Town services – THE AMHERST CURRENT

When will my road be paved? And why is a bear on my deck?

By Sarah Marshall

There is always something interesting going on in Town government – seriously! Within the last several weeks, Town staff and councilors hosted two eye-opening presentations that I summarize here: one on how our roads are prioritized for repair or reconstruction, and another on the bears that call Amherst home.

First, the roads. This blog recently shared a post on potholes, but many of our roads need more than a few patches. How does the Department of Public Works (DPW) decide what roads need major repairs? Is it a political process? Town Engineer Jason Skeels explained how DPW “takes the politics out of paving” at a meeting in April.

Every few years, the Town hires StreetScan to deploy a vehicle like the one shown above, outfitted with fancy cameras, GPS, and data-logging equipment. Like Google’s cars that accumulate data for Street View, this vehicle photographs the condition of Amherst’s 100+ miles of roads in detail. Below is a view of a road from the rear camera.

Sections of each road are rated as shown in the chart above, with “Pavement Condition Index” ratings color-coded from Failed to Excellent. The ratings are overlain on a map of Amherst’s roads, as follows. (A similar, but out-of-date, map can be found on DPW’s Highways web page.)

Overall, this year’s data indicate that about 43 percent of Amherst’s roads are in poor or very poor condition and the balance are in fair to excellent condition. As the map indicates, many of the roads in poor shape are small, neighborhood roads.

The cost of fixing all of the roads in short order is prohibitive. Each year, DPW develops a list of roads or road sections to be prioritized for different types of repair, ranging from crack sealing to complete reconstruction. This list is based on the PCI and traffic data – not on complaints – thus largely insulating the decisions from pressure from individuals or neighborhoods. Depending on the funds available, any constraints on those funds (for example, Town’s general revenue versus state funds versus Community Development Block Grants), and the estimated cost of the work, the Town solicits bids and proceeds to conduct as much of the work as can be funded. In the table below, for example, projects at the bottom will be undertaken if the money stretches that far.

DPW has a fairly good idea of how quickly roads will deteriorate in the several years between StreetScan updates, so it can prioritize projects two or three years out. It is reluctant to make those lists public, however, since people’s expectations may be dashed if funding is inadequate or some roads deteriorate faster than expected and priorities are altered.

So when will your road be repaired? If your road is in yellow, orange, or red and is heavily used, sooner rather than later, if funds allow. If your road is green, you can expect crack-sealing to keep it in good condition. But if your yellow, orange, or red road is less traveled by (like mine), you may wait longer. And complaining probably won’t help, although you can always request a pothole repair.

Now, about that black bear on your deck: she has learned that you put out birdseed. Dave Wattles of MassWildlife told a virtual audience earlier this month that there is no such thing as a “bird” feeder – rather, you or your neighbors put out “wildlife” feeders. Perhaps you only want to see birds, but the seeds and suet are calorie-dense foods sought by many animals. Bears will learn the locations of feeders and return repeatedly. What’s more, the sows (mothers) teach their cubs where to find the wildlife feeders, and the offspring will return on their own after they have left the sow’s care.

Bears also learn where other human-associated foods can be found, such as garbage in cans or dumpsters, chicken coops, and beehives, all of which are increasing in our area. Given the bears’ strength, garbage should be kept in the home until the morning of trash pick-up or placed in bear-proof receptacles. Electric fences around beehives and chicken coops will deter bears without harming them (or humans) but must be maintained. Information about protecting hives and coops can be found here.

Over the last year, a sow with three cubs repeatedly roamed through Amherst, even through downtown neighborhoods, and concern and interest among residents prompted the on-line talk (view it here. Dave explained how MassWildlife tracks bears throughout the state. In brief, staff tranquilize animals after catching them in barrel traps or tracking them to dens, assess their health and weight, and fit them with ear tags (if grown males) or GPS tracking collars (if grown females). The collars give location data for females every 45 minutes, enabling maps such as these:

Each color represents a different sow and shows the home range through which she moves. These home ranges can include areas even more urbanized than Amherst. We also see that home ranges can overlap. The map above does not include data for the Amherst sow, but that is shown here, in green:

Dave emphasized that the bears are not aggressive and are not a problem. Relocating them is fruitless, because either they will promptly return or other bears will move into the area. MassWildlife’s goal is for the bears to live off naturally occurring food sources. We can help by removing the wildlife feeders – or using them only when bears are likely to be hibernating, approximately December through late February – securing garbage containers, and protecting chicken coops and beehives with electric fencing. In the absence of these human-provided foods, bears will spend less time in neighborhoods and get off your deck.

Community responder director has already had ‘huge impact’

By Nick Grabbe

Two weeks into his job as director of the new community responder program, Earl Miller learned that his sister had died suddenly.

The programs and interventions he plans to create in Amherst could have had an impact on her life if she had had access to them, Miller told me. “The best way to pay tribute to her is to do a good job here,” he said.

Miller received support from Fire Chief Tim Nelson and others as he dealt with his family crisis. Now, after a month in Amherst, he’s working on ways to help others who are experiencing difficulties in their lives, in situations that have previously been handled by the police.

His ground-breaking program, called Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service or CRESS, has been endorsed by the Town Council, Town Manager Paul Bockelman and other leaders of Amherst’s government. At the same time, the program faces some challenges as it seeks to become what Bockelman calls “a third leg of public safety” along with the Police and Fire Departments.

Earl Miller is the first director of CRESS, Amherst’s new community responder program.

“Mr. Miller knows our regional community and has lived through many experiences. He knows first hand what it takes to help and be helped,” Bockelman wrote to the Town Council. “Mr. Miller has written about racism and the movement to undo psychiatric oppression.”

CRESS will respond to nonviolent calls with an emphasis on approaching community members through an anti-racist and behavioral health lens, according to Miller’s job description. It’s estimated that a third of the calls that police have responded to could be handled by the unarmed CRESS responders.

“They will respond to situations that don’t involve violence or serious criminal activity such as minor disputes and disturbances, loitering, mental health issues, homelessness, substance abuse, trespass, truancy, wellness checks, youth and schools,” his job description reads.

CRESS was one of the recommendations of the Community Safety Working Group, which was formed two years ago, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Miller said he watched all of the working group’s meetings.

He will be hiring an assistant and eight responders, who will undergo training in de-escalation of conflict, mediation, and CPR. They will then work in shifts 24/7, except for Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 to 9 a.m. He said he hopes to have the program staffed by mid-June.

Miller, 35, is a native of Holyoke and currently lives in Agawam. He previously worked for the Department of Mental Health and the Center for Human Development in Springfield. He has two daughters, 11 and 14, and the younger one already loves Antonio’s and will be in the Adventures camp here this summer.

“He’s had a huge impact already,” Bockelman said.

Kinsey Memorial Garden at the Jones Library

For example, he met with Jones Library Director Sharon Sharry, who sometimes has to deal with people who cause disturbances. Miller asked when these disturbances most often occur so that the responders can walk through the library at those times. He spoke of writing a grant to hire a social worker for the library, helping to staff the future teen room, and arranging for a mobile health clinic, Sharry said.

“He also talked about restorative justice,” she wrote in an email to me. “I explained that our dream is to never have to trespass anyone ever again; those are the people that need us the most. He agrees, but also said there does need to be a line; if someone hits someone else, that calls for a one year time out.”

Miller has also spent some time in the high school, where a series of fights in hallways and bathrooms recently prompted five parents to ask the Police Department for help. He met with Principal Talib Sadiq and spoke at an assembly, and also spent time at the middle school. “I want to provide a model for kids when conflict happens,” he said. He shook every hand in one lunchroom.

He has also met with Police Chief Scott Livingstone, who has pledged to work collaboratively with CRESS. “The Police Department is committed to making this as good as it can be,” Miller said. “Folks over there want to be part of the solution.”

One of the challenges CRESS will face is developing clear guidelines for the dispatchers who answer calls for help and will have to decide whether to send a police officer or a community responder. In some cases, the response will be clear, but there will be “a ton of gray area,” Bockelman said. Domestic disturbances might seem to be CRESS’s turf, but they can be dangerous even for police, and the responders need to feel safe, he said.

Dispatchers will need clarity on whether to route calls to the Police Department or to CRESS.

Another challenge will be operating an entirely new program with few models or clear ways to measure success. Miller, who will be based in the Bangs Center, must cooperate with the Police Department but also answer to the working group, which wanted more funding and coverage for CRESS.

Miller was asked if CRESS is “set up to fail.” “I wouldn’t have taken the job if I thought that,” he said. “We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

If CRESS is to become a long-term alternative to the police, a year from now there will be a funding challenge. The current $936,000 budget includes only $130,000 of town money, with the rest coming from the state and federal governments, money that’s unlikely to be available again. This is not a “defund the police” program, and Bockelman said he expects no decline in demand for the Police Department’s services.

The debate over continued or expanded funding for CRESS could be happening at the same time as a vote on raising taxes to help finance construction of a new elementary school. Major financial commitments to a new fire station and public works headquarters are also on the horizon.

“There will be difficult conversations ahead, but we’re all in this together,” Miller said.

He received a warm reception from 40 people as Bockelman introduced him at a public get-together at the Bangs Center Friday. “The reason I took this job is I saw the work you put in and I agreed with the mission because it was meaningful to me,” Miller said.

Aging and dementia: Looking at Amherst through a different lens

By Sarah Marshall

I bet you know someone with dementia. I know several people with dementia, Alzheimer’s in many cases, and it is painful to see these wonderful people fade, cognitively. And I have a sense of the emotional, physical, and financial tolls these diseases inflict on family members.

If you don’t know someone with dementia, I bet you know someone who, due to advancing age, is having more difficulty with mobility, vision, or hearing. That person might even be you! Few of us will be fortunate enough to age without experiencing these limitations directly.

How well do you think Amherst’s infrastructure and programs serve residents with impairments due to aging or dementia? Is Amherst “friendly” to these sectors of our community? Will you be able to continue your daily activities if you join these fellow residents in disability? Is your current home a good option for “aging in place?” Can you continue to live independently? Will you want different services from the Town?

