What goes around...

Larry Shaffer turns on the charm for Amherst Town Meeting

UPDATE Wednesday April 20: The Gazette today reports a sanitized version of Mr. Shaffer's new job prospects. Interestingly enough it appears in the print edition but not online. Editors probably did not want to allow Comments that could bring up dirty laundry. UPDATE: 8:45 AM: So about an hour after I posted that first update it magically appeared online. Coincidence I guess.
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ORIGINAL POST: Sunday evening (a tad ahead of the Gazette)

My two site meters act like canaries in a coal mine, early alerting me to something of note suddenly occurring. On Tuesday a tsunami of hits from Facebook landing on a "Party House of the Weekend" post from last December almost crashed my widget.

I was actually in the middle of drafting an email to APD wondering if something terrible had just happened at 23 Tracy Circle (thinking somebody blew their brains out after posting a suicide note on Facebook linking back to me) when I managed to trace it back to the juvenile "F_ck the Fines" Facebook group.

Then a couple days ago I noticed numerous hits coming from Michigan all Googling "Larry Shaffer, Amherst" with some of them adding the term "gay". Hmm...

Turns out that former Amherst Town Manager Larry Shaffer is tops on the list for city manager of Jackson, Michigan a city about the size of Amherst (which should be a city). The gay thing is probably from his public interview use of the term "partner" for his um, other woman, Jane Ashby.

The one he divorced his wife over, and then suddenly retired from bucolic Amherst (with a taxpayer funded $62-K going away present) to follow her out to her new professorship at Central Michigan University.

I asked a conservative buddy of mine who makes Michigan her home which scenario would play better in Jackson: A gay man applying for city manager or a straight one who had an affair with his secretary while still married (costing taxpayers $23,000 to hush up) then flew the coop to be with yet another woman. All hypothetical examples of course.

Considering Michigan is more conservative than Massachusetts, with a huge evangelical community in Grand Rapids and a large Muslim population outside Detroit, it sounds like neither of my hypothetical scenarios would play out well.

So forget Mr. Shaffer's folly of charging a tax on Christmas trees sold by Boy Scouts, or getting spanked by the ACLU for attempting a heavy handed takeover of the July 4th Parade to accommodate left wing zealots or even purposely fudging figures to protect a municipally owned black hole of a golf course; his final undoing is a character flaw as old as Adam and Eve--and in this cyber age, one that cannot be hidden behind a fig leaf.



My conservative Michigan buddy agrees

Pass the Ganja, man!

Town Center 3:10 PM Day One

Fine for public consumption alcohol: $300, a criminal offense

Fine for public consumption of marijuana: $100, a civil offense

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Sunday morning Day Two (7:00 AM) The calm before the storm

(12:45 PM)

Stoner discussion page

The Springfield Sunday Republican reports Interestingly this morning's Front Page print edition omits the photo of Matthew James and Niki Snow smoking pot and run a more family oriented photo of them juggling. And they change the headline from the cutesy "Annual Extravaganja festival lights up in Amherst" to a more boring "Marijuana fest mix of pot, policy"

The Boston Globe Reports

They HAD a secret #2

Two years ago the assistant I.T. Director was let go for sending an email complaint about his boss to town manager Larry Shaffer, also copied to the entire Select Board.

I filed a public documents request for said dispatch; the town manger turned me down citing Exemption C, the most often used excuse: "Personnel and medical files or information; also any other materials or data relating to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

But in late February I requested any and all "separation, severance, transition, or settlement agreements made since January 1, 2005 between the town of Amherst and their employee's that include compensation, benefits, or other payments worth more than $5,000."

So here it is: Just another case of an employee who suddenly disappears (with $25-K in hand)
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A Gazette reporter called yesterday to interview me about the original post concerning the town manager's sudden retirement with a $62-K going away present and his, errr, administrative assistant also disappearing that same day with a $22-K payday after only 3-and-a-half years employment with the town.

He wanted to know "why the people should care?" Good question. Not sure I answered well enough for him and even if so it may never see the light of print anyway, so I will answer it again here.

Of the 13 individuals covered under these agreement more than half of them are simply routine retirements or early retirements. But because they are all kept secret, it casts a shadow on those that are routine, as though they did something wrong.

