Homeland Security Returns

APD briefly assisted with 2 cruisers, but then left

Six cars, a pick up truck and a heck of a lot of officers -- local, state and federal --  are currently on site at #632 South Pleasant Street, presumably looking for bad guys.

Since we ruled out terrorism a couple days ago I would assume that somewhat narrows it down to drugs.

UPDATE:

Northwestern District Attorney's office confirms yesterday's Federal & State PD raid on #AmherstMA rental house was "drug related."
— Larry Kelley (@amherstac) August 15, 2013

 

Gotta love Twitter

Can You See Me Now?

Amherst Town Website

Amherst's award winning town website had some technical difficulties this morning leaving us addicts to suffer withdrawal symptoms.  Turns out if was a firewall issue, but only for folks using Comcast.  Of course in Amherst, that's nearly 10,000 people.   

Tennis Anyone?

 Amherst Regional Middle School tennis courts

The tennis courts adjacent to the Amherst Regional Middle School, like a lot of construction projects around town, is expected to be completed by October 1st.  The $225,000 capital improvement project was approved by Joint Capital Planning Committee and Town Meeting last spring.

DPW Chief Guilford Mooring says there's still a lot of work to be done, including "Fence post sleeves, top course of asphalt, painting, new fence and nets."

The Amherst DPW did the site work, Warner Brothers is doing the paving and Vermont Recreational Surface and Fencing handles the final detail work.

When Religion & Beer Compete

Triangle Street, Amherst

The current reconstruction of Triangle Street at the gateway to UMass is expected to be completed mid-to-late September.

But if the process followed the pattern of the original construction of the road back in 1820, it would take a l-o-t longer.  Amherst had its very own Civil War over the roadwork,  dubbed "The Triangle Street Fight" by Morehouse and Carpenter in their definitive "History of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts."

 

Amherst town center BoA: former home of "Boltwood Tavern"

Back then town center was known as the "West Village," and a prominent business -- the "Boltwood Tavern" --  was located where the ugly Bank of America now sits; while the "East Village" had a competing operation -- "Dickinson/Bagg's Tavern" -- located at the intersection of South East and Main Streets.

Since the Calvin Coolidge Bridge in Northampton was not yet built, travelers from the west had to cross over the Connecticut River in Sunderland and make their way south to Amherst where they would first encounter the tavern in town center, giving it a distinct advantage over  the one located a mile or so to the east.

 First Congregational Church, Main Street, Amherst

The First Congregational Church, founded 1739,  is also located on Main Street between the Dickinson Homestead and town center ("West Village") and it was in competition with the more recent 1782 break away Second Congregational Church.

The First Congregational Church was also more loyal to the British during the Revolutionary War, motivating the more patriotic parishioners to seek God elsewhere, as in the "East Village."  

East Village:  Former 2nd Congregational Church, now Jewish Community of Amherst

Thus Triangle Street became a more efficient route to points east but in so doing bypassed town center ... and the Boltwood Tavern and the First Congregational Church.  Town Meeting approved the road on December 4, 1820 but then ten days later that approval was overturned.

Main and Triangle Street intersection

Well the citizens of "East Village" did not take kindly to that and simply decided to build the road themselves.  The citizens in and around town center ("West Village") decided to enforce Town Meeting's vote to "discontinue" the road by sabotaging construction after workers went home for the night.

 

East Village: Dickinson-Bagg's Tavern South East/Main Street intersect, now legal offices

Former Dickinson-Bagg's Tavern

Road builders started stationing guards all along the new construction to keep watch overnight.  Frustrated workers on both sides would then come to blows.  Spectators from surrounding towns started showing up just to watch the nightly tussle.  

Anti-road activists took to building a fence across the road to block transit.  The pro-road builders destroyed the fence as quickly as it could be constructed. 

Finally, on May 17, 1821 Town Meeting voted to advise the Selectmen to "clear the encumbrances from the road and keep it clear."  The Selectmen, keepers of the public ways, dutifully agreed and the "Triangle Street Fight" concluded.

A clear victory for capitalism, God and country. 

 

Boltwood Tavern in town center became Amherst House in 1838, burned to the ground July 4, 1879

Lovell, John L., 1825-1903, "Amherst House before 1879," in Digital Amherst, Item #467, http://www.digitalamherst.org/items/show/467 (accessed August 13, 2013).

Homeland Security Comes To Amherst

 

Amherst DPW 1:00 PM Monday

The Amherst DPW, my immediate neighbor, became a staging area yesterday afternoon for a federal Homeland Security investigation bringing four cars with Feds, two APD cruisers and a AFD ambulance to their already busy parking lot located only one mile south of Amherst center. 

