Case of runaway sex suspect headed for jury

January 25, 2013, 6:58 pm

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LOCKPORT – A Niagara County Court jury will deliberate Monday on the fate of runaway sex crime defendant Paul S. Turley.

Testimony wrapped up Friday afternoon in the case of Turley, 47, of Lincoln Avenue, Dunkirk, who is accused of molesting two girls in North Tonawanda between August 1996 and June 1998, when they were between ages 5 and 7. One of the girls allegedly was molested one more time, on Christmas Day 2003.

Earlier Friday, Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas ordered the forfeiture of the $50,000 bail bond posted by Turley’s mother about a week after her son’s arrest Jan. 4, 2012.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth R. Donatello said Turley’s mother was asked to cooperate in the search for Turley and his wife, Diane. Turley left the County Courthouse in Lockport at Wednesday’s lunch break in his trial.

Donatello said the mother “would not help. She would not assist. It appears his mother has no fear of forfeiture.”

Defense attorney D. Daniel Stevanovic said he hasn’t heard from Turley since Wednesday. “He hasn’t checked in with me or his sister,” Stevanovic said. He did tell Farkas that Turley’s mother entered her son’s home and found paperwork on a table, but the couple’s dogs were gone.

Although Diane Turley also cannot be located, Stevanovic said, “There’s no evidence they’re together.”

Donatello said the prosecution did not present a police witness to discuss the manhunt for Turley, because his mug shot is in evidence. No announcement has been made to the jury about why Turley isn’t in court.

Turley is charged with first- and second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child and first-degree sexual abuse. He faces a maximum of 39 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

The second of the two alleged victims to take the stand testified Friday about her abuse by Turley. She said, “He would say if I told someone, they would take him away.” The woman, now 21 and married, told the jury that when she turned 18, Turley told her, “Thank you for not telling the police.” She didn’t report the abuse until November 2011, when she called North Tonawanda police. “We would wait until I was ready. It was my choice,” the woman said. “I had to protect other people.”



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com

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Buffalo teens lead the March for Life

January 25, 2013, 9:47 pm

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WASHINGTON – Forty years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, 40 teens from the Buffalo area led the way Friday during the annual “March for Life,” each of them carrying a white flag that symbolized strength, not surrender, 55 million abortions later.

About 400 people from Western New York marched behind the youths with white flags, and many thousands of people from all around the country followed on the annual trek to the steps of the Supreme Court – which, in the view of protesters, legalized murder when it legalized abortion.

They marched beneath a pewter sky on a breezy, bone-chilling afternoon, but the weather couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the teens from Western New York at the front of the protest.

“It feels awesome to be in front,” said Amelia Evans, 16, a student at Holy Angels Academy in North Buffalo. “When you’re in the middle, you feel like part of the community, but up front you feel like you’re leading. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The March for Life is almost as old as Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on Jan. 22, 1973, and for years tradition had it that the march would be led by youths from metro Washington.

But this year, the teens from Buffalo, along with students from the University of Notre Dame, led the way, and the reason why may best be found in scripture.

“Ask, and it shall be given you,” the apostle Matthew said.

In this case, Cheryl Calire, the director of pro-life activities at the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, pushed for the Buffalo youths to be put at the front of the line.

The timing for that request may have been just right. The march’s founder, Nellie Gray, passed away last year, and her successor, Jeanne F. Monohan, has shown an openness to change, installing Jumbotrons on the National Mall for the event for the first time, revamping the march’s 1990s-vintage web site and starting a Twitter feed.

Asked how she got her way, Calire said: “It was a lot of prayer and convincing and explaining to [march organizers] that while the march is held in Washington, people come from all around the country for it. We have an 8½-hour bus ride to get here, and I told them it would be really nice to be recognized in this way.”

And on Thursday night, Calire and other Catholic leaders from Buffalo got the good news that the Knights of Columbus, who handle the march logistics, had approved their request.

“The students of St. Francis High School [in Athol Springs] and all parishioners in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo should feel exhilarated that young people from the region will be playing such an important role,” Phil Eddy, northeast regional coordinator for Students for Life of America, told the Buffalo contingent via email.

Sure enough, the students were exhilarated.

“I feel so excited to be here,” said Maddie Weitz, 15, also a Holy Angels student. “I really feel like we’re making a difference in people’s lives.”

The original plan was for students from St. Francis, which sends a large contingent to the march every year, to be the flag bearers.

But then the chaperone for the St. Francis group, Rory Reichenberg, was told there would be 40 flags – one for each year that has passed since Roe v. Wade. That being the case, the flag-bearing duties were spread out to students at several other local Catholic schools.

It seemed appropriate that youths should lead the parade.

While the March for Life is a familiar Washington event, its demographics have changed dramatically over the years. Once dominated by older protesters bearing hand-made signs, the march now seems like a youth rally, filled with students from Catholic schools and other religious institutions from across the country proudly showing off their school colors.

“Most importantly, we are here with so many young people,” Monohan told the crowd at the rally that preceded the march. “Your generation is a pro-life generation.”

That’s certainly the way the teens from metro Buffalo talked.

“I really believe all life is to be respected, even as an embryo, just as we all ought to be respected,” said Aaron Hayes, 17, a junior at St. Francis.

Andrew Swift, an 18-year-old senior at St. Francis, agreed.

“I was adopted, so this issue is personal to me,” he said. “To be able to come out here just means so much to me.”

It obviously meant plenty to many others as well.

While authorities no longer provide crowd estimates at such events, Eddy said this year’s crowd was expected to be the largest ever, and the National Mall and the parade route did seem jammed with many more people than in recent years.

Anti-abortion activists continue to flock to Washington amid many small victories and some large failures.

While state legislatures passed 92 laws restricting abortion in 2011 alone, abortion opponents have not been able to achieve their ultimate goal: overturning Roe v. Wade.

What’s more, a Pew Research Center poll released last week showed that 63 percent of those surveyed oppose overturning Roe in its entirety, a move that only 29 percent favored. Those numbers are similar to those in polls from a decade and two decades ago, Pew said.

To abortion rights supporters, those numbers are a stark reminder that the Roe decision was right.

“On this day we remember the countless women who died from unsafe abortions prior to Roe,” Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said earlier this week. ”Those brave women were the senseless victims of a society that historically has treated women like second-class citizens, tossed their rights around like a political football and patrolled their bodies as if they belonged to the state.”

A handful of counter-protesters brought those sentiments to the streets Friday, but they were vastly outnumbered by those who see abortion as an abomination.

Among those was Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Diocese of Buffalo, who delivered the homily at a morning Mass for the Western New York visitors prior to the march.

Noting that New York’s abortion rate is double the national average, Malone said: “The only way that can change is through conversion, change of heart and mind.”

The “apostles for life” who attend the March for Life are trying to accomplish just that, he said, urging them not to get discouraged.

“Even though we come here for something grave, we should have hearts full of hope,” Malone said.

Then again, hope seemed to come naturally to many of the Buffalo teens at the front of the march.

“It was a privilege,” Tanner Kendall, a 17-year-old junior at St. Francis, said after carrying a “March for Life” flag from the National Mall to the Supreme Court. “It really feels like we did something today.”



email: jzremski@buffnews.com

When vulnerable seniors wander, Silver Alert provides a safety net

January 26, 2013, 6:50 am

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Early one April morning, before the sun was up, an 81-year-old woman crept out of her Williamsville home – and wandered away.

Luckily, she was found – by a group of girls out delivering the newspaper – and returned to her family.

“She was badly bruised,” said Lynne M. Dixon, a county legislator whose mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s six years ago. “We believe she fell.”

In a region with an aging population – including many people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other cognitive issues – the possibility of memory-impaired wandering among the elderly is a growing problem.

Just this week, police said, an 81-year-old City of Tonawanda man went missing from his home.

That’s when “Silver Alert” stepped in.

The fledgling program, started in 2011 in Erie County, is designed to locate missing seniors or other vulnerable adults who have wandered – and return them safely home.

Niagara County put a similar program in place in 2010.

New York State has since adopted a “Gold Alert” law, which aims at much the same results.

“This is a public health crisis,” said Edward A. Rath III, who sponsored the “Silver Alert” law in the Erie County Legislature, where it passed unanimously.

