The target for the School Department budget for the coming fiscal year is $28 million, down slightly from the current year's budget.

Susan L. Wright

NORTHAMPTON – The city and the School Department are each trying to close budget gaps of about $330,000 as they head into the home stretch for submitting their fiscal 2012 numbers.

On Thursday, Business Manager Susan Wright told the School Committee that Mayor Mary Clare Higgins has promised to make up about half of the $1.4 gap between projected revenues and expenses for the department in 2012. Wright said the loss of $877,000 in one-time federal grants from last years accounts for much of the gap. The city also used $283,000 in reserves from a special education fund to balance last tear’s school budget. That money will not be available either for fiscal 2012.

Wright told the committee she was able to halve the remaining gap by cutting portions of teaching, administrative and support jobs. The subtraction of 7.88 full-time-equivalency jobs accounts for most of another $331,940 in savings. That leaves a gap of $333,021, which Wright said will have to be addressed by cutting additional jobs.

Although some teachers will lose hours with the 7.88 reduction in full-time equivalency jobs, it is unlikely that any individual teacher will lose an entire job as the budget now stands. The school system’s kindergartens will each lose an aide, however, leaving the kindergartens with one teacher and one aide apiece. Wright said the department would likely have cut those positions regardless of the budget gap because of decreased enrollment. Some of the aides who lose their jobs will probably end up working in a new autism program at the John F. Kennedy Middle School, Wright said.

The target for the fiscal 2012 School Department budget is $28 million, down slightly from the $28.16 fiscal 2011 budget.

Also on Thursday, Higgins unveiled preliminary figures for the city’s fiscal 2012 budget, which projects expenditures at $77.1 million and revenues at $76.8 million. The resulting gap totals $336,204. Finance Director Christopher B. Pile said the $748,868 that Higgins has promised the School Department will have to come out of other departmental budgets, with the cuts being distributed as evenly as possible.

“We’re trying to mitigate the impact by spreading the pain across the whole city,” Pile said.

The city budget projection comes with some caveats, Pile said. It assumes there will be no wage growth in 2012, an issue that is still pending as Higgins negotiates with the city’s unions. The city has also projected a net decrease of $188,000 in health care costs, although Pile said this is also under negotiation.

Candidates are required to submit nomination papers containing at least 60 signatures of registered voters Aug. 9.

Daniel M. Knapik

WESTFIELD – Mayor Daniel M. Knapik was joined this week by seven incumbent city councilors in circulating nomination papers for their re-election bids.

Nomination papers became available April 4 to qualify candidates for the upcoming Nov. 8 city elections.

Candidates are required to submit nomination papers containing at least 60 signatures of registered voters to City Clerk Karen M. Fanion by Aug. 9.

Knapik is the only candidate to date running for mayor. He took office in January, 2010.

Freshmen at-large Councilors John J. Beltrandi III, David A. Flaherty and Gerald E. Tracy are circulating their nomination papers. Joining them are Donna C. Hoernig of 129 Ridgecrest Dr. and Robert Cree of 6 Malone Ave.

Four veteran incumbent Ward councilors have also started seeking nominating signatures. They are Council President Christopher Keefe representing Ward 1; Mary L. O’Connell in Ward 4; Richard E. Onofrey Jr. in Ward 5 and Christopher M. Crean of Ward 6.

Jeffrey L. Gosselin of 29 Union St. is the lone candidate circulating papers for one of three School Committee seats open for the November elections.

Also obtaining papers last week was incumbent Westfield Athenaeum Trustee Alberta Humason.

Six seats on the Municipal Light Board are up for election but no one, including incumbents, has begun circulating papers as of Friday.

Nomination papers are available at the City Clerk’s office at City Hall until Aug. 5.

A preliminary election, if necessary will be held Step. 27.

The deadline for new voters registration for the Nov. 8 election is Oct. 19.

Mary MacInnes, head of the PVTA, says the services constituted 3% of all Pioneer Valley's trips per year, but 20% of operating costs.

File photo | The RepublicanMary MacInnes, Pioneer Valley Transit Authority administrator, says the PVTA's costs for disabled and elderly paratransit services rose from $2.404 million in 2000 to $7.561 million for the most recent full fiscal year, up 215 percent.

BOSTON – The leader of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority in Springfield is supporting a statewide effort aimed at limiting the rising costs of providing special transportation services to the disabled and elderly people.

Gov. Deval L. Patrick has signed an executive order establishing a commission to study ways to save costs on the specialized services, while also improving them. The commission will examine the federally mandated services provided by the state’s 15 regional transit authorities, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston and the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

Mary L. MacInnes, the Pioneer Valley authority’s administrator, said she would like to find ways to cut costs of the authority’s specialized services, one for the disabled and another for seniors who are 60 and older, both called paratransit service.

She said officials at transit authorities have been concerned about the challenging costs of providing the services. The services, provided by vans equipped with lifts, constituted 3 percent of all Pioneer Valley’s trips per year, but 20 percent of operating costs, she said.

“The paratransit service is extremely costly to operate,” MacInnes said.

The authority’s costs for the two paratransit services rose from $2.404 million in 2000 to $7.561 million for the most recent full fiscal year, up 215 percent, she said. The two services now are 20 percent of the authority’s $37.6 million annual operating costs, she said.

Under the programs, people make reservations for the door-to-door service and fares can be $2.50 to $3.50 for a one-way trip, depending on locations for pick-ups and drop-offs, said a guide provided by the authority.

That’s different and more complex than the authority’s regular service, which has fixed routes and specific times for stops at established terminals. Students and others without vehicles often use the fixed-route services.

James Kruidenier, executive director of the Stavros Center for Independent Living in Amherst, an advocacy organization for the disabled, said the commission will likely look at ways to move the disabled to regular, fixed-route service. He said that could be difficult to achieve since, for example, the disabled often use the transit service to attend a medical appointment at a particular time that could clash with the schedule of a fixed route.

Kruidenier said he is concerned about possible service cuts.

“Sometimes the numbers aren’t in our favor,” he said. “That’s a real concern.”

The Pioneer Valley authority provides fixed-route bus service and paratransit service to 24 communities, including Amherst, Chicopee, Holyoke, Northampton, Palmer, Springfield and Westfield.

According to Patrick’s order, the study commission will have up to 16 members, including two representatives from regional transit authorities and two members representing paratransit riders.

A report would need to be provided within six months. The report could include recommendations for changing the current ways of providing the special services.

A 14-year-old teen prodigy and University of Connecticut honors student has been named the fourth Truman Scholar in UConn's history.

(AP Photo)Colin Carlson, then 13, listens to a question during an interview with The Associated Press at the University of Connecticut in 2010.

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — A teen prodigy and University of Connecticut honors student has won a highly competitive national scholarship that pays $30,000 toward graduate studies.

University officials say 14-year-old Colin Carlson, of Coventry, is only the fourth UConn student named a Truman Scholar since the award was established in 1975.

Carlson started taking UConn classes when he was 9. He's now a junior studying for a dual degree in evolutionary biology and in environmental studies and ecology.

In addition to the $30,000 from the Truman Scholars program, he is among three UConn students recently awarded $7,500 each by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships program. The scholarships are given to students headed into careers in mathematics, science or engineering.

Carlson says he plans to pursue a law degree and a doctorate, and work in environmental advocacy.

Obituaries from The Republican.

Edith Michaud

Edith (Pisano) Michaud, 99, of Feeding Hills, passed away Wednesday. Born and educated in Feeding Hills, and a lifelong resident, she was a 1931 graduate of Agawam High School. Michaud was a 35-year executive secretary for several lawyers and a CPA firm in the area prior to her retirement. She was a 60-year member of the Agawam Methodist Church and a past president of its Women's Club, a member of the Agawam Golden Agers and Order of the Eastern Star, Chapter 144 of West Springfield, and a former member and past treasurer of the Widows/Widowers Club of Springfield.

Obituaries from The Republican:

• 
  Berman, Leo




• 
  Carey, Rosalie E. (Gannon)
  



• 
  Chouinard, Sadie May
  




• Goggin, Doris I. (Leamy)
  




• 
  Goral, Carl C.
  



