Blockbuster Party

North Pleasant Street from Amity to Triangle Street became a no vehicle zone

 

One good thing about our lack of rainy weather is it makes for a perfect backdrop for outdoor activities -- especially on a large scale.  And in our little college town things don't get much larger than the annual Block Party.

DPW used fleet of large vehicles to close off streets

Thousands of residents converged on a safely closed off downtown to partake of our culture, cuisine and camaraderie.

AFD will miss having such a Central location (but that's about all they'll miss)

Great job by Business Improvement District and Chamber of Commerce as well as their partners AFD, APD and our DPW.

 St. Brigid's would love to see this crowd on Sunday

Birdie the 2nd had a blast.

 Caught in the act by Kevin Collins

Red Alert!

Today's bad news

Atkins Reservoir this morning now two-thirds depleted

Conservation is good, and we're doing a good job with it. BUT WE NEED RAIN.

Desperate times call for desperate measures: Friday is a full-moon with zero chance of rain. Let's have a giant rain dance on the Town Common. 

Maybe we can get the Native Americans who are fired up about the solar farm in Shutesbury to come perform.

And we can get the UMass cheerleading squad for extra motivation and the Power and Class of New England UMass Marching Band to play a few sad Irish songs to move Mother Nature to tears, along with a few kegs of beer for (de)hydration.

Game on!

Charter Pros

Lauren Goldberg and Bernie Lynch (center)

The nine member Amherst Charter Commission heard a presentation last night from the second consulting group wishing to take on the $20,000-$25,000 project of guiding them over the next twelve months towards creating a new and improved town government.

Laura Goldberg is an attorney who works for KP Associates, who provide legal counsel to about one-third of the communities in the state (including Amherst), and Bernie Lynch of Paradigm Associates who most recently acted as headhunter for our new Town Manager.

Thus both professionals have direct experience with Amherst.

The Commission had planned to hold off discussion of the two proposals until next week when they would make their choice, but member Julia Rueschemeyer suggested each member weight in with "one sentence" about their overall impressions.

Of course that turned into somewhat of a straw poll with four members expressing a strong preference for Ms. Goldberg/Mr. Lynch and another four members expressing just as strong a preference for the the Collins Center.

 And ironically enough only Ms. Rueschemeyer said she could go, "either way."

A $100 Million Here, A $100 Million There

The attendance peaked at 35

The town probably set a new record for number of meeting participants with a joint meeting of 5 boards/committees and town staff: Select Board, Finance Committee, School Committee, Jones Library Trustees, DPW/Fire Station Study Committee.

And before the digital dust settled the final tally for all four building projects presented came to $100 million in town money, or one tenth of a BILLION.

The purpose of the meeting was to briefly pitch their individual projects and then hear about how the town might finance all of them.

With total town savings in Free Cash and Stabilization at around $12 million only the Fire Station could be immediately paid for out of savings alone. But unfortunately the South Fire Station is scheduled to be the last of the four projects to break ground.

The $67 million Mega School is already scheduled to go first on the November 8 ballot with a debt exclusion that will cost town taxpayers about half that total amount.

And the other project funded via a $12 million debt exclusion with be the $32 million Jones Library expansion with the state paying $15 million and private donations covering $5 million.

The $50 million or so from those two debt exclusions, if passed, will cost the average single family homeowner $500 per year.  Amherst already is in the top ten in the state for high property tax rates.

The DPW/Fire Station Study Committee will come to Town Meeting in November with a request for $350,000 in "schematic design" for the DPW project and $75,000 for the "feasibility and site design" of the new Fire Station. 

We Have The Technology

UMass owns BIG tank (1.5 million gallons), the town owns little one (475K gallons)

The Amherst water supply system is a fine tuned operation that efficiently delivers vital water to homes, businesses and our institutes of higher education.  The problem occurs when there is not enough water being replenished via Mother Nature.

A sophisticated monitoring system feeds into a control station at the DPW to automatically adjust water tower levels and almost like a thermostat will signal industrial wells to kick in accordingly to keep up with demand.

 Holding Rudy in reserve

At the moment that demand is just under the 3.5 millions gallons per day the town set as a benchmark for dealing with the drought, although peak day hit 3.7 mgd on Wednesday, September 7th.

Last year peak day was September 6th with 4.2 millions gallons used, so we're still ahead of the game.

Click to enlarge/read

Atkins Reservoir is going off line on September 21st joining Hawley and Hills reservoirs which are also in hibernation, thus leaving the town relying solely on our wells.  It takes three or four days to properly shut down Atkins and another three or four to fire it back up.

Atkins and Centennial will be off line as of September 21

We did this once last winter for a month or so -- but not while UMass was in session -- and for a more extended period way back in the early 1980s.

Four of the five wells are tied into the DPW monitoring station for electronic control but (backup) Well 5 is not and has to be fired up and adjusted by hand.  And after 5-7 days it needs to be shut down for a while to rest.  But well 5 is the only one with a name: "Rudy".

Probably because after the brief hiatus he comes off the bench, kicks back on, and delivers the 500,000 gallons per day that could be a make or break difference in the very near future.  Go Rudy!

 Rudy:  The little well that could

Conservation: Don't Stop!

Atkins Reservoir today. 75 of 200 million gallons remain (37.5%)

Atkins Treatment Plant goes off line September 21st meaning we will  have zero reservoirs in use

With Atkins Reservoir now down 8' 11" and fast approaching the all time low of minus 10' it's time to double down on the water ban.  Our other two reservoirs in Pelham are completely off-line and will stay that way for at least another six weeks.

 Pelham Reservoir currently off line

Hills Reservoir currently off line

Click to enlarge photos or graphs

 That red splotch keeps growing and heading our way

Even if consumption peaks at  4.2 mgd (like last year) the wells  alone can handle it (unless Wells 3 or 4 go down)

Atkins sandbar 8/21/16

Atkins sandbar 9/12/16

Lost Weekends

AFD at UMass horse barn fire September 4th

   AFD Weekend Run Summary 9-9-2016

While substance abuse calls to the campuses take up about 10% of AFD total emergency runs spread out over an entire year the percentage goes WAY up on weekends, which is peak period for binge drinking.

For instance in this weekend report Amherst College is at 100%, Hampshire College 60% and UMass 56%. 

And each drunk run ties up an ambulance for at least an hour meaning they are not available for any other serious emergency.

Time for our colleges and FLAGSHIP University to double down on this problem.