Buddhists build retreat, bust goes awry, deaths rock community

BERNE — In Berne, Democrats retained their position of dominance in 2007 and residents continued their support of a senior housing complex to be built in the hamlet by developer Jeff Thomas.

In July, the town continued its traditional events with Family Day — formerly Berne Heritage Days — and its ninth annual Fox Creek Run, a 5-kilometer road race.

The close-knit town suffered the loss this year of a young man, Peter Kennedy, of suspected steroid-use, and of a community stalwart, farmer Harold Lendrum.

Retreat house opens

In January, the Tenzin Gyatso Institute for Wisdom and Compassion, a Buddhist center on Game Farm Road, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of its retreat house. Many residents and officials attended the open-house event.

The one-story shingled house holds seven bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, a living room, a meditation room with a skylight, a basement, and a kitchen accessible to those with handicaps; and has new flooring, carpet, cedar shake siding, fixtures, and appliances.

The retreat house serves as a home for Tibetan Buddhists wishing to escape the busyness of life and is just one phase of a much larger project. Additional buildings — retreat houses and a children’s center among them — are planned for completion in 2020.

The Tenzin Gyatso Institute was formerly called the Rigpa Center for Wisdom and Compassion. Rigpa closed on the purchase of the 350-acre parcel in July of 2004.

At the open house, Judith Brown, the institute’s executive director, presented Berne resident Helen Lounsbury with a $2,500 donation to the town’s library.
Brown called the library "a wonderful resource" that "deserves to be supported" and she said the donation was "a token to the community."

Library possibilities

In 2007, town officials, library staff, and library supporters continued to discuss relocating the town’s free library. The library, which has been housed in the town hall since 1969, is cramped for space. Officials and library supporters have discussed two locations — the town park on the outskirts of the Berne hamlet and the Berne Masonic Lodge located next to Town Hall.

Many committees — grant, finance, interior, and building — have worked on the relocation project.

The town, which supports the library, has set aside $165,000 in its capital projects fund for the library move. Part of the money — $50,000 — was raised from the sale of a fire station across the street from the town hall.

Raid leads to shooting

In September, Jeffrey Connery, an Albany City police officer was shot in the thumb while he and two deputies removed an estimated $50,000 to $100,000 of marijuana from vacant land.

According to John Burke, head of the sheriff’s department’s drug interdiction unit, investigators from the Albany County Sheriff’s Department and an Albany City Police officer went to a property in Berne to clear a crop of 108 marijuana plants.

Police had been to the property at least twice before, said Burke. The officers weren’t expecting to meet anybody, Burke said. Since police got a tip from the property owner about a year ago, nobody had been seen at the location, he said.

The property lies at the end of a long, muddy driveway in a labyrinth of gravel roads located in a state wildlife management area.

When police arrived there at about 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 6, Kevin O’Reilly, of Oak Hill (Greene County) was inside the only building on the Beaver Road land — a cabin with no water or electricity.
"When he realized he was under arrest, he bolted about 10 or 15 feet," Burke said. "He was tackled by two of the officers. Then his dog came out."
A roughly 100-pound mixed-breed dog latched onto Connery’s arm, said Albany City Police Chief James Tuffey. The animal wasn’t ordered to attack, Tuffey said, but "reacted."

Carman Frangella, a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, was doing most of the grunt work, removing plants from the ground, said Burke. Within seconds of the dog’s latching onto Connery’s arm, Frangella took another officer’s 40-caliber handgun and shot twice at the dog, he said. According to officials, one of the bullets passed through the dog and into Connery’s right hand.
"If you’re chopping and you’re going through with two machetes, you really don’t want a gun on your hip side," Burke said of why Frangella wasn’t carrying his own gun.

Connery was flown to Westchester Medical Center to see a hand specialist following the incident, said Tuffey. The dog died from the wounds.

O’Reilly was charged with three felonies — assault with intent to cause physical injury to an officer, third-degree burglary, and first-degree criminal possession of marijuana. He was also charged with two misdemeanors — resisting arrest and unlawfully growing cannibis.

O’Reilly is on parole until 2008, said Burke, and he’s had eight to 10 previous arrests, three to four of which were drug-related.
"It was a justifiable shooting and a tragic ending," said Burke. "But it could have been worse."

Elections

In a town where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 3 to 1, Democrats swept the assessor and town board races.

In a four-way race for two seats on the town board, Democratic incumbent James Hamilton was the top vote-getter with 576 votes in his re-election bid. Peter Vance, making his first run, received 487 votes. Republican candidates Rudy Stempel and Randy Rapp received 371 and 324 votes respectively.

