Playing Hardball

34,525 sq ft UMass Campus Center hotel competes with private sector hotels in the Valley

In an effort to coerce the town into signing a new multi-year "strategic partnership agreement," aka Payment In Lieu Of Taxes that is long overdue, UMass -- our beloved flagship institute of higher education -- is taking a hard line approach:  withholding payment of a local option room tax everybody else pays, including tax exempt Amherst College.

But in so doing they are most certainly biting the hand that feeds them.  Over the past 30 years there's not been a  bigger legislative cheerleader for UMass/Amherst than Stan Rosenberg, who also just happens to be an Amherst resident.

And currently Stan holds the powerful position of Massachusetts Senate President.

Stan went out of his way back in 2009 to draft legislation specifically to close the loophole that allowed the Campus Center Hotel to dodge our 6% local option tax.

In an email to his staff Stan wrote:

"I want to make sure that we insert language into the bill that effectively says that hotels that are located on college campuses or operated by any other form of nonprofit/education organizations are subject to room occupancy excise. 

This is extremely important as I have been trying to get UMass to the right thing and apply this tax for a very long time voluntarily and they have refused.  This is wrong and I don not want to miss the chance to fix this finally now that we have a chance to do it."

Currently UMass pays the town $455,000 PILOT for AFD ambulance and fire protection.  AFD and 911 Dispatch has a annual budget of $5 million with about 25% of their total runs involving UMass students, so that alone should be well over $1 million in reimbursements.

In addition 56 children living in tax exempt UMass "family housing" attend our public schools, which have a high average cost of education just over $20,000 per student, so that alone should be well over $1 million in reimbursements.

In fact the previous 5 year "strategic partnership agreement" that expired June 30, 2012 specifically stated that if the town closes down Marks Meadow Elementary School the University would come back to the bargaining table and reopen the agreement to consider a cash contribution for educational services. 

Note to UMass:  When you play hardball, sometimes you get beaned in the head.

 UMass is the town's largest employer and #2 landowner behind Amherst College

Legal (technicality) finding in favor of UMass

Amherst Elementary School Closings?

108,000 sq ft Wildwood Elementary School built 1970 and 197,000 sq ft Middle School above center built 1969

The Amherst School Committee will hear school administrators "education plan" on Tuesday night that will set the future of Amherst Public Schools for the next 30 or 40 years.

The School Committee will not vote on that recommendation until their November 3rd meeting, and there is one "community forum" before that, on October 26.

 Wildwood Building Committee met last night at Middle School

That plan could very well consist of closing down Fort River Elementary School and merging/redistricting all the students into Crocker Farm Elementary School and a new mega-sized elementary school building to replace Wildwood Elementary School.

 Overhead presented yesterday to Wildwood Building Committee

Letter from concerned parents:

Click to enlarge/read

Fort River Elementary School

Wait Until Next Year

Simple Gifts Farm, aka North Amherst Community Farm.  Pine Street on right

What some neighbors have dubbed "The Forever Project" -- the Pine Street renovation -- a major east/west thoroughfare just north of UMass, our #1 employer, continues to live up to the name.

The $4 million project will not be totally completed by Thanksgiving the drop dead date for construction projects because asphalt plants close for the season.

Since tax money (both Agricultural Preservation Restriction and Community Preservation Act) assisted in purchasing/preserving the North Amherst Community Farm it took a little longer to get permission to intrude on their land for the sidewalk and crosswalk construction.

By the time permission was obtained the squash had already been planted so now the construction project will have to wait until next year.  Don't want to mess with a farmer's squash crop.

The road itself, however, will be completed by first snowfall.

Another project that is starting to join the realm of forever projects is the intersection of Triangle/East Pleasant at the up and coming north end of downtown.

Guilford Mooring out of the hot seat at last night's PWC meeting

Last night the Public Works Committee discussed the item (along with a bevy of concerned neighbors) for the 8th time over the past 1.5 years.

Intersection of Triangle and East Pleasant Streets will go the way of roundabout

The Committee continues to wholeheartedly support the idea of a roundabout but have not yet seen a detailed enough plan to vote on it.  Neighbors have continually expressed concern about pedestrian/bicycle safety and the town losing its "small town character" via a roundabout.

The Public Works Committee will, probably, vote in favor of the project at their next meeting in November.  The PWC is only an advisory committee appointed by the Select Board, who has final say over "the public way."

Click to enlarge/read

 7/10/14 vote was taken before the town acquired $1.5 million state grant for construction work near the intersection

DUI Dishonor Roll

Of the 1,149 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2013, 200 (17%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver

Amherst police arrested four impaired drivers over the long holiday weekend, three of them due to alcohol and the remaining one for driving under the influence of drugs.

And not a single one was a UMass student!

Yes Amherst being a college town, the long weekends usually stimulates a mass exodus of our college aged youth.

Interestingly two of the DUI arrests were coming from downtown bars when they were intercepted by police, one from Stackers Pub and the other from The Spoke.

Kind of makes you wonder if the bars get a tad more desperate for business when the students are gone and serve those who should be shut off.

In Eastern Hampshire District Court on Tuesday two of the four took a standard plea deal the Commonwealth offers to first time offenders.  A 24D disposition will cost them $650 in fines/fees, loss of license for 45 days and one year with DUI charge "continued without a finding," aka probation.

