Stephanie O'Keeffe - Amherst Select Board - Recent Comments

Tom G comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-30T11:56:18-05:00

"I expect to be caught up on the meeting summaries by the September 14th meeting, and I hope to be able to stay current after that. If not, I may try your suggestion Tom - thanks."

I apologize for not knowing you were still doing SB meeting summaries and that your tweets are already on your website.

To me, there is great value in having an official written chronical of the meeting but if you get delayed in publishing them, having a post identified by the meeting date here still provides the forum for feedback and discussion. Also, thanks for the link to the "Packet Archive" page. I see the materials are being organized in a way that makes them easy to find.

The most recent meeting minutes on the town website are March 9. I know how that keeping the minutes is an important and yet time-consuming task and may not be the best use of time for policymakers, especially elected officials who are working as essentially volunteers.

The select board might consider having a suitable town employee or intern or paid position draft a first draft of the minutes within a few days of the meeting, and have the chair or Select Board secretary edit as appropriate for presentation to the rest of the committee for approval.

If not this model than some model in which the board controls approval of the minutes and delegates the time-consuming component of the process. Perhaps a government major at Umass, nominated by the head of the department, would make a good intern.

Thank you for all you do. Yours is not an easy job. I think you are very good at it.

Stephanie O'Keeffe comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-30T09:53:05-05:00

I expect to be caught up on the meeting summaries by the September 14th meeting, and I hope to be able to stay current after that. If not, I may try your suggestion Tom - thanks.

Per the widget: not sure what you mean. My tweets are already on the site, at the bottom of the home page.

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-30T08:01:37-05:00

I guess my subtle point Tom is that under our current wishy-washy "nobody really in charge" form of government, Stephanie can do more good with her blog than being chair of the Select Board.

Tom G comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-29T18:08:45-05:00

I miss Stephanie's blog posts but I understand her choice to spend the time working the issues not blogging about them.

What is missing (and unnecessarily so in my opinion) is the dialogue that use to occur in the comment section here at www.stephanieokeefe.com about the issues and SB meetings.

I'd like to suggest the dialogue could exist again here with minimal effort. If Stephanie were willing to create a new post for each meeting, and maybe a link to the meeting materials on the amherst.gov website, we could provide comments in the context of that meeting and other timely issues. Furthermore, Stephanie could choose to engage or not engage in that conversation.

I follow Steph's tweets and I appreciate them but tweeting is not a reasonable approximation of this forum. So how about it?

By the way Steph, you can get a widget to display your tweets on your website.

So how about it?

find 140 characters sufficient to respond responsably an have a discussion.

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-29T15:42:37-05:00

Good point (s). I was kind of hoping the Governor would keep the state flags down (which of course include all the town flags) for a longer period of time to honor Senator Kennedy (an x-President gets 30 days for instance) rather than only till Sunday at dusk.

That way, on Monday night Stephanie or any other SB member could have requested the 29 flags go up in town center to commemorate/mourn Senator Kennedy. And if that period of mourning should happen to include 9/11...

I mean it is a tad odd that the DPW will put the flags up for Labor Day, September 7'th and then hurry to get them down the following day September 8'th so that they are not--God forbid!--visible on September 11.

YA comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-29T14:37:52-05:00

Of course, the commemorative flags are already displayed on 6/14 (and for a few days thereafter).
As a practical matter, perhaps these flags could stay up between Labor Day and 9/11 each year, i.e.
9/11 would be the day they come down, perhaps in the late morning after the fire department ceremony?

YA comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-29T14:12:08-05:00

While I too would fly the commemorative flags on 9/11 (as well as on Flag Day, 6/14), I also respect that there is a strong difference of opinion in town - and on the Select Board - about this issue. So I find it admirable that Stephanie has grasped this distinction, and this deepens my respect for her (even if she and I don't always agree ;-).

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-29T12:51:55-05:00

Your Twitter-like shorthand is confusing. Would you care to elaborate?

YA comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-28T18:31:21-05:00

Admirable....

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-26T21:26:30-05:00

Keep telling yourself that, eventually you may convince your true believers.

On some things you do not "compromise"--unless of course, you are a politician.

Stephanie O'Keeffe comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-26T15:35:53-05:00

At that meeting, I said that I had also been considering a compromise. Had Gerry not offered his, I would have suggested one. If you were to go back and watch that video, I think you would agree that I made my position very clear, and I don't think that I left any doubt as to how I would expect to vote if this issue were to come back again. I said that I believe a compromise was the best way to deal with this, that I didn't think it was an issue for which the outcome should be politicized by making it dependent on the attendance at a meeting or the make up of the board. Etc.

I'm not sure how you could have come away from last year's meeting with a different impression.

The Select Board had a good discussion about this last year, and I felt good about the outcome. I still do.

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-26T12:05:19-05:00

Perhaps I should have used a question mark at the end of my last sentence???

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-26T07:40:47-05:00

Yeah, how could I forget that Weiss came up with the Solomon-like 3 year plan but was not at the meeting? But obviously if present, he would have supported his own motion and the vote would have been 3-1 (with Anne Awad resigned and living in South Hadley.)

I even forgot Robert Phillips—you know Aaron Hayden’s Campaign Manager—was also there and spoke in favor of flying the flags every year. Hopefully he will remind rookie Selectman Hayden about that over the next day or two.

And according to your own notes: “Ms. O'Keeffe said that she supported Mr. Weiss' proposal as a fair compromise, because while she supported flying the flags each year, the community is not united on the issue”

That is of course my “assumption”. That if last year the motion was to add 9/11 to the permanent short list of days the flags can fly you would have voted yes (as would Alisa).

Stephanie O'Keeffe comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-25T23:17:41-05:00

Your facts and your assumptions are mistaken. The relevant part of last year's minutes is here.

Larry Kelley comments on "Tweet, tweet"

2009-08-25T22:50:33-05:00

Oh, that's SPIN and you (a former auto industry flak) know it.

The 3-1 (with 1 member MIA) "decision" you made last year was a wimp out, last-minute, better-than-nothing "compromise" designed to avoid the gathering storm of deserved negative publicity.

You can't honestly tell me that you yourself think it's perfectly okay to restrict the 29 commemorative flags to flying in the downtown but once every three years on 9/11. Get real. Try to maintain your core.