Those elected to serve the public in Elba certainly did so this year when they took on a project to spruce up Veterans Memorial Park. The result is something everyone can appreciate.

"Village trustees did most of the improvements you see at Veterans Memorial Park over the spring and summer," said Elba Mayor Scott Schuler. "They painted the pavilions, planted flowers, took down the chain link fence and added columns and solar lights."

About $14,000 was spent, and the upgrades also included refurbishing planters, signs at the village limits and some benches, as well as planting flowers on Main Street and purchasing some new benches.

Most of the money came from the village auction of equipment no longer in use and the remainder from its park fund. (The auction raised $24,000 and surplus funds were put back into the general fund.)

The park on Route 98 contains three baseball fields, a basketball court, a tennis court, a volleyball net, playground equipment and multiple pavilions. The village hosts concerts there every week in August. This year they hosted their first Community Pig Roast, which will be an annual summer event at the park.

A pickup truck fire near 7360 Lewiston Road prompted response from the Oakfield Fire Department. The fire is now out but fire police are still needed for traffic control at Orchard and Main.

UPDATE 9:08 p.m.: The Oakfield assignment is back in service. The roads are reopened.

The smell of smoke is reported inside the Batavia Animal Hospital, located at 3699 W. Main Street Road. It's in the East Pembroke Fire District, which has a responder on scene calling for all available manpower to respond, mutual aid, from Town of Batavia Fire Department. There is the smell of wood burning in the building.

UPDATE 8:31 a.m.: Firefighters completed an investigation of the roof and found nothing. They are continuing to investigate.

UPDATE 8:43 a.m.: They are checking the attic now.

UPDATE 9:17 a.m.: Power is turned off and National Grid and the contractor which built the new facility are going to work to fix the problem, which was not specified. Town of Batavia is back in service.

John Corey Wolcott, 27, of Day Road, Alexander, is charged with DWI, driving with a BAC of .08, refusal to take pre-screen breath test, failure to change address on license. Wolcott was stopped at 8:14 a.m., Tuesday, on West Main Street Road, Batavia, by Deputy Joseph Corona.

Shaina Denise Heeks, 22, Oak Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Heeks is accused of shoplifting at Walmart.

Victoria Ann Sumlin, 26, of Oak Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Sumlin is accused of shoplifting at Walmart. Sumlin was also arrested on a warrant out of City Court related to an unreasonable noise charge.

Brandon L. Doward, 28, of 12 Gray Birch Court, East Amherst, is charged with harassment, 2nd. Doward was arrested on a warrant out of City Court.

Michael F. Geer, 22, of 11 Willow St., Batavia, was arrested on a warrant out of Drug Court and jailed on $100,000 bail.

Robert D. Griffin Sr., 35, of 319 E. Main St., lower, Batavia, is charged with felony DWI and failure to take breath test. Griffin was arrested following a motor vehicle accident at 5:37 p.m., Wednesday, in the area of 38 Vine St., Batavia.

Press release:

The City of Batavia hosted its first-ever Real Estate Developers' Forum on Tuesday Oct. 1, showcasing redevelopment opportunities in the Batavia’s Opportunity Area (BOA). The Forum was well attended, with more than 60 guests from across Western New York interested in learning more about the City of Batavia and surrounding areas. Potential investors and developers were invited to look at infill and redevelopment sites that have proven to be lucrative development projects statewide.

“The response we received from this Forum has been very encouraging” said Jason Molino, city manager. “Not only was there excitement and interest from what the City has been working on in recent years, but there was an overwhelming reception to the positive activity within Genesee County overall. Investors throughout Western New York are realizing Batavia has a vibrant future ahead.”

Included in the Forum were stats and figures related to the continued growth projected for the area along with presentations demonstrating successful redevelopment projects in Batavia, Genesee County and Buffalo suburbs. The speakers highlighted numerous incentive programs and creative financing measures to demonstrate how underutilized properties can be transformed or restored into high-value real estate for the community. The half-day Forum concluded with a bus tour of the City of Batavia’s Downtown, BOA priority redevelopment sites and the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park.

“This event was intended to put Batavia on the radar for investment, we believe it worked,” said Julie Pacatte, Batavia Development Corporation. “Everyone left knowing we are getting ready for growth in the next 10 years.”

Pacatte made reference to Moody’s analytics economy.com projections that Genesee County will outpace the employment growth projected for the Finger Lakes Region in the next 10 years. Using Moody’s growth rates by industry and New York State’s 2012 employment by industry data, this translates into approximately 2,600 new jobs by 2022.

