Collin Mulcahy, 22, of Batavia, and representing Batavia Downs, finished well ahead of the rest of the 1,000-participant field in the 2016 GLOW Corporate Cup 5K at Centennial Park on Thursday.

Mulcahy's time in the 90-degree weather was 15:31.

The top woman runner (next photo) was Kim Mills, from Freed Maxic, with a time of 19:30.

The top team was Batavia City Schools.

Hundreds of people turned out to the first day, yes, just the first day, of a two-day auction fully of items that were on the farm property of Roger Saile.

The Saile farm has been in the family since the early 19th century, and many of the items kept in barns and outhouses are more than 100 years old.

There was also a collection of old trucks, a Model A, a plane, several tractors and farm equipment from the 19th century.

Saile, 90, passed April 30 as the result of a fire at his residence.

The auction continues at 9 a.m., Saturday, at 8056 Oak Orchard Road, Batavia. It is being conducted by Bontrager Real Estate & Auction Service. For more information, click here.

More photos after the jump:

We heard Darien Lake Theme Park is a real hot spot for Pokemon Go players, we suggested it as a story to our news partner, 13WHAM, and here's their report.

The parking lot at Liberty Street and Central Avenue, part of the rich tradition of Batavia's Southside community, experienced a "revival," of sorts, early Thursday night when a couple hundred people enjoyed free food and entertainment courtesy of the congregation at City Church.

"We're spreading the love to this side of town," said Pauly Lamendola, of Le Roy, a regular attendee of City Church, the Main Street evangelical house of worship that recently purchased the former St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church from the Diocese of Buffalo.

According to the Rev. Marty Macdonald, pastor of City Church, "The Picnic in the Parking Lot" was organized as a kick-off to future events and services at both the church and community center.

"It's all about lifting people up and bringing some hope," Macdonald said. "We're focused on building relationships and friendships and sharing God's love."

Macdonald said the church has big plans for the property, which is need of much work.

"We haven't pinpointed anything (specific) yet, but we've already put on a brand-new roof and new electric service, and we're working on the heating, we're painting and cleaning it up," he said.

He added that the pews, stained glass and pipework of St. Anthony's Church will remain intact as he and his staff prepare to launch a weekly service either on Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon.

Several of about 30 volunteers from City Church, some wearing orange T-shirts and others wearing blue T-shirts, served hot dogs, hamburgs, french fries, ice cream and brownies, while Paul Berardini of Big Pauly's Pizza cooked his sheet pizzas on ovens in the former St. Anthony's School basement.

"Pastor Marty called me and asked me to help out and I said, 'Sure,' " Berardini said. "After all, I went to elementary school here, and it's close to home as I grew up on Wood Street. This place is a big part of the Southside; the church was a staple for us."

Those in attendance tonight were entertained by the Divine dance troupe and the City Church praise band led by Macdonald's son, Garrett.

Some came for the food, some to relive their time spent at the St. Anthony's Lawn Fete, and others -- such as Dawn Orlando, of Wood Street -- because they just happened to be walking by and were invited to partake.

For all the reasons, 13-year-old Paige Vinyard, of Perry, who attends City Church with her family, may have said it best:

"We thought it would be a good idea to support our church," she said. "I think it's wonderful that they're doing this -- showing how much they love the community and showing people the love of God."

Picnic sponsors included R.J. Nicometo Electric, Attica Carquest Auto & Ace Hardware, Country Cottage, Craig's Mowing & Landscaping, Crazy Cheap Cars, Divine Dance Studio, Wortzman Furniture, Jeremy & Tina Northup, Max Pies Furniture, Oakfield Fitness, Big Pauly's Pizza, Rick Caton, Terance Cranston Construction, Vinyl Sticks, Weekly Rooms LLC, Southside Deli and Batavia Cross-training.

Top photo: A couple hundred folks came out on a hot and humid Thursday night to attend The Picnic in the Parking Lot at St. Anthony's Church, which is now part of the ministry of City Church.

The church's Divine dance troupe and praise band entertain the picnic-goers.

