At least a dozen high schools in Western Massachusetts have been accepted into the Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative program and at least 4 others are on a waiting list.

Republican file photo

Jasmin Whitley said previously she would not have considered taking the hardest courses at Springfield Central High School, but half-way through her senior year she is earning a strong B in English and a C in biology in college-level classes.

Whitley, who wants to be a dentist, said she will be entering college or the Air Force with a better feeling about studying, writing and research papers. If she passes at test, she also could leave high school with six college credits.

“If the school didn’t focus on pushing yourself, I would have definitely taken the easier way out,” she said.

Whitley is one of nearly 8,000 students in 50 high schools across the state who are pushed to take Advanced Placement courses through the Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative.

Advanced Placement classes are college-level courses offered in high schools. At the end of the class, students pay $87 to take an exam and if they score a 3, 4 or 5 they can receive college credit.

“Typically AP has been the solution for the top 5 percent of kids. We think it is good for the next tier of students who might not have been identified as the top students,” said Melanie Winkolsky, vice president of development and operations for Mass Insight Education.

The program, run through the non-profit Mass Insight, provides assistance so schools can expand Advanced Placement offerings in math, science, technology and English. They pay for teacher training, textbooks and stipends for educators who run Saturday study sessions and reduce the cost of the test.

A dozen Western Massachusetts schools including Central and the High School of Science and Technology in Springfield, Easthampton High, Palmer High, and West Springfield High are all members of the initiative.

At least four others are on waiting lists to get involved when more money is available.

The program is funded through a national non-profit foundation that received money mainly from private corporations. Mass Insights is raising money from private sources as well as lobbying for public grants, Winkolsky said.

A study released Friday showed schools which received assistance through the initiative had about 400 exams taken for every 1,000 students while those without the program had 160 exams for every 1,000 students.

The Math and Science Initiative has its participating schools give all students the PSAT and uses scores to identify students who are capable of doing the work. Guidance counselors encourage the students to take at least one college-level course, she said.

One program goal is to reduce the achievement gap so poor urban students are learning at the same level as their suburban middle-class peers, Winkolsky said.

“More minority and low-students are taking the classes,” she said.

The study also showed the initiative increased the number of minority students scoring 3 or higher on the exam.

Central High School Principal Tad Tokarz said in the four years since his school has been involved with the initiative, the atmosphere of the school has changed.

“We push them to take the most rigorous courses they are capable of taking and that is why we see the growth,” he said.

This year the graduation rate has increased to nearly 80 percent of all students. The school now offers 21 classes for its 2,074 students. Along with the math, science and English courses supported through Mass Insight, they also offer art courses, foreign language classes and social studies classes, he said.

In 2008, before the program started, 166 students took Advanced Placement courses in math, science or English. This year 380 are enrolled in the classes, the study said.

“It gives our students the experience of taking college courses so when they get there it is not a shock,” Tokarz said.

Whitley said she likes the study sessions, where students from different schools get extra help and share tips on work such as writing papers.

“In college you will be challenged. There will be things you won’t get and you train yourself how to find things out for the course work,” she said.

This is the second year Agawam has been involved in the initiative and the number of students taking AP courses has jumped, high school Principal Steven P. Lemanski said.

In 2007, 56 exams were taken at Agawam High School and last year 405 classes were taken among the 1,350 students, Lemanski said.

“It made us look at AP differently. It changed the mind set to let’s provide all the kids with the opportunity to take AP,” he said.

Teachers realize, even if students do not receive college credits, they still get the experience and tend to do better when they start college, he said.

“We have kids taking the courses like they never did before. Some kids are taking five and even seven courses,” he said.

The program has allowed the school to train teachers in the courses so it can increase the number of AP classes.

Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative Evaluation

No one was injured in the 7:30 p.m. blaze at 30 Central St.

AGAWAM – Four residents were being temporarily lodged in a hotel Sunday night following an attic fire at 30 Central St.

There were no injuries as a result of the 7:30 p.m. blaze, and all residents were outside when the Fire Department arrived, said Fire Lt. B.J. Calvi. He estimated damage at $80,000.

The cause of the blaze remained under investigation by the Fire Department and state Fire Marshal.

The house is less than a block from the firehouse, leading to a very fast response, and preventing further damage, Calvi said.

“Once we got inside, we fouind heavy smoke and heavy fire in the attic,” Calvi said. “It was a difficult fire but it was knocked down quickly.”

Owner information was not immediately available.

Morin's son, Jack, outlined some of his father’s volunteer work, including collecting cans and bottles to raise money for the Agawam Senior Center.

SPRINGFIELD – A 21-year-old Agawam man was sent to state prison for a term of 3½ to 4½ years Wednesday for a car crash that killed 86-year-old J. Paul Morin in August 2010.

Mikhail Adzhigirey pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the crash where he was speeding north on Suffield Street in Agawam and hit the car driven by Morin, an Agawam resident who was very active in volunteer activities in that town.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa G. Doran said a reconstruction expert said Adzhigirey was going 84 miles per hour, or 2½ times the speed limit on the road.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis said, “You turned this vehicle into a dangerous weapon.” He later said Adzhigirey did what “sounds to me like a joy ride of sorts.”

After hearing about Morin’s many hours of community service, particularly to the Agawam Senior Center, Velis said, “All that unselfishness ended in him being snuffed out by a senseless disrespect for our law.”

Doran had asked for a 3-5-year state prison sentence. Defense lawyer George F. Kelly asked for a sentence of 2½ years to the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow, with nine months to be served and the rest suspended with probation.

Velis said although he sentenced Adzhigirey to state prison, he will recommend to the state Corrections Department he be allowed to serve it in the Ludlow jail.

Kelly said the actions of Adzhigirey – who had three passengers in his car – were “clearly inexcusable, reckless” but said his client, who doesn’t have a criminal record, is not a bad person.

He said Adzhigirey is not a drinker, and there were no allegations of alcohol or drug use in the crash.

Morin was co-owner of Morin’s Market in Chicopee for more than 39 years.

After selling the store, he worked at Randall’s Farm in Ludlow for several years until he fully retired. A Chicopee native, he moved to Agawam in 1950.

John P. “Jack” Morin Jr., Paul Morin’s son, told Velis, “My father was still young at heart.”

Paul Morin was on his way to see his sick brother, with a box of candy later found on the seat of the wrecked car, when he was hit as he turned onto Suffield Street.

Jack Morin outlined some of his father’s volunteer work, including collecting cans and bottles to raise money for the Agawam Senior Center.

Paul Morin was honored posthumously in November 2010 with the Agawam Council on Aging’s Friends’ Friendship Award.

“It’s heartbreaking the thought of my dad not being with us any more,” his son said.

Paul Morin had also been honored by his state senator and the Agawam Rotary Club for his personal campaign, picking up trash on his daily walk along Main Street.

