Election Snoozer

Stephanie O'Keeffe Select Board Chair (center), John Coull,her dad, Amherst Redevelopment Authority Chair (ducking), Jada Kelley (cute kid).  Back when elections were (sort of) exciting

With contests in only half the ten town meeting precincts and only one contest for town wide positions, no pocket book Override (fortunately) or Charter change of government (unfortunately) on the ballot, the April 9 annual spring town election promises to be about as exciting as watching snow melt.

When asked what she thought the voter turnout would be, Town Clerk Sandra Burgess responded succinctly: "low."

For the second election in a row, Select Board -- the highest political position in town -- incumbents Alisa Brewer and Jim Wald have no opposition, so their three year term renewal is guaranteed.  (A write in candidate has never beaten a candidate who appears on the ballot in the modern age.)

Moderator Harrison Gregg has retired his gavel after almost 20 years of service and his occasional pinch hitter over the years, Jim Pistrang, will have no opposition for the important position.

Amherst School Committee has two seats up for grabs and three candidates:  Richard Hood (incumbent), Kathleen Traphagen and Amherst College Professor Barry O'Connell.  None of them appear to be even remotely as forthright or controversial as former School Committee member Catherine Sanderson, so the campaign will be a genteel affair.

Some might even argue, boring. 

Although a dozen UMass students in the mix, including SGA President Akshay Kapoor,  could spice things up.  Or not.

 8 candidates for 8 seats (3 of them students)

Rental registration, with a concurrent permit system, will be the most contentious issue on the Town Meeting warrant.  For over a generation Amherst has struggled with too little housing and too many students resulting in high rents, substandard, dangerous slum houses, and distressed neighbors.

The Safe & Health Neighborhood working group will make a recommendation to the Town Manager on rental registration and permits.

Since it will be a General By Law change the measure will only require a majority vote at Town Meeting rather than the super-majority that is required for Zoning articles.

Town Meeting starts May 6.

Most competitive Precinct with 15 candidates for 8 three-year seats

Least competitive precinct (mine)

Always Competitive Precinct 7

 Competitive Precinct 9

 
Precinct 10

Voting In The Digital Age

Town Clerk Sandra Burgess, center 

The nail biting time for election candidates their supporters and the media -- usually starting as soon as the polls close at 8:00 PM -- could be reduced if Amherst Town Clerk Sandra Burgess gets her lone capital item wish.

Ms. Burgess made her obligatory appearance this morning before the Joint Capital Planning Committee, the initial gatekeepers for all capital items purchased across all town departments for Fiscal Year 2014, starting July 1st.

The JCPC simply makes recommendations to Town Meeting, who holds the ultimate granting authority,  but a negative recommendation is the kiss of death.

Ms. Burgess made a modest proposal, only $8,850 for a GEMS computerized voting tabulator system that includes a (Dell) laptop , software, licensing and comes with a two year warranty.

The system would speed up the 10 precinct tally on voting night thus speeding up the breaking news of who won what position.  Equally important, the new system would also improve accuracy.

The results would still be "unofficial," however, as write ins and provisional ballots are  counted by hand the next day. Each election would cost an additional $175 in programming.  Average election cost in Amherst is around $14,000.

JCPC is using a target of 7% of the overall town budget as a spending guide, but not necessarily in a uniform manner across all departments.

The Town Clerk's operation budget for FY14 is $190,153 so a 7% share would come to $13,310, thus this request is well under her theoretical ceiling. 

The Town Clerk closed her presentation saying this system represents "The final step ... It would bring it all together for us."

Voting for Dummies

Since it is such a tough task for harried voters to keep track of 24 candidates per precinct (especially with some precincts not having enough candidates to fill all those seats) our friends at Sustainable Amherst did all the work for us and came up with a handy cheat sheet, err, I mean "printable voter guide" you can bring into the ballot box and march in lock step with the supposed "Amherst Center."

If you remember, these folks lost their Op/Ed column at the Amherst Bulletin for journalistic improprieties concerning election endorsements two years ago, so take their election advice with a truck load of salt.  Although I do agree that this election will have a lousy, err, low turnout.  And I could not agree more with their Jones Library Trustees recommendation, which mirrors my Anyone But Carol endorsement.

Notice for School Committee they do not even mention Michael Aronson, the only candidate who dares to discuss the gilded school costs that give rise to the highest property tax rate in the area--almost twice that of neighboring Hadley where school achievement results are comparable to the venerable Amherst system.

