The Ghost of Christmas yet to come?

So yeah, I'm sticking my oversized neck out by publishing this but, unlike WikiLeaks, I will provide background and context for this important document, obtained under the legitimate protection of an Executive Session Monday night at the Amherst Redevelopment Authority meeting (legal advice from the town attorney is exempt from disclosure under Mass Public Documents Law.)

Kind of an "Executive Decision" on my part--as the acting Chair of the ARA and, as such, I of course take full responsibility.

I consider it a journalistic "correction" for something I previously published. When overly concerned, outspoken neighbor John Fox (a retired Washington attorney) visited the Amherst Select Board to rail against the Gateway Project and present to them a petition signed by 147 fellow "concerned citizens" he also attached to that petition an email exchange he had with town planner Christine Brestrup declaring Umass was subject to local town zoning and as such was limited in what they could develop on the former Frat Row, a now vacant prime piece of property (worth millions) sitting at the entry/Gateway to Umass.

Turns out our town attorney disagrees with that assumption. And it's an extremely critical point: UMass does not need the town or the ARA to build anything--including any kind of housing--on the former Frat Row. Backs up what Mr. Diacon pointed out an an ARA meeting months ago; they could build a 20 story residential project designed exclusively for undergrads if they so desired--all of it off the property tax rolls.

Key sentence of attorney Bard's email being the close: "It is therefore my opinion that, were UMass to retain ownership of the Gateway site and to development it for its own use in furtherance of its essential governmental function, such development of the site would not be controlled by the Town's Zoning Bylaw."

So NIMBY neighbors: be careful what you wish for. Torpedo the Gateway Project as envisioned in this joint coalition between the town, ARA and Umass...at your own risk.

Gateway supporters show resolve

left to right: Todd Diacon, John Musante, Jonathan Tucker

If nothing else tonight's Amherst Redevelopment Authority meeting reaffirmed the strong partnership already forged between the ARA, Umass and the town, as Deputy Chancellor Todd Diacon and Town Manager John Musante clarified their vision for the Gateway Project before the ARA and a packed room of 50 onlookers, many of them concerned neighbors defending their backyards from the perceived spectre of the college town bogeyman: undergraduates.

Musante outlined four main objectives:

1) Create a development that the community wants.

2) Strengthen the neighborhood by constructing higher end housing to compete with seedy substandard slums.

3) Increase the towns tax base, stimulate jobs and bring customers to the downtown via the Gateway corridor.

4) Give the town a significant say in what gets developed there because indeed something is going to get developed one way or the other.

Deputy Chancellor Diacon called the Gateway a "signature attraction at the entrance to our campus". And to counter the constant complaint from neighbors about substantial undergrad student housing being a core requirement of the deal, Diacon pointed out the University is currently constructing 1,500 beds for the Commonwealth Honors College in the heart of the campus which goes a long way towards alleviating the needs for undergraduate housing.

If Gateway is built and the doesn't include undergraduates in the apartments that would "fine with us." The University is not demanding the housing be "only for undergraduates."


In his closing remarks, borrowing a them from President Obama (who borrowed it from 'Bob The Builder'), the Town Manager said confidently "I think we can do this. We have the talent. We can do something pretty special along North Pleasant Street."

Out of the four proposals received to lead the vision process, the ARA hopes to select a consultant by March 1st.
View from the head table

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