Photo by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Firefighters were dispatched to an upstairs apartment in downtown Albion at 11:11 p.m. on Thursday. A fireplace was smoky and smelly, perhaps from melting crayons, firefighters said.
The Albion Fire Department ventilated the apartment at 28 East Bank St.
Photo by Tom Rivers – The village created this “pocket park” on Main Street after the former Waterman building burned down in the 1980s.
ALBION – A downtown business owner has suggested the Village Board pave over a small park in the downtown and turn the space into parking.
David Snell owns Peter Snell Realtors, two buildings south of Waterman Park. He said 6 to 8 spots could be created from the park. Those spaces would be a big lift to merchants nearby, who only have a few close spots on their side of the street for customers, Snell told the Village Board on Wednesday.
“We have a desperate need for it,” he said about the parking.
Snell said there are only three spots on the east side of Main Street, between the park and Bank Street to be shared by four businesses. Many potential customers, especially for a drive-up business like Fischer’s Newsstand, keep driving if there isn’t easy parking available, Snell said.
Snell also suggested the village push the state to allow angled parking on Main Street to create more spaces. Village officials doubted that would happen because the state doesn’t want vehicles backing into a state road.
“We need to get creative because the state is killing us and other small villages,” Snell said. “We can’t accept ‘No.’ The state says you can’t do it but that will kill us.”
This postcard from the 1970s shows how the Waterman building looked. It’s left of the Briggs Building, the tallest one on the block.
Snell thinks paving the park might be the best answer. Or the village should consider selling that land to a developer with the stipulation a new building be constructed that would match the historic flavor of the downtown.
He also urged the village to consider incentives for building owners that invest in apartments in the upper floors. The village shouldn’t just raise the assessments for those projects, forcing the building owners to pay more in taxes, Snell said.
He praised the village for marking parking spaces in a back lot between East Bank Street and the canal. Additional spots in that lot could be made available behind a building owned by Bill Wittman. Village officials said they would pursue an easement from Wittman, and would mark the spots with paint.
Village trustees said they wanted to talk with Snell more about his other ideas. Dale Brooks, the DPW superintendent, said he would reach out to the state Department of Transportation to see if angled parking could be an option.
ALBION – Dollar Tree will open a store in Albion at the former Ames Plaza, with a likely opening on June 1, Code Enforcement Officer Ron Vendetti said.
Dollar Tree used to have a store in Medina. There is one in Brockport. The company will use about 9,000 square feet in the plaza, which is home to Pawlak’s Save-A-Lot, Save On Beverage Center and Peebles.
Dollar Tree will go before the Village of Albion Zoning Boards of Appeals to seek a variance for its signage. Otherwise, the property is zoned commercial and the store fits the zoned use, Vendetti said.
ALBION – Ron Vendetti, the village’s code enforcement officer since 2001, has announced his intention to retire in the village’s 2015-16 fiscal year, which begins June 1.
Vendetti had to notify the village of his intentions by the end of March that he would retire within the next fiscal year.
When Vendetti was hired, he was tasked with pursuing unlicensed cars, property maintenance issues and neighborhood decline. The village has made strides in his 14 years on the job, he said today.
“When I started here we had unlicensed cars in front yards and a lot of property maintenance problems,” he said.
Residents often complained to Village Board members that Vendetti was abrasive and unfair in ticketing residents for infractions. The board even tried to fire Vendetti, but he prevailed in court.
Vendetti acknowledged the code enforcement officer makes many enemies. But he said he also has made friends, working with developers on new projects and reconstruction in Albion, in particular the many new buildings that went up on routes 31 and 98.
He also has pushed the village to create an LDC to focus on distressed properties, and has worked on the downtown concert series and other community projects.
Vendetti also is the code enforcement officer in Murray and Holley, and is managing Holley’s grant program. After he retires, he said he would like to continue in a part-time role in Murray or Holley.
Vendetti said Albion has benefitted in the past 14 years with a strong police department, stepped up efforts for street maintenance and overhauled neighborhood parks, which have helped the quality of life in the community.
Photos by Tom Rivers – A sandstone building from 1840, one of the oldest in downtown Albion, has been reduced largely to rubble. However, the site hasn’t been cleaned up after demolition started two years ago.
