A cake-cutting ceremony was held at 11 this morning in honor of Founding Day at Genesee Community College. The 50th Anniversary of the campus will be celebrated over the coming 18 months, with a number of events plants to commemorate a variety of milestones.

Students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and friends gathered in the William W. Stuart Forum for today's ceremony. A specially prepared historical photo show is running continuously until 2 p.m. and all visitors will have the chance to be part of a pending time capsule by briefly answer the inquiry: “What I found at GCC.”

Edited responses to this inquiry will be added to the soon-to-be launched 50th Anniversary Web site. WGCC, the College’s radio station is broadcasting live, and the GCC Cougar mascot is posing for photos.

Also, the College is officially releasing the new 50th Anniversary logo featuring a creative blue and gold flame matching the College’s colors that date back to the late 1960s with the insignia “The True-Blue Past – Our Golden Future.”

The next big College event is the official Groundbreaking Ceremony at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 28, for the new Student Success Center and the Event Center. College and community leaders will gather to recognize the start of construction for these two new facilities, collectively valued at more than $21million and totaling 75,000 square feet.

Genesee Community College President James Sunser.

A four-car accident with unknown injuries is reported on the westbound Thruway at mile marker 379.8. Le Roy fire and ambulance service are responding.

The smell of natural gas inside the City Centre has prompted the building to be evacuated. City firefighters are on scene investigating.

UPDATE 9:38 a.m.: City command reports the odor is not natural gas, but there is a smell and they are investigating.

UPDATE 9:43 p.m.: The assignment is back in service.

A two-car accident is reported at 2025 Attica Road, Darien.

An injury is reported.

The call was first dispatched as a non-injury accident, but the dispatcher later updated the call to say an injury was now reported.

Darien fire and Darien ambulance are dispatched.

UPDATE 7:33 a.m.: Darien is back in service.

A two-car accident is reported in the westbound lanes of the Thruway in the area of mile marker 400.4.

Unknown injuries.

Pembroke and Indian Falls fire departments dispatched along with Mercy EMS.

UPDATE 10:50 p.m.: One vehicle off the road, a tractor trailer about a half mile ahead. Three individuals are out of the vehicle and standing.

UPDATE 10:54 p.m.: No injuries at the vehicle. The chief on scene is now going to check on the tractor-trailer.

UPDATE 10:59 p.m.: The vehicle is a van, with heavy damage. All three occupants are in an ambulance being evaluated.

UPDATE 11:28 p.m.: A chief apparently needed a trooper there because of "an escalating situation." A trooper is now on scene, from Troop T.

Photo by Howard Owens.

WBTA provided the interview on which this story is based.

Verizon workers were out protesting on Lewiston Road this afternoon. They are members of Communication Workers of American Local 1117.

Spokesman Phil Rudnick, executive vice president of the union, said a middle-class way of life here and in other states is at stake as the group battles against jobs being shipped overseas and major cuts in pay, benefits and security. They have been in contract negotiations with Verizon since June 2015.

"Corporate greed is the biggest complaint," Rudnick said, "and the retrogressive demands they are looking for are astronomical."

All the while, profits have never been healthier.

He said Verizon made $1.5 billion in profits each month last year; they are beating those figures so far this year, with monthly profits of $1.8 billion for January, February and March.

Verizon wants to send call center jobs overseas, and force outdoor technicians to work a couple of hundred miles away from home for months at a time, plus cut pay and benefits, and obliterate job security.

The workers with the most skin in the game to lose are the ones who built the money-making behemoth one landline at a time.

"We built the infrastructure that gave them the profitability to go into the wireless department," Rudnick said, "and they're making billions of dollars on wireless as well."

The work done by those represented by CWA 1117 feeds all the cell towers the phones work off of, the data networks and DSL files. Now Verizon wants to lay off landline techs and bring in contractors.

"We're just looking for fair, middle-class, stable jobs that we've had not to be taken away," Rudnick said.

