Party House Primer

Chief Livingstone

 
Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone paid a visit to the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday to educate them about "Nuisance House" enforcement -- an important component of Town Manager John Musante's Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods initiative.

First off the Chief dispelled the myth that police officers drive around in their patrol cars looking for parties.  "We need to have to have a complainant, a valid complainant to dispatch an officer to a disturbance".

Usually easy to find in the form of a neighbor losing the peaceful enjoyment of their home.

The Chief reports that APD responds to between 900 and 1,200 quality of life (noise/nuisance) complaints annually, with only a minority resulting in action by the responding officers, i.e. a $300 ticket or arrest for TBL violation (Town By Law).

But that percentage is going up:  In the most recent year about 20% of the overall responses resulted in tickets or arrests, whereas the previous year it was only 14%. 

A lot depends on "cooperation at the door".  Meaning when officers first arrive do the responsible tenants comply with requests to tone down the rowdy behavior.  If not, and other infractions besides noise -- underage drinking, large crowds, haphazard parking of cars, littering -- are disrupting the neighborhood, then "Nuisance House" tickets are issued,  or arrests made. 

The Zoning Board of Appeals is considering tying a Special Permit (to expand the rental capacity of a house, almost always made by an absentee landlord) to "conditions" that must be met in an ongoing way.

And becoming a "nuisance house" would violate a condition, and bring with it the loss of that Special Permit.

The house would then revert back to the original capacity of only 4 unrelated tenants, a major loss of rental revenue.

Amherst building commissioner Rob Morra recently won a major victory defending the town's no more than  4 unrelated tenants in a one family dwelling bylaw.  Prominent landlord Grandonico Properties, LLC packed students into rental property on Hobart Lane, including illegally converting substandard basements into bedrooms and then tried to blame it on the student occupants.

Simply fining the noisy party house participants has not solved the problem.  Chief Livingstone stated no landlord has been fined yet since it takes a third nuisance house ticket to trip that regulation, but he declared confidently "It's going to happen this Spring."

Currently two locations on Phillips Street have two nuisance house tickets each.

Phillips Street

A dozen years ago when Amherst led the charge on banning smoking in the workplace, including bars, fines alone (issued to the bar, not the patron) had minimal impact.  Only when faced with loss of their liquor license did barowners learn the value of compliance.

Revoke a Special Permit from a slumlord for too many noise violations, thereby instantly cutting their revenues in half, and that party house will quickly go quiet.  One way or the other ...

Chinese Outsourcing

 PVCICS

The grim budget news for Amherst Regional Public Schools just got a whole lot grimmer with the surprising -- to me anyway -- news that Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Chester is recommending the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter  School be allowed to expand, at but only at the high school level.

PVCIC was founded in 2007, and briefly did business in South Amherst.   The charter school has already absorbed 52 Amherst elementary students, up from 35 in 2010, out of their current total enrollment of 280.

The Chinese Charter school petitioned the state to allow them to more than double in enrollment to 684: 240 High School students and 444 elementary. Commissioner Chester is approving the expansion to High School which will increase enrollment by 284 students to a total of 584.

Charter schools have a financial incentive to raid the public schools in the area with a higher funding, like Amherst, because they receives from the state the per student average cost of the sending district.

Thus it is far more lucrative to acquire a student from Amherst elementary system at $17,116 in profit than, say, Hadley at only $9,770, which is well below the state average of $13,361.

And now that PVCIC will also expand fully to a High School, how many of the 1,533 Amherst Regional High School students will they steal appropriate away at $17,916 per head?

Ironically the current Chinese charter school leadership, founders Principal Kathy Wang and Executive Director Rich Alcorn (who are married), originally offered the language program lock, stock and barrel to the Amherst public schools, but they were turned down. 

"...here for our kids"

Kathy Mazur (left) In the Hot Seat 

While they may not have carried pitchforks and torches, sixteen concerned parents showed up to voice their strong concerns this morning at a coffee hour with rookie Amherst School Committee member Amilcar Shabazz, who is also the parent of a Crocker Farm second grader.

But the session became more of a give-and-take with Superintendent Maria Geryk's right hand person, Director of Human Resources Kathy Mazur, who found herself defending the budget decisions of the MIA Superintendent.

One major complaint was the decision to promote former Crocker Farm Principal Mike Morris to Director of Teacher Evaluations and moving him to "Central Office," not that anyone was complaining about the job currently being done by co-Principals Deryk Shea and Anne Marie Foley.


 Co-Principal Derek Shea at Crocker Farm concert

To which Mr. Shabazz responded, "Crocker Farm took a hit and that has not been acknowledged by the Superintendent (Maria Geryk)"

Amherst School Committee member Amilcar Shabazz also UMass Du Bois Professor of Afro-American Studies

The move to Central Office by Morris also sank the idea of turning Crocker Farm into an "innovation school."

EJ Mills questions an $80,000 Grant Writer

Amherst has a reputation for being top heavy with administrators so it was only natural the new budget proposal, which calls for two additional administrators in Central Office but cuts teachers and para professionals, would be controversial.  

