Can you hear me now?

Trustee Carol Gray peeks in to a Library Trustees meeting last summer from Egypt courtesy of skype on Mary Streeter's mac laptop.

Amherst Select Board Open Meeting Law specialist Alisa Brewer reported this evening--right before they retreated into Executive Session--that Attorney General Martha Coakley has decided in favor of "remote participation" for boards and committees in Massachusetts, meaning you no longer have to be physically present to deliberate or vote on matters before your committee (although you do not count towards a quorum).

Excuses--I mean, permitted reasons--that allow for such a thing include "personal illness, personal disability, emergency, military service, or geographic distance." Of course it's the last one that will be used most often--especially in a town like Amherst where so many people are affiliated with UMass where the workplace is in full session only 7 months out of the year.

The Select Board, acting as chief executive officers have to vote in favor of adopting the regulation overall, before any of the 50 some odd boards, committees, sub committees and task forces can put it to use. Since the SB also appoints a fair amount of the citizenry to all these volunteer positions they may find remote participation to be an effective tool for recruitment.

Besides, anything that gets people to participate in government is a good thing. Even better when government itself starts to embrace the 21st century.

Attorney General's press release on remote participation

Party house of the weekend

260 Grantwood Drive, Amherst (at least the couch blends in)

Located in what appears to be the student rental section of the neighborhood--and managed by, naturally, Eagle Crest Property Management--it's sad to think this single family home was once owned by nationally renowned UMass history professor Stephen B. Oats.

Just goes to show what can happen to a nice neighborhood when owner occupied single family homes are sold off to become rentals managed by Eagle Crest Property Management.

Accord to Amherst Police Department logs 1:00 AM early Sunday morning:

Approximately 30-40 cars observed on both sides of the roadway that blocked passage for emergency vehicles. Dozens of people crowded throughout the roadway while consuming alcoholic beverages. Loud music along with loud yelling observed coming from location. Residents contacted and advised of the issue with little assistance. The house was cleared of guests and all residents were placed under arrest for unlawful noise.

Deanna Helene Docoulos, 226 Rowley Bridge Rd, Topsfield, MA, age 21, Open Container

Four leaseholders arrested for unlawful noise:

Thomas Gilson Jr., 37 Davis St, Mansfield, MA, age 23
Julian Thomas Colarusso, 11 Stanley Circle, Quincy, MA, age 21
Shane Michael Viveiros, 33L Rolling Green Dr, Fall River, MA, age 22
James M Lizotte, 200 Fairbanks St, W. Boylston, MA, age 21



Property Ownership Card for 260 Grantwood Dr

Bullseye

Roundabout in front of Atkins Country Market

The Atkins Corner Roundabouts are coming into their own and should start seeing traffic by this time next year (although the occasional after dark confused driver has already tread on them).

And the new bypass connecting West Street over to West Bay Road has been in use, without any problems, for a while now.

By pass over to West Bay Road (shortcut to Applewood Retirement Community or Eric Carle Museum)

The scuttling of Form Based Zoning for this part of town will probably have no impact on Atkins as the nifty new infrastructure makes it all the more easy to deliver shoppers directly to their front door. But I'm sure they would loved to have had a clustered development or two spring up nearby where folks could actually live within walking distance.

Just another lucrative sunny Sunday at Atkins

My sniper perch

Occupy Amherst...briefly

Agile Gazette photographer Gordon Daniels keep pace with the protesters

About 60 mostly college aged folks descended on the downtown yesterday carrying signs and banners and chanting slogans and only briefly snarling traffic. Amherst Police Department monitored the situation closely but did not interact with the crowd. The marchers retreated from town center, down Rt 9 up Triangle Street and then North Pleasant back to UMass, with a cruiser following closely behind.

Hard to walk and keep the banner taut (must be from Hampshire College)

This was the first Occupy action in Amherst since the clash with Tea Party supporters a month ago, where they seemed a tad intimidated by direct counter confrontation.

A costly legal maneuver

Amherst's Special Ed legal bill first quarter FY2012

Even though Gini Tate's $225/hour contract was terminated by a 5-4 Regional School Committee vote (9/22/10) for Special Education legal services commencing 12/1/2010, with the contract turned over to Dupere & Dupere for a $36,000 total annual cost, taxpayers recently paid the law firm of Murphy, Hesse, Toomey and Lehane (Ms. Tate's firm)$13,646 for special education legal services for only the first quarter of FY2012.

