Council Member Dan Ward’s Efforts to Protect Our Children is Coming to Fruition
For years Dan Ward, the war horse on the Amherst Town Board, has 
been suggesting progressive changes be put in place to protect our children. Changes included limiting the use of the Internet for convicted sex offenders to go on any chat sights or social gathering web sites for the intended purpose of meet under age children for sexual purposes. Ward is realizing the beginning of his long time dream. Yesterday in Albany Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and other legislative leaders put forth such a law which again proves out Councilman Ward’s ideas has merit.
The two largest social gathering websites, Face Book and MySpace, back New York’s Attorney General and fellow legislative leaders moves to make it a parole violation for registered sex offenders to sign on to such sites. The legislators have created a new penalty for the most serious sex offenders.
Attorney General Cuomo said, “This is an evolution of Megan’s Law.”
The law still must be approved by both Houses of the Legislature and Governor Eliot L. Spitzer.
When Council member Ward first put forth this thoughts years ago he didn’t have much support, but of late Council member Schratz has help aid this cause.
Tainted Drugs Tied to Maker of Abortion Pill
If we didn’t learn our lesson from all of the recalls of goods coming from China, this should put the icing on the cake. The Chinese have done irreparable damage to their own people by administering tainted drugs to patients. The devestating results have led to peopled being paralyzed or otherwise harmed.
“Chinese drug regulators have accused the manufacturer of the tainted drugs of a cover-up and have closed the factory that produced them. In December, China’s Food and Drug Administration said that the Shanghai police had begun a criminal investigation and that two officials, including the head of the plant, had been detained.”
“The drug maker, Shanghai Hualian, is the sole supplier to the United States of the abortion pill, mifepristone, known as RU-486. It is made at a factory different from the one that produced the tainted cancer drugs, about an hour’s drive away.”
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Battle Concussions Tied to Stress Disorder
Many of our military men and women suffer mild head injuries which some experts are thinking may be causing a multitude of neurological deficiencies. A recent study by the military is the first effort to determine the effect of such head injuries.
“About one in six combat troops returning from Iraq have suffered at least one concussion in the war, injuries that, while temporary, could heighten their risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers are reporting.”
“The study, in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the military’s first large-scale effort to gauge the effect of mild head injuries — concussions, many of them from roadside blasts — that some experts worry may be causing a host of undiagnosed neurological deficiencies.”
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Lilly Considers $1 Billion Fine to Settle Case
A fine could settle a civil and criminal investigation into Eli Lilly’s marketing of an antipsychotic drug. Federal prosecutors are discussing a settlement of a civil and criminal investigation into the company’s marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa.
“Zyprexa has serious side effects and is approved only to treat people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. But documents from Eli Lilly show that from 2000 to 2003 the company encouraged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to people with age-related dementia, as well as people with mild bipolar disorder who had previously had a diagnosis of depression.”
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Letter To The Editor: Goliath-ville
The developer’s attempt to circumvent the super-majority vote on the Maple Road property is both unsavory and revealing. It demonstrates the developer’s willingness to ignore the will of the people and continue to push their plan of trying to fit a behemoth square block into a round hole.
The Super-majority Law is a state law designed to protect existing property owners from a harmful, intrusive or improper rezoning request made for properties adjacent to their own.
When a developer says: “We have a multitude of ways to defeat super-majority,” it becomes clear, a developer’s sole interest is profit. Neighborhoods be damned.
Not speaking up against this latest gimmick is supporting the circumvention of a state law to allow a developer to override the will of the people, the rights of existing property owners, and our town’s own comprehensive plan.
This would be a dangerous and tragic precedent for all residents of Amherst…and New York State.
Judy Ferraro
The Fairways Group
Tom Ketchum New Amherst Town Engineer
10:30 AM 1/30/08—- Breaking News for Amherst : Tom Ketchum, Amherst longtime Building Department Head was given the dual position today by Supervisor Mohan to be the Town Engineer replacing Jeff Burroughs until the selection and approval of a new Town Enginering.
Should ‘Goliath-ville’ Be Allowed?
Should Goliath-ville be permitted on the Amherst Gun Club Property?
A real-life tale of might against right.
In 2007, a well-financed Goliath proposed to build Goliath-ville on the former Gun Club property on Maple Road, but Goliath needed the Amherst Town Board to rezone the property to have its wish granted. Goliath claimed, and still claims, that Goliath-ville is a mixed-use project consistent with the Town’s Comprehensive Plan and having no adverse impacts.