Jack Morin said he got the call about the crash about 3:50 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. The first person on the scene was “dad’s grand-nephew” from the Agawam Police Department.

Morin described the following five days between the crash and his father’s death, as a respirator breathed for his father and doctors lessened his pain medication to see if they could get any response from him.

Nancy J. Morin, Paul Morin’s daughter, said of her dad: “He loved life. He was healthy, he was active.”

She said although she misses her father terribly what hurts her the most is that her dad is missing out on the life he enjoyed so much.

Irene Remillard, Paul Morin’s sister, said, “Paul for me represented love. I just felt so good with him.”

Doran said Adzhigirey made his choices that day “with a very clear head. He chose to drive 2½ times the speed limit of that road.”

Springfield recorded a high of 74 degrees, Westfield reached 74 and Orange up Franklin County had a high of 69 degrees.

View full sizeThe Republican | Don TreegerNineteen-year old Greggory Nicholson of Springfield takes advantage of amazing weather to play tennis at Van Horn Park. His tattoo is in Greek and reads " Rise against all odds".

SPRINGFIELD – One day after the start of daylight-saving time and it seemed as if the calendar has sprung forward by a couple of weeks.

Western Massachusetts on Monday shattered a 35-year-old regional record for the hottest daily record for the date, and although temperatures should drop for the remainder of the week, it will still be higher than the seasonal average for mid-March.

“It’s been a record-setting day for sure,” said Mike Skurko, meteorologist for CBS3. “A lot of people were probably happy to shed their jackets and roll up their sleeves.”

The high temperature recorded at Bradley International Airport Monday afternoon was 74 degrees, besting the previous April 12 mark of 69 degrees set in 1977.

Springfield recorded a high of 74 degrees, Westfield reached 74 and Orange up Franklin County had a high of 69 degrees.

The forecast for the next few days calls for temperatures to be in the 60s for the rest of the week, he said.

There is a chance of showers Tuesday morning and evening with a break in the clouds during the middle of the day. Historically, the average high temperature for the second week of March in this area is in the mid-40s, he said.

“In the 60s for the rest of the week is still pretty good,” he said.

The weather is one of those things that can be subjective depending on the circumstances, and one person’s fortune can be someone else’s misfortune.

The Republican | Dave RobackMatthew and Lori Mutti of East Longmeadow look on as their daughter Grace Mutti, age 2 chases bubbles at Stanley Park in Westfield on Monday.

Such is the case for area maple sugar farmers for whom warm temperatures mean the kiss of death for the sugaring season.

“I pulled my taps out today. We’re all done,” said Mike Rycsek of The Maple Hut in Agawam.

“It’s very bad for us,” he said.

Jeff Hubbard of Gothic Top Farm Sugarhouse in Sunderland said he is still collecting sap from trees but conceded the way things are going it will not be much longer before his season is done.

“It’s warming up fast,” he said.

With the temperatures as warm as they have been, it’s a matter of days before the trees start to bud. Once that happens, sap shuts down.

Everything has been earlier this year as if the calendar has been moved up a couple of weeks, he said.

“We’re having to do things a couple of weeks ahead of the time we usually do it,” he said.

“Usually, I always try to have my taps in by the end of February, certainly by March 1,” he said. “This year I had the taps in by the middle of February - And I probably could have started at the beginning of February.”

Last year he produced about 55 gallons of syrup. This year he is at about 20 gallons, although he hopes he can make another 5 gallons yet.

Ryczek, who has been producing maple syrup since 2005, said he usually has his taps in the trees until around April 1. Previous years, he has produced 50 gallons of finished syrup. This year it was 25 gallons. Each also said the sugar content of the sap this year is significantly lower than in previous years, which means it takes more sap to produce the same amount of syrup.

Ryczek said its usually around a 40 to 1 ratio, meaning 40 gallons of sap have to be boiled down to make one gallon of syrup. This year its been around 50 to 1.

Ryczek said he is already moving from his winter to his spring hobby, raising honey bees. The bees have not been affected by the weather.

“There are ups and downs,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad.”

Nancy Morris would like to acquire the property at 1775 Main Street to house her veterinary cardiology practice.

Associated Press

AGAWAM – A local veterinarian would like to open a veterinary cardiology practice in a former law office on Main Street.

Site plans for the project proposed by veterinarian Nancy Morris for 1775 Main St. will come before the Planning Board during its 7 p.m. meeting Thursday at the Agawam Public Library. In addition, the Board of Appeals will hold a public hearing on the request for a special permit needed because the property is zoned Business A when it meets March 26 at 6:30 p.m. at the Agawam Public Library.

Morris is currently renting an office at 148 River St. and would like to purchase 1775 Main St., according to practice manager Lauren A. Payne. Three B Realty Corp. owns the Main Street property, which was used most recently as the law office of School Committee Vice Chairman Anthony C. Bonavita. The building, which was originally a store, is now vacant.

Plans call for Morris to operate a practice three days a week in Agawam and one day a week in Greenfield and in a Connecticut community yet to be determined, Payne said.

Morris will have two full-time and one part-time employees. She will see about one patient an hour and will only very rarely keep animals overnight, Payne said.

Patients are expected to be restricted to mostly cats and dogs with an occasional parrot, according to Payne.

The .18-acre parcel with a wood-framed building was constructed as a store in 1975. The building and land are assessed at a total of $171,000. The site has room for four parking spaces in front of the structure and another four behind it, according to Payne.

Payne said buying the property is contingent on Morris getting local approvals for the project.

She said it is too early in the process to estimate how much the project, which could involve some interior renovations, will cost. Morris has also proposed adding a small fenced in area to the rear of the building.

Berkshire Design Group Inc. of Nothampton has agreed to design the second phase of the School Street Park project for $125,000.

Republican file photoChildren play at School Street Park in Agawam in this July 2009 photograph.

AGAWAM – The second phase of the School Street Park project got a boost Wednesday when the Community Preservation Committee recommended spending $125,000 of its funds for designs.

The committee voted 7-0 to recommend that the City Council authorize paying Berkshire Design Group Inc. for that part of the project.

During the same meeting Wednesday, the committee voted as to withdraw a request that it recommend spending $2 million to finish work on the park. It had earlier recommended the City Council approve using $2 million of its money for that purpose at a time when it appeared likely the state would win a $500,000 state grant to help pay for the estimated $2.3 million project.

However, when local officials learned earlier this year that the city’s grant application had been rejected, City Councilor George Bitzas withdrew his request that the council spend $2 million in preservation money on the project.

“We are going to go forward with the design services. Then we’ll come back for construction costs. The project is not dead,” Parks and Recreation Director Christopher Sparks said following the committee meeting.

He anticipates coming back before the Community Preservation Committee in the fall seeking more money to fund completion of the park.

“I’m very excited,” he said.

Sparks said that Mayor Richard A. Cohen negotiated the price of $125,000 with Berkshire Design Group, which is located in Northampton.

