By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
ALBION – Charles W. Fairbanks took this picture in the early 1930s of Russell Braley and Dr. Ben Howes on East Bank Street in Albion.
Fairbanks entitled this unposed moment in time: “That ain’t the way I heer’d it.” The photo was entered into the Amateur Snapshot Contest sponsored by a Rochester newspaper and appeared as we see it in a supplement.
Photo by Tom Rivers
ALBION – The Orleans County Legislature was presented an official 9-11 flag on Wednesday from Larry Montello, commander of Medina’s Butts-Clark American Legion and also the coordinator of 9-11 memorial events in Orleans County.
The flag given to the Legislature was the first one to fly in front of the courthouse about four years ago. Montello, left, presented the flag to David Callard, Orleans County Legislature chairman.
Montello thanked the county for supporting a 9-11 memorial near the flagpole in front of the courthouse. Callard commended Montello for heading the memorial events every 9-11.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Helena Chemical plans to leave this site on Platt Street in Albion for a new complex on Allis Road in Ridgeway. The Orleans County Planning Board supported the project during its meeting today.
RIDGEWAY – Three years ago Helena Chemical made a push to build a new facility serving the agricultural community on Long Bridge Road in Albion.
Helena first set up shop in Orleans County in 2007 on Platt Street in the village of Albion. The company wanted a site out in the country, closer to its many fruit and vegetable farmers.
The company withdrew its plan for Long Bridge Road after some residents voiced concerns about the added truck traffic. The company believes it has found an ideal location for its expansion. On rural Allis Road off Route 31 in the town of Ridgeway, Helena wants to gradually build a complex of six structures.
The company will use the site as a distribution point for chemicals, seeds and other products for the agricultural industry. Helena won’t manufacture any chemicals there. It mostly sells bags of seeds and bottles of chemicals.
“What we do is distribute products,” Mitch Wilber, Helena branch manager, told the Orleans County Planning Board tonight.
The company would only have one neighbor on Allis Road, the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. Helena isn’t open on Sunday when the church has services. The church also has some Wednesday evening programs.
The company has been operating out of the densely populated village the past seven years, and there haven’t been any complaints from residents about noise or odors, said Ron Vendetti, the village’s code enforcement officer.
“We’ve never had any issues with them in the village since 2007,” Vendetti told the Planning Board.
The Allis Road property is zoned industrial and includes access to the railroad, which Helena wants to utilize for some shipments. The company plans to put in a railroad siding. It will also extend a 10-inch waterline from Route 31 to the property.
The six buildings would be about 75,000 square feet collectively. The company is planning a 23,000-square-foot processing plant building, a 20,000-square-foot agri-chemical warehouse, a 20,000-square-foot packaging seed warehouse, a 7,140-square-foot liquid fertilizer building, a 3,260-square-foot office building, and a 2,500-square-foot shop building.
The County Planning Board recommended the Town of Ridgeway Planning Board approve the site plan for the project, while urging there be an “adequate buffer” between the Helena property and the church. The town should also make sure the structures can be readily accessed by larger sized emergency vehicles, county planners said.
Helena opened the Albion site as a satellite of the Geneva office. Albion handles the company’s business west of Route 390 in Monroe County.
“The Albion site is kind of constrained,” Wilber told county planners.
Helena sees more potential in serving the farm community with the expansion, he said.
“The company has been pleased with our results in Western New York and would like to do more,” he said.
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – A Dodge Dakota pickup truck burst into flames at about 5:20 p.m. at the Pawlak’s Save-A-Lot parking lot.
The truck is owned by Timothy Martin, who lives on Hamilton Street near the Save-A-Lot.
Albion firefighters were on scene and doused the fire. This sequence of photos was taken over about three minutes.
Photo by Tom Rivers
RIDGEWAY – Law enforcement are outside a house on Route 104 in the town of Ridgeway while a suspect is inside barricaded, state police said.
Law enforcement responded at about 4 p.m. for a domestic violence call. The victim is not believed to be in the house while the suspect remains barricaded inside.
State police have closed Route 104 between routes 63, the south route leading to Medina and the north route leading to Lyndonville. Nearby residents are also asked to stay inside, said Victor Morales, a spokesman for the State Police.
