Wind chill advisory issued as temps drop

March is two days away but Orleans County and Western New York are still in the hard grip of Old Man Winter.

Today will only reach a high of 15 degrees and temperature could fall to 1 below tonight, according to the National Weather Service, which has issued a wind chill advisory, effective at noon today for Orleans and several WNY counties. The advisory lasts until 10 a.m. on Friday. Wind chills could reach 15 to 24 degrees below zero.

It’s also expected to snow 2 inches today across the Niagara frontier.

Tomorrow temperatures are forecast to peak at 13 degrees. Saturday it will warm up to a high of 35 degrees, according to the Weather Service.

“It’s what we all want and dream of, to have 60 years of committed love.” – TV producer for German television station

Photos by Tom Rivers – Ed and Floreen Hale’s son Ricky Hale and Floreen’s sister Marleen DeCarlo of Albion hold a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Hale on their 50th anniversary.

It’s been a whirlwind week for the family of Ed and Floreen Hale. News media from around the world have published articles and photos about the Hales’ 60-year marriage and their death a day apart.

This afternoon a television crew interviewed them in Batavia. That story will be published in Germany and several European countries.

The couple’s daughter Renee Hirsch says it is a privilege to share the story about her parents. But Hirsch and her family didn’t expect an article that first appeared in the Orleans Hub a week ago to become a world-wide phenomenon.

“We’ve been blown away by it,” she said this afternoon during a filming break.

Producers for RTL, a German television station, interview Renee Hirsch today in her parents’ home. Hirsch, the daughter of Ed and Floreen Hale of Batavia, holds some of her mother’s collectibles. Mrs. Hale loved the color red.

After appearing on the Orleans Hub, the article was on The Batavian. On Monday, WGRZ in Buffalo did a story. It quickly caught on with The Daily Mail in London doing a story that had 61,000 shares on the site, and more than 500 comments.

“This has been a big story in the UK,” said the TV producer for the German news organization RTL. “It resonates beyond religion and countries. It goes beyond culture. It’s what we all wish and dream for, to have 60 years of committed love and to die together naturally.”

The TV producer asked not to give her name, saying she preferred to be in the background for her features.

“Women dream of men who will love and cherish us, who will clean the car off for us,” she said. “This is very much a global story.”

She was joined in Batavia by Srdjan Stojiljkovic, a videographer. He said Mr. Hale’s devotion to his wife, including in their final days, has touched many hearts around the world.

“It’s beautiful,” Stojiljkovic said.

Orleans Hub has shared photos of the Hales with The Daily Mail, The New York Daily News, and other news organizations in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Germany and Brazil. Most organizations that published the story used the photos without asking permission.

Traffic from the story crashed our server on Friday. We made an upgrade after being offline for a several hours.

The articles have detailed the Batavia couple’s 60 years of marriage and their death a day apart of natural causes while in the same hospital home. The couple had two children, Renee Hirsch and Ricky Hale of East Bethany.

Mrs. Hale loved to have family over in her Batavia home designed by her husband, who was an engineer. Mrs. Hale decorated many of the rooms in red, her favorite color. She had a lot of spunk, said her sister Marleen DeCarlo of Albion.

“We witnessed every day the love they had for each other,” DeCarlo said today.

Provided photo – Floreen and Edward Hale married in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Albion on May 12, 1953.

“When you walked into their house you didn’t want to leave because of the warmth inside.”

Mr. Hale delighted in bringing his wife gifts and treats. He made sure the car was warmed up and brushed off during the winter. He never had an angry response, said the couple’s son, Ricky Hale.

“He was mild mannered with a lot of patience,” Hale said today. He is stunned by the world-wide intrigue in his parents.

Mr. Hale, 83, was at a different hospital 35 miles away in Rochester before his health rebounded enough for him to travel by ambulance to join his wife in Batavia at United Memorial Medical Center on Feb. 6. He was at Unity Hospital so he could get his dialysis treatments.

Mrs. Hale, an Albion native, lost her first husband in a car accident after they were married for only three months. She told Mr. Hale he could not leave her, ever. She didn’t want to live without him.

Mr. Hale was near death at Unity Hospital in early February. He had been mumbling and seemed incoherent. But at 4 in the morning on Feb. 6 he declared he needed to see his wife. His family, officials from the two hospitals and two hospice organizations, all worked to get Mr. Hale to see his wife, who was also clinging to life in Batavia at United Memorial Medical Center. He was cleared for the trip and was taken by Monroe Ambulance.

He joined his wife in the hospital room where 20 to 30 family members surrounded them. It was a blessing for the family to be together, and not splitting time at two bedside vigils.

Provided photo – Ed Hale and his wife Floreen comfort each other after being reunited at United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia on Feb. 6.

