The Buffalo News - Southtowns http://www.buffalonews.com Latest stories from The Buffalo News en-us Thu, 23 May 2013 11:10:09 -0400 Thu, 23 May 2013 11:10:09 -0400 <![CDATA[ Federal funds to replace Cattaraugus Creek bridge ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130523/CITYANDREGION/130529689/1340
The bridge, which links the towns of Concord in Erie County and Ashford in Cattaraugus County, was temporarily closed to all traffic last year because of structural concerns. Emergency repairs were made by the state Department of Transportation, and the bridge is open, although posted for a maximum weight limit of 15 tons.

A new section of divided expressway and a new bridge carry Route 219 over Cattaraugus Creek to the east of the old bridge, which now is known as South Cascade Drive and Miller Road.

The project is in the preliminary design stage, and construction is expected to start in 2015. ]]> Thu, 23 May 2013 08:38:37 -0400 <![CDATA[ Baby born in van on Thruway in Cheektowaga is a traffic stopper ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529765/1340
“You’re there, it’s your wife, what else are you going to do?” he said, matter-of-factly.

Still, Buttino confesses they were caught off guard at their Elma home Tuesday morning when Sarah E. Buttino’s contractions quickly became intense. Their baby wasn’t due for another week, and while their first was two weeks early, all the rest had all been on time. Looking back, he said, they probably took a little too long packing before they left for Sisters Hospital.

As it happened, Baby No. 6 waited until her parents were near the William Street exit on the Thruway in Cheektowaga before her mother insisted she could go no farther.

“We had already stopped three times,” Buttino said. “We stopped on Seneca, we stopped again on Transit and on the 400. The fourth time we stopped, on the 90 East, her water broke.”

He called 911, and a calm voice on the other end said an ambulance was on the way, but they should get ready in case the baby couldn’t wait.

“And I was not prepared, I just wanted the ambulance,” he said. “So, my wife asked, ‘Is it OK to push?’ and I asked the 911 guy, and he said it was OK, and she pushed and the head came out, and he said I should be ready. She pushed again – and I’m holding the baby, wondering what to do. And that’s when the ambulance pulled up.”

It was 7:17 a.m.

Buttino, who works as a video- grapher for the Buffalo Bisons, managed to get film of the event after help arrived, but he joked that he may have missed his calling. “I should be a catcher,” he said.

More seriously, he said, “God gave me the grace to keep it together when I had to, but I got really emotional afterward.”

The couple – actually, all three – arrived at Sisters before Sarah’s physician, Dr. Anthony Pivarunas, got there. “He came in and said, ‘Are you the guys causing the traffic jam on the Thruway?’ ” Buttino said.

The doctor had been stuck on the Thruway behind the ambulance and missed another delivery, too. But that mother made it to the hospital before the baby came.

Wednesday evening, while Sarah was considering what to call the 7-pound, 5-ounce baby girl, her husband was with Elijah, 9; Lydia, 7; Siena, 5; Rowan, 3; and Milo, 1 at Ted’s Hot Dogs, for a little celebration.

Their sister will have a name, too, by the time she comes home today; they don’t let you leave the hospital without one, Buttino said.



email: mmiller@buffnews.com ]]> Thu, 23 May 2013 10:50:18 -0400 Melinda Miller
]]> <![CDATA[ ECC graduates hear Herbeck’s keys to success ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529743/1340
“I was one of you 39 years ago,” he told nearly 900 members of the Class of 2013. “I was not much of a deep thinker in those days. As I was sitting out there in my uncomfortable robe and hat, I was thinking about how long this was going to last and I was thinking about beer.”

Herbeck recounted how he was a terrible student at Sweet Home High School, flunking math and science. After a guidance counselor recognized his aptitude for writing, he knew that was what he wanted to do. For that, however, he needed a four-year degree.

He said he set his sights on a journalism degree from St. Bonaventure University, but his father, a Dunlop worker, and his mother, a bartender, couldn’t afford to send him there.

“I took a year off and worked three jobs,” he recalled. “I tended bar, I pumped gas and I ran the roller coaster at the ‘Fun Wow’ place, Fantasy Island.” He got his degree from St. Bonaventure, he added, “thanks to two years of credits at bargain rates at ECC and loans.”

“I was blessed when the Buffalo News gave me an internship in 1977,” he said, “and blessed again in 1978 when they hired me full-time and assigned me to cover police headquarters. I’ve covered horrible murders, great rock concerts and horrible Super Bowls featuring the Buffalo Bills.”

Herbeck estimated that he’s written more 11,000 stories and interviewed more than 25,000 people during his career.

Herbeck talked about his biggest interview, with Pendleton native Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. McVeigh’s story turned into a best-selling book, “American Terrorist.”

Herbeck, who spoke with McVeigh on death row with his co-author, News reporter Lou Michel, noted that the convicted mass murderer “didn’t have the slightest bit of guilt over it. No remorse.”

He said he still gets calls about the McVeigh case from the national media and recently went to Hollywood for the filming of a television documentary about it.

He concluded by talking about “the most inspiring story I’ve ever worked on.”

“It began with an 11-year-old baseball player named Kevin Stephan,” he said. “In 1999, another player swung a bat and hit Kevin hard in the chest. He fell down and was having convulsions. His heart stopped. Luckily for Kevin, a nurse was watching the game. Her name was Penny Brown. She gave Kevin CPR and saved his life.”

Several years later, he continued, Brown was having lunch at a restaurant in Depew and began choking.

“Luckily, a young volunteer firefighter was working in the kitchen. He heard the screams, ran out into the dining room and found Penny on the floor. He gave her the Heimlich maneuver. This was the same young man Penny had saved six years earlier. He was able to return the favor and save her life. A few days later, they were on the Oprah Winfrey show.

“So good things do happen in this world,” he added. “Do good things for others and good things will happen to you.”



email: danderson@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 22:18:43 -0400 Dale Anderson
]]> <![CDATA[ Parent company cuts jobs at Lake Shore, Brooks hospitals ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/BUSINESS/130529794/1340
Lake Erie Regional Health System of New York laid off about 40 employees at Lake Shore Health Care across a variety of departments, with workers learning their fates late Tuesday and Wednesday, according to a current hospital employee and an employee who was laid off, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.

Lake Erie officials declined to comment on the number of workers affected. The company released a statement confirming a “change in workforce.”

“After a thorough evaluation of services and care provided throughout LERHSNY, the board has identified areas of duplication and opportunities for improved operational efficiency. As such, necessary consolidations will be made and will result in several systemwide changes, including the establishment of staffing levels that match patient volume,” the company said in the statement Wednesday.

The staff cuts in the Lake Erie network follow the January announcement that the nearby Petri Baking Products factory in Silver Creek would close, leaving 231 employees out of work. Silver Creek Mayor Nick Piccolo said the health network job cuts caught him by surprise.

“This will affect other businesses in our area,” he said in an interview. “And I know we have had some interest lately from businesses interested in relocating.”

Lake Erie Regional Health System was formed in 2008 at the urging of New York State’s Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, also known as the Berger Commission, which sought to encourage collaboration among health care facilities.

Lake Erie serves as the parent organization for TLC Health Network – which includes Lake Shore and the Gowanda Urgent Care & Medical Center, as well as a handful of smaller facilities – and Brooks Memorial.

