The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm watch from 8:15 p.m. until midnight tonight for Orleans and nine other Western New York counties, including Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara and Wyoming.
ALBION – Orleans County was assigned an A1 rating by Moody’s Investors Service, and that positive rating helped the county secure a 20-year bond for $8.03 million at a 2.81 percent rate.
The county is borrowing the money to replace bridges, culverts, roofs and other infrastructure work. Depository Trust submitted the lowest borrowing rate of five bidders. Depository has bought other county bonds before, said County Treasurer Susan Heard.
She said the county has held a high rating by Moody’s in recent decades, which has resulted in low-financing rates for county projects.
Moody’s said the county has a stable $1.7 billion tax base, showing modest growth of about 1.0 percent annually the past five years.
“The county’s financial position should remain satisfactory given conservative budgeting and the recent sale of the nursing home,” according to the Moody’s report.
Moody’s also said the recent sale of the county-owned nursing home for $7.8 million will allow the county to pay off $7.1 million owed for that facility’s debt. Selling the nursing home also eliminates the potential for county subsidies for the facility. The county had to take $900,000 from the general fund to cover budget shortfalls at the nursing home in 2013, Moody’s said.
The county has a “manageable debt level” and average reserve levels, Moody’s said. The county’s rate could go down if reserves are depleted. The rate could be improved with bigger reserves and significant tax base growth.
Moody’s said the county is challenged by “below average wealth indicators” in the community.
The $8.03 million bond will provide $4,963,000 to replace six bridges from 2015 to 2017. Those bridges include two in 2015: a bridge from 1934 over Beardsley Creek on Waterport-Carlton Road in Carlton, and a bridge from 1968 in Barre over Manning Muckland Creek on Oak Orchard Road.
Other bridges to follow include one from 1959 in Kendall on Carton Road over Sandy Creek, a bridge from 1936 in Ridgeway over Fish Creek on East Scott Road, one from 1928 in Ridgeway over Fish Creek on Culvert Road, and a bridge from 1956 in Kendall over Sandy Creek on Norway Road.
The county also plans to replace six culverts for $1,500,000. Those culverts are identified as two on Knowlesville Road in Ridgeway, two on Platten Road in Yates, and two on South Holley Road in Clarendon.
The infrastructure investment plan also includes $1,540,000 in work at county buildings, including two new pole barns for $460,000. Those 60-by-150 foot barns are estimated to cost $230,000 each. One would be used by the highway department and the other by emergency management.
The county also wants to replace the roofs on the County Administration Building and the Public Safety Building, with each at an estimated $510,000.
The remaining project includes a generator for the mental health building for $60,000. That generator will service a new hub for county information technology infrastructure.
Photos by Tom Rivers – Andrew Meier is pictured inside the second floor of the Robert H. Newell Building, which is now home to the law offices of Webster, Schubel and Meier. The building’s reuse and preservation is one of several reasons why Meier was awarded a “Heritage Hero” award on April 25 by Genesee Community College.
MEDINA – It was 2004 and Andrew Meier had a new law degree from Syracuse University after earning his bachelor’s at the University of Rochester.
Meier was 24 then and many of his law school friends settled into jobs at law firms in the big cities.
Meier returned to his hometown, working with David Schubel and Norris Webster at their law firm on Main Street. Meier bought a house in Middleport, renovated it and sold it.
He liked that challenge, of bringing life back into an old building.
“I love architecture and I really love old buildings,” Meier said.
The Robert H. Newell Building is now home to several different businesses and uses.
Meier had long admired the Robert H. Newell Building at 113 West Center St. The building for 86 years was home to the Robert H. Newell Shirt Factory, which manufactured custom-made shirts, including for many famous customers, including Winston Churchill and Bob Hope.
The Newell company left the historic building in 2004 and moved to Maple Ridge Road. The business closed in 2007.
The Village of Medina acquired the building after years of unpaid taxes. The three-story site had been neglected and was in disrepair. It was put up for sale in 2005, and Meier bought it. He was 25 at the time.
