Sunday 03 July 2005

Dear Jaspers,

702 (stuck on this number) are active on the Distribute site.

This month, we had 183 views on 6/30 and 5386 over the last month. A small drop in numbers.

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This issue is at: http://tinyurl.com/dbcks  

Which is another way of saying

http://www.jasperjottings.com/jasperjottings20050703.htm

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CALENDAR OF JASPER EVENTS THAT I HAVE HEARD ABOUT

JULY

18 Jasper Cup - Yale, New Haven, Conn.

29 Capital District - Day at the Races

 

July 30-31 The Manahttan College Jasper Dancers will be performing as part of the NBA's Rhythm N' Rims Tour on in New York City at the South Street Seaport. There will be live bands as well as performances from the Knicks City Dancers and other area college dance teams and pep bands.

 

AUGUST

1 Construction Industry Golf Open

18 Jersey Shore Club Day at the Races

 

 

 

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My list of Jaspers who are in harm's way:
- Afghanistan
-
- Feldman, Aaron (1997)
- Iraq
-
- Sekhri, Sachin (2000)
- Unknown location
- - Lynch, Chris (1991)
- Uzbekistan
-
- Brock (nee Klein-Smith), Lt Col Ruth (1979)

… … my thoughts are with you and all that I don't know about.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." --George Orwell

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Exhortation

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-pope

Pope Urges Motorists to Be Careful

June 26, 2005, 8:22 AM EDT

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI urged motorists Sunday to take care as they embark on their summer holidays, lamenting the "tragic" loss of life on highways from careless drivers.

Benedict made the appeal in his noontime blessing to thousands of tourists and faithful gathered under a scorching sun in St. Peter's Square.

The pope noted that the end of June marks the start of summer holidays, when many Italians head to the seashore or the mountains -- and the death toll from highway accidents increases, particularly on weekends.

Benedict wished everyone a good "well-earned" rest, but he said he also wanted to make an appeal for "prudence" for those who will be traveling.

"Unfortunately, every day and in particular on weekends, there are accidents with so many human lives tragically cut short, with half of the victims among the young," he said. "In past years, much has been done to prevent such tragic events, but more can and must be done with more effort by everyone.

"We must fight absent-mindedness and superficiality, which in an instant can ruin one's future and the future of others," he said. "Life is precious and unique: It must always be respected and protected, including with correct and prudent behavior on the roads."

===

Well, here's our instructions straight from the Boss' designate. You can't get it any plainer than that. "Life", even when we are driving, deserves respect. I'll have to take that under advisement for my daily commute. Must admit that I never thought of it like that. But then I'm just an "injineer". I'm sure you all have figured this out for yourselves much sooner than I have. But in case you haven’t heard the word, here it is directly from the Pope himself.

 

Reflect well on our alma mater, this week, every week, in any and every way possible, large or small. God bless.

"Collector-in-chief" John
reinke--AT—jasperjottings.com

 

 

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[CONTENTS]

 

0

Messages from Headquarters (like MC Press Releases)

 

1

Good_News

 

2

Obits

 

2

Jaspers_in_the_News

 

7

Manhattan_in_the_News

 

5

Sports

 

1

Email From Jaspers

 

0

Jaspers found web-wise

 

0

MC mentioned web-wise

 

 

 

[PARTICIPANTS BY CLASS]

Class

Name

Section

1935

Cassidy, Eugene C.

Obit2

1941

Murray, John E.

Obit1

1951

Kelly, Ray

JNews3

1977

Khury, Maria

Email01

2005

Barry, Brian

JNews1

2005

Morrone, Melissa

JNews1

2005

Rados, Christina

JNews2

 

 

[PARTICIPANTS BY NAME]

Class

Name

Section

2005

Barry, Brian

JNews1

1935

Cassidy, Eugene C.

Obit2

1951

Kelly, Ray

JNews3

1977

Khury, Maria

Email01

2005

Morrone, Melissa

JNews1

1941

Murray, John E.

Obit1

2005

Rados, Christina

JNews2

 

 

 

 

[Messages from Headquarters

(Manhattan College Press Releases & Stuff)]

[Headquarters1]

None

 

Honors

[Honor1]

None

 

Weddings

[Wedding1]

None

 

Births

[Birth1]

None

 

Engagements

[Engagement1]

None

 

Graduations

[Graduation1]

None

 

Good News - Other

[OtherGoodNews1]

None

 

OBITS

[Collector's prayer: And, may perpetual light shine on our fellow departed Jaspers, and all the souls of the faithful departed.]

Your assistance is requested in finding these. Please don’t assume that I will “catch” it via an automated search. Sometimes the data just doesn’t makes it’s way in.

[Obit1]

Newsday (New York)
June 26, 2005 Sunday
Correction Appended
NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A38
HEADLINE: LONG ISLAND; John E. Murray, helped test A-bomb in WWII, became priest at age 49
BYLINE: BY RITA CIOLLI. STAFF WRITER

The Rev. John E. Murray, who was involved with the testing of the atomic bomb during World War II and then had a late vocation to the priesthood, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 87.

In his 38 years of service to the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Murray was a priest and pastor at parishes in East Northport, Bethpage and New Hyde Park and headed the priest personnel office for six years. After retiring in 1993, he lived at the rectory of Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park, where prisoners volunteered to help with his hospice care. [CORRECTION: An obituary Sunday incorrectly described who provided hospice care to the late Rev. John E. Murray. The care was given by parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park. (A13 NS 6/28/2005)]

Murray was 49 when he was ordained in 1967. After the war, he had obtained a doctorate in psychology from Fordham University. In the early 1960s, he began studying for the priesthood at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

"He always said he had a desire, what he called a vacuum in his heart, to do something else, and later in his life he discovered his call to the priesthood," said the Rev. James Pereda, who delivered the homily at Murray's vigil Mass on Thursday.

Murray, who was born in Brooklyn in 1918, graduated from Manhattan College in 1941 and a year later enlisted in the Army Air Forces, the forerunner of the Air Force.

"He wanted to be a pilot but he had a master's degree in math and the [Army Air Forces] thought he would be better suited as a meteorologist, which they had a great need for," said Pereda, an assistant judicial vicar in the tribunal office of the diocese.

As the commanding officer of the Weather Squadron based in Hawaii, Pereda said Murray plotted air routes for Army pilots and was involved in the testing of the atomic bombs, which eventually were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Murray was an accomplished pianist and often played at parish musicals shows. "He was so talented but also so modest and humble," Pereda said.

Bishop William Murphy celebrated Murray's funeral Mass on Friday at the Church of Notre Dame where Murray was pastor for seven years until his retirement. Burial followed at Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn.

CORRECTION-DATE: June 28, 2005

CORRECTION:

An obituary Sunday incorrectly described who provided hospice care to the late Rev. John E. Murray. The care was given by parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park. (A13 NS 6

GRAPHIC: Photo - The Rev. John E. Murray

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2005

[Reported As: 1941]

 

[Obit2]

The Boston Herald
June 23, 2005 Thursday
ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: OBITUARY; Pg. 048
HEADLINE: Obituary;

Eugene Cassidy of Natick, immigration judge, vet

Eugene Charles Cassidy of Natick, a former immigration judge and a veteran, died Monday at his home. He was 91.

Born in New York City, he lived in suburban Rockville Center, N.Y. and Burlington, Vt., before moving to Natick in 1956.

Mr. Cassidy attended Christian Brothers High School in Manhattan and graduated from Manhattan College in 1935, where he rowed crew. He later attended St. John's Law School, where he graduated second in his class.

During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard. He was stationed at the Port of New York.

Mr. Cassidy worked at Macy's Department Store before enlisting in the U.S. Border Patrol. While fulfilling his military service, he worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

After he received a law degree, he became a special inquiry officer and later became a judge.

For more than three decades, he was the sole immigration judge for New England. His office and courtroom were first on Tremont Street in Boston and later at the John F. Kennedy Building in Boston's Government Center.

He presided over thousands of cases during his 38 years of service from 1956 to 1974. Besides his Boston courtroom, he presided over many hearings in federal correctional facilities throughout New England.

Mr. Cassidy was a member of the Knights of Columbus, American Legion and Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He was also a regular and faithful communicant of St. Patrick's Church in Natick.

Mr. Cassidy is survived by his wife of 63 years, Helen Elizabeth (Almond); a son, Eugene H. of Framingham; a daughter, Maureen of Framingham; three grandchildren, a great-grandson and many nieces and nephews.

For the past five years, Mr. Cassidy and his wife have been cared for by Harriet Kanyike of Waltham.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated today at 10 a.m. at St. Patrick's Church, Natick. Burial will be in St. Patrick's Cemetery.

Arrangements by John Everett and Sons Funeral Home, Natick.

LOAD-DATE: June 23, 2005

[Reported As: 1935]

 

[Jasper_Updates]

[JR: I'm going to try a new section for "updates". These are changes that "pop" in from the various sources that are not really from the news. I thought it might be valuable to alert old friends seeking to reconnect or "youngsters" seeking a networking contact with someone who might have a unique viewpoint that they are interested in. This is a benefit of freeing up time trying to make email work by "outsourcing" the task to Yahoo.]

 


None

 

[Jaspers_Missing]

[JR: I'm going to try a new section for "negative updates". These are changes that "pop" in from the various sources that are not really from the news. I thought it might be valuable to alert old friends or "youngsters" that someone they maybe interested in has “drifted off”. Yet another benefit of freeing up time trying to make email work by "outsourcing" the task to Yahoo.]

None

 

Jaspers_in_the_News

[JNews1]

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
June 26, 2005 Sunday
All Editions
SECTION: LOCAL; GRADUATES; Pg. L05
HEADLINE: GRADUATES
BYLINE: MUNYIVA MUNGUTI, North Jersey Media Group

<extraneous deleted>

MANHATTAN COLLEGE

* Bogota: Melissa Morrone, master's degree, education and engineering.

* Dumont: Brian Barry, master's degree, education and engineering.

<extraneous deleted>

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2005

[Reported As: 2005]

 

[JNews2]

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
June 23, 2005 Thursday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEIGHBORS EAST; Pg. 17
HEADLINE: ACHIEVERS

Graduated

<extraneous deleted>

Manhattan College: Christina Rados, of Eastwood.

<extraneous deleted>

LOAD-DATE: June 24, 2005

[Reported As: 2005]

 

[JNews3]

Congressional Quarterly, Inc.

