ANTI-RAPIST SIGN NOW PRO-POT

Billboard Switch Irks Police Chief

WESTBORO- It wasn't the second act that Police Chief Alan R. Gordon had hoped
for.

Two weeks after a billboard on Route 9 that featured the composite sketch of a
serial rapist still at large was unveiled, the donated sign has been replaced
by an advertisement to legalize marijuana.

"I'm not real pleased," Chief Gordon said yesterday.

The new sign, part of a campaign by Greenfield-based Change the Climate Inc.,
advocates legalizing and taxing marijuana. The old sign will find a new home on
another part of Route 9.

Whereas the serial-rapist billboard had Westboro police information on it, the
new billboard includes photos of a firefighter and a police officer as examples
of local services it claims could be saved by legalizing and taxing the drug.

Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns the billboard and donated its use to the
Police Department in late August, said the sketch of the serial rapist will be
moved to another billboard on Route 9 that faces east just west of Otis Street
near the Northboro line.

"We had given it as a complete gratis until the board was sold, and then
relocated it," said Lois Catanzaro, director of public affairs for the local
Clear Channel Outdoor office in Stoneham.

Chief Gordon, who had thought the billboard was the Police Department's for as
long as it was needed, did not hear of the sketch being removed until
yesterday. It was taken down Monday, he said. Ms. Catanzaro said she called the
department yesterday.

Ms. Catanzaro said the department can use the new billboard for at least a
month.

Even before learning that the billboard would be moved, not replaced, Chief
Gordon said he was grateful for the weeks Clear Channel Outdoor already had
donated.

"They were generous enough to offer it to us," he said, adding that it
generated more tips for the police.

One man is believed responsible for four attacks between Aug. 6 and Aug. 16,
raping two women in their homes in Westboro and attacking two others at their
homes in Hopkinton and Framingham. No similar attacks have been reported since
then, and Chief Gordon said the billboard might have discouraged the rapist.

"I think it was pretty close to what the person looks like," he said. The
suspect might have recognized that his face was being publicized and that
police knew what he looks like, or the suspect's family may have recognized
him, Chief Gordon said. Police are still investigating the crimes, and a task
force created to look into the case met last week.