Though still in early days, the “Silver Alert” program seems to be achieving results.

According to statistics provided by Rath, in 2012 the program:

– Saw five “Silver Alert” requests in Erie County.

– Activated the program in two of those cases.

– Had successful outcomes in both cases.

“We have an incredible program in Amber Alert” for missing children, said Rath, a Republican from Amherst. “We should have the same type of response, the same immediacy, for our seniors.”

Here’s how it works.

When a senior with memory or cognitive impairment, or other health issues, goes missing, the name of the missing individual is turned over to the Erie County Sheriff’s Office by local police or family members.

Sheriff’s dispatchers go through a checklist and call all the names and organizations on the list.

Local police agencies are notified, as are Alzheimer’s organizations and other relevant groups, and calls are made or releases sent to all local media, said Erie County Sheriff’s Chief of Special Services Scott R. Patronik.

“I don’t think there’s any magic to ‘Silver Alert,’” Patronik said. “It’s just all over.”

The law works the same way whether the missing individual has disappeared on foot or in a car – a scenario that is not uncommon.

Last week, the 81-year-old City of Tonawanda man sparked a “Silver Alert” after he was last seen in his Chevy Trailblazer. He was later found and returned to his family.

“I think this is a positive thing,” Patronik said. “We’ve had it happen in the past, only in the past few years, where people ... wandered from an apartment and died in a ditch.

“Now, we are getting called in.”

The development of “Silver Alert” strikes a special chord for people like Sue Riggi, a Wheatfield resident whose father went missing repeatedly during his long decline with Alzheimer’s.

Several times, Riggi’s father, James, managed to get away from home and drive long distances in his car. Once he was found in Pennsylvania, another time in Rochester, and once in a small town downstate.

“The first time he disappeared, he was actually only gone a few hours,” said Riggi, the owner of Sinful nightclub in downtown Buffalo. “My mother never even told us about it. He drove to Rochester, and he couldn’t think of how to get back.”

Her father’s wanderings eventually grew more alarming, Riggi said.

“My mother called me at 6 a.m. and said, ‘He hasn’t come home,’ ” Riggi said. “He was in Pennsylvania. He was always driving. He wandered into a bank there. He needed money. When he wandered into the bank, they knew he was confused.”

Riggi’s father died in 2005, at age 99.

Now, Riggi – who has since served on the board of the local Alzheimer’s Association – wishes that “Silver Alert” had been in place while her father was dealing with his cognitive problems.

“There’s more fear to it, more than anger or anything,” she said of what it’s like to have a vulnerable parent wander. “The second time, we were lucky somebody found him. But then you worry: Will someone take advantage of him? Will he be all right?”

That’s a feeling that Dixon, the legislator, and her family members know all too well.

During earlier parts of her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, now six years long, the family had to cope with at least four incidents when Dixon’s mother wandered from her Amherst home. Her illness progressed, and she is now in a wheelchair and no longer wanders, Dixon said.

“My mom has always liked to walk,” said Dixon, a Hamburg resident. “Physically, she was strong as an ox. When the Alzheimer’s set in, she would go out, and we just wouldn’t know where she was.”

Dixon’s mom was returned home, on different occasions, by the group of newspaper carriers, by neighbors, by Dixon and her siblings, and by the police.

The new law has won applause in local Alzheimer’s and dementia care communities.

Experts in the field of Alzheimer’s care and awareness call the “Silver Alert” program a solid step forward when it comes to providing security and safety to the thousands of Erie County residents dealing with memory impairment.

In November, the Western New York chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association gave Rath – and by extension, the Erie County Legislature – an award for making “extraordinary advances toward improving the quality of life for persons with dementia.”

The new program complements a program called “Safe Return,” which the Alzheimer’s Association has used since the mid-1990s to find and return vulnerable adults, coupled with a program called “MedicAlert,” which puts individual’s ID information on a bracelet or necklace, said Andrew Wilton, director of outreach initiatives at the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. His role at the Alzheimer’s Association includes overseeing those two programs.

In 2012, six people who were enrolled in the MedicAlert/SafeReturn system went missing and were subsequently found, he said.

There were 21 new enrollees in the system last year, Wilton said, and since it became available, 844 men and women have been enrolled in the MedicAlert/Safe Return system.

“Between the Silver Alert program in Erie County, combined with the MedicAlert and Safe Return, we have a very good system in place for returning people to their homes,” said Wilton.

These wanderers, he said, need everyday citizens to be on the lookout for them.

“They are totally dependent,” Wilton said, “on being found and returned.”



email: cvogel@buffnews.com

Truck hauling grapes strikes power pole, overturns

January 26, 2013, 7:05 am

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A Canadian trucker suffered minor injuries early Saturday when his tractor-trailer loaded with grapes struck a power pole on Shawnee Road in Wheatfield and overturned, Niagara County Sheriff’s deputies reported.

The eastbound vehicle veered off the road and struck the power pole and transformer shortly before 3 a.m. near 6913 Shawnee, deputies said. The trailer was heavily damaged and rolled over onto its side, causing the grapes to spill.

Sung Lee, of Oakville, Ont., a driver for JSR Transport, was treated at the scene by Shawnee Ambulance Company volunteers. The Shawnee Volunteer Fire Company, National Grid and the State Transportation Department also responded to the accident scene.

So far, no charges have been filed.

Buffalo Bishop names new head of Catholic schools

January 26, 2013, 5:47 pm

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Sister Carol Cimino, a national consultant, college professor and author, has been named the new superintendant of Buffalo Catholic Schools.

Bishop Richard J. Malone will introduce his selection of the new schools chief Thursday at the annual Catholic Schools dinner, “Making a Difference Dinner – A Celebration of Catholic Schools,” which will be held in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.

“Sister Carol’s credentials are impeccable,” Malone said. “She brings to our Catholic schools a breadth of experience that will play an important role as we continue to focus on the faith formation and high academic achievement of our students. She has a deep commitment to the mission of Catholic schools, and knows and understands the importance of Catholic identity.”

Cimino’s official start date is June 1, but she is expected to make several visits to the diocese prior to then.

She succeeds Dr. Rosemary Henry, who resigned in September 2012 to pursue a teaching opportunity in Ecuador.

A native of Rochester, Cimino has presented workshops across the country on marketing, school board and council development and strategic planning. Her book, “Ensuring a Future Full of Hope,” has been used by parent groups and boards to assist in recruitment efforts.

Cimino is a national consultant with William H. Sadlier Publishers, an adjunct consultant with Catholic School Management, and has been an associate professor at Manhattan College since 1990.

Since 1987, she has been executive director of Catholic School Administrators Association of New York, delivering more than 1,500 workshop and training sessions all over the United States.

“The strength of our schools is their Catholic identity, and I pledge to work to maintain and enhance our Catholic identity, so that our schools will remain true gifts to the Church,” Cimino said. “I cannot be more proud to be able to serve the Catholic schools of the Diocese of Buffalo. I look forward to strengthening these schools in partnership with pastors, principals and parents, and I believe that, in working with the community, we can bring the Catholic schools to a whole new level.”

Cimino also served at several Catholic schools in Rochester.

A graduate of Nazareth College in Rochester, Cimino received a master’s degree in American history from Syracuse University, a certificate in educational administration from the University of Rochester and a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Cimino has been extensively published, authoring “Come Gather Round,” a manual for catechists who train elementary and secondary school students; “Continuing to Ensure a Future Full of Hope,” a manual for use by Catholic schools to plan for recruitment of students; and “Lessons Learned: 10 Tips for New Principals.”

Her service includes co-director of National Catholic Education Association’s Selected Programs for Improving Catholic Education, past president of Empire State Society of Association Executives and New York State Education Commissioner’s Nonpublic School Advisory Council.

Higgins comments on parkway stoke long-running debate

January 26, 2013, 8:04 pm

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Soon after adding Niagara Falls to his expanded congressional district, Rep. Brian Higgins took aim at the thoroughfare that is one of the city’s most recognized and, arguably, most despised: the Robert Moses Parkway.

The parkway, he said, is “ruinous” to the city and its waterfront, and it needs to be ripped out.

But Higgins may soon get a lesson in just how difficult it is to get things done in Niagara Falls – even when many people in the city agree with the idea.

