Amherst Town center 10:11 AM (depending on who you believe)
So hopefully the town clock will be running soon (probably not today) as it could simply be that somebody forgot to wind it, which is a chore required twice a week.
An electronic motor that would pretty much guarantee round-the-clock accuracy would cost $21,000.
Because the Community Preservation Act committee is more than flush with money now that the town voters decided to allow a doubling of the CPA tax you would think somebody would put in for it under "historic preservation."
Director of Facilities Ron Bohonowicz tells me that the historic old bells actually work but have been silent these past 15 or so years due to neighbors complaints (12 noon or 12 midnight could be a tad noisy).
There's also a special fire bell up in ye old historic tower operated by a big barrel of rocks that would send out a different faster type of ringing to alert fire fighters.
Even Miss Emily took note of the "ticking of the bells" calling firefighters to the Great Fire that devastated the downtown the night of July 4th, 1879. Although Town Hall was not yet constructed, so the bells probably came from the original fire station in town center.
A decade later, on March 11, 1888 smack in the middle of a major blizzard another conflagration took out the Palmer Block in town center, where Amherst Town Meeting convened. The town acquired the land and constructed Town Hall the following year.
Since town officials refuse to allow the 29 commemorative flags to fly in town center this coming 9/11, maybe they will allow the bells of Town Hall to ring once more ... in memory of the unforgettable.
APD Chief Scott Livingston (right) presents his budget to the Amherst Finance Committee
In his budget presentation to the Finance Committee last week Amherst Police Department Chief Scott Livingstone brought the fiscal watchdogs up to date on his response to the $160,000 Davis Report -- especially timely since the anniversary of the unforgettable Blarney Blowout fast approaches.
While the Town Manager has added two new police officers to his FY16 budget (starts July 1st) the net result is really only one increase for APD, since a 3-year Department of Justice grant that formerly financed one officer will no longer pay for that officer.
Thus the Chief is still looking at ways to add patrol officers to his overburdened department.
His second in command, Captain Jennifer Gundersen outlined a grant proposal for more officers that has been submitted, but the problem is Amherst is a safe and somewhat wealthy community, which lowers the odds for grant approval.
Captain Gundersen also told the Finance Committee the cost to implement joint training with UMass PD -- another Davis recommendation -- is $1,200 per hour, with 24-36 hours required. Not the kind of money that's easy to find in a tight budget.
The good news from the Chief, however, is Amherst recently signed the "Western Mass Mutual Aid Pact." This will allow the surrounding towns police departments to respond when a call is put out for help.
Blarney Blowout 3/8/14
Interestingly regional law enforcement departments started working on this pact in response to the freakish Springfield tornado in the summer of 2011. Fire Departments have been successfully using mutual aid for many years now.
The Chief stated the activation notice has already been issued for March 7th. So unlike last year, a bevy of local police officers will be available to back up Amherst, UMass, and State police.
And presumably UMass will continue to use the successful tactics recently employed for the Super Bowl, most notably banning guests on campus the weekend of the event. Last year 7,000 visitors registered the night before Blarney Blowout.
The winning formula is really quite simple: less students, more cops.
Back when I was growing up in our sleepy little college town, w-a-y back, before the Southwest high rise towers or W.E.B. Du Bois Library first poked the sky, a playing field in Amherst pretty much meant baseball and football.
Soccer or Ultimate Frisbee were as foreign as a place called Vietnam.
These days God's green earth must be multipurposed, to keep all the outdoor sports enthusiasts happy.
And while Amherst has more Conservation open space than you can shake a hiking stick at, the number of playing fields for organized sports have failed to keep up with demand.
The old "cow field" in North Amherst, formerly the playground attached to the now retired North Amherst School, will get a $50,000 makeover with Community Preservation Act money assuming the CPA Committee forwards the request to Town Meeting for the final approval.
A fence along the border with Sunderland Road will certainly make it safer, and parking for 15 cars at the north end of the field will keep users from having to cross Sunderland Road.
The renovations would take place during the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, and be ready for use later that summer.
