Provided photo: The Medina Cadet guard competes at Lancaster on Saturday.
MEDINA – Medina will host a WinterGuard competition this Saturday at the high school with 22 guards competing. The event begins at 4:35 p.m. and includes the three guards from Medina.
“It is a great opportunity to see these students and adults perform without having to travel too far,” said Kathy Dreyfus, publicity chairwoman for the Medina Mustang Band.
The Boosters also want to thank the community for supporting the Basket Raffle on March 3 after postponing it because of inclement weather on Friday.
All three of Medina’s WinterGuard units competed at Victor on Feb. 17. The Novice Guard came in second place while the Cadets took first place with a score of 57.58. The Varsity guard earned first place in the Scholastic A class with a score of 68.26.
This past Saturday, two of the Medina guard units traveled to Lancaster for competition. The Cadets won first place in their class with a score of 61.51 along with the Varsity guard taking first place in the Scholastic A class with a score of 73.28.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 2 March 2018 at 9:16 pm
Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Chloe Nashwenter is part of the team of volunteers in the kitchen at the Sacred Heart Club, serving up about 150 fish fry dinners.
Sacred Heart serves Lenten fish fry dinners and also offers chicken finger dinners with fries.
Sacred Heart has been doing Lenten fish fries for about 15 years. They are a good fundraiser for the club, and also a chance to welcome community members to the site on North Gravel Road.
Mike Hartway, president of Sacred Heart, gets the tartar sauce ready. Sacred Heart will be serving the dinners every Friday right up to Easter. Hartway said the proceeds from the dinner go towards a big Christmas party for Sacred Heart members’ children and grandchildren, as well as some other kids in the community.
Mike Miller runs the kitchen for the Sacred Heart Club. He said the club’s members step up and work together for the fish fry dinners.
Another dinner is ready to go.
Mike McCauley sings and plays his guitar on many Fridays during the Lenten season at the Sacred Heart Club.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 1 March 2018 at 10:41 am
Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Judith Villavisanis, an artist, spent more than a month creating this mural on the south wall in the children’s section of Lee-Whedon Memorial Library. She finished the “Worlds of Wonder” mural on Monday.
Villavisanis is a former Albion resident who now lives in Florida. Villavisanis in 2014 created the new entrance leading to the children’s section. That entrance resembles a giant book and features many characters from children’s books, such as Wilbur, the pig from Charlotte’s Web.
Her latest project is a tribute to two people who each served the library for over 20 years: Maryellen Dale as President of the Board of Trustees and Elaine Jamele as Children’s Librarian.
Villavisanis is shown working on the mural on Feb. 7. She is painting Pegasus, the mythical winged devine stallion, one of most recognized creatures in Greek mythology.
The boy in the lower right is The Little Prince.
Peter Rabbit appears in this cutout hanging from the ceiling near the mural.
The library has books by the mural that are the inspiration for many of the characters featured in the large painting.
Peter Pan and Tinker Bell appear in the mural above the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
The cow jumped over the moon from the popular nursery rhyme, “Hey, diddle, diddle,” by Mother Goose.
Villavisanis included characters for younger children through teens, and also drew from different eras. This character is of Mary Poppins, who became popular after a 1964 Disney film. She first appeared in a series of children’s books starting in 1934.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 28 February 2018 at 9:22 pm
Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – Today is the last day for Alicia Hogan as owner of O’Brien’s Tavern on Main Street in Medina. Hogan, left, is pictured with her daughter Allie Hogan at O’Brien’s just before an open mic night. When Hogan started as owner 6 ½ years ago, there was an open mic the first night.
Many musicians are expected to be part of the celebration tonight.
The Irish pub has a long tradition in Medina, with Hogan saying the site has been a bar for more than a century.
Hogan said she looks forward to a new chapter in her life, but will miss the O’Brien’s customers.
“The bar business is a hard business,” she said. “I love this place, and I love the people. I pretty much know everyone by first name.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 28 February 2018 at 2:00 pm
A Medina man was killed Saturday in a tragic accident in Rochester, when he was walking on the sidewalk and was struck by a drunk driver.
