The crusty Gazette must have felt guilty over their coverage of the Grinch Amherst Town Manager’s Select board “report” Monday night on the odious Christmas tree tax: the Springfield Republican splashed their version (with clever comparisons to “It’s a Wonderful Life”) on Page One above the fold no less and the Gazette had a rather perfunctory bland retelling buried inside the second section.
But this morning’s Gazette follows up on the sad story and somewhat contradicts a previous article (by veteran reporter/editor Nick Grabbe) that this entire episode would be a “windfall” for the scouts because all the publicity stimulated donations, and individual tree buyers paying the extra dollar.
Scoutmaster Lyle Denit points out they usually sold out anyway and their stock was usually limited to 800 trees. But this year the Sunday snowstorm killed sales for that important day and—even worse—prevented the scouts from going in the woods and cutting down the final 100 trees to sell to last minute shoppers.
So even with the DPW donation and businessmen Roberts and Shumway giving the town its pound of flesh the scouts will make about the same $8,000 net profit as last year. Seems like an awful lot of work over the course of a very cold month for $8,000.
Ron Chimelis had a great column in today's Republican about steroid abuse from coddled athletes. Our Town Manager could use his sage PR advice (not that Shaffer does steroids, but he could stand to pump a little iron):
I thinks apologies count. Not for full exoneration, but as a necessary step toward perspective and closure.
Saying "I was wrong, and I'm sorry," is worth more now than ever, if only because hardly anybody does.
Let’s hope (sorry to mix movie metaphors) the Grinch has a Christmas nightmare or two over the next week and changes his mind.
