Press Release, City of Batavia

Adam Rush

BATAVIA – The City of Batavia announces the appointment of Adam Rush as the City’s Director of Public Works.

Rush, a resident of Gaines in Orleans County, previously worked as the chief operator at the Village of Albion Water Treatment Plant.

Rush participated in the City of Batavia’s active recruitment and competitive search process and was identified as the top candidate for the position. He brings extensive municipal, public works, utility, and project management experience to the City.

His professional background includes service in the United States Navy, work as an operator at Western New York Energy, then the chief operator at Albion’s Water Treatment Plant, and, most recently, work as a project manager with Wendel Companies.

As Director of Public Works in Batavia, Rush will oversee the City’s public works operations and a significant portfolio of ongoing and planned capital projects. These include wastewater treatment plant upgrades, pump station improvements, water main replacements, the Richmond Avenue corridor street project, participation in the Genesee County Phase III Water Project, replacement of the City’s water storage tank, lead service line identification and replacement, and the Swan Street sidewalk project.

“Adam displayed a strong level of technical knowledge in both project management and public works throughout the interview process. Over the past two years, we have also had the opportunity to work with Adam on various wastewater and stormwater projects, so we have seen firsthand his ability to understand complex municipal infrastructure issues and move projects forward,” said City Manager Rachael J. Tabelski. “Adam is also a strong leader who can bring organizational change, greater efficiency, and new technology to the Department of Public Works while supporting and developing the talented staff already working for the City.”

Rush has worked with and on behalf of numerous municipalities throughout Upstate New York on water, wastewater, building, drainage, infrastructure, and capital planning projects. He also has experience with grant development, strategic planning, and project delivery, assisting municipal clients in obtaining more than $30 million in grant funding over the past two years.

Rush’s leadership philosophy centers on effective communication, accountability, and continuous improvement. He is committed to working closely with City employees, residents, elected officials, municipal partners, consultants, and other stakeholders to ensure that the Department of Public Works continues to provide reliable services while advancing the City’s long-term infrastructure and capital improvement goals.

“I am excited for the opportunity to join the City of Batavia and work alongside the dedicated employees of the Department of Public Works,” said Rush. “I look forward to building on the department’s strengths, supporting our staff, improving the way we deliver services, and working collaboratively to advance the many important infrastructure projects underway throughout the City.”

Rush holds an Associate of Science degree in Wildlife Conservation and a Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Provided photos

Two recently graduated seniors from Orleans County have been awarded $1,500 scholarships from the Orleans County Farm Bureau.

In the photo at left, Nathan Woodworth is shown receiving his high school diploma from Lyndonville High School Principal Dr. Aaron Slack.

In the photo at right, Madison Farley of Medina is shown with district superintendent Dr. Mark Kruzynski at left and High School Principal Michael Cavanagh.

Woodworth is a 2026 graduate of Lyndonville. He plans to continue his family’s proud agricultural legacy by working on his family farm as well as working with and learning from other Orleans County farm operations.

Farley is a 2026 Medina graduate. She was very active in FFA throughout high school. She will be attending the University of Buffalo with plans to attend law school with a focus on environmental law.

In addition Nathan and Madison will receive a complimentary Orleans County Farm Bureau membership and an invitation to speak at the organization’s annual meeting.

Town leader kept out turbines, added large park by Lake Ontario

Photos by Tom Rivers: Yates Town Supervisor Jim Simon is shown near his office after Thursday’s Town Board meeting. Simon has been the town supervisor for nearly 11 years.

YATES – Jim Simon pulled off a shocking upset 11 years again when he was elected Yates town supervisor through a write-in campaign.

He had the backing of voters in an effort to fight wind turbines proposed for Yates and Somerset. Simon and two towns ultimately were successful in keeping out that project.

He would continue as town supervisor, and led the town’s effort to create a new $2.5 million park by the lakeshore. That project was 95 percent funded by the state.

Simon, 66, will be retiring as town supervisor after Dec. 31. He isn’t seeking re-election. Current councilwoman Sue Hrovat has the Republican endorsement as town supervisor and won’t see any opposition on the ballot.

“I’m thinking 11 years is enough,” Simon said after Thursday’s Town Board meeting. “The board and the town are in a really good position.”

Simon, his wife Paula and their family moved to the Yates community when he was hired as associate dean of the GCC campus centers in Albion and Medina. When he retired from that job, he worked as a headmaster of a Catholic high school in Buffalo.

Simon also retired from that full-time job. He is looking forward to be fully retired to have more time for his family and other community service.

He has seven grandchildren with two more on the way. He and his wife also lead the food pantry based at the Presbyterian Church in Lyndonville. He is an active member at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Medina (the Holy Trinity Parish).

