Letter: Sometimes A Town Study Is Less Than A Town Study, It’s Actually A Cigar.

(w/apologies to uncle Sigmund Freud)

After 3,400 years of the same discussions, I think many people are asking for real change.

I am far from an expert on the police, but I see the currents in Amherst as insufficient for change.  When several hundred Amherst residents joined a peaceful protest downtown in the year  (60 across from the police station), I think a statement was made. The response was a throttled down “study” (Amherst: ‘Restaurant City’ and “land of-yet-another-study”) that avoided true public dialogue and deliberation.  THAT is what’s needed for more than just some adjustments around the edges.  No longer-term dialogue with deeper listening by the policy makers, occurred.  Real solutions do not cost more financially. The cost is located inside of each of us.

As I talk with my neighbors, I hear that the Bangs center will be gutted upstairs. No more room for the human service agencies there. That area will next be used by separately dispatched, separately housed community response pros. There will be no change to the police.  The new group will be an ancillary team, similar to the health care model–no change, pile on more “lesser” staff: PAs, nurse practitioners, etc.  Costs increase this way, and opposition develops due to that.  Changes located in the police headquarters would be less expensive and more focused on the problem.  A change to ‘community policing’ techniques could form a beginning. For instance, do the dozen bike officers have enough bikes?  

Simple changes in dispatch could go far in preventing some of the aggression occurring between the BIPOC community and police in town. A telephone call by a resident that “something is amiss” when seeing an older Black man and younger white woman sitting in a car could allow the dispatcher to remind the caller that people sit in cars when given a ride and arriving early instead of initiating an aggressive “rescue”.  Callers reporting on a “loud party” could be reminded different cultures laugh louder when having a church BBQ than one’s own–.  that police are not one’s personal valet standing ready to ‘clean up’ what one judges as “a mess.”

I think Amherst reflects an issue seen on the national stage.  Partisanship came more strongly to this town with the two Charter Commission attempts and the third successful vote to replace Town Meeting with a Town Council.  I see the near 50/50 split in a great many other issues that surface including land use, budgets, housing, infrastructure needs and this one too.  Until the root is dug up and tended it can not be replanted in health.  We have the technology; I fear we do not have the will to engage.

Chad Fuller

Chad Fuller is a resident of Amherst