Triple Crown of losses

Groff Park pavilion: $150. Picnic table in foreground: free

After shanking Cherry Hill golf revenue projections by $46,463 and recreation/education programs by $76,014, Amherst's Leisure Services and Supplemental Education empire also flailed on pavilion rentals at Mill River and Groff Park, missing projections by $35,938.

Three years ago the recreation department started charging a $150 fee for using the formerly free park pavilions, and LSSE Director Linda Chalfant told the Select Board she was confident this new paradigm would generate $44,880 annually. This past year pavilion rentals totaled a paltry $8,862.

The main problem is people have a hard time paying (a lot) for something they used to get for free, and LSSE relies entirely on the honor method as no employee is charged with permit compliance checks.

Should people appear who do have a valid permit, you can simply move to any nearby picnic table, which is still free. Out of the six party groups I ran into over the summer using the Groff Park pavilion only one said they had taken out a permit and paid the fee.

Either the town needs to get as aggressive as they are with downtown parking enforcement, or return to the good old days--when some basic feel good services were free for the asking.

Lorax wanted

Big Ol' Oak Tree on West Bay Road

"Yes, I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the brown Bar-ba-loots, who played in the shade in their Bar-ba-loot suits and happily lived eating truffula fruits. Now, thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough truffula fruit to go 'round! "

Twin Oak on West Street

Red Maple on West Street looking up...not so much for this particular tree

Official subpoena leading to a death sentence

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Public Shade Tree Committee

September 13, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

First Floor Meeting Room, Town Hall.

PUBLIC HEARING: to review the proposed removal of the following public shade trees: one oak tree on West Bay Rd and one twin oak and one red maple on West St. Tree Warden will post signs on the trees during the weeks of 9/1/11. Trees: a. One oak tree, 28.3" DBH. b. One twin oak tree, 24" & 21" DBH. c. One red maple tree, 18" DBH. Tree locations: a. On the south side of West Bay Rd across from the new addition to Atkins Market. b. On the west side of West St across from Mountain View Cir. c. On the west side of West St across from Mountain View Cir.

Roll out the Red Carpet

Yes, by all means, welcome, college students, the lifeblood of our community.

And this year our largest contributor, UMass, has the largest incoming freshman class in history. Of course if they were attending Amherst Regional High School they would simply be called 9th graders since the term "freshman" is considered sexist. But I suppose we can't call college freshman 13th graders out of superstition.

Speaking of luck: please live by the Golden Rule your mother taught you and is sometimes forgotten in the haze brought on by alcohol consumption: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," otherwise bad luck will quickly come your way.

Now I know that can be confusing when everybody in your party is knock down drunk, yelling and screaming and urinating or vomiting on peoples front lawn, but I'm not--and your mother was not--talking about your friends. We are talking about the folks who live here year round and just maybe graduated from the esteemed University you now attend.

There have been two major changes this past year: Amherst Police Department has a zero tolerance for drunk and disorderly behavior, party houses disturbing the neighborhood, drinking in public and just plain loud noise. Each offense could get you a $300 fine and they are combinable; and if you don't pay the fines a warrant will be issued for your arrest.

UMass has also extended the "student code of conduct" to cover off-campus behavior. That too is combinable in that those expensive tickets for violating town by-laws can also get you expelled from school. And mom would not be overly pleased with that.

Okay, done with you party-hardy types. To the other 98.5% of students who come to our fair town for all the right reasons: Have a great semester!

(For a little background, click the label "nuisance house.")

Parity at the top

Town Manager John Musante

Since School Superintendent Maria Geryk received a raise six months ago bringing her salary to $140,000 after the selection committee removed "interim" from her title, it's no surprise the Select Board set the Town Manager's salary at that same amount. And hey, at least he worked for a full year at the lousy old rate of $127,000.

When Jere Hochman descended from the heavens to run the Amherst schools eight years ago he started at a substantial amount over his predecessor's salary causing then town manager Barry Del Castilho to throw a hissy fit requiring the Select Board to give him a mid-contract $10,000 raise, that even Town Meeting voted against in an advisory resolution.

And when Alberto Rodriguez immigrated here from Florida for his very short reign as Superintendent he too started at 20% over his predecessor--and we saw how well that turned out.

So now we have parity between the two top dogs running our $77 million enterprise. Although not much parity in that division as the Schools account for two-thirds of total town spending, with labor costs accounting for 90% of their budget.

Speaking of which: it's not going to be easy to get the teachers union to accept a zero percent increase in current contract negotiations after these pay hikes for their beloved leaders.

First thing we do, revive all the lawyers

One of the very few things I like about any of Amherst's fifty some odd boards, committees, commissions or the occasional task force is that they often have on their agenda an open "public comment" period, where the general public can extemporaneously address committee members, ask questions, praise, chastise and generally get things off their chest.

Take for instance the Regional School Committee meeting this evening (a joint Meeting of the Amherst, Pelham and Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committees no less), where a concerned citizen wondered why the Schools would rehire a recently terminated lawyer at $220/hour to handle a complicated case--meaning lots of billable hours--when the current lawyer could handle the extra case for no additional cost?

Good question.
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Good Evening,

I am Michael Aronson, Amherst taxpayer.

