The Electronic Age

Jim Pistrang pitches his electronic voting idea to Amherst Select Board

256-year-old Amherst Town Meeting could amble into the 21st Century if a majority of the 240+ members support the recommendation of the newly announced Amherst Town Meeting Electronic Voting Committee this coming fall.

The seven member group is the brainchild of Town Meeting Moderator Jim Pistrang, and he will be joined by Town Clerk Sandra Burgess, an IT staff person, one member of the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee and three at large members (not necessarily current Town Meeting members).

According to Mr. Pistrang electronic voting will serve to facilitate three equally important crucial things: accuracy, accountability and efficiency.

The committee will research the best system to fit the needs of Amherst, determine the total cost, and come up with wording to revise current bylaws governing Town Meeting to allow for electronic voting.

And they will draft a warrant article for the 2015 Fall Special Town Meeting to purchase the gadgets, which, if approved, would then go into full use at the 2016 Spring Annual Town Meeting.

As a sales pitch the committee will also put on a demonstration for the Fall Town Meeting showing how the system works prior to their vote (taken in the old fashioned manner -- either voice vote, standing vote, or tally vote).

 Standing vote 5/7/14 Town Meeting

The Select Board unanimously supported the idea to form the committee.

Now if we could just downsize Town Meeting by w-a-y more than half, to say 60, we could save money on the new system, increase accountability even more, and actually make members compete for their seats.

Streamlining A Sloth

Amherst Town Meeting 5/13/15

This past session of the 257th Annual Amherst Town Meeting ran eight sessions, but two of those sessions would have been unnecessary if the ancient body had been using time saving electronic voting devices.

With Tally Votes averaging close to 11 minutes to complete and even simple standing votes requiring 5 minutes, it's not hard to do the math.

In Brookline, which has a Town Meeting the same size as Amherst, using electronic voting reduced the time for those types of votes to less than a minute and a half per vote. 

Yesterday the Town Meeting Electronic Voting Study Committee heard a remote presentation from Options Tech International a company who supplies electronic devices to New England town meetings for the past five years.

 Base unit in center

The small hand held battery operated units register a yes/no/abstain vote instantly and gives the user confirmation that their vote has been received and confirms how they voted.  One small base station can handle up to 500 individual voting units and it runs on 2.4 gigahertz radio frequency.

 Votes are projected on screen for entire body to see

The idea is to keep Town Meeting operating as close as possible to current customs simply inserting the use of the electronic devices for the time consuming verification of votes and possibly attendance and quorum verification.

 Study Committee was appointed by Town Meeting Moderator Jim Pistrang

The committee hopes to have a warrant article ready for the Fall Town Meeting requesting the funds necessary to purchase the package, expected to be in the $20,000 range. 

Sad thing is obstructionism will only become more efficient.

The Electronic Age

 Town Meeting Electronic Voting Committee voted unanimously to support warrant article this morning

Amherst's antiquated 250+ legislative body will get a chance to enter the 21st century this fall courtesy of the Town Meeting Electronic Voting Committee, who will request a revision to the Rules of Order to allow for -- you guessed it -- electronic voting.

click to enlarge/read

 Amendment to Rules of Order

A separate article vetted by the Joint Capital Planning Committee will request $26,000 to pay for the new system.

The committee was formed less than a year ago and members appointed by Town Moderator Jim Pistrang.  The Fall Town Meeting starts November 2 with the article calling for amending the Rules of Order to come up almost immediately.

The Committee also decided to bring in the vendor to do a demonstration as part of the presentation of the article, although one member wondered if they really wanted to take that chance.

If Town Meeting approves both the Rules of Order change and the $26,000 in capital expenditures the system would see first official use at the Spring, 2016 Town Meeting.

Mr. Pistrang did ask the Committee if they thought some Town Meeting members might vote against the article due to rumors of a new Charter movement that could eventually lead to replacing Town Meeting with a far more efficient Mayor/Council.

The Committee assigned tech minded member Jonathan O'Keeffe to research the resale value of a used system if the town decided to sell it, but other members pointed out it could still be useful to the Public Schools or at public forums.

