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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
“This will remain
the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”
www.thewestfieldnews.com
— Elmer Davis
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014
VOL. 83 NO. 214
75 cents
Ceremonies honor lost, heroes of 9/11 attacks
Board may reset perc season By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Board of Health voted Wednesday night to grant variances to allow out-of-season percolation tests done to determine if soil conditions will support installation of a septic system. Health Director Joseph Rouse said Westfield is one of a few communities in the area still to have a “perc test season” which is defined as being from February through May. “The rational for having a perc season was to do the test during the wettest months of the year,” Rouse said. “The policy criterion also requires a hardship, usually economic, to justify doing it out of season.” Part of the test procedure is to saturate the soil, then time the absorption of water into See Perc, Page 8
Joseph Rouse
Westfield Vocational-Technical High School carpentry instructor Rick LaBay, right, and Garrett Kellam, left, a senior, work on the upper level of the new Park Square Pavilion Wednesday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WVTHS students making pavilion progress By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD – This week, returning Westfield Vocational-Technical High School seniors in the Construction Technology shop taught by Brian Falcetti picked up where they left off last spring on the unfinished Park Square Pavilion. “Our group has eight students, but I just had two go out on co-op so I’m down to six,” Falcetti said. He had 14 last year. “We spent three days in June and three days this week,” he said. “So the progress you see here is six days worth of work.” “We did the headers and the cripples for the doors and windows, and now we’re working on the arches that are going to go around the windows,” said Susan Mosijchuk, one of Falcetti’s senior construction students. “We’ve got half-round windows going into the upper section, so they’re doing all the framing to complete the half-round rough framing for those windows,” said Falcetti. He said that the seniors were able to use a crane to assemble and put the steel onto the structure in June. “They’re doing all of the infill framing for the doors and windows and sheathing the exterior,” he said. “The week of the 22nd, we’ll be bringing the trusses over and will start assembling the roof system that will be
lifted up the first of October.” Falcetti said that the trusses, though pre-manufactured, are still at WVTHS, where the students did prefitting work. “Where the brackets go and their length – all that was pre-cut at the shop.” he said. “Next we’ll do an assembly on the Green where we’ll pre-assemble the roof and lift the whole thing as one unit.” The eight-sided structure will have a bell-shaped roof, with a triple girder, with hips jutting off it on all sides. Falcetti said that he and the students told Tighe & Bond and Reinhardt Associates, the project’s engineering consulting and architectural design firms, about the products they felt they could use to make the project work. “These structures are already padded with 2-by-6s, so none of the drilling had to be done and the students could add steel to the steel without having to do all the extra work of drilling,” said Falcetti. “We picked a lot of the products and gave them our model that the students designed to show how we thought we could do it with students. So they (Tighe & Bond, Reinhardt) are just finalizing prints that our students designed and gave it the engineers’ stamp.” “I don’t know that there are many challenges,” he
By Hope E. Tremblay Staff Writer SOUTHWICK – The Southwick Fire Department hosted the town’s annual 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony yesterday. Marked with the ringing of a bell – known as the Striking of the Four Fives in the firefighting world – the ceremony was solemn and honored lives lost and the heroes who arrived after terrorists struck. Fire Chief Richard Anderson said the firefighters and all first responders that day bravely ran into buildings as others were running out. They helped save lives. “Much has happened since that day,” Anderson said. “It changed the way we live. It changed the way we see terrorists.” Anderson said people today tend not to look back. “There’s a great tendency to focus on the present and avoid the past,” he said. “We’re here today because we’ve chosen not to forget.” A small crowd of residents, town officials, police and public works employees joined the fire department in remembering the fallen and saluting the first responders. Anderson said firefighters and first responders honor those memories whenever they respond to a call. “It doesn’t matter who calls or what the circumstances are,” Anderson said. Fire Chaplain Rev. Albright recalled that Sept. 11, 2001 was not unlike yesterday. “It was a September morning that began much like this one,” he said. “It is all too easy for us to forget events of the past and be content with what is before us today.” Albright said that tragic day was a demonstration “of what we are at our best in order to save the victims of what we are at See 9/11 Ceremony, Page 3
See Pavilion Progress, Page 8
