Around Amherst: Citizen involvement in town budget likely to be put off — COVID Staff Writer By SCOTT MERZBACH AMHERST — An initiative embedded in the Amherst charter to involve residents in town government by offering them a chance to propose various programs and projects annually is unlikely to get off the ground this year. A commission preparing a final report for June 1 recently informed Town Manager Paul Bockelman that the COVID-19 pandemic makes such a venture — known as participatory budgeting — challenging to launch. The charter requires that a commission propose “a measure to adopt participatory budgeting or other similar method of resident participation in the budgeting process of Amherst.”