Main Street Molasses

 Main Street Gauntlet

If you are heading all the way to the top of Pelham Hill from Amherst town center you now have to negotiate a new--yet another--road construction project that started today:  Resurfacing Main Street, which of course leads directly to Amherst Road.

And yes, Amherst Road is closed during weekday business hours for a sewer line construction project.

Warner Brothers won the bid for the Main Street renovation, and like almost all the projects around town it's expected to be completed by the end of the month.  The town is using Community Development Block Grant funds ($ from heaven) to pay for it.   

Meanwhile everyone keeps saying Atkins Corner second roundabout will be open for traffic by August 15.  But then town officials also said the War Memorial Pool would be open June 23rd, then June 30, then... stopped making predictions.

Let's hope this time they are correct.

Coffee Hiatus

 Dunkin' Donuts, College Street (Rt. 9)

UPDATE (Saturday morning):  Open for business already. The drive up anyway.  Too bad the state did not move this swiftly.

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Like almost everything else in Amherst the Dunkin' Donuts on College Street is under construction, although unlike the Hess Express in South Amherst (which has a Dunkin' satellite operation) they are closed until the job is complete, presumably by September when the population of Amherst about doubles.

The successful franchise opened ten years ago and was the first non bank related business in Amherst to utilize a drive up window.

Saturday morning 8/4/12

Ax The Tax

 Downtown Amherst commercial sector (try not to blink)

Now that the state has, finally, tweaked the Community Preservation Act to allow commercial real estate the same $100,000 exemption of valuation as regular homeowners , the Select Board should place the question on the ballot for the next election and allow the voters to make it so.

I've never been a big fan of the CPA simply because a) it's a tax b) public officials use it like manna from heaven and c) it discriminated against business by not allowing the same exemption given to homeowners.

The commercial sector in Amherst is infinitesimally small, representing only 10% of the tax base.   So the exemption is not going to cost the town greatly, only $7,000.  And those funds can be made up by redirecting money taken in via the local option hotel/meals tax, another burden on business that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

Downtown businesses have also just taken on an increase to their property tax rates to fund the fledgling Business Improvement District, so a little relief could not come at a better time.

Amherst has a well earned anti-business reputation. A symbolic gesture like this may not erase that scarlet letter...but it's a start.

NIMBY Knock Out?

 Ye Old Amherst (unlined) Landfill

Looks like the top two weapons in the NIMBY arsenal for disrupting the deal to bring a solar farm to ye old Amherst landfill may be scuttled by the Massachusetts state legislature.  The lawsuit citing an antiquated DEP deed restriction for keeping landfills free of any development except passive recreation could be swept aside by a new ordinance specifically freeing landfills from any such trivial outdated mandates.

And now the once all-powerful anti-development nuke known as Massachusetts Endangered Species Act may lose some of its Divine power to preserve, protect and coddle critters like the Grasshopper Sparrow who currently make their home on the grassy wide expanse covering the fermented, decayed garbage.

Apparently when it comes to renewable energy, our state legislators have seen the light.

At 4.75 mega watts, Amherst would be one of the state's largest

Lost Weekend

The last weekend in July proved to be as noteworthy crime wise as the first weekend in July, as in not very--which is of course a good thing.    Just the usual domestic problems, an overexposed homeless person , a skunk and bear invasion, and a couple of DUIs.

So I'm going to leave it up to you, my wise readers, to decide what is noteworthy in a news sort of way and what is not, as in "dog bites man."

Amherst (MA) Police Department media logs 7/29/12 through 7/30/12

Flame of Hope

APD Chief Livingstone (center) cheers the troops 

If your mother ever gave you the sound advice, "Don't run from the law..." why not make mom really proud and run WITH the law.  All for a great cause.  Special Olympics.

The Amherst Police Department will once again sponsor and participate--and invites us civilians to join them--in the Law Enforcement Torch Run relay, a three mile jaunt from APD headquaters in downtown Amherst to the UMass Southwest Towers on Saturday, August 11 starting at 7:10 PM .  It only cost $15 and the t-shirts alone are worth the price (not to mention the sterling company).

 

Amherst Police headquarters 111 Main Street

EVENT Info (click)

Meanwhile Amherst Fire Department Local 1764 took to the roads this morning under threatening skies for the 6th annual Motorcycle Muscular Dystrophy Association Poker Ride.

Goes to show Amherst is blessed with public safety personnel who go above and beyond the call of duty.

Malfunction Junction

 Malfunction Junction, Manchester, VT

If a roundabout or two is good enough for those common sense Yankee types who inhabit Manchester, Vermont, then I have high hopes for our own pair at Atkins Corner, now supposedly slated to open for traffic by August 15. 

Although it seems Amherst is well ahead of Manchester when it comes to construction speed.  Go figure.