FDCH Political Transcripts

June 23, 2005 Thursday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

COMMITTEE: EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE

SUBCOMMITTEE: HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE

HEADLINE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING (R-NY) HOLDS A JOINT HEARING WITH THE MANAGEMENT, INTEGRATION AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ON FIRST RESPONDER ANTI-TERRORISM TRAINING

SPEAKER:

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING (R-NY), CHAIRMAN

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

RAYMOND KELLY, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE

SHAWN REESE, ANALYST IN AMERICAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENT AND FINANCE DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

STEVEN EDWARDS, DIRECTOR, MARYLAND FIRE AND RESCUE INSTITUTE, REPRESENTING THE NORTH AMERICAN FIRE TRAINING DIRECTORS

SHERIFF PATRICK MCGOWAN, CHAIRMAN, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION COMMITTEE, NATIONAL SHERIFF'S ASSOCIATION

CAPTAIN JACK REALL, NATIONAL FIRE ACADEMY BOARD OF VISITORS

VAN ROMERO, VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND TECHNOLOGY

<extraneous deleted>

Other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. We are pleased to have two distinguished panels of witnesses before us today on this topic. Let me remind the witnesses that their entire written statements will appear in the record. We also ask that you strive to limit your testimony to five minutes. We will allow the entire panel to testify before questioning any of the witnesses.

Our first panel today is Ray Kelly, the commissioner of the New York City Police Department. It is a personal privilege to have Commissioner Kelly here today because I do not think anyone exemplifies the struggle of first responders in the war against terrorism than Commissioner Ray Kelly. Ray Kelly was a combat veteran of Vietnam. He is a retired colonel in the United States Marine Corps. He was a New York City police officer for more than 30 years. He was under secretary of the Treasury. He was commissioner of Customs. He was police commissioner back in the early 1990s and then came back in as police commissioner in 2002, the first police commissioner in the history of New York to serve two nonconsecutive terms.

Ray Kelly has I believe made the New York City Police Department a model in the fight against terrorism. As Bill Pascrell mentioned, last month the subcommittee went to New York. We spent a good amount of time with Commissioner Kelly both at his headquarters and also at the anti-terrorism unit which is set out in one of the outer boroughs which is dedicated to fighting terrorism. I am sure Commissioner Kelly will detail much of this in his opening statement, but it really is I think a model for the rest of the country.

Also if I could mention on a personal note, Commissioner Kelly talks about the fact, actually he does not talk about it, but his resume will list the fact that he has degrees from Manhattan College, St. John's Law School. He has a master's from NYU and a master's from Harvard. What he does not mention is that he and I both attended St. Teresa's Grammar School on 44th Street in Woodside. I think that the Dominican nuns probably taught him a lot more than they taught me, as the ranking member just said, obviously.

Also on another personal note, not to overpersonalize this, but my father was a member of the NYPD for over 30 years. He was actually head of the Physical (ph) School at the New York Police Academy and one of his trainees was Ray Kelly. Again, both the Dominican nuns and my father taught Ray Kelly a lot better than I was ever taught, which is why he has attained so much.

With that, let me just ask Commissioner Kelly in testifying, thank you for your appearance here today, Ray. It is a pleasure and a privilege. Thank you.

KELLY: Thank you very much, Chairman King, Chairman Cox, Chairman Rogers, members of the subcommittees. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

I want to also take this opportunity to thank the members who visited New York earlier this month to see first-hand the extensive counterterrorism training and preparation the police department and New York City has undertaken. We greatly appreciated the time each of you spent with us and your constant support of the department's efforts to defend the city. That includes the recent House legislation to distribute future homeland security funding based on risk.

Is national anti-terrorism training for first responders efficient and effective? That is the question posed by this hearing. Certainly, that training has benefited the New York City Police Department's counterterrorism programs immensely. With the help of the training and expertise offered by the Department of Homeland Security, we have built up a powerful deterrent to terrorism. That includes sending our officers to the Center for Domestic Preparedness in your district, Chairman Rogers. In fact, they enjoy their time in Anniston quite a bit and we have difficulty getting them back.

Building upon the unmatched size and experience and skill of the department's own workforce, we have also expanded upon the foundation laid with DHS support to establish one of the premier counterterrorism training centers in the nation, in Brooklyn which you visited. In addition to our own corps of over 36,000 police officers, we have delivered training through that center to members of the New York City Fire Department, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department, the New York State Police, the Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland County Police, as well as police departments from Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Virginia and even Canada.

We train members of the U.S. Coast Guard and Park Police. We have brought in dozens of private security professionals from hotels, banks and other institutions to train them in better ways to protect their facilities. In all, over 130,000 training days have been hosted in our regional training center since 2002.

We have also leveraged DHS support to expand the protection of critical infrastructure throughout the region. We have created the threat reduction and infrastructure protection program, or TRIPS, as we call it, based upon the DHS model, and applied it to New York. We have divided critical infrastructure in to five categories and assigned a team of detectives to cover each one. These investigators visit facilities throughout the city, identifying vulnerabilities and developing comprehensive protection plans with site managers to prevent attacks.

To help us conduct these assessments, we have enlisted the support of the Cooper Union, one of the foremost schools of engineering in the nation. Its expertise is well known on bomb blast analysis and mitigation strategies. We meet with Cooper Union experts routinely to help ensure that we devise the most secure solutions possible, which we then share with the private sector.

In addition, with DHS support we have trained approximately 12,000 of our officers in more advanced chemical, biological and radiological response. This critical instruction, otherwise known as COBRA Cohort training, was made possible thanks to close collaboration between the department and the office of domestic preparedness. As a result, we were able to take immediate steps to better protect New York City from the imminent threat of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction.

The department's regional training center, our TRIPS program, and COBRA Cohort training are all prime examples of how we have capitalized on DHS initiatives, adopting and enhancing national training models to fit New York. The result is that New York City has never been better prepared to defend itself from a terrorist attack.

Still, all of our preparations come at a steep price, about $178 million per year to maintain our daily counterterrorism and intelligence activities. I want to emphasize these are ongoing operational costs to defend the city. In addition, there are the opportunity costs involved in our reassignment of 1,000 police officers to counterterrorism duties. While the federal government provides vital assistance for training, equipment and overtime, we still have huge expenses to cover.

For example, the government allows us to redirect a portion of homeland security funds to offset overtime costs incurred during periods of national orange alert. Last year, there was a total of 111 national orange alert days, an unusually high number, most of which came after the discovery that al Qaeda has targeted key U.S. financial institutions. In 2003 by comparison, there were 72 days of orange alert, but for the police department protecting a city in the crosshairs like New York is a year-round venture.

Even considering an unusual year like 2004, we were still left with 254 days during which to maintain a high-visibility deterrent, mostly out of our own overtime budget. While today's hearing is focused on training for first responders, I also believe we need to place equal, if not greater, funding emphasis on first preventers. By that, I mean additional resources for the analysts and intelligence operatives who can alert us to a terrorist attack in the making, and also our ongoing operational costs that I mentioned previously.

Last August, the police department foiled a plan by hometown Muslim extremists to bomb the Herald Square subway station in midtown Manhattan. We arrested those suspects just a week before the Republican National Convention, with the help of a confidential informant we had developed in the community. We continue to put a lot of resources into the field to protect New York against another attack. In the future, I believe we will require more and better intelligence as we did in the Herald Square case to stop terrorist plots in the making.

The terrorists, too, are working hard to improve their operational capability, and we have to stay ahead of them. Accordingly, we need federal funding to support a comprehensive program of developing investigative skills that includes both analytical and operational personnel, certainly for the larger U.S. cities that are being targeted.

What kind of initiative would this include? As is the case with first responder training, we need the federal government's expertise to train qualified intelligence analysts and investigators for the police department. We need support to sharpen our analysts' skills in conducting link analysis and terrorist group identification, improving their ability to identify intelligence gaps faster and hone-in quickly on what we need to know.

Instruction of our investigative personnel in debriefing skills. The police department with its own limited budget has already begun to develop these analytical and investigative capacities. We have hired a cadre of trained civilian intelligence analysts to take raw information gathered from informants and undercover agents in the field and translate it into valuable real-time reporting for our commanders. Again, we are doing all of this out of our own pocket right now. We want to do more of it and do it better with the federal government's support and expertise.

Some may question the federal government's obligation to support these local activities, or even the police department's right to carry them out. In response, I would draw an analogy to the national fight against the illegal drug trade. With so much ground to cover, local police agencies must play an integral part in supporting the effort to stem the flow of narcotics across national borders and into our cities. That includes the development of undercover drug agents and intelligence specialists. Far from competing with federal counterparts, these local assets are an indispensable force multiplier. We must take the same multi-pronged approach when it comes to rooting out terrorists.

One final issue: The police department needs the ability to self-certify the training courses we develop internally to meet the needs to a unique urban environment like New York. Self-certification would allow us to save valuable time in delivering vital new training otherwise spent on the DHS grant approval process. I want to emphasize that under self-certification, the department will continue to work closely with DHS and the office of domestic preparedness in upholding training standards that are second to none. In fact, the precedent already exists in the creation of our advanced COBRA Cohort training curriculum.

Defending a vast nation against terrorism is an infinitely complex challenge, yet it is one the police department is positioned to help our federal government carry out, but we must have adequate resources to do the job. We must have federal funding for first responders and preventers alike and the authority to expedite their training, and we must hurry.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look forward to any questions you might have.

KING: Thank you, Commissioner Kelly.

I just have several questions. One, can you give us any more details on the question of the certification as to the assistance you are getting or the time which it takes for you to get the approval on the certifications?

KELLY: The process now is essentially for us to give a course in looking for certification. We have to go through the state. We go to New York state. We fill out many forms. Those forms and the curriculum are then forwarded to the DHS office of domestic preparedness. It can take a significant period of time to get that certification accomplished.

What we are looking for is the ability, based on our expertise and based on the quality of trainers that we have, we would like to go to the state, get that authorization from the state, and then commence training without going through the office of domestic preparedness process. Obviously, we leave ourselves open for inspection and reporting to DHS, but that gap or that period of time that it takes for us to go to DHS can be very significant and slows down our ability to get training out. Again, we have such a large police agency that that delay can be significant to us. We want the ability to do that training on a more localized basis so we can kind of spread it out and get more people in our training universe.

KING: Commissioner, you often say that besides first response, you have to be first preventers. The level of training given by the federal government, how adequate would you say it is regarding first prevention as opposed to responding?

KELLY: Well, I think it is minimal as far as prevention is concerned, but I think as far as first responders are concerned, I think it is good. Certainly all the reports that I receive are that the training is very well done. The consortium members give very positive feedback. But as far as prevention training is concerned, it really is minimal. It is diffused. As I said in my prepared remarks, we would like to have a more direct relationship, say, with the investigative agencies that will enable to us to get some of this training, and also with intelligence-gathering agencies. I think it would be helpful certainly for the major cities like New York and four or five other large cities in the U.S.

KING: For the record, can you tell us how many members there are on the NYPD?

KELLY: How many members?

KING: Members, yes.

KELLY: We have an authorized strength of 37,038 police officers. Right now, we are down a little bit below 36,000. We will have a major hire in July to bring us up to the 37,000 number. We have another 15,000 civilian employees.

KING: And you said I believe up to 1,000 focused on anti- terrorism?

KELLY: Correct. We have redeployed 1,000, or the full-time equivalent of 1,000 police officers for counterterrorism duties. They are in our intelligence division, our counterterrorism division. Plus we take significant numbers of officers from our patrol force every day and deploy them at key locations, sensitive locations throughout the city. It is a major undertaking for us.