The vendor suggests a five year lifespan but the Committee decided to use 8 years in their Final Report that will be mailed to all Town Meeting members, which will also include a section for Frequently Asked Questions.

Leasing a system was explored but because Amherst tends to have many nights of Town Meeting, the cost was almost the same for a one year lease vs buying the system.

Expensive Swap

Amherst Regional Middle School, currently holding 7 & 8 grades

The Joint Capital Planning Committee -- made up of members from Town, Schools, Library, and Finance Committee -- unanimously recommended approval of Article 9, to spend $150,000 to carve out a spot (4,000 sq ft) at the Regional Middle School for the town's Leisure Services & Supplemental Education, aka Recreation Department.

They also unanimously supported Article 8 which would "repurpose" the $150K from money already approved by Town Meeting to rehab the East Street School.   In 2014 $700,000 was appropriated to renovate the former school so LSSE could relocate there,  but bids came in much too high -- mainly for ADA improvements.

 JCPC:  Schools, Library, Select Board, Finance Committee

That renovation plan, after completing roof work, has been put on hold with about $565,000 remaining.

 East Street School:  Expensive White Elephant?

The Amherst Regional Public Schools are considering merging Middle School students (grades 6-8) into the High School thus freeing up the building for other activities.  Greenfield Community College has expressed an interest in using it as a satellite school.

LSSE currently uses the Bangs Community Center as their home base but that spot is being taken by Community Health Center a satellite operation of the Hilltown Community Health Center.  The program will bring medical and dental services to those without health insurance.

JCPC also unanimously supported spending $26,000 for electronic voting hand sets to bring antiquated Town Meeting into the 21st century.  Finance Director Sandy Pooler confirmed town officials had set aside $27,000 in monies from the previous Fiscal Year.

Town Meeting, which starts November 2,  is the final authority on all spending but they usually follow the advice of JCPC.

Mandi Jo Hanneke (right) from Town Meeting Electronic Voting Studey Committee pitches the JCPC on time saving and accountability attributes of newfangled voting devices.  Later that night the Finance Committee also endorsed spending the $26K

Bad Omen?

Town Meeting standing vote last night (which will be negated with electronic voting)

After a somewhat contentious 1.5 hour discussion Amherst Town Meeting narrowly approved hiring a $85,920 Economic Development Director, the pride and joy of Town Manager John Musante's FY16 budget.

The Tally Vote (another thing that will be negated by electronic voting) was 99-88. So if only a half-dozen people had changed their vote ...

I actually thought about voting NO simply because I think UMass should cover half the salary of this position since it was one of the main recommendations of the $60,000 Town/Gown consultant that UMass contributed $30,000 towards.

But I'm certain that the vast majority of NO votes represents the dyed-in-the-wool Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything (BANANA) crowd.

Which is a bad sign for the other favorite articles promoted by the Town Manager: Articles 21, Affordable Housing Property Tax Incentives and Article 22, Inclusionary Zoning which requires 10% of units in developments bigger than 9 units be "affordable."

The pro-business "sensible center" types (of which Town Meeting has far too few) are already being told to vote No on Article 22 (IZ)  if the tax incentives in Article 21 fail. 

Article 22 is a zoning article that requires a two-thirds vote so it stands little chance of passing if Article 21, which requires a majority vote, fails.

And with left wing ringleaders like Vince O'Connor, Mary Wentworth and Carol Gray portraying the tax incentives as "corporate welfare" it could get dicey -- as in hacked to pieces. 

Digital Age Change

 

Mandi Jo Hanneke, Sean Hannon (left) Sandra Burgess, Jim Pistrang (right)

The Town Meeting Electronic Voting Study Committee voted unanimously 4-0 with 3 absent this morning to send to Amherst Town Meeting a $26,000 warrant article that will purchase 260 hand held digital voting devices to try to speed up the snail-like pace of Amherst's 257 year old political institution.

