Ch 17 Reports

A. Good evening. Channel 17 reports has been on the air now for 13 weeks. During that time we presented 12 news documentaries of local and regional interest with the detailed coverage only possible in a half hour uninterrupted news program. Tonight in our 13th edition we're going to take you back to some of our earlier programs for an update on what's happened since channel 17 reports last looked in. First program dealt with a New York State Division of substance abuse survey which shows the number

of young people using PCP PCP has reached epidemic proportions in our area. Oh I started when I was practically 14 years old to start off with drinking now and then. Then a few of my friends come into Potten to man who joined it was alright. Then as I was doing drugs and stuff smoking pot I was introduced to other drugs. THC what I found was THC which is really PCP PM so must have been about when I was almost 16 years old. I'd started doing calicoes all 12 14 play football you know and you sort of pull up the cycle when you're starting you know you need speed and you get you've got to start getting it down and you know you hear about it all the time. But until you do it you don't believe it. The crash off the speed is really. It's miserable you know proximately 12 years old a stereo experiment getting high. CROWLEY to PCP the first time when I was about

15. After that more often Joe ran more money for I'd buy a bag of money or buy PCP is the time I thought it was nice. Word of the kids buy the drugs through to grow through group or street corners. We would do here. Here we are in the birth. Of her birth we were poor we during the whole New York Crude Corridor. We're grown weary around queer open new drugs are bought and sold in this western New York park every day. We've been told it was easy to see the transactions taking place in broad daylight right out in the open. So we decided to find out for ourselves using a concealed camera early one evening

we set up in the vicinity where we've been told drugs passed hands in just over an hour we taped for drug buys and saw others taking place. There appeared to be three dealers working in the area where we were concealed. After seeing for ourselves that such transactions at this park are indeed quite casual We wanted to know if the presence of drugs is as common and open it. Other locations we find that the use of PCP is absolutely in the schools we have many young people are using PCP either there's no doubt about it and any place where young people congregate not only in the schools but perhaps area restaurants or favored corners or hangouts perhaps a park. And we find large groups of young people teenagers and not so young people congregating in the use of BCB is there. Salem he said he was there. There weeks later about 200 members of various Syrians Niagara County law enforcement

agencies joined forces in a massive early morning bus to combat the ever growing Western New York drug problem. Is that. Were police officers. The awful law is not there. We have been there. Morning 0 0. Lead. To net net we have a warrant to arrest for sale in a context may have to give you rights you have the right to remain silent anything you say can be used against you in a court of law you have the right to a talk to a lawyer. May have him present while you are being questioned. You cannot afford to hire a lawyer one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish one. Do you understand each of these rights of a Explain deal. With you this will go. To.

Why don't. You please. Thank you. For. The kind of I know this thank you for. Having a. 54 arrests were made that day culminating a three month cooperative investigation by seven law enforcement agencies undercover narcotics officers made over 200 drug purchases

during the investigation code named Operation Siamese. Many of those arrested were high school students and the total number of indictments warrants from both counties contain over one hundred eighty counts. Officials emphasize the arrests involved drug pushers and not the casual users of lights drugs PCP peep LSD methamphetamines and marijuana were said to be the where's the youthful defendants were peddling. Niagara County district attorney although Di Florio says the evidence against the 54 defendants is so strong he believes most will enter pleas of guilty. Major you know one defender is already pled out. Entered a plea of guilty to one of the charges in the indictment and was already sentenced as a matter of fact 2 0 to 4 years ago my reformatory. The other 25 defendants cases are on our trial calendar. As a matter of fact. They've been assigned. To John was one of my assistants and he has essentially taken charge. Of those cases

for dispositional purposes and he gave them ready for pretrial. I think what's next. Two or three weeks will be pretty trying to address those cases. What type of bail was set on those people. Well some of them with the A felonies I think bail was set very high and of course with many most of the others I think they were recent only cards. On the day of Operation Siamese we were told that the alleged offenders would be dealt with strongly is that in fact going to be the case. I think so I think you'll find that. If you review our dispositions later on you'll find that the majority of individuals will be pleading to one of the major counts in the indictment. Perhaps going to trial. And risking conviction on the major Canidae. Has an example been set by Operation Siamese for others involved in drug trafficking. This guy had been in the business 15 years in periodical we have major

