Editor:

Thank you very much to the Medina School District voters for your support! I am truly grateful for the opportunity to serve the community for another three-year term. I will continue to work for you to support a quality education for all of our students and I welcome your input at any time.

I would also like to thank Brian Koch and Renee Paser-Paull for their hard work on the Board. It has been a pleasure working with both of them.

Ann Webster Bunch

Medina

Editor:

Today is the day that, you will have the opportunity to vote for your school budget, library budget, busses and school board members.

I have met so many great people in this community, thank you for sharing your thoughts and concerns. I thank all of you for your encouragement, from putting a sign in your yard, or helping to get the word out. We have a great community filled with many voices, and we need to listen to those.

I have tried my best to serve you and the Albion School District for the last five years on the Board of Education. I would like to continue my service to our district and community. Having three children whom have all graduated from Albion, and having volunteered as well as a substituted in the district for about 22 years, I feel that combined experience, has made me a better board member.

Our students need excellent literacy, technology and people skills and we have an excellent opportunity to give them the tools they will need. Our district must identify career paths, job opportunities and prepare our students for them.

I believe in a strong community and school partnership, it is vital that we include community leaders and business owners to ask their thoughts and gain insights. Strong working relationships between administrators, staff and students.

Thank you, and please go out and vote!

Linda Weller

Albion

Editor:

My name is Margy Brown and I am seeking re-election to the Board of Education for the Albion Central School District. I reside in Waterport with my husband Eric, and our two sons, both of whom are students at Albion.

Professionally, I have a Master’s degree in Nursing and work as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and as an acute care nurse practitioner.

As a member of our small rural community, I seek re-election to the Albion School Board because I want to continue to be part of a team that provides the best possible educational opportunities available, while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Albion’s current budget represents the 10th time in the past 12 years the district has either held the line in taxes or reduced them.

The future is bright for Albion and full of many opportunities such as improvements in technology. The District rolled out a new website last fall, Arbiter Live for notification of sporting events, an emergency alert notification system to get important pieces of information out, and has added the school bucks program which was requested by parents to pay for their child’s lunches on line.

The District has a  strong focus on literacy to prepare our students for the future, and has recently added a new reading series in the elementary school as well as adding literacy programs throughout the District.

School safety is an absolute priority, and the District has taken steps to make our buildings safer, and continues to work closely with local law enforcement to ensure the  safety of our District.

The District’s mission of “Achievement, Character and Success for life” is my focus, and guides the direction of the District moving forward. The District is committed to continuous improvement, and I want to be a part of a Board that is passionate in making that happen.

I ask for your support and vote on Tuesday, May 15, from noon to 8 p.m. in conference room A at the Elementary School.

Margy Brown

Waterport

Editor:

Tuesday will be very exciting for the Medina Central School District. On this day, we voters are given the privilege of exercising our sacred franchise to vote for the candidate whom we feel will best represent our interests.

While all candidates who enter the political arena deserve our admiration, we believe it is our duty to carefully review each candidate’s experience, education, accomplishments in life, as well as what they have thus far bought to the MCSD as current board members. We hope everyone can agree that it is this information by which we, to at least some degree, determine what kind of mettle each candidate is made of.

Most folks by now have seen the signs and read the Budget Booklet featuring the candidates, as well as fliers Dr. Webster-Bunch has mailed school residents. Dr. Bunch has mailed these in an effort to introduce herself to the public, as well as to the many people who would attend MCSB meetings but are unable. These things are great information tools, but they tend to talk about the candidate in terms of their professional backgrounds, rather than who they are.

Please allow us to introduce you to Ann. She is the third generation of her family to reside in Medina. She feels her greatest accomplishments in life are not her professional accomplishments, but instead are those of being a devoted daughter, wife and mother.

She has been an excellent neighbor to all. For years we have watched as she and her son walk the family dogs in the evening. She takes every opportunity to learn and to teach, to the point that her young son can tell you more about varieties of trees, flowers, birds, wildlife and insects of every kind. She has also made him an expert on the planets, and he knows more about the canal than most of us who have lived on it.