In this age where youngsters are all too occupied by smart phones, computers and tablets, it's nice to see the return of an old fashioned playing field for team sports.
Or just a soft quiet place to lay down late on a hot summer night, to gaze up at the wonder of the universe.
The Taste of Amherst, that downtown summer institution that brings bliss to Valley foodies and our local restaurant industry, will get a tad safer if Amherst Town Meeting approves DPW Chief Guilford Mooring's $20,000 capital request for Park Replacement Equipment. As will that other major event, Extravaganja.
Technically the historic Amherst town common is a park.
And the current electrical system becomes a spider web of potentially dangerous cords anytime there's a major function. Because some of those major events attract thousands of visitors, a shocking incident is always a possibility.
The $12,000 worth of Spider Boxes will not only organize all the temporary wiring to help reduce tripping over them, but also brings important ground fault circuit interrupter protection, which comes in handy on rainy days.
The Merry Maple "holiday" tree on the town common was knocked out a couple times last December due to a combination of faulty wiring and rainy weather.
Merry Maple will be insulated against power outages
The FY16 budget does not commence until July 1st -- a tad too late for this year's Taste of Amherst.
Guilford Mooring pitching to the Joint Capital Planning Committee 2/5/15
But Mr. Mooring is hoping to get the Business Improvement District and Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce to front the money to buy the spider boxes as soon as possible, and then reimburse them out of his FY16 budget, assuming Town Meeting approves the $20,000 capital item.
All AFD professional firefighters do both EMS and fire duty
Many years ago, worried that bureaucrats would fail to reinvest in expensive capital items required to make the operation work, the town set up the "Ambulance Fund" to stash boatloads of money taken in by the vital service.
So it's not really an "Enterprise Fund" -- a separate fund set up as pretty much a stand-alone business, which is supposed to show all its expenses and set user fees accordingly so it at least breaks even.
Currently the town has four Enterprise Funds: Water, Sewer, Solid Waste, and Transportation (parking meters and Boltwood Garage).
The Cherry Hill Golf Course was an Enterprise Fund for 20 years but could never break even, so town officials gave up. Town Meeting dissolved it as an Enterprise Fund a few years ago, thus wiping away a residual debt of close to $1 million owed the General Fund.
The town has five ambulances, each costing about $250,000, but
usually does not have the staff on duty to operate them all, except
for weekends when UMass is in session.
Called "impact shifts"
(thirsty-Thursday night until early Sunday morning) UMass pays $40,000
per semester to bring in 4 extra firefighters so that all five ambulances
can be operational. Even then there are times AFD has to rely on mutual aid for an out-of-town ambulance to provide transport to a hospital.
The Ambulance Fund takes in over $2 million annually, which is about half AFD's total operating budget. But, like an Enterprise Fund, any expenditures from the Ambulance Fund must be approved by Town Meeting.
While I'm normally not a fan of using money set aside for capital items to fund labor intensive operating budgets, that bean-counter rationality is trumped by my fear of innocent civilians burning to death.
The Ambulance Fund routinely shows an annual surplus of $200,000 -- more than enough to hire two additional Firefighters.
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Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 12:38 PM
Subject: Ambulance Revenues
Hi Larry,
In response to your request for the Ambulance fund balance to date, I wanted to explain in detail on how these funds are utilized. The ambulance fund is a Receipt Reserved for Appropriation account, this means we can only spend the funds with a Town Meeting vote, it is not a revolving fund.
Each year Town Meeting votes money to support the Public Safety (EMT) operating budget and EMS capital such as ambulances, stretchers etc. In the past 5 years we have generated approximately $2.3 to $2.6 million a year and have appropriated close to that amount to support those budgets.
Each year we must collect enough in the Ambulance Fund to cover the appropriation for the following year’s budget.
As you can see below our current unappropriated balance is $1,889,003 and the current FY16 budget is projected to use $2.5 million for operations, meaning that we still need to collect $626,288 to cover the FY16 budget, plus there will be some capital (to be determined).
