Buffalo Criterion, 1987-04-09

              niagara region rochester the buffalo criterion established 1925 wny's necessary minority newspaper - featuring paid legitimate circulation vol 62 — no 15 thursday april 9-15 1987 children's fashion show planned sunday may 2 at 3 p.m a childrens fashion show will be held at the pillard of truth church sycamore street the donation is 3.00 at the door all are welcome rev henry wright is pastor condition of county bridges on the minds of local officials tragic bridge collapse punctuates need for inspections repairs erie county executive edward j rutkowski has confirmed that the coun ty's department of public works is conducting im mediate inspection of county bridges that have been flagged as struc turally deficient by the state of new york mr rutkowski was join ed wednesday afternoon by department of public works commissioner phi lip f frandina and county legislators thomas m reynolds and karl a henry at the willardshire road bridge over cazen otflih cieek which 1 ' was being inspected county executive rut kowski said the tragedy which occurred on sunday near amsterdam n v serves as a horrific re minder of the decaying problem of bridges throughout the northeast last week i expressed my opposition to president reagan's veto of the federal highway aid bill which was finally over ridden by congress and will now provide erie county with 20.2 million for bridge and road repair work also last year we increased our budget over 56 in order that increased repair work could be conducted however additional funds are required to keep pace with the deterioration of our bridges and roads the adoption of a dedi cated highway fund pro posal that is now pending before the state legisla ture would be extremely beneficial to erie coun ty the county executive stated because of the thru way tragedy i've asked our department of public works to immediately in spect those bridges which pose a safety concern i have been advised by commissioner frandina that the county keeps a diary on every bridge in spection and that the statu -,- non dnuunnmi statu and county inspect every bridge within a two-year cycle furthermore if a county bridge is flagged for structural problems the department does frequent inspections to determine if the severity of the problem poses an immediate safety concern however bridges that have been identified as structurally deficient are posted with restrictions and these must be obeyed the bridge on willard shire road has been posted and the weight of vehicles passing over it is restricted until this and other posted bridges can be repaired these limitations must be observed and i'll ask the appropriate agen cies to strictly enforce these restrictions schimminger proposes office of minority affairs assemblyman robin schimminger is a candi date for erie county executive he has an nounced hat upon being elected erie county executive he will move immediately to create an office of minority affairs within the office of erie county executive on the 15th floor of the rath building the proposal was con tained in the third of a series of position state ments being issued by assemblyman schimmin cgp.-m'ho'is seeking the democratic party's en dorsement for the office of county executive • ,)!-„, wl tv iiiuus ctuu problems that face county residents are magnified in the minority community schimminger said the special office will serve to coordinate county govern ment's response to prob lems that are unique to the minority community and will d both short-and j.oa^derm research on issues that are relevant to the minority community schimminger pointed to erie county's foster care adoption program as one area where minority parti cipation and representa tion need to be improved schimminger noted that the ■ county is currently charged with the supervi sion of over 1300 children in foster care of those 1300 over 600 are minori ty children yet of the 60 county workers charged with supervising the place ment of these children only 3 are minorities schimminger continued it only makes sense that fit county recruit more minority foster care case workers so these em ployees will be better able tc locate minority foster homes and place minority children in more appropri ate foster care the office of minority affairs would act as a .--*.,--. iuuiei in woimng with appropriate person nel in various county de partments to speed up their resolution of prob lems in areas such as foster care schimminger said he continued infant mortality rates are much higher in the minority community than in the white community the same holds true for teen age unemployment high school dropout rates and other socioeconomic prob lems the office of minority affairs in the county executive's office would coordinate with civic and religious leaders professionals and private citizens in the minority community in drawing attention to and concentra ting resources on trouble some problems in the minority community quite frankly in re viewing the current oper ations of county govern ment i am startled that an office such as this has not been created by the current administration my action will be the first time such a step has been taken to ensure that minority concerns receive the attention they de serve assemblyman robin schimminger robinson supports efforts to clean up the buffalo river erie county legislator william f robinson d-3rd district has intro duced legislation to the erie county legislature that supports the efforts of the buffalo river citizens advisory committee in its attempts to clean up the buffalo river the 18-member buf falo river citizens advis ory committee has recent ly voted to ask the u s environmental protection agency to move immedi ately on a 5 million dem onstration project that will experiment on methods for cleaning up grossly pollu ted industrial sludge that fouls the waterway and results in cancerous tu mors in fish the funds for this project are included in an amendment sponsored by rep henry j nowak in the clean water act which was recently passed over president reagan's veto robinson explain ed federal and state officials to expedite industrial toxic dump site programs along the buffalo river and is urging the use of the state's new 1.45 billion environmental quality bond act and the stream reclassification program as weapons against pollution of the buffalo river the immediate goal of the committee is to beef up a draft of the state's plan to clean up the river so as to bring the river into compli ance with