Bring On The Consultants

 

Chancellor Subbaswamy addresses Amherst Town Meeting

If the goal of the $60,000 joint Town/Gown study is to enhance relations between the town of Amherst, founded 1759, and our largest employer UMass/Amherst, founded 1863, then we can save ourselves a lot of money as Chancellor Subbaswamy's nearly ten minute speech before Amherst Town Meeting already accomplished that.

Schmoozing with town officials just prior to town meeting start

But the real goal is to enhance relations between the town citizenry and UMass students, and that's going to take some work.  And you don't build something solid and workable without planning.

The motion to spend $60,000 for the joint study, split evenly between UMass and the town, easily passed  by a recorded tally vote 122-46.

 UMass & Town officials huddle during tally vote count

The overwhelming nature of the vote sends a positive signal about the most controversial and most important article of this entire town meeting -- probably in a generation -- Article #29, Residential Rental Property Bylaw, which brings a permit system to the lucrative rental business.

A market driven by the presence of so very many students.  That article comes up May 20.

Turning Up The Heat

11 Phillips Street (this morning)

Some of you may remember 11 Phillips Street as the house busted last fall by APD for hosting an underground bar as well as cramming 14 students into living quarters only zoned for four.  Kind of a BIG difference wouldn't you say?

Well our Building Commissioner certainly thought so, and hit owner Stephan Gharabegian with a $100/day fine, racking up a $2,400 tab before coming into compliance.  Better late than never.

 Stephan Gharabegian, yesterday, Amherst landfill.  A regular one man band

   Amherst Landlord Surrenders

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DUI Dishonor Roll

Every day in America, another 27 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes

While incidents of Party House revelry will, mercifully, decrease rather dramatically over the next three months now that our #1 industry is on hiatus, the more dangerous by-product of alcohol abuse, drunk driving, will probably not let up all that much. Sadly.

For instance, neither of this past weekend's arrested "college aged youth" show up in UMass, Hampshire or Amherst College people search, although they could very well be friends who came to visit a student.

 If I had to pick a clear cut winner between the two, it would easily be Briana Howell.

Click to enlarge

McMurphy's 1:20 AM early Sunday

 Even though she was bagged at 1:23 AM, the location at East Pleasant/Chestnut Streets means she just drove through town center, and oddly enough at that time the town was packed with kids getting out of the bars and waiting for their $1 slice of pizza at the best little pizza shop in the state, Antonio's.

Antonio's 1:18 AM early Sunday

But Kurt Russavage would still be a close second, since his time of arrest was 11:14 PM on a Friday night ... when even us old  fogies might still be on the road.

School Daze

 Amherst School Committee in the hot seat

While not exactly hostile last night -- and Town Meeting can be pretty hostile on occasion -- the questions from the floor about our Sacred Cow schools were a tad more probing than in years past.  Transparency is a good, although sometimes painful, thing. 

Declining enrollments are a major contributor to stress on a system that, like a big old aircraft carrier, was designed to carry a l-a-r-g-e population.

Is the decline simply a byproduct of a lower birth rate or consumers choosing alternative means of education like Charter Schools, School Choice or Homeschooling?  Because this is after all America, which was built on competition.

Interestingly School Superintendent Maria Geryk did acknowledge the rather obvious fact that Amherst "Is an expensive place to live," so perhaps families with children simply cannot afford to live here.  Thus we end up with single family homes converted to (college) student rooming houses.

And most college-aged youth do not have school-aged children.

Since the schools account for $50 million -- the lions share -- of our $68 million dollar municipal budget they alone are the number one factor pushing our tax rate to almost twice that of neighboring Hadley: In 2011 average cost of education at elementary level in Amherst, with a property tax rate of $20.39/$1000, was $17,116 vs Hadley, with a tax rate of $10.22/$1000 at $9,770 per child.

The budget Town Meeting passed last night for the elementary schools works out to a whopping $19,563 average cost per child to educate, so things are certainly not moving in the right direction

Hadley is home base to the Amherst elementary school's number one competitor,  the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, which currently has 54 Amherst children as customers.  Since Charter Schools receive revenues based on the "sending district" average cost per child, it's far more lucrative to attract an Amherst student than it is one from Hadley.

Kind of like UMass/Amherst now targeting more "out of state" students because the revenues are higher than in state students and UMass gets to keep the money rather than passing it through to the bloated bureaucracy in Boston. 

Currently the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School is the #1 competitor for Amherst Regional High School, attracting the vast majority of 67 regional children who attend charter schools at the expense of the Amherst Region.

But the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School has been granted permission to e-x-p-a-n-d through high school starting in September thus becoming a potential Death Star for our entire K-12 system.

Time to innovate!

Rescue Me

 Note front wheels off the ground

When the Genie lift he was using shifted slightly on uneven ground, a safety switch kicked in to shut off the machine and left the construction worker stranded 40 feet in the air.  Amherst Fire Department came to the rescue with aerial platform trucks otherwise known as ladder trucks.

 

Ladder 1 getting ready

UMass is overhauling the large water tank (the town owns the smaller one next to it) including new paint, to the tune of $1 million dollars.  Amherst sent out a notice to consumers just this morning informing them of the project and mentioning that they may experience some discoloration in their tap water.

Aerial platform gets up close and personal

And he's climbing the stairway ...

 

AFD Ladder 1 and Engine 2 (the quint) under angry skies

Speed Jump

Country Road, take me home ... 

One of my sagacious readers who drives daily through North Amherst (not to be confused with the Historic Village of Cushman) wonders why the speed limit sign I photographed last month laying on its side in front of Watroba's, a victim of vandalism, has now been replaced with a new one at a much higher speed limit?



Turns out the DPW is now trying to replace signs with what the venerable Amherst Select Board actually approved, and way back when -- for this particular road -- it was 45 MPH.  But at some point that one was replaced, and the only one available at the time was a 30 MPH, so they went with it. 

The Select Board never actually voted 30 MPH thus the new one is now back to what apparently it always should have been,  45 MPH. Although the nearest sign facing the other direction is still 30 MPH.

Neighbors, however, who walk that stretch of road like the idea of 30 MPH a lot better than 45 MPH.  Or as Simon and Garfunkel once observed, "Slow down, you move to fast ..."