Not a Great Place for a Detention Pond

But that’s where these consulting engineers that the Department of Public Works hired want to put it, right in the middle of the playing fields at the Ryan Street School.  Pretty much the whole infield. There were quite a few people scratching their heads when I showed the plans around out at the school department.  It turns out they never shared their plans with the school system, and the Northampton DPW didn't send the school property people a  copy.  Back in the winter of 2011 three people from their engineering firm, paid a flying visit to Northampton to look at four areas of the city where we have persistent flooding problems.  Their data became part of the  2012 Stormwater Study, and the project in the Ryan Road/ Austin Circle was tentatively scheduled for 2020/2021.  The pricetag for dealing with this local flooding?  $5.7 million.   Not chickenfeed.  Read the full article by clicking here. 

Come Clean, DPW. Are you "green" or ain't you?

There was an article in the Gazette the other day that these students for the Smith Engineering Department had recently developed a plan for the DPW for these two "green" type detention rain garden type deals.  Great.  I'd feel better about this if Ned Huntley, director of the Department of Public Works, hadn't shown me this 2006 study, done seven years ago, that the Engineering Department at Smith College had done for them on the feasibility of putting in a detention pond on Smith Vocational land to catch flood flows on Brougham Brook upstream, and keep it from flooding a big area near the high school in ten year storms.  Their estimates of cost for the detention pond was  a measly $100,000. It was a terrific idea, but the study just went into the file and stayed there. 

Flood control projects and the maintenance of our storm water system seems to been at the bottom of the priority list for the Department of Public Works for some time. Instead of attending to the small stuff, the DPW hires CDM(Camp Dresser and McKee) a big consulting firm to study the problem and propose fixes.  Total price tag for the fixes, almost $100 million. Click here to read the full article.

The "Best and Brightest" are leaving us

 Following my reporter's nose after seeing some postings on MassLive, I confirmed from our Chief of Police that that attrition rate among new and even experienced officers in Northampton is unacceptably high.   Every year City Hall Wendy Mazza swears in a new crop of officers, "The best and brightest".  They undergo our extensive field training program, get experience on the street, and then they leave.  My mathematics gave me 42 new officers being sworn in over the last six years, and 18 of them had left.  The Chief says he thinks the figure is 12.

I asked this one officer on the street why people are leaving.  "Well,"  he said, "If you're not happy, you tend to look around to see if the grass is greener somewhere else.  The pay down in Connecticut is much better, I hear."  

Despite its new state of the art police station, despite a field training program that is probably the best in Western Massachusetts, the Northampton police department continues to spend a lot of money to train and supervise police that end up going to work elsewhere.  Why?  Read the full article by clicking here 

Our Pumping Station, reconsidered

Don't hit the arrow above, it doesn't work.  The link in the full piece works.  I'm rerunning this old piece, with some edits, on our pumping station. The other night I attended one of a continuing series of meetings of the Ad-Hoc Committee that is developing a formula for assessing costs of the storm water project designed by CDM.  A number of the committee members visited the pumping facility. and got pretty much the same kind of demonstration that Fred Zimmich and I got last year.   Except the first time the operator tried to start one of the big Sterlings, it wouldn't start on the first try.  I guess they were impressed,  as we were, how scary it is for the community to trust this antiquated facility if the Connecticut gets to flood stage.  They don't make parts for these old Sterlings any more.  I apologize for the film being rough and jumpy; I am just learning to use the camera.  Thanks to Adam Cohen for loaning me it.  I also owe the man that has been looking after this system since 1987 an apology for calling his engines "antiques".   When all three are going full blast, you have to wear ear protection.  Hear them roar by clicking this link.

The Battle for Apartment 309

The Sanctuary of the "Church of Us" Expands.   

 

At  the March meeting of the Northampton Housing Authority, I asked its director, Jon Hite, what was happening with Apartment 309, the apartment directly above that of the monk Samana. A stony-faced Hite said the woman in it had asked for a transfer.  "And who will be the next tenant?"
          