Cohen has said the city will apply a second time for a Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant from the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Parkland if a new round of funding becomes available.

The final phase of the project may include open space covered with picnic shelters, a volleyball court, a playground, a spray park, rest room facilities, parking for more than 200 cars, a band shell, a multi-use field, an educational wetland overlook and maintenance facilities.

City Councilor Joseph Mineo, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, said he was pleased with the committee’s vote to recommend funding designs for the second phase of the park project.

“It makes sense to move forward to complete the park. The park is a jewel for the community,” Mineo said.

Officials hope a more streamlined subcommittee structure for the City Council will lead to a more proactive body.

Chrisopher C. Johnson

AGAWAM – The City Council has streamlined its subcommittees, reducing a total of 20 to four standing subcommittees and four budget subcommittees.

Council President Christopher C. Johnson and Council Vice President Dennis J. Perry proposed the change after sitting down soon after the start of the new year to make subcommittee assignments.

“We both said it at the same time — We’ve got too many committees—,” Johnson said Friday.

The council president said he and Perry hope that by streamlining the subcommittees they will become more proactive rather than just acting on matters that are referred to them. Generally, the subcommittees react to agenda items sent to them. Instead, Johnson said the hope is that they generate their own agenda items.

The council adopted the streamlined committees at its March 5 meeting by a unanimous vote.

“Less is more,” City Councilor George Bitzas said of the new system, “It will mean a lot less meetings and it will be more efficient.”

The four standing subcommittees have the following membership as appointed by Johnson and Perry:

Finance Subcommittee: Chair Joseph Mineo, Vice Chair Donald M. Rheault and members Gina M. Letellier, Cecilia P. Calabrese and Robert A. Magovern.

Legislative Subcommittee: Chair James P. Cichetti, Vice Chair Gina M. Letellier and members Paul C. Cavallo, Robert E. Rossi and Dennis J. Perry.

Community Relations Subcommittee: Chair Cecilia P. Calabrese, Vice Chair George Bitzas and members James P. Cichetti, Paul C. Cavallo and Dennis J. Perry.

Administrative Subcommittee: Chair Robert E. Rossi, Vice Chair Donald M. Rheault and members Robert A. Magovern, Joseph Mineo and George Bitzas.

School Budget Committee: Chair Paul C. Cavallo and members Cecilia P. Calabrese, Joseph Mineo, Donald M. Rheault and Robert E. Rossi.

Budget Committee No. 1: Chair Gina M. Letellier and members Robert E. Rossi and Cecilia P. Calabrese.

Budget Committee No. 2: Chair Robert A. Magovern and members Donald M. Rheault and members Joseph Mineo.

Budget Committee No. 3: Chair George Bitzas and members James P. Cichetti and Dennis J. Perry.

The three budget subcommittees review different parts of the city's budget.

John DaCruz has served as Ludlow selectman for six years.

John Da Cruz

SPRINGFIELD – Democrat John P. Da Cruz of Ludlow is running for Hampden Superior Court clerk in the fall elections.

Da Cruz, a long-time private lawyer who has just ended his six years as a Ludlow selectman, said he has always enjoyed public service and believes his diverse legal background fits well with the clerk position.

Brian P. Lees, a Republican, has been clerk since 2007. He could not be reached Tuesday about whether he plans to run for reelection.

DaCruz, who was born in Springfield but grew up in Ludlow, worked for three years when he graduated law school as an assistant district attorney under former Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett.

He got an undergraduate degree in finance from Western New England University and then got his law degree at the School of Law there.

DaCruz, 43, said he has 18 years experience in criminal and civil law and has practiced in many courts in this county and other parts of the state.

“I think it would be an easy transition for me,” DaCruz said of the clerk position.

He said he is in the early stages of his campaign and will be registering with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance and putting together a campaign committee.

If there are other Democratic candidates besides DaCruz there would be a primary. If not, DaCruz would face any Republican candidate in the general election in November.

Serving as Ludlow selectman has made him familiar with funding issues, DaCruz said.

He said the town has had to do more with less money.

But, DaCruz said, he also knows it’s important to aggressively lobby for more funding.

“That’s part and parcel of being in a political office,” DaCruz said.

DaCruz said he is active in a number of different organizations in Ludlow, such as the Gremio Lusitano Club, organized with the purpose of bringing Portugese people together, and the town’s Polish American club.

He has been active in the Ludlow Boys and Girls Club and does probono legal work for his church, Our Lady of Fatima.

Lees was paid $109,800 in 2011, according to state records.

A state Land Court judge has ruled a liquor store owner has not proved that he should be able to let his customers park on an adjoining property.

AGAWAM – A state Land Court judge has upheld a special permit granted in September of 2010 by the Zoning Board of Appeals for a drive-up Wendy’s Restaurant.

The restaurant has been proposed for 1340 Springfield St., a 3.5-acre parcel between Phipps Liquors and Stop & Shop Supermarket.

Karyn F. Scheier, chief justice of Land Court, issued a decision March 23 that denied a claim filed by Sprocket Realty, which owns Phipps Liquors. Sprocket claimed it has a prescriptive easement allowing it use of land 50 feet onto the Wendy’s site, which is owned by Coyote Realty, of West Springfield.

Sprocket’s attorney, Bradford F. Moir, argued that liquor store patrons and patrons of a pharmacy that previously occupied his building have parked there for 20 years and should be able to continue to do so.

However, Scheier wrote that the arrangement did not meet the standards for a prescriptive easement.

Jay M. LeFebvre of Coyote Realty of West Springfield said Tuesday, “It is an extremely hard thing to prove. What you are asking a judge to do is to take someone’s land.”

LeFebvre said he expects Wendy’s will break ground on the project shortly after the 30-day appeal period for the decision expires.

“Historically, property rights are one of the most protected rights people have,” LeFebvre’s attorney Simon J. Brighenti said in regard to the case. Brighenti works as West Springfield’s part-time town attorney as well as keeping a private practice.

Neither Moir nor owners of Sprocket Realty could be reached for comment.

Named in the lawsuit along with Coyote Realty and Wendy’s were Zoning Board of Appeals members James C. Marmo, Gary E. Sufritti and Doreen A. Prouty, the board’s chair.

“We’re happy with the outcome,” Prouty said of the judge’s decision.

Mayor Richard A. Cohen was jubilant.

“I am very pleased with the outcome,” Cohen said of the decision.

“I think it will be a wonderful addition to our community” the mayor said of the proposed Wendy’s.

No one from Wendy’s could be reached for comment.

Plans call for a 3,300-square-foot building with 55 parking spaces with an enclosed trash bin, new sidewalks and a crosswalk across the driveway.

One developer has been billed close to $1 million in sewer betterment assessments for two tracks of land he owns.

