Hiding In Plain Sight

Amherst Town Meeting Bus Tour under fire 

A "whistleblower" Amherst resident has filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the Attorney General over the Town Meeting Bus Tour, where members go on site visits to places around town impacted by articles on the upcoming Town Meeting warrant.

Fair enough.  A good reporter should wear out a lot of shoes canvasing the scene of a story.  But in this case the complaint is not that a secret meeting took place -- after all the bus tour is widely promoted -- but that documents distributed on the tour were not placed into the public record.

And by the sounds of it, the documents in question were a tad fudged.  Maybe that's why they suddenly disappeared. 

The Town Meeting Coordinating Committee is taking up discussion of this later this afternoon as the Open Meeting Law requires the offending committee must be allowed to respond first.  If the complainant doesn't like their response he can then retake it up with the Attorney General.

Interestingly Town Meeting is exempt from many Open Meeting Law regulations -- conflict of interest being a major one.  The town meeting discussion list serve, privately owned by member Mary Streeter (who is also vice chair of the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee), is another good example.

It would be a gross violation of the OML if a majority of the Amherst Select Board engaged in discussions via email about any issue coming before them.

Yet the Amherst Town Meeting list serve was specifically created to do exactly that, and as of today has 208 members, W-A-Y beyond a quorum (128).

   Amherst Town Meeting OML Complaint

Weeds Grow In South Amherst

The two roundabouts at Atkins Corner are already going to seed.  Hey, what do you expect for a lousy $6 million.

The property is still in that netherworld where the contractor -- Baltazar Contractors Inc -- is finishing up a "punch list" of final details before the state Department Of Transportation accepts the work and then turns over responsibility of the turf to the town.

I'm told town officials are hoping Atkins Country Market and Hampshire College "adopt" the islands of green space.  After all, it is their front yard.

Town Hall Showdown

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign ...

On Wednesday night the Amherst Planning Board will be the first official town body to weigh in on the possible acquisition of 154 acres of sub prime woodland in northeast Amherst currently owned by W.D. Cowls, Inc, the largest private landowner in the state.

The property is enrolled in the state's Chapter 61A conservation program so it pays very little to the town in property taxes, but Amherst gets a "Right Of First Refusal" should the property come out of CH61A due to a sale.  In this case to a developer.  A b-i-g one, Landmark Properties.
 
By now any of you living within the Happy Valley nuclear fallout zone have noticed the ubiquitous red stop signs sprinkled on lawns everywhere.  The Retreat is what they wish to stop, a 190 unit student cottage style housing development proposed for the 154 acre parcel.

Although ideally, with a zoning change allowing denser development, only 30% of the property will be used; but as it now stands twice that percentage would be required ... and is allowed by right.

If built, the town assessor has guestimated The Retreat will pay the town $395,182 per year in annual property taxes with a guaranteed increase every year of 2.5%.

NIMBYs were already unceremoniously torpedoed at Amherst Town Meeting when they tried to have the town take the property by eminent domain, a drastic measure requiring a two-thirds super majority.  The "Motion to Dismiss" the article passed easily. 

Both the Planning Board and Conservation Commission are required to make a "recommendation" to the five-member Amherst Select Board, the final authority on deciding the Right Of First Refusal.

Late this afternoon the Town Attorney confirmed to the Select Board that the $6.5 million purchase and sale agreement for the property was legitimate.

Thus the ROFR will be a costly one, as the $6.5 million required to match Landmark Properties offer is more than the combined reserves the town has saved in Free Cash and Stabilization funds.

The Select Board vote (July 29th meeting) only requires a simple majority, but Town Meeting would also have to support funding the move with a two-thirds majority vote. 

Wednesday night's meeting sets the stage for a (remotely) possible epic failure.  Any member of the Planning Board who recommends this taking should be forced to write on a chalkboard 6.5 million times:  "America was founded on Free Enterprise."

Water, Water Everywhere

 

The town has issued a breaking news alert, unusual in that it really is breaking news, warning of bad things found in Amherst water.  No they have not issued a "boil water" alert, and the problem seems to be isolated to a small section of the system in the southern end of town.

DPW Chief Guilford Mooring confirms, "The heat (weather) is a factor and we will probably have to chlorinate the south side of Town for a while."  But he also pointed out reassuringly, "We had very low counts of total coliform colonies in the failed samples."

Back in late October, 2010 the public water tested worse than this time around and the town came within a drop of declaring a "boil water" alert.  At the time UMass was hosting a pair of sold out Phish concerts at the Mullins Center.

The town fired up its Emergency Operations Command to deal with the potential crisis, but follow up tests showed the problem went away.

DUI Dishonor Roll

 South Pleasant Street, Amherst

I sense a pattern with a lot of the DUI arrests made by Amherst Police:  the perp usually draws attention by failing to perform routine driving tasks in a routine manner:  forgetting to signal a turn or turn on headlights, driving too fast or too slow or, of course, crashing into another vehicle.

The latter is the one I'm most concerned with.  Especially in this case, as April Lachapelle was bagged a few hundred yards from my house on one of the most well-traveled roads in Amherst.

7/13 Saturday morning (1:17 AM) 365 South Pleasant Street near golf course (also known as Rt 116)

Final Curtain

 316 College Street, Amherst

After 28 years serving families of Amherst and surrounding towns, the New England Dance Quarters on College Street is no more.

Summers are always tough in Amherst, a "college town" where almost half the population abandons ship by June 1st.

And this time of year is especial tough on high-energy fitness related businesses as most folks do not want to be indoors dancing up a storm on a gorgeous summer day.

I also have to wonder if the declining target demographic -- young families with children -- isn't also a major factor:

According to the Amherst Housing Production Plan, "Young families are rapidly declining as adults age 25 to 44 decreased from 7,323 in 1990 to 4,009 in 2010 a drop of 45.3%. The widening affordability gap will continue to present a substantial obstacle to young families being able to live in Amherst."

Meanwhile, two doors down:

Come A Little Bit Closer

 Lavina and Emily Dickinson:  still together

Fans of our most famous town resident -- "The Belle Of Amherst" -- can now get even closer to the rock star of a poetess.  The ornate black iron fence that enclosed the Dickinson family burial plot for 155 years has disappeared.

 Miss Emily receiving visitors early this evening

No, not stolen.  Amherst Town Meeting appropriated $62,000 in Community Preservation funds to have the fence refurbished, so it had to be carefully dismantled and taken off site.

And when it returns it will be good for another 155 years -- as will Miss Emily's poetry. 

Only the footings remain