Wield a Big Stick

Even the diffident Amherst Bulletin has, after all these years, finally gotten it!

About the only thing missing in today's scorching editorial is an illustration borrowed from Vlad the Impaler with students heads on display at the former Frat Row -- the main gateway to UMass, and with streets like Fearing, Phillips and Lincoln Avenue, Ground Zero for rowdy, unsocial, dangerous out-of-control partying (like it's 1999).

As we discovered on 9/11 with the horrific destruction of the Twin Towers or the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi 4 days in to a grueling 31 day battle, symbols are vitally important in war.

The bucolic -- some would say bumpkin -- college town of Amherst, named after a British general, and the flagship of higher education in a state renowned for academia, UMass/Amherst, need to declare war on rowdy student parties.

And they both need to stop taking prisoners!

Achilles Heel

 New Cisco emitters await being installed on streetlights in the town center

The public WiFi overhaul bringing downtown Amherst a stronger more reliable system has potentially one minor problem with reliability (actually kind of major):  a power failure like the one we experienced almost a year ago on Halloween weekend will take out most of the system, as the vast majority of the 24 new emitters are still tied into the street lights for power.

Note huge spike in traffic to town website seeking info immediately after storm 

Last year, because the main router is located in Town Hall and the municipal seat of government had no generator, the entire system went down lock, stock and bandwidth.  Although the town website did stay up the entire time since the servers for our presence on the Web are located in Holyoke in one of the few areas unaffected by the storm. 

A new $85,000 generator is being installed soon, but will only cover the building itself and not any of the adjacent street lights.   

The Police station and Central Fire Station have generators and are being outfitted with the new Cisco emitters, as will Town Hall.   So if we do experience another major prolonged power outage, those three buildings will attract us smart phones and tablets addicts like insects to a bright light on a hot summer night.

The Shadow Knows!

 "Who Knows What Evil Lurks In the Hearts of Men ..."

So if I really were a Fox News fanatical parrot, I would now be squawking about this morning's above the fold front page photo appearing in my favorite Massachusetts newspaper, 7th largest in the state, The Republican.

Besides being a lousy photo -- especially for the AP -- one could Tweet that they decapitated the guy standing in for Mitt Romney.  Not only that, but the shadow they so "artfully" wish to highlight looks like it's giving a Nazi salute (from a Nazi who lost his right arm in combat).  Yikes!

Anyone remember when Time magazine artfully photoshopped a cover pic of O.J. Simpson to make him look more sinister?  Or speaking of Fox News, the "bombshell" video they are currently playing that makes the president seem at tad too, err, black.

In politics this is called the "muddy season".  And for a good reason.  I just expect a little more from the AP (or Time Magazine, if they are still in business).

Online version (interesting fair-and-balanced pic of the President)

The Little School That Could

 Old School indeed

Forty years ago when I was at St Michael's High School suffering discipline at the wrinkled hands of scary nuns you could learn a lot about another school from their basketball team.  Back then Hopkins Acadamy was a winner.

So it comes as no surprise that they hold up well when compared academically to the paragon of education in the Happy Valley, Amherst Regional High School.  According to SchoolDigger.com, using the new MCAS scores just announced, ARHS has a rating of 123 out of 325 or top 38% in the state.  Hopkins Academy on the other hand has a ranking of 94/325 or top 29%

But the astounding difference is in the financial component of each operation.  According the Mass Dept of Education website, Amherst is in the top 11% statewide for costs per student at $17,916 while our neighbors in Hadley manage to run their schools coming  in at the bottom 1% for costs, or $9,770  per student.

Thus Hadley educates its 301 middle and high schools students for a cost savings of $2,508,233 had they been enrolled in the ARHS and ARMS.  Of course one telling difference is Hadley only has one administrator making over $85K and the Amherst Region has over 20.

Yes, Hadley has less of a minority population and a much higher percentage of home ownership (three quarters vs Amherst's one half).  But they still have farms, like they did 40 years ago, so kids can learn the value of hard work.  And that is priceless.

Tale of the Tape according to US News:

Hopkins Academy

Amherst Regional High School

Cat On A Cool Stone Wall

Party House of the Weekend

 1107 North Pleasant Street, Amherst

In addition to being assaulted with cans, bottles and pepper spray this past weekend, responding Amherst police officers also had to dodge beer poured from the second story of this humble abode just north of campus.

