Amherst Center: For Sox and Town, it's 'deja vu all over again'

Published on September 28, 2007

September usually means two things in Amherst: the Red Sox are limping into a difficult post-season and our town is limping into a difficult budget season.

As Yogi Berra would say, it is indeed "deja vu all over again." Just like last September, the Red Sox bats have gone silent and their bullpen has imploded, and just like last September we are again facing the same $1.5 million town budget deficit, service cuts, limited economic development relief and a budgeting process that makes even the most focused and patient town supporter cringe.

In what has become the deja vu moment of each year's budget process, the Select Board kicked off the long drive to a town budget by again asking for citizen input on budget priorities at their traditional "listening" session this past Thursday.

Don't get us wrong - we like the Select Board to listen to the citizens - but we must ask, have our town's priorities changed any over the past few years? We have heard the same priorities in these meetings year after year: strong schools, public safety, paved and plowed streets, green space, housing affordability, tax relief, diversity.

The primary thing that hasn't changed is the lack of a long-term, focused strategy from our Select Board members that the entire town can follow out of this economic mess.

We've all done plenty of talking and listening. It is now time for doing. It is now time for some hard decisions. With the experience of the last few years and with the knowledge that should come from sitting with the town manager and hearing the inner workings of our town, we call upon each Select Board member to bring forth a feasible budget strategy for the next three years. And do it now, not next spring.

Rather than spending time on the size and design of speed bumps, we ask Select Board members to keep their eyes on the prize: saving the town we all love. We are stuck in a "Groundhog Day"-like movie, reliving the same budget process while facing the same deficit year after year.

This process is dividing and polarizing our town. Seniors are pitted against parents who are pitted against police officers who are pitted against swimming pools. We need a real fiscal strategy that shows some light at the end of the tunnel to bring the townspeople back together.

Last year, Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to ask the Select Board for a long-term strategy for generating revenue for our town; members of the Select Board even voted for it (Article 41). But then they responded with only a fiscal projection showing future deficits unless something is done. That's not a strategy, and it's not leadership. It's hand-wringing.

Select Board members have been entrusted with the political leadership of our town. It is time for them to step up and lead. We call on them to work with the town manager to propose a plan of specific steps that will bring us out of our town's fiscal disaster that year after year is causing service cuts and proposed overrides. Citizens can respond and decide if the plan makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for 100 citizens to come up with 100 plans.

Services in our schools, town, and libraries are being cut every year. Each year the quality of life we enjoy in Amherst becomes less accessible as public schools, public safety, public roads and sidewalks, public recreation, and other public services are cut back while residents' taxes go up. And as Rome burns, the Select Board asks for more citizen input. It's time for some output.

As the Red Sox head into their decisive October battles, let's hope Terry Francona has a strategic plan for his pitching rotation - and let's hope that our Select Board members have the political will, the daring, the chutzpah, to take a stand and lay out a strategy for our town. Then, and only then, will there be hope for moving forward toward a fiscally sustainable future for Amherst.

As Sox fans and Amherst residents alike, we're really tired of saying, "Wait til next year..."

Amherst Center is a monthly column written by Town Meeting members Baer Tierkel and Clare Bertrand and School Committee member Andy Churchill.