The couple held hands while they lay dying. The family shared a picture of the Mr. and Mrs. Hale in the hospital room. The picture has brought many people to tears around the world, according to comments posted on the news sites.

“They died holding hands,” DeCarlo said. “Everyone says that they have been touched by the story.”

The family initially reached out to the Orleans Hub, wanting to publicly thank the hospitals, two hospice organizations, an ambulance squad and a social worker who helped the Hales to be together in the their final days.

But the story became much more than that.

“We knew it was a magical moment and we wanted to share it,” said DeCarlo’s daughter Lisa Giattino of Albion.

The family recalled words by Mr. Hale on Feb. 2, the day of the Super Bowl. Mr. Hale had been incoherent and heavily medicated. At one point he told his family, “I’m going to be in headlines.”

Photo by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – The freeze-and-thaw cycle this winter has taken a toll on local roads, causing cracks and potholes.

The craters in this photo appear on Main Street in Medina, in front of City Hall. Local highway crews have been busy in recent days trying to patch the holes and make it a less bumpy ride for motorists.

‘Old-fashioned winter’ drives up costs for salt, OT

Photo by Tom Rivers – A Village of Albion plow truck was out in early February after another snow storm.

The cold and snow hit hard around around Thanksgiving and it has stuck around since, with little breaks in the frigid temperatures.

The unrelenting winter has kept local municipal highway crews busy. Their stockpiles of road salt are shrinking, while costs climb for overtime and fuel for the plow trucks.

“It’s been one of the longest winters that I can remember,” said Ed Morgan, Murray highway superintendent. “It started right after Thanksgiving and it’s been steady.”

Murray typically uses 1,000 to 1,200 tons of road salt a year. The town has already gone through 1,300 to 1,400 tons this winter, Morgan said.

He has 400 left in the highway storage shed. The town might buy another 400 tons, in addition to its stockpile.

The town of Barre has the most roads to work on in the county with 62 miles of town, plus 20 miles of county roads. Barre usually uses 1,200 to 1,400 tons of salt and is up to about 2,100 tons so far this winter, said Dale Ostroski, the town highway superintendent.

Last evening was a rare chance for him to be home. The highway crews have been working at all hours of the day, plowing and salting roads.

Ostroski said he has enough salt stored to last until the end of winter.

“We can get through it,” he said.

Some municipalities in the state and outside New York worry they will run out of salt. They are scrambling to get more. February and March often have days with temperatures near freezing, when salt should be deployed.

Local highway chiefs interviewed say they are in “good shape” with their salt supply. Many of the towns entered the winter with deep reserves. The previous two winters were far less demanding, which allowed the salt stockpiles to grow.

Some days have been so cold that towns actually didn’t use salt. When it drops below 15 degrees, salt doesn’t work. It needs moisture to activate, said Roger Wolfe, Yates highway superintendent.

Some of the recent sub-zero days actually were too cold for the municipalities to spread salt, although some use a mix that can be effective as low as 0 degrees.

Wolfe said the towns would have used more salt if the sub-zero temps had been in the teens or the 20s.

Yates has about 500 or 600 tons left for the winter. It plows 72 miles of roads.

“We’ve used more salt than in the previous two years,” Wolfe said.

He is thankful he has salt storage facilities that allowed the town to have a sizable stockpile. Other municipalities in the state have smaller storage sheds, forcing them to do frequent orders for salt. Many salt suppliers are only giving partial orders right now. Companies such as American Rock Salt in Livingston County are trying to serve as many customers as possible by giving them smaller salt orders.

The Village of Albion has used about 1,400 tons of salt so far, about 400 more than in an average winter, said Dale Brooks, the DPW superintendent. The village pays $42 a ton. The municipalities buy the salt on a state bid.

They have to buy at least 70 percent of their contract. In a light winter, like the previous two, the towns and villages will see their stockpiles grow.

They can keep the $42 price for up to 120 percent of their contract. After that, the price increases. Brooks said the village had about 500 tons stockpiled before the winter.

He had hoped to buy 800 tons this winter, but the December ice storms “burned up our salt.”

“We haven’t seen something like this in 15 or 20 years,” he said. “It’s an old-fashioned winter.”

A few warmer days beginning today doesn’t mean the highway crews will get to rest easy. The deep freeze and thaw has cracked roads and created many sizable potholes. The highway superintendents say they will be out with their crews trying to patch some of the roads.

Provided photo – Floreen and Edward Hale married in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Albion on May 12, 1953. Mrs. Hale, an Albion native, died on Feb. 7. Her husband died a day later.

The story about Ed and Floreen Hale’s 60-year marriage and their death a day apart is by far the most popular story ever posted on the Orleans Hub.

We posted the article – “A love story to the very end” – at about 8 p.m. on Sunday. The story has been viewed at least 7,562 times. The second most popular story ever on the Hub, about a Medina drug bust, has 3,586 page views.

