Good old Boys in the People's Repubic

So the interim Amherst Regional School Superintendent Maria Geryk--appointed by a less than unanimous vote of the Regional School Committee (overly dominated by minority hilltowns) after the sudden firing/leave of Alberto Rodriguez--only 8 months into his luxurious 3 year contract--announced on their web page this afternoon that Amherst insider Michael Hayes was appointed as the new school Principal for the Regional Middle School--what we townies called "Jr. High School" back in the day.

Hayes was passed over in 2008 by Golden Boy Superintendent Jere Hochman in favor of Glenda Cresto who was fired/bullied into leaving this past September by Hochman replacement Alberto Rodriguez who also inexplicably recently walked the plank.

Hayes has vastly far less experience than the other (outside) contender, Karsten Schlenter.

Interestingly the Amherst School Committee was supposed to meet last night but cancelled at the last minute because paid professional school officials failed to provide important budget documents 48 hours in advance of the meeting (sounds like Amherst Town Meeting.)

So this important position was filled without any advance notice/discussion with the elected School Committee--you know, the folks who are supposed to be in charge.

Thus, kind of like the Captain of the Titanic turning over command to a Cabin Boy an hour after bumping into that iceberg.

Sorry about that Chief

Click to enlarge/read
UPDATE 11: AM : Already heard back from the State (gotta love email):

-----Original Message-----
From: Shallow, Joanne (SEC)
To: amherstac@aol.com
Sent: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 9:44 am
Subject: RE: Public Documents Appeal

Where is your copy of your written request for the documents?

Did the custodian respond by e-mail? Is the attachment you sent to this office the original response from the custodian, or did you copy it?

From: amherstac@aol.com
To: Joanne.Shallow@state.ma.us
Sent: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 11:17 am
Subject: Re: Public Documents Appeal

My original written request (via email) is at the bottom of this string dated 3/15/10 9:21 AM
The custodian's response (via email) is above that dated 3/25/10 4:57 PM (which I believe is a day late)
Yes, this was all done via the Web.

I probably should have just sent you my blog upload that time date stamps everything (and is rather public):

http://onlyintherepublicofamherst.blogspot.com/2010/03/best-disinfectant.html

Larry


From: Shallow, Joanne (SEC)
To: amherstac@aol.com
Sent: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 1:20 pm
Subject: RE: Public Documents Appeal

I will open an appeal for you. What is the mailing address for Mr. Hajir for hard copy?

From: amherstac@aol.com
To: Joanne.Shallow@state.ma.us
Sent: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 1:38 pm
Subject: Re: Public Documents Appeal

Hey Joanne,

Hmm...that's a good question. Since he is an elected volunteer who lives outside Amherst, I'm not sure about his home address. Probably should just mail to: Amherst Regional High Schoo,l 21 Mattoon Street, Amherst, Ma. 01002
c/o Amherst Regional School Committee

Larry

#############################################
ORIGINAL POST 8:00 AM
So I guess in addition to a copy editor I could also use a secretary. I did just now go back to the Secretary of State's webpage and found an email address for the Supervisor of Records and resent my original complaint, and the Regional Committee Chair Farshid Hajir response/denial (which was a day late) all nicely time/date stamped.

Ah, the convenience of the Web.

Should have just sent them my original upload

Princess Stephanie recrowned

So if this looks a little awkward and orchestrated that's because it was. But hey, the Open Meeting Law allows for public officials to kibitz behind the scenes as long as it only involves "housekeeping."

For those of you new to the ongoing antics of the People's Republic, Stephanie O'Keeffe rose from complete obscurity to the venerable Amherst Select Board mainly via her groundbreaking blog "Stephanie's Town Meeting Experience".

Then after I took out former SB Czar Anne Awad, who was replaced in a mid-year election by Aaron Hayden, she orchestrated a coup d'état and cut off His Lordship Gerry Weiss's, errr...knees and ascended the throne.

Now she's been reelected. All hail the queen. Also worthy to note that we now have a sitting majority of Select Board members "elected" without having any competition in the election.


The good old days

White Elephants: the same all over the country

Another losing Amherst golf course (New York)

Funny how public recreation folks all think alike. Ten years ago the now defunct Cherry Hill Golf Advisory Committee wanted to a borrow millions to replace the condemned clubhouse with a Taj Mahal like structure including 5 star restaurant.

Fortunately that was downsized to a $286,000 loan for a Wal Mart quality Clubhouse that still managed to overrun its budget by 30% and a new irrigation system. The Finance Committee promised the improvements would lead to revenues falling from the heavens like manna; and of course Cherry Hill then went into its seven-year tailspin averaging over $100-K losses per year.