Just look at his demand that the New York Power Authority pay the parkway removal tab of more than $120 million.

Seems like a good idea, many residents said, especially since the state takes most of the profits from the massive power project near the falls.

Local officials nodded in agreement, hopeful that the Buffalo congressman would deliver the type of results he secured for Buffalo’s waterfront.

With the help of a new federal leader, others thought, Niagara Falls might have a new rallying cry to unite its warring officials and agencies.

But not even two weeks had passed before another controversy broke last week, this time pitting the state against the city.

City Council leaders, buoyed by a former city official, now say the state’s previously announced plans for the parkway’s southern strip are not good enough.

They agree with the state’s plan to connect pedestrians with the waterfront near the entrance to Niagara Falls State Park. And they’re on board with plans to lower an embankment that cuts off waterfront views from homes close to the falls.

But the state’s intention to keep two lanes of the Moses expressway running from John B. Daly Boulevard to Niagara Falls State Park is not winning many allies.

Rather than converting the short strip of highway into a low-speed “riverway,” the state should rip out the Moses beyond the Daly Boulevard interchange, said Council Chairman Glenn A. Choolokian.

That would ensure the millions of travelers who flock to the falls each year have to pass through the city before entering the state park, added Harvey Albond, a former city manager.

“I think it would enhance existing businesses and create opportunities for new businesses,” Albond said. “It’s obviously a bypass for the city, and we haven’t made downtown development attractive. I see a lot of empty spaces.”

“They can call it the ‘Riverway,’ but I call it the Niagara Falls bypass,”Albond continued. “They invoke the name Olmsted, but Olmsted had the good sense to point out that there should not be commercial development within the park, that it should be accommodated in the [city] adjacent to the state park.”

The latest flap has flabbergasted officials in City Hall, the state parks agency and other stakeholders in the parkway plan, who say the plan is near completion and past the public comment stage.

The city wanted the parkway to be removed at the southern entrance to the state park, Mayor Paul A. Dyster said, and took that stance at the beginning of negotiations.

But as in years past, the state wouldn’t budge, Dyster and others said.

At best, they say, the “Riverway” plan with two low-speed lanes mirrors the Niagara Parkway in Niagara Falls, Ont. It also represents a compromise among at least four city and state agencies who have worked for years to put the plan together, a plan U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer is eager to help fund.

And the latest flap centers around only a relatively small portion of the parkway. The part of the roadway stretching from the North Grand Island Bridges to Daly Boulevard likely would remain intact.

The longer portion of the parkway – from Niagara Falls to Lewiston – is still in the design phase, and leaders acknowledge it will be years before a final design is chosen, funds are allocated, and construction begins.

No one is predicting the Council’s objections will ultimately put a stop to the southern plan, and city leaders say they at least want to put their thoughts on the record.

But to Albond, the former city official, the cause has become something to rally around.

“I will never say never,” he said last week of the state’s changing its mind.

As for Higgins, he would not endorse either vision but said that “top-down planning is what caused this problem” of the parkway in the first place.

“Much like the Peace Bridge and the Buffalo waterfront, our effort is not to decide what the end result will look like, but find a way to get things done,” Higgins said.

“My role is to fight for resources for our region, in order to help the local community implement its vision, not to impose my vision on the local community. We have identified a significant, responsible and achievable resource, and we will stand with Niagara Falls in the effort to move projects from concept to completion.”



email: cspecht@buffnews.com

Diversion program brings success in small doses

January 26, 2013, 8:04 pm

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LOCKPORT – Success stories are relatively rare in a program that tries to keep nonviolent, drug-abusing felons out of prison by compelling them to obtain treatment.

State statistics show that in Niagara County, more than twice as many people have failed than have succeeded since the program began in 2009.

But the winners, relatively few though they are, find that the judicial diversion program of court-supervised drug treatment can save their lives.

Gina M. Frey, 26, of Niagara Falls, was one of the biggest winners in diversion. She managed to complete the grueling program despite having three young children at home.

On Dec. 13, Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas marked Frey’s graduation from the program that took her 16 months by reducing her felony conviction for selling crack cocaine to a misdemeanor and then granting her a conditional discharge instead of placing her on probation.

“This is a terrific program if you are successful. It can literally turn lives around, but those people are few and far between,” Farkas said in court Jan. 3. “Sometimes this can feel overwhelming. It’s a lot of work.”

“For many years, there had been a lot of discussion of whether the best place for an addict was in prison,” said Judge Judith H. Kluger, chief of policy and planning for the New York State Unified Court System. “It was very much a revolving door. There was a cycle of addiction, arrest, prison, and then the person would be released, and their addiction would not be treated.”

Drug courts for nonviolent offenders were instituted at the city level in the early 1990s. Kluger said studies showed that defendants who went through treatment with a judge riding herd on them were less likely to commit new crimes than those who weren’t in such a program.

When the State Legislature repealed the Rockefeller drug laws in 2009, reducing the sentences for almost all drug felonies, it also created the judicial diversion program.

In this carrot-and-stick program, if a person graduates, the felony is reduced to a misdemeanor and the sentence is three years of probation, with the time spent in the program counting toward that time.

However, judges can grant conditional discharges or even dismiss the case altogether.

But, to really make the program a gamble, the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office usually requires that defendants plead to the highest level of crime they face before being allowed to enter diversion.

In Frey’s case, which was typical, she was required to plead guilty to a Class B drug felony. The maximum sentence for that is nine years in state prison.

If you were to liken judicial diversion to a game of Monopoly, most of the players land on “Go to Jail.”

In Niagara County, as of Jan. 2, 189 felons had been placed on diversion since the program started. Of those, 22 have successfully graduated; 47 have failed; four left the program for various other reasons; and the others are still battling.

The statewide average is better. Through Jan. 2, there were 2,303 defendants who graduated from the program and 1,447 who flunked out.

“You sure you want to do this?” is a question that Farkas often asks would-be members of the diversion program. “It’s pretty much certain that if you fail in diversion, you’re going to state prison.”

She promised one defendant “18 to 24 months of pure hell while you struggle to get clean and sober.”

Although the program can be completed sooner – Frey did it in 16 months – it’s just about guaranteed to take more than a year.

“There’s a reason this program isn’t quick,” Farkas told a defendant Jan. 11. “Quick doesn’t stick.”

Before they plead guilty, defendants are screened by court staff members in Buffalo to determine whether they are in fact drug addicts whose drug use contributes to their crimes. There have been instances of defendants trying to pretend they’re drug addicts in hopes of avoiding jail time.

“You get some people going into the program who are trying to game the system,” said Assistant District Attorney Peter M. Wydysh, who prosecutes most of the county’s drug felonies. “If they somehow get through it, they get no jail time. Those are the people who are going to fail, and they get what’s coming to them.”

Frey said she became addicted to the painkiller hydrocodone after it was prescribed following a cesarean section. She also smoked marijuana.

“I got in trouble because I was selling the crack cocaine to support my family,” Frey said. “I’m different from other people because I never lost my kids.”

It could have happened. She was arrested three times in quick succession, piling up five felony charges, three misdemeanors and two violations in less than four months.

The diversion program isn’t just for those caught selling or possessing drugs. Burglars and others who commit nonviolent offenses may be admitted, although the District Attorney’s Office may object to anyone’s assignment to diversion. Also, a sentencing judge may refuse to admit someone to the program.

Assuming that all those involved agree that diversion is warranted, the first step is an assignment to a drug court.

In Niagara County, City Judges Mark A. Violante of Niagara Falls and William J. Watson of Lockport preside over the drug courts, and they have the power to send transgressors to jail for short periods if they violate the rules.

Outpatient drug counseling is usually ordered. “You have to go sometimes four times a week at the start,” Frey said. “Then it gets reduced to two times a week.”

The judges place a premium on honesty. “If you lie, deny, fabricate, it doesn’t work,” Farkas said in court Dec. 19.

“A lot of people have problems listening to someone giving them direction,” Frey said. “You really have to listen to what the judge tells you.”

Frey, who went through Violante’s drug court, said that the judge took an especially dim view of people trying to talk their way out of trouble.

“You hear the craziest excuses for why people test positive,” Frey said. One man who tested positive for cocaine and pills said that he had hired a woman and that she placed the drugs in his drink.

