The Empire Strikes Back!

UPDATE: 7:00 PM
This is almost tooooo funny for words. Now I'm told from a reliable source that a cabal of local School Committee Chairs has filed a letter of complaint/inquiry with the District Attorney questioning the legality of a certain (perky, forthright blond) Amherst School Committee member having a public blog.

Key word of course of course being PUBLIC. The Open Meeting Law is designed to ensure public matters do not get discussed in PRIVATE. What are they afraid of?

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Or maybe I should cite "Revenge of the Nerds?" Although... he did rate a red chili pepper for "hotness" at Ratemyprofessors.com but you still have to wonder about the lumberjack shirt for a public meeting.

Regional School Committee (you know that four town alliance where little old Amherst comprises 80% of total student body) Chair Farshid Hajir showed up at an Amherst School Committee meeting the other night to take advantage of the 'Public Comment' period and harangue the Amherst board over the handling of the Union 26 battle, a union of two where Amherst funds 94% of the overhead to Pelham's 6% but only has a 50% say in administrative matters.

Interestingly Mr. Hajir at an earlier Regional School Committee Meeting trumpeted that recent emails reverberating between himself, Irv Rhodes Chair of Amherst School Committee, Union 26 Chair Tracy Farnham and Superintendent Maria Geryk had "clearly violated Open Meeting Law."

This is of course the same as poking and then throwing raw meat to an aging, overweight, sleeping Rottweiler, thus--even the Daily Hampshire Gazette--asked for copies of the emails and received them in record time.

Of course the emails do not violate the Open Meeting Law because a quorum is allowed to discuss in writing over the phone or at the local bar "housekeeping issues" which clearly this tempest qualifies. Yes, if the discussion veered into the pros and cons of leaving Union 26 that would be a violation.

Obviously Mr. Hajir thinks the emails make Mr. Rhodes look bad while Superintendent Maria Geryk comes out the Gandhi-like peacemaker (although he did not get $135-K annual salary.)

Sex sells

So my buddy Izzy Lyman a former People's Republic resident and former (token conservative) Daily Hampshire Gazette columnist asked for a quote a couple days ago on this pre-teen risque public performance, knowing of course what my response would be.

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COLUMN: A Woman's World
Comfortable with ugliness

By Izzy Lyman | 0 comments

The World of Dance is a high-energy, national urban dance contest. As a result of a recent WOD event, held in Pomona, Calif., last month, a spontaneous referendum on modern cultural ethos has broken out, due to the antics of some of its younger contestants.

Here's what happened: The proverbial YouTube video materialized -- which could have had a "viewer discretion" advisory on it -- showing a group of cute 8- and 9-year-old girls performing in the competition.

The little gals' routine, however, was anything but endearing. Arrayed in costumes that resembled suggestive lingerie, they gyrated to the Beyonce tune "Single Ladies."

The two minutes of racy showmanship were disturbing enough that mental health gurus, like Dr. Phil, were pronouncing it a pedophiliac fantasy.

Given how muscular and polished the performance is, it's obvious the small single ladies have spent many hours synchronizing their moves and effectively channeling Jay-Z's sexy wife.

So it was only natural, as it is in a country with a legal tradition of shielding its young from predators and which historically frowns upon age-inappropriate activities and dress codes for kiddies, when sensible folks muttered, as the video went viral, "Where are the moms and dads of these children?"

I'd add, "And who is the indiscreet choreographer?"

It turns out the parents of at least two of the girls -- Cory Miller and Melissa Presch -- were enthusiastically behind their daughters' "decision" to shake their petite behinds.

Miller and Presch, whose postures alternated between defensive and hip, appeared on Good Morning America, and coolly told us fuddy-duddies to buzz off. They explained that the risqu moves were "completely normal" for dancing that the video was "taken completely out of context" that they are "proud of their daughters and their accomplishments."

Really? This "accomplishment" was no spelling bee victory, folks. To be fair, it is jarring to be at the center of a national controversy and have strangers aggressively question your personal choices. But the lack of introspection, on the part of Miller and Presch, was also jarring.

Contrast their responses to the dance routine to that of Larry Kelley, who is a dad to a pair of active young daughters and once loudly complained on The O'Reilly Factor, when teenagers in his town's public high school wanted to perform The Vagina Monologues.

Kelley told me, "In this climate of constant bombardment, reiterating 'sex sells,' we should be especially vigilant about protecting our innocent children from growing up so exceedingly fast."

Most morally-engaged, common-sense mothers and fathers would not want their little girls sashaying, in skimpy ruffled outfits, in the spotlight, to music-impersonating drivel.