KING: Yesterday, I was at a briefing with Congressman Simmons which was given by the Coast Guard. I am going a little off-message here, but can you detail your level of cooperation with the Coast Guard?

KELLY: We have an excellent relationship with the Coast Guard. We have our personnel assigned to their intelligence center in New York. We are very close. I have a very close personal relationship with the captain of the port. They have deployed their resources throughout New York harbor. I do not think we could ask for anything more form the Coast Guard. They are very responsive. Anytime we need them, they are always there. They work very closely with our harbor unit.

KING: As my time is just about up, I think I should note for the record the personal stake you have in this, in that literally you live at ground zero. Your apartment was severely damaged at ground zero, so you really are literally on the front lines in every sense of the word.

KELLY: I live, you are right, about one block away. We were out of our home for almost three months as a result of 9/11.

KING: Thank you, commissioner.

Mr. Pascrell?

PASCRELL: Thank you for your service, commissioner.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

PASCRELL: I am fascinated by your training of police officers in New York in Farsi, Urdu, Arabic, and Pashto. I am wondering if the federal agencies have assisted you in training in terms of the languages of the folks we have to work with, deal with, because this is part of your counter-intelligence action. You cannot have counter- intelligence unless you can speak the language of folks you are trying to watch and be careful of. Are you getting the cooperation from the federal government in this endeavor, or are you basically working on your own?

KELLY: Yes. These are largely native speakers. In the members of the department, we have a big and diverse workforce. What we have done is taken individuals who claim to be able to speak these languages and we have tested them. We sent them to a private school. They are certified. So they are not being trained by us. They have the ability to speak. What we have done is stratify them or categorize what level they are at. We have 460 certified linguists, as we call them. We have lent them and have a memorandum of understanding with the defense intelligence agency. We have lent them to DIA. They have been very supportive, but we do not receive any federal funds or federal help in this program.

What we also have done is on our eligible list when someone wants to come into the department, they fill out obviously lots of forms. One of them is whether or not they have foreign language capability. If they do, we have the ability to reach down on the list and bring them up and appoint them ahead of other people on the list. We have done that as well. So we have at least 55 certified Arabic speakers in Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, Farsi speakers, and Chinese dialects. And we are continuing to mature that program.

PASCRELL: One of the things that I was most fascinated with in New York when we examined all of your operations and looked at them carefully is your counterterrorism division. I was very impressed with Mike Sheehan and his team, understanding that your department is trying to sharpen its skills in terms of conducting link analysis as we call it with terrorist group identification. This is serious business.

So the New York City Police Department has trained its personnel, some of those personnel in basically preventing these things from happening, God forbid, and using a word which we do not like to use in the Congress, "espionage." I want to just have your response to the question of how, what you can tell us for the public, how do you see the counterterrorism that has been conducted by federal agencies with regard to what you are trying to do? Is there a cooperative link? Are you doing this on your own? And how significant do you think this is in preventing these murderers from having their way?

KELLY: It is a cooperative program. We work closely with the FBI and with the CIA. We have over 100 investigators with the joint terrorism task force in New York. I just want to mention a little bit about Mike Sheehan, because we are very fortunate to have him. Mike is our deputy commissioner of counterterrorism. He is a West Point graduate, a former special forces officer and a member of President Bush I and President Clinton's national security staff. So he has done a masterful job in pulling a lot of these programs together.

It is a collaborative and cooperative effort. David Cohen, who is our deputy commissioner for intelligence, is a 35-year veteran of the CIA. David has brought his tremendous expertise and experience and contacts to bear on this effort. So it is collaborative. We do work with the federal authorities closely. We are not looking to supplant in any way what is going on. We certainly could not and do not want to. We look to supplement their activities. We do have some talented people. Again, I think the language skills that you mentioned are a very valuable tool for us.

I believe it has been effective. Just the case that I mentioned before about the individuals who were plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station, that case was handled by all New York investigators. Certainly, it was prosecuted federally, but our intelligence division had done it. So I think the program is effective. It is getting only more effective. In my judgment, we have brought in very talented analysts from the top schools, from the Kennedy School, from Stanford, from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. These are quality people that we have doing analysis, taking information and synthesizing and putting it together.

So I believe it is working. Again, we are doing it certainly not in a vacuum. We are doing it with federal authorities.

PASCRELL: Commissioner, in conclusion, folks should know that you are not only protecting New York City. You are helping us protect this nation by work and pioneering many of the things that we have been talking about here. I want to thank you personally.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

KING: Chairman Rogers?

ROGERS: I thank the chairman.

Commissioner Kelly, you made reference earlier in your statement about many of your officers are sent to Anniston, Alabama at the center for domestic preparedness for training and you have a hard time getting them back home. I can understand that. Not only is it beautiful, we have some great country cooking in Alabama.

Do you know how many of your officers you send each year to the center for domestic preparedness for training, approximately?

KELLY: I would say we have sent at least 600.

ROGERS: Per year?

KELLY: No, I would say total. Again, we look at where the spots are. There are, as you know, different locations throughout the country. It depends on our availability. It depends on the availability of the responders. But I would say at least 600 cumulatively since those schools opened. Maybe now we are averaging about 150 or 200 a year.

ROGERS: What are some of the techniques that your officers find most appealing about training at the center? Is there something in particular that is most effective for you and something else that is least effective or interesting to you?

KELLY: The training is very well done. It is done very professionally. As you mentioned in your statement, Mr. Chairman, live agents are available at the facility at Anniston. I know that in New Mexico, I think the large explosive devices are examined closely. I know our bomb squad is very impressed with the training that goes on there. In Nevada, it seems to be more focused on perhaps dirty bombs or radiation challenges for us.

So I can tell you, though, that everybody who goes, the feedback that I have had comes back with very high reviews of the quality of the training.

ROGERS: You made reference in your statement to spending $178 million a year on training.

KELLY: Yes, sir, on counterterrorism.

ROGERS: Counterterrorism. One of the problems I have found, as you know the center for domestic preparedness, the training is free. They pay no tuition. The room and board is free. If you can send your officer or your firefighter or other first responder, it is free. One of the practical problems that we have run into as I have moved around and talked with folks in your line of work is while the training is free, you still have to replace that officer while they are off on patrol, and many of these officers are the very people who are in the Guard and Reserve and are also serving overseas, so many of these departments are already short-handed. What are the costs to you to participate in these programs that maybe you are not having reimbursed?

KELLY: There are certainly overtime costs. Many of the people that we send are in our emergency service unit. We would like to have a bigger emergency service unit. We just cannot afford to do it. We are down several thousand police officers from where the department was in 2000 because of budgetary constraints. So when we send people to training, we oftentimes have to backfill with an officer on overtime. For us being a big department, the largest in the country, it amounts to several million dollars over a year.

ROGERS: Is that reimbursable?

KELLY: No, that is not reimbursable.

ROGERS: There are no federal funds?

KELLY: Not for that cost, no, sir.

ROGERS: OK. You talked a little bit about self-certification. I would like to know more about what you are looking for. Is this a certification that you would like to get authority from ODP to do yourself?

KELLY: We would like to do it in certain areas that are perhaps not trained at the consortium level. We would like to get the ability to do self-certification. As I mentioned to Chairman King before, we may want to train, let's say on surveillance techniques. We have people coming in from other agencies, as well as our own people, in order for us to get funding to do that we go through the state. We apply to the state. The state then takes our paperwork and sends it to the office of domestic preparedness and it can be a long period of time. We think that certain things that we do and do well, that we would like to be able to certify that training and avoid the long delay that results from the process.

ROGERS: These are programs outside the consortium's areas?

KELLY: Yes.

ROGERS: For example at CDP, we have trained the trainer.

KELLY: Right.

ROGERS: So you are talking about something separate from that?

KELLY: Yes. I am talking about something separate.

ROGERS: Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

KING: Mr. Meek?

MEEK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioner, thank you for your testimony.

We do have a bill that we have passed already out of the House, which was this first responder bill, H.R. 1544. We asked the General Accounting Office to really look at are we getting what we need to get out of training. The Department of Homeland Security does not have a set curriculum to where their goals and objectives as they relate to overall security of the homeland. We spent about $180 million in first responder training in the 2005 year. Without a system of tracking and evaluating first responder training, I am trying to figure out and I know this committee would like to know, how do we know that we are training the men and women we need to train to be able to, as the chairman speaks of, prevent, but to also respond?

You have a regional training location I believe and we know that there is one in Alabama and there are a couple more around the country. Do you believe that the Department of Homeland Security should have training standards? That is one question.

Two, you know that you have basic law enforcement standards that have to be met for an individual to be a sworn law enforcement officer. We send federal agents to Georgia to get that, and then they train them, specializing in their department. I would like to hear your response to that.

KELLY: I believe we should have standards. The Department of Homeland Security should have standards and attempt to have a consistency in training throughout the country. I can tell you that we use many of the skills that our officers receive on a very regular basis in New York City because of the size of the city and the activities that go on there. So we are using a lot of the skills, so in a way we are able to judge the effectiveness of the training almost on a daily basis in New York.

But yes, sir, I agree that there should be some consistency and there should be some across-the-board standards.

MEEK: Commissioner, has the department approached you, the office of domestic preparedness, about what they should be doing and how they should be training first responders throughout the country? Have you been a part of an advisory group with the department to have such a thing that you have heard of?

KELLY: I am not aware of any formal group that performs that function, but we have a lot of interaction with ODP, so I believe on an informal basis there is a lot of give and take and a lot of discussion as to what the training should be.

MEEK: I personally believe that this is important because as we start to look at the Department of Homeland Security, as we start to build the Department of Homeland Security, 22 legacy agencies coming together under one mission to protect the homeland, it is very, very important that we have outcome measures. I am hoping that our leadership here, even though we have sent a bill over to the Senate, that possibly that we can just as members of this committee, hearing what the commissioner has said, to move forth in sending a letter to the GAO to hopefully get them started on giving us some direction.

Because what they would do is go out to speak with first responders, speak with the department, talk about where we have duplication. Training is good, but duplication and not expanding the minds and the skills of our first responders could end up hurting us in the long run and we could very well skim over something.

One other question as it relates to sharing and mutual aid. Is there any training going on here in the United States as far as you are concerned about how agencies of other jurisdictions can work together, not only in the prevention of a terrorist attack, but post- terrorist attack? Do we have the kind of what you may call cross- pollination among leadership of these special units to be able to respond to an attack? Have you seen or heard of, or do you provide that in your regional training facility?

KELLY: On the law enforcement level, we have a lot of interaction with surrounding jurisdictions, but we are the biggest jurisdiction around and we have 8.1 million people in New York City. Regionally, we work with Nassau County, Suffolk County. They are part of our joint terrorism task force. We work with New Jersey, Westchester County and Bergen County on law enforcement issues.

Now, as far as first responder and mutual aid, in the fire department I know they have a very active program as well. I am not really equipped to speak about it, but I know that that is something that they work on. But law enforcement, the regional approach is something that perhaps we need more work on in the New York area, but we do have a fair amount of integration on the joint terrorism task force and communication with the surrounding jurisdictions.

