From the Daily News (Friday):

• State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker is urging the governor to declare about 20 state counties as disaster sites following the hail storms that pounded the area on Monday. Hooker came through Genesee County yesterday, stopping by ravaged cabbage and onion fields in Elba. If his request goes through, those and many other farms will be eligible for federal disaster aid. While the crops were not destroyed on most farms, they did take a beating, and many farmers are worried that the market simply won't accept the un-perfect produce. New York Apple Association Director Jim Allen said: "You can't tolerate defects in fresh fruit. There's no doubt we took a serious hit." Farmers will know more about how much they can recover in the coming weeks.
• A computer screen-reading program is helping students at the state School for the Blind. Reporter Kristen Kotz writes about the program, called JAWS: "It allows them to navigate the entire computer system and receive verbal feedback."
•  A dozen folks turned out for the first session of the Military Pride Network, a new "networking and support group for families of individuals who are on active duty in the military," writes reporter Paul Mrozek. The group will meet again July 17 at 5:15pm at the Genesee County Career Center in Eastown Plaza in Batavia. Call (585) 344-0842 for more information.
• Batavia's Rotary, Rods and Rock & Roll fundraiser is all set for June 28 at Batavia Downs. The event kicks off at 3:00pm with a car show, an auction and a pizza tasting. A beer festival will follow at 6:00pm — Batavia's first ever, according to Joanne Beck. Her article is pretty comprehensive — including a list of all the bands slated to perform — so for those looking for more information, check it out. Admission will be $2 for the Rotary event and $15 for the beer festival.
• Batavia Downs will host a horse show this weekend. The show will start at 7:30am and run to 5:00pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.
• Looks like the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce is pretty geeked up about the Rural Tourism Conference that they'll be hosting next year. They've already put out the announcement. Congrats to them.
• A pair of articles inside the A Section of today's paper were featured on The Batavian in earlier posts: Batavia's BID puts up hanging flower baskets and truckers converge on Albany.
• Great photo spread at the back of the paper today!
• The Muckdogs went down hard, 7-0, against the Auburn Doubledays last night to start the season 0-3. They'll be playing at Frontier Field in Rochester tonight.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.

Here is the next video in our Countdown to the Ramble series: Buffalo Road Show performing "That Boy." See our earlier post for more about the countdown.

Check out WBTA for this and other stories:

• Some 1,200 Genesee County residents did not receive an economic stimulus check, though they may have been entitled to one. In order to receive the checks, those eligible had to file a federal tax return, and many retirees and disabled veterans never filed because they didn't have to. Well, a sympathetic IRS — seriously — is reaching out to help them get their check, which could be between $300 and $600 per individual. They have until October 15 to file the 1040A tax form and get the check. Visit the IRS Web site for more information.

Batavia trucker Bill Sutton was one of hundreds of truckers who converged on Albany this morning.

Truckers and Citizens United of New York organized a convoy of fed-up haulers and drivers to meet up at the Betty Beaver Truck Stop in Fultonville and from there: the state capital. From their Web site: "We expect to parade down State Street in Albany by 10:00am and encircle the Capitol Building. Join us at any point along the way in your own vehicle! Be heard! Be seen! Take back our state!"

From Land Line Magazine:

Bill Sutton said he has a challenge for any truckers who use the excuse they can’t afford to participate in the convoy to Albany. He’s had his share of bad luck recently.

Sutton, a flatbedder from Batavia, NY, has been trucking for more than 23 years. However, he said the company he was leased to for 16 years shut down on Friday, June 6. Besides losing his job, he is also out more than $12,000 he was owed in back settlements from the company.

“I got a message that I should be receiving a check for about $3,000 to $4,000, but I may have to wait a year or more to receive the rest, if I get it at all.”

Sutton said he’s participating in the convoy because he believes truckers should stand together to fight toll increases and high fuel taxes truckers in New York face. He is also meeting with his assemblyman, Stephen Hawley, while he’s in Albany to discuss some of the key issues truckers are facing.

“I really believe we are doing the right thing by doing this,” he said. “Even though I am forking out money out of my own pocket to participate in the convoy, I am not willing to just accept what is continually being done to the truck drivers here, which is being taxed to the point they can’t run any longer.”

He said that while many people don’t know his name, they recognize his truck, which is a bright purple 2005 Western Star LowMax.

“People don’t know me, but they know my truck. It’s hard to miss,” he said.

The Associated Press was there when the drivers arrived. They caught up with Sutton who was in the thick of it. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno addressed the crowd, claiming that it was the Assembly's fault the state gas tax "holiday" didn't pass.

Shortly after his remarks, Bruno got a taste of what it's like to drive a big rig after Sutton, who helped organize the rally, invited him to check out his truck parked nearby.

