Requiring A Life Saver

Rolling Green fatal fire 1/21/13 (photo by Stephanie Jernigan)

Sprinklers are a firefighter's best friend, an automated system on duty every minute of the day or night, making a monumental difference by catching a fire before it voraciously feeds and transforms to killer beast.

 Southpoint Apartments four alarm fire 8/9/14

Amherst Town Meeting just approved $390K in Community Preservation Act money to assist the Amherst College owned Evergreens Museum and First Congregational Church next door with installing protective fire suppression sprinkler system in their historic structures.

Since 219 Amity was constructed a long time ago they do not have a sprinkler system even though they are currently commercial housing and were "grandfathered" so town officials could not just suddenly require them.

 219 Amity Street near town center

But after the fire on Friday night, new codes will now kick in with the relevant three being: "Would otherwise require sprinklers" (Yes); "Sufficient water pressure available in the area" (Yes); and "Work area exceeds 50% of the building" (No).

And it only takes one "no" to avoid sprinklers.

State law, however, gives extraordinary authority to a fire chief, so Chief Nelson can simply order them to install sprinklers as part of the renovation.

After the fatal fire at Rolling Green Apartments, where a sprinkler system could have been a life saver, and the major fire at Southpoint Apartments 1.5 years later, which fortunately did not cause casualties, Chief Nelson required sprinklers in the newly rebuilt/renovated structures.

At the time he told me, "As a general statement, with few exceptions, we always lean toward sprinkler use in occupancies."

If the 219 Amity Street fire happened when UMass was in session that rental property would have been far more densely populated. 

Obviously the saving of just one life justifies the cost of a new commercial sprinkler system.

Every time.   

Fiery Friday

219 Amity Street this morning

While many of us townies were enjoying the Rotary sponsored Community Fair, which lit up the night sky like a giant Christmas tree, AFD was busy battling a blaze on a large rental two blocks away that most folks mistake for a rooming house at the corner of Amity and Lincoln Avenue.

Amherst Community Fair Town Common last night

In addition to this home turf battle AFD also assisted via mutual aid their brothers and sisters in Northampton for a potentially catastrophic fire at a senior care facility and a structure in Leverett that was "fully engulfed" when our Quint (Engine 2) arrived to assist.

 The Quint on scene Shutesbury Road, Leverett last night

Plus AFD was pretty much flat out earlier in the day with ambulance runs and an unattended death.

The timing of the fire was both good and bad.  Since the house is pretty much a student rental and UMass is no longer in session the number of potential victims was lowered.

But for the same reason AFD no longer has the "Impact Shift" operational, which is funded by $80K from UMass to assure four extra firefighters are on duty (bringing shift total to 13) during the busy weekend evenings when ambulance runs for substance abuse are all too usual.

Although, even is this had been one of those weekends the Impact Shift does not report for duty until 9:00 PM and the fire broke out about 45 minutes earlier than that.

I asked Chief Nelson about all this Saturday morning quarterbacking on my part about staffing and a proposal he mentioned a while back at the initial DPW/Fire Station Advisory Committee about the town  hiring a consultant to do a (badly needed) staffing level study and he responded:

"Our minimum was eight last night. It goes to seven on June 1st. We go back to eight in the fall.

At the time of the fire last night, one ambulance was at the hospital with another one returning to town. That meant we had 4 personnel in town at the time of the fire; 3 at North Station, 1 at Central Station.

The returning ambulance was backing in as E-1 was pulling out of the bay and an off duty AFD FF ran across the street to join the response. That gave us 4 Firefighters arriving initially with 3 Firefighters coming from North Station.

If this had been September we would have been at nine minimum from 5pm to 9pm. At 9pm the impact personnel come on duty.

 When we first began the impact shifts I convinced John Musante that it was a good idea to go to nine from eight personnel in order to keep an odd number which allows us to staff 4 ambulances and keep 1 Captain in town for command & control.

Once we instituted the Paramedic Firetruck we changed that posture to staffing 3 ambulances and staffing the Paramedic Firetruck with 3 personnel. ALS care in addition to Fire/Rescue coverage that doesn't leave the town potentially without protection.

Luck played a part last night but the main reason we were successful was because of the people I'm fortunate to work with on this department.

The RFP submittal period closed on Thursday. Now the submittals will be reviewed and consultant chosen."

Indeed. 

I can't count the number of time I've heard informed sources say AFD is a victim of their own success:  A talented, dedicated group of professionals who do so much for so many with so few.

Going, Going, Gone

Little Red Schoolhouse, Amherst College, Wednesday

In the end the much fought over Little Red Schoolhouse, which was granted a one year stay of execution by the Amherst Historical Commission, went down in a matter of days.

And no, surprisingly, Carol Gray did not chain herself to the building as the backhoes rumbled in to do their job.

Little Red Schoolhouse Thursday

 Finally, Little Red Schoolhouse Friday:

 Click photos to enlarge

Not A Glitch

Requires majority vote of 5 member Select Board to hire new Town Manager

With two of the final three candidates pulling out of the Town Manager search it's not overly surprising that some folks were concerned when the Select Board somewhat suddenly cancelled an executive session scheduled for today at 3:00 PM

So naturally I asked if we should be concerned that something had gone wrong in the 11th hour over negotiations with Paul Bockelman, and received this reply from Chair Alisa Brewer:

"Actually, it's the opposite: we scheduled today just in case something weird came up -- and it did not.  We are hoping to go over final proposal Wednesday 06-01-16."