Unfortunately Town Meeting is the only game in town.  But voting for someone you do not know is like a bomb disposal technician doing "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" to figure out which colored wire to cut.

Election Post Mortem

Friends, Anons, Bloggers, lend me your eyes; I come to praise Catherine Sanderson not to bury her.

The good that she has done, lives after her...Long live the queen.
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Gotta love the Freudian slip just before the 4 minute mark where she starts to say "neglected representative" of the school committee. You got that right Ms. Theilman. Still, a classy move on your part--and a well deserved one at that.

Senator Scott Brown will probably lose a few votes in Amherst for his nice gesture, and it's not like he was going to get many in the first place.

And the winner is....

Harry Brooks Registrar of Voters, Sandra Burgess Town Clerk (center)

Catherine Sanderson gracefully bids adieu

UPDATED: Town Meeting Results:

9:35 AM Wednesday morning

If "Blank" was an actual candidate he/she would have come in first place in all 10 precincts by wide margin. In all, 7,172 individual votes were cast among all ten precincts in town meeting 3 year category and a total of 4,623 left blank.

Precinct 1 (8 total for 3 year terms):
Louis Greenbaum
Diane Westfall
Kenton Tharp
Vincent O'Connor
Eric Nazar
Patricia Holland (runner up prize for not making Library Trustee)
Melissa Perot
Hilda Greenbaum (only beat 9th place finisher by 4 votes)

Precinct 2
Barbara Levine
Andrienne Levine
John Coull (also Chair of ARA)
James Pistrang
Barbara Ford
Daniel Clapp
Issac BenEzra
Two Year term: 0
One Year term: Edward Mientka

Precinct 3
Peter Gray-Mullin
Nancy Gregg
Nancy Buffone
Karen Marie Harrington
Jacqueline Churchill
Patrick MacWilliams
Lawrence Orloff

Precinct 4
John Stuart Nelson
Kay Moran
Baer Tierkel
George Ryan
Alan Powell
Two Year Term
Doris Holden
One Year Term
Mark Parent
Naomi Ossar

Precinct 5
Barry Federman
Pat Church
Jane Price
Nancy Pagano
Kevin Eddings
Kevin Noonan
James Oldham
Andrew Bohne
Two Year Term
Mary Wentworth
One Year Term
Katharine McGovern
Robert Saul

Precinct 6
Maralyn Blaustein
Elizabeth Welsh
Diana Spurgin
Jeff Blaustein
Richard Spurgin
Harry Brooks
Gordon Freed
Faythe Turner
One Year Term
Paul DiBenedetto
Amy Brodigan

Precinct 7
Ernest Dalkas
David Keenan
James Brassord
Kenneth Hoffman
Alice Swift
Harvey Allen
Andrienne Terrizzi
Two Year Term
Marylou Theilman
George Jeffrey Bohne

Precinct 8
(Mother) Mary Streeter
Kathleen Traphagen
Jenifer McKenna
Lise Halpern
Ruth Hooke
John Kick
Glen Bertrand
Elaine Fronhofer
One Year Term
Barry Roberts

Precinct 9
Dade Singapuri
Felicity Callahan
Otto Stein
Denise Barberet
Jessica Wilkinson
Emily Lewis
Jonathan O'Keeffe
Pamela Rooney
One Year Term
Stephen Schreiber

Precinct 10
Lewis Mainzer
Stephen Braun
Brett Butler
Jan Eidelson
Richard Bentley
Elissa Rubinstein
Hwei-Ling Greeney
Nancy Gordon
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UNOFFICIAL TOTALS (for the contested races):
Amherst Redevelopment Authority: Winner Aaron Hayden 880 to Vince O'Connor 504

Jones Library: (Major upset!) First Place: Chris Hoffman 832, Second place: Michael Wolff 665, Odd person out: Current Board of Trustees President Pat Holland with 660 (kind of like that overthrow in Egypt thing).

Voter turnout: A pathetic 8.5% (Think globally, ignore locally)

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8:39 PM
So far in the "heated" race for ARA, incumbent Aaron Hayden, with numbers from three out of 10 precincts (7,8 and 9) is winning by a 2-1 margin. Turnout is barely breaking double digits.

9:05 PM
Hayden wins precincts 2, 3 and 4 and combined it's probably by 2-1 total. Vince actually wins Precinct 1 (his home precinct) 48-42.

I am now projecting Aaron Hayden the winner. Go Gateway!

9:17 PM
For Library it's looking like the odd person out is not going to be out by much. Close 3-way race for the two seats (with 7 or 10 precincts reporting.)