“We all just looked at him and said, ‘You dumb fool; you’re going to jail,’ ” Frey said with a laugh.

But in addition to the drug treatment, which also bars defendants from using alcohol, those in the program must obey the normal rules of being on probation. Technically, diversion members are on interim probation for as long as two years.

Defendants are drug-tested frequently. A positive test often means a “sanction,” which normally means a trip to jail. But it doesn’t necessarily mean flunking out of the program – unless the transgressions are repeated.

“It’s hard, and you struggle a little bit,” Farkas told a defendant Dec. 19. “We expect that, quite frankly. It’s how you handle the setbacks that determines whether you succeed.”

“If there’s a sanction involved, there’s a greater incentive to complete treatment,” Kluger said. “We all recognize that relapse is part of recovery.”

“I received one sanction,” Frey said. “I made the mistake of smoking the ‘K2/Spice,’ or ‘parolee weed.’ It’s not marijuana. It’s like a synthetic marijuana. … I went to jail, with a 5-week-old baby [at home], for two weeks.”

That happened four months after Frey entered the program in August 2011. She was pregnant at the time with her third child by three different fathers. The baby, a boy, was born Nov. 28, 2011. She also has a 2½-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter.

The father of the youngest child, who is still in Frey’s life, cared for the infant while Frey was behind bars.

Having three young children, along with the time demands that go with the various counseling sessions required in diversion, posed quite a challenge.

“I think it made it a lot harder,” Frey said. “My two older ones’ grandparents are awesome.”

Drug treatment isn’t all that’s involved in diversion. Frey said that those who don’t have high school diplomas or equivalency diplomas must obtain them during the program.

“You have to have paid employment before you graduate,” Frey said. “I’ve been at Walmart since May.”

Lifestyle modification also is part of the program. “It’s positive reinforcement to live a positive life,” Frey said.

But some people just don’t get it. Among them was Danielle L. Leighton, 31, of Niagara Falls, who was placed in diversion in July 2011, when she pleaded guilty to a six-count indictment issued after her car struck a 79-year-old pedestrian in front of Niagara Falls City Hall on June 8, 2010.

Instead of completing the program, Leighton left the state. She was captured in California after 10 months on the lam and had to be extradited back to Niagara County. She’s the mother of a 3½-month-old son.

On Jan. 17, Farkas took Leighton out of the diversion program and jailed her without bail pending sentencing April 12 for the pedestrian hit-and-run. Leighton will be sent to state prison for between 3½ and seven years.

Farkas said that keeping Leighton in diversion “would set a terrible precedent. People in that program are struggling mightily. For them to know that someone who walked away from the program for 10 months [can get back in], that’s not going to happen.”

Frey said she earned a certified nurse’s aide certificate when she was 19 but has never had a chance to put it to use. “Now that my charges are discharged, I’m looking for a job” in that field, she said, adding that she’s confident she’ll never be an addict again.

“We’ve had both failures and successes,” Wydysh said. “In a perfect world, they’d succeed, clean themselves up and live a good life. That’s what we want.”



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com

Tale-telling knight has returned to his roots

January 26, 2013, 8:12 pm

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NORTH TONAWANDA – When Karl Kindt III went to visit his father’s military grave in France 17 years ago, a statue of King Arthur inspired him to invent a new job for himself: as a storytelling knight.

After that trip, he found someone to make a suit of armor for him out of “mild steel,” a kind of iron used in medieval times. He began wearing it in parades, classrooms, churches and Scout meetings as he told fables to encourage children take a chivalrous approach to their lives.

This hobby has led mayors of 10 cities, including North Tonawanda, to “knight” him. He thinks of it as a tribute to his father, veterans and his late stepfather, John Prescott.

“He told me about my natural father who had been a soldier in World War II and was killed. He encouraged me with stories of knights and chivalry to think of my father as a knight who had gone off to battle,” said Kindt, 67. “I kind of grew up thinking of myself as a son of a knight. And so when I got be 50 years old, the idea of becoming a real knight came back to me when I went to visit my father’s grave in France.”

For the last eight years, Kindt, who now lives in St. Louis, has been including North Tonawanda, Lockport and Niagara County on his knightly route. A former pastor at Union Road Community Church in Cheektowaga, he is making plans now for a local visit to schools and libraries sometime in the spring or summer.

What do you do for a full-time living?

I work for a law firm as a media technologist. I go into court with attorneys and help them make sure the Power Points work.

Then I teach at a university, too, part time. Webster University. I teach 3-D photography. I do workshops, too, for children to teach them how to do it. Workshops I’ve done in libraries have been sold out. It looks like everyone wants to do 3-D nowadays.

What can you tell me about your father?

My dad’s name is on the memorial wall in front of City Hall in North Tonawanda. Karl Martin Kindt II. He had just graduated from Lockport High School in 1942. He was drafted into the Army in 1943. He was a radio operator for the anti-aircraft guns on Long Island for a while. But then he was sent over to fight against the Nazis in Germany in 1944. He was killed on April 12th of 1945. Twenty years old.

And your mother?

She gave birth to me in July of that year.

Did she have a career?

Just in the home. Marjorie. Howard was her maiden name. When I was small I asked about him. My mother gave me a letter that my dad had written to me. He knew I was on the way. It was addressed to the “New One.”

What does it say?

In the letter, basically, he says, “Your mother and I have prayed for you and your future and development.” Then he concludes that if he should fail to return, it would be a great honor to give his life for the peace and security of me and my mother.

Your stepfather was a friend of your father’s?

They had played football together. Sandlot football. My stepdad went to North Tonawanda High. My stepdad, he worked for New York Telephone all his life. He was a lineman and installer.

Do you have a family?

I’ve been married to my wife, Margie, for 46 years. She’s a writer. She was asked to read one of her stories on the airwaves in New York City, and it was titled “Prairie Fire.” It’s a memoir of her father standing watching their home burn down. NPR broadcast it. She helps me with some of my stories. I’ve got two sons who are married. Three granddaughters.

What do they think about you going around as a knight?

My granddaughters sometimes have gone with me. They have been princesses in parades. All dressed up. My wife rides with them. My son Karl, if I’m sick or something, he can substitute.

Your other son is a graphic novelist?

Matthew Kindt. A couple of his graphic novels are being scripted for movies. One of them, titled “Three Story,” is about a man who keeps on growing and doesn’t stop growing, and all the problems that he has because he gets bigger and bigger.

He’s fast on the draw, let’s put it that way. He’s always been a fast drawer even as a little boy. I guess that’s why he can make money as a graphic novelist. He’s a good storyteller, too. He was born in Cheektowaga.

Where did you get your armor?

I had to have it made. The man who made it lives in Idaho. Christian Fletcher. I sent him some photographs. He was making real suits. He’s retired from making armor. Now he just makes swords.

Does the suit need any special care?

I use a lot of WD 40.

What do you do when you have it on?

Sometimes I do guard work with police officers. Most of the time, I tell these ridiculously funny stories. They all have a wonderful moral to them.

Tell me one.

Sir Watermelon. It’s a story about a little tiny boy who has a watermelon roll over him, and it squishes his face in the mud. He gets mad and grows up to be a knight and winds up cutting everybody’s watermelons.

So the problem in the story is the little boy loses his temper … We all get mad, it just depends what you do with your “mad strength.” When you and I get mad we get full of energy, strength. The problem is, “So what do you do with all that mad strength?” So I tell the children, “Use it to pick up your room. Use it to do something good.”

I think one of things, instead of lecturing children, what you need to do is spice up your advice to them with good humor. Make the kids laugh.

You teach about bravery with another story about a baby chick who rescues a girl from a dragon while a knight hides in a tree?

You don’t get to be brave because you have big muscles, but by forgetting about yourself and thinking of others instead.

That’s the way I teach children where courage comes from. Sometimes I’ll mention that my dad, who gave his life for others, was courageous because he wasn’t thinking abut himself, he was thinking of others.

How do you come up with so many stories?

I had a really good stepdad who had a good imagination. Every night when he tucked us into bed, he would tell us ridiculous stories. It’s not hard for me to tell a story about anything.

You haven’t lived here since your were in your 20s and moved back home after college for a few years to work as a pastor?