According to Regional School Committee Chair Rick Hood:

"There were three cases carried over from the transition between Dupere and MHLT (Attorney Tate). Two of the cases have reached conclusion and/or are awaiting the BSEA to issue their decision. The third case was a re-filing of a case where MHLT (Attorney Tate) had already worked extensively on it during the FY11 school year prior to Dupere being appointed the new SE attorney. Probably this is the case you are referring to.

Where MHLT was already deeply involved in a case it was thought best (and less expensive) to keep MHLT on it."

Of course that case he claims attorney Tate being "deeply involved in" had only been filed 11/13/10, less than a month after the Regional School Committee vote to terminate Ms. Tate and only two weeks before the 12/1/10 date of implementation. In fact, the case was withdrawn and refiled April 4, 2011 well after Dupere & Dupere took over.

But no, rather than let the new law firm handle it at no extra cost we have town officials opening a spigot--as though taxpayer money springs from an endless well.

Expensive "internal" copy costs

Trip the light fantastic

Town Moderator Harrison Gregg calls the meeting to order (the usual 10 minutes late)

So in addition to the usually screw ups--PowerPoint snafus and sound system screeches--two hours into Town Meeting, after I had already taken 35 photos (equally divided between pro and con speakers) from my front row seated position which is designated for media, after Mary Streeter trudged to the microphone 40 feet from me, Molly Turner interrupted with a "point of order," claiming I was distracting speakers (of course she meant those on her side who opposed the article) by "flashing" in their faces.

Moderator Harrison Gregg, who I had already photographed three times, seemed confused and asked her what she was talking about. Obviously I was not a distraction to him, even though seated almost directly in front of his podium.

And Ms. Streeter certainly did not seem to notice, as she was juggling papers and asked about removing the microphone. I was taking two photos of every speaker and you can barely notice the first flash (the lighting is lousy in the auditorium and does require a flash for usable photos) and then the second and final one a full 24 seconds later.

He then flippantly bans my flash. Now yeah, I could have done what Luke Gelinas did with the South Hadley School Committee and get arrested and then suit for a First Amendment violation. But I figured a major disruption could cost votes as most people know I favored passage of the Form Based Zoning article.

That night before Town Meeting started, the Moderator announced that a member wished to enact a rule to limit all speakers to no more than five minutes. But he said since town meeting had not formerly adopted such a rule, he could not suddenly try to enforce it now.

Last spring the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee briefly discussed the use of flash photography and photographers moving about on the floor of town meeting potentially distracting or "intimidating" speakers--but nothing ever came of it. No enforceable rule enacted.

I guess that makes me and my flash...special.

Form Based Zoning: DOA

Amherst Town Meeting members call for "tally vote" by holding up cards

Despite 80% support from the Select Board and 60% of Town Meeting members, Form Based Zoning in North Amherst village center and Atkins Corner in deep South Amherst failed to clear the high hurdle of a two thirds vote, going down to defeat after 2.5 hours of discussion with 119 yes votes and 79 no.

The majority of the discussion centered on North Amherst where Town Meeting was told by two speakers that over 100 "residents of Montague Road" had signed a petition opposing the article (turns out to be more like a dozen actual residents), but Atkins Corner in South Amherst also drew criticism because the two new roundabouts are not yet functioning and the noise from the Norwottuck Gun Club was portrayed as a major detriment to health and safety.

Unfortunately the cumulative effect of having two large separate areas involved--each with its own set of NIMBYs--doomed the ambitious undertaking. Perhaps if someone had divided the motion and let each village center be voted on separately one of them could have passed.

Overall, like the demise of the Gateway Project, the fear that increased density of development was not family friendly and would bring more student party houses to disrupt neighborhoods with late night noise, traffic, fighting, vandalism, unsightly trash and body fluids caused the defeat.

Maybe now town and UMass officials will get serious about controlling rowdy, alcohol fueled behavior of the tiny minority of students who are having such a detrimental impact on civility at large.

Selectman and North Amherst resident Jim Wald presented the article

Quintessential NIMBY Mary Streeter cited safety and environmental concerns with Atkins Corner

Atkins neighbor Seymour Epstein cited noise and pollution to a trout stream, calling the planning charrette a "charade"

Former Selectman Gerry Weiss was concerned the village centers would compete with downtown businesses