When the town attorney informed the town manager he had to give up the documents, Mr. Musante requested another week to contact the former employees via snail mail to inform them that someone had been given their legal agreements.

And I'm sure some of them--even those who should not be--started to get nervous.

The highest payout ($44,000) was actually the most normal in that it was a very-high ranking employee with over thirty years of distinguished service. That settlement included unused vacation pay, sick time, personal days, longevity pay, etc.

Another woman who had left the same position Ms. "Jane Doe" occupied (administrative assistant to the town manager--and I'm told by multiple sources did a much better job) was not on the settlement list, because she received no money. Since she voluntarily resigned her town position for a better job at Amherst College, you would expect no such settlement.

So then why did "Jane Doe" get paid $22-K when she "voluntarily" resigned ten months later?

If the former town manager Larry Shaffer had used $22-K out of his $25-K going away present, then I would have not pursued this case so vigorously. But since it was all funded with tax dollars, I honestly believe the people have a right to know.

Just another WikiLeaks document dump...

So once again I have set my blogger controls to automatically publish at 2:30 this afternoon another chapter from my recent acquisition of 82 pages of legal documents via Public Documents Law concerning secret settlement agreements with 13 town employees over the past five years.

No, I'm not afraid town officials will have me terminated with extreme prejudice between now and then or anything, it's just that even though I now live a cyber-life I still have ink in my veins. And nothing is more motivating than a drop-dead deadline.

What's yours is mine

Trampoline half on town property. Note also cleared, mowed area of encroachment

A couple square yards here and a couple there, pretty soon you're talking football field

No wonder the folks cocooned in high-end houses on Tanglewood Drive are so heated about the town finally getting around to turning the expensive old dump into something productive--a lucrative, environmentally friendly solar farm.

Not only do they now enjoy a great view, but some of the folks have enhanced that view by encroaching on town property.

A backyard view

A tree fort and swing way out on the landfill

Cleared manicured area beyond the property line

Boys will be (little) boys

No, believe it or not, this is not a Saturday Night Live skit

UPDATE: Friday April 15 3:30 PM Umass must be paying attention. Off campus bad boy behavior will no longer be tolerated. Code of Student conduct changes are a coming
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UPDATE: Wednesday 2:30 PM The Facebook group is gone undergound, long live civility. As always, Comments are the best.
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ORIGINAL POST: Tuesday morning

Strike up the ditty "Fight...for your right, to parrrrrrrrty!" The irate lads who live at 23 Tracy Circle have taken to Facebook to rage against the machine. Nice language boys. Gotta wonder if they have family on Facebook who will get to see their diatribe.

Note from screen shot above (taken yesterday) that they had 170 members, but are now down by four (who probably don't want HR pros to know they were once part of such an immature group when they go job searching.)

23 Tracy Circe (a residential neighborhood)

The Thin Blue Line

Solar powered Electric Chair?

This detonation of a backpack nuke at last night's Select Board meeting--publicly suggesting Amherst will be an "accomplice in a capital crime"--was obviated a couple hours later, when reading from a prepared statement during his Town Manger's report, John Musante informs the Select Board he's given up on using DEP approved contaminated soil to regrade the old unlined landfill.

Still, you gotta love Mr. Boothroyd's borrowing from Steve Jobs the "one last thing" intro before dropping the bombshell.



End result? The town losses $250,000 in disposal fees paid in work/equipment barter from the major contractor rebuilding Atkins Corner, who will now have to pay cash to another disposal facility at a greater rate per ton for the 6,000 ton load.

And the town will have to rely on street sweepings and catch basin crud to try to make up the difference for the regrading but will probably have to bring in clean fill at additional cost in labor and cash. All in all, a lose-lose scenario.

Twenty years ago Mr. Keenan enhanced his "fiscal conservative" image by volunteering to clean up pigeon poop from the Town Hall attic after Town Manager Barry Del Castilho (worried about the health of his secretary, who later became his wife) was preparing to spend over $100,000 to have a hazardous waste disposal company clean it up.

And a couple weeks ago Mr. Keenan blew the whistle to DEP about 20-30 barrels of potentially hazardous waste (paint from UMass) that was buried somewhere in the landfill over 25 years ago by town DPW workers.

