Costly Votes

When Umass students (a fresh faced, idealistic bunch) lobbied town officials to allow a central voting precinct in the heart of the sprawling campus, Select board Czar Ann Awad was more than happy to accommodate them; after all she surfed to her initial Select board victory on a tide of student votes that came like a once in a generation tsunami in 2000 to support the non-binding Pot Legalization ballot question.

So it was no coincidence 18 months ago Ms. Awad would support the idea and help get it on the fast track to spend $25,000 (Umass eventually reimbursed the town…but without interest) for the four fancy vote-tabulating scanners. Just in time for her reelection bid last year.

OF course last year no real candidate emerged to challenge Ms. Awad. Sorry Mr. Keenan no disrespect intended but your “campaign” was a tad lackluster. Even Ms. Awad on election night called it a very “collegial” campaign. And Mr. Keenan was seen getting into a limo with Ms. Awad on the morning of the election. I guess the opponents who vote together…

Not that the student vote would have mattered much that year as only 26 students bothered to vote at the new convenient location (combining 4 precincts), or a tad less than 1.25% turnout. Okay, so it was the debut year…these things take time. Ms Awad likes the metaphor (often applied to the floundering Cherry Hill Golf Course) that it’s “Like turning around a tanker at sea.”

So how did the young citizens fare this year? Only seventeen total, or less than 1% turnout. Ouch!

$3,216.14 in staff pay plus $240 for programming the machines and printing ballots divided by 17 kids comes to a whopping $240 per student vote. On the town side 3,356 voters requiring $8,455 in staff and $2,143 for programming and printing comes to $3.16 per townie vote.

Back in 2000, Select man Hill Boss (we always called him Boss Hill) sparked a controversy by suggesting the only sure way to increase student voter turnout was to place a couple kegs of beer at the polling place.

Hmmmm….

Pride of the ARA

Only in Amherst would a infamous activist call for the “abolishment” of an important state agency—the Amherst Redevelopment Authority—and then run a last minute write in campaign to win election to that very board.

Vince O’Connor wished to win a seat to orchestrate legislative suicide. In a letter to ARA members two weeks ago Planning Director Jonathan Tucker informed them of Mr. O’Connor’s citizen petition that “proposes to dissolve the ARA,” and went on to state: “Before undertaking any action with regard to this petition, the Town wants to understand the preferences of the members of the Redevelopment Authority.”

Anti-garage activist Nancy Gordon won a seat on the ARA (uncontested of course) two years ago, but the ARA has not had a meeting since. Pretty safe bet how Ms. Gordon would vote on the agency drinking that Kool Aid or who leaked the Planning Director’s letter to Mr. O’Connor.

My Blog post (“Vote early, vote often”) and three small ads in the Amherst Bulletin (costing $99.77) provided enough of a one-two punch to garner 67 write-in votes to Mr. O’Connor’s 18.

So now the ARA will not willingly vote itself out of existence. And with all the moderates who won seats in town meeting (60 out of 71 endorsed by sustainableamherst prevailed), it’s a safe bet Mr. O’Connor will be dealt another overwhelming defeat on the floor of Town Meeting.

The Empress has no clothes.

Amherst voters shouted a loud and clear message to the current ruling regime: Wake up and smell the herbal tea. The times they are a changing. We’re mad as Hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

The astounding defeat (to quote him) of incumbent Robie Hubley by a two-to-one margin to Alisa Brewer clearly demonstrates a chink in the armor of Select board Czar Anne Awad. If she were on the ballot instead of her husband, she too would now be standing in the Selectman unemployment line (or maybe Mr. Weiss).

Mr. Hubley also acknowledges his antiquated but quaint style of campaigning was no match for the power of electronic media—web sites, list serves, and Blogs. Although Mr. Hubley’s campaign did raise the hackles of some by posting campaign briefs on the Town Meeting yahoo list serve.

Even amiable, school champion incumbent Gerry Weiss came in second to Brewer, thus defying conventional wisdom that he was everybody’s second vote. Yes, the common sense concept of bullet voting (not using your second vote) may now be mainstream.

It’s certainly no coincidence that the two candidates—Alisa Brewer and Andy Churchill for School Committee—endorsed by sustainableamherst.org came in first and second overall and within .001% of each other.

And while overall turnout at 21% was a tad better than the usual 15% it is still pathetic when compared to Presidential election turnouts averaging almost 80%.

I won a three-year term in Town Meeting (I too was endorse by sustainableamherst.org) and I’m still waiting to hear from the Town Clerk if my last minute write in campaign for Amherst Redevelopment Authority was successful.