Jordan Askew, 26, was standing on the sidewalk on Lyell Avenue near Child Street when he was hit by a car that jumped the curb at about 2:49 a.m. Saturday, according to news reports.
Askew died at the scene. He was with Alex Krunz, 21, who was also hit by the car and is critically injured and remains hospitalized.
The Rochester Police Department has charged Chermasia Collins, 29, of Rochester, with aggravated vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated and reckless driving and many traffic tickets.
Askew has many family members in Medina, Albion and Orleans County. He was also known as “Shug.” He is survived by his mother, Stephanie Askew, and his fathers, Greg Griffin and William Coley.
Calling hours are scheduled from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Glad Tidings Baptist Church in Medina, where his funeral service will follow.
Photo by Tom Rivers: Janice Jovanelly, Medina district clerk/secretary to the superintendent, will retire on June 30. The Board of Education on Tuesday named Julie Kuhn, secretary to the middle school principal, to succeed Jovanelly.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 28 February 2018 at 12:05 pm
Janice Jovanelly has been steady presence while district had changes in superintendents
MEDINA – Janice Jovanelly is the “voice of the school district” and often the first face people see when they stop by the district office.
Jovanelly is the district clerk and secretary to the school superintendent. Her voice is also on the district’s phone system.
She has worked in her current job since 2001. Since then the school district has had five superintendents with Judith Staples, Richard Galante, Neil Miller, Jeff Evoy and Mark Kruzynski, as well as several interim school leaders.
Jovanelly has been a steadying influence in the district office, and also been a key resource for the superintendents, helping them to connect with staff, community leaders and other school officials in Orleans and Niagara counties. She knows all of the district’s 330-340 employees.
Jovanelly will retire on June 30.
Mark Kruzynski, Medina’s district superintendent, said Jovanelly has been an important asset for the school district.
“Janice is irreplaceable, and her knowledge of the district and how things operate has been invaluable to me and every other superintendent,” he said. “I am especially going to miss her kindness and her sense of humor.”
The Board of Education on Tuesday named Julie Kuhn, the current middle school principal’s secretary, to succeed Jovanelly. Kuhn will get to work alongside Jovanelly for three months before taking over July 1.
That will give her a chance to go through a school election. As district clerk, Jovanelly has to line up the election inspectors, have the ballots ready and the the voting machines. She also has to post the legal notices.
Jovanelly joined the school district after working 10 years at the Orleans County Mental Health Department, first as a receptionist for two years and then as secretary to the director for eight years.
She is looking forward to having summers off, and expects to be active in her garden.
MEDINA – A local resident turned 100 on Feb. 13. Four days after her birthday, Ruth Harold was joined by her family and friends at a party in the North Wing and Medina Memorial Hospital.
Ruth Harold is shown with her children at the celebration. Betty Sargent, left, and Karen Matusak are joined by their brother, Kent.
Ruth was born in Wolcottsville and moved to Middleport. She and her husband raised three children – Kent, Betty and Karen. The two daughters both worked at Orleans Community Health.
Ruth’s three children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren attended her party on Feb. 17.
She attributes her longevity to her mother’s German cooking and her German recipes.
Photos by Tom Rivers: Mark Cye, the interim chief executive officer for Orleans Community Health, is pictured by Medina Memorial Hospital, which is part of the Orleans Community Health.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 26 February 2018 at 1:44 pm
MEDINA – Mark Cye, the interim president and CEO of Orleans Community Health, said healthcare organizations are struggling with reimbursements that don’t cover the cost of care. It’s particularly difficult for small, rural hospitals that serve populations with a high percentage on Medicaid. The Medicaid rates are “awful,” Cye said.
He started as the hospital leader on Jan. 1 and also has been Orleans Community Health’s chief financial officer the past three years. He has worked the past 20 years in the healthcare field.
The following interview was conducted recently by Tom Rivers as Cye’s office at the hospital on Ohio Street.
Question: I wonder how you got interested in the healthcare field?