But if everyone is also so concerned about the integrity of the landfill cap, then why try to force the town into cracking it open to dig for those 20 or 30 needles in a haystack?

Solar Flare

Atkins construction soil

John Boothroyd and Dave Keenan, two outspoken critics of the town's attempt to recast the old unlined landfill into a sea of shiny solar panels took their battle directly to the Select Board at the unscripted 6:30 PM "Question Period" tonight, focusing on the potential health hazard of pesticide laced soil approved by the DEP as partial fill to repair sagging areas of the landfill cap due to settling common after 20 years of decomposition.

John Musante, during his "Town Manager's Report", told the Select Board the contaminated soil controversy had created "a lot of anxiety" and become a "distraction."

The regrading of the landfill will occur regardless of the solar array project and since the use of lead arsenate soil was a relatively minor part of the overall work, he directed DPW chief Guilford Mooring to abandon the idea of using 6,000 tons of tainted soil from the Atkins Corner Road project, although he praised Mr Mooring for "trying to be entrepreneurial".

Musante by no means backed down on the ambitious project to construct a 4.75 megawatt solar farm on the landfill that could provide the town with a million dollars per year in combined electricity savings and property tax revenues.

Mass spending

The Governor just approved a $327 million supplemental budget to get the state through the rest of the year to maintain "critical services, core safety net programs" and provide reimbursement to cities and towns for cleaning up after the worst winter in collective memory.

UPDATE: 7:35 PM
And in local news, the illustrious Select Board just voted unanimously to close off half the downtown Spring Street lot and a few more spaces on Boltwood Avenue to park the three large tour buses that will descend on the town for the newly e-x-p-a-n-d-e-d (to two days) Extravaganja Event, April 16th and 17th.

Last year the Amherst Board of Health considered expanding the smoking ban to include outdoor public areas such as the town common, but the proposal was dropped.

Party House(s) of the weekend

64 Pomeroy Lane

This week we have a tie: 64 Pomeroy Lane and good old Phillips Street, number 51 to be exact. Yes, a few weeks back I gave that entire street the dubious distinction of "Party Street of the Weekend."

According to Police narrative: "Large party with outdoor fire at 64 Pomeroy Lane. Approximately 100 people cleared out. Three residents put the fire out. They were arrested for town bylaw noise violation and illegal burning. Transported to APD for booking. House was secured before we left."

Meanwhile 10 minutes earlier on the other side of town (in the heart of the Gateway District): "Loud party. Minors identified on the scene in possession of alcohol. Approximately 40 guests cleared from residence. History indicated past responses. Two tenants identified on scene placed under arrest. One individual ID as minor in possession of alcohol placed under arrest."

51 Phillips Street

In addition to party/nuisance house enforcement, APD continued their campaign of proactive policing by arresting and or issuing summons to 50 college aged individuals for open container or underage drinking all within walking distance of UMass as well as an individual for Driving Under the Influence.

Searing the solar farm

Yes this is the same Diana Spurgin who fours years ago was treasurer of the 'Amherst Plan Committee' a band of soccer moms, well paid academics and 'Amherst Center' types pushing a $2.5 million "Three Year Plan" tax Override hatched by our Finance Committee, at the time toothless watchdogs who acted more like lapdogs for town officials.

And of course their main propaganda pitch, as usual, was to shame taxpayers into voting yes for the collective common good especially for the sake of the children, who attend one of the most expensive public school systems in the state.

Ahh, but when it comes to a creating a higher-and-better use for town property, a deal that could benefit the common good by $1 million per year while reducing our carbon footprint, don't disturb the tranquility near my backyard (an unlined landfill).

Today's Sunday Republican reports

The last campaign

In a beautiful home perched high on a hill overlooking scenic South Amherst friends, supporters and former-enemies-turned-friends gathered tonight to toast Catherine Sanderson--to sincerely thank her for three years of bruising work challenging an entrenched system, asking questions that others feared to voice and suggesting solutions some considered sacrilege...until they worked out for the betterment of our most cherished asset: the children.

Amherst Solar Farm meets Jerry Springer show!

The only thing missing among the crowd who jammed the town's solar farm public forum Wednesday night was bullhorns, pitchforks and torches. Perhaps a better headline would be: "When NIMBYs attack."

