Plenty of Criticism of Town Government at the Final Charter Review Listening Session

At the fourth listening session of the Charter Review Committee, four members of the committee heard comments from nine residents at an in-person session at the Bangs Community Center on July 23,  The session was not recorded. 

Attending were four of the eight-member committee: Rafael Rogers, Julian Hynes, Erica Mijlin, and Meg Gage, as well as nine residents.

Mijlin and Gage co-facilitated the session and Mijlin introduced the session. She announced that this was the last of four sessions but there is a possibility of having other outreach in the future. She suggested that those who still want to offer input submit a written public comment on the committee’s webpage. 

Gage said, “We’ve had a slow start but this is the process now.” 

It was not clear whether particpants had been assured anonymity as had been the case at the second listening session so comments of the attendees are presented below without identifying information.

A resident stated that he has two children in the schools, one with special needs. He said there are too many town councilors so they have less accountability, especially if there are uncontested seats. Uncontested seats are a sign that there is something wrong. Only privileged people can take those seats. The town gets solid advice from the legal team but then just ignores it and does what they planned to do. Reparations, Caminantes, and CRESS programs are examples of how we have diverged from expert opinion. The Fort River and Middle Schools are “dungeons.” Methods used for separating students by disability and race are not right.

A resident who lived in Amherst for 29 years and was a Town Meeting member said no one in our government is accountable and that uncontested seats are problematic. She thinks the town should have an elected mayor. She said she worries about financial accountability and said the town is “in the pocket” of Archipelago (Investments). Archipelago expects agreement from the town. Councilors should be more discerning. The roads are a “hot mess.” She agrees that the schools need a lot of improvement. We are going to lose money from the Feds and she doesn’t hear any plans about that.

Another resident who also served at Town Meeting said that one of the members on the Town Council told him that “they had no skin in the game,” which he later found out was not true. He finds the council is not representative of the people in Amherst. Town Meeting was good in that it was inefficient. Town Meeting would question things and not let them get steamrolled. It disapproved of several development decisions. The council is not open to change. He also thinks there should be a mayor. 

A resident who has lived in Amherst since 1985 said the Town Council isn’t representative and that she doesn’t see her concerns represented. She is leaning toward wanting a mayor. The priorities of the council are not representative of what we need in this town. The real priorities get sidelined. She thought that it would be better to have all the elections at once (i.e., in November instead of the current Spring elections) and then we’d have a better turnout. Referring to the ubiquitous potholes in town she said that her street “looks like the moon.”

A resident who was a Town Meeting member for about 40 years and has lived in town for 51 years said the Charter Commission promised the moon and provided none of it.  He said the leadership of the schools has been put in the hands of people who are not professionally competent. The previous administration failed to document the failings of the staff. Documentation of complaints is needed. He said townwide, elected officials on the School Committee are given three minutes to provide information to the council’s Finance Committee. He said members of the council have no respect for the families who live here and that no one is looking at rent control. Rents for formerly affordable apartments have risen.

A commenter said that the council is controlled by one person and that councilors in general don’t have control of the agenda. 

A resident who has lived in Amherst since the beginning of COVID said she came from Cambridge, thinking Amherst was gorgeous. She thinks the roads are very bad. She said it doesn’t make sense to her. She said she’s sad about the schools not having a good reputation anymore. We seem to have lost the character of the town. Downtown is not charming anymore. Colleges should give more to the town. We need grace, harmony and happiness. 

One resident said that he came to the forum expecting 200 people and found nine. He asked what happens once the Charter Review Committee has gathered its information.  

Mijlin explained how the committee will make recommendations to the Town Council. Gage said the Council may not adopt any of the recommendations. 

