Robbing Peter to pay pool

If it weren’t for the debt service vote at the end, we might actually have made negative progress on the warrant. Otherwise, we spent the whole night on Cherry Hill and pools, two subjects that just haven’t had quite enough discussion yet.

I could just cut and paste from previous recaps, as this was the same people saying the same things about the same subjects. But that’s no fun. However, I can’t quite bring myself to do a blow-by-blow rehash of all this tired stuff again. So this will be a little different.

Intro: The Moderator noted that this was our 9th session and we need to move along so people can get on with their lives. Apparently, this message was lost on the body. He also emphasized when the “highly-privileged” point of order is in order—Yes: to correct the Moderator, to get clarification on which motion is being voted, to note that the speaker can’t be heard, or other points pertaining to the running of the meeting; No: to note that a speaker is incorrect or misleading or not providing sufficient info.

Cherry Hill redux: This time, it was through its Community Services line item. Larry Kelley moved to reduce its funding. He seems to think that the course won’t meet its projections. His proposal would fund it through the end of December. A member noted how the budget calendar and the golf season calendar line up badly. The Town Manager said: give the new management a chance. Other people said: give the new management a chance. Some people thought this reduction could be used to instead fund the pools. The problem is, Cherry Hill operating revenues come from Cherry Hill fees. The Town doesn’t write Cherry Hill a check for its operating money – the Town appropriates, or “authorizes the spending of,” $231,862 (in FY08, including employee benefits) by and for Cherry Hill. But Cherry Hill brings in all of that money – or almost all of it. It is when they bring in less or spend more than the appropriation that the Town has to bail it out. So the Town does not spend $200K+ per year on the course – the Town only spends the shortfall amount – about $35K for FY07, I think – which, as Larry is happy to tell you, isn’t pocket change and really adds up over time. We had all the same questions, pros and cons from the discussion at last week’s Special TM. We finally voted on the Finance Committee’s number, because it was larger than the amended amount, and it passed soundly in a voice vote. I voted Yes. To me, an RFP would be a new plan and an actual protection against loss, whereas simply docking the budget would be meaningless and counterproductive. And can we finally put to rest this erroneous notion that all the budgets were held to 1% increases? That only applied to the overall Town, School and Library budgets – individual departments went up and down, as is made quite obvious in the “% Change” column of the FinCom Report. And nothing inspires sympathetic votes like a motion that is doomed to fail on the ninth night of Town Meeting, when no end is in sight.

Orphan areas: Public Health, the Senior Center, Veterans’ Services and Town Commemorations lack the kind of passionate advocates and opponents of the human service funding, LSSE, the pools and the golf course, so they went quickly and unchallenged.

Belly flop: Just before we voted the bottom line on Community Services, someone who had to leave the meeting prior to the pool voting last time moved to reconsider. I hate reconsiderations like this. I hated it last spring when it could have led to an outcome I preferred, and I hate it now, when it was all but certain to lead to one I oppose. Reconsiderations of this kind are a failure to accept that in a democracy, you don’t always get your way. I understand the process allows for this, but I think it is an abuse of the spirit of the rules. The fact is that the pool funding was voted down fair and square last time. To game the system by working to have more of “your” voters present for a re-vote is not so far from tampering. What next? We start preventing those with whom we disagree from attending Town Meeting? Let the air out of their tires? Sabotage their tally vote cards? This kind of “all is fair in love, war and politics” sentiment really offends me. But victory via jerkiness is a time-honored American tradition. Thanks, but I’d rather lose. And I did. The vote to reconsider was 95 Yes and 82 No.

Eureka: But thank goodness reconsideration won! Otherwise, I and others might not have realized that War Memorial pool is really important to people. A lot of people enjoy it. Especially in the summer. Some have even learned to swim there. Who knew?

Pasta pitch: Arguments in favor of the pool were another instance of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick. Mill River is too far away. It will be extra pollution to drive and bus people there. Closing the pool will lead to increased juvenile delinquency. Puffer’s Pond will be too crowded. People who don’t know how to swim might drown at Puffer’s. War Memorial pool is an integrated melting pot. People with disabilities use it. Swimming is good exercise. Heck, I was ready to propose we increase the budget further and build another pool in South Amherst. Must be fair to all, must meet every need, cost be damned.

Eat the rich: How many times over both nights were we subject to the argument that not all families have their own pool or go away for summer vacations? This whole class shaming thing is getting really old. And where are all these private Amherst pools anyway? The way people talk about that, you’d think this was Florida.

