With the twitch of a finger

So you know you're getting old when a vivid memory exceeds the reach of the online union news archives, which only reach back to 1988. Twenty five years ago I was in the middle of a UMass journalism course--'News Reporting and Writing'--taught by a Springfield Union News reporter, who would get the assignment to cover the local news event of the decade.

I'm not sure if it was just the stunning nature of the tragedy or her writing skills sketching the funeral scene; but the front page feature brought tears to my eyes as I'm sure it did many, many readers back in the days when newspapers were as widely read as Facebook is today.

Two young Springfield police officers--Alain Beauregard and Michael Schiavina--pull over a vehicle on a rather routine stop and approach it, like cops are trained to do, from both sides. The 18 year old driver Eduardo “Crazy Eddie” Ortiz, 18, cut them both down with a 357 magnum handgun.

The violent deaths of two officers simply doing their jobs set off an emotional groundswell I had not seen since November 22, 1963. The somber funeral procession along streets they had previously protected, flanked by thousands of brother and sister officers was something to see, but certainly the kind of thing you hope never to see again.

The Springfield Republican reports (25 years later)

Amherst reinforces reputation

Amherst Town Meeting voted to pull the rug out from underneath our military in the field last night by supporting a "Bring the war dollars home" resolution, and since they also torpedoed the zoning change allowing for common sense development, the town is going to need to get money from somewhere besides overburdened property owners, who just last year approved a Proposition 2.5 Override.

The zoning defeat was simply a preemptive attack on The Gateway Project--a coalition between Umass, the Amherst Redevelopment Authority and the town that did not of course hinge on the zoning vote last night, but certainly was painted that way by NIMBY Town Meeting members.

Kind of like marching a herd of sheep through an enemy mine field to discover where the dangerous items are hidden. Unfortunately, by the time the Gateway Project goes before Town Meeting for a zoning vote, all the mines will be replanted--and then some.

Since the two-thirds required super majority only failed by a few votes (96-62) it would be interesting to calculate what a difference it could have made if the Conflict of Interest law applied to Town Meeting.

Pissing off a Umass Collegian columnist

Veterans Day: Umass remembers, and the Springfield Republican reports

A Prize Lecture

Two time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten spoke this evening at the Umass Student Union to a good sized crowd of perhaps 125, mostly students, almost all of whom will find it much harder to follow the same path Weingarten used to win that most coveted award in journalism, namely, finding a job writing or editing for a newspaper.

Weingarten doesn't normally do the speaking circuit but came as a favor to old print buddy, and current acting director of the Umass Journalism program Maddie Blais, herself a Pulitzer Prize winner.

His first Pulitzer in 2008 came for an event he staged in the Washington Metro where he observed, recorded and interpreted how a busy crowd on their way to work reacted (or didn't) to the virtuoso performance of violinist Joshua Bell, dressed like a common street musician playing for food.

I guess if he really wanted to get a reaction he should used The Flying Wallendas.

The second Pulitzer coming this year, I find far more impressive and something (unlike staging a street theatre event) I could never do: interview 13 parents who lost a child because they had left them in the car on a hot day.

His harrowing piece, aptly titled "Fatal Distraction", won over the Pulitzer Prize Committee but not so much the online commenters who reacted to the Washington Post feature article. Weingarten reported that about two-thirds of them were angry with him for portraying the parents in a sympathetic light rather than pillorying them.

In spite of technical problems with the overhead projector Weingarten kept the crowds interest, telling stories--mostly funny--of days gone by.

Maddie Blais does the intro.

The Daily Collegian reports

This one's for you Spc. Jonathan M. Curtis

Sometime soon Amherst Town Meeting will discuss "Bring the war dollars home" resolution recently endorsed by our Sister People's Republic, Northampton.

The article, placed on the warrant by Ruth Hook who also created a bit of a buzz last year with the Welcoming Gitmo Detainees to Amherst resolution, failed this time to get the endorsement of the illustrious Select Board who voted 4-1 to "not take a position".

Best summed up by rookie member, and history professor during his day job, Jim Wald who said: "I think there are better things to do with our time." Indeed.

But, Town Meeting will pontificate for over an hour then pass it rather handily, thus demonstrating how out-of-touch somebody is in town government.

Scary thing is these people are also in charge of a $60 million budget.

There they grow again

93 Fearing Street. Lincoln Apartments (brick building behind fence) in back.

Umass is in the process of purchasing 93 Fearing Street, probably because of its prime location abutting Lincoln Apartments, recently renovated family housing (105 units) set aside for Graduate Students and faculty. The house,currently assessed at $403,000, has been owned and occupied by the same family for 50 years.

Obviously owner-occupied houses in that neighborhood are not the problem when it comes to rowdy student behavior.

Next door neighbor Gretchen Fox appeared before the Amherst Select Board on 10/25 to complain about the purchase and husband John Fox has also been routinely attending the ARA meetings over the past six months to question The Gateway Project.

Since this will take the three-family house and property (over one acre) off the tax rolls it will cost Amherst about $6,500 annually in lost revenue (plus 2.5%.) Umass is the #2 landowner in town behind Amherst College and overall tax exempts own half the property in town.

