Photo by Guin Panek
LYNDONVILLE – A double rainbow appeared at about 6:30 p.m. today after it rained in Lyndonville. Guin Panek took this photo at Oak Hill Farms owned by Bentley family on the north side of Route 63.
The weather will be sunny with a high of 73 on Saturday with more sunshine on Sunday with a high of 80, according to the National Weather Service.
ALBION – After the Strawberry Festival Parade on June 14, the Albion Marching Band will perform in food court and a familiar figure to the community will direct the band for a song.
The Rev. Richard Csizmar, priest at Holy Family Parish, will take the conductor’s baton for a song. He is the winner of an “Elect the Conductor” contest and will lead the band in a performance of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by the rock group Queen.
Marching band members raised $4,000 selling tickets for $1 each for people to vote for one of six guest conductors. The fund-raiser helped pay for the band’s trip to Philadelphia.
Father Csizmar was the top vote-getter, outpolling Tom Rivers, editor of the Orleans Hub; Joe Martillotta, retired teacher and former owner of The Crooked Door restaurant; Amy Sidari, owner of Gotta Dance by Miss Amy; Jerome Pawlak, owner of Pawlak’s Save-A-Lot; and Charlie Nesbitt, former state assmeblyman and recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“It’s just a fun, inexpensive, and unique way to support the marching band,” said band director Mike Thaine. “The kids have had a lot of fun with it.”
Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Pro Seal and Paint of Batavia is out on high ladders today working on a building at 112-114 East Center St. Kathy Blackburn is working to turn the vacant building into an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. The new business is expected to open this summer.
Blackburn will have the storefront façades match their original 19th century appearance. The storefronts will have new awnings, fresh paint and new signs.
In the top photo, Michael Neth descends the ladder after painting part of the third floor of the building.
Neth said the wind was calm today, so he didn’t mind being up high, painting the building in Medina.
Justin Carlo of Pro Seal and Paint works on the exterior of the building that is next to Rotary Park.
ALBION – The Village Planning Board on Wednesday gave the final approval to the site plan for Cobblestone Country Federal Credit Union’s relocation to former medical offices at the corner of Route 31 and Hamilton Street.
The Credit Union is working to renovate the site, adding a drive-through at the back end of the building. It has already paid to have a new roof for the building. The board approved the project with the stipulation that snow can’t block parking spots or sight lines.
The board also declared the project won’t have a negative environmental impact.
Cobblestone Country expects to be in the building in late June, said Nancy Zielonko, Cobblestone Credit manager. It is moving from a site on South Main Street next to COVA. Cobblestone Credit leases that site. It will own the building on Route 31.
The project needed two variances. The building is 2,547 square feet. The village ordinance requires 25 parking spaces for a building that size. The 15 spaces for the project add nine from the previous use.
The village ordinance also requires five spaces at a drive-through for cars to be in line, but the village will allow up to three cars at the Credit Union. That will reduce some of the “stacking” in the line, which won’t be as high volume as a fast-food restaurant.
Cobblestone Country has permission to use the same driveway entrance on 31 that is owned by Oak Orchard Health. That will be better for traffic safety than having two entrances right next to each other, county planning officials said at its meeting last month.
Provided photo
BATAVIA – Alyssa Mahnke of Lyndonville was one of two $1,000 scholarship winners through the GCASA Foundation.
Alyssa and the other scholarship winner, Hannah Waiter of Alexander, were honored during GCASA annual membership meeting on Wednesday.
Pictured, from left, include: John Bennett, GCASA executive director; Kathleen Maerten, GCASA Foundation Board president; Hannah Waiter; Alyssa Mahnke;and Jason Smith, GCASA board member and superintendent of Lyndonville Central School.
Photos by Tom Rivers – Orleans County officials celebrated the completion of a new emergency communications system on Wednesday. Pictured from left includes Legislature Chairman David Callard, Legislator and Public Safety Chairwoman Lynne Johnson and Emergency Management Director Paul Wagner. Wednesday was also Wagner’s birthday.
ALBION – A project that was 10 years in the making was celebrated for a successful completion on Wednesday, with the finished product a much more reliable emergency communications system for firefighters, police officers and other first responders in Orleans County.
“We have a Cadillac here and we’ll have a Cadillac here for a lot of years to come,” Emergency Management Director Paul Wagner told county legislators.
The new digital Project 25 system replaces an analog system. Emergency responders often complained the old system had gaps in the county and didn’t work well with portable radios. Some firefighters were given portable radios over the weekend to test the coverage at edges of the county in western and eastern Orleans, which were prone to poor coverage.