Just like home: Select Board Chair Gerry Weiss did something I thought was very smart – he divided the numbers by 100 to make them more manageable, and compared them to a household budget. He said if you had intended to put $13,000 into savings this year, (the Town’s $1.3M reserve increase) and had an unexpected $2,380 expense for a roof repair (the $238,000 from the Regional School assessment) would you really want to deny your children the $700 dollars ($70,000 pool cost) that it would cost to have the backyard pool? He said it wasn’t a matter of not putting money into savings, just a matter of putting in less. So that was a good concept, but I would take it a step further. Is it really better that the kids should have the pool if it means continuing to inadequately fund the family savings, leaving them in dire straights if Mom’s car dies or Dad loses his job?

Perception and precipitation: A common issue with Cherry Hill is how weather-dependent its success is. I don’t know what money doesn’t get expended at the pools when weather is bad, but now that this issue has become such a big deal, it will be hard not to think of the lost money if it is a rainy summer.

Reservations on reserves: Bryan Harvey did an excellent walk-through of Brian Morton’s reserves graph. But it was no use. Some people are convinced that putting money in reserves is either mean or crooked. And the continuing refrain about the school money being separate and how the pool money wouldn’t come from reserves, but from the general government cut, is perplexing. That’s like saying that you don’t have enough money in your checking account to pay your bills, and the money in your wallet and under your mattress doesn’t count. It’s all the same money folks. Before the pools, we have about $58,000 that can be appropriated before we’re in the red. But because we know we have to come up with $238,000 for the Regional Schools, we’re actually already in the red by $180,000. Put that $58K to the pools, and we’re in the red for the whole $238K. “In the red” means using reserves. Or seeking an override which would be amusing for a couple of reasons: a) as one member pointed out, that would cost another $14,000; and b) if it failed, guess where the money would have to come from? Reserves! It’s not an optional expenditure – not like the last override, whose failure meant we wouldn’t be paying for those firefighters … or the pool… or… Hmmmm.

Follow through: Actually, to me that last point is the biggest negative of funding the pool. What is a person supposed to believe? How will we ever get people to trust that Town government will do what it says it will do with a multi-year plan, if even a straightforward set of override-dependent expenditures turns out to be a crock? Furthermore, if there are no tangible consequences to not passing an override, then how do we persuade people that it is necessary? Most people don’t see or recognize the reductions to text books and supplies at the schools, the creeping class sizes, the gradual trimming away of special programs. They don’t see the staff being spread too thin at Town Hall, or the proportional decrease in police protection. That these are not widely perceived would be considered by some to mean that reductions led to new efficiency; I would say it means that Amherst is subjecting itself to death by a thousand cuts. Closing the pool would be stark evidence that the Town is in tough financial shape. It’s hard to blame a person for believing things can’t be that bad if Amherst still has not one but two public pools open this summer.

Splash: Sure enough, the vote to fund the pool was successful, but that was almost a foregone conclusion. One of the operatives of reconsideration told me he and others had been working the phones since last week, getting attendance and voting commitments from some critical mass. He said that if the headcount was right, they would move to reconsider. Welcome to Tammany Hall. The first vote was on the Select Board’s amount, and it failed in a tally of 88 Yes, 94 No. By strange coincidence, the Oldham motion, for $12,000 less, passed with the reverse totals: 94 Yes and 88 No. That led to approval of the bottom line appropriation for Community Services at $1,743,604.

What if: So perhaps the pools and the human services funding are indeed sacred cows of the Amherst budget. If they had both been fully funded (whatever fully-funding human services would mean,) does that mean we would have sailed through this budget? Or does it mean that those determined to exercise their advocacy and passions would simply have chosen different targets?

Debt: No, not the debt we are imposing on the future by failing to prioritize today’s reserve funds. This is debt service, or “General Fund Indebtedness,” a separate budget section. Blessedly, we have moved on from General Government. This is the cost of principal and interest payments on the Town’s big-ticket borrowing. I was too depressed to take good notes here though – sorry. The vote to appropriate the $1,491,359 as recommended by the Finance Committee was unanimous.

Cancel those elitist yuppie vacation plans: So how can we make this take even longer? What else can we reconsider? Can we find another way to address Cherry Hill? Are there more procedural motions we might exploit? Have we exhausted all possibilities for screwing up the Regional Assessment? Does anyone have a pet cause that needs indulging? Ahh, Town government in action.

Or rather: Town government inaction.