Yes amazingly enough these restless natives who purchases expensive homes next to an old unlined landfill are worried a commercial solar array will ruin their property values. After all, real estate agents promised them the landfill would remain open space for 99 years. And if you can't trust real estate agents who can you trust? Used car salesmen perhaps?

The complaints aired ran the typical gambit: noise, visual pollution, losing open space to walk the dog and go sledding, turning the neighborhood into another "Love Canal" and--my favorite--Russia dealing with Chernobyl compared to the way Amherst town government is now going about the process. Yikes!

Kind of far fetched to claim the solar array will cause damage to the landfill cap when DEP will have to approved it after exhaustive study and the expert the town is partnering with, John DeVillars is a former New England Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

A couple years ago Town Meeting was going to award Guilford Mooring "Mr. Congeniality" for his patient, good natured, humorous way of presenting DPW issues to that legislative body. So for him going Postal, says a lot...

Voter poll on Localocracy (looking like a landslide)

The Daily Collegian reports

They HAD a Secret

Larry Shaffer, Stephanie O'Keeffe, Aaron Hayden

I call her Jane Doe

While public documents czar Alan Cote denied my appeal for full disclosure of the 8/30/10 Select Board executive session minutes where town officials huddled in secret for over an hour to discuss the strikingly sudden "retirement" of town manager Laurence Shaffer (the very night the Board was scheduled to publicly discuss his annual "performance evaluation"), the town grudgingly complied with my request for Shaffer's "Employment Settlement and release of claims" agreement and that of his office administrative assistant who also, coincidentally enough, simultaneously disappeared.

So here's the executive summary, but I invite you to click on the hotlinks below to read the documents in full: Shaffer's platinum parachute, after only four years of "service" to the town, a whopping $62,129.

And Jane Doe, serving only three-and-a-half years (earning $43,900 last year) sauntered off with $23,012. In the private sector you would be lucky to get a couple weeks to a month pay as severance (and even then only after a ten year minimum service), or in her case about $3,000 and Shaffer's case maybe $10,000.

“I’ve never heard of anybody, public sector or private sector, getting severance pay when they voluntarily leave employment,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. Interestingly the legal agreements dubbed Jane Doe a "resignation," Mr. Shaffer a "retirement."

"In a week's time I'll be 62 years old and indeed I have been thinking about retirement," Shaffer told the Select Board back then (with two years still left on his contract). That final spring in Amherst Mr Shaffer retired a few things: divorcing his wife and selling his home on Amity Street.

But merely a month after his October 1 "retirement" he was seeking a city manager job in Michigan. According to the 12/10/10 Birmingham Patch: "Because Shaffer's significant other teaches at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, commissioners asked him about whether he plans to commute. Shaffer assured them that he's fully open to making Birmingham his permanent home if he is offered the position and that he's here to stay."

That "significant other" is former UMass psychology professor Jane Ashby who, five years ago, sat on the original Amherst "citizen search committee" that chose Shaffer over two other highly qualified candidates; she too divorced her spouse in Amherst last spring and headed off to Central Michigan University, a state school that made CBS Money Watch list of "25 Colleges With the Worst Professors."

The whereabouts of Shaffer's former administrative assistant is currently unknown.

Jane Doe's agreement
Click links above and below to read
Larry Shaffer's agreement

official minutes of 80 minute 8 /30 executive session (all two sentences, where one of them was redacted)

Tick, tick, tick: Public Documents bonanza

So I've set my blogger controls to automatically publish at 2:30 this afternoon my most recent investigative article based on a somewhat wide ranging public documents request made the end of February.

The town naturally took well beyond the 10 day response period to comply (after their attorney advised them they had to) and gave me the legal documents concerning 13 former employees.

Some of them were routine retirement settlements; and some of them were far from it.

ARA sets dates

At this evening's cordial meeting the Amherst Redevelopment Authority confirmed the upcoming public outreach orchestrated by American Communities Partnership designed to bring in opinions from ALL the stakeholders--not just those with backyards abutting ground zero.

Planning Director Jonathan Tucker declared anyone who shows interest in the Gateway Project is a stakeholder and will eventually be heard. If they can't make the intimate small group (up to ten people) meetings on April 12, 13 and 14, they can send "public comments" via mail or email to the planning department who will then forward to the consultant.

