A peaceful 4 Town Meeting

Maria Geryk, ARPS Superintendent

Representatives of all fours towns in the Amherst Regional Public School District met this beautiful Saturday morning for not much more than an hour to hear from the administration about the FY17 budget, up 2.6% over last year, and to hear updates about expanding Regionalization all the way down to preK-6th, and consolidating Regional Middle School students into the Regional High School.

 Amherst Assistant and Temp Town Manager Dave Ziomek, Peter Hechenbleikner attended

There was not much to update on those last two items since the Regional School Committee voted on Thursday to delay for a year the expanded Regionalization and last month voted to delay school consolidations.

Mainly because Amherst has so much on their plate at the moment, with the new $65+ million 2-in-1 mega school currently on the fast track.

 Always colorful Trevor Baptiste, Chair of the Regional School Committee (standing)

But Kathy Mazur did give a brief presentation pointing out the previous high water mark for enrollment at the Middle and High schools was 2,000 total, and September's projected total occupancy is only 1300.  The High School has a capacity of 1,700 or way more room for all the current students in the Region.

Spectators included State Rep & School Committee candidates and that rarest of breeds, a print reporter

Mazur estimated the savings to the Region after consolidation comes to $800,000.

Administrators wish to form working groups from all four towns to discuss the assessment method, merging the Middle School into High School, and what to do with the Middle School after it becomes surplus to the Region's academic needs, plus the enormous capital costs coming up in the not so distant future.

Ms. Mazur pointed out there's great interest in repurposing the Middle School building for the arts as well as space for Amherst Media, Greenfield Community College and the Amherst Boys & Girls Club.

Amherst's recreation department (LSSE) is already moving in to a 3,500 square foot space next month in the rear of the Middle School.

Regional Middle School (bottom center) Amherst Wildwood Elementary (top)

Of course Amherst taxpayers may wonder why they are financing essentially two new elementary schools to replace both Wildwood and Fort River when this building is a Frisbee throw away from Wildwood.

After an hour of mostly cordial discussion Superintendent Maria Geryk came to the key sales closing asking each town, "Will you pay your assessment?"

They all said yes.  Of course now all four Town Meetings also have to approve.

And Another One Gone ...

Artefakt Gallery closing

Our beloved downtown continues its slow but steady decline with yet another shop that is not a bar or restaurant calling it quits.

And yes the stores on either side -- All Things Local and The Mercantile -- are also dead or closing by March 1st.

 104 - 110 North Pleasant Street

That end of downtown is turning into a crypt.

 Carriage Shops have been closed and abandoned for over a year now

Meanwhile, Kimballs Auction Barn -- a fixture in North Amherst -- is moving to 299 Russell Street (Rt9) next to Rocky's Hardware. Cinda Jones, "the Donald Trump of North Amherst", confirms she is selling the building and 47 acres of land to farmer Joe Czajikowski.

 Rt 9 certainly has more traffic than Meadow Street

Previous business was an Art Gallery

Furthermore, Should you be running out of gas on the east side of Amherst you're out of luck, as the Cumberland Farms store -- perhaps the busiest convenience store in Amherst -- is closed for at least another week due to renovations.

And the shuttered Sunoco -- Barney's -- directly across the street, still has yet to find a new tenant.

 Barney's (left) Cumbys (right)

Don't Drink The Water?

Ye old unlined landfill off Old Farm Road.  Amherst Woods top center

Assistant Town Manager Dave Ziomek (far right) attended Water Supply Protection Committee meeting yesterday

The Amherst Water Supply Protection Committee voted 3-1 yesterday to recommend the town do one extra sampling analysis at Well 4-08, located in a sensitive area for our drinking supply (Zone 2) where a high level of Dioxane was detected in one lone sampling back in July, 2012.

As per DEP regulations the town tests annually at 15 sites for contamination from two closed landfills off Belchertown Road (lined landfill) and Old Farm Road (unlined).

After the alarming test results taken in July, 2012 the town quickly did a resampling in August using a better testing method which turned up nothing.  Zero.  Zip.

And for the past three years annual testing has turned up nothing.  Zero.  Zip.

Dissenting member John Tobiason, who is also a Board of Health member, was sure the unusually high readings on that one test date were simply due to error, or a false positive.  Especially since that lone sample date is so far outside the norm for all the other sampling ever done.

About a half dozen neighbors showed up for the meeting and were adamant the town test four times per year to account for "seasonal variations."

But the Committee pointed out the retest using a better testing method was done in August of 2012 only a month after the alarming sample was taken, and August is in the same "season" as July.

Of course these are the same Amherst Woods neighbors who filed a lawsuit against the town to prevent a solar array from going on ye old landfill.

After the appeased neighbors filed out of the meeting, just before adjournment, the Water Supply Protection Committee confirmed, "We're not concerned."