AGAWAM – The owners of eight properties expected to benefit from the first phase of the Southwest Sewer Project have petitioned the City Council for abatements of their sewer betterment assessments, including one who has gotten two bills totaling close to $1 million.

Ralph DePalma has gotten a bill of $423,721 for about 50 acres he owns to the rear of 683 South Westfield St. and another bill for $496,292 for another large tract of land at 497 South Westfield St. that he owns with Giuseppe Tirone.

The betterment assessments are to cover the $1.7 million it cost the city to do the project, which involved installing sewer lines along Route 57 starting at Shoemaker Lane near the Route 57 Bridge to South Westfield Street and along South Westfield Street to the neighborhood of the former state police academy. That project was completed last fall.

The assessments were figured at the rate of $2,341 per housing unit, which can be paid off over as long as 20 years. Another fee of $3,200 would be charged at the time of hookup to the sewer line.

DePalma, who could not be reached for comment, has filed for an abatement from the city on the $423,721 bill on the grounds that the fee was figured based on the land being capable of supporting 181 housing units. Instead, he has argued that there should not be any assessments for potential housing units. He also argued that potential housing units are subject to an agricultural preservation restriction and a conservation restriction.

DePalma has contended he should be billed for one housing unit instead of 212 on the land at 497 South Westfield St. He has also stated in that abatement application that the land is subject to a conservation restriction and an agricultural preservation restriction.

City Councilor Robert E. Rossi, who chairs the council’s Administrative Subcommittee, said he has asked for information about how the assessments were calculated that he hopes to receive by the subcommittee’s meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Agawam Public Library. The subcommittee has been charged with coming up with a recommendation regarding the abatement requests to be sent on to the full City Council.

“There are some questions as to the fairness of the calculations,” Rossi said Monday.

The committee may want to consider assessing DePalma as he develops the property and hooks into the sewer line, Rossi said.

DePalma’s properties have A-3 zoning, which means his bills were based on eight potential housing units per acre.

Guest speaker for the Western Massachusetts Boy Scouts annual distiguished citizen award dinner to be New England Patriots star defensive tackle Vince Wilfork.

Chris E. Mensing

AGAWAM – The Western Massachusetts Council of the Boys Scouts of America plans to recognize businessman Chris E. Mensing with its annual distinguished citizen award at a dinner April 25 at Chez Josef.

Last year’s honoree, Denis Gagnon, president and CEO of Excel Dryer Co., will present the award to Mensing, who is being recognized for his service to Scouting and to the community. Mensing is president and CEO of AAA Pioneer Valley.

“We are very pleased that Chris is our honoree. Both Chris and the AAA Pioneer Valley have been very strong supporters of our community. Chris has been instrumental in the support AAA Pioneer Valley has given us, including volunteer support,” Lawrence A. Bystran, Boy Scout council executive and CEO, said.

Mensing also planned last year’s award dinner and is involved in other community organizations, including those for youth sports, Bystran said.

Guest speaker for the event will be New England Patriots star defensive tackle Vince Wilfork. The dinner is the Boy Scout council’s largest annual fund-raiser.

Mensing began his career with AAA in 2004. Prior to that, he was business unit manager for Sonoco Products Co. in Holyoke. He was born in Staten Island, N.Y. and grew up in Piscataway, N.J.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Furman University in Greenville, S.C. and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Mensing, who is active nationally with AAA, is chair of the Eastern Conference of Clubs, past chair of the Northeast Conference of Clubs and secretary of the Smaller Clubs Conference. He is also a trustee for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Mensing serves on the board of a new, local startup company, CellAssist LLC. He has worked in the United Way of Pioneer Valley annual campaign. In 2011, he chaired the Scouts Distinguished Citizen Award Campaign.

Mensing lives with Wilbraham with his wife, Martha. They have two children, Kyle and Marquet.

Previous distinguished citizen honorees have included John and Stephen Davis of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation and David Southworth of Southworth Paper.

The Western Massachusetts Scout council serves youths in Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.

The city has more than $300,000 in money earmarked for historic preservation projects.

Photo by Jeffrey RivkinThe School Street Barn will be the subject of discussion at the Agawam City Council meeting Monday about whether it should be turned into a community event space.

AGAWAM – The City Council Monday is scheduled to take up a request that it authorize using $61,750 of the city’s Community Preservation Act funds for designs to turn historic School Street Barn into a community event space.

“The School Street Barn is the only barn of its type in Agawam and the only one of its type in Western Massachusetts,” Planning and Community Development Director Deborah S. Dachos said Friday.

Built about 130 years ago, the barn is at the entry to School Street Park and the city is working to get it listed in the National Register of Historic Places with an eye toward that helping leverage grants to refurbish it.

The red barn is an unusual New England-style double ramp facility, whose two levels provide separate space for crop and fodder storage, manure removal and livestock housing.

In the 20th century, the farm of which it was a part was a prison farm for the Hampden County House of Correction. The farm raised food for inmates as well as homeless people in Holyoke and Springfield.

The city’s Community Preservation Committee has already voted unanimously to recommend that the funding be approved. It would be used to hire Crosskey Associates of Hartford. It was one of seven design firms screened by an advisory committee.

The city adopted the Community Preservation Act about a decade ago. That enables it to assess a 1 percent property tax surcharge to fund projects involving open space, historic preservation and affordable housing.

Each year, 10 percent of that money must be earmarked for a historic preservation fund, which now has $328,000.

Among the projects the city has funded with community preservation money in recent years are $210,000 for preservation of the historic Thomas Smith House; $248,000 for roof, door and window replacements for the Agawam Housing Authority; $65,000 to preserve historical records in the Town Clerk’s Office and $92,820 for a play area at Benjamin Phelps School.

Councilors argued about whether they want to use School Street Park as a community event center or a model of an old-fashioned, working barn.

File photo / The RepublicanThe School Street Barn in Agawam.

AGAWAM – School Street Park got a boost on two fronts this week when the City Council approved using Community Preservation Act money to fund designs for the second phase of the park and for work restoring School Street Barn, which is at its gateway.

The council authorized using $61,750 to hire Crosskey Associates of Hartford for the barn project and $125,000 to hire Berkshire Design Group Inc. of Northampton to come up with designs for the second phase of the park project.

The barn project, which was approved 9-2, generated considerable comments on the part of councilors Robert A. Magovern and George Bitzas. Both of them voted against granting the funding.

Pointing to reports that state the barn project is to create a community event space, Magovern argued that instead work should restore the building so children will be able to see how barns operate.

Planning and Community Development Director Deborah S. Dachos, who is shepherding the barn project, responded that nothing is set in stone and that there will be numerous meetings to gather public input before plans are made final.

Council President Christopher C. Johnson commented that he is not necessarily sold on the “community event space” plans as the city already has such space at the Senior Center and the Agawam Public Library.

Regardless, Dachos said that the barn needs immediate work on its sills, foundation, windows and doors if the structure is to be preserved.

