By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 17 December 2013 at 9:40 am
MURRAY – Orleans County Sheriff’s Deputies are at the scene of a serious school bus accident in the town of Murray. The accident occured at the intersection of routes 237 and 104 around 7:40 a.m.
Time Warner Cable News is reporting that a car and a Kendall school bus collided and the accident has resulted in one fatality. It has not been determined whether there were any students on board the bus at the time of the accident.
Route 104 is closed between Kendall Road and Route 237 (North Main Street).
Orleans Hub is on the scene and will have more information as soon as it becomes available.
ALBION – This picture was taken around 1890 and shows the F.W. Butler jewelry store on Main Street in Albion.
This was located in the third store up from the four corners in the Royce Block at the southeast corner.
Arthur D. Bliss and Fred W. Butler are standing in the doorway. Note the advertising including the wooden pedestal sign made to look like a watch. The hands were painted at 8:20 to commemorate the time when Lincoln was shot.
Spectacles are also seen here to advertise eyeglasses. Watches, clocks and plated silverware fill the display window.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 17 December 2013 at 12:00 am
Firefighters have been raising funds for equipment
Photo by Tom Rivers – Representatives from the Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association presented a $1,000 check today to the Carlton Volunteer Fire Company. OONA members are pictured in front, from left: Ed Bellnier, president; Nicole Wilson-McGurn, treasurer; Jeanne Lauta, co-communications director; and Eileen Wuethrich, secretary. Arianna McGurn, McGurn’s daughter, is behind the OONA members. Carlton firefighters include: Dale Niehaus, assistant chief; Andrew Niederhofer, chief; Justin Niederhofer, EMS captain; Chris Standish, second lieutenant; Jim Tabor, president; Kevin Hurley; Tom Yockel, treasurer; Dan Strong; Dick Brackenbury; Bruce London; John Buckland; and Dwayne Tinkous, captain.
CARLTON – The Carlton Fire Company has received $14,000 from nearly 1,000 donors in response to a fund-raising campaign.
The fire company sent out about 1,700 letters to residents, telling them the fire company needed a utility box for a rescue truck and equipment to respond to water-related emergencies and motor vehicle accidents.
The Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association is among the donors to the cause. The group presented fire company leaders with a $1,000 check tonight.
“We’re glad to help out because we need you guys,” OONA President Ed Bellnier told Carlton firefighters.
Carlton has sent out letters the past three years, seeking funds from residents to help supplement the money it gets from the town in a fire protection contract.
Fire company officials tried to boost its contract with the town from about $114,000 to $152,000 for 2014. The Town Board agreed to half of the increase.
That leaves the fire company short for equipment, gear and needed roof and parking lot repairs, said Jim Tabor, fire company president.
Carlton property owners will pay 65 cents per $1,000 of assessed property for fire protection, about half of rate in most towns. Tabor and the fire company wanted to get that rate to 75 cents, but was rebuffed by the Town Board, which agreed to 65 cents for 2014.
“Even if we were at 75 cents we’d still be the lowest in the county,” Tabor said.
Fire company officials worry about the cost of new turnout gear at about $3,000 per firefighter. The company also faces a new roof on the recreation hall on Route 98, and parking lot repairs at the two fire halls on Kent Road and Waterport-Carlton Road.
Tabor said the fire company appreciates the response from the public to the fund-raising campaign.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 17 December 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – A Medina man who admitted to punching a customer outside the VFW in Medina and then taking $200 from the victim was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in state prison.
William Cruz, 41, pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree for the crime on March 15. He has two prior felonies and nine misdemeanors.
He was ordered to pay back the $200, plus $740 in the victim’s medical expenses.
“You have a long record,” Orleans County Court Judge James Punch said at sentencing on Monday. “You’ve been given opportunities to deal with alcohol, but you don’t seem to have the backbone to deal with it.”
In other cases at county court:
David Nichols, 28, of Albion admitted to trying to sell prescription narcotics that were rolled into cigarettes.
Nichols said his mother Theresa S. Nichols, 51, of Albion supplied the hydrocodone and acetaminophen that he sold. He pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree.
He could face 1 ½ to 4 years in state prison as a second-felony offender. He will be sentenced on Feb. 10. Punch set bail at $10,000 for Nichols.
His mother pleaded guilty in court last week. She could face up to four years in state prison after she pleaded guilty to attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree.
Nichols has another son who was also charged with selling prescription narcotics. Joshua Nichols, 26, of Albion appeared in court on Monday. He was assigned the public defender. He earned too much to qualify for the public defender but was recently laid off from his job.
Brandon Kirby, 26, of Albion could be sentenced to up to a year in jail for failing to install an ignition inter-lock device. That is a violation of his probation.
Kirby faces numerous charges after a crash on Oct. 23 in Clarendon when he allegedly crossed Mansfield Road, onto private property and struck a building owned by Acme Powerwashing Inc., of Holley.
