It's a beautiful day

Since I did not make the victory parties last night let me say congratulations to Select Board winners Diana Stein and Stephanie O’Keeffe. You will now join a board with very little diversity of thought or ethnicity or--interestingly enough--gender.

The ball is now in your court, run with it. But keep in mind the parameters of the playing field. If you want to be everything to everybody you will need way more money; thus requiring a Proposition 2.5 Override, failsafe legislation that requires voter approval.

Last May 2,650 Amherst residents voted down just such an Override. Yesterday, first place winner Diana Stein garnered only 2,200 votes. Do the math.

Remember?

Let the gloating begin

10:15 pm Okay so what the Hell do I know? Actually my top three picks finished in the top three... only in reverse order. And 4'th and 5'th place I called perfectly. Stein, O'Keeffe and Greeney rather than the other way around. And Rhodes and Mr. Keenan (who got far more votes for Town Meeting in his home precinct as he did votes for Select Board)

But it really doesn't matter. Neither Stein nor O’Keeffe will serve out their three-year term. Because with bigger issues—like the Prop 2.5 Override getting blown out of the effluent last year--my predictions are a tad more accurate. Because it helps when we get a better voter turnout.

Amherst will change from this antiquated form of government that relies on part-time, amateur, do-gooders and come into the 21'th Century with a professional, full-time Mayor/Council.

But God help us until then.

Scenes from Amherst Town Center

UPDATE: 5:45 pm Well I guess if you drove thru town center today (as I did a few times) you would assume Blue Bloods, errr, I mean Blue Signs will capture the two coveted Select Board seats--not to mention the lone School Committee seat.

So if anybody is interested--and the 60% of you from outside Amherst probably are not—here’s my prediction for the election:
Greeney first (behold the power of the Red sign) O’Keeffe second, Stein third, Rhodes fourth and the most entertaining candidate Dave Keenan dead last.

Sanderson over Romero (in spite of the cool animatronic Marinette truck and her red, white and blue signage) for School Committee.
Amherst Redevelopment Authority: Peg Roberts and Aaron Hayden.

12:30 pm: Note the difference between unstaged photos A (above), where they had not yet spotted me; and photo B: obviously these folks get all excited when they think the results could get wider exposure.

Now I know why the Powers That Be, establishment coalition chose BLUE for all their candidates’ signs. You don’t get any more blue state than Massachusetts and out of the 351 municipalities you don’t get any bluer than Amherst.

The Chinese got it right: Red rocks!

Well I love that dirty water

With all the fun I was having in town center yesterday I neglected this smelly story; and appropriate because as of 8:00 pm Rob Kusner will no longer be a Select Man (there go a bunch of great posts over the next year).

Hey Larry,

I am in Germany now (yeah, you already know, since I know you check from where in the world people log into your blog ;-) and just got this in my inbox. I thought you'd get a kick that it is addressed to me of all people!

Best wishes from Berlin (and see you in Town Meeting :-),

Rob

March 31, 2008

Mr. Robert Kusner
Board of Selectmen
Amherst
Town Hall
Amherst, MA. 01002

Dear Mr. Kusner:

I am pleased to advise you that Amherst will receive $22,575 from the Commonwealth Sewer Rate Relief Fund for FY 2008. The fund was established in 1993 to mitigate sewer rate increases due to debt service obligations for qualified sewer construction projects.

The balance in the fund from prior years and the FY 2008 appropriation provides for awards calculated at 6.567% of eligible debt service. The FY 2008 total state distribution from the fund was $23,025,406.

We are pleased to administer this important program to mitigate sewer rate increases in communitites across the Commonwealth.

Sincerely,

Robert G. Nunes
Deputy Commissioner &
Director of Municipal Affairs

Well that $22,000 will somewhat make up for the $38,000 effluent waiver Mr. Kusner gave his employer, Umass; except of course this grant is only a one-shot deal while the sweetheart effluent deal for Umass is a five year gig.

And with no cap on how much they can use for free and with all that new construction coming on line, the amounts are sure to expand exponentially

Note to Greg Saulmon at Local Buzz: Yeah, like ACE, the Deputy Commissioner also has a spelling problem (communities, committees…whatever)

Colorful Campaigning in Amherst Center

UPDATE: 9:25 pm Okay I just found another funny incident (even at this late hour). Having just discovered Baer 'The Turk' Tierkel’s blog via GavinThink and lo and behold there I am on Sunday when yes I did one of my favorite activities: the lone charge of an enemy machine gun nest.
SourVoodoo

So yeah, I have no problem with the nickname 'The Lone Ranger' although I believe all three Amherst Center columnists already used it to disparage Hwei-Ling Greeney.

