Where Have All The Colors Gone?

Amherst Town Common Wednesday morning

Sweetser Park

Kendrick Park

 President's House Amherst College

Behind Lord Jeff Inn town center

UMass Amherst the flagship of higher education (shot from town center) 

Amherst College #1 property owner in town

DUI Dishonor Roll

Brittani N. Allen, age 24, stands before Judge John Payne

About the only good news concerning the 28 APD arrests over the Halloween weekend is only one of them was for (allegedly) drunk driving.

Of course the other way of looking at it is APD was so busy dealing with party houses, fights, and zombie herds of college aged youth traipsing about the neighborhoods adjoining UMass, that they really did not have the time to watch for drunk drivers.

In a packed Eastern Hampshire District Court Ms. Allen had a plea of "not guilty" entered in her behalf and her case was continued until next month.

How NOT To Treat First Responders

Alyssa Conkonis stands quietly before Judge John Payne

UMass police may only have had 4 out of the 32 arrests over Halloween weekend but this one wins the prize for most outrageous. 

All you party hardy types may want to repeat a mantra in your head before letting loose on a party night for when you see those red or blue lights flashing: "They're here to help me, they're here to help me."

And keep in mind they have probably been dealing with crap no normal employee would ever tolerate in their workplace. So cut them some slack will ya?

Don't fight, bite or -- most especially -- spit!

 Click to enlarge/read

Ms. Conkonis was released on her own recognizance, her $500 bail was returned (although $150 will be taken out for her court appointed attorney). She returns to Eastern Hampshire District Court on December 3.

District Court Déjà Vu

Eastern Hampshire District Court Monday 9:00 AM

I have not seen a Monday morning in Eastern Hampshire District Court this crowded since the one that followed the Blarney Blowout in 2014 when 58 college aged youth were arrested -- beleaguered APD accounting for 55 arrests and UMPD only 3.

Yesterday it was "only" 32 total arrests being arraigned, 28 for APD and 4 of them UMPD.  And like the ignominious Blarney Blowout, all of them were pretty much alcohol related.

 Eric Beal (seated) watching the proceedings

UMass Neighborhood Liaison Eric Beal, himself a civil attorney, attended Monday's crowded arraignment session for the first time and came away very impressed.  He told me the courtroom was run like "a tight ship", the "most efficient courtroom" he had ever seen.

Between the 9:00 AM start and 11:00 AM adjournment Judge Payne and the DA's office had disposed of all 32 arrests.

It helps of course that the Commonwealth has a "diversion" program that turns criminal complaints into civil ones with the payment of the town bylaw fine ($300), four months probation and a required alcohol education program sponsored by UMass, or the "brains at risk" program for non UMass students.

And the District Attorney's office is always cool, calm and professional when pitching these pleas that work well for everyone.

I counted at least 20 APD arrests who took the diversion program, most of them arrested for underage drinking and "open container on a public way."  Thus the town "benefits" by $6,000 in fines.

APD Chief Livingstone tells me that overtime costs for the all-hands-on-deck Halloween weekend came to $5,885 thus we, sort of, broke even.

That fine money however goes into the General Fund and not to the police budget, so in that sense a losing deal for APD.

Most of the Blarney Blowout cases settled this same way although my memory is Judge Payne required perps to write a letter of apology to the Amherst police department for their boorish behavior that day.

Amherst Fire Department had their extra "impact shift" of four firefighters on duty from 9:00 PM to 7:00 AM all weekend (bringing total to 13) but that is covered by UMass who pays the town $80,000 "extra" per year to staff more ambulances on weekends when school is in session.

Darn good thing, since AFD had 30 medical runs to UMass, 20 of them for alcohol abuse and 16 of those necessitating transport to Cooley Dickinson Hospital, a round trip that eats up a full hour of time per ambulance.

