Press Release, GCASA

The Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Foundation has approved three mini grants to local organizations.

The GCASA Foundation was established in 1992 to support the work of GCASA, a substance abuse treatment, prevention and residential services provider in Genesee and Orleans counties.

“GCASA Foundation is committed to supporting the work of GCASA and other grass roots organizations in our community,” said Foundation Board President Kathleen Maerten. “Annually, GCASA Foundation sets aside money to provide agencies with needed funding to further their efforts in making our community a safer, healthier place to live and work.”

This year’s three recipients provide crucial services to individuals and families in the two-county area. The Mental Health Association in Genesee County, Crossroads House in Batavia and Christ Church Community Kitchen in Albion each received $200 mini-grants.

“We receive many requests for funding and find it challenging to limit our mini-grant program,” said John Bennett, GCASA executive director. “The work done by this year’s grantees impacts many of the people we serve at GCASA.”

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Theresa Schmackpfeffer and her great-granddaughter Kelli Dingle, 7, arrange pies and other desserts at a fund-raising dinner for The Arc of Orleans County today.

The Arc is serving up chicken and biscuits at the Nutri-Fair site at 16 East Academy St. This is the first time the Arc is having a chicken and biscuit dinner as a fund-raiser. Meals will be served until 7 p.m.

Greg Canham emerges from the kitchen with four take-out dinners ready.

Governor didn’t include aid runs for each school district

Photos by Tom Rivers – The front entrance to the Ronald L. Sodoma Elementary School in Albion includes giant crayons with guiding principles such as a “Loyalty.”

School leaders across the state in January usually are given some sense of what their state aid will be for the following school year.

The governor presents a budget in January and that document includes “runs” for each school district, the projected state aid for the following year. Usually during budget negotiations the State Legislature will push for an education funding increase over the governor’s numbers.

So the governor’s proposal typically is a worst-case scenario.

This time there are no numbers from the governor for the 2015-16 school year, which local school officials say makes preparing their budgets a greater challenge.

“Withholding of state aid figures is truly unprecedented and very disappointing as it places school districts in a very tough spot as we continue to be held to all of the deadlines established by the state with respect to local budgets but we are also unaware of our state revenue projections,” said Robert D’Angelo, superintendent at Holley Central School.

D’Angelo and the Board of Education will work on a 2015-16 budget, assuming the district’s state aid will be unchanged. If there is an increase for Holley through the state budget process, D’Angelo said district leaders will discuss how to apply an increase in state aid, if there is one. Holley also will reach out to local state legislators for their help in getting solid data from the state.

The governor and State Legislature have passed four straight on-time budgets after a generation of late budgets, some not getting approved into the summer, long after the April 1 state budget deadline.

Michael Bonnewell, Albion’s school superintendent, remembers when districts had to prepare budgets based on “guesstimates” from the state.

“It’s like the old days,” Bonnewell said.

Cuomo is pushing for changes in teacher evaluations, and he is using the state budget to pressure the Legislature to go along with his proposal.

Cuomo wants state assessments to count 50 percent towards a teacher’s evaluation. Currently, those tests account for 20 percent of the teacher’s score.

He has proposed a 1.7 percent education funding increase if the Legislature does not approve the teacher evaluation changes, and a 4.8 percent increase if the changes are adopted. He hasn’t released data for individual districts, as was done in the past.

Bonnewell said districts can’t assume a 1.7 percent increase as a worst-case scenario because Cuomo ties some of that increase to grants, which are not given uniformly to all districts. Bonnewell said there may be a chance some districts will see an overall aid drop.

Holley Central School recently completed renovations at the junior-senior high school.

The 2014-15 state budget gave the five school districts in Orleans County – Albion, Holley, Kendall, Lyndonville and Medina – a 5.1 percent increase, from $65.98 million to $69.33 million.

Jeff Evoy, Medina Central School superintendent, sent a letter to the governor last week, saying the district has been put in an “impossible” position as it tries to craft a responsible and effective budget.

Evoy said the governor’s aid numbers are a critical piece of the budget process. The district’s audit and finance committee uses that data to develop the budget with input from school stakeholders.