“We all agree we want to save the barn. We don’t agree on what we want to do with it,” City Councilor Gina M. Letellier said, pointing out that, regardless, architectural work is the first step.

Both Magovern and Bitzas complained about the expense of the barn project coming on top of the $2.3 million estimated to fund the second phase of the park.

“It is easy to spend the taxpayers’ money,” Bitzas said of the barn.

The approximately 130-year-old barn is of the rare, double-ramped variety and the city is working to get it listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is the only barn of its type in Agawam as well as in Western Massachusetts.

The farm of which it is a part was a part was a prison farm for the Hampden County House of Correction. It was used to raise food for inmates as well as homeless people in Holyoke and Springfield.

In contrast, the council approved funding designs for the park unanimously with little discussion.

“I believe we should finish that park. The sooner the better,” Bitzas said.

The council dismissed six similar requests by other property owners, granted one request to seek an abatement and postponed action on a third.

AGAWAM – The City Council has postponed action on requests by local businessman Ralph DePalma for abatements of the sewer betterment assessments totalling close to $1 million on land he owns on South Westfield Street and on Westfield Street.

The council took that action when it met Monday. At the same time, it dismissed six similar requests by other property owners, granted one request to seek an abatement and postponed action on another request.

Ralph DePalma has gotten a bill of $423,721 for about 50 acres he owns to the rear of 683 South Westfield St. and another bill for $496,292 for another large tract of land at 497 South Westfield St. that he owns with Giuseppe Tirone.

City Councilor Robert E. Rossi, who chairs the council’s Administrative Subcommittee, said the council delayed action on the requests by DePalma until he can get more information about whether or not the undeveloped parcels, which have A-3 zoning, should have agricultural exemptions. The Administrative Subcommittee has been charged with dealing with the issue.

A-3 zoning allows for building up to eight housing units per acre. It may also turn out that DePalma should not have to pay betterment assessments until he develops his land, Rossi said.

The betterment assessments are to cover the $1.7 million it cost the city to do the first phase of the Southwest Sewer Project. That phase involved installing sewer lines along Route 57 starting at Shoemaker Lane near the Route 67 Bridge to South Westfield Street and along South Westfield Street to the neighborhood of the former state police academy. That work was completed last fall.

The assessments were figured at the rate of $2,341 per housing unit, which can be paid off over as long as 20 years. Another fee of $3,200 would be charged at the time of hookup to the sewer line.

DePalma has argued that there should not be any assessments for potential housing units. DePalma has contended that his land is subject to agricultural preservation and conservation restrictions.

DePalma could not be reached for comment.

Forensic evidence in the case may be reexamined to help develop new leads to find the killer.

The Republican | Mark M. Murray02.07.2012 | AGAWAM - A framed photo of Lisa Ziegert sits along with a collection of angel statues on a bookcase at her parents' home.

REMEMBERING LISA
Here are some upcoming events to celebrate the life of Lisa Ziegert.
April 12: 2 p.m., Rebecca G. Doering School, 68 Main St., Agawam, dedication of tree planting
April 14: 2 p.m., Agawam Public Library, "Lisa's Corner," story time for younger children
April 15: 11 a.m., In back of Agawam Public Library, celebration, open to friends and public to share thoughts and memories, rain or shine

No suspect has ever been identified. Never caught. Never punished. Yet.

On April 15 two decades will have passed since someone took 24-year-old Lisa Ziegert from her job at a gift shop in Agawam, then raped and killed the aspiring teacher with a vicious stabbing to the neck. She was left in the woods, her body found four days later on Easter Sunday 1992.

To this day, family and friends live with the horror of Lisa’s death and the memories of the joy she exuded in life.

“You have two choices when something like this happens,” says her mother, Diane “Dee” Ziegert. “You either let it take over your life and destroy you, and so they win twice. Or, you can live your life as best as you can, although it is not the same.”

For the Ziegert family, faith has been crucial in enduring the past 20 years without answers; “I don’t know how people go through this who do not have belief. I know she’s safe,” Dee Ziegert said recently.

Family and friends want the perpetrator caught and punished. So, too, do investigators who were first called to Brittany’s Card and Gift Shoppe on Walnut Street Extension in Agawam on the morning of April 16, 1992. A shop employee had arrived for work to find the store unlocked and Lisa’s car still in the parking lot; she had been working the night before.

Agawam Police Chief Robert D. Campbell can recite the facts of the case as if it happened a week ago; back then, he was the head of his department’s detective bureau and toiled with about 30 investigators, including some from the FBI, to track leads in finding Lisa Ziegert’s killer.

“I’ve lived this since 1992,” he said. “There were so many leads.”

“If you saw the files on this thing, you would measure it in pounds not pages,” Campbell said. “The twists and the turns, the ups and the downs this investigation has taken, it’s a case that’s never far from everyone’s mind. There’s not a cop here who wouldn’t want to see this solved.”

State Police Capt. Peter J. Higgins agrees; he, too, was there when it happened and now heads the detective unit assigned to the Hampden district attorney’s office. All unsolved homicide cases are important, but Ziegert’s death touched a particular nerve among investigators and the community at large, according to Higgins.

“In the public eye, they equate it with a brother, a daughter, a sister, working in a business like this somewhere in this area. That’s why they related to how tragic this was,” Higgins said.

District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni, like his predecessor, William M. Bennett, is dedicated to solving the case. Mastroianni and Higgins recently met with the Ziegerts, and the district attorney’s office has identified the case as one which has some forensic evidence that could be reexamined or reevaluated.

The Ziegerts are committed to helping investigators in any way they can. Parents Dee and George Ziegert have not changed their telephone number in two decades, even when they moved from one house to another in Agawam. They don’t want to take any chance someone might get in touch with them with an important lead.

The 1993 NBC episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” – which includes a 9-minute segment on Lisa Ziegert’s killing – is still rebroadcast on TV occasionally, and their telephone number is included.

The family’s hope for resolution is still tinged with some anger: “When you think of these 20 years that this person has got to live free. They’re able to go on with their lives, but it’s OK to take someone else’s,” George Ziegert said recently.

Dee Ziegert believes Mastroianni to be “a very dedicated man who is very much into forensics and science and the modern way of going with solving it, because science has progressed so much.”

Will new testing of evidence bring new hope for a resolution, she is asked.

“We’d love to get our hopes up. We’ve been on the roller coaster for almost 20 years,” she said. “You expected it to be solved in the beginning. There was so much. There was actually two scenes, and there was forensic evidence, things that could be collected.”

George Ziegert said he feels many victim’s families have a fear the killer will be found but not convicted because “the police didn’t dot an ‘I’ or cross a ‘T.’” In his daughter’s case, he believes investigators “will be ultra-careful.”

The family has dealt with potential suspects in the past, only to have hopes for resolution dashed. “We needed (hope); the only thing that got you out of that terrible horrible thing (is that) the hope got you going, along with your family that you had to be there for,” Dee Ziegert said.

