A tale of two signs

So four years ago when the town ripped off the state's design logo for signage (that Mass charges $1,200 annually per location) Hickory Ridge Golf Course was paying for this sign in South Amherst, but Cherry Hill in North Amherst got theirs for free (two of them).

May sound like a minor competitive advantage, but another major one is Hickory Ridge pays the town over $17,000 annually in property taxes while Cherry Hill pays zero. Even the 9-hole Amherst Golf Course, owed by tax-exempt Amherst College pays over $7,000 annually in property taxes.


Just another hidden cost of our municipal white elephant.

Cherry Hill Golf Course shanks again

So before the Town Manager or LSSE, our expensive recreation empire, spews a disingenuous positive spin on the numbers, here’s what the illustrious business of golf really cost taxpayers this past year (FY-09, ended June 30, 2009):

“Operation Budget: $211,000
Hidden costs: (employee benefits, insurance): $31,000
“Capital costs” Commercial lawnmower $22,000
Total taxpayer funded budget: $264,000

Total Revenues (with about half the patrons from outside Amherst): $254,000

Or a loss of $10,000.

Not bad...compared to the six consecutive years of $100,000 losses between 1999 and 2005, or South Hadley’s usual annual losses of $500,000 on their B-I-G-G-E-R white elephant, the Ledges.

But this loss does not reflect the $30,000 “opportunity cost” of privatizing the operation. The Town Mangler rejected Niblick Management because they wanted a 3-year-deal.

But Shaffer wants Town Meeting next week to approve a 5-year lease/buy on experimental photovoltaic, solar panels for two in-town locations. Hmmm…

And even if you ignore the $30,000 privatization opportunity had Amherst never absorbed Cherry Hill for $2.2 million over 20 years ago (still the most expensive land purchase/taking in town history) the former owner would be paying property taxes of almost $10,000 per year.

As former Czar Anne Awad told Town Meeting in June 2006 (back when she still lived in Amherst): “Numbers can be used in many ways, statistics in many ways” Yeah, for sure. It would help if town officials told the truth.


Hey, at least he was accurate (gotta love the facial twitch) when admitting the golf business would not cover capital.

What goes around...

So Mr. Oldham, a Hampshire College professor (naturally) led the charge last year criticizing the School Committee for “outsourcing” food service to save ten$ of thousand$ and garnered all sorts of ink and bandwidth defending the “lunch ladies” who were getting outsourced.

Last night at the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee informational forum on Social Service Funding--the one Town Manager Larry Shaffer was banned from--he advocates, in a bumbling sort of way, for town tax money to continue funding these enterprises (making Amherst the only community in the state to do so).

At the May 30, 2006 Town Meeting where I had a multi-media presentation on DVD disc prepared (with background music no less) timed at just under 4 minutes (I had five since I was "amending the motion") to be projected on the large screen in front of Town Meeting, Mr. Oldham did a “point of order” as I was walking to the podium and demanded the Moderator (not exactly a BIG fan of mine) censor/ ban the presentation because I use clips of town officials (speaking at public meetings) without their permission.

Violating my First Amendment rights all in order to protect the taxpayer subsidized game of golf. Hmmm…

The moderator dismissed him, but about one minute into the presentation, when Czar Awad complained about my choice of The Eagles “Lying eyes” as background for her previous Town Meeting misstatement (lie), he shut down the presentation.

Interestingly, Ms. Awad went on to publish a letter in the Amherst Bulletin two years later categorically declaring that she had changed her “homestead declaration” back from an expensive South Hadley home to an Amherst Condo when in fact had not. She is currently living in South Hadley and unlike the bar Cheers, nobody seems to remember her name.

Today Mr. Oldham has a column (unpaid of course—and sometimes indeed you get what you pay for) in the Bully where at least he does state the new School Superintendent should not get more than the previous Super, but he concludes with a bleeding heart reference to the lunch ladies: “whatever the state of the budget, the treatment and conditions of the workers remains our concerns.”

Well gee there Professor, what about the thousands of small businesses (you know, the ones who pay taxes to fund all your favorite social programs) that perished over the past year, or the millions of workers laid off?

This is an economic 9/11—a new normal. Get used to it! (And yes folks, he voted two years ago not to allow the commemorative flags to fly on 9/11 as did most members of the TMCC).

Lies, Damn Lies, and statistics

UPDATE: 2:45 PM (Just sent this email to a bevy of local media folks (reporters and editors) and copied to a few town officials:

So you should pull up last year's LSSE press release and the resulting ink in the Springfield Republican (I remember you emailing me almost instantly when Diane Lederman's story first appeared on their website a full 12 hours before it appeared in print). And of course you held off and came out with a(slightly) more accurate article a day later.

As you may remember, the Town Mangler claimed "no tax revenue" was involved in Cherry Hill that year (FY07)--that they were "in the black $7,200". And I even went to the following Select Board meeting to ask him during the 6:15 Question Period (bending the rules, because the 'Question Period" is usually directed at the Select board) if perhaps he was misquoted. And he denied it and repeated the lie.

The excel spreadsheet from the Comptroller proves him a liar. He must have gotten it from Anne Awad.

As Stan Gawle taught me: use their own documents against them!
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(Original Post early this morning)
Well, as I feared, the Springfield Republican headline writer was not paying attention. They should have said that golf revenues were up over last year. Of course if you go back six years to FY02, they generated $245,932; adjusting for inflation at 2.5% Cherry Hill would need to generate $282,821 significantly more than FY08’s $264,036 total that town officials now gloat about.

At least their favorite term used in the propaganda press release (that I still have not been given) “net profit” was nowhere to be found in the Republican article.

Although once again the Town Manager uses the $207,000 Operation Budget figure as though that is the total cost to taxpayers in golf overhead, ignoring the $30,000 in employee benefits and insurance costs and $15,000 in capital improvements.

The excel spreadsheet sent to Town Manager on Monday by the Comptroller clearly shows a deficit of $20,435.10 for FY07 rather than the “net profit” of $7,200 claimed by LSSE in a press release last year at this time (where they really faked out the Springfield Republican).

And last year the Town Manager crossed the line into flat out lying territory by claiming “no tax support” was involved in the golf course; even the Finance Committee said otherwise--and now this accounting spreadsheet corroborates it!

(Yeah, I just noticed they spelled my name wrong. Yikes!)



Note: Bottom Line (now you know why the private sector uses that term) shows "DEFICIT" of over $20,000 last year yet they sent out Press Releases claiming $7,200 in "net profit". Click to enlarge.