MEEK: Thank you, commissioner.

KING: Chairman Cox?

COX: Thank you very much. Again, welcome.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

COX: We really enjoyed the time that we spent with you as a committee up in New York City. I want to join everyone here once again in commending you and the city and the mayor for all that you are doing in every single one of these areas.

The training, of course, is the piece we are focused on today. I want to get my arms around this problem of multiple, potentially redundant and inconsistent training programs that are operated directly or indirectly by the federal government. What we in this committee look at in terms of funding levels for the federal piece is about $195 million a year for the training. We want to make sure that we are getting our money's worth.

I have heard you testify and respond to questions thus far that from your standpoint it is not efficient to always ship your people off to some other distant locale. You have to find a way to pay for their replacement, and sometimes that is overtime, so it is a very expensive way of doing business. I would like to explore whether or not there isn't some way to tap into expertise that New York City already possesses or is in the process of acquiring so that the trainers' concept can be taken still further and we can train a lot more men and women without making them all leave their duty posts, or at least leave the city.

How much of that do you think that we can do? I just look at the FEMA compendium of federal terrorism training for state and local audiences. It lists over 200 courses. There has got to be a lot of duplication or inconsistency in there. We have the trade group, the training resources and data exchange focused on trying to identify those. From your standpoint, are we spending our money wisely or are we in some ways causing duplication and overlap and inefficiency by making people travel to other places and a lot of different places to get training that maybe could be consolidated?

KELLY: Yes, I think there probably is potential there for consolidation. It is difficult for me to talk about it because, as I say, the feedback that we have had has been all positive as far as sending people out to the consortium schools, but most likely there is a possibility of consolidation as to the way you send people.

The point that you made, Mr. Chairman, about being able to do some regional training, I certainly support that. I like the concept of training the trainers, sending the trainers back, and having us do it on a local level. It saves us time and it is going to enable us to reach more people more quickly.

To a certain extent, we do that. We would like to do more of it. Any way that we can do that on perhaps on the certification level, where we can do even some of the core training that is going on in some of these other locations, I think that should be explored. But in terms of quality, we like the quality that we are getting at the consortium schools. I want to emphasize that, but perhaps there is potential there for us to take that structure and do it at a more local level.

COX: What has been your experience with certification, with trying to get your own courses certified?

KELLY: As I said before, ultimately we can do it, but it takes a long time.

COX: Specifically, have you had anything approved by DHS?

KELLY: We have had approvals. Again, I spoke about the Cohort COBRA training which worked very well for us. We wanted to do that before the Republican National Convention. DHS was very cooperative in that regard. We had that course certified and they worked with us and we were able to train 12,000 of our police officers. COBRA stands for chemical, biological and radiological response training. We did that in a smoke environment. We did it with a subway car. They were very helpful in that regard, and we did receive federal funding to enable us to do it. That is an example that worked very well as far as collaboratively and cooperatively getting a certification done quickly.

COX: The reason I ask this question is I am looking at data that tells me that there have been 23 requests to ODP for additions to the list of eligible federal terrorism training courses. Of those requests nationwide, thus far only three have been approved. There have been 115 requests for institutionalization by state administrative agencies or state training point of contacts. Of those 115 requests received for institutionalization, three have been approved.

So I do not know why there are so many denials or so much work in progress, but I just want to find out from your standpoint where the city has a lot more that it wants to do here that it is looking forward to.

KELLY: Those numbers surprise me. My belief is that we had several certifications that were granted, but it just took an extended period of time. So those numbers are a surprise to me.

COX: I am actually happy to hear that. I am glad that this experience that seems to be described by these statistics is not New York City's experience.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Thank you, Mr. Cox.

Mr. Thompson?

THOMPSON: Thank you very much.

Mr. Commissioner, you gave us significant food for thought on how to do it right. I just wish we could get DHS to adopt the New York model and we would be further along.

Do you agree that while DHS provides standards for equipment, that they should promulgate the standards for training?

KELLY: I think that would be helpful. I think to a certain extent they do, but perhaps it has to be better clarified and more clearly published.

THOMPSON: So you see the need to have some national standard for training?

KELLY: Yes, sir.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

In your experience with DHS on getting reimbursed for funds expended in whatever program, do you have any knowledge of how long that normally takes to get reimbursed for any eligible program that is under DHS?

KELLY: Well, the reimbursement process is a protracted one. We have to go through the state, which is problematic as well. We are applying through the state. The money comes through the state. It is both a federal and a state issue. I think for us sometimes the money is held up with the state as well. But reimbursement seems to take sometimes a significant period.

THOMPSON: Do you have a guesstimate of how long that normally takes?

KELLY: I hear that from our office of management and budget, outside of the police department, because the reimbursement does not come directly to the department. It comes through the city of New York. So I do not have a specific time, but there is kind of a steady lament that it takes an extended period of time to get reimbursed. There is a belief that there is money in the pipeline that is not spent, when in actuality what it is is money that just simply has not been reimbursed in a timely fashion. But that is what our budget people say.

THOMPSON: One of the comments we hear quite often is that if cities without the resource capacity perhaps as New York, expend the money, if there is an inordinate amount of time between when the money comes back, it puts them in a bind.

KELLY: Yes, sir.

THOMPSON: Obviously, New York might have enough reserve to make up the difference. Call the congressman, right? I hope you understand my question.

KELLY: I do. I understand it. Yes, sir. Certainly, for smaller cities, it can be an issue. I believe it is an issue for New York as well, but as I say it does not impact directly on the police department. It is the overall budget of the city.

THOMPSON: To what extent have you utilized the federal training facilities for your department?

KELLY: When you say "federal training," again we talked about the consortium located in Anniston, New Mexico, in Nevada, LSU and Texas. We send most of our people to either Anniston, New Mexico or to Nevada. I believe we have sent a few people, a small number to FLETC in Georgia, but generally speaking those are the facilities that our people use.

THOMPSON: Your comment to us is that you are satisfied with the training they receive at those facilities?

KELLY: Yes, sir. I am satisfied with the quality of the training, yes, sir.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

KING: Mr. Simmons?

SIMMONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, commissioner.

KELLY: Yes, sir.

SIMMONS: As somebody who was born and raised in New York City, but then moved to Connecticut, I want to tell you what a great job you are doing. It makes me proud to see what the NYPD is doing before, during and after 9/11. I think the challenges you face are extraordinary, as are the challenges of probably half a dozen of our biggest cities, but New York in particular because New York is a target. New York is a city of diverse population, massive diverse population, so there are many challenges there.

I want to focus on three parts of your testimony. The first part was your reference to first preventers as opposed to first responders. We tend to think in terms of what do we do if. That is after the fact. The concept of a first preventer is how do we prevent the incident from taking place in the first place. If we could have prevented 9/11, 3,000 people would be alive today.

Secondly, your reference to the intelligence division and all the terrific things that your intelligence division is doing. I support that and I share the views of some of my colleagues who think that the New York police department has moved faster to respond in this area than certain components of our federal government. I congratulate you on that.

And then the third piece has to do with vehicle-borne improved explosive devices, to which I would add ship-borne because New York City is surrounded by substantial bodies of water.

What I would like to do is back up a little bit and tell you something that I did about a year ago when I was in New York City. I went to the New York public library. I know there is a lot of controversy over libraries. I went to the New York public library and asked for their records on the subway system and underground railroads. I discovered after a few minutes of inquiry that I could access very substantial documents in the New York public library detailing particularly the underground railroad system. I think their collection there is probably one of the best in the city, but also substantial engineering records and documentation on the subway system.

So my question is this. New York is an old city. It is a city with historic structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. Many of the documents relative to those structures, which can be targets, are available to the public in public places like libraries. What mechanism do you use to tip off the intelligence division if somebody is accessing those records, if any? Do you have a mechanism for that at all?

KELLY: We do not.

SIMMONS: Should we consider that? I know this is a difficult question and you may want to postpone your response, but it certainly bothers me. If we are going to be first preventers, we have to use a little imagination to figure out what the bad guys are after. We know they are after the Brooklyn Bridge. That has been demonstrated. There may be some other targets. And then where are they going to learn about those targets? What I am suggesting is there is a lot of information publicly available in public places like public libraries. How do you intersect with those entities, if at all?

KELLY: I guess the answer is with great difficulty. We do not, and again there is so much information available on the Internet where there really is no potential way of keeping records of who gets certain information. So I guess it is just the free and open society that we live in that causes us this concern. I cannot think of any reasonable, practical way of controlling flows of information.

I know that we looked at information on the transit system. We looked at it on the Internet, I should say. We looked it up when this issue surfaced a few years ago, and actually, it is interesting you should mention, on the Brooklyn Bridge, because there is an awful lot of specific information that is just publicly available and you can get it on the Internet without going into a library, without someone seeing your face or presenting a card. So I think it is just a reality of the world that we live in. I cannot think of a practical way, quite frankly, of addressing it.

SIMMONS: I will just follow on with an additional comment or question. As the chairman of the Intelligence and Information Sharing Subcommittee, this is an issue that we wrestle with as well. We certainly support civil liberties and civil rights, but my daughter lives in Brooklyn. She crosses the bridge twice a day. I would hate to think that she might die because somebody got some details on the bridge to blow it up out of a public place and we had no way of knowing that.

Information sharing, you say you are getting no money from the feds, at least not directly. Are you getting intelligence or other types of information sharing from the federal government?

KELLY: Yes, we are. We are getting it through our presence on the joint terrorism task force. We are getting it directly with the Central Intelligence Agency on appropriate matters. So we are sharing information. We would always like more. There is always that little jousting that goes around about certain issues, but generally speaking we are sharing information. I want to stress that it is a two-way flow. We are gathering information and we are forwarding it to the federal government as well.

SIMMONS: Thank you for your testimony and your service.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

KING: Mr. Dicks?

DICKS: Commissioner, I want to welcome you and commend you on your efforts to create this intelligence division. When did this happen? When did you do it actually?

KELLY: We have always had an intelligence division, "always" being for many, many years in the New York City police department. What we did was focus a part of the intelligence division on the issue of terrorism.

DICKS: When did that happen?

KELLY: It happened post-9/11. It happened at the beginning of this administration, Mayor Bloomberg's administration, starting in January of 2002.

DICKS: Again, how many people do you have in the counterterrorism part of the intelligence division?

KELLY: We have a counterterrorism bureau which has 250 people, and we have an intelligence division that has about 500 people in it. We have in each of our precincts and subunits we have an intelligence officer who is part of that intelligence division. And then we have part of the intelligence division that focuses just on counterterrorism issues.

DICKS: This has been pretty successful? In your testimony, you point out several situations where your people found information, acted on it, and were able to be first preventers.

KELLY: Yes, sir.

DICKS: How many other police departments? I mean, you know pretty much what is going on around the country. Do any other police departments have a similar counterterrorism entity?

