The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 27

MetroRegion News Bl-8 Lottery B2 New England News Briefs B8 Weather B7 THE BOSTON GLOBE THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1996 Weld's 'It 's standard practice across the industry. Whatever we lose in fare revenue, we will gain in PATRICK MOYNIHAN, MBTA general manager opens up back-door policy QHHE No connections and no pension record belies drug ads By Thomas Palmer GLOBE STAFF KNOW THAT POLITICS IS all about people like Dianne Stanley and her three boys. Last summer, they lost husband and father when Peter Stanley dropped dead of a heart attack just as the family So general manager Patrick J. Moynihan yesterday recommended, and the board adopted, a new system. Passengers will be encouraged to exit at the rear.

"It's standard practice across the industry," said Moynihan. "Whatever we lose in fare revenue, we will gain in efficiency." Most bus riders interviewed last night at Ashmont Station welcomed the new policy relieved that logic would return to their daily commutes. "If you're sitting in the back, especially if it's crowded, you have to squeeze to the front and many people have bags," said Nikki Houston, 20. "It's silly they don't open the back door." BUSES, Page B3 In the front, out the back. It makes sense.

That will be the new policy for boarding and getting off MBTA buses, as the nation's oldest transit system joins much of the rest of the world in adopting a logical on-off rule. As a frustrated bus rider wrote to the Globe's Starts Stops column recently, the MBTA has frequently kept its rear doors on buses closed. That maximizes fare income no one can sneak on the rear and avoid paying but it makes for a crowded situation at the front. Dealers, cartels not his priority at Hampton Beach for 4 uaj in uic uij oun. TJ JJ-J lL.n Jv -yjWw i 51 1 Si 1 (fn lie U1CU llgllb L11C1C 111 front of my sons," Diane Stanley was saying yesterday.

"We just got to the beach. We just drove up there. I tried to revive him, but I couldn't The kids saw their father die." Peter Stanley was 47. He had been an Arlington firefighter for nine years when he nearly broke his back on the job and was retired on a disability of $1,400 a month. That was 1979.

After leaving the department, his health continued to deteriorate and in 1981 he underwent a heart bypass and had a second by 1 wi. By Frank PhiEips GLOBE STAFF As part of his effort to paint US Sen. John F. Kerry as weak on crime, Gov. William F.

Weld has all but accused the Democratic incumbent of having gone AWOL in the war on drugs opposed to tough mandatory sentences for drug dealers while favoring federal welfare benefits for addicts. But what Weld has not talked about is his own record in prosecuting drug crimes while he was US attorney in Boston, from 1981 to 1986. And there's good reason for Weld's silence, according to performance reports compiled by the US Justice Department. When Weld was the region's top federal prosecutor, his office consistently ranked near the bottom when its record on drug convictions and other measures of prosecutorial success were compared to those of other federal districts. Even Weld's defenders acknowledge that his record on the drug issue is not strong, but they insist that the poor showing merely reflects Weld's decision to focus the energies of the US attorney's office on public corruption, because, at the time, he deemed it the larger problem.

"A decision was made that certain resources would go into certain -efforts, and public corruption wasl one of them," said Jeremiah TZ O'Sullivan, who headed the Kt- frz 'ft Organized Crime Task Force in Bos-; ton during Weld's tenure as US at; torney. "Sure people were unahppy that Bill made the judgment, but the question is what is more important! Given the level of drug activity, he; made the better decision to target" public corruption," said who is a strong booster of the gover- nor. But the fact remains that Weld's own record on drug prosecution contrasts sharply with the governor's. assault on Kerry on drug and issues. The governor has particularly; trumpeted his allegation denied by; Kerry that the senator opposes mandatory minimum sentences for those who deal drugs to children.

"John Kerry has voted against; WELD, Page B6; pass in 1988. After her husband died, his widow applied for standard death benefits. In terms of money, this means she would continue to get the $1,400 monthly check her husband had been receiving. She filled out all the forms. She provided the Arlington retirement board with medical records and the town dutifully forwarded them to a single-doctor medical panel for a ruling on her request A couple of weeks ago, the doctor sent a letter to the state Public Employee Retirement Board indicating he had reviewed the records and, in his opinion, "the family is not entitled to accidental death benefits on a cardiac basis in this case." Peter Stanley, the doctor pointed out, once smoked cigarettes.