After a choppy start, Bruno, who doesn't have a commercial driver's license, pulled out into traffic and, after nearly running onto a curb, drove off out of sight. He reappeared a few minutes later, parked the truck and described the experience as "some challenge."

Gov. David Paterson was also on the scene. He said he couldn't support the gas tax "holiday" unless fuel companies promised to pass on the savings to consumers and told the truckers to take their protest to the offices of big oil company executives.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he didn't speak to the truckers because he wasn't invited, adding that the rally was organized by a failed Republican candidate for Assembly who he described as "Tedisco's henchman," referring to Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco.

Vincent Gramuglia, a Fultonville truck-stop owner, was the lead organizer. He lost a bid for the Assembly 18 years ago to Democrat Paul Tonko but said that had nothing to do with the rally.

"This has nothing to do with politics," he said. "This has to do with truckers."

Wednesday:

• 1:19pm, 7 Wood St., larceny
• 1:34pm, MacArthur Drive, criminal mischief
• 5:26pm, 412 E. Main St., accident
• 5:55pm, 51 Montclair Ave., harassment
• 6:49pm, 412 E. Main St., larceny
• 10:16pm, 19 Holland Ave., harassment
• 11:10pm, 500 E. Main St., trespass

Note: We don't include noise complaints, domestic disputes and routine police business.

From the Daily News (Wednesday):

• Conehead the Vendor was on hand to distribute beer and snacks to the crowd of 1,298 who showed up for the Muckdogs' home opener last night that started with rain, ended with a loss, but was nonetheless chock full of good cheer. Nor was he the only one. Officials from the Rochester Red Wings were there to get things in gear for the new season. And John Mozeliak, general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, even came out to speak before the game. Reporter Brian Hillabush has a pair of great articles on today's front page covering the home opener. Check them out.
• Batavia's Town Board will host a public hearing on July 16 to get comment on the town's proposed contribution of $225,000 for the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park.
• An article on the front page covers Council's planned discussion on the relocation of the city's youth football program that was covered in detail by The Batavian earlier today.
• Today's opinion page features a column by Tom Rivers about Tim Russert, the Buffalo native and host of Meet the Press, who died suddenly last week. Rivers found that as much as Russert was in the national spotlight, he still had time for small-town, small-press America. It's a great column. Worth a read.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.

Batavia's City Council will meet Monday to tend to a pair of budget amendments regarding the consolidation study, most of which is funded by a state grant. Also on the agenda is a 2.75 percent wage increase for City Manager Jason Molino following the completion of Molino's annual review which was completed earlier in the week. (Council President Charlie Mallow first announced the results of the review on The Batavian this past Monday.)

Monday's big discussion is likely to be over the relocation of the youth football program, which has for years now been situated in the outfield of Dwyer Stadium. Officials from the Rochester Red Wings told Council about a month ago that if they wish to keep youth football at the stadium, the damage done to the field will mean costly annual maintenance to get the turf back in shape for the Muckdogs season.

Molino has recommended two potential locations to host youth football: Austin Park or Kibbe Park. Both would require an initial investment from taxpayers, though moving the field to Kibbe Park would mean much more.

This (above) is what the layour would look like if it were situated at Austin Park at a cost of $19,444. In a letter to Council, Molino said Austin Park would be the better fit.

As seen in the diagram, the field can easily be placed east to west in the open space of the park. There can be a user agreement developed between the City and youth football for access and use of the concession stand and bathrooms during the season. New bleachers can be purchased, but can also be used for other events during different times throughout the year. Parking is adequate...

Molino dismissed the idea of transferring the bleachers from Dwyer Stadium every year at a cost of about $6,000. The cost for new permanent bleachers for Austin Park would be about $13,000. Several trees on the east side of the park would have to be removed, and a scoreboard will have to be installed.

[The] Rochester Red Wings ... have offered to assist by holding a silent auction night for baseball paraphernalia at the Dwyer Stadium with all proceeds going towards the purchase of the new scoreboard ($4,000). They are also willing to assist with other fund raising efforts in conjunction with youth football.

As for relocating to Kibbe Park, the cost would be about $61,000 and would include the building of a concession stand and other facilities already located at Austin Park. The layout for Kibbe Park can be viewed below.

The meeting will be at 7:00pm on the second floor of City Hall. You can download the agenda for the business meeting.

Note: Mallow said at the last meeting that Council would discuss at this coming meeting the policy regarding Council members communication with city staff. There was no mention of this topic on the agenda.

You could have said the night started ominous. Sure, the fans were there, diehard and decked in team merch, blankets tucked under their arms. They entered Dwyer Stadium under an arc of balloons — and Muckdog management even saw fit to roll out the red carpet, or at least a pair of shaggy red-colored rugs.

Then came the rain.

