Franklin County 4 Hampshire County 4 LOCAL The Republican WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006 SECTION I GREENFIELD Hybrid car accidents A clinic to instruct emergency personnel on what to do with an accident involving a hybrid car will be held tonight at Greenfield Community College. Toyota technicians will be on hand to provide information on extricating victims, removing cars that have landed in water, and control of fires. First- and second-generation versions of the Toyota Prius, Highlander and Camry hybrids will be on hand for demonstrations. Another clinic will be held in the fall, said Kim Cartelli Matthews, spokesman for Toyota. GILL $5 million donation Northfield Mount Hermon School has received $5 million from an alumnus for a new arts center.
William R. Rhodes, who graduated in 1953, is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Citibank, N.A., and senior vice chairman of Citigroup. His father, Edward Rhodes, also went to Northfield Mount Hermon, graduating in 1916. The center will be named for the Rhodes family, said Thomas K. Sturtevant, school head.
William Rhodes is chairman emeritus of the school's Board of Trustees. In 2002 he arranged a speaking engagement at the school by his friend, Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, and established the W.R. Rhodes South Africa Scholarship for a student to attend from South Africa. SUNDERLAND Coffee shop hearing A proposal to turn the Java Hut drive-through coffee shop into a Dunkin' Donuts goes before the local Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall.
The owners of the Java Hut, Sean and Darren Pierce, were unavailable for comment. They also own Pierce Brothers Coffee Grinders in Greenfield, and have said in the past they want to focus on that business. David Mota of Greenfield is applying to the zoning board for a special permit to run a Dunkin' Donuts at the Java Hut site on Route 116. Mota could not be reached for comment. The Java Hut opened at its current site in 1997.
The drivethrough window was already at the site for the previous business, Heritage Bank. In 1997, two former selectmen said they did not want a Dunkin' Donuts at the site. Ski coach fund-raiser Mohawk Trail Regional High School cross-country skiing coach Gabe Coler, recuperating in Oregon, will receive a $5,800 check this weekend from a fundraiser race held Saturday at Notchview State Reservation in Windsor. The Coler 5K race was organized by family and friends, including current and past high school ski team members. Coler was injured in an avalanche while hiking in the Canadian Rockies.
His hiking partner, Fred Borgh, was killed. 'Green Team' honored Members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Office Green Team recently received a Fish and Wildlife Service Environmental Leadership award in recognition of improvements at. its building here. The award honors leadership in helping the government make environmental improvements including waste prevention, recycling and environmental management, according to a press release from the service office.
Accomplishments included an energy audit that saved more than 230,000 kilowatt hours. of electricity annually. LAST DAY FOR TUT, TOO Staff photo by JOHN SUCHOCKI Converse Middle School in Palmer closed out its year with a school art project, King Tutankhamun, standing watch in a hall. Students in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades took part in the carving. In the company of King Tut yesterday are seventh-graders Charlie M.
Merritt and Tierney M. Bryant. School's out, summer's next By MARY ELLEN LOWNEY Students and teachers in Springfield, Southwick-Tolland and Palmer said farewell to another school year yesterday, switching gears to summer jobs, sleeping in, and days at the beach. Final bells also rang for Belchertown, Ware, Warren and West Brookfield, freeing up more than 30,000 students and several thousand staff across Western Massachusetts for the next 10 weeks. In Springfield, Mary Lynch Elementary School fifth-grader Erik C.
Diaz summed up a feeling shared by many. "I'm sad 1 to leave, but I'm excited about summer vacation," said Diaz, who will attend Kennedy Middle School in September. At Lynch, the good-byes were permanent for principal Chris- Please see Schools, Page B2 PA: Staff photo by DAVID MOLNAR Yesterday was Move Up day at Southwick's Powder Mill Middle School with, from left, Chelsea Collins, Courtney Birchall and Meghan Davidson leading the Pledge of Allegiance. Valley population ion holds steady By STAN FREEMAN Population held fairly steady in the larger communities in the Connecticut River Valley from 2000 to 2005, according to Census Bureau figures that will be released today. The figures, which cover July 1, 2000, to July 1, 2005, also show that the total population of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties rose by a modest 1 percent over the five years.
That was in contrast to population losses suffered in many cities in the industrial Midwest and Northeast during the period. Detroit lost 6.8 of its population, Pittsburgh 5.3 percent, and Boston 5.1 percent. During the same period, Westfield gained 1 percent, Holyoke 0.2 percent, Chicopee remained steady, and Springfield lost 0.2 percent. "The very good news is that we are not losing population and are actually gaining some," said Timothy W. Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, yesterday.
"The other reality, though, is that we are not growing enough. We definitely need to pick up speed. "The need will be more urgent when we get out another 15 years or so when we will have to replace a lot of people in the workforce" who will be retiring. Nationally, the greatest gains in population during the five years were made in warmweather states, particularly Arizona, Nevada, Florida, and California. Elk Grove, had the nation's fastest growth rate -12 percent among cities with a population of 100,000 or more.