Answer: When I think about it, it was maybe by mistake. I actually started off in dietary at the Lockport hospital and I worked there for five years. At that point I was going for my accounting degree and a position opened up in patient accountings so I transitioned up there to see what that was like. As I was going through there I got my bachelor’s degree in accounting.
The day I was actually going to resign, because I had accepted another job as an accountant, I had to have my appendix removed that morning. When I went into work that morning at the hospital, the controller asked me about taking the accounting position at the hospital.
I took that and it was healthcare, healthcare, healthcare all the time. I was three years in that job at Lockport hospital. Then what happened is the controller had transitioned out to the Olmsted Center for the Visually Impaired. He called me and asked me to follow him. He was there three years and then he asked me to follow him to BryLin Hospital (on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo). I was there for three years.
I actually worked here as the controller from 2006 to 2008 and then went back to BryLin for seven years, and came back here. I’ve been in healthcare for about 20 years.
Question: Has the number-crunching got more stressful?
Answer: Oh yeah. With healthcare, the days of having dollars there are gone. Now it’s being more creative with how we’re doing things. In healthcare there is always downsizing to really get it to providing the same care but more efficiently. The days of Medicare and the states giving money have gone by the wayside. That’s the more stressful part.
Question: It seems like there is only so much you can cut.
Answer: That’s why in these days if you don’t affiliate with someone, those places don’t make it. With an affiliation you get synergies of service. Maybe you could have a CEO run this hospital and manage that hospital. With the upper level management you have cost reduction and it’s spread out.
Question: Is Medina affiliated with anyone right now?
Answer: Not yet. We’re in the process. It’s pretty close. We’re under a confidentiality agreement until it’s written. We were affiliated at one point with Catholic Health, which to us didn’t provide us a lot of subsistence, so we ended that about six to nine months ago.
Question: They seemed to be at events.
Mark Cye is pictured with a wall that recognizes some of the hospital’s bigger donors.
Answer: Yes, they would present but what we need from an affiliate is as a small, rural hospital we don’t have the ability to attract doctors here and bring other services. Without that, those services go elsewhere, they go 25 miles to the east or 25 miles to the west at another healthcare facility.
We need to attract those doctors here. That was what they were supposed to do but it didn’t pan out.
A good example is in our state it took us 18 months to attract a primary care doc at Albion. Other hospitals have 10 of them sitting there. That’s your main piece in an affiliate. That’s what we’re looking for in an affiliate is how can we keep people in this community getting service in this community.
We don’t want your elders having to drive a half hour to get a procedure when it can be offered here.
Question: It seems like a crisis for rural healthcare.
Answer: Yes. Knock on wood, luckily of all critical access hospitals, New York State is the only one that hasn’t had one close yet, but there have been up to 100 critical access hospitals that have closed in the last couple of years. That’s where the collaboration with other larger affiliates will come into play.
Question: It seems the other nearby hospitals have been aggressive in Orleans County of late. The Batavia hospital just added a family doctor in Medina.
Answer: With most critical access hospitals, they are up on their own. In Watertown, there is no one around for an hour. For us, we’re in a special area where we have big systems sitting on both sides of us. That’s why at some point we have to get stronger with one of them to make it work.
Question: I think you can say that with the local hospital and many local institutions the local people tend to be critical. That must be tough for the Medina hospital because there is some criticism.
Answer: It’s a battle. For us we always try to promote the positives. But you get that one negative comment out there and it blows a lot of the good you’re doing. We could be opening up a new ED today but someone could say the care stunk when I went there, and that’s what people focus on. Which is sad because at the end of the day, and this is what I try to stress to everyone here, is we’re all marketable as employees. Could I go somewhere else? Probably. Could the nurses go somewhere else? Probably. But at the end of the day that would affect the 20,000 people in this community who need the service. It could be your family member who needs that ambulance, who is having a heart attack or stroke and isn’t going to make it if they have to go 25 miles this way or that way.
Question: Is the care really as bad as some people make it out to be?
Answer: Some people come to the ED because they need a medication, they want their drug. We’re going to turn you away.
Some people come here and they don’t want to wait 10 minutes. To them 10 minutes is terrible, but to a normal person they would go there all day long.
