A Better Chance

Runners line up 10:30 AM

About 100 runners and half again as many walkers, a dozen or so dogs, and half again as many baby carriages participated in the 40th annual A Better Chance 5K Fall Foliage race/walk to benefit the program that brings disadvantaged minority youth to live in Amherst and attend Amherst Regional High School. Since the programs inception forty years ago, 120 youths have graduated from ARHS.

My stragglers

Jada and Kira come in together (behind Mom, Karen and Jake the dog)

And then there was one

The Republican 1860 Main Street, Springfield

The Republican, Massachusetts' 4th largest newspaper, took a giant leap into the Digital Age by shedding the bricks and mortar ties that bound them to that long ago era when daily newspapers were the ultimate gatekeepers, synthesizing a river of information into a tidy dose of daily news that arrived on your doorstep with an early morning thud.

As of October 1st The Republican has shuttered satellite news office bureaus in Chicopee, Greenfield, Holyoke, Northampton, Palmer and Westfield. Their battleship of a building in Springfield, which houses their seven story, high-speed color press remains firmly afloat however.

Today information comes in tidal waves, and anyone can tap into it directly via the Internet.All a reporter needs is a laptop, camera, cell phone and Wi-Fi connection. The town of Amherst is even kind enough to provide free Wi-Fi in the downtown.

Downtown Wi-Fi emitters

Whether news is gathered in an office cubical over a rotary phone and tapped into a story via a Smith Corona typewriter, or captured on a flip video camera, edited on a MacBook Air and posted directly to YouTube, it's still flesh and blood reporters that ask questions, record results and package them for, potentially, a world wide audience.

And that I hope, will never change.

Back in the saddle

Amherst Town Manager John Musante 11:20 AM today

Amherst Town Manager John Musante returned to his 3rd floor office in Town Hall yesterday as he moves steadily forward recovering from a head injury sustained on the early morning of September 6 while out walking his dog.

The Town Manager will continue with part time morning office hours and work from home, building his way back to a full-time regimen, but will not be attending this coming Monday night Select Board meeting.

Help Delayed = Dangerzone

Main Street/South Whitney Friday 5:00 PM 10/14/11

Welcome Reddit/UMass readers. Click the "nuisance house" tag for the cavalcade of party house winners over the past year

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God help Amherst residents should a medical emergency or fire have happened last Saturday night around 10:00 PM; sure, Northampton FD would have arrived...eventually.

Rowdy student behavior doesn't just keep residents awake on weekends--it also squanders the precious resources of the Amherst Fire Department. And it's not like UMass has a fire department of its own.

The Mullins Center, owned by UMass, so a tax exempt entity, hosted a giant party on Saturday night in the form of Deadmau5 a DJ "artist" who mixes music and probably plays it loud enough to garner a $300 noise ticket if he were playing on Meadow Street or Hobart Lane.

The AFD wisely based an ambulance and paramedic crew on scene and, sure enough, they handled eight cases (alcohol related) thus avoiding a costly trip in time to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, where the average turn around for handling a single drunk student (once they get there) is an hour, more like an hour-and-a-half if blood, vomit or other body fluids spill inside the ambulance.

Meanwhile between 9:16 PM and 11:50 PM four more cases of ETOH (too much alcohol) required transport to the hospital, thus depleting the cavalry should Fort Amherst require assistance. You know, the normal working person who pays property taxes to help finance our $4 million Fire/EMS system.

Yes, the student call force (for fire calls only) and one professional firefighter to supervise were available, but if your most precious asset was in imminent danger--is that the response you expect?

Update/correction: UMass does pay a fee (like hiring police for a traffic detail) for the extra ambulance assigned to the Mullins Center for special occasions.
The UMass Daily Collegian reports (the fines are working!)

Just another typical weekend for AFD

AFD reports

Planting seeds of entrepreneurship

Kira Kelley looks on as Mom and Irv Rhodes present Junior Achievement

If, as our neighboring city's most prominent pol once stated, "The chief business of the American people is business," the message was lost on Amherst--where 91% of the tax levy comes from residential property and only 9% from commercial/business.