New York City continued to be the nation's most populous city, with 8.1 million residents in 2005. This was more than twice the population of Los Angeles, which ranked second at 3.8 million. Springfield, with a population last year of 151,732, ranked 147 on the list of largest cities. It is the fourth largest city in New England, behind Boston, ranked 24 in the nation; Providence, 124; and Worcester, 126. New Haven was ranked 187, and Hartford was ranked 188.
Mob boss tapes played for court By STEPHANIE BARRY SPRINGFIELD In 1999, the loan sharks were circling. According to the first day of testimony in a federal conspiracy trial, pizza shop owner. Leone Daniele in 1996 had borrowed $35,000 from one to buy a home. In the years that followed, he borrowed $50,000 from a second loan shark while the first debt languished. After that, Daniele was into a third for $20,000 to pay off gambling debts.
Then, his business folded. He filed bankruptcy. He sold his wife's wedding ring. He landed in jail. He couldn't raise bail.
Voters to decide surcharge By DIANE LEDERMAN A yester- house, who asked why Daniele fea- sought Bruno's help when the Botta money was owed to Depergola, $200 Daniele responded: pay- "Mr. Adolfo Bruno was the from big boss of downtown Springre- field. If anyone could help me 1996 out, it was him." 104 Daniele testified he believed annu- Bruno collected a percentage of all loan-sharking payoffs. It was made his due as head of the Mafia yes- here, he told jurors. "He was a tough guy to deal show- with," Daniele said from the witDeper- ness stand yesterday.
Adolfo Bruno was labeled the city's reduced top-ranked organized crime member by law enforcement ofAssist- New- Please see Trial, Page B3 AMHERST Voters at the annual town meeting's final session agreed to allow the town at large to decide whether to in; crease the Community Preservation Act tax surcharge. Town meeting members voted, 89 to 61, to put the question on the November ballot. It was the 12th session of the town's 247th annual Town Meeting, which began on May 1.1 Members also agreed Monday by a narrow margin to ask the Select Board to seek bids for a private operator to run Cherry Hill Golf Course. And they voted to use money from the act fund to preservation Amherst pay for signs at some town recreation sites. The Select TOWN a MEETINGS brought the proposal to increase the 1 percent property tax surcharge by 0.5 percentage point to the Town Meeting.
The increase to 1.5 percent would bring in about $113,000 in additional taxes plus another, $113,000 from the state's matching contribution. The increase would add $19.60 to the annual tax bill for a home valued at $350,000, said Select Board member Gerald S. Weiss. Amherst was one of the first Massachusetts communities to adopt the property tax surcharge in 2001. It adopted the lowest percentage provided for by state law.
The state allows local surcharges of up to 3 percent a level approved by voters in Hadley and Northampton. "I understand that some have, thought the Select Board has lost its collective minds," Weiss said. But, he said, "There's never enough money in the capital budget," and the town could use some money from the fund instead of the regular town budget for eligible projects. The Finance Committee opposed the proposal. "It would be much better.
to take a comprehensive view" of the town's needs before asking for. any tax increases, said Finance Committee Chairwoman Alice A. Carlozzi. But after Town Meeting debated the pros and cons of increasing the tax surcharge, Town Meeting member Eleanor, R. Manire-Gatti said, "I don't want to.
speak for the whole town." So she supported the move to place the question on the ballot. Finance Committee member Irwin E. Rhodes brought up the golf course proposal, which was approved on a 72 to 62 vote. The golf course, set up to op-. erate as an enterprise fund that would pay for itself, has re-' quired hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax support.
Last year, the town requested bids for a golf course operator, but no one made an offer.) Rhodes said, however, that the way the proposal was written' was a straitjacket for anyone' wanting to respond. Whether or not a bidder responds to a new request, Rhodes said, the course will remain' open. And whether it's run by a' manager or leased, the course will be affordable, he said. Town Meeting also approved, 78-72, to provide signs at some, town recreation areas. Some members said that Amherst Leisure Services and Supplemental Education should pay for the signs.
Town Meeting member Larry, J. Kelley said he usually opposes such proposals, but believes signs would help people find the recreation areas. "We're supposed to be tree huggers," he said, but wondered how many, motorists waste gas looking for, recreation sites that lack signs. les The debts still loomed. He made a phone call.
"I was in desperate need. I just couldn't take it no more," Daniele, an FBI informant, told jurors of a 1999 telephone call to Massachusetts State Police. He later aligned himself with the FBI, who by 2001 stashed a hidden camera at Papa Leone's, Daniele's now-defunct pizza shop in Westfield. On trial for conspiracy and loan-sharking is Armando Botta, 31, an alleged collector for co-defendant Frank Depergola, 49, who pleaded guilty last month to loan-sharking. Meetings videotaped by the FBI in 2001 and 2002 figured prominently in the first day of trial day.
Most tured collecting weekly ments Daniele to pay the loan at Armando Botta percent al interest Armando Botta from Depergola. Botta threats, his lawyer argued terday. A handful of the videos ed Daniele pleading with gola and slain mob boss M. "Big Al" Bruno for a payoff. Under questioning by ant U.S.
Attorney Todd E..
