College opposes baseball stadium plans

July 20, 2007

BOSTON
A group that has worked for several years to build a minor league baseball stadium in Boston is now considering a site in Charlestown on land controlled by Bunker Hill Community College. Boston Baseball Field of Dreams LLC made its pitch Wednesday for a 6,000-seat, $50 million minor league stadium at a public meeting in Charlestown. The land for the stadium, parking lots just south of the John F. Gilmore bridge and east of the Orange Line, is owned by the state and controlled by the community college. Jeanne-Marie Boylan, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the college, said trustees have voted against the stadium because it "is not consistent with the mission of the college."

A city-approved bill that would eliminate the September preliminary election for the four at-large Boston City Council seats cleared the House but stalled in the Senate yesterday. The controversial proposal, which would leave the current field of nine candidates undisturbed heading into the Nov. 6 election, passed in the Senate Monday and was enacted in the House today but did not come before the Senate during its formal session. Senator Anthony Petruccelli, the East Boston Democrat who along with Hyde Park Democrat Representative Angelo Scaccia sponsored the bill, said the city made a compelling case that more than $500,000 could be saved by not holding the special election to eliminate just one candidate. Critics of the plan worry that the race's dynamics, including strategy and spending, are being changed about two months before the scheduled Sept. 25 election.

REGION

Emergency medical services workers in 18 communities in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire employed by a single company voted overwhelmingly this week to strike. According to a statement released yesterday by the National EMS Association, which represents many employees of American Medical Response, the vote was a response to the company's violations of federal labor laws and a proposal to cut employee wages and benefits. The union's news release said 92 percent of EMS workers voted Wednesday to walk off the job. Neither officials of the company, which is based in Colorado, nor union representatives could be reached last night. The company's ambulances provide the primary response for ambulance calls in communities that include Newton, Brockton, Framingham, and Plymouth, according to the union.

WALTHAM

The four-alarm fire that ravaged Sal's Restaurant on Main Street in Waltham early last Sunday was ruled accidental by investigators yesterday, State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan and Waltham Fire Chief Richard Cardillo announced. The fire originated underneath the take-out counter, and investigators believe the most probable cause was either an electrical malfunction or a natural gas leak, which could have been ignited by several possible sources in the building's basement.

SALEM

A Haverhill man was sentenced to 7 to 10 years in prison yesterday after a jury found him guilty of shaking a 2-year-old girl so violently that she suffered permanent brain damage. Derick Epps, 30, was convicted of assault and battery causing substantial bodily injury to a child after a Salem Superior Court jury deliberated for eight hours. Kate MacDougall, an assistant Essex district attorney, presented evidence during the weeklong trial that showed that Epps shook his girlfriend's child on Oct. 9, 2004, in their Haverhill apartment. The baby's mother, Sara Comeau, was at work at the time. Charges against Comeau were dropped.

BARNSTABLE

Christy Mihos, who ran for governor last year and owns a chain of convenience stores, is an opponent of a proposed power-generating wind farm in the waters off Cape Cod, yet he wants to place wind turbines at some stores he owns. The Yarmouth resident went before the Hyannis Main Street Waterfront Historic District Commission Wednesday to make his case for locating three turbines at his Christy's Market store in the village. The turbines would be installed on top of the gas pump island in the store's parking lot. His goal is to eventually place turbines at 10 of his 15 stores on Cape Cod. Mihos was asked by the commission to return in two weeks with depictions of what the turbines would look like from the street. (AP)