Press releases from Automobile Association of America:

Today’s national average price for a gallon of gasoline is $4.52, down 16 cents from last week. One year ago, the price was $3.17. The New York State average is $4.69, down 11 cents since last Monday. A year ago, the NYS average was $3.20. AAA Western and Central New York (AAA WCNY) reports the following averages:

• Batavia - $4.62 (down 10 cents from last week)
• Buffalo - $4.68 (down 8 cents from last week)
• Elmira - $4.70 (down 9 cents from last week)
• Ithaca - $4.80 (down 6 cents from last week)
• Rochester - $4.77 (down 9 cents from last week)
• Rome - $4.82 (down 8 cents from last week)
• Syracuse - $4.73 (down 8 cents from last week)
• Watertown - $4.83 (down 7 cents from last week)

According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), gas demand tapered off over the past two weeks following the Independence Day holiday, while total domestic gas stocks increased. The lower demand, alongside cheaper oil prices, has helped to push pump prices down. If these supply/demand dynamics hold, drivers will likely continue to see price relief at the pump. This morning, oil prices are hovering around the $100 per barrel mark, which is down slightly compared to one week ago though prices did drop below $100 at one point last week.

Press release:

“We've seen the national average price of gasoline decline for a fifth straight week, with the pace of recent declines accelerating to some of the most significant we've seen in years. This trend is likely to reach a sixth straight week, with prices likely to fall again this week. Barring major hurricanes, outages or unexpected disruptions, I forecast the national average to fall to $3.99/gal by mid-August," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. "So far, we've seen the national average drop for 34 straight days, with over 25,000 stations now back at $3.99 per gallon or less, and thousands more stations will join this week. In addition, we will see several states fall back under an average of $4, the majority being in the south, but that could spread to more states in the weeks ahead.”

Just before the pandemic hit, Daniel Sprague decided to take his craft to the streets.

You could say that he went with a twist on the pop-up shop: his product was music and he plays wherever he can.

Two years later, Sprague, of Batavia, is still at it. He can be seen wearing white face paint with black circles drawn around his eyes and black lines across his lips from his nose to his chin. Black nail polish and black pin-striped pants with thick silver chains dangling off his pants, long black fingerless gloves, and no shirt finish off his look. No longer Sprague, this musician with a hint of goth is Danny Christ, his stage name.

“I’m just happy to play anywhere,” he said. “I’m happy to be putting my music out here. I play my own material and some covers; a whole lot of genres … mostly pop, punk, and (heavy) metal.”

His soft-spoken manner and air of courtesy belie the hard-core rock star image. In other words, he seems like a nice guy separate from his persona.

The 33-year-old grew up in Bergen and picked up a guitar when he was around 17, he said. He plays in a few bands, including Natives A.D., and the music shifts over to “strictly folk rock” for another group he’s in.

Once COVID swept in and everything closed down, that meant no more open mic nights or live performances in bars, he said. He is open to playing parties and pretty much “any street corners,” just to express himself and share his music with others.

Not only is he passionate about music, but he is willing to — literally — walk the walk. He has no vehicle and walks to his performance spots while carrying a duffle bag, his guitar and a rechargeable amp, which powers up his sound.

Sprague — or if you prefer Christ — takes the bus to destinations farther away, such as Buffalo or Rochester. He means it when he says he will play anywhere. As for his stage name, it’s not meant to be an anti-Christ message or anything like that, he said.

While standing on the corner of North and Bank streets Sunday, it was obvious he was no stranger to locals. Some people beeped, yelled his name, asked how it was going, and one woman stopped to pass him a few dollars.

“Keep spreading the joy Dan,” she said as she drove away.

Those supportive messages are important to Sprague, he said.

“It always makes my day. I’m always happy when people enjoy it,” he said. “I get this reaction everywhere I play.”

The Batavian asked him what he wants people to know as they drive or walk past him and wonder what this dude in black is doing on a street corner?

“I don’t want them to be afraid. I hope to inspire them to do what they want,” he said. “I want to set an example to always follow your dreams.”

Check out a snippet of his song, "Apocalypse."