KELLY: I think similar in concept, not in size, of course. We are the largest police department by far in the country, but there are efforts in this area in other major police departments throughout the country.

DICKS: Now, as you said, you got no money from the federal government in creating this counterterrorism entity. Is that correct?

KELLY: That is correct, yes, sir.

DICKS: Do you think you should have gotten some support? Do you think that would be helpful if the federal government provided help in this area?

KELLY: Sure. We would appreciate it, but again this is kind of new territory. Police departments have not done this in the past, so I understand there may be some lag I this regard. But I think it is worthy of examination for the federal government to come in and see where they might help.

DICKS: I think this is a big force multiplier for our intelligence effort. I spent eight years on the Intelligence Committee here in the House of Representatives and one of the things we worried about was the fact that down at the state and local level, you need to get this information, but if you do not have an entity that is out there working to gather this information, and I am glad you brought in some top intelligence people and are working on the language issues. To me, I think this is something that would help our entire intelligence effort in our major cities. We already have the urban areas program, of some special concern, but it would seem to me that this is a way to help prevent an incident from occurring.

There is no doubt in my mind that the FBI, the counterterrorism center, all these different entities would benefit by having your professional people who are in coordination with them, giving them information. It seems to me this is something we ought to really look at as a way to enhance our intelligence side of the equation.

KELLY: Yes, sir. I agree.

DICKS: But it gets down to money, as we found out in this homeland security issue. There is never enough money to do all these things, but this one, it seems to me, if you can prevent these incidents from happening, this is something that we ought to really seriously consider doing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Thank you, Mr. Dicks.

Mr. Shays from Connecticut?

SHAYS: Thank you.

Mr. Kelly, your folks during the Republican Convention did an awesome job. They were polite. They were courteous. They were extraordinarily competent, the firemen and -women as well. It was one of the more impressive times that I have felt and seen public officials do their job in what was a really difficult and challenging circumstance.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

SHAYS: I would like to know what you feel the public has a right to know and how you decide that. For instance, if you have been told by the federal government that there is a possible terrorist threat in your city; you have been told to look out for radiological material, that there might be a so-called "dirty" bomb. And you have been told in what venue it might occur. What responsibility do you have? How do you decide? And who decides? Does the mayor decide? Do you decide? Is it a combination?

KELLY: That is a difficult question. I think we have a bias towards informing the public, putting information out, but you can do great harm. You can make a high-regret decision, as it is called, by putting out information when it lacks specificity. So I think you have to look at the source, if you can determine the source, the general credibility of the threat; the specificity of the threat; and make a determination as to when this information goes forward. Ultimately, the mayor would be the one who would make a decision on something very serious and widespread.

SHAYS: This committee has weighed-in in I think a very constructive way. It has weighed-in in saying that the allocation of dollars should be based on risk and need, rather than based on population. You have answered obviously to the question that you agree.

I would be interested if you would pass judgment on something else this committee weighed-in on. We basically have said that we want the warning system to be more than just colors; that we want it to be more specific; we want it to be able to say when it can where the risk is; and we also want there to be information provided to people as to how they might respond to that risk. I am not talking in great specific detail, but in other words instead of saying we are at code orange or we are code yellow, we want to define "yellow" and we want to define "orange" to folks so they have a better idea of what it means.

What is your sense of that?

KELLY: Yes, I think I would agree. The problem is that intelligence does not come in neat packages and it lacks specificity. As I say, we usually do not know the credibility of the source. So you get information that says something bad is going to happen. It lacks specificity.

SHAYS: Let me ask you this, then. What is the value of telling someone that we are in code orange when they do not know what the heck it means?

KELLY: Well, this is something that I think is being debated now by the Department of Homeland Security. I think they are trying to come up with a system that is more specific, is more helpful. But this was done early on, after 9/11. I think it was a valid attempt to have a system in place to alert the public and it may have outlived its usefulness now. I think it is an emerging belief that you can feel in government. But we do not have as yet, as far as I know, on the drawing board a system that is more effective.

SHAYS: But what we did do more recently is we, the federal government in conjunction with the communities, for instance when we thought there was a threat to financial institutions, instead of making this broad, sweeping warning, we said financial institutions appear to be a target and we are paying closer attention to that. That makes sense, does it not?

KELLY: Yes. Last August, that is what happened and I think that was the appropriate thing to do then.

SHAYS: Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Mr. Kelly, isn't New York City always in code orange?

KELLY: We are at higher level of alert. The system came in after we went to a higher level and we maintain that higher level, so it is kind of a shorthand way of saying that is what we are doing. But after 9/11, New York put in a lot of additional security and we have maintained that. So saying we are at code orange is a shorthand way of saying that is what we are doing.

KING: The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Etheridge?

ETHERIDGE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioner, thank you for being here with us this morning.

Let me follow that one up for just a moment because I think, only for just a follow-up, because I think in terms of many of us who have been somewhat concerned about the codes because if you live in rural North Carolina or rural mid-America and the code goes up, what it tends to do, I think, and I would be interested in your comments, is to develop a level of cynicism. Pretty soon, people pay no attention to what the codes are because, number one, it does not affect them; and number two, they are not moving around. I think it bleeds into other areas.

I think the example of the banking institutions or financial institutions are a good example that we probably ought to pay a lot more attention to as we look at this code. I would be interested in your additional comments on that, because you are out there where the rubber meets the road.

KELLY: I agree, but the intelligence information was such that it focused directly on financial institutions. So you are able to do that. That is what I said, most of this information when it comes down the pike lacks specificity. In this case, we had very specific information focusing on financial institutions, so I think it was done in an appropriate fashion last August. I think we now need a more sophisticated way of doing it.

ETHERIDGE: Having said about the information coming down, let me ask a little different way a question that was asked by Congressman Dicks a little earlier. You have talked about, and I commend you for what you are doing in New York because I do think New York and some of our major cities are still on a high level of targeting.

You mentioned in your testimony that you would like for the federal government to support, to train qualified intelligence analysts and operatives for the police department. My question is this, do you think other cities ought to be doing some of the same things, and in the process of that, as you do it in New York?

KELLY: I think major cities, large cities.

ETHERIDGE: As you do it in New York, are you sharing that with other jurisdictions, your fire, your rescue, the other first responders who are part of that? As you gather that data, how does that get to them?

KELLY: When it is appropriate, yes we do.

ETHERIDGE: And it goes up the line to Homeland Security and back to you, and you share that data?

KELLY: Yes. Yes, sir. Are you talking about intelligence information we gather?

ETHERIDGE: Yes.

KELLY: We have a process, a system where we would go to the FBI or to Homeland Security when appropriate.

ETHERIDGE: OK. And then that is shared with local jurisdictions within the New York region?

KELLY: When it is appropriate, yes, sir.

ETHERIDGE: OK. Let me shift to another question, if I may. You talked about, and I think it is impressive that you talk about training the trainer. I think that is one that I first ran into in education that works very effectively when it is followed with guidelines and procedures. Given the vastness of America and the differences from New York to other rural areas across this country, as people and things move, the risk to America can be different, but it can be the same because many of the people who wound up creating all the problems on 9/11 came to New York from areas that were not anywhere near as well-occupied as the city.

My question is, as we provide the oversight, I would be interested in your comments on how Homeland Security overall training integrates with the smaller departments where you only have one, two, three, four, five or a lot of volunteers in some cases, because that is just as important in some cases to New York City where you have an awful lot of people in place, and a sophisticated system. To me, that is where I think a lot of our vulnerabilities still lie. I would be interested in your comments.

KELLY: I think in that case, you are talking about training, it has to be done on the state level. The states have to make a determination as to who is appropriate in the state to receive that sort of training. I hear what you are saying is we need listening posts everywhere because any piece of information can prove of value gathered in North Carolina, and of value to New York, for instance. We understand that. So we need a system to get that information.

I think to a certain extent the FBI has created that. We now have a joint terrorism task force component in every one of their offices, every SAC office in the country, and 56 of them have a joint terrorism task force. They are certainly in North Carolina as well. But in terms of training, I think the training for that has to be done at a state level and the state is going to have to make a determination as to who should be involved in it because there are finite resources.

ETHERIDGE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Thank you, Mr. Etheridge.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent?

DENT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Commissioner.

I am fascinated by your intelligence division and what you have done up there in New York. I guess my principal question is this. What is it that your detectives are doing in those cities overseas? I am pleased that you have them over there. What are they able to discover or learn that we are maybe not receiving from our federal intelligence officials who may be based overseas? I would like to learn a little bit more about that.

KELLY: Again, as I said before, we are not looking to supplant anybody. We are looking to supplement.

DENT: I understand.

KELLY: New York, of course, has been attacked successfully twice in the last 12 years. We are looking for any bit of information we can get that gives a leg up in New York. They have gotten some front row seats to major investigations that are ongoing. For instance, our detective in Tel Aviv, if there is an event, a suicide bombing, he is there within the hour. He gives us very specific information. He works very closely with the Israeli authorities. We have real-time information that comes back to New York that day. You are not getting that from other agencies.

In the Madrid bombing case, it took place on March 11, 2004. That day, we had, and it happened to be the same investigator from Tel Aviv, we had him in Madrid. We found out how the bombs had been constructed, where they were put together. We put a tactical approach in place that same day or 12 hours later around our transit facilities, at our subway stops for instance, to be on the lookout for that type of activity.

That is the kind of real-time information that we are getting from our people overseas.

KING: Will the gentleman yield for a moment?

Commissioner Kelly, were you there before or after the FBI in Madrid?

KELLY: We happened to be there that day. We dispatched someone that day. We also had a team there the next day from the U.S. that we sent. But we feel we are in the crosshairs, so as I say we are looking for any bit of information. These detectives, they are charged with the responsibility of asking the New York question. Is New York somehow involved directly or indirectly in the event that happened there or an investigation that is ongoing there?

DENT: OK. And how do you determine what cities you selected to place your detectives?

KELLY: Obviously, we need a receptive environment. We need a law enforcement entity that is going to accept us and have us work closely with them. So that is part of it. There are certain locations we are concerned about, obviously Canada being our neighbor to the north. We have the famous case of Ahmed Ressam who came through the state of Washington in 1999. He was in Montreal and then went over there. He as the Millennium bomber. So Canada is an area that we look to get information from. The UK, we have detectives there. They have been very supportive and worked very, very closely with us. That is an area of concern. London looks an awful lot like New York in many ways. It has a very complex, big underground transit system. We want to be there. Tel Aviv, of course, is an area of concern to us.

So we look at locations where we think it is going to be helpful for us and then we talk to those governments, and if they are receptive, then so be it.

DENT: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. I do understand what you are doing there is supplemental, complementary to what our intelligence agencies are doing. I just am very, very impressed by your department and have been for many, many years, by the level of sophistication and preparedness that you have provided to the citizens of your city and to this country over the years. Thank you.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

KING: Ms. Jackson Lee, a former New Yorker.

JACKSON LEE: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

With that spirit, I want to thank Commissioner Kelly. We have found opportunity to work together over a number of years in the capacities that you have served the nation. Might I add my appreciation for your service and the hard knocks that you have taken in the course of that service. There are many of us that appreciate very much what you are doing.

