By Howard Balaban, Correspondent

LYNDONVILLE – Earlier this week a group of citizens from Save Ontario Shores spoke to the Lyndonville Board of Education, letting their concerns be known about a prospective wind farm in the northwest corner of the Town of Yates and also in the Town of Somerset.

The group of citizens also attended the Yates Town Board meeting on Thursday and reiterated their stance to the town officials.

Glenn Maid, a Yates resident, gave a presentation to the board and those in attendance with the goal of being “informative” and “persuasive.”

Apex Clean Energy is working on a plan to erect roughly 70 wind turbines in Yates and Somerset to generate power. Maid said the ultimate benefit from the project would be minimal.

“Wind power generation is expensive, inefficient, can not replace current power production methods, has not been shown to reduce CO2 emissions, and has had negative impact on land values and the environment,” Maid told the Town Board.

For about 25 minutes Maid described a host of the negatives associated with Apex and the wind energy project. Among those negatives were the environmental effects on wildlife, the long-term effects on property values, the lack of any type of guarantee of decreased local energy costs, the tax credits associated with such large scale projects, and the reports of how other areas with wind farms have suffered.

In short, Maid said wind energy projects have “proven to be detrimental” to the communities in which they are created.

He cited a number of concerns such as how the project would be funded and how the biggest beneficiaries would be those who run the corporation.

Maid saved his most pointed remarks for the end of his talk. In referencing New York State law, he said, “Municipalities have the responsibility to follow their own laws.” With that in mind, he said the 1996 coalition formed along the Orleans County waterfront with Yates, Carlton, and Kendall determined a number of things, chief among them the manner in which the area north of Route 18 is developed.

“There are 44 policies governing all development in the region,” he said. Those policies require that each community “foster an orderly pattern of growth” and that any “new developments which are shown to compromise a significant habitat should be given low priority or not pursued.”

Furthermore, Maid cited Yates Local Law 1, filed in 2008. The law is specific to wind facilities located in the town.

Maid said the law “acknowledges all of the aforementioned hazards of such development” and also sets a list of standards for any turbines built within town limits. Among those standards are a maximum height of 420 feet. The Apex project would build turbines between 550 and 600 feet.

In closing, Maid asked the town board to consider its place in history.

“You, as our town board, have the power to stop this,” he said. “You have the power to not issue permits for this project.”

He added, “If this project goes forward, all that will be accomplished is us giving millions of tax dollars to a multi-million dollar company to screw up our town … A project of this scope and magnitude has no place in Yates, or anywhere else for that matter.

“What we need is sound, systematic commercial and residential growth, not wind farms,” he continued. “Do you, the members of this board, want to be forever known as the board that damaged an ‘All America’ town?”

Also briefly speaking after Maid’s presentation was Donn Riggi, a Lake Shore Road resident. She said she spoke to someone who lived near a wind facility who said life there “was not so bad.” However, “not so bad” is not what she was in search for when she and her husband purchased their home.

Riggi provided several different articles from places like Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Ontario to show how wind energy is not as positive as the companies creating it would lead one to believe. She encouraged all in attendance to get informed on the issue.

As for the town board, it did not offer an official stance on the matter because to this point, no official proposal has been submitted.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Tom Klotzbach, a former Lyndonville Board of Education member, addresses the board on Monday, voicing his displeasure over Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision not to release preliminary aid runs for school districts. Klotzbach represents Lyndonville on the Orleans-Niagara BOCES board of directors.

LYNDONVILLE – Even with the uncertainty over state aid in 2015-16, Lyndonville Central School leaders expect to present a budget to the public in May that doesn’t raise school taxes.

The district will see about a $90,000 drop in employee benefits, mainly through a reduction in retirement contributions, said John Wolski, the district’s business administrator.

He presented the early work of a budget proposal for 2015-16. The overall budget would be up about $25,000 from the $13,188,750 budget in 2014-15. The tax levy would be unchanged at $4,666,578.

Lyndonville didn’t raise taxes with the 2014-15 budget, either. If state aid comes in at about a 1 percent increase, Wolski said the district won’t have to raise taxes. Lyndonville can utilize some reserve and fund balance to prevent raising taxes.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn’t give the preliminary school aid projections with his budget proposal in January. The governor is pressuring the State Legislature to adopt a number of school reforms. If the Legislature approves the reforms, Cuomo said he would support a 4.8 percent school aid increase. If the Legislature blocks the reforms, Cuomo said education aid would only increase 1.7 percent.

