A generation or two before the permaculture movement became a media darling, the old fashioned Amherst Garden Club has been doing its horticultural thing, including maintaining the planters in town center.
And if gardens strike your fancy, the Amherst Historical Society is sponsoring a "garden tour" today from 9:30 AM until 4:00 PM.
Amherst Public Shade Tree Committee Chair Hope Crolius, committee member Bob Irwin
In their first meeting since the Amherst Public Shade Tree Committee became a stand alone entity, after 40 years toiling as a subcommittee of the Conservation Commission, Chair Hope Crolius came out swinging, questioning the rubber stamp routine of Tree Warden Alan Snow and the tactics of Town Manager John Musante who recently summoned her to a private meeting to address the "tone" of her committee.
Crolius rattled off a recent list of occasions where the Tree Warden ignored the tree affirming vote of the Shade Tree Committee, including Atkins Corner clearcutting, beautiful black walnuts in front of Hampshire College (that were later spared because of an easement trade by the college to the town) and most recently a huge, healthy 50 year old spruce on Railroad Street he allowed a housing management company that specializes in student rentals to whack for the convenience of a new driveway.
Alan Snow, volunteer Tree Warden and professional DPW manager
Crolius observed that for the previous five years, when not employed by the town, Snow was an outsider who put the trees first; but now that he's wearing a different hat--Division Director, Tree and Grounds Amherst DPW--he is "no longer one of us."
A previous Town Manager appointed Snow to his unpaid position as Tree Warden and of course the current Town Manager is the boss of DPW director Guilford Mooring who oversees Snow.
In a closed door meeting with Town Manager Musante, set up by Conservation Director Dave Ziomek (son of former Tree Warden Stan Ziomek) Crolius described a public relations cheerleading indoctrination session where he strongly suggested the committee "keep it positive," and consider "the big picture."
Musante boasted the town has big things to accomplish, thus the committee should not focus on doing battle for individual trees at UMass or the town owned Hawthorne sugar maples or the stately, rarely seen Camperdown Elm owned by Amherst College.
Ancient but healthy Camperdown Elm Amherst College Pratt Field
Committee member Nonny Burack responded to Crolius's report saying, "I'm very uncomfortable with the Town Manager's comments" and that they amounted to "almost a threat." She also pointed out "developers are going to laugh at you if you're overly positive."
The Public Shade Tree Committee plans to invite Town Manager Musante to attend one of their upcoming open public meetings. Apparently, being summoned to the woodshed works both ways.
The Appeals Court, as expected, did not overturn Superior Court Judge Mary-Lou Rup's decision and they did not even bother to rule on the votes of Shoshana Holzberg-Pill and her brother Jacob Holzberg-Pill (thrown out by Judge Rup) because upholding the voting rights of Richard and Joan Paczkowski made the matter of the Pills votes moot.
The Shutesbury Board of Registrars had allowed all four contested votes (Pills and Paczkowkis) to count but threw out the vote of Christopher Buck (originally allowed by the Town Clerk) bringing the vote total to a 522-522 tie, measure fails.
A pro library contingent of ten voters appealed the decision of the Board of Registrars tying to get the "no" votes of the Paczkowskis thrown out, but instead Superior Court Judge Mary-Lou Rup upheld their votes and went even further, throwing out the Pill "yes" votes.
Thus with this Appeals Court ruling today, the new Shutesbury library $1.4 million override vote now-and-forever stands at 522-520, ballot question fails.
And because the deadline to accept a state grant of $2.1 million--requiring the $1.4 million in town matching funds--expires June 30, the issue that refused to die is now dead, buried with a big ol' building sited squarely on top (just not a new library).
Deep end of the pool still not done 11:15 AM Thurdsday
4:55 PM Breaking News (shocked, shocked I say). Town Manager announces pool will not be open Saturday.
####
Original Post: High Noon:
So if I had to guess (and I do since town officials still refuse to comment) I would say we will be lucky if the War Memorial Pool is open for July 4 festivities.
Perhaps Town Manager John Musante was too busy with his gig as chair of the PVTA advisory board to pay attention to this hometown matter, but the first rule of public relations is to address bad news as quickly as possible and be perfectly clear and honest with your customers, errr, constituents.
For the second time now I'm predicting (based on "no comment" comments from town officials, and a little construction knowledge) Amherst will postpone the long awaited opening of the centrally located War Memorial Pool, yet again.
Obviously town officials don't live by the private sector credo, "underpromise and overdeliver."
Last Spring LSSE announced the pool would open on June 23rd, in time for summer swim lessons and advertised that overly ambitious date in their quarterly brochure mailed to most of Amherst.
The Town Manager announced last week the opening would be delayed, however, until June 30, using the "weather-related" excuse fine tuned over twenty five years of seasonal losses at the municipal golf course.
Recently it did rain...less than an inch. And it was pretty hot for two or three days. Which, all in all, sounds a lot like typical New England summer weather to me.
I'm told we will have official comment "soon."
Gray area is felt underlay, blue area new liner over it
The Happy Valley pet care market is about to heat up with Petco opening at the Stop and Shop stripmall on the Hadley/Amherst line in the former location of the extinct Blockbuster. The animal supply retailer has over 1,000 locations nationwide and a strong web presence with over one million "likes" on Facebook.
While good news for folks with pets, not so good news for Dave's Soda and Pet City less than a mile down the road and only a half dozen total locations in the Valley. Of course with pets, price is not the only consideration--customer service also plays a b-i-g role.
And Dave Ratner runs a mission oriented business deeply involved with the community (people and pets), so they should be able to handle the competition.
Western Mass Electric Company is engaged in "very aggressive tree trimming" near their power lines according to Amherst Shade Tree Committee Chair Hope Crolius, a continuing reverberation of the freak October 30 snowstorm that knocked out power all over New England.
Look out below! (At least they left two trees standing)
Like UMass or New England Central Railroad, WMECO is exempt from local oversight by any town body, so about all our shade tree committee can do is hope for the best...and hug a lot of trees goodbye.