I’ve had 37 jobs in my life. Manager of a movie theater. Gardener at the Schoellkopf Estate in Niagara Falls. I was an elevator operator in Niagara Falls, in the parks department. The business had its ups and downs. I got tired of hearing that joke.



Know a Niagara County resident who would make an interesting column? Write to: Q&A, The Buffalo News, P.O. Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240, or email niagaranews@buffnews.com.

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Lack of state funding may not deter Kibler Park plan

January 26, 2013, 8:44 pm

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LOCKPORT – The Lockport City School District may include a driveway through Kibler Park in a capital project referendum this May, despite word from Albany that no state aid will be available for the work.

The district wants to acquire the park from the city, a move that would require state legislation. It wants the land for a new driveway to Roy B. Kelley Elementary School, which is being expanded to take in students displaced by the planned closure of Washington Hunt Elementary School in June.

District officials say there are already traffic jams around Kelley each morning and afternoon, and an exit from the back of the school would relieve them.

“We haven’t discussed it in quite a while,” Mayor Michael W. Tucker said.

He had previously told nearby residents who came to a Sept. 19 Common Council meeting to protest the prospect of losing the park that the city wouldn’t give the park away if residents opposed it.

Money for the project could be appropriated from a district capital reserve fund, according to Superintendent Michelle T. Bradley and Deborah Coder, assistant superintendent for finance and management services. The fund currently contains a little more than $5 million.

“We were aware [legislation] could take up to a year,” Coder said. “A referendum can include several areas. Just because voters say yes, sometimes work doesn’t get done. … It takes the state Education Department 18 months to approve a project.” “I believe the architect was saying $500,000 [to build the driveway],” Bradley said. “But there’s other site work that would need to be done at Roy B. Kelley, such as expanding parking lots.”

The use of the reserve fund would prevent the project from having any direct impact on property taxes, Coder said.

Bradley said a Board of Education committee is currently considering which items to include in a capital projects vote at the May 21 district election. She said the committee probably wouldn’t report until the board’s March 6 meeting.



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com

Health officials probe radiation in former Falls tire store

January 26, 2013, 8:44 pm

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NIAGARA FALLS – Local and state health officials are working on ways to reduce radiation levels inside a former Niagara Falls Boulevard tire store in hopes of improving chances of its reuse.

The vacant former Dunn Tire store at 9540 Niagara Falls Blvd. is built over fill containing radioactive slag, said James J. Devald, county environmental health director.

“It’s the same radioactive slag that’s under other areas in Niagara Falls, [such as] Lewiston Road,” Devald said.

Larger amounts of radioactive material than expected delayed the reconstruction of that street for several years.

The slag lies beneath the parking lot and part of the building, and extends beneath part of the parking lot of the Rapids Bowling Center next door, Devald told the Board of Health last week.

“We’ve known about it for years,” Devald said. “There was one area of the [tire] building where they were advised not to have an office. They used it for tire storage.”

However, Devald said Dunn’s decision to close the store was made for business reasons only. Dunn Tire did not respond to a request for comment emailed to the company.

Devald said he and the state Health Department will meet with the building’s owner, GMA Properties, to talk about how to reduce the radiation inside the store.

No remediation is planned, Devald said. The state Health Department was unable to provide further information.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation said the DEC doesn’t list the store on any of its hazard or remediation registries.

The former tire store is assessed at $400,000, according to the city’s online tax roll.

In other environmental matters at Thursday’s Board of Health session, Devald said a statewide map of cancer clusters, listing more than 20 types of cancer, is now online at the state Health Department website.

It shows proximity of cancer cases to environmentally hazardous sites, and can be zoomed down to the local level, Devald said.

He also told the board that some people with fishing licenses have been mailed information about taking part in a state study of the health impacts of eating fish caught in Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Niagara River.

The goal is to sign up 300 anglers living in Erie, Niagara and Monroe counties, along with 200 Burmese refugees now living in Buffalo.

Participants will have to give blood and urine samples and consent to be interviewed about their fish consumption. The testing will measure the levels of chemicals and heavy metals in the bodies of the study subjects.

email: tprohaska@buffnews.com

From the blotter/Police calls and court cases, Jan. 17 to 22

January 26, 2013, 8:44 pm

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Charles E. Boardway, 48, of Park Avenue, Medina, pleaded guilty in Niagara County Court to a felony count of driving while intoxicated.

County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III set sentencing April 4 for Boardway, who was arrested June 17 in Middleport.

• In another case Thursday, Jason R. Mucha, 43, of Old Beattie Road, Lockport, pleaded not guilty to felony DWI, first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation and speeding. Mucha was arrested Sept. 23 as he pulled into his driveway; his blood alcohol content was measured at .16 percent.

• Witnesses told Niagara Falls police they saw a Whitney Avenue landlord giving an unknown person a washer and dryer belonging to a former tenant. The tenant had recently moved out and had arranged for her rental appliances, valued at $,1400, to be picked up by the rental company. Instead, neighbors told police they saw the woman’s former landlord turning the property over to someone else. An investigation is continuing.An Orange County man faces felony and misdemeanor drug charges stemming from his arrest on the Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls police said. Raymond M. Pitt, 27, of Washingtonville, was a passenger in a car attempting to re-enter the U.S. just after 10 p.m., Customs agents said. A check of the vehicle turned up a variety of prescription pills, some liquid methadone and a small amount of marijuana. The driver, Robert J. Badstein, 28, of Monroe, New York, was ticketed for unlawful possession of marijuana. Pitt faces charges of fourth- and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and will be arraigned in city court.

• A 51-year-old man told Niagara Falls police he was beaten and then chased by a man threatening to shoot him. The victim, a Birch Court resident, told officers he had argued with a man at a Tennessee Avenue home around 11:30 p.m., and had been punched and kicked in the face and body. His assailant then walked to a nearby truck and grabbed a handgun, threatening to shoot him before chasing him through neighboring yards. The assailant fled before police arrived. The victim was taken to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center for treatment of facial injuries.An 82-year-old Ontario Avenue man called Niagara Falls police when he found his side door open and damaged and then found that a flat screen television and laptop were stolen.

The victim said as he waited for police just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday in the 2700 block of Ontario Avenue, he noticed a suspicious vehicle which he said appeared to be stopping in his driveway. He said the driver then appeared to notice him and left the area. He told police he attempted to follow the unknown vehicle, a dark, older-style GMC/Chevrolet, but then lost sight of it.

Inside the house the victim said his 32-inch flat screen television and an Apple laptop were taken. Total loss and damage $2,700, police reported.A Niagara Falls man didn’t have much time to appreciate his brand-new refrigerator, finding that someone had stolen it from the alley behind his home while he was in the process of moving it upstairs into his apartment in the 2200 block of Grand Avenue.

The 21-year-old victim told police that he had just purchased the white Hot Point refrigerator from Kmart and unloaded it into the alleyway behind his apartment. The victim said he removed the door and took it upstairs and when he returned five minutes later to bring up the rest of the refrigerator it was gone.

The victim said he could see tire tracks, but the vehicle information is unknown, according to police.

• Niagara County sheriff’s deputies said they located a Town of Lockport man accused of fleeing from a Walmart security officer with stolen power tools just after 11 a.m. at the South Transit Road store.

Samuel T. Battles IV, of Northview Drive, was charged with petit larceny and fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

Store security said Battles left the store Monday with a Black and Decker sander and a Skil variable speed drill, valued at a total of $69.94. The security guard said he confronted Battles outside the store, but he left in a Toyota Camry with a woman and a child in the back seat.

With assistance from the City of Lockport police, deputies were able to locate Battles at his home on Northview Drive and found the property that had been reported stolen. Battles was arrested after he was brought back to Walmart and positively identified, deputies said. A Juniper Street man told Lockport police that he invited a woman to stop in for a place to stay then caught her in the act of stealing from him.

April A. Mosier, 29, of Ridge Road, was stopped on warrant and charged by Lockport Police with petit larceny.

That man said Mosier had stayed at his house while he was out and when he returned home at 9:30 p.m. Jan. 10, he saw her with his XBox game system and two games. He said when he asked her what she was doing she jumped into a waiting friend’s vehicle, taking the game system and games.