• 
  Hamel, Margo-Ann (LaRochelle)




• 
  Johnson, Katherine M. (Iserman)
  



• 
  Kornacki, Theodore Joseph
  




• Lamirande, Gloria (Foucher)
  




• 
  Michaud, Edith (Pisano)
  



• 
  Moore, James Patrick "Jim"




• 
  Patridge, Buddy
  



• 
  Priscoli Jr., Thomas Delli
  




• Santiago, Hector Luis
  




• 
  Socha, Stephanie A. (Jasiak)
  



• 
  Sperr, Frances M. (Carroll)




• 
  Turcotte, Claude T. "Turk"
  



• 
  Wilson, Brielle Janaé
  

With 8 victims found dumped just steps from Ocean Parkway, a highway leading to the popular Jones Beach State Park on Long Island, investigators are coming to terms with the idea that they might be dealing with a serial killer.

Emergency personnel and cadaver dog search the thick brush on the side of the road near Oak Beach, N.Y., Monday, April 4, 2011. Searchers perched in fire truck bucket ladders Monday scanned dense, tick-infested undergrowth Monday in a search for more victims of a possible serial killer near where five sets of human remains have been found. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)seach the scrub on the side of the road near Oak Beach, N.Y., Monday, April 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press

OAK BEACH, N.Y. (AP) — While investigators scour miles of desolate New York beachfront from the tops of fire trucks and map plans for officers to traverse a daunting morass of thicket on horseback in search of more victims, dozens of detectives are inspecting credit card receipts, telephone records, old traffic tickets and even applications for clamming licenses in the hunt for a possible serial killer.

Eight victims have now been found dumped just steps from Ocean Parkway, a highway leading to the popular Jones Beach State Park. The news has rattled nerves throughout Long Island; one mother snapped at a stranger outside a public library about fears for her safety and schoolteachers say they are sensing fear in the voices of their students.

"Whether they're prostitutes or not, we don't care about that in our community," said Jose Trinidad of Bay Shore, a community just north of the Robert Moses Bridge, about five miles from where the bodies were found. "We care that there's a murderer loose out there and he's killing human beings. He could kill somebody else."

Fifth-grade teacher Bridget Borland says the startling news has trickled down to her students.

"It's just concerning them," she said. "When they talk about it they joke, but they're really concerned. I hope this is the end, that there are no more bodies. It's sad for the families."

Investigators following up on the disappearance of a Jersey City, N.J., woman seen working as a Craigslist escort in the area last spring, happened upon the corpses of four women late last year. They were identified as missing prostitutes who also booked clients over the Internet. Four more bodies were found when officers returned to the area in the past two weeks; they have yet to be identified, even by gender. All eight were found within a three-mile radius on the north side of the parkway.

None of the victims, however, is 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, whose disappearance remains an open case.

Detectives said it appears some victims had been dead for a long time. Investigators believe the four women found in December were likely killed somewhere else and dumped by the beach highway. The first went missing in 2007; a second in 2009 and the remaining two in June and September 2010.

Although it appears daunting, one Suffolk County investigator, who declined to be identified because of the ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press that detectives are taking a methodical approach to finding a suspect. They are poring over credit card records of the victims to track their movements and determine whether they spent money in the area. They are also checking cell phone calls to map the women's movements.

Computer records of the women's communications and their appointment records have also been reviewed, he said.

Others are looking at a spectrum of public documents, including records about traffic stops and tickets that may have been issued on Ocean Parkway or nearby at the time: "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz was caught after police linked a parking ticket he got to one of the crime scenes. They also are reviewing more mundane paperwork, like applications for clamming licenses, in case the killer may have dumped the bodies onto the narrow barrier island from the Great South Bay.

"These kinds of investigations have to take slow steps; you don't want to jump to conclusions," said Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pa., and author of "The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation."

"They are looking at the evidence to determine what may be similar about the victims, but they also want to look at dissimilarities," she said.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer noted that each additional discovery of remains increases the likelihood of finding the killer.

"Any time we find remains of a victim, there's always the possibility that you'll find some clues," he said last week. "You never know what's going to show up."

Tom Mansfield, a retired New York Police Department detective who investigated homicides for the cold case squad, thinks Suffolk police may have a suspect in mind, but are keeping quiet on many aspects of their investigation for tactical reasons.

"They don't want to identify a suspect because they don't want to raise suspicions," Mansfield said. "This person is likely watching the news reports about what is going on."

Mansfield predicts detectives also are likely scouring hours of surveillance video from train stations, hotel lobbies and other public places where the women may have been seen.

"After 9-11 there are cameras everywhere. I am sure someone is at work reviewing this," he said. The location where the bodies were found seems an ideal place for the killer. It's remote and it's desolate."

Suffolk investigators wrapped up an intensive four-day search of a seven mile stretch of Ocean Parkway this week, an effort that included investigators peering into the -foot-tall tangle of sea grass punctuated by scrubby pine trees with binoculars from atop fire truck ladders. They also brought in 25 members of the police academy who scoured the poison-ivy infested thicket on foot with cadaver dogs assisting.

The search for more human remains moves westward to a different police jurisdiction next week — closer to Jones Beach— where Nassau County police intend to deploy mounted police units, fire trucks and cadaver dogs in their effort. Nassau officials say they are joining the search to ensure a thorough investigation since eight victims were found so close by.

In the Suffolk community of West Islip, about four miles from where the bodies were found, several mothers of young children leaving the local library refused to answer a reporter's questions about the case. One of the mothers snapped that people are currently afraid to encounter strangers in the current atmosphere.

Vincent Benazzi, a physical education teacher at Bay Shore High School, said the mystery is being discussed throughout the school. "It's not only the students, but I have a 21-year-old daughter who just moved in with me who's very concerned about it as well. Whether or not it's a dumping ground or whatever they want to call it, it's just a sick feeling."

He lamented: "You know we're supposed to be enjoying getting ready for the fishing season in a couple of weeks and the excitement of the summer and all that stuff. It just kind of gives it a little bit of a black eye."

Sen. Rosenberg said the meetings are held regularly to provide an opportunity for local officials and state policy makers to “be in direct conversation.”

Republican file photoFile photo. Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst.

NORTHAMPTON - Boston was brought to Western Massachusetts on Saturday, as part of a municipal conference for local officials to discuss regionalization initiatives, a hot topic as many municipal budgets are stretched thin, and leaders are looking for ways to save.

Hosted by the Hampshire Council of Governments, Franklin Regional Council of Governments and state Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, more than 40 communities were represented at the event, which was held at the Clarion Hotel.

Rosenberg said the meetings are held annually to provide an opportunity for local officials and state policy makers to “be in direct conversation.” As many local officials are part-time volunteers, it’s hard for them to make the trek to the Statehouse to meet with their representatives, he said.

“This is an opportunity to bring a piece of Boston to each of you,” Rosenberg said.

Belchertown Selectmen Kenneth E. Elstein said he was there to learn more about regionalization opportunities, and also because he is a staff member for the Hampshire Council of Governments, which serves 13 towns including Belchertown. Elstein said his town already has saved “hundreds of thousands” from its membership with the Hampshire Council of Governments; over the past three years, the town saved $347,000 by buying electricity through the council at wholesale rates.

Another Belchertown selectman, and also chairman of the Hampshire Council, William R. Barnett, told the crowd that the council is moving forward with an initiative to bring the electricity program to homeowners as well. Barnett introduced the council’s new director, Todd D. Ford, who said the council also is focusing on bringing solar power to communities.

“We’re focusing on creating new regional solutions to some of our local issues,” Ford said. “All the things in your town budgets that we are struggling to pay.”

Linda L. Dunlavy, executive director of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, said she was happy that theme of the meeting was regionalization.

“That’s really what gets our heart pumping at the Franklin Regional Council of Governments,” Dunlavy said.

Her council serves 26 towns. She offered several examples of savings by regionalization: eight school districts in Franklin County saved $130,000 by combining their general liability insurance, and some towns and schools saved 85 percent compared to what they paid before by doing a cooperative bid for such things as fire alarm testing and elevator maintenance.

The keynote speaker was Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray, who said Western Massachusetts “leads on a lot of different fronts, and regionalization is a great example.”

Murray said regionalization helps provides efficiencies in local government.

Forces supporting Ivory Coast's entrenched strongman broke through the security perimeter imposed around the presidential compound Saturday, firing on French helicopters.

Republican forces soldiers loyal to Alassane Ouattara march into the Youpougon neighborhood prepared to fight after heavy weapons fire was heard near the checkpoint serving as their operating base, on the outskirts of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Friday, April 8, 2011. Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader said his forces won't capture the entrenched strongman who remained holed up Friday in an underground bunker at the presidential residence, and instead will focus on normalizing life in the besieged city.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

By MARCO CHOWN OVED, Associated Press

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Forces supporting Ivory Coast's entrenched strongman broke through the security perimeter imposed around the presidential compound Saturday, firing on French helicopters in an advance that appeared to breathe new life into Laurent Gbagbo's camp, which had been teetering on the brink of defeat.