Amherst School Committee Chair Irv Rhodes, Principal Mike Morris, and Donna Kelley, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College, have teamed up to implement an All American solution to that imbalance, while simultaneously offering an antidote to unemployment, poverty and all its associated ills.

Junior Achievement USA brings experienced volunteers into the classroom to explain capitalism and commerce especially as it relates to starting your own business; and even more important, how to nurture that business for long term survival, even in this challenging economy.

In addition to teaching at Babson College, the #1 rated school in America for entrepreneurship, Donna Kelley co-founded a local small business 30 years ago when she first moved to Amherst. Irv Rhodes, founder and CEO of Community Funding Partners, Inc will co-teach the weekly after school program at Crocker Farm Elementary School, where a significant percentage of students qualify for reduced lunch costs due to low income.

"Training at a young age cultivates an entrepreneurial spirit early on," said Kelley. "Besides skill-building, training increases an individual's awareness of entrepreneurship and their intent to start a business, and improves perceptions about their ability to do so."

Her daughter Kira, a 4th grader, is one of the eleven students attending the program and she has already become a skilled negotiator.

Party House (s) of the Weekend

49 Fearing Street, Amherst (owned by Frank and Sue Hugus)

Nothing as outrageous as urination from a second story window or assaulting a police cruiser seeking release of four wild woman friends taken into custody, just the standard loud noise and underage drinking. Loud enough to disturb neighbors who call the Amherst Police Department to seek relief. And relief they get.

According to APD narrative: 12:38 AM (early Sunday morning):

"Large group of people on front porch, front lawn and in roadway in front of munter 49. Upon attemtping to locate a resident, doors were slammed and locked, residents refused to speak with officers. Officers located and identified three residents who were placed under arrest for the noise."
Nicholas Petrisis, 28 Upper Palmer Rd, Monson, MA, age 21
Garrett Jones, 22 Eagleville Rd, Orange, MA, age 21
David Decoteau, 22 Candice Circle, Springfield, MA, age 21

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675 Main Street, Amherst

Since 675 Main Street is a repeat offender all five residents were given both "noise" and "nuisance house" violations, or $600 each offender for a total of $3,000 to that one household.

Tyler Hunt, 4 Rainbow Circle, Bourne, MA, age 19
Joseph Johnson, 8 Sabbatt Rd, Bourne, MA age 20
Mark Ventresco, 10 Maple Ave, Sharon, MA, age 19
Mitchell Ganz, 8 Terrence Dr, Manalapan, NJ, age 19
Joseph Fanella, 215 Pebble Beach Ct, Holmdel, NJ, age 20

Property owner card for 675 Main Street, Amherst

Meanwhile, for anyone wondering why the Amherst flags are at half staff today:

Governor Patrick has ordered the American and Commonwealth Flags lowered to half-staff on October 17, 2011 from sunrise to sunset in honor of Specialist Steven E. Gutowski of Plymouth, Massachusetts Staff who died in Afghanistan on September 28, 2011

He was 24.

When Ideologies Clash

Amherst Town Common 12:30 PM

South Pleasant Street/Town Center 1:30 PM

Opposing chants of "USA! USA!" vs. "We are the 99%!" echoed across Amherst town common this afternoon, briefly interrupted by the loud thud of a driver--distracted by attempting to photograph the confrontation--rear ending another car.

Note to Jeep driver: No photos while driving

Occupy Amherst staked out the green on the south common directly in front of the Lord Jeff Inn around noon as around 50-60 people turned out to show solidarity with the original occupiers of Wall Street--a peoples movement that has now become a cultural phenomena.



The Tea Party (Western Mass 9/12 Project), about half the size of Occupy Amherst, claimed asphalt about 50 yards to the west more directly in town center--although a couple dozen yards south of the regular anti-war Sunday afternoon peace activists who have called the corner of South Pleasant and Main Street home for forty years now.

Amherst Town Center Main/S Pleasant 12:10 PM

And if that were not enough activism for one sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Amherst, a few independent contractors--one bordering on anti-Semitic--also came to question the official common sense conclusion of the 9/11 Commission.

A women in the "Occupy" camp asked him to move away--far away from them

All in all, a glorious day for Democracy in the People's Republic of Amherst.