But ARA grande dame Peggy Roberts pointed out, they should be thinking of what would be overtly acceptable not just for now, but for the next fifty years.

While those initial three days of stakeholder interviews are by invite only and are not open, public meetings, the information gleamed will help set the agenda for the three-day charrette at the end of the month: April 28, 29 and 30th.

These meetings are wide open with the first one an all day affair--the design visioning workshop. On day two the consultants and town staff try to synthesize the input from day one and start to draft a vision, and on day three try to sharpen the vision focus.

At a joint meeting of the ARA and Planning Board sometime in mid-June the final draft from the consultants will be unveiled and in the last two weeks of their contract the consultants will be available for any final tweaks.

With the visioning process completed and a "desired outcome" targeted, the next vital phase consists of the action steps required to actually get us there. And in Amherst, the hardest part is overcoming the usual response: "you can't get there from here."

Dark clouds on the Solar Farm horizon?

DEP requires Amherst to regrade undulations at old landfill

Dave Keenan, a long-time thorn in town officials side, although once a town official himself, is baaaaaack.

Now he's lobbing a stink bomb into the middle of Amherst public officials picnic over turning our old abandoned landfill into a cash cow solar array farm that will produce enough renewable energy to supply all municipal needs, saving the town almost $1 million per year in electricity costs, and pay up to a couple hundred thousand dollars annually in property taxes.

Government tax incentives have stimulated these sunny public/private partnerships springing up nationwide like weeds after a summer rain. And it's not as though old landfills are good for much else.

Mr Keenan blew the whistle to his old acquaintances at the Department of Environmental Protection claiming three retired DPW workers told him about 20-30 barrels of hazardous wastes--allegedly lead based paint from UMass-- they were ordered to bury back in the 1980s.

While I cannot corroborate that particular story, I can verify first hand that hazardous materials were indeed tossed into the smelly pit. Yes, I admit it; 50 years ago my dad and I threw old paint, solvents, dirty motor oil, leftover cleaning products, insecticides, fertilizers, outdated medicines, etc. As did most of the citizens of bucolic Amherst.

To say there are hazardous wastes buried in the old landfill is like declaring there's bear dung in the woods of Maine. That's why the town spent a considerable amount to cap the site with an impermeable protective cover: to keep water from mixing with the dangerous contents and forming a hazardous cocktail that could could migrate downstream. Monitoring sites were also installed to test for that scenario and a system to handle methane gas.

But after 20 Years of fermentation the contents down under have settled causing the cap to sag in spots, allowing pools of water to form on the surface. The DEP ordered the town to fill in the depressions and regrade the site to its original aircraft carrier flatness--all without disturbing the cap of course. As you can imagine, that is a tad expensive.

Fortunately the town is in the middle of a road construction boom. The Atkins corner project, with two roundabouts coming soon, has already generated massive amounts of dirt. Only one slight problem: 6,000 tons of it is contaminated with lead arsenate, a common insecticide used on apples orchards between 1892 and the early 1970s when it was banned by the EPA.



The contractor can either spend a fortune hauling the contaminated soil to a special handling facility or bring it to the old landfill to use as fill for DEP required site remediation. Everybody saves a ton of money. The DEP approved the idea, but will require a three foot layer of non-polluted soil to cover the contaminated soil and numerous other safety precautions.

But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. If a project--like the Bluewave Captital Solar panel farm on the old landfill--is "part of a site remediation or restoration under a Mass/DEP enforcement action/order" it is eligible for "fast track status" when negotiating the local permitting process.

And while the long-term contract with Bluewave will have to be approved by town meeting it will only require a simple majority vote, unlike a zoning change that requires two thirds.

Who says money doesn't fall from the sky? Now it will--whenever the sun is shining.



Christmas '07: After the town took Dave Keenan's humble abode for $50,000 in back taxes he camped out in his former front yard. DEP fines for ten years procrastination cleaning up an oil spill also amounted to $30,000. Mr. Keenan eventually repaid Amherst over $63,000 in back taxes and legal fees.

Business West profiles the Amherst Solar farm

Jones Library has a new trustee

Amherst College professor Austin Sarat won the vote 8-1 in a combined meeting of the Jones Library Trustees and Amherst Select Board and will serve out the remaining one year term left on Kathy Wang's seat, who resigned due to time constraints brought on from her day job--principal at the ever expanding Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter school in Hadley.