the international joint commission's great lakes water quality re medial action program continued robinson th rmm^hitimniivisrgr ing all state and federal agencies that are involved in this project to expedite the various clean up programs so that we can end pollution of this beautiful river for all times and guarantee its viability as a natural resource for generations to come concluded robinson rev t c careathers elected pastor of free spirit m b church the group is pressing ed to attend sunday worship service beginning with sunday school at 9:30 a.m baptist training union on monday's at 7 p.m and mid-week praise service every wed nesday evening at 7 p.m the free spirit mission ary baptist church 1242 jefferson avenue at its business meeting on march 29th elected the rev timothy l carea thers as pastor of the free spirit missionary baptist church the community is invit rev timothy careathers the underground railroad of wny was theme of essay contest this picture was recently taken at the 10th annual carter g woodson essay contest held at the north jefferson library 332 east utica the contest was sponsored by the afro-american historical association of the niagara frontier mrs madeline easley is president the theme of the essay contest was the underground railroad in western n y students from the buffalo public schools received a cash award and a certificate for the winning essays seated from left in the picture are eva m doyle criterion columnist mary whetzle branch manager of the north jefferson library sharon holley librarian and makeda holley standing from left are modell gault diane golding karima armin june pang librarian at the north jeferson library and michelle miles consumer information fair slated at buff state as an event of national consumers week april 19-25 the student con sumer affairs organiza tion at buffalo state college will hold a con sumer information fair from 10 a.m to 2 p.m tues april 21 and thurs apr 23 in the student union lobby there will also be a public lecture on con sumers in the internation al marketplace at 4:30 p.m wed apr 22 in communication center east 2 it will be delivered by dr daniel a mcgow an professor of eco nomics at hobart and william smith colleges lynne m white an in structor in home econom ics and consumer studies advises the student group and can be reached for more information at 878 6103/5704 good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue izaak walton commencement to feature black nat'l leader roy innis dr robert s marshall president of daemen col lege located in amherst has announced that roy innis national chairman of the congress of racial equality headquartered in new york city will provide the address for daemen college's thirty six annual commence ment this will take place at kieinhans music hall symphony circle in buf falo at 3 p.m on sunday may 10th for over 220 daemen college gradu ates chairman innis will address the topic is america a glass half full af wf4 or i idn lv.ipty ' the daemen college commencement speaker calls himself a black nationalist who is fed up with street crime innis 52 calls self-defense justi fiable three of his ten children were street crime victims two sons were killed and a third survived a stabbing mr innis is the son of a policeman he grew up in st croix u s virgin islands and moved to harlem at age 13 he lied about his age to join the army at 16 making sergeant in a year innis was an early black power advocate and took over as the national chairman of the congress on racial equali ty in 1968 this daemen college speaker has said that his goal is to foster a strong sense of black responsi bility mobilizing the com munity to fight criminals — black or white he has noted we have to pull together to support and protect each other setbacks and stumbling blocks nonwithstanding innis and core have continued to work for the liberation of black people some of core's many ongoing activities include management training pro grams job banks a work program for former drug addicts voter registration and summer and after school work programs additionally under innis's leadership core con tinues to fight discrimina tion in our justice system and in education roy innis gorski fights pothole damage assemblyman dennis t gorski d-cheektowaga has introduced a bill which would make it easier for motorists to file claims for damages caused to their vehicles by potholes and other defects potholes like dande lions are an annual crop that proliferate this time of year as pesky harbingers of spring gorski said today the committee on local governments which i chair passed a notice of bill which will help protect citizens against this an nual nuisance current law provides that municipalities must keep an indexed record of all written notices they receive concerning the existence of defective unsafe or obstructed con ditions in or upon any street highway bridge or sidewalk these notices are an important record because they form crucial back-up evidence for any person who subsequently files a notice of claim against a municipality for damage to person or ' property resulting from these defective conditions without evidence that the municipality was noti fied of the defective condition prior to an incident of damage or injury the municipality is not liable to the injured party gorski explained the problem with the current law however is that it states no specific format for the notice of defects record munici palities generally file them according to the name of the notifying party which makes a search for notice of a particular location's defect a virtually impossi ble task he said this bill would require municipalities to index by location all written notices of defect thus giving municipalities a better picture of their road repair needs and allowing for a much improved claims management system to aid individuals who seek a claim in regard to an unrepaired defect the bill a.2519 is an improved version of legis lation that was vetoed last year last year's version would have required a time-sonsuming and ex pensive back-indexing of notices of defect from the previous five years and would also have required indexing by location of the notices of claim the new bill eliminates those provisions allowing claims indexing by name of claimant and institu ting the location indexing of notices of defect 30 days after passage of the bill to give municipalities time to prepare for the new system serving working leading in wny inner cities since 1923 price only 20 per copy