Genesee Cancer Assistance hosted a 5K race this morning that started and ended at DeWitt Recreation Area on Cedar Street. The event is combined with a chicken BBQ, chance auction and balloon release.
We'll post race results after we receive them.
A thief threw a rock through a window door at the Sherwin-Williams store on Liberty Street, Batavia, some time overnight and made off with an undisclosed amount of cash from a safe in the office.
The store is open today.
Batavia PD is not releasing any further information at this time.
Genesee ARC crews were out and about this morning picking up garbage. It's the last day of a 28-year run for ARC as the contracted trash collector for the City of Batavia. From now on, residents are required to arrange for their own garbage collection with a private hauler. ARC is going into competition with five other companies that will provide trash service.
An investigation by the Local Drug Enforcement Task Force into alleged marijuana cultivation in Le Roy has led to the arrest of a woman following a raid of a home on East Main Street near North Street.
Officers from multiple agencies participated in the raid and as a precaution, administrators of Wolcott School were asked to have students shelter in place.
Taken into custody and issued an appearance ticket was Sara Schimley, 23, of East Main Street, Le Roy
Schimley is charged with unlawful growing of cannabis, a Class A misdemeanor, and unlawful possession of marijuana.
The investigation is ongoing and additional charges may be pending.
Participating in execution of the search warrant were uniformed officers from Le Roy, the Sheriff's Office and State Police.
The search allegedly uncovered a quantity of marijuana and equipment used to grow marijuana.
A Pavilion resident already in custody for allegedly for possessing a stolen truck was charged today with burglary following an investigation by Le Roy PD.
The initial arrest of Bryan M. Hargrave, 26, of 7273 Morrow Road, Pavilion, came Saturday by the Sheriff's Office.
Earlier that day, a box-style work truck was reported stolen from a West Main Street, Le Roy, location. A deputy located the truck in Bethany and Hargrave was arrested.
On the morning the truck was reported stolen, Le Roy PD received a report at 12:30 a.m. of a forced-entry burglary in progress at a business on Lake Street.
Investigators developed a suspect, but the man could not be located at that time.
With Hargrave in custody on the stolen property charge, Le Roy PD continued to investigate the Lake Street burglary.
Today, Hargrave was charged with third-degree burglary and a first-time DWI misdemeanor.
Alexander Elementary School hosted a community "Picnic in the Outdoor Classroom" this afternoon, which featured a chance for parents and children to explore the park together.
The state police also provided a bycicle helmet fitting booth for children. Above, Trooper John Szymkowiak fits 4-year-old Anna, of Darien, with a helmet.
Press release:
For the next two weeks, the lower suite of the building at 8745 Lake Street Road, Le Roy, which houses United Memorial’s Urgent Care and Diagnostic Services, will be undergoing extensive and disruptive repairs to its plumbing systems. After several discussions with the building’s owner, United Memorial feels that it is in the best interest and safety of our patients to temporarily close during this period.
During this time, patients are encouraged to utilize Urgent Care and Diagnostic Lab and Imaging Services at the Jerome Center at 16 Bank St., Batavia. Staffing at the Jerome Center will be enhanced to accommodate the expected increase in patient volumes.
United Memorial’s integrated computer system will allow any patient with standing orders for diagnostic laboratory or medical imaging, usually seen in Le Roy, to be seen at the Jerome Center without having to have orders resent from physician offices.
The Jerome Center is located in the center of Downtown Batavia. From Le Roy, take Route 5 (Main Street) to Batavia. Turn right onto Bank Street. The Jerome Center will be located on the right. Hours for Urgent Care are 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekends. Laboratory and Medical Imaging services are available 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
We apologize for any inconvenience and expect to reopen the Le Roy site on Monday, June 17.
A new urgent care clinic opening Wednesday in City Centre will not only be state-the-art but be a true revolution in how health care is provided, according to its top executives, Mark Celmer and Melissa Marsocci.