ALBION – Mary Anne Braunbach said two years is long enough for the village to move on cleaning up the rubble and remains of a sandstone building originally constructed in 1840.
Braunbach owns a building near the ruin at the corner of Beaver Alley and Liberty Street. She said the “pile of rocks” drags down the appearance of the entire downtown historic district, which is included on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Two years of patience is more than any taxpayer should have to bear,” Braunbach told the Village Board on Wednesday evening.
Dan Dunn of Ridgeway started removing the building in April 2013, but work was stopped because Dunn didn’t secure an asbestos removal permit from the state Department of Labor.
Dunn contested he needs a certified asbestos removal company for the work. Dunn, owner of salvage company, believes he could handle the job.
The DOL’s Asbestos Control unit tagged the building as a “suspended action.”
The building, once used to manufacture carriages more than a century ago, was deemed a “dangerous building” when it was standing and the village wanted it to come down. Dunn needed a permit from the DOL before removing the 5,000-square-foot building that was last used as a furniture warehouse about a half century ago.
Dunn took down some of the structure and removed some of the stone. But some of the rubble and his equipment remain on site.
Village Attorney John Gavenda said the village has taken Dunn to court to have him clean up the site, but the rubble remains.
Village officials say it would cost abut $16,000 to pay a contractor to remove the remaining debris. Braunbach urged the village to hire a contractor to get the job done, and try to recoup the costs from Dunn or by selling the land.
“It comes down to the village’s budget. Do we have the money?” Gavenda asked the board.
Village trustees are working on the 2015-16 budget, which must be approved by May 1.
“My personal opinion is that is a mess and we should clean it up,” Trustee Gary Katsanis said.
Here is how the building looked about two years ago before demolition started.
Trustee Eileen Banker didn’t want to see the village expend public resources cleaning up sites and buildings that are abandoned. She said there are 47 vacant houses in Albion and she worries the village could be stuck with some of them.
David Snell, a local real estate broker, said neighborhoods and the community suffer from buildings and sites left to rot.
“We’re suffering,” Snell said. “These homes are a cancer on our village.”
The Village Board said it would know more on May 1, after its new budget is in place to see if it has money to address the clean up of the Dunn building and address any of the housing issues.
Braunbach said putting off the cleanup another year isn’t an option. She wants the village to address it soon – or she may take legal action.
“We may include it in the budget,” Banker said. “We’ll do our best.”
Press Release, Gov. Andrew Cuomo
ALBANY – Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued this statement today in an update on the state budget.
“There’s been much discussion on the subject of including policy in the state budget. It is a red herring.
“The truth is that every budget boils down to two essential issues: How much money are we spending and how are we spending it? There is no financial judgment that can be made without a corresponding policy judgment. Indeed many of the Legislature’s proposals in their one house budgets have related policy proposals.
“There are two fundamental issues in this budget. The first is ethics reform. It’s an issue that speaks directly to the integrity of the process that determines and manages the $141 billion budget. Nothing could be more relevant to the budget process than the ethics of the people responsible for the budget itself. I reject the idea that ethics reform should only be considered outside the budget process – it is at the heart of the budget process. Saying ethics reforms should be done outside the budget is another way of saying one doesn’t want to do ethics reform.
“The second major issue in the budget is education. Education is the largest single expenditure in the state budget. The relevant budget decision is not just how much we spend, but how we spend it. What are we doing about failing schools, how do we pay teachers and what we are paying for are questions that are implicitly raised in every budget. This year, we are for the first time asking how we can successfully address and fix a broken education bureaucracy that has relegated tens of thousands of New York’s children to failing schools every year and how to improve the overall performance of our education system.
“These two issues remain my highest priorities in this budget. They are transformative changes.
“Tackling substantial lapses in our ethics laws is an issue government has grappled with for more than 50 years. The question of client disclosure has plagued Albany since the 1960’s. Addressing inequities, inefficiencies and substandard performance in our education system has eluded us for decades.
“A successful budget means enacting these policies that will rebuild trust in state government and transform our public schools in a way that will impact future generations of New York’s children.
“To repeat, I will not sign a budget without real ethics reform or agree to a dramatic increase in education aid without education reform that provides accountability, performance and standards.”
