New York Times: A Day’s Strike Seeks to Raise Fast-Food Pay

At least one person is injured following a motor-vehicle accident in the area of 21 Buffalo Road, Bergen

A person is reportedly down in the roadway.

Bergen Fire Department and Mercy EMS responding.

Two ambulances requested to the scene. Both vehicles had air bag deployment. No obvious injuries.

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An 81-year-old woman reportedly pulled in front of a bus from Tinkham Road, Darien, onto Route 20, earlier this evening and was critically injured in the crash.

Frances McClellan was taken to ECMC by Mercy Flight with head trauma.

State Police are investigating the accident, but initial indications are that McClellan pulled onto Route 20 as a 16-passenger bus owned by Family Life Ministries was approaching the intersection.

There was only one passenger on the bus at the time. Stephen Smith, 58, of Bath, suffered a minor leg injury and was treated at the scene.

The bus driver, Jeremy Hill, 34, of Bath, was not injured.

(Initial Report)

Photo by Alecia Kaus.

A person has managed to get a TV out of Kmart without paying for it, load it in a black pickup truck and then head down Park Road toward the Thruway.

Local law enforcement responding. The Thruway Authority is being notified.

There are two white males in the truck.

UPDATE 8:57 p.m.: A truck has been stopped with a 46" LED TV in the bed.

At least 12 males are congregating in the area of Tim Horton's and Wendy's on Main Street in the city and appear to be preparing for a fight, according to a caller to dispatch. Police are responding.

Genesee County is experiencing a significant increase in the number of female inmates, and projections indicate that they will need an additional $205,000 to cover 2013 female housing expenses.

The jail averages between 10-15 female inmates every day and more on weekends.

“Five years ago the jail spent $125,000 on female inmates, this year we’re already at almost $300,000,” Sheriff Gary Maha said. “In just that time frame, the equal opportunity to do the crime has just exploded and the circle where we’re able to house the people has just gotten bigger and bigger.”

Since the county jail does not have separate holding areas for male and female inmates, women must be transported to and from jails in neighboring counties. The county is on the hook for the expense of transportation, a deputy's time during transport and paying the other jails to house local inmates.

Numerous officer injuries at the end of 2012 and during 2013 has resulted in increased overtime details to cover for those on leave. So 2013 overtime expenses exceed the original budgeted amount by $15,000.

Genesee County Legislature approved the increase in jail appropriations of $205,000 for female housing and $15,000 for overtime, to be offset by increased revenue from jail prisoner charges, the Genesee County refund of the prior year’s expense and VLT revenue.

The Sheriff’s Office has a new K-9 team to replace current police K-9, Pharoah, and his handler, Deputy Brian Thompson. The 11-year-old Czech German Shepherd is retiring and his handler is relinquishing his K-9 assignment after 13 years to return to road patrol.

Thompson has nothing but praise for Pharoah, whom he described as a great tracker, good with children and an excellent drug-detection dog.

“Pharoah is an awesome dog and you would never know that he’ll be 12 in the fall,” Thompson said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the County's Public Service Committee approved $13,346 for a new police K-9, training for a new K-9 handler and additional equipment and supplies. The funds come from money donated to the Genesee County K-9 Fund, as well as funds from Forfeiture of Crime Proceeds.

The K-9 team is used for search and suspect apprehension, locating missing persons including missing children and Alzheimer patients, contraband and drug searches, tactical tracking, evidence recovery, building searches, patrol, and public presentations. 

Pharoah began working with Thompson in November 2010 and was donated by Niagara Falls Police Department. He is certified in patrol, tracking, handler protection, narcotics detection, building searches and apprehension. Pharoah and Thompson will work until the dog and handler are trained and ready to take over.

“Training lasts for 15 weeks, from September to December,” Thompson said.

Pharoah's retirement will be spent with the Thompson family.

An accident with multiple injuries involving three vehicles is reported at Route 20 and Colby Road. One person is said to have a leg injury and the other a head laceration. One female is unconscious. Darien Fire Department is responding, along with Mercy medics and law enforcement.

