What you lookin at

You can run, but...

After a year of waiting 2 new Dodge Chargers are, finally, here. Six cylinders rather than eight so they will get a bit better mileage than the Crown Victoria’s. Although some Town Meeting members wanted the Chief to purchase "hybrid vehicles" for even less of a carbon impact.

Country road

Let the sun shine

So the Town Manager wants to experiment with two photovoltaic solar panels, one on the DPW and another at the transfer station at a cost of $24,000 but will produce twice that amount in savings over the five year buy-out period.

Almost sounds too good to be true.

But I can’t help but wonder if the Town Manager went before the Planning Board, Zoning Board, Design Review Board and Historical Commission to get approval for the placement on the roof of the DPW building, which was originally the turn-of-the-century main Trolley station.

The Springfield Republican reports

Abierto! (Finally!)

So after leaping more hurdles than an Olympic track star, Latinos, the little restaurant underneath my health club is finally open. Only took and extra 15 months.

Because, yeah, going from the Amherst Fish Market with take out, eat in and delivery to a Latino Restaurant with take out, eat in and delivery is such a monumental change in use.

And you wonder why Amherst has an anti-business reputation?

Grin and Bair it

So FDIC Chair Sheila Bair she may be the “second most powerful woman in the world” and might even make the ‘top ten’ for most famous person to live in the People’s Republic of Amherst, but that still does not garner her an over 50% profit when selling her humble Amherst abode.

Purchased for $355, 000 in 2002 and renovated to the tune of another $89,500 the Victorian house went on the market this spring for $795,000 then quickly dropped to $695,000 to almost exactly its assessed value ($692,800) then, puff, came off the market to await better times.

The (currently rented) house is directly across the street from Amherst’s by far most famous resident, Miss Emily’s brick family home, owned by Amherst College. You would think (since the Dickinson Homestead will never be torn down to make room for a Wal-Mart) that would increase the value any property within spitting distance.

Oh well. I’m sure Ms. Bair’s salary and benefits, as FDIC Chair will allow her to carry the property for a year or two. And even if she gets the higher price, it probably will not be enough buy her a comparable sized home in Washington, DC.

Thus highlighting one of the problems in bucolic Amherst. Whiz kids come to our illustrious flagship Umass simply to use that position as a stepping-stone to BIGGER-and-BETTER things, and then want to flip their property for 50% over what they paid a few years earlier.

Thus the town Assessor considers those sales and, like a rising tide, increases the evaluations of every home in the neighborhood. Where some folks have lived all their lives (and their parents and grandparents before them) and simply can’t afford to pay those outrageous town property taxes.

Gentrification—of the snobby kind.

What's old is new

The "Reclaimer": This bad boy digs down 18" and shreds the material for reuse.
Job is farmed out to Warner Bros. but under oversight by Amherst DPW

Work, finally, begins on repaving North Pleasant street--the gateway to Umass. Let's hope it's completed by Labor Day in time for the 'The Surge' of students returning to The People's Republic.

Safe bet it will be done by September 27 for the official Amherst 250th celebration Parade (you know the one that does not allow protesters.)