Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 61

JBBS Something interesting going on in vour community? Tell us by calling 258-2252. Democrat tfhrontclf FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1996 CLOSE TO mi HOME East Rochester OKs plan to repair athletic facilities Bv JANICE BULLA RD STAFF WRITKR HENRIETTA EAST ROCHESTER Residents last night approved a plan to spend $1.2 million to make repairs 2 town officials receive added responsibilities An elected and an appointed offi to athletic laciu-ties and build a rial will have new responsibilities, new high school following actions taken at a Town Board meeting Wednesday. opened in the fall because the district did not have enough funds to cover the additional items, school officials said. In addition, the final building contained almost 40,000 square feet beyond the original plans because of additional public input. The added space included large group instruction rooms, larger science rooms and additional computer labs.

For the projects in the proposition, state aid will cover about 64 percent, or $766,800, of the required cost. The proposition will raise taxes about 10 a year for 15 years, based on a house assessed at $85,000 and a 6.5 percent bond interest rate. CONTAINS AN ERROR, PAGE FOLLOWS Other students had an edge, Cimicata said, because their high school art programs included computers. Sharron Mutzel, whose son Grady graduated in 1995, said she wants the students to have a new art room. Then she confessed, almost whispering: "And I'm a tennis player." Not everyone was happy about the spending plan, however.

Alex and Mary Alfieri said they voted against the plan mostly because they did not see why the district failed to include it in the budget residents approved last Town Finance Director James "I was very active in athletics," said Corea. "It was very important to me. We should not deprive our youngsters." The project includes replacing bleachers at the elementary and middle schools, fixing the high school bleachers, renovating tennis courts and adding two more. The school board's proposition also includes a new high school art room something 19-year-old Chris Cimicata wished had been there before he graduated in 1995. Cimicata studied for a semester at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh after leaving East Rochester.

month. "It didn't give us a good feeling at all," said Alex Alfieri. District officials said the second vote was required because once the school board agreed to put up a separate proposition, the district did not have enough time to publicize it in time for the May 8 budget vote. The board approved the proposition in mid-April and sent a pamphlet with details to every household in the East Rochester school district. The items in the vote were not part of the construction of the $20 million K-12 campus which THIS STORY CORRECTION Pudetti was named personnel director.

The added job gives him a $6,500 raise, hiking his salary to art room. The vote was 343 to 307. A month ago, residents approved a $15.4 million budget. Augie Corea, one of the people who voted for the proposition last night, said he played sports for the East Rochester schools 60 years aSO- He still remembers how much it meant to him. $51,062, said Supervisor James K.

Breese. Pudettis new responsible ties will include interviewing poten- tial employees and dealing with union grievances. Pudetti replaces Barbara Nor ton, who resigned from the part time position last month. Town Board member William J. Thieves in Mulligan Jr.

resumed his title of fv deputy supervisor. He held that title, which carries no additional pay, until Breese named Pudetti to iffsford the position in January. Mulliean is manager of the ided by Genesee Valley Regional Market on Jefferson Road. He will preside at town board meetings when Breese is not available. WEBSTER ax owners By KJERSTEN J.

MAYER MAFK WKIIEK PITTSFORD Monroe County sheriff's deputies said common sense might have prevented a string of garage burglaries here last week. Investigators said at least eight homes were burglarized when someone entered garages, often left unlocked, and made off with merchandise, including a car. The thefts occurred Thursday and Friday afternoon on three streets here, including Stonebridge Lane, Split Rock Road and Skytop Lane. Five of the garages were unlocked when the thefts occurred. Merchandise taken from vehicles in the garages included cellular phones, traveler's' checks, credit cards, a checkbook and a radar detector.

Technology panel refining school computer proposal The Webster Technology Committee met this week to discuss questions about the master plan proposed to the school board last month. The committee will forward their questions to board members and then have an informal meeting June 18. The time and place of the meeting has not been determined. The technology committee's 25 members include teachers, technology specialists and parents. The panel presented an $8.6 million proposal to bring better technology to Webster schools during the next three years.