Residents in the Cocody district of Abidjan reported two hours of explosions and heavy arms fire before sunrise on Saturday and French forces said that helicopters attempting to evacuate diplomats from a residence near the presidential compound were hit by machine gun fire.

No French soldiers were injured in the attack by pro-Gbagbo forces, but the helicopters fired back destroying one armored vehicle, said Cmdr. Frederic Daguillon, the French forces spokesman.

At the Golf Hotel, only a few miles (kilometers) from the presidential residence, soldiers loyal to internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara scrambled to defend the compound, sending out patrols and reporting heavy fighting.

"(Pro-Gbagbo) forces tried to attack the Golf," Felicien Sekongo, a spokesman for Ouattara's Republican forces, told The Associated Press Saturday. "They pushed into Cocody and Plateau districts but have been stopped and pushed back."

In power for a decade, Gbagbo refuses to step aside even though the U.N. has ruled that he lost the November presidential election to his political rival Ouattara. For the last four months Ouattara has been living out of the Golf Hotel, protected by U.N. forces as the internationally recognized leader of Ivory Coast.

With fighting ongoing, it was difficult late Saturday to determine whether Gbagbo's soldiers had succeeded in gaining ground or whether the counter attack had failed to turn the tables.

Heavily armed and uniformed soldiers loyal to Gbagbo guarded the state television antenna in the central plateau district Saturday. The station, which has been denounced by the United Nations for broadcasting "lies" and "propaganda" went black when Ouattara's forces entered Abidjan, but it came back on air Friday afternoon. As long as it stays on air, Gbagbo retains a powerful tool to rally his supporters and keep his resistance alive.

French soldiers arrive at a republican forces operating base to evacuate an unidentified French citizen, on the outskirts of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Friday, April 8, 2011. Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader said his forces won't capture the entrenched strongman who remained holed up Friday in an underground bunker at the presidential residence, and instead will focus on normalizing life in the besieged city.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Also on Saturday, the U.N evacuated 17 British citizens from the British High Commissioner's residence, only steps from Gbagbo's compound. The diplomatic residence, like many others in the neighborhood, had come under fire several times in the last few days.

Gbagbo, who refuses to cede power, has been confined to a bunker in his presidential compound protected and surrounded by his best fighters who reportedly since Thursday have gone without water or electricity. Still, they repelled an initial attempt by Ouattara's forces to push into the residence.

In a televised statement Thursday evening, Ouattara said that his army would not again attempt to enter the compound, but would instead focus on securing the city and wait for Gbagbo to give himself up.

U.N. peacekeeping director Alain Le Roy said Friday that Gbagbo and his military have used negotiations with the U.N. this week as a ploy to consolidate power and reinforce his position. He said that an offer by Gbagbo's top three generals to surrender was evidently a "trick" to buy time.

French soldiers drive past soldiers loyal to Alassane Ouattara as they leave a republican forces operating base after coming to evacuate an unidentified French citizen, on the outskirts of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Friday, April 8, 2011. Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader said his forces won't capture the entrenched strongman who remained holed up Friday in an underground bunker at the presidential residence, and instead will focus on normalizing life in the besieged city. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Reports that Gbagbo and his top military men were negotiating a surrender had raised expectations Tuesday that the four-month political standoff in the western African nation was nearing an end.

But Gbagbo strongly denied that he would give up and insisted that the presidency was rightfully his. His advisers denounced last week's French and United Nations helicopter attacks as illegal international interference in Ivory Coast's internal affairs.

"We have always been in a mindset for dialogue," Gbagbo's security adviser Bertrin Kadet said Saturday. "It was them who attacked us. We are simply defending ourselves. We won't die."

After four months of diplomacy, Ouattara gave the go-ahead for a military intervention led by fighters from a former rebel group. They swept across the country, advancing hundreds of miles (kilometers) and taking dozens of cities in a matter of days before being held up at the door of Abidjan, Ivory Coast's biggest and most strategically important city.

After a four-day siege, U.N. and French helicopters, acting under a Security Council resolution, bombarded six heavy arms depots as Ouattara's forces swept into the city Monday.

They arrived at the gate of Gbagbo's compound on Wednesday, but were unable to capture the obstinate president.

"It looked like Ouattara had a strong military capability going forward," said a senior western diplomat who could not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. "But once they tried to stop the fighting, they showed their weakness."

Ouattara's forces repeatedly said they do not want to kill Gbagbo, a move that would stoke the rage of his supporters. Some 46 percent of Ivorians voted for Gbagbo.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet estimates that Gbagbo has some 1,000 troops, compared to the 2,000-strong force that has been fighting to install Ouattara. This estimate, however, couldn't be independently verified.

Republican force soldiers loyal to Alassane Ouattara march out to fight after heavy weapons fire was heard in the Youpougon neighborhood adjacent to the checkpoint serving as their operating base, on the outskirts of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Friday, April 8, 2011. Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader imposed a blockade Friday around the presidential residence where the country's entrenched strongman remains holed up underground and said he'll focus on normalizing life in this corpse-strewn, terrorized city. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

As the military standoff dragged on in Abidjan, there are new concerns about tensions erupting into deadly violence in the country's west. The U.N. said Friday more than 100 bodies have been found in the last 24 hours, and some of the victims had been burned alive.

"The reports that the U.N. human rights team in (Ivory Coast) are sending back are utterly horrifying," U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement Friday. "They are finding more bodies everyday."

The U.N. human rights chief condemned the series of extremely vicious attacks against civilians and cautioned that those atrocities may amount to crimes against humanity.

The U.N. said peacekeepers and human rights officials discovered about 60 bodies in the western town of Guiglo. The U.N. human rights agency said another 40 corpses were found lying the street in Blolequin, and many of them had been shot. Fifteen other bodies were found in Duekoue, where violence already has left at least 229 dead in recent weeks.

The postelection violence has left hundreds dead and has forced up to 1 million people to flee.

Military vehicles had to negotiate around bodies lying in the streets of Abidjan Friday. An untold number of fighters and civilians have been killed in the city this past week.

The International Rescue Committee is warning that chaos is permeating this West African nation once split in two by a 2002-2003 civil war, citing an "explosive mix of political, economic and ethnic tension."

Meanwhile, in France, about 200 Gbagbo supporters demonstrated on Paris' Place de la Bastille square against France's involvement in the military standoff in Abidjan — and many criticizing President Nicolas Sarkozy

The crowd chanted — some shouting "Sarkozy, Assassin!" — and waved banners including one that read "Long Live Gbagbo."

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris and Anita Snow at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Her chiropractor told her she should give up competing before she gets hurt, but Angel the dog wouldn't hear of it.

View full sizeStaff photo by Dave RobackMargaret Howes of Springfield puts Angel through her paces, or vice versa, on the track at Exercise Finished Dog Training in Chicopee. Angel, with her trainer Howes, finished first in the recent AKC National Agility Championships.

SPRINGFIELD – This city is now home to a national champion, a competitor who overcame steep obstacles and long odds, who battled back from potentially career-ending injuries against the advice of her medical staff, and who ultimately bested all challengers to stand triumphant – on all four legs.

We’re talking, of course, about Angel the dog.

Angel, an 8 1/2-year-old Shetland sheepdog, born and bred in Springfield, won the American Kennel Club Preferred National Championship in Lexington, Va., a week ago.

The 15-inch tall, 25-pound Angel finished first in the 12-inch hurdle category.

“My little girl did good,” said Margaret Howes.

Howes, Angel’s owner, trainer, breeder, partner and best friend, says the national title was thrilling, especially when others recommended that Angel’s best days as an agility competitor were long gone.

Seven-and-a-half years in the AKC agility circuit had taken their toll on Angel, Howes said. The continued training and competitions had led to some injuries.

“Her chiropractor wanted her to retire,” Howes said, “but (Angel) didn’t want to quit.”

Chiropractor? The dog has a chiropractor?

Howes said it may sound almost comical for people on the outside, but not for people who are involved in competitive K-9 agility training, such treatment is no laughing matter.

“Our dogs work hard for us,” she said. “It helps keep them safe and able to work.”

Regular chiropractic treatments, plus massage therapy and acupuncture — yes, acupuncture — allowed Angel to return to the ring in top form.

And, when Howes said Angel decided she wanted to keep competing, she means that literally.

“I would go to call her in at night, and she would not come in until I did agility (workouts) with her,” Howes said. “She let me know she was not done.”

