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Falls car burglary spree continues downtown

January 1, 2013, 4:36 pm
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NIAGARA FALLS – Car burglars made their return to the downtown area on New Year’s Eve, breaking into multiple vehicles in at least three different locations, city police said.

In each instance, a front passenger side window was smashed out to permit entry to the vehicle, according to reports. Items taken included global positioning systems and other electronics, car stereos, personal effects and cash. In all, well over $1,000 worth of property was reported stolen.

Police said that between 5 p.m. Monday and 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, cars were broken into in parking lots at First and Niagara streets, at the Days Inn motel on Main Street, and in the 400 blocks of Third and Main streets. The victims were from Lockport, Buffalo, Penfield, Belmont and New Jersey, police said.

Police have added patrols downtown in recent months after a spate of such incidents since summertime. Many of the break-ins have targeted tourists and other visitors to the downtown area.

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Pennsylvania felon stopped at Falls border with shotgun, stun guns

January 1, 2013, 6:00 pm
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NIAGARA FALLS – A Pennsylvania woman was arrested, her 9-year-old son placed into foster care and three family pets seized by the SPCA of Niagara after several weapons, including a shotgun and two electric stun-guns, were found in her truck Tuesday morning at the Rainbow Bridge.

Police said that Eva M. Lally, 32, of Midland, Pa., tried to enter Canada via the Rainbow Bridge about 3 a.m. New Year’s Day, and was pulled over by Canadian Border Services for a secondary inspection. At that point, a shotgun and crossbow were located behind a seat in the trunk, and the two stun guns were found inside luggage in the bed area of the truck, police reported.

The vehicle had switched plates, and Lally’s driver’s license had expired four years ago, investigators said.

Upon checking Lally’s police record, it was learned that she has been arrested numerous times and had three previous felony convictions, making it illegal for her to possess the shotgun, police said. The two stun guns were manufactured to resemble ordinary items – one a flashlight and the other a cellular telephone, police said – but only one was functional.

Police did not say why Lally said she was carrying the weapons or was headed into Canada.

Officers asked Lally if she wanted to arrange for a family member of take custody of her son, but she declined and gave permission for police to place the child into temporary foster care, according to a police report. The local SPCA also was contacted to take custody of a dog and two rodents which had been traveling with Lally.

Lally was charged with two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, as well as unlicensed operation. She faces a hearing in City Court this morning.



email: niagaranews@buffnews.com
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Brandon takes reins for 'new era'

January 1, 2013, 7:53 pm
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Russ Brandon is in charge. He now has the final say on all the Buffalo Bills' decisions.

That's the bottom line from Tuesday's news conference announcing that Brandon has added the title of president to his chief executive officer duties. Brandon gets even more power.

Buddy Nix is staying as general manager. For how long? Brandon and Nix were vague on the subject. Nix made it clear that he views Assistant General Manager Doug Whaley as the man who will succeed him.

Nix previously reported directly to owner Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Now he reports to Brandon, whose authority expands fully over the football department, as well as the business department.

Nix ran the search for a head coach in 2010 and handled the interviews. Now Brandon is overseeing the search. Brandon, Nix, Whaley and Jim Overdorf, the team's top negotiator, will conduct the interviews with candidates to replace fired head coach Chan Gailey.

That process already hit the road Tuesday afternoon. Brandon said he, Nix, Whaley and Overdorf were heading on a private plane to Arizona. Recently fired Arizona head coach Ken Whisenhunt, Cardinals defensive coordinator Ray Horton and ex-Cardinals offensive line coach Russ Grimm are expected to be interviewed by the Bills.

Brandon becomes only the second person other than Wilson to hold the title of president. Tom Donahoe was president from 2001 to 2005, but he had to clear all major decisions with Wilson. Brandon doesn't, in the wake of a Monday meeting in Detroit with the 94-year-old owner.

“He told me he was passing the torch to run this franchise in totality,” Brandon said. “He has granted me full authority to run this franchise with zero restrictions and zero limitations. Obviously, I'm honored and humbled in his confidence in me to lead this organization into a new era and provide a clear direction and winning pathway into the future,” Brandon said.

“I have granted him full autonomy to run the organization as he feels is best,” Wilson said in a statement released by the team. “These past 13 years have been very difficult on our fans, and we have not produced the type of winning team that they deserve. It has been frustrating for our organization and for me as well. We want our team to be one that our fans are proud of. I believe that Russ has the unique abilities to assemble and lead the talent we will need to get the job done.”