Paul Berardini and Jessica Rae of Big Pauly's Pizza supported the cause by donating sheet pizzas, made with Pauly's own recipe in the St. Anthony's basement ovens.

Crude oil makes up the lion's share of commodities rumbling over railways traversing Genesee County. Ethanol is number two. And if a railcar carrying one of these highly volatile products derailed, it would not be good.

"Neither one of those things are really good products for us to see 100-car trains going through with 30,000 gallons on each one," said Tim Yaeger, county Emergency Services manager, who gave a review of his department Tuesday at the Public Service Committee.

"That's a lot of product going through. Bakken is down to one to two shipments a day; it was up to three, to four, even five at one time, but petroleum prices drive that."

(Bakken oil comes from a massive shale formation primarily in North Dakota, but it is also found in Montana and two Canadian provinces.)

And yet any rail disaster here now would likely be more ably dealt with than in the past.

There's a couple of reasons for that.

Firstly, the railroad operator, CSX, is more concentrated these days on public safety that in moving products swiftly. That's the sense Yaeger said he got from attending a CSX hazardous material outreach training program, which he lauded as "excellent."

"I can tell you that CSX really impressed me -- their commitment to safety, their commitment to communities," Yaeger said. "It used to be their number-one goal was to get the train moving again. Now it's really safety and making sure that the community is safe before they worry about moving trains again."

The emphasis on beneficial PR is probably, at least partially, rooted in the call for industry-wide reform that followed the company's disastrous derailment accident in Lynchburg, Va., in May 2014 in which tankers carrying crude oil caught fire along with the James River.

At the time, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said it was a "wake-up call" for a slow, ineffectual federal rule-making process that failed to protect Amercians in a time when the amount of crude oil being moved by rail in the United States quadrupled in less that a decade.

"They've showed their weaknesses over the years," Yaeger acknowleged. "They show their ability now to respond better and integrate with the local communities as well. I was pleased."

Secondly, in conjunction with CSX training, representatives from the Department of Environmental Conservation traveled throughout the state in the spring developing emergency response plans for the entire rail system in the State of New York, working with local officials in each county.

"Basically, they come in and look at hazards within that area -- with about a five-mile buffer on either side of the tracks -- and find out what type of infrastructure is in the area -- schools, hospitals, things like that in the community -- and then identify the resources that we need to respond to that area," Yaeger explained to the committee.

In his CSX disaster training, Yaeger said he learned that "the entire heat signature goes up, not outward. So our concern, the fire service concern, is that we can't get near it because the amount of BTUs that come off the material is difficult. We have to basically wait for it to burn down.

"Luckily, 'the whip' -- its path -- is not that long. If we have a spill or a movement downhill or into a waterway ... it's a bad event, (but) it's really impressive to see what happens when that catches fire and we have multiple products. The actual damage is about 500 to 1,000 feet, so although it looks terrible, it's not that bad and that heat is going straight up."

Today, first responders in the fire service have full masks to wear to protect themselves from the fumes in fighting this type of conflagration. But they also have a different view about the appropriate response, as compared to, say, the state.

"The state has a different philosophy," Yaeger said, "that we're going in and save the day. And talking to the experts, you're going to be fried before you get close enough to try and do any of those things."

Rather, firefighters are going to use water to cool the exposures first, cool the tanks, and keep them from exploding. (This is known as a B.L.E.V.E -- pronounced "blevy" -- or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, which is an explosion caused by the rupture of a vessel containing pressurized liquid above its boiling point.) 

Foam is not going to be employed initially.

"When the fire's out, we try and suppress the vapors, and then we'll be applying the foam."

Useful, too, is a new software program in the Emergency Services office to track "any shipment of cargo through this county," Yaeger said. 

Genesee County training for reaction to volatile commodity spills on highways or railways is continuing with sessions in Baltimore, and Pueblo, Colo.

Overall, emergency response education is strong and productive, with 344 students having participated this year in state programs at the local fire training center, and 22 students completed advanced EMT classes.

On the communications side, Emergency Services is testing pagers with new technology that allows them to switch between 800 megahertz (emergency dispatch radio) and VHF (paging) frequencies. They can be purchased, in conjunction with the Sheriff's Office, with government grant money.