For more information about Danny Christ, go to stevil.bandcamp.com

Daniel Sprague, aka Danny Christ, performs his tunes Sunday at a street corner in Batavia. Photos by Joanne Beck.

Previously:

Casper Farm's shop is still in development but it is open for business, providing some locally grown products, including beef raised right on Patrick and Crystal Casper's farm at 6671 Main Road, Stafford.

The freezers at the store are generally well stocked with strip, ribeye, tomahawk, briskets, roasts, and other cuts of "all-natural" beef.

Casper Farm is a multi-generation operation.

Patrick and Crystal are selling the beef they raise, which is butchered at Burley Brothers in Attica.

The store also sells cheese from Craig's Creamy in Pavilion and local maple syrup.  The Caspers intend to add more locally sourced products.

Crystal also makes a line of seasonings.

Photo: Caitlin Mattis, Carolyn Stewart, and Jon Casper. (Patrick and Crystal were busy at the Oatka Festival when The Batavian stopped by the shop yesterday.)  Photo by Howard Owens.

Shopping for a wedding dress should in itself be a happy and memorable experience and that's what Maddie Fox and Stephan Lentine hope to create for their customers in their new shop in Le Roy, the House of Bridal.

At the end of the Oatka Festival Parade on Saturday, the Chamber of Commerce joined Fox, Lentine, along with friends and family for a ribbon cutting out side the store at 19 Main St.

"We are catering really to the bride that's looking for an experience when she comes shopping for her wedding dress," Fox said. "She doesn't want to just be a number. She wants to be treated respectfully and have a moment with her family and receive genuine guidance along the way."

Fox and Lentine have been best friends since third grade and they always dreamed of going into fashion and owning a store together.  The dream started to become a reality when they saw a need for a special kind of bridal shop in Genesee County.

"We love it," Fox said. "It's such a magical moment in people's lives."

They can deliver on the promise of a great bridal experience, Fox said, because they know wedding dresses.

"Like I said, we're not going to just tell a bride like 'oh, here's a dress,'" Fox said. "We're going to explain the dress to them -- the carriage practice, the characteristics of the dress, all the little things that they don't know because it's a learning experience when you're shopping for it."

Fox and Lentine designed a store that is both cozy and romantic to enhance the experience of shopping for a dress, and Fox thinks that what will really make the shopping experience is that Fox and Lentine can guide the brides-to-be in ways bigger stores can't.

"A lot of brides are very confused and they're not really sure which way to go, so I think our knowledge based on our experience is really huge," Fox said.

For more information about the store and store hours, visit the shop's website.  

Top photo: Maddie Fox, left, and Stephanie Lentine. Photos by Howard Owens

Press release:

Power and Construction Group crews are scheduled to begin work on the night of July 18, 2022 for the NYPA-City of Batavia LED Street Light Project.

The tentative schedule is as follows:

• Monday & Tuesday – start/finish Main Street and then start Oak Street.
• Tuesday & Wednesday – finish Oak Street and then start Ellicott Street/Route 63.
• Wednesday through Friday - finish Ellicott Street/Route 63 and all other cobra head street light locations.

Traffic delays should be expected; however, no street closures are anticipated at this time.

We apologize for any inconvenience and thank the public for their patience.

Morgan Griffin, with a blue and white design on her face and while clutching several plastic animal figures, was happy that she made a trip from Rochester to Batavia Saturday.

The 11-year-old  came with some family members to EverPresent Church’s Fun in the Son carnival. The event greeted visitors with a balloon arch at the entrance, and had several tents set up with games, food and drink, colorful bounce houses and a petting zoo with goats.

“I loved it,” Morgan said. “All the excitement and how nice the people are. They did a good job.”

Her family knows someone in the church and heard about the event, so they took a drive to check it out. Morgan visited every tent and won the toy animals as game prizes.

Much closer to the scene was April Allison. She lives nearby and happened to spot the activity in the City Centre parking lot.

“I was dropping my boyfriend off at work when I saw the balloons,” she said. “So we walked over here.”