How much different will decisions be as a result of the fact that Wilson isn't approving them? Not much. Nix had pretty free rein. It's not like Wilson was overruling the GM on his evaluations of free agents.

It's just that a different man has final say, and Brandon has more authority to influence all decisions.

“I think it's going to make the organization a little more nimble, having the guy in the building who has that kind of power,” said Bills all-time great Steve Tasker. “Thumbs up or thumbs down. … There's going to be some times where it may make a difference on a player where you don't have to make a phone call or wait to hear back.”

Brandon, 45, joined the Bills in 1998 and has overseen remarkable off-the-field success in the last 15 years. The Bills had more sellouts in the first decade of the 2000s, when they never made the playoffs, than in the 1990s, when they were the second-winningest team in the National Football League. Their marketing of training camp is a model for the NFL. Their regionalization of the franchise to Rochester and Southern Ontario has been a great success.

Yet Brandon was candid about the plight of the franchise on the field. The Bills' 13-year playoff drought is the longest in the league.

“This is an organization with a proud tradition, but I will tell you that this brand has been tarnished,” Brandon said. “Its relevancy has been tarnished, and it's unacceptable because we just haven't won enough games.”

Brandon avoided offering platitudes on how wonderful everything will be at One Bills Drive from now on. “We've got to prove it,” he said, “and that's the bottom line.”

Brandon stressed that Nix remains the driving force behind player evaluations and acquisitions. “I will not be drafting people, I will not be making the final decision on a free agent,” Brandon said. “I will empower the general manager, Buddy Nix, to do that. Do I have final authority and say? Yes. But that's what Buddy Nix, the general manager, does.”

Nix is 73. Whaley, groomed in the Pittsburgh organization, is 40 and has a good reputation around the NFL.

There is some suspicion around the league the transition from Nix to Whaley could come as soon as later this year. Nix wouldn't be specific.

“He's a smart guy,” Nix said of Whaley. “He's the kind of character we want, and he's gotten better every day. The plan's the same. We want somebody that the transition's going to be smooth. He can make the next step.”

When? “I'll let you know when we announce that,” Nix said.

In the Bills' 2010 search for a head coach, Nix specified he wanted a man who had previous NFL head-coaching experience. Nix said it would not be a requirement this time.

“The percentages of being successful is hiring a guy that's done it,” Nix said. “But we're not going to limit that. We'll be open. Might be a college guy, might be a coordinator. We're just going to try and make sure we get the best guy.”

Meanwhile, Brandon said he would create an analytics department, a growing trend in the NFL. “We are going to create and establish a very robust football analytics operation that we layer into our entire operation moving forward,” Brandon said. “That's something that's very important to me and the future of the franchise.”

More teams are employing complex statistical analysis in game-day, draft and free-agency preparation. Examples: Analyzing completion percentages against multiple coverages; how often a draft prospect has been targeted in obvious passing situations; calculating the odds of going for it on fourth down; analyzing the rate of recovery from injuries based on specific therapies.

Teams are guarded about the information. New England was at the forefront of statistical analysis for more than a decade. Baltimore, Atlanta, Jacksonville and Tampa Bay are among those that have recently added an analytics department.



email: mgaughan@buffnews.com
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Buffalonian with Newtown roots reaches out with fundraiser

January 2, 2013, 3:58 am
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Like others, Beth Iszard Swift was sickened by the carnage committed in Newtown, Conn.

But unlike her fellow Buffalo residents, Swift knew that bucolic community firsthand: She grew up there, moving to Newtown from nearby Monroe at age 8 until she went off to college in 1978. And she later lived in Sandy Hook, a part of Newtown. A sister and her family still live in nearby Woodridge.

“I was just horrified. It was ungraspable,” said Swift, when she learned of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 26 people – 20 of them children – Dec. 14.

Dawn Hochsprung, the school principal killed by Adam Lanza, had previously been vice principal at the middle school attended by Swift’s niece.

In response to the terrible tragedy, Swift, a graduate of Newtown High School, her brother and sister have banded together with nearly 60 other Newtown public school graduates from around the world to raise funds for mental health counseling and other community needs.

“Like everything – like in the Colorado [movie theater] shooting and these other mass shootings – the world moves on. But for the people Newtown and Sandy Hook, it’s a tragedy that will always be with them,” Swift said.

