[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
 |
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
|
|
12.28.2001 10:40
Traffic safety, dog attacks talk of Foster
By DOUGLAS STEINKE
Journal Staff Writer
FOSTER
-- Traffic safety issues, especially those related to Route 6, dominated the news in town again this year.
In February, former Atty. Gen. Arlene Violet asked the Town Council for permission to install speed bumps on Salisbury Road on behalf of John and Renee Bevilacqua, who live there. The council approved the measure, but later dropped the plan after a number of residents signed a petition opposing it.
By November, the talk of the town turned to another road, Route 6. Kenneth Rock, 50, of Moosup Valley, was killed on the 6-mile stretch of the highway that passes through Foster after a small oil tanker collided with his pickup.
Residents have always been concerned about the safety of the highway, which was named one of the most dangerous in the country by Reader's Digest a year and a half ago.
Shortly after Rock died, Foster Ambulance Corps Commander Kathy Edwards organized an impromptu forum on the highway's safety attended by about 100 people. At that meeting residents formed a citizens group known as the Route 6 Safety Task Force. Bevilacqua volunteered to chair the committee.
Residents can expect more state activity on the highway next year. The Department of Transportation plans to reconstruct a section of the thoroughfare at the Cucumber Hill Road this spring. Plans are also in the works to revamp the Route 94 intersection.
Meanwhile, Greenville lawyer Thomas Hefner will be trying to convince a jury that the state has been negligent in addressing the dangers of Route 6. Hefner sued the state on Dec. 11, one year after a Glocester woman was killed two days before her 20th birthday in a collision on the highway.
The first week in August was a busy time in Foster, starting with the discovery of the first mosquitoes ever found to be infected with the West Nile virus in Rhode Island.
The next day, Moosup Valley volunteer firefighter Ralph Warren Blackmar died from heart failure at age 66 while driving Engine No. 1 down Foster Center Road, on the way back from a sawmill fire.
And by the end of the week, a Superior Court judge ruled that the state Department of Environmental Management could not conduct warrantless searches like those it tried to undertake on the Round Hill Road property belonging to Johnston trash hauler Louis L. Vinagro Jr. The DEM suspected that Vinagro had been dumping construction debris on his Foster property.
Some people say it's a dog's world out there, but not for two pit bulls that got loose earlier this year.
In July, a Round Hill Road man shot a pit bull to death after it leaped out of a second story window in Vinagro's home and attacked Barbara Tucker and her golden retriever as they walked on the street below.
And in March a 10-year-old boy on his way home from school was attacked by a pit bull on Spears Path. The dog, named Bandit, was declared vicious and later put down by its owner.
A harbinger of the 21st Century came to Foster in April when Cox Communications, the Atlanta-based cable television provider, announced that it would wire Foster Center Road for cable within the next year. Foster is the only town in the state that does not have access to cable television.
And in June a vestige of the town's past burned down. Countryside Pizza and Backdraft Cafe, a popular eatery and gathering spot on Route 6, burned down in a blaze ignited by electrical failure. Residents promptly held a series of fundraisers -- including a macaroni and meatball dinner -- to help the restaurant's owners rebuild.
The year ended in Foster with a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Jose Henriques, 43, of Cumberland, set out with his 19-year-old son, Derek, for a day of hunting at a field on Cucumber Hill Road here. But by midday, something had gone terribly wrong. After Derek wandered into the brush to retrieve a deer he had just shot, his father fired two shots into the shrubbery, mistaking his own son for the deer.
Derek Henriques died soon after.
Police Chief Donald E. Kettelle said it was the saddest day of his 42 years in law enforcement.
And finally, just in time to ring in the New Year with some upbeat news, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that the groundwater supply at a former NIKE missile site in town was clean. Previously, tests conducted by the state Department of Environmental Management found an industrial degreaser known as TCE, or trichloroethylene, in the water supply.
Residents can expect more activity at the decommissioned military base located off Hartford Pike next year. Three cellular telephone companies have asked the town to build towers on the property, and a Providence man has asked to lease the land so he can build a planetarium there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
Printer-Friendly Version