These are some of the issues being explored by the Age and Dementia Friendly Community Project. A working group, led by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC), has been meeting monthly since January. The three main phases of work are to gather information about how friendly Amherst is to people with disabilities of aging or dementia, to devise an action plan for making us friendlier, and to make and monitor our progress. The goal is to produce an Action Plan for the town by the end of December.

During the first phase, the working group is conducting numerous outreach efforts to residents of any age, but particularly those at least 55 years old, via an on-line survey, paper questionnaire, and in-person assistance with the survey. The goal is to hear from a diverse set of residents. Thus, the group will reach out to people at apartment complexes, the Senior Center, the Survival Center, the libraries, congregate meal sites, churches, the farmers’ market, community events, and other locations. Questionnaires have been printed in Spanish and Portuguese, and volunteer translators for other languages are sought.

If you haven’t yet taken the survey (it took me eight minutes to complete), you can do so here, before the end of April. Links to the survey in languages other than English are here. Hard copies are available at the Bangs Center and the Jones Library.

Why become an Age and Dementia Friendly Community now, you may wonder, Is there some urgency? Approximately 10% of Amherst residents are at least 60 years old. About 30% of Amherst residents over 65 live alone, and about 12% of residents over 65 suffer from dementia of some kind. Nationally, the population of people who are at least 65 years old is expected to exceed the 18-or-under population by 2035. The presence of the university and colleges, and related factors, may accelerate this trend in Amherst. Many older residents would like to continue to live in Amherst, if that is feasible.

What makes a town friendly (or not) to people with dementia or disabilities of advancing age? This slide, from a presentation by Becky Basch of the PVPC, gives a broad answer:

But, to be more specific, an age-friendly community must address inclusivity and accessibility in many aspects of public and private life, such as:

Housing – e.g., availability of smaller, one-level units, local long-term-care options, safe neighborhoods;
Transportation – e.g., public and private, by several modes including walking, signals that give adequate time to slower walkers to cross streets, and loud signals for the hard of hearing;
Outdoor spaces and buildings – e.g., accessible, signage visible to the vision impaired;
Communication, information and technology – e.g., are appropriate means used and available to people with a range of skills;
Access, equity, and inclusion – e.g., local workers trained to work with impaired customers, support groups;
Civic participation and employment;
Public safety – e.g., personnel who know where residents with dementia live and how to respond to them; and
Services – e.g., health, community, business.

After the survey concludes, the working group will schedule monthly public meetings to get ideas and feedback on these topics. The first is likely to be held in May; in-person and virtual modes are under consideration.

Other Pioneer Valley communities participating in this Age and Dementia Friendly Community initiative include Belchertown, Hadley, South Hadley and Northampton, all at different stages of the process. You can read Northampton’s draft community assessment and action plan, which identifies assets, challenges and recommendations, here, and South Hadley’s here.

As the dates for public discussions of the topics listed above are announced, we will post them on our “On our radar” page.

‘Tis the season — for potholes

By Nick Grabbe

So you’re driving down Leverett Road, approaching Cushman, when – BUMPITY-BUMPITY-BUMP – you hit the brakes to avoid putting your car’s suspension at risk.

Or you’re tooling along College Street and – KA-CHUNG! – one of your tires descends into a big hole in the pavement.

It’s pothole season. There’s been a “bumper crop” this year, says Public Works Superintendent Guilford Mooring. “Everything just exploded in mid-February.”

As annoying as potholes are for drivers, they’re just as irksome for the DPW. Crews often fill potholes only to see them reemerge after a rain, and DPW staffers field angry calls from drivers who want immediate action.

Here’s a list of the Top Ten Things To Know About Potholes, according to Mooring.

They’re a problem all over the state. By one estimate, Massachusetts ranks fourth in the U.S. in pothole complaints per mile of road. Potholes occur when ice melts, causing the pavement to contract, which leads to gaps that trap water. The cycle of freezing and thawing weakens the road surface.
Road salt makes the problem worse. It keeps water from freezing and makes it easier to get into cracks. It isn’t good for trees, water supplies or car bodies, either. “People expect to have black pavement when the snow stops,” Mooring says. “Maybe we need to wait 12 hours and let the pavement melt on its own.”
You can report potholes. Go to the “See, Click, Fix” feature on amherstma.gov or call Public Works at 259-3050. You can talk to a staffer, and if you’re particularly insistent, she can refer you to Mooring. The DPW sends out at least two crews a day to fill potholes, but it’s strenuous work, and after a while they have to return to headquarters for more asphalt.
There’s a funding squeeze. The pothole budget is about half what it used to be, and the price of asphalt and gasoline has risen. Asphalt was $45 a ton when Mooring became DPW superintendent 20 years ago, and now it’s $95. Sometimes the DPW has to take money from other budgets to fill the gap.
You can file a claim for damages. Say you blow a tire driving over a pothole. You can seek compensation from the Town’s insurance provider. But this typically works only when someone has reported the pothole and it hasn’t been fixed in a reasonable time. There have been about 10 such claims so far this year.
It’s another impact of climate change. Snow doesn’t cause potholes; this year there’s been half the usual amount. It’s the increased freezing and thawing that causes problems. This week, with very cold nights followed by 60-degree temperatures and rain today, the weather has been perfect for pothole formation.
The solution is to repave the roads. The DPW is spending about $2 million this year to repave and reconstruct roads. This amount has been increasing, but there’s still a backlog of roadwork that Mooring estimates will cost about $20 million. Amherst has been underfunding roadwork for many years.
Several roads are due for fixing. Bids have gone out for work on the east side of Bay Road, Leverett Road, Meadow Street, Russellville Road, a section of Pulpit Hill Road, Harris Mountain Road, and part of Kellogg Avenue. The bids from private companies will determine how much actually gets done this year.
Electric cars get a free ride. A lot of the money to repair roads comes from the gasoline tax, which drivers of electric cars don’t pay. Mooring calls them “freeloaders.” This is a national problem and the gas tax and road repair formulas need to change, he says.
They bring costs, and risks. Driving over a pothole can cause you to wreck a tire and put stress on your suspension. And who hasn’t seen a driver swerve to avoid a pothole, creating a hazard for all vehicles in the vicinity.

Mooring had some other interesting news:

Guilford Mooring, Amherst’s DPW superintendent

Town officials are close to a deal on a site for a new $20 million DPW facility. It will involve paying a lot of money to a private landowner after neighbors objected to a site offered for free by Amherst College.
There’s been a lot of coughing and sneezing in the current building, which was built in 1919. There are leaks in the roof and one wall is covered with mold. “I feel like I’m a sinking ship,” Mooring said.
The town manager is expected to make a decision next week about whether to take down a silver maple tree on the corner of Sunset Avenue and Fearing Street. It’s in the way of a housing development but some neighbors want it to stay.
The state roadwork on Northampton Road will involve putting in a new water line that will improve the quality of water in the Dana Street/Blue Hills Road area, which can get stagnant and discolored in the summer.
With the sole trash hauler raising its pickup rates, about 50 additional households have canceled service and bought stickers to gain access to the transfer station/recycling center. About 1,300 people now buy these stickers.

Amherst should get more money from UMass and the colleges

By George Ryan and Nick Grabbe

When a UMass student leaves the campus and gets in trouble, the Amherst Police Department, paid for primarily by Amherst taxpayers, deals with him.

When an Amherst College student goes to Town Hall to register to vote or get a passport, the salaries of the clerks who help her are paid through Amherst property taxes.

When a Hampshire College professor gets in a car, the cost of paving the roads, clearing the snow and maintaining the stoplights comes mostly from the budget of the Amherst Department of Public Works.

And yet Amherst receives very little from these three institutions to help pay these necessary expenses, which run in the millions of dollars, because their land and buildings are exempt from local property taxes. This is one of the main reasons why the average residential tax bill in Amherst is among the highest in Western Mass. And next spring, residents will be asked to raise their taxes even further to pay for a desperately needed new elementary school.

Meanwhile, the previous Town Council has made substantial commitments that will have big financial consequences. They include:

Creating two new departments;
Implementing efforts to realize our energy and climate goals;
Exploring reparations for African American residents harmed by past injustice;
Addressing long-delayed infrastructure and capital needs;
Funding four major building projects.

In addition, Amherst is committed to maintaining the high level of Town services that residents have come to expect. All these commitments will put serious pressure on the Town’s budgets for the foreseeable future.

Difficult and painful decisions will have to be made. Some staffing goals have been deferred and may have to be abandoned, such as funding a staff position to oversee downtown parking, hiring an economic development director, or increasing the number of inspectors to enforce a stricter rental registration bylaw.

New sources of funding will be essential if we are to meet these ambitious goals. One key will be continued new growth, to enable the Town to raise revenue beyond the limits of the state’s tax-limit law. And that will mean more development, especially downtown and in village centers, and that in turn will require zoning reforms such as allowing duplexes by right.

But that will not be enough. Amherst needs to engage at the highest level with the three academic institutions in town to identify ways they can contribute to the Town’s long-term flourishing. It is in their interest, in terms of attracting faculty and students, to have a host community that people want to live in. The quality of Amherst’s schools, roads and cultural activities are important to those decisions.

Town officials are already having “productive conversations” with campus representatives, said Finance Director Sean Mangano. Town staff are also comparing the financial contributions of the three campuses with those of Williams College, UMass/Dartmouth and UMass/Lowell, and the Universities of Connecticut and Vermont to their host communities, Mangano said.

And the Town Council has made developing strategic partnership agreements with all three institutions a key goal for the town manager in 2022. He is tasked with entering into agreements that will seek to mitigate the financial and social impacts the three campuses have on the Town and also exploring possible collaborations in areas of mutual concern, such as housing, economic development, and the long-term financial viability of the Town.

In addition, there are efforts to get state legislation to formalize payments to towns that host state facilities. Amherst’s Finance Committee is working with the principal assessor to estimate the value of land and buildings on our three campuses.

Credit Ryan Mercer, Burlington Free Press

What are some examples of town-gown collaborations? Burlington, Vt. is especially noteworthy. In 2019, the city received $1.38 million from the University of Vermont to help pay for municipal services, and $94,000 to pay for police patrols near the campus, according to vtdigger.org, an independent news source. The city also received a commitment of $8.9 million over 20 years to cover the debt service on a sustainable infrastructure plan.

The University of Iowa contributed $200,000 to a city-sponsored program that bought properties and resold them to individuals who met certain income guidelines. The University of West Virginia provided forgivable down payment assistance for its employees who participated in a city home ownership program. Lehigh University agreed to share the cost of the salaries for code enforcers to ensure that their students were living in safe, healthy off-campus housing. Duke University bought, rehabilitated, and sold 40 houses to faculty and staff.

So what sorts of payments do our three institutions of higher learning currehtly make to the Town? This past year, after many years of negotiations, UMass contributed $185,000 to the elementary and regional schools to help pay the cost of educating children who live in its tax-exempt housing. In addition, it makes an annual payment of $160,000 as “occupancy fees” in lieu of an occupancy tax at the Campus Center Hotel, and it reimburses the Town for police and fire support; in 2021 that was $400,000.

Amherst College, which has an endowment currently valued at $3.7 billion, recently made a one-time gift of $200,000 to help support the Jones Library expansion and renovation project and to help pay the costs of the Drake, the live performance space (though assistance the Drake doesn’t help the Town budget). Amherst College also makes an annual contribution to the local schools (in 2021 it was $75,000) and, unlike UMass, it does pay property tax on some of its properties in Town, especially off-campus faculty residences. In 2021 that property tax bill came to $649,449. And like UMass (whose statewide endowment in 2021 was $1.2 billion), it reimburses the Town on an annual basis for ambulance and fire calls. In 2021, that annual “support fee” came to $140,000.

These payments, while welcome, are not adequate to meet the demand that our academic institutions place on Town services. Amherst College or UMass could show what good neighbors they are, and get much favorable publicity, by paying some of the costs of making our new elementary school zero-energy, for example.

And while Hampshire College’s financial situation might preclude contributions, it does have substantial land holdings in South Amherst and could be a key player in increasing housing opportunities and economic development in that part of town.

All three institutions also possess vast reservoirs of intellectual capital and youthful idealism that could be put to work in our schools and in the larger community. They are essential partners in keeping Amherst flourishing and financially sound. These conversations will not be easy, but they are vital to the future well being of our community.

Let’s declare a moratorium on moratoriums

Editors’ note: On Monday night, the Town Council did not support a moratorium on large-scale solar arrays. The vote was eight in favor, five opposed, failing to meet the required two-thirds.

By Bob Rakoff

Another year, another moratorium.

The Town Council will vote this evening on a proposed moratorium on large-scale solar arrays. While other folks have written about the pros and cons of this particular proposal, I am interested in the increasing advocacy of moratoriums in local political debates. Why now? Why so popular? Do they promote good decision-making in pursuit of the public good?

Moratoriums have a long history in Amherst politics, but their recent popularity stems from the 2018 election for Town Council. In that election, candidate Darcy DuMont featured a moratorium on downtown development at the center of her campaign. There weren’t a lot of details attached to her proposal for a six-month moratorium to allow for writing up new zoning regulations. In my view, the proposal was largely a campaign slogan masquerading as a serious policy, intended to appeal to people who disliked the scale and appearance of new downtown buildings. The proposal was eventually voted down by the Town Council.

When is a moratorium an appropriate response to a perceived problem? The key is whether there is an emergency that demands slamming on the brakes of business as usual. A recent example is the national moratorium on rental evictions during the first years of the Covid pandemic. Putting millions of unemployed, low-income people out into the streets during a public health crisis is just about a textbook case of an emergency that calls for immediate action.

It can be difficult to justify a local moratorium as a response to an emergency. Back in the 1970s, the State of Massachusetts imposed a moratorium on new hook-ups to the local sewer system until a new solid waste facility was completed. There was grumbling about this, but little dispute about the seriousness of the problem. Once the new treatment plant was completed, life returned to normal.

Sewage treatment plant. Photo by Derek Davis/Staff Photographer, Portland (Maine) Press Herald

On the other hand, when the Amherst Board of Selectmen pushed for a moratorium on new building permits in 1985, there was significant pushback in local political discussion and in the courts. The Selectmen (as they were still known back then), noting that there were more than 2,000 possible new housing units in the permitting pipeline — a 25 percent increase in our housing stock — feared that such an increase would overwhelm schools as well as physical infrastructure. The Planning Board and Town Meeting went along, and a moratorium was declared. While the ban on building permits was being litigated in the courts, the Planning Board and its staff used the hiatus to craft a phased growth zoning bylaw to regulate the approval of subdivision plans and the issuance of building permits. (I was the Planning Board chair in 1987, when Town Meeting passed the bylaw.)

Was that moratorium appropriate? While the fears of crowded schools and overtaxed sewers were genuine, the courts found that these concerns did not amount to a real emergency. A better permitting system did emerge from the moratorium period, including the first pieces of an affordable housing policy for Amherst. So, not a real emergency, but not a total mistake either. And, by the way, those looming 2,000 new housing units did not materialize for a very long time.

One problem with the recent zoning-related moratorium proposals is that they have the potential to escalate the problems they are seeking to fix. This is because state zoning laws, which control what local communities can and cannot do, allow developers to freeze local zoning as soon as they submit preliminary plans for subdivisions, commercial buildings, and other structures governed by local zoning codes. We have already seen this with the pending proposal on solar arrays: potential developers have already filed their plans and will not be subject to future changes.

And would the potential problem of large-scale solar developments rise to the level of an emergency? Amherst does have some regulations on the books, so we are not unprepared. And, of course, proponents of solar arrays would argue that the real emergency is not loss of open land or forests but climate change itself!

While calls for moratoriums raise public interest in local issues and provide a symbolic lift to folks who have a special grievance, they are a blunt instrument of policy making. It would be far better for the Town Council to direct the Planning Board and Department to bring them specific responses to specific, perceived problems.

Let’s declare a moratorium on moratoriums.

[Editor’s notes. You can read previous posts about solar energy in Amherst and the proposed moratorium by clicking on the Climate change mitigation category in our menu. Town Council will vote on the proposed moratorium this evening during the regular Council meeting. You can find links to the virtual meeting, agenda, and materials here.]

Rental bylaw, garage decisions on Town Council’s to-do list

By George Ryan

Our Town and its elected bodies face numerous significant challenges, some of which I have described in two earlier posts. In my third post in this series, I discuss the impact of rental housing and a destination parking garage.

Rental Registration Bylaw. Since January 2014, owners of rental housing have been required to register with the Town on a yearly basis. They must secure a rental permit for each rental property that they own. The permit program makes clear who owns and manages rental properties and clarifies for the owners and renters existing health and safety codes, occupancy limits, and noise and nuisance bylaws.

The bylaw also gives the Town the authority to suspend a rental permit for “egregious and persistent non-compliance.” To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened, in large part because our Inspections Department simply does not have enough bodies to both administer the program and enforce it. Owners self-inspect their properties and Town inspectors become involved only if there is a complaint.

What we have seen since the program’s inception is a steady decline in the number of permits issued. In 2015, 1,281 permits were issued, but that number has fallen every year, to 1,150 in 2020. There is suspicion that this steady decline reflects a trend of landlords opting out of the program and not a decline in the actual number of rental properties.

After eight years, there is clearly interest in Town Hall and among a number of Councilors to revisit the Rental Registration Bylaw. What form this will take remains to be seen, but the underlying goal will probably be to require more regular and vigorous inspections of rental properties and a more robust enforcement system that will hold landlords accountable when they do not play by the rules. The challenge is that our system currently is a complaint-driven system, and for it to work, residents need to speak up when they see potential violations. Such a system is not very effective.

An inspection-driven system, while attractive, would face the obstacle of cost. The Town can revise the bylaw as much as it likes, but without adequate enforcement, the changes would not have much impact. But enforcement requires people and people cost money. Since the Town has just committed to hiring 12 new people to staff two new Town departments (CRESS and a Department of Equity and Inclusion), I think it is unlikely that there will be funds available in the budget for other staff hires.

One possible solution is to pay for new inspectors through an increase in permit fees. The problem with that is that most permits are taken out by individuals and a sizable increase would likely prove a financial burden to those landlords and lead to further reductions in the number of permits applied for. That would defeat the whole purpose of the program. And none of this actually addresses the deeper problem – how to discourage the conversion of single- and two-family homes into rentals in the first place. That is something I plan to address in a future post.

A destination parking garage. Given the previous Council’s vote to rezone the Town-owned lot behind CVS, at some point in the coming year there should be an RFP (Request for Proposals) to see if there is, in fact, any interest in the private sector in building a destination garage on that site. The RFP would require Town Council approval before its release.

One repeated objection has been that this garage is intended to provide parking for the new multi-unit apartment buildings downtown. This objection ignores the fact that such a use can be restricted (or even prohibited) through the Request for Proposals that the Council must approve. It also overlooks the repeated statement by the sponsors that this proposal has been driven by a desire to support the downtown business community and has been made in response to current and planned economic development in our downtown, including:

an expanded and renovated Jones Library;
improvements to the North Common;
an outdoor performance shell on the South Common;
The Drake, a live performance venue slated to open in March;
a world-class independent cinema.

A destination garage is meant to encourage people to come downtown to shop, dine, see a film, attend a live music performance, hang out on the Town Common, or take the kids to Kendrick Park Playground. And if you are just coming downtown for a few quick errands, the first hour of parking could be free. The RFP could (and probably should) restrict the number of year-round spaces available for rent. It could even prohibit them outright, though I think that would be unwise.

And yes, there are legitimate questions about traffic and safe access into and out of the site. But without an RFP and the required traffic studies that would go with it, these questions can’t be properly addressed. A well-crafted RFP would go a long way to addressing this and other concerns of neighbors.

My hope is that a majority of Councilors support a dynamic and active downtown and are curious enough to see what might be possible through a public/private partnership. Our downtown business community is in need of all the support we can give it.

A civil conversation, part 1

By Andy Churchill and Meg Gage

[Note: this is the first in a series of respectful conversations from different points of view about Amherst issues. Please send any ideas for topics to the editors.]

Meg: So, Andy, what did we get ourselves into here? I do appreciate the opportunity to dig into our different perspectives about Amherst issues and controversies. We worked well together on the Charter Commission, although we were on opposite sides of a bunch of big issues. How about you?