 Click to enlarge/read

Warrant Article will be vetted by Joint Capital Planning Committee and then requires only a simply majority vote at Fall Town Meeting

Meanwhile the Amherst Select Board voted unanimously last night to set the annual town election for March 29, 2016, which could actually be an interesting election for a change.

Charter enthusiasts now have until December 21st to collect the 3,215 signatures required to guarantee placement of the controversial question to change our form of government on that annual ballot for voters to decide.

The main motivation for Charter enthusiasts is to abolish antiquated Town Meeting by switching to a more professional Mayor/Council form of government.

Thus this $26,000 electronic voting purchase could end up being the equivalent of buying a new saddle for a dying horse.

Smooth Sailing (So Far)

258th Annual Town Meeting

In spite of the enthusiasm exhibited by Moderator Jim Pistrang the new $26,000 electronic voting devices did not see official use last night other than a 20 minute practice session with only a minor glitch or two.

At one point it looked like they would be fired up for official use, but a member made a "point of order" to remind Mr. Pistrang that a voice vote will always go first.  That vote was so overwhelmingly one sided he decided not to waste another minute or two to confirm it via the clickers.

 Town Moderator Jim Pistrang demonstrating new electronic voting devices

At this rate the batteries should last quite a while.

But it certainly indicates Town Meeting members were all on the same page with the votes thus far.  Even the $10 million Pubic Safety Budget was approved unanimously without any naysayers questioning authority, something this town seems to specialize in.

Of course the long winded advisory articles that have nothing to do with operating our $80+ million enterprise have yet to come up, although a procedural motion moved article 45 to tomorrow night first thing.

Amherst College students want their $2 billion institution to divest from fossil fuels and apparently don't want to get arrested via sit ins like UMass students recently did. 

And since they will be gone in a week,  it's far more convenient to have the article come up sooner rather than dead last.

Town Meeting, at your service.

The Clickers are In, The Clickers Are In!

The 260 unit system cost $26,000

The electronic voting system hardware arrived at Town Hall in three convenient carry cases earlier in the week just in time for the 258th Annual Town Meeting, although probably too little too late to save the quaint but antiquated form of government.

 Sort of like buying a new saddle for a dying horse.

The system will help speed up the cumbersome process of Tally and Standing Votes cutting the time from 10 minutes down to less than one, and will provide better transparency as more votes will be recorded.

Fortunately the units can also be used for other meetings and public forums.  For instance the new Charter Commission at their first public hearing could ask the audience if it's time to ditch Town Meeting in favor of a City Council.

The units could send either a simply yes or no, or the questions could also be framed "On a scale of 1-10 how effective and responsive is Town Meeting?"

Town Meeting will also be asked for $25,000 to hire an expert consultant to assist the Charter Commission over the next year.

Kind of ironic if Town Meeting votes down that request using the new $26,000 voting system, eh?

Half Way There

 Town Meeting (on a voice vote) approved $26K for hand held voting devices

Last night Town Meeting meeting dealt with almost half (7 of 15) the articles on the fall warrant and only screwed up one of them (maybe two if you're a Patriots fan); meanwhile Charter change enthusiasts who wish to terminate with extreme prejudice the esteemed institution report they are half-way to the goal of 3,215 voter signatures needed to put the change question on the ballot.

 Select Board unanimously recommended approval of Capital Stabilization Fund

Town Meeting failed to muster the two-thirds vote required to create a seperate "Capital Stabilization Fund" to squirrell away money for the four mega-building projects on the immediate horizon: new Fire Station and DPW buildings, expansion of the Jones Library and the new mega school the Amherst School Committee will support later this evening.

The original "placeholder" figure used by Finance Director Sandy Pooler was $57 million for all four, but only $7 million of that was for Wildwood School renovation.  And tonight the School Committee will vote to support a plan (new mega-school) estimated to cost $20 million.

 Town currently has $9.9 million in savings

Which gives you an idea of what all four of these projects will cost if they ever get done.  The new South Fire Station, for instance, has been in the hearts and minds of South Amherst residents  for over 50 years now.

 If you can't trust the Finance Committee who can you trust?