9:21 PM
Looks like Chris Hoffman is in for one of the Jones Library seats but number two is close. Vince actually won another precinct: 2

What if they gave an election and nobody came?

The best PR flack in the business--even the guy who came up with “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”--would have a hard time selling today's municipal election. B-O-R-I-N-G.

Almost exclusively due to a lack of competition. For the second election in a row, no contest for Select Board--the highest elected position in town government. And since the schools are the only thing that matters to a whopping percentage of the electorate, the lack of a contest for Catherine Sanderson's School Committee seat (at least hers until 8:00 PM this evening) dampened markedly any election buzz.

No lawn signs, post cards, radio ads, bumper stickers, nasty emails, Facebook pages or stand outs in town center. Nada.

Ironically Aaron Hayden is the candidate hurt the most--fortunately not fatally--as virtually all the 'Amherst Center' types who would have flocked to the polls to vote against Catherine Sanderson would have supported Mr. Hayden's reelection to the Amherst Redevelopment Authority for his sane, smart growth approach to enhancing our commercial tax base (thus creating more tax revenues for the schools); the exact opposite of Vince O'Connor's touchy-feely, no-growth-is good-growth attitude.

But I'm still going to write in Catherine Sanderson for School Committee anyway. She deserves the Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart for three long years of banging her perky head against a brick wall. Like the innocent kid who cried out the emperor has no clothes, only in this modern version a royal goon squad then beats the tar out of her.

Chris Hoffman also took some heat last summer for calling attention to the hatchet job underway at the Jones Library, where cutthroat-Carol Gray was setting up long time director Bonnie Isman for a death by a 1,000 cuts with an "evaluation" longer than 'War and Peace'.

Since three candidates are vying for two Library Trustee positions a voter can choose two candidates. I'm going to "bullet vote" for Hoffman, but if you feel it's your patriotic duty to use that other vote then cast it for ANYONE BUT Pat Holland (also part of the hit squad with cutthroat Carol.)

Traditionally Amherst voter turnout for municipal elections held in the Spring is usually an embarrassing 15 to 20% (30% for an Override or Charter change in government ballot question) but the Presidential elections every four years in November always brings out around 75%.

That's Amherst for you: always thinking nationally (or internationally). Today's turnout will be the most pathetic in years, possibly under 10%.

Catherine Sanderson: out of the hot seat

A conflict over conflict of interest

clockwise: Peg Roberts, Larry Shaffer, Aaron Hayden, John Coull, Jonathan Tucker

If someone had not taunted me in town center on Thursday morning I would not have known to call the State Ethics Division to inquire about a complaint lodged against fellow Amherst Redevelopment Authority member Aaron Hayden who is also--coincidentally enough--up for reelection tomorrow.

The State Ethics Division is like the Secret Service or FBI when it comes to investigations, as they will not "confirm or deny" anything...however if you talk long enough, you can figure out if a complaint was filed.

Interestingly enough the next day (Friday 3/25) the Daily Hampshire Gazette published a Letter To The Editor from anti-Gateway kingpin, former Washington D.C. attorney, and neighbor to the potential development, John Fox supporting the ARA candidacy of rabidly anti-Gateway activist Vince O'Connor.

And in his lede Mr. Fox warns about "...potential conflicts that confront Aaron Hayden as a member of both the five-member Select Board and the five-member ARA, which have important overlapping issues." Hmm...

Ten years ago Select Board chair Carl Seppala was also an ARA member. And so much "conflict" existed at the time over ARA joint development with the town that the episode became known as "The Garage War." No complaints, however, about "conflict of interest" over Mr. Seppala's important dual roles.

A few months back sleeper activist Mary Wentworth publicly suggested Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe had conflicts of interest because her father John Coull is Chair of the ARA, and she lives on Butterfield Terrace within the Gateway's "neighborhood planning area."

Ms. O'Keeffe herself requested a State Ethics Division legal opinion and they concluded neither is a conflict of interest, which she publicly shared during a Select Board meeting. And, not surprisingly, the state recently found no conflict of interest exists with Mr. Hayden as well.

Disclaimer: Although I'm a longtime member of the ARA, Umass graduate, Continuing Education student and 5th generation Amherst resident, I speak here, as I always do, strictly for myself (and for the hard-pressed taxpayers of this town) using that cherished American ideal known as the First Amendment.

In the mainstream, mostly

UPDATE: Wednesday 10:00 AM

So I was almost perfect in my predictions yesterday. Amherst went W-A-Y overboard supporting all the Ds including the Governor, and voting "No" to all the binding ballot questions except for the non binding vote on taxing pot where we voted strongly in favor.