UPDATE 6:02 p.m.: Vehicles are blocking eastbound traffic. Mercy Flight's availability is checked and ship #5 out of Batavia is available.

UPDATE 6:04 p.m.: Mercy Flight is called and the landing zone will be the southwest corner of the accident scene in an open parking lot.

UPDATE 6:18 p.m.: All victims have been extricated from the vehicles.

UPDATE 6:25 p.m.: Route 20 will be shut down at routes 238 and 77.

UPDATE 6:32 p.m.: Alexander Fire Department is requested to shut down westbound tractor-trailer traffic at routes 20 and 98.

UPDATE 6:42 p.m.: Mercy Flight is transporting one patient to Erie County Medical Center.

Jam at The Ridge concert lineup! Join the family fun! Here is the lineup for our upcoming concerts.

• 8/9 - Jo Dee Messina (BUY TICKETS)
• 8/10 - Steel Magnolia (BUY TICKETS)
• 8/24 - Jerrod Niemann with Special Guests The Farm, Ash Bowers and Corey Wagar. (Krista Marie from The Farm is from Batavia!) (BUY TICKETS)
• 9/15 - Sammy Kershaw (BUY TICKETS)

For more information, reservations or to purchase tickets for upcoming events, please visit http://www.frostridge.com/index.html, then select [Concerts] or call us at 585-768-4883.

Frost Ridge, Where the Fun is!

A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued by the National Weather Service for Western Genesee County -- including Elba and Darien -- until 4:45 p.m.

The thunderstorm is capable of producing quarter-size hail and damaging winds in excess of 60 mph. At 4:07 p.m., the storm was located near Hamburg and it's moving northeast at 35 mph.

Deadly cloud-to-ground lightning is possible. Go inside.

UPDATE Aug. 8: Earlier this afternoon, we received this e-mail from Andre Miller of Volunteers for Animals, and it's a happy ending to this story. Kudos to our kind readers.

"THANK YOU THANK YOU! Power of the media. Not only have we raised enough money for Yolo, but she has a home!!!!! A woman saw your article and just lost her 16-year-old amputee kitty. She is going to take her home after surgery and care for the cat as she is retired and can give her lots of attention. So thank you for putting this out there! It's a lifesaver!"

There is a kitten with great heart and courage at the Genesee County Animal Shelter and her name is Yolo, which stands for "You Only Live Once."

Actually, she's lucky to be alive. It is believed that she was struck by a car. Yolo was found by the McDonald's in Batavia and one of her back legs is badly injured and needs to be amputated. She needs your help for doctor bills.

If you check out the Volunteers for Animals' Facebook page, there's a video of the poor thing trying to walk.

"She is so sweet and such a cute personality we wanted to give her a chance," says volunteer Andre Miller. "There is no nerve function in the leg. It just drags when she walks. She is around 5-6 months old, so learning to walk with three legs will be easier after the surgery.

"Right now the leg is in the way, but she is not in any pain. It is hard for her to use the litter box and get around her cage."

Yolo is having surgery at State Street Animal Hospital on Friday Aug. 9. The hospital is helping out and quoted a price of around $600 and said if the surgery takes longer they will not charge more.

"So far we have half the money raised for this surgery," Miller said in an e-mail. "The kitten will be going to a great foster home to recover after surgery. It will take her some time in foster to learn how to live with three legs. So we are looking for help from our great community to help this sweet girl out."

Donators can mail a check to:
Volunteers For Animals
P.O. Box 1621
Batavia, NY  14021

or the volunteers have a Paypal account --  http://www.vol4animals.org/helptheanimalsat.html

Press release:

No one wants to think that summer is almost over, however, the Oakfield Betterment Committee has been busy planning the Annual Oakfield Labor Days in the Park Celebration scheduled for Sunday, September 1st and Monday, September 2nd at Elroy D. Parking Park on Drake Street.