Both the Select Board and Finance Committee supported the idea unanimously.  But conspiracy theorists on the floor of Town Meeting thought it would tie future Town Meeting's into supporting the as yet not-in-the-pipeline building projects.

Some of those folks would much rather have the money available to feed unicorns.

 Test question

After a ten minute or so hands on demonstration that actually (mostly) worked, Town Meeting overwhelmingly supported  the bylaw change required to allow electronic voting and then quickly followed up with near unanimous support to spend the $26,000 necessary to purchase the devices. 

Fortunately the gizmos, which will see first official use this coming spring, can be repurposed once Town Meeting has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

And Town Meeting also overwhelmingly supported borrowing $200K to renovate the Amity Street parking lot dead in the center of town.  Good news for struggling small businesses located in the high rent district.

Amity Street lot. Jones Library top center

A Million Here & A Million There

Crocker Farm Elementary Pre-school playground will get $25K to meet ADA requirements

The Joint Capital Planning Committee voted unanimously this morning to support the $3,070,457 FY16 spending plan shepherded to them by Finance Director Sandy Pooler, representing 7.5% of the total town tax levy.

 Sources of funds:  taxation, ambulance revenues, Chapter 90 state aid, CPA, borrowing

Although the committee still pines for the day when the capital spending rises to 10% of the tax levy.

The only changes from last week were a result of push back by the JCPC on Mr. Pooler delaying $25,000 in to make playground equipment at Crocker Farm Elementary School ADA compliant and $10,000 (out of original $35K proposed) for studies and improvements to a resurging North Amherst Village center.  Both items are now back in for FY16, which starts July 1st.

North Amherst Village Center

Saying that this has "emptied the coffers" to cover all the requests from department heads, Mr. Pooler did point out that he reserved $25,000 for Fall Town Meeting to cover the cost of electronic voting devices for 256-year-old Amherst Town Meeting.

Looking down the road Mr. Pooler unveiled a graphic data base that depicts the impact of four major capital projects (South Fire Station, DPW, Wildwood Elementary and Jones Library expansion/renovation) on annual spending if all $57 million were to be covered by borrowing, although some of the projects will probably be financed via a "Debt Exclusion Override".

Since Amherst Fire Department has to protect all this future development it would make sense for the forever talked about new South Fire Station to go first.

Unfortunately, Town Meeting and making sense do not always go hand in hand.

Click to enlarge/read.  Red is new fire station

 Annual debt payments would triple, but decline over time

Current debt with a couple of small projects included (Fort River School roof, Kendrick Park renovation)

 Numbers for four major construction projects

Time, Time, Time For A Change

Amherst Town Meeting aka The Vince Show

The 257th annual Amherst Town Meeting concluded last night with pretty much a half-session compared to the previous seven nights that went the full three hours and change.

As usual we started late by about seven minutes, but still the earliest start time (by a minute or two) of all eight sessions.  In total an hour of time wasted for those who showed up on time.  And it was not because members needed to shower after walking, jogging or cycling to get the meeting.

Also, as usual, we concluded the night with an anti-business (non binding) vote to oppose the Kinder Morgan gas pipeline.  The original voice vote was so overwhelming I'm pretty sure only 2 or 3 No votes could be heard.  Still, someone from the floor "doubted it" so a standing or Tally vote could occur (137 yes to 7 no).

In all we had nine Tally Votes, each requiring a minimum of ten minutes or 1.5 hours total.  Throw in the standing votes, which also require about ten minutes, and you have the total time for an entire night's session.

Yes, electronic voting will do away with these time wasting inefficiencies.  And provide much better accountability.

But the real problem is the institution itself, which is non representative of our little college town that borders on being a city.

Amherst has the lowest median age in the entire state with over 50% of our population "college aged youth," almost all of them renters.

 See any college age youth?

While Town Meeting is on average retirement age homeowners.

Diversity of race, creed, color or sexual preference?  As my Italian friends would say, "Forget about it!"

