Remembering Howard

How do you sum up in a few minutes to a room full of people the staying influence of a bear of a man who, in life, would have dominated that room?

Simple really, you tell a sliver of a story with a beginning, middle and an end of an interaction with Howard Ziff and almost everyone in the room will relate to it.  Call it speaking to the converted.

Friends, family, former students and co-workers converged this glorious afternoon on Memorial Hall in the center of the UMass campus, a stone's throw from Bartlett Hall, home base to journalism since Howard founded the program in the early 1970s

And we heard touching stories, a song, recited a prayer--but most important--simply remembered...together.


Karen List, current Director of UMass Journalism, talks about the man who founded it

The Republican reports

Out of Gas

 Hess Express, West Street, South Amherst

The Hess Express in South Amherst, one of the busiest convenience stores in town, is now a major construction site (but remains open for business) as underground gas storage tanks are replaced and diesel fuel will be added to the volatile mix. 

Last week the Amherst Select Board, acting as liquor commissioners, unanimously denied the business a beer/wine permit specifically because it is so strategically located and perpetually busy, fearing the wrong person at the wrong time will pick up a couple of cold ones to go.

Like the Atkins Corner Construction project a mile down the road, the mess is expected to be cleared by the time UMass and Amherst College open for business. We hope.

Sizzling Saturday

The shade structure was even most popular than the water this morning at War Memorial Pool gala.  Color Guard at ease

Town officials must be doing something right as New England weather continues to provide stunningly beautiful backdrops for milestone outdoor events, today being the long awaited, long overdue grand opening ceremony for the War Memorial Pool.

The pool was scheduled to open June 23, then postponed by a week until June 30, and finally opened on July 8 under a brilliant clear sky.  The wading pool, however, still sits empty and town officials have not offered an opening date.

Stan Ziomek:  Raised private funds to build the pool 60 years ago; helped convince Amherst Town Meeting to renovate/revive it

Once again the pool is free and open to the public today until 6:00 PM.  LSSE, the overseers of outdoor pools, responded to public input and tweaked/expanded their hours for general usage.

Town Manager John Musante and SB Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe forgot their bathing suits

War Memorial Pool Open Swim

Mon.-Fri. 11 am-1 pm
Sat. & Sun. 10 am-1 pm

New Hours at War Memorial Pool:
Adult Lap Swim:
Mon.-Fri. 11 am-1 pm
Sat. & Sun. 10 am-1 pm

Open Swim:
Mon.-Fri. 11 am-5 pm
Sat. & Sun. 10 am-6 pm

Wading pool still awaiting water

9/11/12

Amherst Town Center 9/11/11

The Amherst Select Board, as keeper of the public ways, will hold a Public Hearing on 8/27 to decide if 29 commemorative flags can reappear in the downtown this coming 9/11 to remember 3,000 lives snuffed out in a heinous sneak attack that forever changed…everything.

And it's not you I'm concerned about ever forgetting that awful morning.

You remember exactly where you were, what you were doing when those cryptic first reports leaked out about something unusual happening in lower Manhattan.  Or that first moment you switched on the television to whatever station you were watching the night before and that stunning image of those majestic towers billowing black smoke filled the screen.

My God...how could you possibly forget?

No, it's the younger generation I'm worried about.  Those who were too young on 9/11/01 to grasp the severity of the wound inflicted on the American psyche. 

Under current town policy regulating/restricting the flags to six holidays, they can fly on 9/11 only during "milestone" anniversaries, meaning every five years.  So last year on the tenth anniversary, the first time I did not have to go before the SB with my annual request (which was denied for years on end), they did fly.

But now they will not fly again until 2016, on the 15th anniversary.  In 2020, another off year, the freshman class coming to UMass/Amherst will not have been born on 9/11/01

Those 3,000 slaughtered Americans are just as dead this year as they were last year, and still deeply deserving of our reverence: not just one-out-of-five, but every year.

SAD UPDATE

President Obama and Governor Patrick have ordered all state and federal flags to half staff to remember, honor and commemorate those killed in the Aurora, Colorado senseless mass murder.

Make My Day!

Arlington, Vermont Legion Post #69 M60A3 Battle Tank  (I'm told they start it up once every year)

Fitness Zombie Stirs

Fit Women, or Naive Women?

Since I first reported almost a year ago that Peter (the Duke of) Earle was--like a bad Asian flu--returning to the Happy Valley, the pending business went into hibernation.  But now, thanks to a cheap banner hung in the doorway, it seems the fledgling fitness business is actually going to open its doors.

Usually when a business says"coming soon" and then ten months later still has not opened, it's a town thing (that Amherst is so well noted for) getting in the way:  inspection services, permitting or zoning board issues.  But in this case it simply appears to be on the developers end, probably a lack of financing. 

After all, Peter Earle gave up a Gold's Gym franchise (to save money) and then went out of business as The Leading Edge Gym at that location, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding bills.   And then a couple years later went out of business as the Leading Edge Gym in Greenfield, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding debts.

Anyone sense a pattern here?

At least the Mass Attorney General did get involved over unpaid employee wages at the Amherst location and those debts were, finally, paid; but hundreds of consumers were left holding an empty gym bag and they were never reimbursed for lost memberships.

Back in the early 1980s, because of shoddy business practices like this, the state passed a consumer protection law requiring new fitness businesses to acquire an insurance bond to cover memberships in case they go out of business.

The law was never really enforced, but never repealed.

The final occupancy permit issued by Amherst to any new start up business has a boiler plate clause saying the operation will abide by all state and local laws.  The town could cite/enforce that consumer protection law before allowing Mr. Earle to open.  

Or at the very least, require him to make good on all the membership he previously defaulted on.

Lousy way to sell your used equipment

There He Goes Again

Larry Shaffer (far left) gets thumbs down from Jackson, Michigan City Council

UPDATE:  Friday afternoon.  Since the Jackson City Council clearly violated their Open Meeting Law to settle with Mr Shaffer (at his urging of course), just as the Amherst Select Board pushed the envelope two years ago, perhaps the $64,000 settlement will be thrown out by a judge.

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So it will come as little surprise to those in Amherst who were paying attention during the short reign of Town Mangler Larry Shaffer that he has once again suddenly decided to retire in the middle of his contract, taking with him--after only a year of service--a cushy $64,000 in taxpayer monies, almost exactly the same amount he absconded with from Amherst as he suddenly "took stock" of his life and decided to retire...at least until he found another job.

One of the weaknesses of the Mass Public Documents Law is exempting employee performance evaluations from exposure.  When Shaffer and the Amherst Select Board hatched his $62,000  severance package  they did so under the cloak of an "executive session" and even refused to take proper notes during that hour-and-twenty-minute closed door pow wow, summing up the entire meeting in just two sentences and redacting one of the two when responding to my request for the meeting minutes.

And now, two years later, the Jackson City Council has given Larry Shaffer a $64,000 going away present after meeting in a brief executive session. Furthermore the severance package contains a mutual "non disparage" clause to forever gag those public officials.

At the very least Larry Shaffer's two recent fiascos will be forever available via the web as a warning to the next community.  After all, a little transparency now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. (Note to readers: last line, borrowed from Thomas Jefferson, is sarcasm.)