rage of this nature. And for a while things seemed to subside. You know. Then they seem to reactivate later and we hope that you know by our continued surveillance about missing our continued safe. Tough attitude concerning. Disposition of these cases that they may provide some deterrent. But. As part of the youngsters culture. Unfortunately I think we're going to see a recurrence of the continuous wilds of Florio admits many of the 26 Niagara county operations Siamese defendants were released without bail. You're a County Assistant District Attorney Joel Moore Dino tells Channel 17 reports it was a different story in Erie County. He says the judges were quite struck down set bail for the 28 Erie County defendants. Twenty five hundred dollars for a class D felony to $20000 for a Class A felony. Although we had several bales were later lowered on the day of the 54 arrests officials from both counties had said the defendants would be dealt with severely or do you know now and so while there will be some plea bargaining sentences could

range from one year to life imprisonment in addition to increased court caseload. Operation Siamese has spurred police to step up their efforts to educate parents on drug awareness. After the first of the year we have some federal funds coming. And hopefully that we can really get into schools and start educating students as well as the parents and the teachers. This is education crushing process doing any good. Yes I think it is because the parents are becoming more aware of. What's happening in the community and they're very concerned about it and they've started up some. Drug task force meetings in both communities which is really something that's over long overdue. Was there a great shock effect among parents in the neighborhood at the day of the bust. Yes there was they couldn't believe that we were in there John are there Susie. Has there been a change in the attitude of the young people on the street since that day. Yes it's the drugs have. Kind of gone underground are still available. Financial like everything else the price will go up it's going to be harder to deal with and I'm going to deal with strictly their own friends are not going to be dealing with some stranger coming in off the

streets or going to be. Very street wise the week of October 16th. Mark what many Buffalonians hope will be a great renaissance for their downtown area. Much of that hope rests on the broad shoulders of the city's new convention center which opened October 19th with a great deal of fanfare and according to the chairman of the theater district association Martin Jacoby. The opening of the 20 million dollar facility has already proved beneficial to downtown businesses. Jacoby says in the theater district alone there has been a great increase in pedestrian traffic which has brought a fare increase in December sales for this year over last. Jacoby adds the presence of the convention center is also spelt cleaner city sidewalks and increased police protection for local businessmen. Convention Center director Glenn Arnett says the new facility has been a long time coming. A group of people got together and said we would like to think about a convention center and then the figure $20000000 popped up and they said well no one would come in under 20 million so let's fire it out.

It just so happened that it did come in at the 20 million dollar mark. And the people said well and a referendum no way we're not going to spend 20 million dollars worth of money for a taxpayer's money for a convention center and the city and county got together and said Now wait a minute even though they said no let's look at this thing again. So they decided to take a risk. And the risk was the Buffalo Convention Center whether that risk is paid off so far has been a matter of much public debate for seating arrangements and an adequate sound quality for the center's first concert on the first theater production of such a lots of patrons and cause many of them to walk out demanding refunds. Another headache for the center's promoters came when a decorative wall put on a neighboring structure by the center's builder came down during a night of high winds. Convention Center spokesman Bruce Marsh tells Channel 17 reports the walls crumbling is the architects fault. As for the poor sound and seating problems he says both resulted from outside promoters improper handling. As of January 1st the center will take charge of seating and sound arrangements for all events. March says the center is doing better overall than they had hoped

for. As for the city's economic future leading bankers remain optimistic. I think thoughtful is very definitely on the way back. The climate's right. We have power water a great climate a great climate for a work a great labor force. You have one of the finest highway networks in a country. This Hamburg village meeting attracted a crowd of villagers who turned out to protest the proposed establishment of a group home for mentally retarded adults at a house in one of the villages residential neighborhoods. The emotional pleas pointed to a fear of people who are different. You had to drop in property values the protestors felt sure such a home would bring recently past state regulations gave the village three choices except the group almost proposed offer viable alternate sites or show that a similar facility already exists in the area. Yet no such group home exists in Hamburg. So the village came up with more alternate sides for consideration. A spokesperson for the sponsoring organization to use OCA Sion for retarded children tells Channel 17 reports an agreement on one of the alternate sites is expected early next week. We also learned such opposition to group homes for

the mentally retarded is common. It is rare. That a community does not resist or resent the development of a group home facility for the retarded. Hamburg's neighboring town of Eden was faced with a similar situation when the Blue Rose foundation selected an Eden house as their proposed site for a mentally retarded adult group home. Since channel 17 reports November 10th coverage of the Eden controversy the situation has been resolved through an unexpected twist of fate. The state approved the house selected by the blue rose but with the stipulation only 11 persons could be placed in the home. The foundation planned on placing 13 mentally retarded adults in the home and they tell us they don't have the funding to manage with only 11 residents. Channel 17 reports has learned the Blue Rose foundation may end up throwing their financial support to other organizations group homes. Despite the dissolution of the Blue Rose has plans for a group home and even the memory of area residents opposition remains clear.