Then I asked about the confusing agenda for June 1st which makes it look like they are approving the new Town Manager contract in Open Session before going into Executive Session to discuss the contract.

Click to enlarge/read

To which she replied:

 "Our Agendas are not in chronological order these days. We will start in open, go immediately to exec, decide in exec if terms are agreeable, get finalist on phone if necessary (that's why 2 sections of MLG exec cited) also see if exec session minutes are complete and can be approved if not actually released, or maybe released, then come out to open, announce the result, and vote to execute a contract.

Alternatively: if something surprising comes up in exec, we have some unanswered questions but can't fix it over the phone, need more time, we'll come back out to report that.

Hopefully won't happen since we don't have any extra meetings posted between Wed 06-01-16 and Monday 06-06-16 at 6:00."

Protectionism Or Preservation?

North Pleasant Street on west side of Kendrick Park is a big concern

As former Chair of the Dickinson Local Historic District Commission and a petitioner before them (not while Chair) of the most complicated project they reviewed -- a $500,000 renovation of historic Hills House on Main Street -- Jerry Guidera has a unique perspective on how Local Historic Districts work and he deemed his overall experience "onerous".

 Historic Hills House on Main Street

Jerry Guidera and Tom Ehrgood present to Linclon Sunset Local Historical District Commission last night

Even Steven Bloom Chair of the Lincoln/Sunset Local Historic District Study Committee freely admitted to the 25 or so people at the public hearing that it would be "Another layer of bureaucracy, another hoop to jump through."

 Bill Gillen (right) Steven Bloom (left)

Committee member Bill Gillen, a long-time architect, thought the hearings would be good for developers as it would give them an early insight into what the general public thinks of their project, kind of like acting as a canary in a coal mine.  

Although in Amherst, ANY project is opposed by somebody.

About two dozen attended the public hearing

During his original presentation Dickinson Local Historic District Chair Tom Ehrgood ruled out simply adding this new proposed district to his Committee's oversight as they are already overburdened and could not handle a 500% increase in jurisdiction area.

Only seven audience members chose to address the Committee and barely a majority favored forming the new Local Historic District, and not all that passionately.  

The Business Improvement District and Chamber of Commerce strongly oppose the inclusion of North Pleasant Street along the west side of Kendrick Park as it is contiguous with the downtown and the last remaining area ripe for development.

After hearing from prominent local developers earlier in the week over that particular concern, Bloom told the crowd the current proposed area "Is not set in stone, it's a trial balloon."

If the Committee decides to move forward with the project it could come before Amherst Town Meeting next year where it would require a hard to achieve two-thirds vote.

Art Is In The Eye

Hope The Cow was privately funded

Despite the best efforts of Selectman Jim Wald, who managed to invoke President Kennedy, Robert Frost and deceased Town Manager John Musante all in one presentation, Amherst Town Meeting voted to refer (89 to 72) "Percent For Art" back to the Arts Commission, a nice way of saying No.

The article was changed at the last minute many times but the main change was to reduce the amount of the diversion from public construction projects from 1% to .5%.

That still comes to $500,000 if you consider the $100 million in town money on just the four main building projects coming up: Wildwood Mega School at $30 million, Jones Library $20 million, new DPW $30 million and the forever talked about new South Fire Station at $20 million.

"Portal" in Kendrick Park.  $10,000 covered by private fundraising

Thus the town would have gone from spending zero tax dollars on public art over the past six or seven years to spending $500,000 in the next six or seven years. Yikes!

But the main reason it did not pass is because the bylaw would not fund performing arts because they are too ephemeral. And apparently Hell hath no fury like a pissed off performing artist.

Others also had concerns about who would be the Art Czar.

The bylaw gave the Town Manager final authority on what project goes where and since art appreciation is not part of a Public Administration degree program those decisions could be controversial.

Although when the Select Board announces they have come to terms with new Town Manager Paul Bockelman, they should do a photo shoot of him riding aboard Hope.

Economic Development Czar On A Roll

Geoffrey Kravitz addresses Town Meeting

The town's relatively new Economic Development Director Geoffrey Kravitz is two for two with Town Meeting issues, speaking against a Planning Board article on Monday and a Vince O'Connor (who is a one man Planning Board) "citizens petition" article last night, in both cases on grounds it could stifle development.

Planning Board lost another one 

The Planning Board wished to tweak the rules governing a "mixed use" building which allows a little more leeway on the part of developers and Mr. O'Connor wished to close what he views as a loophole allowing developers of mixed use buildings to avoid the town's Inclusionary Zoning bylaw that mandates 10% of residential units be "affordable."

 Vince O'Connor lost another one

Of course Mr. O'Connor's article only failed because it requires a two-thirds vote. Since the article did garner way more than a majority (100 yes to 61 No) Mr. Kravitz had better remain vigilant.