As Professor at Brockport SUNY, she is available to students anytime of the day, including weekends, with questions regarding issues that will help to promote their education. I know this personally, as my nieces, as well as their friends, have reached out to her at her home on weekends for help and direction, which she graciously gives them.

When Doctor Bunch becomes committed to any project, she takes personal responsibility to see it to fruition. She has served the Medina Central School Board for six years, currently serving the end of her first year as vice president. She has a keen understanding of the budget, which she reviews with a watchful eye to detail, as well as a devotion to fiscal responsibility, while ensuring that the needs of the students as well as all the staff are met.

Thank you all so much for you time and attention in this matter.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Eileen Hare

Ann M. McElwee

Town of Ridgeway

Editor:

I recently read that New York was one of the states that has signed on to have our electoral delegates vote for the popular vote winner, nationally. While this may sound good on the surface, it seems to me to be a knee-jerk reaction to the last presidential election.

Does this mean the voters of New York, should they vote for the person who loses the popular vote nationally, will be ignored? Also, what happens when the national vote winner is someone who the voters of New York and the political party holding office all oppose?

This is just another example of the elitists in Albany taking power away from the citizens of this state and placing it in the hand of those few who believe they know what is best for us, since they are far more intelligent than we are.

The electoral college has worked for 200-plus years and I for one do not believe those people in Albany or Washington D.C. can, or will come up with a better process.

Ken Longer

Kendall

Editor:

All around the county people will be going to vote on school budgets on the 15th of May. Albany has been showering school districts with lavish amounts of our money while student enrollment is continuing to decline. Yet in many districts spending and taxes are going up. It seems like even though there is a tax cap and star program relief from the high taxes, it does not seem to be coming to fruition at our schools.

It’s time for the people who have not voted in a long time to get up off the couch and vote these budgets down. There are many new candidates running this year. We do not have to settle for the tax-and-spend group think. If your current incumbent school board member voted to raise taxes, then they do not deserve another term given the amounts of money in aid schools are given by the state and federal tax payers.

Apathy causes us all to suffer. State, county, town, village and school taxes are driving many of us to leave the state and for sure our children after they finish high school. I guarantee this is falling on deaf ears. All the school budgets will pass and the people responsible for your high taxes will stay on the job because you stayed home. Just my two cents. Taxed to death.

Paul Lauricella

Lyndonville

Editor:

Citizens for Shelby Preservation supports the Shelby Town Board in their efforts to protect the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. We support Local Law #5, the Wildlife Refuge Protection Overlay District for the following reasons:

• Zoning laws protect the rights of all citizens. If a property use negatively affects surrounding properties, it is incumbent on the town to write zoning laws to protect against this.

• Local Law #5 is minimal in its restrictions.

• Meetings were held by the Town to gain public input. Comments from residents were taken in to account when drafting the local law. For example, the board reduced the distance from the refuge for cell towers to accommodate resident concerns on cell coverage.

• Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge is a valuable asset to the town. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge supports approximately 266 species of birds, 42 species of mammals, along with a variety of other wildlife. It has had an active bald eagle nest since 1986.

Species of special concern that use the property include Short Eared Owl, Marsh Hawk, Black Tern, Black Ducks, Osprey, American woodcock, and Peregrine Falcons. This diversity of wildlife benefits the town in the form of tourism, fishing and hunting dollars.

The refuge provides benefits to local farmers who rent lands from the refuge, and the existence of a healthy swamp supports improved water quality downstream in Oak Orchard Creek. The town is correct in valuing the refuge as a long-term economic engine over short-term economic gains that might result from some of the uses prohibited by this local law.

The town also recognized that while the prohibited uses may result in some tax dollars, the town is unlikely to ever be adequately compensated for the environmental costs that are less easy to quantify, including damages to habitat and water quality, air pollution, noise pollution, and harm to existing infrastructure such as local roads and bridges.