“It had great bones and potential,” Meier said about the building. “I knew the risks going in. It was an opportunity that came up that I could not pass up.”
He set about the task of methodically renovating and preserving the 14,000-square-foot building that opened in 1876, a site that was a hotel for its first 14 years before it becoming the Newell building.
Meier is pictured at the check-in for the Hart House, a hotel with four rooms plus two lofts for extended stays.
Meier first worked on preparing the Shirt Factory Café in part of the first floor. That business opened in September 2006 after 18 months of renovations.
Meier believed the café fit in nicely with the Newell building, given its close proximity to the Post Office and other downtown sites that are popular with the public.
“I thought it was a quality of life issue and the type of business the community needed,” Meier said. “I thought it would thrive off existing foot traffic and hopefully generate some new foot traffic.”
The café remains in operation today, with Richard Sarrero now owning and running the Shirt Factory.
Bryan DeGraw, back left, talks about mead with people on the Ale in Autumn tasting event in September in Medina. 810 Meadworks is owned by Bryan and Larissa DeGraw and their friend Morris Babcock.
While Meier was working on the space for the Shirt Factory, a yarn store and barbershop moved into storefronts at the building. Meier knew it would take many tenants, with different types of businesses, to make the building viable.
He envisioned the second floor for professional offices and he found a tenant in the law offices of Webster, Schubel and Meier. The attorneys would move from Main Street to the second floor of the Newell building.
For the third floor, Meier wanted to honor the building’s original use as a hotel. He would create the Hart House with four hotel rooms and two extended stay loft apartments. The Hart House opened in 2012. Meier owns that business which is managed by Kyle Zunner.
The building has space in the back that has hosted outdoor concerts as part of the Boiler 54 performance venue.
Dave Kimball and Dee Adams perform in August 2013 at the Boiler 54 in the back of the former R.H. Newell Shirt Factory.
“That space is one of the most awesome outdoor venues anywhere,” Meier said. “I love it.”
When the barber in the building retired last year, a meadery serving alcohol moved in. 810 Meadworks has proven a draw for people who like alcoholic drinks made by fermenting honey with water and often fruits, spices, grains and hops.
Cindy Robinson, president of the Medina Business Association, marvels at Meier’s transformation for a building that was empty a decade ago.
“He is a visionary on what’s doable in a small town,” Robinson said. “He knew it would take an eclectic mix.”
Robinson owns two historic building on Main Street. Both have been full of surprises, the same with most older historic structures, she said.
“You don’t know what’s under the dropped ceilings and the plasterboard,” she said.
Meier showed faith in the community when he invested in the Newell site, and Robinson believes that example encouraged others to take a chance on Medina, and has been a big part of the downtown revitalization the past decade.
“He was one of the original risk takers,” Robinson said. “He has been a catalyst for the downtown.”
Civil War re-enactors march down Main Street in Medina in April 2013, when the Main Street was closed to traffic for the parade. Meier and village officials have supported many heritage efforts and community projects.
Meier would join the Village Board in 2008 when he was elected as a trustee. He became mayor in 2011. He worries about neighborhood decline and rising tax rates for the Medina community. He pushed for a dissolution of the village, which failed in the public referendum in January.
“Being mayor and serving on the Village Board is a thankless job,” Robinson said. “You do it out of your hearts and your concern for the community.”
As mayor, Meier has been receptive to heritage projects in the community, most notably Genesee Community College’s Civil War Encampments the past three years. Medina closed sections of Main Street to traffic for re-enactment programs and parades.
He is active with the Orleans Renaissance Group and its effort to bring back Bent’s Hall, a three-story structure on Main Street that includes an opera house.
Meier plays the church organ at Trinity Lutheran Church and the Presbyterian Church. He heard about a Cincinnati church, Christ Episcopal Cathedral, that was dismantling an 1968 Holtkamp pipe organ with 1,800 pipes. Meier helped orchestrate bringing that organ to Trinity Lutheran, replacing a much smaller one. The relocated organ debuted on Easter.
