Why Do They Call It OPEN Meeting?

 Regional School Committee meeting 7/14

Temporary Chair of the Amherst Regional School Committee Lawrence O'Brien is still sputtering over the successful coup d'état orchestrated by Vice Chair Trevor Baptiste.

Five duly elected members of the committee -- a quorum -- attended a meeting that was properly posted in three of the four towns and was briefly posted properly in Amherst but cancelled when the ruling establishment felt threatened.

Did the meeting violate the Open Meeting Law?  Technically, yes.

But not because of secrecy -- which is generally what the OML targets.  Since well over 50 members of the general public showed up, along with three TV news stations and reporters from two newspapers, I would deem that a pretty OPEN meeting.

The renegade meeting was called to countermand a memo criticising Amilcar Shabazz issued by three school committee chairs with absolutely no deliberation of the three public bodies they chair.  Now that sounds to me like a violation of the Open Meeting Law.

And the irony doesn't stop there.  They were critical of Dr. Shabazz for releasing information (not entirely correct) about a violent racial school incident where three black youths ganged up on a white youth doing real physical damage in the process.

As usual the super secretive PUBLIC schools handled it "internally," not breathing a word to anyone, including the Amherst Police Department or the local District Attorney, who certainly had grounds for a "hate crime" indictment.

At the 6/24 Regional School Committee meeting where O'Brien was elected temporary Chair the committee later went into Executive Session for "litigation" discussion even though the written published agenda stated it was for  "Collective Bargaining."

A clear violation of OPM.  And these days the Attorney General wants more detail published when going into Executive Session.  If for  "Collective Bargaining" then with what unions?  Or if it's "litigation"  is it a negligence suit filed over an injury or a MCAD complaint? 

This coming August the Regional School Committee will head to an undisclosed location for a weekend "retreat".  That strikes me as a violation of Open Meeting Law.

In 2010 FIVE school committee chairs (with no deliberations of their respective committees) issued an official memo to the District Attorney asking for an investigation of Amherst School Committee member Catherine Sanderson, hoping the DA would muzzle her.

The DA ignored their whiny request.

The more voices brought into the public process the better.  That's the very heart and soul of Open Meeting.

Barn Blast

Ye old (125+ years) barn, 134 Montague Road, North Amherst

Another "historic" barn owned by W.D. Cowls, the largest private landowner in Mass, is destined for the dustbin due to age, disrepair and the arrival of Atkins Farms Country Market in a refurbished building only 35 feet away.

The Amherst Historical Commission could enact a one-year demolition delay but that's the extent of their power.

Three years ago the Commission did restrain Cowls from demolishing their trolley barn on Cowls Road,  but six weeks after the expiration of the one-year delay the barn came tumbling down after an attempt to shore it up using a backhoe. 

Rotting floorboards

The shortlist of reusing the (non rotting) barn boards include:  Donation to Emily Dickinson Homestead for a project to recreate a historically accurate barn that was once on site; donation to the Porter Phelps Huntington House in Hadley for a similar historic project; or simply reuse the materials in the upcoming development of "The Mill" all along Cowls Road. 

 

The Mill as envisioned by Kuhn Riddle Architects

Equitable Vs Fair

Officials from all 4 towns:  Amherst, Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury

The Regional Assessment Working Group -- yet another subcommittee formed by the Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee -- met yesterday for the first time to deliberate their charge:  "Analyze historical assessments, investigate assessment alternatives, and make a recommendation of an assessment method going forward."

The "working group" is facilitated by Sean Mangano who stepped into the well worn shoes of former Finance Director Robert Detweiler after he mysteriously disappeared six months ago. 

School spending accounts for the lions share of municipal budgets in all four towns.  The current 50+ year old  Region consists of the Middle and High School but the Regional School Committee also formed a committee almost three years ago to discuss and plan for regionalization at the pre-K through six grade as well.

The criteria for the working group is to come up with a finance method that is fair, predictable, affordable, easy to explain to the voters and one that avoids budget buster spikes for individual towns.  Or what one member referred to as "No nukes."

 

Obviously the equitable thing is for all four towns to pay the same cost per student.  Currently the assessment method takes that into consideration but is also based on a "five year rolling average."  And that seems to generate "a hit" to individual towns about once every five years.

Discussion centered around what is fair vs equitable, or ... how do you provide a "circuit breaker" or "cap" to help  any one overburdened town deal with what could be a budget buster?

Amherst Finance Director Sandy Pooler, obviously a numbers guy, wondered how you define "ability to pay?"  He seemed to  approve of the common sense policy of everybody paying the same cost per student, thinking it might better "resonate" with voters.

The group will meet every other week and expect to have a recommendation for the Amherst Regional School Committee sometime in September.  

Approval will require a simple majority vote by the RSC and then all four Town Meetings must endorse the new assessment method; although after that only three-out-of-four approvals will be required to pass the  Regional Budget.

