04/20/06 Compilation of scenes from Greenwich, CT Fire Department

04/18/06 PRESS RELEASE

The Junior League of Greenwich, Connecticut, Inc.
231 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830
Telephone (203) 869-1979 Ÿ Fax (203) 869-9215
e-mail jlg@jlgreenwich.org Ÿ website www.jlgreenwich.org

President 2005-2006: Katey O’Leary President 2006-2007: Kara Donahue

April 18, 2006 Press Contact: Pamela Hearn,
(203) 912-4375
For Immediate Release
Junior League of Greenwich Hosts Prom Dress Drive for Greenwich High School

April 18, 2006, Greenwich, CT… The Junior League of Greenwich (JLG) has “done” it again! The Done In A Day Committee hosted Operation Prom Dress Drive and collected nearly 50 formal dresses and coordinating accessories for donation to the Club Former Attire organization within Greenwich High School.

The JLG’s Done In A Day Committee collaborates with local community organizations on short-term events and provides volunteers to help in all aspects of these events. This year they approached the Greenwich High School to see how the JLG could get involved and Operation Prom Dress was created. Co-chair of the event, Melissa Turner, said, “This was a fun event for us, and one that I hope we can replicate next year. While it was relatively easy to collect the dresses, we are so pleased to be able to make a small difference in the lives of some deserving young women”.

The Former Attire club was created by seniors Susan Beaty and Halley Hindman when they were juniors in high school. The club is run by students with an advisor and its purpose is to provide attire that may not be easily afforded by some of the students to Greenwich High School junior and senior girls who will be attending the prom. Dress donations are received from retailers on Greenwich Avenue, faculty, friends of faculty, students, and parents. Girls are able to purchase attire at an extremely discounted price and the club then redistributes the money to a homeless shelter. Last year the club raised $2,700 for the homeless shelter and they are looking forward to an equally successful 2006. “This year the Junior League took the initiative and approached us to help us with the collection and we greatly appreciate all of their efforts”, said Debra Chauvin, advisor to the Former Attire Club.

The Junior League of Greenwich is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women and improving the community through the effective action and leadership of trained individuals. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable. If you are interested in joining the Junior League of Greenwich and making a difference in our community, contact the JLG office at (203) 869-1979 or visit its website www.jlgreenwich.org.

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01-0106 Greenwich Police group eyed in probe

A now-defunct fraternal police group using the Greenwich name for its fundraising has been under scrutiny for several years for how it represented itself and how it used the money it collected.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said yesterday his office is investigating the Greenwich Connecticut Fraternal Order of Police Gateway Lodge 21 for possible misuse of donor funds.But the president of that defunct group, Frank Colello, a Carmel, N.Y., man who works as an investigator for the state judicial division, said he has accounted for all the money raised by the group, and that much of it was spent on legal fees to sue the state chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police after it revoked the group's charter.

Lt. Thomas Keegan, fund drive chairman for the Greenwich Silver Shield Association, said the group was not affiliated with the Greenwich Police Department, but Colello said some individual Greenwich police officers were members.

It could not be confirmed this week whether any were.The Greenwich Connecticut Fraternal Order of Police Gateway Lodge 21 had a post office box in Cos Cob, but no physical office here. Its officers ran the lodge out of their own work offices in Stamford.

At the time its charter was revoked by state chapter, the Greenwich lodge was extending benefit coverage to about 640 law enforcement officers from around the state, Colello said."I brought the Public Charities Unit all of the records and showed them where the money went," Colello said. "I never heard back from them again, so if they weren't happy with the report they never told me."The remnants of the Greenwich lodge have reincorporated as a nonprofit group named the Connecticut Association of Police Officers Inc., Mark Pesiri, of Stamford, a state marshal and president of that group, said. The group offers disability and line of duty death insurance, tuition for law enforcement courses for officers, as well as various scholarships for high school students, Pesiri said.

