The Boston Globe du lieu suivant : Boston, Massachusetts • 199

NW2 jrfthW Community Briefing 2 Obituaries 7 Sports 8 Calendar 9 Boston Sunday Globe January 12, 2003 S2J via Lrw alt stores, budgets shrivel as snow piles up By Erica Noonan GLOBE STAFF salt sources, and coming up with creative ways to keep the streets safe. Snow isn't the only white, granular substance causing problems for cities and towns this we should be winter. There's salt oo i a definite lack thereof prepared IOr that is also causing whatever Mother Nature throws our In Medford, Public Works Commissioner Paul Gere doesn't have enough salt to loan out to needy neighboring communities a common wintertime practice. His normal supplier, Eastern Salt in Chelsea, ran low for several days last week. He's counting" on a big shipment due in by freighter 115 miles of streets, watching for such trouble spots as narrow oneway streets, large hills, and any route needed by police and fire emergency vehicles.

The city called a snow emergency at 6 p.m. that day, and crews towed 240 cars off major roads so snowplow equipment could get through. Medford's supply of salt and sand was sufficient for that storm, but flurries that have followed have drained most of the salt stored. To conserve, and keep streets safe, Gere's workers mix it with sand. The mixture is less effective in melting ice than pure salt.

In the meantime, and for future storms, Gere said he hopes people will refrain from dumping or blowing snow from their walks and driveways into the streets. "We're hoping for 80 degree weather," he joked. But even a heat wave couldn't save Gere's budget this year. By early January, it was already in the red. Thanks to the snow flurries that have come intermittently since New Year's Day, he's already outspent his $150,000 snow removal budget by $5,000.

The salt issue isn't really the budget buster it's the fact that the storms have been frequent, heavy, and holiday-themed. Storms that hit on Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as overnight and on weekends, simply cost more in overtime pay to clean up than 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekday blizzards. On Christmas Day alone, Gere had 45 plows on the roads, continually sweeping through Medford's public works officials to scramble in preparation for the next storm.

The past several snowstorms have required copious amounts of road salt to melt the ice that is John Cogliano MassHighway commissioner GLOBE STAFF PHOTOiOANNE RATHE Sand that was just delivered to Lowell is loaded into a truck Monday. The city almost ran out of sand and salt last week. "Throwing snow back in the cult and expensive for the town. If street is just murder on us," he enough people do that, then the said. "It makes it much more diffi- SNOW, Pag 6 caking the region's roadways.

The high demand has, in turn, caused a regional shortage, sending public works directors scrambling for out-of-state this weekend. Until then, he looks heavenward and scans the weather 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (i it 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ri 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ri i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ri 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 NASHUA 1 Referendum Tuesday will gauge support for water buy .11" 4 HW? tn GLOBE STAFF PHOTOS JOANNE RATHE that here in this swath of the Merrimack Valley, where the Nashua-based Pennichuck which supplies drinking water to two dozen southern New Hampshire communities, is about to be sold to Philadelphia Suburban, the nation's second largest investor-owned water utility. In an aggressive effort to block the sale, Nashua is holding a citywide nonbinding referendum on Tuesday to gauge whether voters support having the city or a collection of southern New Hampshire communities buy Pennichuck. The impending loss of local control of the company has tapped a spigot of concerns among residents, political leaders, and envi- WATER SUPPLY, Page 7 By James Vaznis GLOBE STAFF CORRESPONDENT He stood on the steps of City Hall one morning last week in the frigid cold. Flanked by two dozen supporters, Bob Sullivan, the president of the Nashua Taxpayers Association, yelled out, "Who do you think will do a better job protecting the watershed, citizens or an outside company?" Those around him and a small crowd gathered in the neatly plowed walkways of City Hall plaza, shouted, "Citizens!" He then followed up with two more questions, and the crowd exuberantly cheered, again and again, "Citizens! Citizens!" Water, often touted in advertising slogans as "pure and Simple," has been considered anything but Gary Wallace, director of the Lowell Housing Authority, walking through the vacant Julian D.

Steele housing complex. LOWELL City seeks to raze site, despite appeal METHUEN By Christine McConville GLOBE STAFF CORRESPONDENT Lowell officials are hoping that the end may have finally come for the Julian D. Steele Housing Development. But opponents of a plan to replace the 284 vacant units of public housing with single family homes and duplexes are not finished yet. Last week, they appealed a judge's denial of their request for a decision that would have stopped the demolition of the development Despite the appeal, officials from the Lowell Housing Authority are expecting to choose a demolition crew by the end of the month.