NYSUT President Karen Magee and Medina Teachers’ Assoc. President Joe Byrne.
Provided Photos – Karen Magee meets with teachers at Oak Orchard Elementary School.
MEDINA – The president of the New York State Union of Teachers visited Medina teachers on Tuesday. Karen Magee met with teachers and Medina Teachers’ Association leadership.
State union officials, including Magee, were in Buffalo for the Champions of Public Education Reception, honoring State Sen. Tim Kennedy and several members of the State Assembly for their dedication to student advocacy.
Magee said she was very impressed by the district and the services available to Medina Students. She toured Medina High School and Oak Orchard Elementary School, meeting with teachers at both locations. She was struck by the sense of community in the district, having walked the halls of the high school and elementary schools decorated for Homecoming. Ms. Magee mentioned how impressed she was with the use of technology in the classroom.
The teachers, in preparation for the NYSUT president’s visit wore “Our Classroom Matters” buttons, advocating for the education of students as people, not test scores.
“The president’s choice to visit Medina is a proud day for the union and serves as testament to teachers’ hard work in the classroom and their continuing support as advocates for the children of Medina,” said Joe Byrne, president of Medina Teachers’ Association.
SHELBY – A standoff in recent months over the water source for two new water districts in the town of Shelby has been resolved. The Village Board voted unanimously to have Medina provide the water.
The board, in particular Mayor Andrew Meier, had been reluctant to supply the new districts until the Town Board agreed to pay its share of an “ad valorum” charge to the Niagara County Water District. For Shelby, the charge would be nearly $25,000 a year for all of the water districts.
The Niagara County Water District billed the village $134,437 this year for the fee. The village hired Bonadio & Co. to determine a fair distribution of the charge and the firm calculated $24,171 for Shelby water users, $6,748 for Ridgeway water users and the village, $103,528.
Shelby doesn’t believe it needs to pay towards the fee, saying the village already hits the town with higher water rates than villagers pay. Ridgeway town officials have ignored the issue, except for an email from Town Supervisor Brian Napoli, who last Oct. 3 said the village “gouges” the towns for water.
“This appears to be another desperate attempt to use the Towns as funding sources for the Village’s overspending, poor financial management and inept budgeting,” Napoli wrote to Meier, in a message that was copied to Ridgeway and Shelby officials. “We have no intention of allowing the Village to dictate what goes into our budget. How do we proceed? By ignoring it.”
Shelby officials are willing to have a “good faith” discussion about the issue, attorney Karl Essler wrote to village officials on Sept. 16. Essler in his letter said the village needed to move forward on the water supply agreement so Shelby could advance the two water districts.
He said residents in the two districts have wells that are “severely poor quality” and pose a health threat to residents.
Essler said the village shouldn’t use the water supply issue as leverage in negotiating the Niagara County WD charge, which Essler said the village already applies to the town with higher water rates.
Village Attorney Matthew Brooks, in a Sept. 19 letter to Essler and Shelby officials, said the village is obligated to demand the ad valorum charge after the review by the auditing firm, which spelled out the responsibilities for the two towns for the charge.
Brooks, in his letter to Essler and Shelby, urged the town to stop a pattern of “unresponsiveness” and “brinkmanship.” Brooks said legal action may be needed to resolve the issue if the Town Board can not negotiate in good faith. Brooks said he wants the issue resolved by the end of the year.
Meier said he is hopeful the two towns will soon pay their share of the charge, which currently is borne solely on village water users. The Village Board in May voted to raise water rates for village residents. Meier said the average residential town water users gets a better deal than village water users.
“We’re looking for a resolution to this issue,” Meier said Tuesday evening. “The towns need to follow through with their end of the bargain.”
ALBION – People wondering what it’s like to live in poverty, and face the fears and frustrations for parents struggling to make ends meet, are invited to a poverty simulation next Friday.
Community Action of Orleans & Genesee will host the event on Oct. 3 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Batavia First United Methodist Church. The agency is hosting the event for the first time to try to raise awareness for poverty issues, said Ed Fancher, Community Action director.
At the simulation participants will assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited budget. The experience is divided into four 15-minute sessions, each of which represents one week in which participants must provide for their family and maintain their home.