Since Amherst has only a pathetic 10% commercial tax base the equally pathetic number of Town Meeting members with small business experience is probably not all that far off.   But still troubling.

Even my 8-year-old gets the simple formula of supply and demand (especially with candy around Halloween), which seems to stump Town Meeting time and time again.

Virtually all of the zoning articles (which require a two-thirds majority to pass) failed.   And in the future zoning tweaks will be required to bring about the positive smart growth this town so desperately needs to address our lack of housing and commercial enterprise. 

The BANANA/NIMBYs used to be an obstructionist fringe that could barely muster the one-third required to kill a zoning article.

Yet both their anti-business zoning articles, either of which would have detonated a dirty bomb in our town center business district, managed to muster a MAJORITY of Town Meeting support.

Paging Dr. Kevorkian!

Dysfunction Anyone?

 The Jones Library:  Amherst's living room

Perhaps in addition to the nifty new electronic voting clickers the Moderator should also consider another modern day device to assist him with keeping Town Meeting running smoothly: a stun gun.

In all my 25 years of as a Town Meeting participant/observer I have never seen such a display of unruliness bordering on bedlam. Brought to you by, who else, Carol Gray.

Carol Gray with a loaded weapon in her left hand 

Although the Moderator certainly could have handled things better, as "Points of Order" richocheted around the room like shrapnel from a Hellfire missile.

One thing an attorney is trained for is the give-and-take of cross examination. One little slip "opens the door" for a line of questioning that otherwise would be out of bounds.

By allowing the Jones Library delegation to talk about the building project in their presentation he invited Town Meeting members to follow suit, even if it was against his preamble speech to the membership that it would be ruled "outside the scope of the article."

 Historical Society property would have allowed expansion less destructive to green space

Not that I think the zoning change -- which requires a challenging two thirds vote -- was going to pass no matter how smoothly the presentation and follow up discussion went.

The privately owned Town Meeting list serve was a beehive of conspiracy theories all these past few weeks, so the failure was hardly surprising.

By killing the chance for the Jones Library to purchase abutting property from a kindred spirit, Town Meeting has set up the future renovation/expansion project for failure.

Even worse, it demonstrated our legislative body takes Ms. Gray seriously.  That alone is reason enough to terminate Town Meeting. 

257 & Counting

Town Manager & Select Board get to sit at the head table

The Select Board signed the warrant last night and Amherst police posted copies this morning at all the precincts in town so there's no turning back now.  The 257th annual Amherst Town Meeting starts April 27 and runs for as long as it takes (usually two meetings per week) to get through all 30 articles.

A significant reduction from the 42 articles appearing on the warrant last year, which prompted a much talked about editorial in the Springfield Sunday Republican criticizing the molasses like pace of Amherst Town Meeting.

Click to enlarge/read

That year we finished up on June 2nd. 2013 was even worse with 45 articles on the warrant and a dissolving date of June 10th.

30 is not a new record for least amount but it shares that distinction with 2012 and 2009.  At the opposite end of the spectrum 2008 was the largest over the past ten years with 47 articles.

Our $70 million budget is balanced so not much controversy to be generated there.   Additionally, last night the Finance Director told the Select Board that enough savings had been found in health insurance and long term debt payments to cover the cost of the Town Manager's pet project:  A new Economic Development Director.

Police will see a paltry increase of one position but the beleagured Fire Department got burned with no additional staffing.

8 of the 30 articles are via "citizen petition" (it only takes 10 signatures to get on the warrant) and three of the eight are zoning related so they will require a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting to pass.

 Tedious standing vote

One thing that takes up tremendous time every meeting is the procedural process.  Standing votes and tally votes can require 10 or 15 minutes each, and some nights we can have nearly a half-dozen.

Although not in the budget for this year's annual meeting, Finance Director Sandy Pooler did set aside $25,000 for the Fall Town Meeting to buy electronic voting devices for the entire 240 member body.

Which should help speed things up.

Of course the best solution is to reduce the size of the legislative body by 75% and hope some of the more loquacious members do not survive a competitive election. 