“We need to be sure the City is ready to capitalize on this anticipated growth,” she emphasized.

"The Developers' Forum related to inner-connectivity about redevelopment, re-utilization and infill projects in the City of Batavia. It was another example of the collaboration between the City, Genesee County, various economic development entities and the private sector needed to grow our economy," said Steve Hyde, president and CEO of the Genesee County Economic Development Center.

We are excited to see the continuation of adaptive reuse and redevelopment projects in the City and we are confident that this will compel developers to explore additional opportunities for investment now and in the future."

Vincent Esposito, Empire State Development, regional director for the Finger Lakes Region and presenter at the program commented, “Today’s Developer Forum was a terrific chance to learn about the Batavia Opportunity Area. The strategic and coordinated efforts of the BOA will greatly enhance the continued redevelopment prospects of Batavia’s historical and economic assets.”

About the Batavia Opportunity Area (BOA) Program: In 2011, the City of Batavia was awarded $266,508 from the NYS Department of State to determine the best opportunities for redevelopment within a 350-acre area downtown. The objectives of the program include redevelopment of underutilized, vacant and Brownfield properties, clean-up of select contaminated sites, continue revitalization of downtown and advance neighborhood stabilization.

Over the past 12 months the steering committee has developed priority reinvestment opportunities with conceptual renderings, preliminary engineering, solid market data and outlined incentive packages for motivating owners and developers to begin new projects within the City. This information was shared with the public at a July 29th meeting.

The Developers' Forum was intended to connect with developers interested in future investment within the City. For more information see HYPERLINK "http://www.bataviaopportunity.com" www.bataviaopportunity.com.

Press release:

“Tonight (last night - ed.), the House continued to work and offer reasonable and commonsense solutions to the partial government shutdown by passing bills to fully fund the National Institute of Health for critical research and open all national parks and museums.

The American people should not be shortchanged because Washington can’t get its act together.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats continue to slam the door on our efforts to reopen the government by refusing to talk to House Republicans and negotiate a responsible budget solution.

Congress must stop putting itself ahead of the American people. I continue to encourage my colleagues to voluntarily suspend or donate their pay, as I have, during a shutdown and refuse the special Obamacare exemptions for Congress, its staff and the White House.”

Press release:

The Board of Directors of the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) will consider at its Oct. 3 board meeting final resolutions for tax exemptions related to Yancey’s Fancy’s new processing facility and an expansion project proposed by Alpina Foods.

Yancey’s Fancy is seeking sales tax and mortgage tax exemptions and a property tax abatement to build a new facility within the Buffalo East Technology Park (BETP) located in Pembroke. Yancey’s Fancy plans to purchase approximately 12 acres within the BETP and build a 112,000-square-foot facility. The company plans to keep its artisan cheese operation and retail store in the current location on 857 Main Road in Corfu, while operating the new processing facility for its other product lines.

Yancey’s Fancy currently has 108 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees and expects to add 50 more over three years after the certificate of occupancy is obtained for the new facility.

Alpina Foods is seeking approval of a final resolution for sales tax exemption valued at $40,000 related to its proposed expansion plan. Alpina is planning a $2.5 million investment in new production equipment and $500,000 in interior construction (furniture, fixtures, and non-manufacturing equipment). Associated with this expansion plan, Alpina has committed to adding an additional 15 full-time equivalent employees to its workforce over the next three years after completion of the expansion project.  

A leading South American dairy products company, Alpina Foods constructed its first U.S. manufacturing facility in the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park in 2011. The facility employs 50 full-time workers on site and has met initial job creation commitments ahead of schedule.

The GCEDC Board meeting will take place at 4 p.m. and is open to the public. Meetings are held at the Dr. Bruce A. Holm Upstate Med & Tech Park -- 99 MedTech Drive, Batavia, second floor, across from Genesee Community College.

Buffalo News: Buffalo police website set to post mug shots of johns arrested in stings

A reader contacted us about a lost dog last night. It's a young, black male Labrador retriever and it was found on Marsh Road in East Bethany around 6:30-7 p.m.

"He is a beautiful dog," says the reader, "clean, well groomed and extremely well behaved. I would guess he's around a year and a half old."

He stayed with the finders a couple of hours until an officer came and took him to the Genesee County Animal Shelter on West Main Street Road in the Town of Batavia.

(We have pictures of the pup, which I'm having trouble posting, but they should be up later today. It shows him wearing a brown leather collar without tags.)