According to a recent state report on paid soliciting campaigns for charities, the Gateway Lodge 21 allowed its paid soliciting company, All-Pro Marketing of Fairfield, N.J., to keep more than 80 percent of the $1 million raised over several years for the group. This return rate is one of the lowest in the report.

Blumenthal declined comment on what type of misuse of funds was being probed."Our investigation concerns first the organization itself and how it used and managed money that it received from contributors," Blumenthal said. "All-Pro's methods are related to that."The state Fraternal Order of Police, based in New Britain, revoked the Greenwich lodge's charter in 2002 based on the group continuing to raise funds separately from the state lodge, according to the state lodge's president, John Flynn.

Flynn succeeded Colello as president of the statewide organization."We ended up disciplining them and revoking their charter, and fundraising was the main issue," said Flynn. "They were misusing the name and they sued us and we actually won."Colello said he has good records of the money spent by the group, and that the roughly $60,000 left in the coffers after the group lost its charter in 2002 was awarded to a variety of law enforcement and other agencies around the state.

Those awards included $25,209 to a lodge made up of federal correctional officers in Danbury for classes, $2,000 to the Stamford Youth Associa-tion, and $2,920 for special training grants for police officers, and $3,010 for state Lodge 6, Colello said."We were pretty busy giving that money out and it wasn't spent on beer, parties, or anything like that," Colello said.

Blumenthal said that the percentage of charitable donations that All-Pro Marketing and other paid soliciting firms keep may be disturbing, but there is nothing illegal about it.Other local law enforcement membership groups and benevolent associations received back between 25 and 45 percent of the fundraising take from their paid solicitors, according to the report. Other groups listed in the report raising money through paid campaigns generally received more than 50 percent of the total collected, including groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national tolerance education organization that tracks hate groups, which kept 76 percent of the total funds raised by its solicitor, Telefund.

Mark Galvan, president of All-Pro Marketing, defended the ethics behind his company's keeping the majority of the money it raises, saying the overhead to collect relatively low donations is much higher than that of local groups."You have to compare apples to apples," Galvan said. "The average donation is about $20, and . . . only about half the people honor their pledges. You have to call four times as many people to raise the same amount of money."

Blumenthal said that under a U.S. Supreme Court decision there is no minimum percentage that paid soliciting firms must return to the charitable groups they raise funds for.Potential donors have to determine whether the firm soliciting them is misrepresenting their connection to their communities, he said."They have to be accurate in what they are saying or they could be prosecuted,"

Blumenthal said of the firm.Flynn said the state chapter will not renew its contract with its paid soliciting company, the Civic Development Group Inc., and will begin to conduct its own fundraising, allowing it to keep 90 percent of the gross collected.Keegan said that the Green-wich Connecticut Fraternal Order of Police has never given money directly to the Silver Shield Association."It does seem like a misuse of our name," Keegan said.

According to the state report, the Greenwich Silver Shield Association in 2004 also contracted with a paid solicitor, LPC Fundraising of Framing-ham, Mass., and only received 28 percent of the $46,000 raised.

Keegan said LPC also alienated many residents with its aggressive telephone fundraising campaign, and that the Silver Shield Association won't hire another paid solicitor because their profit motive drives obnoxious fundraising efforts.All future campaigns will be conducted by mail, so residents will know that phone solicitations on behalf of the Silver Shield Association are not legitimate, Keegan said.

Money donated by the public to the Silver Shield Association helps fund events promoting safety and better community relations, providing bulletproof vests for active officers, tuition for children of police officers and sponsoring local youth athletics, Keegan said."We realized that the members of our community are extremely generous and charitable and do not need the annoyance of an organization contacting them in a bothersome way," Keegan said. "It was the first and last time the Silver Shield Association will enter into a similar arrangement."

Article sourced from:

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, CT, USA

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12/24/05 - News Clips - Legislative committee OKs civil unions bill

Source: Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:

Tobin A. Coleman; Staff Writer

...The victory is complicated because Love Makes a Family, the gay rights group most active on the issue, has said nothing less than a law granting full marriage rights for gays is acceptable. The group has vowed to lobby against the bill passed yesterday that would allow gay couples to form civil unions, nearly identically to the law in Vermont...

