The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 35

The Buffalo Newsriday ebruary 17 1995 Page 5 Briefly Buffalo teacher a finalist for science group award Elsa Salazar Cade a teacher at School 18 has been honored as one of the top 10 science teachers by a na tional education association Ms Cade a seventh and eighth grade teacher was select ed from more than 85 candi dates in a competition spon sored by the National Science Teachers Association and an oil company The final winner to be announced in March will re ceive a $10000 award In addition to her duties at School 18 Ms Cade is a facul ty member at the University at Research Institute on Education for Teaching and has written papers on insect be havior and the inclusion of emotionally disturbed students in general education classes A native of San Antonio Texas Ms Cade is a graduate of the University of Texas and earned a degree from Niagara University Last year she conducted field studies of insect behavior in Africa Teen shot four times in Hewitt Avenue yard Kensington Station police are investigating the shooting early today of a 17 year old boy in a yard on Hewitt Avenue The teen told police he was approached by someone wear ing a ski mask who shot him four times Police said the injuries do not appear to be life threaten ing Bennett senior pleads guilty to weapons count Tosheen Lumpkins a Ben nett High School senior plead ed guilty Thursday to a felony weapons charge for sneaking a loaded handgun into the school four months ago Lumpkins 17 of Jewett Ave nue was allowed to remain free on $2500 bail after his plea be fore Erie County Judge Michael D'Amico for the late morn ing incident last Oct 28 scheduled sentenc ing April 6 Lumpkins faces a sentence ranging from proba tion to a possible seven year prison term Lumpkins jailed for about two weeks after the school inci dent was arrested for having a loaded 38 caliber handgun tucked inside his boot under a pant leg A teacher found him smoking outside the front doors and he was ordered into the building and searched Police looking for mother of 3 children left alone Three young children were placed in the custody of the county's Child Protective Ser vices unit Thursday when they were found unattended in a rear apartment at 77 Johnson St police said Broadway Station police who responded to the call are seek ing the mother who will likely be charged with endangering the welfare of the children An electric iron had been left turned on and had melted the surface beneath it police said In addition a plastic toy left on a space heater had melt ed The children were discovered after a neighbor twice called 911 Police said the children ages 3 years 2 years and two months were in good shape They had apparently been left alone at least several hours AIDS benefit tonight at Canisius College The African American Task orce on AIDS will hold its third annual in the gala benefit from 7 pm to midnight today in the Canisi us College Palisano Pavilion on Meech Street Gospel jazz and blues musi cians will be featured and an African marketplace will be available The benefit raises funds for an information hot line and other outreach efforts to prevent the spread of HIV in the African American com munity and assist individuals and families with AIDS Elsewhere Niagara Thruway crash kills Tonawanda driver A Town of Tonawanda man was killed early today when his car went off the right side of the Niagara Thruway struck a light pole and then traveled across the road into the left guard rail Thruway state police reported David Hess II 27 was pronounced dead at the scene following the 4:30 am crash on the southbound Niagara Thru way near the General Motors plant in the Town of Tonawan da Trooper Brian Guise said Stale police still are trying to determine the cause of the ac cident Hess was not wearing a seat belt they said 2 men suffer stab wounds in alls Ont scuffle NIAGARA ALLS Ont Two men one from the Town of Tonawanda and the other from Niagara alls Ont were stabbed early today when a dis agreement in a tavern appar ently spilled outside Niagara regional police reported Police said they found Charles Durante 18 of the Town of Tonawanda at 2:15 am in the parking lot of Club Velvet at 5705 alls Ave He had been stabbed in the ribs and was taken to Greater Niagara General Hospital be fore being transferred to Erie County Medical Center in Buf falo He was listed in fair condi tion today While at Greater Niagara General the officers learned that Jason Krieg 21 of Niagara alls was being treated for a knife wound in his hand Police later determined that he was injured in the same in cident Niagara regional police were looking for William Good ale 24 of Niagara alls who could face charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault Sgt Stew rerotte said Cheektowaga OKs accord over union grievance The Cheektowaga Town Board this week agreed to pay the Cheektowaga Employees Association $20000 over the next four years to settle a grievance filed by the union The dispute involved a sec tion of the employees associa tion contract stating that the town must employ at least 270 permanent employees who are members of that union The union filed a grievance accusing the town of dipping below the 270 staffing level Last May an arbitrator de cided in favor of the union and gave the town 30 days to correct the violation Because it took time to fill the positions due to constraints such as job postings the town did not meet the 30 day deadline According to the decision the town was obligat ed to pay the union equiv alent of the salary for the par ticular position for the period of time the unfilled position for each day of the violation after the June 5 deadline A State Supreme Court jus tice last month upheld the arbi decision and sent the matter back to the arbitrator to calculate the damages The town and the union settled on $20000 over four years Plans for Amherst plaza called to Plans for a small plaza at the