After the county switched to the new emergency dispatch system, procedures changed; certain channels were no longer available and this created issues with first responders who were out of radio range.

The new pagers being tested are not radios. Those paged to respond to a call can't speak on them, but they can hear emergency dispatches and the directives of the incident commander on scene.

Before, responders would be paged on their pager, but then have to get within range of an 800 megahertz radio frequency to hear the emergency dispatch conversations. The new pagers are like "little scanners" that can switch between the two banks "to hear both sides of the conversation." They cost a couple of hundred dollars more than the old pagers and would only be provided to key individuals who "are always responding."

In terms his investigation team, Yaeger said workers are continuing their certifications and they are looking to retool how they do business in light of "the cancer issues that were coming out of the fire service."

Example: there are now more detailed processes in place for handling contaminated gear -- evaluating what gets bagged, what gets disposed of, what gets sent out and cleaned and brought back into service.

As regards fire records management, Yaeger said that 18 fire departments and first responders are now using the same records management system. Le Roy Ambulance Service is expected to join soon. 

Public Service Committee Member Rochelle Stein asked how that was going, if it's serving the communities' needs and if everybody likes it.

" 'Like' is a subjective term," Yaeger quipped, and that got a laugh. He offered the word "tolerate" in lieu of "like" and credited Bill Schutt, West Battalion coordinator for the Genesee County Emergency Management Office, for deftly handling the customer-service aspect of things.

"We're 100-percent reporting," Yaeger noted. "That's very important to New York State. Everybody's reporting their incidents. We're breaking some records. We had some issues, but it's working well."

Late last year, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to build The Batavian into the kind of local media company I always intended it to become, I needed transform it from just a news media company into a media technology company.

In the first few years of this century, I worked at a newspaper in California, the Ventura County Star, where I was a web application developer. In other words, I wrote code all day. The applications I built made millions of dollars for our parent company, E.W. Scripps, and won industry awards. The work set me on a path to executive jobs, which brought me to New York and eventually to Batavia, where Billie and I decided we wanted to stay when the last executive job went away.

Until last November, I hadn't written code in more than a decade. I always thought I should build an application to manage our deal of the day program better, but resisted doing it because of the amount of work involved.

For years, we've tried to do things we thought would help grow the business with vendors and/or open source software, but I was always a little dissatisfied with how things worked. That led me to the decision to go ahead and start writing code again.

I have big plans, big ambitions, but I started simply: Deal of the Day.

Today, we launch our new Deal of the Day web application. I'm pretty excited. It feels like a milestone to me because I believe the future of the media industry depends on companies being masters of their own technologies and data.

It's been slow going to get to this point. I've only been able to work in small increments, sometimes only 15 minutes in a day, or not at all on some days, because of all the other responsibilities that go with running The Batavian and the Wyoming County Free Press (and losing six weeks of work time because of eye surgery didn't help). Now I'll start taking those small increments of available time and work on these more ambitious projects.

Billie and I appreciate your loyal and enthusiastic support of The Batavian as we continue to work on this little experiment to rewrite the future of local news.

Below (or through this link) is our first new Deal of the Day post.

There isn't much water flowing in the Tonawanda Creek, but the blue heron are still there hunting for meals.

Genesee County, like the rest of Western New York, is officially in a drought warning, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.

That means there are no official restrictions on water use, but residents and businesses are asked to voluntarily conserve.

Tim Hens, whose responsibilities include, as county highway superintendent, watching over the county's water supply, said the county and city discussed issuing a water advisory, but decided that doesn't appear to be necessary and probably won't be necessary through the summer, even if no significant rain arrives before winter.

"We haven't had more than an inch of rain in a single day since October of last year," Hens said. "That's a long time for Western New York."

He said this is the dryest summer with the most consecutive sunny days he can remember in 45 years as a county resident.

"Unfortunately, we're probably already past the point of no return for farmers," he said.

Hens said current reserves and the available water from the Monroe County Water Authority gives the county, and by extension, the city, enough water to meet current needs and he doesn't anticipate a spike in demand.