And he had a family history of premature coronary heart disease. And he was disabled from his job due to spinal cord injuries he died of a heart attack so the widow will probably lose his magnificent $1,400 pension. Diane Stanley has sad eyes, a $383-a-week job at the Arlington ice rink plus a $500 monthly survivor's benefit. She has three boys, 14, 7 and 3 years old. She has a house with a mortgage and a husband in a cemetery.

She was at her job yesterday, as she is every day. She takes no lunch hour so she can leave an hour early to get home by 4 p.m. in order to be there with the boys. "My husband was always there at home when they came from school," she said. "After he died I told them, 'Don't worry.

I'll always be there for you, just like but it's not the same. Nothing's the same. The boys are having a hard time." Right now, it appears the family could lose its home unless the town retirement board believes two doctors who treated Peter Stanley when he was alive rather than one doctor who looked at pieces of paper after he had died. There was no autopsy. Peter Stanley's cardiologist at Boston Medical Center, as well as his personal physician at Lahey Clinic, treated the former firefighter for 18 years.

Both physicians told the town board that the man's death was related to his initial disability. Diane Stanley doesn't know any politicians. She has no clout, no connections. All she knows is that her husband went into burning buildings to put out fires because it was his job and, like every firefighter, inhaled more smoke in a working week than someone who puffs three packs a day for years. She knows, too, that without his pension, the family sinks.

She carries that burden on her face. Things would be different, though, if the husband had been in politics, a business where they take care of themselves first. A member of Congress, after the same amount of time served in Washington as Peter Stanley had in a fire station; would walk away with a $23,000 yearly pension. And the Stanley boys would have no worries if dad had been a power at the Turnpike Authority. Alan McKinnon, the former head of the Pike, walked out the door with an $80,000 pension for less than a decade's worth of showing up at the office.

JDi course, he didn't have to show up that often because he got 10 weeks of annual vacation, too. But before he disappeared, he managed to charge taxpayers for unused leave plus a lump sum gift totaling $130,000. McKinnon calls this severance, but it is actually a form of larceny. Nobody goes from public office or a big-shot appointment to the welfare rolls. The connected raise their right hands, then collect with both forever after.

So, as the Arlington Retirement Board sits with one family's future in its hands, Diane Stanley tries to figure out what the difference is between the $500 she gets today and the $1,400 she certainly deserves. She is too tired and grief-stricken to realize that the actual difference is, simply put politics. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO JOHN TLUMACKI CHINATOWN FIRE Smoke pours from a Chinatown building after afire apparently broke out yesterday in the kitchen of a McDonald's restaurant at the corner ofKneeland and Washington streets, temporarily paralyzing one of the city 's busiest neighborhoods. Page B5. Prognosis isn't pretty Many antique dolls wastingaway asoUectors face up to losses Judge sides with federal agent in age bias lawsuit By Judith Gaines GLOBE STAFF I a recent weekend, the huge hall of the I Lions Club was full A it of dolls: rag dolls, By Patricia Nealon GLOBE STAFF A federal judge has ordered the promotion of a US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who was passed over five years ago because the former head of the bureau's Boston office was "obsessed" with youth and favored applicants from "the Pepsi generation." In a scathing ruling issued orally last month in US District Court, Senior US District Judge W.

Arthur Garrity Jr. ordered ATF agent John Lennon promoted from a GS12 to a GS13. Lennon was denied the promotion in October 1991 when a 29-year-old woman just a year out of training was promoted over him. Lennon, then 46, also will get $60,423 in back pay. Garrity, his ruling followiiY; a RULING, Page B8 ceramic dolls, dolls made from plastic and dolls made from wood, celebrity look-alike dolls representing the idols of generations of children.

But two dolls were under quarantine at the Hudson show, which featured the prized possessions of some of New England's best-known collectors. They had been banished from the hall out of fear they would infect others. "Keep them out of here," commanded Veronica Phillips, owner of the two ailing Saucy Walker dolls, when her husband brought them to her exhibit in DOLLS, Page B4 I II -llfl 1w lr. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO DAVID RYAN A hard plastic doll shows signs of what some collectors call "sad doll disease.".