Angel, she said, is not “a frou-frou dog,” or one of those pampered pooches that get all dolled up to parade around in those AKC Best in Show contests that the public most frequently identifies with the dog show circuit. She likes to go for hikes in the woods, swim, play in mud and do the things “real dogs” like to do.

Agility competitions are just her thing, Howes said.

In the competitions, dogs run through tubes and over elevated walkways. There are jumps, tunnels and obstacles to go over, under and around. Unlike the obedience shows where dogs are trained to stand still, agility competitions let a dog be a dog, she said.

View full sizePhoto courtesy of the American Kennel ClubAngel and an elated Margaret Howes, left, stand in the winners circle with American Kennel Club Chief Operating Officer John Lyons and Agility Director Carrie DeYoung at the recent agility championships
in Lexington, Virg.

“If you train them right, they think its the greatest thing in the world,” she said.

Howes, who works as a nurse, said the competitive world of agility competitions is not easy. She tends to compete only in events in the Northeast because of the costs.

“It takes a lot of money and a lot of practice,” she said. “But, it’s a real joy when things come together.”

The AKC National Agility Championship demonstrates the highest level of training and
teamwork between dog and handler. Dogs had to qualify at the highest levels of competition in order to compete.

The kennel club calls the event “the Olympics of dog sports,” and dogs have to demonstrate their athleticism and versatility by racing against the clock and overcoming a challenging course of different obstacles.

In the competitions, dog and trainer work as a cohesive unit. The trainer issues commands and the dog follows. The commands are given through a combination of verbal cues and body language, she said. “They are very ,very perceptive; they read us very well,” Howes said.

One can’t rely only on verbal commands because the action is too fast, she said.

“They rely on your body language,” she said. “If I say one thing but my body is pointing another way, if you make a slight twist with your shoulder, it can pull the dog off the track and that’s a fault.”

Howes said there have been times when her body positioning has been off just slightly, and Angel stopped, looked right at her and barked as if to tell her to make up her mind.

“The good trainers give the dogs all the credit and the bad trainers give the dog all the blame,” she said. “It’s a team sport.”

Incumbents Angela Thorpe and Gregory Thompson are being challenged by former principal Richard L. Freccero and newcomer William Bednarzyk, Jr.

From left, top row: Gregory Thompson, Angela Thorpe. Bottom row: Richard L. Freccero, and William Bednarzyk, Jr.,

EAST LONGMEADOW – Voters will choose two School Committee members on Tuesday during the annual Town Election.

The School Committee race is the only contested race on Tuesday.

Incumbents Angela Thorpe and Gregory Thompson are being challenged by Richard L. Freccero, the former principal of East Longmeadow High School, and newcomer William Bednarzyk, Jr., for two three-year seats on the committee.

The candidates participated in a debate March 31 at East Longmeadow High School where they discussed topics ranging from the school budget to athletic fees and the use of technology in the classroom.

Thorpe, who graduated from East Longmeadow High School in 1978, said she hopes to continue working at the state and national level to stop unfunded mandates.

“I have gone to Beacon Hill to rally against unfunded mandates. You wouldn’t believe how much they take out of our budget,” she said.

Thompson, an East Longmeadow High School graduate and father of two children in the East Longmeadow school system, said he will be vested in the schools for many years and wants to be a part of the decision-making process.

A recent survey by Suffolk University and 7News found that Brown remains virtually untouchable in match-ups against Democratic challengers, with the exception of former Congressman Joe Kennedy.

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)15 months ago Scott Brown came from obscurity to capture the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.

BOSTON – Just 15 months ago Scott Brown came from obscurity to capture the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, and since leaving for Washington the junior Senator has maintained his popularity, seemingly against all odds.

A recent survey by Suffolk University and 7News found that Brown remains virtually untouchable in match-ups against Democratic challengers – with the exception of former Congressman Joe Kennedy.

“Our finding that Scott Brown led Martha Coakley just four days before January’s special election of last year was a real shock for most Bay Staters,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. “Again Brown is beating expectations, his popularity hasn't diminished as most expected and at this point in time he’s going to be tough to beat.”

More than half (55 percent) of Bay State voters said that Brown deserves to be reelected and 56 percent said they agreed that Brown has kept his promise to be an independent voice in the U.S. Senate.

In ballot tests Brown led by at least 15 points in all match ups against potential Democratic challengers, with the exception of Joe Kennedy, who trailed by only 5 points with Brown at 45 percent and Kennedy at 40 percent.

The Republican File PhotoThe survey found that Brown remains virtually untouchable in match-ups against Democratic challengers with the exception of former Congressman Joe Kennedy.

“What’s significant about Joe Kennedy here isn't just his popularity, but the dip in Scott Brown’s number, too,” Paleologos said. “Historically, when an incumbent falls below the 50 percent mark that means he or she is vulnerable – and with Kennedy’s matching favorability rating (Brown 58 percent, Kennedy 58 percent) it’s clear the unwilling front runner would be a strong potential challenger.”

The next highest performing candidate was Deval Patrick, trailing Brown by 15 points.

Brown led every Democratic candidate in the poll as follows:

Brown 52% – 9% versus Newton Mayor Setti Warren
Brown 51% – 23% versus Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray
Brown 53% – 26% versus Congressman Ed Markey
Brown 52% – 26% versus Congressman Mike Capuano
Brown 52% – 30% versus Vicki Kennedy
Brown 52% – 37% versus Governor Deval Patrick
Brown 45% – 40% versus former Congressman Joe Kennedy

On Books by Scott Brown and Deval Patrick

Despite his political popularity, voters were not all that interested in Scott Brown’s book or life story.

When voters were asked if they bought Brown’s recently released book “Against All Odds. My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances,” just 3 percent had while 97 percent had not. And, when voters were asked how interested they were in Scott Brown’s life story 67 percent said they were not very or not at all interested.

(AP Photo)U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Deval Patrick’s upcoming book release and life story is not of much interest to most voters either. Some 65 percent of registered voters said that they were not very/not at all interested in Patrick’s life story.

“Voters are saying that they want their politicians to do the job they were elected to do here in Massachusetts and aren't interested in their books or life stories,” Paleologos said.

National Politics

President Barack Obama’s handling of the situation in Libya scored a 51 percent approval and 32 percent disapproval.

Obama is still personally popular in Massachusetts, recording a 57 percent favorable and 35 percent unfavorable rating which is up 6 points since late October. However, Hillary Clinton lit up the favorability list of politicians with a 74 percent favorable rating and just a 19 percent unfavorable rating.

This trend continues from national swing state polls taken by Suffolk University in 2010, where she led President Obama in favorability by at least 10 points in Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll from April 3 - 5, has also made available its lengthy "cross tabs" which delve even little deeper into the data.

Read all 280 pages of them here »

Incumbents John A. Desmond and Melissa D. Weise and challenger John E. Carroll are on the ballot for the two selectmen seats.

From left, John A. Desmond, Melissa D. Weise, John E. Carroll

WARE – A three-way battle for two seats on the Board of Selectmen, featuring incumbents John A. Desmond and Melissa D. Weise and challenger John E. Carroll, is the only contested race on the ballot for Monday’s town election.

There is also a ballot question aimed at moving the town budget process later in the year so that more information about revenue sources for the spending would be available when discussions are held.

Desmond, 69, has served two non-consecutive terms on the Board of Selectmen.

During his campaign, Desmond has said the most important issue facing the board in the near future will be reacting to a decreasing level of state funding, which makes up a significant share of the town’s revenue.

“We have to make sure that we utilize our money wisely and smartly,” Desmond said.

Because this major revenue source is shrinking, Desmond said the review of all town departments and their expenditures which has been started by Town Manager Mary T. Tzambazakis will be of great importance for future decision making.

Desmond also feels that with a revised town charter now in place for a few years, this will be a good time to take a serious look at how its provisions are working out in practice and to see what changes may need to be made.

Weise, 30, is also concerned about the town’s finances in light of the economic downturn of the past few years and the shrinking state contributions to municipalities.

Because of the financial difficulties, Weise feels the town has to work toward greater efficiency in its operations and also take steps to attract new businesses to Ware to boost the property tax base.

Weise also wants to play a role in what she feels is a community-wide discussion of establishing a new identity for a town where factories used to dominate the economy and job picture.

“We can’t go back to that, but we can make our future great,” Weise said.

Carroll, 56, a retired state trooper, is a member of the Park Commission and has served on the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Carroll sees the town as being in a fiscal crisis which is getting progressively worse and he feels fresh eyes and fresh ideas are needed to find ways for carrying out town services less expensively.