Photo by Tom Rivers – Dale Banker, Orleans County emergency management coordinator, talks on his radio during a fire on Monday at a garage on Fancher Road in Clarendon.
ALBION – Orleans County has completed a $7.1 million upgrade to its emergency radio system, it’s first big overhaul in about two decades.
The county wants to continue to improve the system and will seek a $1.9 million state grant to make the system interoperable with emergency communication systems in Monroe, Niagara and Genesee counties.
The funding would also add vehicle repeaters for deputy patrol cars, giving them a stronger radio signal. In addition, the project would include bidirectional antennas and equipment for stronger signals inside school buildings at the five local districts as well as the BOCES site in Shelby.
“This would definitely enhance public safety,” Dale Banker, the county’s emergency management director, told county legislators during a conference about the grant on Wednesday.
The state has $50 million available through the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. Counties are welcome to submit applications by April 15.
The four counties – Orleans, Genesee, Monroe and Niagara – could coordinate their applications, and that effort would increase their chances for funding from the state, said Dan Sullivan, a salesman with Harris RF Communications.
The state has capped the grants to counties at $3.5 million. Orleans will seek $1.9 million.
The county’s new system provides at least 95 percent coverage in the county. The additional upgrades could take that to 99 percent.
“It’s an enhancement of an already state-of-the-art system,” Sullivan said.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – The Main Street lift bridge is closing at about 9 a.m. today so crews can make steel repairs to the bridge that was built in 1911.
The work should be done in two to three weeks, in time for the start of the canal season that begins in early May.
The State Department of Transportation has posted detours. Truck traffic will be detoured using Route 387 (Fancher Road) via Routes 31 and 104.
Regular automobile traffic can cross the Erie Canal at Ingersoll Street. Bicyclists and pedestrians can cross the Main Street bridge at the discretion of construction workers.
Construction workers close off the sidewalk on the west side of the bridge at about 8:30 this morning.
The stairs lead to top of the lift bridge when it is in its raised position. Orleans County has seven of the 16 lift bridges on the canal, the most of any county.
The canal ambiance in Albion includes this shopping cart in the shallow water.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – This stained-glass window in the young adult room at Hoag Library has been installed in honor of former library director Susan Rudnicky and also the late Ralph Brown, a long-time local fruit grower. His sons, Bob and Eric, followed him in running Orchard Dale Fruit Company in Carlton.
Their mother, Claire, is helping to fund the window along with Bill Lattin. Mrs. Brown was a key contributor to the new library and the young adult room is named in her honor.
Lattin also paid for a stained glass window with an image of a swan. That window was part of the new library when it opened in July 2012.
Lattin wanted to recognize Rudnicky, who worked 16 years as director of Swan Library and then the new Hoag Library. Rudnicky was let go by the library board of trustees in March 2014.
She pushed for the new library, and secured grants and worked with many other donors on the new building. She also led the Swan site through many technological improvements and expanded programming.
A reception will be held in the future and a plaque unveiled in honor of Rudnicky and Mr. Brown.
ALBION – A bulletproof vest likely saved the life of Deputy James DeFilipps during a shootout on Saturday at about 3 a.m. with James Ellis.
DeFilipps was shot twice in the abdomen, but the vest prevented the bullet from seriously injuring the deputy. DeFilipps only suffered minor injuries. He is at home and in good spirits, Chief Deputy Tom Drennan said today.
Drennan attended today’s Orleans County Legislature meeting and he thanked the county for providing the resources to purchase the vests for deputies. Each patrol car also has rifle and deputies are trained to use it in active shooter situations.
The vests and rifles “were huge factors in the incident,” Drennan told legislators today.
DeFilipps, after being shot twice, fatally shot Ellis, a Wyoming County resident who pulled a handgun on an ex-girlfriend in Shelby. Ellis was then chased by law enforcement before crashing his vehicle into a telephone pole on Route 31A in Clarendon.
Drennan said Ellis open fired on responding officers, including deputies Josh Narburgh, Kevin Colonna and Brian Larkin. Ellis also fired at state troopers Scott Gregson and Kevin Bentley and Holley police officer Guy Burke.
Drennan said the officers and dispatchers involved in the situation should be recognized by county officials for performing their jobs in a very stressful situation. Legislators agreed commendations are in order.
