Nasty NIMBYs

 

Cowls Tree Farm:  "Respectful visits welcome"

It's certainly one thing to mount a protest campaign including lawn signs, newspaper columns, and vocal gatherings at public meetings -- something I applaud -- but another thing altogether to deviate into criminal activity.  And I consider vandalism criminal.  As does the law.

Last week someone defaced a wall in the bathrooms at Cowls Building Supply in North Amherst with the graffiti "Leave Cushman Alone!" Sort of betrays that it was politically motivated.

Cowls Building Supply

Also last week members of the  "Save Historic Cushman" group filed a complaint with state and local authorities over logging practices at the forest off Henry Street Cowls wishes to sell to a developer for student housing.

On Monday the Amherst Conservation Commission and state Department of Conservation and Recreation toured the site and found nothing major amiss. 

Amherst Conservation Commission and State officials on site

Which comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the 9th generation Cowls family,  the largest private landowners in the state and tree huggers since before the term was invented.

Just as it only takes a tiny minority of irresponsible party hardy students to give all students in town a bad name, so it is with activist groups.  Ironically the Save Historic Cushman folks are worried about rowdy student behavior and yet one or two of them are putting on an equally pernicious performance.

And since bad things often comes in three's:  At the Amherst Sustainability Festival Saturday on the Town Common a young conservation minded female working at the W.D. Cowls, Inc tent handing out free seedlings was verbally accosted by an older woman who represented herself as a member of Save Historic Cushman.

Including the mean barb, "You want the woods to look as ugly as you are," which sent her sobbing to the safety of her car.

Also on Saturday afternoon AFD responded to a brush fire along the cleared area just above Henry Street, far enough away so it could not have been sparks or a cigarette thrown from a passing vehicle.

First responders thought it was human activity that caused the fire, as in a party bonfire. But now I wonder:

Would someone take this hot button issue to an extreme, fighting fire with fire?

 

AFD Henry Street brush fire Saturday 2:45 PM

Henry Street Fire

DUI Dishonor Roll

 

 36% of all traffic deaths in Massachusetts are DUI-related 

Lucky thing you were not using the crosswalk on E Pleasant Street early Saturday morning or you may have run into Cecilia Jean Jensen -- or, more likely, she could have run into you.

(Repeat) Party House of the Weekend

 1190 North Pleasant Street, Saturday afternoon

With the official inauguration of UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, SoccerFest, Amherst's Sustainability Festival, events at Amherst College and the Ice Stars for Warriors event at the Mullins Center, our quaint little college town was in overdrive this past weekend.

As was revelry of the obnoxious kind. 

 

APD heading toward N Amherst bus stop for throng of students acting up

 

APD swoops in to suggest students get off the roof of former Watroba's

In all, Amherst Police made 38 arrests!  All but two for rowdy activity fueled by alcohol:  13 for noise  at numerous party houses, 13 for open container or underage drinking, 7 for "disorderly conduct" and one for DUI.

First up, the Bad Boys at  62 Summer Street -- all six of them!  

Arrested for noise violations Saturday night around 11:00 PM:

#####

220 North East St, Amherst

Next up, and about an hour later  (midnight Saturday) but in another part of town, 220 North East Street:

owned, naturally, by an LLC. 

 

Late Friday night into early Saturday morning Towne House Apartments --  #87 in particular -- was once again the scene of a large enough party to attract a police response. And four arrests:

 #####

Alpha Tau Gamma, 118 Sunset Avenue

And of course what would a rowdy weekend be without some assist from a Frat: Alpha Tau Gamma, where an outdoor party was warned by APD Saturday at 1:00 PM and again at 5:00 PM.   Still, in the early morning hours of Sunday, one overly combative Jacob Scott Dennis, 15 Aztec Way, Sharon, MA, age 22, was arrested for Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest and Simple Assault. 

The Hobart Hoedown failed to materialize (stationing a cruiser at the entrance to the complex helps) but an altercation did occur at 51 Hobart Lane 2:30 AM Sunday morning with police arresting perps for Disorderly Conduct:

Dominick M Ferrante, 88 Old Greenfield Road, Shelburne Falls, MA, age 21 and Tyson Dowdy, 4 Chapman, Greenfield, Ma, age 23

Once again a ubiquitous police presence -- UMPD, APD and State PD -- managed to keep a lid on any major disturbances, although if you are a neighbor to any of these cited party locations, not much consolation.