“This vital process cannot proceed, however, without an expected state aid distribution baseline, as we are left without enough information to predict revenue for the upcoming year,” Evoy said.

Lyndonville will work on a school budget, knowing the district may not get a state aid increase. Jason Smith, the district superintendent, said Lyndonville could use some reserves and fund balance to make up for static state aid. The district will work towards a budget with “minimal increases” to the local taxpayers, Smith said.

Smith has some doubts about the governor’s push to have assessments count 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation, mainly because not every teacher has students who are tested that way.

Right now, the standardized tests from grades 3 through 8 Math and ELA count towards teacher evaluations.

“How is he going to account for every other teacher in districts that do not teach 3-8 Math or ELA?” Smith asked. “Furthermore, the 3-8 tests in math and ELA were never designed to be viewed as pass/fail type tests, but rather, a tool that districts can use to gauge student progress toward meeting the Common Core standards.”

Smith said he doesn’t favor the governor’s push to make the tests count so heavily on a teacher’s evaluation.

“I do not support it because of the sheer fact that is not comprehensive and lacks details, and really, the research is very unclear as to how much weight should be attributed to student scores in overall teacher evaluations,” Smith said.

State aid accounts for 60 percent of the Kendall Central School budget. The district wants to go to work on the 2015-16 school budget but “we can’t responsibly develop a budget or involve our communities in a process which could be based on faulty assumptions,” said Julie Christensen, the Kendall school superintendent.

Julie Christensen

Kendall has seen a $5.5 million reduction in state aid through a Gap Elimination Adjustment since 2008. The district, and others in the state, have pushed the governor and State Legislature to restore that funding. Many districts were forced to tap reserves, lay off staff and cut programs due to the funding cuts.

“It is time for the governor and our legislators to address this inequity and fully fund our schools,” Christensen said. “It’s their constitutional obligation.”

The governor and Legislature also passed a tax cap in 2011. School districts use the governor’s aid projections to formulate our tax cap calculation and the proposed tax levy is due to the state by March 1, Christensen said.

“It is impossible to establish a proposed tax levy without having a clear sense of our projected state aid,” she said.

Christensen sounded some of the same concerns raised by Smith of Lyndonville, in regards to the teacher evaluation proposal from the governor. Christensen said 70 percent of Kendall teachers do not receive a state growth score.

The remaining 70 percent of staff, according to the governor’s proposals, would receive a score that measures one year of academic growth, Christensen said. “How do you measure one year of growth in physical education, art, music?” she said.

Most districts in the state already had “rigorous, thoughtful, productive teacher evaluation systems” in place, Christensen said, long before Race to The Top and the mandated Annual Professional Performance Review process. New York City did not have those standards in place, she said.

“To hold all school districts hostage to disingenuous evaluation standards that does not support staff, students and administrators is incredulous!” she said by email. “Teachers are not numbers!! They are dedicated, committed, hardworking professionals and should be treated as such by our Governor, the State Education Department and others in political positions.”

She called Cuomo’s Opportunity Agenda “a travesty to the education profession on many levels.”

Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Employees at the Orleans Correctional Facility delivered food to Community Action on East State Street on Wednesday.

The following are pictured: Dan Passarell (kneeling), a teacher at the men’s prison. Back row, from left: Richard Lugo, corrections officer; Willie Thompson, corrections officer; Carol Cornacchilo, offender rehabilitation counselor; and Kelly Montes, offender rehabilitation counselor.

Employees held a competition at the facility among four unions in December and January to see which union could give the most. The management confidential union or administration led the way, with other donations from teachers, corrections officers, counselors and CSEA workers. Altogether there were 188 pounds donated.

The donations come a good time for Community Action, which sees giving drop off after the holidays, said Anni Skowneski, case manager for Community Action. She said the food would be given out at Community Action sites in Albion and Holley.

660,825 pageviews topped previous record by 22.1%

Photo by Tom Rivers – A referendum to dissolve the Village of Medina drew lots of traffic to OrleansHub.com in January.

Five people were injured in a two-vehicle accident on Jan. 24 at the intersection of Gaines Basin Road and West Countyhouse Road.

Orleans Hub had a big surge in traffic in January with 660,825 pageviews, which obliterates the December 2014 record of 541,216. That is a 22.1 percent increase or 119,609 more from the previous record.