...Love Makes a Family President Anne Stanback said she has mixed feelings because many of the lawmakers who voted for civil unions said during the debate that they wanted to vote for a full marriage bill, but went for civil unions instead because they did not think a gay marriage bill has a chance to pass the General Assembly this year....

..."I do have mixed feelings . . . because of the really wonderful tone of the debate in support of marriage and very explicitly stating civil unions is not enough," Stanback said. "While we don't support civil union we would ask them to support us as we move forward with our marriage struggle."...

September 21 2005: Greenwich Time - Hurrah for hors d'oeuvres! Newbie judges pick .....

Greenwich Time - Hurrah for hors d'oeuvres! Newbie judges pick ...

Carolyn and Jerry Anderson have a unique way of
thanking the clients of their real estate business,
Anderson Associates of Greenwich.

Annually, they host a "best of" tasting under a huge
tent on the grounds of their backcountry Greenwich
estate and invite 200 or so new and old friends who
act as food critics for the night. On a recent Friday,
with the hint of fall in the air, these newly appointed
judges sat around large round tables, sipping
glasses of wine and eagerly awaiting the first of 20
hors d'oeuvres - provided by 10 of our area's top
caterers - that would be nibbled, dissected,
discussed and finally judged.

Behind the scenes

This is the third time the Andersons have held this
event. They started with pizza, judged truffles and
vanilla ice cream last year, and decided to tackle
hors d'oeuvres this night. Each caterer was asked to
provide one hot and one cold nibble that would be
dropped off before guests arrived. The caterers were
not allowed to stay because this was a blind tasting.....

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08/09/05 - Kissel Fraud Case

Banks, builders file suit in loan fraud

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:	Hoa Nguyen; Staff Write

...The developer is accused of fradulently obtaining $25 million in bank loans. Federal prosecutors contend Kissel filed fradulent mortgage releases that appeared to free him from loans that he still owed. Kissel then used those releases to persuade other lending institutions to issue him new mortgages on the same property, according to the federal complaint...

...The companies provided insurance policies to the lending institutions that issued new loans to Kissel, Stewart Edelstein said. Because the institutions lost money, they are seeking compensation from the title insurance companies, which in turn want to hold Kissel financially liable, according to the lawsuit....

...Timothy Mulroy, according to land records, filed a $48,985 lien on 58 Quaker Lane, where he said he built Kissel a library. Although Mulroy received a deposit for the work, Kissel missed one payment and then issued him a check that bounced, said Mulroy, adding that based on what he knows now, he fears he may never be paid...

08/01/05 - Report From U.S Attorney for Connecticut Kevin O'Connor.

Three weeks after George Smith IV, 26, of Greenwich, was reported missing while on a honeymoon aboard a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship on July 5, investigators are busy conducting interviews and reviewing evidence, according to U.S Attorney for Connecticut Kevin O'Connor.

07/31/05 - First Selectman Spotlight - Neighborhood Associations

Since First Selectman Jim Lash urged residents to be active citizens, especially through their neighborhood associations, more than 60 such groups - large and small, old and new - have followed Lash's advice, and it may be changing the way Greenwich does business.

07/31/05 - According To Press Reports - Steven Seeger said the test results will be provided to police as evidence that one or more of the ......

Steven Seeger said the test results will be provided to police as evidence that one or more of the youths who were with Bria the night before he died provided the drugs and should be arrested on drug charges in connection with Bria's death, Seeger said.

06/29/05 - News Clips - Developer charged in bank fraud

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:	Hoa Nguyen; Staff Writer

...Kissel allegedly would file a fraudulent document releasing him from a mortgage from one institution and then use that same property to seek a new loan from a different institution. One such property named in the complaint is 43 Burning Tree Road, where Kissel was building a nearly 8,000-square-foot residence....