ETOH = alcohol OD

Half Way There

 Town Meeting (on a voice vote) approved $26K for hand held voting devices

Last night Town Meeting meeting dealt with almost half (7 of 15) the articles on the fall warrant and only screwed up one of them (maybe two if you're a Patriots fan); meanwhile Charter change enthusiasts who wish to terminate with extreme prejudice the esteemed institution report they are half-way to the goal of 3,215 voter signatures needed to put the change question on the ballot.

 Select Board unanimously recommended approval of Capital Stabilization Fund

Town Meeting failed to muster the two-thirds vote required to create a seperate "Capital Stabilization Fund" to squirrell away money for the four mega-building projects on the immediate horizon: new Fire Station and DPW buildings, expansion of the Jones Library and the new mega school the Amherst School Committee will support later this evening.

The original "placeholder" figure used by Finance Director Sandy Pooler was $57 million for all four, but only $7 million of that was for Wildwood School renovation.  And tonight the School Committee will vote to support a plan (new mega-school) estimated to cost $20 million.

 Town currently has $9.9 million in savings

Which gives you an idea of what all four of these projects will cost if they ever get done.  The new South Fire Station, for instance, has been in the hearts and minds of South Amherst residents  for over 50 years now.

 If you can't trust the Finance Committee who can you trust?

Both the Select Board and Finance Committee supported the idea unanimously.  But conspiracy theorists on the floor of Town Meeting thought it would tie future Town Meeting's into supporting the as yet not-in-the-pipeline building projects.

Some of those folks would much rather have the money available to feed unicorns.

 Test question

After a ten minute or so hands on demonstration that actually (mostly) worked, Town Meeting overwhelmingly supported  the bylaw change required to allow electronic voting and then quickly followed up with near unanimous support to spend the $26,000 necessary to purchase the devices. 

Fortunately the gizmos, which will see first official use this coming spring, can be repurposed once Town Meeting has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

And Town Meeting also overwhelmingly supported borrowing $200K to renovate the Amity Street parking lot dead in the center of town.  Good news for struggling small businesses located in the high rent district.

Amity Street lot. Jones Library top center

Scary Halloween For 1st Responders

3 Engines on scene Brown Dorm 12:42 AM for stuck elevator with passed out female aboard

The Halloween weekend was to nobodies surprise a chaotic one for First Responders.

 Standing room only in Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning

Amherst police had 28 arraignments this morning in Eastern Hampshire District Court for all the college aged youth they arrested -- almost all of them alcohol related.  And as you can see AFD  was stretched to the breaking point by alcohol related runs.

Like for instance at UMass, where two-thirds of the "emergency" runs were for ETOH (intoxicated) students.

   AFD Halloween runs

AFD also dealt with a single Motor Vehicle Collision out on North East street that required the jaws of life for extrication and two helicopters for transport to a trauma center.

I hate to think of what would have happened had that accident occurred closer to midnight -- when our emergency response system was at maximum stress -- than at 3:45 AM, when more responders were available.

What's In A Name?

The Emily Dickinson Homestead "I'm nobody! Who are you?"

Perhaps we can get Amherst College to increase its Payment In Lieu Of Taxes to the town of Amherst from the current $130,000 up to $1 million or so in exchange for changing our name.  How about Emilyville?

Appropriate enough of course since Miss Emily is more famous than Lord Jeffery Amherst -- and for a better reason.  And ever so conveniently her historic homestead, a mecca for tourists from around the world, is owned by Amherst, err, Emilyville College.

The undefeated Jeffs beat Wesleyan 27-18 at their October 24th home game

I'm not so sure rough and tumble college football players will be psyched about a nickname associated with a long dead reclusive female poet, although anything has got to be better than a flea infested moose. 

Lord Jeff of course never actually ordered the distribution of infected blankets to the hostile Indians, err, Native Americans laying seige to Fort Pitt.  And there's no conclusive scientific proof that the two blankets and handkerchief used in the sick attempt actually worked.