 

(left to rt) Maria Geryk, Kay Moran, Alisa Brewer, Bernie Kubiak, Andy Steinberg

Regional School Committee Countermand

5 of 9 (3 from Amherst) Regional SC members showed up to the 4:00 meeting unanimously chastising 7/3 memo from Committee Chairs

The renegade Regional School Committee meeting today called by Vice Chair Trevor Baptiste and (sort of) cancelled by Chair Lawrence O'Brien did attain a quorum, and after a brief discussion unanimously passed a motion countermanding a 7/3 memo critical of Dr. Amilcar Shabazz.

 

Over 75 people crammed into the Pelham Library 

   Another Racial Incident ARPS by Larry Kelley

 

What A Twit

Worst Tweets Ever has a whopping 3 followers

As I close in on a Twitter milestone, one thousand followers (hint, hint), I'm reminded by a youthful critic otherwise known as a "Cowardly Anon Nitwit" why the service rocks.

With only 140 characters to play with you have to be a tad concise.  Kind of like the telegraph of old where you paid by the word so you tended to use as few as possible.

Or the early days of the telephone when the thought of "long distance" charges struck fear into the hearts of your parents, so you learned to talk fast with far flung family members.

It also reminds me of Town Meeting where pretty much any local can get up in front of the body before a live microphone and say pretty much anything.

I always have that split second fear as I trudge to the podium that I'm going to suddenly have a  Tourette's moment and just start spouting "expletive deleted."

On Twitter you can get in trouble instantly for saying stupid things even if you only have a few followers, because all it takes is for one of them with a huge number of followers to retweet you.  While bad news has always moved quickly, stupid news moves at warp speed.

I have more than a few "college aged youth" who follow me just to see if I'm talking about them or their lifestyle.  They don't usually just randomly tweet at me like the nitwit "worst tweets ever" who obviously also has the account "larry kelleys whack."

Him I ignore, because if I respond to a stupid tweet that originally only went to his one follower, suddenly it goes to all almost-1,000 of my followers.  And since  a few them would like to dance on my grave, they would chime in supporting the initial idiot.

Last Spring was relatively quiet but there were a couple weekend nights where warm weather brought out the zombie party herds.  I remember tweeting a couple of low key incidents early in the evening -- APD making an arrest for "open container" on Fearing Street or AFD responding to the first ETOH (alcohol poisoning) incident of the night. 

A couple kids played off those tweets with sarcasm that was then favorited or retweeted by other like minded followers (none of them having much more than an average number of followers -- 200 or so).

But as the night wore on, and the number of ETOH incidents requiring ambulances became more and more numerous -- to the point where we ran out of ambulances -- the sarcastic tweets stopped.

So either it dawned on them that having all our ambulances tied up carting drunk students to CDH is not a good thing, or maybe some of them were the ones being carted to the hospital.

Of course the other tremendous Twitter thing is the ability to post photos instantly, conjuring up that old pre-Internet adage that still remains true:  a picture is worth 1,000 words.

And that's a lot of characters.

LarryWhack has zero followers

A Matter Of Self Defense

Eric Bertrand is lucky a Second Amendment enthusiast was not shopping at Whole Foods Market late yesterday afternoon .  The first frantic reports from the scene via multiple 911 calls indicated a man was randomly discharging a "white powder" onto innocent bystanders.

Hadley PD at Whole Foods Market to Dispatch:  "One under arrest, we do have a few victims."
— Larry Kelley (@amherstac) July 11, 2014

One customer, unhappy about the assault, got into a physical altercation with Eric Bertrand, age 59, but appears to have ended up on the wrong end of his "shod foot."

Had this odd event taken place in Texas, Mr. Bertrand would probably have been shot in self defense, since many people at first worried  the powder was potentially a terrorist HazMat (hazardous materials) incident.

Amherst Fire Department later transported Bertrand from the Hadley Police Department to Cooley Dickinson Hospital after a "psychological evaluation."

Hadley police have charged him with seven counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (Cayenne pepper).   Massachusetts is the only state in the nation to require a license to carry pepper spray, although in this particular case he used store product rather than carrying his own canister of OC spray.

Last Monday Eric Bertrand's Easthampton apartment was gutted by fire, just after he was issued an eviction notice. 

Arresting Miss Emily

Emily Dickinson stands before Judge LoConto on July 7th

Amherst police arrested Emily Dickinson, age 30, back in February for stealing a credit card and her mother's prescription drugs, an all too familar combination resulting from substance abuse.

A business day doesn't go by at the Eastern Hampshire District Court without a drug related problem coming before a judge.  

And in Amherst, where the other Emily Dickinson is arguably our most famous citizen, the misery associated with drug/alcohol abuse is certainly on the short list for pernicious problems that need to be solved.

 The Dickinson Homestead

Judge LoConto placed Ms. Dickinson on probation for a year with a $65/month fee and unscheduled drug/alcohol screening.

As she was leaving the Judge, sounding sincere, wished her "good luck" and reminded her the Probation Department is there to help.