Much Ado...

Click photo to read

UPDATE: 9:00 AM
So our anonymous friend seems to have targeted at least one other Town Meeting—Brookline, so I guess it wasn’t John Calipari. Now I’m thinking Elvis.
Springfield Republican scoops the Gazette (again)
Brookline Tab scoops the Gazette
The watchdog who did not do it

Original Post 10:00 PM (yeah, I left early)
So the buzz on the floor of Town Meeting this evening was not the usual microphone feedback, or the snide murmurs one sometimes hears when certain speakers stroll to the microphone: everybody was all a twitter tonight about a “mysterious” anonymous post card that arrived in the mail today with a Tennessee postmark (pretty good timing.)

Apparently two versions exist (I received the longer version) one stating Town Meeting attendance would be recorded and mailed to all of Amherst and the longer one where “vote positions” would get the same treatment (and obviously you have to be in attendance to vote).

The Moderator asked for a show of hands and a little over half the members present confirmed receiving one version or the other. Amherst has 247 Town Meeting members so even at 100% saturation the weirdo would spend $67.

But sending the voting or attendance results to all of Amherst with about 7,000 mailboxes (and another 1,500 PO Boxes) would be over $2,000. Hell, I’ll publish it all here for half that.

From: "Town Meeting Coordinating Committee"
Subject: Peculiar Postcard
Date: November 17, 2008 4:31:01 PM EST

A Message from the Moderator: Many, if not all, Town Meeting Members have received a peculiar postcard postmarked Nashville Tennessee. The writer voices an intention to attend Town Meeting this week, record everyone’s votes, and “mail your vote positions to all citizens in town of Amherst.” Nothing illegal or violent is threatened in this message and I don’t believe there is any reason for members to be alarmed. But I have informed the Amherst Police and they are looking into the matter. I look forward to seeing all of you tonight.

Harrison L. Gregg

Town Moderator, Amherst

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Unfortunately today’s Gazette Internet edition completely buries one of the more interesting Amherst articles by not providing a link on the main page, although the print edition gives it prominent placement.

Besides the usual gloom-and-doom hand wringing and whining the Town Manager telegraphs his feelings about that quick and easy budget balancer, every bureaucrats favorite fall back: the BIG O—as in Override.

“The point is, we won’t be able to fund everything we’re currently funding without an Override,” declared the Town Manager; now that it’s starting to dawn on him the Facilitation Committee is not going to be the Poster Kids for an Override, so he will simply have to lead the charge himself.

And we saw how well that went two years go.

And so it grows

So you know how that concealed area of your humble abode tends to attract clutter --that then exponentially increases the rate of accumulated crap? Or that tucked away inner city open lot where a midnight dumper unloads their crap and the city does nothing about it, and soon thereafter others pile on and it looks like the local landfill?

Yeah, well the People’s Republic of Amherst decided that the DPW would be the bone yard for dead carbon producing internal combustion vehicles –at least until they can sell them off as scrap for pennies on the dollar.

Now if this were a bedroom neighborhood (and since there are three private homes within sight lines, it is) you just know a NIMBY neighbor would complain to the Planning Board, or Zoning Board who would then sick their enforcer—the Building Inspector—on the offender for storing unregistered vehicles without a junk-yard or used-car sales permit.

And yeah, I just happen to be one of those homes. And no, this really doesn’t offend me in the least…on most levels (as the DPW is as good a neighbor as you could ask for). I just don’t like the “Do as I say, not as I do” aspect (which comes from 'Powers That Be' slightly higher than the DPW)

Thursday, 11/13/08

Figures don't lie...

So the crusty Gazette did an interesting “investigative” article yesterday about the salary woes at our favorite flagship University after requesting the documentation from Umass, presumably under Public Documents Law--or maybe they just said please.

Of course all they needed to do is surf to their competition the Springfield Republican, who put this nifty data base on MassLive of not only all Umass salaries (including “pot washers”) but another database as well of all state employees.

Umass payroll database

I hope somebody can do that for all employees in the town and schools of Amherst someday.

What’s interesting about Umass is not the salary of the average professor--either $83,477 according to the Gazette or $112,000 according to Chronicle of Higher Education--who presumably does a fair amount of actual teaching.