The union's concession in millions of dollars in health-care costs was deemed "not good enough" in recent negotiations.

On the line are jobs here, in Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany, as well as other states.

Local politicians have been supportive of the union's plight, the union leader said.

Judge Michael F. Pietruszka isn't convinced that 74-year-old Charles G. Scinta is addicted to painkillers and wants to see some evidence that he is before considering a possible probationary sentence that would include drug rehab on Scinta's drug-dealing charges.

"The report says he's been using opiates since he was 69, but it doesn't say they're illicit," Pietruszka said. "They could have been prescribed," adding later, "my point is, I don't know that this is a substance-abuse issue. This could easily be interrupted as being medical sanctioned."

Scinta's attorney, Lisa Kroemer, said she understood the judge's concern and asked for a two-week adjournment to get clarification from the drug-treatment program that produced the report on exactly what their findings were.

"I think that's in everyone's best interest," Pietruszka said.

Scinta, who was allowed to sit throughout the court proceedings because of a medical condition, was arrested in December with 43-year-old James J. Wetall, also of Le Roy. The two men were arrested as the result of an investigation into the sale of oxycodone and diazepam.

Scinta is accused of selling oxycodone to undercover agents on two separate occasions. He is charged with two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance, 5th, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, 5th.

A potential plea deal could keep Scinta out of prison, but first, Pietruszka wants to understand Scinta's history with painkillers.

Earlier, Wetall was given a shot at rehabilitation in exchange for pleading guilty to his drug sale charges. If Wetall successfully completes a rehab program, he will be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to the felony charges and plead guilty to misdemeanors, which will carry a maximum penalty of one year in jail or three years probation.

If Wetall doesn't make it through rehab successfully, he's facing a sentence of up to 18 years in prison.

A 28-year-old Batavia woman with multiple arrests on her record was hoping for another chance at drug rehabilitation when she appeared in County Court this morning on a grand larceny charge. Instead, Presiding Judge Michael F. Pietruszka thought a minimum of one year in prison would be a more appropriate sentence.

Justine D. McWethy had previously admitted to stealing more than $90,000 $9,000 from Joseph L. Mancuso, Inc., 56 Harvester Ave. while employed there in 2014.

The thefts, said her attorney Lisa Kroemer, were the result of her addictions and suggested to Piertruszka that a prison term wouldn't help her become a productive member of society.

"That's not going to clean up her addiction," Kroemer said. "In order for her to be able to use her talents, which as pointed out in the probation report -- she has a modicum of education and she is an intelligent girl, if she could get past the addiction, she would be able to lead a productive and law-abiding life."

District Attorney Lawerence Friedman argued that based on McWethy's history and the nature of the crime, in which she researched, planned and carried out a complex scheme to defraud her employer, made her less than a suitable candidate for probation and a rehab program.

He asked the maximum available sentence under the plea deal, which was one and a third to four years in state prison, be imposed.

With several members of her family in the gallery, McWethy tearfully apologized for her crime and said she's written several letters of apology, feeling guilty for what she did every day since her thefts were discovered. And while she said she understood why Friedman thought she should be punished, she would really like a chance to conquer her addiction.

"I feel like this is not the person I was meant to be," McWethy said.

Pietruszka said he was taking into account two violations of probation in the past 13 months before imposing a one- to three-year prison term, where, he noted, she can apply for drug treatment available to some state prisoners.

McWethy was also ordered to pay back the full amount in restitution, starting with Mancuso and then paying back the several banks that also lost money as part of the scheme.

CORRECTION: We originally published that the amount of restitution exceeded $90,000. This was a mistake. I misheard the amount in court. The correct amount is $9,136. I apologize for the mistake.

Oakfield-Alabama Central School continues to innovate around the tech-education curriculum, and today students participated in a project to build a new 3D printer for the school.

The project was part of a class taught by Patti Buczek and Missy Lee.

