A Little Disruption Now And Then

Gotta Go taxi at the scene of a party house

In France the other day an angry mob of cabbie sympathizers attacked an Uber car, damaging both the car and the young businesswoman passenger.

Uber is one of a number of new companies that rely on the ubiquitous phone app to connect customer with product in real time, in this case a ride.

To protect the iconic cab industry the French government enacted a law saying Uber cars must wait 15 minutes before responding to an Internet hail from a customer. 

Which would be kind of like our government passing a law in 1908 saying automobiles cannot go any faster than a horse.

In Amherst, in spite of an extensive PVTA free bus system, the cab industry exploded over the past few years going from one or two sleepy companies to an energetic dozen two years ago. 

But once the town enacted stricter inspection process requiring each cab to have an expensive meter installed the number of companies dropped to nine and certified cabs went from a high of 61 to the current 19.

Since Amherst is a college town it should come as no surprise that this new way of doing business gained an early foothold.  Both UMass and Amherst College have embraced Zipcars which will somewhat impact the local cab industry.

But the real cab killer is  Sobrio, a ride sharing program run by the Student Government Association that connects riders with customers at the tap of a finger.  The program test run last semester was so successful (handling 350-500 rides per weekend) the SGA decided to kill the more expensive less efficient "Sober Shuttle" bus program.

For traditional cab companies doing business in Amherst the handwriting is now etched on an electronic wall. "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping."

SGA Secretary Lindsay Vitale thoroughly explains Sobrio

Internet Marketing

The Internet has changed everything -- just ask a video store clerk or ink stained newspaper reporter -- but most would argue it has changed things for the better, especially with mass communication.

Internet petition sites make it cookie-cutter simple to promote a cause, and crowd funding sites make it simple for entrepreneurs to raise money for their projects.  The recent success of Food For Thought Books raising over $40,000 is a shining example.  Although "Homeless In A College Town" did not fare quite as well, raising only $7,511 out of a $20,000 goal.

And for a while there we had dueling petition on MoveOn.org over the controversial nut ban at Amherst Regional Public Schools.  The petition opposing the ban has since been deleted but probably had around 100 signatures prior to termination and the supporting petition now has 172 signatures but no activity since well before Christmas.

And the majority of signatures are from outside over enlightened Amherst.

Cinda Jones petition to entice South Amherst's Atkins Farms Country Market garnered over 350 signatures promising undying loyalty to a satellite operation at the new Trolley Barn in North Amherst.

 Trolley Barn, North Amherst

All to no avail as Pauline Lannon, Atkins co-owner recently responded to the public suggestion box saying "We need to put our energy and resources into this store."

 

Atkins Farms Country Market, South Amherst

Twitter is a great resource for instant news all of the time, although broadcasting is so simple it sometimes gets folks in trouble.

Last week the bricks and mortar media (who should know better) made an issue of Northampton Mayor Narkewicz tweeting positive things about potential jury duty service as he was reporting for potential jury service (but before the judge said the shut off your damn smart phones) and again after he -- like a lot of potential jurors -- was dismissed from duty.

reporting for jury duty at the Hampshire County Courthouse
— David Narkewicz (@MayorNarkewicz) January 8, 2014

Mark Whipple has yet to be introduced as the new UMass football head coach and already his Twitter account has over 650 followers, compared to Chancellor Subbaswamy, who has 938 followers, but has been on Twitter for over a year.

Folks in Amherst hope he has lots of positive things to tweet in the near future.

Update 2:40 PM.  Coach Whipple now has over 1,150 followers

A Fair Share

UMass, Amherst & Hampshire Colleges account for 27% of all AFD calls

On Thursday all the head honchos -- Select Board, Finance Committee, Town Manager John Musante and Finance Director Sandy Pooler -- will meet in Town Hall for the unveiling of the Town Manager's Fiscal 2015 budget.

Don't expect any earth shattering changes.  Although maybe, finally, a much overdue increase in staffing for our beleaguered public safety departments.

One thing that should be discussed is reimbursement monies from our three institutes of higher education.  You know, the reason why Amherst is a "college town."

The main one of course is UMass.  The original 5-year "Strategic Agreement", which pays the town $350,000 in new monies annually, expired June 30, 2012 but was extended for a year.

NFD mutual aid ambulance, AFD Engine 3 Pierpont Dorm UMass for ETOH student 

In 2013 Amherst Fire Department responded to UMass 1,162 times with 843 of those (73%) responses for medical emergencies requiring an ambulance, with 219 of those (26%) for "substance abuse."  So that means the other 319 responses required a fire engine.  Ambulance runs generate insurance revenues, fire engine runs do not.

