Opinion: Happy Birthday to the Indy

Amherst has numerous food deserts, and the entire town is probably an affordable-housing desert, that much is clear. But what isn’t necessarily clear is that the town has become somewhat of a “dissent” desert. Although we’re blessed with a thriving local newscape, and although we were once known as a place where only the “h” was silent, it’s now up to the Amherst Indy to speak truth to power and question the dictates of those like-minded residents who now form a majority on nearly every committee and board, and who flex their muscles when it comes to media coverage of local issues.

Our mission is to serve the public as a critical, progressive, and independent source of accurate news and fact-based analysis. And, you could say, we are prone to kvetch openly about issues like fiscal responsibility, social justice, affordable housing, and affordability, sustainability, respect, and other issues. We do our best to explore Amherst’s sometimes loopy issues and inconvenient truths. For example, until the Indy gave it breath and air, the award-winning expose in The Graphic (which earned the prestigious Edmund J. Sullivan Award from the Student Press Association, Columbia University School of Journalism) about LGBTQIA+ bullying by adults at the middle school would have been buried, treated with the same indifference and neglect as the complaints themselves were treated. If not for the Indy, fewer independent town councilors would have won their elections, and once elected would have been given fewer key committee assignments. If not for the Indy, the chronic indifference and neglect of BIPOC residents and business owners (especially noticeable in the inequitable granting of ARPA funds, an ongoing issue) by the friends of town hall and the BID and its Downtown Amherst Foundation would have been even worse, if that’s possible. Without the Indy, poisoning young athletes and groundwater with PFAS might have been the only permissible option for a proposed school field. And without the Indy, urban canyons of five-story student apartment building that was the brainchild of a few former town leaders could have already been realized, with regulations and guidelines thrown out to the real estate marketplace, while our pot-holed roads slowly went dark and our children were taught to be afraid.

I’ve been part of the Amherst Indy since the beginning, but it’s Art and Maura Keene who do most of the work and editorial policy making, so it’s appropriate to congratulate and thank them outright. Their intelligence and perseverance in keeping the public informed and pushing town leaders to make the most reasoned, responsible decisions for residents is much needed and much appreciated.

Happy Birthday!

Kitty Axelson-Berry is an original member of the Indy’s editorial board.