Andy: Hi Meg – yes, we differed on the Charter, but we’ve also found common cause on some key issues, like the need for a new elementary school. And we’re both concerned about Amherst being divided into separate, hostile camps that don’t talk (and more importantly, listen) to each other. I hope we can do better than the national scene in that regard!

Meg: Yes! But, Andy, let’s not be too chummy or this point/counterpoint isn’t going to be very interesting for anyone to read! Let’s talk about downtown. Amherst property taxes are too high – in large part because of fixed, structural facts – a huge amount of tax-exempt property in the colleges and University (later let’s talk about whether they contribute enough PILOT!) lots of conservation and APR land. So, our town leaders are looking at redesigning our downtown to bring in more taxes. But I feel there’s been quite a bit of cart before the horse in that thinking. It sometimes seems the town is willing to build anything that appears profitable regardless of the impact.

Andy: Whoa – slow down a little! There’s a lot packed into that little paragraph.

Meg: OK – fair enough. Say more . . .

Andy: It’s important to make the connection between the services residents are asking for and the revenues we have to pay for them. When I was on the School Committee I became increasingly worried about where the money would come from to pay for our kids’ education, along with all the other things we want, including public safety, roads, sidewalks, libraries, recreation, elder services, social services – the list goes on and on.

Meg: I agree, so far. We want a lot of things that are expensive!

Andy: Our ability to pay for those things is constrained, as you note, by large amounts of tax-exempt land. So, we need to do the best we can to generate revenue from the remaining parts of town. And to keep the full burden from falling on residents’ property taxes, that means we need commercial development somewhere. Our Master Plan says we should focus commercial development in the downtown and the village centers, to avoid sprawl in the rest of town. So encouraging appropriate, taxable development in downtown is important, both to support the services Amherst residents want and to keep the tax burden from going even higher. Do you agree?

Meg: Yes, I do, although we might not agree 100% on what constitutes “appropriate” development. I definitely agree the downtown is a large part of the solution. But it’s not development at any cost. We should be able to build profitable buildings that are not eyesores, don’t injure the streetscape, and house businesses where year-round residents – i.e. not only students – will hang out and spend money. Let’s encourage downtown activity that will generate income for the town, without destroying the downtown we all cherish.

Andy: Okay. Do you think others on “your side” feel the same way? Do they see development in the downtown as part of the solution? It makes a big difference if we’re actually talking about HOW we should develop downtown rather than fighting about IF we should develop it. I think there’s a lack of trust among some on “my side” about that – often it seems like people raise objections to the process or the details of a project as a way of stopping it, not because they are really interested in making it better.

Meg: I truly think the difference is more about HOW to develop rather than whether to develop. That said, my “side,” such as it is a “side,” has a wide range of opinions on the downtown. However, I believe most of the people I identify with want to use good planning tools and updated assessments of how the 21^st Century economy works to create a rejuvenated and successful downtown where people want hang out.

Andy: Well, I hope those people include students, because I think they are key to our fiscally sustainable future. More on that below.

In terms of “eyesores” downtown, you may be surprised that I agree with you that 1 East Pleasant, the big building by Kendrick Park, is pretty clunky in its design. Although when I realize that it and its triangular sister (which I like) bring the town almost $2 million in taxes every three years – it starts to look a bit prettier! I do give credit to the developers, Archipelago, for figuring out how to build things again in Amherst, where most others had thrown up their hands and said, “These people are impossible.”

Meg: Have you seen the affordable housing building in Northampton at 155 Pleasant Street? It is a very large 4-story building with 23 affordable units. It is set back from the sidewalk and has an attractive design. Why can’t we build housing like that in Amherst? (Maybe Archipelago needs better architects??)

Andy: Yes, I’ve seen that building – it looks nice in that context; I wonder if it would look the same in ours. But I agree with your larger point, which is that we need some design standards to guide future development. I just want to make sure we are actually focused on generating that new development, which we are going to need to fund the services we want for our town without soaking the residential taxpayers, and not just throwing up roadblocks to make it unprofitable so it won’t happen at all.

Meg: I think most people who have raised questions about development are unhappy with what appears to be unexamined options and inappropriate building style, scale and landscape. People want to know that various options have been considered. Also, some people feel the developers and the BID are calling the shots and there’s little room for additional input and different points of view. For example, I don’t think people on my “side” are automatically opposed to a parking garage, but feel that we shouldn’t change zoning for a specific location until we’ve established the need and scale and considered all possible locations.

Andy: Okay, but I am tired of hearing for each new building, “Where is the parking?” I don’t think we want to encourage individual parking lots for each new project, and requiring underground parking for each building increases costs and makes projects less affordable. Centralized parking is a core feature of developing vibrant downtowns. I love going to Northampton and knowing that there’s a place for me to park where I don’t have to figure out in advance how long I’ll be there. It’s welcoming, and it lets the streetscape serve pedestrians, not cars.

Meg: Yes, I love the Northampton parking garage too — where the coffee is strong and so are the women! But is Amherst proposing student parking because the new buildings don’t have any? We need to unpack that. I know we each have more to say on this topic, but we’re running out of space here. In a future chat, I’d like to talk about the idea of “two sides,” more about the balance between retail and housing, the role of the arts, and form-based development. And do we have the courage to look at how the Charter that we both worked on has turned out?

Andy: Sure, and I would also like to explore our attitudes toward college students. I feel like some vocal folks in town (and I don’t believe you are one of them!) like living in a college town but would prefer if it had no college students in it. On the contrary, I feel like the students are a great resource that we should do a better job of leveraging for the town’s benefit.

Meg: Very funny! A college town with no college students! Yes, I like both living in a college town and living with students around. They make life interesting – at the peak of the recent windy snowstorm, several of our North Amherst student neighbors were in their front yard playing beer pong! So many things to talk about – all useful to unpack! Looking forward to the next round.

Andy: Okay, let’s reconvene soon for Round 2 and continue to argue about – I mean, discuss – the good, the bad, and the ugly of downtown Amherst!

Parking permit fee increases proposed to Town Council

By Nick Grabbe

Town officials are recommending big increases in parking permit fees, including steep ones for residents who don’t register their vehicles in Amherst.

Parking permits enable downtown residents and employees to use designated spaces on the outskirts of downtown. The system is intended to make more downtown spaces available to shoppers and restaurant patrons.

The Town Council is scheduled to receive a report on the proposals for higher fees at tonight’s meeting and may vote on them.

Town Hall currently sells 236 parking permits for only $25 a year to people who don’t pay excise taxes to the Town because they register their vehicles elsewhere. Under the proposal, those fees would increase sixfold, to $150, next year, and then to $300 the year after that and $400 the following year.

The excise tax revenue lost “is substantial and helps support the overall budget, including capital that goes to maintain roads and sidewalks,” according to a memo from Town Manager Paul Bockelman, Finance Director Sean Mangano and Treasurer/Collector Jennifer LaFountain. Other Massachusetts cities and towns that also host state institutions and have comparable populations collect far more excise tax on vehicles than Amherst does, they pointed out.

“The parking permit program is long overdue for a significant update,” they wrote to the Town Council. “The current version was adopted in 1999 with updates in 2002 and 2005.” Fees were kept low when the program started to encourage residents and employees to participate.

The 79 people who currently do register their vehicles in Amherst and buy parking permits for $25 would see more modest increases. Under the plan, these permits would cost $50 next year and $100 the year after that.

There are also 482 people who buy employee permits for $25 a year. Those fees are due to increase slightly, to $35 next year and $45 the following year. Twenty people reserve parking spots for $1,000 a year and would see $100 increases each of the next two years.

The total amount collected from parking permit fees annually is scheduled to increase from the current $39,925 to $155,350 in three years.

Permit fees go into the Transportation Fund, along with revenues from parking meters and violations. The fund is supposed to pay for all related expenses without drawing on tax revenue, expenses that include salaries for enforcement officers, PVTA surcharges, the Town’s assessment to the Business Improvement District, meter and kiosk maintenance and parking lot improvements.

But the Transportation Fund, which spends about $1.1 million a year, has been running a deficit that is projected to be eliminated with the fee increases. The goal is devote 15 percent of the Fund’s revenues, or $200,000 a year, to capital and debt. “We envision a fund that can be fully self-sustaining, support regular maintenance, and save up for larger capital improvements,” the town officials wrote.

The Town Council will also consider a proposal to implement high-visibility signage in key locations and update the Town’s parking web page to make it more user-friendly.

New signs are needed at each public parking lot to identify hours of operation and other information, and a plan is expected to be ready later this year. Town officials have started work on the web page to make it more helpful “while at the same time de-emphasizing the punitive elements of the parking system,” according to the memo. The web page will include a feedback form so that residents can make comments about the system.

Town officials are not recommending the creation of a dedicated parking management position to coordinate all this.

“At this time, there are insufficient resources to create this position and ensure that it could be funded each year going forward,” according to the memo. “The pandemic has significantly diminished the revenues going into the Transportation Fund and highlighted their volatility.”

Bigger pie, or smaller appetite?

By Sarah Marshall

Amherst voters have a big appetite. We want:

open space with trails and amenities
excellent schools
lively business districts
more housing at a variety of income levels
a community responder program in conjunction with a reduced police department
the traditional look and feel of our village centers
updated/rebuilt/renovated public buildings
diversity and outreach programs
more and/or easier parking
an expanded public art program
wide sidewalks
an economic development director
updated and well maintained parks
updated and well maintained recreational and athletic facilities
capital investments to mitigate climate change
a robust reparations program
efficient delivery of public services
well paid public employees
roads in good condition
prompt responses from emergency services
. . . .

The Amherst money pie is not large enough to satisfy all these wants, reasonable as they may be.

Last winter and spring, as the pandemic began to ease, the Town began to form its annual budgets for town operations, the regional schools, capital expenses, and other functions for the fiscal year now in progress. The pandemic devastated several of the town’s income streams, such as from hotel and restaurant taxes, parking receipts, excise fees, and growth in new taxable properties (that is, from new construction). In addition, anticipated contributions from the state to the schools and directly to the Town decreased. The budget decisions for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2021 (FY22) were extremely painful. The regional schools budget was forced to cut teachers and services. The elementary schools were forced to give up some art and music teachers. All town departments were held to 2.1% increases to their budgets.

