Hallelujah!

Well I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Superintendent Jere Hochman (finally) caved in to public pressure and will allow the Gospel Choir to sing at ARHS graduation.

Can you imagine the fallout if the ban stayed in effect?

Only in Amherst (somebody would say) can High School girls publicly use the C-word and perform a skit that glorifies statutory rape, but God forbid we allow a largely minority member choir to belt out a song where the word God comes up.

Yes, they did learn from the ‘Vagina Monologues’ debacle. One of the girls who performed in the 2004 edition, wanted to bring it back for an encore presentation this past February (why not in 2005 or 2006?) and the principal wisely said “NO”. But he should have said “No fracken way!”

Although only indirectly citing the tsunami of bad press, Mark Jackson claimed the production required too much time of faculty advisors, and with those looming budgets cuts…Hey, they could have tapped some of the $1.5 million they have stashed in their savings account.

Maybe at next year’s graduation we can get a couple of songs from ‘West Side Story’?

The Global Village

Okay, close enough. It was supposed to say “"Happy Wedding Anniversary. I love you. from Larry and Kira".

Today is our 24’th wedding anniversary, but since Donna is half a world away in Korea (13 hours ahead) for her it is almost over. Probably an appropriate metaphor for our relationship—as in opposites attract.

We talk twice a day, about 12 hours apart, and of course there’s email. She prerecorded readings from a few books so I could play them back to Kira every night at bedtime.

Yesterday I tried to send flowers via an Internet company that promised “same day delivery”. They could not, however, deliver them until Wednesday and then were going to charge enough to balance our trade deficit with that peninsula.

So I emailed her co-teacher Hyun Suk Lee (American name Jane) who Donna sponsored (more like adopted) at Babson College years ago because nobody else wanted to deal with her shaky English. Jane set up the teaching seminar at Korea University and is acting as interpreter, tour guide, fitness training partner and now our relationship coordinator.

Last year on her Korea expedition Donna was able to tour the mountainous area where her dad was wounded in that “Forgotten War”. On the front lines for less than a day a mortar shell detonated near his shallow foxhole (the frozen ground having the consistency of concrete). He crawled over a mile back to his lines and spent months recovering in various hospitals. To this day he carries charred metal reminders in his body.

Yesterday a town meeting member emailed Donna to complain about me; saying he found it “ironic” that I tried to institute fines for Open Meeting Law violations and yet Donna had sent an email from Korea to her committee that would have garnered a $50 fine.

There they go again thinking Donna—because she shares my surname-- is just like me, preoccupied with local politics. The fines I had in mind were for knowingly and willfully violating Open Meeting Law, something I think happens all too often, and not for the naïve “send all” email discussing your thoughts on a (somewhat ridiculous) issue coming up at a public meeting you can’t make.

Although a white, female, tenured professor who calls The People’s Republic of Amherst home Donna does not exactly fit the mold. Unlike me, she’s a registered Republican, grew up working on a farm in Southwick, doesn’t eat meat (but doesn’t mind cooking it or wearing leather shoes) and until a few months ago didn’t give a damn about local politics.

Last night at the chaotic opening to Town Meeting’s budget discussion when the Moderator called the Select board and Finance Committee behind the curtain to discuss procedures more than a few folks in the audience mentioned the Open Meeting Law, and suggested I crash the party.

A testy exchange occurred when (former Czar) Ann Awad accused the Moderator of a “conflict of interest” because he appoints the Finance Committee and she thought his new procedural protocol gave the Finance Committee an edge over the Select board.

Considering the close vote last night that favored the Select board version of the budget amendment, I guess Ms. Awad was wrong. Certainly not the first time.

And this narrow victory for the Select Board over the Finance Committee sends a powerfully pernicious signal of things to come.

Yeah, I'm still teed off!

So I hate to move on, but move on I must. The flag issue will never, never, never go away; and by this coming 9/11 highlights of the Town Meeting vote that turned Amherst into the Village of the Damned will be available on Youtube.

So what better subject than the beleaguered Cherry Hill Golf Course (to steal Mary Carey’s lead in this morning’s Gazette) for shifting gears?

Sounds to me like the rookie Town Manager is getting a tad testy about our municipal albatross: “It’s really a red herring, a straw man. It’s taken on a dimension and scale it doesn’t deserve. I’m sick of Cherry Hill being put on the Cherry Hill Cross.”

