There they go again

Gotta love the one on one audience exchange (the right idea wins)



UPDATE: 6:00 PM
Naturally this embarrassing story goes national before the local media even makes a peep.
Michelle Malkin (female Bill O'Reilly)

So to no big surprise conservative author Don Feder’s hate crime speech this evening at Umass, the flagship of higher public education in Massachusetts, never got off the ground. Well...more like that Airbus A320 that sort of, briefly, got off the ground and then crashed into the Hudson River.

“The way to counter bad speech is with good speech. “ ACLU

And if the Justice for Jason crowd had brought in a black speaker expounding on racist hoonkies hiding under every bed, would the conservatives on campus (not that there are all too many) have interrupted, harassed and shut down his presentation?

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," Evelyn Beatrice Hall

If the purported 400 protesters did not want to hear Feder's opinions, then they could have simply stayed home and played hackey sack. They trampled--in a hateful way--his First Amendment right to free speech and the rights of those who came to actually hear his presentation.

Got to wonder what they are teaching in Umass classrooms these days (at least the ones those nitwits attend.)

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” Benjamin Franklin

It's the little things...

With Umass Amherst churning out faculty pink slips like a gay pride print shop and deferring building maintenance while escalating student fees $1,500, today’s Springfield Republican carried a Legal Notice RFP for sandblasting McGuirk Stadium, estimated at $35,000.

So hmmm… they are going to hold off on routine maintenance for buildings used year-round, but gussy up a football stadium used only a few months per year for a very expensive athletic program? Yeah I know, it is also used for Commencement another one time annually.

Maybe the 91 professors who received lay-off notices should form a Workers’ Collective to place a bid. According to bid specification they have to get paid at least prevailing wage.

Figures don't lie...

So the crusty Gazette did an interesting “investigative” article yesterday about the salary woes at our favorite flagship University after requesting the documentation from Umass, presumably under Public Documents Law--or maybe they just said please.

Of course all they needed to do is surf to their competition the Springfield Republican, who put this nifty data base on MassLive of not only all Umass salaries (including “pot washers”) but another database as well of all state employees.

Umass payroll database

I hope somebody can do that for all employees in the town and schools of Amherst someday.

What’s interesting about Umass is not the salary of the average professor--either $83,477 according to the Gazette or $112,000 according to Chronicle of Higher Education--who presumably does a fair amount of actual teaching.

Just scroll around the database for any job title with the term “provost” in it:
Vice Provost (2) at an average of $200,000 each
Associate Vice Provost (1) at $202,389
Provost for Academic Affairs at $272,595
Associate Provost (six) at an average of $157,689

And of course my favorite Associate Provost is Bryan Harvey, former Amherst town government superstar (and State Rep wannabe) who comes in at only $144,000 --slightly below average--but more than made up for by having his wife Lynn Griesemer pull down $172,934 as a “Staff Administrator” for the Donahue Institute, which describes itself as “the public service, outreach, and economic development unit of the University of Massachusetts President's Office."

Curiously none of their employees show up on the Umass database, so you have to go the other web database of all state employees to find any of the salaries of the 99 Donahue Institute staff (yes I said 99…yikes.)
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And yeah, you just gotta love the Gazette's artsy photo of the guy working on the UMass $50 million Recreation Center at sunset, soooooo he's getting time-and-a-half at prevailing wage...Safe bet the Center will come in a tad over budget.

A billion here and a billion there...

Joint Meeting Town Hall 6:30-ish
So State Senator Stan Rosenberg was his usual articulate well-dressed self, but he was somber—and I do mean somber. Even if Question 1 fails to eviscerate 40% of the state’s revenues he said things are still going to be dire.

When 'His Lordship' Gerry Weiss made a brief introduction and joked about his entertaining /humorous presentation coming up, Stan responded their was nothing funny about the position we are in.

After his presentation he took questions from twenty committee folks sitting in front of him as well as the audience seated behind him. I of course asked Stan about the local lodging tax and how a committee he chaired suggested Umass start paying it (six years ago they projected it would generate $70,000 annually to the town.)

I also mentioned the level playing field argument that every other hotel/motel in town pays it, including The Lord Jeff Inn owned by tax-exempt Amherst College, so why should the Campus Center Hotel have an unfair advantage.

Stan said the University does not like to be put on a slippery slope of having its tax-exempt protective status pierced, but the issue does come up every few years and most certainly would again.

Well let’s hope it is before the Grand Reopening of the Campus Center Hotel after the $10 million renovation.

By any other name...

The question is not what would Amherst be like without Umass but what would Umass be like without Amherst? There’s a move afoot to drop the 01002 location from the Flagship University because it makes Umass sound to provincial.
The Boston Globe reports

Even though Umass is currently the second largest landowner in town (all of it tax exempt).

Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in bucolic Amherst over a generation ago I remember my mother—a staunch Irish Catholic –becoming horrified at a family gathering when a relative asked my slightly older sibling, what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“A Redman!” he almost shouted. My mother assumed he was talking about those marauding Indians from a John Wayne movie. But he was referring to Umass basketball; a moniker changed in 1972 to “The Minutemen” which is of course is fine by me.