“I think the secret is to streamline,” Carroll said.

Tax and fee increases are not the answer because residents cannot afford to pay more to the town, Carroll said.

Putting effort into renting out some unused municipal buildings would be one part of his approach to the financial problems, Carroll said.

Question 1 on the ballot would affirm a prior Town Meeting vote to push back deadlines for the submission of budget proposals by one month, something town officials said would allow the spending plans to be put together with more information about likely state aid levels.

Voting will be in Town Hall from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Dr. Bill Morgan, former Red Sox team doctor, says sports injuries to athletes under age 16 are often overlooked by parents and coaches.

Staff photo by Dave RobackView full sizeFormer Red Sox doctor William Morgan talks at Team Rehab in Springfield on "Prevention of shoulder and elbow problems in the skeletally immature athlete." His talk was on Saturday. At right is Team Rehab chiropractor Cisco Serrano listening in before the talk.

SPRINGFIELD – Ignoring pain is the most prevalent cause of sports injuries to athletes under the age of 16, said the surgeon who operated on Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s ankle after the 2004 “bloody sock” game against the Yankees.

“The key thing is to pay attention to pain,” Dr. William Morgan said Saturday. “In this society there is the ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality, but at the kids level pain means something. It’s the best indicator of an evolving problem.”

The difference between normal soreness and pain from an injury, Morgan explained, is the healing process.

“Non-pathologic pain should recover in 24 hours. If not, we have to figure out what is causing the pain.”

Morgan was in Springfield to deliver a lecture entitled “Prevention of Shoulder and Elbow Problems in the Skeletally Immature Athlete” at Team Rehab on East Columbus Avenue, a rehabilitation facility specializing in sports and fitness training.

Aimed at young athletes, their parents and coaches, the presentation, which focused on the importance of team sports and how to make them safe for youngsters, was the first in a series of lectures that will be held at Team Rehab.

Staff photo by Dave RobackDr. William Morgan

“This is a show-and-tell lecture that shows the serious injuries that can occur by ignoring symptoms,” Morgan said. “We want to show the adults how to keep the kids healthy so they can continue playing.”

The most common sports injuries suffered by boys and girls under the age of 16, Morgan said, are those from pitching in baseball, quarterbacking in football and javelin throwing.

“Those sports can cause upper extension, elbow and shoulder injuries from aggressive throwing,” he said.

With so much of an emphasis being put on athletic achievement among school-age children who play competitive sports, Morgan said, the potential for injury is often overlooked by parents and coaches.

“It’s a lot better to err on the side of caution,” he added. “Every father’s son is the next Pedro Martinez.”

View full sizeThe bloody right heel of Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling in early innings of Game 2 of the 2004 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Republican file photo

“(The situation with Curt Schilling) was a unique experience in a mature, intelligent, educated individual,” he said. “Our message here today is one of prevention, well-being and early recognition.”

Young athletes need to understand the distinction between the life of professional sports figures and how athletics impact their own lives, Morgan said, pointing out that just because Curt Schilling completed a championship game with a torn ankle tendon that resulted in the bloody sock does not mean they can do the same.

The former Red Sox team surgeon was awarded a World Series Championship ring following the 2004 season and worked on a number of the team’s pitchers during his three-year tenure as Medical Director for the Red Sox.

Team Rehab is comprised of a credentialed group of medical professionals including physicians, nurses, physiatrists, physical therapists, sports physiologists and related medical practitioners.

Mastroianni formed the unit in January to create partnerships with community organizations and hear concerns about public safety from county residents

Michael S. Gordon - The RepublicanAntonio O.F. Simmons director of the community safety and outreach unit for the Hampden District Attorney, sits at his desk during a recent interview

SPRINGFIELD – Antonio O.F. “Tony” Simmons wants information.

He also wants residents of Hampden County to know he’s prepared to share their concerns about safety and law enforcement with the new man in charge.

Simmons is director of the community safety and outreach unit for Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni.

The unit was established by Mastroianni when he took office in January; its goal is to create partnerships with community organizations and agencies and to hear what people living across the county are most concerned about in the areas of law enforcement and criminal justice.

Simmons, who had worked since 2006 as community safety coordinator for former District Attorney William M. Bennett, earns an annual salary of $49,000. Other members of the unit are deputy director Brian P. Sullivan and community safety and outreach advocate Sonia Pagan.

“This DA really meant it when he said that we need to reach out in the community like we haven’t done before,” Simmons said. “It wasn’t just a sound bite, but he really meant it and that’s what we do.”

Mastroianni and Simmons’ team is in the midst of “what we call a listening tour. We have to find out what the needs are.”

There have already been meetings targeted at Holyoke and Springfield’s Mason Square neighborhood. The next, which is yet to be scheduled, will be with people from Springfield’s North End neighborhood, and the plan is to then move out to Chicopee and other cities and towns across the county, Simmons said.

Residents’ and community leaders’ input will be assessed, “and we’ll find the best point of attack,” Simmons said. The feedback received thus far has indicated great concern about “juveniles, juveniles, juveniles,” he said.

staff photo by Michael S. GordonAntonio O.F. Simmons

“It seems that’s what our office is going to focus on. Or, at least a large part of our focus,” Simmons said.

Simmons, 45, is a 1987 graduate of American International College, where he majored in sociology and criminal justice. Born in Bermuda, he lived there until he went to high school in California.

Simmons’ background includes work for the Center for Human Development, service as a Juvenile Court probation officer in Springfield and duties as a victim-witness advocate for Bennett.

Of Juvenile Court, he said, “I still to this day know that that is the most important court, period. That and Probate Court, and it’s because they see the kids right at the beginning.”

“We have an excellent Juvenile Court diversion program,” said Simmons of a program which takes youth accused of crimes and gets them involved in programs rather than pursue a court case.

“It’s unfortunate that people don’t know how many young people are saved by our office, how many cases we get diverted, how many kids we prevent from getting criminal records,” he said.

In 2004, Simmons returned to Bermuda for a year to work as a probation officer in a drug court, receiving very specific training in many aspects of cases.

His work as a teacher’s assistant with 13- to 15-year-old youth at a Center for Human Development secure facility was very valuable to him, Simmons said. “That was great. You get a sense of really what’s going on when you deal with kids, especially in a locked environment,” he said.

The district attorney’s office and his unit are working to form partnerships with community agencies, schools, police and Hampden County Sheriff Michael J. Ashe’s office, Simmons said.

A partnership with Westfield State University to address the bullying prevention has already been established, he said.

Such links between law enforcement, residents and community groups are crucial, Simmons said.

“It’s going to start with the community. They got to insist they want to take back their streets,” he said. “They’ve got to insist they’re not going to let the small percentage of gang members control them and keep them prisoners in their homes.”

Simmons said he remains optimistic his office can help bring about change within the communities it serves. “In my position here I am not (discouraged) because I am a part of an organization that can actually invoke change,” he said. “The DA’s office is a powerful office, and it’s not about just locking people up. It’s about doing what’s right and helping out where we can.”

Pagan, another member of the office, has an annual salary of $46,917 and has worked in the district attorney’s office for over 17 years as the administrative assistant in the family protection unit.

Pagan was responsible for the coordination and data collection of the Hampden County child fatality review team, reporting secretary for the district attorney’s task force on domestic violence and the domestic violence high-risk assessment team.

Sullivan, whose salary is $55,000, is a Westfield city councilor who served as manager of Mastroianni’s election campaign. He had owned a business in Westfield for some 10 years before assuming this position.

One of Sullivan’s responsibilities will be to research new grant opportunities and manage existing grants. He also works with local groups, law enforcement units and elected officials.

Most communities will see their funding rise by 29 percent.

File photo | The RepublicanThe state legislature approved $200 million for cities and towns in so-called Chapter 90 funds, giving a boost to the economy and signaling the start of a busy construction season on the roads.

BOSTON – Cities and towns across the state can bank on an uptick in the state aid they use to repair streets and bridges.

State legislators this week approved $200 million for cities and towns in so-called Chapter 90 funds, giving a boost to the economy and signaling the start of a busy construction season on the road. It is $45 million more than funding provided for this fiscal year.

Most communities will see their funding rise by 29 percent, with Springfield due to receive $3.626 million, Chicopee set to receive $1,218,219 and Westfield $1.225 million.

The state House of Representatives, by a 148-0 vote, and the Senate, by 39-0, approved the funding on Thursday. The funding is for the fiscal year that starts July 1, and needed the signature of Gov. Deval L. Patrick to proceed.