“There were a lot of funds raised for memorials, which is great, but our mission at Newtown Alumni Fund is to make sure that our funding will help those survivors with counseling and any kind of recovery they may need, from students and teachers to first responders.”

Swift said she explored Newtown just last summer, revisiting old haunts.

“I drove around for a good 2½ hours, past our old house and my schools. I hadn’t done it in a long time. It was a really great place to grow up,” Swift said.

While the town’s layout remained the same, she said the town looked better, because its historic buildings – Newtown was incorporated 302 years ago – were being better maintained “architecturally and preservation-wise.”

Swift said the community – locals and expatriates – is determined to help Newtown get through this terrible ordeal.

“We’re saying, ‘We are Newtown.’ That is the catchphrase. People are sticking together, and doing what they can for people. It’s a lot like Buffalo in that sense.”

Funds raised by Newtown Alumni Fund are being channeled through the Newtown Rotary. To donate, go to newtownalumnifund.org, or make a check to Newtown Rotary Club, Sandy Hook School Fund, with Newtown Alumni Fund marked in the memo section, and mailed to Newtown Alumni Fund, P.O. Box 3217, Newtown, CT 06470.



email: msommer@buffnews.com
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Five-hour driver’s course to be offered Jan. 10

January 1, 2013, 10:31 pm
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The five-hour prelicensing course required before taking a road test for a state driver’s license will be offered from 4 to 9 p.m. Jan. 10 in Building 3, Room 3102, Erie Community College South Campus, S-4140 Southwestern Blvd., Orchard Park.

The cost is $36.

For registration information, call 851-1820 or go online to www.ecc.edu and then click on Workforce Development.
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AmeriCorps will swear in 46 new members

January 2, 2013, 4:32 am
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The Buffalo AmeriCorps program based in the Belle Center on the Lower West Side will have 46 new members sworn in at 11 a.m. Thursday in the center.

Volunteers for the service program have tutored schoolchildren, shoveled snow for seniors and people with physical disabilities, removed graffiti and worked in low-income neighborhoods. The term is for one year of service.

“Buffalo is fortunate to have a great number of service-oriented young men and women who are committed to making our city even more livable,” Mayor Byron W. Brown, who will conduct the swearing-in ceremony, said in a written statement.

“When they go into a school or neighborhood, they become part of the community.”
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Newfane Bank of America branch robbed

January 2, 2013, 10:47 am
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NEWFANE – A Bank of America branch at 2700 Main St. was robbed at midmorning Wednesday, prompting Niagara County Sheriff’s officials to put nearby schools on lockdown as a precaution, authorities said.

The robber was described as a light-skinned black male in his early 30s, wearing a black leather jacket, a black beanie-style hat, and glasses with tape over his eye and nose.

Sheriff’s officials said on their Facebook page that the lockdown of Newfane schools was a precaution and that there were no threats against the schools. Sheriff’s cars were patrolling near the schools.
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Lockport man pleads not guilty to attacking child

January 2, 2013, 10:55 am
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LOCKPORT – Bail was set at $1 million dollars today in Lockport City Court for a Monroe Street man accused of attempting to strangle a 7-year-old girl in his home on New Year’s Eve day.

David L. Alfonso, 28, pleaded not guily to charges of attempted second-degree murder, second-degree strangulation and second-degree assault. The prosecution had asked for bail to be set at a minimum of $500,000 and Lockport City Court Judge William Watson doubled the request, remanding Alfonso to Niagara County Jail. A preliminary hearing is set for Monday.

The girl, who lived in the home with Alfonso and her mother Cassandra Castro, 27, who was Alfonso’s girlfriend, is now recovering in Women and Children’s Hospital in Buffalo after the incident at 2 p.m. Monday.

“She is able to get some nourishment through the mouth and swallow some. Children’s Hospital said she is doing remarkably well,” said Lockport Detective Lt. Scott Seekins.

Seekins said the girl had throat, jaw, palette and teeth injuries, losing at least one baby tooth in the attack.

Casto told police that Alfonso tried to kill her daughter, choking her until she turned blue and then placed his hand in her mouth, injuring her tongue and teeth, as he tried to rip her jaw off. The mother said she used a butcher knife to protect her daughter. The girl reportedly was able to escape to her grandparent’s house a few blocks away on Church Street.