 AFD Engine 2 on scene Crossett Dorm Amherst College

In 2013 AFD responded to Amherst College 212 times with 152 of those (72%) responses for medical emergencies requiring an ambulance, with 39 of those (26%) for "substance abuse."  The other 60 responses required a fire engine (or two).  Last year Amherst College "donated" to the town $90,000 as payment towards those emergency services.

Although after the Crossett Christmas incident last month let's hope they go back to the $120,000 they gave us in 2007.

In 2013 AFD responded to Hampshire College 184 times with 71 of those responses (only 39%) for medical emergencies requiring an ambulance, with 17 of those (24%) for "substance abuse."  The other 113 of those responses required a fire engine.

AFD crew heading toward Hampshire Dining Commons for an  ETOH female 12:20 AM

So out of the three institutes of higher education AFD protects, Hampshire College has by far the higher percentage of responses requiring expensive equipment that does not generate insurance reimbursement.

Last year Hampshire College paid the town zero, zip, nada for emergency services received by the town.  And as a tax exempt educational institute they paid almost nothing in property taxes.  Yet they are one of the most expensive colleges in America at $57,130 per year.

And last year Hampshire announced it would offer an "undocumented student" $25,000 per year to cover those high tuition expenses.  At least that student will be well protected (at local taxpayer expense).

From Green To Glass

 

Amazing maze:  Allard Farm, Amherst/Hadley border 

If you loved the view off Mill Valley Road in the summertime, a sea of green corn soaking up the sun under a radiant blue sky, you will probably not be pleased with this latest development. Yes, unlike Amherst, when Hadley announces a solar farm deal, it actually happens.

Allard Farm, yesterday

Of course it doesn't hurt that the prime instigator is the Hampshire Council of Government, a vestige of years gone by where small towns became members to use the power of co-op buying for discounts.

But now those discounts are more easily available on the Internet, without the high membership fee to HCOG. 

So the HCOG has found a new service niche by morphing into a one stop discount energy provider.

This project by Nexamp will, on days when Mother Nature cooperates, generate 3 megawatts of energy.  The deal with Hadley (besides the private deal hatched with Allard Farms) will provide a discount coupon worth 21 cents on the dollar payment towards their current electricity consumption.

In addition to this Nexamp project, BlueWave Capital has three solar arrays on the drawing board in Hadley.  BlueWave you may remember is the company Amherst aligned with to construct a 4.75 megawatt facility on the old landfill off Belchertown Road, which would be the largest in the state.

That project came under heavy fire from nearby abutters, and has since gone dark.

Well Bully For The Blog!

I have to wonder if Amherst School Superintendent Maria Geryk said she was going to jump off the Calvin Coolidge Bridge at the end of this month, would the Gazette and Bulletin put that on the front page? 

At the very least, since it taps into this powerful newfangled Internet, Ms. Geryk probably should have asked her fake Twitter doppelgangerr to first break the news about her, as yet, unnamed blog.

The Bully breathlessly reports

UMass Sober Shuttle Scuttled

 Sober Shuttle 1:15 AM Amherst Town Center

After less than a one-year trial run the much ballyhooed Sober Shuttle is no more.

The late night program used PVTA buses that ran after the bars closed in an effort to keep drunk drivers off the road and to cut down on waves of students walking through residential neighborhoods to get back to their beds in the dead of night.

But it seemed to duplicate already existing runs of the PVTA and never seemed to gain traction.  A uniformed UMass police officer assigned to every run could also have acted as a popularity deterrent.

The $50,000 program was a Student Government Association project paid for via student fees.

UMass administrators were not overly enthusiastic in promoting the endeavor because they did not wish to be seen condoning/enabling excessive alcohol consumption.

But at the same time they used it to demonstrate the University and students were doing something about rowdy behavior.

Fear not, however, the good intentioned safety program has been replaced with a more cost effective answer.  Yeah, there's an app for that: Sobrio. 

SGA President Zac Broughton reports

Liquor License For Rent

The average person probably thinks a beer/wine permit in a college town like Amherst is a license to print money.  And to some extent that's true.  So it will be interesting to see who applies for the only open on-premise Wine & Malt license (out of eight) currently available, at the annual bargain basement price of $1,000.

The Select Board will award the golden ticket to one lucky entrepreneur at the their regular Monday night meeting March 17.  Yes, St. Patrick's Day -- not to be confused with the "Blarney Blowout" held the Saturday before the official holiday to allow the downtown bars to tap into the "college aged youth" who abandon Amherst for Spring Break just prior to March 17.

Considering the mayhem that occurred at the last two Blarney Blowouts the Select Board should probably also post a set of suggested guidelines for potential liquor permit seekers on expected business practices.

As in not hyping immature events that promote ethnic stereotyping, while encouraging bad behavior.

 

Souper Bowl went out of business in June, giving up their Wine & Malt permit