LETTERS

Published on March 03, 2006

Amherst town manager has a thankless job

To the Bulletin:

I can't imagine a more difficult job than being the town manager of a town like Amherst. By and large it is a thankless job. Amherst residents are a demanding bunch and everyone is a critic.

We should be very grateful for the fabulous job Barry Del Castilho has done for our town for so long. As far as I am concerned, he can take every minute of unused vacation and other compensatory time he is entitled to whenever he darn well pleases. He has earned it.

Robie Hubley should spend his time worrying about how to raise revenue in this town. At this point in Mr. Del Castilho's career, I think it is rather small to publicly criticize the town manager rather than thank him for his service to the town and bid a gracious farewell.

I pity the new guy!

Alice Morse
Amherst

Downtown pool hall makes no sense

To the Bulletin:

Caution parents: Downtown Amherst may be getting a pool hall called 'Corner Pocket' in the very same building with two drinking establishments and a tattoo parlor. A package store is nearby. The parking garage with its cavernous underground level is right on the border of this pool hall that targets teenagers and young people in its marketing objectives. Its management plan proposes a pool hall that wouldn't serve alcohol, yet would be managed by current Monkey Bar employees, one with seven years of bartending experience.

Last week's decisive Zoning Board of Appeals meeting was a non-stop disaster. It was 15 minutes late in starting. ZBA staffer Carolyn Holstein forgot ZBA records and returned to her office to retrieve them. ZBA Chair Zina Tillona got stuck in traffic behind a driver wearing a hat. When Tillona finally arrived, she lectured everyone about male drivers wearing hats.

This meeting went from awful to awfuler to awfulest. The meeting was supposedly tape-recorded but staff failed to turn the microphone on. It got so bad that Tillona repeatedly silenced ZBA member Hilda Greenbaum during the decision-making portion of the meeting. By that time, the ill third ZBA member, Ted Rising, was fading fast and wanted to go home.

In the end, the ZBA approved a dangerous schematic plan showing a non-existent exit door. In reality, there would be only one direction out of the proposed Corner Pocket: through either of two front doors located close together on the same parking garage side of the pool hall. The ZBA allowed the Corner Pocket to be open daily from noon to 12:30 a.m. (including school hours), 365 days a year.

The ZBA decision provided more fast food vending machines and more video games than actually requested. The ZBA completely ignored warnings regarding extreme violence-promoting content that most video games contain. Although the ZBA ruled that noise must not be heard outside, the overall feeling of those attending was that this supposedly neutral ZBA was anything but neutral. Instead, it constantly promoted the interests of the applicant, downplaying public input, sometimes rudely.

At a time when our police chief has described our downtown as 'bedlam,' his caution seems to fall upon the deaf hears of a ZBA in gross need of reorganization by its appointing authority, the Select Board.

Alan Root
Amherst

Select Board should ride along with police

To the Bulletin:

According to the Feb. 10 Amherst Bulletin, Police Chief Charles Scherpa has extended an open invitation to the entire Select Board to ride along with the police officers on a busy shift, particularly shifts on Friday and Saturday nights from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. So far none has taken him up on his offer. Why not?

I also suggest after doing that, they spend several hours (the same nights and shifts) in the Communications Center to see how busy the dispatchers are. In addition to the many calls for the Police Department, they also dispatch fire and ambulance runs.

Anne B. Chunglo
Charlotte, N.C.

Budget deficit shows spending beyond means

To the Bulletin:

I would like to correct an error made Nick Grabbe's in his column last week. The deficit for FY 07 is $4.7 million, not $3 million, and if the Town decides to use $1 million from the reserves, the deficit is $3.7 million, not $2 million. So far, the Finance Committee has made its recommendation on the amount. The Select Board will be discussing this on Monday, Feb. 27. The bottom line is that the Town has not decided on how much reserves to use for FY 07.

For the sake of clarity, and our resolve to address Amherst's problem of persistent 'structural deficit' - i.e., that we simply spend more than we have - I would like to suggest the press and our Town officials be straight with townspeople: A deficit is a deficit, don't mask it with the term 'budget gap.' Reserves are there for emergencies. If the structural deficit occurs year after year, and now for five years in a row, this is not an emergency. This is spending beyond our means, and we need to call ourselves on it.