Before his term ends, Simon said he wants to approve a local law for short-term rentals (Airbnbs and Vrbos) in the town.

He also wants to reach an agreement with the county that gives the town a significant boost for plowing and mowing county roads.

Yates, Ridgeway and Shelby also are negotiating with the Village of Medina about a new ambulance contract. Each town has contributed $35,000 towards the ambulance service, but the village wants more. Medina officials are asking for $135,000 each from the three towns in a new contract that starts 2027.

Simon said he wants to reach an agreement before his term ends, but not with Yates paying $135,000 a year. He also has talked with Mercy Flight EMS about providing ambulance services in Yates.

Yates Town Supervisor Jim Simon speaks during a Sept. 24, 2022 ribbon cutting for upgrades at the Yates Town Park. Simon announced that day the new pavilion at the park would be dedicated in honor of Russ Martino, the retired town supervisor and elementary school principal.

The $2.5 million park upgrades include a 75-foot-long pier, a pavilion with bathrooms, new playground equipment, a kayak launch, a crusher-run walking trail, and new parking lot with sidewalks.

The project was 95 percent funded by the state, which made $300 million available to southshore communities  through the state’s Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative or REDI. That was in response to historic flooding along the shore in 2017 and 2019. That flooding destroyed part of the shoreline at the Yates park and the town used a separate $400,000 grant from the state to put in a massive breakwall.

The park upgrades included a new elevated platform or pier that extends out into Lake Ontario.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Employees from Easton Specialties Inc. in Honeoye Falls put new slate on the roof of Mount Albion Chapel on Thursday afternoon.

The chapel from 1875 is getting a new roof as part of a $225,000 overall restoration of the building.

Local mason Neal Muscarella last year repaired and repointed the chapel’s entire exterior.  The most extensive damage was in the northwest section.  Muscarella has worked on several projects at Mount Albion over the years, including the Civil War memorial tower, the front sign, and the pond at the western side that is memorial to firefighters.

Before Easton Specialties started putting on the new slat, The Environmental Construction Group in Albion abated asbestos from the tar along the edges of the roof.

Easton also has rebuilt the northwest corner’s rafters and repaired the roof deck in spots where it has failed over the years. The company installed an ice and water shield, a copper drip edge and flashings, and now are nearly  done with the new Vermont slate with colors and in a pattern that are a perfect match to the original 1875 slate.

 There is still a lot to do inside the chapel. The overall $225,000 project includes interior replaster of the north wall; electrical upgrades (wiring, outlets, internal and external lighting); heating unit for seasonal use; repair of plaster and vaulted ceiling; removal of old floor, repair subfloor and put in a new floor; and refurbish exterior doors and window trim.

Photo of Deirdre O’Mahony by Margaret O’Brien Moran

MEDINA – The feature event of the Medina Triennial this Saturday will be a talk and screening with renowned Irish artist Deirdre O’Mahony.

At 4 p.m. Saturday at the Medina Hub headquarters on North Main Street, a special screening of “The Quickening” will be followed by a conversation with O’Mahoney, who is not only an Irish artist, but a farmer.

This event will offer residents, particularly farmers, and others involved in agriculture and food production, an opportunity to discuss the pressures facing farming communities.

O’Mahoney’s visit to the United States is supported by Culture Ireland (the Irish government). This is significant, according to Medina Triennial co-curator Kari Conte, because she is one of Ireland’s leading artists and this is her first public lecture and screening ever in the United States.

Although “The Quickening” is rooted in rural Ireland, the issues it raises are immediately relevant to Medina and Orleans County, Conte said.

Medina is surrounded by some of New York state’s most productive farmland. Local farmers face many of the same pressures explored in the film – volatile markers, rising production costs, changing regulations, extreme weather, soil health, food security and expectations that farmers alone should address broader environmental problems.

As both an artist and a farmer, O’Mahoney’s perspective is grounded in direct experience of rural life, and in more than three decades of working with farmers, food producers, scientists, policymakers and rural communities.

A central question of the program is “What are farmers being asked to sustain, and how can responsibility for the future of food and land be shared across society?”

The discussion may be especially meaningful for local farmers because it acknowledges that agricultural knowledge is not only scientific or institutional. It is also built through generations of observation, labor, adaption and lived experience.

“The Quickening” is a 35-minute film completed in 2024. It is currently on view at Mustang City (the former Medina High School).

This project grew from two communal meals, called “Sustainment Experiments,” which O’Mahoney organized in Ireland in 2022 and 2023, in which farmers, food producers, scientists, food-business owners, politicians and policymakers gathered around the table to speak openly about farming and food production.