Her daughter Adara, who’s going into the fourth grade at John Kennedy Intermediate, liked the bounce houses best. They were checking out the petting zoo after spending a couple of hours there.

Jill Turner of Batavia had seen an online post about the Nortons seeking vendors who might want to help out, so she responded. She has four miniature goats and offered a small petting zoo. They were enclosed in a mobile fence that opened for visiting children to pet and feed them.

“I thought it would be good to bring my goats and do a good deed,” she said.

The zoo was a popular spot. Several children and their parents stopped by, including Adara and her mom. They had seen most of the exhibits, but weren’t quite finished, Adara said just before suggesting the next booth to visit.

“Snowcones,” she said, as the sun beamed down in 80-degree weather.

Pastors Jason and Michelle Norton, leaders of the church, wanted the event to “be a blessing” for the community, and they felt it was a mission accomplished.

Jason worked the refreshment stand while Michelle made announcements from behind tables full of raffle gift baskets. It had been going very well, she said, and Jason had sold more than 150 hotdogs with about an hour remaining before closing time.

From the moment the official beginning hit — 11 a.m. — “we were a steady busy flow of families all the way ’til 3 p.m.,” Michelle said.

“From what we gathered, the children were super blessed; they were so excited and delighted with all the prizes they won, and I know the church family was thrilled to be able to serve our community,” she said. “People were asking us about our church, almost everyone that came had a chance to go through the church and we had well over 100 kids get their faces painted, along with hundreds winning multiple prizes.”

While one goal was to offer some fun entertainment for kids and families, the Nortons also wanted to introduce the church to the community, and vice versa. Jason estimated that "well over 500" people attended, and considered it a huge success.

Mary Hecht sat in the middle of all of the action as she sold tickets for the games and other activities. She’s been going to the church for several years, she said.

Everyone involved has been very pleased, she said.

“We’ve really been very busy; God really blessed us,” she said. “ We were all praying this morning before it started. This has been really nice for the community, it’s been really nice.”

The event was a success on so many levels, Michelle Norton said, including to serve as a fundraiser.

“We raised half the funds for a much-needed heating and air conditioning unit that we need to install, and we made some great connections and some more networking,” she said.  “Our plan is to do this annually. We are playing around with the idea of taking the Fourth of July the day that we have our festival, as long as GO ART! is not doing it anymore.”

The plan is to expand upon what they offered this year, she said, by adding carnival rides, vendors and possibly food trucks.

"We want to turn that parking lot into a full-fledged carnival with some live music, and I think it will happen by next year,” she said.

For previous coverage about the church, go to EverPresent

Top photo: The entrance to Fun in the Son at the City Centre parking lot next to event host EverPresent Church; Morgan Griffin, 11, of Rochester; Visitors at the petting zoo, provided by Jill Turner, center, and Pastor Michelle Norton making announcements during the event Saturday in Batavia.

The Oatka Festival Parade returned to the Village of Le Roy on Saturday after a two-year hiatus because of pandemic protocols. 

Ed Henry, Le Roy sports super-booster, coach, and photographer, was the grand marshall (second photo).

The Oatka Festival continues tomorrow (Sunday) in Trigon Park and along the east bank of the Oatka Creek.

Photos by Howard Owens.  To view 55 more photos and to purchase prints, click here.

Overlooking the Creekside Inn patio after the parade.

Genesee County Chamber of Commerce helped the new Fairfield Inn by Marriott celebrate its opening Thursday with a ribbon-cutting outside of the new hotel.

The project was pursued by the Chase Hotel Group with assistance from local investors and project managers. Planning started four years ago but was often delayed by issues related to the pandemic. 

The hotel, at 4333 Federal Drive, Batavia, is designed to offer slightly more upscale accommodations to travelers.

The four-story hotel contains sixty-four rooms, including king and queen suites and double rooms for families. Amenities include an indoor pool, breakfast area, and fitness room.

Photos and information courtesy of the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then what is a mother with a dilemma?

She’s an entrepreneur like Alisa Pastecki who opens up shop to help her and fellow moms out.

And Thoughtful Kids Consignment Shop was born.

