A conflict over conflict of interest

clockwise: Peg Roberts, Larry Shaffer, Aaron Hayden, John Coull, Jonathan Tucker

If someone had not taunted me in town center on Thursday morning I would not have known to call the State Ethics Division to inquire about a complaint lodged against fellow Amherst Redevelopment Authority member Aaron Hayden who is also--coincidentally enough--up for reelection tomorrow.

The State Ethics Division is like the Secret Service or FBI when it comes to investigations, as they will not "confirm or deny" anything...however if you talk long enough, you can figure out if a complaint was filed.

Interestingly enough the next day (Friday 3/25) the Daily Hampshire Gazette published a Letter To The Editor from anti-Gateway kingpin, former Washington D.C. attorney, and neighbor to the potential development, John Fox supporting the ARA candidacy of rabidly anti-Gateway activist Vince O'Connor.

And in his lede Mr. Fox warns about "...potential conflicts that confront Aaron Hayden as a member of both the five-member Select Board and the five-member ARA, which have important overlapping issues." Hmm...

Ten years ago Select Board chair Carl Seppala was also an ARA member. And so much "conflict" existed at the time over ARA joint development with the town that the episode became known as "The Garage War." No complaints, however, about "conflict of interest" over Mr. Seppala's important dual roles.

A few months back sleeper activist Mary Wentworth publicly suggested Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe had conflicts of interest because her father John Coull is Chair of the ARA, and she lives on Butterfield Terrace within the Gateway's "neighborhood planning area."

Ms. O'Keeffe herself requested a State Ethics Division legal opinion and they concluded neither is a conflict of interest, which she publicly shared during a Select Board meeting. And, not surprisingly, the state recently found no conflict of interest exists with Mr. Hayden as well.

Disclaimer: Although I'm a longtime member of the ARA, Umass graduate, Continuing Education student and 5th generation Amherst resident, I speak here, as I always do, strictly for myself (and for the hard-pressed taxpayers of this town) using that cherished American ideal known as the First Amendment.

Hypocritical activist

Vince O'Connor posing for Rockwell

A dozen years ago forever activist Vince O'Connor filed a warrant article (one of the hundreds over the past thirty years) demanding Amherst town meeting take parcel C-3 in town center via eminent domain. At that time the Amherst Redevelopment Authority owned the property,having themselves taken it by eminent domain in the early-to mid-1970s.

Vince was a prime mover in the largest land taking in Amherst history--the 1987 taking of the Cherry Hill Golf Course--where town meeting heavy handedly used an "emergency measure" legal proviso to preclude voter referendum. Thus, as an ARA member (Governor appointed), I took his threat seriously.

The ARA had just completed a commercial appraisal ($350,000) as the final step in preparing a Request For Proposals for a private developer to do something economically constructive with the valuable property.

But things changed quickly when the town became serious about a parking garage. The ARA quickly voted to donate the prime piece to Amherst, with only one provision: the parking garage had to have the structural integrity to support another deck to enable future expansion.

Vince's proposal lost overwhelmingly on a voice vote and the rest as they say is history. And without the Boltwood Walk Parking Garage , millions of dollars in expansion, renovation and new backfill construction would never have happened--especially the new $4 million Boltwood Place mixed-use building immediately behind Judie's that broke ground a few weeks back.

Four years ago Mr. O'Connor was at it again; he filed a town meeting warrant article calling for "the abolishment of the ARA." Although strangely enough he concurrently ran for the open ARA seat in a stealth write-in campaign because no one had bothered to collect the 50 signatures required to get on the printed ballot.

I won the 5-year seat, which I currently hold, besting Vince 67-18.

Tuesday's election is going to be a snoozer, as voter turnout will be nothing if not lame (thanks mainly to Catherine Sanderson being bullied into not rerunning for School Committee).

Thus Mr. O'Connor stands a chance of getting close enough (McCarthy vs President Johnson 1968 New Hampshire primary) to use as public relations spin that Gateway is opposed by a significant percentage of voters, even though it will be a percentage of a tiny percentage of overall voters.

Mr. O'Connor staunchly opposes the Gateway Project, a development which will add significantly to the town's anemic commercial tax base, while he champions the redirection of ARA energies to creating a "Boys and Girls Club" or YMCA type recreation facility that will of course be tax exempt. Amherst is already half owned by tax exempts.

Having run a fitness facility in Amherst for 28 years I know all too painfully well that the recreation offerings in the area are now overly abundant--and with Planet Fitness around, they are also exceedingly cheap.