But there's no question Lord Jeff was not a big fan of what was then a sworn enemy threatening the men, woman and children of his command. 

15 Minutes Of Fame?

Luke V. Gatti (center) and father (right) appear before Judge John Payne last year

Just so some Cowardly Anon Nitwit can't say "Gee Larry you're numbers have dropped precipitously; you must be losing your touch":

In the routine course of covering rowdy student behavior -- mostly UMass -- I had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting in a cyber sort of way, Luke Gatti, aka the "mac and cheese kid."

 Previous all time record was 134,000 for Blarney Blowout coverage March, 2014

I actually covered him three times over a very brief period last year and he even interacted with me in one of the posts -- although I assume his response was written by an expensive attorney.

So when he screwed up yet again at UConn in a viral sort of way (my definition of viral is minimum of 1 million hits) almost all the major digital media outlets linked to me -- most of them in two places.

This of course was meant to demonstrate Gatti was exhibiting a pattern of bad behavior -- not just a one off aberration that should be forgiven under the Christian guise of "Whoever is without sin cast the first stone."

Luke Gatti one state over

 When I went to bed the night of October 5th this blog was at the usual 75,000 hits for the month.  I usually get around 500 hits during the overnight so I was a little taken aback when I awakened the next morning to see my sitemeter fast approaching the 100,000 mark.

Over the next 24 hours I averaged around 10,000 hits per hour.  And the story had legs of which I've never seen because even a week later I was getting numerous referrals.  But that impact will start to disappear any day now as we approach the one month anniversary.

I get requests almost weekly from individuals I've covered asking for forgiveness in the form of name deletion.  My standard response is, "If you don't want your name to appear here then don't do the crime."

But I do sometimes think about maybe modifying the post once the District Court mandated terms have been met i.e. fines paid, "educational programs" taken and probation period completed without any further incidents.

Of course if I had used that leniency with Luke Gatti those three posts would have disappeared long before his mac and cheese incident.

His total punishment for both incidents on Phillips Street near UMass amounted to $250 in fines, one day alcohol education program and four months probation.

But now his mac and cheese antics as well as his UMass failures, will live on. Forever.

 Gazette even garnered much needed boost in circulation

Educational Point/Counterpoint

Amherst Public Schools are nothing if not colorful these days

With all that's going on with the Amherst Public School system -- new school, expanded regionalization, merging Middles School students into the High School, etc -- it's easy to forget teaching, that most basic function taking place in a classroom.

I found this exchange between a former ARMS teacher/parent and Principal Mendonsa interesting.

   Education Clash Of Ideas

Thirsty Thursday Party House

203 Northampton Road (Rt 9)  "Everybody into the pool"

This large out of control party disturbing the Rt. 9  neighborhood  (not already disturbed by the high traffic volumes) last night is probably not a good sign going into Halloween weekend.

This morning in Eastern Hampshire District Court all four "college aged youth" took a standard plea that  diverts from criminal to civil with payment of the $300 town noise bylaw fine.

 All four signed a waiver in order to represent themselves.  And they were out in time for a 11:15 AM class

The other "nuisance house" charge was dropped, although if the bad boys repeat this type of behavior before the end of the semester and end up before Judge Payne, that charge will quickly reappear.  And then some.  

Sunderland Barn Fire

Thick black smoke could be seen for miles

If anyone in Amherst looked out their windows this morning towards the northwest you couldn't help but notice the dense black plume of smoke billowing over the farm fields of Hadley and Sunderland.

A barn, mostly used for storage, had caught fire and despite the best efforts of many, many fire departments (including Amherst) the barn was a total loss.

Fortunately there were no injuries.

The morning after

2nd Chances

 706 South East Street 10:00 PM  (9/1/14)

706 South East Street today:  "Barricaded in our homes"

As a matter of equal parts expediency for the Commonwealth and fairness for a 1st time offender our state in its infinite wisdom came up with the standard 24D disposition for the all too numerous Operating Under the Influence cases that occur in Massachusetts.

