Coal in their stocking too.

So the crusty Gazette, not know for showing bravado, waited till today to take on the Town Manager’s terrible Christmas tree tax debacle, knowing perhaps passions would subside after Christmas.

While acknowledging his timing was terrible the Gazette still lauded the idea of a public policy for the use of Kendrick Park. Considering the Gazette published a front page banner headline story about an Umass professor calling 9/11 an inside job on the morning of that awful anniversary they should know about lousy timing.

Of course there should be a public policy—with equal access for all—to our parks and town common. That could have been easily crafted without the idiotic $1 dollar per tree tax on the Christmas spirit.

Let’s hope the Town Manager discovers some common sense in the New Year (and the Gazette develops some chutzpah).

Yes Kira, there is indeed.

And then there were none...

While the Boy Scouts Christmas trees may have sold out a day or two early from all the publicity, in the end nobody wins. All the extra money kindly donated will maybe make up for the loss of 100 trees not harvested and sold due to last week's storm.

And the Town Manager has squandered credibility and political capital the way President Bush sacrificed 9/11 world sympathy by declaring war on Saddam Hussein.

There are two East Streets

North East Street looking East:
South East Street looking West:

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.