“It worked beautifully,” David Knapp, a past Holley fire chief, told county officials about the new system.
He had a signal as far away as Mumford and Caledonia in Livingston County.
Mike Fuller, the East Shelby fire chief, said the old radios were notorious for dropping signals near the wildlife refuge. The new radios have strong signals throughout western Orleans.
“This will be a big improvement,” said Fuller, who is also the Town of Shelby highway superintendent. “This is state-of-art digital.”
David Knapp, a past Holley fire chief and current county fire investigator, said the new radio system has vastly improved coverage in the Holley area. He addressed Orleans County legislators during their meeting on Wednesday.
With the old system, when there was a signal the voices didn’t always come through clearly.
“Now there is a solid signal,” Fuller said. “You could talk to someone across the county and it’s just like you’re standing right next to them.”
The gaps in coverage worried first responders. Often the signal dropped when they went inside a house.
“It could be life-threatening if you don’t get a good signal,” Fuller said. “You need to be able to communicate.”
The new system includes three transmission towers, which is up from one with the old system. There are 1,100 portable radios and 550 that are mounted to vehicles. The dispatch center and backup dispatch received new consoles and other equipment. The total project was about $7.1 million with a state grant paying $2 million of the cost.
“It’s on and it works,” Wagner said. “In my opinion it is a superb system.”
Legislature Chairman David Callard said the system provides “vastly improved radio communications for all end-users in Orleans County,”making it safer for them to respond to emergency calls.
Legislator Lynne Johnson serves as chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee and pushed for the upgraded system. She praised Wagner and Chief Administrative Officer Chuck Nesbitt for their efforts in seeing the project to completion.
“The county really bit the bullet with this one,” she said. “We decided if we were going to do it, we’d do it right.”
First, the good news: Orleans County’s unemployment rate dropped from 9.0 percent in April 2013 to 7.4 percent last month, according to the state Department of Labor.
The state reports that 1,400 were unemployed in the county, down from 1,700 a year earlier.
Despite that improvement the county still has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. The state-wide rate is 6.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008, according to the state DOL.
Other similar-size GLOW counties have lower rates than Orleans, including Genesee at 5.4 percent, Livingston at 5.7 and Wyoming at 6.4 percent.
There are 62 counties in the state and eight have higher unemployment rates than Orleans in April. The counties with the five highest rates include: Bronx at 10.3 percent, Hamilton, 8.8; Lewis, 8.7; Jefferson, 8.2; and Kings, 7.9.
The counties with the lowest rates in the state include: Tompkins, 3.5 percent; Nassau, 4.2; Putnam, 4.2; Rockland, 4.4; and Albany at 4.5.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
HOLLEY – In this picture from December 1910 we see a temporary concrete mixing plant east of Holley.
It would have been used when the canal was last enlarged. Note a steam engine in the right side of the picture. Power poles in the background are that of the B. L. & R. trolley system which ran from 1908 to 1931 through Orleans County.
ALBION – The village of Albion believes it has been shorted about $8,800 so far for the engineering and design work on the Clarendon Street bridge, money the village says it is owed by the state.
The bridge engineering, design and construction was to be funded with 80 percent from the federal government, 15 percent from the state and 5 percent from the village. The village has to front the money and then it is supposed to get reimbursed.
Village Clerk Linda Babcock says the village is owed $8,791 after being shorted by the state since 2012. She is pressing the state Department of Transportation for the money.
The delayed and reduced reimbursement adds insult to injury for the village with the bridge project. The village was notified earlier this month that costs for the project jumped nearly $600,000 and additional federal and state aid wouldn’t be available for the increase. The village would have to fully foot the added costs.
The Village Board says that is too much for village taxpayers. The board is now considering demolishing the bridge and having the street blocked off by the railroad tracks.
The board will take public comments about that proposal during its 7 p.m. June 11 meeting at Village Hall. The village expects to have renderings of what the blocked off street will look like near the railroad tracks.
PEMBROKE – Orleans County veterans and their families have had to drive about 100 miles to go to the closest veterans’ cemetery in Bath.
But that will soon change after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced today that a new veterans’ cemetery would be established in Pembroke in neighboring Genesee County.
The Western New York Veterans’ Cemetery will be located on a 132-acre parcel at 1232 Indian Falls Rd. It is just north of the Pembroke Thruway exit.