Everyone was talking about it. You couldn't not. Not with those low-hanging clouds that looked as thick as continents rolling slowly past. When one of them finally broke at about 6:30pm, everyone who wasn't under cover got a good soaking. Concession boys scrambled to get the condiment carts under the eaves. Managers called out for more hands on deck to roll tarp over the field. Ladies held seat cushions over their heads.

But it passed. Soon it was pretty much over. Fans got down to the business of watching baseball, and the Batavia Muckdogs and the Auburn Doubledays got down to the business of playing it.

Well, they lost. Batavia went down 1-6 against Auburn. Oh well. Now they'll take it to Auburn for the third and final game of the series tomorrow night down two games to none.

Don't forget to tune it to WBTA for the play-by-play.

Batavia's new Police Chief Randy Baker sat down with us earlier today to talk about his time with the city — he's a 27-year veteran of the department — and his plans for the future. The Batavian reported on Baker's appointment a little over a week ago.

Monday:

• 9:26am, 73 Union St., arson
• 3:50pm, 303 E. Main St., harassment
• 5:41pm, 390 W. Main St., accident
• 6:04pm, 12 Oak St., harassment
• 6:36pm, 18 Thorpe St. (Apt: Upper), harassment
• 10:34pm, East Main Street, accident

Tuesday:

• 2:51am, 19 Holland Ave., criminal mischief
• 7:08am, Ellicott Street, accident
• 11:21am, 8315 Park Road, larceny
• 11:49am, Washington Avenue, accident
• 12:12pm, 2 Summit St., accident
• 12:33pm, 209 E. Main St., larceny
• 1:24pm, 260 State St., larceny
• 2:58pm, 355 W. Main St., accident
• 3:10pm, 1 State St., harassment
• 3:18pm, 303 E. Main St., accident
• 6:06pm, 20 Porter Ave. (Apt: Lower), larceny
• 7:16pm, 629 E. Main St., accident
• 8:02pm, 390 W. Main St., larceny

Note: We don't include noise complaints, domestic disputes and routine police business.

From the Daily News (Wednesday):

• Thomas A. Aquino, the Rochester man who recently admitted that he was the notorious Pillowcase Burglar of the 1980s, received the 15-year maximum sentence for one count of second-degree burglary. Judge Robert C. Noonan told Aquino in court that it would be "a dereliction of my duty to impose anything less than the maximum sentence." Reporter Scott DeSmit put together a great article on the sentencing.
• Really, a fantastic front page put together by the Daily News today. In addition to DeSmit's article about the Pillowcase Burglar, you can find a photograph by Mark Gutman in which a pair of cyclists wait at the corner of Main and Oak streets in the midst of last night's power outage. One of them exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke, illuminated by a pair of headlights that glow intense yet puny in the pitch black night. There's also an article about the City Council's review of City Manager Jason Molino that appeared on The Batavian yesterday, and an on-the-ball article by Tom Rivers who was out assessing the damage done to local crops as a result of Monday's hail storms.
• Democratic Congressional candidate Jack Davis stopped at the VA Medical Center in Batavia Tuesday vowing that he would support a bill in Washington that would "expand and improve health care services for female veterans." Check out the article by reporter Roger Muehlig for more about Davis's visit and female veterans. It's well done.
• Eighteen-year-old Batavian, Richard J. Peters II, could face up to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping a 4-year-old Wyoming girl. Peters will be sentenced at Wyoming County Court on September 11.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.

Royal Rangers is a Christian boys scouting group that is held at the Batavia Assembly of God on Wednesday at 700pm-830pm.  The boys work on merits and advancements and there is an emphasis on the bible, to earn the top award, The Gold Medal of Achievement.  There are groups for K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.  This program has been around since 1962 and is an international organization.  We have many activities planned throughout the year.  We go camping at least 5 times a year, we have father and son events and many other fun activities. We also go to leadership camps for the boys to help them be able to take charge of the classes.   If you have any questions please call the church at 343-8521.  You can also visit the State web site for Royal Rangers at http://nyroyalrangers.org/

In our group we have many families who can not afford to go to the campouts and leadership camps.  The leadership camp costs $100.00 and most of the families can not afford it.  Some local business, organizations and people have seen the benfits of advesting into the boys of this community and have helped pay the cost for the boys to go to the leadership camps.  PetMart, Kiwanis Clup, First Choice Travel, the Batavia Police Benevolent Association, the Deputy Sheriff;s Association, the Batavia Fire Fighters Union, and Viola Hale all have invested in the boys of this community.  Thank you so very much.

