Stories from

A woman's arm is reportedly pinned underneath a car following a one-vehcile rollover accident at the intersection of Bloomingdale and Martin roads.

Emergency crews are responding.

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A fire alarm was triggered at UMMC, 16 Bank St. Firefighters are on scene and investigating. No further information is available at this time.

Fire units are being dispatched to 6951 N. Bergen Road for a reported car fire.

Ironically, Google's "Street View" of the address puts a car right in front of the residence. We have no idea, of course, if this is the car.

Today, we have a special Deal of the Day -- three gift certificates offers in one day.

• T.F. Brown's, 214 E. Main St.: A $25 gift certificate for $12.50.
• Adam Miller Toy and Bicycle, 8 Center St.: A $25 gift certificate for $12.50
• Batavia Downs Casino, Grandstands Bar & Grille: $25 gift certificate for $12.50

Rules: Gift certificates must be used within 30 days of purchase.  People who have won a gift certificate in the past 30 days cannot win a gift certificate from the same business again. State law prohibits using gift certificates to purchase alcohol.

Process: Purchase your gift certificate through the PayPal button below. There is only one gift certificate available from each business. The first completed purchase wins.  PayPal will notify you if the gift certificate has been purchased and is out of stock. It's best if you're able to stop by The Batavian office and pick up your gift certificate prior to 5 p.m. today, however mail is an option.

T.F. Brown's ($12.50):

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 Adam Miller ($12.50):

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Batavia Downs ($12.50):

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After the public hearing last night, Dan Fischer of WBTA and I spoke with Tom Mancuso, of Mancuso Development Group, about the Masse Gateway Project.  Mancuso has been on vacation, so the public has not yet heard from him on the proposal, so this video represents the full interview.

Maybe it was the time, as one speaker noted, but for as controversial as the Masse Gateway Project has seemed, the turnout at tonight's public hearing was disappointing. Only five people got up to speak.

Below are videos of each of the speakers. Note that I didn't necessarily capture the entire speeches of each person, though in some cases I did.

There may be a theater, possibly a dinner theater, in the future of the former Carr's Department Store location, if owner Ken Mistler can line up appropriate funding through the BID.

Mistler does not have many specifics on the proposal at this time, but has been working on putting together the project for several weeks.

In response to an e-mail, Mistler said:

I do not have any exact plans until the Engineers get back to me... Engineer hopes to give me my plans/answers early next week.

In a comment on The Batavian, Mislter acknowledged that he paid only $10,000 for the Carr's building, but has spent a good deal of money renovating it.

• $214,000 on the Jackson Street façade
• $22,000 on replacing windows
• $87,000 on the back façade, which helped preserve the structure
• $58,000 on new roofs
• $42,000 on the front façade
• $150,000 on repairs from leaks due to broken pipes (the elevator and dry wall were damaged)
• $20,000 on a new sprinkler system
• $15,000 on heating and air conditioning

In another comment, he said:

I offered Old Navy 4 years free rent on a 7-year lease. After 4 attempts they finally replied. They are not currently seeking any type of retail location in your (our) demographic. Now I will look toward entertainment.

The Carnival is coming to town. Work crews are busy now on Jackson Street setting up 10 rides for kids of all ages (so long as they're at least 36 inches tall).  The carnival opens Friday afternoon.

Today's lunch was at Mother's Chicken and Fish on Ellicott. After our meal, owner Tim Chugg and I started chatting.

He's pretty upset that the new brick bench across the street from his store, outside the Pok-A-Dot, remains unfinished several months after the project was started.  There's been no sign of progress all spring.

I checked with Don Burkel at the BID, and he said there's an unresolved issue the DOT holding up the entire Ellicott Street project.

"We're anxious to get it finished, too." Burkel said. "We hope to have the entire project finished by late spring."

Calista Miakoda, a second-hand clothing and accessory boutique, opened today on Ellicott Street in Downtown Batavia.

Owner Kaitlin McGratf is 19 and spent her whole life in Genesee County, growing up in Bergen.

She's dreamed of owning her own clothing store since she was 12, she said, which is when she picked the name for the business. She doesn't remember which language the words come from, but Calista means "most beautiful" and Miakoda means "night sky" (roughly).

"My dad always owned his own business," Kaitlin said. "I don't like working for other people too much, and I thought it would be fun (to own her own business). It's (clothing) has always been a hobby of mine."