Some of the pipes in a Holtkamp pipe organ at Trinity Lutheran Church are pictured in March while the organ was put together inside the Medina church. The organ was moved from Cincinnati.
Meier said he’s grateful to see so many people working on projects in the community, preserving the downtown and promoting many other heritage initiatives, efforts that set Medina apart.
“We got it and few other places do,” Meier about the community’s historical assets. “If you look at Buffalo, Buffalo is on a huge economic upswing right now, and it’s not because of a huge amount of new employment or because Buffalo’s economy has fundamentally changed. It’s because Buffalo has given new life to historic districts and marketing. People want to come to Buffalo. The tourism market is so much stronger in Buffalo right now because of all the preservation activities going on.”
Preservation can draw tourists, and investment, Meier said, and preservation is also the “highest form of green building out there. Building a new building requires harvesting new resources from the Earth whereas preservation is already using those resources that have been harvested and reusing them. The carbon footprint for preservation is very small compared to new builds.”
One of the rooms in the Hart House includes a picture of Bob Hope, one of the prominent customers of the former Newell company.
The older buildings are also “an art form,” Meier said.
“They will stand for centuries if water is kept from them and they are simply maintained,” he said.
Bent’s hosted wine-tastings in its basement
In regards to Bent’s, Meier said many people are working on a plan to revive the building.
“There are people toiling everyday to bring that project to life and it will come to life,” he said. “It takes a few with the vision to see the potential, and we have those people here. That project could be a real turning point for the village and put us on the same trajectory of what Buffalo is seeing now. It will be a venue unlike anywhere else.”
The Tree Board, Medina Business Association, Orleans Renaissance Group, Medina Sandstone Society and many other groups and citizens are working to better Medina.
“As a village we’ve embraced participation from the community to get projects off the ground, and let them have ownership of them,” Meier said. “There are so many people doing so many things around here.”
Press Release, Orleans United Drug Free Communities Coalition
Increasing public awareness of substance abuse and mental health issues are at the forefront of National Prevention Week.
The awareness week is held each year in May, near the start of summer, when families try to fit in as many celebrations and recreational activities as possible. It’s also a time when substance use and abuse can happen, such as graduation parties, proms, weddings, sporting events, and outdoor activities.
The percentages of marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol initiates among youth increase between spring and summer, and the timing of National Prevention Week helps to educate young people and their families at this crucial time of year. Each of us can make a difference in our community, starting with the choices we make every day. These choices are important for our health and our future, and they also affect the lives of people in our community.
Orleans United Drug Free Communities Coalition was selected by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to receive a $500 stipend to support a National Prevention Week event from May 11-16.
Pat Crowley, project director for the coalition, noted that each day they have selected a suggested health topic that will be highlighted in the lobby at Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism & Substance Abuse (GCASA) at 249 East Ave., Albion.
“We will have information available on the prevention of tobacco use, underage drinking and alcohol abuse, opioid and prescription drug abuse, illicit drug use, prevention of suicide as well as promotion of mental health and wellness,” she said.
GCASA will finish off the week with a Free Wellness Walk/Run beginning at 2 p.m. on Saturday in the community room at GCASA’s Albion office. The Albion Running Club and Orleans United are co-sponsoring the Wellness Walk/Run.
The first 40 people to register on the event day receive a free T-shirt and everyone that registers and participates will have a chance to win an Apple I-Pod. Contact Pat Crowley for more information at pcrowley@gcasa.org or call 585-331-8732. Join us in spreading the message that prevention works.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Maggie Roberts is pictured with a hanging basket and other flowers in a greenhouse that opened last year at Roberts Farm Market on Maple Ridge Road.
MEDINA It was about 40 years ago when Joan and Ginny Roberts started a roadside stand on Maple Ridge Road. Like a lot of farm families, they wanted to sell some produce directly to consumers.
The family had success with the stand, so much that they started a farm market down the road. Roberts Farm Market has been growing steadily since then. Last year Roberts added a new greenhouse. Three years ago they remodeled the market and expanded its apple cider operation.