• Hospitals, nursing homes and large hotels have large footprints, requiring large open areas of concrete and asphalt to support parking lots, helipads, etc. These uses would have the potential to alter the microclimates next to the refuge (through heat island effects) while also increasing pollution through increased traffic. These are not appropriate uses next to a refuge.

• The amended law allows small scale hospitality facilities that would not present the type of heavy traffic that a large-scale hotel operation could threaten the refuge.

• A cell tower placement at 2,000 feet from the refuge is as effective as placement closer to the refuge. Cell towers could serve as a flight hazard for the species that use the swamps as part of their migration route.

• The amended law supports farming and all current uses of the land. We believe farming is a compatible use with the wildlife refuge. Many migrating waterfowl use farmer’s fields as a stop-over during their migration.

• A stone quarry is not a compatible use next to the wildlife refuge.

We believe that local law #5 was properly presented and vetted by the citizens of our township. By passing this law, the Town Board has acted responsibly in protecting the quality of life within our community for the long-term. Our thanks again to the Shelby Town Board for their efforts to protect and preserve the southern half of our town’s rural, agricultural nature.

Sincerely,

Citizens for Shelby Preservation

Wendi and Tim Pencille

Ken and Shirley Printup

Sue and Henry Beamer

Fran and Diane Domoy

James and Eleanor Wittkopp Strickland

Debbie Taylor

Celeste Morien

Douglas H. Domedion and Jeffery D. Domedion

Brian McCarthy and Deborah White

Russell and Cheryl Cree

Tiffany Cree

Laverne and Doris Fuller

Sidney Cree

Lillian Schrader

Betty Grimes

Kelly Viterna

Ric and Karen Jones

Kevin Galk

Al Capurso

Dennis and Lorraine Davis

Meaghan Boice-Green

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Editor:

Ginny Kropf’s article “Medina Man… waiting for Transplant” explains the lack of organ donations from one man’s perspective. An excellent portrayal of the human costs from the transplant bottleneck.

To put it in a blunter terms: Nationally, New York State is lowest in donor percentage (excluding Puerto Rico).

In New York State, County Donor percentage is lowest in Orleans County. Lowest of the low!

Why?

I don’t know but civic leaders and educators could certainly increase awareness of this life-saving process.

David Drake

Medina

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Editor:

As an everyday reader of Orleans Hub it was a welcome sight when I found a story earlier this week with Ginny Kropf’s name attached to it. She is a welcome addition to the staff of The Hub.

I have enjoyed her articles and columns for many years in The Daily News. She has such a way to tell a story or write about an organization that is not seen much anymore. Her many years of reporting on local news and writing columns on human-interest stories have always been a good read. She is just another reason to check out the Hub everyday.

Pete Toenniessen

Albion

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Editor:

It is said that culture enriches a community, by making it a more attractive and interesting place to live. Culture encompasses music, drama, literature, and art. All of these components add color and liveliness to the life of the community. They add depth and broaden horizons.

Our local communities host many musical events throughout the year, through the schools, churches and Miss Amy’s Studio B. Our local schools produce fabulous plays and musicals.  Literature is abundantly available in our outstanding local libraries and the programs they offer.

But what has been missing is a venue to display artwork, particularly the artwork of the many artists in our area. An art gallery is a place where local artists can show their work to the public, a place where people can come to discover and enjoy art, and where they might even be inspired to try making art themselves. Art can be uplifting, art can enrich, art can foster creativity and imagination, art can be fun, art can be contagious!

To add the “art part” of culture to the community, Kim Martillotta-Muscarella will be re-opening the Art Gallery at 227 N Main, Albion, with an exhibit of her recent paintings. The opening reception is Friday, May 4, from 6 to 9 p.m. There is a full program of exhibits scheduled for the summer and fall, opening to the community on the First Friday of every month.

Connie Mosher

Albion