Law enforcement is looking for an alleged Walmart shoplifter, who is believed to live in the State Street area. He is described as white, possibly with a ponytail, wearing jeans and a yellow and blue Sabres cap and toting a camouflage camel backback. He was last seen riding a pink bike near the Hess Mart headed eastbound.

He allegedly stole jeans, some bike parts and a Sabres hat.

Today starts a round of travel for me. I'm heading off to Syracuse this morning where I'll visit the S.I. Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University. I'm looking forward to meeting with a group of students in a news start-up class. I'll also get to see some of the forward-thinking projects news business students are working on. It's been about six years since I visited the school, so I'm looking forward to dropping in again.

Tomorrow, I'm flying to Chicago. Each of the past three Octobers I've gone to Chicago for what was known as the Block-by-Block conference. It was sponsored by academic foundations interested in promoting local online news. That funding was of a limited duration, but what BxB spawned was the formation of an association known as Local Independent Online News Publishers (LION for short). I'm a board member. We have more than 100 members. We've managed to pull off organizing our own first-ever LION conference. So I'll be at that.

I don't return until Saturday night. I'll miss the Wine Walk. The Batavian is participating in the Wine Walk. Lisa Ace and Dee Neilans, as last year (and as Dee has done for us the past three years), are going to be pouring wine at our location in the foyer of the Masonic Temple building. I just won't be there.

Coverage, of course, during the next few days, will be limited, but not missing. Billie will still be here posting items as they come along. I'll also be able to do what I can do from a distance and within my time constraints.

While I was out and about on this beautiful day, I did take a few pictures.

Above, Sweetland Road, Stafford.

A tree full of fall color on Bernd Road, Pavilion.

What was once a barn on Junction Road, Pavilion.

What scares you? Spiders? Clowns? Body parts? Drills and saws? Dark shadows reverberating with terrified screams? How about a crazy Archie Bunker?

Jason Beaumont and Jeff Koch have teamed up to create a massive haunted house filled with just about every terror you could imagine on the second and third floors of the old Eagle Hotel in Le Roy.

Staffed by 40 actors playing ghouls, ghosts and monsters, the haunted house makes its debut Friday.

"After we bought this building a year and a half ago, we found we had lots of space but no practical use for it," said Beaumont, who is co-owner of the Smokin' Eagle, the restaurant and bar on the first floor. "Me and my buddy Jeff had talked at one point years ago about opening a haunted house and one day it hit me, this would be a great place."

Koch is an experienced haunted house builder. He's been doing one staffed by 25 volunteers at his house for 10 years. He said it took more than a month to build each year and was open only one night, Halloween.

The Smokin' Eagle haunted house will be open every Friday and Saturday through Oct. 26 from 8 p.m. until midnight.

The cost of a night of fright is $12. Outside the hotel is a ticket booth. The restaurant will be open, of course, and the ticket booth will also sell popcorn and candied apples.

The hotel space was perfect because it's rundown and was already filled with worn and haggard beds, chairs and dressers, Beaumont said. From there, it was just a matter of the two friends combining their creative energies to come up with a plan.

"This will be a unique experience, especially for people who have never been upstairs in this place," Beaumont said. "We want people to get that genuine experience with a real scare behind it and kind of get a flavor of this old building."

The original hotel was built early in the 1800s.

There's little doubt based on today's tour, the haunted house will deliver several jolts of terror, and Beaumont said the experience should be considered PG-13.

"That's a rough estimate," Beaumont said. "If a kid likes this kind of thing and is 11 or 12, and if the parents are OK with it, we're OK with it."

The tour of about two dozen themed rooms is not, Beaumont said, "for the weak."

Koch said he really hopes people who come through the haunted house will find it thoroughly entertaining.

"I want people to have fun," Koch said. "A lot of people have fun when they get scared. It puts a big smile on their face. They scream for a minute and they laugh the next three. I really get a big kick out that."

It's taken a year to get the proper permits, said engineer Steve Mountain, but some time this month, crews should start dredging Horseshoe Lake in Stafford.

The lake is part of a private recreational and residential community.

Approximately 1,500 cubic yards of silty lake bed will be removed from an existing 4,000-square-foot swimming area and a new boat launch area on the northeast cove of the lake. 

The swimming area will be back-filled with four inches of pea gravel and four inches of sand.

To help fight an aquatic weed problem, the lake level will be lowered about eight feet for the winter, which should kill off weeds along the shore.