“It’s a new wrinkle he’s never done before and we’ll have to work through it in the coming months,” Wolski said at Monday’s Board of Education meeting.

Tom Klotzbach, a former Lyndonville BOE member, was more critical of Cuomo’s decision to make districts guess about their aid.

“I think it’s unconscionable that governor is withholding preliminary state aid runs,” Klotzbach said at the board meeting. “I’m very disappointed in the governor doing that.”

The district is considering not doing about $100,000 in buildings and grounds improvements. Some of those savings could be used to maintain a college readiness program known as AVID. A grant for that program expires after this school year and Lyndonville wants to continue the program.

Some of the building and facilities money could also be used for a building conditions survey that would take stock of school buildings and infrastructure, including sewer pipes, Wolski said.

There is a chance the state could give the district more than 1 percent in aid. If that happens, Lyndonville wouldn’t need to use as much fund balance. It could also consider a building project or perhaps reduce taxes, Wolski said.

“Let’s see how the revenue plays out,” Wolski said about the state aid.

The district by March 1 needs to submit a proposal to state for how much it intends to collect in taxes in 2015-16 as part of a tax cap calculation. The state budget is due to be adopted by April 1. Under Cuomo, the state has passed four straight on-time budgets.

Districts should approve their budgets by late April and early May, with the spending plans to be voted on by the public on May 19.

LYNDONVILLE – The 60 to 68 wind turbines that could be built in the towns of Yates and Somerset could be lucrative to the community, with annual payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps more.

But local officials should look beyond that short-term windfall, the Lyndonville Board of Education was told on Monday by members of Save Ontario Shores, a group of property owners that has formed to oppose the project.

Apex Clean Energy would like to build the wind turbines in Yates and Somerset, and the structures would tower nearly 550 feet in the two rural lakeshore towns. In Yates, the turbines are eyed for the northwest quadrant of the town.

John Riggi is president of the S.O.S. He also recently moved to the Lyndonville community from Caledonia-Mumford.

“We are not in favor of these things,” he told the Board of Education.

He thinks the community would see tax assessments drop in the 8-square-mile area of the turbines, and that drop in assessments would shift more tax burden to other property owners in the community, Riggi said.

“The message is please take the time to educate yourselves,” Riggi told the board.

Glenn Maid, another local resident, also opposes the wind turbine project, saying the mammoth turbines have negative impacts on the landscape, wildlife, and nearby homeowners’ quality of life.

“I love living in Lyndonville,” Maid said. “I love small-town America. I love the parades.”

The large turbines don’t fit in such a small community, Maid said.

“Learn about the magnitude of the project and what it could do to the community,” Maid told the board.

Apex is currently doing the public outreach phase of the project. It had an open house in Lyndonville on Dec. 9 at the Yates Town Hall.

The projects would bring the prospect of significant revenue to the towns, school districts and Orleans and Niagara counties, while also paying landowners to have the turbines on their land.

“Both the landowners and towns stand to profit,” Taylor Quarles, development manager for Apex, said on Dec. 9.

“Lighthouse Wind” would generate 200 megawatts of power, enough to power 53,000 homes. Each turbine would generate about 3 megawatts of power, up from the 1.5 to 1.8 megawatts with turbines about a decade ago.

Maid said the projects are heavily subsidized by the state and federal governments. If they’re built in Yates and Somerset, residents in the cluster of turbines could see their property values go down, forcing others to pick up the difference in tax load, Maid said, thereby resulting in locals subsidizing the project as well.

“They don’t have an interest in living here,” Maid said about Apex. “They just want to make money.”

School to focus on English for grades 3 through 8

Photo by Tom Rivers – Lyndonville Central School Superintendent Jason Smith is pictured with teacher Laura Moore, center, and Elementary School Principal Kathy Stewart.

LYNDONVILLE – The school district has received a $63,000 “Common Core Institute” grant to bolster English performance for students in grades 3 through 8.

The State Education Department announced that Lyndonville and nine other school districts in the state were approved for the grants. Lyndonville will have one of its teachers, Laura Moore, go on special assignment from January through June. She will work with Lyndonville teachers and administrators, as well as state education officials to identify effective teaching strategies and emphasize them with the local district.

Moore is a fifth grade teacher. Her class will be led by a long-term substitute beginning in January. Moore will serve as an SED fellow. Elementary School Principal Kathy Stewart will serve as supervisor and administrator of the grant.

Stewart said Moore is well suited to lead the project for Lyndonville.

“Laura is a master teacher,” Stewart said. “She is well respected by her colleagues.”