The consensus of the the residents in the general area of this gross Foundation is one of reprehension. There may be some subtle underlying feelings of fear. My home is approximately 80 feet from the home in question. We don't have a phone. I'm sure the majority of mentally retarded people are safe and gentle people. But all it takes is one that follows only programs for battered women lost their seat of funding this month but the need for such services remains as Channel 17 reports has discovered the case histories of such women follow a continuous pattern. The male is often someone who is very frustrated who has a very low sense of self-esteem who feels really inadequate. And and does not view the marriage as as a kind of sharing a very violent past has seen this when he was younger when he was a

child he grew up in the. Situation where he was brought up with violence so I guess he just thought that was the way women should be treated. You know the old caveman thing. The woman herself grows up and in our society where we were taught to believe that marriage is something that you yearn for that that is the ultimate sin in your life so that she defines who she is by her relationship to the husband. My husband had a very difficult life and he went through a lot of emotional pain in his life and I went through a lot of emotional pain in my and intimate situation like marriage a lot of those problems that each of us had came forward. My poor self-image and have poor self image constantly when things start to go wrong that there's not there's not this openness that there's not this trust having developed so that communication that they don't deal with what's going on rather rather throws them into more isolation from each other.

And that finally just a rope's end in violence. It came along rail it rather slowly because a lot of feelings were communicated and they just kind of fester. And there were points that they just didn't washroom. One very common question that people ask well why does a woman stay in there and those are pretty much like from the same sort of reasons to I mean one practically speaking is fear. When I was going out with them. I told them I didn't want to go study with them and then that was the first time they hit me. And. Then I was afraid to leave so I just stayed and then I found this place and I wasn't afraid anymore. You know I knew I had someplace to go. One of the affected organizations was known as women in transition women in transition not only offered help to do you know as many battered women but provided valuable services to many other women as well. Our long term clients only half the caseload which would be about 200 some were domestic violence victims. All of the women who have

passed through. Women in transition and that would be over 800 women about 600 of them were not victims of domestic violence. I could cite you for example a woman a blind mother with two adult retarded children who until women in transition came along. They had no recourse she didn't she couldn't handle those things as simple as her Social Security forms. Is there any place for them to turn women in transition was the only agency that I am aware of that handled the total problem they handled the total spectrum of problems that affect women. Are there any new avenues of funding that you are exploring. Yes we're exploring several avenues. We have a meeting next week with a private's funding source that interestingly enough was arranged

for us. The appointment was arranged for us by the Buffalo police. Buffalo police have taken a very deep interest in the women in transition program and they made this contact for us and arranged the appointment and it looks like a promising. Source it would appear that the police department is a bit upset that woman in transition has been shuffled into the back room. This is what they told us as I'm sure you know 70 percent of the Crisis Intervention calls they get are domestic calls. And of course that's where their highest rate of accidents and police being injured or killed happened women in transition have received about $85000 in Sita funds over the last year while the other group removed from sea to special projects funding Simple Gifts was given about $45000 of the two only simple guest could provide temporary housing for the women in need. Simple gives doors will remain open Don't send some of their

expenses are being covered by other grants but their staff size has been cut down to four full time and two part time workers and they won't be able to offer the comprehensive services they've been able to give in the past. Like women in transition simple guess is exploring other avenues of possible financial support. While the cutback in services will obviously affect the women in need of those services the organisations counsellors will also be affected. I've stood there and I faced the irate husbands trying to help women move out. I've come very close to being assaulted myself at times and we don't do that because it's exciting hey we do that because we really believe in it. And it's just so hard to communicate the fact that somebody better believe in the rights of these women because of the way women feel it at the point in time that they're being abused. They don't have the strength to begin to pull themselves out of this hearing before the Erie County legislature's Public Health and Environment Committee was held to discuss the potential danger to Erie County of stored

nuclear waste at nearby West Valley. Federal state and local government officials were among those invited to attend the open hearing. The meeting was not the first attempt to find out more about the buried materials and was sparked by a lack of information being made available by the U.S. Department of Energy Task Force which was conducting a study at the western New York nuclear service center and a report made public December 16th. That task force acknowledged the waste storage facilities at West Valley are inadequate for long term consideration and could pose serious problems in the future if not dealt with properly. Scientists are concerned the stored materials could eventually lead to another situation like Love Canal. The material must be immobilized in some manner you know must be made into a solid the material must be removed from the tank and it must be made into a solid. The government is dragging their feet on developing the technology to solidify that material but the money must be put into it and the problem must be