This Veterans’ Cemetery will be the first of its kind in the Buffalo-Rochester area. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and several veterans’ groups argued that not having a national veterans’ cemetery within a 75-mile radius of Buffalo and Rochester was unfair to Western New York veterans and their loved ones. The site is located approximately 30 miles from Buffalo and 48 miles from Rochester.
“This site selection is great news for the many thousands of deserving veterans living in Buffalo, Rochester, and beyond,” Schumer said in a statement this afternoon. “With this new cemetery in Pembroke, these veterans and family members will be able to have a proper military burial near their homes in Western New York, and their families will be able to pay their respects without having to travel over 100 miles – something that can be a tremendous burden for many families.”
Congressman Chris Collins, R-Clarence, issued this statement today:
“For too long, Western New York’s veterans have been denied the honor of being laid to rest among their fellow heroes right here in our community. Today’s announcement of a Veterans’ Cemetery in Pembroke finally rights that wrong. This location will allow veterans from all around our region to be properly and locally honored for their service to this country.”
Provided photo
Press Release, Clarkson University
POTSDAM, NY – Ryan P. Golden of Kent, N.Y., a junior at Clarkson University majoring in computer science, received the Pi Mu Epsilon Award for Sophomores In Computer Science at the University Recognition Day ceremony during the spring semester. The award is given to the sophomore mathematics or computer science major who has made a noteworthy contribution in mathematics or computer science while at Clarkson.
Clarkson University launches leaders into the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as a CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company.
Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world’s pressing issues. Through 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, sciences and health sciences, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and engineering innovation with enterprise.
ALBION – A former Catholic school on Brown Street that was turned into a bed and breakfast a decade ago is in the process of being sold and will become an adult daycare and assisted living site.
Tender Loving Family Care Inc. currently operates similar sites in Brockport, Le Roy and Batavia. The Le Roy site has a waiting list, and some Orleans County residents have expressed interest in staying there. That prompted Annika D’Andrea, the business’s president and CEO, to look for a spot in Orleans County.
Lou and Jeri Becker, both Xerox retirees, bought the property 10 years ago and turned it into the Erie Canal Schoolhouse Bed and Breakfast with four guest rooms. Those rooms and another one will be available for seniors to stay in with staff on site.
Tender Loving Family Care also is planning to have an adult daycare where seniors can stay during the day with structured activities.
The Village Planning Board approved a special use permit for the project at its meeting this afternoon.
The Beckers had many community events at the location, including a tribute day for Charles Howard, the founder of a Santa Claus School in Albion, and also a 100th anniversary celebration for the former St. Mary’s Catholic School.
The Beckers are working to close the Bed and Breakfast on July 21. Cindy Ingraham, a realtor and friend of D’Andrea’s, told the Village Planning Board that the site could be open for senior citizens in September.
“It’s turnkey,” she said. “We expect to be open within 30 days after the closing.”
The Beckers believe the new use will be a good fit for the location.
“We’re excited,” Mr. Becker said. “The people who went to school there can come back and finish their last years.”
Tender Loving Family Care expects to have an open house for the community before the business opens in Albion.
Photos by Tom Rivers – At 10:43 a.m. today, Kevin Doherty switched off the analog equipent and made a digital system the sole system after weeks of testing the new emergency communications system. Doherty is one of the county’s consultants for the project. The analog equipment is in front of Doherty and to his left. The digital equipment is much more compact and represents two racks to his right.
Keith Whitt, a consultant on the new emergency communications system, works in the Civil Defense Center this morning after the new digital system was activated.
ALBION – Firefighters, police officers, highway workers and other first responders in Orleans County now have a new emergency communications system.
The county officially made the switch from an analog system to a digital one at 10:43 a.m. today. The “cut over” was scheduled for 10 a.m., but a fire call in Holley delayed the change. The county wanted to wait until after that call before changing over to the new system.
The county has been working with contractors to test the new system in recent weeks. Users can expect better coverage, especially on the eastern and western edges of the county and along Lake Ontario where there were weak signals and often dead spots.
“I think everybody will be presently surprised,” said Paul Wagner, the county’s emergency management director. “The coverage is spectacular in my opinion.”
The county built the analog system in 1991-92. It included one tower on West County House Road by the Civil Defense Center and Fire Training Center.
As part of the new $7.1 million upgrade, the county added three towers: one by the Clarendon Highway Department near Route 31A, one in Albion by the Civil Defense Center and one in Shelby next to the Medina water tank on Route 31A.
Those towers help ensure nearly blanket coverage in the county, including on the edges. The towers also will expand coverage of the county’s signal into eastern Niagara, southern Genesee and western Monroe counties, where Orleans firefighters often respond for mutual aid calls.