At the time of her death, Lisa, a graduate of Westfield State University, worked days as a teaching assistant at Agawam Middle School and on nights and weekends at the card shop, where she enjoyed being with people. She lived in an apartment on Belton Court in Agawam with a longtime girlfriend.

The Republican | Mark M. Murray02.07.2012 | AGAWAM - Lisa Ziegert's parents, Diane and George Ziegert.

“She was such a good person,” her mother remembers. “She loved people. Why would someone want to hurt her like that?”

Elder sister, Lynne, was 25 at the time. She may have been among the last people to see Lisa alive, having stopped at the store to chat at about 7 p.m. on the night of her disappearance.

“She was fine. She was in a fine mood. She was talking about school,” Lynne Ziegert Rogerson remembers. “My God the kids (at her school) adored her.”

There was never any worry about Lisa working at the store, according to her sister. “There was nothing about that area that made me uneasy,” she said.

Only 15 months apart in age, Lynne and Lisa Ziegert were always close, companionably growing up in the same bedroom of the family homestead where Rogerson now lives with her own family.

Their brother, David Ziegert, was 21 at the time and in California, where he still lives with his wife and three sons.

Their younger sister, Sharon, was a 17-year-old high-school senior. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Lisa’s missed each of her siblings’ weddings, but the family works now to ensure the latest generation of the Ziegert family knows who she was.

“They know Auntie Lisa is in heaven, that Auntie Lisa looks out for them,” Dee Ziegert says of her grandchildren. “We’ve been blessed with good friends and wonderful family and a lot of support that kept Lisa alive, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Submitted photoHOW TO HELP
Anyone with information about the abduction and death of Lisa Ziegert in 1992 should contact Massachusetts State Police.
Call: (413) 505-5933
Text-a-Tip: Text 274637, start with the word "solve" and write the tip

Dee Ziegert was 48 when her middle daughter was killed. She made a decision early on to become the public face for Lisa in hopes it would help the case get solved.

Testaments to Lisa – photographs and teddy bears – abound in the family home and at places across Agawam where balloons have been released in her memory, where there have been vigils and where events are still held to raise funds for a memorial which bears Lisa’s name.

A $10,000 donation helped install an 18-foot mural by artist Ted C. Esselstyn in the children’s area in the Agawam Public Library. Musical instruments, computers, software for the visually impaired, scholarships and other items have been donated to city schools.

Some $75,000 raised in golf tournaments and other fund-raisers in Lisa’s memory has been distributed, according to George Ziegert.

At the time of her sister’s death, Lynne Ziegert Rogerson was still single, living in a house off River Road in Agawam with some good friends from high school. Lisa began dating one of the men in the house so the sisters were very much in each other’s life.

Rogerson can remember the call she received at her job at Hamilton Sundstrand from a friend and co-worker of Lisa’s at the card shop, inquiring if she had seen Lisa that morning so long ago. The family rushed to the store, she said, but they were not allowed inside. They returned to the family home where police began questioning them.

Later, maps were spread out on a big table in the dining room as searches began by family friends.

“A bunch of the guys got together, and they split the maps and they all went out looking,” said Rogerson. She worked “to stay strong for my folks” and worried about the effects on her younger sister, she added.

“My mom obsessively cleaned that whole time,” Rogerson said. “I think she washed the kitchen floor a half dozen times at least in those couple of days to stay busy.”

On that Easter Sunday, now-retired Agawam detective Wayne K. Macey came to the home to deliver the news of discovery of Lisa’s body.

Rogerson said she and her parents wanted to know everything, all the details with nothing held back. “I wanted to know,” she said. “It was not because I was looking to have some gruesome picture in my head. The not knowing, or the guessing, or the speculating, was worse than knowing the truth.”

She can recall being obsessed about what the police may not have been telling her, Rogerson said, and she obsessed about whether Lisa’s killer was someone known to the family. She’s never considered it was an arbitrary killing.

“It is someone we all know; it is someone she met through the store. Was there a stalker that she had?” Rogerson said.

Lisa’s wake, held over two days, was testament to the support of friends and the community, but it was also exhausting. “I hate the smell of lilies now,” Rogerson says. “I call them the death flower. That’s what I associate with the smell of lilies now, Lisa’s wake.”

She opted not to view her sister in death; “I preferred older memories than one I couldn’t get rid of. There was damage. She’d been out in the elements. I just couldn’t do it.”

For a while Rogerson would visit her sister’s grave and sit alone, wailing. That pain has eased.

“I think that people, in general, believe tragedies like that destroy a family. That’s one thing that never happened,” Rogerson said. “I think we had such a solid family and solid friendships and support through the whole thing.”

Kim Souders-Murray and Lisa Ziegert had been fast friends since a sixth-grade reading class, where they both were reprimanded for kicking the boy who sat between them.

Souders-Murray, now an educator herself, was living in Framingham when her friend went missing. Alerted by a family member, she hit the Massachusetts Turnpike immediately for the trip to Agawam. She can remember praying her friend would be found alive and worrying about little things, like whether Lisa had her contact lens solution with her.

The two had visited together in the card store a week before Ziegert disappeared, and Souders-Murray recalls her friend sharing that she felt like she was being watched. Generally, though, Lisa was “so happy,” Souders-Murray said.

Her friend’s killing changed her life, Souders-Murray said. “I felt unsafe for years,” she said. She distanced herself from her male friends; “I went to ground,” she said.

To this day, Souders-Murray said, she’s not so good at friendships. “I lost my best friend,” she said. “I really miss the girl she was. I miss the woman she would have become. Whoever did this needs to be in jail for the rest of their life.”

The Ziegerts have not been alone in their journey over the past twenty years, helped in many ways by people who have been through the same, or similar, grief.

Nancy Larson, whose 19-year-old son, Danny Larson, was killed in Holyoke on Feb. 10, 1991, is now a good friend. Two men received life sentences for killing her son.

Magi and John Bish, parents of Molly Bish, are “just wonderful,” according to George and Dee Ziegert. They’ve also befriended Holly Piirainen’s grandmother.

“It’s a club you don’t want to get into, but you appreciate the people who are in it. When they say, ‘I understand,’ they understand,” Dee Ziegert said.

Molly Bish, 16, disappeared June 28, 2000, from her lifeguard post at Comins Pond in Warren. Her remains were identified in June 2003; no one has been charged in the killing.

Piirainen, 10, of Grafton, was abducted from Sturbridge, while visiting her grandmother on Aug. 5, 1993. Her body was found in Brimfield on Oct. 23 of that year.

Piirainen’s case returned to the headlines earlier this year when Mastroianni announced his office had submitted material for forensic testing. The new testing provided a viable lead, which is being followed.

What would it mean for the Ziegerts to have the person who killed their daughter captured and convicted?

