The mayor of West Springfield, Massachusetts doesn't like the prospect of a new charter school opening in his city because of the challenge it presents to public schools there. But he says he also finds possible ties to a Turkish cleric who has been accused by the Turkish government of trying to overthrow it "deeply concerning."
William Reichert, mayor of West Springfield, a city of about 28,000, is trying to rally opposition to the proposed new western branch of Hampden Charter School of Science, a charter school founded in 2009 in Chicopee, a city about five miles away.
The Massachusetts state trooper whose court-documented history of drug dealing and money laundering somehow eluded the Massachusetts State Police's own background checks has broken her silence.
Leigha Genduso, the 36-year-old K-9 state trooper who has been on leave ever since the Worcester-based blog Turtleboy Sports published leaked copies of her damning 2007 marijuana-trafficking testimony that ultimately sent an ex-boyfriend to jail, recently spoke to the Boston Globe, and according to the newspaper, claimed in her 2012 police academy application that she that she only "briefly" experimented with marijuana.