Genesee County sheriff's deputies were kept busy at the Dave Matthews Band concert at Darien Lake last night. In addition to charges of trespass for three young men who allegedly got into the concert without paying for tickets, the arrests reported by deputies this morning include:

• Deena A. Pantlin, 21, of 143 Liberty St. (Apt: A2) in Batavia, was charged with disorderly conduct, though no details were given.
• Two young men from Cheektowaga, 22-year-old Christopher R. Jagielo and 20-year-old Colby M. Stanton, were charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. They were accused of wearing stolen Darien Lake Performing Arts Center shirts to gain access to secured areas in the venue.
• Two men from Batavia and another from Churchville face more serious charges of seond-degree gang assault, a felony. Steven R. Colombo, 21, of 8 Ellicott St. (Apt: Lower), and Gerald Z.L.A. Watts, 27, of 10 Fisher Park, both from Batavia, along with James M. Giman, 28, of Churchville, were accused of injuring someone in a fight after the concert. All three were sent to Genesee County Jail in lieu of $15,000 bail. Rochester's Democrat & Chronicle reported that the injured man was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Note: All of the above arrests were reported in published releases from the Genesee County Sheriff's Office.

Check out WBTA for this and other stories:

• About 7,000 National Grid customers in Genesee County lost their power around 9:00pm last night. A failure in the Batavia substation on Franklin Street was blamed for the outage that darkened city streets and left about 5,800 residents in Batavia and some 1,000 others in Alexander, Pembroke and Elba without their electricity until some time after midnight. (Some information for this brief was obtained from the Democrat & Chronicle.)

The Batavian was fortunate enough to meet up with Rick Pratt last Friday at the scene of his latest project, here in Batavia. Rick is a chainsaw artist from Corfu. You may have seen one of his most prominent works here in the city right on Main Street — the wizard carved out of a tree trunk.  Well, last week, Rick was back on Main Street, a little further down, past the Gravel Pit, working on a sculpture of a bald eagle in flight. He still had yet to finish up the detailing of the piece, but that didn't stop us from getting some great footage of Rick in action with the "smaller" chainsaw.

For more about Rick or to see some photographs of his other work, please visit his Web site.

Peanuts, knuckleballs, the smell of freshly mown turf, double plays, soda pop, stadium bleachers, rally caps... and The Batavian — all fine reasons to come out for the Muckdogs home opener Wednesday at Dwyer Stadium. I will be there an hour shy of game time at about six o'clock, proud to pull up table and chair at the home of the hometown legends.

Come by and say hello. Don't be shy. I'll try not to be.

Genesee County Animal Shelter put up another video exhibiting their cats up for adoption.

Here's the shelter's web site.

From the Daily News (Tuesday):

• United Memorial Medical Center reported a $3.4 million profit for 2007, its fourth straight year in the black, according to President and CEO Mark Schoell. For more facts and figures check out the article by Paul Mrozek.
• Agricultural reporter Tom Rivers has an interesting piece on the front page about the not-to-friendly named 'armyworms' and their threat to local wheat harvests.
• I had some trouble working out the details of an article about the Genesee County Public Defender's Office that could lose "hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds." Reporter Paul Mrozek writes that in order to receive the state funding, the county "must spend at least one dollar more for the two programs than it did in the previous budget year." It seems strange, but apparently the state is demanding that the office spend more money in order to receive more money. What's more strange is that the threshold is measured by a single dollar.
• The town of Batavia dedicated a new guardrail erected at a curve in Stegman Road near Route 5 last night. That curve was the site of an accident that injured one friend and killed another nine years ago. After much petitioning by one of the accident victims, Jamie Beedham of Oakfield, the town finally put up the guardrail two weeks ago. "My goal is if the guardrail can save one life, I will have been successful," she told reporter Kristen Kotz.
• Among the items on the Batavia Town Board agenda for its meeting Wednesday is a potential contribution of $225,000 by the town to aid the development of the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park that is planned to go up near the fairgrounds. You can download the complete meeting agenda by clicking here.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.

It's out! The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Genesee County released its Agri-Tourism Guide for 2008. The pamphlet can be downloaded from the Coop's Web site or picked up in person at its Main Street location near Masse Mall (look for the cow). It's got a colorful map to help you find the many fruit and vegetable farms, slaughterhouses, maple houses, orchards, greenhouses and popcorneries (is that a word, I don't know). Each gem is listed with an address and a brief description of just what you can find there.

I had a bowl of fantastic, organic, cold purple grapes last night, and let me tell you, there's nothing like fresh produce from your own hometown. Pavilion's got two acres of blueberries. Herbly Wonderful here in Batavia has lavender fields and greenhouses so sweet-smelling you have to keep from plucking the furry bits of thyme right off their stalk. Corfu's got cheddar to please. Looking to knit a scarf? LeRoy's got alpaca yarn aplenty.

Honestly, folks. You've got everything edible and touchible to get you through the summer — and when that's all over, hit up the wreath-makers and Christmas tree farms, also listed.

If you've got any questions, or you want to know just where to find those alpacas, stop by the Coop or get your own guide right now.