And the winner is...

Okay if the bricks-and-mortar Media can recycle the tired, traditional, Top Ten stories of the past year I suppose this blog can name the single most important story in the People’s Republic of Amherst for 2007. Of course if I were a clever blogger you would have a drum roll MP3 file to click.

The May 1’st Proposition Two and a half Override FAILURE. I emphasize failure because if it had passed the story would have been one of those journalistic “dog bites man” stories and would barely have made anyone’s top-ten list BUT...because it failed in education oriented, overly enlightened Amherst it's a “man bites dog story.”

Why did it fail? Let me count the ways! The oldest martial arts truism in the 'Book Of Secrets' unequivocally states: “Never underestimate your opponent.” In this case, Overriders didn’t even know they had opponents until after heavy artillery had been brought to bear.

With ample ammunition: like the $4.3 million Amherst had hidden in reserves thus translating to town officials wanting taxpayers to consume their savings so the town could keep money stashed in its Stabilization and Free Cash accounts (currently at $3.9 million.)

The Town Manager made the rookie--throwback to the 1980’s--mistake of threatening cuts to Public Safety that he would never implement (although, unfortunately, Police did take a hit); and he turned down a guaranteed $30,000 annually for a retched municipal golf course that squandered an average of $100,000 per year for six consecutive years.

And for some inexplicable reason all the Heavy-Hitter, Usual Suspects in the 'Save our Schools' crowd let a guy who had absolutely no political experience whatsoever run their inept campaign.



Overconfident Overriders failed to order lawn signs; and that monumental mistake plus some immature High School kids stealing the “No More Overrides” lawns signs the first night they sprouted all over town, combined for a Perfect Storm of publicity. One clueless kid was caught by police after dropping his cell phone and paid $250 in restitution that Taxpayers for Responsible Change donated to local charities.

Of course all the dire predictions failed to materialize and the Regional School finished the year with an extra $1 million left over in their operation budget (which they promptly spent) and no teacher layoffs. Now we learn Amherst taxpayers subsidize the Ambulance service we provide to nearby towns and Umass by about $650,000 per year. And those empty outreach buses cost just over $100,000.

Thus, town officials have their managerial work cut out for them in 2008—especially since an Override is out of the question. But hey, that’s why we pay them the Big Bucks.

My Christmas wishes (A leprechaun granted me three) for next year: The Grinch/Scrooge Town Manager learns from his most recent mistake and axes the tax on our Boy Scouts Christmas tree sales; Amherst police catch the culprit who stole money destined for children from the Christmas light display on Whippletree lane; and the Chamber of Commerce actually decorates downtown Amherst like an American town rather than a North Korean village.

30

A crime against children.

So in spite of some sick Grinch stealing a day’s worth of Christmas donations, the Pastorello’s epic light show--unfortunately their grand finale--on Whippletree Lane went over the top for overall donations going to help children at the Shriners Chrildren Hospital, surpassing a record set in 2001.

Since the crusty Gazette (amazingly) managed to get the article in today about the depressing theft Sunday night and the Pastorello’s mentioned they only needed $29 to break the record I dropped off a check this morning for $30 (note to thief: It’s made out to Shriners Children Hospital, so don’t bother returning to the scene of your despicable crime.)

And I can only hope a lot more folks in Amherst got the same idea as me and dropped off a check as well.

2008

The Chinese consider 8 a lucky number. I hope they're right.

My Christmas present (s)

So yeah, I’m supposed to ooze that sappy sympathetic “There but for the grace of God…” routine, but to Hell with that! These clueless amateurs should NEVER have initially opened.

Simply put, this side of the River--that would be the Connecticut-- dividing us, The People’s Republic of Amherst, from our Sister City Northampton (with Hadley stuck in the middle) can support two decent sized Health Clubs; and the other side of the Coolidge Bridge can also support two. That’s all folks. We’re not exactly Boston, The Big Apple or LA.

Thus when you have six or seven facilities on this side of the river all scavenging for half the pie, something has to give--as in DIE! A duo did this week; a duo more to go. And then, gloriously, homeostasis returns to the Happy Valley Fitness Universe.

Gold’s Gym and Planet Fitness (that has not even opened yet) are next on the Devil's shortlist.

Ultimate Fitness opened almost ten years ago targeting the same student demographic Flex Gym on University Drive lived and died by a year or two earlier.

James “Bruiser” Flint had inherited the Umass Basketball Head Coach position after Coach Cal left the building (Mullins Center), and he Pollyannaishly decided to open a Health Club while simultaneously trying to coach a nationally ranked (at times #1) basketball team. He failed, miserably, at both.

