ORDA UNION MEMBERS RALLY FOR NEW CONTRACT

Several hundred union members rallied in Lake Placid on Tuesday to show support for workers at the Olympic Regional Development Authority who complain that negotiations on a new contract have stalled.

More than a thousand members of the Civil Service Employees Association were in town for their annual delegate meeting at ORDA's convention center. Hundreds of out-of-town delegates joined Olympic Authority workers in solidarity during a boisterous informational picket.

Since earlier this year, ORDA workers have been deadlocked in negotiating a contract which expired March 31. Last month, the union declared an impasse, complaining that the state authority isn't taking its employees seriously.

Matthew Hare, an ORDA groundskeeper, held a sign that read “Show Some Respect” in view of passing cars, many of whom honked in support. “I've got two children and am under the poverty level. And I believe I should have a bigger paycheck, like a raise,” Hare said.

Local CSEA President Bill Shurter, a general mechanic for ORDA for the past five years, said negotiations have repeatedly stalled. He complained that ORDA employees, who run and maintain the Olympic venues and two Adirondack ski areas, are paid less than other state employees such as highway workers with the Department of Transportation.

“An organization that an economic study showed two years ago brought $375 million worth of business into the region, 60 percent of the workers live under the poverty level for a family of four,” Shurter said.

Helping to rally workers was Danny Donohue, president of CSEA in New York who argued that the impasse over negotiations was unacceptable.

“The people at ORDA make this town come alive in the winter because without them, you're not going up on Whiteface,” Donohue said. “They need to know that you're behind them and on behalf of our 265,000 members we're here to say we're not going away. We're going to remind the ORDA administration that they can be replaced too.”

ORDA officials have declined to speak publicly about the negotiations.  Spokesman Sandy Caligiore would only say that management is eager to resolve the disagreement.  

As state workers ORDA employees cannot legally strike, so the dispute will not close any of ORDA's venues. Shurter said the union’s strategy is to remind management and the public of the economic and social contribution made by ORDA employees.  He said he expects to return to the bargaining table later this month that will include a mediator from the state’s Public Employment Labor Relations Board.

-Jacob Resneck

STRAIGHT WINS HIGHWAY SUPERINTENDENT PRIMARY

Larry Straight defeated incumbent Norm Harlow in Tuesday’s Republican Party primary for North Elba Highway Superintendent.

Straight won by more than a two to one margin, collecting an unofficial 398 votes to Harlow’s 155.

After the results were announced in the North Elba Town Hall, Straight thanked the voters for their support.  “I’m glad to see the voters have the confidence in me to do the job,” he said.  “I look forward to their continued support in November.”

Straight, a former sergeant and chief of the Lake Placid Police Department and owner of his own welding business, said he entered the race for the benefit of the taxpayers. “I feel the taxpayers of the Town of North Elba should be better represented than they have been represented,” he said.  “I’ll have to work at the job and see where things can be changed and then we’ll go from there.”

Straight also said he feels he can work well with the town board and town employees.

He didn’t offer any direct criticism of how Harlow has run the town highway department.  “I have nothing bad to say about my opponent,” he said.  “I just feel I can do the job better than he can do it.”

Harlow, a one-term incumbent, said he was disappointed.  “The voters have made their selection,” he said.

Although he’s lost the GOP primary, Harlow is expecting to stay on the general election ballot as an independent.  “I would imagine,” he said.  “I still have some support.”

In other primaries around the region, incumbent Noel Merrihew claimed victory in the GOP primary for Elizabethtown supervisor.  Merrihew collected 101 votes while challenger Joseph Martin had 79.  The two will square off again in November as Martin is also on Democratic and independent lines.

Elsewhere, Lori Torrance won the Republican primary for Willsboro supervisor over incumbent Robert Ashline.  Torrance had 184 votes and Ashline collected 113.  Ashline will still be on the general election ballot as an independent.

-Chris Knight

LP MAN PLEADS NOT GUILTY STEALING BIATHLON RIFLE

A Lake Placid man pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Essex County Court to stealing a biathlon rifle from the Olympic Sports Complex at Mt. Van Hoevenburg.

18 year-old Thomas R. Saehrig of Lake Placid had been indicted on felony charges of third-degree burglary and fourth-degree grand larceny.  He also faced counts of fifth-degree criminal solicitation and third-degree criminal trespass, violations.

Judge Richard Meyer scheduled a pre-trial conference for October 30.

Essex County District Attorney Julie Garcia says there is a pending plea offer where Saehrig would plead guilty to one of the felony charges and receive five years on probation.  “We believe that’s fair based on his lack of criminal history,” she said.

Saehrig, along with Andrew Moore of Lake Clear, allegedly broke into a storage building at the sports complex sometime in May and stole a pair of .22 caliber rifles that were kept in a locked cabinet. 