Yes, 1107 North Pleasant street is a repeat offender although the cars in the driveway are different from last year, so probably the perps are also different. Maybe the house is haunted and makes denizens act that way, or perhaps the landlord is lousy at screenting tenants.

Arrested late Friday night for Resisting Arrest and Underage Drinking:

Kyle Edward Darosa, 106 Edgement, Braintree, MA, age 19 (UMass student)

Arrested for Noise and Nuisance House:

Bryan Gudewich, 31 Meadow St, Lowell, MA,  age 21, (UMass student)
Adam Harrington, 21 Michael Ave,  Nashua, NH, age 21, (UMass student)
John Bulman, 7 Laurel Lane, Tyngsborough, MA, age 22, (UMass student)
William Collins, 9 Winter St, Tyngsborough, MA, age 21, (UMass student)

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Another busy weekend for AFD with alcohol or drug overdoses (ETOH) and false alarms from UMass Frats 

AFD Weekend Run Summary 9-28-2012

Let's get Physical

 45 Phillips Street

Student rowdyism escalated yet another notch late last night as Amherst Police officers had to physically defend themselves against combative college aged youth jet-fueled by alcohol, a danger to innocent bystanders, first responders and themselves.

Last week two drunk students unabashedly fighting in a downtown restaurant got physical with a female Amherst police officer who was attempting to break it up, and early this morning the violent response to APD officers continued unabated.

Around 12:30 AM an officer noticed a disturbance at 45 Phillips Street with about 20-30 males on the front porch yelling and throwing punches at each other.  In trying to break up the melee one of the perps "attempted to free his friend" from the cops hold and had to be pinned against a fence and placed under arrest.:


Officers later cited the house, owned by Stephan Gharabegian, with a $300 ticket for violation of the town's Nuisance House Bylaw.

Arrested for Disorderly Conduct and possession of liquor under age 21:

Kevin John Defusco, 5 Depot Road, Westford, MA, age 19  (UMass student)

Gilreath Manor, Hobart Lane 

 Around 2:00 AM police were called to Hobart Lane apartment #26 Gilreath Manor for reports of a fight involving ten individuals.  In breaking up the disturbance an officer was hit with pepper spray and required a response from AFD to rinse his eyes.

Arrested for Assault & Battery on a police officer, A&B with a dangerous weapon (pepper spray), Resisting Arrest, and Disorderly Conduct:

James M Robinson, 10 Truman Circle, Springfield, MA, age 19   (UMass student)

Around 2:45 AM police responded to 15/17 Fearing Street for reports of a "highly ETOH" (drunk) individual "throwing bottles at people."

 15 Fearing Street    (managed by Kendrick Management)

The responding officer was greeted by a dozen young men on the front porch who stated Jonathan Jacobs was "going crazy," throwing bottles and other items at them.  Due to his violent behavior they had evacuated the house.  Jacobs was located in his upstairs room but immediately became combative, assaulting one officer with his shoulder and knocking over another.  At APD headquarters he refused to identify himself and was held on $2,500 bail.

Arrested for Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (bottles), Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest, A & B on a police officer:

Jonathan Daniel Jacobs, 225 Maryann Way, North Attleborough, MA, age 22  (UMass student)

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Meanwhile around 1:15 AM police responded to a report of a motor vehicle crash on Mattoon Street near Amherst Regional High School.  The driver reported swerving to avoid a pedestrian and lost control because of the "wet roads", but an eyewitness had another different version not involving a pedestrian.  The driver was given a field sobriety test and failed. 

Arrested for OUI Liquor and Marked Lanes Violation:

Daniel T. Kearney, 21 Wing Rd, Lynnfield, MA, age 21  (UMass student)

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Sadly, at 1:43 AM, UMass police, APD and AFD responded to a male who fell and hit his head near the Newman Center, UMass.  The first officer on the scene reported the male was on the ground surrounded by friends who confirmed he "had been drinking" and suddenly collapsed, hitting his head.  

AFD transported the unconscious young man to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where he is reported to be on a breathing machine in the Critical Care Unit.

UPDATE (Monday afternoon): The young man was released from the hospital Sunday at 2:30 PM.  Let's hope he learned a lesson.