The presentation included a three-phase plan to add computers to every school and to train educators to use them in the curriculum. The board asked the committee to better detail how money will be spent and how the programs will be incorporated into the curriculum. FAIRPORT iiiiniiilriiifirfrr.iiTiraii KAREN SCI II ELY staff photographer Ocean traveler? Kevin Reeder of Geneva, Ontario County, shows the note he wrote in 1978 that found its way from Cayuga Lake to San Diego and back to him this year. He's sitting outside the Belhurst Castle, owned by his family, on Seneca Lake. Board still seeking help in finding superintendent The school board still has not 1, CO chosen a permanent superinten dent.

But it is getting closer to find ing a consultant to help find one. The board took no action Tuesday after a two-hour closed-door discussion of who will be hired to Family 'flabbergasted' by bottled message return after 18 years Believe it or not A bottle dropped in Cavuga Lake could end up in the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Hudson River. help find a new district superinten A hood ornament was taken from a Mercedes Benz and paint was scratched on a Porsche. The stolen vehicle was recovered after it was in an accident. Capt.

Greg Schroth said there are few leads in the thefts. "We don't know. We don't have any sus. pects. Nobody's seen anything," he said.

Monroe County sheriffs' deputies said lax security is a common and sometimes costly problem. "My problem as a prevention officer is complacency. People don't think it can hap-, pen to them," said Deputy Tom Jameson, crime prevention officer at the sheriff's Pen-field substation. Garages should always be locked, he said, including the overhead door and any side doors. The side doors should have dead bolt locks on them.

If the overhead garage door doesn't have a built-in lock, a padlock can be attached to one of the tracks. Garage-door remote controls should be kept in a safe place and out side keypads kept in good repair. "We try to take away that opportunity by 'target which is making your house appear to be and in fact be a more difficult target to break into," Jameson said. Jameson said residents must become more security conscious. "People are going to have to be aware that this is going on in their neighborhoods.

They've got to help us out," he said. dent. "We are deliberating over the (consultants) that we interviewed," By GREG LIVADAS STAFF WRITER BUffa' r7fsTacuscN Albany' KEVIN M. SMITH staff artist said board member Patricia May. Board Vice President John Tiberio said the board has not set a date for a continuation of the discussion.

The board has interviewed three consultant candidates since May 18. Human Resources Administrator Timothy McElheran has served as interim superintendent since March 1995, when Paul Doyle resigned. The district is in its third search for a superintendent since Doyle resigned. The latest search began in late March after an Ohio school administrator declined an offer from the school district. The consulting firm that worked on the first two searches agreed the district should seek a new consultant.

The rest of the journey It is possible that the bottle could have floated down along the Eastern Seaboard, through the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal or around South America and up the Pacific Ocean. wagers BRIGHTON seeEc room for an inn He was hoping for a pen pal, Kevin Reeder says, when he slipped a note into a green bottle, screwed on a cap and tossed it into Cayuga Lake 18 years ago at his grandfather's cottage on Elm Beach in Ovid, Seneca County. In February, the note was mailed back to him at his former address in Geneva, Ontario County. Accompanying the note, postmarked in San Diego, was a simple response: "Hello Kevin. I foundyour message in a bottle at the beach in San Diego, California.

I thought it would be funny to write back. Pretty cool! Bye now, Rosa Bruce. P.S. Where the heck is Ovid?" Intrigued by the note, a crew from NBC's Unsolved Mysteries is flying into the area next week to get Reeder's story. "I was 9 years old, so I don't remember much about it," said Reeder, now 27.

"It was a fluke thing you do on a summer afternoon to waste time." Reeder has moved from the address he had on the note, but a mailman recognized his name and forwarded it to him in Geneva. Historically, bottles recovered from a body of water with a note inside are usually found a year or two after being placed in the water, said Joseph Reid, an oceanographer with the Scripps Institute in San Diego. "The most likely guess is someone found that bottle and mailed (the note) to someone to send to him as a joke," Reid said. Reid, who has studied floating Reid was consulted by Unsolved Mysteries about the feasibility of Reeder's bottle floating from Cayuga Lake to San Diego. If the note did float on its own from Ovid to San Diego a ney that oceanographic experts say technically is possible the bottle carrying it would have traveled more than 25,000 miles.