 

Town Meeting Snoozer

Amherst Town Hall looked busy at least from the outside last night

If last night's turnout for the League of Women Voters/Town Meeting Coordinating Committee Warrant Review is any indication, the annual Special Town Meeting starting November 2 will be lucky to acquire a quorum of its 254 members.

Perhaps because there are no hot button issues on the warrant, although I was surprised the three articles relating to solar development in town did not bring out the NIMBYs, with their solar powered torches and pitchforks.

Maybe two of the dozen who showed up were unaffiliated with the articles at hand

Article #4 (the 1st three are housekeeping articles) would create a Capital Stabilization Fund to squirrel away money to cover BIG ticket capital items coming up:  Wildwood School renovation, new Fire Station, Jones Library expansion, and new DPW facility.

The money comes from $650K already in Free Cash and even with that withdrawal the amount remaining would still be 5% of our total annual budget.

Currently Amherst reserves are 13.8% of budget and the Department of Revenue suggests anywhere from 10% to 15% as a comfortable target goal.

The $26K request for electronic voting devices for Town Meeting could run into trouble due to Town Meeting's geriatric median age.

Or proponents of the new Charter movement to kill off Town Meeting could also see it as a victory for their cause should this item fail.

Town Meeting will also be asked to allow repurposing $150K from previous spending to fix up East Street School so the LSSE recreation department can relocate there.  But bids came back too high so now the town with mothball that idea.

The money would outfit 4,000 square feet of the Amherst Regional Middle School as office space and interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek confirmed it does not require the recently talked about relocation of 7th and 8th grade students into the High School.

 Peggy Roberts TMCC Chair.  Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek addressed the "crowd"

Since the Middle School is a total of 197,000 square feet and student enrollment has declined since it first built, the 2% of total taken up by LSSE will not even be noticed.

The two Community Preservation Act financed projects -- North Common and Crocker Farm pre school playground rehabs will pass handily.  Even with all that spending ($430K) the CPA fund balance will still have over three quarters of a million left over.

Since it appears nothing overly controversial appears on the warrant -- but with Town Meeting you never know -- November 2nd alone probably will not be enough time.  But certainly only two nights will be required to complete all 15 articles.

A refreshing break from our annual spring Town Meeting, which drones on and on and on ...

The Empress has no clothes.

Amherst voters shouted a loud and clear message to the current ruling regime: Wake up and smell the herbal tea. The times they are a changing. We’re mad as Hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

The astounding defeat (to quote him) of incumbent Robie Hubley by a two-to-one margin to Alisa Brewer clearly demonstrates a chink in the armor of Select board Czar Anne Awad. If she were on the ballot instead of her husband, she too would now be standing in the Selectman unemployment line (or maybe Mr. Weiss).

Mr. Hubley also acknowledges his antiquated but quaint style of campaigning was no match for the power of electronic media—web sites, list serves, and Blogs. Although Mr. Hubley’s campaign did raise the hackles of some by posting campaign briefs on the Town Meeting yahoo list serve.

Even amiable, school champion incumbent Gerry Weiss came in second to Brewer, thus defying conventional wisdom that he was everybody’s second vote. Yes, the common sense concept of bullet voting (not using your second vote) may now be mainstream.

It’s certainly no coincidence that the two candidates—Alisa Brewer and Andy Churchill for School Committee—endorsed by sustainableamherst.org came in first and second overall and within .001% of each other.

And while overall turnout at 21% was a tad better than the usual 15% it is still pathetic when compared to Presidential election turnouts averaging almost 80%.

I won a three-year term in Town Meeting (I too was endorse by sustainableamherst.org) and I’m still waiting to hear from the Town Clerk if my last minute write in campaign for Amherst Redevelopment Authority was successful.

Native son Barry Roberts—sometimes described as an “evil developer”—garnered over 300 votes in his initial debut Town Meeting victory run…a very good sign!

And for those of you who were as confused as I about the Gazette front-page headline “Brewer unhorses Hubley in Amherst”, it was a Middle Ages reference to jousting. Not that I could picture either of the candidates in such a physical arena.