We need a bigger pie.

I listened to searing public comments at School Committee and Town Council budget hearings, begging for money to be moved to the schools, or moved to a new community responder program, or to preserve other services. Now, as Town Hall and Town Council begin developing next year’s budget, similar public comments are being offered, and the Town is likely to propose even more funds for community responders, perhaps additional funds for a reparations program, for a BIPOC youth center, for climate sustainability projects, and more.

Where will the money come from?

A couple of months ago, I listened to the presentation of financial indicators for the next fiscal year, and while some of the news is good (meals and hotel/motel taxes are recovering, for example), other news is not (essentially flat state aid, rising health insurance costs). Painful decisions await the Town Council that will take office on January 3.

We will be fortunate to have almost $12 million in ARPA funds to spend on many aspects of our budgets, including some new endeavors. But in a few years, either these efforts will end when the ARPA funds run out, or we will need to shoehorn them into ongoing operating budgets. Without enlarging our annual revenue streams, projects, departments, wants, and needs will be pitted against each other in a zero-sum contest.

The revenue stream over which Amherst has the most control is property taxes, which can be increased by promoting, or at least allowing, new construction – of houses, apartments, commercial buildings, and accessory dwelling units. Every new construction increases the value of the property it sits on, and therefore the property taxes paid by the owner for years to come. Other options for increasing our revenue include a Proposition 2-1/2 tax override, which permanently increases our tax rate, or selling off open space for development. If we don’t increase our revenues, we will need to decrease our expenses, and cross some items off the list above.

Councilors are responsible for setting the budget priorities for the Town Manager to follow as staff work out the details. Town Council needs to decide which of our wants are top priorities and which to eliminate or postpone. However, Council can also take a lead role in driving policy that increases our revenues, primarily by promoting – not just not discouraging – new construction and business development.

Of course, another option – especially if residents oppose new development – is to go a little bit hungry, that is, reduce programs, services, personnel, benefits, asset purchases, and the like. But I rarely hear any proposals to cut specific programs or services with the aim of reducing our total expenditures.

What do you suggest? I am truly interested in your thoughts.

Public comments on community responders sought Thursday

By Nick Grabbe

Residents who have questions about the plan to deploy unarmed responders in some situations that are currently handled by police officers can attend a public forum Thursday.

The virtual meeting will start at 5:30 p.m. Here’s the link: https://amherstma.zoom.us/j/86008936538. The public comment period is scheduled to start at 6:15 p.m., and will be followed by a meeting of the Town Council’s Town Services and Outreach subcommittee, which will make a recommendation to the full Council. The town manager, finance director, police chief and fire chief are expected to attend and be able to answer questions.

Another topic of the meeting will be the plan to create a new Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The community responders would be called on in situations that don’t involve violence or serious crime, such as mental health issues, homelessness, substance abuse, trespassing, truancy and wellness checks, according to the recommendation by the Community Safety Working Group. They would have expertise as mental health clinicians, social workers, medics or conflict de-escalators.

The eight community responders would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and would be supported by a director and an administrative assistant. The responders, who would be fully benefited Town employees, would operate independently of the Police Department and be housed in a separate facility, according to the working group’s recommendation.

“The mission will include contributing to dismantling systemic racism through racially aware safety and social services to persons of all races with a conscious anti-racism focus,” according a summary of the working group’s recommendations by Town Manager Paul Bockelman.

The program is known as CRESS, or Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service. Its projected annual operating budget is $936,000, with $122,500 in non-operating costs. The Town has received a state grant of $450,000 for the program, and $250,000 in federal money has been earmarked.

“The Town may opt to use reserves to supplement the municipal operating budget over two or three years to minimize the impact on other departments,” Bockelman has proposed.

Residents’ questions could include: What kind of relationship will CRESS have with the Police Department? How will 911 operators determine whether to dispatch a police officer or a community responder? How will police staffing be affected? When will the program be operational? How will it be funded in future years?

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion “will develop, recommend, and implement a strategic plan that will advance a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture for the Town that provide opportunities to build diversity and inclusive practices into the Town’s operations,” according to Bockelman. “The Office will review Town policies, procedures, bylaws, values, goals and missions through an equity lens to foster an unbiased, anti-racist and inclusive environment.”

The goals are to “improve the Town’s decision-making so that it better represents all communities and includes less bias; increase community trust in local government; ensure an equitable allocation of public resources; and improve employee satisfaction and engagement,” according to Bockelman.

The annual operating costs are estimated at $240,500, including a director and assistant director. The director position is to be funded with money previously budgeted for an economic development director, a position now to be paid for with federal money. The assistant director position is to be paid by combining half of an existing position with federal money.

Silver lining, dark cloud

By Gerry Weiss

Even the darkest clouds of the pandemic have yielded some silver linings, including one for Craig’s Doors (CD) and the unhoused of our area last year. Traditionally, Craig’s Doors provides shelter from November through April, opening in the evening and closing in the morning. Because of COVID, the Federal government released more money to provide shelter and temporary housing. Last year, Craig’s Doors applied for and received enough funding to allow us operate three different sites, one of which, the University Motor Lodge, still houses 20 people. We also rented the Econo Lodge in Hadley for the winter of 2020-2021 as well as space at the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Society downtown, enabling about 66 people to be sheltered. All three sites were operated around the clock, seven days a week, something CD had never been able to do before. However, with the UU congregation returning to their home downtown on May 1, we had to find yet another site for our 2021-2022 emergency winter shelter. The congregation at the Immanuel Lutheran Church (ILC) gladly opened their doors to us and we are now sheltering 23 men and women from 5:30 p.m. to 8 a.m. seven days/week.

That’s the good news. Craig’s Doors has been fortunate to find houses of worship willing to shelter our guests for the past 13 years, 10 of them at the Amherst Baptist Church near UMass, last year at the UU, and this year at the ILC. However, we fear our luck could run out in the future as we go hat in hand to the houses of worship hoping for a “yes,” especially should COVID cease to be an impediment to church operations. It is also expensive to make (repeatedly) the physical changes required to operate as a shelter, and we have to hire new staff every fall and then let them go every May. It is of course also time consuming to do all the leg work required to close down and set up a shelter anew. And this year, because the ILC kitchen is not certified by the Health Department, we have to rent the kitchen at the UU to make dinners and transport them to the ILC every night. Add to these problems the fact that except for the one year at the UU, our guests have to wait until evening to get out of the cold and must leave in the early morning hours, a far from ideal situation.

The solution would be a permanent shelter in Amherst. It would allow us to operate 24/7, maintain staff, not have to worry where we’ll be each year, have our own kitchen, and move our offices to it, so we’d be in one place. The good news is that we have found a site for sale that looks nearly perfect. The trick of course is money. There is a possibility that the Town would either buy the building or fund us to buy the building with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds allocated to the Town of Amherst. ($11,933,556).

Our Town Manager Paul Bockelman has set aside approximately $1 million of those funds to pay for “transitional housing and homeless solutions.” The asking price of the site we’ve found is less than $1 million. However, the final decision on how that $1 million will be spent is up to Town Hall and so far, they have not seemed enthusiastic about our proposal. The Department of Housing and Community Development, which funnels to us most of the funds Craig’s Doors uses to operate each year, is very excited by this proposal and has offered their expertise and additional funding if we should be able to purchase the site. We have our fingers crossed that Town Hall will see this opportunity as the solution we’ve been looking for, for so many years. I should add here that Paul Bockelman, at the urging of the Town Council, formed a Homelessness and Rehousing Working Group several months ago. The group finished their work and have submitted an interim report that included recommendations for a permanent shelter and increased housing solutions for the unhoused. Obtaining both would be the ideal outcome.

Widening the circle

By Sarah Marshall

Low voter turn-out; low civic engagement; limited participation in town affairs by historically marginalized groups; barriers to participation: these are some of the issues that the new town charter hopes to address through various public participation mechanisms. One mechanism is the required semiannual meetings of district councilors with constituents, for example.

Another effort driven by the charter was the creation of a new town position, Community Participation Officer (CPO). In its first three years of implementation, this responsibility (for which no new money was budgeted) has been shared by three Town employees who bring different skills to the task: Brianna Sunryd, Jennifer Moyston, and Angela Mills. I spoke with all of them earlier this fall to learn how their work has unfolded.

Brianna Sunryd, the Communications Manager for Town Hall, said that the team spent its initial months assessing the community’s needs and building its work plan. She described her pieces of the work as developing strategies for community outreach, involvement, and communications, and using information technologies in innovative ways. To support participation in the decennial census by all parts of the community – some of which were very hesitant – the CPOs developed plans for outreach, in-person meetings, and activities. During the summer of 2019, the team created and distributed census-related kits for children. Then, just as efforts ramped up in early 2020, the pandemic hit and changed the direction of all CPO efforts.

During the pandemic, Brianna focused on implementation of the Zoom meeting platform throughout Town government, to enable both the internal work of Town Hall and the many public meetings. As others have noted, the convenience of Zoom (for those with Internet access) led to a marked increase in attendance at public meetings, in views of recorded meetings (most meetings were not recorded to video before the pandemic), and participation in committees, now possible from one’s home. Now that at least some in-person meetings are likely to be permitted in the coming months, a pressing question is how to integrate livestreaming and remote participation with in-person meetings in a way that is not awkward for participants. Another means by which residents can follow and engage in local issues is the Engage Amherst platform, launched in February of 2021. With this platform, residents can post questions on subjects such as the North Amherst Library expansion, the Hickory Ridge Golf Course acquisition, and the financing plan for the major capital projects, and receive quick responses, all of which stay publicly available on the site. (In fact, just as this post was being written, the Town announced two additional civic participate tools – click here for the press release – for trial use in the next 10 days.)