“I have a one-year-old and a four-year-old, and this was out of an abundance of need for myself because living here in Batavia we didn't have any consignment options. And when I was living in Buffalo previously, one consignment shop that I did like to frequent was on Hertel Avenue, and there was just, there's no parking. It would not be easy to bring two kids in tow with, you know, boxes of clothes to sell,” she said during her shop’s ribbon-cutting grand opening Friday at Harvester Center. “So this was just out of an abundance of need for myself, and I think for the community and other moms like myself.”

While raising her children, Pastecki began to notice the collection of things that she didn’t want to throw out yet also didn’t have many options of where to put them to good use, she said. A consignment shop is a clearinghouse for such gently used goods in which the donor receives a portion of the sales for those items directly given to the store. Pastecki will buy them outright or offer a percentage of the total once sold. 

She chose a street-level spot that’s tucked between a children’s bounce facility and a coffee shop. With help from her husband Douglas and other family members — the grandparents babysat Gloria, 4, and one-year-old Walter — they worked to paint the walls and floor and add custom displays “so that we could get open as soon as possible,” her husband Douglas said.

“It started with a small idea of what are we going to do with all these clothes, we’ve got other parents who are the same as us, who just have all these clothes that need to find a home. And she came up with the idea of doing a pop-up shop or some way an outlet to help people, you know, basically make money and save these clothes from ending up in landfills,” he said. “It's very exciting to go through the process because this is our first time going through starting up the business. So it's been very exciting to see it come to this day of the grand opening. We had so many consignment partners … mothers and families had clothes and needed a place to go.”

They carved out a 600-square-foot niche of assorted children’s clothing, footwear, dolls and other items for newborns up to large kids’ sizes.

Once Alisa had the idea last fall, she just kept inching toward her goal.

“This idea started off probably back in November of last year. And so this started as a pop-up business and grew to be something that I needed a lot more space for. And so that's where the storefront came in,” she said. “And the Harvester, I thought, was the perfect spot to do it, being a business incubator and all. I would say that Thoughtful Kids is quality, savings and community. All three good reasons to shop.”

Pastecki is a native of Tonawanda and moved to Batavia about nine years ago. She met her husband here — he works at Oliver’s Candies — and was familiar with some consignment options in the Buffalo area. But once having her first child she wanted something that would be closer and more convenient for kids’ items.

In addition to her brick-and-mortar store, the 38-year-old plans to offer some pop-up shops in the Western New York area to provide opportunities for fellow moms to buy and sell items as well. It’s a simple concept: “you take stuff and sell it,” she said. People can either drop off their goods or she will pick them up for busy parents, she said.

“So I will drive to their homes. I’ve done Orchard Park and Hamburg in a day. I’ve done Batavia any time, obviously, since I’m local. And then I can really go anywhere, from Rochester to Buffalo,” she said. “The plan is to be permanent here and see where this takes us. Being a business incubator, I don’t know if I’ll ever grow out of the space. But I’m really happy to be at the Harvester right now.”

She is a first-time business owner with a background as a sales executive with a network engineering company. She worked with consignment contracts for telecom equipment.

“So this is kind of a lot of the paperwork and a lot of the things I do for my consigners, it is very similar to what I was doing on a much larger scale for telecom companies all over the world,” she said. “So it kind of fit perfectly when  I was home with my kids during the pandemic.”

Benefits of shopping at her place include saving money — an estimated 50 to 70 percent off retail; buying quality, brand name fashions; positively impacting the environment; experiencing an easy consignment process; and the best reason of all, she said, is to support “a small, local, female-owned business."

Hours listed for the next two weeks are 2 to 6 p.m. Monday, 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, July 23, 2 to 6 p.m. July 25 and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 29 at 56 Harvester Ave., Batavia. For more information, call (716) 984-0515 or go to Thoughtful Kids 

Top photo: Alisa Pastecki shows some of the children's clothing at her new shop on Harvester Avenue, Batavia. Family members help Alisa and husband Douglas, behind her to the left, with the ceremonial ribbon-cutting for Thoughtful Kids Consignment at 56 Harvester Ave., Batavia. The couple's children, Gloria, front near mom, and Walter, being carried, in back row, enjoy the celebration Friday.  Photos by Joanne Beck.