A resident said that he’s been in town for decades, served on committees and in Town Meeting and was a strong opponent of the new charter and disappointed to “lose our democracy.” He said he feels disenfranchised. He feels like he doesn’t have a way to participate. He continued that the taxes are too high for him and he’ll have to sell his house. He supports the schools. We used to have marvelous schools but not now and it is neither the fault of Town Meeting nor Town Council. Charter Schools have caused big problems. Most people would no longer move to Amherst for the schools. The farther you go from democracy the more efficient you get and the faster things get done. The answer is to bring back Town Meeting.  Or maybe increase the number of councilors to 140. 

A resident and former town councilor asked about how the outreach collected at the forum was getting to the other members of the Charter Review Committee who weren’t attending the sessions and to the public, since the meeting isn’t recorded?

Gage said it will be put in the minutes and it will go on the committee web page though it was unclear when and where. She also said that they may do another meeting that would be recorded. She asked for clarification of what was meant by the Council not being representative?

The resident gave the example of finding that when she campaigned for Town Council, a large majority of people canvassed did not support the large buildings going up in the downtown, nor that those buildings were housing students. When a councilor, she brought a petition for a temporary moratorium on downtown development until zoning amendments were passed. It had more than 1000 supporters and the opposition had about 30 on its petition, mostly developers and realtors. The Council voted down the temporary moratorium despite year round residents’ overwhelming support for it. She said this is one area where it is very clear that the council does not represent the residents.

A resident with a child who was formerly enrolled in the Amherst schools but is now enrolled elsewhere said she couldn’t be a parent at the same time she was on Town Meeting. She didn’t feel a part of things in Town Meeting, and still feels the same now. She doesn’t have strong feelings about the Town Council, but says there’s no transparency. She’s not sure about a mayor. She feels like everyone is out to get Amherst. She said everyone is mad all the time and she doesn’t want to be mad at her neighbors.  She is sad for the people who mourn Town Meeting.

A resident who was born in Amherst in 1944 said that she mourns the changes in the town. She doesn’t see the town as making poor decisions but thinks UMass is dominating the town now. Everybody is complaining about the roads. We need solutions for high taxes and all our land is taken up by colleges and conservation land. Who is going to give us more? There is too much angst, some of it national. She doesn’t love the buildings built downtown.   She said she believes the Town Council President controls the agenda too much. She also thinks that the Community Resources Committee is too powerful. She prefers slow decision-making rather than acting fast. There is not good oversight of departments, especially the DPW. The DPW gets what it wants. The Transportation Advisory Committee made reports but it wasn’t paid attention to. She asked why there isn’t oversight on different vanity projects like roundabouts. She said the Board of Health is holding up licensing for Herrells. She also feels like people are cut off disrespectfully by the Town Council and that the council won’t answer questions from the public. 

A resident said that he has spoken to the council many times and has been cut off. He thinks the council should have a mechanism to refer ideas that come up in public comment. He said we are missing a lot of our former resident committees now. There is no supervision of departments. In the past, he was on the public works committee that met with the superintendent every month. Council committees don’t have oversight over departments. 

A resident said there’s an “active dislike” of the town within UMass committees. Amherst used to be the best college town. Even with the growth of online learning, the town is still building more housing for students. But UMass is wondering how to fill its campus beds. Also, Chairs of UMass committees have simultaneously served on the Town Council. 

A resident said the town needs a sense of its history. We need a timeline of events and who did what over time. Also, we need to see where we could improve transparency. 

A resident said the committee needs to think about how to implement some of the changes suggested to provide oversight for town departments. For example, the town needs more resident committee participation rather than dissolving committees. And grants applied for by department heads should have oversight by the council or by resident committees before they are applied for.

A resident said he thinks Archipelago Investments will sell the Atkins Corner development to a management company that is not local as they have done with the downtown buildings. He thinks issues like the Gaza ceasefire resolution were dispatched easily by Town Meeting but that it has caused a big furor in the council form of government.

A resident said the town has moved away from including residents by dissolving committees or changing committee charges so that the staff have more control. Examples are the Recycling and Refuse Management Committee (dissolved immediately following its issuance of a Solid Waste Master Plan) and the Transportation Advisory Committee (changed to include multiple staff).