Superintendent Edward Bouquillon says he was disciplined after an audit spelling out that he and some staff at Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School violated state rules and may have tried to get around the law by splitting bids on certain contracts.

The Boston Globe reported Sunday, April 14, that auditors for the Abrahams Group found problems in the way the district awarded work to a marketing firm, Ovus Ater of Cambridge, and attempted to get an appraisal for the school property.

Bouquillon told his School Committee that the nature of the discipline is a personnel matter; thus, it could not be made public. Read more here >>

Medford bridge project aims to curtail E. Arlington floods

Reconstruction of the historic Cradock Bridge in Medford Square, a move aimed at curtailing floods that affect East Arlington, will be on the agenda of Medford City Council at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 2.

State Rep. Sean Garballey, Democrat of Arlington, is among those announcing new potential design by the state Department of Transportation for rebuilding the bridge.

"This is an important step forward, and I would like to thank the Department of Transportation for working with the delegation to address the community’s concerns," Garballey said in a news release. "This vital project will help to reduce flooding and promote safety in Medford and Arlington."

The project targets flooding issues for parts of West Medford, Winchester and East Arlington. The reconstruction includes the removal of concrete panels that now impede the flow of water, which will enlarge the hydraulic opening and reduce flooding upstream of the bridge.

For more, read InsideMedford >>

Honda recalls 183,000 cars after Arlington woman's complaint

An Arlington woman has used a little-known tactic that helped spur Honda to recall about 183,000 vehicles that might apply the brakes on their own.

A New Your Times story says Carrie Carvalho was frightened by having that problem in her own Honda and angry that there had not been a recall.

So she filing a formal defect petition with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, requiring the agency to review her concern.

A Honda spokesman told The Times that Ms. Carvalho was not responsible for the recall.

To read the story, click here >> 

Leone decided against run for Senate

Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr., who said last month he would not run for reelection and said he is not a candidate for another elective office, may have changed his mind briefly, but now he has changed it back.

The Boston Globe reported Sunday, Feb. 3, that Leone is giving "serious consideration" to running in the special US Senate race to fill John Kerry’s seat. The next day he said he would not run.

Leone, 50, said he had received encouragement from friends and political allies to jump into the Democratic primary campaign -- a race that has two Massachusetts congressmen, Edward J. Markey and Stephen P. Lynch, contending for the party nomination. The primary will be held April 30.

According to a release from his office in January, Leone told his staff at an annual awards ceremony that he would not seek reelection in 2014. He has served as the Middlesex DA since 2006 and previously was the First Assistant U.S. Attorney and Anti-Terrorism Coordinator at the Massachusetts United States Attorney’s Office from 2001-2005. For mopre, see Boston.com >>  Names of potential successors were floated in a Lowell Sun report. On Jan. 12, a Globe reporter offered persepctive >> 

 

Arlington woman shares Powerball win

 Two workers at Costo in Waltham, one of them from Arlington, will each get $11 million in Powerball winnings.

Rosa DeLeon, 52, of Arlington and Reginald LeBlanc, 54, of Lexington, bought a $50 million Powerball ticket at a gas station in Lexington.

The coworkers had a ritual for the past 10 months, Boston.com reported. She would buy two Powerball tickets, write their names on the back, and then give him a copy. It paid off. Read the story here >>

Ex-Arlington special-ed admininstrator charged

A Framingham man has been charged with posing a child in the nude after he allegedly pretended to be a 14-year-old boy and solicited indecent images from a 15-year-old girl in Maine, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone reported Wednesday, Dec. 12.

Steven Orloff, 47, who was an Arlington assistant directors of special education until the summer of 2011, was arraigned in Framingham District Court on charges of distribution of obscene matter and pose or exhibit a child in the nude.

Framingham District Court Judge Robert Greco ordered the defendant held on $20,000 cash bail with conditions to commit no new crimes, no use of the Internet, stay away from Stoneham Public Schools, vacate his marital home, no contact with children under 18, and surrender his passport.

The defendant’s next court date is Jan. 14 for a probable-cause hearing.

"This defendant used the Internet to solicit indecent images from a minor,"Leone said in a news release. "This is another stark reminder of how the Internet can be used by strangers to contact young, vulnerable victims and place them in dangerous situations. I applaud the coordinated efforts of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, Framingham Police and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office that lead to the arrest of this defendant today."

According to authorities, the defendant began corresponding online with a 15-year-old female from Maine. The defendant told the victim he was a 14-year-old boy and they exchanged photos, though the defendant did not send an actual photo of himself. The victim and the defendant continued to chat online and the victim sent the defendant illicit photos of herself.

The defendant is an employee with the Stoneham public schools and works within the central office and did not have direct contact with students. He has been placed on administrative leave.

The investigation is ongoing. The case is being investigated by Framingham Police and the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in Portland, Maine.