Many things have stayed the same, such as Great Food, Entertainment, Craft Show, Car Cruise, Labor Day Parade & Fireworks.  We’ve also added some new features, such as a 5K Run, Kids Games and Minute to Win It Challenges, Cow-Chip Bingo and our Raffle this is for a chance to win a John Deere XUV 550 Gator Utility Vehicle.

In years past, the Betterment Committee would mail raffle tickets to all local residence, however, this year, only 2500 tickets are being sold for the Gator Utility Vehicle, so tickets were not mailed.  Tickets are $10 each.  There are 4 chances to win $500 and a chance to win the Gator.  Anyone that is interested in purchasing tickets, please go to www.oakfieldbetterment.com or stop by several local businesses: Millennium Computers, The Bed Room Store, Amy Nichols Salon, West Main Wine & Spirits, Oakfield Town Hall, Scopano’s Oakfield Hotel, Caryville Inn, Ken’s Shooting Supply,Oakfield Family Pharmacy and Alli’s Cones & Dogs, or contact any Betterment Member.  Tickets are still available.  The Raffle will be drawn on Monday, September 2nd at 6pm.

The Betterment Committee is also looking for Crafters/Vendors for the Craft Show and Entrants for the Labor Day Parade.  The cost for a booth is $50 for both days.  If interested, please contact Kim Staniszewski  at kim@oakfieldbetterment.com.

The Oakfield Labor Day Parade is scheduled for Monday, September 2nd beginning at 10 am.  The Parade theme this year is “Musical Memories”.

The Genesee Valley Judging Association will be judging:

• Veteran’s Color Guard (1st Prize:  $50, 2nd Prize: $25)

• Best Appearing Fire Department (1st Prize: 150, 2nd Prize: $75, 3rd Prize: $25)

• Trophies for Best Appearing Aerial, Best Appearing Pumper, Best Appearing Tanker, Best Appearing Utility & Rescue Best Appearing Antique Hand Drawn Fire Apparatus and Best Appearing Antique Motorized Fire Equipment

• Best Appearing Marching Band (1st Prize:  $50, 2nd Prize: $75, 3rd Prize: $25)

Oakfield’s local Triplet’s, Erik, Dylan & Trevor Maier, Makena, Brooke & Josie Reding, and Brady, Eli & Cara Williams will be judging the Best Novelty Band, Act or Float (1st Prize: $150, 2nd Prize: $75, 3rd Prize: $25).  There is a $500 Grand Prize for the Best Overall Entrant.  Registration is required to be eligible for a prize category.  If interested in entering your Marching Band, Boy/Girl Scout Troop, Cheering Group, Performance Group, Float, Fire Department, Trucks, Equipment, Automobiles, Organization, or Your Own Creative Group, contact Michelle Johnson at michelle@oakfieldbetterment.com or 585.409.9299.

The Oakfield Betterment Committee invites everyone to come out to a Fun, Family-Friendly end of summer celebration….Oakfield Labor Days in the Park.

For more information, go to www.oakfieldbetterment.com.

A small black dog is reportedly locked inside a red station wagon outside of the Caryville Inn in Oakfield. That's at 25 Main St. across from the post office. An animal control officer is responding.

UPDATE 2:35 p.m.: The officer says the dog is now out of the vehicle and taking a walk with its owner.

With rain threatening, the Batavia Concert Band's last show of the season, at 7 p.m., has been moved to GCC. The concert is free.

Derek Sheldon lived life wide open.

Among some friends, he was known as WFO (what the F means should be obvious).

In his 19 years, to hear his friends and family tell it, he lived more of life than many of us will live in 80.

He was a teller of tall tales who loved to hunt. He loved his red truck and red tractors ("if it's not red, it belongs he the shed"). He endured more than one trip to a hospital emergency room after one accident or another.

But he always came out smiling.

Sheldon was remembered Tuesday night during in a candlelight memorial at the intersection where he lost his life Sunday. He was remembered with tears, laughter and duck calls.

