Charter Choice

Amherst Charter Commission last night

After an hour of discussion/debate the 9 member Charter Commission split along ideological lines with a 6-3 vote to hire the Collins Center for Public Management at UMass/Boston as their guide over the next year to help bring a new and improved government structure to our little college town.

After the vote Gerry Weiss quipped that he would not "write a minority report" over this issue but earlier in the meeting described it as the, "First time we have a difficult decision to make."

Why the three Town Meeting cheerleader (Weiss, Stein & Gage) thought the KP Law consultants would better serve their agenda is anyone's guess but they did seem to think they would be better at dealing with "conflict resolution" among the group.

Which is sure to come up one of these days when the discussion to ditch Town Meeting comes to a vote.

And when they lose that one by a 6-3 vote safe bet Mr. Weiss will surely write that minority report.

Sinking In A Sandtrap

Lower Main Street Thursday afternoon.  The flag can stay

Lower Main Street Saturday morning

Now if these kids knew anything about Amherst they would know golf is not all that high on the list, considering the municipal white elephant Cherry Hill Golf Course loses money hand over fist every season since Reagan was President (and Johnny Carson in his prime).

So yeah, I will be sure to send B2 on a mission tomorrow just after high noon to see their decision.

Building Inspector may want to investigate the "4 unrelated housemates" bylaw as well

North End Revitalization Continues

236 N Pleasant and 12 Hallock (behind) will make way for new 4 story office building

1st new office building in Amherst in over a generation

The Planning Board voted unanimously last night (6-0) to grant Site Plan Review and Special Permits relating to height, number of floors, and set backs for a new office building at 236 North Pleasant Street proposed by two local developers Barry Roberts and Curt Shumway.

Roberts owns the building fronting North Pleasant Street and Shumway owns the one behind on Hallock Street that will be demolished for parking.  The Historic Commission enacted a one year demolition delay on the two buildings but that expires in January.

Amazingly not a single abutter appeared at the hearing to complain about noise, traffic, or the possibility that students from the Isenberg School of Management could rent some of the space.

The Carriage Shops directly across the street are slated to be demolished for One East Pleasant Street, which will be a five story mixed-use building.

 Carriage Shops across the street will be replaced by 5-story mixed use building

Thus this new office building across the street will not nearly be out of scale for the neighborhood.

   New Amherst Office Building

And Then There Were None

Atkins Reservoir 9/21

Atkins Reservoir went off line this morning and even after the rains over the past few days was still down 9' 4"  with only 70 million gallons of water remaining from a 200 million peak.

And if not for that recent rain Atkins would most likely have been down more than ten feet, which would have broken the record set back in 1982.

All three reservoirs are now shut down, although it will still take a few days to put Atkins safely to bed so if something should go wrong immediately with one of our wells it could be fired back up fairly quickly.



Three days from now and that will not be the case.

Conserve water people.

Water Decisions

UMass consumes about 30% of Amherst water

Yes both the University of Massachusetts, our flagship institute that makes us a college town, and Amherst College, that makes us a classier college town, are watering their athletic fields, theoretically violating the town water ban.

Click to enlarge/read

 

Both are invoking the "health and safety" clause to protect their athletes who play on the parched fields.  Fair enough.

 Amherst College consumes about 4% of Amherst water

Otherwise they are both taking the ban very seriously and realize if the water system fails, it could be game over.   

Drunk Meter Report

Overall AFD runs for substance abuse are about 10%, but much higher on weekends

Again this past weekend UMass came in over .50 on the drunk scale with 8 of 11 AFD ambulance transports (73%) due to alcohol overdose.  And even if you factor in the other two colleges the index would not be below my modest target range of 50%.

Drink responsibly!  Oh, and conserve water.

   AFD Weekend Run mid-September

DUI DIshonor Roll

 

Every two minutes, a person is injured in a drunk driving crash

Somewhat surprisingly -- considering how busy our little college town was over the weekend -- APD took "only" three drivers off the road for "allegedly" driving with impaired enough sensibilities to be a threat to the general public, aka drunk driving.

Since all three took the legally admissible -- borderline infallible -- Breathalyzer Test back at APD headquarters, their chances of being declared innocent by a "jury of their peers" is pretty much zero.

If you refuse the BT it's an automatic loss of license for six months;  if you take it and it shows you're drunk (.08 threshold) it's a loss of license for only 45 days but with associated costs of $2,587.

So what's an impaired driver to do?

Unfortunately if you refuse the BT that is not admissible in court as evidence, so a prosecutor must rely on he-said-she-said testimony of the arresting officer.  And some DUI attorneys specialize in picking apart trained police officers.

If declared innocent by a jury the attorney simply petitions the Registry of Motor Vehicles to instantly reinstate the license.  Eureka.  At least until their client does it again and slaughters an innocent family enroute to a wedding.

Although the state Supreme Judicial Court struck a blow for common sense public safety on Thursday by upholding the concept that a prosecutor can enter into evidence a failed BT because the driver couldn't follow the simple rules for a proper BT.

   Breath Test Screw Up

Simple that is if you're sober. 

In other words it sends the message to a potential jury that the driver was, you know, impaired.  Drunk.  Dangerous.  Deadly.

In Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning all three defendents were arraigned before Judge Patricia Poehler and had their cases continued.

Ryan Gardner, age 25

Click to enlarge/read

 Boon Gibson, age 25

#####

Michael Bilodeau, age 20

 #####