The southern end of Gull Pond has tested positive for contamination, but it's not like anybody would drink that water (or swim in it)

Regional School Expansion Delayed Again

Regional School Committee, 9 members from 4 towns (5 of them Amherst)

The four year slog to expanding the four town regional public school education system from grades 7-12 all the way down to pre-K-6 will just have to wait another year, as the Regional School Committee voted this evening to suspend discussion of the matter until January, 2017.

Katherine Appy, Amherst School Committee Chair and major cheerleader for expanded Regionalization, said Amherst simply has too much going on with a proposed new mega school and consolidation of the Middle School students into the High School.

The vote was 7-2 in favor of the delay with Vira Douangmany Cage and Stephen Sullivan voting no.

Mr. Sullivan, a Shutesbury representative, said this delay was unfair to three other towns who are members of Union 28 -- Wendell, Erving and New Salem -- aligned with Leverett and Shutesbury at grades K-6.  This delay leaves them in limbo for another year.

Furthermore, Sullivan announced Shutesbury public officials (Select Board, Finance and School Committees) will recommend their Town Meeting vote "No" on both questions concerning Regionalization.

The first question asks if voters will approve the Regional Agreement be amended to allow for the expansion of the Region, and the second question asks if you wish your town to join.  All four towns must vote "Yes" to the first question or the entire endeavor fails.

So tonight's School Committee vote to delay is really only a stay of execution.

Sad Commentary On Our Times

 New ambulance costs $260K and must negotiate all kinds of terrain

Presenting to the Joint Capital Planning Committee his $442,250 total capital budget request this morning Amherst Fire Department Chief Tim Nelson assumed a somber tone we he got to the next-to-the-last item on the list: "Never in my life would I ever expect to ask for this ... but we live in a different world now."

 Assistant Chiefs McKay and Stromgren (left & right) Chief Nelson (center)

The $17,500 item(s) he was requesting?

Ten bullet proof vests and helmets, one each for two ambulance personnel in all five AFD ambulances.  And yes this request was in the pipeline long before the recent weapon incident that sent UMass into lockdown.

But that incident certainly reinforced the sobering notion expressed by Chief Nelson that "It's going to happen here."

Assistant Chief McKay told the Committee that AFD has been training active shooter scenarios with UMass PD since 2002 (after Columbine) and since 2006 with APD.

These days protocols have changed somewhat in that rather than keeping FD in a "cold zone" where they are safe and protected until police have secured the area, the current idea is for PD to make a "dynamic entry" and clear part of a building so FD can then move in and stage in that "warm zone".

Because obviously the quicker medical experts can get to a victim the more likely they can do something to save a life.  But yes, at risk to their own lives.

The bullet proof vests would stay in the ambulance so they will get way less use than the ones worn by police officers daily, thus this request for 10 vests should be good for twenty years or more.

   AFD Capital Equipment Requests

Our other equally vital public safety department, APD, had only two requests, both somewhat big ticket items totaling $315,000.  The usual request for four new vehicles -- Ford utility Interceptors at $35,000 each -- and new portable radios for the entire department.

 Chief Livingstone (left) Captain Pronovost (right)

The front line patrol vehicles are run 24/7 with plenty of stop and go under all sorts of negative circumstances.  Next year (FY18) they will replace three cruisers but the price is going up about $5,000 per vehicle.   While the radios are all over 20 years old so parts are hard to come by. 

The last thing you want is for an officer responding to a life-and-death emergency being slowed by a vehicle break down.  And officer safety is compromised if their hand held radio should fail when they are in the field.

Our public safety departments -- Police, Fire and Dispatch -- cost $10 million in total operation budgets this year so these two department requests of $757,250 works out to under 8% of total budget.

Currently the Joint Capital Planning Committee uses 8% of the town's total budget for capital equipment/building/facilities spending, or $3.15 million.  Requests from all departments total $3.34 million, so cuts will have to be made.

Hopefully not from Police or Fire.

Masslive catches up to this story (Can the Gazette be far behind?)

Regional School Expansion Showdown

Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury make up the Region

After almost four years of behind the scenes discussion that included two sub-committees made up representative from the four towns the Amherst Regional School Committee will vote tonight on expanding the current 7-12 Region (middle and high school) all the way down to pre-K through 6th grade.

And even though Amherst provides over 80% of the students -- and funding -- the five member Amherst School Committee only has 55.5% say in the nine member Regional School Committee.

The agenda only shows 20 minutes for the discussion vote (7:40 PM - 8:00 PM) so it's probably already a done deal.

Extravaganja Lives

Extravaganja 2015 Amherst Town Common

So Northampton, our sister city to the west, will welcome the 25th annual pot rally at the 3 County Fairgrounds April 30th.

Amherst bounced the mellow revelers from the town common due to the size of the crowd they attract, estimated in the range of 6,000.

Interestingly enough the 3 County Fair committee voted in favor of the rental agreement on Monday night around the same time the Amherst Select Board voted to support a 2nd medical marijuana dispensary on University Drive.

Average Amherst citizenry will certainly not miss the traffic congestion the event always created, but I'm sure starving downtown businesses will miss the thousands of hungry customers.