Yes everybody -- except perhaps murderers and pedophiles -- deserves a second chance.  Let the first among us who has never driven after having had a few sips too many cast the first beer bottle.

 Ailton Correia (left) with Attorney Fred Chamberland

In Eastern Hampshire District Court today after about 20 minutes of testimony that included a compelling witness impact statement Judge Payne looked at at Ailton Correia and said, "I am going to agree with this plea deal as I hope this incident was only a bump in the road -- no pun intended."

But he then went on to add 50 hours of community service, attendance at "Brains At Risk" program and alcohol screens for the duration of his one year probation.

The 24D all by itself costs $2,587.76

 Standard 24D disposition fees/fines

Although Judge Payne did waive the first four months of $65 probation payments so Mr. Correia could pay restitution of $295.40 for a neighborhood cat that was killed by flying debris.

As is standard procedure the Commonwealth presented the facts to Judge Payne first, which would have been used against Correia had the case gone to trial.

ADA Bob Opsitnik said the car -- a 1998 gray Honda civic -- was traveling south on South East street at a very high rate of speed, lost control over the hill, crashed into a tree and ended up against the front door of a brick house.

A young woman (his cousin) was ejected from the vehicle and ended up screaming on the front lawn.  The driver (Correia) and his passenger were both transported to Baystate Medical Center.   He suffered a broken leg.

An Amherst police officer noticed the driver had bloodshot glassy eyes and the odor of stale alcohol.

Since blood was drawn at the hospital during the course of Correia's treatment, the state requested a BAC test which converted to between .87 and .09 Blood Alcohol Concentration (legal limit is .08).

Defense Attorney Fred Chamberland told Judge Payne his client is a student at Greenfield Community College who worked two jobs up until the time of the accident.  Since he suffered a broken leg he had to give up his job with UPS.

The defense hired two expert witnesses who would have testified that his Blood Alcohol Concentration was between .07 and .08 and the car was traveling at around 50 MPH.

 Janet McGowan, after waiting 3.75 hours, addressed Judge Payne

But Janet McGowan told Judge Payne it was more in the 80-90 MPH range as she described the roar of an engine unlike any she has heard before on her busy street.  And she brought a poster sized blow up of the mangled vehicle that blocked her front door.

 Judge Payne examining mangled car photo

The Judge said, "That looks like more than 50 MPH" as he perused the picture.  He went on to say he lives on a somewhat busy street and he knows the sounds cars make.  "You know the difference between 50-60 MPH and 80-90 MPH ... It's an extraordinary sound.  You can't make that up."

Looking directly at Correia Judge Payne told him he was, "Extraordinarily lucky.  You could have killed a person instead of a cat."

When adding the extra 50 extra hours of community service Judge Payne said he wanted it to be dealing with people who have suffered traumatic brain injury, maybe Wounded Warriors for instance.  That way he can see the consequences of a serious accident.

Finally Judge Payne suggested Correia meet with Janet McGowan and her husband to apologize for the disruption he brought to their lives that night.

A disruption that today, over a year later, still lingers.

DUI Victim Impact Statement

There They Go Again

Katherine Appy (4th from rt), Vira Douangmany Cage (2nd from left)

The Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee has been cited yet again by the Attorney General's office for violating the Open Meeting Law.

Or maybe I should say just Amherst School Committee Chair Katherine Appy was cited since the AG used the term "individual violation".

   School Committee Chair OML Violation

Interestingly the violation is a result of Ms. Appy thinking that Regional School Committee Chair Trevor Baptiste overstepped his bounds when he announced to the committee he was going into "mediation" with the NAACP over a "breach of contract" from a 1993 consent agreement.

Regional School Committee attorney Regina Tate thought no such breach occurred. 

That 20+ year old divisive issue related to discipline meted out to non white students at a higher rate than white students.  An old issue that apparently never seemed to go away.

