The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 13

Ehr urltttgt0tt Wednesday, December 7, 1 983 Board Nod Opens Door for Shelter Operation the shelter. "I know it will not have a detrimental effect." Those who must seek a roof over their heads in the winter are not troublemakers, said Mark Cooper, who has stayed at the North Street Burlington Emergency Shelter. "They're really not bad people, they're just down on their luck. Most of them are just people with hard times who have run into the Reagan recession." Due to the zoning appeal, the Waystation has been without a home for two weeks. During that time, the Salvation Army headquarters on Main Street has been used as a temporary shelter.

"In those 14 nights, we have served 54 different people," Cunningham said. Turn to SHELTER, Page 2B Andrea Rogers of the Flynn Theater, around the corner from the shelter. Rogers said the area is a "fringe neighborhood" and the Flynn has had vandalism problems. Most who spoke at the meeting said the shelter, in its third year of operation, is well-run by a staff that keeps close tabs on those who try to break rules, such as the ban on showing up drunk. "Things didn't get out of control in the two years at the Sara Holbrook Center," said Maggie Green, director of the Holbrook Center.

"My neighbors didn't complain." "It seems to me we have an obligation to help those who can't help themselves," said J. William O'Brien, a Burlington lawyer who is trustee for a building near site. Shortly after the group announced the move, Rebecca Kaiser, who lives next door, filed a zoning appeal. Kaiser said she objected to the shelter location because the lower Church Street and King Street neighborhoods have been the scene of housing rehabilitation and neighborhood cleanup efforts in recent years. "This is a place where people with problems are going to be," Kaiser said.

"The city clearly needs this facility, but I don't know that this is the appropriate location." Other neighbors cited problems with people drinking and making noise in the neighborhood, home to several taverns. "I have mixed feelings about it," said By SCOTT MACKAY Free Press Staff Writer Burlington's Waystation emergency shelter for the homeless won Zoning Board approval Tuesday to start operating in the bottom floor of the downtown Wilson Hotel. The decision means the shelter probably will open by Dec. 15 in the former karate studio at 187 Church according to director Mike Cunningham. It will be open from 4 p.m.

to 8 a.m. most winter days, with longer hours on weekends and holidays. Officials of the Committee on Temporary Shelter, the non-profit organization which runs the shelter, signed a lease in October to move from the Sara Holbrook Center in the Old North End to the Wilson I Cylinders Tumble From Stolen Truck; Driver Arrested a i czJ i Mr 9V By MIKE DONOGHUE Free Press Staff Writer ESSEX A 23-year-old former Starksboro man was arrested on multiple charges after a load potentially hazardous chemical cylinders fell off a stolen truck early Tuesday on Kellogg Road, Essex police said. Six empty chlorine cylinders, each weighing 1,500 pounds, were found along a 600-foot stretch by the Kellogg Road-Morse Drive intersection shortly before 2 a.m., officials said. Daniel S.

Haskins, who authorities said has no known address, pleaded innocent later Tuesday in Vermont District Court to charges of driving while intoxicated and operating a vehicle without the owner's consent. He was released on personal recognizance. Haskins also was issued a $75 ticket for operating a truck with an unsecured load, Chief John P. Terry said. He has 15 days to contest the ticket.

Terry said police were alerted at 1:51 a.m. by Theresa Gauthier of Kellogg Road that several steel cylinders had fallen off a- truck near her home by the Morse Industrial Park. When Sgt. Todd McCabe found the cylinders, he ordered the area sealed off by town and Colchester police, summoned the Essex Town Fire Department and put Essex Rescue on standby. The few neighbors aware of the incident were told to stay in their homes and persons working at the Racquet's Edge health club were asked to leave, police said.

Authorities called officials of Hamden Color and Chemical which leases space from Folino Industries Inc. in the Morse Industrial Park, to determine ownership of the cylinders. A Hamden Color and Chemical official told police he thought the cylinders belonged to Folino, who, when called, said the cylinders were empty. Fire Chief George E. Bartley said authorities acted on the as sumption that the cylinders were filled until it could be determined at the scene that they were empty.

Bartley said he also called in Allen C. Hilliker, a hazardous material specialist for International Business Machines. McCabe ordered a statewide alert to police agencies to be on the lookout for a truck carrying an unsecured chemical load. Police found Haskins' personal van behind the chemical plant. The van had been disabled on Pearl Street about 12.54 a.m.

and later started, according to Patrolman Elaine Johnson. While police and firemen worked at the scene at 3 a.m., the truck, with the seventh cylinder still in the back, approached a police roadblock on Kellogg Road near New England Drive, officials said. Johnson noted a moderate odor ofiintoxicants on the driver, later identified as Haskins, McCabe said. Haskins was given a roadside breath test on an alcohol sensor, which is inadmissible in court, that showed 0.13 percent blood alcohol content, according to the affidavit. Because of the test and other signs of intoxication, Haskins was asked to take the state-approved alcohol test, which provides an extra sample a defendant can later have tested independently, officials said.

Francis Folino, owner of the chemical company, said Haskins did not have authorization to operate the truck, according to a sworn affidavit by McCabe. Folino said he knew Haskins was employed by Hamden, according to McCabe. Terry said by Tuesday afternoon he understood Haskins was "a former employee." Two other persons who were with Haskins were released without charges, Johnson said. Their names were unavailable Tuesday evening. Bartley said a forklift was used to lift the cylinders onto the back of the truck.

The cylinders have a capacity for 1,000 pounds of chlorine, Bartley said. vine i Free Press Photo by IRENE FERTIK Essex firemen use a forklift to load an empty cylinder for 1,000 pounds of chlorine, fell from a truck. Although weighing 1 ,500 pounds onto a truck for removal from the drums were empty, hazardous waste specialists were Kellogg Road. Several cylinders, which have a capacity called to the scene. The driver was arrested.