Question: Isn’t there a standard of response? I tend to think a smaller hospital would be much faster than a bigger one. You could probably sit there for many hours in Rochester.
Answer: Right. What you always push in these type of settings is a quick turnaround. That is how you keep and attract patients to your area. Here the goal is hour and half from the time you get through the door until you get out.
There are reports that come through about quality, where patients do the questionnaire where they are asked, “Would you recommend the hospital or would you not?” You get some people who will rate your quality a 2, but then two questions later they give you a 9 for, “Would you recommend this place?” So that is of course what the data feeds into and it gets published that you’re a one-star facility, yet 90 percent of the time they would recommend you. You look at some of the metrics and does it even make sense?
They come in and we’re changing your meds, we’re changing your food pattern on you, and to them it’s terrible.
For us it even makes it worse because we’re a low volume. If we have four discharges that month and this is one of them, we look bad. A lot of things end of skewed for the smaller hospitals.
Question: Why did you want to come back to Medina? It seems like it would be easier in the city at a bigger facility.
Answer: Healthcare is healthcare. It’s one of things where I went back to BryLin, they were in bankruptcy when I was there. With my previous boss we went back to BryLin to fix it, to get it out of bankruptcy. They got out of bankruptcy. Then this opened up. I decided to come back here because there was a whole new leadership team. I knew they were struggling.
I want to make a place work. I can’t fix it on my own, obviously, but here there is a challenge.
I like a challenge. I’ve never been the type who just liked to sit in the office and say, “Here’s your financial statement.” I want to broaden and learn.
Anne Outwein, a volunteer with the Twig organization, greets people at the hospital lobby, which is being upgraded.
Question: You’ve been the CFO here for how long?
Answer: Two years. I can in as controller on March 2015, and officially CFO in January 2016.
Question: Are you doing the two jobs, the CFO and the CEO?
Answer: Yes. Again as you look at the hospital and the ways its volumes are changing, our volumes are down dramatically. We’re trying to ramp that up and fix it.
What does a 25-bed or a 10-bed hospital really need to run? If you don’t change with those times, what’s going to happen?
Question: When you say they’re down dramatically, is that compared to five or 10 years ago?
Answer: Two years ago. Is part of it a change from going to an acute hospital to a critical access hospital? People may think we’re a critical access hospital so we can’t handle certain things. That’s one of those things that you don’t fix overnight. We have to rebuild it up. As a critical access hospital we have a 96-hour rule. We are required to have the patient in and out within 96 hours to keep our critical access designation, which is a four-day window.
That doesn’t mean every patient has to be four days. You have some for seven days and some for three days, as long as you average for the year. Some of the doctors didn’t understand that and if a patient was going to be five or six days, they would transfer they out.
We are looking at everything. Does it make sense to keep running as we’re running or do we change some things?
Question: With the focus on preventive care and shorter stays is there less money coming in?
Answer: The good thing for a critical access hospital, from a Medicare standpoint – and that typically goes with your elder population and we have an elder population here – the Medicare dollars are reimbursed at the cost.
You come in for pneumonia and it costs you $5,000 to take care of the patient, we’re going to reimburse you $5,000 instead of say $3,000. But we also have a high Medicaid population, and Medicaid reimburses awful. They haven’t increased their ER rate in five years.
Medicaid is what hurts us. Our clinic is probably 40 to 50 percent Medicaid/managed Medicaid, and the reimbursements are just awful.
Question: Is there a chance things could get worse for reimbursements?
Answer: I don’t think Medicaid could get any worse. The problem with Medicaid is it’s stagnant. If my costs go up 3 percent, they don’t put a 3 percent increase in for inflation. It’s always, “Here’s a half percent, here’s a half percent” and that’s what weighs down a lot of the organizations. It’s not going up to meet your costs, and that’s what’s putting a strain on a lot of us.
Question: And that’s despite New York spending $70 billion on Medicaid. You wonder where it all goes?
Answer: There’s a lot going to the other ancillary type things when we should be putting more into healthcare.
Question: How worried should the community be about the hospital?