The family has also started an annual benefit for the Alzheimer’s Association. It sold hot dogs, chips and soda last weekend, with basket raffles that generated $1,500 for the Alzheimer’s Association. That topped the $1,380 raised in 2014 for the debut benefit.
Maggie Roberts and her husband Gary run the market and have pushed the recent renovations. Mr. Roberts makes the cider for the Roberts farm market and several other farms in the region.
Mrs. Roberts manages the growing garden center. They have four full-time and one part-time employee at the site, which is open from April 1 to Dec. 23, as well as on Tuesdays during the winter for the apple cider customers.
The new greenhouse, at 64 by 96 feet, has ventilation in both sides and vents in the roof peaks. It has an irrigation system that feeds the plants water and fertilizer.
“That has been marvelous,” said Mrs. Roberts. “Before it would take forever to water them by hand.”
The greenhouse also has a heater that is often turned on at night. The greenhouse, with all of its features, has kept the 500 hanging baskets and other flowers looking lush.
The market is next to a U-Pick orchard and those fruit trees were starting to bloom last week.
Mrs. Roberts said the family appreciates the community’s support, since the early days of the roadside stand to the more recent renovations and expansion.
Photos by Tom Rivers – One of the barns at Forrestel, a horse-riding camp at 11380 Main St. in Shelby, is pictured this afternoon.
The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for Orleans and other western and central New York counties for this evening and tonight, with thunderstorms expected to roll through the area.
“Some storms may contain heavy rainfall which could lead to localized flooding,” the Weather Service advised.
After a week with temperatures in the 80s, the mercury will drop this week. Monday is forecast for a high of 78 followed by a high of 73 on Tuesday.
The Weather Service says an Arctic airmass will arrive Tuesday into Wednesday with the potential for the temperatures to dip into the 30s on Wednesday. Frost may develop, according to the Weather Service.
Highs are forecast for 55 on Wednesday and 60 on Thursday.
A stone wall is on the perimeter of the Forrestel property.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Mount Albion Cemetery is always a glorious place, but it is particularly stunning right now with the blossoms out by the arch at the front entrance.
These photos were taken Saturday morning at the cemetery along Route 31. There are other trees in blossom mode in the cemetery. This is a good time of the year to stop by and look around.
GAINES – On June 1, 1980 the Cobblestone Society formally dedicated the newly relocated Farmer’s Hall situated on Route 98 just south of Route 104.
The occasion was marked by a farmers’ parade from Gaines to Childs, which ended at Tillman’s Village Inn. Following the dedication ceremony in front of the Hall, attendees enjoyed a little fun and fellowship at the museum.
This picture shows Charlie and Jean Shervin “cuttin’ the rug” at the festivities following the dedication. The photo was taken in front of Radzinski’s H&A located where Crosby’s gas station currently sits.
The brick building in the background was part of the brick house that now serves as the Cobblestone Museum’s resource center. This portion of the building and the old liquor store attached to the front of the house were both removed after the museum purchased the building in 1998.
In its 55th year, the Cobblestone Museum will open this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., a fantastic opportunity to tour seven historic buildings, including the Farmer’s Hall, which celebrates its 160th birthday this year!
File photo by Tom Rivers – The Farmer’s Hall (the yellow building) is pictured with other historic buildings – the harness and print shops – this past February.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Donovan Braley, 7, a Wolf in Cub Scout Pack 164 in Albion puts an American flag on a veteran’s grave in Mount Albion Cemetery this morning.
Donovan and about 25 Scouts put hundreds of flags on graves for veterans, an annual tradition for Scouts before Memorial Day. They also placed flags for veterans at St. Joseph’s Cemetery.
Zack Baron, 7, carries flags and looks for veterans’ graves in the historic cemetery along Route 31.
Girl Scouts also helped place flags at the graves. Isabel Penafiel is a member of Troop 82252. She is pictured in the Civil War section of Mount Albion.
Civil War veterans have flags by their graves in Mount Albion.
The Scouts and their leaders are pictured by the Ingersoll Fountain in front of the chapel in Mount Albion.
