A cooling place

Sure beats kids (or pressured parents) opening up fire hydrants.

Free Admission at Middle School Pool During Heat Wave

In order to provide everyone in the community a safe place to swim during this recent heat wave, admission to the Amherst Regional Middle School Pool will be FREE beginning Thursday, July 21st through Sunday, July 24th.

Open swim hours at the Middle School Pool are Thursday and Friday 5 pm - 7 pm and Lap Swim from 7- 8 pm. Weekend hours are Open Swim Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm - 6 pm. The Amherst Regional Middle School Swimming Pool is supervised by American Red Cross certified lifeguards.

For a detailed schedule of Town of Amherst aquatics programs visit the department’s website at lsse.org or call 413-259-3065.

"Scary" indeed

Amherst Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe was hardly soothed by the Town Manager's Report--or I should say update--concerning the twin train derailments and the resulting measures taken by New England Central Railroad to address them.

If the cause of both potentially devastating mishaps was a "high water table" (and that area is indeed a swamp) then simply replacing old rotted ties and fasteners does not address the underlying problem, although it certainly helps.

But if that was pretty much NECRs response--surface hardware replacement-- then if they had refurbished those long neglected rails a few months earlier, would it not have prevented both accidents?

A recent study by UMass Hydrogeologist David Boutt published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters demonstrates that as a result of rising temperatures and climate change, average precipitation in the Northeast has increase by 30% since 1900, and water tables have indeed become consistently higher over the past ten years.

Since this a long-term phenomena, chances are it's not going to reverse itself in the short-term future. Combine this soggy weather trend with the activity of beavers in that low lying area and you have a recipe for returning to the prehistoric days of Lake Hitchcock.

Perhaps when the tracks near Station Road are submerged, NECR or the Federal Railroad Administration will address the real problem.

Let's hope they do so before another accident occurs.

Trains, bike paths, beavers and global warming make for a bad mix

Art in the Park

The Youth Action Coalition--those kids who brought you a permanent mural on the side of the Amherst Cinema building--are at it again, this time with a less ambitious art project dangling in the middle of Kendrick Park: "Amherst Truths."

Oh, if they only knew.

Click photos to enlarge/read

Ghost in the machine

North Whitney Street crossing

I hope the town manager, fresh back from a two week vacation, reads the Amherst police logs as New England Central Railroad made their report twice over the weekend--both times for maintenance issues.

Coincidentally enough the Town Manager is giving an "update on the train derailments" to the Select Board this evening. Spfld Republican Reports

High Street Crossing

Busy Main Street crossing

APD contacted NECR on Sunday afternoon as citizens were complaining the lights and bells had been on for an hour and a half with no train in sight. Again late Sunday night just after midnight another complaint from High Street the next street over for phantom trains setting off the bells and lights.

Well I guess it is better for the alarms to be going off when there's no train a comin' vs not having them go off when a train is barreling through town. I guess...

High Street crossing Monday 10:45 AM with no train in sight

The same mysterious white powder found on Station Road

And our flag was still there

Hard to believe it's been over six weeks since that terrible tornado tore its way through the city of Springfield, surrounding towns and neighborhoods. Here's just one of them--and it doesn't come close to measuring up to the damage inflicted on some others nearby.

A moveable feast

Amherst Farmers Market opened for business today (rent free as always) in a new location, a stone's throw from the old one currently undergoing a six week makeover by our DPW. This parking lot, although a tad smaller, is located more directly in the heart of downtown.

Last November a brief "Save the Market" campaign started on the privately owned town meeting listserve where activist rail at the drop of a hat, and market organizers flooded the Select Board with letters/petitions of concern. Unlike the Boy Scouts selling Christmas trees at Kendrick Park (for far longer than the Farmers Market has been in business) the town would never dream of banning or disrupting the farmers--a prized, protected demographic.

After all, the town seal is a book and a plow.

Cherry Hill: A sucking sinkhole

Despite Finance Committee assurances to Town Meeting that our lackadaisical golf course would produce "a small surplus for FY 11," (ended June 30) Cherry Hill scored yet another losing season costing Amherst taxpayers $40,000, money that could have funded a police officer, firefighter or teacher--a far better use for tax dollars than subsidizing the Rich Man's Game of golf.

According to draft figures provided by Comptroller Sonia Aldrich, Cherry Hill generated $223,538 in revenues on "operation expenses" of $220,140 which are the only two figures town officials ever wish to compare.

Since Cherry Hill requires employees, the hidden human costs--employee benefits--which are paid out of a separate budget totaled an additional $25,230; and business liability insurance $3,300 plus a big ticket capital item: $15,000 to dig a new well to feed the expensive irrigation system. Total overhead of $263,670 on revenues of only $223,538 equals $40,132 in red ink.

In 1987 Amherst absorbed the nine-hole golf course after a developer proposed 134 high-end houses around the golf business, which he planned to donate to the town or UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture for free. Instead, the town--at the urging of North Amherst NIMBYs-- used the power of eminent domain as an "emergency measure" (thereby making the heavy handed action immune to voter Referendum) costing taxpayers a whopping $2.2 million, the most expensive acquisition in town history.

The golf course operated as an "Enterprise Fund" (tracking all revenues/expenditures) because the business was supposed to cover all expenses--including employee benefits--plus show a profit. After operational losses of over $1 million Town Meeting dissolved the Enterprise Fund status five years ago, allowing town officials to hide costs and issue disingenuous press releases touting "net operating profits."

Nero supposedly fiddled while Rome burned. In the People's Republic of Amherst, town officials fiddle with golf--at taxpayers expense.