Not By (Nearly) Enough

Wildwood $67 million Mega School faces crucial vote next week in Town Meeting

In a democratic society such as ours, when is a 50.38% majority of the vote not even close?  When it requires 66.67% super majority.

Already the spinmeisters are saying Town Meeting will have to support the new $67 million Mega School because "the people have spoken," and if they don't critics will say they do not represent the town.

And archaic Town Meeting is currently in the cross hairs for extermination by the Charter Commission.

Okay fine, if Town Meeting votes next week EXACTLY as the town voted yesterday, with an extremely narrow mirror image 50.38% of the vote then the measure fails.  Not even close.

In the past whenever a borrowing or zoning measure that requires a two-thirds vote only garners 50.38% of Town Meeting support it is pretty much considered an almost embarrassing loss.

Since newbie college student voters probably accounted for 30% of the total (14,695 voters or 66.27% overall turnout) many middle of the road Town Meeting members will be perfectly comfortable questioning their wisdom on this issue, which will impact year round homeowners for the next 25 years.

Finance Committee graph on Mega School Override impact

Too Big To Fail?

Direct mail is still a very effective form of advertising (more so than newspapers)

UPDATE:  Question 5 passed by the narrowest of margin:  6,627 yes to 6,604 (or 50.09% of the vote), which will not be overly convincing to Town Meeting where it will require a 66.67% vote of support.

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The Select Board has called an unusual Thursday meeting to discuss the $67 million Mega School and react to today's vote, which I'm guessing will be No.

 Click to enlarge/read

The No folks showed far more enthusiasm, did better research, raised more money and simply outmaneuverd the phoned in old style campaign of the Yes folks.

An early large contribution allowed SASS to use direct mail which even in this digital age is still a powerful way to get the word out.

The Select Board should have taken Question 5 off the table when Superintendent Maria Geryk took her $300K and ran.

Although her chosen blueprint of (sort of) twin co-located schools grades 2-6 will never pass muster with a majority of parents and teachers who prefer two independent K-6 schools even if they are "co-located."

So what happens if Question 5 fails?  Town Meeting still has to vote on it and could conceivably still give it a two-thirds vote of support.  But then, that's about as likely as Donald Trump winning Amherst today.

And even if it narrowly passes today it still needs that hard to achieve two thirds vote of Town Meeting, and some members will argue the only reason it won today was because of the student voter turnout, which could easily be 30% or more of today's total.

You don't have to offer a Chinese Immersion program to appreciate the old saying, "May we live in interesting times."

   Ballot Question 5 Get Out The Vote Costs by Larry Kelley on Scribd

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Carriage Shops Sunday 11/6

Carriage Shops Monday 11/7

The l-o-n-g awaiting demolition of ye old Carriage Shops originally built as the Carriage Inn Motel back in the early 1960s happened today and the actual demolition took less than six hours.

   One East Pleasant, Amherst by Larry Kelley on Scribd

Archipelago will soon start construction of One East Pleasant Street not far from their other five story mixed use Kendrick Place or further uptown's Boltwood Place.

 Archipelago will have built three new 5-story mixed use buildings this decade

The downtown is finally seeing revitalization. Now we just need a new improved government.

Like A Bomb Went Off

Chaos in town center

Probably the busiest PVTA bus stop dead in the center of town was ravaged by a large vehicle that left one innocent bystander critically injured dead and left a trail of debris in front of the Post Office and  down Kellogg Avenue.

UPDATE:  Monday morning.  Unfortunately the victim did not survive

Click to enlarge/read

Please excuse my language

Amherst police have called in UMass, Hadley and Amherst College police to help secure the crime scene and Massachusetts State police are enroute.

 Vehicle found around the corner on Triangle St behind Primo Pizza abandoned

Sleepy Sunday?

