Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 16

Digital Edition www.DemocratandChronicle.com OGAL TATE SECTION DEATHS 2B 4B CALENDAR TOWNS, VILLAGES 3B 6B WEATHER WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 1998 DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE Daily Digest US draiMB ipDsum Board withdraws a proposal to place a program for 48 county students in Brighton. had negotiated with BOCES about the proposal for months. Vogt said he realized yesterday just hours before a meeting was to be held to discuss the proposal that the building wouldn't work. Some people with ties to Brighton schools said pressure from parents forced BOCES to drop out. The proposal "got people hysterical," said Amy Karch, co-chairwoman of Brighton Schools' Central Parent fore September.

"I'm hoping we'll be able to work something out. I'm cautiously optimistic." Vogt said BOCES abandoned the Brighton building because its second floor is not accessible to disabled people. BOCES had planned to use the second floor of the former Twelve Corners Elementary School to teach 48 students from throughout Monroe County. Brighton school officials Teacher Student Association. "People didn't understand anything about it.

They thought these kids would be close to the high school and middle school, and they didn't want those kinds of students near their children. They didn't think that these were-kids who were in rehab and wanted to be there." The building sits in the heart of Twelve Corners, wedged between Brighton High School and Brighton Middle School. BOCES had planned to lease the space for a three-year trial run. As part of the requirements, students would voluntarily enroll and undergo daily counseling along with classes. They would stay in the building all day and be bused home.

Students also would have to undergo regular drug testing and have their parents participate with them in family counseling, a School in the Brighton school district office building. That leaves plans for the proposed school which would be the fourth of its kind in the nation in question. "As each day goes by, it becomes a little bleaker," said BOCES Superintendent Gregory Vogt, who now is scrambling to find another site be BY STAFF WRITER ALAN MORRELL Plans for a school for students recovering from drug or alcohol addiction might be scrapped for next year. Monroe County Board of Cooperative Educational Services 1 yesterday withdrew a proposal to place the Phoenix FIRST-GRADERS VISIT A DAIRY 1 Study puts area hospital onU.S.list 3 mw 1 of polluters Strong is not the worst, but 'it has a ways to go to be among the says an official. BY STAFF WRITER MICHAEL WENTZEL Word in chalk spurs search for a bomb The Monroe County Sheriff's Office bomb squad was called to the Greece Town Hall yesterday after someone scribbled "BOMB" in chalk on the pavement near a town employee's car.

An arrow, also in chalk, pointed to the car used by a Building Department employee, said Supervisor John Auberger. Auberger said the message was found about 8 a.ra Town employees and visitors were moved to the end of the Town Hall farthest from the parking lot. No bomb was found. "I consider it somewhat of a prank, but we do not take it lightly and we still will use every avenue that we have to investigate it because you just never know," Auberger said. 'No-wake' rule ends in Wayne County The no-wake restriction has been lifted for the Lake Ontario bays in Wayne County.

Sheriff Richard Pisciotti said the ban on boats creating a wake in East Bay, Port Bay and Sodus Bay was lifted last week. Although the water level is still high, it has declined steadily, Pisciotti said, reducing the threat of shoreline damage. But the sheriff said wakes still can cause damage to lakeside property. Submerged docks also create a hazard in some navigable waters, the sheriff cautioned. The sheriff said he and Sodus Town Supervisor Donna Chittenden, Sodus Point Mayor Don Buchwald and Huron Supervisor Al Guerin will continue to monitor lake lev1 els and may reinstate the no-wake rule if necessary.

Thruway gets new toll-paying system The trip through Thruway toll booths will soon be a little quicker, according to state Thruway Authority officials. The Thruway Authority has installed $6.3 million in equipment that prints customized tickets, enabling the toll collector to swipe the ticket instead of punching in the amount due. The- new process should save commuters seconds at the booths, said Thruway Authority Chairman Howard Steinberg. State law may nix ads on police cars The Rotterdam police chiefs plan to allow police cruisers to display logos of sponsors has hit some legal snags. Anthony W.

Jasens-ki's plan for the community near Albany was to let local businesses donate money to the police department for radios and other items. The radios cost between $1,000 and $1,200. But the state Association of Towns has said state law may not allow the display of logos. The state comptroller's office has said a grocery chain can't advertise on police cars, and the town cannot solicit donations. day they had reduced the amount of incinerated waste significantly and were making a broad effort to replace equipment like mercury thermometers.

"The hospital has tried to be very environmentally conscious, especially given the cost pressures under health care reform," said Mark Schwartz, Strong's director of facilities operations. Hospitals produce an estimated 2 million tons of waste per year. The report is based on a survey of 50 of the nation's top hospitals. Incineration of medical waste is a major source of the toxic pollutants dioxin and mercury, the groups charged. Strong is among the 40 percent of the surveyed hospitals that does incinerate waste.

Strong closed its incinerator in December, Schwartz said. But about 5,000 pounds of medical waste annually will be incinerated at a licensed incinerator outside the Rochester area, he said. Instead of incineration, the environmental groups favor the use of an autoclave, a kind HOSPITALS, PAGE 2B Major hospitals around the country, including Strong Memorial Hospital, are failing to halt the emission or disposal of toxic waste that pollutes the environment, says an environmental group. In a report released yesterday, Health Care Without Harm, a coalition of public health advocates, and the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based organization, said many hospitals unsafely incinerate waste and continue to use equipment with toxic mercury. "It is truly indicative of the toxic nightmare we live in today to learn that our health care institutions are a major source of contamination of our environment and our food supply," said Marian Wise, executive director of the Albany-based Citizens' Environmental Coalition, which coordinated the report in New York.

