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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
www.thewestfieldnews.com
VOL. 83 NO. 54
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2014
Trio charged after car stop By Carl E. Hartdegen Staff Writer WESTFIELD – A city couple and their friend are facing a variety of heroin related charges after they went shopping in Holyoke – with the couple’s 18-month-old daughter. Not only were they “ripped off” by the first person they tried to buy heroin from but, after using all of the drugs they eventually bought before they even got back to Westfield, an alert trooper spotted the operator and recognized her to be a person he had stopped “several times in the past” and who he believed to have a suspended license. State Trooper Alexander W. Berry, on routine patrol from the Russell barracks, reports he had been stopped in the parking lot of a North Road restaurant monitoring traffic Tuesday at 4:42 p.m. when he saw Lindsay A. Woodbury, 26, of 16 Washington St., operating the same vehicle she had been in during previous encounters. After confirming that the woman’s license was indeed suspended, Berry stopped the 1996 Fort Taurus sedan near the Southampton Road intersection. Berry reports that, as the car stopped, he observed the front seat passenger lean toward and reach into the center console. He reports he saw the woman then “place both of their (sic) hands directly in front of their body, in their chest area, and they appeared to either be buttoning a jacket or concealing/retrieving something for a pocket in this area of their body.” When Berry confirmed that Woodbury was the operator he observed, in the back seat, a young child in a car seat and a male party. Berry required both of the adults to place and keep their hands in clear view and ordered Woodbury from the car, placing her in handcuffs and informing her that she was arrested for operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license. When he asked her, prior to a pat frisk, if she was in possession of any weapons or contraband, she told him that there was “a straw and empty bag, which previously contained heroin, in her right boot.” When she removed the boot, Berry saw the bag, “with ‘007’ stamped on it” and “trace amounts of a powder like substance” on it, and a pink straw “with a powdery See Trio Charged, Page 5
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
75 cents
City seeks industrial park proposals
Kareta family awarded $1.4M NORTHAMPTON (AP) — A jury has awarded $1.4 million to the family of a Westfield man killed by a drunken driver in 2010. The Hampshire Superior Court jury determined Wednesday that 46-year-old Craig Barton was grossly negligent and acting recklessly when he got behind the wheel and struck 22-year-old Frederick Kareta III in August 2010. Kareta was retrieving mail from his aunt’s mailbox in South Hadley when a speeding Barton lost control of his car and struck him. Kareta’s father tells The Daily Hampshire Gazette he doesn’t expect to see a dime, but wanted Barton held accountable. Barton represented himself at the trial. The Springfield man pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and other charges in September 2011 in connection with Kareta’s death and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison.
“Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!”
Jillian M. Monahan, a Maine State Police trooper, explains some of the duties and responsibility of a Maine state trooper to Westfield State University students Adam Healey, center, and Bryan Ring, right, during a career fair at the university yesterday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WSU students seek jobs By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD – For the sixth straight spring, Westfield State University played host to the annual Spring Career and Graduate School Expo, an event which drew several hundred students donning their sharpest sport coats and slacks, gathering business cards and dishing out resumes to dozens of prospective employers and institutions. “We probably had about 250 students here today. It’s been a consistent flow,” said Junior Delgado, director of the Career Center at the University. “Would we like to have 600 come through? Absolutely. But it’s been consistent.” Delgado stated that the majority of representatives at the fair were coming from the leadership development, training, and management programs at companies, such as Penske and Kohl’s, along with non-profit organizations, and human service departments, in addition to police department recruiters and computer science companies.