George and Dee Ziegert respond almost simultaneously, “Justice for Lisa. And, for our other kids, so they know.”

“It would be such a statement,” Dee Ziegert said. “I don’t care how long it is; we won’t give up and we will get you. Law enforcement won’t give up, the DA’s office won’t give up and we, as a family, will not stop.”

Fusco is accused of a litany of organized-crime conspiracies, including the 2003 murders of regional mob boss Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno and associate Gary D. Westerman.

Republican file photoEmilio Fusco is shown in this arrest photo after he was extradited from Italy to stand trial for murder.

NEW YORK – Lawyers for Emilio Fusco – a convicted loan shark from Longmeadow soon to stand trial in federal court in Manhattan for two organized-crime murders – have long denied his ties to the Mafia.

Prosecutors contend, though, that Fusco was recruited in the early 1990s for the Western Massachusetts faction of the Genovese crime family by onetime capo Albert “Baba” Scibelli, who died in February from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 91. Fusco began building his stock in the rackets here as a driver for Scibelli, according to recent filings U.S. District Court in New York City, where faces trial beginning next week.

Fusco is accused of a litany of organized-crime conspiracies, including the 2003 murders of regional mob boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno and low-level associate Gary D. Westerman, narcotics trafficking and extorting bar and business owners. He has denied any involvement in the plots, much of which was documented in last year’s trial of three other defendants in the same court.

The prosecution contends Fusco fled to his native Sorrento, Italy, in the spring of 2010, days after law enforcement officials began digging for Westerman’s remains in a wooded lot in Agawam on the advice of newly-minted informant Anthony J. Arillotta. Fusco was arrested in August of that year in the small Italian village where, his lawyers have argued, he had traveled on family business, not to avoid prosecution.

Fusco could face 20 years to life in prison if convicted on racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges that include the murder allegations. He is accused of lobbying mobsters in New York and Springfield to kill Bruno, and also charged with helping to shoot and bludgeon Westerman to death.

Heading to trial, federal prosecutors have filed motions to introduce a web of evidence against Fusco that details his beginnings in the “Springfield crew” of New York’s Genovese crime family.

“Fusco was ‘made’ into the Genovese Crime Family in approximately the late 1990s in Springfield. Albert Scibelli sponsored Fusco for membership and the ceremony was attended by Scibelli, Felix Tranghese, Anthony Delevo, a member of the Genovese Crime Family who replaced Albert Scibelli as capo and head of the Genovese operations in Springfield, and Anthony Torino, another Genovese soldier based in Springfield,” one motion reads.

The history of organized crime in Greater Springfield has become dense with death and betrayal over the past decade. While Torino died in 2000 and Delevo died in prison in 2005, Tranghese and Arillotta turned government witness over the course of the Bruno prosecution. Mob watchdogs here and in New York contend the organized-crime structure in this region has essentially crumbled as a result.

Tranghese and Arillotta were two of the government’s star witnesses against brothers Fotios “Freddy” and Ty Geas, two of Arillotta’s onetime enforcers from West Springfield, and the former acting boss of the Genovese family, Arthur “Artie” Nigro, all of whom were tried and convicted in March 2011 for the same murders. The three men are serving life prison terms.

Tranghese and Arillotta are expected to deliver similar, damning testimony against Fusco during his trial to outline the tensions that grew among Fusco, Bruno and Westerman over several years.

“Fusco himself organized two sit-downs so that the Scibellis could decide ‘beefs’ between Bruno and Fusco. However, after Fusco ascended to power in 2001, Fusco fell into line with Bruno and received proceeds from various extortions even while he was under indictment (in a federal racketeering case brought in Springfield in 2000),” a government motion reads.

The extortions were leveled at Springfield strip-club owner James Santaniello, who is expected to testify in the case, as well as other downtown bars and pizza shops and an Italian food vendor at the Eastern States Exposition, according to prosecutors. Fusco also allegedly squeezed business owners for “Dumpster accounts,” after launching a trash-removal business when he was released from prison in 2006.

Fusco’s lawyer, Richard B. Linds, did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2000, Quincy lawyer George McMahon represented Fusco in a loan-sharking and illegal gambling case in which Fusco ultimately pleaded guilty and received a 33-month prison sentence. It was also a case that yielded what seemed to be the last nail in Bruno’s coffin. Bruno was a powerful, colorful gangster who was killed in a power play spearheaded by Arillotta and fueled by Fusco when he produced documentation that Bruno had in early 2002 complained to a FBI agent Clifford W. Hedges about him at Red Rose Pizzeria.

The meeting was memorialized in Fusco’s sentencing report on the loan sharking case, some believe recklessly and with no thought of protecting Bruno, who has never been identified as an informant for the government in court records or public proceedings.

“It’s not like the old days, Cliff. (Baba Scibelli) should not have done this while I was away,” an excerpt of the conversation reads. “Fusco is a hothead, and I hear some bad tapes have been made of him talking a lot of s***. He is too young and needs to learn how to respect people.”

During the Geases’ trial, Arillotta and Tranghese testified that Fusco became incensed at the reference in his paperwork and marketed it as proof to gangsters here and in New York that Bruno deserved to be taken out. Court records provide no context as to why or how the Hedges-Bruno conversation took place.

Fusco’s lawyer in the 2000 loan-sharking case vehemently denied his client had ties to the Mafia, scoffing at the very idea that the organization was alive and well in Massachusetts and dismissing Fusco’s role as a loan shark.

“We have to beat him up. So, find out where he goes, guy,” Fusco said, according to a transcript of wire-tapped recordings between Fusco and a collector in 1998.

McMahon wrote it off to a federal magistrate judge as “colorful expressions,” and the debate between defense and prosecutors ensued about Fusco’s standing in the Mafia.
Court filings by prosecutors in the pending case state that Fusco boosted his position in the regional mob by getting chummy with Ernest Muscarella, a street boss in New York and member of the family’s so-called ruling panel in the city. Muscarella allegedly put the word out to Nigro that Fusco was dissatisfied with the $2,500 per week which Fusco’s wife was receiving from Springfield gangsters to stay afloat while Fusco was in prison.

The trial is expected to last around two weeks. A final pretrial hearing is scheduled for April 13 and jury selection is set to begin April 16.

Fusco is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center just across from the courthouse in southern Manhattan.

The cost-of-living increases granted to Department of Public Works employees mirror those of the ones granted other unionized municipal workers.

File photo | The RepublicanThe Agawam Department of Public Works facility at 1000 Suffield St.

AGAWAM — The city and the union representing Department of Public Works employees have agreed to a three-year contract with no increase the first year and hikes of 1 percent and 2 percent respectively for fiscal years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

“I feel the contract is fair or we wouldn’t have signed it,” Mayor Richard A. Cohen said Wednesday.

Last week, the City Council approved funding it for fiscal year 2012, which ends June 30. The three-year pact is retroactive to fiscal year 2011, which started July 1, 2010.