One limitation to participation in town affairs by some residents is a language barrier. The town does not have the capability (that is, funding) to provide real-time translation services or to translate documents, announcements, or webpages in Spanish or other languages. Fortunately, Angela Mills (Executive Assistant to the Town Manager) is fluent in Spanish and can provide translation to an extent. Unfortunately, automated translation services for town resources or meetings are not yet satisfactory. (At the urging of the Community Safety Working Group, the Town is hoping to identify funds for stipends for committee volunteers who must pay for child care, transportation, or other expenses enabling them to serve – an additional set of barriers to participation.)

Jennifer Moyston, credit Town of Amherst

Jennifer Moyston, Administrative Assistant to the Town Manager, grew up in Amherst. The focus of her CPO work has been to address diversity and inclusion gaps through trust-building with minority communities and the development and promotion of cultural events. Before the pandemic, Jennifer regularly accompanied LSSE (now the Recreation Department) staff to apartment complexes to engage with parents and children, and visited the Amherst Survival Center to be a resource for visitors with concerns or needs that the Town could address. The pandemic shuttered these in-person gatherings, but more recently she has been able to accompany the Mobile Market on its rounds, to set up a table at a bit of a remove and be available to chat. Jennifer’s regular appearance at the Mobile Market sites helped make contacts with Town staff less threatening, at least during these visits.

Another important pandemic response was to begin a Mask for All initiative in conjunction with Anika Lopes Millinery (the business of the incoming D4 councilor). Jennifer said that 17 sewers created more than 500 masks using materials donated by 19 individuals in the months before cloth masks became readily available for purchase. Another 100 masks were donated by a business. Altogether, almost 100 people received masks through this effort.

Cultural events that were developed, highlighted, or promoted over the past three years included the Town’s first-ever Chinese Lunar New Year program, the Town’s program in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. (separate from the annual breakfast), Black History Month programming, and, most recently, the enormously successful Juneteenth, co-sponsored by the Civil War Tablets Committee and the Mill District. Jennifer hopes to further develop the town’s observances of cultural holidays and milestones.

Pre-pandemic, the main areas of Angela Mills’ CPO work were (1) planning the inaugural ceremony for the first Council; (2) assisting councilors with planning and conduct of the required meetings mentioned above; and (3) attending district meetings to assist constituents with questions or complaints about town services, completion of Community Activity Forms by which residents indicate interest in committee service. During the pandemic, Angela was the staff person in contact with residents required to quarantine at home, connecting them with food, rental support, and grant applications. Once vaccination drives began, Angela attended the clinics to provide Spanish-language translation and outreach. She also worked with the new Covid Ambassadors on their public outreach and responses to inquiries or complaints made to the Covid Concerns hotline.

With pandemic-related efforts diminishing, the CPOs held a retreat this fall to review their work and plan for the future. We will share that plan when it is available. In the meantime, you can email your thoughts to them at sunrydb@amherstma.gov, moystonj@amherstma.gov, or millsa@amherstma.gov.

Jones Library Trustees announce anti-racism policy for the Building Committee

By Sarah Marshall

This week, the Trustees unanimously passed a policy meant to guide the Building Committee as it undertakes its work (pending approval on Nov. 2). Here is the text:

MOTION – The Trustees of the Jones Library publicly announce their intention that the renovated and expanded Library be developed in such a way to assure all members of the Amherst community are and feel welcome, and that all members of the community feel that the Library belongs to them. Such intention would be realized in the first instance through the work of the Building Committee, which work should be guided by a commitment to antiracism and include the perspectives of marginalized groups. That Committee’s work must involve an examination of the way different communities in our town use and experience Library spaces and the iconography and representations contained in the Library. Approved as amended, 6-0-0.

A few weeks ago, Library Director Sharon Sharry discussed, during the recent Cuppa’ Joe meeting focusing on the project, the painful realization that some members of our community do not feel welcome in the existing library spaces. She mentioned that, for example, encountering a large, formal portrait of a white benefactor in the front entry seemed to announce the space as white.

Climate change: What is our town doing?

By Sarah Marshall

Climate change: what can our town do?

Several local efforts to increase renewable power generation, conserve energy, and/or reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions are under way. Some are recent and some are several years old, but all will soon bear fruit. Here is a roundup.

A landfill solar project will shortly begin construction at the closed landfill adjacent to the transfer station off Belchertown Road. Owned by Cypress Creek Renewables and built by Signal Energy, the system is expected to begin generating power (3.9 MW) next summer. The Town, which will continue to own the land, will receive $78,000 per year over 30 years for leasing the land and in payments in lieu of taxes. In addition, while the power will go on the grid, the Town will “offtake” all the generated electricity and pay a reduced rate. This will cover most of the electricity demand of our municipal (but not school) buildings.

Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

[Side note: A hitch in the planning (which began in 2012) meant that Town Council had to establish a conservation restriction on the other closed landfill, across the road, to compensate for loss of habitat for the grasshopper sparrow. This restriction, voted in July of 2021, will be held by the Kestrel Land Trust. Plans for that southern part of the closed landfill now include not only Amherst’s first dog park but also 6-foot-wide trails around the conserved land.]

Commercial, industrial, and non-profit property owners such as houses of worship, as well as owners of multifamily housing of at least five units, will soon be able to participate in a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction program called Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). The Council authorized the Town to participate in PACE in August of this year. This state-wide program allows qualifying property owners to submit plans for energy improvements that result in net energy savings and reductions in GHG emissions and, should their plans be approved, receive loans for these improvements, to be paid off over time via the local property taxation system. The Town will add what is called a “betterment” to the property tax bill, so that the obligation to repay the loan transfers to the new owner if the property is sold. Owners of property that is not currently taxed (e.g., a church) will only be able to participate if the Town can generate a property tax bill for them.

The PACE website, https://www.massdevelopment.com/pace, contains the details about what sorts of improvements may qualify. For example, windows or insulation may qualify, but appliances such as refrigerators do not. Importantly, the owner’s proposal must demonstrate that the savings in energy costs exceed the cost of the improvements over the lifetime of the improvements. Interested? For questions about the Town’s role, contact Stephanie Ciccarello, the sustainability coordinator, at ciccarellos@amherstma.gov. For questions about the PACE program, consult the website and/or contact Julie Cowan at jcowan@massdevelopment.com.

Amherst is making slow but steady progress on its plan to aggregate its town-wide electricity demand with that of Pelham and Northampton. The aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency and the development of local, renewable distributed energy resources. Back in November, 2017, Town Meeting directed the Town to consider participating in the state’s Community Choice Aggregation, with the goal of evaluating the pros and cons of such a program (you can see the ensuing task force’s report here). After receiving the task force’s report, Town Council authorized the Town Manager to pursue Community Choice Aggregation. Stephanie Ciccarello reports that once the chief executives of each town sign a contract with the chosen consultant – expected within the next two months – that firm will begin developing the specific aggregation plan. Residents will be invited into a public participation process. Meanwhile, an advisory group has been developing a Joint Powers Entity with funding secured by State Sen. Jo Comerford and State Rep. Mindy Domb. The JPE, which should be established soon, will house the CCA program.

Last (but not least by any means), the Energy and Climate Action Committee, established by Town Council in 2019, issued its Climate Action, Adaptation, and Resilience Plan in June of this year (click here to access the graphics-heavy file). It presents strategies to aid in achieving the goal of reducing GHG emissions in Amherst by 25% by 2025, compared to 2016 levels. I found two graphics (on p. 13) describing the 2016 baseline to be particularly noteworthy: the first indicates that 74% of emissions came from stationary energy sources, and within this sector, only 37% came from non-college, non-UMass sources. Moreover, only 1% of stationary emissions came from the municipal buildings covered by our recent zero-energy bylaw.

Reductions in GHG emissions can be made nevertheless in both the non-campus stationary emissions sector (primarily emissions associated with buildings) and the (non-campus) transportation sector. All of the programs described above will help. But given that most of the non-campus emissions stem from the actions of individuals and businesses, much of the Town’s role will be to educate, encourage, and facilitate participation in existing programs or adoption of best practices in construction.

I am sure readers can think of other local efforts to respond to the urgent demands of climate change, but I find these municipal efforts encouraging.

Fiscal sustainability: Some modest proposals

By Bob Rakoff

The Town of Amherst is not fiscally sustainable without significant changes. The major problem is that nearly 50 percent of the land in town is exempt from property taxes, which account for 70 percent of the Town’s annual revenues. State aid makes up another 20 percent, while 10 percent comes from other sources.

The Town has limited control over these sources of revenue. The state makes its own decisions about local assistance. And the ability of the town to increase property tax revenue is constrained by law, by the regional real estate market, by a limited supply of buildable land that is appropriately zoned for development, and, of course, by the unpopularity of tax increases.

At the same time, demand for public services continues to increase beyond the growth of our tax base; we already face one of the highest property tax rates in the state. Deferred capital projects (library, school, fire, public works) pose significant financing challenges, even in an era of low interest rates. Voter approval of a tax override in 2022 to finance a new elementary school is by no means assured.

In response to this tension between the supply of tax revenue and the demand for expanded and quality services, there have been two kinds of responses.

Some people call for retrenchment, with deferral or scaling back of some capital projects along with cutbacks in regular annual spending. Others see more intensive commercial and apartment development as the route to a more sustainable and affordable future that does not sacrifice needed building projects or popular programs.

Retrenchment is not politically popular, and its proponents are also largely opposed to increased apartment development. Meanwhile, proponents of expanding apartment construction to increase tax revenue acknowledge that such development may make expansion of town-financed services (e.g., schools, library, public safety) even more necessary. Of course, if apartment development attracts mostly households without children, then the impact on school spending is lessened. But that would mean more apartments for college students, not working families, hardly the best or most equitable future for our diverse town.

There seem to be no easy answers. We need new revenue sources. And we need new, outside-the-box thinking.

So, in the spirit of Jonathan Swift, here are a few modest proposals for a more sustainable fiscal future for Amherst.

NULLIFICATION. Texas has taken the lead in declaring that it has the right and power to nullify federal laws it dislikes. Let the Lone Star State be our guide here. The Town should declare as oppressive the state and federal laws that prevent the taxation of property owned by non-profit organizations and move expeditiously to tax the holdings of Amherst College, Hampshire College, and other rich, tax-exempt landowners.

