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Date: 11/29/2022
AMHERST – At Nov. 21’s Amherst Town Council meeting town officials discussed a postponed motion from an earlier session, read several proclamations and voted on multiple action items. Roughly 50 teachers, paraeducators and other staff from Amherst Public Schools (APS) and Amherst Regional Public Schools (ARPS) sat in on the meeting in-person and virtually for the second week in a row as a demonstration in their fight for higher wages. However, though the staff voiced their opinions during public comment, the council could not engage the protesters in discussion as the meeting’s agenda did not allow time for the beginning of a dialogue.
The bulk of the meeting was spent by councilors and select ARPS staff, including Superintendent Michael Morris, debating whether to adopt a motion to appropriate $900,000 from the town’s free cash reserves for the rehabilitation of the Amherst Regional High School (ARHS) track and field. The track and field facilities at the school have been in a state of disrepair for decades. The motion to appropriate the funding for the town of Amherst’s share of the project was introduced in a council meeting in October but was postponed to Nov. 21 due to lack of time during that meeting.
The disagreement among councilors stemmed from the decision of whether to use artificial turf or grass for the field. The order for appropriation of funds, and the recommendation of the ARPS committee was for an artificial turf field, which requires less maintenance and has a longer lifespan. However, some councilors did not support this decision because of concerns about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) present in the turf; these chemicals are linked to increased risk of cancer, high cholesterol and decreased infant and fetal growth, among others.
The vote on the motion was tied at 6-6, and per council rules, a tied vote fails, so the town will not be appropriating the $900,000 for the project. Some surface level work on the track will still be completed due to other funding sources, but the field will not be replaced or reoriented from east-west to north-south as it should be for athlete safety and field preservation. This came to the chagrin of many ARHS students who voiced their concerns during public comment, and Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, herself an ARHS alum.
“We needed a new track when I was a student at ARHS when I was a student there over 15 years ago. The state of our track is embarrassing. I believe one student said ‘the state of our field is like a dumpster fire.’ I want to take that one step further to give our facilities staff credit, which is ‘it’s like a dumpster fire and we’ve handed them a squirt gun’… I have run on those fields. I have absolutely eaten it [fallen on my face] on those fields,” Gauthier said.
Gauthier added that previous attempts to remedy the field have done little to alleviate its issues.
“[The track] is more patches than track at this point, and that is not the fault of our facilities team that pour so much love and care into it, but at some point, that’s not enough. Teams from other towns won’t let their kids run on this track. We cannot host competitions on that track. Delaying it is something that is inexcusable,” said Gauthier.
She felt that voting no on this project was patronizing to the elected officials on the Regional School Committee who have been tasked with finding the best solution to the problem, and to the students who run on the track and field every day.
“To vote down this track because of the field, to vote no on the field itself, is incredibly out of touch with reality and with what our students, their parents and their coaches are begging for. These facilities are limiting opportunities for our students … The top of our list is access and wellbeing for our students, and I believe that we have talked about and demonstrated that the turf field is what reaches that goal most fully,” Gauthier said. “We want to talk about trust? This also covers trusting our committees and their votes. The Regional School committee has voted on this; they did the work and created this. There have been a lot of times I felt this council has overstepped their role, and this is one of them.”
The council approved the addition of a new Eversource pole on the corner of High Street and Harvard Avenue, known as a “stub pole” with no active wires, so that a large dead tree being used for or support of existing lines can be removed. It also authorized Town Manager Paul Bockelman to begin negotiations to accept the private roads of Kestrel Lane and Hop Brook Road as public ways.
Three proclamations were approved and read at the meeting. The first was read by Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke about Human Rights Day.
“Now therefore, the Amherst Town Council hereby proclaims Dec. 10, 2022 Human Rights Day, encourages our community to embrace every opportunity to reflect and embody the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their work for the community, and urges Amherst residents to celebrate this day with a communal reading of the Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 2022 at 6 p.m. on the Town Common.”
The second was read by Councilor Annika Lopes about Small Business Saturday.
“Now therefore, the Amherst Town Council proclaims Nov. 26, 2022 Small Business Saturday and urges the residents of the community to support Amherst-wide small businesses and merchants on Small Business Saturday, during the Merry Day’s celebration, and throughout the year.”
The final proclamation was a citation read by Gauthier regarding Monte’s March for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.
“Now therefore, the Amherst Town Council heralds the achievements of Monte Belmonte and the staff at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, honors them with this citation, and expresses deep gratitude for their important work to end hunger in our community and beyond.”
The next Amherst Town Council meeting is scheduled for Dec. 5.