"Most people seem to have given up on their lawns," he said.

The low water level at DeWitt Recreation Area has created a wide land bridge to the lake's island. The land bridge has been exposed all summer and the first time it's appeared in several years. The current level is just 3 inches above the record low, a record set in 2001.

The long-range forecast calls for a pretty snowy winter.

American five-piece girl group Fifth Harmony performed last evening at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center with special guests JoJo and Victoria Monet. The five singers who all successfully auditioned as soloists on the second season of "The X Factor USA" in 2012 failed to progress individually in judging competition and decided to form a group together.

The band was formed one month following the second season of "The X Factor USA" and was named "Next Pop Superstar of 2013" by Popdust magazine.  They played hits like "Gonna Get Better," "All In My Head (Flex)," "Worth It" and "Work from Home."

Opening for them was Joanna Noëlle Blagden "JoJo" Levesque and Victoria Monet. Next concert is BRAD PAISLEY: LIFE AMPLIFIED TOUR, Aug. 19^th at 7:30 p.m.

JoJo:

Treynada T. Costley, 31, of Rochester, was arrested by Corfu Police at 6:52 p.m. on Aug. 3 following a traffic stop of Route 77 just south of the village. Costley was charged with aggravated unlicensed operator, 1st, criminal impersonation and numerous vehicle and traffic law violations. Corfu Police Officer Peter Scanio's plate reader hit for suspended registration on the vehicle Costley was driving. The driver failed to produce a license and allegedly repeatedly gave the wrong name to Officer Scanio as well as assisting officers. During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that the operator, later identified as Costley, had impersonated her sister and had 35 (31 on 11 dates) suspensions on a revoked non-driver ID only. Costley was put in Genesee County Jail in lieu of $500 cash or $1,000 bond. The NY State Police and Genesee County Sheriff's Department assisted Officer Scanio in this investigation as well as Officer Mike Petritz, of Corfu PD.

Anthony Willem Everett Begemann, 18, of Lake Road -- West Road, Hamlin, is charged with possession of alcohol under age 21 with intent to consume. At 8:55 p.m. on Aug. 3 while at the Fifth Harmony concert at Darien Lake, Begemann allegedly possessed vodka. The defendant was issued an appearance ticket for Darien Town Court and charged with possessing alcohol, under age 21, with the intent to consume. The case was handled by Sheriff's Deputy Timothy Wescott.

Press release from the city's Department of Public Works:

A water main tie-in is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 5, on North Street at Summit Street. This is part of the Summit Street Reconstruction Project. This work will require North Street to be closed to traffic from Bank Street to Ross Street until the tie in is completed.   

Water service will be interrupted on North Street from Bank Street to Ross Street, Seneca Avenue and part of Tracy Avenue. Water service should be restored by early afternoon. 

This may cause temporary discolored water in the area or low pressure. Please check to make sure that water clarity has returned before doing any laundry or other activities which could be adversely affected.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Missy, who belongs to the brother of a local resident and not familiar with Batavia, is missing.

Missy went missing from a residence on Ganson near Jackson and was last seen on Bank Street at Alva Place.

Information, call Jerry at 602-509-1442.

UPDATE 4:45 p.m.: We regret to inform our readers that Missy was struck by a car and has died.

A caller reports a black car is parked with a dog inside it near the entrance of Wal-Mart. Law enforcement is responding. It's a 2013 Chevy Impala and the engine is running.

"The caller is not concerned about the welfare of the dog," says the dispatcher. "She's concerned about the dog putting the car in gear and running into pedestrians."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to legalize interactive fantasy sports in New York State couldn't have come at a better time for Western Regional Off-Track Corp., which recently signed a four-year deal with FanDuel to offer fantasy sports competition at Batavia Downs Gaming and at some of its OTB branches.

"We are very excited, and since we have a team flying down on Friday to FanDuel headquarters (in New York City) to meet with company officials, the timing of this is very good for Western Regional Off-Track Betting," said Michael P. Nolan, WROTB chief operating officer Wednesday night.

