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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
“Silence is more musical than any song.” — CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
www.thewestfieldnews.com MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2014
VOL. 83 NO. 291
75 cents
Officer fired, appeal denied
A planned athletics center construction project has been given the go-ahead to proceed by the Westfield Conservation Commission. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Westfield Conservation Commision approves new aquatics project By PETER FRANCIS Staff Writer WESTFIELD – A planned athletics center construction project has been given the go-ahead to proceed by the Westfield Conservation Commission. In a unanimous 6-0 decision, the commission concluded that the boundaries of the site were properly delineated and that none of the work for the Roots Athletic Center on Root Road was subject to the Wetlands Protection Act. According to Bryan Balicki, P.E. of Sage Engineering, who presented the commission with layouts and maps of the facility’s plans on behalf of Roots Athletic Center, Inc., the planned facility – which would include three indoor soccer fields, two fullsize outdoor turf playing fields and 150 parking spaces, all totalling 87,000 square feet – would be constructed on land outside of the jurisdiction of the commission. “The wetlands we’re asking for approval on tonight are the riverfront of Spectacle Brook, which ties into Brickyard Brook,” said Balicki. “As part of that, there’s bordering vegatative wetland and then a drainage ditch along
“With indoor facilities like this, (Frank DeMarinis) has done a great job with Roots Gymnastics and the Aquatic Center.” BRENT BEAN City Council President
railroad tracks.” “The site in question is currently a vacant lot at the corner of Summit Lock (Road) and Root Road,” said Balicki, adding that it was part of a trust that was on 90 acres of land. According to Conservation Coordinator Karen Leigh on the application presented to the commission, the property is owned by Frank DeMarinis of 199 Service Star Industrial Way. According to Balicki, the lot was found to have land recognized by the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species
Program (NHESP) on it in 2007 and that the owner was able to get several frontage lots and a 12.6 acre lot in the corner of the property. “The rest of the land is forever protected as habitat,” said Balicki. The proposed site is located just south the Root Gymnastics and Learning Centers and an Utz Potato Chips distribution center. “As part of the Natural Heritage process in 2007, all the resource areas on the property were delineated and they went through the NHESP process and got a permit to develop these parcels,” Balicki said. “All of this would be constructed outside of the buffer zone and the riverfront area.” Balicki added that his firm had worked with three environmental consultants who presented their own delineations for the site, with Sage Engineering choosing the “most conservative” of the three proposals to present to the commission, which was subsequently approved by Commission Chair Dr. David A. Doe, Vice Chair Henry Banish and See Roots, Page 3
By CARL E. HARTDEGEN Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The decision by the leadership of the city police department to terminate an officer believed to be unfit for duty has been upheld by the Civil Service Commission after a lengthy appeal process. A former city police officer, Michael C. Puza, terminated in 2011 because the department found him to be unfit for duty, had appealed the department’s decision to the commission and was granted a reprieve when the commission set aside his termination and substituted a one-year suspension. Puza had been an officer for more than a decade when he was fired and had a history of disciplinary issues extending over much of that time. He had undergone an evaluation to determine his fitness for duty by a licensed psychologist before he was terminated and was re-evaluated by a psychiatrist before he returned to work after the commission rejected his termination in favor of a one-year suspension. The commission’s report details a number of incidents considered in the two evaluations, several of which involved off-duty alcohol use, that ultimately contributed to findings in both evaluations which found him to be unfit for duty as a police officer. In one 2005 incident, Puza had been drinking with a fellow officer who was experiencing marital discord and Puza called the man’s wife on the telephone and “called her a highly offensive name.” Later in 2005, Puza was in a city bar when he became involved in an altercation with a bouncer and police were called. Puza called the station in an effort to forestall a police response. As a result of the second incident, the commission’s report states, “the WPD demoted the Appellant (Puza) from Detective to Patrolman.” In 2007, the report notes, Puza failed to appear in court and was working a paid road detail when he was due in court. In 2009, Puza was suspended for a day for making hours-long personal phone calls on his city-issued phone while working. In an evaluation interview Puza “asserted that he wasn’t shirking his duty during the lengthy calls because he was writing a report while he was on the phone.” In 2011, Puza was reprimanded for providing confidential Registry of Motor Vehicles information to a friend who used it to harass another person and child. In discussing that incident with an evaluator Puza said that See Officer, Page 8
Miss Mass. makes Westfield appearance By PETER FRANCIS Staff Writer WESTFIELD – Visitors to the Citgo gas station on North Elm Street Saturday morning were greeted by the smiling face of Lauren Kuhn, Miss Massachusetts 2014, who was on hand to help spur donations to the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). See Miss Mass. Page 3
Girl collects 1,009 lbs. of PB&J for food bank By GENA MANGIARATTI Daily Hampshire Gazette HATFIELD (AP) — For the entire month of October, Lavery Greenfield, 8, came home from school to find several jars of peanut butter and jelly on her front steps. Sometimes, the third-grader at Hatfield Elementary School recalls, there would even be shopping bags with peanut butter and jelly hanging on her doorknob. By the end of the month, Lavery, with help from six friends from three other schools, had collected 1,009 pounds of peanut butter and jelly to donate to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts — four times the 247 pounds she collected last year when she did the drive on her own. The idea came to her in fall 2013 when she and her family took a tour of the Food Bank on North Hatfield Road during a Family Volunteer Day. It was then she learned that anyone could start a food drive to help families in need. The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts is a nonprofit organization started in 1982 to provide food to people in need. It distributes 9 million pounds of food each year to local assistance providers that serve families and individuals in the
region, according to Food Bank officials. Lavery said she learned at the Food Bank that one in five children in western Massachusetts are not sure where their next meal is coming from, and wanted to do something to help. Also on the tour, she said she learned that peanut butter and jelly were some of the most popular foods that the Food Bank supplies. “Peanut butter is really high protein, and jelly is a lot of sugar,” she said during an interview at her Chestnut Street home after school Monday, where she lives with her parents, Chris and Renée Greenfield, and her brother Nolan, 5, who attends Cloverdale Cooperative Nursery School in Florence. According to Food Bank spokesman Chris Wojcik, peanut butter is one of the items most requested by food pantries and meal sites in western Massachusetts. Once her mother gave her the go-ahead, Lavery took the reins. Her next step was putting a donation box in Hatfield Elementary School. “I asked my principal, then we put it in the lobby, then my See Food Bank, Page 3
LAUREN KUHN