“This funding will go a long way toward addressing needed repairs to our municipal roads and bridges following a particularly harsh winter,” said state Rep. Joseph F. Wagner, D-Chicopee, who co-chairs the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. “This action so early in the construction season will allow communities to hit the ground running in terms of moving forward local projects.”

Chicopee’s funds will increase $268,424 or 28 percent over last year. The apportionment of money to each community is based on a formula that takes into account local road miles, population and employment levels within the municipality.

Agawam will receive $823,716, up 26 percent; Belchertown, $617,680, up 31 percent; East Longmeadow, $590,504, up 33 percent; Easthampton, $494,610, up 31 percent; Granby, $281,703, up 30 percent; Greenfield, $651,739, up 28 percent; Holyoke, $1.072 million, up 29 percent; Longmeadow, $485,949, up 28 percent; Ludlow, $708,247, up 28 percent; Northampton, $1.026 million, up 28 percent; Palmer, $493,612, up 27 percent; and West Springfield, $876,226, up 28 percent.

Under the law, funds must be allocated to roadway improvements, including resurfacing, crack sealing and drainage enhancement, according to Wagner. The money may also be put towards projects like bikeways, salt sheds and garages for storage of road building equipment.

“This bill is imperative to maintaining roadways within our local communities,” said Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, chairman of the Senate Committee on Ways & Means. “We are coming off one of the most difficult winters we have had in years and this bill will help municipalities to make the repairs to some of the roads that have been affected. I am thrilled with this much needed increase above last year’s authorization.”

Road Repairs Funds Distribution

Massachusetts is spending nearly $100 million a year on prisoner health care - nearly double the cost from 2001.

Photo: Molly HamillSteven Grubbs climbs the steps to his home.

By Tom Puleo and Lisa Chedekel
New England Center for Investigative Reporting

When medical tests at a Massachusetts correctional facility determined prisoner Steven Grubbs was diagnosed with chronic colitis in 2008, prison doctors might have prescribed Asacol, an anti-inflammatory drug that initially costs about $600 for a six-week therapeutic course.

Instead, doctors failed to tell Grubbs about his colitis until four months later, when his condition had worsened and would eventually require major abdominal surgery, according to medical records. While Grubbs endured weeks of literal gut-wrenching recuperation, taxpayers’ coughed up about $15,000 for his ileostomy surgery and are now on the hook for $600-a-month in MassHealth costs for Grubbs’ suppositories and colostomy bags.

“They saved $100 on a doctor visit and ended up spending thousands for surgery,” said Grubbs, 55, on parole from a five-year burglary sentence. “The damage is done; I have to live with this every day.”

At a time when Massachusetts is spending nearly $100 million a year on prisoner health care - nearly double the cost from 2001 - rising complaints about inadequate care are exposing taxpayers to even steeper long-term costs, an NECIR investigation has found. The costs include defending inmate lawsuits, paying for continued medical care and increased chances for re-incarceration.

Prisoners Legal Services, the state’s leading advocacy group for inmates, now fields about 500 complaints a year related to health care - an increase of 67 percent from 2004. In that time, the state’s prison population has increased about 14 percent - from 9,872 to 11,629. (Another 14,000, short-term inmates are housed in county jails.)

“Like so much of public health, it’s pay now or pay later - and you’ll pay more later,’ said Joel H. Thompson, co-chair of the Heath Care Project at PLS, the Boston-based nonprofit.

Critics of the prison health care system attribute the rise in complaints to medical inflation and the privatization wave that has left 40 percent of the nation’s inmate medical in the hands of contractors.

UMass Correctional Health - a nonprofit arm of UMass Medical School - currently works under a five-year, per-diem contract signed in 2007. Prisoner advocates say that even nonprofits - forced to stay within the constraints of low-bid contracts, are susceptible to putting accounting before care.

“Some might say prisoners don’t deserve better because they’re being punished,” Thompson said. “But the punishment is loss of liberty - not loss of a limb, of eyesight, or of bowel function.”

Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said the state and provides “constitutionally adequate medical care.”

Mark Shelton, a spokesman for the University of Massachusetts Medical School, voiced similar words. UMass Correctional has handled all or parts of medical care in the state’s 18 prisons since 1999. The firm does not handle jail.

“Given more than 11 years of services provided and the high-risk population and complex medical conditions we manage, we believe that UMass Correctional Health is providing care at the community standard,” Shelton said.

Both Wiffin and Shelton declined to discuss specific inmate cases, citing pending litigation and medical-record confidentiality.

Despite Massachusetts’ progressive stance on health care, the state’s prison system - according to complaints lodged with PLS and federal courts - repeatedly denies inmates adequate services as Massachusetts wrestles with an older and sicker inmate population and DOC budget cuts.

The complaints and lawsuits reveal dozens of instances where medical service is alleged to have been flawed, delayed, and, in one case, lethal. They show multiple cases of alleged failure or reluctance to test and diagnose inmates, seek outside consultation, or heed specialists’ directives. The alleged lapses have left some inmates with physical deformities and forced others - such as Grubbs - to endure pain and uncertainty. Grubbs has not sued the DOC.

Republican file photoPeter Agnes

“It’s managed care on steroids,” Thompson said. “There are binders filled with policies and procedures and protocols - all this lovely paper. Then there is what actually is happening on the ground, in the prisons, and it can be completely divorced from the paper reality.”

A Superior Court justice took issue with the prison medical system in a 2007 lawsuit filed against UMass Correctional Health by Abdullah J. Malik, who claimed he was denied proper treatment for hepatitis and a degenerative hip condition.

“Cost concerns have driven the privatization of prison medical care,” Justice Peter W. Agnes Jr. wrote. “This court is mindful that state and local governments are struggling to find the resources to meet the most basic needs of the Commonwealth’s residents, particularly in the area of health care. However, bearing in mind that 95% of all persons who are incarcerated will be released and return to our communities, it is shortsighted (and indeed unlawful) to design public policies to address the health needs of persons living independently in the community, without simultaneously meeting the health needs of those who are incarcerated.”

In a 2010 research paper published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Thompson documented about 20 cases of alleged medical mistreatment. The paper included cases from county jails, where the state handles health care, not UMass Correctional.

Thompson, a staff attorney at PLS, outlined a broad array of alleged shortcomings that included medical providers trying to prescribe drugs to which inmates were allergic; disregarding information from inmates or outside specialists because of time and money burdens; and avoiding specialist consultations.

In addition, court records show that inmates have filed at least 30 federal lawsuits since 2006 against UMass Correctional Health and/or the Department of Correction. Of those 30 cases, 15 are pending; 14 were dismissed and one was settled. The cases include:

• A 2010 lawsuit filed by Shirley Jay McGee, an inmate at NCCI-Gardner, which claimed he received substandard medical care for an injured shoulder and developed a hematoma. The case was dismissed on technical grounds.
• A 2010 civil rights action by Humberto Feijoo, a prisoner at Bridgewater State Hospital, who has multiple sclerosis, relies on a wheelchair and claimed he was denied special footwear for his leg braces and other accommodations. The complaint is pending.

UMass Correctional has paid $101,750 to settle five inmate lawsuits since 1999, according to Shelton. The Department of Correction has settled seven lawsuits for a total of $36,000 since 2005. Three of the DOC settlements involved wrongful death cases and two stemmed from inadequate medical care. The wrongful death cases settled for $5,000, $5,000 and $20,000.

The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in 1976 that quality medical care for prisoners is a civil right arising out of eighth amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. But the frequent dismissal of federal suits - and the small settlement numbers - point to a difficult road that inmates must travel when they enter federal courts.

Experts say courts are reluctant to side with inmates because evolving case law has raised the burden of proof to an almost insurmountable level: Inmates must prove that medical providers acted with ‘deliberate indifference” or “conscious disregard” of serious harm.

WNEC photoGiovanna Shay

“The system is stacked against the inmates,” said Giovanna Shay, an associate professor of law at Western New England College School of Law in Springfield. “There are many serious cases raising really troubling issues and inmates are not getting relief, and that’s unconscionable.”

The 2007 Malik case before Justice Peter W. Agnes Jr. offers a stark example. Agnes, after writing forcefully in support of quality prison health care and initially allowing Malik’s case to proceed, later reversed himself and dismissed the case on summary judgment.

Massachusetts’s spending on prison health care has mirrored the national trend, according to DOC figures. It now makes up 18 percent of the total prison budget, up from 6 percent in 2001. In fiscal year 2010, Massachusetts spent $514.2 million on prisons, with $94.4 million going to inmate medical care. In 2001 the numbers were $408.6 million and $52.9 million.