One Penske representative, Tony Melino of Westford, was attending the fair just two years ago prior to his graduation from WSU in 2012, and said it was his attendance that got him his current job as an Assistant Rental Manager. “I got it because of this fair,” he said. “I came in, put out my applications, and had a job before graduation.” When asked what students should do when attending events such as the fair, the former business management major kept it simple. “Be prepared, look up, and dress the part,” Melino said. “Talk to everyone and sell yourself.” The students in attendance seemed to get the memo, donning their French collars and full Windsors in valiant attempts to win over the hearts and minds of potential employers. “I’m just hoping to get my foot in the door and try to benefit myself after graduation,” said Dan Canavan, a senior See Jobs, Page 3
TSgt. Heather Cekovsky, right, a recruiter from the Massachusetts Air National Guard, explains some of the many programs available to Whitney Johnson, a student at Westfield State University, during a career fair staged at Scanlon Hall on the university campus yesterday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Purchasing Department has issued a request for proposals (RFPs) for companies interested in developing land at the industrial park created last year by the City Council. City Purchaser Tammy Tefft released the RFP with an April 4, 2014 deadline to submit a formal proposal to develop land off Turnpike Industrial Park. The city JEFF DALEY owns 66 acres of land between Turnpike Industrial Park and Cabot roads. The city maintains, under terms of the RFP publication, the right to accept or reject any and all proposals submitted. City Advancement Officer Jeff Daley said there has been interest recently from a private manufacturing firm to develop a portion of the park abutting Turnpike Industrial Park Road. Daley declined to identify the manufacturing firm other than saying it is a Californiabased company interested in building a facility that could provide as many as 100 manufacturing jobs. “They are interested in a portion of the park larger than See Industrial Park, Page 3
Police Department seeks fine increases By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer westfield police patchWESTFIELD – The Westfield Police Department is seeking to increase penalties for civil citations issued for noise disturbances and for use of marijuana in public in an effort to bolster enforcement of those problems. Sgt Eric Hall of the Community Policing Bureau appeared last night before the City Council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee to request amending the city’s current noise ordinance by increasing the civil citation from $25 to $100. “The ordinance is written well, but the fine is only $25,” Hall said. “Bumping it to $100 will have a more immediate impact, and hopefully it will stop some of this behavior.” Hall said that the department receives numerous complaints associated with large parties, comprised of collegeaged young adults, in downtown neighborhoods. “The issue is that when we go to these college parties there are often 40 to 50 people,” Hall said. “In the past two weeks there have been eight noise complaints calls, parties with 75 to 200 people. We could write a citation for every person who was contributing to that noise.” “There is discretion involved in issuing citations. We do usually issue a warning,” Hall said. Residents hosting the parties often charge a fee, making the current $25 citation meaningless, even if every resident of that location is issued a citation. ”They don’t care that much,” Hall said. “Even if we give See Fines, Page 3
First pass of Gateway budget discussed By Peter Francis Staff Writer HUNTINGTON – A public hearing was held last night on the proposed $16.9 million Gateway Regional School District budget for the fiscal year 2015. The hearing, held in the auditorium at Gateway Regional High School, lasted just over an hour and a half, and saw local leaders ask some tough questions of Superintendent Dr. David Hopson and the School Committee. Many of the early questions from the 45 or so district residents had to do with rising costs in health insurance for the district, which saw an increase of $65,000, and administrative costs, which would account for $870,866 in the Version 1.1 budget. “People are asking about the impact a school’s administration has on the bottom line of a budget,” said Dan Jacques, chair of the Town of Montgomery’s Select Board. “It would be helpful to explain what people and what roles comprise the administration, the importance of those roles, and how much it costs the district on a daily basis.” “Essentially our entire administrative team is less than it has been in previous years,” Hopson
answered. “Before, when we had five elementary principals, a middle school principal and assistant principal, a high school principal and assistant principal, and curriculum, business office, and technology people, and the Superintendent… Even at that point ten years ago, it took a lot of time and effort, as building principals were doing a lot of title and curriculum work.” He added that there has been a significant increase in requirements for administrators. “There’s a complete change in evaluation of teachers and administrative staff, “Hopson said. “It now requires about three times as much effort and visits in the classroom.” Hopson used Joanne Blocker, the district’s Director of Academics, as an example. Blocker oversees curriculum work and changes to state standards, homeschooling applications and approvals, professional development, and title work with the district’s grant writer. “There are multiple layers that are now required of administrators that were never required before,” he said. Under Version 1.1 of the FY15 proposed budget, the district’s two central administrative officers, Hopson and Business and Finance Officer
Stefanie Fisk, would see no increases in their wages, and would make $153,029 and $94,920, respectively, in FY15. Hopson also stated that the average teacher salary in the district would be 55 to 58 percent of the average administrative salary, and highlighted other budgetary concerns such as per pupil funding, for which Gateway paid around $14,619 as far back as the fiscal year 2013. “When we do per pupil cost, we do the state average,” he said, adding that other municipalities statewide get help on other expenditures, while regional districts pay full freight. “Boston pays only $20,000 to heat their buildings, the remainder comes from city budgets. Even regional school districts, we (Gateway) are neither at the top or bottom, we’re somewhere in the middle.” Other community leaders like Darlene McVeigh, chair of the Town of Huntington’s Finance Committee, came prepared with three pages of detailed questions for district leadership. “Everyone here in this audience who works, we’ve had to take on a lot of responsibilities over the last five years, everyone who sits here in this
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