By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 8 May 2015 at 12:00 am
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.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 8 May 2015 at 12:00 am
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.
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.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 8 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Editorial:
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.
By Kristina Gabalski, Correspondent Posted 7 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Legislator worries about shrinking school enrollment
KENDALL – Kendall Central School District residents will see five propositions, including the 2015-16 budget, on the May 19 ballot.
School Board of Education members and District Superintendent Julie Christensen presented the budget during the annual meeting on Wednesday.
The proposed 2015-16 budget is $15.07 million and is Proposition 1 on the ballot. The budget includes a 0 percent increase in the tax levy.
Although enrollment continues to decline, there is no reduction in staff. The overall budget represents a 1.62 percent increase over the 2014-15 budget.
Christensen explained that the budget remains relatively flat because increases in cost of living have been offset by a decrease in pension costs, a decline in health insurance costs and energy savings from the district’s energy performance contract.
The proposed tax rate for Town of Kendall residents is $17.39 per $1,000 of assessed value. Property owners will see an estimated increase in their tax bill of $3 for a house assessed at $100,000, “mostly due to the PILOT agreement for the Cottages at Troutburg project,” Christensen said.
Proposition 2 would create a school bus replacement reserve fund not to exceed $100,000 annually.
Proposition 3 would allow the purchase of school buses to replace existing vehicles at a sum not to exceed $250,000.
Proposition 4 would allow the creation of a capital improvement reserve fund not to exceed $5 million.
Propositions 2, 3, and 4 will have no additional taxes if approved, the district said.
Proposition 5 is the election of one, five-year term member to the Board of Education. Current School Board President Nadine Hanlon is the incumbent and is seeking re-election. She is the only candidate for the single open seat.
Hanlon says she has enjoyed serving the last five years on the board. “I’ve gained a lot of knowledge,” she said. “It’s been a pleasure to work with this board.”
She noted that she looks forward to moving ahead with the district’s “wonderful capital project” and the Urban/Suburban program that would welcome Rochester students to Kendall.
Orleans County Legislator Ken DeRoller attended the meeting. During the public comment portion of the hearing, DeRoller expressed concern over the average loss of 28 students from the district each year and explained Orleans and Niagara counties are working together to bring broadband to the community, which would help draw more businesses and new residents.
He also discussed the PILOT for the Cottages at Troutburg which is impacting the school budget for the first time.
“There are new investors” for the project, DeRoller said about the development at the former Salvation Army camp by Lake Ontario “It is a positive and robust picture at this point.”
DeRoller also said Kendall is in a “tough spot” due to a “flattening of the assessment roll.” He explained additionally there has been, on average, the construction of only one new home in Kendall each year over the last 10 years.
He explained the county, school district and town will work together to help the community grow.
“We have tough work ahead of us,” he said.
The Annual District Vote will be held May 19 from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Kendall Elementary School gymnasium. Voters must be at least 18 years of age, a U.S. citizen and a legal resident of the Kendall Central School District for at least 30 prior to the vote. Proper ID is also required. Applications for absentee ballots can be obtained through the district clerk.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 7 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Fred Miller
ALBION – The Orleans County Republican Party Committee didn’t endorse a candidate to run against Fred Miller, the lone Democrat on the seven-member County Legislature.
Miller won an upset election in November 2013, defeating incumbent Henry Smith for a district that includes the towns of Albion and Gaines.
No candidates were nominated this evening to run against Miller, owner of Family Hardware in downtown Albion since 1986.
“I hear nothing bad about him from the other legislators,” said Ed Morgan, the Republican Party chairman. “He asks the right questions.”
Morgan said it isn’t unprecedented for the Republican Party not to run a candidate against an incumbent Democrat. For many years, Richard Bennett of Barre was unopposed as a Democrat on the Legislature.
Prior to being elected to the County Legislature, Miller served five years on the Village Board. Miller is the first resident from the village of Albion to serve on the Legislature in 30 years, despite Albion being the county seat.
Miller was endorsed by the Conservative Party in the 2013 election, but that party isn’t endorsing any of the incumbents this time. It has backed Paul Lauricella to run for legislator against Lynne Johnson.
The other six Republican legislators were all backed by the Republican Party for new two-terms. That team includes Legislature Chairman David Callard of Medina, John DeFilipps of Clarendon and Don Allport of Gaines for county-wide legislator positions; Ken DeRoller of Kendall for a district that includes the towns of Carlton, Murray and Kendall; Bill Eick of Shelby for a district that includes Clarendon, Barre and most of Shelby; and Lynne Johnson of Lyndonville for a district that includes Yates, Ridgeway and a small portion of Shelby.
The Republican Committee also endorsed Rocky Sidari, a former Albion fire chief, to serve as county coroner. He was appointed to the position in January, filling a vacancy created by Joe Fuller when he was elected Albion town justice.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 7 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Photo by Tom Rivers – Tom Drennan, left, and Randy Bower shake hands after the Orleans County Republican Party Committee made its endorsement tonight.
GAINES – Tom Drennan has the Orleans County Republican Party endorsement to be the county’s next sheriff.
Drennan, the chief deputy the past nine years, has worked for the Sheriff’s Department for 23 years, starting as a deputy. The Kendall resident secured just over 60 percent of the GOP Committee’s vote this evening, getting 6,151 votes to 3,951 for Randy Bower, a long-time dispatcher for the county.