southeast corner of the busy Sweet Home Road Dodge Road Commerce Drive intersec tion in Amherst stand little chance of approval a town official said Thursday The project "is as close to dead as anything can be with out actually being dead" de clared Council Member Jane Woodward Town Board liaison to the Planning Board Mrs Woodward said she won't be among the mourners last thing that intersec tion needs is a plaza with the in and out traffic all day she told The Buffalo News Amherst Supervisor Thomas Ahern said he shares Mrs Woodward's view The Planning Board last month tabled a plan by Uniland Development Co for a one sto ry 16500 square foot multiten ant retail building on a two acre parcel with 92 parking spaces and a divided entrance on Sweet Home 260 feet south of Dodge Cheektowaga seeking personnel director Cheektowaga needs a new personnel director Gregory Joos who was hired by the town in 1990 as a coordinator of employee rela tions will mark his last day as a town employee next riday Joos is heading to Buffalo to assume the post of labor relations director The town already has placed advertisements looking for Joos' successor in local newspapers and may conduct a nationwide search said Cheektowaga Su pervisor Dennis I Gabryszak Gabryszak said he was sorry to see Joos leave and com mended him for the work he has done for the town anything came up regard ing personnel 1 have to worry about it Greg was he said gave us really good Buffalo Community News Plan to cut mental health services decried 500 crowd County Legislature chambers to protest Pataki budget By MICHAEL LEVY News Staff Reporter More than 500 persons crowded into the County Legislature cham bers today to protest Gov cuts in mental health services Speaker after speaker claimed that the cutbacks would cost both state and local taxpayers far more in the long run than they'd save in the short term is major surgery that will hurt children families and the community and will not save mon ey but will cost said Rich ard Gallagher director of the county's alcohol and drug depen dency services is a pay now or pay later proposal in both fiscal and human Gallagher said it can be changed up until March 1 by the governor and after that by the Legislature You cannot cut beds and outpatient services too It doesn't proposed budget cuts about $48 million in support to the mental health community '1 he cuts include: Aid to localities a matching fund for community based services established when the state's mental hospitals began downsizing several years ago would be sliced by $103 million a 19 percent cut Community support services funded 100 percent from Albany would be cut $212 million or 22 percent Intensive case management funds would be cut 43 percent saving $66 million Residential programs would be cut by $96 million or 18 per cent Children's services would be cut anywhere from 46 percent to 24 percent depending on which program is involved "I'his will decimate those pro grams" said Bonnie Glazer direc tor of Childrens Mental Health Services we have 450 chil dren now on the waiting list in Erie County with significant emo tional disorders these are not merely nail biters" The cuts will both reduce the numbers of children who can be helped and have the effect of shifting more children to psychiat ric hospitals she said will move more children to out of home placement and put more into the juvenile criminal system all more expensive to tax payers than intervention" Ms Glazer said "'Phis is too far too List in an effort to trim the bot tom line Il rips the guts out of the (mental health) system" Several speakers noted the sev en Republican county legislators had boycotted the meeting alleg edly on orders from the governor's office In fact only half of the 10 Democratic legislators attended the press called by Joan Bozer Buffalo The proposed cuts will threaten jobs in social services But while some mental health advocates said bureaucratic cuts are needed they suggested that the outpatient ser vices now in place must be contin ued result of not treating mental illness is not lower said Mary Meacham executive di rector of the Lake Shore Commu nity Mental Health Center is higher costs in homelessness crime hospitalization health care unemployment and local "We cannot afford to said Lynn Schuster of the Eric Alliance of the Mentally 111 are in a fight for our ROBERT SMITH Buffalo News Dave Lawson of the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp Street Lighting Division replaces a photo electric cell that switches lamps on and off in front of Buffalo Citv Hall Doing Some Light Exercise 1 'll! 'r IS Xc 1 ff WyWX Tb vfeL At L' MU "jV I gw gW i Jf riMr i Jgk Mt fe BU I Town faces dilemma over hiring officers Provisions of crime bill would force Cheektowaga to dig deeper By MOLLY MCCARTHY News Cheektowaga Bureau The Cheektowaga Town Board is facing a tough decision on the hiring of three police officers par tially funded by a federal grant under President crime bill If the crime bill remains intact Cheektowaga will receive $225000 over three years to hire an ad ditional three police officers Like other towns and cities Cheektowaga would have to come up with the matching funds to pay for the positions But in Cheektowaga's case that is not all Supervisor Dennis Gabryszak said the town would have to hire four more officers over anti above the three officers in order to qualify for the federal grant 1'he reason is complicated and related in part to money the Town Board cut from the Police De 1995 budget according to Gabryszak "When the Justice Department came in and look a of the (police) department last October they recorded whatever the staffing level Gabryszak said "We would have tv) hire a number of officers to be at that level The Police Department expects to lose several officers this year through retirements and police officials have said they cannot fill the positions be cause of budget cuts the Town Board approved last November "It's