TLC Health had 661 employees as of the end of last year, while Brooks had 446 employees, according to Scott Butler, Lake Erie’s vice president of communications, who declined to comment further.

Local 1199, Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers East, represents 45 certified nursing assistants and therapy aides at Lake Shore and 230 employees at Brooks Memorial.

Union officials have learned of 11 union layoffs at Lake Shore and a still-to-be-determined number at Brooks, said Franchelle C. Hart, the local’s communications coordinator in Buffalo.

“We have a meeting with management tomorrow and will work with them to ensure that as many union jobs as possible are protected,” Todd Hobler, a Local 1199 vice president who represents employees at Lake Shore’s long-term care facility, said in a statement Wednesday.

One employee who is losing her job told The News she learned her fate through a phone call instead of a face-to-face meeting.

Chautauqua County Legislator George Borrello, R-Hanover, whose district includes Lake Shore Health Care Center, said he was aware of problems on the long-term care side of the facility.

However, he added, “I just went to the rededication of their emergency room facilities a few weeks ago, and it seemed to me that they were doing things to attract more patients.”

The Lake Erie statement said the two hospitals have continued to operate independently since 2008 and that the efficiencies expected following the formation of the parent organization have not materialized.

“At the same time, hospital reimbursements have declined, and the cost of providing care to our patients has increased. As a result, the financial positions of both institutions have suffered,” the statement said.



email: swatson@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 21:46:10 -0400 Stephen Watson
]]> <![CDATA[ Four cars at Irving car dealer damaged by shotgun blasts ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529772/1340
He said state police are investigating the incident. He said his staff found the damage on the morning of May 3. He said police confirmed the damage was from a shotgun and that employees of the Tim Hortons Restaurant nearby said they heard gunshots at about 2:30 a.m.

White said he hopes that they find out who did the damage and that it was just a random incident. ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 17:28:14 -0400 <![CDATA[ Lackawanna man pleads guilty to drug and weapon charges ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529786/1340
Kenneth Morris, 35, of Franklin Street, pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance; two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, the office said.

His convictions stem from three incidents.

Police officers from the towns of Hamburg and Orchard Park and the city of Lackawanna seized a loaded, unlicensed semi-automatic pistol and crack cocaine packaged for sale during an Orchard Park raid on Sept. 20. Morris admitted the gun and drugs belonged to him, prosecutors said.

Morris posted bail after his arrest.

Morris sold 17 bags of crack cocaine on Feb. 14 in Lackawanna, and a warrant for his arrest was issued, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

When arrested on Feb. 27, Morris was found with crack cocaine, also packaged for sale.

Morris faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years when sentenced Aug. 5 by Erie County Judge Michael L. D’Amico. ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 16:23:57 -0400 <![CDATA[ Fisher-Price cutting 100 jobs in East Aurora ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529791/1340
About 100 employees received notices Wednesday that their jobs will be consolidated to Mattel’s North America Division in El Segundo, Calif., as of October. The majority of those affected have been offered relocation packages to move with their jobs to the company’s California headquarters, but an undisclosed number of the workers was terminated, effective immediately.

Employees across all levels of the workforce were affected, from entry level to senior managers. Workers in design and development, research and testing are not affected.

“It really is no reflection of the performance or talent of these individuals,” said Brenda Andolina, a spokeswoman for Fisher-Price.

The move is a direct result of corporate restructuring that took place at Mattel a year ago. Originally, all functions involving Fisher-Price brands were housed in East Aurora. Last year, Mattel formed a North America Division, which encompassed sales, marketing and retail support positions across Mattel brands.

Wednesday’s action peels away employees who work in those sales, marketing and retail positions for the Fisher-Price brand and places them alongside their counterparts in California who represent Mattel’s other brands, such as Barbie and Hot Wheels.

Fisher-Price currently has about 900 people working here and will continue to hire a robust seasonal workforce, Andolina said.

Employees who have been offered relocation have a couple of weeks to make a decision. If they decide not to make the move to California, they will be able to stay at the East Aurora headquarters until October.

East Aurora Mayor Al Kasprzak said his biggest worry is for employees who face a tough decision of either relocating to California or looking for other work here. He is also concerned about the money that will leave the East Aurora economy with departing workers and about the local businesses that money supports.

“Fisher-Price is certainly a big part of the business community here,” Kasprzak said.

But he also called Fisher-Price insular. “We don’t ever hear anything from them,” Kasprzak said.

The mayor said Fisher-Price had deeper ties to the community and a larger presence before it was bought out by Mattel in 1993.

Indeed, the company’s presence in East Aurora has been diminishing for 20 years, even farther back than the Mattel deal.

In 1990, Fisher-Price had 3,400 workers in Western New York. By 1991, its workforce had been cut in half.

The company lost 450 workers when it closed its East Aurora toy-making operations, 720 when it closed its Holland manufacturing site and another 250 when it cut back at its Medina plant. About 170 jobs were shed at the East Aurora headquarters, followed by another 100 “redundant” corporate positions cut after the Mattel takeover.

In 1995, the company cut about 700 employees from its Medina factory before closing that factory for good in 1997.

Mattel and Fisher-Price moved toy manufacturing to plants in Mexico and China.



email schristmann@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 15:04:53 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> <![CDATA[ Woman who caused crash killing baby gets 15 years ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/CITYANDREGION/130529798/1340
Denise Hine, Baylee’s mother, asked a judge Wednesday to impose the maximum prison sentence upon Danielle N. Kellogg, who admitted causing the November crash that killed Baylee.

“This is a selfish person who needs to pay for her crime,” Hine told the judge.

Erie County Judge Michael D’Amico agreed with the request, sentencing Kellogg to 15 years in state prison.

Kellogg, 24, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in March.

“I wish every day I could take everything back and start over,” Kellogg tearfully said to Baylee’s family in the packed courtroom. “I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry.”

“I know I did wrong,” Kellogg said. “I’m ready to do what I have to do. I’m sorry.”

D’Amico listened to Kellogg’s tearful apology, as well as Hine’s heart-wrenching accounts of the crash and the aftermath.

Baylee’s family reacted to the maximum sentence with hugs and gasps of relief.

“Amazing,” Hine said afterward outside the courtroom. “Maybe we can all start to heal.”

Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III praised D’Amico’s sentence, which he hopes sends a strong message that drunken driving will not be tolerated.

But Sedita said he is skeptical about how much this case will resonate, because those who choose to drive drunk make the decision when their judgment is impaired.

“No matter how aggressive we are and how much attention is paid to it, it keeps happening again and again,” Sedita said.

Kellogg’s blood-alcohol content was at least 0.13 percent – well above the legal limit – at the time of the Nov. 27 crash on Southwestern Boulevard in the Town of Brant, said Assistant District Attorney Bethany A. Solek.

Kellogg was behind the wheel of a 2003 Ford Explorer registered to a Fredonia man at about 9:05 a.m., when she crossed over the center line on the Seneca Cattaraugus Reservation. She struck a 1997 Pontiac Grand Am driven by Hine of Hamburg. Baylee was in a car seat in the back.

