MEDINA – Classic cars and fresh produce will return to downtown Medina.

The Canal Basin has hosted the car shows for more than 20 years. A new season begins Friday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and will continue weekly through late August. The car shows will be capped with a Super Cruise on Aug. 29 when a section of Main Street is blocked off and there is a performance by Elvis impersonator Terry Buchwald.

Terry Buchwald, an Elvis impersonator, performed at the Super Cruise on Aug. 23, 2017.

The weekly shows include music from DJ Hank Nevins. Dave Green is one of the coordinators of the car shows. He said Medina businesses are generous in sponsoring the events, donating for the DJ, to bring in Buchwald and for door prizes.

There are typically 80 to 100 cars for the Friday car shows, with the Super Cruise drawing more than 200.

Medina will also welcome the return of the Canal Village Farmers’ Market on Saturday. The market is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 127 West Center St., across from the Medina Post Office.

The market operates under the auspices of the Orleans Renaissance Group and will continue each Saturday through October.

“The 2017-18 Winter Market was very well attended,” said Gail Miller, the market manager. “It’s made us very excited to begin what we feel is going to be our best summer market yet.”

Miller cited yet more new vendor offerings, the return of a Community Tent for community organizations, the Artisans Tent, the return of Canal Kids Activities and family related fun and games by the Medina FFA.

“We’ve also been able to secure the return of our crowd-favorite live music too,” said Miller. “Ernie Lawrence, Dark Road Duo and The Road to Azure will all be back, hopefully with other new groups.”

The vintage R&B/Blues of The Road to Azure will be featured opening day.

Miller also said there will be an expanded schedule of special guests, as well as various special events such as food prep demos and raffles.

“We’re also working on plans for a food tour that would encompass the market and downtown.” said Miller. “This project is in the very early planning stages, but will be a multi-opportunity event that people are really going to want to experience. The market, food and historic downtown are three things that naturally go together.”

Raspberries from Panek Farms were available at Canal Village Farmers’ Market in July 2015.

According to planners, participants would buy a ticket for the food tour at the market and begin their delectable journey with tastings from various vendors. The guided tour would proceed through Historic Downtown with a mix of history and tastings from Medina’s many culinary offerings.

“Again, the tour is in the planning stages, but we’re very excited about it,” Miller said. “We see it as a springboard for day trip Medina and hope to have it up and running soon. It’s going to be such a great year of Summer Saturdays at the market and throughout downtown.”

A full slate of vendors and offerings are slated for opening day. Market patrons will see regular weekly vendors Baker Farm, Herbalty Cottage, Human Farms, Kim’s Kitchen Bakery & More, McB’s Farm, Nice Farms, Renko Sausage, Roberts’ Farm Market, SK Herefords beef, Stone Hollow Farm & Carriage House Bakery, Stymus Farms along with other special guests/rotating vendors, including the award-winning 810 Meadworks.

The 2018 summer market will see the return of the “Community Tent” and “Artisan’s Tent.”

“Last year, the Community Tent provided a place for local non-profits and community-based organizations to raise awareness about their particular programs and offerings,” Miller said. Opening day will see Medina Memorial Hospital and Cornell Cooperative Extension with the hospital offering information on various health-related issues. Cornell Cooperative Extension will feature advice from Master Gardeners.

Dawn Keppler of SK Herefords in Shelby cuts some beef for a sample of the farm’s meat in this photo from July 2015.

The Artisan Tent will have a very special local feature on opening day. Local musician and skilled craftsman, Aaron Grabowski, will be present with his blacksmith forge. Grabowski will demonstrate the forge and the making of hand-forged products of 18th century manor using his reproduction traveling blacksmith forge – all while clothed in 18th century garb. Grabowski was recently named a “Heritage Hero” for his local preservation work.

Chris Busch, president of the Renaissance Group, says the Canal Village Farmers’ Market is not just an opportunity for the public to shop for fresh-harvested local produce, but also to everything Historic Medina has to offer.

“Our goal at CVFM has been to do our part in making Downtown Medina absolutely alive on Saturday mornings,” Busch said.

The market is still interested in finding suitable artisans and musicians who might be interested in participating in the market. For additional information about visiting or participating in the 2018 Canal Village Farmers’ Market, visit them on Facebook or email Gail Miller at canalvillagemarket@gmail.com.

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Santa Claus House now has a dual purpose

By Ginny Kropf, correspondent

MEDINA – The Medina Tourism Committee just may have found the perfect location with the move Tuesday into the Santa Claus House at Rotary Park.

The move was celebrated with a dedication and ribbon cutting by Medina Mayor Mike Sidari, Tourism Committee Chair Jim Hancock, Tourism Committee member Kelly Kiebala, Orleans County Tourism Coordinator Dawn Borchert and a handful of volunteers.

The first Visitor’s Center in the village was located about 10 years ago in the Chamber of Commerce Office on North Main Street. When that office closed, a Visitor’s Center was set up in City Hall on the south end of Main Street by the police station.

“That was not easily accessible with steep stairs, nor was it convenient for c anal travelers,” Hancock said.

Medina Mayor Mike Sidari, left, and Medina Tourism Committee Chairman Jim Hancock show off the inside of the Santa Claus House in Rotary Park, which will now also double as a Visitor’s Center.

This spring a volunteer asked if it was possible to use the Santa House, which is on the four corners and much closer to the canal basin.

