More Hats Than A Haberdashery

 Larry Kelley, Amherst Town Meeting member, Precinct 5

So yes, I consider myself a digital first reporter who mostly uses Blogger as a publishing platform, although these days strongly supplemented by Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

Basic principals of journo are sacred:  Seek truth and report it -- especially when the powerful wish it kept secret -- mitigate harm to the innocent, and protect with your dying breath confidential sources.

But I can assure you other roles on occasion override my role as reporter.  For instance, if a tornado hit Crocker Farm School this morning my role as a Dad would come first should I be early on the scene.  As a matter of fact even if it was not the particular school my daughters attend, my initial actions would be to help rather than report.



Landlord Richard Gold who spoke against article #29 (Rental Registration Permit bylaw)  Monday night bitterly complained about my actions on the floor of Town Meeting and called into question my journalist ethics:

"As a so called reporter who chooses to sit in the front row designated for the press it is your obligation to keep your opinions to yourself and your mouth shut. Not to interrupt speakers so as to disrupt and discredit what they are saying. It was your voice alone that first objected to a portion of my speech."

First off, the moderator clearly states at the beginning of every town meeting the front row " may be used by members of the press or town staff" (with special ID showing they are "non voters") but does not suggest regular town meeting members should not sit there, as about a dozen usually do.

In fact I have been in that location for almost all my nearly 20 years as an Amherst Town Meeting member.

As to my "point of order" (which yes, a few savvy members of Town Meeting use as a weapon to distract speakers), I was invoking the Rule of Decorum that clearly states a speaker should "refrain from characterizing a member's motives or impugning the character of other members."

And as you can clearly see it was not long after that the moderator himself interrupted Mr. Gold for that very reason.  Twice.  So I think his real problem is what most people refer to as "sour grapes".

Over on the Town Meeting listserve Amherst landlord and ZBA member Hilda Greenbaum who was a staunch opponent of article #29 wrote: "Where were the unhappy folks last night against a well-oiled neighborhood? Everyone (including myself) seemed to be cowed by their persistence. "

Mr Gold also lamented "Most of my landlord colleagues were unhappy with Article 29 and it went beyond self-serving. In the end they turned out to be summer soldiers when it came time to speak out publicly."

After all the sound and fury leading up to the epic vote, it was almost anti-climactic.  Notice the somewhat stunned silence immediately after the resounding voice vote:

Voice vote was overwhelmingly in favor

The voice of experience

They're Back

 Amherst Rotary Town Fair getting ready for action

Ah yes, that brief period when Amherst town center is transformed back to a simpler time, before the University became a bustling big city -- bringing our small town with it.

When you could leave your doors unlocked at night, buy a hammer in the downtown, or when most families in town had milk delivered to their front porch.

The town has changed, children have not.  

Cut Off Nose To Spite Face

621 East Pleasant Street, Amherst aka "BabeTown"

So while the addition to the overgrown front yard is kind of cute -- after all, who does not like bear statues? -- I would guess it's the Bad Boys of BabeTown symbolically extending the middle finger to the town after recent repeated $100 citations for parking on the lawn.

Note van is also still parked on the lawn  

#####

UPDATE: Wednesday morning 

Gaudy sign gone

Van still parked on overgrown lawn

DUI Dishonor Roll

In 2010, 211 children were killed in drunk driving crashes

How can you tell UMass is no longer in session? Zero party house arrests or citations over the weekend.

How can you tell drunk driving is not predominantly a student issue? Four-out-of-five of this weekend's Dishonor Roll winners (and yes I still consider "thirsty Thursday" start of the weekend) are NOT students ... although two are UMass staff, not setting a very good example for students.

Although the one student among them, Chiara Rose Raponi, did distinguish and draw attention to herself by crashing her car with two occupants on board.