Answer: As long as we can work with the union, work with doctors out there, and bring a closer-knit affiliate, that will be the shot in the arm that is needed here. I think we’re very close to getting that.
As those affiliations get closer, the state looks favorably on a struggling facility like us and is able to say we’ll give you an extra million dollars this year and next year, as you work through the affiliation, I know in two years you’re not going to ask for 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 million dollars.
When we go with an affiliation, now I can go to the state with a huge backer with me who can say, “We’re willing to work with them and they need some assistance to get from where they’ve been to where they need to be.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 23 February 2018 at 9:45 pm
Provided photos: A cannon that was used in World War I about a century ago will be removed from State Street Park in Medina on March 12 and taken for restoration work in Altoona, Pa.
MEDINA – A cannon used in World War I that has been a prominent memorial at State Street Park will get much-needed restoration work beginning next month.
The cannon, manufactured in 1916, was fired during World War I. Every Memorial Day for about 80 years, the Medina community has gathered by the cannon for the solemn ceremony.
The cannon, however, has become badly deteriorated and will be restored for $40,000. George Bidleman of Orleans Ford is raising the funds for the project.
The Orleans Renaissance Group first pushed for saving the cannon about two years ago. The VFW and American Legion both supported the effort.
“She is in dire need of being restored – not just the paint but the whole body,” said David Kusmiersczak, a member of the Legion.
The cannon has become badly deteriorated. It will be refurbished and should last another century.
The cannon will be moved on March 12 and taken to Altoona, Pa. That is the location of Seed Artillery Reproduction and Restoration.
The cannon will be stripped down. The parts will be repaired and re-manufactured if necessary. The gun will be primed and painted with epoxy primer and finished to match the original WWI paint scheme.
Seed Artillery will try to have the project done in time to be back in Medina for Veterans Day in November, said Steve Johnson, American Legion commander in Medina.
The cannon will return to a concrete base and landscape improvements. The Orleans Renaissance Group also is working to add new flagpoles and an interpretive sign at the site.
The cannon is a British Heavy Field Gun known as a B.L. 60 Pounder, manufactured in 1916 by Elswick Ordnance Company, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
It weighs 6 tons, is a 5 inch/127mm caliber, 21 feet in length and 6 feet in width. The gun was originally issued to battery in France, April 1917 and fired 2,871 rounds during its first tour. It was returned to England in 1917 for repairs and reissued to battery in France, September 1918, firing an additional 1,471 rounds.
Photos by Tom Rivers: Charlotte Theobald, an environmental engineer with the state Department of Environmental Transportation, goes over a plan for remediating 9.5 vacant acres of the former Abex manufacturing facility in Medina. Theobald discusses the plan with Jim Whipple, chief executive officer of the Orleans Economic Development Agency.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 23 February 2018 at 1:28 pm
MEDINA – The state Department of Environmental Conservation said it was a significant milestone to have an accepted remediation plan for 9.5 acres of vacant land that was contaminated by the manufacturing processes at the former Abex, at the corner of Bates Road and Route 31.
The DEC did soil borings, well water samples and other tests on the land and developed a cleanup plan.
The DEC is proposing excavating and hauling away 5,700 cubic yards of soil to a permitted landfill. The plan calls for bringing in a foot of cover over the 9.5 acres which could be soil, crusher-run or recycled concrete. If pavement is installed or some other impervious cover, less than a foot of cover material may be accepted, the DEC said.
The estimated cleanup is about $5 million. The DEC doesn’t have that budgeted. The agency would be willing to work with developers if private funds paid for the cleanup. There would be tax credits available for a developer for working on a brownfield site, the DEC said.
The DEC also would be open to allowing sections of the site be remediated, rather than the entire 9.5 acres at once, DEC leaders said during an informational meeting on Wednesday evening at the Ridgeway Town Hall.
“I think we could do it in pieces,” Charlotte Theobald, an environmental engineer with the DEC, said during the meeting.
The site is next to the current Brunner, which has done several expansions at the former plant. The 9.5 acres is just east of the plant in a wooded area.