Party house of the weekend: Busted!

51 Pine Grove (stand alone condominium)

These bad boys are vying for "Party House of the Semester"! Four occupants, each arrested on charges of violating three bylaws: Unlawful noise, Nuisance House, Unlawful Possession of a Keg. Normally, had they simply been issued $300 tickets, a stinging $900 each ($3,600 total for the incident).

But, instead of the that lucrative option, the responding officers arrested all four charging each with 3 violations and one, Ted Bates Miller, with the additional charge of "resisting arrest". Which shows that the town crackdown on rowdy students is not about raising money--it is about changing their bad behavior.

According to Police narrative: "Ongoing problem with listed apartment, approximately 20-plus people cleared out, keg confiscated, four residents arrested."

Dashnilov Emeri Yoyo, age 22
Matthew Kubinski, age 21
Mark Chancy, age 27
Ted Bates Miller, age 21

About a month ago I almost gave them "party house of the weekend" award for the noise tickets issued, but they were trumped by a party house of five girls gone wild. This past weekend they tried a little harder; and will now pay the price.

Interestingly the condo at 51 Pine Grove is owned by Jonathan Goldin and according to the assessor it is "owner occupied." Apparently Mr. Goldin was not home the night of the party.

Of course, of course

Spring Spectacular Horse Show 4/3/11

Amherst Robocop

Amherst Police Department scored yet another major grant , $18,945, for a cruiser mounted high-tech gizmo that automatically scans 1,000 license plates per hour flagging unregistered or stolen vehicles, AMBER alert targets in flight or cars registered to drivers with revoked licenses, a common penalty for drunk drivers.

The computerized camera/internet system, known as ALPR (Automated License Plate Recognition), combines the power of optical character recognition and face recognition common on digital cameras but geared toward high speed capture and analysis of license plates.

Thus an officer can automatically do real time plate processing, effortlessly, in high-volume with a highly accurate system that never discriminates against race, creed, color, gender or religion.

And unlike the current controversy in South Carolina, where a small town uses radar cameras to issue a plethora of expensive speeding tickets, the results produced by ALPR involve potentially more serious infractions.

APD was only the second police department to receive state accreditation 12 years ago and has been recertified every 3 years since. This achievement weighs in their favor when applying for government grants. Recently they have snagged an Underage Alcohol Grant, You Drink you Drive you Lose Grant, Car seat Grant, a very large Domestic Violence Grant ($175,000 shared with UMass PD), and now this ALPR grant.

Conspiracy theorists may whine about "Big Brother," but it will always be a flesh-and-blood, highly trained officer who interacts with drivers stopped because something was amiss, possibly preventing harm to innocent citizens--as well as the responding officers.

The system will be operational in July.

Long Beach PD demos the system

No foolin'

Town Hall in a storm 4/1/2011

As some of you may have noticed by now I have enabled "comment moderation" to better police reader comments. Since I have always considered this hyperlocal website a journalistic endeavor, I will now treat comments somewhat in same way a newspaper treats 'Letters To The Editor'--although far less formerly of course.

Yes I'm a passionate defender of the First Amendment, but if you actually read that precious declaration it only applies to government censorship--not private policing.

So what does that mean? Over four years I have published (or I should say readers have published) over 15,000 comments. In that time I have only deleted maybe a dozen and I'm tempted to fall back on the Supreme Court Justice who once said of porn, "I don't know how to describe it but I know it when I see it."

Occasionally along the way I would remind readers that I only delete spam, accidental double posting, libelous rants, and any use of the C-word or N-word. I open up comments (and that will continue) to anonymous postings because I honestly believe--especially now after watching the bullying Catherine Sanderson received over the past couple years--that there is an inherent risk in speaking truth to power; and many people, understandably, do now wish to lose their jobs, have their children shunned or risk the wrath of their neighbors.

Crude comments--foul language, personal attacks, lousy attempts at satire/sarcasm will, most likely, no longer be tolerated. If, however, you push the envelope with a comment and sign your name it will increase the odds for publication.

And no, just because I allow a comment to appear does not mean that I even remotely agree with it.

