DUI Dishonor Roll

Brittani N. Allen, age 24, stands before Judge John Payne

About the only good news concerning the 28 APD arrests over the Halloween weekend is only one of them was for (allegedly) drunk driving.

Of course the other way of looking at it is APD was so busy dealing with party houses, fights, and zombie herds of college aged youth traipsing about the neighborhoods adjoining UMass, that they really did not have the time to watch for drunk drivers.

In a packed Eastern Hampshire District Court Ms. Allen had a plea of "not guilty" entered in her behalf and her case was continued until next month.

How NOT To Treat First Responders

Alyssa Conkonis stands quietly before Judge John Payne

UMass police may only have had 4 out of the 32 arrests over Halloween weekend but this one wins the prize for most outrageous. 

All you party hardy types may want to repeat a mantra in your head before letting loose on a party night for when you see those red or blue lights flashing: "They're here to help me, they're here to help me."

And keep in mind they have probably been dealing with crap no normal employee would ever tolerate in their workplace. So cut them some slack will ya?

Don't fight, bite or -- most especially -- spit!

 Click to enlarge/read

Ms. Conkonis was released on her own recognizance, her $500 bail was returned (although $150 will be taken out for her court appointed attorney). She returns to Eastern Hampshire District Court on December 3.

District Court Déjà Vu

Eastern Hampshire District Court Monday 9:00 AM

I have not seen a Monday morning in Eastern Hampshire District Court this crowded since the one that followed the Blarney Blowout in 2014 when 58 college aged youth were arrested -- beleaguered APD accounting for 55 arrests and UMPD only 3.

Yesterday it was "only" 32 total arrests being arraigned, 28 for APD and 4 of them UMPD.  And like the ignominious Blarney Blowout, all of them were pretty much alcohol related.

 Eric Beal (seated) watching the proceedings

UMass Neighborhood Liaison Eric Beal, himself a civil attorney, attended Monday's crowded arraignment session for the first time and came away very impressed.  He told me the courtroom was run like "a tight ship", the "most efficient courtroom" he had ever seen.

Between the 9:00 AM start and 11:00 AM adjournment Judge Payne and the DA's office had disposed of all 32 arrests.

It helps of course that the Commonwealth has a "diversion" program that turns criminal complaints into civil ones with the payment of the town bylaw fine ($300), four months probation and a required alcohol education program sponsored by UMass, or the "brains at risk" program for non UMass students.

And the District Attorney's office is always cool, calm and professional when pitching these pleas that work well for everyone.

I counted at least 20 APD arrests who took the diversion program, most of them arrested for underage drinking and "open container on a public way."  Thus the town "benefits" by $6,000 in fines.

APD Chief Livingstone tells me that overtime costs for the all-hands-on-deck Halloween weekend came to $5,885 thus we, sort of, broke even.

That fine money however goes into the General Fund and not to the police budget, so in that sense a losing deal for APD.

Most of the Blarney Blowout cases settled this same way although my memory is Judge Payne required perps to write a letter of apology to the Amherst police department for their boorish behavior that day.

Amherst Fire Department had their extra "impact shift" of four firefighters on duty from 9:00 PM to 7:00 AM all weekend (bringing total to 13) but that is covered by UMass who pays the town $80,000 "extra" per year to staff more ambulances on weekends when school is in session.

Darn good thing, since AFD had 30 medical runs to UMass, 20 of them for alcohol abuse and 16 of those necessitating transport to Cooley Dickinson Hospital, a round trip that eats up a full hour of time per ambulance.

ETOH = alcohol OD

Half Way There

 Town Meeting (on a voice vote) approved $26K for hand held voting devices

Last night Town Meeting meeting dealt with almost half (7 of 15) the articles on the fall warrant and only screwed up one of them (maybe two if you're a Patriots fan); meanwhile Charter change enthusiasts who wish to terminate with extreme prejudice the esteemed institution report they are half-way to the goal of 3,215 voter signatures needed to put the change question on the ballot.

 Select Board unanimously recommended approval of Capital Stabilization Fund

Town Meeting failed to muster the two-thirds vote required to create a seperate "Capital Stabilization Fund" to squirrell away money for the four mega-building projects on the immediate horizon: new Fire Station and DPW buildings, expansion of the Jones Library and the new mega school the Amherst School Committee will support later this evening.

The original "placeholder" figure used by Finance Director Sandy Pooler was $57 million for all four, but only $7 million of that was for Wildwood School renovation.  And tonight the School Committee will vote to support a plan (new mega-school) estimated to cost $20 million.

 Town currently has $9.9 million in savings

Which gives you an idea of what all four of these projects will cost if they ever get done.  The new South Fire Station, for instance, has been in the hearts and minds of South Amherst residents  for over 50 years now.

 If you can't trust the Finance Committee who can you trust?