Jim Whipple, chief executive officer of the Orleans Economic Development Agency, thanked the DEC for doing the cleanup study and plan. The project has been in the works for more than a decade.
Whipple said the land is an asset, with potential for a parking lot of perhaps a storage warehouse.
The site’s contamination doesn’t pose a high-priority threat to warrant Superfund dollars, the DEC said. That means the cleanup costs will likely be borne by a developer with perhaps help from a local government.
Eamonn O’Neil from the State Department of Health said the cleanup plan meets the standards for protecting public health.
Theobald of the DEC went over the site history during the meeting on Wednesday.
The former Abex foundry was constructed in the early 1950s. Prior to development the parcels were undeveloped woodland and tilled farmland. Lagoons were used to collect wash water from the foundry process as well as storm water discharge.
The former foundry and manufacturing facility used foundry sands for the casting of metal parts. Foundry sands and waste have been identified across the site and within the settling lagoons. Settled foundry sands in the lagoons was reclaimed for reuse at the former foundry facility by staging adjacent to lagoons or were collected for disposal.
Several Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments were conducted on the site and the adjoining Brunner parcel from 1990 to 2008, the DEC said. The Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments indicated the disposal of remaining foundry sand inventory on site, accumulation of sediment in two of the lagoons, reclaimed foundry sand was staged near the lagoons, and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) concentrations in foundry sand disposal area exceeded state standards and guidance values.
The DEC is accepting written comments about the proposed remedial action plan for 45 days, from Feb. 2 through March 19. For more information, click here.
Photo by Tom Rivers: The Rite Aid store in Albion is pictured today. The pharmacy will begin transitioning to a Walgreens after 5 p.m. on Thursday at the Albion and Medina stores.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 February 2018 at 3:46 pm
Changeover expected to take up to 2 years
The transition starts on Thursday for two Rite Aid stores in Orleans County which will become Walgreens. That process won’t happen overnight.
It starts with the pharmacies at 5 p.m. on Thursday. The pharmacies will close at 5 p.m. Usually they stay open until 9 p.m. on Thursday.
They are expected to open as Walgreens pharmacies on Friday. Walgreens will work on fully changing over both stores in a process that could take two years with changing the signs and other branding and integration. One change in the future for the two local stores will be an extra hour each day of being open for business. Walgreens doesn’t close until 10 p.m.
Walgreens states on its website the pharmacies will have a seamless transition, keeping the same employees.
“The staff you know and trust will remain,” the company says. (Click here for more information from Walgreens.)
The Albion store was originally an Eckerd when it was built about 15 years ago at 10 East Ave. Medina’s store is located at 1422 South Main St.
Last year Walgreens agreed to buy more than 1,900 Rite Aid stores and three distribution centers for $4.4 billion. This year, the first stores have started to switch over to Walgreens.
The new owner doesn’t have a presence in Orleans County, although Walgreens in June 2007 received final approval from local planning officials for a new store in Albion.
Walgreens was planning on a 13,667-square-foot store that would have required demolishing the Sugar Creek gas station, the former Wiggly Jiggly’s English Pub and Chia Sen Buffet.
The Albion project never moved forward. The Sugar Creek gas station closed and is currently vacant. Wiggly Jiggly’s also closed and that space is now a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Chia Sen remains in that plaza.
Tiffany Poynter received life-saving transfusions as baby
Courtesy of the Red Cross
Photo courtesy of Red Cross: Tiffany Poynter, pictured with her parents, Merle and Michelle Poynter, needed a blood transfusion at birth and is now a Medina high school senior who donates blood.
MEDINA – Tiffany Poynter was born two weeks early by emergency cesarean section. During the procedure, the doctor cut her mother’s placenta, causing Tiffany to bleed out through her umbilical cord.
She was given a blood transfusion immediately after birth and a second transfusion the following day. Tiffany recovered in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“All in all, I am forever grateful for whoever donated the blood I received because I wouldn’t be here today without it,” said Tiffany. “I remember being very excited to turn 16 so I could donate!”
Tiffany is now a high school senior and blood donor. She has donated four times and intends to keep giving.
“I donate blood because I want to help those who need it like I did.”