Photos by Tom Rivers – Lewiston is home to the Freedom Crossing Monument, which was dedicated in 2009 along the bank of the Niagara River. It shows runaway slaves trying to flee into Canada with help from some locals. A baby is being passed to a mother, who appears desperate to keep moving, to head for freedom. The monument tells an important part of the area’s history.
There was no pomp and circumstance locally. No trumpets were sounded, no speeches from the dignitaries, no blessing of the water.
The Erie Canal opened for a new navigational season today, the canal’s 191st season. It didn’t get much notice. I didn’t see any boats out, either, except for the fleet of tugboats and tenders in Albion.
The Erie Canal was hailed as a wonder in American ingenuity, daring and determination when it opened in 1825. It took eight years of construction, carving a path 363 miles through dense forests, linking Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River.
The canal gave birth to numerous communities – Albion, Holley, Medina and many more. It brought industry and people. We were boom towns and the legacies of those eras remain in grand residences, churches and downtown districts, and the many descendants of immigrants who worked in quarries and other industries during the canal’s heyday.
It’s a rich history, but the New York State and the communities along the canal do a poor job of telling it. There are a few interpretive signs at rest areas along the canal and some glossy brochures in Thruway stops. It’s not an engaging campaign.
If the canal heritage – the immigrants, the engineering, the indomitable will – were celebrated and proclaimed, people would show some enthusiasm at the dawn of each new canal season.
The canal boat, “Cayuga,” tied up in Albion on June 16, 2014, between the Main Street and Ingersoll Street lift bridges on the Erie Canal.
In two years it will be the beginning of an 8-year bicentennial of the canal’s construction. (Hopefully the state and canal communities will celebrate that 200th anniversary.)
There are 16 counties along the canal, including Orleans. The state should commemorate the canal legacy by picking two counties each year for heritage sites that talk about the people behind the canal and the industries that emerged from “Clinton’s Ditch.”
Every year from 2017 to 2025, two new sites should be dedicated and celebrated along the canal, until there is a rich tapestry complete on the 200th anniversary of the canal’s opening.
Gov. Cuomo likes competitions and I’d encourage him to offer $500,000 per site or $1 million annually for the two best sites. These heritage places should become outdoor museums, teaching the history of Upstate New York.
Bill Koch of the Stone Art Memorial Company in Lackawanna designed a statue and heritage site for the quarrymen who worked in the quarries in Orleans County. This is just a concept at this point, but some community members would like it to become a reality.
The Medina sandstone quarries along the canal in Orleans County were our dominant industry that emerged soon after the canal’s opening. Those quarries employed thousands of people for about a century and the work of the Italian, Polish, British and Irish immigrants remains in some of the finest churches, mansions and public buildings in the state – and beyond.
There should be a heritage site for the quarrymen somewhere in the county. If the state offered $500,000, that would pay for bronze statues immortalizing the workers, interpretive panels and other features to celebrate the sandstone industry and the people who did the work.
Niagara County might consider a site to engineers, surveyors and the construction workers who pulled off amazing engineering feats, building a canal with steep elevation changes in some places. Or Niagara County might consider a site to the Underground Railroad. Many of the runaway slaves were in the last leg of their journey to Canada and freedom while walking along the canal in Niagara.
In Buffalo, Irish immigrants worked as scoopers in the giant grain silos. The eastern terminus, the start of the canal, might be a good spot for a bronze statue of a scooper.
This statue of Grover Cleveland stands next to Buffalo City Hall. Cleveland married a Medina woman, Frances Folsom, when she was 21. Cleveland was U.S. president from 1885-1889 and again from 1893-1897. While president in 1886, he married Folsom, the only time the ceremony was held in the White House for a president. The Clevelands had five children. It would be nice to have statues of Cleveland and Folsom, holding hands and waving, at the Canal Basin in Medina.
DeWitt Clinton, the governor who pushed the state to build the canal, also should be depicted with a statue in Buffalo or maybe at the other end of the canal in Albany.