Besides, whatever happened to lasses rearranging doll house furniture, hosting tea parties, and reading Pippi Longstocking books or being inspired by Charlotte's Web? As for physical exercise, a capital choice is to enroll your daughter in a martial arts class, if she's game, and let her learn, early on, that her body, if need be, can be a potential weapon of self-defense instead of an object of lust.

The dance fiasco is not the first time kids mimicking socially-suspect adult behavior has created a rumpus. Nor will it be the last.

But it may well be a watershed moment. It has caused many of us to come to grips with how mainstream this practice of sexualizing minors in the name of art has become, and how too many parents, who should know better, are comfortable with an ugly trend.

Izzy Lyman is a freelance columnist and former Belgrade resident who contributes "A Woman's World" exclusively to the Belgrade News. Reach her at ilyman7449@aol.com.

Keystone cops meet Jerry Spring (part 3)

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral continues...

Keyston cops meet Jerry Springer (continued)

So this 5/13 public meeting just keeps getting better and better. If ACTV decides to come up with a "best of" annual list, this one gets my vote.

Keystone cops meet Jerry Springer

I don't even know where to begin with this episode of the Regional School Committee or was it Amherst School Committee or Union 26 meeting?

Simply put Amherst is in a "partnership" via Union 26 with Pelham and as such controls 50% of the vote but Amherst funds 94% of the business overhead (paying the School Superintendent.) Not a great deal for Amherst.

Classic case of the tail wagging the dog--and in this particular case, a stubby tail at that.

ARA marches forward

With the Patterson property deal, the great White Whale of development, now dead in the water until the fall the joint Umass/Amherst Redevelopment Authority "Gateway Project" connecting the northern end of town center with the University moves up a notch on a very short shortlist as best hope for real development in town.

Much of the land (former Frat Row) is already cleared and graded and perhaps most important has the all important water/sewer infrastructure in place. The Patterson property on the other hand will require millions and million to extend those vital lines of development.

And for the first time in memory, the University actually came calling to the town.

Former Frat Row


Current Frat Row (shovel ready)

A tale of two Umass buildings

Tilson Farm Steam Plant (also called "Paradis Boiler Plant" located near Orchard Hill)




The new state of the art co-generation plant on Mullins Way, using low sulphur diesel fuel, natural gas and effluent (gray water) from the Amherst Waste water Plant located nearby produces both heat and electricity.
Original coal fired steam plant built in the late 1940s; slated to be replaced in 1974 by Tilson Farm.

In fact, the old warhorse coal plant was under pressure from the EPA to shut down in the early 1970s so perhaps that urgency pushed Umass officials to become reckless in bringing on-line the new Tilson Farm plant too early. The coal fired steam plant, continued operation until about two years ago.



View old power plant in a larger map
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The difference between the new $138 million Umass co-generation heating/electrical plant on Mullins Way and the old $9 million Tilson Farm steam plant is as stark and simple as a light switch: one switched on and it worked, the other turned on and did not.

The Ward Commission, charged with investigating public building contracts during the 1970s, concluded that the Tilson Farm steam plant fiasco was an all too typical byproduct of the greed and corruption ingrained in the system of awarding state government building contracts. Essentially the foxes had free rein in the henhouse with little to no oversight.

According to an abstract of the Ward Commission published in the Boston Globe (1/3/1981):

"The $9 million steam power plant is a white elephant - now standing idle because the 1.5-mile pipeline designed to carry steam to the campus contains irreparable defects caused by backward operation during startup. After $96,492 paid to contractors produced neither a solution of the problem nor even identification of its cause, workers renovated an old plant at a cost of over $2 million. Meanwhile, attempts to "mothball" the new plant resulted in corrosion of valves and pipes."

The "backward operation" probably seemed like a clever cost saving idea at the time: pulling steam into the plant from the older one located 1.5 miles away to heat it during the first winter of operation.

Attorney General Francis Bellotti eventually won a $970,000 lawsuit against the building designers but by then the $9.3 million steam plant was abandoned. A "Building Condition Report" done by staff at the office of Administration and Finance dated 5/26/09 estimates $5 million in demolition costs for the 19,000 square foot plant, although no such action is imminent.

A recent inside tour shows the derelict four story building to be remarkably well preserved:












Perhaps a lasting legacy of the powerless powerplant is reflected in the shiny exterior of the new co-generation plant built 35 years later. As State Senator Stan Rosenberg, President Pro Tem of the Massachusetts Senate (D-Amherst) points out: state officials had learned a hard, expensive lesson.