You can help shape Amherst's future

Published on September 29, 2006

Amherst Center is a monthly column addressing local issues from a centrist point of view. It is written by Town Meeting members Baer Tierkel and Clare Bertrand and School Committee member Andy Churchill.

There's a much-used Woody Allen quote, 'Ninety percent of life is just showing up.' As Amherst government goes, sometimes it feels more like showing up, and showing up, and showing up. . . .

If you are like most folks in Amherst, your crazy, over-committed life doesn't allow you to show up very often - but you still care about what happens to our town. Well, if you only have two hours that you can spend on town issues all year, we've got a way that will have the biggest impact. A very focused, important, and even fun Town activity you really need to show up for: the new Master Plan.

A Master Plan is a legal document produced by a community to serve as the Town's primary policy statement on future development. Chapter 41, Section 81D of the General Laws of Massachusetts encourages towns to create Master Plans to 'provide a basis for decision making regarding long term physical development,' in nine key areas:

Goals and policies
Land use
Housing
Economic development
Natural and cultural resources
Open space and recreation
Public facilities and services
Transportation, and
Implementation process.

How should Amherst look 40 years from now? Fundamentally, what are our values? What works well here in Amherst? What doesn't? Whether we live here, work here or study here, Amherst offers us many things. What do we need to work on, what do we need to leave alone? The answers we bring can help us shape our future and the town that our own kids might choose to live in. And if we get involved and talk to each other about what we value in Amherst, perhaps we will find more in common in the 'Amherst center' than we would have guessed.

The law calls for 'interactive public participation' to ensure that the Master Plan reflects the needs and best interests of all citizens. This is where you come in. You need to let your tired, over-committed voice be heard! Because if you don't, you will leave this much-needed planning process in the hands of the 'usual suspects.'

What do you have to do? Show up! You need to commit only two hours to a focused, professionally run meeting that is designed to collect your input on what you value for the future of Amherst. All of our ideas will be captured and then used as the foundation of our Master Plan by the experienced consulting firm the town has hired to manage the 'Planning Amherst Together' process.

The consultants will be collecting input from us, pulling together all the existing data, plans, and reports, adding ideas and best practices from other communities across the region and country, including other college towns, and pull it all together in one document for us to approve and then use in future decision-making. This public process gives us the opportunity to recognize where we stand now, where we want to go, and how we can get there. And it all starts with just two hours of your time.

The Town is committed. The goal is results. Perhaps you have watched the town try 'visioning' in the past. Or perhaps you came out last year when the Comprehensive Planning Committee was 'planning the Plan.' How will this be different? This will be different because this process will actually get us to a REAL Master Plan. This process ensures that your time will not be wasted: the meetings will be kept to a strict schedule, the consultants are well-prepared, and their approach is tried and true. They have worked in other college towns - and they have even learned how to say 'Amherst' right (without the 'h'). The time is now to speak your piece on where the Town should go.

So plan to show up at one of the five upcoming 'Idea Gathering Meetings.' Bring your family, friends, and neighbors. Bring your kids! It's a small investment, only two hours of your time, but it could leverage huge results: a plan to guide Town Meeting, the Select Board, and the numerous town committees for years to come.

Here are the meeting dates and locations: