Hiring Priorities

So the town can afford to bring in a part time "climate communications specialist" at $48,000 per year  to keep the KKK at bay, but we can't afford to hire a full time police officer at $41,500?

The Amherst Police Department has lost five sworn position (patrol officers) since 2007 when they were at 52.   Today they are at 47 sworn positions, compared to Umass police department with 62 sworn officers.  And UMPD starting pay for a sworn officer --  $45,813 -- is a tad better.  Differences worth swearing about!

 Town Manager Musante stated in his "Long Term Staffing Plans Recommendations":

Of course what the Town Manager fails to mention is APD is losing a "crime analyst" position after two years of state grant funding.  And part of her job assignment was to provide police administration with facts and figures that would lead to "problem-oriented policing with sector-based assignments."

To make matters worse, a 2-year-old federal grant that funded a Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault investigator will not be renewed at previous funding levels, so the officer (Detective Lopez) will be reabsorbed back into routine police duties.

The new officer hired to backfill her position over the past two years will not be laid off, but after the next retirement or resignation the position will not be filled.

Sounds complicated, but the net result is APD loses yet another sworn position.

So even if the Regional Dispatch saves enough money next year to hire 1 sworn police officer, that simply brings us back to where we are today.

Which is w-a-y too low.

Run For Your (Business) Lives

5 East Pleasant Street, Amherst

Yet another long-time business is abandoning ship over the upheaval caused by the pending $4.6 million sale of the Carriage Shops:  the law offices of Seewald, Jankowski & Spencer, P.C.

After 30 years of practicing law in their quaint, brick building -- that fronts the main drag through Amherst town center -- they will be relocating (in January) to University Drive near Amherst Brewing Company, another business who fled town center three years ago.

Amherst Carriage Shops:  On Death Row

The stand alone building is still part of the Carriage Shops, purchased from original developers Johnson & Gates as a business condo  back in 1985 by Robert Ritchie former Amherst Town Counsel.

Jerry Gates still owns 60% of the complex and has to convince 15% of the other condo owners to accept the $4.6 million offer from Archipelago Investments, LLC.   That local developer already built Boltwood Place, a five story mixed-use building in town center and recently broke ground on another, Kendrick Place, just a couple hundred yards north of the Carriage Shops. 

Meanwhile, in addition to the uncertainty caused by the pending sale, the surrounding area is said to be "going downhill".  According to Amherst Police records the calls for service to the next door Cousin's Market have more than doubled since they acquired a "All alcoholic Off-Premise Liquor License" back in May of 2011.

Cousin's Market and The Mercantile, adjacent to Carriage Shops

 Calls for APD service to Carriage Shops have decreased over the past few years

 

Although:  

AFD & APD on scene Carriage Shops 7/21 for possible drug OD by 36-year-old male

 

Summerlin (11 E Pleasant)  and Piper Building (9 E. Pleasant)

Laird Summerlin confirmed the Summerlin Trust has NOT sold the Summerlin or Piper buildings, immediately adjacent to the Carriage Shops.  Good thing.  

Hate to see the Amherst Bulletin/Daily Hampshire Gazette have to relocate.

High Adventure

Adventure Rope Course at the top of The Notch

Hard to tell who had more fun, the 20 children taking part in the Amherst & UMass Police Adventure Academy or the half dozen officers who acted as counselors.

The one week program is a joint effort of the two public safety departments who share the same town, but have decidedly different beats.

The summer camp combined the cerebral aspects of police work with outdoor activities designed to promote teamwork and camaraderie.

But most of all it got police officers out of their uniforms and into a fun environment to interact with our children, fostering something you can't put a price on:  trust. 

UMPD officer Brian Kellogg (orange shirt) and APD officer Bill Laramee (grey hat) recover Kira 

Graduation Day:  Round of applause for the children and counselors

Downtown Shuffle

 

The Mercantile, 11 East Pleasant Street, Amherst 

Well that didn't take long.

The former location of Food For Thought Books, a local institution that expired the first week of June, will host its first new business in 38 years.  But hardly a fledgling business.

The Mercantile is moving from their nearby location after 40+ years, citing the "upheaval" caused by the impending sale of the next door Carriage Shops.

108 North Pleasant Street

The adjacent Carriage Shops have been in flux since last winter when local hometown hero developers Archipelago Investments, LLC offered the original property (a motel) developer, Jerry Gates, the hefty sum of $4.6 million for the entire complex.

But Mr. Gates only owns 60% of the units, as the rest were individually sold as business condos. Numerous businesses have already relocated fearing the impending sale.

The Mercantile is not even part of the Carriage Shops, but still close enough to feel the "upheaval."