"This is a health care delivery model that doesn't exist, to my knowledge, anywhere in the country," said Celmer, who is president of Buffalo-based Insource Healthcare Solutions. "We coordinate health care back to pediatricians, specialists, primary care physicians. We have advanced telemedicine which is state-of-the-art. We can get patients seen faster and with more related services than anybody short of the Cleveland Clinic."
For years, Insource has developed urgent care facilities for the owner of multiple urgent care centers, but Marsocci said Insource had its own vision about how to provide health care and decided to start opening its own urgent care units.
Batavia is the first of four locations being opened in New York and Pennsylvania over the next two months.
The clinic is between Genesee Dental and Steve Hawley's insurance office. It's a location used for a long time by DENT Neurological Institute, which will continue to rent office space there.
Insource is not coming to town to compete with any existing physicians or the hospital, said Marsocci, who grew up in Le Roy and lives in Batavia.
"We're not going to steal anybody's patients," she said.
Following a patient's visit to Insource, the patient will be referred back to his or her primary care physician or the appropriate specialist with all of the patient's records shared with that doctor.
For patients, the wait time to see a medical care professional will be less than 15 minutes and most patients will be in and out of the clinic within an hour.
Typically, when a patient visits an urgent care clinic, once they're taken into an exam room, they "own that exam room," Marsocci said. At Insource, the patient will be given an exam and then wait in a "results waiting room," which has comfortable chairs and a TV. That frees up the exam room for other patients.
Celmer and Marsocci are particularly excited about the telemedicine model they've developed.
Here's how Marsocci described it:
Let's say you came in and you had a fractured hand. We can certainly treat that, but upon a view of your X-ray, it looks pretty severe. We say, "this looks serious, so let's get a second opinion from an orthopedic." Maybe you need some screws in it. Maybe it needs immediate attention, maybe not. You come into the telemedicine room and the orthopedic comes in on that flat screen.
He can talk to you and you can talk to him. He might ask the provider to move your hand around and at the same time we can push that X-ray through to him.
We just lowered your cost of care because typically you would have gone to that orthopedic and he would have redone your X-ray, also exposing you to radiation. Now it's just one X-ray.
A consulting physician can dial into the telemedicine center through a secure line using a desktop, laptop or even an iPad or smartphone.
Even if a doctor is away from his office -- maybe on the golf course -- he can use an app to consult with a patient in the telemedicine room.
The quality of the pictures sent to the doctor is amazingly accurate and detailed, Marsocci said.
Insource has hired six full-time employees and all of them live in Genesee County.
With a range of specialists sharing the Insource space -- including neurologists, orthopedics, pediatricians, cardiologist and urologists -- Calmer and Marsocci say the concept will do a lot to reduce the cost of medical care.
One insurance company is so excited by the idea, Marsocci said, thet they want to see more Insource clinics built in Pennsylvania.
For patients who must pay for services with cash or credit card, they will find a visit to Insource a lot less expensive than going to the emegency room. An ER visit can run into the thousands of dollars, but a typical visit to Insource will cost about $180.
Using technology, there will even be cases where patients can save on super expensive ambulance rides to a hospital in Rochester and Buffalo, if that's needed. If the patient doesn't need to be on an ambulance, but still needs to be monitored while by driven to the hospital by a family or friend, Insource can provide the patient with an iPad to monitor his or her condition during the ride.
Insource also plans to set up a telemedicine center at the county nursing home, which will save the county money on providing medical care to patients there.
"These are common sense approaches to reforming health care instead of doing things that don't make sense," Marsocci said.
During the "gaggle" (that's what reporters call it) with Gov. Andrew Cuomo following his speech at GCC yesterday, I asked him specifically about Genesee County Economic Development Center providing tax incentives to the retail project at Batavia Towne Center.
In these mini-press conferences, reporters are only given enough time to ask a few questions and it's difficult to ask follow-up questions, so I fumbled through my question (which really should have been a two- or three-parter), trying to cram in as much information into a short time as possible (and it was still a pretty long-winded question).
