Too Expensive?

Amherst College is the #1 landowner in town

Amherst is in the top 3% statewide for highest property tax rates at $21.22/$1,000 landing in the top ten of over 350 municipalities ( #9).

   Mass Property Tax Rates 2016

The main problem with our little college town is we are more than half-owned by tax exempt education institutes: Amherst College our #1 landowner, followed by UMass/Amherst the flagship of higher education in the state, and of course the "I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can" little college that could, Hampshire College.

And the town itself is in the top four tax-exempt landowners with its extensive conservation, recreation and APR property.

How profitable would an airline be if a little more than half their passengers were "non revenue" free flights from employees or their friends and family?

And it's only going to get worse.  Much worse.  Looming on the immediate horizon are four -- count 'em FOUR -- major building projects, that all told could approach $100 million in total costs.

Yes, one-tenth of a Billion.

Pretty safe bet at this point the School Committee will chose a Wildwood School plan that includes a combined mega-school to replace both Wildwood and Fort River, costing between $61 and $66 million.

Thus taxpayers will be faced with an Override vote for Amherst's 50% share of that this coming November.

The Jones Library recently chose an architect for their expansion/renovation that could cost upwards of $40 million, with Amherst taxpayeers covering half that.

And it's beginning to look like the new Fire Station and DPW building -- with no state reimbursements -- will not come in at the "placeholder" price of $20 million each Finance Director Sandy Pooler postulated a year ago.

In other words before you go spending the money saved by low gas/oil prices, think about what your property tax bill is going to look like starting a very few years from now, let alone the outrageous amount it is already.

Click to enlarge/read

 Numbers for four major construction  projects given to Joint Capital Planning Committee March, 2015 (note how far off School and Library projects were)

Our Survey Says

Dan McMurrer (an Amherst resident) from McBassi & Co presenting survey results

UPDATE: Thursday morning
Scroll to bottom of post for all Powerpoint slides presented last night

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The somewhat rushed survey of parents/guardians and teacher/staff approved at a cost of $2,500 in late December by the Amherst School Committee was presented to a joint meeting of the School Committee and Wildwood Building Committee early this evening.

In fact the meeting personnel in the front of the room outnumbered spectators in attendance, although there is a Community Public Forum later this evening to discuss design options, costs and timeline for the expensive project.

 4:00 PM meeting was sparsely attended

The results of the two surveys show strong support for option B, the mega-school with two separate but equal wings -- aka two schools in one, with cost estimates that range from $57 to $66 million. Although the results were a lot stronger with teachers/staff than with parents/guardians.

In fact, if you factor in the margin of error Option A & B were essentially tied in the parents/guardian survey.  

Since Option B is two schools in one -- Wildwood and Fort River -- Amherst would then have only two elementary schools, the new mega school and Crocker Farm.

 Click to enlarge/read

Teacher/staff chose "Healthy work & learning environment" as #1 reason and #2 was "Impact on student learning."  While the parent/guardians also chose those as their top two reasons, only in reverse order.

Option A is simply to rebuild Wildwood, either new or renovate, and maintain three elementary schools, with hopefully Fort River getting renovated at a future date.  Cost ranges for those options range from $34 to $38 million.

The Mass School Building Authority will cover about half, possibly 55%, the total project cost.

 Much better crowd for the 6:30 Community Forum

The Amherst School Committee will make their BIG final decision on January 19th.

 Click to enlarge/read

   Amherst School Options

Another Unattended Death

UPDATE: Thursday afternoon

The District Attorney's office has identified the deceased as Amherst resident Adam Gamble, age 32.  The case remains under investigation.  Gamble has a previous arrest record with APD.

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The District Attorney's office has confirmed Amherst Police, AFD and the Massachusetts State Police attached to the DA's office responded to Bertucci's yesterday for an unattended death.

According to DA spokesperson Mary Carey, "The death appears non-suspicious, and non-criminal in nature and the investigation is ongoing."

I asked if a drug overdose would still qualify as "non-suspicious and non-criminal in nature," and she said "yes."

The Amherst Town Clerk recorded 217 total deaths in 2015 and so far this year, 9 (not counting this most recent one).

College Town Moving On Up

Amherst has a commercial tax base under 10%

I usually hate those puff piece Internet listicles placing Amherst in the top ten for this that or the other, oftentimes made up category.  But BusinessWest is a different story altogether.  A legitimate insider bible of the industry, and their industry is of course "business."

Way to go, oh hometown of mine.

Partnerships Spur Development in Amherst
click link above to read article

Kendrick Place dominates the north end of downtown (at least until One East Pleasant is built)

Fuel To The Fire

Bernie Sanders attracted overflow crowd to UMass FAC on January 2nd

For those of you who were wondering if UMass, a public institution, gives special favors to hot trending presidential candidates I offer the following:

   Bernie Sanders Amherst rally cost

And there certainly is some wiggle room when it comes to "Public Safety Officer."  Although it might have been a stretch to say all those officers were routinely needed to ensure student safety when the event occurred during intersession.

