Top Story Of 2017?

No doubt our little college town will made a few "Best in America" lists

Trying to predict what story will captivate readers in the coming year is like trying to predict what the weather will be like in early-to-mid March. 

Which would be a valuable skill if only to illuminate the potential recurrence of an obnoxious event that made my top story of 2013 and 2014, The Blarney Blowout.

Blarney is primarily an outdoor event, thus weather dependent.  Combine the old maxims  "bad weather is a cop's best friend" and "March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb" and there's always a good chance for Mother Nature alone to mitigate the rowdiness.

Last year's Blarney Blowout -- or I should say Blarney Blowover -- still made my top ten list for hits but since nothing really happened that readership was down dramatically from those two years when it was my top story.

And with a mutual aid agreement in place with all surrounding police departments and UMass willing to fund extra boots on the ground that day, I'm confident this year's event will be about as exciting as a Boy Scout Jamboree.  Much to the chagrin of ZooMass aficionados.

Major building projects will generate a lot of buzz in the coming year.  The controversial Jones Library expansion comes up for a vote at the Town Meeting starting in April to allow the project to apply for state funding and then again at the Fall Town Meeting to set the all important matching amount the town will need to chip in.

The equally controversial new DPW building will need $350,000 at the Spring Town Meeting for "schematic design" phase as will the new far less controversial South Fire Station.  The DPW initial cost estimates are three times that of the new Fire Station so it will be a much harder sell.

In fact the town currently has enough money stashed away in savings accounts ($12 million) to cover the entire estimated cost of the new Fire Station.

Zoning issues are ALWAYS controversial especially if they are, gasp, pro development.  The Planning Board will also probably bring a recreational marijuana article to Town Meeting and the Select Board will also probably place a referendum question on the election ballot to limit the number of recreational sales permits the town has to allow.

K-12 School issues are ALWAYS a page view magnet and with the need to hire a new Superintendent, the highest paid employee in town, that will generate more buzz than a fleet of quadcopter drones.

And since Amherst is still a bastion of naive liberalism there's always the possibility of  one of those "only in Amherst" type scenarios that could go viral at any time, as we witnessed not to long ago with flag controversy at Hampshire College.

For instance if the town refuses to fly the commemorative American flags on Inauguration Day later this month because they don't like who's being inaugurated, that would probably do it. 

Death is also one of those unexpected attention grabbers.  The tragic death of Town Manager John Musante on an otherwise gorgeous Sunday morning was my top story of 2015 as well as top ten story of all time.

Over the past year there were a number of suicides, heroin overdoses and an accidental gun death that received no media attention at all, but a couple a very high profile incidents that were hard to ignore:

The inexplicable head on crash into a parked Peter Pan bus in town center  that took the life of a 22 year old and the horrific truck piloted by a drunk driver trampling to death a man sitting in town center waiting for the bus both made my top ten list.

Oddly enough my top story of all time happened last year but it was routine District Court appearance links from a year earlier that attracted all the eyeballs when the national media linked to those dispatches as background for the infamous "Mac & Cheese kid," aka Luke Gatti.

Ah, the vagaries of the digital age.

Making The Naughty List

McMurphy's Uptown Tavern:  A college aged youth favorite

A little late for Christmas but just in time for New Year's Day the Boston Globe published a list yesterday of Massachusetts bars and restaurants named as the last place the perp had a drink before getting behind the wheel of a deadly weapon only to be taken off the street by a sagacious patrol cop.

Now I will have to make inquiries on Tuesday because the Globe states these were a byproduct of being "convicted" of drunk driving.

Because after a few years of covering Eastern Hampshire District Court I'm used to hearing the name of an establishment that served the last drink to a driver arrested for drunk driving but they were smart enough to take a plea deal known as a 24D disposition.

In other words they were not "convicted" of drunk driving and after a year the charge is dismissed.

But over the years I've observed perhaps a 100 or more of these plea deals and I have heard McMurphy's Uptown Tavern named more than a few times as the last place the driver was served a drink.

For instance (A BAC almost 2.5 times over the limit)

Sure the perp could by lying and just trying to get a particular bar in trouble because they once made them stand in line too long to get in, but I seriously doubt it.  Because that would be perjury -- and the Courts frown on that even more than they do DUI.

So I was not surprised in the least to see McMurphy's name appearing  on the list published by the Boston Globe.  After all, they were the architects of the infamous Blarney Blowout. 

The Other #1 Story Of 2016

A sea of flags at Hampshire College protest called by VFW Post 754

The Maria Geryk debacle that I declared the #1 story of 2016 was based on number of Blog hits and comments on the initial story that appeared a day or two before other media sources picked it up.

So it was a pretty easy call declaring it the top story of the year.  Mainly because it had such a far reaching impact over long period of time, which still has not concluded since the $67 million Mega School -- Maria's Folly -- comes up for a revote at a Special Town Meeting January 30th.

But the story that reached far more eyeballs than the Geryk affair -- mainly on Facebook rather than my Blog -- was the embarrassing deja vu incident with the American flag at Hampshire College. 

Or perhaps I should say the lack of an American flag at Hampshire College.

My Facebook post of B2 video showing the enormous flag waving crowd on the day of protest called by our local VFW had almost 30,000 views on Facebook alone.  Which goes to show the power of that website for news distribution.