Recent entries include UMass $50 million Recreation Center, Central Rock Climbing Gym in Hadley (with a competitor already on the drawing board), a storefront Aerobics and Fitness Studio in east Amherst and former Leading Edge Gym diehards still pining to reopen somewhere (over the rainbow) plus the oldest surviving full-service club in the area, Hampshire Athletic Club.

Mr. O'Connor also points out that numerous buildings (two of them churches) are within the overall Gateway corridor area and, unlike the demolished Frat houses, do not fit the description of "blighted."

But no other property is needed other than the 1.8 acre former Frat Row that UMass is prepared to donate. If a $4 million, five story building can fit on 2,500 square feet postage stamp space behind Judie's, what can you erect on almost 80,000 square feet (thirty times larger) of perfectly graded property?

Future home of Boltwood Place

Future home of something spectacular

If Amherst cannot put aside its development phobia for a cause this outstanding, then what hope is there for any beneficial project with vision and class?

The Springfield Republican Reports

The Bulletin Reported:

Funny profile of Vince by Mary Carey

UMass community outreach on neighborhood stabilization

A better place to be

My darling daughter Kira only transferred to Crocker Farm Elementary School on Monday, and since then she's assisted with after school "Horse Lovers Club" on Wednesday afternoon and tonight--again with her little sis--attended their first "Friday Night Social" for a couple hours of games, food, music, and hanging out with new found friends.

About sixty kids congregated in the gymnasium and a dozen or so more too cool for organized play roamed the halls. Parents met in the cafeteria for food and conversation.

Superintendent Maria Geryk seemed to enjoy her busman's holiday, and trying to keep up with her children.

Shock and awe campaign

A couple hours after hearing Chief Livingstone report on the effectiveness of the bylaw fine increase for noise and alcohol violations, Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe floated another potentially potent weapon in the war on inappropriate behavior: license review.

After all, she points out, the Amherst Select Board members are all duly sworn in by the state as "liquor commissioners" so perhaps it's time to hold businesses responsible for activities that promote bad behavior.

Ten years ago when bars (the same two she is now referencing, one of them under different management) flagrantly violated the new controversial smoking ban and were laughing off $50 tickets for infractions, the Select Board threatened to suspend common victullar (food handling) or liquor licenses to those businesses not getting the message.

Compliance quickly followed and is now the accepted norm statewide.



The Bully comes out swinging

Horse sense

Kira brushes Dreama

Jada feeds Dreama

Time to go back to the farm

Civic minded Muddy Brook Farm runs a "Horse lovers club" at the Crocker Farm Elementary School about a half mile up the road from the farm on Wednesday afternoons when school usually lets out at 1:20 PM. Great way to constructively occupy the kids for an hour.

Capture the flag

Perhaps the Select Board should have figured it out when not a single citizen bothered to enter the "design an official Amherst flag" contest last November and only with extra PR outreach did they manage a hand full of designs.

Obviously Alisa Brewer is tiring of the typical Amherst process for getting things done. Now she can appreciate how the typical entrepreneur feels when trying to open a business in Amherst, only to get exhausted jumping through all the hoops.
The Children's Memorial Flag will fly once again at Town Hall in April under the, umm, UN flag.

Flags are powerful symbols--for good (Old Glory) or evil (Nazi swastika). This "contest" is indeed a telling symbol of 'All Things Amherst'.




For a better view of all six entries click this link

E-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g Amherst

Barnes, Lincoln W., 1879-1966, "West side of North Pleasant St. near Amity St.," in Digital Amherst, Item #767, http://www.digitalamherst.org/items/show/767 (accessed March 22, 2011).

After a slight dip in population from 35,229 in 1990 down to 34,874 in 2000--the first decline since 1780--Amherst came back with a bang in the recently released 2010 census with a healthy population gain of 8.44%, bringing us to a historic high of 37,819.

That population resides in an estimated 9,513 housing units with 45.8% of those (4,073) owner-occupied, well under the national average of 66.9% and 54.2% (4,829) renter-occupied, well above the national average of 33.1%.

No wonder our neighborhoods need stabilization.

The ebb and flow of Amherst's population (especially the rental market) is of course closely tied to students, meaning mainly UMass--which also saw a slight decline in student population from 24,474 in 1990 down to 23,570 in 2000. But now at a historic high of 27,269 with plans for growth in the thousands over the next few years.

And they will have to live somewhere.