The Harris Corporation is guaranteeing 95 percent coverage in Orleans, but Wagner said tests with radios show the system has about 99 percent coverage.
Paul Wagner, the county’s emergency management director, points to a rack that transmits signals from the radio towers to the consoles and the radios.
Paul Wagner listens to a portable radio while Dennis Rose, left, talks with Keith Whitt. Rose is the project manager for the harris Corporation and Whitt is a consultant on the project.
The upgrade includes emergency communications equipment at the dispatch center at the Public Safety Building in Albion and the backup location at the Civil Defense Center.
The upgrade also includes 1,100 radios for police, firefighters, Probation officers and other emergency responders. There are also 550 mobile systems that are mounted in police cars, highway vehicles, fire trucks and other vehicles.
The analog system that was at least 22 years old was designed for mobile units and not handheld portable radios. Users found the portable radios were often unreliable, especially when they were brought inside a house.
The new radios on the digital system were tested by firefighters over the weekend, and Wagner said they reported they worked fine inside houses, including many basements.
The county has been working on the upgrade since 2004. It was a challenging project that required permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and its counterpart in Canada.
The county needed to make the upgrade because manufacturers of analog system radios, tower equipment and other infrastructure have notified users that parts will soon no longer be available. The phase out of analog has prompted many municipalities around the country to push for new systems, said Keith Whitt, vice president of consulting services with Trott Communications Group in Irving, Texas.
He has been working as a consultant for the county for about four years, first with its rebanding, or its switch to a new approved signal and system. He has been a technical consultant the past year, inspecting the new equipment and making sure the system serves the county.
“There are still quite a few analogs but there has been a big shift to digital,” Whitt said. “The analogs are all at an end-of-life mode. The part supplies are running out.”
County officials are planning a celebration this afternoon in the Legislature Chambers at 3:45 to mark the transition to the new system.
The Orleans County Conservative Party has endorsed Steve Hawley of Batavia in his re-election effort for the 139th Assembly District, which includes all of Genesee, most of Orleans and a portion of western Monroe.
Al Lofthouse, the party chairman, said Hawley pushes party principles for a smaller state government.
Hawley met with the local Conservative Party leaders on Thursday and received their support. He has served as Assemblyman since a special election in February 2006.
His district includes all of Orleans except the town of Shelby, which is represented by Jane Corwin of Clarence.
Provided photo – Medina resident Heather Kuepper ran a half marathon on Sunday in Buffalo to raise money for brain cancer research. She received a medal at the end of the race.
By Sue Cook, staff reporter
MEDINA – Brain-tumor survivor Heather Kuepper met her goal on Sunday in running the half marathon in Buffalo to raise money for cancer research.
Kuepper shared her story earlier this month with Orleans Hub. (Click here to see “Diagnosed at 23, survivor shares her story for Brain Tumor Awareness Month.”)
At age 23, Kuepper was diagnosed with a large brain tumor that was in a complicated location. Kuepper went through surgery and now three years later hopes to spread the word about brain cancer, as well as raise money for research and a cure.
“I am honored to have been able to share my experience with the community, and hope it has been able to benefit someone else,” she said.
Kuepper raised $318 for the Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure organization through Race For a Cure, which allows runners to raise money at any running endurance event they are registered for. Kuepper registered to participate in the Buffalo Marathon. Her fundraiser (click here) is still open through the end of the month.
“The crowd was so motivating, and I believe the support from the Buffalo community plays such a vital role in helping many people cross that finish line,” Kuepper said. “I am glad I was able to complete the race and bring awareness to brain tumors. I also got to be a role model for my daughter who was there to cheer me on during the race. I demonstrated setting a goal, working toward that goal, completing the goal, as well as showing her how important it is to strive for a healthy lifestyle.”
Provided photo – Gracie, 4, was there to cheer her mom along during the race.
Kuepper ran the half marathon in 2 hours, 11 minutes. She trained for about four months at the Medina YMCA and at the school track. She also added strength training to her routine to build muscle for endurance.
“Preparing for a race like this takes a lot of time and dedication,” she said. “It felt great to have a big goal, and to be able to complete it. It motivates me to train harder and try for a better finishing time at another race.”
Kuepper also had a follow-up MRI earlier this May to check her health and make sure the tumor hadn’t come back. She also had an oncology follow up shortly after. Both came back with a clean bill of health.
Kuepper’s doctors were very pleased with her results and this has given her a great outlook.
“I look forward to completing another race in the future, and hope to work on other projects to promote brain-tumor awareness,” she said.