 

State Police K9 unit responds to disturbance near Old Towne Tavern

Mullins Center Command

 Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ...

Once again local fire departments successfully came together in mutual aid to work as a team, only this time fire or carnage of any kind was not involved.

Using Ladder 1 from AFD, a really big flag from NFD  and a lot of coordination from UMass Campus Safety and Fire Prevention Department, Old Glory was proudly raised high above the Mullins Center for the fantastic benefit show, Ice Stars for Wounded Warriors, held this past weekend.

Giving good reason for crowds to cheer -- even before getting into the venue.

Photos courtesy Ed Mientka

Titans Times Two

Stan Ziomek "Mr. Baseball"

One ran the Amherst DPW for 40 years, where he worked with less than pleasant materials daily, where multi-million dollar projects going right could be offset by a nickel-and-dime pothole repair going wrong;  while the other ran Amherst Town Meeting for 19 years, where bread-and-butter local issues can take a back seat to national and international affairs.

And everyone wants to have their say, about everything.

 

Amherst went all out in town center for Stan Ziomek Day

Saturday was "Stan Ziomek Day" here in Amherst, and the gorgeous spring day culminated in a gala reception in his honor at the glamorous Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Hadley.  The hall was packed with town and UMass officials, sports enthusiasts and just plain salt of the earth folks.  

Harrison Gregg, keeping control

My tenure in Town Meeting spanned about three quarters of Harrison Gregg's time as moderator.  And while I never saw him as "the enemy" the competitor in me viewed him as an obstacle to overcome.  So we kind of went at it like Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.  I of course was the confederate.

But I never thought he was willfully unfair or capable of anything underhanded.  His love for the institution of Town Meeting could match General Grant or President Lincoln's love for the Union.

And THAT, I always find worthy of salute.

The Morning After ...

166 College Street, Amherst

166 College Street, parking

263 College Street, Amherst

26 Allen Street, Amherst

 

45 Phillips Street, Amherst

27/29 Phillips Street, Amherst

19/21 Hobart Lane, Amherst

Jesse James Rides Again

The only thing worse than a starving artist is a crispy dead artist.

Today the Gazette picks up and runs with a story I broke over three weeks ago about an underground music venue in an old time traditional middle class neighborhood in South Amherst.  The above-the-fold article is a cross between what traditional journalists would brand a "puff piece" and flat out girlish romanticism.

Because at no point does the lengthy article consider the major public safety concern about these pack them in underground late night commercial ventures:  fire safety.  In the past year Amherst has had two basement fires in student rental properties that violate zoning law with overcrowded illegal bedrooms.

Either of them could have been a tragic replay of February 17, 1991. 

And these non profit commercial ventures, which can pack up to 250 people in a low ceiling basement designed for nothing but storage, could easily become a tragic replay of the Station Nightclub fire February 20, 2003.

Consider this quote from the Gazette:  "It was a lot of fun.  A packed, sweaty basement where it's hard to move around makes for the best shows."  That's what they thought in Brazil, until ...

Coincidentally -- or maybe not -- last night around 11:00 PM Amherst Police cited for noise violations due to a band one of the houses mentioned in the lead paragraph:  Babetown.  Yes you would think a hip, young successful female reporter would you know, comment on that, but hey it's the Gazette.

And these particular bad boys are repeat offenders.  Twice last month they were warned for noise, not to mention the tickets from last year.

 

621 East Pleasant Street, Amherst:  BABETOWN Yeah the band can park on the lawn

A few weeks ago the boys at Dad City held a fundraiser concert at UMass to help cover the $1,800 in fines slapped on them by the Amherst Police.  Which kind of underscores the solution to this "problem" of not having a place to stage these hip, underground concerts.

Or could it be that half the allure is simply that they are "underground"?

And why would a commercial above-ground business like Iron Horse want to open in Amherst if they have to compete with these undergound operations that charge little or nothing?

Kind of hard to compete with free, especially when your overhead costs for insurance, rent, advertising and the occasional inspection from Amherst Fire Department needs to be covered.  Kind of like why print newspapers are on death row: they can't compete with free social media, blogs, and all-digital hyper-local news websites.

Rather than encouraging irresponsible behavior the Gazette needs to remember a simple journo prime directive, borrowed from the Hippocratic oath:  Above all else, do no harm.