Around Town: Among the missing
By Mary Carey
Staff Writer
Published on May 25, 2007
Select Board member Alisa Brewer is paying attention to Town Meeting members who skip meetings. She's been posting their attendance records, as compiled on the town's Web site, online (see below).
Brewer gives a pass to Stephen Puffer though. Amherst Town Meeting's longest-serving member, "He's been in Town Meeting since forever," Brewer writes, adding a smiley face for emphasis.
In a 2004 Daily Hampshire Gazette story, Puffer, who is in his 90s, recalled going to Town Meeting ever since he was 12 years old. That was well before it had changed from an open Town Meeting, in which any Amherst resident could participate in, to a representative Town Meeting, in which residents are elected, in 1938.
As a kid, Puffer used to accompany to his father to the meetings when they were held at Town Hall once a year on a Saturday afternoon. He would ride a trolley car to school from North Amherst for 6 cents a day.
Puffer went to "hard knocks college," he said, working at the Quabbin Reservoir when he got out of school for 50 cents a day. He helped build Routes 9, 20 and the Massachusetts Turnpike.
It's hard not to miss Puffer, because every night that he comes to Town Meeting, he brings Moderator Harrison Gregg a cup of coffee midway through the night.
Nancy Gregg, the moderator's wife, and James Smith, who sits near Puffer at Town Meeting, have both been wondering where he's been. A recent call to his house by a reporter went unanswered, but Smith talked to him by phone in April and Puffer seemed to be doing fine then, Smith said.
Puffer told the Gazette he never got tired of Town Meeting. "I like to hear what people have to say, what they want to do, what they want to appropriate," he said. But he knows when enough talking is enough. When Puffer isn't at the meeting, it's hard to know who is going to be one to "call the question," the parliamentary procedure by which members can agree to halt discussion and cast their votes.
"After a while it gets sickening to listen when so many people have talked about the same thing," Puffer said. "It's time to put it to a vote, and the moderator knows it, and that's why he calls on me. Yes or no, it doesn't matter. Get it over with."
Brewer's list
The following is a list of Town Meeting members who missed the first three sessions, listed at http://amherstselectboardstuff.blogspot.com: Precinct 1, Mark Power, Stider Rubeck, Joseph Waskiewicz, Robert Winne; Precinct 2: Kevin C Gale, Patrick D. MacLeod; Precinct 3: John S. Ingram, Louis Anthony Roberts; Precinct 4: Kenneth Samonds; Precinct 5: Donald Pitkin, Terry Forrest, Kevin Joy; Precinct 8: Christopher Bascomb, Stephen Puffer Jr.; Precinct 10: Bernice Rosenthal; ex-officio members Kathleen Anderson, Sonia Correa Pope, Chrystel Romero and Kathleen Wang.
Meetings
TUESDAY: Personnel Board, 9 a.m., first floor meeting room, Town Hall; Natural And Cultural Resources Working Group, 7:30 p.m., first floor meeting room.
WEDNESDAY: Kanegasaki Sister Committee, 6:30 p.m., Alice Dowd Lounge, Senior Center, Bangs Center.
THURSDAY: Land Use Working Group, noon, Town Room, Town Hall; Town Meeting, 7:30 p.m., Middle School Auditorium preceded by Select Board, 6:30 p.m., Middle School Music Room and Finance Committee, 6:30 p.m., Middle School Band Room.