This morning, I arrived at the Main Street location where two homes are being demolished to make room for a low-income apartment complex in time to capture this video.

Joanne Beck wrote about the project a few days ago.

Here are some additional pictures:

Republicans are lining up in opposition to a provision in a bill that would reform IDA regulations, calling it the "IDA Death Bill."

The provision would require businesses moving into an IDA project to pay union-scale wages, known as the prevailing wage.

We received a press release this morning from Assemblyman Steve Hawley expressing his displeasure with the bill.

"If this bill is enacted, Albany might as well hang a sign on
the Thruway to tell everyone entering our state that New York is closed for
business," Hawley said.

Other coverage: 

• Buffalo News
• Democrat & Chronicle

Hawley's press release following the jump:

Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,I,C-Batavia) joined with state
legislators from both houses, including Western New York State Senator
Michael Ranzenhofer and Erie County Executive Chris Collins, to express
their strong opposition to the proposed Industrial Development Authority
(IDA) reform bill (A.3659), commonly dubbed the "IDA Death Bill," at a press
conference held this week in Albany.

"If this bill is enacted, Albany might as well hang a sign on
the Thruway to tell everyone entering our state that New York is closed for
business.  This bill, if enacted, would drastically reduce Western New York's
ability to attract business and create jobs, especially in rural
communities," said the Assemblyman, referring to the provision of the
legislation which requires all IDA projects to be "shovel-ready," meaning
the locality will have to have road, sewer and utility services already
installed.  As Hawley further explained, "This is a prospective cost that
smaller cities, rural towns and suburban communities simply can not afford.
This bill would leave rural upstate, or 37 percent of the state's
population, out of the equation."

Hawley and his colleagues, who also included Assemblywoman Jane
Corwin (R,C,I-Williamsville) and Assemblymen Thomas O'Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats)
and Marc Molinaro (R,C,I-Red Hook), outlined their opposition to the bill's
provisions to instate a prevailing wage for construction costs as well as a
living wage for all employees of the completed facilities; both measures
which businesses would not agree to due to the excessively high costs, an
increase estimated to be at 25 to 30 percent.  The current IDA benefit given
to companies is around 15 percent.  Hawley explained, "The problem here is
that this bill calls for employers to pay a higher wage to the employee,
which doesn't sound bad, except that coupled with the many other intrusive
provisions in this bill and the fact that this makes it more expensive,
employers simply will choose to do business with another state.  So we must
consider what is better: the current, livable wage or no wage at all?"

Another point of contention with the bill outlined by the
officials was the fact that up until now, New York State's opportunities for
businesses, offered through IDAs and the Empire Zone Program, have been
comparable to neighboring states, such as Pennsylvania.  However, parts of
the enacted 2009-10 State Budget have lessened incentives through the Empire
Zone Program, while neighboring states have increased their business
incentives and job creation benefits.  Hawley stated, "on top of decreasing
Empire Zone incentives, the state has increased the cost of health care,
energy and insurance costs for businesses.  This IDA bill will be the final
nail in the coffin for businesses in New York State, and I strongly
encourage members of the business community and concerned residents to
contact the leadership in Albany to say 'no' to the IDA Death Bill."

Today's Deal of the Day: A $25 gift certificate from T.F. Brown's in Batavia. The Batavian's Good Deal Price: $12.50 -- HALF off!

T.F. Brown's is one of my regular choices for lunch. The food is great and when I'm in the mood I can catch up on the sports world from one of the several television sets in the bar and dining area.

Rules: The gift certificate must be used by within 30 days of purchase. It is not valid with other offers and has no cash value. By law, gift certificates cannot be used for purchase of alcohol.

How to win: Purchase using the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. After the first person to hit the "buy now" button completes the purchase, PayPal will let you know that the item has been sold. Ideally, the winner will arrange to stop by my office on Main Street before 5:00 p.m. to pick up the gift certificate. Mail is an option, but it would be better to hand you the gift certificate. 

If you want to be notified via e-mail of future Deals of the Day, sign up for the Deals of the Day e-mail list by clicking here.

Merchants: If you would like your business featured in Deal of the Day, call Howard Owens at 260-6970.
 

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The Charter Review Commission has finished its review of the City of Batavia charter and will soon submit its revisions to the City Attorney for review, chairman John Roach says.