But you gotta wonder about The Turk describing the standout of a half-dozen O’Keeffe Peepers (although Greeney gets two or three time that) holding signs as “impromptu”.

And so much for the Professor’s complaint/comment today about my giving people nicknames. I actually stole “The Turk” designation from one of Stephanie’s (other) biggest supporters.

UPDATE: 7:25 pm. Okay so I’m trying to think of the funniest incident of the day and boy it’s hard so I’ll just list all three (besides the animatronics Marinette for Romero video I posted)


Greg Saulmon at the Local Buzz has some fun with the overly educated Amherst ACE folks this afternoon (I can only hope he discovered them thru my posted link on Friday)
Local Buzz Bomb

So after leaving town center where I held a sign for Hwei-Ling for an hour so my phone rings and caller ID shows Otto Stein. “Hi this is Diana Stein and I’m running for Select board…do you have a moment” At first I thought it was a recorded message but I said “sure” and she went into a 30 second elevator pitch closing with “So can I have one of your two votes tomorrow?” Of course by now I’m laughing and I reply “Diana do you know who this is?” Ahhh, no she says. “I stood by you in town center two hours ago holding a red sign”. She actually kind of got a kick out it (as did I) saying “Well I guess I can’t count on either of your votes.”

And a not so funny incident where a pimple faced teenager came up to Hwei-Ling in a most direct manner and complained about her placing one of her signs on “town property” without anyone actually holding it (although we were only 20 yards away).

I said to Hwei-Ling not to worry about it as the kid was too young to vote anyway and obviously with his attitude has parents had already brainwashed him.

click to enlarge

What are you looking at?

Have you no sense of decency, sir?

UPDATE: Saturday 10:15 am discussion from Town Meeting listserve:
Larry,
Did Mr. Foudy see the piece before it when to press? Do you
know?
Or was this done by the Bulletin Editor locally?
Any suggestions as to safeguard the process for the future?
I'm not convinced yet, and strongly suggest more dialogue.
There had been too many inconsistencies for a few years now.
What were they thinking? AT least we could claim some
gains that the pieces are going to be publish on Saturday, but why are we having this discussion?
Vladimir M.


In a message dated 3/29/08 9:27:12 AM, amherstac@aol.com writes:

I believe the decision to endorse Stein/O'Keeffe was a joint one between Foudy, Hoffenberg and Julien. But obviously Publisher Julien has the most weight. The decision to run the Amherst Center column was probably just Hoffenberg (after all, it was their normal rotation time) and I assume he also edited it. The Bulletin may want to rethink endorsements in general or at the very least not do them in the final Bulletin before the election. Today's Gazette undoes a lot of the damage (except to the credibility of the Bulletin).
Larry

UPDATE: 3:25 pm Apparently the Gazette has some journalistic pride as they covered the press conference called this morning by everyone's favorite rogue Select Board candidate Dave Keenan to decry today's Bulletin (article will appear tomorrow) and Editor in Chief Jim Foudy just called Stan Gawle to confirm his column would also be in tomorrow's Gazette.

(2:00 PM) Today’s weekly Amherst Bulletin (the last before Amherst’s April Fools Day election) debut editorial hometown political endorsements; and strangely enough the ONLY Column on that highly read Commentary page ALSO endorsed (for the 2’nd consecutive time in a month) the identical Select Board wannabes.

Last month after the ‘Amherst Center’ amateur columnists championed Stein/O’Keeffe, ‘Amherst Taxpayers for Responsible Change’ spokesperson Stan Gawle immediately emailed the editor and asked for equal time…you know--the “fair and balanced” thing.

He was told to “shoot for” today’s issue and submitted his piece on Sunday morning--well before the Monday’s 9:00 am deadline. Surprisingly, Mr. Gawle’s column was spiked from the print edition.

Back when I was a paid columnist for the Bulletin (under a different editor and publisher) the sacred rule was equal time on political endorsements. And as I stated earlier, my editor did not want me writing ‘Letters to the Editor’ in between columns.

Last week ‘Amherst Center’ columnist Baer “the Turk” Tierkel took the time and space to throw mud at Hwei-Ling Greeney over political lawn signs. (UPDATE: I discovered who placed her sign on public property and--as I assumed--she had no knowledge of it whatsoever).

So yes, the Bulletin underwent major changes since Publisher Aaron Julien assumed command. Like all too many carpetbaggers, he recently moved to Amherst with his wife and three children.