Earlier Wednesday, the governor signed bill S.8153/A.10736 that requires fantasy sports companies to register with, and operate under regulations issued by, the New York State Gaming Commission. It is expected that once fully implemented, the legislation will generate approximately $4 million in revenue to fund state education aid.

Nolan said that he expects WROTB's contract with FanDuel to be approved by the Gaming Commission in time for Batavia Downs Gaming to have its fantasy sports program up and running for the 2016 NFL season.

"Three weeks ago, Nigel Eccles, the co-founder and owner of FanDuel, came to Batavia and we gave him a tour of Batavia Downs and a few of our branches," Nolan said. "With this agreement, Western New Yorkers can expect the FanDuel product to be much more prominent in this area, and we will be bringing more people into Genesee County."

The WROTB-FanDuel partnership is truly that -- "a 100 percent incentive-based partnership," Nolan said.

"We feel that FanDuel is the best fantasy sports provider in the world and that's who we want to be associated with," he added.

Nolan said that he along with WROTB President Henry F. Wojtaszek and a few other members of the project's operations team will be going to New York City on Friday. He noted that while other race tracks and casinos in the state have voiced opposition to legalizing fantasy sports (claiming that it would hurt their businesses), WROTB management sees FanDuel's "synergy" with Batavia Downs Gaming's business model and "agreed that this was the best direction to proceed."

The governor's action ends a battle between New York State and the fantasy sports companies (Draft Kings is the other major player). State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had unleashed investigations, lawsuits and regulations to shut them down, calling them illegal gambling ventures that raked in around $200 million in entry fees from more than a half-million customers in New York in 2015.

In signing the bill, Gov. Cuomo said in a press release that "daily fantasy sports have proven to be popular in New York, but until now have operated with no supervision and no protections for players. This legislation strikes the right balance that allows this activity to continue with oversight from state regulators, new consumer protections, and more funding for education.”

Interactive (online) fantasy sports are games of skill in which contestants assemble a roster of athletes in a given sport and use the actual performance statistics of those athletes to determine the contest’s winner. Contestants pay fees to enter the contest and, if successful in performing against their opponent, win prizes.

In addition to establishing the means for regulating interactive fantasy sports in New York State, this legislation also takes steps to institute important consumer protections for players for the first time, some of which include offering introductory procedures to new players, identifying highly experienced players, prohibiting the participation of minors and protecting players' funds upon deposit.

From our news partner WBTA:

According to Katie Sergel, the assistant director at the Holland Land Office Museum, Interim Director Jeffery Fischer has decided to step down from his position.

Sergel says that the Board of Directors are still talking with Fischer, determining if he will continue working with the Museum and, if so, to what capacity.

This is the second museum director that has left the position in less than a year after the previous Executive Director Jeff Donahue resigned in October after holding the office for five years.

The Holland Land Office Museum has made no official comment on the circumstances of Fischer’s departure or any possible replacements, however Board President Don Burkel told WBTA that they are currently in the process of looking for a new director. 

Assistant Director Sergel did say they are creating several new, exciting exhibits for the museum, including a Muckdogs exhibit that is already in the works.

Autism has become less taboo in today's rather accepting culture; native Batavia resident and author Dan Crofts is leading the charge in developing an online learning tool for parents and teachers.

Crofts has Aspberger Syndrome himself, which is a mild autism spectrum disorder, and gives a firsthand view from the mind of the unknown. Crofts's website FormingHorizons.com mixed with his rather personal writing style gives you a true through-the-eyes view of how someone with a form of autism thinks.

"I want this to become a tool any parent, teacher, and eventually employer, can use to further understand this disorder," Crofts said.

He hopes this website grows and educates people on how autism or Asperger Syndrome can cause the person to think extraordinarily differently; something people without the disorder cannot easily understand.

Crofts wants to develop a community full of parents and teachers who deal with autistic kids on daily basis and help them better understand their thinking ways; doing so will help their elders teach them a more effective way to learn academically and help them function better in a broader social setting.

Crofts believes his philosophy for the website is what sets him apart from other autism websites.