Police say Moore knew where the guns were kept in the building because he was involved in the biathlon program last winter.  The rifles have since been recovered.

Garcia says the case against Moore was not presented to a grand jury.  He was charged with felony third-degree burglary when he was arrested in June.

The district attorney’s office has extended an offer where Moore would plead guilty to a misdemeanor count and receive probation.

-Chris Knight

B-DALE WOMAN SENTENCED FOR GRAND LARCENY

A Bloomingdale woman has been sentenced to prison time on a charge of fourth-degree grand larceny.

44 year-old Mikki Goble appeared before Franklin County Court Judge Robert Main Jr. on Monday.

She had been arrested by State Police in Ray Brook in November of last year for allegedly stealing a purse out of a locker at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake.

Goble was sentenced this week to 1½ to 3 years in state prison, participation in a substance abuse treatment program and $500 in restitution.

In other court action a Tupper Lake man admitted he violated the terms of his felony probation.

19 year-old Joseph Tice was released under the supervision of the county probation department.  The case was adjourned for re-sentencing on October 29.

-Chris Knight

BIKE PATH RAPIST MOVED TO DANNEMORA PRISON

The man who admitted killing three women and raping many others over nearly 30 years in western New York has been sent to a maximum-security prison in the Adirondacks.

49 year-old Altemio Sanchez dubbed the “Bike Path Rapist” was sent over the weekend to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora to its Assessment and Program Preparation Unit, which houses prisoners who are considered a risk to be in the general prison population, said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. Authorities deemed it the best permanent home for him, she said.

The factory worker and father of two pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the strangulation deaths of three women since 1990, including two whose bodies were found on bike paths. He has since admitted raping between 13 and 20 women since the early 1980s, his lawyer said.

He was sentenced August to 75 years to life in prison.

In June, Sanchez was attacked by another inmate in the Erie County Holding Center when the other inmate realized who he was. Sanchez was struck in the head, causing facial cuts, and suffered aggravation of a previous shoulder injury.

Among Sanchez’s 249 other new neighbors in the unit is Joel Rifkin, who killed as many as 19 women, many of them prostitutes, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  

Also housed at Clinton, but under 23-hour-a-day lockdown, is Ralph “Bucky” Phillips, who shot three state troopers, one fatally, during his lengthy run from the law following his escape last year from the Erie County Correctional Facility.

“He's in administrative segregation. He's been deemed a threat either to the facility or himself,” Foglia said

The state prison in Dannemora houses almost 3,000 inmates.

-AP wire reports

POPULAR MALONE RESTAURANT LOST TO FIRE

One of the Malone area’s more popular restaurants, especially during the hunting and snowmobile seasons, burned to the ground last night.

Volunteers from the Duane Fire Department rushed to the Tamarack Inn on State Route 30 after a fire was reported at 11:37 p.m.

Within minutes the call for mutual aid went out and firefighters from Owl’s Head, Malone, St. Regis Falls, Dickinson, Paul Smiths/Gabriels, Burke, Westville, Bloomingdale and Nicholville responded to the scene, about 10 miles south of Malone.

By the time they arrived the structure was fully engulfed in flames according to a spokesman for the Duane Fire Department.

The business, purchased earlier this year by Robert J. Davis of Lake Placid, contained a restaurant and bar, convenience store and Laundromat.  All were lost by the time firefighters got the blaze under control.

Fire officials believe the fire broke out in the back of the Tamarack Inn, possibly in the kitchen area. 

The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

-Chris Knight

BONVILLE GETS SEVEN YEARS FOR SHOOTING SON

A Peru man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting his teenage son in the head in the hallway of their home last year.

51 year-old Bruce Bonville was convicted of second-degree assault and unlawfully dealing with a child.

Cory Bonville, now 17, was critically injured in the July 2006 shooting. The teen was comatose for 11 days with a head wound and has had several brain surgeries since the shooting.

During the trial and again at the sentencing this week, both Bonville and his son maintained that the .40-caliber handgun went off accidentally during a domestic dispute in their home.

Before the sentence was handed down, Cory Bonville told the court his father was trying to defend himself because the teen was trying to “bash in” his father's head with a skateboard.

Bonville also was ordered to pay nearly $6,500 in fines and court fees and told to stay away from his son once released from prison.

-AP wire reports

FIRE REPORT

Lake Placid firefighters were called to 21 Buttonwood Way in the Cascade Acres trailer park at 9:18 a.m. Tuesday.  Three trucks and 23 members responded to a report of a mobile home fire.  The fire was contained to the front wall using 100 gallons of water.  The cause was attributed to a wood stove too close to the exterior wall.  Firefighters returned to the fire station by 11:02 a.m.