Interestingly enough the first blog post I did on the flag controversy lamenting the initial idiotic decision to fly the flag at half staff to protest the election of Donald Trump was the first time I was banned by Facebook for 24 hours.

Maybe some of the Facebook moderators are Hampshire College grads.

2016 Story Of The Year

'Twas a story that played out over too many months, too many Regional School Committee executive sessions and a final payout of way too many tax dollars -- $309,000 -- before it came to an ignominious end.

The precipitous fall of School Superintendent Maria Geryk, the highest paid town employee, is a cautionary tale that serves to remind us of the old maxim about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

Mike Morris, Maria Geryk, Amherst School Committee at Town Meeting May, 2016

Sure, there were grumblings over her entire tenure about failed academic programs, a seemingly revolving door for school principals, the high average cost per student driving our taxes skyhigh  and the steady stream of students choosing charter schools over our hometown offerings.

But over the course of five years nothing seriously challenged her throne until Ms. Geryk made one fatal monumental error in judgment:  issuing a "stay away order" to a single mother simply trying to get the public school system do something about the somewhat racially charged bullying of her 7-year-old daughter.

A story I first broke on April 14th and published over a dozen follow ups over the next four months. 

But that first story was my highest read (20,000+) and most commented story (210) of the year and it set off a slow rumble leading to a major earthquake whose aftershocks will be felt for a very long time.

For instance the failure of the $67 million Mega School can be directly attributed to Maria Geryk's insistence on having it her way even though the vast majority of parents and teachers preferred a different academic model to solving the physical problems with Wildwood and Fort River Elementary schools.

And after almost four years of deliberations the attempt to e-x-p-a--n-d  regionalization from the current 7-12 system all the way down to K-6 went front burner to back burner to dead & buried as well as the idea of merging the Regional Middle School students into the Regional High School thus freeing up that building for other productive uses.

Now the schools are searching for a another Superintendent and a couple of Principals.  And of course I will get the blame for bringing down Maria Geryk and creating a "toxic" atmosphere that no sane bureaucrat will wish to endure even for the overly generous salary the position guarantees.

Eric Nakajima was appointed to Amherst School Committee by Select Board and School Committee vote

But the recent appointment of Eric Nakajima to the Amherst School Committee and his quick election as Chair of the Regional School Committee to replace Laura Kent, a rookie who couldn't handle the pressure,  offers the best hope we've seen in a l-o-n-g while.

2017 promises to be an interesting year -- hopefully not in the Chinese curse sort of way.

Amherst Coated In White

Sunrise to the east

 Town Center 

UMass our #1 industry (quieter than usual)

Click photos to enlarge

Amherst College (still under construction)

The Notch deep South Amherst

Hampshire College

The Lord Jeff

Courtyard Marriott in Hadley (close enough)

Sundown to the west

Runner Up Story Of The Year

A new Town Manager, a water ban to prevent the recurrence of the great 1980 UMass shut down, and an almost unheard of handgun murder at Southpoint Apartments all made my short list for top local story of the year, but not quite #1.

And perhaps I'm a little too attached to the story that comes in at #2, especially since I predicted one year ago around this time that it would be the #1 story of 2016.  Oh well, close enough for the internet I guess.

 9 member elected Charter Commission sworn in by Town Clerk April 5, 2016

In fact if the Charter Commission had not, finally, come to a (straw) vote on December 19 to ditch Town Meeting their doings over the past nine months would not even have made my top ten list. 

The previous Charter Commission came within a whisker of updating our antiquated local government from Selectboard/Town Meeting/Manager to Mayor/Council/Manager.   Their straw vote to ditch Town Meeting, however, came a little earlier in the process.

Our current Charter Commission has to produce a draft version of their proposal by July, 2017 and it will go to the voters at the March, 2018 annual election.  This recent vote to terminate Town Meeting was a h-u-g-e step in the right direction. 

Now they just need to avoid the fatal mistake made by the previous Commission keeping an unelected Town Manager with more authority than the Mayor, who was more figurehead than actual leader. 

Pot Delayed Is, well, Pot Delayed

It is still legal to grow your own pot and share with friends and family

So apparently only two State Senators can upend the will of the voters and enact a six month delay on the commercial sale of marijuana in our fair state, moving the original deadline (six months) from one year from now to 1.5 years from now.

The measure passed in Amherst almost as overwhelmingly as the town supported Hillary Clinton for President.

Originally municipalities had until January 1st, 2018 to line up their ducks for granting permits for recreational sales, or at that point any facility that had approval to sell medical marijuana could then start selling it to anybody over the age of 21 with no medical approval required.

Now that drop-dead deadline has been pushed back to July 1st, 2018.  The measure still requires the approval of Governor Baker but since he's an opponent of recreational sales I'm sure he will be happy to sign the delay.

In an unusual meeting this morning the Select Board met to call a Special Town Meeting to revote  the $67 million Mega School.

 Select Board met this morning and can place anything they want on town ballot

Chair Alisa Brewer also confirmed the SB would soon discuss the idea of placing on the Spring ballot a referendum question allowing Amherst to limit the number of permits for recreational sales to either 20% of the liquor licenses issued, or the same number of medical marijuana dispensary permits issued.

Either measure would limit the number of recreational pot facilities to three or less.  And it's a safe bet UMass will be arguing for less.