There He Goes Yet Again

Luke Vincent Gatti arrested May 28th, 2016

Not surprisingly Luke Gatti, aka the infamous UConn Mac & Cheese kid, who got his start with alcohol fueled mayhem at UMass Amherst, has been arrested yet again.  This time in sunny Florida.

In our little college town Mr. Gatti was arrested twice within three weeks on infamous Phillips Street:

Click to enlarge/read

Page 2 continues:  "a temper tantrum like behavior.  Mr. Gatti then clenched his hands and held his arms in a defiant manner consistent with an agitated state.  He was arrested for Disorderly Conduct."

 Click to enlarge/read

And yes -- in the interests of being fair and balanced -- I did reach out back then to young Gatti for comment:

Maybe now his dad will stop bailing him out, and get him the help he so obviously needs.

Luke V. Gatti (center) and father (right) appear before Judge John Payne September 15, 2014

Story is already going viral hours after I first posted

Preventable Deaths = Priceless

11 Phillips Street

Any good fire prevention expert will tell you the best way to prevent fire related deaths is not to let The Beast form in the first place.  And nothing is better at accomplishing that then a sprinkler system.

Number two on the list is an early warning system that allows notification to residents to get out of the structure as quickly as possible i.e. smoke or heat detectors as well as simultaneously sending notification to a professional alarm monitoring company.  

But those detectors are worthless if they have been purposely disabled or simply not maintained properly, like changing the battery every year.

Take 11 Phillips Street -- and I wish somebody with eminent domain powers would take that entire street -- for instance:   In Eastern Hampshire District Court last week Fire Prevention Officer Mike Roy won yet another "disabling a smoke detector" case.

 Click to enlarge/read

While an $800 fine may seem steep for Mr. Weiner had AFD pressed to keep the mater criminal he would could have served up to two years in jail because the charge is a felony.

Instead, in a Clerk Magistrate Hearing, he was found "responsible" but as long as he abides by the four conditions the matter will be dismissed in November.

 Terms of settlement written up by his lawyer

And since he is one of only four who supposedly lives at 11 Phillips (but notice he identified himself as a "Fraternity Vice President ... hmmm) and rent is a whopping $4,800 per month, I think he -- or his Fraternity -- can well afford the fine. 

Beats being dead.

APD Community Liaison officer Bill Laramee (left) and absentee property owner Stephan Gharabegian this morning at 45 Phillips Street after first meeting at 11 Phillips Street

 AFD Fire Prevention Officer Mike Roy files complaint with Eastern Hampshire District Court on 4/26

Blarney Blowout 2016

Morning briefing 7:15 AM  100+ police vehicles and AFD on scene

 #####

Parking ban prevented extra thousands from attending

8:25 AM:

Townhouse quads in North Amherst are quiet as police are blockading both entrances 

Police blocking entrance to Townhouse Apartments

Parking lots near Southwest still have plenty of room

 Ch 22 with their hard to miss camera

High Noon:

UMPD at Mullins Center concert:  "Still under 1,000 patrons and we have more leaving than coming." #blarneyblowout

— Larry Kelley (@amherstac) March 5, 2016

2:30 PM:

Townhouse quads quiet like a church mouse, although party activity in the front yards along Meadow Street

PD blockade was extremely effective 

PD blockade at Puffton Village, another usual flashpoint

 State Police Helicopter Air 1 flew lazy loops all morning into early afternoon 

 AFD responding for the 2nd time to 11 Phillips Street for a false fire alarm

APD K9 "Dash" assisted with party control on Shumway Street and College Street

Police broke up noisy gathering on Amity Street near town ctr

 
8:00 PM:  Good night Blarney:

6:30 AM The Morning After:

 Meadow Street

Phillips Street

 Fearing Street

Haters Still Gonna Hate

Kendrick Place:  new mixed use anchor for the north end of downtown

After being described as "hideous" in public meetings, with charges of "good old boy" favortism on the part of the Planning Board, prognosticated to overwhelm town parking and becoming a despicable den for student parties rivaling Phillips Street, it's nice to see four months into their operations the apocalypse has not been unleashed by Kendrick Place.

And some professionals seem to appreciate the design of the building:

Click to enlarge/read

Yeah, I'm The Taxman

Principal Assessor David Burgess

Principal Assessor David Burgess made his scintillating annual appearance before the illustrious Select Board to set the tax rate for the coming year, which is already too high and will only go higher, from $20.54 up to $21.22 per thousand.

Also as usual the SB decided not to "split" the tax rate and charge commercial property more in order to save homeowners a small amount.