Due to blood drives canceled because of winter weather and illnesses such as the seasonal flu, there is a critical need for blood donations. Eligible donors are urged to give now. Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments are encouraged. Visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS to make an appointment.
Upcoming local blood drives will be held at:
• Medina Memorial Hospital on Saturday, February 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Medina Sacred Heart Club on Tuesday, February 27, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• St. Gobain in Albion on Tuesday, February 27, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
• You can help earn scholarship money for Kendall High School by donating at the school on Wednesday, February 28, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
MEDINA – The Medina Police Department would like to announce that it has an upcoming Emergency Drill scheduled at the Medina High School on April 20 at 1 p.m.
The Medina Police Department has been partnering with the Medina Fire Department and the Medina Central School District to conduct ongoing training so that all personnel involved are better prepared in the event of a large-scale emergency.
In light of recent events, we felt it was appropriate to inform the public that we have been and are continuing to take efforts to increase safety and planning for an emergencies that arise in the Village of Medina. We have previously conducted a readiness drill at the Medina Hospital in the spring of 2016.
In the 2016-2017 school year, local first responders and school leadership took part in a classroom type in-service training at the high school auditorium. Discussions with school administration continued in the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, and this drill was scheduled in a planning meeting in January 2018.
Although these efforts are not on showcase on a daily basis, we are always working behind the scenes to make local schools, businesses, and gathering places as safe as possible. We are committed to working and cooperating with local organizations as well as surrounding agencies to do everything in our power to keep our village residents and visitors safe. We feel this drill will help us continue our progress in this area.
A reminder that this drill will be on April 20 at 1 p.m. This day is an early dismissal day for the Medina students, and they will not be taking part in the drill. Role players will substitute for a realistic simulation. Citizens are asked to avoid the entire Medina School campus during this drill. Area residences can expect a high amount of emergency equipment: police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, in the area. Further reminders will be put out on the Medina Police and Fire Department’s social media as the event becomes closer.
Photos by Tom Rivers: Greg Reed, the director of the Orleans County YMCA, will be leading a new spin bike class beginning today. Reed found 10 nearly new spin bikes at a deep discount for the Y. Reed started as director on Oct. 2.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 19 February 2018 at 9:49 am
MEDINA – The new director of the YMCA in Orleans County is focused on bringing more people to the Y on Pearl Street.
Greg Reed has the site open a half hour later each day while adding new programs and partnerships in the community.
The efforts seem to be paying off. The Y added 50 new members in January and now has 450 “member units.” A unit may include a family with multiple people under the membership.
“Our goal is to have more people in here,” said Reed, who started as director on Oct. 2. “I see it as a community center.”
Soon after he started the new job, Reed sent out emails introducing himself to different community members. He sent one email to Dan Doctor, Medina Central School’s director of community outreach. Doctor just happened to be looking for a site for an afterschool program that wouldn’t be on campus.
He was at the Y 10 minutes after getting the email. The district and Y formed a partnership for an after-school program in the Y’s basement. Doctor and volunteers gave the basement a fresh coat of paint and brought in furniture and games. The Y is offering the space rent free.
The new Education Recreation Club celebrated its grand opening on Feb. 2.
Doctor said Reed has been “awesome” to work with. Doctor had been working on the ERC for 18 months. It came together quickly at the end with Reed’s support, Doctor said.
Reed is hopeful many of the kids and their families will become Y members once they see what the organization has to offer.
“We just wanted to have a partnership with the school,” he said. “I just wanted more people in the building. When they’re here, they’ll see what assets we have.”
Reed is pictured on Friday with Dan Doctor, Medina Central School’s director of community outreach. The Y is offering use of the basement for a new Education Recreation Club, which meets after school at the Y.
Reed, 33, joined the Y after working five years as a physical education teacher and athletic director at a charter school in Denver, Colorado. Reed moved to Stafford with his wife and three children to be closer to her family. Her father is pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Batavia.
When he was athletic director at the charter school, Reed made providing opportunities for kids his focus. He is bringing the same philosophy to the Y.
