Select Board Contest Gets Interesting

Town Clerk's Tally Sheet 

So now we have four Amherst citizens who have "taken out papers" for Amherst Select Board, which has two seats (out of five) up for grabs at the March 25 annual election, as both incumbents decided to retire.

Because two seats are open voters get to vote twice -- but, obviously, not for one candidate.  So it's not a Chicago Boss Hog kind of thing; just a normal, legal Amherst way of dealing with multi-player positions like Select Board, where all five combined equal a Mayor.  Sort of.

The two latest entries are Helen Berg and Yeshaq Warren.  Ms Berg filed a warrant article for Amherst Town Meeting last spring to fund extra PVTA bus runs to the Survival Center on Sunderland Road, which was defeated.  Other than that, no extensive public service experience in town. 

Yeshaq Warren took out papers five years ago for Select Board but never handed them in because as he commented on my post at the time:  "I was just incarcerated so I could not turn them in."  Um, yeah, now there's a Hell of an excuse.

And only two years ago APD arrested Yeshaq Warren for "assaulting a pregnant woman."  So maybe he figures Amherst Select Board members, in addition to their whopping $300 annual pay, also get a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. 

Candidates have until February 4th to return their papers with the signatures of 50 registered voters. 

Not My Job

UMPD

Back when I was working for United Parcel Service under the auspices of the Teamsters Union, where our hourly pay for unskilled labor was almost four times minimum wage (with full benefits), the non-Teamsters UPS foreman who were company men always said "please" and "thank you" when giving orders to us pack mules.  

Strangely enough, as simple a curtesy as it was, it actually helped to sooth the usual labor/management friction. Although when real issues arose, the fallout could be downright dangerous.

   UMPD APD Joint Patrols

So I can see both sides of this grievance:  UMass police officers don't like being "inversed" to do work that is not spelled out in their contract, while their bosses want to ensure positive relations with the town of Amherst.

Meanwhile the hotspot areas saturated with students living off campus, don't get the full attention they deserve.  And it's the neighborhoods that will suffer.

So can we "please" figure this out before UMass comes back in session?

"Thank you!"

DUI Dishonor Roll

About one-third of all drivers arrested or convicted of drunk driving are repeat offenders

Amherst Police arrested three drivers last week for Driving Under the Influence, or about the average number. And none of them were Umass students. But all of them are old enough to know better.

Lee Comstock, age 27, was pulled over in the heart of downtown Amherst by a Umass officer, so let's hope when he goes to trial the Judge doesn't simply throw it out because it was an officer outside his normal jurisdiction.

Just this past Friday an Amherst police officer was almost hit by an erratic driver on RT9 Hadley, so he pulled her over, but then waited for Hadley PD to arrive to make the arrest.

Another 27-year-old male, Mathew Haramut, was also pulled over very close to Amherst town center and arrested for DUI.  Notice it was his second offense, so you can probably guess why he was "unlicensed".  

And Meghan Keane, age 42, was arrested late Sunday night for driving under the influence with an an open container of said influencer in the vehicle.  She also drew attention to herself by crashing the vehicle.

A Really BIG Deal

 Town Manager to Select Board:  "Very, very close" (to a deal)

The five year "Strategic Agreement" with our #1 client for pubic services -- UMass/Amherst -- expired June 30, 2012.   But the contract was extended for one year after former Town Manager Larry Shaffer (and his secretary) suddenly left town just when the agreement was expiring.

Town Manager John Musante told the Select Board last night that a new "partnership" was "very, very close" to being a done deal.

The previous agreement paid the town $350,000 for ambulance protection but was supplemented recently by an additional $80,000 to cover extra AFD weekend staffing to keep up with a spike in demand, all too much of it alcohol related. 

But, the previous agreement also clearly stated:  "If in the future the town vacates Mark's Meadow, UMass may reimburse the town for a portion of the net cost of educating students living in university tax-exempt housing."

The town did indeed (amazingly) close down Mark's Meadow in 2009 -- saving $800,000 in town tax monies the first year.  But nobody ever bothered to reopen the "strategic agreement" to seek reimbursement for the most expensive municipal product Amherst produces:  education.

In 2009 ARPS reported 55 students enrolled from UMass tax exempt housing, and most recently (back in March, when the Town Manager requested the current figures) the number stood at 57.

At the current cost to Amherst taxpayers ($18,388 per pupil) for our elementary schools, that alone comes to $1 million.

 Current Emergency Response Statistics.  Graph courtesy Tom Valle Secretary Local 1764

UMass also absorbs about one-quarter of Amherst Fire Department services (Umass has a police department but not a fire department) and AFD's annual budget is $4.13 million, so that's another $900,000 in UMass costs borne by Amherst taxpayers. 

In 2010 the University of Vermont (10,459 undergrads, 1,540 grad students) paid Burlington (population 42,282 with one-third of all property tax exempt) $1,100,000 or THREE times what the University of Massachusetts (21,373 undergrads, 6,196 grad students) paid Amherst (population 34,874, with one-half of all property tax exempt).