Kellogg admitted to authorities that she drank several beers, smoked marijuana and had been falling asleep prior to the crash, Solek said. She also had cocaine in her system at the time, putting everyone on the road in danger, Solek said.

“Baylee was caught in the cross hairs and paid with her life,” Solek said.

After the crash, Hine and Baylee were taken to separate hospitals. On Wednesday, Hine said she could not be with Baylee to hold her hand during her last breath.

She also talked about how afraid she is now to drive anywhere.

She recounted how her family released balloons into the sky on Baylee’s birthday in April so her daughter could enjoy them in heaven.

Hine described how Baylee’s death has affected her two other children, a 4-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son.

Her daughter talks about Baylee every day, she said. Hine told the judge how the girl sometimes says to her, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t go to heaven today?”

“I think Danielle can sit in jail for 15 years and think about what she did,” Hine said during Wednesday’s hearing. “I will never heal fully and neither will my family.”

Kellogg also has a 2009 conviction for driving impaired in Chautauqua County, Solek noted. “She’s been down this road before. She was granted a reprieve the first time,” Solek said. “Yet here we are.”

Thomas Casey, Kellogg’s attorney, asked the judge for “balance” in the sentence. He pointed to Kellogg’s grief in a letter she wrote to Baylee’s family, which he read aloud in court.

“If I could,” Kellogg wrote in the letter, “I would give up my life in a heartbeat to have your beautiful daughter back with you.”

Kellogg has attended 21 counseling sessions since the crash, where she has wrestled with her “depression, guilt and self-loathing,” Casey said.

Baylee’s family was not moved by Kellogg’s remorse. “It’s been a nightmare,” Scott Dion, Baylee’s father, said outside court. “Every single day you wake up – flashbacks. You think it happened the night before.”

The courtroom was packed with friends and family members of both Baylee and Kellogg.

“There’s not much I can say to add to what’s been said here by everyone,” D’Amico said. “The devastation is everywhere. Look around. There’s not a dry eye in the courtroom.”



email: jrey@buffnews.com and plakamp@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 13:43:19 -0400 Jay Rey
Patrick Lakamp
]]> <![CDATA[ Tops to add Orchard Fresh store after Orchard Park success ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/BUSINESS/130529802/1340
The supermarket opened a high-end gourmet and specialty food retail shop in Orchard Park last month. The plan was to watch the new concept for about six months and – depending on its success – decide whether to add locations throughout Tops’ market area.

Just five weeks later, it already is looking for a place to put the next one.

“It has been a real home run for us,” said Frank Curci, Tops’ chief executive officer. “It has far exceeded our expectations.”

Though nothing is official yet, Tops has decided to move forward with expansion much earlier than expected.

The next location will most likely be in the Northtowns, and right now the company is trying to decide where it should be. Curci said he feels the company could settle on a location in the next three months, with an opening no sooner than early 2014.

Eventually, he envisions having two to four Orchard Fresh stores in each of the major cities in Tops’ market area.

“We want to do this right,” he said. “We think it’s an important part of our future.”

Orchard Fresh is a stand-alone store owned by Tops Friendly Markets. Its upscale, fresh, healthy and gourmet offerings appeal to a more affluent demographic. The Orchard Park store is 18,000 square feet and offers fresh, organic, gluten-free, eco-friendly, vegan and gourmet foods. It also has extensive prepared-food options.



email: schristmann@buffnews.com ]]> Wed, 22 May 2013 07:35:05 -0400 Samantha Maziarz Christmann
]]> <![CDATA[ Daniel J. Tomaka Sr., owned Lackawanna businesses ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130521/CITYANDREGION/130529842/1340
Daniel J. Tomaka Sr., who owned and operated a beverage distribution company and several other businesses, died Sunday in his Lake View home after a battle with cancer. He was 75.

Born in Lackawanna, he was a graduate of Lackawanna High School. After working for many years in beverage wholesaling, in 1980 he founded Frosty Valley Beverages of Lackawanna, which provides soft drink and juice dispensing systems for restaurants, schools and day care and senior citizens centers in Western New York and Southern Ontario.

Mr. Tomaka also owned and operated Tomaka Auto Sales, Hydro Spray Car Wash and Oil Change Alley, all in Lackawanna, and assisted in Tomaka Technology.

He was a parishioner at Our Lady of Victory Basilica.

Surviving are his wife of 54 years, the former Claudette M. Kedge; a son, Daniel Jr.; two daughters, Cheryl Wojcik and Tracy Robel; a brother, Richard; and a sister, Lucille Evoy.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Our Lady of Victory Basilica, South Park Avenue and Ridge Road, Lackawanna. ]]> Tue, 21 May 2013 21:12:23 -0400 <![CDATA[ Teen thanks paramedics who treated him after gruesome bike accident ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130520/CITYANDREGION/130529920/1340
Caide recalled the accident – in detail.

“My friend bumped into the back of my bike tire, and I fell,” Caide said. “He flipped over me, and that’s when the right brake handle went into the right side of my stomach, and then my intestines came out.”

Caide’s mother, Jeanelle Martin, said she heard the sirens from the porch of their home about two blocks away from the intersection of Maple Grove and Electric avenues in Lackawanna.

“I never thought it was Caide,” she said. “But then my neighbor came running. His face was white, and I knew something was wrong. I ran with no shoes on, got to the scene and basically collapsed.”

First responders from the City of Lackawanna Fire Division and Rural/Metro treated Caide on the scene for a six-inch tear across his abdomen. They soaked a bandage in saline and covered his wound to try to keep his intenstines in place. Then they rushed him in an ambulance to Women & Children’s Hospital.

The seventh-grader ended up staying in Children’s intensive care unit for one month and underwent two surgeries, his mother said. His recovery continued at home under the supervision of home care nurses while he was being home-schooled. Caide also was nurtured by Honey, his pet Samoyed.

Today Caide is back on a new Mongoose bike, but it wasn’t easy. During the past year he lost 30 pounds.

“Basically he was healing from the inside out,” Martin recalled. She also noted that her son is now considering a career in emergency medicine.

Caide received emergency treatment from Rural/Metro field supervisor Jason Rutecki, paramedic Nicholas Akromas and emergency medical technician Carlina Barbero, who were among those honored Monday by Rural/Metro.

The ceremony was held in conjunction with National Emergency Medical Services Week. It also coincided with the opening of Rural/Metro’s training facility/education center on Clinton Street, where EMT Academy will launch eight-week sessions this fall, according to Sharon Hughes, the lead instructor. “EMT Academy is usually a longer course,” she said. “This is an intensive full-time session that offers hands-on experience in the ambulance as well the emergency room.”

In addition to EMT Academy, the center will offer instruction in CPR and International Trauma Life Support, a two-day standardized course taught worldwide.



email: jkwiatkowski@buffnews.com ]]> Tue, 21 May 2013 01:40:56 -0400 Jane Kwiatkowski
]]> <![CDATA[ East Aurora green-lights plan for $6.1 million firehouse ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130520/CITYANDREGION/130529902/1340
“I think it’s aesthetically what we need,” said Trustee Libby Weberg, who served on the Fire Hall Committee. “And I’m happy.”

Before the vote at Monday night’s meeting, Planning Board Chairman Daniel Castle went over the details of the design and planning. The officials worked to find a look that paid tribute to the village’s distinctive architecture but didn’t overwhelm, said Castle, who is also chairman of the Fire Hall Committee.