Another media outlet has reported that Cuomo was critical of the retail tax subsidies given to COR. The quote used: “It wasn’t the smartest investment of money."
The quote, in my view, is being taken out of context.
Here's Cuomo's full response to my question:
Your case is fact specific and I would have to look at the actual facts to see what they did. We had proposed IDA reforms. I believe there are economies that I can find there and I believe there are incidents where you can find it wasn't the smartest investment of money. That's why, that's one of the reasons I like the approach we're talking about here today. It's simple. It's clean. It doesn't have a lot of bureaucratic red tape. It's very easy to administer. Very few government officials required to administer it. So I think it's preferable to a lot of things we've done in the past.
Included in Cuomo's budget was a reenacted law meant to curtail IDAs providing tax breaks to retail projects. I asked Cuomo what the intent of that law was. He said, "Just improve the process and address the kind of abuses you've been talking about." He then said thank you and turned and left.
I didn't report any of this because I didn't find it particularly newsworthy. He couldn't address the specific local issue (hardly surprising, but I had to ask) and his answer to the more general "intent" question referenced my own question, which by his own admission, he didn't know much about. That seemed like a kind of circular logic that didn't make a lot of sense.
However, given that another media outlet used the quote, and though I don't mean to be critical of a fellow reporter, I feel obliged to put the quote in context.
A rollover accident has been reported in the area of 11327 Lake St., Pavilion.
The location is just before the livestock market.
A medic is on scene and reports the car is on its wheels and there are no injuries.
A utility pole was taken out.
Pavilion fire is dispatched.
UPDATE 9 a.m.: Ambulance response cancelled.
UPDATE 9:34 a.m.: Pavilion back in service.
A semi-truck is having mechanical trouble at the Le Roy Service Center off the Thruway near Vallance Road and is leaking a large quantity of diesel fuel, according to dispatchers.
The leak is coming from its saddle tanks.
Le Roy fire is dispatched to the scene.
UPDATE 8:56 a.m.: Chief asks for notification to the Department of Environmental Conservation. The fuel has leaked into one of the drainage ditches.
UPDATE 9:03 a.m.: There are more than 30 gallons on the ground.
UPDATE 9:32 a.m.: Le Roy assignment back in service.
The Batavia High School Softball Team won the Section V Class B-1 championship today, beating Livonia, 3-2 at Monroe Community College.
Photo by Dan Kemp.
It's one of the most frequently asked questions from readers of The Batavian: Why is there no Wegmans in Batavia?
Danny Wegman, the company's CEO was at Genesee Community College today and he answered that question for us:
"If we get the STAMP project in, we would probably be very happy to move here," Wegman said.
STAMP is the propposed high-tech manufacturing facility Genesee County Economic Development Center is trying to bring to the Town of Alabama. It could eventually mean as many as 10,000 new jobs.
Though Wegman was too diplomatic to say it, clearly, his view is the current economy in Genesee County couldn't sustain a grocery operation the size and scope of Wegmans.
STAMP is a project of personal interest to Wegman because he's chairman of the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council, one of 14 regional councils statewide assisting local IDAs in economic development.
Wegman is admittedly excited by the possibility of STAMP and believes it is something that could actually come together as an economic growth engine for the entire region.
"The high-tech arena is always exciting," Wegman said. "You always hear about it in California. Wouldn't it be nice if it was right here in our own backyard?"
We also asked Wegman about the GCEDC's $1.8 million in tax subsidies for COR Development and Wegman said he was unfamiliar with the project.
As a general rule, however, he said he opposes tax breaks for retail projects.
"I have to say I'm not real keen on that, since we’re a local business and we wouldn’t want somebody coming in and getting a real tax break..." Wegman said. "I think that’s divvying up a pot that’s already there. If the retailer helps grow jobs in some way that actually makes something, maybe, but most retailers don’t make things. That’s my view on it."
