Amherst's Berlin Wall: The news spreads

UPDATE (11:15 PM): public hearing Tuesday night has been canceled due to the weather

UPDATE (10:15 AM) Note poll over on the right. You can only vote once and No, you do not have to live in the People's Republic in order to vote, as you may want to someday drive to Umass, the veritable flagship of our state higher education system.

Springfield Sunday Republican reports (click hotlink to read)

Yeah, the readership of the Sunday paper is probably twice that of other editions. Yikes!

If town officials were smart they would start this "experiment" on April 1st, and then after the deluge of cranky calls, emails and text messages overwhelms the system by the end of the day, nix the project the following day and just attribute the whole thing to an "April Fools Joke".

I shot an arrow into the air...

By the time the Challenger vaporized in real time before millions of stunned viewers 25 years ago I was already an avowed news junkie and I was auditing a course taught by the legendary Howard Ziff, founder of the highly regarded Umass journalism program.

Coincidentally enough he had scheduled the editor of the Concord Monitor, Christa McAuliffe's hometown newspaper, to be a guest lecturer that semester and he appeared only weeks after the disaster.

I asked him what he would have done if he absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the Challenger would explode that morning but had no corroboration. He looked me directly in the eye and said (with his voice somewhat trembling) he would have done "Anything--absolutely anything--to get the word out, including standing in town center naked with a warning tattooed to my butt."

Of course in 1986 the Internet was strictly a niche work area for nerdy scientists plus the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was not even born. Still, the viral spread of news about the stunning disaster was nothing short of amazing. Within an hour 85% of Americans had heard about it and most of them ran to their televisions to watch it...over and over again.

I knew one of the astronauts, Ron McNair--a traditional style black belt who fought in local karate tournaments in the Boston area even though NASA disapproved. And my only verbal interaction with him after we fought at Rocky DiRico's tournament was to tell him how cool I considered it that he still did what he loved even though it made his bosses nervous.

He said something to the effect that he also loved equally being an astronaut, and could not conceive of giving up either. Christa McAuliffe loved being a teacher. Ironically in a preflight interview she had said it would be cool to go from teaching history to making it.

I have often wondered if the Power of the Web had been harnessed prior to that ill-fated flight if it could have made the life or death difference? Perhaps a word of warning sounded by an engineer (on his personal blog) who helped design the o-rings and knew they were not safe in sub freezing temperatures would have brought further pressure to bear on bureaucrats who had put aside their engineer hats in favor of their manager ones.

But now I'm not so sure. Only nine months ago the Deepwater Horizon, a super-expensive, pride of American technology oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers and creating the worst environmental disaster in history. There too engineers put aside ethics in favor of expediency and the bottom line.

As Pete Seeger observed in a song so very long ago: "When will they ever learn?"



1/28/86

Can Miss Emily come out to play?

11:00 AM Thurdsay

In a previous season

"Of the people, by the people..."

And of course the most important part of Mr. Lincoln's eloquent quote, "for the people." Or to paraphrase President Kennedy 50 years ago: "Ask not what your town can do for you, ask what you can do for your town."

February 1st was shaping up to be the NIMBY Superbowl, as two volatile meetings were in conflict: the Amherst Redevelopment Authority meeting (bordering on a public hearing) concerning the Gateway Project and the Amherst Department of Public Works committee's public hearing on closing off Lincoln Avenue to our largest by FAR employer, Umass, and used as a direct route to there for almost 150 years.

Of course the neighbors ensconced on Lincoln Avenue will converge on the DPW public hearing to champion turning their neighborhood into an exclusive enclave at taxpayer expense (not to mention creating a nightmare for travelers to and from THE major destination spot in Amherst.)

And some of those same neighbors will be pulling double duty by also attacking the nearby Gateway Project citing noise and increased traffic.

Some will even be a triple threat by invading the Feb 10 Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing to attempt blocking Amherst Brewing Company's move into the former Leading Edge gym's cavernous commercial space on University Drive.

Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone: Banana Republic indeed!
#####################################

From: Larry Kelley

Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 11:27 AM

To: Musante, John; Mooring, Guilford; Tucker, Jonathan

Subject: Feb 1st ARA extravaganza

One of our PR friends at UMass just pointed out the Town Room is taken the night of Feb 1st by the DPW hearing on Lincoln Ave "calming". 

Now I know we have to keep Phil Jackson (and his band of merry NIMBYs) happy and all, but it strikes me that Gateway is a tad more important.

Is there any way we can move that DPW hearing to the Bangs Center or--better yet--the date, so Umass community relations folks can attend it and the ARA meeting???



Larry K

(Acting) Chair ARA

From: Mooring, Guilford To: Musante, John Tucker, Jonathan 

Sent: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 12:53 pm

Hi. This is the regularly scheduled PWC meeting. We could move as long as there is a big room available. They meet the first Tuesday of each month.

From: Larry Kelley
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 1:02 PM

To: Mooring, Guilford; Musante, John; Tucker, Jonathan


I will rent a very large tent (The ARA has a few bucks left in an Administrative Account.)