Both the Select Board and Finance Committee supported the idea unanimously.  But conspiracy theorists on the floor of Town Meeting thought it would tie future Town Meeting's into supporting the as yet not-in-the-pipeline building projects.

Some of those folks would much rather have the money available to feed unicorns.

 Test question

After a ten minute or so hands on demonstration that actually (mostly) worked, Town Meeting overwhelmingly supported  the bylaw change required to allow electronic voting and then quickly followed up with near unanimous support to spend the $26,000 necessary to purchase the devices. 

Fortunately the gizmos, which will see first official use this coming spring, can be repurposed once Town Meeting has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

And Town Meeting also overwhelmingly supported borrowing $200K to renovate the Amity Street parking lot dead in the center of town.  Good news for struggling small businesses located in the high rent district.

Amity Street lot. Jones Library top center

Scary Halloween For 1st Responders

3 Engines on scene Brown Dorm 12:42 AM for stuck elevator with passed out female aboard

The Halloween weekend was to nobodies surprise a chaotic one for First Responders.

 Standing room only in Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning

Amherst police had 28 arraignments this morning in Eastern Hampshire District Court for all the college aged youth they arrested -- almost all of them alcohol related.  And as you can see AFD  was stretched to the breaking point by alcohol related runs.

Like for instance at UMass, where two-thirds of the "emergency" runs were for ETOH (intoxicated) students.

   AFD Halloween runs

AFD also dealt with a single Motor Vehicle Collision out on North East street that required the jaws of life for extrication and two helicopters for transport to a trauma center.

I hate to think of what would have happened had that accident occurred closer to midnight -- when our emergency response system was at maximum stress -- than at 3:45 AM, when more responders were available.

What's In A Name?

The Emily Dickinson Homestead "I'm nobody! Who are you?"

Perhaps we can get Amherst College to increase its Payment In Lieu Of Taxes to the town of Amherst from the current $130,000 up to $1 million or so in exchange for changing our name.  How about Emilyville?

Appropriate enough of course since Miss Emily is more famous than Lord Jeffery Amherst -- and for a better reason.  And ever so conveniently her historic homestead, a mecca for tourists from around the world, is owned by Amherst, err, Emilyville College.

The undefeated Jeffs beat Wesleyan 27-18 at their October 24th home game

I'm not so sure rough and tumble college football players will be psyched about a nickname associated with a long dead reclusive female poet, although anything has got to be better than a flea infested moose. 

Lord Jeff of course never actually ordered the distribution of infected blankets to the hostile Indians, err, Native Americans laying seige to Fort Pitt.  And there's no conclusive scientific proof that the two blankets and handkerchief used in the sick attempt actually worked.

But there's no question Lord Jeff was not a big fan of what was then a sworn enemy threatening the men, woman and children of his command. 

15 Minutes Of Fame?

Luke V. Gatti (center) and father (right) appear before Judge John Payne last year

Just so some Cowardly Anon Nitwit can't say "Gee Larry you're numbers have dropped precipitously; you must be losing your touch":

In the routine course of covering rowdy student behavior -- mostly UMass -- I had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting in a cyber sort of way, Luke Gatti, aka the "mac and cheese kid."

 Previous all time record was 134,000 for Blarney Blowout coverage March, 2014

I actually covered him three times over a very brief period last year and he even interacted with me in one of the posts -- although I assume his response was written by an expensive attorney.

So when he screwed up yet again at UConn in a viral sort of way (my definition of viral is minimum of 1 million hits) almost all the major digital media outlets linked to me -- most of them in two places.

This of course was meant to demonstrate Gatti was exhibiting a pattern of bad behavior -- not just a one off aberration that should be forgiven under the Christian guise of "Whoever is without sin cast the first stone."

Luke Gatti one state over

 When I went to bed the night of October 5th this blog was at the usual 75,000 hits for the month.  I usually get around 500 hits during the overnight so I was a little taken aback when I awakened the next morning to see my sitemeter fast approaching the 100,000 mark.

Over the next 24 hours I averaged around 10,000 hits per hour.  And the story had legs of which I've never seen because even a week later I was getting numerous referrals.  But that impact will start to disappear any day now as we approach the one month anniversary.

I get requests almost weekly from individuals I've covered asking for forgiveness in the form of name deletion.  My standard response is, "If you don't want your name to appear here then don't do the crime."

But I do sometimes think about maybe modifying the post once the District Court mandated terms have been met i.e. fines paid, "educational programs" taken and probation period completed without any further incidents.

Of course if I had used that leniency with Luke Gatti those three posts would have disappeared long before his mac and cheese incident.

His total punishment for both incidents on Phillips Street near UMass amounted to $250 in fines, one day alcohol education program and four months probation.

But now his mac and cheese antics as well as his UMass failures, will live on. Forever.

 Gazette even garnered much needed boost in circulation