In the two rural counties alone, there are about 12,700 people (including over 4,000 children) who live below the poverty line, Fancher said.
“We think this will be a good way to have a conversation about poverty,” Fancher said about the simulation.
Local poverty is most concentrated in the villages of Albion and Medina, and the city of Batavia, Fancher said.
About 50 people have already signed up for the poverty simulation. Fancher welcomes more participation, including from elected officials. People interested in the simulation, should call 589-5605 and ask for Fancher or Nathan Varland, director of Housing and Support Services for the agency.
Community Agency will follow the simulation with a poverty awareness dinner at Batavia Downs on Oct. 3.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Kendall Board of Education President Nadine Hanlon, left, smiles with Julie Christensen, school district superintendent, after the Board of Education accepted seven different construction bids this evening for upgrades to the elementary and junior-senior high school.
KENDALL – Two-plus years of planning for a major capital project at Kendall Central School reached a big milestone this evening when the Board of Education approved construction bids for the project.
The seven different contracts totaled $16,416,433. That was under the district’s projections and means the district won’t have to eliminate pieces of the project to stay under budget.
The district will celebrate the ground-breaking of the project with a 6 p.m. ceremony on Oct. 15 just before the Board of Education meeting. The ground-breaking will be behind the junior-senior high school near the soccer fields. That area is where an addition for the cafeteria and kitchen will go.
The board approved the following bids tonight:
General trades – Allied Builders, Inc. of Brockport for $4,987,000.
Roofing – Elmer W. Davis of Rochester for $5,782,177.
Drywall – Accurate Acoustical Corp. of Victor for $1,144,000.
Plumbing – Michael A. Ferrauilo Plumbing & Heating of Rochester for $468,000.
HVAC – Landry Mechancial Contractors of Le Roy for $2,253,500.
Electrical – Kaplan-Schmidt Electric of Rochester for $1,189,000.
Controls – Trane of Rochester for $592,756.
When the bids were approved, Board of Education President Nadine Hanlon cracked a wide smile. She was a student at Kendall not long after the open classrooms were constructed. The project will make all of the classrooms enclosed, as well as tackling numerous other upgrades.
“It’s very exciting,” Hanlon said. “It’s exciting for me to see the transition.”
The project includes new roofs for both school buildings, as well as energy efficient improvements, heating and ventilation work, and updated security measures. Both sites will also see improvements to parking lots and sidewalks.
The junior-senior high school was built in 1971 in an “open classroom” model that didn’t include contained classrooms. The school includes partitions to try to reduce noise and hallway distractions. The capital project would give all the classrooms four walls and their own door.
Kendall residents approved the $25 million capitol project in May 2013. The district has been working with the State Education Department since then on the final designs for the work.
The construction bids do not include costs for architectural fees, construction management, legal fees and other non-construction costs.
Contractors are scheduled to start work on the project Oct. 27, beginning in the back cafeteria of the junior-senior high school, as well as some of the underground infrastructure work at the elementary school.
Crews will continue to work in wings of the junior-senior high school during the winter and spring, with contractors busy next summer so the buildings are ready for the new 2015-16 school year next September. The project will be substantially complete then, with the final work planned for the summer of 2016.
The capitol project will be 90 percent funded with state aid. Kendall’s local share already is saved in a capital reserve account.
Provided photo – Camp Rainbow has a new fence around its swimming pool.
RIDGEWAY – The Arc of Orleans County used generous donations to replace the fence around the pool at Camp Rainbow.
The Orleans County Foundation provided $4,000, while the J.M. McDonald Foundation and George W. Hagerman Estate both provided $5,000 towards the project, which will also include some tree removal, said Darlene Golson, Arc community relations manager.
Camp is a five-week summer day camp at 2272 Townline Rd., open to children with or without disabilities.
“We had been looking for funding for this project for several years and it all came together in 2014,” Golson said. “The American Fence Company from Tonawanda did a great job ensuring that we met all code requirements as well as making it look beautiful.”
“We are truly grateful to the community residents, businesses, and foundations that support Camp Rainbow,” she said. “We couldn’t run this program without your support and generosity.”