Police found Alfonso at an intersection near the house, bleeding and non-compliant and said they used force to take him into custody. He was treated at Eastern Niagara Hospital in Lockport and then released into police custody.

Seekins said the motive for the attack is under investigation.



email: nfischer@buffnews.com
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Crash closes Shawnee Road

January 2, 2013, 12:29 pm
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WHEATFIELD – No major injuries were reported in a two vehicle crash on Shawnee Road/Route 425 just before 3 p.m. today, but a diesel spill caused by the crash is stopping traffic as officials were forced to close down the road in both directions and reroute traffic.

Northbound and southbound traffic was halted on Shawnee Road, between Lockport Road and Route 31, at 2:40 p.m. and could be shut down for as long as six hours, according to officials.

At least one minor injury was reported, but no names or details of the crash have been reported. Niagara County Haz Mat teams were called to mop up the spill.
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Falls man admits leaving scene of fatal crash

January 2, 2013, 1:36 pm
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LOCKPORT – A Niagara Falls man accepted a plea bargain today in connection with a June 18 collision that killed a pedestrian and injured her son.

Francis A. Maikranz, 55, of Whitney Avenue, admitted to leaving the scene of a fatality and leaving the scene of a serious injury accident in return for a promise that he will be sentenced to no more than two to six years in state prison.

“That’s in return for giving up his right to a trial,” Deputy District Attorney Theodore A. Brenner said in court.

Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas agreed to Brenner’s sentencing recommendation. She will pass sentence March 6.

“I think we’re satisfied. He wouldn’t have gotten much more than that [if convicted at trial],” said Dan Davis, of Niagara Falls, grandfather of the victim, Nicole Rodriguez, 26.

Brenner said the sentences for the two felonies would have to run concurrently, so the longest Maikranz could have spent in prison was seven years.

Rodriguez and her son Christopher Pelfrey, now 8, were struck about 10 p.m. June 18 as they were crossing Hyde Park Boulevard near Jerauld Avenue in the Falls. Rodriguez died the next day in Erie County Medical Center. Her son was thrown about 50 feet by the impact and suffered internal injuries.

The boy is now living with Davis, his great-grandfather, and has returned to school, Davis said.

Maikranz wasn’t arrested until nine days after the collision. “I left the scene,” he said three times in court, but didn’t concede that he knew he had struck someone. He had told police he didn’t know that.

“Under the circumstances, he’s admitting that he should have known,” said defense attorney Dominic Saraceno of the county conflict defender’s office. “That evening he didn’t know, but once he saw it on the news that there had been an accident in that area, he should have reported it.”

Saraceno asserted that Maikranz was confused by initial police statements to the media that Rodriguez and her son were struck by a maroon car with a nylon cover on the front and broken headlights. He said Maikranz was driving a bright red convertible with no cover, and he had no broken headlights. He said broken glass at the scene didn’t come from Maikranz’ auto.

Despite that, “When he heard of a fatality in an area where he knew there was an accident, he should have reported it and let the police investigate it,” Saraceno said.

Maikranz is a colon cancer survivor but cannot properly digest food, causing him to steadily lose weight, his attorney said. He also is being treated for depression.

Maikranz has no prior criminal record. He said no when asked by police if he was drinking that night.

Saraceno said Rodriguez’ blood-alcohol content was measured at .09 percent, above the legal threshold for intoxication, and she also had cocaine metabolites in her system.

“It might have been determined that the accident was her fault,” Saraceno said.

“Fault isn’t an element in leaving the scene,” Brenner responded.

“He didn’t stop,” Davis said. “If you hit somebody and don’t stop, then you should pay the consequences.”



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com
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Second man pleads guilty in Falls gun case

January 4, 2013, 12:56 pm
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LOCKPORT – Michael S. Loverdi admitted Friday that he had a loaded handgun with him April 26 when he and another man unwittingly interrupted a Niagara Falls police drug raid on a Third Street apartment.

Loverdi, 20, of 20th Street in the Falls, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and could receive up to seven years in prison when he is sentencing March 28 by Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III.

Assistant District Attorney Peter M. Wydysh said Loverdi had a gun in his pocket and friend Michael D. Ramos, 19, of Pine Avenue, had one in his waistband when officers collared them after they knocked on the door of an apartment that police were searching for drugs.

Ramos pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to attempted second-degree burglary and attempted second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. The former charge stemmed from the theft of long guns and jewelry from a 19th Street home Aug. 27 or 28, 2011.