Photos provided by the school district. ​

Chief Charles Durkee sent in these pictures from the Byron Fire Department's recent installation dinner.

Eddy Sharp received the award for most training hours and Robert Mruczek received Firefighter of the Year.

Durkee received a gift from the ladie's auxiliary -- a PIG axe. He said it is the first one in the county at a volunteer department.

Pictures courtesy Marie Bohn Studio.

Suzanne Corona admitted to a violation of her probation in Genesee County Court on Wednesday afternoon and therefore Acting Judge Michael F. Pietruszka allowed her to continue serving probation without any additional penalty.

"I put Amaretto in my coffee," she told the judge, explaining why a urine sample taken from her on March 21 tested positive for alcohol, which she is forbidden from imbibing under the terms of her probation.

The terms were set forth last year after she admitted selling $60 worth of suboxone, a controlled substance, to an undercover agent of the Local Drug Enforcement Task Force.

By pleading guilty on Aug. 3, she avoided serving up to one and a half years in prison and one year of post-release supervision and got probation instead, without objection from the DA's Office.

Although she got into trouble with the law several times during the period of 2010 and 2014, she had never faced a felony charge until then. As a first-time felony offender, the judge in the case, Robert C. Noonan, now retired, had leeway to give her jail time instead or probation.

Corona made headlines worldwide when she was arrested on an adultery charge in 2010 after being observed in an apparent sexual act with a man not her husband on a picnic table in Farrall Park. Then came accusations of shoplifting from a local restaurant, which led to a disturbance there and Corona being wheeled away on a gurney into a waiting ambulance, and various other shoplifting charges, including an arrest at Target on a day when a Sheriff's deputy was there doing a K-9 demonstration.

The Ousterhout Avenue resident avoided getting into trouble for a long time and then came the arrest for selling suboxone.

After testing positive for alcohol last month, she initially denied violating the conditions of her probation, then on the advice of her attorney, Brian Degnan, she reversed course. Even in court yesterday, after having conferred with her attorney, she at first refused to admit guilt.

Pietruszka asked if she was on medication and she said is prescribed medication for "mental health, pain, anxiety and thyroid." When asked, she said she has never been in treatment for drug addiction but she has, and continues, treatment for alcoholism.

Asked if she was satisfied with her attorney, she said yes, and acknowleged that her admission of guilt was being made without coercion or under any threat, and with the understanding that admitting the violation was the same as being convicted after a hearing in court.

The judge said in reviewing her file, he saw nothing to indicate an extra penalty would be imposed if she failed supervision. He said the interim supervision of probation imposed last summer would continue.

Corona, in her mid-40s, was easily the best-dressed person in the gallery of the courtroom Wednesday, admittedly not a high bar. She wore a short, navy blue, knit panel skirt and matching jacket, with buff-colored pumps, nude hose, a cloth shoulder bag with a long strap that had wide, bold navy and white stripes. Her chunky silver wristwatch was encrusted with crystals. French manicured nails, one fingertip painted navy; silver thumb ring and thin silver bangle earrings. Her perfume? "Juicy Couture."

After she left the courtroom by herself, she seemed relieved, the nervousness she conceded earlier abated. Asked how she ended up where she is, she sadly and briefly articulated the "rough road" of her upbringing and said she is working hard on her issues.

And Degnan couldn't help but note that for someone like his client to have only slipped up once in nearly a year is in itself an accomplishment.

"I pay $105 out of my own pocket for counseling, (I go) three times a week," she said proudly. "I don't get public assistance."

Albany Times-Union: Two doctors in Albany to promote law to allow aid in dying

The Le Roy Village Board considered a new budget, established a new ZBA, and agreed to a new meeting schedule.

The property tax rate would increase by a penny under the tentative 2016-17 village budget that was the subject of a brief public hearing Wednesday night.

Mayor Greg Rogers’ $3.375 million spending plan calls for a tax rate of $10.46 per $1,000 assessed value.