"It was an extremely long permitting process," Mountain said.

While working on a story we published earlier, we asked Sheriff Gary Maha for his position on the SAFE Act. Here's what he e-mailed to The Batavian:

I have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York. I am sworn to uphold the laws whether I agree with them or not. It is up to the Courts to determine if a law is unconstitutional or not, and it is up to our State Legislature to pass, not pass, amend or repeal any laws. Unfortunately, the Safe Act is the law of the land, but we are not going to go out and actively enforce it. However, if we receive a complaint with regard to a violation of the Safe Act, we are obligated to investigate it and take appropriate police action, which could be arrest.

Press release:

Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27) has asked House leadership to suspend his own pay during the duration of the partial shutdown of the federal government. Late last night, Collins sent a letter to House administration requesting that his pay be withheld for the length of the shutdown.

This comes after Collins announced growing support for his bill that would suspend pay for all Members of Congress during a government shutdown. Eighteen members of the House have signed onto the Government Shutdown Fairness Act.

“The American people sent us to Washington to do a job,” Congressman Collins said. “If we cannot live up to that obligation, we should not be taking a pay check, a paycheck that is funded by the taxes paid by our fellow hardworking Americans. If the federal government is shut down Members of Congress should not get paid, and we should not be held to a different standard when it comes to Obamacare, either.”

Last night, Collins voted for a measure that fully funds the government and eliminates any special treatment and exemptions from Obamacare for Congress and its staff, as well as the President and his appointees. The Senate refused to act on the proposal.

“The American people deserve more from their Congress and it is time, as Members of Congress, that we put ourselves at the back of the line and put our constituents first,” Congressman Collins said.

First, a correction. We reported Sept. 25 that a Stafford man found with an "assault rifle" was on probation at the time of his arrest.

He was not on probation.

Brett William Snyder, 50, of Batavia Stafford Townline Road, was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, third degree.

One count under Section 2, Subsection 7 for alleged possession of an "assault weapon," and one count under Section 2, Subsection 8 for alleged possession of a "a large capacity ammunition feeding device."

While this might sound like a violation of the NYS SAFE Act, it is not. Both laws banning the particular rifle and magazines allegedly found in Snyder's home have been on the books in New York since 1994.

Snyder was allegedly found in possession of a Windham Weaponry semi-automatic assault rifle Model WW15 with a pistol grip, bi-pod, scope and expandable stock.

He was also allegedly found in possession of three 30-round clips and two 20-round clips. One of the 30-round clips allegedly had 30 .22 rounds in it.

The weapon was reportedly discovered by a probation officer who was at Snyder's residence to do a routine check of a person on probation who resides at the same place.

The probation officer reported seeing an unlocked weapon's case with the rifle in plain view. He reported seeing a flash suppressor on the weapon and contacted the Sheriff's Office about a possible SAFE Act violation. 

The officer said he asked Snyder if he knew that it was a violation of the terms of probation for the other person living with him to possess a firearm and Snyder said he didn't think it was a problem because that person wasn't holding it. The probation officer said he informed Snyder the weapon needed to be locked away in order for it to not be a probation violation.

According to the probation officer's statement, Snyder was known to him because Snyder was at one time on probation because of a prior felony conviction.

The District Attorney's Office clarified for us today that both laws being used to prosecute Snyder were on the books prior to passage of the SAFE Act and this is not a SAFE Act case.

Worked crews were out on Route 5 earlier today restriping Route 5 on the east side of Batavia to create center turn lanes and left-hand turn lanes. This is an NYS DOT project aimed at creating safer traffic patterns near the entrance of the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park.

East Pembroke's volunteer firefighters arrived at the fire hall last night expecting just another Monday night of training and extrication practice.

Typically, a car would be parked behind the fire hall and firefighters would rip it apart as it sat, flat on flat ground.

Last night, Chief Don Newton thought he would throw them a curve. Just as they had unloaded the department's extrication equipment from the heavy rescue, East Pembroke's tones went off.

The report: A rollover accident on Stegmen Road.

It was a drill, but Newton figured the expected change of plans would get his firefighters in a different frame of mind.

"When we set something up as a drill, they're in response mode, they're in call mode, they're in extrication mode, they're looking for something better to do while on scene," Newton said.

Rather than dealing with a car on all four tires on flat ground, the firefighters are practicing in something like a real-world scenario: A car on its roof on a creek bank.

It makes for better training, Newton said.

To find out more about becoming a volunteer firefighter, visit ReadyGenesee.com.