Business Owners: Interested in this type of ad? Contact Howard Owens at howard@thebatavian.com

A motor is reportedly on fire inside an attached garage of the "co-generation building" at the Genesee County Nursing Home.

The address is 278 Bank Street in Batavia.

City Fire Department is responding.

UPDATE 1:58 p.m.: Apparently the situation was handled without much ado. The fire truck is back in quarters.

A former Batavia resident who was caught in Wisconsin posing as an attorney and stealing money from his supposed clients admitted his crimes in a Milwaukee Court on March 3.

Thomas J. Lyon faces a two-year prison term and then will still need to answer to alleged probation violations out of Monroe County.

Lyon was previously convicted in Monroe County for grand larceny.

Facing 11 criminal counts, Lyon entered a guilty plea to charges of practicing law without a license, theft, identity theft and forgery. The remaining charges where dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

The case made headlines in Wisconsin because Lyon reportedly bragged to an associate that he was like Frank Abagnale Jr., the former con artist depicted by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit movie, "Catch Me If You Can."

In addition to posing as an attorney -- even making court appearances -- Lyon also assumed the identity of a deceased notary public. Police also accused him of running a prostitution ring, but Lyon was never charged with any crimes related to those allegations.

Previously, Lyon was arrested in Genesee County on an alleged bad check charge.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 7.

Previously: Milwaukee's accused "Catch Me If You Can" fake attorney has Batavia roots

Stephen Wade Thompson, 33, of West Main Street, Attica, is charged with criminal mischief. Thompson is accused of slashing tires on two vehicles in the Town of Alexander.

A 17-year-old resident of South Swan Street, Batavia, is charged with harassment, 2nd. The teen is accused of getting into a fight with another person at 9:25 p.m., Thursday, in the area of 4133 Veterans Memorial Drive, Batavia.

Amy Lou Platten, 41, of Main Street, Corfu, is charged with criminal contempt, 2nd. Platten is accused of violating an order of protection.

David Bellavia has started a petition drive to get his name on the ballot for the March 24 special election to replace former "Craigslist Congressman" Chris Lee.

Unable to secure a GOP or Conservative line in the race, Bellavia is apparently going to try and do it the hard way -- gathering 3,500 valid signatures from NY-26 voters.

A letter has gone out, according to D&C reporter Jill Terreri, seeking volunteers to help the Batavia resident gather signatures.

Meanwhile, Jack Davis has taken out ads on WBTA seeking support for his petition drive to have his name placed on the ballot.

City Fire Department is responding to a report of wires arcing in the area of 536 Ellicott St., Batavia.

UPDATE 10:53 p.m.: National Grid notified. The primary wire to the house is arcing.

UPDATE 11:20 p.m.: Two National Grid trucks on scene.

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Wires are reportedly arcing in the area of 857 Main Road, Pembroke.

That's across from Yancy's Fancy cheese factory.

The caller says the wires are arcing pretty strongly.

"The caller said the last time this happened the factory lost power," the dispatcher said.

Pembroke and Indian Falls fire departments dispatched.

UPDATE 8:26 a.m.: A chief says there's no fire, "but you can see where it was touching." National Grid has been notified.

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UPDATED 5:33 p.m. with comments from Steve Hyde.

While Genesee County Economic Development Center officials boast of 1,500 jobs created in the past five years, Department of Labor statistics don't show anything near that rate of job growth.

In 2005, according to labor statistics, there were 23,000 non-farm jobs in Genesee County; in 2010, there were also 23,000.

Since 2001, Genesee County has seen a net gain of 100 non-farm jobs.

That said, during the 2009/2008 recession, Genesee County fared better than the rest of the nation. While Genesee County lost 2.5 percent of its jobs from 2008 to 2010, as a whole the United States shed 5.1 percent of its jobs.

"Considering the past recession (Genesee County's job growth) numbers don’t look so terrible to me," said Tammy Marino, a researcher with the NYS Department of Labor based in Rochester. "They look reasonable compared to the rest of nation."

