Party House of the Weekend

45 Phillips Street

Once again a weekend that was relatively quiet compared to the bad ol' days of just two or three years past.  Our only Party House, with two arrests for Noise & Nuisance, occurred on Phillips Street the most notorious street in Amherst.

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45 Phillips Street to be exact, owned by the most notorious absentee landlord in Amherst, Stephan Gharabegian, who also owns another three houses on Phillips Street, #37,#33, and #11.

Only one house out of all nine on the street is owner occupied.  And the front bookend on North Pleasant Street is a fraternity.

Phillips Street located adjacent to UMass

In Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning both underage individuals took the standard plea deal offered by the Commonwealth: Pay one of the $300 tickets and stay out of trouble for the next four months.

Adrian Lech, age 20

Jason Rubenstein, age 20

Major Business Sold

Center For Extended Care at Amherst, 150 University Drive

The graying -- or some cynics would say decaying -- of America is a growth industry, as baby boomers head into their twilight years. And it must be pretty good when a business would suddenly be worth 400% over the current building valuation.

The Center For Extended Care at Amherst, a 122 bed sprawling long term care facility on University Drive (opposite CVS) just sold for $13 million. The town had the building valued at $3,192,700 or four times less than the property's recent selling price.

I asked assessor David Burgess if that means the valuation will go up for the new owner, and at $20,000 tax revenue per million in valuation it would add up to a significant sum should he bump the value by a few million.

Since the deal is so recent he has not interviewed the main players, but he said it's quite possible the sale number was a "corporate financing price", which for lack of a better term is phantom money.

Thus the valuation will probably not go up at all.

 The Dakin Estate, now fallen into ruins

Kind of like a dozen years ago when Amherst College purchased the Dakin Estate near their golf course for $4.3 million to prevent Barry Roberts from developing it. The assessed value did not jump at all, and today is still valued at way less than $1 million. 

Either way, it's still good to see major business deals happening in our town.

Turmoil In Public Education?

Merging Middle School into High School does not seem to be going well

The public schools can't seem to do anything right these days.

The "Hurricane Revisioning Summit" on Saturday unconvered overwhelming opposition to merging the Middle School into the High School for budgetary reasons and the Amherst School Committee recently backed away from voting on the administrations request for an expensive shiny new mega school. At least until January.

And the Regionalization expansion from grades 7-12 all the way down to kindergarten seems more and more unlikely -- especially since it only takes one town of the four to vote no.   Something Shutesbury seems destined to do.

On Halloween, appropriately enough, I published an exchange between Amherst Regional Middle School Principal Mendonsa and former teacher now parent of a child in the system Alfie Alschuler.  Since over 5,000 read the exchange I figured you would be interested in his follow up.

Let the conversation continue ...

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Showing Up

Town Meeting takes a ten minute standing vote

If as Woody Allen asserts, "80% of success is showing up" this past session of Amherst Town Meeting was almost a success as 78% of members showed up for both nights, with 53 of 240 not showing up at all, or 22%.  Another 43 missed one of the two session.

The Amherst School Committee -- all of them ex officio voting members of Town Meeting -- manged to be just the opposit of Woody's assertion as four-out-of-five (80%) did not make either session.  And the public schools do consume the lion's share of Amherst $80+ million budget.

Yes, the school budget is voted in the spring but there was an important school related capital item on this warrant: $240,000 for a new ADA compliant playground at Crocker Farm Elementary School.

One of the many nice things about a professional full-time Mayor/Council form of government is it's a lot easier to keep an eye on attendence and how they vote on the important issues of the day.

The Amherst For All Charter change enthusiasts are now at the half-way point (1,600 of 3,200) for signatures needed to get the ditch-Town-Meeting question on the ballot for next spring.

This coming weekend they will be hosting "Signature Saturday," with the ambitious goal of 500 signatures.

Something worth showing up for.

Renewing North Amherst

Pine Street yesterday looking east

Pine Street looking west

With the road rebuilding at Cowls Road and Pine Street all but done, the town will turn its attention to the somewhat trickier task of reworking the main North Amherst intersection of five roads within the blast range of a hand grenade:  North Pleasant, Meadow, Pine, Sunderland Road and Montague Road.

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North Amherst center.  Upper Y intersect of Sunderland & Montague Roads main concern

The Planning Board, Select Board (who has the ultimate authority), and Public Works Committee will host a public forum at the Bangs Community Center on December 8th to discuss the redesign of the Montague and Sunderland Roads intersection.

Even my drone was confused

 Cowls Road connects Montague and Sunderland Roads up from the funky intersection

W.D. Cowls will install sidewalk on their property to complete connection to Montague Road

The Sidewalk ended up on the south side of Cowls Road on W.D. Cowls private property to protect the two stately Norway Spruce trees at 150 Montague Road

Sprucing Up The Town's Living Room

Jones Library:  "The town's living room"

Downtown anchor and all around gem in the bag of treasured municipal buildings, the Jones Library is a destination spot that attracts thousands of customers of all ages and socioeconomic standings.

One of the many attractions is the comfortable interior that allows one to settle in for concentrated study of important historical documents, the latest non-fiction best seller, or just a casual reading of the local newspapers (all two of them).

Like The Case Of The Purloined Letter, a real treasure lurks in the background that quietly contributes to the Jones overall ambiance: paintings, statues and rugs.

 Cindy Harbeson (far left) waiting to present to Jones Library Trustees Thursday morning

Recently hired Special Collection Director Cindy Harbeson updated the Board of Trustees on her department which included the public relations outreach, increased security for priceless collection materials and a current appraisal for all the furnishings scattered about the entire Library:

The Library will be unveiling a half-dozen paintings that were recently restored via $10,000 in Community Preservation Act monies Town Meeting approved in 2011, on Sunday, November 22nd.

I can't think of a better way of bringing brightness to an otherwise sad anniversary.

Teen Angst

Wednesday, 1: 45 PM

Turns out the female "driver" of the black SUV that barreled into the Miss Saigon Restaurant Wednesday afternoon is only 14 years old.  Yikes! 

She has been cited by APD for "Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle, Operating To Endanger, and Wanton Destruction of Property over $250."

The Amherst Regional Middle School has "early release" on Wednesday that floods the town with teens.

This is the way it's supposed to be done