Amherst B&E continues...

In addition to petty theft from intruders gaining access via unlocked doors or windows over the weekend, Left Click Computer, a downtown business, was hit by slightly more professional perps who cut all the outside phone lines and disabled another interior alarm system located in an upper corner closet.

Thieves made off with a couple Macbook computers and a small amount of cash leaving behind a single plastic glove on the ground near the northeast corner of the building where "entry appears to have been gained". O.J. Simpson, currently incarcerated, is not considered a suspect.

Free at last

Station Road May 31

Station Road is finally now open for routine traffic after a train derailment the last day of May. The very next day Amherst was also visited by violent weather that had unleashed a devastating tornado on downtown Springfield.

Obviously the two unusual events are not connected.

Although...this other Amherst "news" website may try to tie them together. Yikes!

Station Road June 12

Charter school suspends staff

Congressman Richie Neal flanked by PVCIC Executive Director Rich Alcorn and his wife Principal Kathy Wang.

Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School Principal Kathy Wang and 3rd grade teacher Regan Hall were suspended without pay by the school as of Monday June 6.

Since Kathy Wang was under suspension, her husband PVCIC Executive Director (the Charter School equivalent of a School Superintendent) Rich Alcorn sat in for her at this morning's previously scheduled 'Principal's Chat' to update the 40-50 parents who attended.

The Department of Children and Families recently found that disciplining a 9-year-old student by placing him in solitary confinement for an entire school day constituted"neglect," and named Wang and Hall individually as a responsible "perpetrator".

According to the PVCIC handbook such a finding is automatic grounds for suspension, a bylaw the school's attorney deemed "archaic". The Board of Trustees--the Charter School equivalent of a School Committee except all are appointed rather than elected--will meet in a private executive session on Monday June 13 to discuss their fate.

The possible outcomes range from termination to immediate reinstatement with back pay.

Amhersty Art

A mural shaped like Hampshire County, lamenting the cost of war, was unveiled last week perched on the side of the Amherst Cinema building in downtown Amherst. The activist art project is a collaboration of area high school youth and Hampshire College mentors who are members of 'Get Up Get Down' a program run by the Youth Action Coalition. The project cost about $500 in supplies and was sponsored by Amherst area businesses.

Neighbors immediately filed a lawsuit over the presence of Wind Turbines, citing noise, visual pollution and disturbing the nesting ground of the Conservativo Republicas, an endangered species in Amherst.

Pay the Piper

23 Tracy Circle To: amherstac@aol.com
Sent: Mon, Jun 6, 2011 5:39 pm
Subject: [Only in The Republic of Amherst] New comment on Party House repeat offenders.

So Larry as you can see, this is matt. i just want to ask you in a civil manner to please take down the names and home addresses from you "second offense" page. Yeah, we were arrested, for watching the bruins play the flyers in game 4 if you need more facts about loud tv and yelling. but please, im asking you refer to us as "residents" "children" or any of you other nicknames youve given us. i understand that the information was probably in a police report or something you research. but when a family member puts my families home address in google and sees this, i get questioned clients, parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles all have to hear about it without knowing the facts.
i realize that some of the members in our house may not be the most mature people in the world, but that is why were in college now and you once were. stupid things happen to people by circumstance too so dont be so quick to judge.
i will answer anything you have to say privately and not on this blog if you want info to write about. get back to me

ill be watching the bruins
###############################################

Matt,
Yes, I was a UMass student once and strangely enough I worked as a bouncer at 'The Pub' in downtown Amherst to pay my way, dealing with rowdy UMass kids.

And yes your name was indeed on a police report--which is a public document. Perhaps why if you Google yourself you will also pick up the Amherst Bulletin article that came out a few days after mine:

"xxxxxxxxx, and Emerson E. Rutkowski, 19, and Michael H. Upham, 20, both of Swampscott, were arrested on charges of violating the town's noise bylaw and violating the town's nuisance house bylaw, police said. Each charge carries a $300 penalty, meaning the three men could be subject to $1,800 in fines."