Sent: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 2:41 pm
Larry and Jonathan,

How about moving the ARA meeting to the previous night 1/31 in the Town Room? There will be neighbors interested in attending both ARA and PWC. I have checked with Nancy and Todd at UMass and they are available. Jonathan, the Town Room is reserved by my office for the Select Board that night but they are not planning to meet. Let me know ASAP.
John P. Musante

And so we did. ARA Meeting: Monday, January 31, Town Room, Town Hall.
#####################################
A tad less busy in 1860

Amazing that Lincoln Ave actually predates the University or the original Massachusetts Agricultural College. Even more amazing that the People's Republic of Amherst named a major street after a Republican President (years before he became a martyr.)

Click on the two links below for the official DPW renderings (and how much did they cost?):

The Berlin Wall of Amherst

Close up of the Berlin Wall

Amherst School Super Search: the ethical violations continue

9:25 AM
Umm...Since Michael DeChiara is Chair of the Shutesbury School Committee (you know, the guy who complained to the DA about Catherine Sanderson's blog being a violation of Open Meeting Law) and he used an in-house school email list for this Public Service Announcement and it clearly endorses one of the three School Superintendent candidates (the in-house one) it clearly violates State Ethics Law.
############################################


From: Michael DeChiara on behalf of Michael DeChiara
Sent: Tue 1/25/2011 7:30 AM
To: XXX
Subject: Please Be Counted: Attend Feb. 1 Interview for Maria Geryk

Please attend Feb. 1 Interview for Maria Geryk Jan. 24, 2011

Dear Shutesbury neighbors,

If your child attends the Middle or High School OR if she/he will attend soon,please
read this.

The search for a permanent Superintendent for the Amherst Region is coming to aclose. There are 3 finalists- the two men from out of state who have already beeninterviewed. Maria Geryk, our current interim Superintendent, will be interviewednext Tuesday, Feb. 1.

I believe that Ms. Geryk has done an excellent job since taking over the interim
position last spring. However, it is not clear how seriously she will be considered
by all the school committee members. If you think that she should be given a fair
chance and a real opportunity to be considered, I would urge you to show up for
her interview on Feb. 1 to be counted.

The interview will be from 6-8pm at the Amherst Regional High School library on
Feb. 1. Being there in person is important. At that time, you may also submit a
feedback form to the School Committee members with your thoughts.

*If you cannot attend, you may send an email to the those voting School Committee
members (see below).

**If you are a teacher and are worried about exposing your indentity for fear of
reprisal, you may submit your comments via anonymous form (see below).

Additional information can be found at:



Please share this with others.
Michael DeChiara
A parent of high schooler and 6th grader on her way to the Middle School

Let the battle begin

UPDATE 3:44 PM I just hit 500,000 page views. I'm going to Disney World!

ORIGINAL POST 9:45 AM

Praise the Lord and pass the (verbal) ammunition, the Amherst School Committee race in the People's Republic just became downright interesting. We got us a contest.

And isn't that what democracy is all about?

Plus the difference between the two is downright stark--even though both are highly-educated white woman, married, with kids in the schools.

One is a crusading reformer, fearlessly forcing our bloated education system to take a hard look in the mirror and realize how bloated and ineffectual the once venerable system has become; while the other candidate is an apologist for the tired, expensive, business-as-usual scenario.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette reports (late as usual)

The Power of the Web

State Senator Stan Rosenberg, Dave Sullivan (our new DA) and Congressman John Olver march in the Amherst 7/4 Parade.

So I noticed yesterday in the Springfield Sunday Republican "How they Voted" section that Amherst's long-time state senator Stan Rosenberg had voted against a bill (proposed by those miscreant Republicans) that would have mandated roll call votes also be posted on the state website in addition to being available in hardcopy buried deep in the recesses of an office somewhere at the State House in Boston.

Unfortunately "How they voted" doesn't explain why they voted that way. So naturally I took to Stan's Facebook page to ask:

I'm a little surprised, sitting here reading my Sunday Republican ("How they voted"), that you voted No to Rule S-6 requiring Committee roll call votes cast by our duly elected legislators on bills in their committee to be posted on the Legislature's website.

You were an early adopter of the 'Power of the Web' and have this wonderful Facebook page and are extremely accessible via email, so you know well how the Internet has fostered greater interaction between politicians and their constituents.

The average person these days (or I guess above average, since they would actually care about these "inside politics" voting sessions) could not easily make the trip to the Statehouse in Boston--especially in the winter--to view hardcopy available in the offices of said committee.What is wrong with greater transparency and a far superior means of dissemination?

And, true to form (even on a Sunday), I did not take long for a response:

Larry,
Nice to hear from you as always. I have no problem with the proposal to post roll call votes in Committees. The problem is technical at this point. We are going through a complete changeover of our legislative website and while we are making progress expanding what is on the site we are having growing pains. We have not yet even been able to perfect the site enough to have all of our roll calls from Senate floor actions on the site. That is the plan and it is being worked on but not perfected. I expect we can add roll calls from committee action at some point but we just can't at this point so putting it in the rules will not work until we can actually do it.

Also you should know that probably 90 percent of committee actions are taken by voice vote so when it is finally able to be done there will not be that many bills actually moved by recorded vote. Not a reason to slow it down but just a point of information
Stan

Thanks Stan. I knew there was a good reason. And this exchange kind of proves my point about the power of the web and it's usefulness to democracy. Stay warm!