Merry Once More

Merry Maple last night

Some of you more sagacious types may have noticed the Merry Maple went dark soon after the unveiling last week, but as of last night it's back for the duration of the Christmas, err, holiday season.

Apparently the problem was an "amateur hour repair on the cut wires performed by the contractor in charge of stringing the lights."  According to town electrician Fred Hartwell, "The Merry Maple should now function properly for the remainder of the holiday season."

Hallelujah. 

Box Alarm UMass

 AFD Engine 1 on scene near UMass Southwest towers

The  still alarm -- automatic response due to tripped smoke detectors -- first came in around 10:30 PM last night but then within minutes became a box alarm as UMass first responders reported "smoke in the building."

 AFD Engine 2 (the quint) gets in close to Berkshire Dining Commons

The Quint has a 75' aerial ladder 

The tone sent out to all on and off duty firefighters brings a massive response to the UMass Berkshire Dining Commons, in this case Engine 1, Engine 2, Engine 3, Ladder 1, an ambulance, AFD Chief Nelson and assistant Chief Stromgren.

Off duty firefighters and Call Force are automatically mobilized

 AFD Ladder 1 with a 102' aerial platform standing by

Two firefighters went up on the roof and headed down into the building searching for the source of the smoke, which turned out to be electrical: Burned out motor on a HVAC system.

By midnight all AFD assets had packed up and returned to quarters, waiting for the next tone.

E2 taps into Fire Dept Connection to supplement building's sprinkler system

Regional School Committee Runaround

Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee 10/14/14

The Keystone Cops have got nothin' on our Regional School Committee when it comes to setting meetings.

Tonight's meeting, with only an Executive Session scheduled to talk about the many legal issues confronting the Region had to be cancelled once again because of a posting issue in Pelham, one of the four towns making up the Region.

The meeting on November 18 had to be cancelled because of a posting issue in, you guessed it, Pelham.  

The meeting scheduled for two nights ago (12/9) was canceled due to inclement weather (but never posted to the town website as such).

Ironically they were set to discuss the recent Open Meeting Law ruling against them, as well as a simple, quick, easy, efficient new way of posting their public meetings by using the ARPS website.  All it takes is a simple majority vote of the Committee.

But now the Regional School Committee meeting scheduled for 12/16, no longer shows the OML update and vote on the new "alternative" way of posting meetings on the agenda.  And if it's not on the agenda, they cannot discuss or vote on it.

Pernicious Top 10 List

Hampshire College founded 1970

Here's a sad story you will not read about too much in the local media:  Two-out-of-three Amherst based institutes of higher education made a (legitimate) top-ten list for reported per capita sexual assaults on campus.

And no, UMass is not one of them.  Not even close.

Washington Post 10/28/14

So yes that leaves Amherst and Hampshire Colleges, two of the most expensive liberal arts colleges in the country.  Clearly Hampshire College needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.

If the Washington Post updates its sexual assault story with current 2013 numbers, Hampshire (20 assaults = 13.3/1,000) our local "alternative" college would most likely be #1 in the nation.

 Amherst College:  Named after the town, not the General

To their credit, Amherst College would fall further down the list (9 assaults = 5/1,000).

The current #1 Gallaudet went from 18 to 17 rapes in 2013 and current #2 Grinnell College dropped dramatically from 18 assaults down to 8.  Thus Hampshire College would leap ahead of both of them.

UMass, where a tiny minority of nitwits want to return to the Animal House glory days by using the malicious moniker "Zoomass", has less than 1 sexual assault per 1,000 students (22 out of 27,269 students).

Or another way of looking at this astounding comparison is if UMass had the same 2013 assault rate as Hampshire College that would come to 363 assaults.

 UMass Amherst Clery Report

Other esteemed members of the Five College Consortium -- Smith College and Mount Holyoke -- also have tiny assault rates compared to Hampshire College, at 1.5/1,000 for Smith College and less than 1/1,000 (.87) for Mount Holyoke.

And the town of Amherst overall is lesser still at .45/1,000.

Hey Hampshire: You're doing it wrong.

#####

Only 20% of female college students who are victims of sexual assault report it to police. http://t.co/HpOTlVYv8i pic.twitter.com/5qoaZvmPZ4
— WBUR (@WBUR) December 11, 2014

Another Busy Day For 1st Responders

Car with two occupants vs tree on Potwine Lane in South Amherst 

A very serious one car vs tree accident called in at 11:57 AM tied up almost all our first responders for over an hour as firefighters had to extricate the female passenger trapped in the vehicle before she was transported to Baystate Medical in Springfield, the closest hospital with a critical care unit.

Volvo was heading west into a curve at the time of the accident

The call came in at a busy time for AFD so the first ambulance (A3) dispatched had to make the longer trip from North Station rather than Central.  The crew from a second ambulance (A4), also from North Station, jumped into A3 at the scene, since the patient was so critical, and whisked her off to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield with a crew of four.

 AFD A3 leaving the scene

The third ambulance to the scene (A1) normally dispatched from Central Station had to come from Northampton after dropping off a patient at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.  A1, with a crew of three, then also transported the second, male, driver of the vehicle to Baystate Medical in Springfield. 