Now-a-days capital improvements (that are charged to a separate part of the town budget so it does not show up as an operation cost of the business) are limited to little things like the $15,000 two years ago for a security fence and above ground fuel storage tank.

Not sure if the security fence is to protect from terrorists detonating the storage tank, or just a visual screen so Hilda Greenbaum doesn't complain about the industrial view. But that open space looks big enough to drive a golf cart through...

Fire in the hole!

12:20 PM

And I thought Amherst elections were hot.

To Hell with the taxpayers

Click to read (and weep)

So at least the Budget Coordinating Group is recommending Amherst Town Meeting stick it to the voters "with extreme care and thoughtful deliberation."

Yeah, the old, just a spoonful of sugar help the cyanide go down routine.

The School Committee votes to spend money out of their cool $1 million in reserves after the Override rather than before, the Teachers Union votes a $350,000 contract giveback dependent on the Override passing and town officials promised that if more state aid came in--which it appears will happen--that they would not tax to the full extent of the levy.

Ahhhh, but nobody apparently can speak for Town Meeting. Next time folks, hold on to your wallets (or purses as the case may be.)

Gus Sayer: "Just go. I don't care how. Just go."

So in spite of being a private sector kind of guy, I know how CYA (Cover Your Ass) works.

I too, was guilty a few days ago when I first posted my reaction to the horrific South Hadley suicide by a young Irish immigrant girl, choosing to question why the DA came back so quickly with indictments against the brats involved with bullying teen-ager Phoebe Prince, but taking her sweet time with an incident in Amherst last year where a two-year-old died under the wheels of a school bus, eventually ruled an accident.

Thus demonstrating the Northwestern District Attorney is nothing if not conservative in the careful sense.

But if you are going to indict the pack of juvenile brats who drove young Phoebe Prince to suicide, then why not the paid professional adults who stood by and did nothing? And is sounds like, with Scheibel's use of the term "troubling" for their behavior, that she came pretty damn close.

My self-interested concern is that one persons bullying is another persons banter. And having been on the receiving end of Amherst Town officials trying to have me arrested for suggesting a town official should be removed from office because she no longer lived in town (eventually proven true), or another chief official railing against my "chilling effect" on his governmental board because of my respect for the Open Meeting Law, I'm just a tad sensitive to incidents sending us down that slippery slope to censorship.

Speaking of censorship, Gus Sayer when he was Amherst School Superintendent in 1999 first reacted to the tempest in a teapot about the Amherst Regional High School performing 'West Side Story' and being accused of racism responded unequivocally quick: "No group, neither in the majority nor in the minority, should have the ability to censor the decisions our community’s educators make about what to teach, what to read, or what to produce on the stage."
A few days later he collapsed like a cheaply constructed Chinese school building in an earthquake, allowing the even wimpier High School Principal Scott Goldman to cancel the play--the only time in history such sacrilege would occur.

Two years later Sayer hires Steven Myers as the new principal--at $85,000 annually--to lead the Amherst Regional High School, who at least by physical appearance is gay (Not, as Seinfeld would say, "That there's anything wrong with that."). In the People's Republic of Amherst certainly worth extra credit.

Soon thereafter a mother complained that Meyers propositioned her 15-year-old son, asked him to remove his shirt to expose his breasts, invited him out to a movie, and for a soak in his hot tub.

Superintendent Sayer took the charges seriously enough to hire a lawyer and undertake an investigation of his own, thus he was then duty bound to file a report with the Department of Social Services (G.L.c.119, 51A). He did not--at least not until the news broke and created a firestorm.

Sayer told Myers that if incident became public his Principal job would be “untenable."

This all occurred in January, 2002. Daily Hampshire Gazette digging and Amherst PD uncovered Myers had been under investigation in Colorado for pedophilia and Mass Department of Social Services stepped in and removed his recently adopted 8-year-old boy. Mr Meyers was never charged, disappeared, and has not been heard from since.

Mr Sayer soon "retired" after 14 years as Superintendent of the Amherst Regional High School, but quickly assumed the post at South Hadley High School following in the footsteps of Michael Smith whose brother Dan is still Principal. The 'Good Old Boys' network.

And they rest as they sadly say, "is history." A young girl who immigrated here from from Ireland, after continuous verbal battering, wraps a scarf given to her as a Christmas present by her sister only three weeks earlier around her neck to end the torment the only way she knows how. She was only 15.

At age 67, Gus Sayer is certainly traditional "old school" when it comes to running a publicly funded education empire. Time to head out to pasture. Actually, that time --too late for Phoebe Prince--was a long time ago.

Phoebe speaks

Slate Magazine strongly hints Gus should go

An Irish paper reports