Town Council Rejects Recommendation for Planning Board Vacancy
Photo: flckr.com. Creative Commons
Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Town Council, July 15, 2024.
This was a hybrid meeting and was recorded. It can be viewed here.
Present
Lynn Griesemer (President, District 2), Mandi Jo Hanneke, Andy Steinberg, Ellisha Walker (at large), Freke Ette and Cathy Schoen (District 1), Pat DeAngelis (District 2), George Ryan and Hala Lord (District 3), Pam Rooney and Jennifer Taub (District 4), and Bob Hegner (District 5). Absent: Ana Devlin Gauthier (District 5)
Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) and Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of the Council)
Prior Public Comments Doom Farris Nomination to Planning Board
On. June 25, the Community Resources Committee (CRC) of the council recommended Doug Marshall and Melissa Farris to fill the two vacancies on the Planning Board. The CRC interviewed three candidates. Marshall was applying for a second three-year term. He currently serves as chair of the Planning Board. The other opening was to fill the seat held by Janet McGowan. The third applicant was Lawrence Kluttz. At the CRC meeting, Marshall was recommended for reappointment by a vote of 4-0-1 (Jennifer Taub abstaining). The vote for Ferris was 3-2, with Jennifer Taub, Pam Rooney, and Freke Ette voting for Ferris and Pat DeAngelis and Mandi Jo Hanneke preferring Kluttz.
The full council unanimously approved Marshall’s reappointment.
Before a vote could be taken on Farris, George Ryan moved to replace her with Kluttz, saying that Farris had expressed hostility toward UMass in past public comments. He thought Kluttz was the stronger candidate in light of Farris’s comments and the strategic partnership agreement with UMass covering housing, infrastructure, and economic development, signed by the town and UMass last fall. Ryan stated, “it is important that we see these conversations and this relationship [with UMass] not as an adversarial one or one that is a zero-sum game but as one grounded in mutual respect and shared concern for the long-term viability and health of our town and the university. We need to stop seeing the university as ‘the problem, ’ stop using it as a convenient punching bag for problems and challenges that have a long and complex history.” He said he thought that Kluttz, given his experience in Durham, North Carolina, a college town, and his stated appreciation of the vital importance of a positive town-gown relationship would “strongly resist that narrative and be a more positive and productive voice on the Planning Board.”
Speaking for over six minutes, Ryan continued, “Only Marshall pointed out in his interview that, in the vast majority of cases, public comment and input comes from a very few number of voices, the same voices who often say the same things over and over again.” Ryan then referred to a written comment that Ferris submitted to the council in February, 2023 in which she expressed concern about Marshall serving on the Planning Board while being employed by UMass as a planner. Ryan said, “She asked rhetorically ‘How can Mr. Marshall serve two often conflicting interests at the same time?’ I could not find a statement with which I disagree more. Roughly 60% of our population is student age—making the university into the villain is not the right approach. Mr. Kluttz understands this and would be a more productive voice on the Planning Board.” Andy Steinberg said he also questioned Ferris’s comment when it was submitted.
Cathy Schoen disagreed with Ryan. She said the council “should be basing our decision on the candidates’ statements of interest and interviews. Farris has been attending Planning Board meetings. She knows how to read architectural drawings and has done layouts. She has a history of working with groups in a leadership position. I think it would be unfortunate to search the press for comments that people have made, especially when issues are close to people’s heart. The other candidate did not express as much of having been a regular listener to the Planning Board meetings. There’s a lot of learning on this, so I think she is a very strong candidate.”
CRC member Mandi Jo Hanneke said she supported Kluttz over Farris because of his views on incorporating public comments into decisions. She maintained that Farris felt that those most directly affected by a project should be heard, ”almost to the exclusion of the rest of the town.” Hanneke admitted that Farris didn’t actually say “almost to the exclusion of the rest of the town,” but Hanneke’s interpretation of Farris’ remarks was that “if you are an abutter, your opinion matters more than anyone else in town. Kluttz said that public opinion alone cannot dictate the board’s work.” Hanneke also pointed to Kluttz’s knowledge of the Master Plan.
Taub, also a CRC member, supported Farris because Farris grew up in the area. Her father taught at UMass, and she is now a full-time student at UMass. Also, she is a woman of Middle Eastern descent and would replace a woman transitioning off the Planning Board. Taub maintained that Farris has every right to express concern about having a UMass senior planner serve as the Planning Board chair, and hers was not the only letter that the council received expressing this concern. Taub thought that there was nothing in Ferris’s interview that suggested she has a particular agenda. Taub also was concerned that Ferris was not present at the council meeting to defend herself when she was being mischaracterized.
CRC member Pat DeAngelis stated that she supported Kluttz because he was the only one who really talked about inclusivity. “He really was looking to create a community where all voices could be heard. He has a strong experience in strategic planning,” she said, adding, “Farris got involved with the Planning Board meetings, because she was opposed to a duplex development that was going to be built near her neighborhood. She feels abutters have a stronger voice than the Master Plan, than policy, than income level.” As she has done at several previous meetings, she asserted that East Gables at 132 Northampton Road would not have been built if the council had listened to abutters.
Ryan denied that he was demonizing Farris, but said that he was concerned about her perspective.
Taub countered that Farris lives in the general residence district that has the smallest lots and most diverse housing in Amherst with townhouses, duplexes, triplexes and apartments. Taub said Ferris lives next door to a triplex with 10 students, and seems to have no problem with that. Taub said the proposal Ferris opposed was to add another 4 bedroom triplex to a lot that already had one, which would have meant 24 students living there with 22 parking spaces. Taub concluded, “That is why we have a Planning Board, so that residents can express comments and that shouldn’t be held against them.”