Competitor was willing to pay state $100 million more than Maid of the Mist

January 26, 2013, 8:46 pm

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Local government officials last month cheered the state for saving Niagara Falls’ most popular tourist attraction from extinction.

But to Terry MacRae, the new lease on life for the Maid of the Mist is just another missed opportunity for the struggling American side of the falls.

His California boat tours soon will take the Maid’s place on the Canadian side of the falls, and MacRae wanted to make his pitch for upgraded boat tours on the U.S. side, too.

He sought the kind of boat tour monopoly the locally owned Maid of the Mist enjoyed for more than a century, and he was willing to pay New York State big money for that chance: more than $100 million.

The problem, he said, is the cash-strapped state doesn’t want his money and refused to even hear his offer.

“I don’t understand what they are thinking,” MacRae said from his San Francisco office. “What are they hoping to achieve here?”

State leaders say the Maid of the Mist is a national institution, an iconic brand that looms as large as the image of Niagara Falls itself.

And saving it was a major priority of Gov. Andrew Cuomo – especially after a political dispute in Canada put the American business in jeopardy.

“It’s a win-win-win all around,” Cuomo said in December, standing within sight of the falls. “For the Maid of the Mist, for the city and for the tourism industry.”

The big loser, of course, is MacRae, who said his Hornblower Cruises were the victim of a “sweetheart political deal” intended to benefit the Maid of the Mist.

After losing its Canadian storage docks to MacRae’s Hornblower Cruises, the Glynn family of Lewiston depended on getting permission to build a similar storage site on the American side if it was to keep its Maid of the Mist business afloat.

Cuomo’s administration cleared the way, giving the Glynn family the go-ahead to build docks on prime parkland in the Niagara Gorge in exchange for $105 million in increased payments to the state.

MacRae was willing to double that figure, he said, but he also argued that the new U.S. facility – like any project on public lands – should be open to public bidding.

“What does the law require?” he asked. “What is in the public’s good? How do you know unless you give it a go, that there aren’t better choices?”

Just look at Canada, he said.

The Ontario government last year ended its no-bid lease with the Maid and entertained more than six new boat proposals.

Canada chose Hornblower, which runs tours in San Francisco and New York City and promised to build an outdoor viewing area and restaurant space at the base of the falls.

The deal netted the Ontario government more than $500 million over a 30-year span – more than double what it was getting from the Maid of the Mist.

MacRae said he wants to bring the same type of service – and payout – to the American side, whether by running the tours from Canada or by building a new dock in New York.

But officials at the local and state levels aren’t interested.

For one, they said, the new Maid agreement keeps a valued local business operating after more than a century of success – and it requires the company to pay the state three times more than it did previously.

It also preserves what marketers call a brand known throughout the world – a national treasure synonymous with the falls themselves and trademarked by the Glynn family.

“It predates Olmsted. It’s part of our history here,” Mayor Paul A. Dyster said. “You have to make long-term decisions. You want to do this once and do this right.”

Dyster said he was not involved in the negotiations but supports the state’s decision. The main concern, he said, was the possibility of a service interruption if another company took over.

“This is not an inconsequential interest to us,” Dyster said. “Outside the falls, this is the premiere attraction. This could do a long-term damage to our side.”

MacRae countered that trying to complete a $30 million dock-building project on the side of the Niagara Gorge in less than a year only increases that possibility.

“Why would you want to build a new shipyard in an environmentally sensitive area of the gorge when there is already one that exists [in Canada]?” he asked.

Local officials said it is that scenario – depending on the Canadian storage docks Hornblower will take over – that caused the dilemma in the first place.

“I love the Canadians, but do we want them to have veto power over its operations?” Dyster asked. “The answer is no.”

Dyster and MacRae agreed on one point: Both sides should have created a more unified strategy for bidding out the tours.

MacRae said there’s no reason New York can’t reverse its stance now, especially since only a tentative agreement has been signed.

He’s also shocked at the loyalty people here seem to have to the Maid of the Mist name.

“Fear of change is what public policy [has become] in Niagara Falls, N.Y.,” MacRae said. “Maybe they should examine that and see how successful it’s been over many years. Maybe there’s a reason why there’s a lot more people going to Canada.”

MacRae has hired a law firm from New York City to persuade Cuomo to reconsider the new deal for the Maid of the Mist. He has sent a letter to Cuomo and hasn’t ruled out filing a lawsuit if the state doesn’t budge.

But the state said its new deal with the Maid of the Mist is legal because it’s an amendment to a 40-year contract already in place that gives the Maid the exclusive right to operate the New York tours.

It was signed in 2002 behind closed doors and without public bidding, because the Maid’s docks in Canada made it the only company in a position to offer the tours.

That logic makes sense, MacRae said, except for the fact that those docks are now owned by Hornblower.

“Now, since it serves their purpose, they’re thinking about it,” MacRae said of the state.

Maid of the Mist president Christopher M. Glynn, through a spokesman, declined to comment, but state officials said they could not throw out the existing Maid contract, which is invalid only if the Maid ceases to deliver the tours.

They insist that rebidding the contract would have slowed the process and put the American tours in jeopardy.

“Our goal was to preserve the Maid of the Mist tours, which are a signature attraction for Western New York, and get the best deal for the taxpayers,” said Matt Wing, a spokesman for the governor.

“The agreement we reached does exactly that, because it includes a $32 million investment from the private sector and increases the State Parks’ share of tour ticket revenue by over $100 million.”

Cuomo – when questioned by a Buffalo News reporter in December – said the agreement between the state and Maid was a “special circumstance.”

State officials consider the boat tour controversy a done deal and are happy to see the Maid of the Mist set sail for decades to come. But MacRae disagreed.

“I don’t think the story’s over on this one yet,” he said.

The full Maid of the Mist agreement, and Hornblower’s letter to Cuomo, can be viewed at http://blogs.buffalonews.com/niagara_views/.



email: cspecht@buffnews.com

New Wilson food pantry fills a community need

January 26, 2013, 8:46 pm

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WILSON – A new food pantry serving residents of the community is slowly growing in clientele and donations, helping fill a void created when a former, long-standing resource closed its doors in the village nearly two years ago.

The new Wilson Community Food Pantry, accessed through the rear entrance of St. Brendan-on-the-Lake Church at 359 Lake St., serves clients from 4 to 8 p.m. every Tuesday and from 10 a.m. to noon every third Saturday.

“We give them the dignity of shopping for their food,” said Janet Hoffman, pantry administrator. “We follow guidelines for eligibility, but we never turn anyone away.”

Hoffman said participants must provide photo identification and proof of residency and income.

“We encourage people to come here and get the food they need to get them over the hump,” she said. “They only come here once a month. There should be no stigma to using the food pantry. Everyone has contributed to society, and now it’s time for the community to give back. When these people get back on their feet, we ask that they donate to the pantry to help the next people.

“These are the working poor – they all have income, just not enough,” said the retired nurse. “It’s the economics of the times. We have many new people here who have never been to a food pantry before and never expected to be here.”

Hoffman said the amount of food a shopper is allowed to choose depends on the size of the person’s family. And, thanks to the donations of two freezers and a large refrigerator/freezer, patrons have access to more than nonperishables.

The dozen volunteers who operate the new pantry depend solely on donations of food or money to purchase food, she said. Most donations are nonperishables, and Hoffman supplements these with fresh milk, eggs and other items that she purchases once a month.

“And everything we take in is given away,” she noted.

They pantry has relied on the Food Bank of Western New York for training in how to set up this endeavor, and they visited Ransomville’s food pantry to observe how they operate, but the Wilson Food Pantry, which opened in November, is independent in its operation.

“We attended a class that the Food Bank held on how to start up a food pantry, and the people in Ransomville were very kind and supportive,” she said.

Wilson’s Country Roads Caring Neighbors Food Pantry closed in April 2011 after decades of service when its director retired and no replacement could be found. At the time of its closing, it was serving up to 74 households and 170 individuals per month. In December of that same year, Ransomville’s Care and Share Community Services opened in the Ransomville Free Methodist Church, welcoming those in need from Wilson.

The idea for a new pantry in Wilson grew from discussions among members of Wilson’s ecumenical council, notably through the efforts of Rev. Judith Lee of St. John’s Episcopal Church and Rev. Stephen Hay of Wilson’s First Baptist Church, Hoffman said. Rev. Jozef Dudzik offered unused space at St. Brendan’s and his church pays the electric bills.