“We went to the village and they enthusiastically agreed,” Hancock said. “We hope we will get more traffic here. In fact, we already had our first visitor this morning – from Reykjavik , Iceland.”

Hancock thanked the village officials for their cooperation in making the move possible. The Fire Department helped with the move and the Department of Public Works erected new signs.

The Visitor’s Center is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, but Hancock would like to see it open on Saturdays if more volunteers stepped forward.

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MEDINA – The Board of Education approved $25,183,948 in construction bids on Tuesday evening for a slew of improvements at all three school buildings, the bus garage, and Vet’s Park. There will also be a new access road between Oak Orchard Elementary School and Clifford Wise Middle School.

The new access road will be built this summer. That bid was approved for DiFiore Construction of Rochester for $4,698,000 and includes reconstructing the junior varsity softball and baseball fields, and also rebuilding the track. The bid also includes an entrance at Vet’s Park, a new press box and bleachers.

The bids overall came in low enough that the district doesn’t need to remove any pieces of the capital project, except for one. The district was interested in having a gate made of Medina sandstone at Vet’s Park. But materials cost about $250,000 and labor would have been another $100,000.

Mark Kruzynski, the school superintendent, said the district couldn’t in “good conscience” approve that much for the gate. Some Medina sandstone will likely be used in the gate, but it will be mostly made of “cultured stone,” Kruzynski said.

District residents approved the $32,588,000 capital project on Dec. 21, 2016. The State Education Department gave final approval to the project with a building permit on Monday.

Other bids accepted on Tuesday include:

• $6,264,300 for general trades, Concept Construction in Elma;

• $1,385,248 for windows, TGR Enterprises in West Seneca;

• $1,157,000 for plumbing, Thurston Dudek LLC of Ontario, NY;

• $2,607,000 for mechanical one, Quackenbush Co. in Buffalo;

• $2,749,600 for mechanical two, Mollenberg-Betz, Inc. of Buffalo;

• $1,864,600 for mechanical three, Hoot Mechanical & Electrical of Lockport;

• $3,770,000 for electrical, Frey Electric Construction of Tonawanda;

• $688,200 for temperature controls, U & S Services of Tonawanda.

Kruzynski said it’s “very great news” that the overall costs are within budget.

The construction projects will be spread over two summers with some work during the school year.

The project will replace 50-year-old windows at Oak Orchard Elementary School, and the school campus will have air-conditioning for the first time. The district is replacing HVAC units with much more efficient systems, Kruzynski said.

Here is a breakdown of the project:

• Health, Safety and Code Compliance: The district will replace aging bus lifts, upgrade the fire alarm systems, door hardware and toilets.

The roof, ceiling panels and wall panels will all be upgraded at the swimming pool.

Windows and a generator will be replaced at Oak Orchard Elementary School. Those windows are more than a half century old.

The project expenses are broken out to an estimated $3,637,300 at the elementary school, $2,562,400 at the middle school, $892,800 at high school, $561,500 at bus garage and $7,000 at concession stand.

• HVAC: All three school buildings, as well as the bus garage, will have HVAC totally overhauled with $4,728,200 planned for the high school, $4,115,200 at the middle school, $4,103,000 at the elementary school and $649,900 for the bus garage.

The district also will add air-conditioning for the high, middle and elementary schools at $285,600 per building or $856,800 total. The HVAC and air conditioning projects will be funded 98 percent by the state. The boilers are all about 25 years old and are nearing the end of the their useful lives. If the district tried to fix a boiler or install air-conditioning outside of a capital project, Medina would have to pay 100 percent of the costs.

• Information Technology: The district wants to move the network operations center from the basement of the district office to Oak Orchard Elementary School. The project will also add fiber optics to handle future needs as Medina moves to more electronic devices and on-line testing.

• Academics/Programs at High School: The project will include upgraded science rooms, renovations in library (by knocking out a wall and expanding to a next-door computer lab), replacing windows and renovating toilet facilities.

A pole barn will also be built for storage for marching band equipment (so no longer have to rent at Olde Pickle Factory).

The gym bleachers will be renovated, and JV softball and baseball fields will be upgraded. There also will be renovations in Ag Classroom and greenhouse.

• Academics/Programs at Middle School: The project includes renovations to the auditorium with stage floor, carpet, houselighting, some lighting and sound, and also some toilet renovations.

• Academics/Programs at Elementary School: The project includes auditorium renovations – carpet, seating, general, and improvements to toilets, new drinking fountains, classroom storage units with sinks, upgrades to the playground, and provisions to abate hazardous materials if any are found inside walls during the construction project.

• Site work for track: The track has already been resurfaced once and patched several times and the state won’t pay for another resurfacing but will aid a reconstruction of the site. The rebuilt track will have six lanes, event area, a scoreboard, and fencing and paving.

• Site work for road from elementary to middle school: A campus road will be constructed between Oak Orchard Elementary and Wise Middle School for bus traffic. The road will be heavy duty for buses.

The project includes demolition, removal and grading, as well as new sidewalks, stormwater management, parking and road lighting, removal of playground and construction of a new one for younger elementary-age students, and restored landscaping.

A new parking lot with room for 70-75 vehicles also will be added.

The $32,588,000 approved for the project includes legal, architectural and engineering costs, which weren’t included in the bids approved on Tuesday.

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