For instance if the board had decided for the maximum shift allowed the tax rate for homes would drop to $20.01 (pretty much the same ridiculous rate we pay now) and commercial would skyrocket to $31.83.

Or put in more simple terms the average taxbill for an average home would go from $6,842 down to "only" $6,456 while the average commercial bill would go from $7,627 up to $11,148.  Ouch!

These out of whack numbers clearly underscore a major problem:  Amherst is overly reliant on residential property, a whopping 90% of the tax base.

The good news is recent development has spurred annual "new growth" which Mr. Burgess projects around $750,000 for the upcoming fiscal year mainly due to Olympia Oaks and Kendrick Place coming on line.

And since rents are continuing to rise in Amherst he told the Select Board large apartment complexes will "take a hit" after his next reevaluation.  With dwelling structures of 4 units or greater the assessor uses a formula that considers net operating profits so the higher the profits the higher the valuation the higher the tax burden.

Too bad he could not use that same formula with smaller (less than 4)  housing units as slumlords could then be assessed based on their cash flow rather than the crappy condition of their units -- which leads to lower assessments and maximum profits.

Phillips Street, the slummiest street in Amherst, has only 1 owner occupied home

Party House of the Weekend

45 Phillips Street

Once again a weekend that was relatively quiet compared to the bad ol' days of just two or three years past.  Our only Party House, with two arrests for Noise & Nuisance, occurred on Phillips Street the most notorious street in Amherst.

 Click to enlarge/read

45 Phillips Street to be exact, owned by the most notorious absentee landlord in Amherst, Stephan Gharabegian, who also owns another three houses on Phillips Street, #37,#33, and #11.

Only one house out of all nine on the street is owner occupied.  And the front bookend on North Pleasant Street is a fraternity.

Phillips Street located adjacent to UMass

In Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning both underage individuals took the standard plea deal offered by the Commonwealth: Pay one of the $300 tickets and stay out of trouble for the next four months.

Adrian Lech, age 20

Jason Rubenstein, age 20

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

DUI Dishonor Roll

Michal Wojewodzic, age 22 (photo courtesy APD)

Great weather over the weekend brought out droves of college aged youth to all the usual hot spots near UMass for foot traffic  -- Phillips, North Pleasant and Meadow Streets.  Which is what makes this drunk driving incident all that much scarier.

What if he had hit a tender body rather than a solid tree?

Click to enlarge/read

 Meadow Street/Townhouse Apartments late Saturday afternoon

In Eastern Hampshire District Court on Monday Mr. Wojewodzic had his case continued until next month.

Wild Women Weekend

51 Phillips Street

Three 21-year-old women, all UMass students, became the first "Party House" arrests of the Fall  semester.  And seven of nine (one of my favorite Star Trek characters) UMass ETOH drunk runs over the weekend were women, as were both Amherst College drunk runs.

Click to enlarge/read

Ain't equality great?

In Eastern Hampshire District Court on Monday none of the three women jumped at the Commonwealth's usual plea deal offer (which has about a 98% acceptance rate):  Criminal case is "diverted" to civil with payment of $300 town bylaw noise fine, and if they stay out of trouble for four months the case is dismissed.

All the young women wished to consult with a private attorney so their cases were continued until next month.

And all the ETOH women recovered and will be paying (or their parents will) around $1,000 each for their ride to Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

   AFD Runs Mid-September

So Far So Good

APD having a chat with college aged youth carrying a 12 pack Townhouse Apartments

The long weekend went a l-o-t better than I thought it would as far as (serious) rowdyism goes.

Sure there were the usual problems associated with our annual spike in population, returning Amherst to a "college town" after a quiet summer:  zombie herds traipsing up and down Phillips Street, North Pleasant and Fearing Streets, large gatherings in the west quad of Townhouse Apartments and of course old standby Hobart Lane.

Townhouse Apartments Saturday afternoon

But there were no serious incidents of drunken mob mentality manifesting itself in the form of rocks, bottles and cans being hurled at police officers, aka Blarney Blowout.

Although Amherst Fire Department had the usual tie up in services due to drunk runs with ETOH students. 

Amherst police stepped up their game as they always do.  APD Neighborhood Liaison officer Bill Laramee worked with UMass Neighborhood Liaison Eric Beal to keep a lid on the usual pressure cooker areas.

The Rental Permit Bylaw ordinance that went into effect 18 months ago is making a significant difference by holding landlords accountable for the (late night) activities of their tenants.

And UMass, by building newer plusher accommodations on campus -- North Apartment (800 beds) and Commonwealth Honors College apartments (1,500 beds) -- gives young tenants a reason to be proud of their humble abode and much more likely to treat it with respect.

Revived my Twitter audience