Tired cheerleader

As usual the Daily Hampshire Gazette issued one of those wishy-washy, two-thumbs halfheartedly up for the recent town/gown agreement between Umass and Amherst that will generate a paltry $100,000 per year for the next five years to our beleaguered town.

Of course a hundred grand is nothing to sneeze at; but, when it could have and should have been FIVE TIMES that amount it’s just a little hard to celebrate. Obviously the crusty old Gazette lacks excitement, so the least little thing gets them up on the party dance floor (to the strains of Lawrence Welk no doubt).

Okay so if I were the Mayor of Amherst, how would I have handled the negotiation? Let them eat cake! I mean, let them drink beer! Or…we could have threatened to raise their water rates to the level that Hadley charges (what are they going to do boycott water?).

Last year that would have raised an additional $400,000 on water payments alone. And then we could have threatened to charge a differential between water and sewer (as we did for everybody EXCEPT Umass all during the 1990’s) thus raising another $150,000.

So it’s either pay $550,000 more for water/sewer OR make out a check to the Town of Amherst General Fund (so the money can be used for anything) for, say, $400,000 and we will leave your water/sewer rates alone, thus saving you $150,000. Everybody wins--especially the citizens of Amherst.

A question of priorities in the People's Republic

So the People’s Republic of Amherst can subsidize a Golf Course but not an Indoor Pool? The same public recreation superstar Barbara Bilz—the ace reliever called in to save Cherry Hill--was formerly charged with reviving and expanding indoor pool operations at the Middle School Pool.

The first thing marketing whiz Ms Bilz did was to change its name to the ‘Amherst Community Aquatics Center’ and hyped the “expanded hours and programs” and “warmer pool temperatures.”

Of course, something as huge as an Olympic pool is pretty expensive to heat and the swim team (the reason the pool was built in the first place) actually prefer the cheaper-to-maintain cooler temperatures, as they tend to work pretty hard in the water.

Last year the total overhead for the pool was $85,000 (vs. $243,000 for Cherry Hill) with the schools utilizing it slightly less than half the time and LSSE, our Recreation Empire, occupying the lion’s share.

The Schools cut them some slack on overhead charging them only $30,000 for FY07. The town has yet to pay that bill. I hope the schools charge the same 12% interest rate the town is currently charging Dave Keenan on his back taxes.

Interestingly when Ms. Bilz took over the ailing Cherry Hill Golf Course (if you consider her one-quarter time commitment taking over) the first thing she did was hype new programs to attract more customers—specifically women and children (note cover of the current issue of the LSSE brochure).

Last year, however, the Golf Course required $24,432 in tax support and currently is on target to lose at least that amount this year. Interestingly this year we could have had a GUARANTEED $30,000 in profit if the Town Manager had accepted the Niblik Management bid to privatize Cherry Hill.

That way the golf course could have stayed open and the town could have simply redirected that $30,000 to the schools to keep the Middle School Pool (now that LSSE gave up on it, I assume its name reverts back) available for all Amherst citizens—especially children.

Umass to Amherst: Pennies on the dollar

Why is it when Amherst negotiates with Umass it’s always a three-steps forward and two steps back scenario? At first the $425,000 in annual payments for Fire protection sound pretty good…but then read the fine print.

Umass takes credit for the $100,000 state Payment in Lieu of Taxes we get anyway so now we’re down to $325,000; and they were also paying $181,000 anyway for ambulance/fire service, so now we’re down to $144,000; and Umass got the town to donate wastewater that would have cost them $37,800 this year so now we’re down to about $100,000.

Amherst educates 50 or 60 children of Graduate students living in tax-exempt housing at an annual cost exceeding $500,000. The Campus Center Hotel has refused to pay the local 4% sales tax that everybody else including the Lord Jeff Inn (owned by tax exempt Amherst College) has paid since 1995. Next year that would generate over $50,000 to the town, IF Umass paid it.

And Umass recently purchased and leveled “Frat Row” on the entryway to the campus, thus taking $5 million worth of property off the tax rolls. Thus denying Amherst the $60,000 paid last year by those properties.

