Letter: Town Council Must Unite Around Elementary School Override

The following letter was sent to the Amherst Town Council On March 26, 2023.

You must do your part by approving a minimum of $10,000,000 from the  stabilization fund and reserves to offset the taxpayer’s share of the cost of replacing two schools which should never have been built as designed fifty-three years ago!

Equally important is that the Council has to bring all its vital forces to keep the agenda positive. This means: drop all the divisive issues that are angering Amherst  voters! Now and forever. These issues include divisive re-zoning, divisive new and extremely right-wing rules for rental properties that won’t solve the issues of errant property owners but certainly won’t lower rents, allowing the historical Jones library “as we love it” destruction, and the list goes on.

As far as the South fire station is concerned, we have talked and talked for fifty years about this need. If it’s so important, why hasn’t it happened?

It is now time for the council to begin acting like grown-ups by stressing priorities that will bring the townspeople together enough to want to approve the school project! Pressing personal agenda preferences that aren’t supported by others stand in the way of a unified push to YES on May 2.

Hilda Greenbaum

Hilda Greenbaum is a 65-year resident of the Amherst area and a 50-year resident of Amherst, a town meeting member 1975–2018, and a former member of various town boards and committees, including Public Transportation, Assessors, and Zoning Board of Appeals.