Hwei-Ling Greeney
Amherst Select Board

Amherst needs new sources of revenue

To the Bulletin:

We hear intrepid voices advocating more budget excess financed with property tax overrides. Once again we see a framing of the issue, saying that without more money to keep services at current levels, the most vulnerable items must be cut.

The single cure for these tragic cuts is then offered; a 'regrettable' necessity, another property tax override. This issue shields untapped revenue sources from consideration. (It is also implied that to challenge this framing is a certain sign that one does not have the capacity for cogent civil discourse and you probably opposed charter reform.)

Other ideas suggest adding more fees and increasing existing fees. This mode seeks added money from current taxpayers. The laws of diminishing returns will eventually apply.

We need new sources of revenues. And we need for all who enjoy this community to pay a fair share of the operating costs.

Well, how about a 1 percent sales tax and a 1 percent meals and alcoholic beverages tax? These new sources of tax revenue would allow the 30,000+ nine-month residents to contribute to the operations of the town.

We need only look to Stratton, Vt. for a lesson in how this model can succeed in getting part-time residents to participate in the funding of our needed services.

Thaddeus Dabrowski
Amherst

'Propaganda network' shown at supermarket

To the Bulletin:

Today I got a call from the Big Y supermarket corporate offices. It was in response to a complaint letter I had written regarding shopping in their store on University Drive.

About two weeks ago, I had been distracted while searching for organic carrots in the produce isle by the sound of a TV 'newsman' reproaching Jimmy Carter. They had my attention immediately - who can say anything bad about Jimmy Carter? I realized I was watching the propaganda network channel - Fox.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing and, not being able to concentrate on my shopping, I skipped the rest of it and went to the Customer Service counter to ask for the corporate address. They graciously gave me a one-inch-square piece of paper with the corporate address typed on it.

When I got home I sat down to take the time to let them know how offensive it was to have this propaganda network screeching across the cafￇ airwaves while I shopped.

Today their PR woman, a Betti Boggis, called me to inform me that I was the only person who had ever complained about the Fox channel being on their televisions, which included letters from all their 1,000 stores. Sorry, Betti; that is truly impossible to believe. She went on to say that people regularly called to complain about CNN, however - that it was too graphic. Shall I also believe that?

It is clear to me that this corporation is run by people who have bought into the present reduced mentality that the White House has encouraged - lies, deceit and anything for a buck. They fly the biggest American flag I have ever seen in their parking lot. I guess I should have realized, but honestly, I have wanted my flag back for many years now and so don't mind having it in a parking lot here and there.

Emily West
Amherst

Do they eat Pizza Hut on Air Force One?

To the Bulletin:

George Bush is presently gallivanting around the world, burning up hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in the process, between a fleet of planes burning thousands of gallons and fuel, while people are still living in tents in disease-ridden areas from Hurricane Katrina.

He stopped in India and Pakistan to try to get them to agree to put all their nuclear reactors under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He states that India is growing rapidly and importing 30 percent more products from the U.S., and India's middle class has grown to over 300 million while ours is declining.

And he states we should not be worried about losing good-paying jobs and skilled work to India because they might want to order pizza from our highly paying Domino's and Pizza Hut restaurants while doing the jobs you probably used to have, to balance the differences of high-paying and skilled labor jobs to pizza delivery jobs with no little pay and little benefits, that ought to rebuild America's middle class overnight.

We need to stop letting major corporations move out of America with decent jobs with benefits and think we are going to ever recover with pizza delivery jobs. The majority of corporations that have moved out would make our country's economy recover in record time; they left to make trillions instead of billions by lower wages, no benefits, no full-time work, and they ship back their sneakers, jeans, and a million other products that their businesses thrived on to grow to huge corporations only to grab the golden eggs and flee the country.

We need to enforce corporate loyalty to the generations of Americans who worked their entire lives for these people, only to end up with rotten eggs! You think they are dining on Pizza Hut pizza aboard Air Force One?

Gerald F. Triggs
Hadley