Lowell's City Council has already allotted $1 million to demolish the housing and to remove asbestos there. To Housing Authority executive director Gary Wallace, and other supporters of the demolition, the wait has been long. They say that, if the old development is demolished and new homes built, the future for South Lowell will be brighter, especially along housing" will be a joyous one. "They are obsolete. The roofs leak.

There's infestation and there are heating and plumbing problems," he said. But to opponents of the new plan, which would replace the Julian Steele complex with a total of 180 housing units, the wrecking ball symbolizes a city's disregard for its neediest residents, a displacement of the poor done in the name of improvement Not only would the plan mean fewer units overall, opponents say, but most of those units would be out of financial reach of Lowell's poorest families, many of whom once lived at the Julian Steele complex. Judith Liben, a public interest lawyer, has been fighting the so-called "reinvention" plan at the Julian Steele development since 1997. She and others unsuccessfully lobbied against a legislative proposal that permits the Julian Steele plan to go forward. The measure, which became law last year, allows the demolition of a public housing develop-H0USIN6 COMPLEX, Page Spotlight goes off as Jajuga leaves top public safely post A stone marking the former complex, which is slated for demolition, has been sprayed with graffiti.

Shaughnessy Terrace, where the Julian Steele units sit, squat, barrack-style, and boarded up. Wallace said that the day when the wrecking balls hit what he calls "284 units of slum IHI Illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllill HI Illllllllllllll IIIIIIIMIIItlllllllilllMIIIIIIIIIKlnN lltlllllKIIHnilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllMllllllllllttllllll Illlllllll CHELMSFORD Inside Today By JohnLaidler GLOBE CORRESPONDENT For James P. Jajuga, it is an unaccustomed place to be. Since he stepped on to the political stage 12 years ago with a successful run for state Senate, the retired State Police lieutenant has rarely been out of the public spotlight During his Senate years, the quotable Methuen Democrat was in the thick of battles over the death penalty, welfare reform, the distribution of needles to drug addicts, and mandatory seat-belt laws. As the state's public safety secretary for the past 16 months, he played a front-and-center role in the state's efforts to grapple with post-Sept 1 1 security issues.

But on Jan. 2, Jajuga found himself at least temporarily without a public stage on which to stand, the result of incoming Governor Mitt Romney's decision not to retain him as public safety secretary. In an interview last week, Jajuga, 56, said it is too early to reflect on how it will feel to be out of the limelight As recently as Dec 31, he was at a press conference at which the casino gambling commission on which he served issued its report JAJUGA, Page 4 School backers try again Town Meeting to take up pared-down building proposal -n. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO JOANNE RATHE By Joyce Pellino Crane GLOBE CORRESPONDENT Though no one disputes the need to upgrade Chelmsford's secondary schools, representatives at a special Town Meeting Thursday are expected to wrangle over whether an $86 million project is the way to go. The project calls for a renovation and expansion of the high school and the construction of a new building to replace McCarthy Middle School The original proposal rejected in the November election by 443 votes out of more than 14,000 cast, asked residents to approve a $112 million plan that would have also paid for expanding and renovating Parker Middle School The issue is not whether the schools need to be improved but whether it should cost $86 million to relieve overcrowding and meet other side is Vote No Again, a group led by senior citizen George Merrill, who feels the project is overblown and unnecessarily extravagant.

In between are a variety of opinions from selectmen, School Committee members, and town residents. Though the outcome of the special Town Meeting is far from certain, most officials said they expect members to approve borrowing the money, providing residents with an opportunity to decide the matter for themselves in March. The process started with the formation of the School Building Needs Committee in the late 1990s. That translated into the formation in 2001 of the Secondary School Building Committee, CHELMSFORD, Page 7 updated curriculum requirements. Selectmen last month voted to put the $86 million proposal to a town wide vote in March.

Thursday's meeting would authorize borrowing to fund the project, allowing the March vote to go forward. The ballot question would ask whether the debt-servicing costs for the $86 million plan should be excluded from the provisions of Proposition 2V4, which limits annual increases in tax revenue to 2Vi percent, plus money from new development The measure will require a two-thirds majority at Thursday's special Town Meeting, in accordance with state law. On one side of the debate is Support Our Schools, a grass-roots campaign composed of about 300 parents in favor of major renovations and construction. On the SON SHINES -Todd Fletcher plays Chelmsford High hockey, coached by his father, Jack. Sports, Page 8 Fighting terror Local police and fire departments get a share of $25 million in state grants to buy suits, masks, and other antiterrorism equipment.

Page 3 I GL06E STAFF FILE PHOTOPAT GREENHOUSE Former public safety secretary James P. Jajuga..