...Kissel had agreed to invest in the horse riding and boarding facility on Riversville Road. According to the federal complaint, Kissel's $1 million investment came from a loan that was secured with the help of fraudulent mortgage release documents....

...Kissel's wife, Hayley Kissel, filed for divorce in March, according to [Philip Russell]. The couple also had taken in two children from his brother's marriage. Kissel's sister-in-law, Nancy Kissel, is on trial in Hong Kong for the murder of her husband, whom she allegedly fed a milkshake laced with sedatives before beating him to death, according to news reports...

Greenwich Real Estate News

Basic Instinct

from The Wall Street Journal

By LIONEL TIGER

They have an irrational enthusiasm for a rational model of human economic behavior, and therefore economists can coolly confuse apples with prickly pears and conclude that all asset classes are the same. Owning a house in which one lives and owning a thousand shares of last season's aerated dot-com are supposed to involve comparable economic decisions. If dot-com shares plummet because their companies do nothing anyone is willing to pay for, then that is fairly a bubble. But it's supposed to be a bubble, too, if housing prices rise persistently.

There are good reasons. The world is ever more efficient and produces more assets nearly everywhere which people want to use. Immigrants come to countries like this and want a deck and a rec room and work like a Dickens character to acquire them -- and house their relatives, too. There are now relatively few straightforward ways to earn generous interest and profits because current enterprise is more efficiently low-cost than ever and pricing is global. Some places like New York are discernibly more fun and intricate, and people like inhaling them whatever the ruckus and cost. Finally, people have to live somewhere -- it's a philosophically existential veterinarian obligation. They develop primitively firm affections about where they store their slippers and where the kids whoop when they surprise Dad.

Terms such as "housing bubble" are so self-evidently admonitory, and commentators so secure in their Deep Concern, that owners of modest castles of sheetrock now endure the fear that their prized irreplaceable haven is a birchbark canoe careening down a rocky rapids.

In his lively study, "The Mystery of Capital," Hernando De Soto shows how seemingly disorganized slums in poor countries maintain a precisely gauged metric of rights and obligations. People know their ground, stand their ground, and enjoy their ground. Mr. De Soto also advises to listen "for where the dogs bark," because that's where the boundaries are. Basic territoriality and allegiance thrive. The cumbersome legalism involved in securing a search warrant to ruffle through your bedroom reflects the severity of a home's importance.

The emotionality of a dwelling is primordial, economically wholly different from ownership of a stash in a Bermuda hedge fund or a tranche of a leveraged buyout or an ormolu desk at which Napoleon or de Villepin wrote poetry. The most popular recreation in America is gardening. People surround their houses with frilly plants and especially with lawns -- an astonishingly costly national extravagance. To an anthropologist's eye, lawns suggest a Paleolithic savannah-dweller eager to see fierce beasts and bad guys before they reach the front porch. And what else but emotionally nutritious satisfaction could induce an indolent and sanitized population to grub in mud for weeds and grin with pride at their perky thorny roses and their copious specimens of zucchini, the world's worst vegetable?

All assets are not the same.

Of course there are real issues in the housing market. The entrepreneurs who've problems placing their funds into profitable adventures have now created a host of new "products" (what a degraded use of the word) which permit marginal or intrepid borrowers to pay little or no principal on mortgages, adjust their interest rates, or put off a grown-up reckoning by postponing for years when they must repay principal at a higher rate of interest than they bought into. This may become a disaster about which neither borrower nor lender should have been so cavalier. But in a sense, no more a setback than paying rent and having to show for it only a notice about next year's 6% increase. Of course their income could rise too, as well as fall. There's always the real estate industry's Old Best Friend -- inflation. And to top or bottom it all off, the government subsidizes interest with a tax deduction. Housebubblers are using OPM -- Other People's Money.