resolved if they don't resolve the problem. It's not going to go away. I mean it will appear just as as the Love Canal appeared years later. This temple of 500 stare in the northwest down below has been suggested as a site for a community center by the North Buffalo Community Development Council. The NBC DCs proposed plan has been met with stiff opposition from residents of the area who fear such a facility would downgrade their neighborhood North District common councilman Dan quite who has worked with leaders of both sides in an attempt to bring them closer together. At a neighborhood drug sponsored public meeting both sides showed an inability to narrow their differences in view of the opposition quite or has suggested a smaller template 12:37 Hurtle as an alternate site that would operate in conjunction with a number of smaller satellite centers quater says despite the opposition to the stair and cites the need for a Northside community center has long been felt. I think the need has been very clearly established over the past year or two concerning the need for human services in North Buffalo. It's one of the few neighborhoods in

the city of Buffalo that in all honesty in fairness does not receive an adequate share of human service dollars for human service programming. The result has been that you know we really have had people young people whose problems have become worse. Senior citizens we haven't had the opportunity to reach out to them and to provide provide with some of the preexisting City Hall programs that we have worked or chemical landfills have been a cause for concern for quite some time in Niagara Falls for many that concern has now turned to outright fear with the recent discovery of the deadly chemical dioxin its workers Love Canal and Hyde Park landfills. Love Canal has been a hotbed of protest since late summer when Area residents demanded they be evacuated from the area. The state arranged for the removal of 239 families in the first two rings surrounding the canal. But those left behind in the outer rings continue to demand the same treatment. What we want and demand they actually as was coming down to now is total relocation on a voluntary basis of outside people. The reason is because

of migration. The dioxin the various chemicals we have possibly 12 children with toxic hepatitis. These are 0 to 9 year old males. This eventually turns into cirrhosis and we can't do that to our children we need to be evacuated immediately. In view of the dioxin one part per trillion is very harmful. They were walking around carrying this in and out of the school throughout the community. Again a very dangerous situation. Seventeen Love Canal their residents were arrested as they gathered in the can protest of the work procedures being used in the canal cleanup while demanding a level of at least their ill and elderly charges against them. If you were trying to court action this week. And there are the bandits were warned a return appearance would one step or action. Where you didn't picket in the idea of shutting down the work in the canal it was an informational picket. I think it was very profitable. We did get commissioner Hennessy down here with his small concessions for what they're worth. We have a lot of outside support a lot of outside education

through the media. A lot of people are more aware of our problems we have you back you know us and various different organizations so I think was very profitable. We're still continuing it and also showing already that we're not satisfied with what we have. Gibbs also claims many area families have already accumulated medical expenses that exceed their means but she has the concerns of the homeowners association goal beyond the health and financial losses of its members. She says they have equally strong concerns about the safety of the onsite cleanup workers who she feels have also been misled. According to Gibbs the misinformation continues with the recent concessions of state health commissioner Hennessy. He offered us some small concessions at how. Money's available for added health care as a blood testing and things that are covered by insurance. He offered us some tax reduction 80 percent the first year or 60 in decreasing over a five year period. He also

offered us some new safety measures we insisted on because of the findings of dioxin as in washing the trucks down and the possibility of him carrying the dioxin outside the area. They were just very small concessions they were nothing. Gibbs says the fear and abandonment she and her neighbors now feel are pitifully ironic when one realizes only seven months ago their children were playing barefoot and unprotected on the canal proper. The residents are totally disillusioned with the state of New York and feel they may die at Love Canal election time. Promises were made promises were carried out partially before the election and after the election things have come to a standstill so to me it was simply a political plot to get Kerry and other governmental officials elected. I know that the my children. Had nonspecific eye irritation and nonspecific headaches they cannot be determined. Origin cannot be determined. They did not have

them before we moved into this house seven years ago. What about yourself. I have cancer and I'm wondering how far those chemicals are going to accelerate that growth. I want out of here. I don't want to die here. With the new year Channel 17 reports will continue to bring you the details coverage of major news stories affecting the western New York area. We thank you for your support and hope you will continue joining us each Friday on Saturday because it's your support which makes our efforts worthwhile.