I was forwarded an email written by Mr. Hood on Monday August 8 expressing his opinion that it was - “less expensive” to hire an outside attorney to litigate a Special Education matter even though the School District has a pre paid contract with an “In House” attorney.

I don’t know where you learned math, Mr. Hood, but I can assure you that the $3000 dollars you pay your in-house lawyer per month is less than that $3000 dollars PLUS the fees for an outside attorney hired to do the same thing.

EVERY MEMBER OF THIS COMMITTEE should be up in arms about the administrative decision to waste precious education dollars in this way.

Mr. Hood, as Chairman of this committee, you should be making very public inquiries into why the decision to hire an outside attorney was made.

Tell us, WHO is responsible for this violation of the public trust and why you consider it acceptable?

Your negligence, and that of the administrator who made this decision is hurting our children and our community.

This is shameful, malfeasance, and terrible policy.

Parents who come to Amherst for their children’s education, and pay handsomely in taxes for the privilege, are appalled at the tremendous waste this kind of decision represents.

Let us be clear, you have failed them.

Thank you for your time.
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I of course asked Mr. Aronson (since I was not there) how committee members received his forthright statement. Apparently not very well:

To the School Committee:

Knowing full well that the School committee is fully committed to denying any possibility of error in its judgments, I send to you and all contacts on this list my response to Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Luschen's full throated defense of administrative malfeasance.

Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Luschen argued that Amherst administrators need retain the duplicative legal services of Regina Tate due to her familiarity with existing legal cases. This argument is spurious on a number of grounds.

1) Ms. Tate was removed from her position litigating Special Education in Amherst because a majority of the School Committee found her services deficient. If you want to know the “cause” of her dismissal, ask those who voted to remove her - including Mr. Rhodes.

2) There is evidence that the historic case to which they referred at tonight's meeting was filed on 1 December 2010 - the same day Dupere was hired under a fixed contract. In other words, Tate did not have time to become too familiar with this case. It was filed on the same day she lost the contract to Dupere.

3) Litigants often change attorneys. There is ample precedent for one attorney taking over a case from another in situations far more complicated than those of Special Education. Special Education cases are limited in legal complexity, and are even outside of the normal judicial process. If Amherst wanted their new attorney to be informed about existing cases, they should have hired Tate to brief Dupere on those cases. That type of legal expense would have been unimpeachable. That in which the District now engages is profligate.

The Regional School Committee is entering perilous territory. Any outside observer would characterize such wasteful use of educational resources for unnecessary litigation that you explicitly condone (and defend) as a failure of fiduciary responsibility. Just ask the 9th grader who needs extra help in math, or kids who can't take AP Physics for a lack of a qualified teacher.

We all should ask, is the committee incapable of seeing the truth, are you at all interested in working to improve this district ?

At this time the answer is a resounding "No!" As a body you are rejecting of the facts on the ground.

And our community suffers.

Michael Aronson

A new paradigm for golf?

Once again we witness the night and day difference between current town manager, John Musante, and the former town mangler Larry Shaffer--this time concerning something of paramount importance: truth-telling.

Five years ago Leisure Services and Supplemental Education and Shaffer had the audacity to issue a press release heralding that year's golf balance sheet, trumpeting a $7,200 "profit" while ignoring $40,000 in "hidden costs" (employee benefits, insurance, new equipment).

In an interview with the Springfield Republican town manager Larry Shaffer crossed the line by saying Cherry Hill required "no tax support." I even asked him at a follow up public meeting if he was misquoted, and he again reaffirmed the lie.

At last night's Select Board meeting the new Finance Director Sandy Pooler admitted Cherry Hill fell far short of FY2011 projected revenues ($270,000), which almost matched the actual $263,670 total cost of operations, with an intake of only $223,537 as first reported here six weeks ago, or a loss of over $40,000.

Of course he could not help but parrot the old excuse of that darn New England weather, but at least he also admitted the down economy takes a toll on the rich man's game of golf. Maybe now that transparency is the new marching order from Town Hall, citizens will get a true picture of the cost of golf.

And, unlike the scenic vistas aficionados admire, it ain't pretty.

Water under the bridge

The photo grabs you as it seems to explode from the front page of this morning's Daily Hampshire Gazette, clearly illustrating the potential power of water gone wild--more so than a skilled writer could accomplish in 1,000 words.

Kudos to ace photographer Carol Lollis; a raspberry to the editor who approved it.

It's one thing for a photographer to capture an extemporaneous scene involving a person thrust into a dramatic situation through no fault of their own. It's another case entirely when that person is showing off, or risking their life with reckless abandon (for all we know, because he spotted the photojournalist taking pictures.)

Six weeks ago three hikers hopped over a guardrail plastered with danger signs at Yosemite National Park to take dramatic action pictures of a raging waterfall. They got a little to close and cascaded to their deaths.

"Jackass: The Movie", where silly stunts take center stage, has enticed impressionable--usually young--viewers to attempt the same dangerous nonsense at home, in front of a camera, all too often with painful results. When the national press publishes a picture of President Obama smoking a cigarette or riding a bike without a helmet, people rightfully point out what a terrible example that sets.

While the Internet has greatly reduced the gatekeeper role of the mainstream media, a local hometown newspaper like the Daily Hampshire Gazette still has unique power when presenting the news. Hyping risky behavior can easily encourage copy cats who may not be so lucky next time.

And these days, the Gazette can't afford to lose any more readers.