They didn’t want an imitation of the Roycroft campus, a “Fisher-Pricey” nod to the famous local toy company or “cutesy-poo,” he said.

“We all have cutesy-poo gift shops,” he said.

The new firehouse, which the village had hoped to start building in the fall, could face delay. A study that probed 125 feet into the soil found clay but not the desired bedrock to go beneath the 28,000-square-foot building to be built at 33 Center St.

A second study will double-check the findings. If necessary the building site will be prepared with fill, which will be left over the winter to compress the clay. By spring the clay should be firm enough for construction, Castle said.

The new fire hall will replace the old 1960s-era building on Oakwood Avenue, which does not have space needed for larger modern trucks.

Also, tall trees around the Center Street property will be preserved, leaving a green buffer and softened street views, another design element that pleased committee members. “You can really not see much of the fire hall at all,” Castle said, showing a photo rendering of how the trees looked more dominant than the building from some angles.

Also at the meeting, the board approved the building of a new dentist office at 390 Main St., with an additional requirement that a speed bump, or some other speed-reducing element, be included in the driveway where cars pull in and out.

The owner of University Pediatric Dentistry practice, with a staff of five now at 100 Riley St., intends to start construction as soon as possible and open in the new building in September with a staff of 15.



email: mkearns@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 20 May 2013 23:30:35 -0400 Michelle Kearns
]]> <![CDATA[ Lackawanna police to get two 2.75% raises, two 3% raises, back pay ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130520/CITYANDREGION/130529905/1340
The deal also includes retroactive pay raises of 2 percent for each of the last four years.

The back pay for the 46 members of the Lackawanna Police Benevolent Association is expected to cost taxpayers about $700,000. Back pay also will be awarded to officers who were on the force Aug. 1, 2009, and have since retired.

Aug. 1, 2009, was the start of a memorandum of understanding between city and police extending the terms of a collective-bargaining agreement that had expired in 2006.

Police officers showed up in force inside Council Chambers for the meeting and left the room satisfied.

“My guys are happy. It’s been four years,” said Officer David M. Joyce, union vice president. “It was a fair agreement to both sides.”

Mayor Geoffrey M. Szymanski said the deal amounted to good value for the city. “I think it’s a good deal. It’s affordable, yet they are happy with the situation,” he said. If the two sides went to arbitration, it “would have cost even more money for everybody,” the mayor added.

“If we went to arbitration, there’s a chance it may have been larger than 2 percent per year” in back pay, Szymanski said. “They agreed that was a fair number. We agreed that was a fair number.”

Council members voted, 4-1, to approve the deal, with 4th Ward Councilman Keith E. Lewis casting the lone vote against the contract.

Lewis said that the police officers deserved a new contract but that he didn’t have enough details about the budgetary impact of the contract to understand whether the city can afford it. “I feel really uncomfortable with the lack of information I have today,” he said. “Please understand this ‘no’ vote is not a ‘no’ to you.”

If the city has the wherewithal, he added, “I’ll be all for it.”

Afterward, Lewis said he needed to know the effect of the contract of the city’s budget for next year and on its reserves. He also expressed concern that it could push the city even closer to its constitutional tax limit.

“I have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers who elected me to do due diligence,” he said.

Other Council members expressed concerns about having the agreement presented to them just days ago, with little explanation of its budgetary implications. But they voted in favor of it, anyway.

In his 2013-14 budget proposal, Szymanski set aside $1.2 million in reserve funds to cover the costs of retroactive pay for employees covered by expired contracts that he expected to renegotiate. About $380,000 of that was supposed to cover back pay for the police.

Joyce said police were not out to harm the city’s finances. Lackawanna’s officers will still be paid far less on average than officers in other area departments, he added. Lackawanna patrol officers currently earn between $46,000 and $55,000 in base salary.

“We weren’t looking to be the highest-paid. We just want a fair wage for our guys,” Joyce said.

The Council tabled a vote on another tentative contract deal reached between the city and about 20 white-collar employees in City Hall.



email: jtokasz@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 20 May 2013 23:17:40 -0400 Jay Tokasz
]]> <![CDATA[ Motorcycle checkpoint nets one DWI arrest ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130520/CITYANDREGION/130529972/1340
Orchard Park police and the state police inspected more than 500 motorcycles on California Road in Orchard Park. During the checkpoint, police charged James Perry, 43, with DWI. A breath test later revealed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.12 percent, according to police reports.

The officers issued 95 traffic tickets, including 55 for illegal helmets, during the afternoon checkpoint. ]]> Mon, 20 May 2013 13:23:35 -0400 <![CDATA[ Lackawanna leaders struggle toward recovery ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130520/CITYANDREGION/130529990/1340
But as the Bethlehem Steel Administration Building languished for decades – empty and without purpose – it became a different symbol altogether for Lackawanna.

A sad shell of its glory days, with trees sprouting from a tattered roof, the timeworn facade reflected just how far Lackawanna had fallen since Bethlehem stopped making steel in the city that steel made.

Crews began tearing down the 1901 building in March and have scooped up nearly all of its pulverized remains.

“When it closed, it just sat there and rotted,” said Mayor Geoffrey M. Szymanski, who pushed for its demolition in the face of preservationists’ strong opposition.

So now the questions linger: Did razing the deteriorated structure come from a new playbook for doing things better while embracing reform after 30 years of decline following Bethlehem’s departure? Or was it another chapter of inept leadership and lack of foresight in Lackawanna?

Szymanski, just a boy in 1983 when Bethlehem stopped making steel in Lackawanna, calls it a turning point.

For years, Bethlehem pumped plumes of smoke into the sky and bundles of tax money into the city budget. The ultimate company town, Lackawanna at one time received more than two-thirds of all its revenue from the steel plant.

But Szymanski never witnessed the boom times.

Instead, he remembers friends sitting next to him in class one day and gone the next. Fathers who lost jobs at the plant moved away with their families to find work.

Doomsayers predicted that residents would flee en masse and that basic city services such as policing and firefighting would be eliminated, with municipal bankruptcy all but inevitable.

None of these scenarios happened, of course. The city stared down a couple of fiscal crises, raised taxes, laid off dozens of workers and survived with aid from Erie County. But Lackawanna has not fully recovered.

Thirty years after losing steelmaking, the city still shows severe signs of rust.

It is older, poorer and smaller, with a crumbling infrastructure and stagnant tax base. Making improvements has been compromised by decades of political shenanigans, patronage hiring and stifling legacy costs.

In 1982, the Bethlehem site brought about $6 million in property taxes to the city.

Today, the figure is well south of $1 million, and the assessed value of the 1,400 acres is constantly being challenged.

“We’re stuck on a treadmill,” said City Council President Henry R. Pirowski, “and we’re not moving forward.”Pirowski was just a baby when Bethlehem began shutting down. Like Szymanski, he ran in 2011 on a campaign to pull Lackawanna out its post-Bethlehem funk and into the 21st century.

They have their work cut out for them. In many ways, the city remains frozen in 1983.

Take something as simple as a 911 call for a fire emergency.