The online news site also averaged 6,650 unique daily visitors for the month, which broke the December record of 5,650 by 17.7 percent or 1,000 “uniques.”

There were with several stories and community issues proving popular with readers, including the dissolution vote on Jan. 20 for Village of Medina residents.

The dissolution topic drew a lot of traffic to Orleans Hub, especially to our letters to the editor section. One of those letters was in our Top 10 for most viewed articles. Medina Fire Chief Todd Zinkievich wrote a letter, giving his reasons for why he opposed the village dissolution. (Residents rejected dissolution by a 949-527 vote.)

Here are the Top 10 stories for the month in terms of pageviews or “clicks.”

1. Crooked Door closes in Albion

2. 5 injured in Albion accident

3. Holley man injured in accident with train in Hulberton

4. Police identify 5 people injured in Saturday crash in Albion

5. Officer saves inmate from choking at Orleans prison

6. Man found dead in Carlton fire

7. Medina fire chief gives his reasons for opposing dissolution

8. Middleport farm and feed store owner was beloved in ag community

9. Alleged child rapist arraigned and jailed on $200K bail

10. 5 arrested for larcenies and burglaries in Albion

Mike and Cheryl Wertman also continue to do a great job covering local high school sports. This photo from Jan. 14 by Cheryl Wertman shows Lyndonville’s AJ Buckland looking to shoot against Holley defenders Zach Vaccarelli (15) and Corey Winter (25). Lyndonville lost to the Hawks, 46-41.

State decides against extending expressway westward towards Orleans County

SPENCERPORT – The State Department of Transportation will have a public hearing on Thursday at Spencerport High School to discuss its plan to improve the safety of the Route 531 terminus.

The DOT estimates it will cost $14.2 million to upgrade the current terminus at Route 36. The project won’t extend the expressway west towards Orleans County.

There will be an informal open house on Thursday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Spencerport High School cafeteria area. Project displays will be staffed by the project team to describe the status of the project and collect public input.

A formal public hearing will start at 7 p.m. in the school auditorium. A short presentation will outline the alternatives that were studied for the project including engineering, traffic, environmental, and right-of-way aspects and the basis for selecting the preferred alternative. Oral comments will be recorded and written comments will be received.

This project is a direct result of the Route 531 Extension Study that was concluded in 2009, DOT officials said. It was determined that the expressway would not be extended and Route 31 would not be widened.

However, the information collected during the study indicated that spot improvements to improve safety and reduce congestion at the existing Route 531 terminus as well as along the Route 31 corridor.

Since this new project was initiated to address the needs at the terminus, the DOT has looked at several possible alternatives and measured them against the purpose and need statement. Each involves a significant change to how the intersection at Route 531/36 and 31 operates today.

The preferred design alternative consists of a conventional four-legged, at-grade, signalized intersection at Route 531 and Route 36. The Route 531 to Route 31 transition would be just south of existing Route 31, along the existing eastbound on-ramp.

Route 531 would connect directly to Route 31 and would transition from a four-lane expressway to a two-lane rural arterial west of Route 36. The main through movement that currently turns right onto Route 36, then left at the proceeding Route 31 / Route 36 signalized intersection would continue straight along Route 531 to Route 31.

Route 31 would be widened to add a center median to separate the eastbound and westbound travel lanes from where the “new” Route 531 lanes tie into Route 31 all the way to just east of Gallup Road. Former Route 31 would be transformed to a cul-de-sac approximately 2,000 feet west of Route 36, which would continue to provide access to the residential homes located on the north side of Route 31. A continuous two-way left turn lane between Gallup Road west towards Salmon Creek Road would be provided to ease travel at intersections.

The DOT expects to open construction bids in the summer 2016, with construction to start that fall and be complete in the fall 2017.

For more information on the project, including renderings of the site improvements, click here.

Provided photos

The Iroquois Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America held its annual Cub Winter Fun Day on Jan. 17 at Letchworth Park’s Trailside Lodge.

There was a snowball throw, Iditarod race, nugget run, a tug of war, tube race and other events.

Pack 3062 from Holley placed in all seven competitions with one first place, two second place ribbons and four third place ribbons.