Of course Mr. Shaffer also insists giving up on Cherry Hill will have “zero effect” on this years budget. Really? First off, Shaffer must not have read the Special Town Meeting warrant article because it “strongly urges” him to accept $30,000 a year for the next three years to lease out the White Elephant.

Thus, rather than losing $59,000 like Cherry Hill did last year we could gain a guaranteed $30,000 or an $89,000 turnaround that could fund police, firefighters or teachers.

The Finance Committee told department heads to stick to a 1% budget increase. Cherry Hill’s FY08 operation budget increases $15,000 but that increase does not include another $15,000 in capital improvements hidden elsewhere in the General Fund budget. So while public safety and school budgets are limited to 1% increases, Cherry Hill bloats by 15%.

Cherry Hill is a symbol. It’s a symbol of waste, highlighting a ludicrous and irresponsible attitude about priorities.

Hall Of Shame!

Politicians Who Voted Against The (American) Flag:
Nancy DeProsse, David Robson Gillham, Patricia Holland, Peter Jessop, Mark Jackson, Stephen King, Randa Nachbar, Vince O’Connor, Kenton Tharp, Carolyn Bentley, Anne Sterling Bush (obviously no relation), Howard Ewert, Irene and Seymour Friedman, Irwin Friman, Grace Griecci, Joesph Lynn, Patrick Robert McCarthy, Judy Simpson, Robert Biagi, Barbara Ford, Lynn Griesemer and Bryan Harvey (Umass should be so proud), Edih Nye Macmullen, Renee Moss, Kristin O’Connell, Fil Valunas, Sharon Vardatira, Alice Allen, Leeta Bailey, Dorwenda Bynum-Lewis, Steven Dunn, Thomas Vlittie, Janet Lansberry, Larry Orloff, Catherine Porter, Marcy Lala, Patricia Blauner, Michael Giles, Alan Powel, George Ryan, Baer Tierkel (sensible center, eh?) Cheryl Zoll, Donna Zucker,Florence Boynton, Pat Church (flag thief), Fred Levine, Leo Maley, Margaret Nunnelly, James Oldhan, Alan Root, Christina Rose, Merrylees Turner, Mary Wentworth, Jeff and Maralyn Blaustein, Silvia Brinkerhoff, Harry Brooks, Gloria Chang-Wade, Gordon Freed, Michael Greenebaum, Mary Kersell, Lisa Kleinholz, Constance Kruger, Joan Ross Logan, Andrew Melnechuk, Faythe Turner, Marilyn Gonter, Carol Gray, Jeffrey Lee, Alice Morse, Robert Quinn, James Scott, Andrenne Terrizzi, Jane Ashby, Bart Bouricius, Pamela Crotty, Robert Todd Felton, Frank Gatti, Ruth Hooke, Jennifer McKenna, Eric Nakajima, Sonya Sofield, Mary Streeter, Barbara Berlin, Joseph Bodin, Felicity Callahan, Ben GROSScup, Mangala Jagadeesh, John and Peg Roberts, Amanda Singer, Molly Whalen, Edith Wilkinson, Anne Awad.
And to the other 50 Town Meeting members who checked in that night but abstained from this vote: If you don’t have the courage of conviction on this issue, how can we trust you to handle the mega-million budget discussions coming up next week?

So typically Amherst, so very sad

Only in Amherst would town officials fly the rainbow flag in town center to celebrate gay marriage but reject flying American flags in the downtown on 9/11 to commemorate the 3,000 Americans killed (many of whom were gay) on that awful day.

On May 10, with no discussion, the Amherst Select Board voted unanimously to replace the United Nations flag (Yes, Amherst is one of a handful of municipalities that routinely flies the UN flag) in front of Town Hall with the Rainbow flag to celebrate the second anniversary of the State Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Last night over two-thirds of Amherst Town Meeting voted down the following resolution:

“To see if the town will strongly urge the Select board to allow the 29 commemorative flags to fly downtown (at half-staff) every 9/11 for as long as the Republic stands to commemorate the most devastating attack in our history.”

On the night of September 10, 2001 when the Amherst Select Board was setting the policy for when the commemorative flags could fly, Umass Professor Jennie Traschen branded Old Glory“…a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and repression.”