Peter Noone's Herman's Hermits packed in the crowd for Rockin' the Downs tonight.

Photos courtesy Batavia Downs.

The Town of Alabama got a shout-out from the Jeopardy writers in tonight's show.

Photo by Michelle VanValkenburg Johnson.

Gilberto N. Natal, 34, of Batavia, the motorcyclist involved in an accident on West Main Street Road, Batavia, on Thursday, has died as a result of his injuries, the Sheriff's Office announced this evening.

He was pronounced dead at Strong Memorial Hospital today.

Previously: 

• Motorcyclist seriously injured in accident Thursday identified
• Motorcycle accident reported on West Main Street Road, Batavia

On 55 acres of land in the far southwest corner of Genesee County is -- at least for some people who are at their wit's end -- a little slice of heaven.

The land is scenic, of course, but more importantly, for people who think they've exhausted their opportunities for escaping addiction or other behaviors that have seriously messed up their lives, there is an open door and yet one more chance for them to get things straight and find some peace.

Freedom Fellowship has been at 254 Broadway Road, Darien, for more than a decade. It was founded when John and Victoria Kula, with a deep desire to help people find God and overcome their destructive behaviors, came across an old motel and barn for sale on 50 acres of otherwise open land.

"I was helped 20-some years ago and my life changed completely," John said. "So my purpose was to help others. This was our vision way back and we ended up out here in Darien. The Lord led us out here and we purchased this property."

Victoria said she and John had been seeing each other for about two months when a friend invited him to a conference. 

"The conference was about spiritual things and he came to know the Lord there," she said. "I knew about the Lord before but wasn't really a follower.  Once John changed it was just natural for both of us to want to serve the Lord. We feel because of our experiences in life God has called us to help people with the same struggles we experienced ourselves."

Total Freedom, on its website, calls it a "one-step program."  That step is Jesus Christ.

The Program
Those who enter the program live on Total Freedom's campus for nine months of discipleship. 

"There's a curriculum that's set up by Total Freedom in Florida," John said. "It's a biblical curriculum that guides you through a healing and deliverance process. (The curriculum) is normally three to four months. The curriculum is put on an iPad and each individual works at their own pace. It's all videotape teaching. It's all about healing and transitioning and growing as who we are and being able to transition back into society."

John doesn't pretend it's easy.  It's not for everybody and some people walk away.  The day before John spoke with The Batavian, a man traveled from Oklahoma after being accepted into the program.  He was there for a couple of hours and then turned around and went back home.

Still, John said that about 95 percent of the people who enter the program have stayed clean or otherwise avoided the destructive behavior at the end of their two-year Total Freedom journey.  Participants are not tracked after completing the two-year program (that includes 12 months of after-care). It's not possible to independently verify the rehabilitation claim.

"It's a lifestyle change that we're really teaching," John said. "It's putting God in the center of your life and letting Him lead in everything you do."

For those who can't afford rehab, the first four months of the program are free. During the next phase, participants are expected to take a job to learn a skill, either at one of the ministry's businesses or off campus.  At that point, they pay $125 a week for room and board.

"They start learning how to save money, the basic skills of life, living," John said. "That is how the process goes through nine months. Then there's a year of aftercare where the test comes on how you're gonna handle your life and what you've learned."

Building a ministry
John is retired after 33 years of working, and he draws a pension.  Neither John nor Victoria are paid by the ministry.

"It has always been very important to us to not take an income from the ministry if it wasn’t necessary," Victoria said. "So far we haven’t needed to, so we don’t."

Tax records, as of 2020, show Freedom Fellowship, a 501(c)(3), has $1.4 million in assets.  Most of that appears to be the property the ministry owns. The main campus, 50 acres, is assessed at just over $1 million, and an adjoining property, acquired in 2019, is assessed at $247,000.

"The younger generation is earning an income through the various businesses that the ministry runs, and they need the income to make a living," Victoria said. "We do have some very generous donors and we did receive a large donation in order for us to purchase the properties."