Kirby was charged with Aggravated Unlicensed Operation 2nd Degree, Operating a Vehicle Without an Ignition Inter-Lock Device, Leaving the Scene of a Property Damage Incident, and Failure to Stop for a Stop Sign.
Kirby will be sentenced for the probation violations on Jan. 13.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 17 December 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers – The stained-glass window tour on Saturday included a stop at the First United Methodist Church. The Good Shepherd window was created in the Tiffany style but not by Tiffany. The large window was gift to the congregation by the church’s pastor in 1914, the Rev. Henry Clay Woods.
ALBION – They drove through a storm to see works of art by famed masters of the craft.
Anne and Ed Engel of Oakfield weren’t disappointed on Saturday with the first ever stained-glass window tour of Albion’s seven churches in the historic Courthouse Square.
The Pullman Memorial Universalist Church has more than 40 windows created by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, perhaps the most esteemed stained glass artist.
Bill Lattin, Orleans County historian, talks about the Christ the Consoler window in the Pullman Memorial Universalist Church. The church in 1895 wanted a window with outstretched arms of Christ to fit the denomination’s welcoming tradition.
One of the windows of Christ the Consoler shows Jesus with his outstretched arms. George Pullman paid $5,000 for that window, which was installed in January 1895.
Tiffany highlighted that window as example of the firm’s work in an 1898 brochure.
Engel gazed at the glass, and ran her finger along the bottom of the window.
“I touched a Tiffany stained-glass window,” she said, breaking into a smile.
Tiffany revolutionized the stained-glass world. Stained-glass windows, prior to Tiffany, tended to have clear glass with a stencil pattern painted on the glass.
The Free Methodist Church in Albion was built in 1860, the first church in a denomination that now has more than 1,000 churches. The church still has the original stained-glass windows from the building. Those windows from 1860 were fairly plain compared to the style that emerged in the 1890s.
Tiffany developed opalescent glass, putting color directly in glass. His windows became very popular in the 1890s. His windows at the Pullman church were installed in 1895.
Other stained-glass artists turned to opalescent glass, and many churches, including several in Albion, swapped out their older, plainer windows with Tiffany-style windows, Lattin said on the tour. (Lattin wrote a book about Orleans County’s stained-glass windows: Luminaries in the Firmament.)
The windows in the seven churches range in age from the 1860s to the 1960s. Many of the masters of the craft, both at the regional and national level, created windows for churches in Albion.
Lattin concluded the tour of the seven churches inside St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which includes many narrative windows that depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments in the Bible. Leo Frohe, a popular stained-glass artist from Buffalo, designed and created many of the windows at St. Joseph’s. The Frohe studio also has several windows at the former St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Albion.
Lattin said Albion is blessed to have so many exquisite examples of stained glass.
“There is really some extraordinary artwork here,” Lattin said after leading the tour. “There is really something here that can be marketed.”
Saturday’s tour drew about 40 participants on a bitterly cold morning. Tony and Cathy Mancuso of Elba have driven through Albion for years. They have long admired the churches, and wondered what they were like inside.
They took lots of pictures of the windows, the pipe organs and architectural features. Mr. Mancuso works in the real estate business.
“This place is absolutely gorgeous,” Mancuso said while on a tour of the First Presbyterian Church. “I love the woodwork in here.”
Lattin stands in the Presbyterian Church by a window created by Henry Keck, an apprentice at the Tiffany studio until 1933, when he started his own company in Syarcuse. This is an early work by Keck, created in 1934 as memorial to Ella Beckwith Kenney, a Sunday School teacher at the Presbyterian Church. Lattin said it’s one of his favorite windows in Orleans because of theme and striking colors. It shows a teacher and her two students.
Connie Mosher is a long-time local resident and an artist. She praised Lattin for his recall of the dates of the windows, who made them, and the stories behind them often as memorials for local residents. Lattin led the nearly two-hour tour without notes.
Mosher said the tour was an eye-opener and made her admire the community’s residents from a century ago even more. The seven churches showcase a variety of architectural features. The buildings are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The churches have added meaning after learning about their windows, Mosher said.
“What a heritage we have,” she said. “Until you get inside, you don’t realize the richness of it.”
Tony Mancuso of Elba took a lot of photos on the stained-glass window tour. He is shown inside the sanctuary at Christ (Episcopal) Church.
Many of the stained-glass windows, including this one in the First Baptist Church, were paid for as memorials to prominent Albion residents.
Provided photo – Medina FFA students, pictured from left, include Kalvin Packer, Ashlee Dow, Kelsey Cody, Chantelle Kidney, Addy Zavitz, Charlie Enderby and Cassidy Albone.
Press release, Medina FFA
MEDINA – The Medina FFA has its annual Farm Store open for business. Running in conjunction with the citrus sale, the students set up a small store offering Medina FFA apparel, beef jerky, homemade dog treats and bird feed, apples, and many other products.