Asked if Wegmans would accept tax breaks to open a store in Genesee County, Wegman said, "I can’t say someone else shouldn’t and that we would. I don’t think that’s right, although we do make a lot of the food we sell, that's why I was giving you that exception."
YNN's Rose Eiklor pointed out to Wegman that there is a Facebook group called "Bring Wegmans to Genesee County." Wegman had never heard of it, but said he would take a look.
Genesee Community College sits high on a hill surrounded by a lot of open space.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited GCC today to promote his "New York Tax Free" proposal, which would allow SUNY campuses such as GCC to play host to new businesses or businesses that are creating new jobs.
Up to 200,000 square feet of land around a SUNY campus could also be used for the 100-percent-tax-free zone.
All that open space around GCC, then, might also be described as opportunity.
"That was the vision 10 years ago that we started developing with GCC and Dr. Steiner and now Dr. Sunser," said Steve Hyde, CEO of GCEDC. The agency now has offices across the street from the college campus in what's known as the Upstate Med-Tech Center. "I think we're really well positioned to rock and roll together and really make a difference here."
Cuomo is clearly passionate about his proposal. Whatever its critics might have to say about it, Cuomo has an answer and at times during his speech and afterward made his points with the fervor of an evangelist for Upstate New York.
Cuomo:
Nobody ever said (speaking of those who have left New York), I didn’t like New York or I didn’t like Upstate New York. Nobody.
We did this (mess up the state and cause 50 years of decline) to ourselves. We did this to ourselves because this state has every asset imaginable.
I spent eight years in the Clinton Administration. I worked in every state in this nation, literally, dozens and dozens of times. I know everything else that’s out there. I’ve seen the best that every state has. No state has to offer what we have to offer in New York. No state has our combination of talents.
Our geography, our diversity, our history, the most beautiful natural resources, mountain ranges, the greatest cities, beaches, we have it all, all in one state – the best of everything with the distillation of the best of America -- in one state called New York.
So it’s not that that they're beating us. We're beating us. We created these conditions. We can reverse these conditions. Reduce the taxes. Make this state as competitive as any state out there from a tax point of view.
"NY Tax Free" would turn SUNY campuses into zones with no state or local taxes of any kind for businesses based on the campuses (or in the 200K zone), and a company's employees, for up to 10 years.
The businesses would have to match the educational mission of the host campus, working in industries of related fields of study.
Cuomo's dream is clearly to incubate the next Apple or Google.
"If you look at the places that are creating jobs, it's the higher education institutions that are doing research and development. It's the 28-year-old who develops the new chip or the new iPhone of the new application, but the schools are actually creating the jobs."
These sorts of companies are getting founded on NY campuses now, Cuomo said, but 75 percent of them leave New York within the first year, taken either by founders or investors to lower tax states such as Florida or Texas.
Yes, the proposal is big and bold, Cuomo said. No other state in the nation has ever dared to take on such an audacious project, but New York does big and bold well, Cuomo said (while a picture of the Erie Canal was projected on the screen behind him).
Big problems, he said, require big solutions.
"People have been leaving," Cuomo said. "Jobs have been leaving. At the same time, we have more and more government and the costs of governing are going up and up while there are fewer and fewer people to pay for the increasing cost of government, which makes taxes higher, making the tax burden higher, which causes more people to leave. That's the dynamic and the longer the dynamic continues, the worst it gets."
Upstate, especially, needs the help, Cuomo said, and with 55 of the 64 SUNY campuses located in Upstate, and 95 percent of Upstate residents living within 30 miles of a SUNY campus, this proposal makes a lot of sense.
In the past several years, there has been only a 5-percent increase in new jobs in Upstate, while New York City has grown jobs at a clip of 16 percent. The 5-percent growth rate doesn't even keep up with the national average.
The proposal would create 120 million square feet of entrepreneurial space in Upstate, Cuomo said, which is more commercial space than in San Francisco and Philadelphia combined, and more than Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse combined.