Other counties could celebrate abolitionists, women’s rights advocates, and the circuit riders who spread religion.
If I was the governor I would tell each canal county to look into your past, look at what you’re most proud of, and let’s celebrate that with fitting heritage sites, enduring places that will make the canal a bigger draw and build community pride.
Those sites would enliven the canal and draw tourism dollars. They might be a springboard for the communities to add heritage trails and push for more preservation projects.
I like the big apple in Medina, the sculpture created 15 years ago by Richard Bannister of Barre. It gets your attention if you’re traveling down the canal by boat or bike. It lets you know you’re in apple country.
I’d like to see other spots along the canal that highlight local culture and pay homage to the past. There could be large-scale public art sculptures of axes (used to take down trees), fiber-glass oxen (the tractors and brawn of the day), mules and perhaps other canal features – maybe some “retired” tugboats or recreated wooden canal boats could be set to side of the canal in a permanent display. There could be playgrounds along the canal with tugboat-themed slides and other equipment.
That 200th anniversary is only two years away. The canal communities and the state need to be thinking how to celebrate the canal and position the historic waterway to be a big asset in the future for the canal towns.
Photos by Tom Rivers – Congressman Chris Collins meets with Medina firefighters, including Captain Jonathan Higgins, on Thursday. Collins toured the firehall and saw how the bigger fire trucks barely fit into the building.
MEDINA – The Medina Fire Department welcomed Congressman Chris Collins to the fire hall on Main Street on Thursday, a building that is tight for space for fire trucks, ambulances and other equipment.
Captain Jonathan Higgins told the congressman the Fire Department is the primary ambulance provider for western Orleans County, and is increasingly called to the Albion area and eastern Niagara County.
“We’re the hub for the surrounding departments,” Higgins told Collins.
The department’s call volume has jumped from about 300 a year a decade ago to 2,986 in 2014, the most ever in the department’s history.
The fire department has an aging equipment fleet, with a ladder truck at 20 years old, a fire engine/pumper at 25 years old and another engine/pumper at 8 years old, Higgins told Collins.
The department has four ambulances and should replace one every year. It last replaced one in 2013.
Higgins said the department and Village Board are sensitive to the tax burden on village residents. Medina village residents pay the highest combined tax rate for village/town/county/school taxes in the Finger Lakes Region.
The Fire Department is pursuing federal grants to help add two paid firefighters to ease overtime and ensure reliable service to the community. The Fire Department is also seeking about $90,000 in federal funds to replace fire hoses, nozzles and a thermal imagining camera.
“We’re trying to exhaust every option possible before we have to go to the local taxpayers,” Higgins said.
Collins said he and his staff would connect the department to funding options, and monitor the current grants that have been submitted.
Congressman Chris Collins meets with Medina firefighters in their cramped fire hall on Thursday.
Higgins said the department should be looking to replace the ladder truck. That could cost $1 million, compared to $500,000 about 20 years ago. Medina’s fire hall gives less than a foot of clearance from the top of the current fire truck. The new ladder trucks are taller and wouldn’t fit in the fire hall unless the truck was customized. Higgins said that would drive up the costs of the ladder truck.
A better option may be putting on a taller truck bay next to the existing fire hall, Higgins said. But that would have a cost and would have to meet historic preservation standards because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The space for ambulances also is a tight fit as those vehicles get bigger.
Collins noted how compact the vehicles were inside the building. “You’re double-stacked in here,” he said.
Higgins said the space and financial issues are difficult to solve for the village, which he told Collins only receives a tiny amount of state aid compared to similar size-cities. The small share of state revenue plus local sales tax shifts most of the tax burden on the village residents, Higgins said.
“We have huge issues here, but we can’t go to the taxpayers and ask for more money,” Higgins told the congressman.
Collins also spent time on Thursday on the Iroquois Job Corps Center in Shelby and the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge in Basom.
Photos by Tom Rivers
GAINES – Jim Kirby checks the corn seeds in his planter this morning on Zig-Zag Road. Kirby and other local farmers are working long hours to get their crops planted.