Turnout was 45%--a little more than half what we muster for a Presidential election and certainly twice what we normally muster for a local town election.

My only surprise on a state level was the repeal of the booze tax. Of course Amherst voted overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the tax. But considering what happened on a national level yesterday a lot of folks in Massachusetts will be crying in their chardonnay for the next two years, so I guess it makes sense they would want to repeal the tax on alcohol.
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Original Post: election day 10:00 AM

So it's not too hard to predict how the People's Republic of Amherst will vote today: All Ds all the way, as in the straight Democratic ticket will win by more than a landslide (somewhere in the vicinity of 80% of the vote.)

The binding Questions will be about the same: Nix sales tax on booze or reduce the overall sales tax to 3% will lose by the whopping margin, as will the Question to repeal 40-B the affordable housing state law. And of course the non-binding question to tax pot the same way we tax booze will pass handily.

Voter turnout will be half what we get for a Presidential election and more than twice the average turnout for an annual spring town election (where the candidates have far more influence on 'All Things Amherst'.)

The end of the begining

So I'm preparing a more detailed analysis of the election for my Umass online journalism course mid-term assignment but figured I would throw out some off-the-cuff analysis for now, as I think both sides were surprised by yesterday's margin of victory (and no, unlike Cherry Hill Golf Course I'm not going to blame it on the weather.)

1) The 31.5% voter turnout was almost exactly the same as the Override that failed in 2007 so it's hard to blame voter turnout (although we usually get almost 80% every four years for the Presidential election.) So why the different outcome this time?

Well first off, there's a big difference between $2.5 million (that failed in 07) and the current $1.68 million. And if you listened to Andy Churchill at the forum last week sponsored by the crusty Gazette/Amherst Bully he made it sound like the $350,000 teacher giveback was already factored into lowering the Override amount. Which of course it did not, although town officials claim they will not use that amount by not taxing to the full extent of the new higher levy (one year only of course.)

And this year the Vote Yes folks were smart enough to order lawn signs (in two different varieties no less.) The Amherst Bulletin ran a rather long rambling editorial supporting the Override but then the Gazette followed suit with a tighter one, probably more widely read than the bloated Bully version.

But either way, two bricks-and-mortar newspapers supporting the Override certainly ads a fair amount of value that would have to be made up with paid advertising.

The Yes folks also raised more than the No folks ($5,000 to $4,000) although I still have not figured out how they spent that last $3,000. And I did notice that their "Vote Yes" lawn signs do not appear as expenditures on the Campaign Finance Report.

Their carefully crafted message got out: The town cut $7 million over the past (I heard either "two years" or "three years" and you could not tell whether they were including this upcoming year's cuts into that figure or not.) But the fact remains, the 2007 $2.5 million Override would have generated almost $8 million by now and over $10 million if you throw in next year.

And if THAT Override passed safe bet there would not have been ANY cuts. Yet somehow the town seems to have survived...

Prime location promo

Wow, the town must really be taking this election seriously as the red reminder to "VOTE tomorrow" displaced the cute Cherry Hill Golf Course logo on the town's main web page.

Election snooze

Since Senator Kennedy did me a couple of B-I-G favors over the past 25 years, I should be more excited about voting for his replacement. But I'm not.

Vote early, vote often.

So once again activist Amherst will turn out a pathetic 15 to 20% of the vote to cast ballots in the annual town election. Last November it was closer to 80%. And it’s not like the President of the United States has a big impact on little old Amherst.

The Schools spend the vast majority of our $60+ million budget so the School Committee race will be telling. Rhodes is a shoe in, as he will most likely be almost everybody’s second vote (providing they don’t “bullet vote”.) So the only question is will reformer Rivkin or maintain the status quo Rosa get in.

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority race between tree hugger Rob Kusner and former Chamber of Commerce director John Coull should also be interesting. With the power of eminent domain the ARA can be a formidable tool for development not just in the downtown but also in the North and South Amherst Village Centers.

In the League of Women Voters insert in the Amherst Bulletin Mr. Kusner highlights his experience as committee chair for the Norwottuck Rail Trail, but fails to mention his recent three year stint on the Amherst Select Board (not that they were all that distinguished.)

And as usual, nobody cares about Town Meeting as no contests exist for 3-year-seats in eight out of ten precincts, meaning 64 do-gooders (over one-quarter of the body) are guaranteed election.

Let’s hope none of these folks get to serve out their full term. Charter change for accountable government. Coming soon.