Yes, maybe that will decrease somewhat the interest in coming here--hopefully among trolls--but it's not like I'm getting paid by the hit. I watched very carefully (being the open transparent person she is, Ms. Sanderson has an "open" sitemeter) what happened on her School Committee blog last year when she enabled comment moderation:

A decrease of about 20% in overall traffic in the first month or two, but then it seemed to return to "normal".

My journalism ethics/law professor (and she is W-A-Y smarter and more experienced than I) believes that enabling comments actually makes me more vulnerable to litigation, not less; because if something legally actionable does get published, obviously I approved it to appear.

Bring 'em on!

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

Party Street of the Weekend: Phillips St.

10:30 AM

Amherst Police Department's crack down on rowdy students behavior continued this past weekend with an escalation of tactics: rather than issue $300 tickets for alcohol violation perps were arrested, cuffed and thrown in jail.

And with a shift to "sector" saturation greater police presence (both APD and UMass police) occurred all around the Gateway corridor--especially Phillips Street, Nuting Avenue and North Pleasant Street as well as the usual suspects, Hobart Lane and Sunset/Lincoln Avenues.

In all Amherst Police arrested over 25 college-age students rather than issuing a $300 ticket--mostly for "open container" and "underage drinking" violations. One more arrested for Driving Under the Influence and only one $300 ticket issued for "open container" and two for "noise" violations.

With a $10,000 state grant providing for additional police overtime, expect greater police presence on weekends between now and graduation.

Bad boys bad boys, whatcha going to do
whatcha going to do when they come for you?

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.

Hypocritical activist

Vince O'Connor posing for Rockwell

A dozen years ago forever activist Vince O'Connor filed a warrant article (one of the hundreds over the past thirty years) demanding Amherst town meeting take parcel C-3 in town center via eminent domain. At that time the Amherst Redevelopment Authority owned the property,having themselves taken it by eminent domain in the early-to mid-1970s.

Vince was a prime mover in the largest land taking in Amherst history--the 1987 taking of the Cherry Hill Golf Course--where town meeting heavy handedly used an "emergency measure" legal proviso to preclude voter referendum. Thus, as an ARA member (Governor appointed), I took his threat seriously.

The ARA had just completed a commercial appraisal ($350,000) as the final step in preparing a Request For Proposals for a private developer to do something economically constructive with the valuable property.

But things changed quickly when the town became serious about a parking garage. The ARA quickly voted to donate the prime piece to Amherst, with only one provision: the parking garage had to have the structural integrity to support another deck to enable future expansion.

Vince's proposal lost overwhelmingly on a voice vote and the rest as they say is history. And without the Boltwood Walk Parking Garage , millions of dollars in expansion, renovation and new backfill construction would never have happened--especially the new $4 million Boltwood Place mixed-use building immediately behind Judie's that broke ground a few weeks back.

Four years ago Mr. O'Connor was at it again; he filed a town meeting warrant article calling for "the abolishment of the ARA." Although strangely enough he concurrently ran for the open ARA seat in a stealth write-in campaign because no one had bothered to collect the 50 signatures required to get on the printed ballot.

I won the 5-year seat, which I currently hold, besting Vince 67-18.

Tuesday's election is going to be a snoozer, as voter turnout will be nothing if not lame (thanks mainly to Catherine Sanderson being bullied into not rerunning for School Committee).

Thus Mr. O'Connor stands a chance of getting close enough (McCarthy vs President Johnson 1968 New Hampshire primary) to use as public relations spin that Gateway is opposed by a significant percentage of voters, even though it will be a percentage of a tiny percentage of overall voters.

Mr. O'Connor staunchly opposes the Gateway Project, a development which will add significantly to the town's anemic commercial tax base, while he champions the redirection of ARA energies to creating a "Boys and Girls Club" or YMCA type recreation facility that will of course be tax exempt. Amherst is already half owned by tax exempts.

Having run a fitness facility in Amherst for 28 years I know all too painfully well that the recreation offerings in the area are now overly abundant--and with Planet Fitness around, they are also exceedingly cheap.