What attracted John and Victoria to the first parcel that comprises the campus was a former motel that was being used as a residential rental complex.  That former motel now houses family members of people going through the program.  John and Victoria have added on, building a dormitory, recreation and meeting rooms, and a kitchen in a separate structure.

That most recently acquired property, on the west side of the campus, includes a two-story house built in 1880 that houses women going through the program.

The acquisition of the house, John said, allows the ministry to keep the men and women separated by the length of the campus. 

Total Freedom can provide a residence for eight women and 12 to 15 men at a time.

Campus life
While there, residents can make use of a fitness center and sauna, play foosball, ping-pong, basketball, and other sports, help in the garden and with the goats and chickens, and each Sunday enjoy fellowship with family before and after services.

Services are held in a chapel built in a converted barn.

And then there are the lush hiking trails through the heavily wooded, creek-laced back portion of the expansive property.

"The program is mind, body, and spirit," John said. "The menu we have, there's no sugars or carbs.  The trails are here for exercise.  Every morning, as far as the body is concerned, for a half-hour, we come back here (on the trails) and either walk or run, or whatever you want to do, but there's got to be a movement back here on these beautiful trails."

There was one person a while back, John said, who entered the program weighing 500 pounds. He needed a walker to get around.

"He walked the parking lot until he could walk these trails and eventually he lost the walker and he lost 140 pounds," John said.

There are also chores for residents.  They clean the grounds and help with maintenance.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit
As for employment opportunities on campus, Freedom Fellowship established four businesses:

• Freedom Expressions, which operates a print shop for custom clothing (such as T-shirts) and a boutique  
• Freedom Automotive, which opened in 2020
• Green Bird Candle, which makes candles and was recently started by a group of women going through the program
• The Table, the ministry's newest venture (see Freedom Fellowship in Darien Center planning new curbside pickup dining destination).

The businesses are intended to provide training and work experience for residents going through the program, an opportunity to earn money to help pay their rent and help them learn about managing finances, and generate revenue for the ministry to supplement donations, however, the print shop took a couple of years to start turning a profit and the auto shop is not yet profitable.

The auto shop is a Napa-certified training facility.  It's run by Mark Snow, who entered the program in 2016 and has stayed clean and sober since.

"I personally had been through 10 different rehabs over the course of 20 years of drug addiction, and I came through Total Freedom and I'm set free from it," Snow said. "The difference is Jesus Christ. That's all there is to it. The difference is a relationship with God. There's no other way to explain it."

For Mike Raymond, it also took putting all of his faith in God to finally put him on the right path, he said.

He first experienced Total Freedom in Florida, his home state, but soon found himself struggling with alcohol again.

Raymond had a pretty successful life in the restaurant industry.  

"I kept being offered more, more and more opportunity in the field," Raymond said. "So as much as I didn't particularly like it, I stayed with it because the money was good. I worked in various capacities over the course of my career, anywhere from starting out at the very bottom to working as a regional training director. I worked as a regional vice president. I worked as a food and beverage director, as a general manager."

The good money led to the high life and when that wasn't working for him any longer, Raymond wound up at Total Freedom in Florida. After going through the program, he tried returning to the restaurant industry but fell back into old habits.  He joined Total Freedom in Darien in 2019 and has been part of the program since, running the kitchen for the ministry.

"What's worked for me is submitting, realizing that -- to really come into the knowledge of the truth -- that this is not my home, that I'm a sojourner, and that I have a purpose and that Jesus died for me," Raymond said. "What I need to do is glorify Him in what I do and not look to the things of the world -- the money, the fame, all the things that I looked at as positives in my former life."

His job now is heading up Freedom Fellowship's newest business venture, The Table, a Mexican-themed curbside pickup restaurant on the campus.

"Mexican food has always been my cup of tea," Raymond said. "I worked for a Mexican concept for a long time. We made everything from scratch. It was real, and it's one of my favorite foods. So when I came here, it was not, obviously, the intention but when we started talking about (starting a restaurant) originally, that was the first thing that came to my mind. We prayed about it and decided, 'Hey, let's go with it and open a concept that was similar to what I knew."