"You have to see the person behind the diagnosis if you want to help the person with the diagnosis," Crofts said, "You have to start with the sensory issues."

Crofts considers himself "blessed" to be apart of the high-functioning autism group; it gives him a real way to communicate to people without this diagnosis. 

"I feel like I have a lot to offer on my experiences, especially to parents," Crofts said. 

FormingHorizons has been in development as a for-profit. Crofts hopes to bring in that profit through advertisements and affiliate links on his website. But for now he is concentrating on its content and structure.

Lucille DiSanto has helped Crofts in significant ways and has become a mentor to him; DiSanto met with Crofts to talk about the development of the website.

"I feel like my next step in life is to create an autism website ... to help people further understand," Crofts said. 

Croft officially bought his domain name http://forminghorizons.com in August of 2015. 

"I want to work on my substance first," he said.

Crofts has always excelled in academics and graduated from Brockport University with a master's degree in English Literature; Crofts started free-lance writing for The Batavian in November 2009 and stopped doing it so much in August of 2011. 

"I want to create a handbook like writing that people with this disability can use to excel in college, much like I have," Crofts said. "People with this diagnosis don't quite understand common sense." 

Common sense is defined in Webster's Dictonary as "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Crofts explained those common sense actions really aren't quite as simple as the definition; autistic people think differently. 

(Photo by Zach Lee of Dan Crofts from FormingHorizons.com.)

(Dan Croft's latest article.)

(FormingHorizons Forums) 

John Franklin McLaughlin Jr., 44, of Old Route 17, Salamanca, is charged with second-degree harassment. The defendant was arrested for allegedly ounching a person in the face at 7 p.m. at the Main Gate at Darien Lake Amusement Park on Alleghany Road. He was due in Darien Town Court on Aug. 1. The case was handled by Sheriff's Deputy Kevin McCarthy.

Tanner A. Dahl, 19, of Westfield, was arrested by State Troopers for possession of a forged instrument, 3rd, operator of motor vehicle impaired by drugs, 1st, when he was stopped on Colby Road in Darien July 30 for non-functioning tail lights. Dahl was found in possession of an open container of moonshine and a fake Pennsylvania Driver’s License in the name of T. Dahl after Troopers detected the odor of marijuana emitting from his vehicle. Dahl failed the standard field sobriety tests administered to him. He was transported to UMMC for a blood sample, which he refused. A breath sample of 0-percent BAC was obtained. Dahl was issued an appearance ticket and uniform traffic tickets returnable to the Town of Darien Court on Aug. 9.

Michael T. Dibble, 25, of Corfu, was arrested by State Troopers for: felony driving while intoxicated -- with a previous conviction; felony first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation -- alcohol; criminal possession of controlled substance, 7th; failure to keep right; moving from lane unsafely; and use of vehicle without ignition interlock device.

Shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday, July 29, Dibble was traveling northbound on Angling Road in a Chevrolet Cobalt when he crossed over the center line in the path of a tanker truck causing a collision, according to the Troopers' press release issued Tuesday.

Dibble was in and out of consciousness at the scene and was taken by Mercy Flight to ECMC. 

Troopers, investigating the scene located a white powdery substance that appeared to be heroin. Dibble was unable to perform any standard field sobriety tests or evaluations due to his injuries but gave consent to draw blood at the hospital. Dibble was listed in stable condition with a broken left forearm and a leg injury.

He was issued uniform traffic tickets returnable to Pembroke Court at a later date. The driver of the truck was not injured.

Batavia PD has been conducting bicycle safety training at parks throughout the city this summer, in conjunction with the Youth Bureau. Today's bike rodeo was at Lions Park.

City fire also brought Ladder 15 to the park for the kids to check out.

Six-year-old Devin Polk learns how to use a fire extinguisher during a kitchen fire demonstration set up by City firefighters at Batavia's annual participation in National Night Out, which is an opportunity for police, fire and city services to come together with community members.

The event was held at Birchwood Village on Dewey Avenue.

There were games, activities, community groups supplying health and safety information, bike registration and pizza and popcorn. Local musicians also performed.