 Potwine Lane was closed

The injuries were so obviously serious that AFD originally requested LifeFlight helicopter out of Worcester which has a trauma surgeon and nurse aboard and could get to Springfield from the scene of the accident in 10 minutes. 

The Potwine Lane soccer fields right around the bend from where the accident occurred is a designated landing zone for LifeFlight.

Unfortunately the weather was too miserable for the bird to fly.

LifeFlight helicopter landed at Amherst College on Sunday for an all day training exercise

Homeless In A College Town

First Baptist Church, 434 North Pleasant Street

The Housing & Sheltering Committee hosted the unveiling of a report last night done by two area college students over the past semester under the direction of John Hornik dissecting the overall operation of Craig's Doors, the seasonal homeless shelter operated part-time out of the First Baptist Church at the main gateway to UMass.

 John Hornik, Sakshi Bhatnager, Grace Nash

The homeless shelter originally started in 2010 as simply a "warming place", morphed into an overnight shelter run by Milestone Ministries and then became "Craig's Doors".

The facility runs on a $300,000 operation budget, two-thirds from the state and one-third from the town and is open from November until April 30 during New England's most dangerous season of the year, winter.

 Most recent year unique visitors are down, but utilization is up

The shelter has a capacity of 22 beds (16 men, 6 women) and oftentimes turns away two or three potential users, although during particularly bad weather they can get permission from Town Manager John Musante to expand capacity to 34 guests.  

The shelter has a close working relationship with Amherst police who visit nightly just as a courtesy call.  That way should their emergency services be needed residents do not view them as hostile outsiders. 

Year's worth of public safety calls (or about a weekend's calls to students' parties disturbances)

One of the criticisms of the shelter is that it does not enforce a strict policy of alcohol abstention prior to coming into the facility.  This of course can lead to behavior that requires the services of Amherst police.

 Click to enlarge/read

The other drawback that's a concern to downtown businesses is the facility attracts individuals to town who do not have a job or meaningful ways to occupy their time during the day.   Town center becomes a magnet for some of them to hang out ... panhandling, or a roughhousing in such a way as to make potential customers uncomfortable.

Of course the alternative is potential death due to the elements, so the inconvenience of occasional bad behavior is offset by the greater good:  keeping people safe.

 Comparison with Interfaith Cot Shelter in Northampton, a "dry" shelter i.e. no under the influence of alcohol admissions allowed 

John Hornik pointed out that Craig's Doors is safe for a few more years at its current location, but needs a permanent home.

Funding is also not guaranteed as the lion's share comes from the state as "earmarked funds," which means they have to be renewed annually and as such are subject to the vagaries of the state legislature.

Although having state senator Stan Rosenberg about to assume his powerful leadership roll should be comforting.

The Camera Never Blinks

An athlete oftentimes performs a little better while being observed by others, or trains a little harder when a "personal trainer" is giving encouragement. In sport psychology it's called "social facilitation".

In a larger sense, during competition, it can become a home field/court advantage.

Simply put, we all tend to behave better while under observation.

A recent study of a police department that has embraced use of the body cameras in Rialto, California showed a dramatic drop in complaints filed against officers as well as a reduction in police use of force.

What a difference these cameras would have made if UMPD and APD had been wearing them during the infamous "Blarney Blowout".  One of the suggestions published in the $160,000 Davis Report was to have better trained police photographers filming such interactions.

But if every patrol cop had a camera running, rather than selective outtakes that make it to Youtube, the whole story would be easier to see.  And you would not need to designate one or two officers to act as photographers, thus freeing them to help out fellow officers with the disturbance. 

APD has been experimenting with the body cameras since before the Ferguson incident. The Chief tells me it comes down to a budgetary issue as to whether his department will adopt them.  No real complaints have been issued by officers or their union concerning adoption.

Kind of like adopting cameras in all our patrol cruisers, something APD did two decades ago.   Or the early adoption (1984) of video taping drunk driving arrests/bookings.  Amherst was the 4th community in the state to adopt 911 as a means of emergency communications (1970).

When you're well trained, confident about your abilities and judgement, and in many cases young enough to embrace the digital age, cameras are nothing to be afraid of.

 #####

I asked District Attorney Dave Sullivan about the supposed conflict of interest Mr. O'Connor mentioned in his monologue and received this reply:

We have had two police-involved shootings. There was a fatal shooting of Corey Navarette in Orange on July 3, 2013, in which the decedent pointed a loaded assault rifle at a state trooper who entered his home with a search warrant. First Assistant District Attorney Steve Gagne investigated and issued our full investigative report for publication. The report was fair, balanced, and exonerated the trooper.

A second shooting, nonfatal, occurred in Ware on Sept. 23, 2014.  Sajid Dacres and passenger were stopped for motor vehicle charges and credit card fraud. Dacres revved the engine to flee arrest, striking the police officer with the car he was driving. Shots fired by a Ware police officer resulted in non-life threatening injury. Dacres was arraigned today. It was determined by the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit attached to the Office and the Office of the Northwestern District Attorney that the officer was justified in shooting.

I see it as entirely appropriate for the District Attorney, who is Chief Law Enforcement Officer and has jurisdiction over all death cases and criminal cases, to investigate police-involved shootings. I am elected and accountable to the people to insure that an independent investigation of a police shooting is conducted and justice is served.