Since we launched the site on April 2, we’ve posted about 2,500 articles. Our most viewed stories, unfortunately, tend to be crimes, accidents and tragedies.

Many of the people who have read the article about the Hales have commented on Facebook that it is a positive story about a life-long commitment. The media should report more of these stories, people have wrote on our Facebook page.

Orleans Hub obliterated its traffic records on Monday, mostly due to people reading the story about Ed and Floreen Hale. We had 19,947 page views and 9,143 unique visitors, by far our best numbers.

WGRZ in Buffalo also featured the couple on Monday.

Small cities get far more in aid per capita

State Sen. George Maziarz calls the disparity in state aid to villages and small cities “unbelievably unfair.” Maziarz has seen the Jan. 27 article in the Orleans Hub that details the vast difference in funding from the state for small cities versus villages that provide similar services. (Click here to see the original article.)

For example, Salamanca in Cattaraugus County gets $928,131 in state aid for a city of 5,815 people. That’s $159.61 per person.

But the village of Albion, population 6,056, gets only $38,811 or $6.41 a person. Medina and its 6,065 residents receive $45,523 in state aid or $7.51 per person.

Maziarz and staff from the State Senate are researching how the state came up with a formula for distributing the funding to cities, towns and villages. The formula for Aid and Incentives to Muncipalities or AIM goes back before Maziarz joined the Senate in 1995.

“We’re certainly going to take a look at it,” he said.

State Assemblyman Steve Hawley also has Assembly staff looking at the formula, trying to determine the state’s rationale for distributing the aid, said Eileen Banker, Hawley’s chief of staff.

Village of Albion Mayor Dean Theodorakos said villages should be receiving significantly more in state funding. Many villages like Albion operate much like cities with police departments, water and sewer plants, and many other services. The villages also are challenged with aging infrastructure that is costly to maintain.

Theodorakos has reached out to the New York Conference of Mayors, an association of villages and cities. He wants the group to advocate for a change in the state aid distribution so villages receive more dollars.

The tiny state aid dollars is a prime factor for the villages’ high tax rates. Albion’s village rate is $16.86 per $1,000 of assessed property while Medina property owners pay a $16.45 rate. If those villages received $160 per person like they do in Salamanca, Albion and Medina would each receive nearly $1 million in state aid. That would be enough to cut the village taxes by about 40 percent.

The City of Batavia in Genesee County receives $1,750,975 in state aid for its 15,465 residents or $113.22 per person. City taxpayers pay a $9.29 rate per $1,000, far less than in the Orleans villages.

Village taxpayers have the added pain of paying town taxes. City residents don’t pay taxes to towns as well. That additional $3 or $4 rate means village residents in Albion and Medina are paying about $20 combined in village and town taxes, about twice the rate in the city of Batavia.

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier said the high rates in the villages are driving out residents, businesses and investment. Medina officials are looking at dissolving the village to reduce taxes and the disparity in tax burden between village and the surrounding area outside the village boundaries.

ALBION – Orleans County officials are continuing the groundwork needed to bring high-speed Internet to pockets of the county without the service.

After a study of the vertical assets in three western Orleans towns – Shelby, Ridgeway and Yates – the study will be expanded to central and eastern towns. That inventory of water towers, silos and other tall structures will be shared with Internet service providers interested in bringing the service to the county.

County officials want to first discuss the vertical asset survey with the seven towns in central and eastern Orleans before committing to that study, said Legislature Chairman David Callard.

“We want to make sure there is enthusiasm coming from the other seven towns,” Callard said.

Once the county and towns have the inventory of vertical assets, they can work on a formal Request For Proposals from the service providers. Callard didn’t want to issue a timetable for when the service could be in place.

Several wireless Internet providers have already expressed interest in serving the county’s pockets without high-speed Internet.

Time Warner says 95 percent of the county has the service, but Callard and county officials dispute that figure. Callard said it could be as low as 50 percent. The four villages and the areas immediately by those population centers all have good coverage, Callard said.

“But there are a lot of rural expanses and the fringes without service,” he said.

The county and some of the towns have been trying for about four years to expand high-speed Internet in rural pockets without the service.

Time Warner has balked at running the cable in some rural areas, saying the potential for few customers at a $10,000-a-mile cost doesn’t make business sense. Going wireless may be the most cost-effective way to expand service.

The push for county-wide high-speed Internet access is seen as a top priority – for economic development and to keep and attract residents. Students can’t complete some of their homework and research without the Internet, officials said.

Photo by Tom Rivers – The moon looms over a tree at Mount Albion Cemetery on Tuesday night, when temperatures plunged below zero.

