Volume 18, Number 43
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
www.berlincitizen.com
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Gerratana blasts electric rate hikes By Charles Kreutzkamp
dential customer using 700 kilowatts of electricity, with $18.47 of the cost on the supPower bills will be increas- ply side and $7.12 on the deing Jan. 1 and Berlin’s state livery side. PURA approved senator Terry Gerratana is the second increase Dec. 17. Gross said CL&P is still renot pleased. There are two increases viewing the final decision on coming, one for the delivery the rate filing. “Connecticut families canside of the bill, and another for the supply side that was not afford this rate increase, approved by the Connecticut and CL&P has not earned Public Utilities Regulatory it,” Gerratana said in a statement. “CL&P’s response to Authority in November. A c c o r d i n g t o C L & P recent storms has been inadspokesman Mitch Gross, equate at best and dangerous the increase comes out to at worst ... I have spoken to $25.59 per month for a resi- people throughout my disThe Berlin Citizen
Berlin resident Elaine Borselle shared the amazing story behind this POW/MIA bracelet. | Elaine Borselle / Submitted
Gift of closure travels from Berlin to Wisconsin By Charles Kreutzkamp The Berlin Citizen
What some might call a real-life holiday miracle is happening for a family in Wisconsin, as they receive a very special gift from Berlin resident Elaine Borselle. Borselle said it was “especially poignant for me” that this surprising turn of events occurred at Christmastime. “Coincidentally – well, I don’t really believe in coincidence, it was a kind of fate – I was cleaning out a drawer a couple of weeks ago and I came across the bracelet,” Borselle said. This bracelet, emblazoned with the name Douglas Ferguson and the date Dec. 30, 1969, suddenly brought back memories of the years Borselle regularly wore it around her wrist in the seventies. This bracelet was a POW/ MIA bracelet, a relic of a project created by the California group Voices in Vital America during the Vietnam War to draw attention to the plight of Vietnam prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action overseas. Borselle answered an ad asking for the bracelets to be worn to raise awareness.
The bracelet was put away after the war and rested out of sight for more than 30 years. After finding the bracelet recently, Borselle wanted to know what had happened to Ferguson, so she performed an Internet search. “I was flabbergasted,” Borselle said. Earlier this year, on March 10, the National Military Examiner published an article about a Vietnam Captain who went missing. The captain was declared killed in action in 1976, when authorities learned that he took ground fire while flying a Phantom fighter-bomber on its third bombing pass over a fuel storage depot in northern Laos. As the Examiner reported, the remains of that captain, a Douglas Ferguson who was declared missing in action Dec. 30, 1969, was finally coming home after 44 years. “I was thinking, ‘this must be the same guy.’ I was overwhelmed,” Borselle said. “I contacted the author of the article. She emailed me back and we started a correspondence and I thought, I would love to find the family. Now See Travels / Page 10
trict about this rate hike, and they have been consistent in their opposition to it.” Gross countered that the increase was necessary due to increasing costs. “The current spike in the cost of electricity is not only affecting Connecticut, but all of New England, since more than half of the region’s electricity is now produced using natural gas,” Gross said in a statement Nov. 17, referring to the supply side increase. As for the delivery side See Gerratana / Page 10
WISHES COME TRUE
Berlin High School Interact Club fulfilled the Christmas wishes of 13 children in need this holiday season. The club collected items requested on Salvation Army angel gift tags. Board members then presented the gifts of toys and clothing to Salvation Army Lieutenant Anthony Rivera for distribution to families before Christmas. Pictured: Matt Cohen, Interact treasurer; Lieutenant Anthony Rivera of the Salvation Army; Olivia Jacques, Interact president; Olivia Martino, Interact vice president; Francis Kennedy, Berlin High School principal; Lisa Hatton, Interact faculty advisor, and Mitch Pitkin, Interact Salvation Army chairperson.