Umass basketball slid into the toilet, where they remain today, and Umass quietly benched Coach Flint (they, like the town of Amherst, hate it when a minority hire fails.) He would return once annually for the past few years to tour his albatross business (no reason really, since they have not changed a single thing) and that was the extent of his long-distance involvement.

Curious that they would surrender now. Unlike most Valley businesses January is, mainly due to New Year’s Resolutions, the peak month for the Health Club industry.

Probably a confluence of concerns: the recent ownership change at Hampshire Fitness in Amherst, the pernicious predatory pricing from Planet Fitness in Hadley and the daunting prospect of a shiny new $50 million Recreation Center at Umass (guaranteed to absorb the vast majority of students.)
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Curves was never a concern, as they only target women, thus ignoring half the market. A few years ago Curves was the #1 franchise in America with thousands of units springing up like summer weeds. Many have now wilted and died.

Aerobic circuit training is fine (we have just added a one-hour Friday class), but to limit your entire business model to a 30-minute circuit routine performed two or three times per week guarantees boredom, the #1 cause of dropout.

An exercise science study showed if women actually followed Curves recommendations (three workouts per week) they burned under 300 calories total, or one-twelfth of a pound.

American College of Sports Medicine recommendations, however, suggest moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week. So even if the entire Curves chain vanishes nationwide it would have zero impact on the average health of American women.

And in the Happy Valley, consumers (men and women) who patronized a dead club mostly migrate to another--thus ensuring the financial health of those hardy Health Clubs that remain.

Like the Marine Corps motto: The few. The proud!


Not sure why Dead Men Walking still do this (put up a sign suggesting they will return). Used to be local owners wanted a few days to get out of town so members who just paid for a long-term membership can't catch them, but since Flint left Amherst a long, long time ago...

Hey, at least Curves had a sense of humor with their obituary:

Un-American assassination

Kennedy observed, not two weeks before his head was ripped apart, that if an assassin really were willing to sacrifice their life to accomplish murder then the Secret Service would likely someday fail him.

But Oswald (and that guy on the grassy knoll) had no intention of giving up their life to accomplish murder most foul. Neither did John Wilkes Booth who fled Forbes Theater and made a beeline for the South. Sirhan Sirhan could easily have saved a bullet for himself and Dr. King’s assassin died from cancer after years of rotting in jail.

Only outside America do we have idiots willing to slink into a crowd and detonate themselves and everyone in the vicinity! At least the Japanese Kamikaze’s restricted their suicide strikes to military targets.

Note to terrorists: When you start murdering women or children, you lose the hearts and minds of people EVERYWHERE.

And so this was Christmas

Descending toward Bradley International airport after almost 19 hours in the air I was anxious to land…but not that anxious! Listening in on the planes communication channel plus the dramatic increase in turbulence confirmed the Nor'easter had beaten us. The air traffic controller calmly reported wind gusts of 60 mph and snow falling at rate of 10” per hour.

A brief pause…and I thought about knocking on the cockpit door and telling the pilot I had only been a dad for 72 hours, and I could use a lot more time. The pilot confirmed he was redirecting to Dulles Airport.

My sis worked for Independence Air a small, low cost airline based at Dulles (since gone bankrupt) and her spacious home was only five minutes from the airport. We spent our first Christmas as a family there in 2002 and have gone back every Christmas since.

This year we drove, as three plane tickets would have set us back $900, leaving Amherst on Christmas Eve and stopping first in New Jersey to stay overnight with Donna’s brother. His house is almost exactly the halfway point to Washington, so it broke up the travel into two manageable legs.
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The Air and Space Museum located at Dulles Airport, like many attractions in DC is government owned and operated, meaning We The People are shareholders and as a result there’s no admission charge.

The modern building is really just a giant hanger with one monstrous door that opens to the outside so airplanes could enter fully assembled. My sis said that the entire airport practically came to a standstill a few years back when the last remaining Concord flew in and took up permanent residence.


Gazing on the Enola Gay, a B-29 that delivered the first atomic bomb, it’s easy to imagine why we won the war. And the Space Shuttle Enterprise demonstrates our industrial, technological edge continues fifty years later.


We left DC for home on Thursday stopping in Manhattan to break up the drive. Dinner at an Italian Restaurant in the heart of Little Italy.
then a dessert from a bakery in nearby Chinatown. Donna has been taking Chinese lessons for a while now and managed to understand when the two women who waited on her called Kira “beautiful”.


We zig zagged around Times Square taking in the light show but police were everywhere keeping traffic moving and blocking off Rockefeller Center to autos.
Now the tallest manmade object in the Big Apple, the Empire State Building stands like a proud beacon...


Left the City at 7:00 pm and pulled into Amherst at 9:30 pm.

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).