really a separate issue" said Cheektowaga Police Chief Bruce Chamberlin referring to the po sitions the town would have to fill before hiring the three officers under the grant Gabryszak in his budget proposal trimmed the police budget by about $3()()()0(l and the Town Board cut another $2(10000 before the budget's fi nal adoption according to town records Gabryszak is worried it could cost the town up wards of $600000 over three years to qualify for a $225000 federal grant Chamberlin said the issue is a Town Board deci sion Erwin given 25 years to life in slaying Victim was gunned down in abandoned factory By MA TT GRYTA News Staff Reporter Gary A Erwin was the last person arrested in what had started as a prostitution investigation But today he was to sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the execution style murder of Joseph Grigas whose frozen body was found in an aban doned Woodlawn Avenue factors in 1992 Erie County Judge Michael D'Amico imposed the maximum sen tence describing the slaying as a blooded that had tv) be sort of macho family politely applauded the judge after the sentencing Erwin 27 of 44 Armin Place did not comment Erwin apparently got Grigas high on marijuana and then killed him three years ago because the 30 year old Minnesota Avenue man had been talking to federal authorities about a Buffalo marijuana ring prosecutors said' and Erwin feared Grigas might tell authorities about his own drug op eration The murder went unsolved for two years But during the investigation in to the Adam and Eve prostitution ring last year investigators developed leads about marijuana that linked the ring's leaders to Erwin who had worked for the manager of the escort service That in turn led to information about the Grigas killing Erwin was arrested April 12 as he walked out of the Hotel Lafayette af ter talking with a police informant about the Grigas murder That conversation which amounted to a confession was recorded by po lice And D'Amico today said he was bothered by the tapes that showed Er win willing to commit another murder if someone would pay him Defense attorney rank LoTem pio Jr described Erwin as "a very troubled who has been liv ing in the drug underworld since his parents got divorced while he was a teen ager Erwin never finished military ser vice because of psychiatric problems and still denies any part in the Grigas murder LoTempio said Grigas was shot three times in the back and head in the old General Electric Co building at 738 Wood lawn Ave on the morning of eb 25 1992 His body was found six weeks later when two teen agers exploring the va cant building came upon it Prosecutor Anne Adams said a force headed by Detective Lt James Starr of the Cheektowaga Po lice with Cheektowaga Detectives Jer ry Grant and Richard Kozel and Buf falo Detective David Sugg tape recorded Ervyin's murder confes sion last April Design Review Task orce meets for 1st time By HAROLD McNElL News Staff Reporter Over the years Buffalo's rich architectural heritage has been ob scured by redevelopment projects that seem to exist in a vacuum ac cording to illmore Council Mem ber Dav id A ranczyk The city has a set of standards for the construction of new build ings and the alteration of existing structures Enforcement of these codes falls to the city's planning and preservation boards and various neighborhood design review boards But these boards often lack guidance from professional archi tects ranczyk said adding that the result is new construction that subverts the goals and standards outlined in the city's urban renew al plans To stem that tide ranczyk proposed a Design Review Task orce which was adopted a year ago by the Council 1 he task force consisting of several local professional architects and city planners held its first meeting Thursday Bruno reschi an architect at the University at Buffalo School of Design has participated in design review in Tacoma Wash anti Vancouver British Columbia reschi and other architects on the task force agreed that Buffalo could benefit from tin overall con sistency in design review that could minimize the antagonism that sometimes occurs between de velopers and community residents reschi said laymen may mis takenly perceive the concept of de sign review as flimsy subjective "What you discover when it gets instituted is it's the developer who needs it and wants it because he is making a long term commit ment" he said Architect Peter Levin of BRD Inc noted that design review can create a sense of responsibility on the part of developers and does not have to be prohibitive As an example he noted the new Rite Aid drug store on Vir ginia Street at Elmwood Avenue which voluntarily complied with standards to construct an all brick building instead of a block con crete structure Design said reschi is the character of a neighborhood But a structure also has to function well within a community he said ranczyk raised the example of the Kmart store on Broadway in his district which was designed similarly to the chain's' suburban stores "They put a brick box develop ment in back with a big parking lot in front and no sidewalk that didn't inter relate with the popula tion that lived there which was largely walk in ranczyk said Design review said reschi would allow for input from and discussion by architects and "not just the money interests" in a proj ect ranczyk said that while it may seem quaint or frivolous to discuss design review in a city that is fac ing a multimillion dollar deficit it is important over the long haul not aiming to set up an other preservation board another layer of bureaucracy that people have to jump through" ranczvk said "We can build smarter We can be more imaginative And we have to convince developers that the sense of scaled perspectives con nectedness and permanence' that they're building will appreciate their property value and make people either want to live or shop in the city or enjoy what a city is as an he said 4 a I I a I.