"Any object dropped in the Atlantic could have gotten to California," Reid said, adding that in Reeder's case it would have had to "endure 18 years in the ocean without being washed up on a beach somewhere else or being broken." Pat Cantiello, a spokeswoman for the state Thruway Authority, which oversees the canal system, said for a bottle to make it into the Atlantic Ocean, it would have to exit Cayuga Lake to the north through the Cayuga-Seneca Canal and then into the Erie Canal. From there the bottle could have gone to the Oswego Canal, into Lake Ontario and through the St. Lawrence River, exiting into the north Atlantic. The bottle would have to pass through nine locks. Or it could have gone along the Erie Canal to the Hudson River, then south into the Atlantic.

When Reeder opened the letter, he noticed the San Diego postmark and his mother's handwriting. She wrote the note for him in 1978. "I said, What's my mother doing in he said. "Then it came back to me. Eighteen years later, this note pops up.

I thought it was going to go a half mile down the lake." "We thought Kevin might get a letter back from a college kid in Aurora or maybe Ithaca and get a pen pal," said Reeder's mother, Merle Cushman of Florida. "We just totally forgot about it. It's got us flabbergasted." STAFF REPORTS Town's art festival events slated through Sunday The town's fourth annual arts festival kicked off yesterday at Town Hall, 2300 Elmwood Ave. The festival ends Sunday. Today's highlights include an tart exhibition from noon to 5 p.m.

ind a watercolor and sketch demon- gtration from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. Tomorrow's events include an art exhibition from noon to 6 p.m.; a I'chainsaw wood sculpture display noon to 5 p.m.; sun prints from 2 to 4 p.m.; linoblock prints from 2 to p.m.; and landscape embroidery from 3 to 4 p.m. Sunday's events include bus tours at noon and 3 p.m.; and stained-glass work from noon to 1 Reeder, banquet events manager at Belhurst Castle, an inn and restaurant in Geneva owned by his family, told other employees about the letter. The pastry chef suggested Reeder write to Unsolved Mysteries. Stanley Brown, a research producer for the show, said they receive hundreds of thousands of requests a year, but he was intrigued by Reeder's letter.

"He did a very nice job of explaining the story," Brown said. "We're always looking for something on the show a little different, a little lighter. This certainly does qualify." Before agreeing to film the segment, an Unsolved Mysteries director flew to Geneva to interview Reeder and see the lake. The director doesn't believe Reeder is playing a hoax. The letter appears authentic.

Written in ink, it remained dry, but its folds were weathered from time. Reeder thinks the green bottle protected the letter from the sun. Reeder has heard theories from skeptics and doesn't discount them himself. Lights, camera Barbara Dell of Focus International is looking for people to portray Kevin Reeder and his mother for an episode of NBC's Unsolved Mysteries. Dell is looking for a husky 9-year-old to play Reeder at that age.

Also needed is a woman about 35 with reddish-brown hair to portray the mother. Those interested may stop at the center of The Marketplace mall to audition 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow. Some say the bottle may have been collected as garbage and put on a barge in the ocean.

Or someone in the lake may have found the bottle, tucked it in their boat, then sold the boat to someone on the West Coast. "We do quite a few stories that we don't expect answers," Brown said. "We're presenting a very curious tale of timing." Even if Reeder never knows any more, the note remains a conversation piece. "I'm going to get it framed," he said. SPENCERPORT Some villagers know the northeast corner of South Union Street and East Avenue as a vacant lot where Boy Scouts sell Christmas trees.

Some village leaders and developer James Howarth look there and see some: thing else: The Spencerport Inn. The proposed establishment, with 14 hotel rooms and an upscale restaurant, is envisioned as a three-story jewel in Spencerport's dream to become a thriving Erie Canal port. There is, however, an obstacle: finding parking in a congested business district. "Basically, there's not enough parking," said Mark Pellingra, owner of Spencerport Paint and Decorating Center next door to the site. A spirited village Zoning Board meeting on such matters as parking, operations and designs was held last night." On Tuesday, the Planning Board expects to revisit the issue with a public hearing, rj bottles during research into ocean currents, said bottles often sink afler being in the ocean for a long News tips Have a news lip? Call us at (716) 258-2353 or (800) 767- 7539 outside Monroe County.

period of time because they take on heavy layers of marine growth..