My first reaction was somebody was going to detonate something bad in town center.   The only immediate information I could glean was that it was "not terrorism related," so that kind of ruled out my initial fear; furthermore, it was not a safety concern for my family here in South Amherst.

Whew!

According to APD Chief Livingstone:

"We were assisting only the Dept of Homeland Security on a non emergency issue. Any statements would come from the department of Homeland Security…"

Anyone know someone at Homeland Security?

A Good Light

Torch Run line up APD

Friday's morose monsoons gave way to crisp clear skies with just enough of a breeze to bolster a body at work, ideal New England weather for a three mile jaunt through Amherst to UMass, as men and women of the Amherst Police Department  co-hosted the Law Enforcement Torch Run, a special benefit for a special event:  the Massachusetts Special Olympics.

 Torch Run hits Amherst town center

Hampden County Sheriff's Department and UMPD also helped co-sponsor the heart warming event.

 Torch Run greeted by AFD at Central Station

About 35 participants gathered at APD headquarters, 111 Main Street, and when the gun sounded at 7:00 PM  they set a comfortable pace up the hill into town center behind a fleet of escort  vehicles.

 Torch Run passes UMass Commonwealth Honors College new dorms

Near the end of the run the pack was joined by a horde of UMass athletes from the basketball, football and soccer programs for the final sprint into Berkshire Dining Commons where the (electronic) torch was illuminated before a packed standing room only crowd.

 Final few yards, torch in hand

In 2012 the statewide events raised $220,000 in total to benefit the athletes of Special Olympics.  Pretty special indeed.

 Torch all fired up

Out With The Old

Hillcrest Place water/sewer reconstruction: in house DPW job

Running water is kind of like electricity -- easy to take for granted until an October Snowmageddon knocks out the power for a week, although fortunately the water continued to flow.

Folks on Hillcrest Place have been having "issues" with their water for years.  Mainly low pressure and discoloration -- is in yucky brown and yellow.

Not Mother Nature's fault unless you consider old age to be her handy work, as the Hillcrest Place line is one of the oldest water mains in town, consisting of a cast iron 4" pipe.

 A fire hydrant temporarily provides water to the street

The project is about half done and DPW Chief Guilford Mooring hopes it will be completed by the end of the month.  And the new water line, made of Ductile Iron, should last over 50 years.

 

New pipes await installation on a rainy day

Residents on Hillcrest Place will raise a glass (of water) to that.

#2 times 2

 Amherst College (named after the town, not the General)

Amherst College is rated #2 for top liberal arts college in American behind arch rival Williams College.  And now they are rated #2 in the state for "safest school."

One logical reason is of course Amherst, the town, is pretty safe.  And the Amherst Police Department does a great job of keeping it that way.

Amherst College also has a fine professional police department made up of 7 full-time patrol officers, 3 sergeants, a deputy chief and highly regarded Chief, John Carter.

Back in December of 2011 Amherst Police had their hands full with a student party house on College Street just off Amherst College campus (none of them AC students) that had spiraled out of control, with a major fight that resulted in a stabbing.

UMass police were too busy on their campus to provide mutual aid.   But Amherst College police were a big help, arriving quickly on the scene to help control vehicular traffic and party goers cascading out of the house.

I emailed a brief thank you note to Amherst College President Biddy Martin and received this reply:

I am glad to hear that the Amherst College police were helpful to you on Saturday. Having worked closely with university police at Cornell and at UW-Madison, I count on campus police to be well-trained and highly competent. I agree. The assumption that campus police are "mall cops" is totally misplaced. Responsibility for thousands of young people and unique facilities requires that every campus have police or safety departments that can handle any kind of emergency, often in cooperation with colleagues off campus. It is a relief to know from you that our campus police have a good relationship with your department. 

Another contributing factor keeping Amherst College safe and sound is the full time protection provided by the Amherst Fire Department. Amherst College donates $90,000 annually to the town in lieu of taxes for ambulance/fire protection.

AFD responses in 2013 thus far by location

 

Graph courtesy of Amherst Firefighters Local 1764 

A scenic campus, well maintained buildings and a low student teacher ratio are all important factors in choosing a school. But it's hard to learn if you don't feel safe.

There He Goes Again!

So everybody's favorite downtown character -- well, maybe most peoples' -- Bill Elsasser made the news for his quirky style of maintenance.  This time it was pruning the trees on the town common.

 

Town officials inspect rogue pruning last week to downtown trees 

Bill can be seen most days patrolling the downtown on foot picking up cigarett butts -- sometimes on hands and knees -- and any other litter he comes across.  He also donated some of the flowers in the downtown.