She added, "(The GCEDC) has probably done good job of bringing new jobs into the community, but it’s hard to see just because of the past recession, what we’ve been through in the past two years."

Steve Hyde, CEO of the EDC, said a lot of what his agency does is just try "stem the tide of decline" sweeping New York State.

"You look at the last 10 years and everyone around the country is shedding jobs and there are 100 more jobs in a recessionary environment than we had 10 years ago, on a relative basis, that’s a win for Genesee County," Hyde said. "New York is ranked the 50th most difficult state to do business in. Until we have systemic change in tax policy and and regulation policy, we're fighting hard just to buffer the tide of decline."

It's also hard, Hyde said, to compare DOL statistics with an EDC's job commitment numbers. Companies that get tax abatement and other assistance make a commitment to create a certain number of jobs over a four-year time frame. When the EDC says it created 1,500 jobs over the past five years, some of those jobs are still in the pipeline and wouldn't show up in labor statistics.

"We're working with companies working to grow or retain jobs," Hyde said. "What we're really trying to do is (incentivize) investments because when investment occurs by a company, it will create a long-term tax base and it builds roots in the community, which will lead to long-term job creation."

District 8 Legislator Hollis Upson, who sits on the GCEDC board, said just looking at the raw numbers doesn't tell the full story of job creation in Genesee County. 

"There's an awful of variables there and I don't know how to reconcile the Department of Labor statistics," Upson said. "If the EDC is creating jobs, they don't make any assumptions or have knowledge of jobs that might have been depleted. We (the county) might have lost 1,500 jobs."

In looking at job growth over the past 10 years, two sectors of employment for Genesee County stand out: Manufacturing, which has lost 800 jobs, and government, which has gained 700 jobs.

Marino said that Genesee County and the entire Rochester region is not immune from what is going on in the rest of the nation. Manufacturing jobs are being lost to free trade and greater efficiency driven by improved technology in factories.

"It doesn’t mean the existing companies are are not viable," Marino said. "But more manufacturers are taking advantage of technology to get more output with fewer workers. That trend has especially hit the metro area. We've had very steep job losses in the most recent years."

Genesee County has probably lost manufacturing jobs, just like the rest of the nation, Upson said, as it competes with China and other nations.

"Even Mexico is complaining now about losing jobs to China," Upson said. "Capital will flow to where the labor is cheaper."

But in the end, Upson said, a job is a job.

"We strive for those (manufacturing jobs)," Upson said. "We like those better then anything because they have the best ripple effect."

But, he added, New York is a mighty hard place to recruit manufacturers. He called New York punitive and overregulated.

"Even though manufacturing jobs would be the nice ones to attract, they are very difficult to do so given the umbrella we're working under in the State of New York," Upson said.

It's that climate that led to the EDC changing its public name about 10 years ago from Genesee Industrial Development Agency to Genesee County Economic Development Center, Upson said.

Genesee County's employment peaked in 2008 at 23,600 non-farm jobs.

The labor department tracks the county's jobs on a monthly basis, and online statistics go back 21 years. For this story, we're using the annual monthly average.

Looking at monthly comparisons, however, in a January-over-January match from 2010 to 2011, statistics show Genesee County picking up 300 jobs, from 21,600 to 21,900.

Typically, there are more jobs in Genesee County during summer months. In August 2010, there were 23,800 jobs. 

Over the past 21 years, the biggest month for non-farm jobs was June 2009 when Genesee County boasted 25,100 jobs.

Meanwhile, new unemployment statistics released this week show the county's unemployment rate rose from 7.9 percent in December to 9 percent in January. A year ago in January, unemployment was 9.6 percent.

As for the county's jump in government workers, Morino speculated that while schools have probably added staff, especially the community college, a lot of Genesee County's government job growth is probably driven by the presence of a Federal Detention Center and a Homeland Security office.

In fact, most of the county's government job growth came in 2002 and 2003 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Western New York, Morino said, tends to remain pretty stable in both good and bad economic times.