However, there is no question many individual owners will be pained, evicted, wiped out, or in extended fiscal conniption. So may be their unduly experimental lenders who will have to mine for bread in a pile of stones. Some vain vendors have already had to reduce their colorful prices -- Jack Welch, Ozzy Osbourne, pick your starlet -- because buyers aren't wholly feckless. But again this is at the margins and in gossip columns. The broad flow of housing transactions offers countless people a decisively advantageous accomplishment of their life cycle. They root themselves in a place which is theirs and is illuminated with the clarity of genuine autonomy. The accidents are always too many and too poignant, especially among the buyers for investment (not shelter) -- who have made uncoerced adult choices.

Meanwhile the center holds. The national housing situation is a triumph overall. If other societies blow similar bubbles, too, it's not because they're foolish but because they have the itch for homes and the scratch for them as well.

Mr. Tiger, professor of anthropology at Rutgers, is author of "The Decline of Males" (St. Martin's, 2000).

06/03/05 - News Clips - Ban on motorists' phone use OK'd

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:

Tobin A. Coleman; Staff Writer

...Sen. William Nicker-son, R-Greenwich, said concerns raised by opponents do not stand up to scrutiny in the face of 36,000 annual deaths on the nation's highways, some traced to drivers distracted by using a cell phone. Nickerson said activities such as eating, combing one's hair or drinking from a can of soda are not the same...

...The bill was introduced on the floor by Sen. Biagio "Billy" Ciotto, D-Wethersfield, co-chairman of the joint Transportation Committee, who until this year was one of the bill's most ardent opponents. But he said his mind was changed this year due to the proliferation of cell phones, the coaxing of the bill's main sponsor, state Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, and statistics that suggest the ban would make streets safer...

...An amendment was defeated that would have also banned the use by drivers of other hand-held electronic devices, including Palm Pilots, text messaging devices, video games, laptops and DVD players. Ciotto told senators to vote against all five proposed amendments to keep from having to send the bill back to the House for another vote in the waning days of the legislative session. But he promised another bill soon will be used as a vehicle to consider most of them...

05/17/05 - News Clips - Paul's and Andrew's contribution

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:

Norma Bartol; Columnist

...When Andrew M. Kissel joined Paul Quirk as a partner of Epona Stables on Riversville Road, the horse community in Greenwich breathed a collective sigh of relief that another stable was not going down the drain along with old houses...

...From horses to dogs, and "a chance to howl and wine" with an evening of wine tasting, hors d'oeuvres, silent auction and raffle, that took place on May 13 at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club to benefit Adopt-a-Dog. Theresa Rogers was honorary chair, and Cynthia Ginter, Fiona Fahnestock-Roth, David Roth and Leona Levy were co-chairs....

...The committee included: Catherine and Jill Agonis, Jane Barr, Kelly Brennan, Samantha and Gene Cleaves, Kerrin Coyle, John Curran, Nina DeCecco, Judy Finch, Ellie Gerli, Brian Gordiski, Gilbert Herzberg, Ken and Rachel Hess, Meg Kelley, Donna Kozak, Catherine Ladnier, Tory Maiko, Ellie Mayer, Becky McCulloch, Cookie Murato, Donna and Fred Nives, Elsie Patrick, Claire Reed, Gary Silberberg and Sandy Strain....

04/18/05 - News Clips - Epona Stables becomes a place to date for TV show

Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:

Hoa Nguyen; Staff Writer

..."She watched as he showed his equestrian prowess," Epona Stables co-owner Paul Quirk, 43, of Greenwich, said last week, rolling his eyes as he recounted the scene....

...O'Connell got back on his horse, Vinkingo, and led him on a walk around the paddock. At one point, he gave Vinkingo a kick to get the horse into a canter, or a faster pace. That's when the perfect scene ran into a hiccup and O'Connell nearly fell off Vinkingo....

...On that day, Quirk was at Epona for hours helping to manage the horses and assist the crews setting up.In one scene, bales of hay were brought to the second-floor of a barn and lanterns were placed everywhere in preparation for the romantic dinner planned for the couple....