Pictured include, front row, from left: Lilly Moore, Gabe Lindsay, Tyler Moore, Damian Frazier, Miguel Pulcino, Ethan Gonzalez, Dawson Arnold and Braden Read.

Back row: John Patt, Hunter Smith, Ronald Thorn, John Kuhls and new Cubmaster Wayne Thorn.

Cub Scouts in Medina in Pack 28 and 35 had fun in their annual Pinewood Derby today at the United Methodist Church.

Photo by Tom Rivers – James Sunser, president of Genesee Community College, addresses the Orleans County Legislature on Wednesday. There are nearly 1,000 GCC students from Orleans County currently enrolled in courses.

ALBION – Genesee Community College is adding new courses that better fit employment needs in the community and the college will also build two new structures to improve services for students, GCC President James Sunser told Orleans County officials this week.

He provided some data on GCC’s reach into Orleans County. The college has 959 students from Orleans, including 164 at the Albion campus center and another 100 at the Medina center. There are 427 high school students in Orleans County taking GCC classes.

The college has a $169.1 million economic impact in the four-county GLOW region, including $25.6 million in Orleans County, Sunser said at Wednesday’s County Legislature meeting.

This spring GCC expects to start site work on two new buildings at the main campus in Batavia. The college is also working to create a scholarship endowment for students in Orleans County.

“There’s a lot going on,” Sunser said. “It’s a very exciting time.”

Renderings courtesy of GCC – The proposed Student Success Center would provide a one-stop destination for students and first-time visitors to GCC, and “second-career” students.

The two new buildings will cost about $20 million to build with the state contributing $10 million and Genesee County $7 million. The GCC Foundation has raised $4 million towards a $5 million goal that includes the capitol projects and scholarships.

The building projects include a 9,000-square-foot “Student Success Center” and 43,000-square-foot “College and Community Event Center.”

The Student Success Center will include student support services to boost student achievement and retention, Sunser said. The vacated space for some of these services at the William W. Stuart Forum will be renovated for classrooms.

The Student Success Center will also help alumni with job placements and to look at job retraining possibilities.

The College and Community Event Center will include a field house that will be available for conferences and trade shows.

The new “College and Community Event Center” will be next to the college’s athletic fields. The building would include classrooms, coaching facilities, food service facilities as well as a wellness center.

The building would have public floor space that could be used for student gatherings, trade shows, community exhibitions, athletic competitions and charitable events.

Sunser said the Orleans County community is welcome to help with the fund-raising towards the capitol projects and scholarships. There will be a kickoff campaign for Orleans County from 6 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 12 at The Village Inn, 14369 Ridge Rd. The event is free and open to the public. To RSVP, call 343-0055 x 6244 or email pabrown@genesee.edu.

Sunser noted the college has developed several new degree programs in response to business needs in the community. About 25 students graduate each year in the vet tech program and they have a high placement rate, he said.

Other new degrees include programs in food processing, agri-business, heath sciences, STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics) initiatives, expanded tourism and hospitality, and enhanced mathematics.

GCC and Erie Community College are partnering on a new degree with nanotechnology.

Kelly Kiebala will be employment and training coordinator

Kiebala

ALBION – The leader of the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council is leaving that position to become the employment and training coordinator for Orleans County.

The County Legislature created the new position and hired Kelly Kiebala for the job. Kiebala has been director at GO Art! since 2009. Prior to that she was director of the Orleans County Chamber of Commerce for three years.

Kiebala is a Medina native and former trustee on the Medina Village Board. After living in San Francisco she moved back to the area in the late 1990s and worked nine years for GO Art! as a program coordinator before joining the Chamber as director.

In the new full-time position, she will help connect county residents to job opportunities, including emerging careers. She will work with businesses, schools, colleges and agencies to help match residents with local employment needs.

“There are going to be new jobs in the future that don’t even exist now,” Kiebala said. “The Legislature wants Orleans County to be ahead of the game.”

The county is well positioned for high-tech and jobs of the future with the STAMP site just across the county borders in the Town of Alabama.