That may mean partnering or complementing what is offered at a school district. Reed stressed he doesn’t see the Y as a competitor for existing programs at the school or in the community.
The Y has two full-time employees and 35 part-timers. Besides the main site at the former Armory on Pearl Street, the Y runs a before- and after-school childcare program at Albion Central School, and an after-school program at Medina Central School.
The Y is running a “Strong Communities Campaign” with a goal of $28,000. That would support memberships and programs for people unable to pay. Reed said the organization doesn’t turn people away if the can’t pay for a program.
The Y offers many youth and adult sports programs, as well as other group exercise classes, including sunrise yoga.
Some other recent changes at the Y include:
• The site is open a half hour later, now 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7:30 on Friday, and 1:30 on Saturday. The Y also is staying open on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Reed expects the Sunday hours to continue around Memorial Day. Once it gets warm out, there is less demand to be open on Sundays.
• A batting cage in the attic is now available.
• The facility is brighter after Reed used a lift to change 60 lift bulbs at the ceiling. He also got the big fans working.
• The Y purchased 10 spin bikes at a deep discount and Reed is leading a class with those bikes that starts today.
• The weight room was reorganized with one wall knocked out to open up the space.
MEDINA – The 2018 re-organizational meeting of the Medina Municipal Tree Board began with a moment of silence.
Tree Board members paused to remember their friend and fellow board member, Wilson Southworth, who sadly passed away at age 70 on Dec. 8. Southworth was a long-time member of the Tree Board, its Vice-Chairman and a staunch proponent of reforesting the Village of Medina.
Wilson Southworth
“I spent many a sunny winter afternoon with Wilson, pruning young trees in the village,” said Chris Busch, Tree Board chairman. “Sometimes it was just he and I, sometimes we were joined by other tree board members. We had such a great time pruning trees, conversing and enjoying ourselves. He was such an asset to the board and such a good friend. We all miss him very much.”
Southworth was a strong advocate for planting trees and a very dedicated board member, said Busch.
“I’ll bet not many people knew he was a member of the Tree Board let alone Vice-Chairman.” said Busch. “He really got it when came to the value of street trees in the village. Wilson really understood the impact that tree-lined streets have on neighborhoods and people, and he had an excellent grasp of what was involved in planning, planting and maintaining a village forest. He took the job very seriously and enjoyed it.”
As a fitting tribute to him, the Tree Board voted unanimously to dedicate this years’ Arbor Day celebration to him.
“He’d be so tickled to see this,” said newly elected Tree Board Vice-Chair and Arbor Day Coordinator, Nicole Goyette. “Each year, hundreds of school children attend the Arbor Day celebration in Medina. When he was teaching, his classes were always there with a special song or poem prepared for the occasion. So, it is right and proper that this years’ celebration should be for him.”
Arbor Day in Medina has been billed as “WNY’s biggest and best” Arbor Day celebration.
“As far as we know, it is the biggest and best,” said Goyette. “We’ve had 700-plus school children and dozens of citizens attend for many years. I don’t know of any other Arbor Day in WNY that can top that.”
Goyette said that as part of the tribute to Southworth, some of the Arbor Day activities he created as a teacher will be performed again. A memorial tree will be planted in his memory as well.
“The Tree Board provides a memorial tree program,” said Goyette. “For $250, a tree will be planted somewhere in the village forest and an engraved granite brick placed in the Memorial Tree Garden in front of City Hall. Wilson helped plant that garden.”
Anyone wishing to make a donation to the Village Tree Fund in Wilson Southworth’s memory or wishing to donate a memorial tree and brick in his memory may do so at the Village Clerk’s office.
Credit cards, cash and checks are accepted, and the phone number is 798-0710. Memorial Tree donation forms are available for download by clicking here or at the Clerk’s Office. Completed forms should be turned in to the Village Clerk with the $250 fee.
This years’ celebration will take place at Butts Park on Friday, April 27, at 9 a.m. and will be known as the Wilson Southworth Memorial Arbor Day Celebration.
A Medina man was killed Saturday in a tragic accident in Rochester, when he was walking on the sidewalk and was struck by a drunk driver.