Recent entries include UMass $50 million Recreation Center, Central Rock Climbing Gym in Hadley (with a competitor already on the drawing board), a storefront Aerobics and Fitness Studio in east Amherst and former Leading Edge Gym diehards still pining to reopen somewhere (over the rainbow) plus the oldest surviving full-service club in the area, Hampshire Athletic Club.

Mr. O'Connor also points out that numerous buildings (two of them churches) are within the overall Gateway corridor area and, unlike the demolished Frat houses, do not fit the description of "blighted."

But no other property is needed other than the 1.8 acre former Frat Row that UMass is prepared to donate. If a $4 million, five story building can fit on 2,500 square feet postage stamp space behind Judie's, what can you erect on almost 80,000 square feet (thirty times larger) of perfectly graded property?

Future home of Boltwood Place

Future home of something spectacular

If Amherst cannot put aside its development phobia for a cause this outstanding, then what hope is there for any beneficial project with vision and class?

The Springfield Republican Reports

The Bulletin Reported:

Funny profile of Vince by Mary Carey

UMass community outreach on neighborhood stabilization

A better place to be

My darling daughter Kira only transferred to Crocker Farm Elementary School on Monday, and since then she's assisted with after school "Horse Lovers Club" on Wednesday afternoon and tonight--again with her little sis--attended their first "Friday Night Social" for a couple hours of games, food, music, and hanging out with new found friends.

About sixty kids congregated in the gymnasium and a dozen or so more too cool for organized play roamed the halls. Parents met in the cafeteria for food and conversation.

Superintendent Maria Geryk seemed to enjoy her busman's holiday, and trying to keep up with her children.

Shock and awe campaign

A couple hours after hearing Chief Livingstone report on the effectiveness of the bylaw fine increase for noise and alcohol violations, Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe floated another potentially potent weapon in the war on inappropriate behavior: license review.

After all, she points out, the Amherst Select Board members are all duly sworn in by the state as "liquor commissioners" so perhaps it's time to hold businesses responsible for activities that promote bad behavior.

Ten years ago when bars (the same two she is now referencing, one of them under different management) flagrantly violated the new controversial smoking ban and were laughing off $50 tickets for infractions, the Select Board threatened to suspend common victullar (food handling) or liquor licenses to those businesses not getting the message.

Compliance quickly followed and is now the accepted norm statewide.



The Bully comes out swinging

Horse sense

Kira brushes Dreama

Jada feeds Dreama

Time to go back to the farm

Civic minded Muddy Brook Farm runs a "Horse lovers club" at the Crocker Farm Elementary School about a half mile up the road from the farm on Wednesday afternoons when school usually lets out at 1:20 PM. Great way to constructively occupy the kids for an hour.

Capture the flag

Perhaps the Select Board should have figured it out when not a single citizen bothered to enter the "design an official Amherst flag" contest last November and only with extra PR outreach did they manage a hand full of designs.

Obviously Alisa Brewer is tiring of the typical Amherst process for getting things done. Now she can appreciate how the typical entrepreneur feels when trying to open a business in Amherst, only to get exhausted jumping through all the hoops.
The Children's Memorial Flag will fly once again at Town Hall in April under the, umm, UN flag.

Flags are powerful symbols--for good (Old Glory) or evil (Nazi swastika). This "contest" is indeed a telling symbol of 'All Things Amherst'.




For a better view of all six entries click this link

E-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g Amherst

Barnes, Lincoln W., 1879-1966, "West side of North Pleasant St. near Amity St.," in Digital Amherst, Item #767, http://www.digitalamherst.org/items/show/767 (accessed March 22, 2011).

After a slight dip in population from 35,229 in 1990 down to 34,874 in 2000--the first decline since 1780--Amherst came back with a bang in the recently released 2010 census with a healthy population gain of 8.44%, bringing us to a historic high of 37,819.

That population resides in an estimated 9,513 housing units with 45.8% of those (4,073) owner-occupied, well under the national average of 66.9% and 54.2% (4,829) renter-occupied, well above the national average of 33.1%.

No wonder our neighborhoods need stabilization.

The ebb and flow of Amherst's population (especially the rental market) is of course closely tied to students, meaning mainly UMass--which also saw a slight decline in student population from 24,474 in 1990 down to 23,570 in 2000. But now at a historic high of 27,269 with plans for growth in the thousands over the next few years.

And they will have to live somewhere.