UMASS STUDENTS. There is not much we can do to get more money out of UMass. But UMass students are another story. Those students spend millions of dollars to purchase credit hours. Those credit hours are a commodity that is ripe for taxation. Let’s go after them.

GAMBLING. Instead of pursuing boring and expensive capital projects that will never return real profits to the town, we should pursue the more lucrative path of casino development. Perhaps go for double-or-nothing by locating a casino on the capped landfill.

NAMING RIGHTS. We already have a library named for the benefactor, Samuel Minot Jones. Let’s sell the naming rights for other buildings and spaces. Imagine a Jeff Bezos Elementary School, or a Warren Buffet Public Works edifice. Or imagine buying your local fruit and veg on the Apple Computer/Steve Jobs Memorial Town Common.

ANNEXATION. As one local wag put it (OK, it was our own Nick Grabbe), the Town of Amherst has outsourced its commercial development to the Town of Hadley, which reaps the benefits of an expanded tax base, increased revenue, and low tax rates for homeowners. We need to take control of that development and seize those tax benefits. The town should raise a militia (perhaps ROTC at the University could assist), march directly down the hill, and forcibly annex the Town of Hadley. This would add substantially to our commercial tax base while providing us with valuable agricultural and waterfront property. The likelihood that there are more gun owners in Hadley than in Amherst should not deter us. Be of stout heart.

Pretty wacky, I know. But both fantasy and reality require outside assistance to move toward fiscal sustainability. The state grants the town new taxing authority. A rich benefactor comes to town. Neighboring towns join forces to work together on common problems.

It’s this last case that points the way to a new path. Not through conquest, but through regional cooperation. The accident of having a big state institution or less valuable property should not determine a town’s ability to offer and pay for public services. Equity and efficiency demand a shared, regional approach to governance. And for Amherst that means re-creating Hampshire County government. What that would entail, and promise, will be the subject of a future article.

Policing alternative: how it would work

Editor’s Note: A public forum on this program will be held this Thursday, Sept. 9, from 7 to 9 p.m. See end of this post for Zoom information.

By Bernie Kubiak

In response to concerns about policing in Amherst, a Community Safety Working Group was convened by the Town Manager and endorsed by the Town Council. The group’s charge is to study the public safety services provided by the Amherst Police Department to ensure racial equity, recommend reforms to organizational and oversight structures, and examine existing Town funding priorities for community safety. Underpinning the committee’s work is a research report prepared by the 7 Generations Movement Collective (7GenMC), contracted for by the Town.

The working group’s intention is to make recommendations that are anti-racist and equitable, and propose preventive services that reduce the need for public safety involvement. Their initial report contains several recommendations, among them:

Create a “Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service” (CRESS) program;
Create an Amherst Resident Oversight Board;
Create a Town Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion;
Develop a Youth Empowerment Center and a BIPOC cultural center;
Reduce the size of the Amherst Police Department; and
Continue the Community Safety Working Group.

One recommendation under active development is the CRESS program, a variation on the theme set by CAHOOTS in Eugene, Ore. In operation for almost 30 years, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) is a mobile crisis intervention program that assists the Police Department by taking social services calls, including crisis counseling, where there is no apparent need for an armed officer.

CAHOOTS is funded through the police budget. There is widespread agreement that CAHOOTS, by providing trained crisis management staff, has worked to reduce police violence, and it is supported by local law enforcement. Eugene has a population of around 170,000, and the program’s budget is $2 million a year.

The CRESS proposal, which is seen as helping to dismantle systemic racism, sets out a number of elements: two two-person multi-racial teams, available on a 24/7 basis, operating independently of the Police Department but cooperating with it. CRESS teams could be sent out either from the Town’s Communications Center or by a separate CRESS-staffed dispatch center. Team members are to be Town employees, supported by program supervisors and a director.

CRESS teams would be the first responders in situations that do not involve violence or serious criminal activity. They would address homeless individuals, intoxication/substance abuse, mental health crises, trespassing, and wellness checks. They would be available to intervene in the schools as well. The responders could not order treatment or compliance and would rely on the police if violence occurs.

The working group’s report calls for the program to be fully operational by 2022. Both the Town Manager and the Council support the goal, but putting the program as described in place will be a challenge. The most obvious difficulty is the program’s proposed first-year cost of $2.8 million for 26 staff, 12 of them responders (at four staff per shift). The proposal also calls for a separate 24/7 dispatch operation that would add to the overall costs. While the Town’s pay scales were used to determine salaries, no explanation was given as to how salary levels and step raises were determined.

But only $475,000 has been identified to fund a startup, with $180,000 reallocated from the police budget (two unfilled patrol positions) and targeted for initial staff hires (program director and four responders). Planning, training, consults, and equipment are budgeted at $250,000 from Rescue Plan Act funding. An estimated $45,000 for benefits would have to be made up, and may be covered through a $90,000 earmark in the recently passed state budget.

The Town Manager is optimistic that grant funds can be obtained, and the Council insists that a way to fund eight responders be found. One way to fund the program would be to reduce the size of the Police Department. The 7GenMC report suggests moving from a staffing level of 44 to 25 over five years, by abandoning the community policing model and shifting to a more reactive approach.

The CRESS teams are projected to reduce the number of calls managed by the police. The question is how much of a reduction would actually occur, given that no substantial assessment of police activity was available when the report was written. That assessment was promised but has yet to be published. The current year’s operating budget for the police (not including facility or communications center costs) is $5.18 million, so a fully functional CRESS program would amount to slightly more than half of the police budget.

There is much to be worked out to bring a community responder program into operation. Costs can be reduced by eliminating the proposed separate dispatch system. The Public Safety Communications Center could be used to dispatch non-police teams, eliminating the need for staffing a second center (and the confusion that could come from having two). Having comprehensive job descriptions for CRESS staff would allow an accurate determination of salaries. Agreement on the nature of CRESS activities and the impact on police operations would allow a more precise determination of staffing needs. Purchasing the services rather than creating a new town department might be considered as well.

The Town Manager envisions an implementation team composed of the Police and Fire Chiefs, Finance Director, Human Resources, working group representatives and others. The team, Town Hall, and Town Council have a considerable amount of work to do to implement a community responder program and find a path to financial sustainability.

To participate in the Sept. 9 forum, go to: https://amherstma.zoom.us/s/85733815330#success Or join by phone: 253-215-8782 or 346-248-7799 Webinar ID: 857 3381 5330
Amherst, MA 01002

Deciphering downtown parking

By Nick Grabbe

Visitors to Amherst often drive up and down North Pleasant and Main Streets looking for a parking space, not knowing that less expensive spaces are often available on Spring Street.

Residents going out to a restaurant can get frustrated looking for a parking space, not knowing that the blue-sign spaces on the periphery, reserved for those with permits, become available to anyone after 5 p.m. and on weekends.

And many business owners want to see a garage built behind CVS, in spite of the fierce battles over the Boltwood Walk garage in the 1990s and the difficulties of design, financing and operation.

Parking rules in downtown Amherst can be hard to understand. There are five categories of public parking, with different rates per hour, time limits and enforcement hours. Many visitors don’t know what the rules are for the places they’ve parked until they look at the places to pay. Parking is also controversial, with multiple constituencies, all pushing for their own interests.

So, with downtown traffic returning to something resembling “normal” in September, I consulted several local experts to get answers to some common questions.

Q. What are the five areas with different parking rates, time limits and enforcement hours?

A. Meters on North Pleasant, Main and Amity Streets charge $1 an hour, with a two-hour limit from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The lots at Boltwood Walk, Amity Street and Main Street are similar, but with four-hour time limits. To see those areas and the three other categories, check out this map:

Q. Why the differences? Wouldn’t it be simpler to have the same rates, limits and enforcement for all public parking spaces?

A. The system provides incentives for parking in underutilized lots and spreads out parking demand by charging more for the more desirable spaces close to downtown. There is some evidence that the system has been successful in doing this. But town officials recognize that the complexity can be confusing, and are planning to recommend changes next year, or at least better ways to explain the rules.

Q. Where are the parking spaces that are often available but most people don’t know about?

A. The “Ann Whalen lot” off Kellogg Avenue, Sellen Street, the Town Hall lot and the lower level of the Boltwood Walk garage are four. You can nominate others by posting a comment below.

Q. Will there be a move to build a parking garage behind CVS?

A. The Planning Board and a Town Council subcommittee are expected to make recommendations to the full Council as early as mid-September about a zoning change that would enable a garage there — but would not cause it to be built.

Q. Are there problems in building a garage there?

A. Many. Finding private companies interested in building it and operating it. Figuring out how to avoid having cars waiting in line to enter the garage backing up onto the sidewalk on North Pleasant Street. Avoiding the privately owned land directly behind CVS or acquiring it. Persuading or overruling opponents living on North Prospect Street. The Amherst garage wars in the 1990s were particularly nasty and resulted in a compromise on Boltwood Walk, a project with a very high cost per number of spaces gained.

Q. Why have a second garage at all?

A. Some business owners feel there’s a perception among visitors that parking is scarce, and fear that shoppers will prefer to use the Hadley stores that provide free parking. And downtown is due to lose parking spaces with the redesign of the North Common.

Q. At what times is it hardest to find a parking space?

A. A survey showed them to be 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, when UMass and the colleges are in session.

Q. Aren’t there a lot of private parking spaces downtown that are underutilized?

A. There are an estimated 1,962 private spaces. Town officials have approached landowners to see if there’s a way to incentivize sharing some of these spaces with the public.

Q. What cultural change would make it easier for everyone to find a place to park?

A. A willingness to park in a place that requires a short walk to one’s destination.

Q. What’s the purpose of the 356 parking spaces that require permits?

A. Partly to convince downtown employees to park on the periphery weekdays by charging a very low annual fee. Some still insist on parking on the street near their destination and “feeding” the meter beyond the time limit. Town officials are seeking data on whether Kendrick Place and 1 East Pleasant St. have stressed the permit parking system.

Q. Does money from parking fees, permits and tickets support other parts of Amherst’s government?

A. Parking is an “enterprise fund,” like the water and sewer funds, with costs paid by users and not taxes. The costs include enforcement personnel, maintenance, insurance and software.