The Table opened to the public earlier this month. The restaurant's menu is available online, along with online ordering.

Because New York doesn't sanction faith-based rehabilitation, most of the residents who join the program do not come to Total Freedom through the court system (though a couple of judges in Western New York have authorized it, John said). Instead, people at their wit's end hear about Total Freedom from churches and community centers.

"Once people know who we are and what we do -- and I'm going to be honest with you -- basically, sometimes it's the last resort for them because we don't charge and a lot of places want insurance or they want $1,000 up front," John said. "We just want to bring them in and when they can eventually pay, that's fine. If not, that's fine, too. We believe in and trust in that (idea), and that's definitely a blessing."

Photos by Howard Owens

Mike Raymond

Mark Snow

A room in the men's dormitory.

Part of the hiking trails.

The Batavian visited Total Freedom on June 25, the day the ministry hosted a car show, chicken BBQ, basket raffle and a bit of a carnival.  Retired pastor Richard Gritzke, pictured above with his Rolls Royce, won the prize for most classic car. The photos below are all from June 25.

Press release:

VA Western New York Healthcare System is seeking qualified professionals and staff for our Batavia VA Medical Center facility location. We highly encourage applicants to send an updated resume prior to July 13th to our email group VISN2HRSBUWesternNY@va.gov to schedule an interview time slot. Walk-ins are welcome!

Positions targeted for hire:

• Cook
• Food Service Worker
• Housekeeping Aide
• Registered Nurse (various shifts)
• Clinical Nurse Managers
• Licensed Practical Nurse
• Nursing Assistants

Our VA Career Fair will be held on Wednesday, July 20, 2022, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Building 3, Ground Floor, Batavia VA Medical Center Campus, 222 Richmond Avenue, Batavia, New York.

Benefits of working for Veterans Health Administration include:

• 13 to 26 days paid annual (vacation/personal) leave
• 13 sick days annually with no limit on accumulation
• 11 paid Federal holidays
• A Federal Pension
• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits that can be carried into retirement
• A thrift savings plan (similar to the private sector’s 401K); up to 5% matching contributions
• Flexible Savings Accounts
• The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and The Family Friendly Leave Act allow employees to take reasonable amounts of leave for medical reasons
• Up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave (for employees covered by FMLA) for the birth, adoption or foster care placement of a child
• Military leave is authorized up to 15 days a year for our active reservists and National Guard members 

With a doubleheader sweep on Thursday -- and a loss by Utica -- the Batavia Muckdogs tightened their hold on first place in the Western Division of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League.

The 22-10 Muckdogs are now 1.5 games ahead of Utica (22-13).

Batavia beat Geneva 8-1 and 7-4 while Utica lost to Watertown 6-4.

In the first game, Nolan Sparks, a junior at the University of Rochester, picked up his fifth win of the season, becoming the first Muckdog with that distinction. His .027 ERA leads the league.

Brian Fry, of Medina, continued his torrid hitting (.394 on the season) going 2-3 and scoring twice. Daniel Burroway also had two hits and scored a run and knocked in a run. Trey Bacon matched that stat line and Kyle Corso smacked a triple, driving in three runs.

In the nightcap, Batavia's Tyler Prospero improved to 4-1 with an ERA of 3.85 giving up only two runs over six innings of work. 

Josh Leadem picked up three hits and scored twice.  Fry once again got two hits. Bacon and Corso each had two hits.

Press release:

County Highway will be closing Sumner Road approximately 1,000 feet east of Route 77 for a culvert replacement from 7 a.m., Monday, July 18 through 4 p.m., Wednesday, July 21.  This is adjacent to Darien Lake Theme Park and between Route 77 and the Darien Lake Employee entrance on Sumner Road.  The culvert replacement has been coordinated with Daren Lake and the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office to hit a gap in the busy concert schedule at the park.  It is expected that the road will be reopened by Wednesday evening. Use caution once reopened as the culvert crossing will remain a gravel surface until paving can occur once the concert season slows down.