And this hearing, let me thank the ranking member and the chairman of this committee and as well the ranking and chairman of the full committee.

I am going to offer some anecdotal stories and really going to focus on law enforcement.

KING: Would the gentlelady just yield for one moment. The procedure we are going to follow, Mr. Rogers is going to go over and vote now. There is only one vote on, so we can try and keep the hearing going.

The gentlelady from Texas.

JACKSON LEE: I thank the chairman very much.

Texas has a unique situation, so let me pose these questions quickly. One, I would like just a general question of are we doing enough. You may have answered it, but I would like to hear, are we doing enough, particularly in light of the plan that we are supposed to offer about interrelatedness in terms of a plan of the first responders, this 2002 reported plan that the Homeland Security is supposed to have in terms of the interrelatedness of first responders having a plan of how they work together.

The other question is that you spoke earlier of your wish to authorize self-certification by states in certain emergency preparedness disciplines. If all states are able to self-certify, how would you address the need for coordination of a nationwide methodology?

My last point, down on the southern border, you may have heard of the intense violence around Nuevo Laredo, which is on the Mexican side, and Laredo. A lot of that has to do with drug trafficking and drug cartels, but I always know that where there are drugs and money there is the potential for terrorism. So law enforcement that may be dealing with drugs needs to understand terrorism.

The other component is self-law enforcement. I mean that by groups like the Minutemen, who are intruding themselves into the process that may cause some difficulties. Would you comment on the need for enhanced training in light of the frustration of Americans that generate the creation of groups like the Minutemen and do you find them necessary and effective, if we can be more effective in our training and our resources for our law enforcement and our firefighters, of course, who are not in the midst of fighting battles, but they are certainly in the midst of saving lives.

KELLY: I think it is a question of resources. Having been the Customs commissioner, I have some experience with the border. We were short of resources, certainly, when I was there and I think that is probably still an issue, although I think it has gone up somewhat in head count. There is no longer a Customs Service. There is Customs and Border Protection now. It has merged with Border Patrol.

But I think it probably still is an issue of resources. There are probably not enough people down there and that is why you get the frustration of the public trying to get involved. I think we need a major investment in protecting our borders. You need the people to do it. There are no gimmicks involved. You need an investment in having sufficient resources to do it.

JACKSON LEE: And you would substitute the people for the Minutemen?

KELLY: Yes, absolutely. You substitute professional full-time employees for volunteers.

As far as the self-certification and coordination is concerned, by asking for self-certification I certainly do not want to diminish the role of the Department of Homeland Security. That is where the coordination comes in. That is where the oversight comes in. As was mentioned before, national training standards are perhaps needed. So I think that is how you address the issue of having some overarching coordination and control of what is going on.

JACKSON LEE: With that, I yield back.

I thank you very much.

KING: The gentleman from Texas, Mr. McCaul?

MCCAUL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I want to say how much I enjoyed the visit up to ground zero and the visit with you personally. I thank the chairman for setting up that CODEL up to New York. I learned a lot about the impressive operation that you have up there, that first and foremost.

KELLY: Thank you.

MCCAUL: Since we have votes, I am going to get right to the questions. That is, I worked in the Justice Department with the joint terrorism task force. I know the model. I am not a believer that one size fits all in the federal government; that you can use a cookie cutter approach to everything across the nation.

I want to get your thoughts on how that is operating in New York. I know we talked a little bit about that, the model in general; that there may be some elements of discussion with regard to how it applies in New York.

Secondly, your coordination with the national counterterrorism center, is it working effectively and if not what needs to be done to make this work so that we get that information to the state and local level?

KELLY: We do have coordination with the national center. Again, it has been changing. It had some different configurations in there, but we do have coordination. We get it through the FBI. We also have it directly through our intelligence division. So I do not see a major issue there. We are all learning as we go along. I think there are certainly people of goodwill there who want to cooperate with us; see us as a value-added; that we are getting information and information should go upstream and we are doing that. We are working to improve that.

MCCAUL: OK. And with respect to the joint terrorism task force, is that model working in New York or how can that be improved?

KELLY: We have a discussion up there. I think ideally we should have a model that looks like the drug enforcement task forces, where you have a marbleized approach where everyone is in one entity, where you have supervisors, if you recognize supervisors, they are in supervisory positions irrespective of their agencies.

What you have now is in essence an FBI entity with members of the joint terrorism task force appended to it, added on in their own structure, unlike the drug enforcement task force where you have integration, where you have supervisors from various agencies supervising personnel from different agencies.

MCCAUL: Are you talking about the HIDA program? Is that what you are referring to?

KELLY: HIDA is obviously information sharing, but HIDA does have a more integrated approach. I point to the drug enforcement task force. I think it has worked. It is a model that has worked for many years and works well in New York. The joint terrorism task force I think is effective, but ideally we should have more integration.

MCCAUL: I think that is something that this committee should take a look at. I appreciate your time here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Commissioner Kelly, if we can impose on you, I believe there is only one more member on our side who has question to ask, Sheriff Reichert, who had been the sheriff of King County in the state of Washington. He went over to vote, so he can come back to ask questions.

I am going to call the committee to be in recess until Chairman Rogers comes back, and then it will be Congressman Reichert and then you will be excused.

KELLY: Yes, sir.

KING: If you could just hang on for another 10 or 15 minutes.

The committee stands in recess.

(RECESS)

ROGERS: If I could reconvene this.

At this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Reichert, for any questions he may have.

REICHERT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, thank you for your service. I was the sheriff of King County in Seattle up until January 3rd, so I am missing the role that you play in a much larger scale.

I have to say that I had the opportunity to attend national executive classes over my 8 years as sheriff in Seattle with some members of the New York Police Department. And I would, again, echo my colleague's comments about the professionalism, commitment to duty and compassion they have to serve the public. And they are just the highest caliber people. So I thought you might appreciate hearing that.

I just want to touch on a couple of quick things and not hold you too much longer. I know you have a busy schedule also.

When you talk about national standards, national training standards, how do you see those standards being developed across the nation? What kind of a process, in your opinion, might be used to help develop those standards?

KELLY: I think a process would have to be driven by the Department of Homeland Security. I don't think it is that complicated. I think you can reach general consensus on best practices, but it has to be controlled and you have to have kind of a coalescing entity. And I would say Homeland Security can do that. You might have a conference of first responders -- I think it would be easy to pick out the appropriate people to go to a conference like that. I don't think it is difficult to do, put it that way. And I think you kind of know them when you see them. It is just a question of doing it.

REICHERT: So you see the National Sheriffs' Association having a role in helping to set those standards?

KELLY: Sure. I think certainly it would be appropriate to ask them to participate, yes.

REICHERT: We, in Seattle, participated in TOPOFF, which was quite an expensive exercise, and I know that you have participated in similar training exercises. What is the role of the federal government as far as their financial role, I should say? I know what their role is in helping to come in and develop the scenario, et cetera. But financially, how does it impact your police department, your city, your police department's budget and do you get any financial help from the federal agencies in pulling off one of these exercises?

KELLY: Well, we do not get financial help, quite frankly. Let me take that back. There are some. TOPOFF obviously is the major one mandated by Congress. We do get some money through our office of emergency management to run some exercises, but we do a lot of our own training and a lot of our own exercises, our own agency exercises without any federal funding.

So we are doing it. Would we like money? Sure, but we are still getting it done. But there are major exercises in New York City, multi-agency exercises in which we do get federal money. I think there is money from FEMA that helps in that regard. That money for the most part comes through our office of emergency management.

REICHERT: What percentage of your budget do you suppose that you now spend on homeland security efforts?

KELLY: We spend about $178 million a year. That is our estimate for counterterrorism. That would be both overtime and straight time, you might say opportunity costs, salary of people who are doing that sort of work. We have about a $3.5 billion a year budget.

REICHERT: Did the city give you an increase of $178 million in your budget to address these issues?

KELLY: No, sir.

REICHERT: I knew that would be your answer.

(LAUGHTER)

We had a similar experience in Seattle.

So the $178 million came from somewhere. What did you have to give up with your police department? What services did you have to cut in order to come up with $178 million?

KELLY: That is a good question. Obviously, if you have people doing a certain function, they are not doing the normal patrol function or investigative function. As a snapshot of where we are now in the department, we are down 5,000 police officers from where we were in October, 2000, plus we have this 1,000 redeployed for counterterrorism. So when you say "where does it come from," the 5,000 of course comes from all over the organization, as the 1,000 does as well. You have fewer people on patrol, fewer people doing normal investigations, fewer people doing traffic control.

REICHERT: So some of it is paid because of salary savings through the 5,000 vacancies that you have.

KELLY: The 5,000 vacancies that we have are not vacancies. The head count has been reduced, the authorized strength, but not by 5,000. It was reduced less than that. We have attrition, significant attrition. It is complicated, but we had a lot of hires in the mid- 1980s. We had those hires because of layoffs in the 1970s. We waited until the 1980s to do it. But now you can retire in 20 years in the New York City Police Department, so we have historically consistent attrition, but it is large numbers. So we attrition down and we hire up.

We have right now in the police academy, we have 1,700 recruits in our police academy class. They will graduate next month. We will hire another 1,600, well actually we are going to hire them before they graduate. So we are meeting the needs of the department based on a 37,038 authorized head count. When you look back to October of 2000, the head count was over 40,000. So the authorized head count was reduced because of the budget problems that the city is facing.

REICHERT: I have follow-up questions, but I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman.

KING: Thank you, Mr. Reichert.

Mr. Kelly, thank you very much for your testimony today. It is, as always, a tremendous addition to the committee.

Any further comment, Mr. Rogers?

ROGERS: I would just say that the city of New York is fortunate and our nation is fortunate to have you in this capacity and I appreciate your making the time to be here. It has been a great benefit to me, and I know the rest of the committee as well.

KELLY: Thank you very much, sir.

KING: The witness is excused. Thank you.

KELLY: Thank you, sir.

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2005       

[MCdb: 1951 ]

 

 

 

Manhattan_in_the_News

[MNews1]

The Boston Herald
June 28, 2005 Tuesday
ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 058
HEADLINE: SPRING ALL-SCHOLASTICS: Boys track and field

<extraneous deleted>

TOM CUSHING
HINGHAM

<extraneous deleted>

After winning State Coaches Invitational and Class C titles in the shot put, Cushing improved by nearly 3 feet for victory in the state meet (57-2 1/2). The co-captain led the Harbormen to the Patriot League title and is a two-time league all-star. Cushing was captain of indoor track and a member of the league champ football team. An Eagle Scout, he will attend Manhattan College.

<extraneous deleted>

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2005

 

[MNews2]

Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
June 26, 2005 Sunday
SECTION: HIGH SCHOOL
HEADLINE: 2005 Connecticut Post All-Star softball team

<extraneous deleted>

 Amanda Genovese, Amity Four-year starter was a steadying influence behind the plate for the 25-0 Spartans & Batted .407 with an on-base percentage of .486 & Picked off a record 24 baserunners and caught 8-of-9 would-be base stealers. & Member of three Class LL champs will play at Manhattan College.