Ramos is to receive five years in prison when he returns before Murphy March 14.
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Shooting suspect arraigned on drug and gun charges

January 4, 2013, 12:58 pm
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LOCKPORT – A Niagara Falls man, who is charged with shooting at a passing car in the city on June 27, was arraigned in Niagara County Court Friday on charges of having a sawed-off rifle and assorted drugs in his car when police arrested him in the shooting case.

Cornelius D. Porter, 19, of Fourth Street, pleaded not guilty to third-, fifth- and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Assistant District Attorney Theresa L. Prezioso said charges of attempted first-degree assault and reckless endangerment are still pending against Porter in Niagara Falls City Court. He is accused of firing shots at a car containing a man and a woman, Prezioso said.

On Aug. 2, police pulled Porter’s car over to arrest him on a warrant in connection with the shooting. They allegedly found a sawed-off 9mm Luger rifle, more than half a gram of cocaine and the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam, better known by the brand name Xanax.
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One sentenced, two plead guilty in Niagara felony DWI cases

January 4, 2013, 1:03 pm
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LOCKPORT – One man avoided jail time on a felony driving while intoxicated charge Friday, while two other men pleaded guilty to that charge.

Christopher J. Ross, 32, of Wheatfield Street, North Tonawanda, drew five years’ probation and 30 days in the Niagara County work program from State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. Ross was arrested April 28 in North Tonawanda.

Richard E. Jaworski Jr., 40, of Orangeport Road, Hartland, pleaded guilty to felony DWI and was scheduled for sentencing by Kloch March 6. Jaworski was pulled over on Hartland Road in that town June 26.

James L. Mormino, 57, of James Drive, Lewiston, was scheduled for sentencing March 13 by County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas after his felony DWI plea. Mormino was arrested July 10 in Niagara Falls.
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Amherst man refuses plea in 1990s sex case

January 4, 2013, 1:03 pm
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LOCKPORT – Paul S. Turley of Amherst rejected a plea offer Friday in Niagara County Court and was scheduled for trial Jan. 22 in connection with the alleged molestation of two girls between August 1996 and June 1998. Both of the alleged victims in the North Tonawanda incidents are now in their early 20s.

Turley, 47, of North Bailey Avenue, refused to plead guilty to the most serious count in the indictment, first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, with a maximum 25-year prison sentence. He faces up to 39 years if convicted as charged.

State law defines a course of sexual conduct as a set of at least two sex acts with the same person under age 11 during a period of more than three months. Turley is charged with first- and second-degree courses, as well as first-degree sexual abuse for an alleged incident with one of the girls on Christmas Day 2003. A misdemeanor charge stemming from that incident has been dismissed.

In 2006, the State Legislature abolished the statute of limitations on many sex crimes, and for those in which the five-year felony time limit still applies, the clock doesn’t start running until the complainant turns 18.
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Lockport police seek 2 men in shooting

January 4, 2013, 6:53 pm
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LOCKPORT – A confrontation inside a convenience store at a Lockport gas station, which led to the shooting of a Lockport man Thursday afternoon, has still not been fully explained.

Detective Capt. Richard L. Podgers said witnesses gave conflicting accounts of what was said between the victim, Richard Vance, 44, and the two assailants.

Most weren’t really paying attention, Podgers said.

But Vance, much to his own surprise, was shot in the hip outside the Gulf station at Walnut and Washburn streets. He was listed in fair condition Friday evening in Erie County Medical Center.

He left the scene on foot, and police responding to a call of shots fired at about 4:45 p.m. Thursday were unable to find either the victim or the suspects. There was a witness who reported seeing a man limping south on Washburn Street.

However, Podgers said patrol officers inspecting the store’s surveillance video recognized Vance, and he was tracked down in a friend’s apartment in the 200 block of Washburn Street about 9 p.m. Thursday.

Podgers said Vance, who may have been slightly intoxicated, at first thought he was hit by a paintball pellet. “He still can’t believe he was shot,” Podgers said.

Podgers said police had the name of one potential suspect in mind after reviewing the video from the Gulf station. He said Vance did not know the assailants.

Podgers said the store’s video, which has no sound, shows the three men talking in the convenience store, and then shows the beginning of the confrontation outside. The shooting itself was not captured on tape, as it appears to have happened near the edge of the property.