By June 30th we will need to have collected enough revenue to support the subsequent year’s budget and capital. The Ambulance Fund ended FY14 with a balance of $220,627.
Hopefully this is clear, but if you have any questions let me know.
· The chart below is straight forward, the ending Fund Balance (FB) for 2014 (3,060,060) · The amount voted to support the 2015 budget with the breakdown to the side (2,839,433) this includes capital for FY15 · The beginning unappropriated FB for 2015(220,627), and the revenues collected to date (1,668,376) Total (1,889,003) is the BALANCE · The amount projected to be used for the 2016 budget is (2,515,292),this is the regular operation budget portion there is no capital amount projected yet as the JCPC is in process now to determine this
Sonia Aldrich, Comptroller
From: Larry Kelley [mailto:amherstac@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 1:55 PM
To: Aldrich, Sonia Subject: Re: Ambulance Revenues
Hey Sonia,
So the Ambulance Fund averages about $200,000 per month (assuming total annual revenues of say $2.4 million) then if that holds up for Feb, March, April, May and June it will take in $1 million to be used to cover the $626,288 required for FY16 thus leaving a residual balance of around $373,000 and change?
To: Larry Kelley
Sent: Thu, Feb 5, 2015 2:04 pm
Subject: RE: Ambulance Revenues
Yes, however there will be capital outlay so more likely $100-200K and change and the cycle repeats.
Sonia Aldrich, Comptroller
One of the quirks of government accounting (okay, maybe I should say one of the many) is capital items are not considered part of the "operating budget."
If a homeowner buys a semi-commercial sit down lawnmower or needs to repave the driveway, that money simply comes out of their household budget. And when those capital costs reach a certain point maybe the family does not take a vacation that year
But in municipal accounting capital items are appropriated out of a separate pot, although still taxpayer money of course. Thus public sector managers can then talk about their operating budget breaking even when in fact the overall business costs taxpayers an arm and a leg via expensive machines purchased as capital items.
Take the Cherry Hill Golf Course for instance. Please.
This coming Fiscal Year (FY16 starts July 1st) Cherry Hill will require yet another expensive lawnmower ($33,000) paid for over three years at $11,000 per year.
And FY16 will also be the last year of a three year payment for a greens mower that cost $37,500 paid for over three years at $12,500 per year.
In other words that total capital of $23,500 is sort of free money not tallied against their $245,937 Operating Budget. As are Employee Benefits costs of $40,488.
Thus the average homeowner would put the cost of golf at $309,925 next year, but town officials will only talk about the much lower number, even going so far as to suggest the golf course is a break even endeavor.
And next year that expensive capital item (Parking Lot Resurfacing @ $90,000) they have kept putting off for years now will be a major budget buster.
Click to enlarge/read
5 year plan from two years ago Parking Lot repave originally shows up for FY14
Parking lot repave pushed off again until next year (+ extra $5,000)
The best bar bouncer never actually gets physical with a rowdy patron disturbing the peace and tranquility of your friendly neighborhood liquor establishment. After all, he/she is probably a good customer. You simply get the problem maker off the scene with as little trouble as possible.
And so it is with the UMass Off Campus Resident Assistant, a combination of bar bouncer, dance chaperon, and Superman (or Superwoman as the case may be).
Patterned on the successful program at Boston College, the off campus RA will patrol the problem areas adjacent to UMass -- Phillips & Fearing Streets, Sunset Avenue, North Pleasant & Meadow Streets, Hobart Lane -- at problem times looking to mitigate rowdy behavior before it becomes an issue for police.
Unlike "peer group" initiatives Walk This Way and Team Positive, the off campus RA will be an older, more authoritarian figure who can officially address bad behavior. But the goal will be to use the power of persuasion to get students to stand down.
According to Nancy Buffone, UMass Director of External Relations, "We are moving the search along in a timely fashion so that we can hire someone as soon as possible."
Which is of course bureau speak for "No, they will not be operational this coming spring and certainly not for the March 7 Blarney Blowout."