Just scroll around the database for any job title with the term “provost” in it:
Vice Provost (2) at an average of $200,000 each
Associate Vice Provost (1) at $202,389
Provost for Academic Affairs at $272,595
Associate Provost (six) at an average of $157,689

And of course my favorite Associate Provost is Bryan Harvey, former Amherst town government superstar (and State Rep wannabe) who comes in at only $144,000 --slightly below average--but more than made up for by having his wife Lynn Griesemer pull down $172,934 as a “Staff Administrator” for the Donahue Institute, which describes itself as “the public service, outreach, and economic development unit of the University of Massachusetts President's Office."

Curiously none of their employees show up on the Umass database, so you have to go the other web database of all state employees to find any of the salaries of the 99 Donahue Institute staff (yes I said 99…yikes.)
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And yeah, you just gotta love the Gazette's artsy photo of the guy working on the UMass $50 million Recreation Center at sunset, soooooo he's getting time-and-a-half at prevailing wage...Safe bet the Center will come in a tad over budget.

Not Mike Dukakis’s snowblower

So if your spouse or teen-ager drove the family van to a Vermont ski resort from the People’s Republic of Amherst and forgot to check the oil and somehow missed the illuminated idiot light warning of imminent disaster, would you simply cough up $19,000 for a brand new van to replace the one with a seized motor?

Probably not. But Amherst taxpayers did that for the LSSE recreation empire in FY08. A Ford Windstar Van with only 54,000 miles sits forlornly in the DPW parking lot (actually moved onto the grass to make room) waiting to be sold “as is”--meaning it will bring in little to nothing.

Comparative healthy vans with that low mileage resell for anywhere between $4,000- $6,000.

One of the (many) quirks of municipal budgeting is that capital items are treated separately from the operation budget (as is insurance and employee benefits). When I buy a treadmill for my Health Club it's financed out of my everyday revenues, and if the revenues are not there then I don’t buy the item. And when I do buy an expensive item like that I take good care of it.

But municipal bureaucrats get to purchases capital items ($22,000 lawn mower for the Cherry Hill Golf Course for instance) outside their everyday operation budget. And as a result, that money is not always well spent.

And, as you can see, items purchased don't always get the best of care.

There he goes again...

In America’s national pastime you’re only allowed three strikes and in today’s crusty Gazette the Town Mangler strikes out, lying for the third time about the finances of the Cherry Hill Golf Course by insisting the Money Pit is actually making money.

At the close of FY07 LSSE marketing flacks issued a press release claiming $7,200 in profit (by ignoring $31,000 in hidden costs paid from other parts of the overall budget). Shaffer crossed a line when he told the Select Board Cherry Hill required “no tax support". Even Finance Committee chair Alice Carlozzi disagreed with that assessment.

And this spreadsheet from Comptroller Sonia Aldrich created four months ago proves it. Note very bottom line, where FY07 shows up as a $10,708 loss instead of $7,200 profit):

If Cherry Hill really can carry its own bloated weight, including Big-Ticket capital items (this years $22,000 lawn mower) why did Assistant Town Mangler John Musante say back in April when asked when Cherry Hill would be "fully self-sufficient and pay its own capital too?"

Musante responded sheepishly, "We haven't given that serious consideration because the revenue has not been there."


Amherst Bully (for them) article

And it's not there now either. Revenues for the first half of the current Fiscal Year (July 1-Nov 1) are a pretty paltry $110,000, including concessions. Dan Engstrom the twenty-year manager who was fired 3/17/07 told the Select board the easy way to project total annual intake is to simply double the amount at Fall closing.

Thus under Engstrom’s formulae Cherry Hill will generate $220,000 total. Yes, the operation budget is only $208,000 but that does not include hidden costs of employee benefits, clubhouse insurance and liability insurance (the Finance Committee in FY07 pegged that total at $31,612). Or the $22,000 capital item, a lawn mower.

Even more important, factor in the $30,000 guaranteed annual payment from Niblick Management to privately manage the 9-hole-course. South Hadley pays a management company $515,000 to run their 18 hole White Elephant.

With all costs considered Cherry Hill's break even point is $290,000; and with the year half over it's safe to assume they will will once again miss the green.

Amherst Remembers

10:45 AM Amherst Town Center
Brief speeches, poems, a lone bagpiper and the town flag at half-staff, all under mournful grey skies. The veteran, and their friends and family, never forget. And neither should we.

4:45 PM

Belchertown Remembers as well