Their conversations became the basis for the film’s libretto, developed by O’Mahoney with writer Joanna Walsh.  The resulting work brings together documentary imagery, spoken and sung language, original music, animal sounds and the movements of insects and organisms within the soil.  The work also emphasizes the often-invisible organisms that make agriculture possible, including bacteria, fungi, earthworms, insets and dung beetles.

Rather than treating farmers as either the cause of environmental problems or the sole agents responsible for solving them, O’Mahoney’s “The Quickening” asks how the responsibility for sustaining soil, food systems and rural life can be shared by everyone who depends upon them.

Blakeman gaining on Hochul in latest poll

Bruce Blakeman

Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor, will be making several stops in Orleans, Genesee and Wyoming counties on Sunday.

The Nassau County executive has narrowed the gap with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who still holds a 10 percentage point lead, according to a Siena Poll released Wednesday. Hochul has the edge, 49 to 39 percent, among likely gubernatorial voters. But Blakeman is cutting into Hochul’s lead. In a June poll, he trailed 52 to 32 percent among registered voters.

Blakeman will join Assemblyman Steve Hawley in four stops on Sunday. They will first be at a “Ride for the Blue” event in Murray. Blakeman will be among the speakers beginning at 1 p.m. at an event that starts at David Paul’s property in Murray at 3823 County Line Rd.

Other speakers include Hawley, State Sen. Rob Ortt, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney and Sheriff Chris Bourke.

The Ride for the Blue starts at 2:15 p.m. goes from Countyline Road south to Route 31 and then heads west to Medina, then goes north on Route 63 to Ridgeway, then east on Route 104 back to Murray, and then south sown County Line Road.

The ride order include a Orleans County Sheriff’s patrol car, the Murray Joint Fire District, all motorcycles, remaining fire trucks, vintage cars and trucks, everybody else, and then all big trucks and dump trucks.

After the speeches at the Ride for the Blue, Blakeman will be at the Orleans County Republican Party picnic at 2 p.m. at the Clarendon Historical Society, 16426 Route 31A in Clarendon.

After that he is headed with Hawley to Batavia for an event from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. at the AG Education Center & Museum, 5030 East Main Street Rd.

Blakeman then goes to Pike at 5:30 p.m. for the Wyoming County Fair.

Mayor says selling the park to a business could be better use for site

Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The Albion Village Board discussed the Santa statue and other Santa-themed items at Waterman Park during the board meeting on Wednesday. The board wonders if it makes more sense to move the statue and other elements about a block south to village-owned green space by the Presbyterian Church.

Perhaps the statue could be part of a space with a Santa House or gazebo, Village Board members said.

Mayor Tim McMurray and Deputy Mayor Greg Bennett said it may be a better asset for the village to sell the pocket park at Waterman, where it could be used for pop-up businesses or other purposes by a business.

The subject was brought up as part of a discussion about different parks in the village. Bennett acknowledged that many community members have worked hard at the site over the past decade or so.

The Albion Rotary Club spearheaded the 24-foot-long mural in 2018 that was painted by artist Stacey Kirby Steward. That mural shows a Santa in a sleigh over the Courthouse Square and downtown Albion. The mural is mounted on a steel frame at the park that is a half block south of the Erie Canal.

The mural honors Albion’s history as home to the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School from 1937 to 1966. Howard also ran Christmas Park in Albion. Mr. Howard passed away in 1966. The Santa School continues in his name in Midland, Michigan.

The bronze statue of Santa was dedicated on June 10, 2023. It followed an $80,000-fundraising effort by the Albion Betterment Committee that took nearly a decade.

The spot by the Presbyterian Church was considered for the bronze statue, but bronze statue artists thought the statue would be dwarfed being next to the church, which is 175 feet tall. The artists thought the statue would look very small to passersby if it was placed next to the church.

They liked the spot at Waterman where people can walk by close to the statue, which is closer to the street so it doesn’t seem so small to people passing by.

During the statue dedication, many of Howard’s grandchildren and other family descendants attended the event which was held on a Saturday during the Strawberry Festival.

Charles Bergeman, Howard’s grandson, attended the event in 2023. He passed away later than year in October due to cancer. A sleigh was dedicated in Bergeman’s honor this past May. The sleigh was refurbished by Jim Babcock, a local contractor who is on the Betterment Committee’s board of directors.

The Betterment Committee is now working to develop a Santa School museum and visitor center almost across the street from Waterman Park.

MEDINA – New York Lottery is reporting that a winning $50,000 Powerball ticket was sold at the Crosby’s in Medina for Wednesday night’s drawing.