Most communities use central dispatching systems for police and fire, but in Lackawanna, a 911 call for an ambulance or fire is routed to police. The police then contact the fire station’s “alarm room,” where a firefighter dispatcher relays the emergency call to fire personnel.

The clunky system not only wastes valuable time, it requires the Fire Department to keep a trained firefighter at the station house to field calls.

“We don’t want firemen answering telephones and I don’t want policemen answering telephones. They belong in cars and on the trucks,” said Dana J. Britton, a former police officer who now is the city’s director of public safety. “It’s kind of common sense.”

Britton said the city’s contracts with the police and fire unions stipulate the current setup, which leads to higher personnel costs, because an assigned officer and firefighter take calls. “I don’t know how [the unions] got it,” he said. “They think the steel plant’s still around, and it’s not.”

The catch-up list is long and is growing:

• Much of Lackawanna’s playground equipment “was old when I was a kid,” the mayor acknowledges, and he hopes to replace at least some of the play sets this summer.

• The city ranked dead last among the state’s 62 cities in revenue growth between 1980 and 2010.

• Contracts with four unions of city employees have expired, some as long as five years ago.

• City Hall, often ridiculed as Lackawanna’s ugliest building, needs numerous repairs.

• The school system’s student scores on state tests ranked second from the bottom – above only Buffalo – among school districts in Western New York, according to a Business First of Buffalo analysis.

• The city is one of four in New York in danger of maxing out the total amount of property taxes that it can raise under state law.

• Traffic studies show that dozens of stop signs and traffic lights, installed when as many as 20,000 cars entered and left the steel plant daily, are no longer necessary.

The city has a two-tiered property tax structure, taxing businesses at more than double the rate of homeowners.

Few homeowners complain of high taxes, but many small businesses have folded since Bethlehem left.

“You could walk down Center Street and go to four different grocery stores. Now, there’s not a store on Center Street,” said Michael J. Sobaszek, president of the Lackawanna Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve got more industrial, buildable, usable land than anybody, and it’s sitting there. Why? Because who’s going to pay $70 per $1,000 in taxes by the time you add in the city, county and school district?”The city currently has just 800 properties taxed at the nonhomestead rate – including homes with four units or more – to go with 5,382 parcels that are considered homestead.

“It’s more like a retirement and bedroom community,” said longtime resident and retired firefighter James P. Drozdowski. “There’s no kids anymore. All we’ve got are senior citizens and some small families.”

To attract new small businesses, the mayor and City Council shifted more of the tax burden onto homeowners. But city officials walk a tightrope with any tax shift, because many homeowners are senior citizens on fixed incomes.

Both Szymanski and Pirowski talk about making the city more business-friendly.

Lackawanna’s reputation in that regard has not been strong. Even Bethlehem Steel battled for years with the city, blaming high property taxes for its woes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But city officials refused to take less and tighten spending.

“It was the golden goose, and they milked it dry,” Pirowski said.

And the city still pays.

Lackawanna has more retired police officers, firefighters and other municipal employees earning pensions – 199 in all – than people currently working for the city.

“Our budget,” said Szymanski, “is retirees and union positions.”

Critics say the patronage continues unabashedly in Lackawanna. It can be found just about everywhere where public money is spent: City Hall, the school district and the Lackawanna Municipal Housing Authority.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Dennis M. Mulqueen Jr., one of the few Republicans in the city. “Nepotism here has got to be the worst. And I think the main thing holding the city back is nepotism.”

Mulqueen believes the city’s one-party dominance has a lot to do with it. The last Republican mayor of Lackawanna was in 1972, he said. A Republican has not sat on the Council in 22 years. It all leads to backdoor deals and no public input, Mulqueen said. Take a look at most Council meetings.“It’s pretty much rubber-stamped before you get there,” he said. “They don’t have much of a discussion in front of people. Without checks and balances, can a city really ever change?”

For Mulqueen, Bethlehem’s demise is also a red herring for today’s elected officials.

“It’s a lame excuse, the steel plant closed. No kidding. Move on,” Mulqueen said. “You still hear them use that excuse to this day. It’s pathetic. That was 30 years ago.”

The current mayor and Council members say they understand that, even if their predecessors did not. “The equation changed in 1983. As far as I’m concerned, the politicians didn’t adjust to it. Now we’re doing that,” Szymanski said.

Joseph L. Jerge, the Council’s newest member, said governance is improving. “I think accountability was a problem in the past,” said Jerge, owner of Mulberry Italian Ristorante. “You can go back in the minutes to laws that were passed and things that were done and never followed-through on. That’s what’s been missing for the last 30 years.”

The mayor and Pirowski say they agree on many ideas they believe could help move the city forward. Both view redeveloping the 1,400-acre former Bethlehem site as the key to Lackawanna’s resurgence.

Old habits die hard in the steel city, though. The mayor and the Council have battled in court since last year over whether a Szymanski appointee should remain as the city’s public works commissioner. And residents who fought to save the Bethlehem Steel Administration Building felt little had changed in City Hall.

A forward-thinking city administration would have done more to preserve the building and find a viable reuse, said Danielle L. Huber of the Lackawanna Industrial Heritage Group.

Huber points to Bethlehem, Pa., where much of its former steel plant campus has been converted into an arts and entertainment district, with a Sands casino and resort and other amenities.

“They experienced the same type of situation, the same kind of loss,” Huber said. “The purpose of us trying to save that building was more than just the history and the architecture.”

Still, some longtime observers of Lackawanna’s political scene see reason for optimism.

“You have a younger generation at the reins of Lackawanna government,” said the Rev. Mark Blue, pastor of Second Baptist Church. “I’m hoping that it’s not the same old, same old Lackawanna government.”



email: jtokasz@buffnews.com ]]> Mon, 20 May 2013 13:06:53 -0400 Jay Tokasz
]]> <![CDATA[ Reinventing an ancient art form ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130519/BUSINESS/130519011/1340
Now, a team of students and faculty from the University at Buffalo is helping the Orchard Park company bring the techniques into the 21st century.

Researchers in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning have introduced the designers and sculptors at Boston Valley to new, high-tech tools that are saving time and helping them work more efficiently.

“We’re extremely lucky to be close to this caliber of facility,” said John Krouse, Boston Valley’s president. “I think it would have been extremely difficult to do it without their help.”

The tools – including a carving tool that works in three dimensions and a program that uses photos to create digital images of terra cotta pieces – aren’t intended to replace the craftsmen at Boston Valley with machines and computers.

Instead, they are meant to free the workers from the most onerous tasks, allowing them to focus on work that requires creativity while giving them training in valuable skills.

And UB students get the practical experience of putting academic concepts to the test in the business world.

“It’s embedded learning,” said Omar Khan, chair of UB’s architecture department.

The owners of Boston Valley Terra Cotta started fabricating architectural terra cotta 32 years ago, after Krouse and several members of his family bought and reconfigured Boston Valley Pottery, a producer of clay pots that began making bricks in 1889.

The new owners sought to recast the pottery company, located near clay deposits in Orchard Park, as a terra cotta manufacturer with a focus on historic restoration.

The company’s first restoration project was the ornate facade of the Guaranty Building in downtown Buffalo, which led to assignments across the United States and Canada.