According to one account, the suspects challenged Vance “to take it outside,” Podgers said. Multiple gunshots were fired, but Vance was hit only once.

Resting in his friend’s apartment, Vance felt the pain and bleeding in his hip worsening. He had just called his mother about possibly going to the hospital when police found him.

Police are asking anyone with knowledge of the suspects to call them at 433-7700.



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com
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Aerospace museum moving to former airport terminal

January 4, 2013, 8:30 pm
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Plans to relocate the Niagara Aerospace Museum to Niagara Falls International Airport have been cemented, State Sen. George D. Maziarz announced Friday.

Museum officials said in November they were near an agreement with the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority to move the museum to the Falls airport after more than a year of exhibits being closed to the public.

The museum will begin construction on 15,000 square feet of a former airport terminal, where existing and new aerospace exhibits will be displayed, Maziarz said. He added that officials plan to open the new museum in May.

The museum previously was housed in downtown Niagara Falls before it moved to First Niagara Center in Buffalo.
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Journey’s End program to provide immigration aid

January 4, 2013, 8:34 pm
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A $150,000 state grant has enabled Journey’s End Refugee Services to launch a new program providing legal aid to other nonprofit agencies in Upstate New York.

Journey’s End hired lawyer Gary C. Liao to aid nonprofit groups from Buffalo to Utica with legal issues regarding immigrants, refugees and immigration law.
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Falls is set to receive $42,200 fire training grant

January 4, 2013, 8:37 pm
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NIAGARA FALLS – The city will receive a new fire training grant of more than $40,000, Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, announced Friday.

The Fire Department has been awarded $42,400 in federal funding through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, Higgins said.

Niagara Falls Fire Chief Thomas Colangelo said that having applied for numerous grants over the years it is “great to be successful in this instance because fire grounds survival training is essential for the department.”

Congress last year approved more than $337 million for the program, which Higgins said will provide direct assistance to local companies to improve the effectiveness of firefighting operations. The Falls department will use the funds for fire training, he said.
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Bubble hockey fans descend on Museum of Science

January 4, 2013, 9:48 pm
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Buffalo’s hunger for hockey was on display again Friday night.

A week after the city sold out the First Niagara Center for a Rochester Americans game in what became one of the largest crowds in American Hockey League history, hockey fans jammed the Buffalo Museum of Science for a 64-team doubles Bubble Hockey Tournament that featured some of the game’s top national players.

“We weren’t aware of the underground bubble hockey subculture,” said Amy Biber, the museum’s marketing director, who said spots in the tournament quickly filled up after it was announced early last month. “We have out-of-state players, and we actually have some of the top five players in the U.S. here tonight.”

One of them, Mark Wojtkiewicz of East Aurora, moved through the crowded first-floor concourse, where contests were under way on four bubble hockey tables, awaiting his second-round contest.

Ranked fourth nationally in an online system, Wojtkiewicz blended into the crowd with a simple dark blue Buffalo Sabres T-shirt. By outward appearance, there was no way to know he and his partner, Tony Eichhorn, both employees at Fisher-Price in East Aurora, had once shut out the real Wayne Gretzky and Barry Melrose in a 2003 bubble hockey match.

The chance to play Gretzky was among the prizes, along with tickets to the Stanley Cup Final, the two men took home for winning that year’s National Bubble Boys Hockey Tournament, sponsored by Bud Light and the National Hockey League.

“We play tournaments all over the East Coast,” Wojtkiewicz said. “We started by playing at work. We played and played and we got really good.”

Wojtkiewicz said Friday’s event might have been “the biggest doubles tournament” he’d ever seen.

“You have some top players here,” he added.

Brothers Rick and Nick Izzo of Hamburg might have been last year’s winners of the 40-and-over category Labatt Blue Pond turned Street Hockey Tournament in the parking lots at the Erie Basin Marina, but they wouldn’t be mistaken for top national bubble hockey talent.

“I played in bars for years,” said Rick Izzo, 51. “We’d play for hours at a time.”

Still in all, their personal story about the arcade game would rival any in the house Friday.

“We bought a Russia vs. U.S. table. It’s a rare table because all of them got worn out in the 1980s,” said Rick Izzo, who, with his brother, wore the royal blue Labatt Blue hockey sweaters from last year’s pond hockey event.

Although the Izzos have moved out of their father’s home, the bubble hockey table, which was manufactured by I.C.E., a firm located on Main Street in Clarence, has remained there in a massive game room that also includes a bowling machine, foosball and pool tables and a dartboard.