UMass Campus Pond sometime this morning (depending if you turned back the clock)

Fort River, Amherst College, town center, UMass

Well it started off pretty nice with a vibrant morning light you tend to see after late night thunderstorms, and then the realization you have not turned back the clock so suddenly an extra hour is available.  

What do do?

 Catching rays at Fine Arts Center Same location UMass but looking straight down.

Well fly of course.

 Townehouse quad follow up to yesterday's play date

APD has been on scene between Shays Street and South East Street all day today after a neighbor reported suspicious activity of two men in the woods where last week the assault by would be Ninjas took place on a South East Street rental property where drugs and cash were stolen.

 APD off Shays Street searching the woods with metal detectors and using leaf blowers

Staging at alternative South East Stree High School this afternoon.

Patrick Bemben was battered by the occupants of the house defending their stash and captured by APD, but his co-conspirators managed to escape a manhunt that included K9 dogs and Mass State Police helicopter.

Patrick Bemben intake photo courtesy APD

 
If they were Bemben's fellow Ninjas maybe they were looking for drugs they dropped or the glock handgun.  One of the first officers on scene today reported finding a "tactical glove" sitting on the ground which would seem to indicate it was dropped recently rather than last week since a lot of leaves have fallen over the past few days.

Rock The Early Vote!

Town Clerk's computer 5:08 PM:  5,634 votes cast (about 1/3 UMass students) out of 22,294 bottom number is time until Tuesday election

Well I for one am willing to declare "early voting" a ballot box landslide success as Amherst already processed 25.3% of the registered voters in town.  Northampton did almost as well with 22.7%

So that means if Tuesday we have an average Presidential election turnout (around 65%) more than one third will not be clogging up the system because they already voted.

Unfortunately it will take an act of the state legislature to allow for early voting at our local annual election in the spring.  And with those more important elections only drawing an average turnout of 15.5% over the past ten years maybe early voting will stimulate a better turnout.

The Charter change in government question will be on the local ballot in the spring of 2017 and charter change questions always double the turnout, so early voting would still come in handy.

Nick Grabbe presentation to Charter Commission:  local election turnout fell from 29% in the 1970s to only 15.5% in the past ten years.  Pathetic!

Not Worth A Bucket Of Warm Spit

Amherst Select Board at last night's Charter Commission Hearing

At least Vice President Garner played second fiddle to one of our greatest Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Pity your basic Amherst Selectman as they are best described as "one-fifth of a Mayor" with all the real power vested in an unelected Town Manager.

Last night the entire 5 person Select "Board" appeared before the Charter Commission to give their take on our town government, and not surprisingly were kind of like the lookout on the Titanic ten minutes before she hit the iceberg proclaiming it "All clear.  Keep steaming full speed ahead."

All five were big fans of maintaining  a professional full-time Town Manager, although support for Town Meeting was not nearly so overwhelming.

Connie Kruger was her usual forthright self in describing Town Meting:

"About as polarized as I’ve ever seen it.  They distrust staff and board members and it got in the way of good decisions. Really uncalled for.  The number of nights presents a barrier to participation.  Acrimony over Library expansion last spring was particularly appalling."

Even Chair Alisa Brewer, who gets paid more than the other four but has no more real power stated:

"I fought to save Town Meeting last time. But now I’m concerned.  Public hearings attract the same people, with the same complaints.  Need to make the entire system easier for average person to engage. "

The Select Board members all reaffiremd that they are collegial and caring among themselves as a board and even try to act Mayor-like in attending public events.

But again the problem is each member has only a one-fifth official say in anything official. Which makes them hard to take seriously when anytime one of them is in room of heavy hitters from UMass, Beacon Hill or even a major business convention.

The big mistake the last Charter Commission made 15 years ago was keeping a powerful Town Manager and throwing in a weak Mayor to the mix.  The big thing they got right was dumping Town Meeting in favor of a full time professional town council.

Since Amherst is such an academic little college town lets hope this Charter Commission will not fail to learn from history, and doom this vital endeavor to repeat a monumental mistake.