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Thursday, December 1, 2005 FBI may return to city

Worcester siting being explored

By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
lhammel@telegram.com



WORCESTER— The FBI has told the Worcester police it intends to move its Hudson office back to the city after a 12-year absence.

“They informed me they were moving back,” said Worcester Police Chief Gary J. Gemme.

He said an FBI official from the Boston office told him of the move during “a very positive meeting” two months ago in which a task force involving the city and the FBI was being discussed.

Worcester police agreed to assign a city police officer to the task force full time, Chief Gemme said.

The FBI did not confirm a planned move to the city, however. Asked whether the bureau is returning to Worcester, Boston FBI spokeswoman Gail A. Marcinkiewicz said, “There’s been no approval. There’s nothing in the foreseeable future.”

But others close to the situation confirmed that the FBI wants to return to Worcester. A number of steps would need to be taken for the FBI to return.

With the current FBI agency in Hudson in the 5th Congressional District and Worcester in the 3rd, Congress would have to approve moving the office from one district to another.

Additionally, a lease commitment lasting through November 2006 would have to be fulfilled, and office space would have to be found in this area.

The federal General Services Administration, which leases and buys property for federal agencies, is “working with the FBI on their space requirement” for the Central Massachusetts office, according to GSA spokeswoman Paula Santagelo. But she had no further details late yesterday.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Martin T. Meehan, D-Lowell, said the congressman’s office had not heard of any such move and would not comment on it.

For decades the FBI had an office with in Worcester, but in November 1993 it moved its approximately half-dozen agents to its current location at 131 Coolidge St., Hudson. In leaving its office in the Harold D. Donohue Federal Building and Courthouse to make way for renovation of that building into the full-time federal courthouse it is today, proximity to Interstate 495 was cited as one of the reasons for locating in Hudson.

The Hudson office, with five special agents, is one of 10 resident agencies that reports to the FBI’s Boston field office. The others are in Springfield, Lakeville, and Lowell in Massachusetts; Providence; Portsmouth and Bedford in New Hampshire; and Augusta, Bangor and Portland in Maine.

With a trend of increasing cooperation between the city and federal law enforcement, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Chief Gemme hailed the prospective move back to Worcester, the second largest city in Massachusetts.

“I think it would be very positive for the city of Worcester,” the chief said.

“We have a great working relationship with the DEA and ATF — and also the FBI. We’re working right now with the local office of the U.S. attorney so we really welcome them (FBI) coming back to the city of Worcester.

“We think that’s where they belong,” he said.

Last year, ATF shifted its Worcester field office to Springfield, leaving Worcester with a smaller satellite office. Before that, Springfield had the satellite office.

The city has a working relationship with ATF, but has not assigned an officer to work full time with that agency, Chief Gemme said.

In 1994, when Chief Gemme was a lieutenant, he attended an 11-week executive training session at the FBI academy in Quantico, Va.

“Developing relationships with state, federal and local law enforcement agencies — that’s the whole premise behind the academy,” he said.

He took that to heart, saying, “What we’re trying to do in the city is promote cooperative, collaborative working relationships. So we’re working closely with FBI, DEA, District Attorney John Conte,” as well as the U.S. attorney’s office, ATF, state parole authorities and people from the probation departments of Central District Court and Superior Court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and others.

He pointed to a street violence prevention group as well as a group that meets every two weeks to look at unsolved murders and shootings and active gang members.

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