The grant will pay for the cost of a long-term teaching substitute, as well as travel and other costs for the grant.

Lyndonville made gains in boosting the mastery levels, students who score 3s and 4s, in the math portion of the Common Core for grades 3 through 8. The district jumped from 20 to 38 percent at that level from 2013 to 2014, District Superintendent Jason Smith said.

Moore and “Common Core Institute” grant will focus on raising the English proficiency for students in grades 3 to 8, where 23 percent were at a 3 or 4 in 2014. The district is pushing to have 43 percent at the higher scores by 2017, Smith said.

“The focus will be on literacy,” Stewart said.

Moore will help teachers develop effective lesson plans and other teaching strategies, including connections for students with disabilities or who speak English as a second language.

Smith said it will be a rigorous six months in meeting the objectives of the grant. The goal will be in establishing a sustainable program. As part of the grant, Moore and the district also need to be available to share best practices and their successes with other schools.

Photos by Tom Rivers – Dan Fitzgerald (second from left), project manager for Apex Clean Energy, meets with residents during a public meeting today at the Yates Town Hall. He is joined by Dahvi Wilson, Apex communications manager, at left.

LYNDONVILLE – Apex Clean Energy would like to build 60 to 68 wind turbines Yates and Somerset, structures that could tower nearly 600 feet in the two rural lakeshore towns.

The projects would bring the prospect of significant revenue to the towns, school districts and Orleans and Niagara counties, while also paying landowners to have the turbines on their land.

“Both the landowners and towns stand to profit,” said Taylor Quarles, development manager for Apex.

“Lighthouse Wind” would generate 200 megawatts of power, enough to power 59,000 homes. Each turbine would generate about 3 megawatts of power, up from the 1.5 to 1.8 megawatts with turbines about a decade ago.

The company is in the early stages of the project. It has lined up leases with some landowners, but will need more to make the project a reality, Quarles said.

Dudley Chaffee is a dairy farmer with land in both towns. He has been approached to lease land for turbines. He hasn’t signed off on a 30-year lease.

“It looks like a good deal,” he said at an informational meeting today at the Yates Town Hall.

Chaffee has dairy farmer friends in Wyoming County. They told him the construction portion of the projects can be disruptive to the land. But once the turbines are up, they take up a small footprint and the farms coexist with the structures.

“One guy in Wyoming County told me he’d do it again in a minute,” Chaffee said.

More than 60 people attended to the meeting to look over information from Apex Clean Energy.

Cathi Orr lived in Orangeville, a Wyoming County town. She moved to Somerset last January to get away from the turbines, which she said are noisy.

“They go ‘thump, thump,” she said. “They make a creaky noise.”

She had 21 within a 1 ½ miles of her house. She was part of the Clear Skies Over Orangeville group that opposed the turbines. She knew Somerset had been approached before about a wind farm, but she thought that project had gone away.

Apex wasn’t involved the other project. The company is eyeing a different project with taller turbines. The added height allows the turbines to reach faster moving wind.

Turbines with blades that peak abut 400 to 450 feet, like many in Wyoming County, weren’t quite tall enough to get the stronger, more consistent wind, Apex said.

At a higher distance, there is likely enough wind, Apex officials said. They have one meteorological tower up on Lakeshore Road in Somerset to test wind strength. Quarles said they could put up four or five more in the target area that is west of Route 63 in Yates and most of Somerset. The project eyes the northern half of the towns, where there is lots of open farmland, another plus for the project, said Dan Fitzgerald, project manager.

A major transmission line also runs through Somerset, which would allow Apex to tap in and get its power to the market. That is another attraction for siting the project in Somerset and western Yates, he said.

Fitzgerald was one of four Apex officials at a public information meeting today at Yates Town Hall. The company had a similar meeting in Barker in October. Apex will have more informational meetings to explain the project and its benefits to the community, Fitzgerald said.

“This is in the very beginning of the project,” he said today at the Yates meeting. “We’re still a ways out.”

The company is going through a required 150-day public involvement effort. To see that 60-page public involvement plan, click here.

Fitzgerald said the company will continue to meet with the public after the 150-day period, which started Oct. 31. The company will reach out to the Amish and Mennonite communities, as well as other residents and officials.

“The goal is to make sure everyone in the community knows about the project,” Quarles said.

Apex will follow the public involvement period with a preliminary scoping document that would assess environmental impacts, including potential harm to birds, wildlife and other issues. The company will need to consult with the FFA on flight pattern impacts, especially with the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.