Have you asked Scott Merzbach to remove your name and address from the Amherst Bulletin website?

Larry

################################################
Sent: Tue, Jun 7, 2011 5:33 pm
Subject: Re: Party House winner

Actually Larry i have asked him too.
his article is in archive and not a direct link so it doesn't return a page when searched
cant you just respect my wishes as being enough? i feel like you're taking swings at me here for no reason. all i want is the names off, is that really too much to ask?
################################################
Well when I Google your name and town I do indeed come up #1, but Gazettenet and the Amherst Bulletin come in at #2 and #3--and the Bulletin is free so a paywall would not interfere with folks pulling up your offense.

Have you paid your fines?
################################################
yeah i paid my fines. fun story though the town of Amherst screwed up yet again. i paid my fines; they took my money and, luckily, gave me a reciept but never acknowleged it in their books. i then get a call from a friends in high places saying there is a warrant out for my arrest. as steve miller would say they took the money and ran. i went to the courthouse today. and for the second time the judge, 2 different judges, laughed at the charges blamed the town for yet again another mistake dismissed the warrant and charges and wiped my record completely.

just take it down

################################################
From: amherstac@aol.com
To: xxxxx@student.umass.edu
Sent: Thu, Jun 9, 2011 10:06 am

Matt,

Chief Livingstone just confirmed that you paid $600 for the most recent noise violation and a previous nuisance house violation. So I'm going to bend the rules of journalism and delete your name but not Emerson E. Rutkowski, 36 Puritan Park, Swampscott, MA age 20 and Michael Upham 53 Sherwood Road, Swampscott, MA age 21.

I'm tempted to demand you write a letter of apology to your Amherst neighbors and the APD as well as remove the term "Zoomass" from your Facebook page, but then I would run the risk of being called a "bully".

Tell your friends that my friends in high places confirm that an arrest warrant will be issued in August if they do not make good on the fines. And until then, if anyone should Google their name and hometown…

Larry

Development Tornado

Lincoln Apartments Wednesday 6/8

In addition to the town allowing the clear cutting of trees in the Atkins Corner Road Reconstruction project, our neighbors to the north are also whacking some sizable timber around Lincoln Apartments.

UMass is of course exempt from local oversight, so the Amherst tree warden has no authority--not that he defensively chained himself to any of the trees in South Amherst, now gone like the wind .

Speaking of Atkins Corner, the dirt piles all around Atkins keep getting bigger. I'm told that the town sponsored project in front does have in the contract a "general dust control clause". Let's hope they institute it today, as the temperature once again soars into the high 90s.

Atkins Corner Wednesday 6/8

Stop the sun from shining

Save the sparrow message fell flat at Town Meeting

Not surprisingly 13 NIMBY residents filed suit in Hampshire Superior Court casting yet another shadow over the old landfill where town officials hope a private company can construct a solar farm, a potential $1 million annual net gain for town taxpayers while reducing our dependence on oil and other bad by-products of energy production.

I suppose if the neighbors can afford the castles that ring the old landfill they can afford Micheal Pill of Shutesbury, a lawyer who specializes in land use issues. Although Mr. Pill did not have shining results--other than delaying the project and running up a tab--when he took on the town over low income housing on Longmeadow Drive at neighbor request, or when Town Meeting rezoned property out on Meadow Street to flood prone conservancy.

In only a few months the neighborhood concerns have ricocheted from (1) 30 or 40 mysterious barrels of potentially dangerous chemicals buried in the old landfill back in the 1970s by DPW workers under orders from a grouchy boss, to (2) lead arsenate soil from the Atkins Road reconstruction project being used to regrade the old landfill cap, to (3) the alleged serious degradation of the protective cap with added weight of solar panels causing a catastrophic crack; and now it's protection of the grasshopper sparrow, a little birdie that is only "rare" and not "endangered".

Obviously NIMBYs will never go extinct--especially in the People's Republic.

Diana Spurgin fell flat at Town Meeting

The Springfield Republican reports (ahead of the Gazette)