Dalai Lama comes back to Medford

The 14th Dalai Lama visited the Kurukulla Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies in Medford Tuesday, Oct.  16, making a return after having been in the city on 2003. Accompanying him was Tibetan Prime Minister Lobsang Sangye, whose family lives in Medford. Read the full story and see a slide show at InsideMedford.com. 

AHS grad boosts 18th-ranked college soccer team

Arlington High School graduate Simon Ginet, a junior at Carleton College, scored twice to push his No. 18-ranked men’s soccer team to a win. For more, click here >>

Tearful victim statement as Winchester man admits to slaying 4

The sister-in-law of Thomas Mortimer IV gave a tear-filled statement as she confronted the man who admitted to killing her mother, her sister and her sister’s two small children.

Debra Stone-Sochat provided her statement in Middlesex Superior Court after Mortimer pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder for killing his family in their Winchester home in June 2010.

For more, read the Oct. 3 story on Boston.com >>

St. Eulalia mourners at funeral for slain SEAL

As helicopters whirred above Arlington, mourners at the Church of Saint Eulalia in Winchester on Wednesday, Sept. 19, attended the funeral for Glen Doherty, the former Navy SEAL who was killed last week in the attack on the American consulate in Libya. For more, see Boston.com.

Medford's ex-housing chief fined, barred

Former Medford Housing Authority chief Robert Covelle has been fined $5,000 and barred from public employment for six years for violating state purchasing laws, Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a Boston.com story published Sept. 10.

Prosecutors said they had reached a settlement agreement with Covelle.

 Prosecutors have been investigating for a year, but declined to press criminal charges, because they found no evidence Covelle personally profited from the violations. Covelle, 59, who resigned in May amid allegations of favoritism in hiring and contracting, failed to follow bidding laws in contracting for work at two MHA developments, Coakley said.

Medford Fire Department employees cited after 911 call

A Medford fire alarm operator has been suspended for two weeks without pay, and three firefighters have received written reprimands, after the Fire Department failed to respond to a 911 call for a medical emergency July 13 that resulted in a fatality, Boston.com  and InsideMedford reported.

An inquiry launched by Mayor Michael J. McGlynn and Fire Chief Frank A. Giliberti Jr. determined that the fire alarm operator, who was not identified, failed to send the proper alert, which would have triggered a loud alarm and lights to go off in a neighborhood fire station. He also recorded in a log that the Fire Department was on the scene, when it was not, the statement from the city said.

Medford Police and Armstrong Ambulance of Arlington, the city's private ambulance operator, did respond to the July 13 911 call, the city stated.

Fearing hell, accused confesses to '92 Lexington slaying, prosecutors say

Prosecutors say Craig Conkey confessed to the 1992 slaying of Kathleen Dempsey of Lexington because he feared Armageddon was imminent and he did not want to go to hell. Conkey, 45, pleaded guilty Tuesday, July 3, to second-degree murder in the stabbing death. He was sentenced to life in prison, according to the report in Boston.com.

He is serving a life term after a second-degree murder conviction in the slaying of another Lexington woman, Mary Lou Sale, in 1994.

Arlington-born trooper, known for suspicions about FBI ties to Bulger, dies

Five years after Arlington-born John R. O'Donovan rose to become State Police lieutenant colonel in 1975, he sent detectives to investigate James "Whitey" Bulger and confronted FBI agents about his suspicions they were protecting Bulger and his partner Steve Flemmi.

This was long before the now-infamous scandal broke connecting Bulger to the FBI.

O'Donovan, a Marine Corp veteran who grew up in Belmont, tracked down domestic terrorists in the 1970s and once rescued hostages held at gunpoint in a Somerville pharmacy, has died. He was 81.

Read more of the story here, but you have to be a Globe subscriber to read it all.

Arlington's "rich tradition" of phys ed touted

In one of the least obese state in the nation, Arlington public schools have the lowest rate of overweight children of district's studied, according to a 2010 report cited in a Boston Globe opinion column on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Derrick Jackson wrote the column titled "In Arlington, a model for nation," which notes the town's 9.6 percent obesity rate in the context of reporting about the state of physical education at the Brackett School.

"What is particularly encouraging," the column says, "is that Arlington’s success is not a simple story of wealth. Arlington’s overweight and obesity rates are half those of many much wealthier districts and a third of many districts of similar median annual income. The town’s general funding of physical education is not out of the ordinary, and, as in many districts, elementary physical education classes were reduced for a year during the depth of the recent recession."

The column quotes Cindy Bouvier, the district’s wellness and counseling director, as saying the district prides itself on targeted funding, spending many thousands of dollars on after-school activity programs, full supervision of the high school fitness room, and outdoor education.

To read the entire column, click here >>

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Globe report about 2010 study | Chart in Globe report

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