(Editor's note: Call The Bee at 632-0390 and record a one-minute comment on our Bee Heard line. It gives readers an opportunity to comment quickly and candidly on items of local or regional interest. Callers do not have to identify themselves and no callers' names will be used. In the interest of fairness and good taste, The Bee will not publish derogatory or insulting comments. All comments are by our readers and are subject to editing.

.As I toured the Amherst Museum I saw the Amherst Garden Club hard at work on the museum garden. These gardeners were spending a beautiful summer day beautifying the grounds. I'm sure all visitors appreciate and admire this wonderful contribution. thank you Amherst Garden Club.

. I am more disgusted than I can say about the way things are going in Amherst. We moved here because of the excellent schools and services. Now we have a supervisor and a town board member that wants to decimate the services. Mr. Mohan sure has taken his beautiful Amherst, as he called it in his campaign materials, and made a mess of it.

.Satish Mohan should be truthful with the taxpayers of the Town of Amherst. He should let them know that a big reason why there is a problem with respect to the town expenditure on health care insurance for employees is because the town failed to get the last two out of five town unions to convert to a single health care coverage carrier. Instead, Mohan chose to go to the media and proclaim that he was out to get major concessions from the union. Then he could have moved on next year and made further negotiations. As it stands now, the unions are simply to wait him out and the health care coverage

costs are going to remain high during his entire tenure. Try telling the taxpayers the truth about the alleged deficit.

.The Town engineers claimed that all streets were cleaned after the really hard rain two weeks ago? Well, our street wasn't. It's getting pretty aggravating.

.I am so tired of people saying "Oh Satish Mohan. He's taking away all of our services. He's hurting the poor town employees." One person just said in this most recent edition how sorry they felt for town employees having to worry about their jobs. Wake up! All of us have to worry about our jobs. All of us don't have those pensions. All of us don't have those benefits. All of us don't make that pay. Maybe that person, since he isn't a town employee, ought to start thinking about those of us, including the other taxpayers, whose money is going down the tube.

.For the umpteenth time, it looks like Satish Mohan is wrong again, with respect to his analysis of town finances. How anyone could expect him to be able to manage and project what the police department may need is beyond imagination. He should learn the business of government before he continues to shoot from the hip and destroys this town.

.Regarding the recent passage of an amendment by the Amherst Town Board regarding the installation of four larger seats for people who are larger in order to accommodate them: I think we are opening ourselves up to discriminatory lawsuits here. Perhaps a better idea on this would be would to put in a bench perhaps maybe 6 or 8 seats wide and putting the bench all the way across and that way nobody will be discriminated against.

.Of course we need more police. Satish Mohan is crazy not to have more police. You just need to read the police blotter and see what our police have to do. Flower pots are overturned, plants are pulled up. Instead of spending money on more police, the people should be a little more circumspect in why they call the police. Yeah, it might be vandalism. Yeah, your car alarm might go off. But it certainly would not necessitate a police call. So let's be smart. Call the police when we really need them, and we can all save some money.

.All this talk of hiring three new police officers is off-base. We don't need three new police officers. Just look behind police headquarters on Saturdays and Sundays and 75 percent of the cars are not in service. What we need are more foot patrols.

.I just want to express my appreciation for the Town of Amherst keeping the North Forest pool open an extra week. It means a lot to us. Thanks.

.Why does Satish Mohan keep avoiding the issue of the sinking homes when that was one of his campaign promises, as was the campaign promise that he would lower taxes, when he didn't even know the fiscal situation of the Town? I feel that people in this town need to read between the lines when voting for politicians and not be so naive.

.I want to know when the Town of Amherst is going to stop dragging its heels with the rat problem. I have called the County of Erie as part of a directive and no one has come out. I have contacted the Town many times. Someone finally came out and claimed that yes, there is a problem, but until my neighbor decides to clean up his mess, the problem will continue. Therefore, I was told contact the refuse department. I contacted the refuse department and when they finally came out they said, "Yep, there's a problem. But that's not garbage, that's just stuff that your neighbor has laying there plus the grass. You have to call buildings and grounds." In the

meantime, summer has been destroyed by my neighbors who continue to throw debris in their backyard and not mow their back lawn. We have had rats all summer long and nobody seems to care. In the meantime, I've had damage done to my home.

.Why does the Town continue to have footraces through the Village of Williamsville streets when there are other alternatives? The same streets all the time. We on the north side of Main Street have our streets blocked both ways without warning. We come home and can't get down the street. There are miles of open bike paths around UB and north of them. Use them. It is much safer, it's without traffic interruptions. Why do we have these paths and continue to have people running in the s t re e t s ?

.Every contractor doing business in Amherst knows he or she has to obtain a building permit for any jobs being performed. Through their own admission, two men performed several projects without obtaining such permits. They openly broke the law. I feel they should be fined and banned from doing business in Amherst for three years.

.I first want to say I don't live on Lakewood Drive in Snyder. I recently had occasion to walk sidewalks on Lakewood Drive and the Town had marked many sections of the sidewalk that must be repaired. I'm aware that the sidewalks must be safe. But let's not get ridiculous. Many sections were a half an inch out of level. Other sections out of level on a small portion of a section. Obviously, if there is a rise of a few inches it should be leveled. But let's not put the Town property owners through an unneeded expense. It's not warranted.

.Satish Mohan could have very easily saved the apparent $1.5 million under budgeting in utilities and health care insurance for Town employees by first, implementing the cost saving measures that the Town engineer (that Mohan

let go) was about to implement before Mohan inexplicably and inexcusably fired that Town engineer. Secondly, Mohan blew it when instead of having the last two unions come to the table and move to single health care coverage, he instead went to the media and tried to negotiate unattainable concessions when the unions were prepared to move to the single health care coverage, which now they are not now willing to do because Mohan has demanded much, much more.

.Residents of the Windermere Boulevard Princeton Capen area need to understand that grocery carts need remain on the property of the grocery store to which they belong. Not only do they cost the store hundreds of dollars to replace or repair, but by leaving them in the streets or in the yards or medians, you are defacing the neighborhood. Retailers also have a responsibility and need to make an extra effort to prevent the shopping carts from leaving their premises in the first place.

.Would the two or three psychopaths who call the Bee Heard column every week please stop that and focus their attention on the adverse impact this micro management is having on the quality of life programs that do not receive the level of publicity that the public safety and the police department is getting? I would ask them to please take a look at Meals on Wheels program, the Senior Center budget, the rodent control program, the recycling program, the compost facility and the broad aspect of parks development and maintenance programs, for examples. If Satish Mohan wants to save money, he needs to tell me which and how much of each, quality of life program he wants to cut. His broad brush micro-managing of the routine budgetary expenditures is slowing bringing the Town to a crawl and has a potential to cost more in bills not paid and contracts not approved.