And I would guess at least the same 18% of the Police budget goes to Umass related events, as does 18% of the Fire/Ambulance Budget. So with a $3.6 million Police budget in FY07 Umass share would be well over the $450,000 cost of Fire protection.

Since Town Meeting axed two police officers this year to save $80,000, perhaps that extra $100,000 Umass money from heaven could be used to reinstate those officers?

Enough is enough!

http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/storyComments.cfm?id_no=55677

Well this should do it.

When the Amherst Regional High School shamefully cancelled a production of ‘West Side Story’ in 1999 they said it was not because they actually believed the play was racist but that the controversy had gotten so out of control that it was hard for education to take place among that kind of turmoil.

If Mr Sadiq is a stand up guy he will, for the good of all concerned, announce his resignation.

PC pattern? (Well, this is Amherst)

So the obvious question is did Talib Sadiq’s skin color make A (or I should say THE) difference in winning the job of Amherst Regional Middle School counselor? Since no one has seen the semi-final list of candidates (yet) it’s a little hard to judge, not knowing the ethnicity of his competition.
http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/55049/

But we know his Gulf War veteran status certainly was not a factor. Since this is Amherst, some folks probably view his military service even more disapprovingly than his arrest and conviction on a felony armed robbery charge.

Three years ago the nine-member Regional School Committee voted unanimously to require CORI background checks on all volunteers in the schools who could come into contact with children.

Only a week later, the Amherst School Committee voted 3-2 to oppose it, with three members having changed their vote from the week before (The Regional School Committee has 5 members of 9 from the Amherst School Committee, making Amherst the dog and the other three towns the tail.)

So why the flip flop after only one week? Well, they are all Democrats.

But seriously, Alisa Brewer said some concerned parents had called her worried about past criminal offenses like being arrested at a protest march; and one even suggested that possible “racial profiling” by police could lead to negative CORI results.

Yikes!

Current Amherst School Committee Chair Andy Churchill had also changed his vote. So I’m not surprised he would let a hiring committee stay in the dark about a candidate’s troubling background.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20070823/NEWS/708230746/1008/NEWSREWIND

(What's interesting about this article is that if Talib had simply waited one year his 15 years would be up and that conviction sealed for all time)

Out of service

So first they closed Inspection Services on Thursday’s so all the players could have a pow-wow to make nice and better coordinate the permitting process so a new business could get down to doing business.

Then they decided—as payback for the May 1 Override failure—to close the rest of Town Hall offices on Thursday mornings until noon.

The Police Department took a hit this Fiscal Year absorbing a cut of two officers. Maybe they should have a half-day where they are closed to the public as well. When you call 911 a recorded message would announce: “Sorry due to budget cuts we are unavailable for the next five hours, if this is an emergency start praying.”

And now, today, Town Hall is closed entirely for “annual clean up day”. Hmmm, in the private sector a small-business owner uses Labor Day, Thanksgiving, or Christmas as a “clean up day.”

OOPS!

In Tennis a “do over” is no BIG deal; in major construction however…

Accessible crosswalks in Amherst center were the first that had to be redone because of the initial use of inappropriate materials problematic to wheelchairs; and most recently the sidewalks on College Street were also done twice in one year because the angle of the slope was a tad too steep.

Yeah, the College Street boo boo may have only cost $5,000 to rectify, but a few months ago the Town Manager was willing to let ubiquitous potholes go unfilled for a prime-time month to save $10,000.

Practically the first thing the Select Board “new majority” --lead by then Czar Anne Awad, her hubby Robie Hubley and neophyte Gerry Weiss-- did in 2004 was sabotage the $1.2 million bond issue for sidewalk accessibility improvement that would have sent the entire project out to bid so private professionals could do the project all at once.

Instead they came up with a nickel-and-dime approach that essentially turned our DPW into a construction company, spending $250,000 here and $250,000 there applying a multi-year approach to the project--kind of like Eldin, Murphy Brown’s painter.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously against the penny-wise approach saying it would “result in higher materials costs, less effective management of staff and uncertainty as to when/if this phase of sidewalk improvements would be completed.”

But Town Meeting voted 108 to 42 to support the Select board micromanagement scheme and Charter Mayor/Council remnants (now known as the “sensible center”) suddenly realized just how out of touch Town Meeting had become.