Town Gown Collaborative

Steering Committee sat at tables forming a U

The University Town of Amherst Collaborative (UTAC) met for the first time today in the Amherst Room on the 10th floor of the tax-exempt Campus Center.

But the one hour meeting had a distinct air of deja vu as the committee co-chairs are once again Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations Nancy Buffone  and interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek.

Amherst Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer and UMass Chancellor Subbaswamy also sat at the head table although the Chancellor is not listed as a member of the Steering Committee.

The idea for UTAC came out of the successful Town/Gown Steering Committee which met for just over a year with the stated goal to increase cooperation and collaboration between the town and UMass, our number one employer.

In addition to the UTAC Steering Committee, which will also have an undergrad and grad student by next semester, there are three independent subcommittees focusing on economic development, housing, and cultural arts/entertainment.

Chancellor Subbaswamy, who would like to see Amherst become "Cambridge West" (without the traffic and tall buildings) acknowledged he would be hiring a couple hundred more employees down the road.

He would also like to think those new employees could afford to live and recreate in Amherst, not that he has anything against nearby towns.

Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek said it's not just about increasing the vibrancy of our downtown but also the Village Centers and he pointed out how North Amherst is growing with the recent opening of the Mill District.

Mr. Ziomek stated the town is still in the search phase for an Economic Development Director -- a top recommendation of the Town Gown Steering Committee -- and he would keep everyone informed through November and December.

But, he was optimistic they would find "the right person for Amherst.'

Nancy Buffone concluded the meeting on an upbeat note:  "It's going to be a lot of fun."

UTAC subcommittee members

Blinded By The Light

Newer of ye old landfills catching some rays

Note thick tree line buffering landfill from Logtown Road neighborhood on left

'Twas NIMBY business as usual at the 2nd town sponsored public forum on planned solar array projects at the two closed landfill sites, both located off Belchertown Road in East Amherst.

 Crowd was not overly friendly to concept of solar on ye old landfill

While the 3.4 megawatt project on the newer of the old that will generate $128K in electrical savings and $45K Payment In Lieu Of Taxes annually for 20 years seems to have almost universal support, the older unlined landfill with a ritzy neighborhood next door continues to draw fire.

 The project will have plenty of oversight

Despite presentations outlining the rigorous testing and oversight the Department of Environmental Protection requires for landfills, neighbors were not convinced the solar project could be safely constructed on an unlined landfill with a cap that is not perfectly impermeable.

They even hired their own environmental consultant who concluded the sky is falling, the sky is falling.  

Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek 

Standing exactly where deceased Town Manger John Musante stood only six weeks ago, interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek started the proceedings by acknowledging his friend and colleague: "John was passionate about making Amherst a green community and solar was one of his biggest priorities."

 One of the many symbols of Amherst's commitment to being a "green community"

Back in 2011 NIMBYs tried to sabotage  a warrant article allowing Town Manager Musante to enter into a solar deal on ye old landfill by adding a pair of poison pill amendments.  They both failed in one of the most lopsided defeats in the 250+ year history of Amherst Town Meeting.

Naturally NIMBYs instantly went to Plan B: file a lawsuit, which resulted in "death by delay".

A neighbor brought up that lawsuit at the public forum last night and Finance Director Sandy Pooler stated the town never lost faith in their position that the landfill project was legal and this time around the town would see it through.

In other words, "Go ahead, make my day."

 Ye old landfill

Amherst Town Meeting, which starts November 2, will vote on the same warrant article overwhelmingly passed in 2011 to allow Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek to enter an agreement with SunEdison on net metering credit purchase and for Payment In Lieu Of Taxes on the solar array on the "new" landfill.

The only question now is will the town be bullied and bluffed into dropping the solar array project on ye old landfill.  Again.

Hadley, our farm community next door, had no problems with this solar array on E. Hadley Road