Preaching to the unconverted

The Amherst Select Board sponsoring an ‘Open Meeting Law’ forum is kind of like allowing the fox to teach hens how to lay eggs. At her reelection victory speech on ACTV in 2006 Anne Awad bragged that her regime is into open government as evidenced by the Select Board sponsorship of the Open Meeting Law seminar. Of course she neglected to mention her violation of that very law less than a year after that seminar.

Let’s hope the Regional School Committee takes notes (the 8 of 9 who voted in favor) concerning a “retreat” where presumably they will go off in the woods somewhere --out of the public eye--and perform a giant joint treehug while singing Kumbaya.

Unfortunately I have an Amherst Redevelopment Meeting (although it does not show up on the town website) tonight at 7:15 so I’m pretty tied up.

I would also love to start attending more Select Board meetings, as my name seems to keep popping up during Question Period and in the middle of public discussions. And what the heck is this untimed item presented by Chairman Weiss: Agents of the Select Board???

Do they get a badge and uniform?

Fire in the hole!

What you don’t hear on this Saturday morning AFD training scene is the beep, beep, beeping of oxygen tanks signally their precious commodity is almost gone, or the awful crackling of fire consuming everything in its path. But the smell was almost the same –somehow different from a campfire or burning brush or even an old backyard chicken coop.

Perhaps it’s simply the rugs, curtains, paneling, books and all those everyday essentials that make a home a home, suddenly vaporized. Call it the essence of those who lived there--or God forbid--are still there when the beast comes calling.

Thank God for trained firefighters.

He looks familiar...

Yeah, Senator Kerry must be getting a tad spooked by his first primary challenge ever as a US Senator as he managed to find The Big E last night (his aides probably used Map Quest)

Why I don't show off

Not that he was showing off of course:

Bully the blogger

Bully version of bet (pretty clear to me)

My original version: even clearer

So retired professor Ackerman, obviously with lots of time on his hands, must have been one of those professors who let the grad students do all the research. If he had bothered d to read two paragraphs beyond the lead of Scott’s Merzbach's article from LAST YEAR he would have discovered the $10,000 challenge was in the form of a bet. One the town manager did not have the chutzpa to take.

And if he just stayed at the Select Board meeting for another half-hour he could have asked me directly about it since I was on the agenda for the 9/11 flag issue at 7:05 PM.

That would be the 5’th time I have attempted to make that kind of wager with a town official. The other times it related to Cherry Hill revenue prediction and if any of the officials taken those bet I would have won—or I should say local charities would have been enriched.

In fact if Mr. Ackerman, also an Amherst Bulletin columnists--so you would think he knows how to research and corroborate material--had read the online Amherst Bulletin version of the story, I added a comment where I would give the Town Manager two-to-one odds, or $20,000.

I guess maybe His Lordship the Select Board Chair set a strange precedent by publicly whipping and trying to silence my blog (so I must be doing something right). So now we get social activists trying to get the Select Board to collect on bets that were never taken. Only in Amherst.

By the dawns early light: 9/11...Remembered

Amherst Town Center 6:35 AM

CH. 3 TV covers the People's Republic on 9/11

Amherst Fire Dept 10:00 AM
Note what pilots refer to as "severe clear" blue sky.



Springfield Republican 9/11 editorial. Very well done!

9/11 Deja vu

Sorry this is a tad long and slightly rambling, but I knew acting Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer would allow me pretty much free reign. Had 'His Lordship' been there I would have honed it down to only three minutes.