 Bill Elsassar on patrol

Just one of the many attractions of downtown Amherst (Bill and the flowers).

Bill appears before venerable Amherst Select Board

"From These Honored Dead ..."

 Area behind car will become final resting place for six Civil War tablets

The ground in front of Amherst Town Hall will go from simply historic to hallowed as a Request For Proposals has been issued to display the six "Sacred Dead" Civil War tablets commemorating all 300 or so Amherst men who served in that decimating conflict.

The Grand Army of the Republic donated the tablets to Amherst in 1893.

List of 57 Amherst men who died to preserve the Union

For many years they were displayed in Town Hall but then in the early 1960s during a renovation project they were placed in storage and forgotten until just before 9/11.

As with so many things in life it took the efforts of one concernced citizen, Dudley Bridges, a proud, black, WW2 veteran, to spark a movement to restore the tablets to a place of honor.  Unfortunatley Mr. Bridges died in 2004 at age 80 and is now buried in historic West Cemetary.

According to Planning Director Jonathan Tucker:

 "The RFP asks the Consultant chosen to work with the Town to: 1) create designs for the site, the display enclosures, signs and interpretive materials, and lighting, 2) take the designs to bid specifications, 3) develop a method for safely transporting and installing the tablets, and 4) develop cost estimates for the whole shebang." 

Town Manager John Musante had envisioned them being installed in the Town Room, our seat of government, where the Select Board and other important committees meet. But the tablets are too heavy for the floor and would require expensive reinforement.

The location outside the building gives the tablets much greater visibility at all hours of day, 365 days a year. Even more fitting, that ground was once the location of a WW2 "Roll Of Honor" structure erected during that tumultious time in our history. 

Roll of Honor outside Amherst Town Hall 1942 Lincoln Barnes photo

I'm sure Dudley James Bridges would approve.  Hoo-Ah!

A patriotic Town Hall, September 1942

Buzz Off!

The town will issue an "Eastern Equine Encephalitis" alert later today; as a result the Hot Summer Nights outdoor showing of The Muppets this evening has been cancelled.

A 2nd dead horse in Belchertown tested positive this afternoon for EEE and one died last week from the mosquito borne disease.

The Muppets are certainly awesome, but not to die for.

Accentuate The Negative

Blarney Blowout, March 9, 2013, A date which will live in infamy

According to the venerable Princeton Review, UMass/Amherst did not crack the "Top 20 Party Schools" --  the party culture gold standard.  So I was hoping that we were safe from a high profile proposal this dumb. (Update:  post has already been deleted from Craigslist)

But no, apparently not.  So hide the women and children, cue the extra ambulances and police, start soundproofing the neighborhoods ... Reality TV is coming to Amherst!

And their reality is our nightmare. 

By glorifying the Party House culture this "entertainment" show will only exacerbate the problem of rowdy off campus party behavior.  Just when things were starting to improve.

Besides the better integration between UMPD and APD on enforcement,  the number two reason things were more controlled this past spring is the "high profile" party hardy boys were taken out, kind of like those precision drone strikes in Pakistan.

Rapper wanna be Paul Markham was so spooked by pressures brought to bear he removed his "Welcome To The Zoo" idiotic ode to the party culture from Youtube, even after receiving hundreds of thousands of hits.

And Peter Clark and Emmerson Rutkowski went AWOL from the party scene, even after (or maybe especially after) a fawning self serving review in the King of Juvenile, "Bar Stool Sports."

Sure bad behavior sells.  Some of you ardent readers will note my highest monthy readership of all time (over 130,000 hits) occured in March when I covered the Blarney Blowout from the opening bell.

The Gazette of course was fiddling while Rome burned:

This year’s Blarney Blowout revelers well-behaved in #Amherst |  http://t.co/vbA6g9aKxs #westernma
— GazetteNET (@gazettenet) March 11, 2013

So I have no doubt that a "reality show" highlighting obnoxious childish student behavior will sell.  Big time.

Especially when promoted by Hollywood PR types who specialize in selling their souls.

Bostinno also gets snarky

"Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing"

Van turns onto Bay Road from S. East St, Canterbury Lane directly above

A Granby teenager picked the wrong hill to descend in South Amherst at the wrong time of day sending him and his skateboard careening into oncoming traffic on busy Bay Road around 6:30 last night.

Although seriously injured it's still pretty amazing the accident was not fatal.  To the skateboarder due to a sudden impact, or the driver suffering a heart attack due to the sudden shock. 

Amherst and Mass State Police closed off the road for a couple hours to do an accident reconstruction.  For the rest of you, all you need do is look at the photo. Yikes!