<extraneous deleted>

LOAD-DATE: June 27, 2005

 

[MNews3]

The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky)
June 23, 2005 Thursday Indiana Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3B
HEADLINE: EDUCATION NEWSMAKER TONY BRANCH; Ex-Cardinal to lead Jeff sports; Teammate says he's 'just the right person'
BYLINE: ADAMS HAROLD J.

Source: The Courier-Journal

The telephone rang frequently yesterday in the office of newly hired Jeffersonville High School athletic director Tony Branch.

But Branch didn't show the same instincts that made him a reserve guard on the University of Louisville's 1980 national champion basketball team.

"I don't know how to answer it," he said, eyeing the multiple buttons on the telephone.

Branch's difficulty with the phone system is understandable. He doesn't officially take the reins of Red Devils athletics until next month.

But the 47-year-old Branch hit the ground running immediately after the Greater Clark County School Board approved his hiring on April 28. There was a head coaching vacancy in boy s' basketball at Jeffersonville.

"So I jumped right into the fire," said Branch. "Hiring the best person suited for the coach position is always tough ."

Final interviews were held on May 17 in a process that whittled a field of 30 candidates to one: Former Iroquois High School coach Jimmy Just.

Branch said his biggest challenge initially is to make as smooth a transition as possible following the retirement of Ralph Scales, who ran the athletics department for more than a quarter-century.

"Learning the filing system that Mr. Scales has in place" is the first order of business, he said. "He's done it for quite a long time."

Roger Burkman, a teammate on the 1980 U of L squad and still a good friend, said Branch "is just the right person at the right time for Jeffersonville."

He cited Branch's experience as a player, coach and administrator. It was a timely shot by Branch that launched the Cardinals on that winning tournament run in 1980.

Coach Denny Crum looked down the bench and called on Branch after All-American Darrell Griffith fouled out in the second-round game against Kansas State.

With the score tied at 59 in overtime, Crum had his team go into a delay game, running more than three minutes off the clock, Branch recalled.

Then the coach called time out, "and he wanted me to take the shot," Branch said. He made a spin move away from his man above the foul line only to find Kansas State All-American Rolando Blackman waiting to trap him. "I jumped between them ... (and) I put it up there so soft it bounced a couple of times and it went in," Branch said. The Cards were on their way.

After his playing days, Branch was a student assistant under Crum for a year until he completed a degree in political science in 1981.

Then he moved on to assistant coaching positions at Manhattan College, Purdue and Tulsa before becoming head coach at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. During a Lamar recruiting trip to San Antonio, Branch met his wife, Lynne, who was a schoolteacher there.

"I didn't get the recruit, but I got her," he said.

Lynne Branch now teaches at Klondike Elementary School in Louisville, where the couple's daughter, Victoria, is a student. Two Branch teen agers, Tonya and Tony, are at Male High School.

Branch moved into administration as special assistant to the president at Lamar after the school made a coaching change two years into his tenure there.

Two years later he moved back to Louisville to work on his teaching certificate. He coached the ninth-grade team at Iroquois and taught there.

That was followed by two years as executive director of the now-closed All Saints Academy in Louisville's West End.

After All Saints closed, Branch was hired as a social studies teacher at Seneca High School and later became the school's head basketball coach. Along the way he earned a master's degree in teaching at U of L in 1998.

The Seneca team won the Louisville Invitational Tournament in 2004 and gained a No. 4 state ranking.

"When this opportunity came up, I had to make a decision on whether to keep teaching and coaching or go into athletic administration," Branch said of the Jeffersonville job. "It was hard to turn down."

He said he will miss matching wits with opposing coaches but will enjoy attending the baseball games, soccer games, tennis matches and other competitions of the 20 sports teams at Jeffersonville.

GRAPHIC: By Keith Williams, The Courier-Journal; Former University of Louisville basketball standout Tony Branch will become the new athletic director of Jeffersonville High School next month. "I jumped right into the fire," Branch said.

LOAD-DATE: June 24, 2005

 

[MNews4]

Lowell Sun (Lowell, MA)
June 23, 2005 Thursday
SECTION: LOCAL
HEADLINE: Writing the Book on Peace
BYLINE: LYNN WORTHY, Sun Staff
DATELINE: GROTON

http://extras.mnginteractive.com

At Groton-Dunstable Middle School, there are 21 fifth-graders who lingered a bit after the final school bell.

Members of the Bookmakers and Dreamers Club made sure they gave hugs to, and got pictures taken with, their teacher Betsy Sawyer.

Starting in October, Sawyer headed up a book club that met once a week after school. They've been working on what they hope will be a new world record, one they hope might even affect people's view of the world -- the Biggest Book in the World.

"I volunteered to run the book club, and it turned into this," Sawyer said.

Sawyer is in her first year at the school. A Shirley native, she taught previously at the Groton Country Day School and the McKay School in Fitchburg.

Originally, the group had been talking about different world situations, including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

"We were asking the kids what you worry about, what you think about," Sawyer said.

From there, they decided they wanted to do a big project relating to what was going on in the world.

It all came together with a little help from a Jamaican recording artist.

In the fall, Sawyer attended a Jimmy Cliff concert in Keene, N.H. At the conclusion of the concert, the audience was asked what they had done about spreading the idea of world peace.

Sawyer mentioned the idea to the students in the book club, and they latched onto it. Several of the students have relatives who have served, or are serving, in the armed forces.

"I have a cousin in Italy," Michael Casella said. "He's in the Navy."

Meaghan Biggs added, "My best friend's uncle is in Iraq."

The club did some research and learned about the Nobel Peace Prize, what it represents and who has won it in the past.

The group also learned about how many different countries exist in the world, and the different types of people who have tried to promote world peace.

Next, they started discussing what can be done to achieve world peace. They posed the question to local town officials, state officials and, eventually, they started writing letters to world leaders and celebrities.

President Bush, the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter were just a few names on the mailing list.

More than 1,000 letters went out all over the world asking for advice on how kids can help move the world toward peace. Each response will be enlarged and become a page in the book.

So far, more than 400 people have responded in the form of letters, poems and pictures.

Margaret Groarke, director of the Peace Studies Program at Manhattan College, encouraged the kids to learn about other nations, travel, vote [when they're old enough, of course] and listen.

The group received confirmation that their letters had reached the desks of President Bush, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and Sen. John Kerry.

Oprah Winfrey and Michael Douglas were both out of the country, but representatives for each of the stars have contacted the group.

This week, Sawyer said she received a call from a Vietnam veteran who wanted to drive from Boston to deliver his poems about peace.

Sawyer said the reaction from the local community has been outstanding.

"I would like to personally thank you for a great year, Kelsey," one parent wrote in a hand-written letter. "I'm proud of her recognizing such a good thing, and I'm thankful that you've given so much of yourself towards making this happen."

The current world record for biggest book stands 10 feet tall by 9 feet wide. Members of the Bookmakers and Dreamers Club expect their final work to be 10 feet by 12 feet.

The school is allowing the group to meet in the building three or four times during the summer, and local groups and residents have offered their assistance in making the project happen.

The group is still in the early stages of the project and plans to continue into the next school year. The printing of the book alone could end up costing as much as $200,000.

The group hopes to have the finished book displayed at either the Museum of Science or the Children's Museum in Boston.

"At first, we were just having fun after school," Sawyer said. "Maybe they really can change the world. I mean, wouldn't you go and see it?"

GRAPHIC: Betsy Sawyer, a teacher at Groton-Dunstable Middle School, has to use a ladder to reach the top of the book she and her students are putting together to promote peace. The students include, front from left, Tiffany Lee, Peter Ellerkamp and Amory Wilcox, and, back, Sarah Black [on ladder with Sawyer], Chris Hourani and Ben Icenogle. SUN/MICHAEL PIGEON

LOAD-DATE: June 23, 2005

 

[MNews5]

The Times Union (Albany, New York)
June 22, 2005 Wednesday
3 EDITION
SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. CC5
HEADLINE: GIRLS TRACK AND FIELD

<extraneous deleted>

SPRINTS: Stacy Gregory, Sr., Colonie

Gregory ends her career at Colonie as one of the most decorated sprinters in the section's history. Gregory, who's on to Manhattan College, holds 15 Colonie school track records. She was a member of the Garnet Raiders' state championship-winning 1,600-meter relay team and the 400-meter relay team that finished fifth in the state meet. She also finished second in the state in the 100.

<extraneous deleted>

LOAD-DATE: June 23, 2005

 

[MNews6]

Article Last Updated: 6/26/2005 06:22 AM

 2005 connecticut post all-star softball team

 Connecticut Post 

 <extraneous deleted> 

 Amanda Genovese, Amity Four-year starter was a steadying influence behind the plate for the 25-0 Spartans & Batted .407 with an on-base percentage of .486 & Picked off a record 24 baserunners and caught 8-of-9 would-be base stealers. & Member of three Class LL champs will play at Manhattan College.

 <extraneous deleted>

 ###

 

 

[MNews7]

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/articles/2005/06/26/news/news13.txt

Sunday JUNE 26, 2005 Last modified: Saturday, June 25, 2005 6:23 PM CDT 

Courtesy photo Award winners for 2005 include Katherine Toscano, Nansemond River High School, Belliene Najacque, Lakeland High School and Callie Peak, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy.  Not pictured was Brittany Cunningham, Kings Fork High School. 

Top science students reap rewards from Ciba

Staff report

Four local science scholars were recently named among the winners of the Ciba High School Science Awards.

The Ciba Specialty Chemicals Foundation is awarding more than $10,000 to graduating high school seniors for their accomplishments in the science classroom. The awards honor graduating high school seniors who show great interest and promise in science, and encourage them to pursue careers in science and science technology.

More than 100 seniors from high schools around each of the company's US sites were selected by their faculty for their outstanding performance and enthusiasm for science and technology.

Local winners included Callie Peak, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy; Belliene Najacque, Lakeland High School; Katherine Toscano, Nansemond River High School; and Brittany Cunningham, Kings Fork High School.

Each Ciba Specialty Chemicals site holds an awards ceremony where students receive $100, a certificate and are honored by their parents, teachers and Ciba employees. During the ceremony, the students are able to interact with scientists during a panel session entitled "Meet the Scientists." The panel is made up of Ciba employees who represent different scientific career paths, from the lab to sales to marketing. The lively interaction allows the students to ask questions and learn about careers in the sciences both within and outside of the lab.

"There are hundreds of career options available to those who earn a degree in the sciences and not all of them in require wearing a white coat in a lab," stated Kevin Bryla, Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs at Ciba and Executive Director of the Ciba Specialty Chemicals Foundation. "The purpose of the awards ceremony and the panel is to reward and encourage these top performers, but perhaps most importantly, it is to expose them to the rich career opportunities that exist in chemistry and other sciences."