Q. What do I do if I get a parking ticket?

A. You have to pay it within 21 days, either online, through the mail, or at the drop box outside Town Hall or on the first floor. You can also appeal it.

Q. What reasons do people give for appealing a parking ticket?

A. They say they typed their plate number wrong when paying at the kiosk, or they chose the wrong plate in their Parkmobile app. Some people say they didn’t see the signs saying they had to pay.

Q. Do the police ever immobilize cars that have outstanding parking tickets?

A. “Booting” was suspended during the pandemic but is due to resume soon. Cars with five tickets could be booted, and their owners have 24 hours to pay the tickets and a $25 removal fee, or the car is towed.

Q. What’s with the angled, back-in parking on the east side of North Pleasant Street?

A. It’s a trial designed to test back-in angled parking and help drivers become familiar with it before back-in parking is implemented on Main Street. The Town Council approved back-in angled parking on the south side of Main Street as part of the redesign of the North Common. The North Pleasant Street angled parking spaces were approved by the Council and will be removed in November. There is a proposal by the town manager and the Public Works department to add some angled spaces just west of Kendrick Park on North Pleasant Street to provide extra parking for the park.

These answers were based on information supplied by Finance Director Sean Mangano, Senior Planner Nate Malloy, and Transportation Advisory Committee Chair Tracy Zafian.

So Many Budgets!

By Sarah Marshall

In my family, we have only one budget that accounts for all the money that comes in and goes out, and we have (almost) complete control of it. I think that Amherst residents tend to assume that Amherst’s public budget is similar – there is one big pot of money and we have complete freedom to decide how to spend the funds. Certainly, this was my hazy assumption for many years. But it is not entirely true. If you have ever wished the Town spent its (our) money differently, it is worth reading on so you will know when and how to voice your opinion most effectively.

Amherst has, in effect, several budgets and funds. Crucially, much of the money cannot be moved from one use to another during the fiscal year. We have the Regional Schools budget, the Jones Library budget (which addresses all the Town’s public libraries), the Elementary Schools budget, the Community Preservation Act (CPA) fund, Enterprise funds (water, sewer, solid waste, and transportation), the Town (Municipal) budget, and a few others. Adding to the confusion is imprecision in the term “Town Budget” – to some, it may refer to all aspects of spending on public services, while to others, it may refer to specific chunks of that spending that are within the control of the Town Manager.

Our local officials and managers make critical decisions early in the planning cycle, namely, what are the bottom-line contributions the Town proposes to make to the Regional and Elementary Schools and the Libraries. It is at this point – generally in November – that significant shifts can be made instead of across-the-board increases or decreases. Once the elected leaders of those bodies – the school committees, for example – develop and pass their budgets, and they are subsequently passed by the Town Council, only those bodies have authority over their money. The Town cannot take money out of the Elementary Schools budget during the fiscal year to buy new computers for the Department of Public Works, for example.

Amherst’s contribution to the Regional School budget (which funds the Middle and High Schools) depends heavily on the decisions made by Pelham, Leverett, and Shutesbury, Amherst’s regional partners. Once Amherst votes its contribution, the Town has essentially no power to claw back money from the Regional Schools to use for, say, affordable housing. Similarly, the schools cannot reach into municipal funds.

The Enterprise funds represent the self-funded water, sewer, solid waste, and transportation operations. Even though they appear in the Municipal budget, these Town services are required to charge fees sufficient to cover their costs, and Enterprise funds cannot be raided to fund unrelated activities of the Town. Our water and sewer bills reflect the cost of those services.

The CPA fund receives a property tax surcharge, as well as some funding from the Commonwealth, that by law can only be spent on certain projects pertaining to historic preservation, community housing, recreation, and open space. I recently heard someone complain that the Town was choosing to spend on the order of a million dollars on a renovation of the North Common and should instead fund the new Community Responder program. Such a re-allocation is not possible, since the North Common renovation will be paid for almost entirely by CPA money that cannot be spent on town services. In fact, the ability to apply CPA funds to the needs of Town buildings and properties frees money for services such as the Community Responder program, or at least avoids pitting these needs against each other.

During any fiscal year, the Town Manager has the authority to re-allocate funds within the Municipal budget, understood here to exclude all the operations and expenses discussed above. For FY2022 (which began this July), that budget amounts to $25 million, out of the approximately $96 million that also includes the budgets for the schools, libraries, Enterprise funds, capital investments, and some other uses.

The relatively small fraction of total spending spent on municipal services managed by Town Hall can lead to problems of interpretation. For example, I have heard people express dismay at the fact that our Public Safety Department accounts for 44% of the General Fund (the Municipal budget). That certainly seems disturbingly large if one assumes that public safety is simply police services. In fact, comparable funds are spent on the Police and Fire Departments, the two major Public Safety services. Furthermore, in comparison to our total public expenditures, Public Safety services account for just 12% of spending, with about 6% allotted to the Police Department. Since our property tax payments and water and sewer bills contribute to all Town services, from police to schools to libraries to capital improvements, I think the latter comparisons are more informative. Whether 6% is an appropriate level of funding for the Police Department is another matter.

So, no, Amherst’s public budget does not allow nearly as much flexibility as my household enjoys. We can set our own rules and priorities and change them as we see fit but the Town is much more constrained. Residents who want changes in the Town’s spending priorities need to figure out which elected body to speak to, and when. Fortunately, in the fall, a budget calendar will be released, outlining the steps, responsibilities, votes, and opportunities for public input. Anyone wanting to learn more about where our Town’s money comes from and where it goes can jump into the resources at https://www.amherstma.gov/78/Budget. The calendar will also be posted there. Residents can also email their Town Councilors, School Committees, Town Manager, and library Trustees at any time.

Vital to all, but getting no respect

By Nick Grabbe

What branch of Amherst government touches the lives of every resident, every day, and is housed in a deteriorating building – but gets less public support than the Jones Library and the elementary schools?

It’s Public Works, which keeps our water safe and plentiful, repairs our roads and sidewalks, mows the grass in our parks and athletic fields, and much more.

The old trolley maintenance barn off South Pleasant Street, where 45 Public Works employees work, would probably be condemned if it were a private building. Its physical problems are worse than the Jones Library or Wildwood or Fort River School, but they get less attention than these frequently visited buildings. The public seldom enters the Public Works building.

Instead of receiving support for a new building, Public Works is the target for a lot of citizen complaints. Here are some:

“These potholes! Driving in Amherst is like driving in a Third World country!”

“The plow didn’t push the snow back far enough!” or “The plow pushed the snow back too far!”

“Our teams are at risk of injury because you’re not mowing the grass often enough!”

“Why can’t you reopen the Take It or Leave It area at the transfer station?”

“You can’t put a new Public Works building near low-income people’s houses!”

(Responses to these complaints are below.)

Public Works also handles stormwater drainage, tree-trimming and removal, streetlights and traffic signals. It’s in charge of sewers, cemeteries, and even putting up those banners downtown over South Pleasant Street. That’s all a lot to ask of public employees working out of a substandard building.

The Public Works headquarters is more than a century old. The roof leaks, there are cracks in the brick masonry, there’s minimal insulation, and many of the windows have only one pane of glass. The building doesn’t meet code standards for safety and electricity.

Some employees who service the department’s 50 vehicles in the maintenance bays, which have inadequate ventilation, have reported elevated levels of iron in their blood, said Public Works Superintendent Guilford Mooring. And there isn’t adequate coverage for all the vehicles, leaving them exposed to the elements, shortening their life spans and requiring premature (and expensive) replacement. For photos showing some of these problems, go to https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/49521/1Pager-DPW-12-2-19?bidId=

Amherst officials have known for years that we need a new Public Works building. And now they have extra motivation, because its current site is the preferred location for a new fire station. “It’s a top priority,” Mooring said. But there have been two obstacles: funding and siting.

The original cost estimate for a new Public Works building was $38 million, but unlike the Jones Library renovation/expansion and a new elementary school, there will be no state money to help. All of it must be borrowed and paid back over time. (One sign of the lack of popular support for Public Works is that, unlike the school, no one is considering putting a new building to a vote.)

The projected cost has been reduced to $20 million, requiring a phasing-in of the new building. “We have a $38 million project and we’ve been told we have to put it into a $20 million box,” Mooring said.

The second obstacle is finding an appropriate site for a new building. Amherst College offered to donate a centrally located site, which would have saved a lot of money in land acquisition costs. But some neighbors objected to having trucks coming in and out close to their houses, so the Town Council abandoned that plan.

Officials then received four proposals from landowners who were willing to sell the Town a site, but each one had problems such as location, zoning and access, and all have been rejected. There’s a town-owned site off Pulpit Hill Road that is a Plan B, but it’s far away from South Amherst and has access problems, Mooring said.

“Locating a Public Works facility is challenging because of the needs of the facility – both size and location, zoning requirements, and the sensitivity to our many neighborhoods,” said Town Manager Paul Bockelman.

Amherst has been spending more money on road repair each year, but now those gains are offset by higher prices for asphalt, fuel and labor, Mooring said. Some extra money could come from the federal infrastructure bill. Roads that get the most traffic typically get the highest priority, but Mooring hopes to repair more neighborhood roads this next year.

The snowplow complaints frequently come from people who are new to town, and relate to access to mailboxes and plantings near the road, he said.

The record amount of rain that fell in July caused the grass to grow more quickly on soccer and Ultimate fields. So Mooring asked the parks crews to increase the frequency of mowing.

While the book shed at the transfer station, closed during the pandemic, has reopened, the Take It or Leave It area is not coming back, Mooring said. Too many people have been abandoning electronics and dirty kitchen appliances that have to be thrown out at a cost to the town, he said. (The solid waste fund, unlike the water and sewer funds, ran a surplus during the pandemic because so many people were throwing things out.)

At least Mooring isn’t hearing many complaints about a recent increase in water rates. Although the reservoirs and wells that supply water are now resupplied, there’s always the threat of a future drought. In the fall of 1980, the University of Massachusetts sent all its students home because the town couldn’t provide enough water. To remind employees, a shirt is displayed at the Public Works building reading “I survived the great Amherst water shortage.”

To a certain extent, complaints about Public Works come with the territory. My complaint is about the building we ask employees to work in.