"Derek, we love you," the 150 or so friends and family yelled toward the heavens, candles held high, near the end of an hour of stories about his life's adventures.

"I've thought of texting him and telling him 'you don't know how many people are here who miss you so much and love you so much,' " said Amy Fagan, who recalled meeting him while ice skating in 7th grade.

"He was shorter and had braces and he asked everybody for my number," Fagan recalled. "We've been inseparable ever since."

His stepfather, Steve Lashbrook, said Derek was fearless with a gift for calling in geese and ducks and hitting his limit.

One winter day, Lashbrook recalled, he and others in his blind hadn't gotten their limit and Derek called him on his phone and said he had his, so Lashbrook told him to come over and help them out so they could get out of the cold weather.

Derek climbed in the blind and said, "Dude, I've got this. Go back to the truck."

Lashbrook didn't even get back to the truck before Derek had three kills.

There were other stories of Sheldon taking over the blinds of other people and quickly hitting the limit.

"He was lucky and he was good and that makes a hell of a combination," Lashbrook said. "Like I said, he had no fear. He had all the confidence in the world that he was going to get his birds every day. He didn't get his birds every day. Nobody does, but he did it more often than a lot of us. The kid had a gift. There's no doubt about it."

Derek was the kind of guy who was a better softball player in work boots than he was in baseball cleats, one friend said, or would strip down to his shorts on a winter day and cross a creek to retrieve a deer he had just killed.

Several people remembered the time he rolled his blue pickup truck. He wasn't seriously injured, but he still was taken to the emergency room.

When a friend arrived, Derek was smiling and said, "I need my phone. I'm looking for my phone."

"What, you need to get ahold of your family?"

"No, my family's here. I need to find a new diesel. I'm looking for a new diesel. That truck's totaled."

His hunting prowess was displayed both in his kills and in the tales he told.

His brother, Trevor remembers being out with him one time bow hunting and they were talking on radios. Neither had seen anything. Five minutes later, Derek radios, "I just killed a buck."

Trevor was incredulous. Five minutes ago, there was nothing, and now you're saying you killed a buck? "Yeah, dude, I put my radio down and looked down and there was this buck right under my stand. I put the radio down and picked up my bow and I shot him."

Sure enough, when Trevor came over to Derek's location, there was Derek cradling a big rack.

"Another time he asked me, 'how many did you see?'  I said, 'one or two,' and he said, 'I had this whole herd come right under my stand. There was like this 10-point and then this 12-point right next to him.' 'Why didn't you shoot? 'Well, that's the thing ...' and there was always a story."

"There was always a story," added his mother Karen Lashbrook.

Which brings us to the story of the woodchuck on Cockram Road.

Derek and some friends were out riding around in a red Neon when Derek spotted a woodchuck by the side of the road. He wanted to shoot it, and Trebor asked, "well, what's your plan." 

Derek wouldn't say, but Trevor said, "He always had a plan. He just wouldn't always tell you."

So they drive by and pull along side the woodchuck. Derek pulls out his gun and starts blasting. Bang, bang, bang.

Just then, the driver looks in the rear view mirror and there's a car behind them. "He's grabbing all the gears," Trevor says of the driver.

"I'm like, 'Derek, are you crazy?' He's like, 'I think I got him. Let's go back. I think I got him.' I was like, 'We've got to hide the Neon. We've got to get out of town.' I'm like, 'this is absurd. What are you thinking?' I had no idea what he was going to do. I said, 'you're crazy.' He was like, 'No, I know I killed it. We've got to go back.'"

Amy asks, "is that when the Neon went into hiding?"

"Yup."

Trevor continues, "It was like two months later and I'm with Mr. Pollock, our substitute teacher. We were in the computer lab, and he comes up to me, 'Hey, you don't do any road hunting, do you?'"

"No, I don't road hunt, what are you talking about?"