It was one of five third-prize-winning tickets were sold for the Aug. 12 Powerball drawing. Besides the Medina ticket, there were three purchased at 1619 SRS in Brooklyn and one at Millenium Smoke and News in Manhattan.

All five winners were worth $50,000.

The winning numbers for the Powerball game are drawn from a field of one to 69. The red Power Ball is drawn from a separate field of one to 26. The Powerball drawing is televised every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Beaver Alley in downtown Albion is a one-lane street of Medina Sandstone pavers.

The Village Board is considering closing vehicular traffic to the street and allowing the site to be used for pedestrians and events, including concerts, a farm market and other community activities.

The sandstone pavers are pictured with a dusting of snow. The street is hard on the village’s plowing equipment.

The board wants to hear from the public about the idea during the Aug. 26 board meeting that begins at 7 p.m. at the Village Hall.

Mayor Tim McMurray said bollards could be put at each end of the alley to keep out cars and trucks. He said the alley, if made more inviting with lights and signage, could be a popular spot for events, providing a boost to the downtown business district.

McMurray said the pavers may need to be reset to be a smoother surface for pedestrians. Weeds also sprout up between the blocks. Herbicides are typically sprayed to battle the weeds.

The street was paved until 2003. When the Pike Company in Rochester, a contractor for the state Department of Transportation, tore up routes 31 and 98 in Albion about two decades ago, there were sandstone pavers under the roads.

Ed Salvatore was the Albion mayor at the time and he negotiated having the Pike Company put 5,500 of the pavers in Beaver Alley. Salvatore said the Medina sandstone blocks provided a sharp contrast between the new style of road construction on Main Street with the style from a century earlier. He also wanted to preserve some local sandstone history and add another element to historic downtown.

Before asphalt and concrete, many of the streets were made of cut Medina sandstone blocks. Salvatore wanted Beaver Alley, a short one-lane street, to resemble a street from the late 1800s.

There have been complaints the street is bumpy and hard to drive on. The DPW says the pavers also damage snow plows.

Village officials envision the site as a possible entertainment area like Jackson Square in the City of Batavia, which hosts a popular concert series.

Project eyed for former fairgrounds site at west end of Washington Street and West State Street

The village zoning map shows the area in green between Washington and West State streets that is currently zoned for Mobile Home Park. It would need to be changed to R-C (Residential/Offices/Limited Business) to allow for a housing project.

ALBION – Land formerly used a horse racing track and the fairgrounds in Albion is being eyed for a 70-unit housing project in Albion.

The zoning for the land in the late 1990s was changed to a “Mobile Home Park” classification to allow for manufactured homes, but that project didn’t happen. The site at the west end of West State Street and Washington streets has remained vacant since.

CDS Monarch sees demand for housing in Albion and Orleans County. The company wants to develop 13.5 acres into a 70-unit housing project with 30 units for seniors and veterans, and the other 40 units for working families.

CDS is based in Webster. It has developed projects in Buffalo, Rochester, Elmira, Endicott and Cicero.

Michael Lill, project associate for CDS, said the company wants to build 8-unit flat level buildings. The company would like to have businesses on site as well, including a pharmacy.

The housing would not be Section 8 or for people in drug rehab, he said.

CDS said Orleans County faces an out-migration of residents, with a shortage of housing a factor in the exodus.

The Albion Village Board held a public hearing on the zoning change on Wednesday. An attorney for ARG spoke against the change, saying putting more housing in the area by ARG may not be the best fit for that area which also includes the village’s DPW facility and the Albion Correctional Facility. The attorney suggested the zoning be changed to light industrial.

The attorney also said the village had the wrong tax map information about the parcels to be rezoned as part of the public notice.

Village Clerk/Treasurer Tracy Van Skiver acknowledged there had been a typographical error on one of the parcels. It was corrected about a week ago on the village website and Facebook page. The Village Board adjourned the public hearing until 7 p.m. on Aug. 26 to ensure it meets the public notice required for the zoning change.

The village sent the zoning change to the Orleans County Planning Board for its input but the board didn’t meet last month due to insufficient items. That board’s decision won’t be required due to the board not meeting, Mayor Tim McMurray said.

He sees the project as a positive for the village and Orleans County, bringing in new investment and housing opportunities. The community has experienced increased homelessness, McMurray said, and the state is trying to increase housing opportunities for people of all backgrounds.

CDS said it will present a detailed site plan for the project if the zoning change is approved. That site plan would then be subject to review by the Village Planning Board and code enforcement officer.

CDS said it has completed a phase 1 environmental impact study and also a wetlands delineation for the site.