There were weighted votes for the 75 committee members who cast ballots this evening. (Two committee members abstained.)
Ed Morgan, the GOP chairman, praised both Drennan and Bower for working hard the past three months, meeting with Republican committee members throughout the county.
“They’re both good people,” Morgan said after the committee meeting at Tillman’s Village Inn. “They’ve both been above-board.”
Bower already has the Conservative Party line for the November election. He said he wanted to take a few days before deciding whether or not he would force a Republican Primary.
He thanked the committee members for their support.
Bower has the endorsement from the Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Drennan had many letters submitted on his behalf, from the current sheriff, Scott Hess, to former sheriffs, undersheriffs and the current District Attorney Joe Cardone. (Hess is retiring after Dec. 31.)
Drennan said he stressed his experience as a law enforcement officer. He also has worked nearly a decade as a supervisor.
“Experience is a big factor,” he said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a cop.”
Bower won over many committee members with his long-term plan for the department. He also is an impassioned speaker.
“He is dynamic with a great personality,” Drennan said about Bower.
Morgan said it was one of the most contested races for a GOP endorsement in a long time. The committee met for more than two hours, picking candidates for county offices.
“Never in the 10 years that I’ve been doing this have we done a secret ballot like this,” Morgan said. “You didn’t know the outcome coming in.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 7 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers
KNOWLESVILLE – The Office for the Aging celebrated local senior citizens today with lunch for about 150 people at the Trolley Building at the 4-H Fairgrounds, and the agency also presented recognition awards for three local seniors.
The top photo shows Meredith Minier of Albion looking over the citation she received as one of two honorees in Orleans County as “Senior of the Year.” Minier and the other winner, Sally Grout, will be invited to Albany to be recognized in the state capitol.
Minier has long been dedicated to local youths, helping to build a strong Albion PTA when her daughter Marissa was a student. Minier worked for Photos by Bruce and also is the secretary at the Albion United Methodist Church. She has volunteered at the library and the Cobblestone Society Museum.
She has been active in the Suicide Prevention Coalition, helping to raise awareness in the community for people who despair with depression. Minier’s late husband Lee, his father and Lee’s grandmother all ended their own lives.
Minier has tried to remove the stigma of suicide and connect people with resources to get them through difficult times.
Sally Grout
Sally Grout is a retired nurse who worked at the former Arnold Gregory Memorial Hospital in Albion, and then for Dr. David Meza before spending 22 years as school nurse at Medina Central School.
Since she retired in 2004, she has volunteered as a nurse for the Care Net Pregnancy and Family Center of Greater Orleans in Albion.
She has attended church mission trips to Romania, serving children in orphanages. She is active at the Hartland Bible Church, and she also volunteers in an equestrian program that offers therapeutic riding.
Sen. Robert Ortt (left) and Melissa Blanar (right), director of the Office for the Aging, also recognized Karl Kast as the agency’s volunteer of the year.
Kast, a retired postal worker, helps collate the “Friendly Carrier,” the OFA newsletter that is mailed to 2,200 people. Kast has recruited other volunteers for the task.
“He is a generous and kind person with a great sense of humor,” Blanar said.
Ortt, State Assemblyman Steve Hawley and three county legislators – David Callard, John DeFillipps and Don Allport – all attended the event this afternoon honoring local senior citizens as part of “Older Americans Month.”
County Legislature Chairman David Callard addresses the group of senior citizens today during a luncheon at the Trolly Building.
Ortt said the month should be named, “Wiser Americans Month.” He thanked the many volunteers who serve senior citizens, especially the Meals on Wheels drivers.
“You’re not just delivering a meal,” Ortt said. “You’re often the only person they see that day. You’re helping to keep them in their homes.”
Callard, chairman of the Legislature, thanked the seniors for their years of service and contributions to the community.
“You’re the backbone of Orleans County and senior citizens are the backbone of this country,” Callard said.
Gary Deiboldt played the keyboards and Joe Sacco sang and played the saxophone during today’s event.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 7 May 2015 at 12:00 am
Orleans County is a tough place for children to break out of the cycle of poverty, according to a study that looks at upward mobility of kids in counties throughout the United States.
“Orleans County is pretty bad for income mobility for children in poor families,” states a May 4 article in the New York Times. (Click here to see “The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares.”
Orleans County is in the 35th percentile, 871 out of 2,478, for best places to grow up for income mobility for poor children. About 65 percent of other counties have higher income mobility for the poor.
Orleans and several other Western New York counties are difficult places for poor children to change that economic outcome when they are adults.
The study says poor children in Orleans County can expect to earn $120 less at age 26, compared to working in the average county. Wyoming County offers the best economic prospects for poor kids in Western New York. In that county, poor children will make $3,320 more annually at age 26, compared to being in the average county.
(Monroe County fares the worst of 11 WNY counties. Poor children who grow up in Monroe earn $2,380 less annually at age 26 compared to the average county.)
The study reported in The New York Times was compiled by Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren.
The say location is a big factor in a child’s economic prospects. Chetty, Hendren and other researchers identify five factors with strong upward mobility: less segregation by income and race, lower levels of income inequality, better schools, lower rates of violent crime, and a larger share of two-parent households, according to The New York Times.
“The broader lesson of our analysis,” Chetty and Hendren say in their report, “is that social mobility should be tackled at a local level.”
