And the winner is...

6:30 AM I love Thursday morning’s—so full of anticipation. What will the venerable weekly Amherst Bulletin, available around 10:30 AM, deem important enough for Front Page treatment—especially that valuable location above the fold?

So we will have "Chinese Charter School wins Federal Grant"--but probably not above the fold as they’re mad I scooped them (and my daughter is a student). Monday night’s Select Board meeting and the entertaining antics of ‘His Lordship’ Gerry Weiss will of course produce another two: "SB caves to ghost of hippy activist and changes election to replace X-Czar Awad" (well maybe that’s a tad wordy) and of course little old me: "His Lordship wants Kelley pilloried in Town Square".

Hmm…the election story should get top billing.
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10:45 AM Okay, I was almost perfect: The Election screw up was the lead story--but they used a “Pull quote” to hype His Lordship’s attempt at censor/silencing me (so in a sense the story still made the Front Page, above the fold). Chinese Charter School story just below the fold.

Of course the other funny thing is, once again, I have scooped the Bully with their own paper. They really need to light a fire under their I.T. person and make the WWW sooner.

Yeah, whenever they publish I will post the link to the "stalker story", carried in yesterday's Gazette. Reporter Scott Merzbach added more, however, which is good. He interviewed a police officer who subtly pointed out the state stalker law is designed for "domestic abuse" situations and also requires a "pattern" of abuse (not one visit to her South Hadley home on a public road located over 100 yards from their front door in the middle of the afternoon). Something Greg Saulman also pointed out in his fine MassLive Local Buzz op-ed piece.

Bully Pulpit indeed

2 videos = 1 pissed off Irishman.

Okay folks, according to Wednesday’s Gazette, here is the evidence for Ms. Awad’s serious charge of a “physical threat”--I kid you not. (No wonder the cops laughed):

Behold the great threat!

Select Person Stephanie's take :
Some folks get it

Proof that I explained verbally to Mr. Awad (oops, I mean Mr. Hubley) the expression "locked and loaded" well before her resignation.
God I love blogs as public records!

This post (also pre-resignation) explains it better

Not the first time 'His Lordship' has freaked over little old me (10/11/07):

This was soon after the Northwestern District Attorney agreed with me that the Select Board violated the Open Meeting Law (yet again). You could tell he rehearsed this attack as well.

Election runaround

So after over two hours of discussion and only minutes after a 3-2 vote to have the Select Board election as a stand alone one on December 2'nd, the Select Board then changed their minds and voted unanimously to have the Special Election to replace X-Czar Awad on the Presidential election November 4.

Money Talks (Chinese)

Last year the Pioneer Valley Chinese Charter School was the only entity to receive a public school charter by the State Department of Education. This morning Congressman Richie Neal announced the school was one of only 8 public schools in the nation and the only charter school--to win a $1.5 million foreign language grant from the Federal Department of Education

The press conference, attended by a bevy of parents and children, was held in their new location the former KidSports health club in Hadley. The first year of operation the Chinese Charter School was located in South Amherst and consisted of Kindergarten and First grade. This coming September the school will add second grade, and every year add another grade until eighth, where full enrollment is expected at 300 children.

Microburst! (again)

Expensive votes!

My favorite ancient ‘Only in Amherst' political yarn goes like this: Back when any citizen calling Amherst home could attend a Town Meeting and vote, Umass students (although they may have been called “Mass Aggies” at the time) were upset about some ordinance or other passed at the previous Town Meeting.

So they showed up unannounced at the next Town Meeting in Legions.

And they proposed and passed an ordinance mandating a perimeter fence around the entire town common and then all marched out of the Meeting in force singing the school song (Rah! Rah! Rah!).

Funny story! But like most urban legends--completely untrue.

Yet for 25 years now, I’ve heard paranoid scenarios just like that where the students are the “sleeping giants” of town politics and one of these days they are going to awaken, pissed off, and really do something.

Other than the 2000 local election with the Legalize Pot Resolution on the Ballot student participation has been pathetic at best (although ironically, some credit their involvement with Anne Awad's victory that year).

Umass provided a voting place (combining 4 precincts) on campus two years ago, spending $56,000 to lease the high-tech machines, to make it easier for the Sleeping Giants to sleep late and still vote.

In 2006 only 26 students bothered to vote at the new convenient location), or a tad less than 1.25% turnout. And in 2007 only seventeen total, or less than 1% turnout. Ouch!

$3,216.14 in staff pay plus $240 for programming the machines and printing ballots divided by 17 kids comes to a whopping $240 per student vote. On the town side 3,356 voters requiring $8,455 in staff and $2,143 for programming and printing comes to $3.16 per townie vote.

Changing the election date to replace outgoing, X-Czar Anne Awad from the September Primary (that usually gets a better voter turnout than our annual spring election) to a stand-alone election December 2 at an extra cost of $8,000 is a BAD idea.

For the handful of students it would enfranchise at an overhead of hundreds of dollars each--this time covered by Amherst taxpayers-we could simply spend a fraction of that on student outreach and advertising to promote the September 16 election, with better results.

Or...put it on the November 4 Presidential ballot--where turnout will be a whopping 80%.

Meet the Manager

So, I’m sure the Town Manager will report to the Select Board Monday night that we had a cordial meeting of the minds, everybody got a chance to speak, everyone seemed to listen, no raised voices, no name calling; and, in the end, no deal.

Well, actually the Committee did not take a vote. Probably next week. But I get the distinct impression it will be “No deal!”

Essentially the Town Manager wants to bribe the Committee with insurance and a police security detail (under $1,500 value, and something we have managed to pay for the past seven years). And he would throw in police and fire vehicles (even though the Select Board indicated no town equipment next year for any parade).

In exchange, the Private committee would allow a “protest division” that the town would administrate. A parade within a parade if you will. The town manager would issue a separate permit for the town protest division, but it would still be part of the private parade.

If I’m correct and the answer is "no deal", then the town manager said he would have to meet with the Parade Committee Chair and talk about the time and route of the private parade next year so it does not conflict with the town parade.

So let’s hope the Select Board shows some spine on Monday night during the discussion to make it perfectly clear the town should not waste time and tax money organizing a July 4’th Parade next year.