The Bangor Daily News from Bangor, Maine • 14

4 I FROM B1 I BANGOR DAILY NEWS I TUESDAY NOVEMBER 25 2003 Judge rules planes to stay at bottom of Sebago their pilots began May 16 1944 when the Corsairs collided in midair over Sebago Lake The pilots 2nd Lts Vaughan Reginald Gill and Raymond Laurence Knott were both 19 and from Leigh-on-Solent Hampshire England and were among a group of pilots training in Maine They were presumed dead after the collision For decades the crash site attracted little or no attention That changed in the past 15 to 20 years as side-scan sonar allowed private searchers to locate objects in the depths Some salvagers claimed to have found the waters such as the oceans and the Great Lakes Technically the aircraft salvage firm sued the wrecked planes themselves in an effort to get the federal court to intervene in Historic efforts to salvage the two Corsairs from the bottom of the lake in southern Maine The state and the United Kingdom intervened asking the federal court to dismiss the salvage firm's suit In his 17-page decision Singal granted the motion to dismiss and found the United motion to dismiss moot The saga erf the aircraft and planes but never provided proof Last year Alfred Hagen owner of a construction company and a restaurant in the Philadelphia area became interested in finding the planes Hagen 45 is known as an expert on finding forgotten World War II wrecks including a wreck in New Guinea involving his uncle His partner is well-known "war collector David Tal-lichet Tallichet an 80-year-old California businessman flew a 17 bomber out erf London during W'orid War He owns Specialty Restaurants Corp in Anaheim operator erf a national chain of 35 restaurants and is said to have the world eighth largest private collection of restored fighters and bombers The Corsair reportedly found in June is standing on its nose on the lake floor apparently weighted down by the engine Its wings are no longer attached to the fuselage not clear if the second Corsair is intact or even if it has been located In June Earle Shettleworth Jr director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission declared the site protected for 10 years and said it is illegal to dis turb the lake bed or take artifacts from the site without a permit Shettleworth also said the site where the two propeller-driven training fighters crashed qualifies for a National Register of Historic Places designation The Royal Navy did not want the sites to be disturbed because it considers them graves Singal's decision Monday appeared to make the issue whether the planes can be salvaged a state rather than federal matter The Associated Press contributed to this report BY JUDY HARRISON OF THE NEWS STAFF I PORTLAND The two World War II fighter planes resting at the bottom of Sebago Lake and the remains of them pilots will remain undisturbed for now a federal judge ruled Monday Judge George Singal said the US District Court does not have jurisdiction over Sebago Lake so it cannot decide whether Historic Aircraft Corp can salvage the wreckage Federal courts have jurisdiction over the admiralty a set of laws that govern navigable Crime lab backlog delays criminal cases 2-3 years District Continued from Page Bl noted the accountant's position has become vacant and the board will review requirements for the job relative to hiring a permanent superintendent The plan is to cross train someone to ensure that reports continue to be produced All finance office job functions will be reviewed to guarantee adequate distribution of resources The report contains a five-year maintenance plan for facilities to keep the needs in the forefront he said In the past for example the district has paid for unexpected repairs to a septic system with money from the operations budget White said when it should have been borrowed and repaid in the following budget Some of the items in the report will take a long time to resolve White said because for example the state does not yet have a database for certain information such as facilities inventory White anticipates that the district and the state will communicate monthly and quarterly regarding updates to the plan The district needs to develop a strategic plan that contains precise goals and steps to span the next five years according to the state's report turnover in the past five years also has been an issue The crime lab backlog is nothing new In June 2002 state police set aside money from a $375554 federal grant to reduce a backlog of 150 pending cases where DNA testing was needed Among the high-profile cases in the crime lab is DNA testing on fingernails and other items collected during the investigation of murder of a 12-year-old baby sitter from Bowdoin Dennis Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the 1988 crime family and supporters who hope to overturn his conviction are paying for the DNA tests THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUGUSTA Investigators in some criminal cases must wait two or three years for evidence to be analyzed because of a continuing backlog at the State Police Crime Laboratory Examiners at the Augusta lab are working through the backlog which has shrunk by about 20 percent in the past few months About 300 items still need their attention Because of a shortage of people and money the crime lab must give top priority to the most serious cases such as murders rapes and assaults while processing of less-serious cases is delayed said state police Detective Sgt William Harwood interim director erf the crime lab is not that we want to do them We do want to do them but in our list of priorities it is not easy to get to them" said Harwood The delays are frustrating to police investigating property crimes such as thefts and burglaries a frustration Harwood said he understands Because of the backlog some items from property crimes wait to be processed until they are of no use to investigators or the criminals have been arrested for other crimes police say Fingerprints tying suspects to crimes are powerful evidence that can help investigators solve crimes and get criminals off the street said Detective James Ross of the Skowhegan police But the wait for analysis is so long that some officers don't want to gather fingerprint evidence he said The Skowhegan police receive inquiries from the crime lab asking if it should process evidence sent to the Augusta facility two or three years ago Ross said Causing part of the bottleneck is a shortage of examiners such as fingerprint specialists to handle all the cases coming in Harwood said High Weber Continued from Page B1 the latest sailing ship to be launched in town to a vivid account of the excitement caused one night when a neighbor burned down his own house In one letter William complains in typical teenage fashion of being bored out his mind in the sleepy little town and then goes on to inform his older brother by the way that Sleeper was carried to the insane hos- family