I also remember hiking from High Street on cold winter Friday nights to sneak into The Cage to watch “The Redmen” at work. The advantage of being a pint-sized 8-year-old is you can insinuate yourself fairly easily into a general admission crowd and sneak by ticket takers.

So I have always lived in the shadow of Umass, even back when it did not cast such an overpowering shadow. I remember when the Southwest was simply a rolling open field where we neighborhood kids would play “capture the flag”.

All relative, I suppose; because back in the 60’s when only a few thousand students attended Umass Amherst townie population was a lot smaller as well. And as the University grew, so did the population of Amherst.

All us blue-collar townie kids wanted to get a job at Umass, many of them—fast approaching retirement age—still work there. I remember the water crisis from 25 years ago, although a tad differently than reported in the press recently. A town employee forgot to prime one of the main pumping stations so when the kids returned there was no water.

And the huge library that was to be a symbol (like the World Trade Center Twin Towers) of a proud flagship. Then the bricks started falling. The Collegian on April Fools Day issued a spoof article saying engineers forgot to calculate the weight of books and now the Library was sinking. The AP picked up the story, and to this day it is an Urban Myth.

Because of the University one cannot help but get involved in current political issues. In the late 60’s and early 70’s it was of course Viet Nam—the Mother of All issues. In the 80’s streaking and disco (politics took a back seat) in the 90’s nothing, and now--sort of--the Iraq War.

Amherst benefits greatly by the presence of the flagship, but suffers financial hardship as well. The University has a police department (with more staff and better funded than the town’s) but no Fire Department thus relying completely on the town’s annual $5 million operation. And of course our Police Department also spends about 25% of its time dealing with students.

About ten years ago Umass removed Amherst from their logo, now they want to go one step further and pretend the town doesn’t exist. Okay, next time somebody on campus calls 911 and requests help the dispatcher should say very slowly “Well what Umass is this: Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, Worcester, or that provincial one out there in the sticks of Amherst?”

Would Umass still smell as sweet without Amherst? Hell no, that stinks!

A (tax-exempt) house with a view

So in addition to a $375,000 annual salary and company car Dr. Holub, the new Umass Chancellor, gets to live in this fine house with what he described as having a great view. Indeed.

Chancellor Holub also told the 400 folks attending the Community Breakfast that his wife could not attend because she was busy enrolling their two young daughters into the fine Amherst school system.

This year Amherst taxpayers will expend $14,410 per child to finance the public schools. Dr. Holub’s two children will be joining the estimated (by our Finance Committee) 50-60 other children coming from Umass tax-exempt housing (probably not nearly as nice as the Chancellor’s House), or an impact of almost $1 million dollars.

Amherst taxpayers also fund ($4.8 million) the busiest Fire/EMT department in the state with the Fire Chief estimating Umass accounts for about one-quarter of the their calls, or an impact just over $1 million dollars.

Hey, a million here and a million there—pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Even though Westover Air Force Reserve Base in Chicopee is one of the largest employers in that region (with all those economic spin off benefits) they recently agreed to a $1 million payment-in-lieu-of-taxes to the host city.

Hmmm…

Can government compete fairly?

UPDATE: 3:30 PM: I have only been doing PR for 25 years but does anybody else find it odd that Umass News Info Department (that I believe has three full-time spinmeisters and a Department Manager) only puts out the press release about the $9.2 million renovation project on the very day construction starts?

Hmmm….
What the Umass flacks wrote

(Original Post 6:00 AM) So Umass can spend $9.2 million tax dollars to better hustle for costumers private dollars? Unlike the Campus Center Hotel, those new and modern hotels that have popped up along Route 9, courtesy of Hampshire Hospitality Group, pay property taxes to the host town.

And in the People’s Republic of Amherst, if you simply construct a commercial enterprise valued at $9 million it would pay Amherst $135,000 annually in property tax plus the 4% Local Option Room Occupancy Tax on gross annual revenues.

Simply being owned by a tax-exempt does not necessarily keep the business off the tax rolls. Take Amherst College for instance: they own the apparently only profitable golf business in town, Amherst Golf Course, and pay Amherst the normal $7,000 per year in tax that a private, for-profit owner would pay.

And they own the historic Lord Jeffery Inn that not only pays property taxes ($32,000) but also honors the local room tax. They too are feeling the pressure from new modern hotels along Rout 9--as evidenced by their upcoming $20 million expansion--but at least they compete on a level playing field...well sort of, having over a billion in reserves is a tiny advantage.

Back in 2003 a ‘Special Committee to Recommend Mitigation for Local Aid Cuts’, chaired by State Senator Stan Rosenberg, an indefatigable Umass supporter clearly stated:

“Eliminate UMASS Amherst Campus Center's exemption from hotel motel tax (that tax doesn't cost the state anything, doesn't cost the university anything, shouldn't be an edge in competition against local hotels / motels). This could be a significant ($70,000+) help to Amherst.”

Since the Town Manager was already taken to the cleaners by Umass with their ‘Strategic Agreement’, The Select Board should appoint a “Blue Ribbon Committee” (better yet, an Attack Dog) to pursue this potential pot of tax gold.

Springfield Republican Reports (scooping the Gazette)