Wise said Strong "certainly is not the worst hospital but it has a ways to go to be among the best." Strong officials said yester JASON GETZ staff photographer Gordon Seward of Norton Family Dairy Farm in Albion; Orleans County, at top, shows cow feed to pupils from St. Josephs Elementary School in Batavia. An Alexander Central pupil, above left, pets a calf. And students, above right, enjoy playing in the hay. Public and private school first-graders from Genesee County participated.

UR students to dig for ancient history in Israel Teamhopestobecomethefirsttofindthe S1; SSSSSSt JKSSfftfiSS Stepping back in time the building, learn more about past Jewish civilization and The Romans ultimately destroyed Yodefat after this Now UR officials, in partnership again with the Israel remains 01 a ist-century synagogue. Antiquities Authority, hope to repeat the success of Yodefat at the smaller excavation at Bar'am, about seven miles northwest of the city of Safed and near Lebanon. More careful than dusters in a fine-china shop, the team will work, often on their knees, with soft brushes as they lift first-century standoff. But neither war nor time could eradicate the traces of daily life found by excavators there, including some of the earliest fresco work discovered in Israel. Echoes from the Ancients, a documentary that airs at 9 p.m.

tomorrow on WXXI-TV, will detail the story and significance of the Yodefat dig. The show will air nationally sometime this fall. liturgy and uncover whatever mysteries the synagogue itself may sit atop. This new archaeology adventure comes after six years' digging by Green and others at the ancient city of Yodefat in northern Israel. There, several hundred local volunteers and students uncovered echoes of a 47-day battle between soldiers of the Roman Empire and Jewish freedom fighters.

Echoes from the Ancients, a WXXI-TV documentary on the University of Rochester-Israel archaeological dig at Yodefat, narrated by actress Anne Bancroft, will premiere at 9 p.m. tomorrow on WXXI (Channel 21; cable Channel 1 1 The Making of Echoes from the Ancients will follow at 10 p.m. BY STAFF WRITER DOUG MANDELARO University of Rochester students are gearing up to spend a part of this summer in the dusty remains of the 2nd century while previous UR archaeological work gets attention this week in a new TV documentary. About two dozen students will accompany William Scott Green, UR's director of Judaic Studies, to Bar'am, the site 'of an ancient Jewish synagogue in Israel's northern Galilee region. Through most of July and early August, the team will work with Israeli officials at the site, hoping to better date ISRAEL, PAGE 2B In the long run, Franklin may be about the short run? I think they're serious about fixing Franklin High School, whose name has been prefaced by the word "troubled" for what seems like the half-life of plutonium.

City school officials admitted this week that they can't really define either the problem or the solution yet. So they'll collect data, run Celebrating Women ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY Social reformer and educator Victoria Claflin Woodhull'died in 1927. She was the first woman nominated to run for U.S. president. With the backing of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee, opened their own brokerage firm in New York City.

She was nominated for president by the Equal Rights Party in 1872, but on election day she was in jail, accused of breaking obscenity laws. She was acquitted. (Source: Women's History Magazine.) Also on June 10: Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Oscar, born 1895. Urbanski, a panel member, says, "Reform is fine, but people who are hungry are not hungry in the long term. They are hungry today." Having declared Franklin in need of total change, Janey and the board should offer some interim improvements to the kids and parents who will be there in September.

What might they be? A change in leadership? Maybe. How about major security improvements such as walk-through metal detectors at each entrance, to be sure the weapons don't get in? I'm not an edu-expert. I don't know what the first steps should be. But as promising as Franklin's long-term future could be, the short term is what worries me most. Mark Hare's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Call him with your thoughts at 258-2351 or write him at 55 Exchange Rochester, 14614 terDandC.com through a lot of disciplines with a common focus. It teaches them the "concept of excellence," Rob Brown says and that's something they take with them, no matter what they do after high school. And sports medicine would be wildly popular. It would draw highly motivated students. And my guess is that at many suburban dinner tables, parents would be confronted by kids who suddenly have an interest in attending a city school.

Richard Stear, president of the administrators union and a panel member, says the building is big enough to create three or four separate schools. Why not? A popular and excellent program could draw the mix of students across racial, economic and academic lines that a great school needs. That's the good news. But as Rochester Teachers Association President Adam something bold and new. When it comes to Franklin, says school board Vice President Rob Brown, "Nobody (I think that would include moi) knows what they're talking about." As for my assessment of the schopl as an educational Chernobyl that should be closed, Superintendent Clifford Janey says it's "possible, but unlikely." OK, if they're not going to close it, then what? Janey is right that the problem defies an off-the-rack solutioa The school has been reorganized, magnet programs have been added, principals and teachers have come and gone and still Franklin isn't close to what it ought to be.

Yes, there are pockets of excellence. Just last April, for instance, Franklin students won a citywide calculus competitioa Kids can learn at Franklin, but too many don't. There is, Janey says, "an air of contentioa" That's an understatement. This is the school where a teacher was accused (wrongly) of encouraging a student to sneak a gun into the building to prove that the security system is full of holes. Franklin's reputation may be worse than reality, but the fact is, there is no scramble for seats.

Janey wants to pick the brains of the community, but I don't understand why it took until this week to launch a discussion that's supposed to produce a plan to be implemented in September 1999. If the plan is to make a plan, why didn't he get started in February? Still, optimism is justified. The panel has a lot of free thinkers, some already floating ideas. How about a sports medicine magnet with a partnership with Rochester General and local colleges? The magnet approach takes kids MARK ILRE focus groups and name a panel of community leaders including former Mayor Tom Ryan, Rochester General Hospital President Dr. Richard Constantino, State University College at Brockport President Paul Yu and U.S.

District Judge Michael Telesca to look at the facts and propose.