I would like to congratulate the town of Amherst on its parking ban from Dec. 1 until April 1. Not only did we not have much snow, we had a lot of cars on the roads with no tickets. I saw only five or six tickets issued during this time. Hallock, North Propect and South Propect and Amity streets looked like parking lots.
The town of Amherst could hire one part-time officer just on the ticket revenue alone. Enforce the law or take it off the books.
Stephen D. Janse
Amherst
New DPW facility won’t help Amherst roads
Please tell me that our town – whose Department of Public Works has neither the budget nor the competence to keep our roads passable and safe – just spent $70,000 to learn that the solution to this problem is spending $38 million on a new DPW facility. Please!
Michael Lawrence Levine
Amherst
Charter Commission
lacks centrist voices
While I am happy that the Amherst Charter Commission has members from both sides of the debate, I am disappointed that the two most centrist candidates were not elected.
Amy Gates, the only candidate not endorsed by either slate, and Chris Riddle, the only candidate endorsed by the Town Meeting Works slate who had signed the papers to get the charter question on the ballot, received the lowest number of votes out of all 19 candidates.
Having a commission composed of two opposing sides will make it far less likely that the group will come back with a proposed charter we can all get behind. And this is representative of a larger problem in our democracy: the two-party system that constrains political choices both locally and nationally is the main reason we don’t see the big changes we need being passed in Congress.
I hope we can come together more in the future around what some call “radical centrist” politics — not moderates, but candidates who look at issues objectively and go for bold solutions, regardless of identity with factions.
These candidates are often shut out of our politics because they don’t have the support of the opposing camps, so our policy ends up being a compromise between two flawed extremes. Instead, I hope we will choose the best possible policy, and I hope the members of the Amherst Charter Commission will approach their work with this spirit.
Solomon Goldstein-Rose
Amherst
Goldstein-Rose is a former School Committee member and a senior at Brown University.
Campaign leaflet upsets Town Meeting member
I ran for Town Meeting Precinct 1 in Amherst. The morning after the election, I had no idea if I won a seat or not. A day before the election, I was surprised to find a leaflet in my door endorsing several candidates, myself included.
The document started, “On behalf of a neighborhood …” but does not provide the names of who or what organization had written it. The only indication of where this document came from is a link to the townmeetingworks.org website.
This document that suggests voters elect me to Town Meeting also suggested which school committee members to endorse and most importantly urged a no vote on the charter commission question.
I am very upset as I imagine voters would assume that I agreed with the candidate recommendations and voting no on the charter question, which, whether true or not, is beside the point. The issue is that no one asked me where I stand on these issues, no one told me they would print my name in connection with certain opinions, and it is careless and inappropriate to distribute a document like this without information on where it comes from.
I find it very disconcerting that my neighbors would make assumptions on where I stand on certain issues without discussing them with me first and have the gall to print my name without my permission.
Nicola Usher
Amherst
Trump as commander is stuff of nightmares
Reading about the close encounters of the perilous kind between U.S. and Chinese naval warships in the South China Sea, where China is seeking to achieve dominance, I could not help but think of how much closer we would be to war with China if Donald Trump were president and commander in chief.
One false move between Chinese and U.S. warships in that contested sea could bring war between two nuclear-armed colossi.
Avoiding war requires great patience and self-discipline to avoid overly provocative behavior, and surely the wise path is to strive hard to avoid going to war with China over the South China Sea.
The idea of Donald Trump being in control of U.S. foreign and military policy is the stuff of nightmares. Yet so many Americans cheer him on. It could almost make one despair of U.S. democracy.
Emmett Barcalow
Amherst
For many years, my husband has been putting money into a retirement account through his employer, the University of Massachusetts.
He was able to choose from one of six companies, and within the one we chose, there were 81 funds that covered different market sectors: international, domestic, balanced, specialty, etc. (more if you include so-called “target retirement” funds).
All our choices had very low expense ratios, which matters at least as much as a fund’s performance.
Recently we were notified that all our money is being moved — against our wishes — to Fidelity, where there are only 18 funds covering fewer sectors, and with expense ratios that are double, triple and up to eight times those of the company we chose.
There is no doubt in my mind that we will have less money at retirement because of this; my financial advisor initially called it “very strange,” and went on to say that it’s hard to see how this could do anything but hurt us. The only two possibilities are that the people who imposed this decision on us are either incompetent or corrupt. Neither is a particularly pleasant thought.
Lisa Kosanovic
Amherst
I see in the most recent Education section another article on the pointlessness of algebra.
How quaint, and proposed by an economist, too! This criticism was first published in 1973 by a professor of mathematics, Morris Kline, in his screed on the New Math, “Why Johnny Can’t Add.” Am I alone in thinking that we should also drop Shakespeare from the high school curriculum, on the grounds that Shakespeare is useless in this modern era?
Stephen Armstrong
Hadley
Armenia should
follow UN resolution
On April 1, units of the Armenian army deployed to occupied Nagorno Karabakh region of Azerbaijan launched an offensive against Azerbaijan.
According to the Associated Press, the Armenian military fired mortars and large-caliber artillery shells at Azerbaijani-populated villages on the line of contact between Armenian and Azeri forces.
The attack on Azerbaijani villages comes at a time when President Obama convened leaders of 54 states, including Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents, in Washington to discuss the nuclear security threat. On the sidelines of his visit, the Azerbaijani president met with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry appreciated Azerbaijan’s strategic role in its contributions to the energy security of Europe and counter-terrorism efforts. Kerry affirmed U.S. support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, a core principle of international law violated by Armenia since 1994. Obviously, Russia is angered by US-Azerbaijani strategic alliance and Washington’s support to Azerbaijan’s sovereignty. Hence the Armenia’s large scale offensive. The United Nations Security Council adopted four resolutions calling for immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces, allowing the return of Azerbaijani refugees. Armenia is yet to comply.
Please call on Armenia to implement the UN resolutions and comply with norms of international law.
Ramil Maharramov
Amherst