The owner of a home assessed for $85,000 would pay $889.10 in taxes next year, an increase of 85 cents.

The levy, or the amount to be raised by property taxes, would be $1,723,265. That is an increase of about 1.5 percent from the current budget.

No one spoke during Wednesday’s hearing. The board took no action on the budget, which must be adopted by May 1. The village’s 2016-17 fiscal year begins June 1.

In other action, the board adopted Local Law No. 1, which establishes an independent village Zoning Board of Appeals. That action was forced by the Town Board, which voted last month to establish an independent town ZBA.

Named to the village ZBA were Thomas Spadaro, Robert Scott and Charles VanBuskirk. Each had previously served as a village representative to the shared ZBA.

Rogers expects to appoint a fourth individual to serve as alternate ZBA member during the Village Board’s next meeting.

That will take place on April 20, thanks to a change in the board’s meeting schedule.

Beginning next week, the Village Board will meet at 7 p.m. the first Monday and third Wednesday of each month. Meetings had previously been every second and fourth Wednesday.

The Monday meetings will be work sessions, and take place on an as-needed basis, Rogers said.

A car smashed into a tree and the driver is unconscious at 4000 S. Main Street Road. The vehicle is locked. Town of Batavia Fire Department and Mercy medics are responding. The location is between South Main Street and Fairway Drive.

UPDATE 7 p.m.: The driver came to after medics arrived and complained of chest pain. The patient was transported via ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital. The person may have suffered a medical condition, but that's not certain, said Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Meides. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

After the accident in Stafford this evening, I grabbed a couple of barn shots.

The white barn, above, is on Randall Road. 

The "Will You Marry Me?" barn is on Route 237 near Morganville. I knocked on the door of the residence to try and get more information but nobody was home.

A former crack cocaine dealer who lived on Summit Street in the City of Batavia and is now serving eight years in prison appeared in Genesee County Court today to have a court date set on new drug charges.

Philip R. Ayala, about 30, was indicted by a Grand Jury in January for the crime of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, a Class B felony. It is alleged that on July 9 in the City of Batavia that Ayala knowingly and unlawfully possessed a narcotic drug -- crack cocaine -- with intent to sell it. In count two, the defendant is accused of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree, a Class C felony, for allegedly knowingly and unlawfully possessing one or more preparations, compounds, mixtures or substances containing a narcotic drug and these preparations, compounds, mixtures or substances are of an aggregate weight of one-eighth ounce or more.

As a prisoner in the state Department of Corrections, he was in shackles and wore a forest green jumpsuit, shadowed by an armed prison guard wearing a bulletproof vest.

Ayala has until 9:30 a.m. on June 8 to accept a plea offer from the DA's Office on a single Class B felony charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. Otherwise, the case will go to trial on July 25.

According to assistant DA William Zickl, Ayala faces a maximum of up to 12 more years in prison.

"I would offer a plea to expose the defendant to additional incarceration," Zickl said after the court proceedings, adding that it is up to the judge to decide the length of the sentence under the provisions of the law and whether it would be concurrent or consecutive to the existing prison term.

Ayala has a criminal history.

After a raid by law enforcement in December 2014, Ayala pled guilty six months later to criminal possession of a controlled substance, 4th, a Class C felony. He was bailed out of jail and was scheduled to be sentenced last Aug. 4  to no more than five years in prison -- IF he didn't break the law prior to his sentencing.

But on July 9, while living on Vine Street in Batavia, he was arrested on a sealed warrant out of Orleans County. When he was arrested on that warrant, he allegedly had 62 bags of crack cocaine in his possession. Thus, January's Grand Jury indictment as noted above.

His attorney, then as now, is Jamie Welch, who maintained his client hadn't violated the plea offer because Ayala wasn't arrested specifically on the charges for allegedly possessing 62 bags of crack before the Aug. 4 sentencing date (technically, his arrest was due to charges contained in the sealed warrant), so the max prison time he should get is five years. Judge Robert C. Noonan, now retired, disagreed and determined Ayala indeed violated the plea offer, so the maximum eight years was imposed last summer.