“Every one of our friends comes over, and we charge them a buck to play – it’s paid for itself,” he quipped.

Friday’s tournament was designed to coincide with the culmination of the museum’s overwhelmingly successful “Science of Sports” exhibit that opened in late September and officially wraps up Sunday, Biber said.

“This tournament is a celebration of the exhibit’s run,” she said.

The tournament, sponsored by New Era and Labatt, got started when officials from New Era approached the museum offering up three of its tables for use at the exhibit.

“As our brains started turning, we thought, ‘why don’t we have a Bubble Hockey Tournament?’ ” said Biber. “Once word got out, it spread quickly.”

Labatt officials tossed in another bubble hockey table and the “four-rink” tournament was a go. The tables were set up in the shadow of an oversized bulletin board containing tournament brackets and the names of the 64 competing teams.

The teams competed in a best-of-three game round. Each game consists of three 90-second periods. The winning team was to receive two tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium – travel expenses not included.

Lee Hales, formerly of Hamilton, Ont., and now of Clarence, said he was lured out for the fun and was surprised to learn there were so many skilled players who turned out Friday night.

Donning a Team Canada jersey, Hales and Steve deBoer, his hockey partner and colleague at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, had little more than their shared Canadian heritage behind them as they readied for their second-round match.

“I’m sure if you’re the top-ranked guys it’s different,” said Hales. “For us, it’s just luck.”



email: tpignataro@buffnews.com
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Foes blast Covanta tax break at Falls hearing

January 4, 2013, 9:53 pm
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NIAGARA FALLS – Henry R. Krawczyk is fed up with his near neighbor, the Covanta Niagara energy-from-waste incinerator, so the word that it plans to expand, with help from a county property tax break, has him boiling mad.

“I pay my taxes for living next door to these people who are polluting the hell out of me,” Krawczyk said during a public hearing Friday in City Hall. “I don’t see why Niagara Falls, on the precipice of this natural wonder, has to be the waste dump of the world.”

The hearing was held by the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, whose board plans to vote Wednesday on Covanta’s request for a 15-year tax abatement on its $30 million expansion, which includes a rail spur to allow municipal garbage from Manhattan to be shipped to the Falls.

The company, which burns about 800,000 tons of waste each year, says it will replace garbage now trucked over the border from Ontario with the Big Apple’s trash, about 300,000 tons of it per year.

The tax break would save the company an estimated $8 million over its 15-year duration. Covanta said in its application that it intends to add 23 jobs to its current 86-person payroll.

“The wind blows in my direction and I have asthma now,” said Krawczyk, a longtime John Avenue resident. “That’s why this affects me personally.”

He said the noise, vibration and odors from Covanta and other industries keep him awake and prevent him from using his backyard.

Krawczyk threatened a class-action lawsuit “against those individual city politicians who are killing us … They promise jobs and stick it to the citizens.”

Joseph Collura, the city’s economic development professional, said the city supports the project, assuming that the total amount of waste burned doesn’t increase.

He said the city’s support also assumes that the Manhattan trash will arrive in sealed containers; that the rail spur will redevelop a nearby brownfield; and that the rail shipments will mean a significant reduction in truck traffic.

“It seems premature to support these projects without knowing the impact on public health,” said Amy H. Witryol of Lewiston. She said Covanta burns industrial and medical waste and asserted that there would be “no jobs retained or created because of the $8 million in proposed giveaways.”

Like all other IDA applicants, Covanta has to pledge its best efforts to hire local workers for its construction project.

“Who’s going to police ‘best efforts to use Niagara County labor’?” asked William Rutland, president of the blue-collar union in county government. “Greenpac [a new paper mill in the Falls] got huge tax breaks … and local labor got very little of the work.”

But Russell Quarantillo of Local 237, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said he supports the project because of the local construction jobs.

Covanta has touted its project because the combustion will provide industrial steam to Greenpac and other Niagara Falls industries, helping to protect some 600 jobs.

Shirley J. Hamilton, president of the Niagara Falls Chapter of the NAACP, said Covanta, based in Morristown, N.J., has a long record of environmental violations in other states.

“This measure would allow thousands more tons of garbage to be railed here from New York City for a few jobs,” Hamilton said. “Some may think Covanta is a clean energy company, when in fact, it is not.”



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com
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