Native son Barry Roberts—sometimes described as an “evil developer”—garnered over 300 votes in his initial debut Town Meeting victory run…a very good sign!

And for those of you who were as confused as I about the Gazette front-page headline “Brewer unhorses Hubley in Amherst”, it was a Middle Ages reference to jousting. Not that I could picture either of the candidates in such a physical arena.

More typical Amherst election anecdote

A moment after taking the photo of the vandalized Hubley lawnsign Select man Kusner rode in on his mountain bike. Ironically, I asked him to pose with his rolling campaign billboard thinking this is—albeit a tad offbeat—an example of positive campaigning.

Of course after posing he heading directly up the hill to Crocker Farm School main entrance (Precinct 7 voting place) and proceeded to violate the 150 foot restricted area around voting booths.

And Mr. Kusner, of all people, should know well this rule as he almost got into a physical confrontation with town clerk Anna Maciaszek three years ago over her ordering the removal of campaign signs to close to a voting precinct in town center.


From: BurgessS@amherstma.gov (Town Clerk)
To: AmherstAC@aol.com
Sent: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 9:14 AM
Subject: RE: Mr. Kusner caught in the act (well a moment or two later)

Thanks for the visual. I already received a complaint about this and I have advised the Town Manager of my obligations to uphold the 150’ law. My latest information is that Mr. Kusner has left Precinct 7. Hopefully he will not show up somewhere else.

Sandra

Beyond divisive!

I hate this! I hate it that cowards take matters into their own hands under cover of darkness. I hate it that they believe vandalism can further their cause.

No folks, this is definitely not a typical Amherst moment.

"Smells like...victory"

God how I love early morning on Election Day, when the possibilities are endless. Well, not really. Either I win or I lose; and the very few candidates I support win or lose. And then all the acrimony goes away…for a while.

In this case an even more acrimonious--the overused word of the week is “divisive”-- campaign commences for a $2.5 million tax Override, thus carpet-bombing homeowners with a permanent tax hike.

Two week ago the Select board—in another one of their chaotic meetings—managed to set the date, May 1, thus guaranteeing cost to the taxpayers as elections such as the one today cost an average of $12,000 to produce (if I dare use that word).

You would think they could have come up with a better day. Obviously nobody on the board is a history major as May 1’st conjures up images of tanks, missile launchers rolling thru Red Square with high-tech fighter jets swooping overhead.

And if anything brought down the formidable Red Army, it was a lack of money. Hmmmm…maybe May 1’st is an appropriate day after all.

Vote early, vote often

So besides running for Town Meeting in Precinct 5 I am also mounting a write-in campaign for Redevelopment Authority, also known as the ARA (Amherst Redevelopment Authority).

This is an at-large seat, left open when hotel magnate Curt Shumway decided not to seek another term and nobody collected the 50 signatures required to be on the ballot.

I had been the Governor’s appointee to the ARA (5 members with 4 elected, one appointed) since 1996 first under William Weld.

Jane Swift reappointed me and then my term expired in 2005. Strangely enough the Select board unanimously approved my reappointment last year in a letter to state authorities that somehow seems to have gotten lost in the mail. In the waning moments of his governorship Mitt Romney appointed Jeanne Traester, a Republican who was beaten by a 3-1 margin in her bid against (D) Ellen Story for State Representative.

The ARA has not even had a meeting in two years, so why do I care? Well, the ARA has Design Review approval in the Center School complex Urban Renewal Project area…in other words Boltwood Walk, home of the bitterly opposed downtown Parking Garage.

When the ARA donated the property to the town we did so with only one condition: the Garage had to be expandable. The inclusion of supports in the foundation capable of supporting an additional deck added tens of thousands to the $4 million project. Still a good deal for the town, considering the donated parcel had a market value of $350,000.

IF the town is going to expand parking in the downtown and IF the Boltwood Garage affords an economical way to do that, then the ARA could once again lead the charge.

I also find it appalling that the ARA approves something as mundane as Pinocchio's restaurant changing the color scheme on an outdoor sign, but nobody seems to have done anything after the restaurant had to close because of a structure fire, almost two years ago, that left much of the building uninhabitable.

Recently everyone’s favorite community activist Vince O’Connor (who received almost a zero rating from sustainableamherst.org) filed a petition for Town Meeting calling for the “…abolishment of the ARA.”

Vince helped lead the charge to oppose construction of the parking garage and even wanted Town Meeting to take the ARA parcel of land by eminent domain. Of course, the ARA came into possession of the land in the first place by using eminent domain.

Thus, it would have been a reenactment of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack.

I think the ARA still has some important work to finish and I want to help make that happen.