 

A Safer Healthier Amherst

Stephanie O'Keeffe, Select Board Chair and strong proponent  of Rental Permit Bylaw

While it was unseasonably hot outside the Amherst Regional Middle School, the auditorium where Amherst Town Meeting convenes was even hotter as the issue of the decade, perhaps a generation, Rental Registration Property Bylaw (permit system) came to a final head.

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, sounding like a clear two thirds majority. So decisive in fact that no one thought to call for a Tally Vote, since the measure only required a simply majority. 

With unanimous support of the Planning Board, Finance Committee, Select Board and Town Manager and more than a majority of speakers who addressed the issue from the floor, the discussion carried on for just over two hours.  A motion to refer back to the Select Board made by Town Meeting member and landlord Richard Gold failed miserably.

Landlord, lawyer and town officials wait in front row for possible call to speak

Another motion offered by Coalition of Amherst Neighborhoods to exempt owner occupied units from the new regulation also failed by a tally vote of 116-74.

Speakers against the ordinance cited costs ($100/year), constitutional issues (unreasonable search by town inspectors), and suggested Amherst is already known state wide for being over regulated.

But common sense won the day, by a very wide margin.  Not something you see all that often on the floor of Amherst Town Meeting. 

Now of course, the lawsuits begin.

Neighborhood Nuisance?

621 East Pleasant Street, aka "Babetown"

 Can you imagine living next door to a professional Party House, err ... I mean "Art House," that lives to play live music and occasionally skateboard on their half pipe in the back yard? 

"Hot Messy Sex".  Sorry I missed that one

These Bad Boys don't seem to get it.  A residential neighborhood is not zoned for an underground music venue.  Take a bow and get the Hell off the stage.  Or ... fade to black, dude.

Good question!

   Babetown Citations.  Nuisance House

May have to increase cover charge to cover all the tickets

Truth In Advertising

 Atkins Water Treatment Plant, Market Hill Road, Historic Cushman neighborhood

The YouTube video NIMBYs published trying to rally the masses against a private land deal in northeast Amherst is loaded with misinformation.



If they were a business and Amherst Town Meeting does follow their suggestion to steal property development rights via heavy handed eminent domain taking, they would be easy pickings for a lawsuit under Mass General Law 93A (Consumer Protection) for false advertising,  which allows for triple damages.

That of course would be on top of the $6.5 million total Amherst would eventually have to come up with to fulfill the "highest and best use" reimbursement provision for a hostile land taking.

Amherst, the #4 property owner in town,  already owns or permanently protects 27% of its land mass.  And when you factor in the other BIG THREE tax exempt landowners -- Amherst College, UMass and Hampshire College respectively -- a little over 50% of all land in town is tax exempt.

Cowls 154 acre tree farm off Henry Street is hardly "North Amherst's last remaining contiguous woodland."    In fact, Cowls owns 600 acres of forest in North Amherst and this particular tract has the least desirable ranking on the town's master list for land to be conserved.

Click to enlarge

 Salamander Tunnels only "priority area" in the entire parcel

Yes the Salamander Crossing is a beloved icon, a symbol of the town's respect for conservation and saving critters both great and small.  Which is exactly why Landmark Properties has promised to protect the crossing and move the main entry way for the development away from Henry Street over to Market Hill Road, where the non-historic Water Treatment Plant sits on the side a a rocky outcropping.

 Click to enlarge/read

Landmark Properties handout for Town Meeting

Cowls sold that land to the town for the treatment plant and as part of the deal the town installed infrastructure for a future development exactly like "The Retreat."

Perhaps the biggest mistruth is the absurd assertion that the development "Will threaten the Atkins Reservoir."  The land has town water/sewer!   Unlike a lot of the houses on Flat Hills Road and Shutesbury Road that have sprouted "Stop The Retreat" red signs like worms on a lawn after a summer drizzle.

Chairman Mao, err, I mean the narrator asks, "Shouldn’t all in Amherst be involved in deciding how to use this land?"  Well, no.  It's private land and this is not the People's Republic of China.

So no, No, NO!  You do not have a right to be "involved," if that involvement means stealing the property by eminent domain.