From the Amherst BulletinO'Connor on the case - Activist keeps eye on town affairs
By Mary Carey Staff Writer
Published on March 24, 2006
By Mary Carey Staff Writer
Published on March 24, 2006
Editor's note: In Amherst, it isn't just the high-profile officials who influence town politics. This is the first in an occasional series about other Amherst residents who help shape government decisions.
A tall, thin man with voluminous white hair and a Lincoln-style beard was arguing a point at Town Meeting one night in November, but the moderator kept trying to cut him off.
To an unseasoned observer of town government, it likely would have been a puzzling scene.
The Town Meeting member was making an exceedingly fine - even obscure - point, hinging on a side issue to a relatively uncontroversial question.
But anyone with a passing familiarity with town government would have been unsurprised at the level of specificity and the obvious acquaintance with the history and facts of the matter and the articulate way the member, Vincent O'Connor, was making his case.
A longtime Town Meeting member and 32-year resident of Amherst, O'Connor is arguably the most high-profile of Amherst's 240-member Representative Town Meeting.
Although he has never served on any of the town government's major boards, the Finance Committee, Select and Planning boards, he has been an active participant in many of the significant sessions at which the town's policies are determined.
O'Connor has become more than just a fixture at meetings, he has become a major factor in the decision-making process, prompting some people in Amherst to dub him the 'sixth Select Board member.'
'I think Vincent is great,' said Select Board member Robie Hubley. 'I listen to a real lot of what he says and then I judge it from the position I'm in.'
Hubley noted that O'Connor can be single-minded, and 'his agenda is so intense.' And there are times, he said, when O'Connor's agenda doesn't line up with the Select Board's.
'He gets down on you if you haven't done what he has suggested this week, even though what he suggests one week usually takes months to get done,' said Hubley.
'He seems to be very involved in pretty much every aspect of Amherst town government for someone who is not an elected official,' said Baer Tierkel, a Town Meeting member who is relatively new to Amherst. 'It seems he's having a very large impact on policy.'
A private person
The seemingly indefatigable O'Connor is something of an enigma.
A native Californian, O'Connor, 64, refused to be interviewed for this story. He said he is a private person and wants to keep the focus on the issues. The Amherst street list states community organizer as his employment.
He is mentioned in a December 1967 letter to The New York Review of Books written by Richard Flack, a University of Chicago sociology professor, who commends O'Connor for his 'unique form of draft resistance,' in choosing to face jail rather than accept the alternative service assignment given to him as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.
O'Connor, 'who happens to be the son of a conservative San Francisco Superior Court judge was working in Arkansas as a civil rights organizer,' when he was inducted, Flack wrote.
'He has decided to face jail, even though he could have avoided the issue by accepting his status as a conscientious objector. His case offers a dramatic opportunity for publicizing the totalitarian character of conscription and its effects on the entire fabric of American life,' Flack wrote.
O'Connor served 14 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terminal Island, Calif, a medium-security prison.
Making an impact
O'Connor, this year alone, has brought easily over a dozen issues to the Select Board's attention - from traffic problems he has noted near Puffer's Pond to his criticism of the Community Preservation Act Committee.
Self-identified as a lifelong tenant, O'Connor has argued that the town boards are dominated by property owners, who, he says, have different priorities than renters.
That night at Town Meeting, O'Connor was arguing that members should not approve spending $65,000 requested by the Comprehensive Planning Committee to develop a 'master plan' for Amherst, a document required by the state. Before he could finish making his point, though, Moderator Harrison Gregg gaveled him down.
But O'Connor has often been persuasive at Town Meeting, particularly among a core group of 70 or so members referred to by some as 'the Vince crowd.' Some of them can be seen consulting during the night with him in the seat he always takes near the back of the Amherst Regional Middle School Auditorium where Town Meeting is held.
In June, he led a contingent of members who opposed spending $685,000 over 10 years to renovate athletic fields off Potwine Lane. They forced $12,000 referendum question on the subject, on which Town Meeting had already voted five times.
Paul Bobrowski, the Planning Board chairman, has said that the town's Planning Department has had to do many hours of work as a result of O'Connor's numerous suggestions - some of which have proved to be impractical. One of them was a plan to designate an agricultural district in town and create a no-build zone around it.
Landowners took the town to court over a flood prone conservancy zoning article promoted by O'Connor and approved by Town Meeting several years ago, which would up costing Amherst over $100,000 in lawyer's fees before the town ultimately lost. Amherst taxpayers could end up paying another $1 million or more to compensate the landowners for their legal costs, if the town loses it appeal.
When former Select Board members Carl Seppala and Eva Schiffer were on the board, two years ago, they voted unsuccessfully against appointing O'Connor to the Public Works Committee, saying he could be difficult to work with.
The current Select Board has proved to be more responsive to O'Connor's suggestions and advice. Members directed the DPW to find a solution to the traffic problems near Puffer's Pond. A few weeks after he criticized the Community Preservation Act Committee, the Select Board appointed him a member.
Hubley has heard O'Connor described as the unofficial sixth member of the board. It doesn't bother him.
'The new Select Board is dedicated to more openness in government. We listen to everybody more than anybody did before,' Hubley said.