At that time, Zickl told Noonan: "One thing that is clear is the defendant is deeply committed to drug dealing and undertakes it as a business venture. Ayala's criminal record and recent charges suggest he will never stop dealing drugs."

This afternoon, a dozen people, including an infant niece Ayala had never seen before, were in the gallery in support of Ayala.

When he stood to leave the courtroom with his guard, they shouted "We love you!" and "Keep your head up!"

Batavia's newest retail store promises to offer local shoppers unique items for the home, as gifts or perhaps, something special for yourself.

The business, at 202 E. Main St. (Masonic Temple, next to Charles Men's Shop), is really two stores in one and the result of a cooperative agreement between Leanna DiRisio and Ashley Bateman.

The Hidden Door is DiRisio's business and offers rustic, old-timey items that will add tasteful flare to home decor, and Pollyanna & Dot is Bateman's business and offers primarily new dresses in vintage styles.

"We thought this would be a great start for a new business," DiRisio said. "It's kind of like an incubator and if maybe we both grow a little bigger we can go out on our own."

Bateman said Mary Valle (Valle's Jewelry) brought DiRisio and Batemen together and suggested they find a way to partner to pursue their shared dream of owning their own retail shops.

The two aspiring entrepreneurs met, but weren't initially sure it would work out, but as time went on and they thought about it more, the idea started to make more sense.

Both have young children and by working together they can coordinate times to keep the shop open and take care of their kids and other family needs. 

"For me, it's always been something that I've wanted to do and I just figured with the changes going on my life, that if I don't do it now, I would never do it," said DiRisio, who praised a six-week entrepreneur-training program set up by the Batavia Development Corp. at Genesee Community College for giving her the confidence to move forward.

Batemen also thought this was the time to act rather than wait.

"There's a renaissance here that's happening and if we don't do it now, somebody else will, so we wanted to get here first," Bateman said.

The grand opening celebration for Pollyanna & Dot and The Hidden Door is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday.

A car vs. tree accident with injuries is reported at 6692 Randall Road, Stafford. Stafford Fire Department and Mercy medics are responding.

UPDATE 4:47 p.m.: Mercy Flight out of Batavia is requested to the scene.

UPDATE 4:59 p.m.: Mercy Flight has landed.

UPDATE 5:16 p.m.: Injuries appear to be non-life-threatening, according to a firefighter on scene. The patient is being flown to an area hospital primarily for evaluation. A trooper said speed may have been a factor.

A Walnut Street, Batavia, man who pled guilty to criminal possession of controlled substance, 4th, and criminal sale of a controlled substance, 4th, was sentenced today to five years in state prison.

Cody A. Bush, about 29, is a second felony offender. He admits that he sold a quantity of suboxone, a controlled substance, in and around the City of Batavia and the Town of Elba to an agent of the Local Drug Enforcement Task Force. He was already in jail on related charges with he was arrested in November on the Class C felonies.

His attorney, Thomas Burns, asked Acting Genesee County Court Judge Pietruszka to sentence him to two to two-and-a-half years in prison, with credit for time served, and the ability to avail himself to substance abuse treatment and other beneficial programs while incarcerated.

"He does suffer from a drug problem and an addiction," Burns said. "There is awareness that it is his responsbility...He admits he had no right to convey and sell the drug to another person."

Burns said his client struggles with "an inability to take himself away from controlled substances," and yet he is also responsible for parenting four children.

"I let drug addiction ruin most of my adult life," Bush told the judge when given a chance to speak before being sentenced. "For that I am ashamed and sorry."

In addition to a determinate prison sentence of five years and three years post-release supervision, Pietruszka sentenced him to 12 months in county jail, to run concurrently with the prison sentence, for criminal possession of a weapon, 4th.