Dash & Dine For A Good Cause

And they're off!

One of the nice things about playing host to 30,000 college aged youth is most of them are relatively healthy, so a fitness event that combines a charitable cause with award winning food is bound to be a winner.

The 6th annual UMass Dash & Dine to benefit the Amherst Survival Center is just such an event.

And with the comparatively nice weather this morning the benefit attracted a h-u-g-e throng to the Southwest area starting point.

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Next Up:

Daffodil Fun Run to benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters

Business/Government Superstar?

When you're alone & life is making you lonely you can always go ...

With Amherst being blessed by the presence of both a Chamber of Commerce and downtown Business Improvement District, the idea of creating a $70,000 taxpayer funded Director of Economic Development may get bankrupted on the floor of Town Meeting.

Especially since that ancient legislative body has never been known as business friendly.

$70K is a lot of money, but considering what this person is supposed to accomplish over the hurdles they face dealing with NIMBYs, BANANAs, and  government bureaucracy (Oh my!) probably not nearly enough.

After all, English literature professors make far less than Entrepreneurship professors and PR flacks make far more than front-line reporters.

A couple decades ago when then Town Manager Barry Del Castilho commissioned an expensive consultant he publicly admitted it was because, "We don't understand the language of business."

Considering the current pitiful 10% of our tax base that comes from commercial property, town government has still not learned the language.

So maybe an interpreter is in order.  Especially someone who can demonstrate how to walk the walk, after teaching the talk. 

   Amherst Business Czar Want Ad

A New Player In Town

The Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Board of Trustees had their groundbreaking meeting last night, hearing a brief presentation by Rita Farrell of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership on all the possibilities relating to affordable housing that lay ahead for this new entity.

Town Meeting approved the formation of the Housing Trust last year (after rejecting the idea back in 2008) and the Select Board only recently appointed the seven members:  

The first test for the Trust comes next month when Town Meeting votes the Community Preservation Act Committee recommendations of $846,633 in projects which includes $25,000 in "due diligence" money for the Trust. Originally they requested $50,000 but without a committee membership yet in place the CPAC was hesitant to fully fund the request.

There was some discussion last night as to whether the term "due diligence" is broad enough for the committee to invest in a wide variety of start up activities. 

The Trust will be allowed to accept grants, private donations (of money or property) or payments from developers due to Inclusionary Zoning requirements, but the bulk of their funding is expected to be Community Preservation Act funds. 

Since Amherst voters recently approved doubling the surcharge up to the maximum 3% the CPA fund has a significantly expanded bottom line with a projected surplus of $1.3 million after Town Meeting approval of this year's ($846,633) projects.

The fledgling committee hopes the Trust becomes both well-funded and credible to allow for more nimble deal making with affordable housing developers.   Currently the town is just over the 10% threshold  on the state Subsidized Housing Inventory thus insulating us from a Ch40B development.

Although the Trust could themselves take on the roll of developer, but with all the requirements imposed on a public agency (prevailing wage for one) it's highly unlikely.

Because of a strangling of supply over the past generation Amherst has become ever increasingly unaffordable.  And not just to low-income residents, but middle-income families as well.

The two most recent taxpayer funded housing studies clearly indicate that additional housing is desperatily needed across the entire economic spectrum.

My vote for the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust logo

Perhaps by benefit of the halo non-profit entities get to wear the Affordable Housing Trust will have better luck overcoming the stigma attached to anyone who tries to do housing development in this town, where NIMBYs are nothing if not formidable.

Could be worse:  We could be Boston

Assault & Battery

Amherst police arrested David Rempp, age 23, who lists his address as "streets of Amherst", for domestic Assault & Battery with a dangerous weapon and destruction of property with that dangerous weapon.

Unfortunately because he was transported by AFD for psychological issues, APD did not get a chance to book him, thus no mug shot. 

Mr Rempp was arrested Friday but later bailed under the condition he report to a hospital for treatment, and then Eastern Hampshire District Court on Monday morning for arraignment.

But he failed to appear in District Court and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Editors note:  For any of you old enough to remember the Sharon Galligan murder at the Hampshire Mall in Hadley you will understand why I did not redact the sensitive medical information about Mr. Rempp.

Click to enlarge/read

Unabashed Conservative Comes Calling

 

Charles Krauthammer is a, gasp, Fox News contributor

Yes, the UMass Republican Club is at it again.

The daredevils who brought Karl Rove  and John Ashcroft to our unabashedly liberal enclave -- enraging the Ivory Tower intelligentsia -- have now snagged conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer to share his Pulitzer Prize winning opinions. 

Considering UMass recently hosted Angela Davis, consider it a "fair-and-balanced" kind of karma.

A Fabulous Job

Chief Livingstone introduces Sgts Foster (left) and McLean (ctr), Lt. Knightly (rt)

While the town is parsimonious when it comes to budgeting for our Public Safety departments, I have to admit the Select Board and Town Manager are pretty good when it comes to demonstrating moral support.

 Fellow officers (and Fire Chief) showed up for support

After the awful Blarney Blowout of 2013 (which resulted in six arrests) where bottles and cans were thrown at EMTs while they were assisting an intoxicated young woman, the Select Board and Town Manager actually gave UMass an earful for not doing enough to prevent the mayhem.

And of course the next year which was an utter disaster (with 58 arrests), Amherst town officials were quick to publicly support APD after the rush to judgement about alleged inappropriate use of force.

Last night it was one of those symbolic, non controversial little things that goes a l-o-n-g way towards maintaining pride in a job well done:  Swearing in recently promoted officers Dave Foster and Rich McLean to sergeant and Dave Knightly to lieutenant.

Sky High Price of Transparency

Besides outright refusal to provide requested documents and then running the risk of losing an appeal to the state Public Records Division  (although they have no enforcement powers), another way of keeping things buried is to charge a high price for fulfilling the request.

State law allows "reasonable fees" to be charged by a public institution to fulfill a request, and it really doesn't matter if you are an average citizen or legacy news organization.

Of course these days newspapers can barely afford to pay for employees coffee so an unexpected $11,000 for public documents is a little hard to swallow.

Which of course only makes you wonder, what is UMass trying to hide?

Our flagship of higher education seemed to be pretty transparent last month when they fairly quickly released total costs ($305,000) associated with the Mullins Center Concert designed to distract students from participating in the Blarney Blowout.

So what's the big deal about giving out the cost breakdown?  Will Ludacris and Juicy J be upset that Kesha was paid more? 

Or are there extra costs we don't know about?

These days public relations personnel outnumber journalists by five to one.  With UMass it's far worse since there really are no professional reporters exclusively assigned to cover UMass/Amherst, while their  "Office of News & Media Relations" has a full-time staff (many of them former reporters) of eleven.

But when you mess with one reporter, you mess with them all.  As well as intelligent readers who take transparency seriously. 

When UMass messed with me