About the only thing you worry about from a public safety standpoint with popular speakers coming to campus is the disruption factor.  Although at UMass it's a lot more noticeable with conservative speakers than those who lean left.

In this particular case the lone Trump supporter who was escorted from his seat close to the front of the stage at the Fine Arts Center did Bernie Sanders a favor.   

Trump supporter Mike Rooney

Media coverage, although the larger outlets did seem to focus on that particular snippet, was a lot more extensive than it normally would have been.

Perhaps the Sanders campaign should hire Mr. Rooney to show up at all Bernie's campaign stops from now on.

Click photo to enlarge

Line stretched from Fine Arts Center all the way down to the Newman Center

Avoiding The Appearance Of A Conflict

Select Board & Town Attorney decided to dodge transparency issue

The Amherst Select Board had the opportunity to make this conflict of interest issue go away last night but they took the easy way out:  avoidance.

The town attorney suggested that not openly acknowledging a potential "conflict of interest" didn't fall  within the domain of a branch of government titled "Division of Open Government."

Yeah, that's a hair only a lawyer could split.

So I have now filed a complaint with the State Ethics Division.  Let's hope he gives better legal advice to the Select Board this time around.

State Ethics Commission
Enforcement Division
One Ashburton Place, Room 619
Boston, MA 02108-1501
1/12/2016


To Whom It May Concern,

I wish to file a formal complaint concerning an accidental violation of state ethics law — especially as it relates to the “appearance of a conflict of interest” — by Amherst Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer at the Select Board December 21 regular Monday night meeting (although at an unusual time). 

The five member Select Board voted unanimously to allow Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek to sign a 3.5 year Strategic Partnership Agreement with UMass/Amherst, the town’s largest employer, that could be perceived as overly generous to UMass.

Chair Alisa Brewer shows up in the online data base of UMass employees although apparently she does not work directly for UMass.  Her husband Steven Brewer, however, is a full-time professor in the biology department. 

At that December 21 meeting she did not publicly announce her affiliation(s) with UMass prior to leading the discussion and then voting in the affirmative on the UMass Strategic Partnership (estimated value just over half million annually).

Back in September, 2007 (on or about 9/18/2007) I filed a complaint naming Alisa Brewer and Select Board member Rob Kusner, who was a professor at UMass, when they voted on an earlier version of the Strategic Partnership Agreement that gave UMass free effluent water for their power plant, when the previous year they had paid the Amherst water/sewer fund $38,0000 for it.

At the time both Select Board members made somewhat of an announcement of their affiliations with UMass, but neither had filed a disclosure form with the Town Clerk.  

Within a week of the 9/17/2007 meeting both had (retroactively) filed the disclosure form.  The Ethics Commission then found no violation had taken place since the Select Board members in question had made a public announcement prior to the discussion/vote and both had, eventually, filed a disclosure form with the Town Clerk.

Alisa Brewer’s disclosure form dated 9/25/2007 is still on file with the Town Clerk, but she clearly did not make the pubic announcement at the December 21 meeting acknowledging her potential conflict of interest.  

Although there were no members of the general public present at the meeting that night, all Select Board meetings are televised and live streamed by local cable access entity Amherst Media.

The town suffered a great loss back in September with the sudden death of Town Manager John Musante, so the Select Board has been far busier than normal over the past four months.  

Since I do not believe the lack of transparency was deliberate, I would simply ask the Ethics Commission to remind the Amherst Select Board how important it is for public officials to routinely avoid the “appearance of a conflict” with a quick simple public pronouncement prior to a discussion/vote.

Sincerely,

Larry J. Kelley
596 South Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01002

Quite The Party

Panda East:  Restaurant with a $3,500 "all alcohol on premises liquor license" (now endangered)

Scroll down for update

I would imagine you could forgive a busy establishment in a college town missing a single patron in a large crowd of "college aged youth" whereby a determined 20-year-old with a fake I.D. manages to acquire alcohol.

   Underaged Drinking Panda East

But you really have to wonder about that establishment when they miss 17 patrons who were all underage with many of them with not even so much as a fake I.D.  

Yes, I said seventeen.  And the alcohol they acquired was one of the more expensive drinks offered on the menu:  Scorpion bowls.

Scorpion Bowls at the ready back in October on a Thursday night

The Amherst Select Board, acting as the town's Liquor Commissioners, at the request of Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone will hold a Hearing tonight to decide how to deal with this egregious violation.

UPDATE:  7:45 PM

Select Board votes unanimously to suspend liquor license for two days -- January 25 and January 26 -- for the 17 counts of underage drinking violation.

Also placed another 5 days worth of suspensions on hold for two years as a form of probation, or what District Court calls a "continuation without a finding."  As long as there are no other violations the 5 day suspension is terminated after the two years are up.