Cohen said he did not have an exact figure for how much it will cost to fund the pay increase this fiscal year with the 35-member Agawam Department of Public Works Employees Association. The amount was already included in the fiscal 2012 budget previously approved by the council, so it may not even have been necessary for the council to have put the issue to a vote Monday, according to Cohen.

Richard Cohen

Cohen said the pact is the last of the most recent municipal contracts to be settled. The increases are the same as those granted all other unionized city employees. All the collective bargaining units have been awarded the same pay increases for the same periods as the public works collective bargaining unit.

The new contract means that laborers who would have started work at $15.70 an hour this year will start at $16.02 an hour after the 2 percent raise is figured in. The pact also means that the highest paid position, that of working foreman, will see its rate of pay increase to $21.01 an hour, up 2 percent from $20.39 an hour.

Peter Sadowski, the president of the public works union, could not be reached for comment. Cohen said the new contract did not contain any major language changes.

Sapelli described his proposed $36,488,490 budget as one that will meet unfunded state and federal mandates yet is "fiscally responsible."

AGAWAM — School Superintendent William P. Sapelli Monday briefly outlined before the School Committee a proposed fiscal 2013 School Department budget that would provide the same level of services as this year’s spending plan.

Republican file photoAgawam School Superintendent William P. Sapelli

That budget, at $36,488,490, is $1,983,340 higher than this year’s School Department budget of $34,505,150. The school superintendent’s proposed fiscal 2013 budget will be the subject of a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. on April 24 at Roberta G. Doering School.

The school superintendent described his proposed budget as one that will meet unfunded state and federal mandates yet is “fiscally responsible.”

“In preparing the fiscal 2013 proposed budget, we have confronted these challenges and have developed creative, innovative solutions, which we believe will sustain our efforts to provide the children of this district with a quality education,” he said.

Sapelli noted that the proposed budget takes into account negotiated contractual salary increases for five collective bargaining units, vocational educational tuition increases, transportation cost increases, special education cost increases and increased costs associated with the new teacher evaluation system.

He stated that the proposed budget would keep all existing staff and services as well as replace teachers who are retiring.

Sapelli said his proposed budget includes $431,046 to cover 2 percent cost-of-living raises for teachers as well as $576,502 for teachers’ step raises.

School Committee member Anthony C. Bonavita said the school board will work with Mayor Richard A. Cohen and the state to “achieve the best outcome we can.”

“We are hoping for the best this year, obviously,” Bonavita said.

School Committee member Shelley Reed praised the proposed budget as “very clear” and “with no hidden costs.”

“We’re doing something right,” she said, alluding to the fact that the high school graduation rate is up to 92 percent from 89.1 percent.

“The process has been one where there has been a lot of cooperation,” Sapelli said of the budget-making process.

If it isn't convenient to drop off goods at a Salvastion Army thrift store or in a drop-off box, people may schedule a visit from the Salvation Army to pick up used goods.

Photo by Michael S. Gordon / The Republican Capt. H. Don Sanderson Jr., of the Salvation Army, stands in the Salvation Army's new Family Store in Agawam with Susan M. Morin, store supervisor for the six Pioneer Valley Salvation Army stores, and Agawam store manager Sherri L. Denault.

AGAWAM – From a $4.99 pink Liz Claiborne poly-cotton shirt to a like-new Walnut dining room set for $999.99, the newly opened Salvation Army Family Store on Springfield Street has it all.

“If you can name it you can eventually find it at the Salvation Army,” Salvation Army Capt. H. Don Sanderson Jr. said during a recent interview at the store, which opened its doors Oct. 29.

Sanderson said business was slow to get off the ground because of the power outage that started Oct. 29 because of the freak snowstorm. However, Sanderson said he is optimistic it will pick up when people learn of the store’s location.

The Springfield Street venture is the sixth Salvation Army thrift store to premier in the Pioneer Valley. The oldest, in Greenfield, opened its doors nearly 40 years ago. Over the last decade stores have been established in Hadley, Westfield and Springfield. There is also a Salvation Army thrift store in Turners Falls.

“A lot of our customers go from store to store to store. Really good deals can be had. Some items are brand new with tags still one. Some are what we call gently used,” Sanderson said.

All proceeds from the stores go to fund the Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center on Liberty Street in Springfield. The residential center works with people who have issues in such areas as drugs, alcohol and unemployment. Any money not needed for that goes to fund the Salvation Army’s general expenses.

There are 140 such Salvation Army rehabilitation centers nationwide supported by about 1,100 thrift shops.

People may donate clothes and other items by using any of the Salvation Army drop-off boxes in the area or by bringing them by any store. Free pickup of goods may be arranged by calling (800)-SATRUCK. Any clothes with stains that cannot be removed are sent overseas.

Goods range from men’s, women’s and children’s clothes, shoes and accessories to such fare as household goods that include dishes, furniture, televisions, ice-skates, skis, roller-skates, books, video cassettes and compact discs.

Among the brands often available in women’s clothes are Chadwick’s, Sag Harbor and Jones of New York. A recent browse through the store revealed the presence of a 100 percent wool vintage Neiman Marcus woman’s coat for $14.99 and a women’s polka dot raincoat by Chadwick’s for $14.99. Nearby was a Talbot’s apricot-colored like-new silk sheath dress for $14.99.

Other women’s wear included blazers priced at from $5.99 to $9.99.

Compact discs were priced at $1.99 and video cassettes were 99 cents. Used books were priced at 90 percent off the retail price. Close by was a comfortable and still-attractive couch priced at $79.99.

Twenty-six-year-old Amanda M. Agosto of Moore Street was one of the local people recently getting acquainted with the store and its wares.

“It’s big. It’s nice,” she said. “Most of time you can get really good quality stuff at good prices. Kids grow out of clothes so fast.”

Store hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Wednesday is family day with goods priced at 50 percent off with the exception of the most recent arrivals. Other days of the week also feature goods marked half off.

“We have a lot of people who shop regularly. They make a hobby of it. I almost can’t come out of these stores without buying anything,” Sanderson said.

The Hadley Fire Department received mutual aid from several area departments.

Fire Departments in Hadley and Agawam extinguished brush fires on Saturday, with no injuries reported and causes remaining under investigation.

The Hadley Fire Department received mutual aid from several area departments to extinguish a blaze on the M and M trail, that burned an estimated 1.5 to two acres of woods and brush.

The fire spread from South Hadley into Hadley. Hadley was assisted by fire departments from South Hadley, Granby, Windsor, Worthington and Chesterfield, and with Hatfield on standby at one station. Approximately 50 firefighters were on the scene.

The fire was reported at 4:30 p.m., and the department returned to the station at 8:20.

In Agawam, a brush fire spread for about a quarter acre in a heavily wooded, swampy area between School Street and Leonard Street.

It was under control within an hour.