Acid-Filled Drum Found in Lake drums along the shoreline between the General Electric plant in Burlington and the LaP-latte River in Shelburne, but found none, he said. Hurley said the Coast Guard finds all kinds of things in the lake and recently removed a 60-foot strip of steel that had to be cut with a torch to get it out of the water. Hurley said 30- and 55-gallon drums are often found in and along the lake because people use them for piers. He said the water level has risen in recent weeks and some drums on the shoreline could have floated out. The chief said such acid solutions are not shipped on the lake, to his knowledge.

any accidents or missing shipments. Fire Capt. Fred Bessette said the drum was found in the lake Saturday by Joseph Butler, who brought it to shore. The drum has not been opened, officials said. Garabedian said it is his department's policy not to open unknown containers until all efforts to locate the owner have been exhausted.

The U.S. Coast Guard found a similar drum about six months ago, but it was one-third filled with water, according to Chief Frank Hurley. A Coast Guard boat searched for additional By MIKE DONOGHUE Free Press Staff Writer State and South Burlington officials are attempting to find the owner of a 55-gallon drum, believed to contain a phosphorus acid solution, found in Lake Champlain near Red Rocks Park. Harold Garabedian, acting chief of the hazardous materials division of the Agency of Environmental Conservation in Montpelier, said officials are attempting to trace ownership through numbers imprinted on the drum. Gerald J.

DiVincenzo, a state hazardous material specialist, said he was unaware of fWT. IF Man's Literacy Crux of Decision To Deny Welfare Bell Ringers literacy level constitutes an 'inability' to read and write under the regulation," the board said. Norman said he is discussing the case with organizations concerned with learning disabilities in hopes they might be willing to help with an appeal. When the attorney presented his arguments to the board several weeks ago, he said Senna may have a learning disability, dyslexia, which has blocked him from becoming more proficient with written language. He was held back twice in the sixth grade of elementary school, was placed in a special education class and is in a home tutorial reading class for adults.

His tutor, who has worked with Senna intermittently for five years, has estimated his reading and writing ability remains about that of a child in second, third or fourth Bob Lewis plays encores as Vivian Boucher nods approval at a concert by the Birchwood Nursing Home Hand Bell Choir at the Community Lutheran Church. Madlyn Anderson holds bell ready to sound her turn. Free Press Photo by IRENE FERTIK UVM Poll Finds Sanders Popular By NEIL DAVIS Free Press Capital Bureou MONTPELIER Six members of the state Human Services Board have decided unanimously that illiteracy and near-illiteracy are two different things when it comes to determining eligibility for welfare benefits. The board upheld a Social Welfare Department decision disqualifying. Jason Senna, 22, of Burlington.

Stephen Norman, Vermont Legal Aid attorney, said he probably will appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court on Senna's behalf, but had reached no decision Tuesday. Senna had claimed his inability to cope with common three- and four-letter words in reading and writing qualified as a "barrier to employment" under general assistance regulations. Words the Burlington man has trouble recognizing in print include "saw" and "that." As specified in the regulations, however, the criterion is "inability to read or write," which the department has interpreted to mean total inability. The board ruled that state law gives the department "considerable discretion" in defining barriers to employment. Suggesting that the department has been no more arbitrary than usual, the board said Senna has no legal basis upon which to challenge the department's interpretation.

"It cannot be held as a matter of fact or law that the petitioner's admitted second- to fourth-grade The tutor said Senna is still on By SCOTT MACKAY Free Press Staff Writer Mayor Bernard Sanders is popular with Burlington voters of all ages and income groups, according to a poll done last month by political science students at the University of Vermont. Asked whether they approved or disapproved of the way Sanders is handling the job he has held since 1981, 62 percent of the 400 respondents said they approved, 21 percent expressed disapproval and 17 percent said they did not know or had no opinion. The poll, done shortly after the U.S. invasion of Grenada, also showed Republican President Reagan's rating high in Burlington, a city that is usually a Democratic stronghold. It also showed Ohio Sen.

John Glenn';) chances of defeating Reagan slightly better than those of his chief opponent for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination, former Vice President Walter Mondale. Tom Rice, UVM political science professor who supervised the poll, said it followed generally accepted polling techniques, including a random sample culled from a telephone directory, and used detailed questions to gauge a voter's knowledge of city politics. Rice estimated the error margin at seven percentage points, but said it could be more accurate because of the large sample of 400, a number considered accurate for a professional statewide poll. When asked whom they would vote for "if the.election were held today and the candidates were Ronald Reagan for the Republicans and Walter Mondale for the Democrats," about 4 percent answered Reagan and about 40 percent favored Mondale, with the rest undecided. When Glenn's chances were tested against Reagan, Glenn turned up at about 40, while Reagan's percentage dropped to 37.5.

Sanders is very popular among the young, those who rent rather than own and those who describe themselves as "working class," according to the poll. "We found age to be the most important demographic determinant" in Sanders' approval ratings, Rice said. Of the 241 voters 35 or younger, Sanders' approval rating was 70 percent. The rating dropped to 51 percent of the 156 respondents age 36 or older. The most dramatic example of how age affected a respondant's view came when voters Tom to UVM, Page SB the first chapter of the first book in the adult reading course.

Senna's less than two years of work experience were entirely in government-subsidized jobs as a food preparer, cook and hiking trail maintenance laborer. In his kitchen jobs, he had difficulty reading recipes. Norman told the board, "It's clear no one would hire Mr. Senna for any job that required reading or writing." That makes Senna's ability to Turn to MAN'S, Page 2B ii i i iien "ii.