In addition, the Massachusetts DOC in the past two years has absorbed budget cuts of more than $30 million, or about 6 percent of total spending. The cuts have squeezed facility operations, healthcare and other services to inmates, prison advocates say. More cuts are coming, under Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposed budget.

One longtime Massachusetts prison doctor, who requested anonymity because he still works in the system, said budget constraints have led to tighter controls over medical testing

“There’s an added level of screening to see if this MRI or some other procedure is really necessary,” the physician said. “They have to do that now because they don’t have an extra penny to spend. They’ve added some new mechanisms for cost containment.”

UMass Medical School’s Shelton acknowledged that cost pressures have impacted the way screenings are handled but said quality has not suffered.

“Providing health care services in any form is a balance between access and cost,” Shelton said

In the spring of 2006, when inmate Jasper Deeran developed severe back and abdomen pain, medical staff at MCI-Norfolk prescribed him ulcer medication, but refused for several weeks to order imaging or other tests, according to a medical malpractice lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Superior Court.

When Deeran’s belated tests finally came back that summer, they revealed an advanced cancerous tumor that claimed Deeran’s life on Feb. 23, 2007, at age 52, according to the lawsuit. Deeran was serving a life sentence for a 1970 fatal shooting in East

Grubbs contends he’s a victim of care rationing. Grubbs was sent to Shattuck for a colonoscopy on Nov, 3, 2008, and returned that day to medium-security MCI-Shirley, where a prison doctor recommended a 30-day follow-up visit to Shattuck, medical records show.

Doctors at Shirley sent the request to a Health Care Review Committee at UMass Correctional Health, but Grubbs never heard back, the records show. Grubbs finally learned that he had been diagnosed with colitis when a bowel flare-up landed him back in Shattuck on March 4, 2009, the records show. Doctors then altered Grubbs’ medications.

Experts say it’s difficult to pinpoint the true long-term cost of inadequate prison health care. But they say that unhealthy ex-cons are less likely to find housing and steady work; and more likely to use hospital emergency rooms and to transmit infectious diseases to the community.

“People are coming out,” said Kamala Mallik-Kane, a research associate at the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington. DC. “There’s a fiscal cost [to inadequate medical care] and there’s a public health impact as well.”

According to Mallik-Kane’s research, virtually all reentering prisoners (8 in 10 men and 9 in 10 women) report chronic physical or mental health conditions that require treatment or management. Two-thirds of respondents reported active substance abuse within the six months prior to re-incarceration.

“One of things that surprised me is how pervasive prison health problems are,” Mallik-Kane said. Only half of the inmates in the states we studied even sought medical care in prison. Some said AIDS would make them a target. Others don’t want to call attention to themselves.

“There is a patient-education component to this,” she sad. “This is something you have to address with just about everyone involved. People cycling in and out of prison are part of the community. Success will depend on establishing a working connection between the prison medical system and the community medical system.”

In recent years, Massachusetts lawmakers have sponsored bills that would elevate treatment standards for inmates, but the proposals have languished, according to State Rep. Ruth B. Balser, (D-Newton).

“It’s an important issue and I would like to see the Legislature take a more active role,” said Balser, a clinical psychologist. “It’s an issue that tends to fall into the background. But you’ll see greater sympathy when people understand there are people suffering in prison.”

Thompson said inmates need more avenues of recourse. He said internal medical grievance procedures are difficult for inmates to win; and court cases even harder.

“On the outside, there are people you can turn to for help,” he said. “Or you can change providers. You need accountability.”

With further DOC budget cuts likely, Grubbs worries there could be more inmates like him.

“Inmates don’t get the same medical treatment as patients outside of prison,” Grubbs said. “The prisons get away with it because they can.”

The New England Center for Investigative Reporting (www.necir-bu.org) is a nonprofit, investigative reporting newsroom based at Boston University.

The only utility-sized coal-fired power plant in Western Massachusetts is Mount Tom Station in Holyoke, whose smokestack is prominent as one travels along Interstate 91

View full sizeRepublican file photoRecent file photo showing the Mount Tom Power Plant in Holyoke.

In response to a court deadline, federal regulators have proposed more stringent limits on air emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from power plants.

With the new rules, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hopes to reduce by 90 percent the levels of atmospheric mercury from coal and oil-fired power plants, a pollutant linked to neurological damage, including lower IQs in children exposed in the womb.

Coal-fired power plants are responsible for 99 percent of mercury emissions to the air in the nation’s power sector and nearly half of all such air emissions in the country. The agency said 44 percent of coal plants currently lack the pollution control technology to remove mercury from air emissions, and the rules are designed to bring them into compliance within four years after passage of final rules.

The only utility-sized coal-fired power plant in Western Massachusetts is Mount Tom Station in Holyoke, whose smokestack is prominent as one travels along Interstate 91.

Charles B. Burnham, a spokesman for Mount Tom Station, which is owned by GDF Suez Energy North America, said the plant is not among those that will be affected by the new rules.

“Because of the emissions control systems currently in use at Mount Tom, the plant is already operating below the limits proposed in the EPA regulations,” he said.

In 2009, the plant underwent a $55 million upgrade to its pollution control equipment.

Built in 1960, the 146-megawatt plant produces enough electricity for about 120,000 homes. However, it has had a history of heavy air pollution even though it operates within federal and state air emission guidelines. In 2007, the plant was the second largest polluter in Massachusetts.

A series of public hearings will be held around the nation before the final federal rules are written later this year. The proposed rules require power plants to install pollution control equipment to cut harmful emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases. The rules are expected to prevent as many as 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks a year.

Charles D. Connor, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, said his agency “applauds the release of this sensible public health measure.”

“When it becomes final, the cleanup rule that the EPA is putting forward today will save lives (and) protect the health of millions of Americans,” he said.

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett says Lynn police received a 911 call early Sunday morning from someone who threatened to kill himself.

View full size

LYNN, Mass. (AP) — Authorities say Lynn police shot and injured a man brandishing three knives and what appeared to be a gun.

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett says Lynn police received a 911 call early Sunday morning from someone who threatened to kill himself. The district attorney says two officers were confronted by Mathieu Michaud (Matthew Mee-SHOW) who was carrying a butcher's knife and two carving knives.

Blodgett says police ordered him to drop the knives and what appeared to be a gun, but he refused. Blodgett says the 25-year-old Michaud was shot once and underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The hospital said it did not have a record of Michaud.

Blodgett says the officers are on paid leave during the investigation. It was not known Sunday if Michaud is represented by a lawyer.

Radiation has covered the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and blanketed parts of the complex, making the job of "decommissioning" the plant — rendering it safe so it doesn't threaten public health and the environment — a bigger task than usual.

View full size(AP Photo/Wally Santana)A young boy is screened for radiation contamination before entering an evacuation center in Fukushima, Japan, Friday, April 1, 2011. Radiation exceeding government safety limits has seeped into groundwater under a tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, according to the operator, but has not affected drinking supplies.

By CHARLES HUTZLER and MARI YAMAGUCHI

TOKYO (AP) — Once Japan's leaky nuclear complex stops spewing radiation and its reactors cool down, making the site safe and removing the ruined equipment is going to be a messy ordeal that could take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Radiation has covered the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and blanketed parts of the complex, making the job of "decommissioning" the plant — rendering it safe so it doesn't threaten public health and the environment — a bigger task than usual.

Toshiba Corp., which supplied four of Fukushima's six reactors, including two on which General Electric Co. collaborated, submitted a roadmap this past week to the plant's operator for decommissioning the crippled reactors. The study, done with three other companies, projects that it would take about 10 years to remove the fuel rods and the reactors and contain other radioactivity at the site, said Keisuke Omori of Toshiba.

That timeline is far faster than those for other nuclear accidents and contains a big caveat: The reactors must first be stabilized and cooled, goals that have eluded emergency teams struggling with cascading problems in the month since the devastating tsunami damaged their cooling systems. Omori said the extent of damage to the reactors and other problems still need to be assessed.

"Of course decommissioning the four reactors would be more challenging than retiring one from an ordinary operation. We still have a lot to examine," Omori said. He declined to provide details on the costs and the timeframe, citing business confidentiality.

Getting a quick resolution to the Fukushima crisis would give a boost to a nation trying to recover from the severe disasters and to the tens of thousands forced to evacuate communities near the plant and already wearying of living in shelters with no prospects of returning home.

