Death’s Juxtaposition

This weeks Bulletin obit section could give the wrong impression of the political leanings of the People’s Republic of Amherst. Nathaniel Reed and Fred Steinback, both former Amherst Select men and, amazingly, both conservative, passed away recently with their final news wrap up landing one over the other on that depressing page.

I never met Reed, a popular Dean at Amherst College (yeah, who would have thought the bastion of LIBERAL arts would hire a conservative) he was a tad before my time (the early 1970’s) but I heard about him from old-timers. We shared the same Sisyphean task of running for the state legislature (he in 1972 and me twenty years later) in a district where conservatives were indeed an “endangered species.” And it has only gotten worse.

Fred Steinbeck may not have been a registered Republican but he was a WW11 vet who made a living with his hands and the sweat from his brow. He served on the Board for two terms circa 1980.

My first public speech ever was before our illustrious Select board in 1983 requesting they reign in the Recreation Department from using my tax dollars to fund competing lower priced but lower quality programs for my karate school, Hampshire Gymnastics and Amherst Ballet Center.

I was about halfway into my presentation and just starting to get on a roll when Steinbeck stopped me and asked, “Was your Dad the plumber?” “Yes sir,” I responded, and then when back into my rant.

Naturally the other four socialists voted down my proposal; Steinbeck supported it and gave a brief speech saying Amherst doesn’t allow the Highway Department to pave homeowner’s driveways or plow them in the winter, so why should we allow this unfair competition to small business owners who employ local teens and spend money in town?

Up against a liberal chorus, Steinbeck and Reed were most often the only public voice of dissent. Something Amherst desperately needs.

Reap what you sow

So it’s gotten to the point where the Town Manager must hate to pick up a newspaper. Take today’s Amherst Bulletin, for instance. The Gazette’s Thursday article “No cash windfall for Boy Scouts” appears on the Bulletin's Front Page, above the fold. Usually Wednesday is the cut off for stories from the Gazette to make this week’s Bulletin.

Now for those of you unfamiliar with the intricacies of journalism in the Happy Valley the fold is the dividing line between A-rated stories and B-rated stories. Note for instance the article on Rob Kusner not running for a second Select board term is, appropriately, at the very bottom of the page.

And of course the banner headline number one story concerns our failing schools (or at least gives that impression). Although in Amherst nothing is more important than education I would still have switched the placement of those two lead articles.

Because parents packing a School Committee meeting to demand better quality education is kind of the journalistic equivalent of dog bites man story; stealing candy from a baby or initiating a tax on Christmas trees sold by Boy Scouts is a man bites dog story.

The Gazette only has a few thousand subscribers in Amherst as opposed to the Bulletin that is mailed free to every household (about 8,000). And while I subscribe to the theory “you get what you pay for” it is still incontrovertible that the Bulletin, in Amherst, is more widely read than the Gazette.

The article about the Town Manager forming a “blue ribbon panel” (how come nobody ever forms a “green ribbon” panel?) to peruse the budget is located below the fold.

So the Town Manager, who is praised by the Gazette for his economic initiates and heralded to the heavens by our lackluster Chamber of Commerce, finds his positive puff piece pushed down the page by this notoriously negative Christmas tree fiasco.

Today’s Gazette reveals the Town Manager has been reigned in by the Select board from charging groups for using the Town Common. We can’t charge the Pot Rally (A Umass Registered Student Organization) for purposely attracting 1,500 folks requiring over $1,000 in extra police details but we can charge the Boy Scouts $775 to use a chunk of space nobody else wants?

Only in Amherst!

http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/73013/

Time is running out...

The crusty Gazette must have felt guilty over their coverage of the Grinch Amherst Town Manager’s Select board “report” Monday night on the odious Christmas tree tax: the Springfield Republican splashed their version (with clever comparisons to “It’s a Wonderful Life”) on Page One above the fold no less and the Gazette had a rather perfunctory bland retelling buried inside the second section.

But this morning’s Gazette follows up on the sad story and somewhat contradicts a previous article (by veteran reporter/editor Nick Grabbe) that this entire episode would be a “windfall” for the scouts because all the publicity stimulated donations, and individual tree buyers paying the extra dollar.

Scoutmaster Lyle Denit points out they usually sold out anyway and their stock was usually limited to 800 trees. But this year the Sunday snowstorm killed sales for that important day and—even worse—prevented the scouts from going in the woods and cutting down the final 100 trees to sell to last minute shoppers.

So even with the DPW donation and businessmen Roberts and Shumway giving the town its pound of flesh the scouts will make about the same $8,000 net profit as last year. Seems like an awful lot of work over the course of a very cold month for $8,000.