03/10/05 - News Clips - Bill to abolish death penalty advances Committee OKs measure by wide margin; full legislature to take up issue

Source: Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

...Among lower Fairfield County lawmakers on the committee, [Andrew McDonald] and state Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty. State Reps. Lawrence Cafero Jr., R- Norwalk and Claudia "Dolly" Powers, R-Greenwich, both voted to keep current law and retain the death penalty....

..."It is in fact, in my estimation, a harsher penalty for him to sit in prison, or rot in prison, for the rest of his natural life," McDonald said during debate. "He is choosing death. I don't think he should have that right." McDonald said [Michael Ross] should have to spend the next 30 or 40 years behind bars. "He doesn't want it. I think he should have it," McDonald said....

...Cafero, arguing that the death penalty should remain in place, said state residents have made it clear through polls and through their representatives over the years that they want "a rarely used, incredibly difficult to obtain death penalty, in only the most severe, most serious, heinous cases imaginable. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we have."...

12/24/08 Obituary

SARICA, JOHN A. SR., 75, of Greenwich, Conn., a winter resident of St. Petersburg, died Monday (Dec. 22, 2004) at Greenwich Hospital. He was born in Port Chester, N.Y. He retired in 1973 as a police officer for Greenwhich after 20 years of service. He also was the owner of A-1 Limousine in Greenwich for 20 years. He was an Army corporal in the Korean War. He was past president and a founding member of the Silver Shield Association. He was a member of the Sons of Italy in St. Petersburg and the Pasadena Yacht Club. He was an avid golfer. Survivors include his wife, Dee Dolly Sarica; a son, John A. Jr., Greenwich; two daughters, Roseann Sarica Benedict and Angela Carino, both of Riverside, Conn.; a sister, Rosemarie Angi, Somer, N.Y.; and seven grandchildren. Castiglione Funeral Home, Greenwich, Conn.

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12/12/04 - News Clips - Town riders are back in the saddle

Source: Greenwich Time - Greenwich, Conn.

Author:

Hoa Nguyen; Staff Writer

..."It's something I've become passionate about," said Andrew M. Kissel, a Greenwich resident who has a daughter who rides. The real estate developer is the newest investor in Epona Stables...

...A rink is handy during the winter, when inclement weather makes it harder to give riding lessons and work out horses. Lack of a covered rink hurt Epona in the past because it limited the days when the stable could operate, [Paul Quirk] said...

...Though there is a need for more stables in town, horse owners are finding ways to get by, said Jennifer Freedman, head of the 90-year- old Greenwich Riding and Trails Asso-ciation. She bought her house because it had a barn and a paddock...

11/06/04 - Havenmeyer Building Costs

In a five-page report, Andrew Ashforth, co-chief executive officer of the real estate firm The Ashforth Co., examined occupancy costs over a 10-year period and then subtracted the properties' residual value from those costs. Constructing a new building on the Havemeyer site would cost $4.4 million, while purchasing an existing 30,000-square-foot building in town would cost $5.5 million to $6.2 million, his report said. Ashforth estimated renovation costs for the Havemeyer Building at $8.9 million and calculated the cost of renting office space at $9 million over 10 years.

Full Story Greenwich Time

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10/30/04 - Police Blotter - Child Safety Alert

Occupants of the vehicle pulled alongside a soccer field at the Greenwich Civic Center at 90 Harding Road around 5 p.m. on a yesterday and asked a player to get in the vehicle, according to Lt. Daniel Allen, department spokesman.

10/28/04 - Happy Halloween - Water Prices Are Going Down

Water prices for residents of Greenwich and Darien will drop, while bills for other Fairfield County residents will stay the same after a rate increase by Aquarion Water Co. was rejected.

In a final decision issued yesterday afternoon, the state Department of Public Utility Control ordered Bridgeport-based Aquarion Water Co. to cut rates for the Greenwich division, which also serves Darien.