BS Blarney Blowout

A logo for trouble in the making

While Ancient Order of Hibernians, the largest fraternal order of Irish in America, calls for a boycott of retail giant Spenser Gifts over insensitive stereotypical merchandise the local Party Boys have come up with a t-shirt to immortalize the ignoble all-day debauchery known as "The Blarney Blowout 2014".  

The drinking marathon commences apparently at whatever time college age youth roll out of bed these days, and traditionally falls (if you can call four years a "tradition") on the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, this year March 8.  

Because St. Patrick's Day always falls during Spring Break why waste an excuse to get drunk, rowdy and obnoxious in Amherst, your adopted hometown of four years (or five or six)?

Last year the "official" event in town center went well enough, only to successfully lull town officials and local media into a false sense of security.

Daily Hampshire Gazette Break Page 3/11/13

It was then the north end of town exploded in violence. Thousands of students, fueled by alcohol, took to the quad area around Townhouse Apartments, set fires, threw bottles and vandalized property.

State Police, APD and UMPD had to break out the riot gear to disperse the unruly crowd.

Amherst officials were unhappy to say the least (more like "pissed off") with UMass officials for not putting out advance communications with students and parents about maintaining decorum.  UMass officials responded they didn't want to give the "event" any advance free PR with the email blast notifications.

The fiasco and resulting friction between the two superpowers did directly lead to formation of the Town Gown Steering Committee, "to jointly develop a plan to address shared areas of interest including housing and economic development issues." 

It took years for authorities to retire the "Hobart Hoedown."  Now it's time once-and-for-all to shut off "The Blarney Blowout."

Call in the Marines!

Gazette eventually figured it out:   front page (above the fold) 3/12/13

"Umass Amherst black out or transfer " #SMACK
— Smack College (@SMACKCOLLEGE) February 23, 2014

New Equipment, Old Home

AFD Chief Nelson, Assistant Chiefs McKay and Stromgren at JCPC meeting 2/20

Amherst Fire Department capital requests for FY15 (starts July1st) has a h-u-g-e bottom line number, $8,555,000 -- or almost twice their $4,358,412 operation budget for the upcoming year.

But you can, unfortunately, immediately scratch $8,000,000.   Because that is the first year installment ($4 million in year #2) on a new $12 million South Amherst Fire Station -- a Holy Grail talked about since the 1950s.

For the last couple years it shows up in the capital request line item as a placeholder, or what Finance Director Sandy Pooler described as an "Important reminder ... here to keep it on the radar screen." 

But the problem with keeping it on the radar screen so very long is, it starts to get tuned out.

About half the remaining ($555,000) budget request will go towards a new ambulance ($255,000) a standard workhorse machine on a ten year replacement cycle.  Although they do not yet make reliable enough hybrid vehicles for emergency first responders, the new ambulance will have a touch of green: a high efficiency air conditioning unit powered by a solar panel embedded in the roof. 

The new ambulance will also come with a power loader and power stretcher which significantly reduces the physical stress on EMS personnel loading and unloading patients into the back of the ambulance.

 Power loader demonstration

In addition AFD is requesting $91,600 for three more power loaders to retrofit the current fleet of ambulances.  Last year they were given approval to purchase five power stretchers.

Two new UHF/VHF portable radios at $7,000 each will allow command personnel to communicate with other agencies (Amherst police or any police and fire in Franklin County when assisting via mutual aid) at the scene of an incident.  The old radios are beyond their rated lifespans and are starting to break down.

The vital protective gear that separates bare skin from sizzling temperatures also needs to be replaced on a rotating basis, and this coming year that installment (20 sets of gear) will cost $40,000. 

A Federal mandate requires all single-walled underground storage tanks be removed by 2017.  The 8,000 gallon tank at North Station, used by AFD as well as other town departments -- Schools, Recreation, Library and Conservation -- needs to come out of the ground.

And that will cost $80,000.

Since the two pumps that dispense gas and diesel are also over 20 years old they will be replaced at the same time, for a cost of $20,000.

While not nearly as expensive as an ambulance or fire engine a 4WD pickup is still pretty costly at $35,000.  The utility vehicle will be used to plow North Station in winter and even to accompany  emergency vehicles during a major winter storm.  The old unit was a 1993 hand me down from the DPW that has now failed to pass inspection.  

When asked by JCPC Chair Kay Moran what he would do if her committee decided to cut funding for the vehicle Chief Nelson responded, only half-kidding, "punt."

Rounding out the requests is $20,000 in extra equipment for the new pumper arriving in August that allows it to act as a "Emergency First Responder."  Sort of turns a fire engine into a temporary ambulance, except it cannot transport the patient to the hospital.

But when things get busy and you need to get to a patient ASAP a Fire Engine can travel just as fast as an ambulance to at least deliver highly trained help who can stabilize the patient until an ambulance can arrive to transport to a hospital.

The Joint Capital Planning Committee seemed to look favorably at the AFD requests, but they do need to cut some items from department requests before sending their recommendations to Town Meeting.