Ron Chimelis had a great column in today's Republican about steroid abuse from coddled athletes. Our Town Manager could use his sage PR advice (not that Shaffer does steroids, but he could stand to pump a little iron):

I thinks apologies count. Not for full exoneration, but as a necessary step toward perspective and closure.

Saying "I was wrong, and I'm sorry," is worth more now than ever, if only because hardly anybody does.

Let’s hope (sorry to mix movie metaphors) the Grinch has a Christmas nightmare or two over the next week and changes his mind.

You won't have Rob Kusner...

I suppose like Jay Leno I should root for the biggest goof to win the all-important election. With his national audience the President is a natural target and the bigger the goof in the White House the easier it is to write material for a monologue (especially now that he has to write it himself).

Considering my provincial concerns that means the Select board contest coming up, appropriately enough, on April 1’st.

So am I disappointed that Selectman Rob Kusner announced on Monday that he would not be seeking a second term? Not really, he stood little chance of reelection anyway.

People were going to create an attack website and upload his famous t-shirt incident at Town Meeting, the mp3 file of his threatening phone message to the Amherst school committee chair and maybe even the goofy election picture ad he used three years ago in the Amherst Bulletin of him hugging two trees.

Of course now it becomes entirely more apparent why Professor Kusner should have abstained at the September 17’th Select board meeting. With his sabbatical announcement (amounting to six months off with pay) coming only three months after his tie-breaker vote awarding Umass, his employer, a $200,000 gift of water effluent, some folks are going to wonder…

No Miracle on Boltwood Ave

Last night Amherst Town Manager Larry Shaffer once again reaffirmed that his unfair tax on the joy of Christmas has not been his “…most glorious moment in public administration.”

He also garnered little support from the Select Board. Kusner (looking at Shaffer): “We were caught off guard by this; I just want the public to know it was your decision.” Select person Brewer distanced herself: “Even though the Town Manager has the legal authority under the town act I would hope he will continue to talk to us about this…”

Brewer also (looking at scout representatives) wanted to publicly “thank the scouts for being so agreeable; I realize you didn’t have much choice…I’m glad we’re still talking about it.”

Clueless to the core (if indeed he has one), Shaffer still doesn’t get it. His bland” report” was a rehash of cold bureaucratic excuses.

Explaining his $1 per tree tariff Shaffer states: “They went away, set up their sale of Christmas trees. And I expected that arrangement would go on unbeknownst to anybody. Little did I know this would become the cause célèbre going forward.”

For a public official to arrange a deal in private, hoping that his dictatorial terms remain "unbeknownst", is bad policy.

UPDATE: 2:36 Yeah I know, the video just uploaded 10 minutes ago but my friend and fellow investigative blogger Paolo at northamptonist.blogspot.com just forwarded me the link to WHMP radio's softball interview with Shaffer. I love his comment at the outset "I don't know if anything went wrong." Talk about clueless.
http://www.theriverondemand.com/mp3/vannah/larryshaffer.mp3

UPADATE: 3:30 Ch. 22 enters the fray (what took them so long?). Where's the AP?
http://www.wwlp.com/Global/story.asp?S=7511628

Breaking News: Grinch Report

9:20 pm. So the Select board heard a Town Manager Report on the Christmas tree tax fiasco. He started of by announcing that developer Barry Roberts and hotel magnate Curt Shumway, both local boys who made very good, will pay the town the entire tax (between $775 to $800) and we also know--although the Town Manager did not give them a plug--Amherst DPW workers already donated a check to the Scouts for roughly that amount.

Thus the new Spin is Amherst did the Boy Scouts a favor, because now they are getting all these extra donations from concerned citizens. Hmmm...


Kinda like saying getting mugged is fine if the culprit is caught and then loses a sizable civil court case for damages.

His Lordship Mr. Weiss decided not to act as The Inquisitor and coerce the local Boy Scout troop into branding their national chapter as discriminators simply to use town property.

More tomorrow. I'm tired.

The joys of ownership

Rt. 116—one of the busier stretches of highway was once state owned and maintained. Five years ago the state decided to install a badly needed traffic control signal at this busy South Amherst intersection as well as other road improvements—all with state money.

With the design work about 80% completed, Amherst decided it didn’t like the cookie cutter design and wanted to “calm” traffic in the Village Square, enticing folks to pull up a park bench whip out a copy of the New York Times and slowly suck down a few cappuccinos while discussing global warming.

So now we own about three miles of busy roadway that yesterday required a fleet of DPW trucks, tons of chemicals and lots of peoplepower (many working on overtime). $10,000 here, $10,000 there…pretty soon you’re talking real money.