The vote to replace Ferris with Kluttz failed 4-5-3. Schoen, Taub, Ellisha Walker, Hala Lord, and Pam Rooney voted no. Freke Ette, Lynn Griesemer, and Bob Hegner abstained.
Ryan expressed disappointment at the decision of three councilors to abstain. He stated that if the vote of the CRC was 4-0 or 5-0, “it would carry some weight, but it was a deeply divided vote.” He then derided the whole selection process of providing candidates with the interview questions ahead of time and not allowing follow-up questions. He said he felt an obligation to his constituents and to the town “to make the best judgment I can, based on the information available.”
Ette, also a CRC member, explained that he abstained because the candidates were similar, and Kluttz had applied to serve on other town committees. He also felt the council should “give a little deference to the committee that has handled an interview and listened to the candidates.” Griesemer defended her abstention by saying she objects to such a discussion “with the candidate not in the room.”
The vote to appoint Farris to the Planning Board failed 5-6-1. Taub, Walker, Lord, Rooney, and Schoen voted yes. Ette again abstained.
Hanneke then moved to appoint Kluttz. Schoen objected strenuously, saying, “This is outrageous. We (already) took a vote.” She then used her right to postpone the vote until the next council meeting, which is scheduled for August 19.
Once again, Town Council demonstrates that the best interests of owners of homes in middle income neighborhoods rank below the interests of those in Amherst’s pricier residential neighborhoods or those who advocate for low income housing.
Once again, we get a demonstration of the use of arcane machinations of Robert’s Rules and provisions of the complex Town Charter to push forward the interests of Council members in favor of rampant real estate conversions.
Once again, we hear an attempt to absolve the University from any responsibility for continuing to admit many more students than it can house, forcing that burden onto the smallest town in the country to host a flagship campus.
Perhaps it is time for Amherst to bear a warning label for prospective residents: Caution! Unless you are able to purchase a house in a neighborhood too pricey for investors to flip into student rentals, be prepared to see your neighborhood overrun by student rental conversions.
I would have appreciated that information 30 years ago, when my wife and I bought a house on a street with 22 houses, 3 miles from campus, where a 3rd house has just flipped from family home to student rental. While it is true that the dollar value of our house has increased because some investor might want to flip it, we are watching intangibles – the love, time and labor we have invested in the home where we raised our child – swirling around, about to go down the drain of “Amherst Forward”. Now, instead of aging in place in a house filled with fond memories, we are on the cusp of moving out.
The question is: Do we want a board with the diverse voices in town or one with one voice only – that of the Amherst Forward PAC/real estate interests? The seat that is being vacated is Janet McGowan’s, who has been a voice of common sense and independence. She was not endorsed by the AF PAC. It would make a whole lot of sense to keep that seat independent to support the need for diversity of opinion in the town as a whole. Were the majority of AF endorsed councilors to espouse that concept, it would be very healing for the town – just as independent councilors voting to for Doug Marshall to keep his seat was. It will be divisive for the majority to insist once again on supporting only one kind of voice.
It is not just having a D or R next to one’s name on a ballot or voter registration that makes an individual a party member. It is adhering to a common political philosophy, and acting in concert to implement specific policies, to wit:
POLITICAL PARTY:
noun
A political organization that subscribes to a certain ideology and seeks to attain political power through representation in government. An organization to gain political power.
That the Amherst Forward PAC functions as a political party is hard to dispute. AFP endorses candidates, and rejects appointing individuals to positions if the prospective appointee doesn’t adhere to AFP views on development, zoning, town/gown relations, etc. AFP, in short, has a lock on Amherst’s politics, and in all aspects except explicitly naming itself a political party, it functions as a party.
It is disingenuous that some in the AFP were instrumental in demolishing Amherst’s town meeting, and then wrote the difficult to amend Amherst Town Charter which includes the following:
SECTION 7.2: NON-PARTISAN ELECTIONS; BALLOT DESIGNATIONS
All elections for Town offices shall be non-partisan and election ballots shall be printed without any party mark, emblem, or other designation.
By not actually applying to be an official party, or appending AFP to candidates’ and appointees’ names, AFP may not be breaking the letter of the law . We should make up our own minds as to whether it violates the intent of Charter section 7.2. And we should hope that the Charter Review Committee finds a way amend the Charter to make Town Council a more deliberative body and less of a rubber stamp.
Thirty five years ago I moved to Amherst. I left New Jersey largely due to the relentless dominance of the pro-business wealthy class intruding into the quality of life. When I left, the county board of freeholders, which was then almost entirely composed of realtors, were talking excitedly about “maturing the county” – which was code for building more condos and mansions.
So I see some of this happening again here in Amherst (now catching up to New Jersey) with the intentions, actions and non-actions of the local political party called Amherst Forward that is pretending to not be one. Meanwhile, my neighbors and I are experiencing late night noise, increased traffic and a loss and degradation of community as houses are snatched up by investors who rent at high prices to students who have no stake in the neighborhood. This is a form of New Jersification and it is a problem that I don’t want to see supported, or ignored, by Town Council.
It’s just a shame when qualified residents willing to donate their time and energy to serve on Town boards or committees are vilified because they have *gasp* expressed an opinion that some in power disagree with. We are not better off if every person serving on a committee or a board shares the same views. Bringing a greater diversity of thought and experience to the Planning Board seems like a good idea, rather than seeking members who share the same vision. I, for one, would not like to see a Planning Board that marches in step with everything UMass might want to do, or not do. Not to be adversarial either, but asking tough questions or pushing back sometimes, that’s the Planning Board’s role, in my opinion.