The four town council members are all Democrats and the supervisor, Kevin Crosier, is an enrolled Democrat who was elected on the Republican ticket.
Crosier ran for a seat in the Albany County Legislature, forcing a September Democratic primary against incumbent Alexander "Sandy" Gordon, who has represented the Hilltowns of Berne, Knox, and Rensselaerville since 1996. Gordon won in a landslide as he received 613 votes and Crosier garnered 263 votes. Gordon kept his seat, defeating his Republican rival in the general election, in which Crosier received 260 votes.

Peter Kennedy dies at 27

In March, Peter Kennedy of East Berne died at the age of 27 of suspected steroid-use complications.
Kennedy’s mother, Barbara Kennedy, would not allow an autopsy and said she knew what happened. "It was the steroids because he was perfectly healthy," she said.

Peter Kennedy was hospitalized on March 2 after complaining about cold symptoms. He had difficulty breathing and was coughing, Barbara Kennedy said. Shortly after, X-rays were taken, which revealed he had fluid in his lungs. His heart was enlarged, she said, and his kidneys and lungs were failing. He was admitted to the hospital’s intensive-care unit, and went into an induced coma the morning of March 4.
After he went into the coma, she said, one of her son’s friends told her that, eight months ago, Peter had asked questions about steroids — "‘Where do you get them" Who can you get them from" And: How much do they cost"’"

Peter Kennedy’s sister, Jamie, then found eight bottles of steroids hidden in his room.
"I think my son abused them. He didn’t know...The bottles didn’t have directions...They were just bottles. Not getting them from a doctor, he didn’t know how to take them," Barbara Kennedy said. "Four of the bottles had labels that looked like they had been printed off of a computer."

Barbara Kennedy detailed the months leading up to her son’s death.

One year before he died, Peter Kennedy was arrested for driving while intoxicated and, shortly after, bought weight-training equipment and built a gym in the basement of their garage.
He kept a strict schedule, kept track of his training and progress, and "hardly ever missed a day," she said.
"He stuck right to that room three to four hours a day, and, because his friends were all out drinking and having fun, he had to find something to do," she said. "He used to be as thin as me," Barbara Kennedy said; Peter and his mother used to fit into the same pants. His friends, she said, often joked with him that his arms were the same size as hers.
"He got bigger and bigger," she said, "and eventually his clothes sizes changed."

After working out, he went to the refrigerator immediately upon entering the house.
"I just figured: He’s weight-lifting. He’s body-building. He’s working up an appetite. He’s not just sitting around being a couch potato," Barbara Kennedy said. "He started to look really good."

Both she and her daughter, Jamie, asked him whether he was taking steroids.
"He said he would never do steroids," Barbara Kennedy said. "He would say, ‘I hate needles.’"
In December, she said, her son was "always tired." When asked why he was tired, he would say, "I had a bad day," she said.
"There were signs all the way, but I didn’t see them," she said.

While Peter Kennedy was hospitalized and after he died, the community reached out to the family.

Barbara Kennedy said she had no money, and someone paid her gas bill at a local gas station; Dan Marshall, who owns Jersey’s, a local restaurant, brought food to her home; after her son’s funeral, everyone drank his favorite beer, Miller Lite, at the Maple Inn, an East Berne bar and restaurant; a spaghetti fund-raiser was held to pay his bills; and Peter Kennedy’s favorite band, Mid-Life Crisis, played in memoriam.

David Soares, the Albany County District Attorney, led a national investigation and narcotics raid, which involves the improper use of medical authority by licensed doctors and the sale of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs on the Internet.
"The DA has been helping me out phenomenally, saying they will catch whoever sold them," Barbara Kennedy said of the steroids. "They cannot guarantee it, but they’re doing their best."
"I’m looking to find out who sold [the steroids] to my son and put a stop to it so that no mother ever has to go through what I went through," she said.

Harold Lendrum dies at 78

Harold Lendrum, a farmer and environmentalist whose ancestors settled in Berne centuries ago, died in November. He was 78.

The Lendrum Farm was one of 11 honored as a 2006 Bicentennial Farm for over 200 of continuous family ownership at the New York State Agricultural Society’s 175th Annual Agricultural Forum, held in January.

Mr. Lendrum, the seventh generation to farm the land purchased by his ancestor, Jacob Weidman, had, until he died, continued to farm over 900 acres with his youngest son, Alan. He died after being kicked by a cow he had brought to auction.

Later in his life, Mr. Lendrum’s mission was to preserve farmland, said his son, Kenneth Lendrum.

Mr. Lendrum was a member of the Berne Conservation Board.
He cared about wetlands, trees, and green space, and he understood and liked people, said his son. He called his father "a solid pillar-of-the-earth person that you could build a community around."