Their hundreds of restoration projects have included Craigdarroch Castle in British Columbia, Burnham and Root’s Rookery building in Chicago and the Breakers, the Gilded Age mansion in Newport, R.I.

Today, Boston Valley is one of just three companies in the United States that manufacture terra cotta, which is growing in popularity as a building material in new construction, because ceramics are durable, “green” and sustainable.

“We’re hoping that goes for 20 or 30 years,” said Krouse, a ceramic engineer, referring to the terra cotta revival.

Boston Valley, which declined to provide sales figures, employs 130 people at its 180,000-square-foot facility on South Abbott Road. About half of its business is manufacturing terra cotta for new construction and half is for restorations.Khan and UB researcher Mitchell Bring reached out to Boston Valley prior to the 2011 National Preservation Conference, a major annual event that drew more than 2,000 people to Buffalo when it was held here.

UB wanted to demonstrate a more efficient, less invasive approach to restoring terra cotta details on architecturally significant buildings, and it wanted to work with Boston Valley to do this. “How does computing and craft come together?” Khan said.

The traditional process of re-creating terra cotta tiles, statues and other building features requires drafters to create a two-dimensional drawing of the object. They work off photos, measurements taken by hand or a piece of the object or facade in question if it can be removed.

The drafters’ drawing then is sent to the pattern shop, where sculptors produce a model, typically in plaster.

Plaster is poured over the model to produce a hollow mold, before workers press and form terra cotta into the mold. The terra cotta is then finished, dried and fired in a kiln.

UB introduced Boston Valley to digital fabrication tools already used by students in an architecture department lab.

One, a laser scanner, is used to scan an object that remains on the building or that has been removed from the building. Drafters at Boston Valley were trained to use modeling software to take the data generated by the scanner to create a three-dimensional image.

Another high-tech process, known as photogrammetry, uses photographs taken from a number of angles to create a similar 3-D image, and this process is better than a laser scanner for producing images of complex objects. Both approaches make the drafting process and model-making process easier, Khan said.

The 3-D images created by the laser scanner or the photogrammetry process are then used to produce a model, either using a laser cutter or cutting tools known as three-axis or five-axis routers, which UB also demonstrated to Boston Valley.

The routers get their names from the number of directions the router can move while cutting a piece of foam into a model. Three-axis routers cut along an X-Y axis or up and down.

The fourth and fifth axes refer to this newer router’s ability to rotate 180 degrees in a half circle motion around the piece of foam, creating models with undulating peaks and valleys.

A laser cutter creates a tool, made of wood and metal, that is used in turn to produce the plaster model.

Students at UB built their own five-axis router, following online directions, and used the machine to create replicas of the tiles on the Guaranty Building that were handed out to attendees of the 2011 National Preservation Conference in Buffalo.

Boston Valley officials who used the UB router were so impressed they decided to buy an industrial-sized version for themselves, after UB showed employees how to use it.

The region benefits when more workers are trained in how to use cutting-edge tools and software, Khan said. “We need people who know how to do this,” he said.Boston Valley used some of its new fabrication tools on its most recent major restoration project, the replacement of four aging, terra cotta female figures attached to the corners of the top floor of 150 Nassau, a condominium high-rise in Manhattan that dates to the 1890s.

The 19-foot-tall sculptures, known as caryatids, need to be replaced with terra cotta replicas that will be anchored more securely to the building.

A contractor removed one sculpture from the building, piece by piece, and all 54 of them were placed in separate crates and trucked up to Buffalo.

Boston Valley artisans used photogrammetry and a laser scanner to create 3-D images of each piece. The company then produced 54 models, molds and terra cotta pieces for the first of the replica caryatids, which look like angels and were dubbed “Dorothy” by UB.

Boston Valley’s workers are finishing up the project now, and the first of the replacement caryatids is set to be installed at 150 Nassau in August.

For Boston Valley, the new digital tools allow its employees to finish the drafting and modeling process faster, potentially letting the company take on more work as those skilled craftsmen and women focus on tasks that demand creativity.

Boston Valley is using the tools again for their next large restoration undertaking, the replacement of the terra cotta dome atop the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton.

“It’s something that would be almost impossible to do the old way,” Krouse said.

For UB, the partnership offers its students a chance to gain practical experience, and several students, including Linfan Liu and Peter Schmidt, have worked at Boston Valley part-time and shared what they learned in the lab at school.

The architecture department has set up a Material Culture Research Group and also has started introducing these tools to other companies, including Rigidized Metals, bolstering the region’s push into advanced manufacturing.

“We have a lot of really great manufacturers that are going to be retooling, that are going to be moving to far more sophisticated manufacturing processes, and those are all digital, those are all computationally driven,” Khan said.



email: swatson@buffnews.com ]]> Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:03 -0400 Stephen Watson
]]> <![CDATA[ Exit polls after school elections offer glimpse of voters’ mind-sets ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130519/CITYANDREGION/130518981/1340
In school districts that conduct them, the surveys are a chance for voters to tell school officials what they’re thinking, why they voted the way they did and, sometimes, to sound off on topics that have nothing to do with budgets, tax rates or propositions at all.

Iroquois Superintendent Douglas Scofield is a big believer in exit polls, calling them a valuable tool that offers insights into the pulse of the community.

“We do it every year because it’s one of the data factors that helps determine the district’s direction. The budget vote, whether it’s ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ is good, but it doesn’t give you the reasons why people voted the way they did,” he said.

Typically, the Iroquois survey starts by asking people how they voted, then goes on to a section where residents rate the importance of various items. This year, the district is adding a question about school resource officers and whether voters would support one with local dollars.

Other districts use the exit poll sporadically or not at all. In Holland, officials said they haven’t had an exit poll since 2000, but interim Superintendent Sylvia Root sees the merit in them.

“It’s nice to know what people are thinking,” she said.

In Springville, Superintendent Paul Connelly said the district conducted an exit poll the last two years but is skipping it this year.

“Sometimes they’re useful, sometimes they’re not. We don’t do it every year,” Connelly said.

Last year, following a budget that cut dozens of employees and saw significant program cuts, he said the negative feedback was intense and not all that helpful.

The Hamburg Central School District has held exit polls for the last three years. Michelle Darstein, community relations coordinator, said the questions are similar year to year but are adjusted to ask about topics of relevance. Last May, the district asked voters if they were aware of the state’s new tax cap law and how they felt about it.

Many residents pass on this opportunity to let their elected officials know what they’re thinking.

Last year, Darstein said, only a small percentage of Hamburg voters opted to fill out an exit poll – about 400 out of thousands of eligible voters.

Nevertheless, results are tabulated and, in districts that hold exit polls, the results are reviewed by both board members and administrators. ]]> Sun, 19 May 2013 21:43:15 -0400 By Eileen Werbitsky

Southtowns correspondent

]]> <![CDATA[ Uncle Sam invites young steelworker to where the bullets fly ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130519/CITYANDREGION/130518995/1340
“Writing was the only thing I liked to do when I was in school,” he says. “I went to School 72 and graduated from East High School. Then I went to Millard Fillmore College and majored in English to become a writer, but I got tired of it.”

In need of a career, Sorg recalls, he asked his uncle, an executive at an Atlanta steel company, to write a letter on his behalf to the manager of the Republic Steel’s South Buffalo facility.