“All of the area churches are involved and collect food at their events for us and share donations with us,” she said. “The Wilson Lions Club, the Wilson Fire Company, the Wilson School District, the town and village and just the community as a whole have been very generous.”

“I really commend the organizers,” said Town Supervisor Joseph Jastrzemski. “The need is greater now than ever before. It was a sad day when our food pantry closed, and it was generous of Ransomville to allow our people to go there, but some found it difficult to get to Ransomville. I commend Janet Hoffman and everyone involved. This is a blessing.”

Likewise, Bernard Leiker, deputy mayor of the Village of Wilson, said, “It’s really exciting to see the community, once again, step up to help others. This is something we really appreciate.”

Anyone wishing to donate may leave nonperishables at the food pantry from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Anyone wishing to make monetary donations or volunteer or to learn more about eligibility may contact Hoffman at 751-0165.



email: niagaranews@buffnews.com

Police probing death of woman found unconscious

January 27, 2013, 8:48 am

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Lockport police are investigating the death Saturday of a woman discovered outside the former Niagara County infirmary.

Police say the woman was unconscious when they arrived at the scene after getting a call at 6:23 a.m. that a person was down in front of the Davison Road building.

The woman, whose name is being withheld until her family is notified, was treated at the scene by Lockport fire and rescue personnel before being transported to Eastern Niagara Hospital.

She was pronounced dead at 10:51 a.m.

Lockport Chief of Detectives Richard L. Podgers said there were “no outward signs of violence," no indication as to the cause of death and that the incident is being investigated as an unattended death.

Podgers said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday morning.

Niagara Falls aims for ‘Elmwood north’ with loan program

January 27, 2013, 10:14 am

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After decades of population loss, Niagara Falls has found a way to draw young people downtown by offering to pay off their student loans.

Now comes the challenge of drawing the businesses the young creative types will demand.

The honeymoon capital this year will place the first of 20 recent graduates into homes and apartments near the falls, the first step in building a market for what officials hope will become an Elmwood Village of the north.

The idea is to inject young people into a downtown area that edges closer toward disrepair each year. Federal urban renewal funds will pay two years of the graduates’ student loan bills if they move into a targeted tract just blocks from the falls. The program has already attracted more than 200 applicants from across the country.

In turn, leaders hope the young blood will attract the sort of businesses common to a thriving commercial strip – coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants and bars.

Attracting businesses to the downtown area is no easy task, leaders acknowledge.

Many of the commercial buildings in the Main Street/Third Street area have been sitting vacant for years, and some blocks resemble a plywood wall of boarded-up businesses and broken dreams.

And while the state has made years of infrastructure improvements in the downtown tourist strip, significant business investment has yet to materialize.

But the state has pledged new money toward revitalizing the area where the young graduates will live, including $200,000 for property acquisition, $160,000 for demolition of blighted structures $60,000 for administrative costs and $30,000 in matching grants for storefront improvements.

“You’re taking away blight in the surrounding area, and at the same time you’re rehabbing storefronts in your commercial district,” said Seth A. Piccirillo, the city’s director of community development. “That’s important for current residents, new residents and tourists.”

“Ultimately, what we want is [investors] seeing new people moving in, they see strategic commercial improvements. What we want is seeing the people privately investing on their own in the area,” he added.

The loan program is the first step in addressing the lack of downtown housing in Niagara Falls, according to leaders who see it as an untapped market.

Recent developments, like the $30 million Niagara Falls Culinary Institute, have attracted college students downtown, and officials from local colleges and universities say they need a more permanent solution than renting out hotel rooms for the students.

A key step in attracting the young people downtown – and making them want to stay longer than two years – is making them feel safe.

That’s one of the reasons why city leaders were thrilled when Sen. Charles E. Schumer recently announced a new partnership between city police and federal anti-crime officials to cut down on violent crime in city neighborhoods and property theft in the downtown tourist district.

“To put it simply, this amounts to a one-two punch for Niagara Falls,” Schumer said in November. “Not only does it cut crime, it will attract new tourists and businesses to this subsequently safer landmark city.”

The program is also designed to help ensure the city doesn’t dip below a population count of 50,000 for the 2020 Census, when it would lose key state and federal funding that is based on population figures.

Those interested in the residential component of the program have already sought one of the 20 spots that will be filled in the program’s first year.

More than 200 people from as far away as Hawaii have asked about renting or buying a home in the city since officials announced the program in June.

Half of those interested are from upstate New York, with the others coming from California, Oregon, New York City and other coastal areas.

The applications are being reviewed by five officials from the city, its library, a local business association, Niagara University and Niagara County Community College.

Graduates who have received two-year or four-year degrees within the past two years, or those in graduate school, would be eligible, and the city promises to cover up to $3,500 per year of student loan payments for two years.

The graduates would need to rent a market-rate apartment – or buy a home – within the downtown area. If they meet all of their loan and rent or mortgage commitments after the first year, they would be reimbursed the cost of their student loans for that year. The same thing would happen after the second year.

City leaders say they plan to start moving the students into the neighborhood in summer, and soon after they will know whether their strategy pays off in real business investment.

The city has received three business inquiries since word of the program went national.

“If we can see in 2013, three new businesses, I think that is very positive,” Piccirillo said. “Some people say, ‘What’s three new businesses in a city that needs many businesses?’ I say it’s momentum.”

email: cspecht@buffnews.com

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Hopeful signs spur optimism in Niagara Falls

January 27, 2013, 10:17 am

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The year just ended was a time of hopes, promises and dreams for Niagara County.

Only time will tell which of those hopes, promises or dreams may come true any time soon for a county that has limped along for far too long without many signs of real progress.

There were, of course, some positive signs, but whether they will come to complete fruition still is an open question.

William L. Ross, chairman of the Niagara County Legislature, conceded in his State of the County address that “the last few years were tough for everyone. The staff of the Niagara County Economic Development Center was challenged to keep economic development moving forward despite the economic climate.”

During 2013, Ross said, a $180,000 grant will be awarded to help clean up brownfields; new sites will be added to the state-certified list of properties that are “shovel-ready” for development; 1.2 megawatts of low-cost electricity will be marketed to companies to locate or expand in Niagara County; and $35,000 to $40,000 in grants will be awarded to enhance local business districts.

Among goals for 2013, the chairman said, are the consolidation or sharing of services among various levels of government to reduce county taxes; retention of the 914th and 107th Airlift Wings at the Niagara Falls Air Force Reserve Station; and support for the removal of radioactive waste from the Niagara Falls Storage Site, formerly called the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works.

A few cases in point:

• Niagara Falls International Airport has been modernized and enlarged, attracting some scheduled passenger flights mainly to Southern cities, but a cloud appeared on the horizon when one of the three airlines, Direct Air, abruptly shut down its service last March and filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force put its adjoining Niagara Falls Reserve Station on the list for closure because of budget restrictions, although local officials hope to save the air base by lining up a new mission guiding drone aircraft.

Ross said the other airlines serving Niagara Falls – Spirit and Allegiant – “are doing well and have promised new destinations in the near future.”• Confusion continued over what to do with toxic and radioactive waste from the World War II Lake Ontario Ordinance Works in the towns of Lewiston and Porter. Some residents want the material to be totally removed to a permanent storage site in another state, while many environmental experts believe that the buried waste poses no danger to the area.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is struggling to find an answer to the 70-year-old dilemma, but its timetable is unlikely to be completed this year.

Ross said one of the County Legislature’s goals for 2013 is to “remove radioactive waste at the Niagara Falls Storage Site.”

• Niagara County Community College’s Culinary Institute has moved into the long-vacant Rainbow Mall shopping center in downtown Niagara Falls, but it has not been there long enough to establish an enduring reputation as a tourist destination nor as a premier teaching center for the hospitality industry – and part of the mall still remains vacant.

Ross called the Culinary Institute a “showpiece” and a “jewel of post-secondary education,” as well as “an outstanding addition to the community college.”• The vacant and deteriorating Hotel Niagara, once a highly recognized landmark in Niagara Falls, has been taken over by a new developer, and plans call for it to be restored to some of its former grandeur.