Amherst Carriage Shops, 233 North Pleasant Street, Amherst

When A Barn Is The View

134 Montague Road, North Amherst

View that is currently screened by historic barn

The post and beam barn situated between a historic old 1768 farmhouse and an about to be developed Mill District is indeed a notable fixture just on the outskirts of North Amherst Village Center.  And has been for well over 100 years.

The Amherst Historical Commission had no problem last night designating the barn a "significant structure," but they seem to agonize over the issuance of a one year demolition delay.  The vast majority of residents who attended the meeting had no such reservations, as they simply wanted the view maintained no matter what it cost W.D. Cowls.

Approximately 30% of Amherst's total land area is "permanently protected open space."  And over half the property in town is owned by tax-exempt institutions:  Amherst College, UMass and Hampshire College being the major players. 

Combine that with the well above average cost of our public schools and you have the top two reasons why Amherst has the areas highest property tax, which prices out the middle class.   

Only 10% of our tax base is commercial, so residential property is disproportionately relied upon to bring in tax revenues.  Saving this barn for one year only delays the process of turning that area into a "commercial" cash cow with the development of The Mill District.

In fact the Historical Commission placed a one year delay on the demolition of the the old Trolley Barn just across the street, and a few weeks after the expiration of that year it collapsed into a pile of timber.  Now that location is the site of a 12,000 square foot, multi-use building that will generate tens of thousands annually in property tax revenue.

 The Trolley Barn rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of a former trolley barn

In America, where property rights are paramount, the best way to ensure a neighbor doesn't do something you don't like to their property is to buy it.  Or move. 

Sorry, folks. Proposed student housing development (The Retreat) may be controversial but is NOT a #historic #preservation issue. Try again.
— CitizenWald (@CitizenWald) July 23, 2014

Interesting that many of the same folks who attended this meeting to advocate in behalf of ye old barn tried to get Town Meeting to buy the "development rights" to W.D. Cowls other property further to the east to stop "The Retreat" student housing development.

Historical Commission meeting sign in sheet

And these NIMBYs will be pushing for a North Amherst "Local Historic District," which will erode even further the rights of private landowners to spruce up their castle. 

Cinda Jones setting next meeting date with Historical Commission

Don't Tear Down This Barn!

Cowls barn, 134 Montague Road, North Amherst

After impassioned pleas by North Amherst neighbors with no vested interest other than visual, the Amherst Historical Commission voted unanimously (4 yes, 3 absent) to impose a "one year demolition delay" on W.D. Cowls, the largest private landowner in the state, doing business in the town of Amherst before there was a town of Amherst.

 Amherst Historical Commission

The barn sits immediately behind and looms over the Cowls family farmhouse -- built in 1768 -- which now serves as company headquarters.

 Cinda Jones failed to convince the Amherst Historical Commission to allow demolition

The barn is within spitting distance of the cow barn @ 113 Cowls Road that will be almost completely dismantled and rebuilt for the selling pleasure of Atkins Farms Country Market, a relative newcomer at just over 100 years of doing business in the far south end of town.

 Cow barn:  future home of Atkins Farms Country Market

 More than a dozen friendly neighbors showed up to oppose demolition

The cost to repair the barn for agricultural reuse approached $250,000, which would not provide a viable return on investment.  The current preferred plan is to donate the salvageable wood to the Emily Dickinson Homestead for an interpretive historically accurate barn raising on the property.

Q: What would you put in place of the #historic barn? A: Parking is 1 option. (Geez why don’t you stick a gun in your mouth? That was fatal)
— CitizenWald (@CitizenWald) July 23, 2014

The one year delay does have an "escape clause" whereby the owner can come back in three or four months showing that there are no economically viable solutions to save the structure, and the delay could be lifted.

The Historical Commission seemed genuinely troubled over enacting the full delay, pointing out that Ms. Jones had already done many of the things an owner is expected to do AFTER the one year delay is imposed.  

Barn with 1 year stay of execution (left) Atkins new north location (right)

 

"Of All Places ..."

Fellow UMass journo -- and one of my favorite columnists -- Kevin Cullen seems to have run afoul of UMass cheerleaders with his latest column about a "stupid college kid" who made the grave mistake of aiding and abetting the current poster boy for satanic terrorists, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Three little words were spiked after initial publication.

Obviously when you talk about an uber rich guy sending his son to "elite schools" but then when it comes time for college sends him to "of all places" UMass Dartmouth, it kind of sends the message that it's not exactly the same as an "elite school."  Which of course it's not.

But you can't say that.   In the venerable Boston Globe.  Apparently.