Speaking with reporters after his speech, Cuomo said the major criticism he's heard of the proposal is that taxes should be lowered to zero for everyone.
"It's the right idea to have zero taxes across the board," Cuomo said, "but there's some problems with the details."
If the proposal seems unfair, Cuomo argued that the current tax system is unfair.
"There is not a level playing field in the current tax code," Cuomo said. "The more you make, the more you pay. Some businesses get tax breaks that others don't. We have tax breaks for manufacturing. Why? Because we decided we want manufacturing businesses here. We have tax breaks for the film business ... because we want to produce movies here. It's a falsity that the tax code is equal, but for this. The tax code is anything but equal."
He also argued that residents around SUNY campuses will benefit from the job creation, with employees of these companies buying groceries, cars and houses locally.
"There will be economic activity in your community and that will be a good thing for you," Cuomo said.
He added, "We can't sustain what's going on now in Upstate New York. We cannot sustain the population decline. Nobody moving in. Everybody moving out. Fewer and fewer people paying the cost of a growing government. We cannot continue the trajectory we've been on."
You can make Greek yogurt at home. About all you need is some yogurt culture, a whisk and cheese cloth.
After you strain your batch you're left with a watery white liquid known as whey. You will have about three ounces of whey for every ounce of yummy yogurt.
One Web site lists 18 possible uses for whey in your home, whether as a substitute for other liquids in cooking or as a skin care product. But for Alpina, which produces 245,000 tons of Greek yogurt a week, getting rid of the 455,000 tons of whey a week isn't that simple.
Right now, the whey is hauled to a facility in Wyoming County where it is digested into methane and used to generate electricity, but Alpina is exploring other options for dealing with whey.
Whey has become controversial in media reports over the past week or so. It started with a well-researched and reported story in Modern Farmer about the Greek yogurt boom with an unfortunate headline, given the substance of the story: Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side.
The story was far from frightening, but outlets such as Fox News and USA Today turned it into overblown headlines such as Toxic waste from Greek yogurt poses danger to waterways and Greek yogurt's dirty little secret.
What's this dark side, this toxic danger, this dirty little secret?
If whey goes into a stream or lake, bacteria will boom and suck all the oxygen out of the water, killing all the fish.
But there are no reports of any whey from Greek yogurt being illegally dumped. In fact, the Modern Farmer story details both the responsible methods for disposing of it now and explores research into other possible uses.
Disposing of whey in a responsible manner is important to Alpina, said Roger Parkhurst, director of operations for the Batavia plant.
Labeling whey "toxic waste" is the kind of statement that could be said about a lot of substances, Parkhurst said.
"You could apply the term to gasoline," Parkhurst said. "We put it in our car and it's beneficial, but if it's abused it becomes a dangerous material. We handle whey right and in a responsible manner so that it isn't a danger."
Beneficial uses for whey include converting it to an energy source -- which Alpina does now -- or using it to supplement cattle feed, which Alpina is also exploring.
Alpina would love to sell its whey, so that the money spent to haul it off can instead become a source of revenue. A Cornell researcher is studying methods for turning whey into a baby formula supplement. That work is promising, Parkhurst said.
Whey could also become a direct energy source for the Alpina plant, saving the company money.
Parkhurst said the company is interested -- though has no specific plans -- in finding a way to digest whey on site and convert the methane into electricity and convert the heat from the process into heat for Alpina's building.
Mark Masse, vp of operations for Genesee County Economic Development Center, said companies have contacted the agency about building a digester at or near the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park, including working directly with Alpina, but it has never received a formal application.
"I am not sure why any of those projects haven’t moved forward yet," said Masse in an e-mail response to a question, "but my best guess is that they can’t secure a long-term contract for the waste product, and/or that these digester projects are very capital intensive and they usually try to secure NYSERDA grants to help defer these capital costs to shorten the payback period of the project and can’t secure those grants."
There are also concerns about any environmental risks associated with a digester located at a food processing park that sits above an aquifer.