National Grid customers are paying about 10 to 12 percent more for electricity this winter, the company said. The prolonged cold spells have customers using more power for furnaces, which are clicking on more often and running longer than in a normal winter.

“Customers are seeing higher delivery bills caused not by a change in rate, but by substantially higher usage,” said Steve Brady, National Grid spokesman. “And, the energy they are using is more expensive than prior months and this time last year because of commodity market conditions.”

The National Grid bill includes delivery and supply of the electricity. National Grid delivers the power and maintains the network. The company purchases the energy from several sources, some in long-term contracts and others in spot market purchases.

The supply costs have jumped. The village of Holley, which operates a municipal electric department, has warned residents they will be facing a huge increase in bills, about 2.5 times the average bill in a typical winter. That’s because the supply of electricity has jumped due to the demands of a brutally cold winter, village officials said.

National Grid anticipated a big spike in costs this month, and sought to defer collecting that increase until later in the year. The Public Service Commission approved that proposal from National Grid, which will spare customers a bigger jolt in their bills.

The cost of energy in recent years had been trending below average for costs, Brady said.

“In New York, like much of the Northeast, the price of electricity is affected by the price of natural gas because so much of the generation is fueled by gas,” he said. “Demand for gas is running very high and, when demand is high, prices tend to be higher.”

With the commodity prices expected to spike dramatically in February, National Grid sought to prevent “sticker shock” for its customers with the delay in collecting the increase in costs, Brady said. The company expects to collect that increase in late spring and summer when prices and demand are expected to stabilize.

The company is deferring about $30 to $32 million for its 1.6 million electric customers in upstate New York, Brady said.

Customers can help reduce their energy usage by lowering their thermostats by a few degrees and wearing a sweater inside, he said.

“Investing in more efficient appliances and lighting potentially has the next biggest impact,” Brady said. “The old saying is that the least expensive kilowatt is the one that doesn’t get used, so any means to simply reduce usage will help the bill.”

DiNapoli says all NY villages should be on alert

A new report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli doesn’t list any village from Orleans County or Western New York as in a level of fiscal stress.

However, DiNapoli said many upstate villages are suffering from shrinking tax bases, above average child poverty rates and shrinking employment bases.

He urged villages to use “sensible budgeting and careful long-term planning” to avoid fiscal stress.

His office issued a report of 535 villages and identified 15 with a level of fiscal stress. The report covered the fiscal year that ended May 31, 2013.  Albion, Holley and Lyndonville all were well below the fiscal stress threshold. (Medina was one of 48 villages that didn’t file the paperwork for the report.)

“Although the number of villages designated as fiscally stressed is small, village officials across the state must be on alert,” DiNapoli said. “Moving forward, the drivers of fiscal stress will continue to hamper villages in many of the same ways it does our larger municipalities.”

Using financial indicators that include year-end fund balance, cash position and patterns of operating deficits, the comptroller’s system creates an overall fiscal stress score which classifies whether a municipality is in significant fiscal stress, in moderate fiscal stress, susceptible to fiscal stress, or no designation.

The three villages from Orleans that were evaluated all received no designation.

The comptroller’s report establishes 29 overall points. If a village had at least 13 points, or 45 percent of the total, they were listed as susceptible to financial stress. Moderate fiscal stress started with 16 points and significant fiscal stress started at 19.

Holley had 7 points or 29.2 percent, while Lyndonville had 5 points or 20.8 percent. Albion had the best score: 4 points or 16.3 percent. All three were well under the comptroller’s threshold for fiscal stress.

“We are in very good shape,” said Jane Murray, Holley’s village clerk. “I’m very pleased.”

The average village score was 40 percent while Finger Lakes villages were about 42 percent, according to the comptroller’s report. (Click here to see the report.)

Other highlights of the report include:

Downstate villages overall are slightly gaining population, while upstate villages continue to experience declining population.

Median property values in downstate villages is nearly $170,000, while the median value in upstate villages barely tops $40,000.

Unemployment rates vary between upstate (8.6 percent) and downstate (7.1 percent) villages.

MURRAY – The Orleans County Conservative Party Committee on Tuesday passed a resolution, demanding the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeal the SAFE Act. The local group may have made history.

The party’s committee members met at Christos Restaurant on Route 104 and approved the resolution for the controversial gun control legislation approved in January 2013.

“We hadn’t seen any other political parties come forth and do it,” said Allen Lofthouse, Conservative Party chairman in Orleans County. “We hope it will set a precedent.”

The resolution will be forwarded to Cuomo, U.S. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other state and federal officials.

Lofthouse and the Conservatives were praised for their public stance by County Legislator Don Allport during today’s Legislature meeting. The Legislature has passed several resolutions against the SAFE Act.

Every elected town and village board in the county have also formally opposed the SAFE Act. Lofthouse said it infringes on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.