His uncle’s words did the trick. Sorg was hired as an apprentice “roll turner,” whose job was to turn the rolls that shaped the steel.

But Sorg soon found himself in receipt of a letter from another uncle.

“It was from Uncle Sam,” he recalls, “inducting me into the Army.”

Sorg remembers being amused at how Uncle Sam began the missive: “Greetings,” as if it were an invitation to something joyous, not war.

A member of M Company, 289th Regiment, 75th Infantry Division, Sorg said World War II’s Battle of Bulge in December 1944 provided him with his first bitter taste of combat.

“Infantry soldiers suffered a lot from the cold all that winter,” he says. “We lived outside. We dug holes and sometimes slept in the holes. Sometimes we slept in barns. Whatever was available.”

In a machine-gun platoon, his job was ammo bearer. “I carried two cans containing 22 pounds of ammunition apiece,” he says. “We were on foot, and it was a lot to carry.”

Because the ammunition and weaponry were the priorities, Sorg says, he and fellow soldiers were not burdened with very much personal gear.

“We didn’t have to carry our bedrolls. The ammunition was the important thing,” he says. “Headquarters would bring up our bedrolls at night, but sometimes they weren’t able to because of the enemy, and we had to make do without them. It wasn’t a nice experience.”

When his unit entered the French region of Alsace, Sorg suffered a bullet wound.

“We were attacking a town, and I got wounded in the right leg,” he says. “I think a sniper shot me. It took a nick out of my shinbone, but it wasn’t life-threatening.”

Bandaged by a medic, Sorg continued on, though several days later, his leg flared with infection. “I was sent to a field hospital, where I stayed for about five days,” he says. “Then I returned to my company.”

There was no letup in the battles.

“We went back up north, then through Holland and we walked through Holland into Germany.”

He still remembers the first day on German soil. “We didn’t run into any German soldiers,” he remembers. “The civilians were peeking out of their windows at us. I think they were afraid of what we would do to them. Later on, we became friends with the civilians wherever we went.”

Well, not everywhere.

In the spring of 1945, he says, his unit was stationed in a “beautiful” section of Germany along the Ruhr River and its wooded, rolling hills, but some residents apparently didn’t care for the Americans. “We kept having to zigzag around the woods we were in because mortars kept landing close to us,” Sorg recalls. “We figured it was the civilians who were tipping off the enemy to our locations.”

Surviving the war, “I returned home to my job at Republic Steel, and I worked there altogether 41 years,” he says. “I liked hanging around.”

A widower for the last seven years, Sorg says he takes it easy, keeping in contact with his five children, 10 grandchildren and “my ever-growing number of great-grandchildren.”• Hometown: Buffalo

• Residence: Orchard Park

• Branch: Army

• Rank: Private first class

• War zone: Europe

• Years of service: 1944-46

• Most prominent honors: Purple Heart, Combat

Infantryman Badge

• Specialty: Infantry ]]> Sun, 19 May 2013 20:50:26 -0400 Lou Michel
]]> <![CDATA[ Lost and found: Earliest Cradle Beach records discovered and returned ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130519/CITYANDREGION/130519206/1340 If you wanted to write a suspense story about two slim notebooks containing the handwritten records from the 1880s and 1890s that chronicle the birth of Cradle Beach, you would have a difficult time outdoing the truth.

About half a century after they were written, the notebooks, the only surviving records from that era, were apparently loaned to a longtime camp trustee who never mentioned the books to her family. Found by her adult children after her death and mistaken for diaries, with which they were stored, the books were set aside to be burned. Instead, the trustee’s son stored the books for two more decades, rediscovering them last year when he cleaned out his law office. The attorney’s son then surprised and delighted the current board of Cradle Beach by delivering the notebooks back to them.

“You read sometimes about a person who buys a painting and finds something like a Picasso pasted to the back,” said Mortimer Sullivan Jr., the longtime attorney who last year discovered the notebooks in a bag he thought contained only his mother’s diaries. “When I realized what they were, I sort of had that feeling.”

After the 1992 death of Gertrude H. Sullivan, who served as a trustee and trustee emeritus at Cradle Beach for more than 50 years until her death, Mortimer Sullivan and his sister found the canvas bag among her belongings. “My sister or I pulled one or two of the books out and they were obviously diaries that my mother had been keeping,” said Mortimer Sullivan. “We agreed that we should burn them. We didn’t see the minutes books.”

Rather than destroy them immediately, Mortimer Sullivan put the bag containing the books into a closet in his law office. Last year, when he was closing the office, he finally pulled it out again. “I thought, ‘Maybe I should look at these diaries, they might have some historical value,’ ” he said. “And that’s when I found the minutes books.”The lined notebooks contain the handwritten minutes of meetings held to organize the Fresh Air Mission, which later became Cradle Beach, and of the Buffalo Fresh Air Mission Hospital, a short-lived effort to open a hospital for children suffering from cholera and other diseases.

One notebook runs from 1889 to 1892 and the other from 1894 to 1914. The older notebook, which chronicles the start of the Fresh Air Mission, is filled with gracefully flowing handwriting; the later pages of the other are filled with typewritten text pasted to the pages. Both also contain newspaper clippings, letters and other informal records.

While many of the pages are minutes of meetings that document purchases, donations, publicity and other mundane issues, the books contain some moving passages.

In its first year of the Fresh Air Mission’s operation, before a camp was opened, 106 urban children were housed with farm families in Orchard Park, North Evans, Silver Creek, East Aurora, Corfu and Middleport. As the group prepared for its second year, Miss Alice Moore wrote, “Often we hear of some mark of love or care that still reaches the little children from the motherly women in the country.”

The Fresh Air Mission, which the first report says was started by “two teachers of the Universalist Sunday School,” set a goal of assisting “the poor children of the tired and often wretched mothers living in the crowded tenements or on the unhealthy flats of Buffalo … We ought to reach, first, the children of the unworthy, wretchedly poor, for from these little children we may expect the criminals of the future and the salvation of the children will be the salvation of this class in the community.”

Although Mortimer Sullivan had no idea why the books were with his mother’s possessions, the manila envelopes that held the books offered a clue. Upon each envelope is written, “Mrs. Cornelia H. Allen, School of Social Wk.” Allen, after whom Cornelia H. Allen Hall on UB’s South campus is named, was a pioneering social worker who was on the faculty of the university’s School of Social Work for 31 years. She was also the director of Cradle Beach from 1947 to 1958, when she became the camp’s director of casework, a position she held for decades until her death in 1979.

“We were very close to the Allens and to Cradle Beach starting in the 1930s,” said Mortimer Sullivan, who himself was a counselor at the camp from 1951 to 1953.

“I think that Cornelia Allen asked my mother, or my mother volunteered, to use her knowledge of the history of Cradle Beach to write some kind of a historical document. I’m guessing that Cornelia gave her these or loaned her these to work from. That’s a guess, but it does make sense.”After discovering the books, Mortimer Sullivan called his son, Mark Sullivan, who is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Catholic Heath.

“My father said, ‘I have something that I think someone would want to have,” said Mark Sullivan. “He used the article when he spoke of them; he said, ‘These are THE first minutes from Cradle Beach camp.’ ”

The Sullivans agreed that the books should be returned to the current board of directors of Cradle Beach.

