ZBA approves ABC permit...finally!

Third time was the charm as the ZBA last night, after two annoying continuations, approved by unanimous vote (which was required) the "special permit" necessary to allow the Amherst Brewing Company the right to pay a Connecticut company a lot of money (but essentially the same as what they were paying a local landlord for their smaller downtown location) to transform the former Leading Edge Gym on University Drive into a cozy, comfortable, responsible, adult-oriented--as opposed to rowdy student--brew pub.

Nice way to celebrate St. Patty's Day, eh?

Gateway: out of the gate, off and running

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority had a most productive meeting, including a brief 10 minute Executive Session to discuss property acquisition, that started this evening at 5:00 (instead of the usual 7:00) and wrapped up at 6:30.

ACP Visioning and Planning, awarded the four-month consulting contract only two weeks ago at our March 1st meeting (one of four bidders for the $30,000 contract), already demonstrates one reason they were chosen: A team will be in town all day this Friday for a series of work sessions with town planning staff, including a walking tour of the proposed main corridor (although an exact footprint is still to be determined) and formulating a list of stakeholders to include in the ultra-public process about to unfold.

The ARA is treating the walking tour of the possible impact area as a "site visit," which is a public meeting--so the general public may tag along--but no policy discussions or public comments will take place.

The old "Frat Row" at the main Gateway to UMass, 1.86 acres of prime real estate, is currently the only swath of land that is certain to be included in the final plan. UMass will donate the keystone piece to the ARA after state legislature approval. Senator Stan Rosenberg, one of the state's more powerful politicians, resides in Amherst and graduated from UMass/Amherst, our flagship institution of higher education.

In 2007 Alpha Tau Gamma, Inc. sold the property to UMass for $2.5 million and as part of the deal donated $500,000 the Stockbridge School of Agriculture endowment plus covered the $300,000 demolition/clean up costs. Since they were a private entity, in their final year of existence as infamous party houses they paid Amherst $60,000 in property taxes.

Since the Gateway Project will also be privately owned-and-operated, it could easily generate over a million dollars in annual tax revenues for our cash-strapped municipal coffers. Giddyup!

Here's to you Cpl Frank Buckles

America's last veteran of World War 1: "The war to end all wars."

By Presidential decree

Party house of the weekend

Strangely enough there were none this weekend--or considering it was Spring Break week--perhaps not so strange. I bet Florida had more than its share. Although the previous weekend there were more than enough party hardy contenders for the award, so I'm sure at tomorrow's Amherst Redevelopment Authority meeting the subject will come up during Public Comment period as ammunition to torpedo the Gateway Project.

When Media platforms collide

What a fascinating week in All Things Journalism. No, I'm not referring to the "China Syndrome' taking place in Japan, also a red hot story at the moment, but to our own local/national/international nuclear meltdown story: The ongoing Phoebe Prince suicide tragedy in South Hadley now, amazingly, 14 months old. A blockbuster story with bionic legs it seems.

And this most recent chapter started innocently enough on Thursday morning with a positive story, otherwise known as a puff piece, in the Springfield Republican's cyber entity Masslive concerning a local South Hadley High School teacher attending an anti-bullying conference at the White House, an article written by intern Rosie Walunas, a journalism student on assignment for a UMass academic project under the direction of veteran print-journalist-turned-professor-of-digital-journalism, Steve Fox.

Well it turns out that particular local South Hadley High School teacher has been acting as a PR flack for the school that pays her salary pretty much from day one, and some have argued that she "blamed the victim" as a means to absolve the school, students, administrators, teachers or town.

And she had a "fashion" blog (now deleted) where she gushed about the upcoming Washington D.C. trip...a blog that I--not know for my fashion sense of course--found to be something out of a Saturday Night Live skit, including a questionably risque photo of her posing in a slinky outfit against an industrial locker, the kind you might find in a High School locker room. Yikes!

The online response--comments posted to the Masslive article, the South Hadley Forum and on a local blog that has relentlessly followed the tragedy with a microscope--came fast and furious, but even the mainstream media (if you consider MSNBC main) scooped everyone via an interview with Jeremy Prince where he sadly pointed out his family's dismay with A) not being informed of the B-I-G White House PR event and B) the "disgusting" choice of having THAT particular teacher attend and present at the conference.