"We don’t see any extreme highs and extreme lows," she said. "During the past recession, the auto industry was hit very hard and we didn’t see any of that because we’re not really dependent on the auto industry. Also, housing prices remained stable. We didn’t see that big build up in housing values, and didn’t see them fall either."

I went to the courthouse this afternoon to cover a case that, as it turned out, wasn't called, but I did spot this giant snow mountain behind the skate park. You really need to stand next to it to appreciate it, but here's a photo anyway.

There is still a flood watch in place for Genesee County, but eyeballing the Tonawanda Creek this afternoon, it didn't look too bad. Of course, if this pile melts off all at once ...

Here's a news release from State Sen. Michael H. Ranzenhofer.

The New York State Senate has passed legislation (S.2682), introduced by Senator Ranzenhofer, that repeals the “cost recovery” tax imposed on local economic development agencies in 2009 and also requires the state to reimburse agencies for any monies previously paid.

After being passed in the 2009-10 state budget, the cost-recovery tax hurt the efforts of local industrial development agencies to get New Yorkers back to work by taking away economic development money from local communities and sending more revenue to Albany.

"During a time of high unemployment and an economy struggling from a national recession, the IDA cost-recovery tax made a bad situation even worse,” Ranzenhofer said. “Repealing this unfair tax puts funds back in the right place, in the hands of local community business leaders to entice businesses to locate in the state and create jobs, not in state coffers."

The 2009-10 state budget contained a maximum $5 million statewide cost-recovery tax on local economic development agencies. The tax does not reflect a rational basis for actual costs incurred by the state for providing services to local economic development agencies. Local economic development agencies already pay a Bond Insurance Charge to recover costs.

Members of local economic development agencies expressed their support for the legislation. This tax, based on operating revenue, is a disincentive for IDAs to expand programming or reinvest back into the community.

"Senator Ranzenhofer should be applauded for introducing the legislation to repeal this unfair tax," said Genesee County Economic Development Center President and CEO Steve Hyde. "His fellow Senators who joined him to pass S.2682 also deserve congratulations for standing up against this unfair assessment.”

Governor Cuomo has also included an identical provision in his 2010-11 executive budget proposal.

Here's a news release from the Buffalo office of the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service will be conducting a SKYWARN spotter training seminar in Batavia at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13 at the Genesee County Fire Training Center, 7690 State St. Road.

It's sponsored by the Genesee County Office of Emergency Services and will last about two hours. There is no cost for the training.

SKYWARN is a national effort to save lives during severe weather emergencies with an expanding network of trained volunteer weather spotters. SKYWARN spotters support their local community and government by providing reports of severe weather directly to the National Weather Service in Buffalo through amateur radio or by phone using the the NWS spotter hotline. The services performed by SKYWARN spotters have saved many lives.

The National Weather Service has a number of devices for detecting severe thunderstorms. Included in these are Doppler radar, satellite, and lightning detection networks. However, the most important tool for observing thunderstorms is the trained eye of the storm spotter.

By providing observations, SKYWARN spotters assist National Weather Service staff in their warning decisions and enable the National Weather Service to fulfill its mission of protecting life and property. Storm spotters are, and always will be, an indispensable part of the severe local storm warning program.

The basic training session provides a brief overview of the National Weather Service organization and its responsibilities, severe weather safety, and basic severe weather meteorology including how thunderstorms, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes form.

Anyone can become a severe weather spotter for the National Weather Service. SKYWARN training is free and open to the public.

For further information, you can call the National Weather Service at (716) 565-0204, ext. 223, or to register for the program, please call Genesee County Emergency Services at 344-0078.

More information about SKYWARN is available on the NWS Buffalo Web site at http://www.weather.gov/buf/spt.htm.

Submitted by Pam Zola:

March 4 – 6, 2011 wasn’t an ordinary weekend for the Batavia Ramparts Bantam III team. Vying for a state title, the team traveled to the Onondaga Indian Reservation to play in the 2011 NYSAHA Championships. The team was led by Coach Duane Olin and Assistant Coaches John Zola and Jeff Bower and is sponsored by T. F. Brown’s.