Even then, Town Meeting can still fail to fund a single line item, although it doesn't happen often.

The hard part somewhere down the road, assuming town officials radar still works, will be the $12 million debt exclusion for the new South Amherst Fire Station. 

DUI Dishonor Roll

Probably not a bad idea to pull over and try to sleep it off when you've had too much to drink, but you probably should turn off your engine; and it would also help is you were not blocking in a resident. 

Last Saturday around 6:00 PM Amherst police arrested Abdul Calderon, 23,  for Driving Under the Influence even though, technically, he was not in a moving vehicle. 

In His Own Words

 ARHS currently closed.  What happens on Monday?

So for those of you just joining me on this sad -- but all too typical -- Amherst story of hypocrisy, this is the four-page response penned by the father of the white student who posted a "threat" on a Facebook confessions site hoping it would bring relief from the relentless bullying by three black students who did not like his use of the "N-word", the (supposedly) hip 5-letter version ending in "a".

As the narrative clearly shows numerous school employees either witnessed the physical altercation that occurred at the end of the week or were made aware of the situation by the father prior to the physical confrontation.

The schools punished both the father and son via suspensions but thus far none of the bullies have received a suspension. 

The schools also violated the state anti-bullying law (enacted in the aftermath of Phoebe Prince being bullied to death) by not contacting the Amherst Police Department after the father first voiced his concerns.

   Parent Response to Schools

When Heads Collide

The brain is a terrible thing to waste

For those of you who think sports writers are more cheerleaders than journalists, you may want to head to UMass tonight (6:00 to 8:00 PM) to check out  "League of Denial:  A Conversation with the Authors" at the Campus Center Auditorium put on by The McCormack Department of Sport Management and the digitally savvy UMass Journo Department.

A compelling case of journalism done right.  Shining a light on the dark side of an untouchable American icon of entertainment, professional football.  And the collateral, sometimes deadly, damage done to the athletes who make it their profession.

At least the Romans were honest about the outcomes of the Gladiatorial games.

Of course if you are a BIG football fan, a spoiler alert:  you may never again look at the game quite so comfortably, or allow your kids to take it up.

 Campus Center Auditorium 7:00 PM

Frontline award winning 2 hour presentation

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru

Is Anyone Out There?

This month is shaping up to be the busiest February ever for the Amherst Fire Department with "station coverage" calls issued by Dispatch seven times this past weekend.  At one point a little over a half hour expired before station coverage was attained.

Fortunately fire did not come calling during that exposed time period because The Beast, once unleashed, grows exponentially.

And exceedingly fast.

   AFD Runs Mid Feb by larry_kelley_1

Note one-third of the medical calls to UMass were substance abuse calls (one of them a passed out 16 year old boy) as were one-out-of-two to Amherst College.

Downtown Development Battle

 Coming soon to downtown Amherst?

I was one of 106 recipients -- a virtual who's who of Amherst committee members, town and state officials, journalists, developers, landlords and business owners -- to receive this email from David Willliams on Sunday.

It has come to our attention that Landmark Properties has represented to property owners near our Kendrick Place project in Downtown that they have purchased the land/project from us. 

 This email is to confirm that this is completely false It is dishonest and it completely conflicts with our long term commitment to our hometown Amherst. 

To the contrary, for our Kendrick Place project we are proceeding with selection of a contractor, we have secured LOCAL equity, and we are finalizing terms with a LOCAL bank. 

I've lived in Amherst for 44 years. I am not interested in flipping any of my projects to outside developers. 

On the contrary, Kyle and I are working very hard to deliver projects of the absolute highest quality, projects that further the objectives of the town and our higher education institutions, projects we will own for the long term, projects that you have given us the approvals to build. 

I in no way will breach your trust. 
David Williams

My initial reaction?  Yikes!

Because if Landmark Properties, an out-of-town developer, had indeed lied in an attempt to gain a negotiation advantage it would certainly cast a pall on their other controversial proposed development, The Retreat (170 units) in Northeast Amherst.

And since there are a boatload of NIMBYs hoping for them to fail at that proposed development this act of treachery would be well received -- and instantly promoted.

One of the major properties sought after by Landmark Properties

Landmark is actively pursuing a five-story, 100-150 unit major development in town center (a little smaller than "The Standard at Athens") and indeed has signed a Letter Of Intent with a large commercial property owner at the north end of town center.

And they did indeed contact Archipelago Investments LLC about adding the proposed Kendrick Place site to the mix.

 

 Another major property sought by Landmark Properties

But they sternly deny ever misrepresenting ownership of any property in Amherst.  Obviously if Landmark follows through with this project it will be a major competitor to not only the proposed Kendrick Place (26 units) but Archipelago's other proposed development, Olympia Place (200 beds).

Kendrick Place proposed site abutting the rear of Bertucci's

At the very least, having housing developers fighting with each other to develope projects means the #1 problem in our little "college town" -- the housing shortage -- is, finally,  being addressed.

Adjacent Carriage Shops possibly up for grabs