"It could take decades. We will all have to move away," said 36-year-old Hitomi Motouchi, who left a home on the fringe of the evacuation zone and is living in a gymnasium in Fukushima city. Unlike the tsunami refugees who may return to rebuilt communities, "it's different for us, because this disaster may never end," Motouchi said.

Decommissioning usually takes three forms: dismantling or decontaminating parts of the reactors so the land can be used; safely sealing off and monitoring the nuclear plant while the radiation inside decays; and entombing radioactive parts in concrete and steel.

With so much radiation spread about, experts said a combination of these is likely to be used at Fukushima. Once the reactors cool, heavily contaminated areas could be entombed by pouring concrete on top and tunneling underneath to insert a slab to prevent seepage. Other tainted areas could be locked down. That would allow the radiation to decay naturally but put on hold usual tasks like dismantling parts of the complex.

"The best solution is to entomb the site for 40, 50, 60 years," said Arnold Gundersen, who wrote part of the Energy Department manual on decommissioning and runs the U.S.-based environmental consulting company Fairewinds Associates.

A Fairewinds study cited cost estimates for decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, whose boiling water reactors are similar to Fukushima's but have fewer problems, that ran as high as $950 million last year and would likely exceed $1 billion next year. Gundersen said the tab for the Japanese plant may end up being many times that amount.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, chief spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, has said ideally the Fukushima complex eventually will be returned to "flat land," meaning the facility is dismantled and removed.

Though an avid user of nuclear power with 54 plants, Japan has little experience in decommissioning and none involving problematic reactors. The first, the Tokai Power Station's No. 1 reactor, is 13 years into a 22-year process. Its fuel rods have been removed, and its turbines and other equipment are being dismantled while the reactor is isolated, its vents and ducts closed.

Decommissioning troubled reactors tends to be more drawn-out. Parts of Ukraine are still uninhabitable 25 years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant's No. 4 reactor exploded, while neighboring Belarus began allowing some people to move into its no-go zone last year.

The dun-colored cooling tower and rounded dome of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant's Unit 2 still loom over central Pennsylvania 32 years after its cooling system malfunctioned, causing a partial meltdown and sending up plumes of radioactive gas. Its final decommission date is two decades away at a cost, as estimated by the U.S. nuclear regulatory agency, of over $850 million.

"It's like a funeral where the pallbearers have to stand around for decades," said Eric Epstein, who runs the monitoring group TMI Alert. The region was long known for plain-living Amish farmers, the Hershey Co. chocolate factory and the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, he said, but is now stigmatized in the public mind by the United States' worst nuclear accident.

Unlike Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, where problems were confined to one reactor each, Fukushima has three active reactors that are not cooling properly and at least one of which may be leaking, and four storage pools for spent fuel which have overheated, some to dangerous levels.

"This is going to be inevitably a much more challenging decommissioning than we have experience with," said Peter Bradford, a former commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Explosions in the first few days of the crisis at Fukushima showered debris over the site and highly radioactive water has inundated trenches, tunnels and ducts not normally exposed to radiation. Plutonium, which lingers for decades and may cause cancers at high levels of exposure, has been found on site and other highly radioactive elements like cobalt are likely there.

Cesium-137, another long-lingerer linked to cancer, has been detected 15 to 35 miles (25 to 60 kilometers) away from the plant in amounts the scientific journal Nature said this past week suggests that the areas may not be fit for food production for decades, as was the case with Chernobyl.

Once the extent of contamination is known, the Japanese government may have to decide whether a faster expensive cleanup — that is, one undertaken before much radiation decays — is feasible or preferable to sealing off wide areas to let the radiation decay, as was done in Chernobyl.

Another speedy solution suggested by some experts is to pour concrete or sand over the overheated reactors, not waiting until they cool. The tactic has been dismissed by Japan's nuclear safety agency and other experts have called it risky as the nuclear fuel may melt through the container.

The Toshiba plan — developed with its Westinghouse Electric Co. unit, the energy company Babcock & Wilcox Co. and the Shaw Group, which specializes in civil engineering — was worked on by 100 specialists and looks at Three Mile Island for lessons, said Omori, the company spokesman.

It predicts that the reactors will be stabilized in several months and envisions moving ahead on multiple tasks simultaneously. Fuel removal could begin late this year while radioactive debris would be cleared and less contaminated equipment outside the reactors demolished, Omori said.

That's a faster timetable than Three Mile Island, where fuel removal began six years after the accident and took another six years to complete.

Whatever the method, Fukushima's four problematic units, 1, 2, 3 and 4, will be scrapped. But a final decommissioning may depend on whether the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., keeps Units 5 and 6 running. At Three Mile Island, nuclear fuel from the damaged Unit 2 reactor has been shipped to Idaho and contaminated water has evaporated. But it cannot be fully dismantled and decommissioned until after its adjacent Unit 1 is shut down in 2034.

___

Hutzler reported from Beijing. Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge in Fukushima and Ryan Nakashima and Mayumi Saito in Tokyo contributed to this report.

"You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get," Obama adviser David Plouffe said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

View full sizeIn this photo released by NBC, David Plouffe, White House Senior Adviser, is interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press" in Washington Sunday, April 10, 2011. Plouffe said President Barack Obama will lay out new plans this week to reduce the federal deficit in part by seeking cuts to government programs for seniors and the poor. "You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get," Plouffe said of health care programs for the elderly and needy. (AP Photo/NBC, William B. Plowman)

By LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama will lay out new plans this week to reduce the federal deficit in part by seeking cuts to government programs for seniors and the poor, a top political adviser said Sunday, adding that Americans expect both sides to work together.

"You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get," Obama adviser David Plouffe said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The presidential speech on Wednesday will come during a week in which official Washington pivots from a painful standoff over this year's budget to next year's and beyond, focusing on competing plans to shore up the nation's fiscal health in the long term.

At the top of the week, congressional aides are expected to put to paper the 2011 spending deal struck Friday night, an hour before the government would have begun to shut down. Both houses of Congress were expected to take up that measure at midweek. Next up is the much more complex fight over the election-year budget in 2012, which Republicans have insisted include steeper cuts than Democrats want. Republicans want to link that issue to whether to raise the nation's debt ceiling, a political and economic knot that lawmakers will spend the coming months trying to unravel.

It's all part of a broader debate over how the government provides for the nation's neediest while strengthening the economy. What's usually a debate about federal spending had shifted into talks about where to cut, and both parties took aim at the chief federal health programs for the elderly and the poor, Medicare and Medicaid.

For all the forward focus, congressional officials still had loose ends to handle leading up to the vote at midweek on the remainder of this year's budget.

Friday night's House vote left lawmakers with little time to react. The 348-70 tally to fund the government through the week offered a look at which Republicans were the staunchest opponents of any deal. Of the 70 'no' votes, 28 were cast by Republicans.

"This short-term was just 'same ol', same ol" for Washington," one freshman who voted no, Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, wrote on his Facebook page.

The $38.5 billion in cuts, Huelskamp wrote, "barely make a dent" in years of trillion-dollar deficits and the nation's $14 trillion debt. Additionally, the measure lacked the policy riders he sought, such as one to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding, though by law no federal money goes to its abortion services.

All told, Huelskamp wrote, the measure "ignores the fundamental reasons I and my fellow freshmen members of Congress were sent to Washington in November of last year."

Even as they analyzed the defections Sunday, Republicans celebrated the thematic win.

"We've had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on "Fox News Sunday."

Plouffe, Obama's messenger, shuttled around the dial, seeking to link December's bipartisan deal on tax cuts with Friday night's nail-biter agreement on this year's budget as evidence that both parties can govern together when they want to.

"Compromise is not a dirty word," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week."

The president, Plouffe said, would address ways to reduce the deficit and the long-term, $14 trillion debt. He gave few specifics, but he said the president believes taxes should go up on higher-income Americans and that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will be necessary.

Obama's speech will come as the debate shifts to the far more delicate ground of the budget paying for the government next year — when the president and most of Congress are up for re-election.

Republicans said Friday night's deal in no way means they're ready to compromise on the fiscal debates ahead, starting with the House Republicans' $3.5 trillion spending plan for next year.

The GOP blueprint, unveiled last week by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would slash federal spending by $5 trillion or more over the coming decade and repeal Obama's signature health care law. It would leave Social Security untouched but shift more of the risk from rising medical costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries. It also calls for sharp cuts to Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled and to food aid for the poor.

In events over the next week, Democrats planned to cast the GOP plan as a devastating assault on Americans who need government help the most.