The Neighborhood on the south side of Maple Road is the “David” in this saga. Neighborhood-David says that Goliath-ville is not really a mixed-use project but a commercial giant composed of high-density housing attached to a 275,000-square-foot commercial project. The Neighborhood says that the Gun Club property is not one of Amherst’s Comprehensive Plan’s 17 possible mixed-use sites surrounding the UB north campus and that Goliath-ville is not consistent with that Plan. Armed with a slingshot loaded with a supermajority rock, the Neighborhood seemed poised to slay Goliath-ville. But, alas, this is a 21st century tale and Goliath’s weapons are plentiful and powerful. Goliath has snatched the supermajority rock from the Neighborhood’s slingshot with a revised Goliath-ville plan. The revised plan contains a 100-foot green-space perimeter to insulate Goliath-ville from Neighborhood-David. Goliath’s revised plan may make Goliath the only adjacent neighbor who can petition for a supermajority vote to object to Goliath-ville. How very unfortunate! Goliath’s revised plan demonstrates that its rezoning request will rise or fall, not on the merits of its rezoning claims, but on whether it commands a 4-vote majority on the Amherst Town Board to approve Goliath-ville’s rezoning. The political landscape, with Neighborhood-David standing with a slingshot empty of the supermajority, now focuses on the WHO of the Amherst Town Board. WHO stands with the Comprehensive Plan and the Neighborhood?
Council members Daniel Ward and Deborah Bruch Bucki have demonstrated their intent to stand with the Neighborhood. Residents have always been able to rely on Council member Ward to side with neighborhoods in battles against negative-impact commercial development. Similarly, Councilwoman Bucki has voted consistently with neighbors on projects inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan.
Councilwoman Shelly Schratz and Supervisor Satish Mohan appear to be carrying two of Goliath’s re-zoning votes. The Neighborhood knows that Schratz and Mohan appear to want Goliath-ville on the Gun Club property in spite of Goliath’s meritless claims. It remains to be seen whether an ethics opinion will prevent Supervisor Mohan from casting a vote on the rezoning request.
Neighborhood-David’s fate may rest with the three new Board members. Councilman Barry Weinstein seems unlikely to side with the Neighborhood. Councilman Weinstein might vote “no” to the Goliath-ville rezoning request because it is inconsistent with Comprehensive Plan. Dr. Weinstein has made it clear if Benderson doesn’t clean the lead contamination to the EPA resdential standard and there is a danger to the health of the resisdent his vote will be a solid NO.
Remaining are new Council members, Mark Manna, a Democrat, and Guy Marlette, a Republican. Both had 2007 campaign material touting their concern for Amherst’s homeowners and neighborhoods, yet but both seem to be “weighing” the Goliath’s claims about Goliath-ville rezoning. Do Manna and Marlette recognize the meritlessness of Goliath’s rezoning request? Will they acknowledge the reality that if Goliath-ville is permitted on the Gun Club property, the Neighborhood’s home values will plummet and the quality of life for the Neighborhood’s residents will be diminished?
If campaign promises are to be believed, Manna and Marlette will vote “no” to the rezoning. Ah, but there’s the rub; those were campaign promises to get elected! The real question is: Will Manna and Marlette stand for might or right?
Dissident’s Arrest Hints at Olympic Crackdown
There are less than 200 days until the opening of the 2008 Olympic games and China is working diligently to clean up their country. Clean up the dissidents that is. They are not allowing any of their citizens to openly criticize the government. “Troublemakers” are randomly arrested and ’shut up’ without going through established procedures. Wouldn’t it send a strong message to the Chinese government that the world will not accept denying people of decent Human Rights by refusing to participate in the games in such a country?
For human rights advocates and Chinese dissidents, Mr. Hu’s detention (a vocal dissident) is the most telling example of what they describe as a broadening crackdown on dissent as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. In recent months, several dissidents have been jailed, including a former factory worker in northeastern China who collected 10,000 signatures after posting an online petition titled “We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics.”
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Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City’s Racial Tension
It’s like a trip down memory lane, only it’s not a good time had by all. The year is not 1968, it’s 2008. It’s not Montgomery Alabama, it’s Lima, Ohio. Other than that the scenario is frighteningly similar.
“Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them. They say the shooting of (Tarika) Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared.”
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BREAKING NEWS: Amherst Town Engineer Resigns
Amherst Town Engineer Jeff Burroughs resigned today, Monday 1/28/08.
In January 2008 Dr. Mohan didn’t reappoint Mr. Burroughs to be Town Engineer. Mr. Burroughs decided to find a new position rather than live in a holding pattern waiting for Dr. Mohan to make a decision. He will be officially on the job for ten more business days.