The company will need to secure approvals through local, state and federal agencies. Fitzgerald said construction on the project could start in 2018 if the agencies, landowners and experts all see Yates and Somerset as a good spot for the project.

For more on Apex, click here.

Photos by Peggy Barringer

LYNDONVILLE – The Lyndonville Music Boosters put on a basket raffle and craft show on Saturday, an event that included performances from the Junior/Senior High School Chorus and also the Jazz Band. (The chorus is shown singing in the top photo.)

The Lyndonville Jazz Band performs for the craft fair-goers.

The Lyndonville school gym was transformed into a craft fair. Linda Karp, one of the organizers of the event, said that proceeds from the craft fair and basket raffle benefit the Lyndonville Music Boosters. The funds raised will assist with various activities and travel costs for the school’s music groups.

Santa took some time from his busy schedule to attend the craft show for a few hours on Saturday. Hunter Sachanowski of Alexander is shown posing with Santa for a photo.

There were many basket lined up for people to take a chance on.

Photos by Tom Rivers

LYNDONVILLE – The Lyndonville community this evening lighted 43 Christmas trees that were donated by residents and community organizations.

Last year in the debut of the Christmas tree event there were 26 trees decorated and sponsored by the community.

Santa arrived by sleigh with a Lyndonville fire truck providing an escort.

Santa pulled the lever at the “North Pole Electric Company” to turn on the power for the trees at Veterans Park.

Members of the Lyndonville Select Chorus, led by teacher Jennifer Trupo, sang Christmas carols on the front lawn by Yates Community Library. Three of the members include, from left: Rebekah Hoffee, Trevor Thaine and Jessica Harling.

Many community organizations sponsored and decorated a tree. The trees will stay lit in the evenings until after New Year’s Day. The Village of Lyndonville teamed to put on the event with the Lyndonville Fire Department/Auxiliary, Lyndonville Lions Club and Lyndonville United Methodist Women.

“It’s been an awesome community event,” said Carla Woodworth, one of the organizers. “I want to thank everyone who came and who made this possible.”

The Lyndonville Fire Department decorated this tree.

After Santa arrived at the park, the action shifted to inside the Village Hall where Santa met with youngsters and cookies and hot chocolate were served.

Santa poses for a picture with Madalyn Mack, 6, and her brother Lucas, both of Lyndonville.

Jaiden Cecchini, 6, of Albion is all smiles in sharing his wish list with Santa.

Provided photo

LYNDONVILLE – The Lyndonville Area Foundation presented two scholarship checks of $2,000 apiece to the recipients of the Trevor Cook Memorial Scholarship recently.

Justin Edwards and Alex Murphy, both Lyndonville graduates, recently completed basic training at USMC Parris Island. They were home on leave to accept their checks.

Pictured from left to right, Dave Cook, LAF board member and father of Sgt. Trevor Cook; Lyndonville natives and US Marines Justin Edwards and Alex Murphy; LAF Treasurer Doug Hedges; and President Darren Wilson.

The Lyndonville Area Foundation gives $29,000 in scholarships annually.

Sgt. Trevor Cook was a 25-year-old newlywed when he died in a July 6, 2011 training accident when a helicopter crashed at Camp Pendleton in California.

Provided photo – Terry Woodworth, Village of Lyndonville DPW superintendent, and his granddaughter Haley put up trees in Veterans Park last Saturday along with assistance from the Lyndonville Fire Department, Carla Woodworth and Teri M. Woodworth (Village Clerk-Treasurer).

LYNDONVILLE – There are 42 Christmas trees in Veterans Park, and they will be decorated with lights and other themes in time for a Dec. 6 Christmas celebration in Lyndonville.

The Village of Lyndonville is teaming to put on the event with the Lyndonville Fire Department/Auxiliary, Lyndonville Lions Club and Lyndonville United Methodist Women.

Lyndonville debuted the celebration last year with 27 trees. There are 42 this year.

The events on Dec. 6 begin from 8 to 11 a.m. with a community breakfast at the Presbyterian Church. Other activities are planned throughout the day, including games and crafts at the library, horse-drawn carriages, a mini mall at the United Methodist Church, a wine tasting at Sixes & Sevens Spirits, caroling at Veterans Park, and Santa’s arrival and the lighting of the trees at the park at 5 p.m.

Santa will then move to the Village Hall to greet children from 5 to 7 p.m. The day will be capped with a Christmas choir “LaLaPalooza” at the Lyndonville Presbyterian Church at 7 p.m.

For more information on the day’s events, click here.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Community members gather around the decorated trees during the debut celebration last December at Veterans Park.