule of law.
Ed-If he really had an education-should know it-a sound science that the still Pre-pubescent developing mind of even 21 year olds is not sufficient to the task of nurinally processing the drinking and driving skill set that avoids pedestrian casualtys behind the wheel of a moving death trap
3:08 AM, WTF??????
Do people even know what the rule of law is?
It does not mean that laws will be enforced. It means that laws will be fair. To have rule of law you cannot have more laws than people can know and they cannot be enforced unevenly, with delay or otherwise.
The rule of law, like Democracy for example, are things we aspire to but have but they never experienced or have never existed outside of small groups (under 30).
If you lived under rule of law, you would be able to, right here, right now, cite all the laws and claim accurately that you understand them all and that none of them are abused. Trump is attempting a pretty big rule of law correction with the requirement that 2 rules be eliminated to make 1 new one, which is hugely awesome. Once we get down to 10-50 laws, we can start tweaking things to have rule of law, but that will not happen, everyone wants free money (look at the megaschool folks).
If you want laws enforced, well that is just funny and potentially evil, until you have rule of law.
As a citizen i want immigration law enforced.
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