The nearby United Office Building, once the tallest building in Niagara Falls, has been rescued from years of neglect, and a couple of its floors have been modernized as the attractive and high-end Giacomo Hotel. Most of the rest of the building remains vacant.

• Because of a change in contracts, the long-running Maid of the Mist boat tours lost their docking and maintenance facilities on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, and it appeared for a time that the popular tours might not be available on the United States side.

Only some fast footwork by local and state officials found docking space on the American side, and the boats are scheduled to run this year.

It is too early to tell how their competition with the new boats moored on the Canadian side will work out.• The long fight over the scenic Robert Moses Parkway continued. When it was built a couple of generations ago, the parkway was considered a marvel of transportation that would put the Niagara River and its majestic falls within sight of millions of drivers and passengers who wouldn’t even have to get out of their cars to appreciate the natural wonders.

Today, environmentalists and local business interests want the parkway removed, to provide easier pedestrian access to the river and perhaps to entice visitors into the city’s business districts.

It appears that part of the parkway will be removed, but so far the two sides have not come to any firm agreement on its exact future.

• Work has started on a new Niagara Falls Transportation Center and Underground Railroad museum to serve passenger trains, buses, taxis, automobiles, pedestrians and tourists, but not all of the funding is in place, and it is uncertain when it may be put into service.

• Millions of dollars in revenue from slot machines at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel were earmarked for massive improvements in infrastructure and building stock in Niagara Falls, only to see that income held up in a dispute between the Seneca Nation of Indians and the State of New York. Many of the planned improvements never were started or were left only partly finished when the city’s share of the expected casino funds dried up.

• More than 440 parcels – the largest developable tract within two miles of the cataracts – remain vacant and largely untended, with no firm development plan in sight. City officials at one time pinned their hopes for major commercial and residential redevelopment on the sprawling tract held by companies owned by Manhattan billionaire and State Thruway Authority Chairman Howard P. Milstein, but little development ever occurred.

• Old Falls Street, connecting Niagara Falls State Park with the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel, has been transformed from a city street into an attractive pedestrian walkway, but it has yet to attract the vendors or merchants who had been expected to cater to the hordes of tourists who would crowd the beautified walkway. Neither the vendors, merchants nor the high volume of tourists have yet materialized.

• Voters in Niagara Falls agreed to borrow up to $67 million to expand or repair every building in the city’s public school system and to install artificial turf on its main athletic fields. Work is expected to begin this year.

Yet, dissatisfaction with public schools continued to grow as more applications for independent charter schools were filed with the state Education Department. Some charter schools have failed to live up to their expectations, but others are on the horizon and it appears that more charters – not fewer – are yet to come.



email: rbaldwin@buffnews.com

Burglar may have caused massive flood in former Summit mall

January 27, 2013, 3:29 pm

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WHEATFIELD – Frozen valves caused three water pipes to burst inside the former Summit mall over the weekend, resulting in as much as $1 million worth of water damage.

Police are investigating whether a burglary may have precipitated the mess.

Officials responded to the largely vacant mall at 9 a.m. today, after a large water main break was discovered. It turned out that water pooling in the parking lots was actually coming from inside the mall, where most of the stores had been flooded with four to six inches of water, Niagara County sheriff’s deputies said.

While checking the interior, officials discovered a roof hatch open inside a utility room. Deputies speculate that the hatch was opened sometime between 5 p.m. Wednesday and this morning, and may have remained open during an unusually cold snap of weather that probably triggered the freezing of the valves.

The town water department was called out to shut off the water main to the mall building.

Replacement of the damaged valves was expected to cost about $100,00, and the water damage to the mall was listed at $500,000 to $1 million.

“All this over a hit-and-run?,” asks driver charged with felony DWI

January 27, 2013, 3:43 pm

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NIAGARA FALLS – City police said they had to forcibly arrest a man fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run crash Saturday night.

A witness to the crash, which occurred in the area of Honey’s restaurant on Niagara Falls Boulevard, followed the alleged hit-and-run driver through several streets in the city’s LaSalle section, until police located the vehicle. The driver still refused to pull over for emergency vehicles, according to police reports, but finally stopped in the 8200 block of Niagara Falls Boulevard.

The driver was combative and refused to comply with police commands before being forcibly taken into custody, according to reports. Christopher M. Falbo, 50, complained as he was placed in handcuffs, saying, “All this over a hit-and-run?,” officers reported.

Falbo, of Portage Road, was charged with felony and misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident, resisting arrest and following too closely.

Market Street Art Center to reopen after improvements

January 27, 2013, 5:49 pm

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LOCKPORT – The Market Street Art Center will reopen Monday after renovations to its Joseph A. and Kathleen M. Whalen Gallery and to the Art and Soul gift shop, and the center’s first exhibit for 2013 is an exhibition of photography in the Whalen and the Brickroom galleries.

The exhibit features 85 photographs by 30 local and regional photographers. It includes digital, manipulated, film, and traditional darkroom-processed prints. Dennis Stierer, a widely known Lockport photographer, is the judge of the show.

An “opening” reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, and the show will continue through March 3. The center, at 247 Market St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily on Mondays through Saturdays, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Admission and refreshments are free.

The center will have more than 15 shows this year, including exhibitions of work by individual artists, artist organizations, a teacher/student show and its annual members’ show. Major exhibits will include a Veterans’ Art Exhibition opening in May, and a Legacy Show opening in July to celebrate 150 years of service by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur in Lockport.

Unpaid charges may cost TAM Ceramics its tax break

January 27, 2013, 8:34 pm

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WHEATFIELD – TAM Ceramics may lose its property tax break from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency because of more than $600,000 in unpaid sewer bills and special district taxes.

IDA attorney Mark J. Gabriele said he mailed the Town of Niagara company a warning letter Friday, giving it 30 days to pay up before the IDA cancels the tax abatement.

The IDA gave TAM a 15-year tax break in 2010, after the company was acquired by three local businessmen: Jerome P. Williams, George H. Bilkey and Alfonse Muto.

TAM was required to pay all back taxes and water and sewer charges by Oct. 1, 2011, as a condition of its payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, arrangement.

Gabriele said he thought TAM had made the payments and had no inkling otherwise until he was contacted by The Buffalo News last week. The IDA had received letters from the taxing entities, saying that the amounts owed by TAM were paid in full.

However, the County Treasurer’s Office said last week that TAM owes the county $627,072.25.

Most of that amount – $414,933.81 – consists of unpaid Town of Niagara sewer charges for 2009, 2010 and 2011, which were added to TAM’s tax bills of the ensuing year. The remainder consists of taxes levied by the county Water District and the town Fire, Water and Sewer districts. Such taxes are not covered by the PILOT.

Bilkey, who is TAM’s president, and the firm’s attorney, Robert L. Benecini, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The case has even more twists. Gabriele said the county, following state law, paid the town the amounts of the sewer bills and then took on the task of trying to collect from TAM.

So the town’s letter that it had been paid in full wasn’t completely inaccurate, Gabriele said; it just didn’t mention that the town had been paid by the county, not TAM.

Now the county and the town are arguing over how much of the money the county paid to cover TAM’s bills really were town charges. It appears that a substantial amount of the unpaid bills actually were sent to TAM not by the town, but by the Niagara Falls Water Board. That agency had a service contract with TAM, whose plant is near the city-town boundary.

John J. Ottaviano, a Lockport attorney who normally represents the Water Board, was hired by the Town of Niagara for its TAM-related matters.

Ottaviano said the county wants about $200,000 back from the town, because the county isn’t required to cover unpaid charges from a city water and sewer service, only one run by a town.

County Attorney Claude A. Joerg said one of his assistant attorneys, R. Joseph Foltz, recently met with Ottaviano to try to hash this out.

Ottaviano said he believes that TAM owes the Water Board about $500,000 over and above the amounts the county covered. David P. Flynn, of Buffalo’s Phillips Lytle law firm, representing the Water Board on the issue, declined to release details.

There’s another angle to the dispute: For four consecutive years, TAM has sued the town to try to have its $1.5 million property assessment reduced.

The 2009 lawsuit sought to set the valuation at $300,000. The demand for 2010 was $120,000. And in 2011 and 2012, TAM sought to have its assessment cut to $1.



email: tprohaska@buffnews.com