Ms. Walunas demonstrated her digital upbringing by quickly responding with a follow up story in the Republican (Friday) laying out the now escalating controversy--and even mentioned the caustic Internet responses from comments posted to her original story and on the pernicious blogosphere.

By then savvy Republican editors must have figured out this was a major story and veteran reporter Fred Contrada assumed the helm with his further exploration of this epic PR backfire, splashed on the front page (Saturday) with the entire angle of the story highlighting the "shock and disgust" felt by the Prince family.

Meanwhile on Friday the South Hadley Town Reminder (a free weekly) and Daily Hampshire Gazette published overly positive front page stories concerning the anti bullying conference at the White House without any mention of the controversy. On Saturday, the Gazette catches up with the debacle by regurgitating the heartbreaking MSNBC interview with Phoebe's dad.

And this morning an Irish newspaper--The Sunday Independent-- picked up the side story (prominently decried in cyberspace) that South Hadley High School students are coming to Ireland for a visit (led by the now controversial teacher) in a few weeks with the headline giving you a distinct clue what they think about it: "Shock as tragic Phoebe's school plans Irish trip."

Their reception will probably be similar to that any fool would get strolling into an Irish pub on St. Patty's Day dressed entirely in orange and requesting a spot of tea.

A war of ideology

11:45 AM

Tea Party activists, otherwise known as Western Mass 9/12 Project, swamp the usual peace protesters in Hamp's city center late this morning.

Maybe they will pay downtown Amherst a visit one of these fine Sunday afternoons...

Downtown Amherst (any Sunday afternoon over the past 35 years)


Let's hope demonstrators never go this far for attention

ZBA (almost) approves ABC permit. Sláinte!

Jeff Bagg (Amherst Senior Planner) ZBA: Eric Beal, (Chair) Hilda Greenbaum, Tom Ehrgood

UPDATE: 5:30 am
Apparently I left too early last night (babysitter issues): the ZBA unanimously acknowledged that there are no issues to cause a denial, but never actually came to a formal vote on the special permit...yet. Next Wednesday they will finish up crafting the "conditions" for approval and, hopefully, take the formal vote.

Now you know why it takes so long to get anything done in Amherst!

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ORIGINAL REPORT (Thursday night)
9:12 PM

Tonight the omnipotent Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously headed towards approving an ever-so-slight change in usage called a "special permit", crucial for the Amherst Brewing Company to relocate a mile from Amherst town center into a larger, more open commercial space on busy University Drive (so named because it is a main artery to UMass) with a plethora of free parking.

I say omnipotent because the ZBA (appointed by the duly elected five-member Select Board) is essentially the same as a state Governor deciding a death row pardon that requires a unanimous approval from all three sitting members.

This would now make two consecutive business friendly decisions from the ZBA, turning aside organized neighborhood protest lamenting noise, traffic and--in the case of ABC--the all too familiar complaint about potential rowdy student behavior fueled by too much alcohol.

In fact on Monday night, Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe (during a discussion defense for hiring a new Building Inspector to enforce housing health and safety codes) succinctly stated, "There is nothing more important facing the town right now than the quality of life issues in the neighborhoods. The issue of student rentals, student parties...they really affect every single permit application that comes before the ZBA, Planning Board."

She goes on to issue a stern challenge: "This is an area we need to be serious about. Not just for the quality of life for people today, but because of it being an obstacle to making progress for the future."

Amen!

Attorney Alan Seewald, ABC owner John Korpita


Even the formerly over optimistic folks over at "save our Gym" and revive the Leading Edge seem to agree with my assessment that the ZBA all but approved the permit and will simply dot the i and cross the t on Wednesday:

ZBA March 10th hearing results
The ZBA all but approved ABC's Special Permit application at last night's hearing. On Wed. they will finalize some restrictions and conditions and then it's a done deal.

There is discussion of alternate spaces. It would be a much bigger and more complex project.

Further info to follow.