" The top person on the waiting list." 

To many of us at that meeting, we knew who the top person  on that waiting list was going to be.  The rules gave people over 62 priority, but we assumed that some reason would be found to jump Samana's loyal personal assistant and nun, Sacred Little, to the top of the list.  Jon Hite calls all the  shots at the authority, and Samana had already been telling people that Sacred Little would be spending more time in the building. It was a done deal.  

Life is hard for the people that live over Samana's head. Two previous tenants had begged to be transferred.  There is the piercing sound of his flute playing, and his hyper-sensitivity to noise.  Now aided and abetted by NHA staff, a systematic campaign of harassment had succeeded in driving out the poor woman who used to live in 309; a campaign that may have been linked to a mysterious break-into a resident's apartment where nothing was stolen except a file of his marked NHA/Hite. In that file were allegations that the Executive Director of the Authority, Jon  Hite, had committed sexual harassment.  The alleged victim?   Sacred Little.  

 Having a devotee living overhead is a dream that Samana has nourished for some time.  Someone who walks very silently, and someone who can be there  around the clock to tend to his needs. Tenants have seen a sketch by Samana of a spiral staircase that he would need if and when a devotee was living overhead.   So here is the crazy story It's a bit untidy, because I am adding links as I have time. Click here for The Battle for apartment 309

“Do you know who I am?”

Former reporter David Reid falls afoul of City's HR administrator 

Police and people who hand out parking tickets dread hearing that phrase.  It means that you have run into a person who seems to feel that their station in life gives them some kind of immunity against the routine aggravations of life.

It was about noontime on Saturday January 19th.  The woman sitting in the car at the curb in front of the A.P.E. gallery was not pleased when David Reid, then a parking enforcement officer (PEO) for the City of Northampton, asked her to buy a ticket in the nearby machine or move her car.  

David didn’t recognize her.  

“I’m Glenda Stoddard of Human Services,” she said.   She said that she was waiting for her husband who was down in Brueggers getting coffee. 

David said that she still had to buy a picket or move her car.   Glenda Stoddard is fairly high up in the pecking order in the city.  As Director of Human Resources, she advises department heads on hiring and firing and grievance procedures.   She told me that she was trying to get some change out of her purse, and David kept talking to her.  Read the full story here. 

Rocky road ahead for Section 8 ?

HUD cuts  $216,000 from Franklin County Section 8 programs, all PHAs hit.

 Yes, its arrived.  The Big S. At their regular meeting of the Northampton Housing Authority last week, their executive director and board of directors grappled with the Sequestration, the modern equivalent of the Doomsday Machine parodied in the Stanley Kubrick film from 1964, Dr. Strangelove,  Yes, decided the deciders, we’ll sequester ourselves, listen to no one, and make it completely automatic and so awful everyone will come to their senses.  And just as the huge thermonuclear device in Dr. Strangelove failed to bring everyone to their senses and ended up demolishing the world, the Sequestration device seems to be demolishing thoughtful governance.  Click here to read the full article on HUD's cut in their popular Section 8 program that enables low income people to live in private housing.

The Mayor looks into the Crystal Ball

                                                  And Sees a World of Trouble?


Today the Mayor made the first of a series of "town hall" meetings at the Senior Center where he looked into the future of our finances. Using a fast-paced Power Point presentation loaded with data, he outlined to about thirty of us citizens the state of Northampton's finances. Revenues coming in from the state are static or declining, there are unfunded mandates from federal and state agencies for improvements in education and flood control.  Health insurance costs are increasing dramatically. The shoe has yet to drop in terms of a new firefighter contract.  In 2003, we were paying 6 million for health coverage , ten years later the cost is $10 million; the bill in 2014 will jump another million. " Our finance team had a conference call with one of the rating agencies," he said,  "They walked through all of our finances.  If we fail to keep our reserves growing over the coming years we could loose our AA2 rating."

In the range from prime to junk, we are in the middle. The free-spending years under Clare have taken their toll. 

 Here is the link to the full article on our finances.