But it does save them a couple thousand in legal fees and with a legally admissible Breathalyzer test as evidence against them, the chances of beating the charge is nothing if not slim.

Alex Forrest, age 26, stands before Judge Payne after making a 24D disposition plea

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Cayla Sicard, age 30, had public defender assigned and her case continued to next month

Cayla Sicard was arrested late Sunday afternoon after hitting another vehicle on busy Rt 9 in East Amherst. She also had her two year old son in the vehicle with her at the time.

Her legally admissible breath test came in at .18 more than twice the legal limit.

And as you can see from the video she failed miserably the 9 step walk and turn test.



Ms. Sicard  was released on her own recognizance to appear next month for pre-trial, but she will be subject to random alcohol screenings via the probation department until then.

Allan Tremblay, age 24, also had a pubic defender assigned to him and he will return next month for a pre trial on the charge of OUI drugs

Town Meeting Snoozer

Amherst Town Hall looked busy at least from the outside last night

If last night's turnout for the League of Women Voters/Town Meeting Coordinating Committee Warrant Review is any indication, the annual Special Town Meeting starting November 2 will be lucky to acquire a quorum of its 254 members.

Perhaps because there are no hot button issues on the warrant, although I was surprised the three articles relating to solar development in town did not bring out the NIMBYs, with their solar powered torches and pitchforks.

Maybe two of the dozen who showed up were unaffiliated with the articles at hand

Article #4 (the 1st three are housekeeping articles) would create a Capital Stabilization Fund to squirrel away money to cover BIG ticket capital items coming up:  Wildwood School renovation, new Fire Station, Jones Library expansion, and new DPW facility.

The money comes from $650K already in Free Cash and even with that withdrawal the amount remaining would still be 5% of our total annual budget.

Currently Amherst reserves are 13.8% of budget and the Department of Revenue suggests anywhere from 10% to 15% as a comfortable target goal.

The $26K request for electronic voting devices for Town Meeting could run into trouble due to Town Meeting's geriatric median age.

Or proponents of the new Charter movement to kill off Town Meeting could also see it as a victory for their cause should this item fail.

Town Meeting will also be asked to allow repurposing $150K from previous spending to fix up East Street School so the LSSE recreation department can relocate there.  But bids came back too high so now the town with mothball that idea.

The money would outfit 4,000 square feet of the Amherst Regional Middle School as office space and interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek confirmed it does not require the recently talked about relocation of 7th and 8th grade students into the High School.

 Peggy Roberts TMCC Chair.  Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek addressed the "crowd"

Since the Middle School is a total of 197,000 square feet and student enrollment has declined since it first built, the 2% of total taken up by LSSE will not even be noticed.

The two Community Preservation Act financed projects -- North Common and Crocker Farm pre school playground rehabs will pass handily.  Even with all that spending ($430K) the CPA fund balance will still have over three quarters of a million left over.

Since it appears nothing overly controversial appears on the warrant -- but with Town Meeting you never know -- November 2nd alone probably will not be enough time.  But certainly only two nights will be required to complete all 15 articles.

A refreshing break from our annual spring Town Meeting, which drones on and on and on ...

We're #1

 Amherst's new them song:  "Where have all the hippies gone?"

So this is certainly not the kind of Internet poll result you will see our Chamber of Commerce, Business Improvement District or UMass Office of News & Media Relations proudly hype in a press release.

But, considering the source, maybe they should.

Internet troll and anonymous provocateur Turtle Boy Sports named us #1 on the list of his (obviously he's a he)  "Top Ten Hippie Towns in Massachusetts Where Turtle Boy Would Lose His Mind"

Not that he has much of a mind to begin with.  But hey, at least he can count to ten.

First of all Amherst has the lowest median age in the state, with 58% of our population comprised of "college aged youth."  The "hippie" demographic died off a while ago.

These days we have more homeless hanging out in town center than we do hippies.

In other words the Vietnam war is l-o-n-g over.  And Turtle Boy should know that since he -- like Barstool Sports -- revels in bad boy, party hardy, rowdy student behavior.

If immaturity was a good thing, Turtle Boy would be a saint. 

But that's kind of the modus operandi for Turtle Boy:  Cite a cliche or two, add a pinch of snark and a few lousy photos and voilà, you have a listicle "story."  Now bring on the hits. 

Funny thing is in his "takedown" of little old me last spring he clearly says, "Downtown Amherst has tons of cool shops, restaurants, and bars, none of which would exist were it not for the fact that 20,000 carpetbaggers live there in three out of the four seasons."

And he even closed with, "it’s actually got a nice downtown area with tons of nice looking things."

But that's Turtle Boy: spew so much verbiage that you soon forget what you have said in the past.  And he's too lazy to bother with a simple Google search -- even of his own website.

And w-a-y too cowardly to stand by his opinions under his own name.

Amherst: Colorful College Town

Hampshire College, South Amherst: student population 1,400

Who needs psychedelic drugs when you have this outside your dorm?

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UMass Amherst, our state flagship: student population 28,635

UMass Southwest area houses 5,500 mostly freshmen, err, 1st year students

$10 million Paradis Steam Boiler Plant  that never worked

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Amherst College: largest property owner in town.  1,785 students 

Now you know why we call this College Street (or RT 9)