At $17, 916 Amherst has one of the highest costs per student in the state  (compared to neighboring Hadley at $9,770) and an "administration" cost per pupil 65% higher than state average.

 

Amherst Schools by the (state) numbers

The Cover Up Continues

In his FY14 budget Letter of Transmittal to his bosses the Select Board, Town Manager John Musante writes, "The 9-hole Cherry Hill Golf Course budget increases by $2,465 (+1%). In addition to offering one of the best values in Western Massachusetts it will expand its winter programming as well as introduce a disc golf program. The golf course will cover its operating and employee benefits costs entirely from user fees."

Hmm ... maybe the Town Manager needs to look up the definition of "entirely".

First of all, according to his own figures, the $2,465 increase is a 1.6% increase over last year's budget, so it would be more correct to round up to 2% rather than down to 1%.

Second of all, according to his own figures, the golf course is "projected" to intake $268,000 against semi-total expenditures of  $277,629  ($240,100 operating and $37,529 employee benefits).  In the red by almost $10,000 or $9,629 to be exact.  Thus the user fees do not entirely cover overhead.

Now I use the term "semi-total expenditures" because those two overhead costs combined leave out one other important cost of doing business in the expensive world of golf:  capital equipment. 

And in FY14 that comes to another $26,654 in lease payments on two mowers, or a grand total of $304,283 against an overly optimist projection of $268,000 in revenues, or a loss of $36,283.

Of course the real problem is the Golf Course will not take in $268,000.  In FY12 , for example, they were "projected" to intake -- guess what? -- $268,000.   But, according to the Town Manager's figures, only managed $242,569.

That year total expenditures with employee benefits and capital came to $283,106 for a loss of over $40,000 or $40,537 to be exact.

Interestingly last year the capital request spreadsheet for the golf course showed a projected total of $135,654 in FY14, the two movers plus $24,000 for a fence and $85,000 for parking lot resurfacing. 

Last year's Cherry Hill five year plan

Those two expensive items have simply been shuffled into the near future along with another BIG ticket $60,000 item, Irrigation Pond Dredging.

Even by fudging the figures Cherry Hill does not "cover its operating and employee benefits cost." And the expensive capital items -- entirely paid for by taxpayers rather than "user fees" -- over the next five years average $50,000 annually.
   

And that alone would cover the cost of one badly needed police officer or firefighter. 
  

This year's five year plan

Voting In The Digital Age

Town Clerk Sandra Burgess, center 

The nail biting time for election candidates their supporters and the media -- usually starting as soon as the polls close at 8:00 PM -- could be reduced if Amherst Town Clerk Sandra Burgess gets her lone capital item wish.

Ms. Burgess made her obligatory appearance this morning before the Joint Capital Planning Committee, the initial gatekeepers for all capital items purchased across all town departments for Fiscal Year 2014, starting July 1st.

The JCPC simply makes recommendations to Town Meeting, who holds the ultimate granting authority,  but a negative recommendation is the kiss of death.

Ms. Burgess made a modest proposal, only $8,850 for a GEMS computerized voting tabulator system that includes a (Dell) laptop , software, licensing and comes with a two year warranty.

The system would speed up the 10 precinct tally on voting night thus speeding up the breaking news of who won what position.  Equally important, the new system would also improve accuracy.

The results would still be "unofficial," however, as write ins and provisional ballots are  counted by hand the next day. Each election would cost an additional $175 in programming.  Average election cost in Amherst is around $14,000.

JCPC is using a target of 7% of the overall town budget as a spending guide, but not necessarily in a uniform manner across all departments.

The Town Clerk's operation budget for FY14 is $190,153 so a 7% share would come to $13,310, thus this request is well under her theoretical ceiling. 

The Town Clerk closed her presentation saying this system represents "The final step ... It would bring it all together for us."

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

DPW digs away at large pile of snow in front of Town Hall today

What's in a name?

Town Manager Musante, SB Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe, Pat Kamins at yesterday's meeting

"Permit," "license," or "business certificate" -- call it what you will, but the success of the much needed rental housing bylaw coming out of the endless meetings of the 'Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods' working group comes down to that simple concept.

Rental registration and licensing go together like auto registration and licensing.  Can you imagine the problems if anyone, regardless of license, could drive a car simply because the vehicle was properly registered?

Member Pat Kamins (a mid-sized local landlord) sarcastically asks his fellow members to think about businesses in Amherst "that require licenses or permits that can be revoked if their customers act inappropriately."

Well first of all, think about all the businesses that are not in Amherst because their customers could act inappropriately:  Strip bars, porn shops, head shops, etc. 

In fact, the Board of Health crushed the 'Smoking Ban in Bars Revolt' (by the more rowdy bars) a dozen years ago by threatening to revoke food handling permits for not enforcing the smoking ban.  Since alcohol licenses are tied to food handling permits, the bars quickly caved.

The rest, as they say, is history.  And the town is immeasurably better for it.

 
Crowd of 20 showed up for last night's meeting Safe & Health Neighborhoods working group