New this year is the opportunity to build-a-box. Visitors can select either a handmade crate or tray and fill it with local made products and goods. Customers can peruse the wares while waiting for their fruit to be carried to their vehicle.
The store is located in the greenhouse behind the high school. It is open Tuesday through Thursday this week from 9:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. and on Friday from 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. On Friday after 2 p.m. all extra fruit will be available for sale.
MEDINA – The BL & R trolley system was under construction when this picture was taken in 1908.
Looking south on Main Street in Medina tracks are being laid around the corner to Main Street from East Center Street. People on West Center Street did not want the trolley going by their homes. Hence the line turned at this corner and ran on to Commercial Street out to Salt Works Road, rather than a straight line through Medina.
The Buffalo, Lockport and Rochester trolley system ceased operation in April 1931.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 December 2013 at 12:00 am
CARLTON – After more than a week away from its family in Carlton, a beloved dog named Rori returned to his owners this morning.
Ann Humner and her husband Asi Sveisson adopted Rori, a brindle/white mix, from the SPCA in Erie County eight years ago.
Rori snapped off his tether on Dec. 8 and hadn’t been seen since, until he returned home in Carlton today, scratching his paws against the door at about 6 a.m.
“He is very skinny and he’s been sleeping all day,” Humner said. “He’s exhausted.”
Humner doesn’t know where Rori spent the previous eight days. She thinks he found shelter somewhere, maybe inside a barn or garage.
He appeared to be dropped off at the end of Hillcrest Drive early this morning. Rori’s paw prints started at the end of Hillcrest.
“I don’t know what happened but we’re very happy he’s home,” she said.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 December 2013 at 12:00 am
Botello
ALBION – A Kendall man accused of attempted murder of a state trooper requested that Orleans County Court Judge James Punch recuse himself from the case due to his past history in court with the defendant.
Carlos Botello, 42, has a lengthy criminal history that dates back to when Punch was district attorney. Punch has been the county court judge for 23 years.
Botello was charged with second-degree attempted murder of a state trooper following a traffic stop on Sept. 3. Botello was stopped by Trooper Dan Metz. Botello allegedly attempted to back over the trooper. Metz avoided being struck, but Borello smashed into a state police vehicle.
Botello then fled the scene by vehicle. Metz pursued the suspect until Botello entered into a farmer’s field and became disabled, police reported.
Punch said Botello’s paperwork filed with the court, seeking a recusal from the judge, was “gibberish” and “gobbledygook” that didn’t make a lot of sense.
But the judge said he would consider the substance of the issue, whether his past history with Botello warrants a recusal. But only if Botello consults with his attorney Nathan Pace and makes a strong case for recusal.
Botello in court today said Punch was DA and prosecuted him in a different matter in the 1980s.
“The time has long since dissipated if there is any position of conflict,” Punch responded to Botello.
Punch was the judge in another high-profile case with Botello in 1994. Botello was 23 when he fired six rounds into the home of Deputy Herb McClellan in Kendall.
He has been in and out of the court system several times. In one court appearance, Botello said the judge declared in court if Botello was ever in front of him again, the judge would put him away in prison for a long time. Botello said that is grounds for Punch to recuse himself.
Punch said he wants to see the transcripts from that sentencing, and if he made that statement to Botello, Punch said he would “look at it” and consider the request for recusal.
But Punch said he doubts he would recuse himself.
“I feel I can be fair and impartial,” Punch said in court.
He gave Botello and Pace until Jan. 6 to file a motion for recusal.
Punch said he rarely recuses himself.
“Mr. Botello, I’m the only judge in this county,” Punch said. “I can’t just send it across the hall. I’m only going to recuse when I have to recuse.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 December 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – The trial against accused murderer Frederick Miller likely won’t start on Jan. 13 after Miller’s attorney said he wanted more time to file motions and arguments in the case.
Defense lawyer Robert King of Rochester said he intends to file a motion about a search by police of Miller’s home following the March 4 murder, when Miller allegedly killed his girlfriend. Police did not have a search warrant, King told County Court Judge James Punch in court today.
Rachel Miller died of blunt force trauma combined with multiple stab wounds.
King was hired by Miller on Dec. 7, about five weeks before the trial was set to start.
Punch said the issue of not having a warrant should be argued before the trial. He gave King two weeks to file that and any other motions in the case. The District Attorney’s Office will then have two weeks to respond.
“This is going to take us off the trial track,” Punch said in court.
He set 2 p.m. on Jan. 6 as the date for King and the DA’s office to argue motions in court. Punch said Miller and his attorney should have their motions heard – before the trial, even if it means a slight delay.
“If the trial (went forward on Jan. 13) the case would be reversed on appeal, so we’re not going to do that,” Punch said.
King, in court today, also said Miller is “not inclined” to accept an offer from DA Joe Cardone to plead guilty to second-degree murder and face a sentence of 15 years to life in state prison.