come Kaplan said "Initially we thought we would just type out the letters and preserve them as a chiefly local history But while going through them we realized that we were actually reading of the history of the country as it was played out in one small town that was just coming into its heyday They paint an intimate picture of a typical community the hardships and hopes of its people what they did for work and ftin and how neighbors cared for one another about Belfast but it could be any town in pital yesterday He waked in the morning raving crazy struck his wife with the headboard erf the bed and it took three men to hold Beyond the news of family and small town life however the letters also speak of events that were shaping the nation's history at the time In one mother Caroline tells her college son about a visit from a New Yorker named Mr Eddy is now here procuring a subscription to stock in a line of magnetic telegraph from Portland via Augus- ta Belfast Bangor to Calais that promised to speed news from Europe She also updates her son about the perilous progress of a young Belfast man named Charles Hazeltine one of many Mainers who headed west in hopes of finding gold in California Heath Mr Treadwell Rowe and Mr Lennon have now decided to go Your father fears that England will be Caroline wrote to her son in 1849 the year Williamson would graduate from Bowdoin letters just made this Mold Continued from Page Bl to be moved to Gouldsboro to make room for the pupils Though the two towns have been talking about consolidating their schools school administrators in each town insist the move is not a consolidation but rather a co-existence of each school No one is being laid off and each town will continue to have separate principals school budgets and school committees they have said Consolidation of the two schools would require resident approval in referendum votes in Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor Union 96 comprises Gouldsboro Winter Harbor Franklin Sorrento Steuben and Sullivan Talk of consolidation has been prompted by overcrowding at the Gouldsboro facility and by the drastically reduced pupil population in Winter Harbor Though the Winter Harbor school has had as many as 184 pupils in the past and had 140 pupils six years ago the closure of the Navy base at Schoodic Point has decreased pupil enrollment at the school this year to 27 LaPlante said there likely will be another public meeting on the issue next week in Gouldsboro He said when the meeting will be scheduled depends on when he receives an engineering report on the Gouldsboro facility from consulting firm James Sewall Co of Old Town in the process of being typed and delivered" LaPlante said of the report Bryner Continued from Page Bl based upon their withdrawing of the Bryner has adamantly professed her innocence since the beginning of the case The agreement came to fruition Monday afternoon case before the Maine Unemployment Insurance Commission was set for Monday behind closed doors at the Bangor Career Center on Oak Street The hearing was canceled To date the Brewer School Department has paid Bryner approximately $2000 in disputed unemployment benefits The department now is obligated to pay a total of $7000 a result of the settlement it will be liable for about $5000 misconduct usually are not eligible for unemployment pay The department's report states that some of the students' testimony was "fraught with and lacked credibility On Nov 21 Richard Violette a Bangor attorney representing the school committee released the results of polygraph tests administered to three of the 25 students who testified in the spring The tests show that the students were telling the truth more in the release states confident that the Brewer School Department would have ultimately prevailed both in the unemployment appeal and in arbitration the cost of continued litigation would have far exceeded the $5000 of unemployment benefits for which it remains liable" In August Department of Labor officials awarded Bryner unemployment compensation even though people fired for Hftp pm finJa burgain bmunzt I 1 7) I I 1 btki ytirl every nther SaturtLi) in the Andresen Sjangor Daily Knus THANKSGIVING DAY HOURS CIRCULATION I Hospital Continued from Page Bl much the same if both boards approve the plan The restructuring will create a single new parent corporation under which the hospital and foundation will operate It arm But it came to be such a financial drain and it strained medical staff relationships when it hired the physicians he said Dodwell hopes the transformation if approved by all involved can be achieved by Jan 1 Trustees of both the hospital and foundation boards will meet on Dec 9 for a workshop on the detailed implications will take on a new name such as the Down East Medical Center or Down East Health Services The four physicians who are now employed by the foundation will become employees of the hospital That move should provide the hospital a $200000 gain in reimbursement from Medicare next year Dodwell said Sunrise Nursing Home in Machias now owned by the foun dation will operate alongside the hospital and foundation as a third subsidiary of the parent operation is not a merger or acquisition of anything" Dodwell said it is called a corporate restructuring would not have happened if the foundation had pursued its original purpose and remained just an endowment The Circulation Department will maintain a special holiday schedule for our readers' convenience To start or stop your newspaper or to report a delivery problem please call during these hours: Thursday November 27 6:00 am to 10:00 am 990-8040 or toll free (In state) 800-432-7964 livestock specialist at (800) 287-7170 (in Maine) or (207) 581 2789 (outside Maine) Maine Beef Conference to be held in Bangor BANGOR The 16th annual Maine Beef Conference being held Dec 6 at the Ramada Inn in Bangor will focus on improving the quality and value of feeder calves feeder calf sales in Virginia as the extension livestock-marketing specialist for Virginia Tech Norman Vincel will be the second speaker He works for Select Sire Power Inc in Virginia as the director of marketing For more information about the conference call Andries Presenters from Virginia Vermont and Maine will discuss programs to improve feeder calf quality and market factors at the national and state levels Bill McKinnon of the Virginia Cattleman's Association will be the keynote speaker McKinnon has worked with Offering Vuted Wdtsh fcUvwigt and Sfrrsi bUnafiumert til Massage Therapy With Dr Sand)' Santmyers Uiting Uassoee Therapist tA stratum CerufktUnml INTRODUCTORY PRICES AT ADVERTISES DEARTTnENT BUSINESS OFFICE THE KADI LOBBY WILL EE CLOSED THAKXSQO DAT KCVEKSER 27 53angor Daily sterns what you need To know with pharmacists on duty Including Thanksgiving! Happy Holidays! MILLER DRUG 210 STATE ST BANGOR 947-8369 409 No Main Street Brewer 9S9-5400 or 469-31 S9 Complete Hair Nail and Body Health.