####################################
-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Diacon
Cc: Nancy Buffone ; MusanteJ@amherstma.gov ; casanderson@amherst.edu ; nhoffenberg@gazettenet.com
Sent: Fri, Nov 5, 2010 3:36 pm
Subject: Re: Umass/town relations

Dear Larry: Thank you for your thoughts and query.

I have met with John Musante to discuss 93 Fearing Street, and soon will follow
up on the meeting with a memo explaining our plans for that property.

As to the other issue, we believe the Gateway Project will produce the win-win
situation of additional housing that individuals affiliated with the university
will find attractive (undergraduate students, graduate students, new faculty),
while contributing to the town's tax receipts.

Todd Diacon
Deputy Chancellor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
tdiacon@umass.edu

On Nov 5, 2010, at 1:13 PM,
Amherstac@aol wrote:

Not asking as an ARA member, just as a nosey blogger. The bricks-and-mortar
media sleep from around noon Friday until Monday 9:00 AM, but I do not.

What is up with 93 Fearing Street? I could not help but note the Fox household
has divided to fight a two-front war: John Fox continues to hammer The Gateway Project (and I would not take heart that he failed to show for last night's ARA meeting) on the Commentary pages of the venerable Daily Hampshire Gazette and Amherst Bulletin and wife Gretchen attacks Umass for purchasing 93 Fearing St via public comment at the SB meeting Oct 25.

Since the sizable property is contiguous with Lincoln Apartments, I'm assuming it will be used as housing of some sort? And IF melding seamlessly with Lincoln Apartments that would seem to indicate Grad students or faculty, thus making the neighbors happy?

Of course the upside for the neighborhood is a downside to the town as Grad
Students/Faculty have a far greater impact on our public schools. Last I looked
we had about 60 kids (@ $14,000 per) attending Amherst schools from tax-exempt housing located at Umass, including Chancellor Holub's two daughters.

And speaking of which, what is the status of the Amherst school department's
modular classrooms at Mark's Meadow?

The 5 year "Strategic Agreement" signed with Umass about 4 years ago did clearly state that if Mark's Meadow closed Umass would sort of, maybe, consider a Payment In Lieu of Taxes to cover the $750,000+ in education costs for children in the public system from Umass?

And if the purchase of 93 Fearing street goes through, that will cost the town
another $6,500 or so in property taxes per year. If I were your PR flack I
would be thinking about all of this (especially now).

Larry K

Tax-exempt house with a view

The good old days?

Back when I was growing up in the People's Republic of Amherst I used to love those stories--since my dad fought there--about Japanese soldiers finally coming out of their caves in far flung South Pacific islands where they hid for decades refusing to believe the Empire had lost.

My bricks-and-mortar friends at the Republican and Gazette report today about a "firestorm" on the Internet yesterday that I somehow managed to miss, involving Cooks Source magazine out of little old Sunderland stealing copy from a blogger without permission and then refusing to pay a token amount (as a donation to the Columbia School of Journalism) saying the writer should be thankful for publication.

Especially thankful, since the kindly old editor, with "30 years experience," had rewritten the piece and in fact should charge the writer. Yikes!

Such arrogance I have not seen, oh, since the rise of the Internet. Back in the day, only 15 or so years ago, the bricks and mortar media were indeed the gatekeepers who "bought ink by the barrel". And could treat writers with complete disdain (many did).

Those days are L-O-N-G gone. Thank God! (or the Internet.)

The LA Times reports

There grows the neighborhood

So after eight L-O-N-G years of bitter strife--including of course the courts, costing the developer over $100,000 the town $10,000 and the neighbors about the same in legal fees --the "low income" housing project in Orchard Valley South Amherst is going full steam ahead, even on a rainy day.

I put low income in quotations because the 24 units will work out to $350,000 per unit in simply construction costs. And since it is "low income housing", it will pay reduced local property taxes.

Amherst is currently around 50/50, where half of all property in town is owned by tax exempts--although our assessor is getting vigilant about finding innovate ways to tax them, even if at reduced rates.

HAP, inc is a private 501c3 nonprofit organization serving all of Hampden and Hampshire counties and is funded by Federal, State and Private donations--in other words Other People's Money.

The 24 unit development springing up on Longmeadow Drive was approved by our ZBA under the the state's Chapter 40B affordable housing law, even though Amherst is not below the 10% threshold. HAP argued that Amherst has a less than 1% vacancy rate and that there was a strong "regional need" for the housing.

Hence the ire of the neighbors. The project development manager called it "the most extensive opposition of all the 40 projects we've done in western Massachusetts."

Let's hope the neighbors on the other side of town do not break that record in trying to torpedo 'The Gateway Project'.
Much of South Amherst was once an apple orchard harvested for generations by competing farm empires Atkins and Wentworth who both used lead arsenate--the insecticide of choice from around 1892 through the 1970s.

Since it was routinely sprayed on orchards in high concentrations, some of it would drip and bond tightly with the the top 10 or 12 inches of soil then separate into lead and arsenic, either of which is hazardous--especially to young children.