" 'Craziest story,' he says. He said, 'I was with my wife, we're coming back from the mall, and you know Cockram Road, right?' I'm like, 'oh, no.'  He says, 'we're following this little red car and my wife says, 'there's guns in that car,' and this idiot has no idea we're behind him because someone just sticks a gun out the window and he just starts shooting.' "

"I'm like, 'NO WAY!' "

" 'Yeah,' he says, 'it was the craziest thing. He just kept shooting and then all the sudden they must have realized I was behind him because they took off. They had to be doing 100 miles per hour.''

"I'm like, "WOW!, no way.'" 

" 'I know you hunt and I thought it might be you, and I said, 'little red car? We don't drive little red cars. We drive pickup trucks.' " 

" 'Well, I didn't think it would be you.' " 

"No, I never heard of such a thing before."

It was another story that brought peals of laugher from Derek's friends and family. 

As the stories wound down, his mother said, "I appreciate all of you being here and sharing in his life. We should remember the good times."

Calling hours are today from 3 to 7 p.m. at H.E. Turner, 51 S. Lake Road Bergen. Derek's funeral is at 3 p.m., Thursday, at the First Presbyterian Church, Bergen.

Ashley Stillwell, Derek's girlfriend, who was a passenger on his bike at the time of the accident Sunday, remains in critical condition at Strong Memorial Hospital. She's been through 17 hours of surgery so far. She did receive visitors yesterday.

Derek Sheldon's family.

Derek Sheldon's close friends. "The Crew" is (not in order): Andy Underhill, Justin Beverly, Jake Maurer, Jamie Maskell, Amy Fagon, Austin Richardson, Mason Muoio, Trevor Wasman, Zachary Gillard, Steven Underhill, Cody Naylor, Evan Cole, Casey Cole, Andy Boyce, Khari Sabb, Josh Lathan, Mike Richard, Shawna Adams, Whitley Stefaniak and Clayton Lovelace.

Animal control has been dispatched to a home on Rose Road, Batavia, for a two-foot snake spotted in the back yard.

UPDATE 10:45 a.m.: The call has been turned over to the DEC. The animal control officer is back in service.

Dave Wayne Case, 55, of Prole Road Extension, Bergen, is charged with assault, 2nd, injury to a police officer, resisting arrest and unlawful possession of marijuana. Following a traffic stop at 1:41 a.m., by Deputy Joseph Corona on West Main Street Road, Batavia, Case allegedly assaulted the deputy in an attempt to avoid arrest on a charge of unlawful possession of marijuana.

Denise Niccole Clamon, 32, of Main Street, Clarence, is charged with felony DWI, refusal to take breath test, aggravated unlicensed operation, failure to keep right, failure to use turn signal. Clamon was stopped at 1:41 a.m. on West Main Street Road, Batavia, by Deputy Joseph Corona.

Rosemary R. Waters, 27, of 17 Spencer Court, Batavia, is charged with criminal contempt. Waters is accused of contacting a person she was barred from contacting by court order.

Merrick D. Hampleton, 23, of Batavia, is charged with 13 counts of petit larceny and one count of scheme to defraud. Hampleton was taken into custody by State Police at Walmart in connection with an alleged incident reported at 10:54 a.m., Monday. No further details released.

Law enforcement and Le Roy Fire are in the Munson Street area near Oatka Creek looking for a woman who was reported missing just before 5:30 a.m.

UPDATE 7:59 a.m. (by Billie): The woman has been found and Le Roy Ambulance is called to the scene, at Red Bridge at Gilbert and Munson streets.

UPDATE 8:14 a.m.: She's being transported to Strong Memorial Hospital.

UPDATE 8:21 a.m.: Pavilion Fire, on standby at Le Roy's Hall, is back in service.

UPDATE 8:22 a.m.: Le Roy Fire, back in service.

It was another beautiful day in Genesee County. I had the chance to drive around a bit today, so here are a few photos.

Above, bailing hay on Harper Road, Darien.

The view from Simonds Road and Ellinwood/Brown Road.

Cow crossing on Brown Road.

The view from Thwing Road, Le Roy, this evening.