As she ambled back to her seat, Phyllis Daley said in an angry motherly tone: “Shame on you!”

A sentiment that now applies to Amherst town government.

Let the Invasion begin...

After twenty years of mostly sniping interspersed with an occasional all out battle I’m used to reaching down deep for a little extra determination when the going gets tough, so having the Town Clerk reject a dozen or so names out of just over 200 on a Special Town Meeting petition article was no big deal.

Yesterday morning I turned in more than enough to cover what I thought was the remaining 11 needed. So I called the town clerks office at 1:30 figuring it should not take long to check the dozen names submitted, but was told they were busy and to check back the next day (today).

Then I get an email from the Select Board executive assistant Gail Weston saying the Special Town Meeting to discuss the deal the town manager rejected on the Cherry Hill Golf Course is set for June 6’th.

I called back the Town Clerk’s office and ask for verification that the names were okay and I’m told they cannot confirm or deny anything and to ask Gail Weston. Now that was weird.

Gail then confirms that since the Select Board had scheduled a Special Town Meeting or two anyway all I needed to get on the warrant was 100 signatures, not the 200 eventually turned in.

Oh well, the hotter the fire the stronger the steel.

The warrant article (sponsored by Amherst Taxpayers For Responsible Change) for the special town meeting reads:

To see if the town will strongly urge the Select board to strongly urge the town manager to accept the recent bid of Niblick Management for privatization of the Cherry Hill Golf Course with a new condition allowing for a three year contract; and if Niblick is no longer interested, to reissue the new RFP (with the three year provision) before September 1, 2007
####################################################################################
From: Weston, Gail Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:01 PM
Cc: Musante, John; weissg@comcast.net; Harrison Gregg; Shaffer, Larry; Chalfant, Linda; Carlozzi, Alice
Subject: Special Town Meeting Petition Article

Your Cherry Hill petition has been inserted on the STM scheduled for 7:30 p.m., June 6, 2007.


From: hlgregg@amherst.edu
Sent: Tue, 15 May 2007 3:09 PM (reply all)
Subject: Cherry Hill Petition

Larry Kelley --

I'm sure you'll make something of D-Day the sixth of June.

Please be aware that articles 39 and 40 will definitely come up this Wednesday night.

Harrison L. Gregg
Moderator, Town of Amherst


From: amherstac@aol.com
Wed, 16 May 2007 8:53 AM (reply all)

Yes Mr. Moderator, I do consider the historically significant date of June 6’th a good omen in my 20 year war against the public subsidy of an expensive recreational endeavor.

Larry

Suicide is Painless

Last night as the economic summit between the Select Board, School, Library, and Finance Committees met next door (they got the bigger room) the Amherst Redevelopment Authority voted 3-1 not to commit suicide by passing my motion to oppose Town Meeting Warrant Article #32, calling for our “abolishment.”

Vince O’Connor, who crafted our death sentence, showed up fashionably late and insisted he had no personal feelings one way or the other about the ARA. But, of course, he also insists he did not know anything about acquiring 18 write-in votes in the March 28 election where I knowingly ran a successful last minute campaign with 67 write-in votes.

Mr. O’Connor thinks the ARA (4 elected and 1 governor appointee) has “too much power for folks to get elected by write in." I pointed out that the two most recent examples (going back a decade) consist of Curt Shumway, who was originally elected with over 1,000 votes but then forgot to get his nomination papers in on time for reelection; and little old me who was the governor's appointee for over 10 years.

Mr. O’Connor also thinks that since the ARA has not met in two years to exercise all that “power” we should be put out to pasture.

Let’s hope for consistency sake Mr. O’Connor’s next target for extermination is the Cherry Hill Advisory Committee, who have not met in THREE years (when the ailing Golf Course is critically in need of “advisory” help) and currently has SIX vacant positions out of seven.

Interestingly the town provided legal council for the meeting and we were informed that the ARA powers likely extend beyond only the downtown. So we could get involved in Village Centers in North or South Amherst or that somewhat run down area coming in to Amherst from the east.

But even is we simply stick to town center, there’s lots to be done. And with the Town Commercial Relations Committee now revived we could make a potent one two combo for commercial development—something Amherst desperately needs.