When he married Abigal Wilson, whose Daddy is President of Newspapers of New England, the new owner of the Gazette and Amherst Bulletin, their wedding announcement appeared in the N.Y. Times.

His wife is a shareholder and member of the Board of Directors of Newspapers of New England (not to mention being “Daddy’s little girl”).

Abby Julien is also very active with ACE, a fledgling organization that wants the schools “to provide an intellectually engaging and challenging curriculum for all our children.” In other words, spend more tax money.

And ACE has certainly gotten more than its share of ink in the Bulletin over the past three months.
FREE PRESS ANYONE?

ACE has of course targeted Hwei Ling Greeney for extermination and today’s Bulletin goes a long way towards accomplishing that goal.

Greeney does have an expensive half-page Signature Ad on page five (the Bulletin charges 20% more for “placement”) with 503 voters names while O’Keeffe also has the other half of that page, but with only 340 names.

Although Greeney ordered the space months ago, O’Keeffe got the top-half, above the fold, choice placement because she had fronted herself $1,500 back in December as a "campaign loan" and will get reimbursed out of donations (sure to go up if she wins).

###################################################
From: Stanley Gawle
To: ajulien@gazettenet.com
Cc: nhoffenberg@gazettenet.com; greeneyh@juno.com; rhodesamherst@aol.com; amherstac@aol.com; scott ; jfoudy@gazettenet.com
Sent: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 9:59 am
Subject: Fw: comparable space foe Amherst Taxpayer endorsements

Dear Mr. Julien,

Newspapers flourish when the residents believe that the newspaper operates in a fair and balanced manner. This weeks edition of the Amherst is anything but fair and balanced. The Amherst Center has had two endorsement articles regarding selectboard candidates. All we asked was for the opportunity to present to the voters an alternative. Based on the emails contained herein,
I was led to believe that space would be reserved for 3-27.

A message from Noah yesterday said my op ed piece came in later than the others but it was e-mailed on Sunday morning.
He also said that my article appears on line and is read by thousands. Well, many voters especially the elderly, either can't afford computers or view them with trepidation.

This has been a rather un-fortunate situation and the horse is out of the barn but I am requesting three things for your consideration:

1. That my article appear as a guest column under the cartoon this coming Monday with the caption "Vote Greeney and Rhodes"
2. In the future, the Gazette adopt a policy that op ed pieces that are slated to appear, actually appear in the paper, not online.
3. If the Amherst Bulletin continues its endorsement in the future, that you consider affording the opportunity of a response by the other candidates that you haven't endorsed . That only seems fair.

Stan Gawle



On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:00:43 EDT RhodesAmherst@aol.com writes:

To: the editors of the Amherst Bulletin and Hampshire Gazette
From: Irv Rhodes
RE: Amherst Bulletin March 28,2008

After reading the endorsement editorial of the Amherst Bulletin on March 28, I was struck by three things:

1. Immediately beside the editors endorsement was what was purported to be an OP-ED piece by Amherst Center writers Andy Churchill, Baer Tierkel and Clare Bertrand, this was a political advertisement and should have been labeled as such. Additionally, by having Amherst Center and the Amherst Bulletin endorse the same candidates on the same day just days away from the election (mind you that Amherst Center had previously published a very similar article in the Amherst Bulletin) leaves one with the perception that this was timed to have maximum impact on the election outcome.
2. The Amherst Taxpayers Association led by Stan Gawl, was suppose to have an OP-ED piece in the Amherst Bulletin on March 28 also, but it did not appear. It just so happens that Amherst Taxpayers supported Irv Rhodes (the writer ) and Hwei-Ling Greeney, thus the perception that the Bulletin was biased towards Amherst Center and effectively stifled alternative views,but also prevented the public from reading about the thoughts and endorsements of a legitimate group of citizens.
3. The endorsements of the Amherst Bulletin was an on again, off again affair, that should have been better planned and not done at the last minute. By having the endorsement come at the very last issue before the election, it gave no time for reaction by the candidates not endorsed by the editor, thus effectively cutting off the voices of those who would have disagreed with the editor's endorsements. This has the effect of limiting and effectively eliminating any dissenting views from being heard before the election. This is not fair and is not what a community newspaper should be about. Amherst, is rife with divisive thoughts and actions, the Amherst Bulletin should be a place where all voices of the community are given an equal opportunity to be heard, sadly this did not occur.

I am urging the Hampshire Gazette to publish on Monday March 31,2008 the OP-ED piece of Stan Gawl and the Amherst Tax Payers Association that was supposed to have appeared in the Amherst Bulletin. This would correct an injustice.
Irv Rhodes