In their first game during round robin play the team faced the Great Neck Bruins, the second seed out of the East. Winning with a score of 10 – 2, Batavia never looked back. Led by Captains Richard Francis and Sean Olin and Assistants Joe Saraceni and Will VanAuken, the team faced the number-one seed out of the North, The Norfolk-Norwood Icemen. 

Zachary Laird, John Sallome, Jake Bower, Tyler Andrews and Cameron Chamberlain as well as Goalie Tyler Stroud proved instrumental in the 6-2 win. The Cortland Flames faced Batavia in the last round robin game.  Playing well for the Ramparts were Jack Simpson, Tristan Aldinger and Julien Schimley as well as Kris Bank and Josh Preston. 

The 4 – 2 win propelled the Ramparts into the crossover game where they faced Canandaigua. Mason Versage, Kris Walker, Francis, Saraceni, Sallome and Laird led the team to the 6 – 1 win and put Batavia in the finals to once again face the Norfolk-Norwood Icemen.

With a 9 – 2 victory, the Batavia Ramparts Bantam III team won the State Championship – the first in 12 years for the organization. The team will travel to Portland, Maine March 18 – 20 for the Regional Tournament.

One of my longtime goals has been to stop by Glass Roots at 12 Center St., Batavia, some time when Jeremy Almeter is blowing glass. Today, I happened to catch Jeremy in action along with Josh Taggart (bottom photo).

Almeter told me he and Josh can create any kind of glass object a customer might want -- just draw a picture and they'll make it.

A 16-year-old boy has officially been missing since Jan. 21, but Youth Officer John K. Dehm had been tracking him and had a good idea where he was, according Chief Deputy Jerome Brewster.

Now, the whereabouts of Ronald J. Murray Jr., are unknown and the Sheriff's Office is asking for the help of anyone who might know where he is.

Murray is 5' 10", 170lbs. He has brown hair and brown eyes.

He was last seen leaving Batavia High School and failed to show up for classes at BOCES.

Anyone with any information is asked to call Dehm at the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office at 585-345-3000, ext. 3575, or write jdehm@co.genesee.ny.us.

A wire on a pole in the area of 316 E. Main St., Batavia, is reportedly sparking, but is not down.

Batavia Fire Department is being dispatched.

Also, about five minutes ago, Stafford fire received a call of a wire sparking near Stafford Trading Post, called in by a passerby, but two chiefs checking Main Road have been unable to locate any such problem.

UPDATE 7:36 p.m.: The Batavia call was determined to be unfounded.

Let the mudslinging begin -- Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, the handpicked GOP candidate to replace ex-Rep Chris Lee, issued a press release this afternoon slamming her future Democratic opponent as a Nancy Pelosi lackey, even before the Democrats have started to interview candidates.

Full press release:

Statement from Matthew Harakal, communications director for Jane Corwin for Congress, regarding the list of Democratic candidates announced today:

“Jane Corwin has spent more than 30 years in the private sector creating jobs in Western New York, and if given the honor to be the next Representative for New York’s 26th Congressional District will lead the fight to reduce spending, cut taxes, and strengthen our economy for both the short- and long-term.

“The reality is that whoever Washington Democrats tell their local members to select, the Democrat candidate will be the handpicked choice of Nancy Pelosi and be another reliable vote to raise taxes to push her borrow-and-spend, big government agenda. That’s just a fact.”

Earlier today, local Democratic county chairs announced the names of seven people vying for their party's nod on the March 24 ballot.

A man stopped to drop something off at a residence on Liberty Street, left the motor running in his car, and when he came out of the house, he told police, the car was gone.

The car is described as a black Oldsmobile Alero.

It's unknown what direction of travel the thief took the car.

A police officer is responding to the scene now.

UPDATE 5:45 p.m.: If I heard correctly, the car was located unoccupied.