Mark Sullivan called Bryan Carr, president of the board of directors of Cradle Beach, which has a camp in Angola and serves more than 1,100 children with disabilities and from low-income families each year. Carr is also production director at The Buffalo News, which has been involved with Cradle Beach almost since its inception; the books record a 1914 donation of $131.16 to the Fresh Air Mission from Edward H. Butler Jr., then publisher of The News.

Carr said Mark Sullivan asked to attend the next board meeting, saying only that he planned to bring something and “I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.”

The day of the board meeting in October, Mark Sullivan said, “I had the books with me the whole day, every meeting I went to. And when I was walking into The Buffalo News, I took a deep breath and just realized that I had in my hands an amazing piece of history.”

After being introduced, Mark Sullivan told the board, “On behalf of the Mortimer Sullivan Jr. family I am honored and pleased to return these newly discovered documents to Cradle Beach. … The work that you, the board and the many volunteers and staff do at Cradle Beach is incredible. May this journey back in time to your roots inspire, energize, and keep strong the wonderful mission and service you provide.”

“As I started to tell the story to the board members around the table, their mood changed,” said Mark Sullivan. “To fulfill the mission of Cradle Beach and to be on a board that is of such importance to the community is one thing, but when you get reaffirmed with something that can reconnect you to your own history, that’s even better.”One board member who was particularly moved by the minutes books was Dana Kimberly of Rochester, president of Danforth Development Inc. and a fourth-generation member of the board. Her great-grandfather, Shepard Kimberly, was on the board and served as president starting in 1912, and her great-grandmother’s sister, Evelyn Fiske, was a trustee. Both are mentioned in the minutes, along with many other familiar Buffalo names — Ransom, Sprague, Kittinger, Tillinghast, Albright, Schoellkopf, Kelly, Sidway, Cary and Almy.

“He really understood what they meant to the history of the organization, and it was very touching,” Kimberly said.

Kimberly, too, is captivated by the records. “If you are interested in history or are just a curious person, it was just fascinating to see how they operated and some of the ways they communicated about what was going on with Cradle Beach.”

After the meeting, Kimberly wrote to tell her sister and brother about the books. “They both immediately sent messages back saying they were thrilled, and they would both really like to see them when they were ready to be seen.”

The books, whose sewn bindings have loosened and covers have come off, were sent to a local conservator to be cleaned and stabilized, and their contents were transcribed. Now Carr is hoping to find a home for them where they can be preserved, displayed and made available to students and researchers.

“We said we would be the caretakers of these books until we found somebody to donate them to,” he said.



email: aneville@buffnews.com ]]> Fri, 17 May 2013 11:11:08 -0400 Anne Neville
]]> <![CDATA[ Kaleta to sue over thwarted sports center ]]> http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130518/CITYANDREGION/130519066/1340
But the Buffalo Sabre, several family members and the foundation they created apparently have been thwarted – and they blame the Town of Hamburg.

They claim Hamburg improperly changed the zoning code to allow an Orchard Park company to relocate to the former Walmart store at McKinley and Southwestern Boulevard. The Hamburg Industrial Development Agency also granted the Orchard Park company, Worldwide Protective Products, property, mortgage and sales tax exemptions.

Kaleta and his Helping Individuals to Smile Foundation had plans to convert the former big box store to two NHL-sized rinks, a field house and pro shop.

And now the Kaleta group has filed a notice of claim, notifying the town it intends to sue.

The town used improper procedures to amend the code and helped one business over another, according to Terrence M. Connors and Patrick D. McNally, the attorneys for the Kaleta group.

“They unfairly secured the deal for one bidder, and pushed Pat Kaleta and the HITS Foundation out of the market. That’s not right – the foundation deserved better, and the people of Hamburg deserved better,” Connors said. “The government shouldn’t change the rules in the middle of the game.”

Hamburg denies the charge.

“We don’t feel it has merit,” Town Attorney Kenneth Farrell said of the potential lawsuit.

He noted that Walmart owns the property and made a private deal. The town merely clarified the zoning code, a routine action that is done periodically, he said.

The Kaleta group – which includes the Buffalo Sabres forward; his father, Tom; his uncle, Michael; Ron Zimmerman; the HITS Foundation; and Two 19 Sports Inc. – wanted to buy the former Walmart building, which has been vacant since Walmart opened a store on Southwestern Boulevard in Hamburg in 2009.

They envisioned two NHL-regulation ice rinks, an adjoining field house and indoor sports arena, locker rooms, a computer lab for children, pro shops, a coffee shop, and day services available to youth regardless of their financial means, according to court papers.

They had looked throughout the Southern Tier for a suitable facility, and in July 2012 identified the old Walmart building as a possible location.

But after they put in a purchase offer for $1.2 million, Walmart accepted an offer from Worldwide Protective Products of Orchard Park, according to court papers.

The Kaletas wrote a letter to the town Planning Department in December 2012, outlining the proposed project, which fit into the C-2 commercial zoning of the property, and also contacted the Building Department about zoning and building requirements.

The Town Board scheduled a public hearing Jan. 28 on a proposed change in the code to allow light manufacturing to take place in a C-2 zone, since it was not mentioned in the code.

The Kaleta group says it made a purchase offer the next day to buy the property for $1.2 million.

On Feb. 1, representatives of the group met with Supervisor Steven Walters to tell him of the proposal for ice rinks.

The hockey group learned that on Feb. 7, Walmart agreed to sell the 130,000-square-foot building to Worldwide Protective Products for $2 million, according to court papers.

But for Worldwide to move its 35 employees to the building, it apparently needed clarification of the zoning code. That came Feb. 11, when the Town Board approved the change in a resolution that was brought up for immediate consideration and not pre-filed the previous week. The town attorney said that was a routine item to clarify the code.

Kaleta, who grew up in Angola, created HITS in 2009 with the goal of opening a multisport complex to help low-income youth in the Southtowns and beyond.

Worldwide Protective Products, which leases a 30,000-square-foot building on North Benzing Road in Orchard Park, needed more space, but had no plans to move its operation to its North Carolina facility, said company Controller Laura Adams-Hirtreiter. The company – which puts finishing touches on industrial protective gloves – is headquartered in Erie County and will remain here, she said.

“We’ve outgrown our location here in Orchard Park,” she said.

The Hamburg IDA granted the company mortgage and sales tax exemptions, and a 10-year property tax abatement under its guidelines for adaptive reuse projects.

“We feel it’s a good project. There’s going to be job creation, and it’s filling an empty building,” said Michael J. Bartlett, executive director of the Hamburg IDA.

Adams-Hirtreiter said the company plans to use part of the old Walmart building, and hopes to move its manufacturing operations there in June or July. Administrative offices would move a couple of months later.

“We plan to add about 10 to 15 jobs,” she said.

Adams-Hirtreiter said she does not know if the purchase offer to Walmart was contingent on the zoning code being amended.

But Connors, the attorney for the Kaleta interests, said “our understanding is it was done without a contingency.”

The realtor said she has been asked not to comment on the deal, and a spokesman for Walmart could not be reached to comment.

email: bobrien@buffnews.com ]]> Sun, 19 May 2013 13:59:22 -0400 By Barbara O’Brien

News Staff Reporter

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