School Committee discusses Hopson’s letter By Peter Francis Staff Writer MIDDLEFIELD – Copies of a letter written to members of the state legislature by Gateway Regional School District Superintendent Dr. David Hopson were dispersed to members of the district’s school committee Wednesday evening. The writing of the letter was approved by the committee at their last meeting and it has been sent to the legislators representing the district’s seven member towns regarding the town of Worthington’s continued attempt to unilaterally withdraw from the district. The letter has been sent to the district and State House offices of state Sen. Benjamin B. Downing, D-Pittsfield – who represents the towns of Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield and Worthington in his Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden District – and to state Sen. Don Humason, Jr., R-Westfield, who represents the towns of Montgomery and Russell in his 2nd Hampden-Hampshire
District. Four members of the state’s House of Representatives have also been sent copies of the letter – William “Smitty” Pignatelli, D-Lenox, who represents Blandford and Russell, Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, the longtime representative for Chester, Huntington, Middlefield and Worthington, and Peter Kocot, D-Northampton, who represents the town of Montgomery. Letters have also been sent to the Chairs of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Education, Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, D-Boston and Rep. Alice Peisch, D-Wellesley. Urged to write to the district’s legislative delegation by community members such as Montgomery Selectman Dan Jacques and Derrick Mason of the Gateway Town Advisory Committee, the letter is seeking clarification on a number of issues, including the effective date for an Act relative to the withdrawal of the town of Worthington from the Gateway Regional School District.
Purse stolen in church while victim prayed By Carl E. Hartdegen Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The sanctity of the church was apparently violated Wednesday by a thief who stole a parishioner’s purse while she was praying. A Sackett Road resident called police Wednesday afternoon to report that her purse was stolen at St. Mary’s Church while she was there to pray as she does regularly on Wednesday. Officer John Barnachez reports that the woman said that she sat in a pew in the lower church and left her purse and other items in the pew when she went up to the altar to pray. The woman said that when she returned to her pew her purse was missing although her other property was still where she had left it. The victim said that she had not seen anybody in the lower church while she was there except for two elderly ladies who had been seated the front of the church. Barnachez reports that he spoke the two women the victim indicated and neither said that they had seen anybody else in the church.
“There has been significant discussion at venues across the district regarding this legislation, with uncertainty around timeliness, protocols, and outcomes.” said Hopson in the letter. “Mrs. Ruth Kennedy, a school committee member from the town of Russell, has also indicated that her conversations with legislators, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) officials, and others throughout state government reveal little consistency between these organizations concerning this legislation.” The letter goes on to ask for specific clarification on the effective dates of approval and withdrawal under DESE regulations, the timing for DESE convening a reorganizational needs conference and how it pertains to approval of the education plans of the Gateway Regional District and the town of Worthington. Hopson’s letter also asks for clarification on what the report filed with the legislature by the See Hopson, Page 8
Jessica Bishop, a member of the Southwick Fire Department, prepares to ring a bell during a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony in Southwick yesterday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Suspect arraigned under false name By Carl E. Hartdegen Staff Writer WESTFIELD – One of three men arrested after a Montgomery Road burglary got through the police and court procedures claiming to be his brother but, when he got to jail, officials there recognized him and advised the court who he really was. Alberto Ramirez, 29, apparently also of 126 Union St., was arrested – and subsequently arraigned – on charges of breaking and entering a building the nighttime with intent to commit a felony and larceny from a building under the name of his brother, Anthony, 32. He and two co-defendants had been found in the area of J.J.’s Variety store on Montgomery Road minutes after the store was burgled and the ensuing investigation revealed that a large number of cigarettes and cigars stolen from the store were in the trunk of the vehicle. When he was arraigned, Judge Philip A. Contant set bail for Ramirez at $500.
When he did not post bail, he was sent to the Ludlow jail where officials recognized him to be Alberto Ramirez and advised the court that the defendant “apparently gave incorrect identification information to WPD.” He was held without right to bail. Ramiriz was returned to court on Wednesday and acknowledged his real name. His former bail was revoked and he was held in lieu of $5,000 cash bail or $50,000 surety.
Alberto Ramirez