STAMP is a 1,250-acre site and is aligned to attract the next generation of nanotechnology companies, including semiconductor chip fabs, flat panel displays, solar, bio-manufacturing, and advanced manufacturing companies to New York State. New York committed $33 million in the current state budget to advance the site.

Kiebala will start her job with the county in March. GO Art! will be looking to fill her position.

“I’m sad to be leaving the arts council,” she said. “But I’m from Orleans County and I’m really committed to the community.”

ALBION – An inmate found dead in the Orleans County Jail on Sept. 28 had heart disease and died of natural causes, Sheriff Scott Hess said this afternoon.

Juan Muriel-Gonzalez, 40, of the Bronx was found dead in his cell by corrections officers during the lunchtime chow call on Sept. 28.

The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office in Rochester made a final determination on Muriel-Gonzalez’s death. The Medical Examiner has determined the cause of death was “Issues Related to Cardiovascular Disease” and the manner of death was “Natural Cause(s),” Hess said.

Muriel-Gonzalez was taken to the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office in Rochester for autopsy.

He had been incarcerated since June following his arrest for promoting prison contraband in the first degree. He pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance in the fifth degree during an Aug. 24 court appearance, when he admitted to mailing prescription narcotics to his ex-wife, an inmate at the Albion Correctional Facility.

Muriel-Gonzalez faced a maximum sentence of 2 1/2 years in state prison. He was to be sentenced on Nov. 17.

Rocky Sidari

ALBION – Rocky Sidari, Albion’s fire chief the past five years, has been appointed one of three county coroners.

Sidari took the oath of office and was sworn into the position on Friday. He responded to his first call on Friday night at a fatal Carlton fire. Sidari worked with Scott Schmidt, a veteran county coroner, on the call.

Sidari said he will shadow Schmidt and another coroner, Charles Smith, as part of his training. He also expects to attend a conference for coroners.

“There is a lot to learn and each call is different,” Sidari, 42, said on Sunday.

He was appointed coroner by the Orleans County Legislature on Jan. 14. He fills a vacancy created when Joe Fuller of Albion resigned after being elected Albion town justice.

Sidari is a familiar face to many local residents and the emergency services community. He has been an officer with the Albion Fire Department for about 20 years. He works as a general mechanic at the Orleans Correctional Facility in Albion.

He also is part of the county’s critical incident stress management team, which helps firefighters with a stress debriefing after a fatal fire or serious car accident.

Sidari said he will strive to be a calming presence as coroner, especially for grieving family members of the deceased.

“I’ve built up a lot of relationships in the community,” he said. “Maybe it will be comforting for a family to see someone they know.”

Sidari said he will step back from fire chief in April.

“I wanted something that would fill that gap,” he said about his willingness to serve as coroner. “I’m definitely looking forward to the next chapter of my life.”

Photo by Tom Rivers – Lynne Johnson, vice chairwoman of the Orleans County Legislature, said selling the county nursing home has proved a wise decision, saving local taxpayers millions of dollars. She was one of the speakers on Friday during the Orleans County Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Luncheon.

ALBION – It was a controversial choice, and resulted in lots of protesting and public disapproval. But the decision to sell the Orleans County Nursing Home has proved a good one, Legislature Vice Chairwoman Lynne Johnson said.

“Selling the nursing home is the best thing we’ve ever done as a Legislature,” Johnson told about 75 people on Friday during the Legislative Luncheon.

She was one of the featured speakers during the event at The Village Inn. The Orleans County Chamber of Commerce organized the luncheon.

Johnson had legislators in attendance all stand up for supporting the nursing home sale. The $7.8 million sale became final on Jan. 1. It removed what had been about a $1 million annual expense to local taxpayers. That deficit was forecast to hit $2 million or more annually, especially as federal Intergovernmental Transfer Funds dry up.

“Job well done, gentlemen,” Johnson told the legislators.

The new owner, Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services LLC, took over the nursing home on Jan. 1, acquiring the 120-bed Villages of Orleans Health & Rehabilitation Center.

The new owner has kept 99 percent of the former county employees, Johnson said. The company has also offered benefits and seniority for the employees.

With the nursing home out of the county budget, legislators cut taxes by 1.5 percent and reduced the tax rate from $10.11 to $9.89 per $1,000 of assessed property for 2015.