#####

Gazette coverage was timely for a change.  Probably doesn't hurt that their owner and CEO Aaron Julien lives atop Canterbury Lane (although he needs to learn how to use a camera).

Granby skateboarder hit by car in South Amherst suffers broken leg, other injuries http://t.co/B6GyVVs9Aw
— GazetteNET (@gazettenet) August 6, 2013

Double Trouble

 

621 E. Pleasant Street, Amherst

The Bad Boys at 621 East Pleasant Street, formerly known as "Babe Town", seem to be in a major renovation mode.  Well except maybe for landscaping the lawn.

Not that I want to jinx it, as neighbors hope this is an attempt to dramatically improve "curb appeal" for a sale to new owners -- the Devil you don't know.

But a couple infractions leap out of this picture, taken from a public road this morning. The van on the lawn for one.  And yes they have been cited a half-dozen times for that previously.  But hey, what's a lousy $100 fine per day?

And the dumpster (far right) also requires a $25 permit from the Amherst Fire Department since they are a well known fire hazard. That too is $100 fine ... for the first day; $500 on the second and by the third day, $1,000. 

Ouch!

Dream A Little Dream Of Amherst

Yeah, another one of those ludicrous "lists" that every digital outlet loves to publish these days to attract hits.  Although this one was first published back in May, it now seems to be gaining traction.

Although I'm surprised the Amherst Chamber of Commerce or UMass Office of News & Media Relations has not issued a breathless press release with the headline "We're Number 2!"

This one you just know is suspect when they screw up two-out-of-three purported claims to fame.

According to Boston.com:

 "Home to Massachusetts' flagship public university, Amherst takes the second spot on our list. Amherst boasts strong schools and decent housing costs. It's also a safe community. While not the most fun town, its substantial population of students adds to its hipster cred."

Our schools are certainly EXPENSIVE, pushing top 10% in the entire state for per student cost; but not nearly so "strong".  And our housing cost are FAR from "decent" (mainly because of the presence of all those "hipster" students). 

But we most certainly are "safe," even if APD does arrest 3 or 4 drunk drivers per week. 

Memo to Boston.com: one-for-three ain't bad ... if we're talking baseball.

No wonder they just sold for a (swan) song.

Party House of the Weekend

 

351 Potwine Lane, Amherst

So let's hope this is not a sign of things to come, as our little college town is only just now starting to stir with returning students.  And that trickle will soon become a deluge.

This relatively minor episode -- two noise complaints over one weekend (although the 2nd Sunday complaint included cars parked all over the lawn) -- perfectly illustrates the problem:  The house rents for $2,000/month, so it's a tad too expensive for a young married couple just starting out, or a low to moderate income town employee. 

Common wisdom dictates rent should be around 25% of total income, thus this house would require a $96,000 annual household income.  A relatively high bar, considering the median income for Amherst households is only about half that.

Help From Above

Only took Life Flight helicopter 15 minutes to make rendezvous point 

Amherst Fire Department responded around 11:00 AM this morning to a motorcycle accident on Shutesbury Road, Leverett, only about a 100 yards shy of the Shutesbury town line.

The rider was with a group descending through the S curves towards Amherst when he lost control of the bike and went into the woods.

 

Ernie's Towing personnel pick up crashed bike

  Response vehicles near accident site

AFD transported him about a mile up to Shutesbury Fire Department HQ as they have a field out back tailor made for a helicopter landing.

The Life Flight helicopter swooped in and with the aid of AFD, Shutesbury FD-and-PD successfully transferred the badly injured patient to UMass Medical center in Worcester.

 AFD and Life Flight personnel transfer from ambulance to helicopter

And off they went

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might

A wish tree has sprouted in Kendrick Park, carrying upwards of 40 or so, err, requests. It was a sellout as no tags remained as of this afternoon.

Too bad, I would have added a most timely request:

I wish town officials would forget worrying about the political fringe and simply allow the 29 commemorative American flags to fly in the downtown every 9/11 to remember the innocent lives lost that awful morning.

A New Business Worth Cheering About

 

Oriental Flavor, 25 South Pleasant Street, Amherst town center

The crowd who packed Monday night's Select Board meeting to vociferously advocate the town squander $6.5 million to absorb 154 acres of woodland as a means of scuttling a proposed student housing development in northeast Amherst gave new business owner Chenghui Zheng a warm round of applause after he received his "Common Victualler License".




He also  announced Oriental Flavor's "Grand Opening" was scheduled for the next day, Tuesday July 30.  So far reviews are positive (with the picky Internet crowd).