After a dry April and early May, parts of New York, including Orleans County, are already in near-drought conditions. Nearly three-quarters of the state is considered “abnormally dry,” the condition just before a drought begins, according to The National Drought Mitigation Center.
Kirby operates the planter on a corn field on Zig-Zag Road, just west of Keitel Road.
Photos by Tom Rivers
A Canada goose was out this morning just after sunrise in the widewaters section of the Erie Canal along Presbyterian Road, just east of Knowlesville.
The canal opened its navigational season at 7 a.m. The historic waterway has been open to boaters every year since 1825.
This photo, taken at about 6:30 a.m., is looking west from the bridge on Presbyterian Road.
The lift bridge is pictured in Eagle Harbor. Orleans County has seven lift bridges, the most of any county on the 363-mile-long canal.
Here’s another goose in the widewaters section. There is a lot of wildlife along the canal.
This photo was taken on Thursday evening and shows the lineup of tugboats and other canal equipment between the Main Street and Ingersoll Street lift bridges in Albion.
Press Release, Genesee Community College
Genesee Community College campus centers in Albion and Medina want to know what you think about how the centers are serving the higher education needs of the community.
The staff has created a survey using the Survey Monkey online utility seeking input from community members. The survey is available by clicking here. (Editor’s note: This link has been removed. The survey is completed.) It should take 3 to 5 minutes to complete. Those who answer the ten questions are entered to win a prize package that includes a Kindle Fire HD. The survey closes June 12.
“In our efforts to continuously improve our services to the community, we hope to garner the public’s interest and input on what they would like to see at the Albion and Medina Campus Centers,” Jim Simon, associate dean of GCC’s of the 2 campus centers in Orleans County. “From new courses to the hours our doors are open to innovative new career programs – we really want to hear what we can do better.”
The survey points out that GCC currently offers more than 70 degree and certificate programs at seven different locations as well as online. These include the main campus in Batavia and six campus centers. Besides Albion and Medina, there are campus centers in Arcade, Dansville, Lima and Warsaw.
Among the survey questions:
If you could invent a new class or program at the Albion or Medina Campus Center, what would it be?
If you were to enroll at GCC’s Albion or Medina Campus, what class times would you choose?
“We exist to meet the needs of the communities we serve,” said Michele Bokman, director of operations at the Albion and Medina campus centers. “The more honest respondents are, the better. We want a true picture of how we’re doing and how we can improve.”
The Albion Campus Center was GCC’s first, opening in 1990. More than 50 courses are typically offered each semester with an enrollment of more than 450 students.
Albion’s facilities include six high-tech classrooms, two computer labs, an art room, a quiet study lab, student lounge and outdoor patio. The center has served as a satellite art gallery for GO Art! (Genesee Orleans Regional Arts Council) with a variety of art exhibited throughout the year.
GCC Medina opened in 2007 and includes five classrooms, one with video link capabilities, a science lab and a computer lab. The Medina center has historically served more than 300 students each semester with more than 40 courses, and has also hosted the Civil War Encampment for the past three years.
“We’re grateful to those who participate in our survey and help us continue to provide quality education in Orleans County,” Simon said.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressmen Chris Collins, R-Clarence, has joined two other members of Congress in introducing legislation that would allow federal funds to help veterans maintain their meeting halls and posts.
The Renovate and Enhance Veterans’ Meeting Halls and Posts (REVAMP) Act would make up to $200,000 available for projects. The money would come from the existing pot of money through the Community Development Block Grants program. This legislation does not add to the deficit, Collins said.
Collins is working with U.S. Reps. Peter King (NY-02), and Keith Rothfus (PA-12) in introducing and promoting the legislation. The proposal would make it easier to secure funding for maintenance and improvements to veterans’ meeting halls and posts.
“Ensuring our veteran organizations have the resources needed to maintain and improve their facilities is the least we can do in return for the service they have given to our country,” Collins said.
He will have a news conference at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Batavia at the Veness-Strollo VFW Post 1602, 25 Edwards St.