The county also committed to an $8 million bond for a series of bridge, culvert and county building projects in the next three years. That annual payment will be covered from $260,000 in gambling money approved by the state, Johnson said.

“The sale of The Villages takes the pressure off,” Johnson said. “We can rebuild our bridges and culverts.”

The county cleared a major milestone in 2014, wrapping up $7 million upgrade to its emergency management system, Johnson said.

The county is now working to expand broadband Internet coverage throughout Orleans, especially in the outlying rural areas that do not have high-speed Internet. Four companies have submitted bids for expanding broadband in the county. Those proposals are being reviewed.

The timing of the project fits with Gov. Cuomo’s push to extend broadband throughout the state.

“We stand ready to go after that money,” Johnson said about the governor’s broadband initiative.

Johnson told the Chamber crowd that county leaders are vigilant and active in fighting a plan to regulate Lake Ontario water levels.

Orleans, Niagara and other southshore lake counties worry a new plan for lake levels will lead to more extreme highs and lows in the lake, putting commercial and recreational businesses at risk, while also eating up valuable lakeshore property due to erosion.

“When property owners assessments go down, it affects all of Orleans County,” she said.

Johnson and Niagara County Legislator David Godfrey travelled to Washington, D.C. in July to press the counties’ concerns about the plan from the International Joint Commission. Johnson said it was unprecedented for a county legislator to visit the nation’s capital and press a cause on behalf of the county.

She praised the partnership with Niagara County and their two-county Niagara-Orleans Regional Alliance.

“NORA gives us a bigger voice for concerns,” Johnson said.

Photo by Tom Rivers – Downtown Albion is decorated for the holidays in this file photo.

ALBION – Orleans County saw its sales tax revenue jump 6 percent in 2014, an $883,457 increase, according to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

State-wide, sales tax was up 3.00 percent, from $26.74 billion in 2013 to $27.54 billion in 2014. Orleans had the biggest gain among the four rural GLOW counties.
Genesee County had a slight decrease, down 0.16 percent or $62,107, from $38,057,036 to $37,994,929.

Wyoming County’s 2014 revenue was almost identical to the 2013 sales tax. The county increased by 0.13 percent or $22,255, going from $16,831,191 to $16,853,446.

Livingston County saw a sizable increase, growing 2.97 percent or by $899,100, from $30,229,388 to $31,128,489.

Orleans saw the most growth of them all, increasing 5.96 percent from $14,819,904 to $15,703,362.

While Orleans saw the biggest rate of increase, the county still lags in sales tax per capita. Wyoming County, with 42,155 residents, has almost the same population as Orleans with 42,883 residents, according to the 2010 Census.

However, Wyoming collects about $1.1 million more in sales tax than in Orleans. The sales tax is an indicator of the economic health of a community, and the money also reduces pressure on property taxes and helps pay for government services and programs.

In Wyoming County, the per capita for sales tax was $399.80 in 2014. In Orleans, the county averaged $366.19 per resident. The sales tax also includes money spent by visitors.

Livingston and Genesee do far better than Orleans and Wyoming. Livingston, population 65,393, has a sales tax per capita of $476.02, while Genesee County (population 60,079) has a per capita for sales tax at $632.42, about $266 more than in Orleans.

Sheriff Scott Hess

ALBION – Scott Hess, Orleans County’s sheriff for nearly 12 years, intends to retire after Dec. 31, ending a 31-year career in law enforcement.

Hess said today he won’t seek re-election as leader of the Sheriff’s Department. Prior to being sheriff, Hess was police chief in Albion for five years. He worked with the Albion PD for nearly 20 years.

“I’m looking forward to my next challenges in life,” Hess said today.

He has led the Sheriff’s Department with technology upgrades, including improvements in the dispatch operations. Hess also oversees the Orleans County Jail, which recently received more than $1 million in upgrades, staving off pressure from the state for a new jail.

Law enforcement agencies in the county also created a SWAT team under his watch.

Hess praised the law enforcement officers for their commitment to the community. He also said the county has made the resources possible for upgrades in the department.

“It’s been a collaboration with others,” Hess said. “I really can’t take any of the credit. We’ve accomplished many things working with the legislators and staff.”