Standing out

Regional School Committee pulls a rabbit...

8:10 AM

So freshly minted Amherst School Committee member Sir Richard Hood thinks the Teachers Union members were a tad confused when they voted to give up 3 paid "professional development" days worth $350-K in exchange for voters approving the $1.68 million Override; in that they thought the money would stay in the school budget on top of the extra $1.1 million generated by the Override.

Now in order to appease the confused Teachers Union, the Regional School Committee is going funnel $255-K from reserves out of Excess and Deficiency account to bolster the Regional budget on top of the extra $$739,195 created by the Override.

As a separate legal entity the Region has its own slush fund called Excess and Deficiency (currently with just over $1 million stashed away for a rainy day) and the Elementary Schools do not have such a fund as they are 100% town of Amherst. Although Amherst children make up a whopping 80% of the Region.

The Elementary Schools will simply have to make due with the lousy extra $400,000 created by generous taxpayers.

The Springfield Republican Reports:

...not even the beginning of the end

Don't you just love those legal disclaimers printed on motor oil, "Do not drink this product?" According to outgoing School Committee Chair Andy Churchill, the Amherst Vote Yes Overriders garnered stunning advice from their Northampton counterparts: Don't worry about the No voters concentrate on those likely to vote Yes.

Hmm...must be a bevy of brain surgeons and rocket scientists among their group.

Amherst Taxpayers for Responsible Change distributed a mailer to almost 4,000 voters over the age of 50. Between postage and printing about 50 cents per unit. So I went over all the mailing labels first, cross referencing for names posted on the Blank Check Override Internet Petition website and the signature ad from 3 years ago to cross them off the list, thus saving us about $300.

Ironic thing is if Mr Churchill learned at the start of his six year Amherst School Committee service how to educate children at Northampton's $4,000 per child lower cost, it would have saved Amherst taxpayers $12 million per year and then we would indeed realize the dream of "No More Overrides"

The Springfield Republican reports

The end of the begining

So I'm preparing a more detailed analysis of the election for my Umass online journalism course mid-term assignment but figured I would throw out some off-the-cuff analysis for now, as I think both sides were surprised by yesterday's margin of victory (and no, unlike Cherry Hill Golf Course I'm not going to blame it on the weather.)

1) The 31.5% voter turnout was almost exactly the same as the Override that failed in 2007 so it's hard to blame voter turnout (although we usually get almost 80% every four years for the Presidential election.) So why the different outcome this time?

Well first off, there's a big difference between $2.5 million (that failed in 07) and the current $1.68 million. And if you listened to Andy Churchill at the forum last week sponsored by the crusty Gazette/Amherst Bully he made it sound like the $350,000 teacher giveback was already factored into lowering the Override amount. Which of course it did not, although town officials claim they will not use that amount by not taxing to the full extent of the new higher levy (one year only of course.)

And this year the Vote Yes folks were smart enough to order lawn signs (in two different varieties no less.) The Amherst Bulletin ran a rather long rambling editorial supporting the Override but then the Gazette followed suit with a tighter one, probably more widely read than the bloated Bully version.

But either way, two bricks-and-mortar newspapers supporting the Override certainly ads a fair amount of value that would have to be made up with paid advertising.

The Yes folks also raised more than the No folks ($5,000 to $4,000) although I still have not figured out how they spent that last $3,000. And I did notice that their "Vote Yes" lawn signs do not appear as expenditures on the Campaign Finance Report.

Their carefully crafted message got out: The town cut $7 million over the past (I heard either "two years" or "three years" and you could not tell whether they were including this upcoming year's cuts into that figure or not.) But the fact remains, the 2007 $2.5 million Override would have generated almost $8 million by now and over $10 million if you throw in next year.

And if THAT Override passed safe bet there would not have been ANY cuts. Yet somehow the town seems to have survived...

No way to start the day

A truck stalled in the middle of a busy intersection on Rt. 116 around 7:45 AM

Epilogue

9:45 PM

So yeah, by now you know the Override passed handily. But the real victory (for us crotchety conservatives) is Rob Spence winning a seat on the venerable Amherst School Committee.

And although they will never admit it, the Vote Yes folks did everything in their power to take him out.

As I stated earlier today, for the first time in at least a generation, a majority of sane fiscal conservatives controls that all-volunteer, amateur committee of do-gooders overseeing well over half the $65 million Amherst town budget.

I will actually sleep well tonight.

Collateral damage

6:15 PM

So if you ask recently retired Amherst Police Chief Charles Scherpa for a shortlist of the hardest working most dedicated person in Public Safety, Animal Control Officer Carol Hepburn would be exceedingly high on that list.

And as you can see from this afternoon's photo, she is also an Elections Warden.

But when the Override goes down, her full-time job as Animal Control Officer goes to half time, thus costing her $21,820. I bumped into her at the Hess Station in front of my Club early one weekday morning and she asked me how I thought the Override vote would go? "Down," I said--and then quickly added, "Sorry about that." "Why," she responded curiously.

"Because your job is half at stake."

"Don't worry about me," she said with Yankee certainty, "I'll be fine."

I hope so.