UMass, ARA, Town partnership leaps forward!

Today Chancellor Robert Holub signed a strategic agreement with the Town of Amherst and the Amherst Redevelopment Authority to greatly enhance the gateway to UMass, the state's flagship of higher education.

The agreement calls for a conveyance of property formerly knows as "frat row"-- a seedy collection of blighted buildings purchased by the University and demolished a few years ago. The Gateway Project will bring urban renewal to the neighborhood with a mixed used commercial development of higher end student housing and commercial business connecting the downtown with the University.

With the incoming Umass freshman class the largest in history this agreement will go a long way towards keeping Umass an attractive destination for students and faculty as well as boosting the downtown and Amherst's commercial tax base.


click link below to read agreement:

Agreement with Umass/ARA/Town

It only comes but once a year

12:30 PM Select Board to discuss/vote flags fate for 9/11

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie O'Keeffe
To: Larry Kelley
Sent: Tue, Aug 31, 2010 11:56 am
Subject: 9/11 flag policy to be addressed

Hi Larry --

You're in luck. We have to schedule another meeting this week to discuss plans for an Interim Town Manager. A Select Board member has requested that we also take up the 9/11 flag question, so we will.

The flag discussion will be our first item: 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, 9/2 in the Town Room. The agenda (soon to be posted, if it isn't already) notes five minutes for the discussion, but that is just because I need to start the Interim discussion immediately after it, and I have no untimed items to fill any blank space that might result if I were to schedule longer than is needed. The flag discussion will take as long as it needs to.

Take care.

Stephanie

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie O'Keeffe
To: Larry Kelley
Sent: Tue, Aug 31, 2010 1:09 pm
Subject: room change

... make that the First Floor Meeting Room, not the Town Room.

Sorry for the confusion.

Stephanie

#################################

9:30 PM. Hot copy (last night). Updated 2nd video posted at 10:00 PM

So I guess I will just let the videos of tonight's illustrious Amherst Select Board meeting speak for themselves.

Interesting that the Chair blows me off by saying the Open Meeting Law requires anything to come under discussion be posted 48 hours in advance on an official agenda thus they could not possibly now take a simple vote on this 9/11 flag issue, yet an hour later they go into a surprise "executive session" to talk about the Town Manager's retirement package.

These days they just throw "executive session" on every agenda and if you don't use it there is no violation. Tonight it does appear on the agenda but as an "untimed item".

After an hour in secret session they come back into public session to announce Mr. Shaffer is gone as of 9/30 with four months salary (about the same as School Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez absconded with when he suddenly flew the coop a few months back).

The joys of competition

Million dollar health club, Amherst $19.99/month for students
Million dollar health club, Hadley. Under $8.50 per month
$50 million UMass Recreation Center: $0.0 for students

The joys of dealing with the general public

So one of the interesting things about running a "business" that attracts a broad spectrum of the general public is that it attracts a broad spectrum of the general public.

Take Umass/Amherst for instance--the flagship of higher education in Massachusetts.

Although UMass charges more for out-of-state students and,amazingly, in this trying economic time they are actually targeting such students. Either way, when dealing with 20,000+ "costumers" there are bound to be a bevy of personal headaches.

And when you take your "business" seriously you try not to alienate a single soul (if I dare use that religious term).

As a "non traditional" student currently furthering my education I receive all the routine emails from UMass Central Command. Recently I recieved one from a Vice Chancellor describing how the first week of classes conflict with "Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year."

He goes on, however, to point out "University policy ensures that no student will be penalized as a result of a religious observance, but it requires advance notification to course instructors by each observant student."

By "observant" I think he meant those students who actually take their religion seriously and plan to observe the solemn occasion rather than just those students who are observant enough to check their email to discover a potential good excuse for sleeping in on those days.

Then a little later another email from the same Vice Chancellor expanding on his original dispatch:

"Since sending the message about Rosh Hashanah I’ve learned that the major Muslim religious holiday, Eid-al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan also occurs during our first week of classes. I apologize for my oversight and take this opportunity to make certain that all observant students of either recognized religion realize that special circumstances are in play during the first week of a semester, namely that an instructor encountering a student on the roster who is not present at the first two meetings of a class may drop the named student from the class."

And this of course segues me (in the longest delayed lead of my entire career) to the current fire-and-brimstone controversy over a mosque opening near Ground Zero. Freedom of religion is as bedrock an American principal as the First Amendment. And while I spend a tad more time concerned with the latter I can't help but equally respect the former.

Indeed, sometimes I find myself hesitating and then holding my nose while defending the rights of nitwits to spread their pernicious propaganda. But the alternative is far worse.

In the case of the mosque near Ground Zero, I don't even have to hold my nose. The cowardly zealots who attacked us on 9/11 represent Muslims in the same way Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols represent Americans.

They don't!

Change indeed

So the Gazette today reports the Amherst Chamber of Commerce doling out their annual awards at an upcoming expensive dinner party and former Amherst Bulletin 'Amherst Center' columnists Baer Tierkel, Andy Churchill and Clare Bertrand are receiving the "change agent award."

Not bad considering they were cut from their rotation at the Amherst Bulletin for failing to disclose conflicts of interest during the election last spring. And about the only "change" they will be tenaciously gerrymandering this coming election is to defeat Catherine Sanderson for School Committee.

Sentinels at ease

Barnes airport Westfield 9:30 Am


Amherst Fire Department 1:30 PM

The controversy continues

Well, sort of. The print edition of the Amherst Bulletin hit the ground this morning and like the good old days where you read the breaking news in the major dailies and then waited till the end of the week for Time and Newsweek to provide more in depth coverage, the editorial/commentary section this week is chock full of analysis of the raging controversies in town.

Mainly the Jones Library running battle between the Evaluation Subcommittee and the more normal members of the full board of Trustees.

Interestingly columnist Jim Oldham, an anti-devevelopment compatriot of cutthroat Carol Gray, takes Trustee Chris Hoffmann to task for daring to blow the whistle on Ms Gray's covert war against longtime Library Director Bonnie Isman.

Charging that he "chose attacks in the press and on blogs over debates in the boardroom as the way to express his position." Hmm...of course Mr. Oldham's attack on Chris Hoffmann occurs in his monthly Bulletin column otherwise known as "the press."

And Mr. Oldham is a co-founder of the new regional school discussion blog--an infomercial for the Regional High School--along with Shutesbury School Committee Chair Michael DeChiara, who wanted the DA to shut down public officials who blog namely Catherine Sanderson.

The above the fold front page lead story concerns cutthroat Carol as well--as she is now, mercifully, safely ensconced in Egypt (well...safe for Amherst but maybe not Egypt) and wants to tenaciously hold on to her Jones Library Trustee position for the next year using video conferencing on the web via skype to attend meetings.

Which is fine of course for tuning in to keep in touch, but not so good for the back-and-forth required of public meetings.

The Bulletin must have felt a tad guilty for holding the presses last week so the Evaluation Subcommittee could pen their poor excuse for recent bad behavior, as the editorial basically says enough! They cite that the Eval committee has met an astounding 50 times over 115 hours since January.

Can't disagree with their conclusion: "It's time to bring the director's review process to a close." But now that Ms. Gray is gone, things will simmer down dramatically anyway--especially if somebody can hit the mute button when she visits via skype.