As for the claim that O'Connor is the board's sixth member, Hubley said: 'Nobody tells us how to vote.'
Mary Carey can be reached at mcarey@gazettenet.com.
A tall, thin man with voluminous white hair and a Lincoln-style beard was arguing a point at Town Meeting one night in November, but the moderator kept trying to cut him off.
To an unseasoned observer of town government, it likely would have been a puzzling scene.
The Town Meeting member was making an exceedingly fine - even obscure - point, hinging on a side issue to a relatively uncontroversial question.
But anyone with a passing familiarity with town government would have been unsurprised at the level of specificity and the obvious acquaintance with the history and facts of the matter and the articulate way the member, Vincent O'Connor, was making his case.
A longtime Town Meeting member and 32-year resident of Amherst, O'Connor is arguably the most high-profile of Amherst's 240-member Representative Town Meeting.
Although he has never served on any of the town government's major boards, the Finance Committee, Select and Planning boards, he has been an active participant in many of the significant sessions at which the town's policies are determined.
O'Connor has become more than just a fixture at meetings, he has become a major factor in the decision-making process, prompting some people in Amherst to dub him the 'sixth Select Board member.'
'I think Vincent is great,' said Select Board member Robie Hubley. 'I listen to a real lot of what he says and then I judge it from the position I'm in.'
Hubley noted that O'Connor can be single-minded, and 'his agenda is so intense.' And there are times, he said, when O'Connor's agenda doesn't line up with the Select Board's.
'He gets down on you if you haven't done what he has suggested this week, even though what he suggests one week usually takes months to get done,' said Hubley.
'He seems to be very involved in pretty much every aspect of Amherst town government for someone who is not an elected official,' said Baer Tierkel, a Town Meeting member who is relatively new to Amherst. 'It seems he's having a very large impact on policy.'
A private person
The seemingly indefatigable O'Connor is something of an enigma.
A native Californian, O'Connor, 64, refused to be interviewed for this story. He said he is a private person and wants to keep the focus on the issues. The Amherst street list states community organizer as his employment.
He is mentioned in a December 1967 letter to The New York Review of Books written by Richard Flack, a University of Chicago sociology professor, who commends O'Connor for his 'unique form of draft resistance,' in choosing to face jail rather than accept the alternative service assignment given to him as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.
O'Connor, 'who happens to be the son of a conservative San Francisco Superior Court judge was working in Arkansas as a civil rights organizer,' when he was inducted, Flack wrote.
'He has decided to face jail, even though he could have avoided the issue by accepting his status as a conscientious objector. His case offers a dramatic opportunity for publicizing the totalitarian character of conscription and its effects on the entire fabric of American life,' Flack wrote.
O'Connor served 14 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terminal Island, Calif, a medium-security prison.
Making an impact
O'Connor, this year alone, has brought easily over a dozen issues to the Select Board's attention - from traffic problems he has noted near Puffer's Pond to his criticism of the Community Preservation Act Committee.
Self-identified as a lifelong tenant, O'Connor has argued that the town boards are dominated by property owners, who, he says, have different priorities than renters.
That night at Town Meeting, O'Connor was arguing that members should not approve spending $65,000 requested by the Comprehensive Planning Committee to develop a 'master plan' for Amherst, a document required by the state. Before he could finish making his point, though, Moderator Harrison Gregg gaveled him down.
But O'Connor has often been persuasive at Town Meeting, particularly among a core group of 70 or so members referred to by some as 'the Vince crowd.' Some of them can be seen consulting during the night with him in the seat he always takes near the back of the Amherst Regional Middle School Auditorium where Town Meeting is held.
In June, he led a contingent of members who opposed spending $685,000 over 10 years to renovate athletic fields off Potwine Lane. They forced $12,000 referendum question on the subject, on which Town Meeting had already voted five times.
Paul Bobrowski, the Planning Board chairman, has said that the town's Planning Department has had to do many hours of work as a result of O'Connor's numerous suggestions - some of which have proved to be impractical. One of them was a plan to designate an agricultural district in town and create a no-build zone around it.
Landowners took the town to court over a flood prone conservancy zoning article promoted by O'Connor and approved by Town Meeting several years ago, which would up costing Amherst over $100,000 in lawyer's fees before the town ultimately lost. Amherst taxpayers could end up paying another $1 million or more to compensate the landowners for their legal costs, if the town loses it appeal.
When former Select Board members Carl Seppala and Eva Schiffer were on the board, two years ago, they voted unsuccessfully against appointing O'Connor to the Public Works Committee, saying he could be difficult to work with.
The current Select Board has proved to be more responsive to O'Connor's suggestions and advice. Members directed the DPW to find a solution to the traffic problems near Puffer's Pond. A few weeks after he criticized the Community Preservation Act Committee, the Select Board appointed him a member.
Hubley has heard O'Connor described as the unofficial sixth member of the board. It doesn't bother him.
'The new Select Board is dedicated to more openness in government. We listen to everybody more than anybody did before,' Hubley said.
As for the claim that O'Connor is the board's sixth member, Hubley said: 'Nobody tells us how to vote.'
Mary Carey can be reached at mcarey@gazettenet.com.