And UVM has their own ambulance service!

Therefore, no matter what the spinmeisters at UMass News and Media Relations say, anything less than $1 million per year for our "partnership" over the next five years is a bad deal.    

Figures Don't Lie

RKG VP Kyle Talente appears before Planning Board Housing & Shelter Committees

As has become the routine with any public meeting remotely concerning housing, the joint meeting of the Planning Board and Housing & Sheltering Committee last week to hear yet another housing study report became an opportunity for citizens to poke and prod in general and -- in particular -- air complaints about the town's biggest bogeyman, student housing.

Originally the $30,000 study, an outgrowth of the now dead Gateway Project (killed by the very same NIMBYs) , was to ascertain the market for non student housing. But as President Kennedy once observed, "A rising tide lifts all boats."  And in Amherst, the student housing market is a tsunami.

The usual suspects

According to the consultant, "There's a mismatch between supply and demand.  Students price out folks.  Until that need is met it will continue to happen."  Because student rentals in converted single family homes are oftentimes marketed by the bedroom the combined "buying power" of a typical student household matches that of a family with a household income of $100,000.

Houses coming on the market at a price point of $250,000 are prime meat for ravenous investors who can outbid middle class families.  When those houses are all gobbled up and the demand still exists the next price point will be $275,000, then $300,000 and so on. 

Between 2000 and 2010 only about 325 new units were added to the housing stock, or about 35 units per year.  In that same time frame average rents have risen a whopping 57% -- or twice the rate of inflation. Amherst's official population grew from 34,874 to 37,819 during that time frame.

In a recent Amherst Bulletin column UMass Chancellor Subbaswamy confirms UMass has added 1,000 undergrads since 2009 and will add another 2,000 before the end of the decade.

Umass houses 60% of their total students on campus and plans to maintain that ratio in the future;  so that means 400 of the most recently added 1,000 students found housing off campus, and over the rest of the decade 800 more will be looking for shelter. 

The mistake in the draft report pounced on by John Fox in particular concerns the impact of the spiffy new Commonwealth College facility at UMass, which has about 3,000 students.  But the report seems to treat those students as new additional students increasing the overall population of UMass, when in fact they are already here and have already been counted.

In September the 1,500 bed dorms for Commonwealth College students came online.  Some in the audience insist that was enough to satisfy student housing demands, even though it shelters only 50% of the targeted clientele. 

The snippet of the report that seems to have drawn the most fire

Obviously Umass is using the Commonwealth Honors College as a marketing tool to ensure those 2,000 EXTRA students come before the end of the decade, and that they are high achievers unlikely to participate in rowdy weekend parties. 

Neighbors also pointed out the report does not discuss current student oriented projects under way:  Olympia Place (236 beds) and Kendrick Place (102 beds) have both been approved by the Planning Board, but neither has broken ground. 

Interestingly they didn't throw in The Retreat which is projected to provide 641 student beds because they probably do not wish to jinx their concerted effort to kill that project.

RKG Associates provided all sorts of remedies we can take or leave to stimulate housing production.  But to deny that Amherst even has a housing problem is like denying men have walked on the moon. 

The first step is to admit there's a problem.  "Houston we've had a problem." 

And that problem is us.

Amherst will become a Jekyll and Hyde:  Student slums and high end "upper crust" neighborhoods

Vince O'Connor: Keep politics out of this report (Amherst needs affordable housing NOT student housing)

AFD & Town Reach Agreement (Tentatively)

 

AFD @ Orchard Valley fire last month

Town Manger John Musante told the Amherst Select Board he has come to terms with the Amherst Fire Department on a new three year contract.   The good news for all concerned is that for the first time in over 20 years, minimum staffing level would move up a notch ... to eight on duty.

But only when our three institutes of higher education are in session. Still, an improvement.

In  the early 1970s the department had a minimum staffing level of seven.  In 1976 it dropped to six and would not return to seven until 1992, where it has remained ever since.  Last year the department handled 5,490 emergency calls.

Musante was short on details since nothing has been signed, but he did indicate the union would be receiving a raise (probably 2%) and that a town approved drug and alcohol policy would be enforced.  Local 1764 will vote on the contract sometime before the New Year. 

A Little Guidance

 Alisa Brewer (right) gives SB update report on Regional School District Planning Board

It's not often you see one bureaucracy asking another much bigger bureaucracy in writing to provide mid-course feedback about whether they are on the correct heading.  Almost a private sector kind of thing, to avoid wasting everyones' valuable time.

But it does kind of indicate how this proposed "hybrid" school region is a last minute development.  The main difference in creating a new region (the old idea) vs simply modifying the current regional agreement (the new idea) is that Amherst -- 88% of the region -- will vote on this at an annual Town Meeting rather than a direct ballot vote of the people.

Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury -- since they do not have a representative Town Meeting -- would vote either concept via their open Town Meetings. 

But in Amherst it makes a BIG difference.  Which is all fine, if you trust Amherst Town Meeting.