Experts have told Masse, he said, that whey needs to be mixed with animal waste to be properly digested and any company proposing such a project would have to prove it could be done in a safe manner.
"We never got far enough along with any of the digester companies to have this conversation with them in depth or with our board," Masse said. "That issue would have to be discussed at length if any company wished to use animal waste in their process, and our board would have to approve it."
One local farmer has contacted Alpina about obtaining whey to mix with cattle feed, Parkhurst said. The farmer said he checked with Cargill, which provided him with a formula for mixing whey with his feed and now he would like to find out how to get his hands on some Alpina whey.
"That's just one farmer and he's not capable of taking on the whole thing," Parkhurst said. "But if it helps his business and it helps our business at least some, I would be more than happy to participate."
Alpina is actively exploring all options for whey waste, Parkhurst said, looking for the most economically sensible and environmentally sound solution.
"We've even worked a little bit with RIT and GCC," Parkhurst said. "There is money floating around to help research any practical application."
A local operation that may be able to take on all of Alpina's whey waste is Baskin Livestock.
Baskin, as we've reported before, specializes in taking food company waste and converting it into cattle feed.
Bill Baskin is eager to explore a partnership with Alpina to bring whey waste to his plant on Creek Road in Bethany.
"We work with food producers all over the Northeast to get rid of their waste," Baskin said. "There’s no reason we can't do it right in our own back yard."
With any food production, there is a substantial amount of waste -- batches get mixed wrong, products are spilled or spoiled or unsold product goes bad. Baskin takes all that waste, dries, grinds it and turns it into cattle feed.
Quaker-Muller is already sending some of its product waste to Baskin, but the way the plant will make yogurt -- the Quaker-Muller plant officially opens Monday -- there is no whey waste.
"Our yogurt is consistently high quality because we add milk protein from strained milk to our yogurt to deliver the same delicious texture and taste every time," said Scott Gilmore, spokesman for PepsiCo.
Until recently, Baskin and Parkhurst hadn't spoken, but yesterday, Baskin's director of business development, Peter Klaich, met briefly with Parkhurst and Parkhurst said he's certainly interested in learning more about how Baskin can help with whey waste.
Parkhurst is proud that Alpina buys almost all of its raw ingredients from farmers in Genesee County and WNY. The potential of working with Baskin fits right in with that philosophy, Parkhurst said.
"We're always interested in working with local companies," Parkhurst said.
Two people in Le Roy have complained to police, according to Chief Chris Hayward, of getting phone calls that sound suspiciously like a scam.
Hayward is asking local media to alert seniors to the potential scam, which Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a statement about a few days ago.
The purported scam begins with a robo call that tells seniors they've been approved for an emergency alert device that they can receive for free. Scare tactics are used to encourage seniors to continue with the call, telling them that seniors have died when emergency responders were not notified quickly enough.
The company allegedly running the scam may be based in the Utica area and employs a 315 area code.
For a $35 monthly fee, the company says it will monitor this free equipment.
Potential victims are asked to give personal billing information over the phone.
Schneiderman issued the following tips on avoiding fraud:
UMMC officially opened it's new postpartum maternity unit Wednesday. The unit features 10 private patient rooms, which include sleeping accomodations for a birth partner. The project cost $2 million.
Photo and information via The Batavian's news partner, WBTA.
Summary of the Village of Corfu's trustee meeting Wednesday evening. Information provided by Trustee Ken Lauer.
Kyle Justin James Jackson, 20, of Slusser Road, Batavia, is charged with burglary, 2nd. Jackson is accused of entering a residence on Batavia-Oakfield Townline Road, Batavia, and stealing property. Jackson was jailed on $5,000 bail.
Jonathan Edward Fox, 25, of Rumson Road, Rochester, is charged with DWI, refusal to take breath test and failure to dim headlights. Fox was stopped at midnight, Monday, on Route 19 in Le Roy by Deputy Matthew Butler.
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