One person who has lived the experience is Richard Carbonaro, the first recipient of The Ciba Scholarship in Environmental Engineering to Manhattan College in 1995. Now a Ph.D. and Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Manhattan College, Richard expressed his thoughts on his experiences as a result of receiving the scholarship.

"The Ciba Scholarship, granted by the Ciba Foundation, helped to provide me the financial support in order to pursue my studies in Environmental Engineering at Manhattan College," he said.

My ambition was to become an educator and researcher, where I could be closely involved with communicating important environmental issues to others while making new discoveries which advance our understanding of complex environmental problems," said Dr. Carbonaro. "Now, approximately 10 years later, I am proud to say that it is my job to do so everyday. As a recipient of the Ciba Scholarship, it is my honor to participate in this HSSA ceremony as well as in the High School Chemistry Institute in July."

###

 

Reported from The Quadrangle (http://www.mcquadrangle.org/)

Nothing new.

 

Sports

SportsSchedule

The only reason for putting this here is to give us a chance to attend one of these games and support "our" team.

Date Day Sport Opponent Location Time/Result

No more data has been loaded.

If you do go support "our" teams, I'd appreciate any reports or photos. What else do us old alums have to do?

 

Sports from College (http://www.gojaspers.com)

*** MCSports1 ***

http://www.gojaspers.com/article.cfm?doc_id=6076

GONZALEZ TO HELP BREAK DOWN NBA DRAFT FOR MSG

Manhattan head coach Bobby Gonzalez will help the Madison Square Garden Network break down the NBA Draft, which will be held Tuesday, June 28th at 7:30 in New York. Gonzalez knows a thing or two about the NBA Draft, as he recruited and coached Manhattan great Luis Flores, who was a second round selection of the Houston Rockets in last year's draft. Gonzalez will appear on the MSG SportsDesk show, which airs at 10:00 p.m. and again at 11:30 p.m.

 

*** MCSports2 ***

http://www.gojaspers.com/article.cfm?doc_id=6075

ANNE STAUDT NAMED TO IWLCA NATIONAL HONOR ROLL

Riverdale, NY (June 27, 2005)- Manhattan junior defender Anne Staudt was named to the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association National Honor Roll, it was announced recently by the IWLCA.

 

*** MCSports3 ***

http://www.gojaspers.com/article.cfm?doc_id=6074

MEN'S TENNIS RECEIVES REGIONAL RANKING

Riverdale, NY (June 27, 2005)- The men's tennis team, which won its second straight MAAC title and advanced to its second consecutive NCAA Tournament, received a final Northeast Region ranking of 13, it was released recently by the ITA.

 

*** MCSports4 ***

http://www.gojaspers.com/article.cfm?doc_id=6073

THREE JASPERS COMPETE AT NATIONAL TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS

Riverdale, NY (June 27, 2005)- Two current Manhattan College track and field athletes competed in the USA Junior Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and one alumnus, Jacob Freeman, competed in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, both held June 23-26 at the Home Depot Center in Carson City, CA.

 

*** MCSports5 ***

http://www.gojaspers.com/article.cfm?doc_id=6071

FORMER JASPER CHRIS GASKIN TALLIES THREE RBI IN PROFESSIONAL DEBUT

Former Jasper first baseman Chris Gaskin, who was 23rd round (696 overall) selection of the Chicago Cubs in the 2004 MLB First Year Player Draft, made his professional debut last night for the Short Season A Boise Hawks of the Northwest League, going 2-4 with three RBI, two doubles, and one run scored in helping lead the team to a 7-2 season opening win over the Everett Aquasox.

 

Sports from Other Sources

[JR: At the risk of losing some of my aura of omnipotence or at least omni-pia-presence, you can see Jasper Sports stories at: http://www.topix.net/ncaa/manhattan/ so for brevity’s sake I will not repeat them here. I will just report the ones that come to my attention and NOT widely reported. No sense wasting electrons!]

http://www.topix.net/ncaa/manhattan/

 

*** OtherSports1 ***

None

 

EMAIL FROM JASPERS

Email01

From:    "Maria Khury (1977)"
To:    <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject:    COME HEAR MAYOR BLOOMBERG TODAY IN RIVERDALE
Date:    Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:30:50 +0000   [View Source]

THE NORTHWEST BRONX RIVERDALE DEMOCRATIC CLUB
PRESIDENT
TONY CASINO

INVITES YOU
PLACE: KELLY RYAN'S
WHERE: 5790 MOSHOLU P'WAY ( CORNER POST AVE.)
BRONX, NEW YORK 10471
TIME: 7:00PM-9:00PM
WHY: SPECIAL GUEST MAYOR MIKE BLOOMBERG
          *ASK QUESTIONS
            *NETWORK
             *LEARN ABOUT THE NBRDC
              *GATHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE MAYOR'S CANDIDACY FOR RE-ELECTION 

===

From:    "Maria Khury"
To:    <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject:    Bloomberg, Miller, Fields and Ferrer will be attending tomorrows' forum
Date:    Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:20:02 +0000   [View Source]

Mayoral forum confirmed candidates - Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Council Member Gifford Miller, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, and Hon. Fernando Ferrer

Latina PAC
together with
The New York Coalition for 100 Black Women, New York Asian Women's
Center, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and the
Dominican Women's Caucus
invites to you our
Mayoral Candidates Forum
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
5:30pm - 8pm
Yale Club of New York City
50 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, NY
Please RSVP to <privacy>
Light Refreshments and Cash Bar

As symbol of solidarity, our organizations have joined together to
provide a forum that has a single overarching goal: to provide women
of color an opportunity to better identify with a candidate who is
running for Mayor of New York City, and to gain insight of the
candidate's vision for the next four years.  We believe our
partnership is just the beginning of a united front that is essential
to improve the quality of living for women and all New Yorkers.

===

From:    "Maria Khury"
To:    <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject:    Fw: Mark Your Calendar!!! July 21st @ 7:30PM
Date:    Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:27:27 +0000   [View Source]

SPEND A WONDERFUL EVENING MEETING NEW FRIENDS AND NETWORKING FOR A GREAT CAUSE .CONTRIBUTIONS FROM $50.00.

MK:-)

=========================================================

From: lark-marie
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 4:51 PM
Subject: Mark Your Calendar!!! July 21st @ 7:30PM

> Hey hey,
> Mark your calendar! I am serving as a Co-Chair for a soiree on Thursday,
> July 21st from 7:30 PM - 10:30 PM that Emma Bloomberg and Sally Singer are
> hosting. It is a junior Benefit in support of Prospect Park in Brooklyn at
> the newly renovated Picnic House. There will be cocktails, hors d'oeuvres
> and dancing to this year's 'fiesta' themed event. We would love for you to
> join us! Dan's company, U.Santini is a sponsor :) Feel free to invite some
> friends! But, you must call and purchase your ticket and RSVP (718)
> 965-8988!!! Mention that Lark sent you. It will be a fun night of mingling
> and cocktails...Tickets start at $50.00. It is going to be a fabulous
> evening...Hope to see you there!
> Lark
> http://www.prospectpark.org/event/main.cfm?Target?lendar&Year 05&Month=7#
> P.S. If you would like to make a donation of an item(s) for the silent
> auction, feel free to let me know and I can make those arrangements :)

 

 

Jaspers found web-wise

JFound1

None

 

MC mentioned web-wise

MFound1

None

 

Boilerplate

http://www.jasperjottings.com/boilerplate.htm

 

Curmudgeon's Final Words This Week

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20050627.shtml

 

Eminent injustice in New London

Jeff Jacoby

June 27, 2005

 

I reached Mike Cristofaro on Thursday afternoon, a few hours after the Supreme Court ruled that local governments can seize people’s property by eminent domain and turn it over to private developers. The court’s 5-4 decision was a defeat for seven New London, Conn., property owners, who have resisted the city’s plan to demolish their homes to make way for offices, upscale condos, and a waterfront hotel. Mike’s 79-year-old father, Pasquale Cristofaro, is one of those homeowners, and I wondered how he had taken the news.

“I haven’t told my father yet,” Mike said. “I don’t know what to say. You want to help me break it to him?”

I first met the Cristofaros in July 2001. The homeowners' lawsuit against the city was going to trial, and I'd come to New London to talk to some of the plaintiffs and see their homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood for myself. As Mike and I walked to his parents’ home on Goshen Street, he recalled how they had learned that the city intended to force them from their property. On the day before Thanksgiving, a sheriff’s deputy had shown up at their front door with condemnation papers, and ordered them to be out by March. The news came as such a shock that Mike’s mother Margerita began having heart palpitations and had to be taken to the hospital. (She passed away in 2003).

For 27 years, Pasquale had been a loyal city employee. But no one from the New London Development Corp. -- the agency charged with transforming the area into a fashionable complement to the big research headquarters Pfizer was building nearby -- ever came to talk with the Cristofaros about the city’s interest in their property. No one from City Hall asked the elderly couple if there was anything that might make a relocation less traumatic. Like the other homeowners, they were told just one thing: Sell now, or be forced out.

“These people don’t have no respect,” Pasquale, who immigrated from Italy in 1962, told me that day. “You supposed to go like gentlemen -- make me a price, ask me a Yes or No. I love this house. I pay my bill, I pay the tax. And now they say I should get out? It’s not right. It’s not right.”

No, it’s not right. But five Supreme Court justices have just said it’s constitutional.

In effect, the majority in Kelo v. New London held that the words “public use” in the Fifth Amendment -- “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation” -- can mean wholly private use, so long as the government expects it to yield some incidental public benefit -- more tax revenue, new jobs, “maybe even aesthetic pleasure,” as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Would your town’s tax base grow if your home were bulldozed and replaced with a parking garage? If so, it may not be your home for long.

As a result of this evisceration of the Public Use Clause, “the specter of condemnation hangs over all property," the dissenters warn. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”

In truth, though, it isn't *all* property that is at risk. If "public use" now means the government can evict a property owner so that a new owner can use the land to make more money, it is clear who will suffer most. "The fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote sadly. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. . . . The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more."

In a separate dissent, Thomas made the same point: "These losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities . . . the least politically powerful." Fifty years of eminent domain statistics drive home the fact that families uprooted by eminent domain tend to be nonwhite and/or nonwealthy. No wonder urban renewal came to known bitterly as "Negro removal."

"These five justices," Mike Cristofaro told me, "I hope someone looks at their property and says, 'You know, we could put that land to better use -- why don't we get the town to take it from them by eminent domain.' Then maybe they would understand what they're putting my father through."

That won't happen. It isn't the high and mighty on whom avaricious governments and developers prey. Justices John Paul Stevens, Steven Breyer, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy are responsible for this execrable decision, which shreds what little was left of the principle that a man's home is his castle. But they'll never have to live with its consequences.

###

I find this decision particularly unbelievable. It basically says that the all powerful State can do whatever it wants, when ever it wants. Anyone of us could be next. The dead old white guys must be rolling over in their graves at this one.

 

And that’s the last word.

Curmudgeon

-30-

GBu. GBA.