The big surprise, Roach said, is the need to clarify how a vacancy is filled on the City Council when a member resigns his or her seat for any reason. The vacancy is supposed to be filled according to party affiliation, but what that phrase means exactly wasn't defined.

Councilman Bill Cox brought the issue to the commission because he noted that while he's a Republican, he was elected on the Democratic and Conservative party lines. Roach said Cox would want to see the seat go to a Republican if he left office.

“There’s another feeling that the party that elected you should get to back fill your position, but it’s not really spelled out," Roach said. "So out of the clear blue we found ourselves (thinking) ‘OK, let’s define what affiliation means.’”

Roach's suggestion: Affiliation is defined by the party line that gave a candidate the most votes. In the case of Bill Cox, that would be Democrat.

Another big change to the charter, Roach said, would allow the City Council to operate through subcommittees, like the County Legislature. The charter won't require subcommittees, but will make the creation of a subcommittee system possible.

“If this goes through, these nine people all trying to be on TV, grandstanding for the public," Roach said, "That will all disappear. You’ll have your committees like other governmental agencies and there will be no grandstanding and things will get done much, much better.”

The proposed charter will also require a mandatory review of ward boundaries.

The wards haven't changed in 20 or 25 years and the number of voters in each ward are no longer evenly distributed. There aren't big differences, Roach said, but the problem will only get worse if not corrected. The revised charter would require boundary changes every 10 years after the national census.

As an example, Roach mentioned that wards 1 and 2 are different sizes, and the ward boundary runs down the middle of Vine Street. If both sides of Vine were moved into ward 1, then they would be even again.

“Everybody’s known it. It’s no real big thing," Roach said. "But after 25 or so years, it’s time for them to just adjust it. It’s politically unpopular. Nobody wants to say, ‘well, now you’re in my ward.’” By putting it in the charter, they can say, ‘those charter guys did it.’ It gives them cover for doing what they should have done all along."

Another surprise for Roach and the commission was that New York prevents the city from creating a public safety director position that combines police and fire duties, as once heavily discussed in the city, because cities the size of Batavia must have a police chief.

“When we first started this idea, we were not aware that there was a New York State law that required a police chief  for a small department like us," Roach said. "I was surprised how micromanaging that turned out to be. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. I figured here’s a way to save some money. This makes sense. And boom, there’s a state law that stops us.”

The charter will expand from 19 sections to 20 so it can address the role of the city historian.

New York requires cities to have historians. Currently, it is an unpaid position and filled by Larry Barnes.

"It was never defined, what is his job, who appointed him, for how long, and what was it we wanted him to do," Roach said. "So in the charter we’ve now established how long can he be appointed for, who does the appointment and what is it we really want him to do. It’s a minor change to the charter and it costs no one any money."

While the role of the historian is now defined, the commission is proposing the elimination of the city engineer position. Now that the city's infrastructure is largely built out, there is no need for the job -- which has been vacant for some time anyway -- and so not filling the position will help the city save some money.

After the commission's next meeting, the proposed changes will be submitted to the City Attorney for review.  He will clean up any legal language and return it to the commission. Once that's done in June, a public hearing can be scheduled for July. The revisions can then be placed on the November ballot.

Ronald E. Murphy, 29, of Spencerport, is accused of kicking a deputy following an alleged domestic incident in Bergen on Monday night. Deputies responded to Lake Road in Bergen following a 911 hang-up call. Deputies Butler and Diehl report that they found Murphy uncooperative. When they attempted to arrest Murphy, he allegedly fought back. During a subsequent search, he was also found, reportedly, to possess crack cocaine. Murphy is charged with obstruction, resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance and harassment. None of the charges are felonies. He is held on $750 bail.

When is the last time you planted a tree?

Friday might be a good day to do it. It is Arbor Day, a day far more community minded than Earth Day, which rolls around tomorrow.

Bill Kauffman brings out this point in a recent essay on Front Porch Republic:

Earth Day was not of ignoble birth. It was the legislative child of Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), a thoughtful liberal, who envisioned it as a national teach-in on the environment. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was a hectoring mix of street theater, corporate p.r., and speeches by such paragons of restraint as Senators Ted Kennedy and Bob Packwood. Funding came, in part, from Dow Chemical and the Ford Motor Company. (The most prominent public opponents of the first Earth Day were the Daughters of the American Revolution, who had also fought vainly against the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which spawned the commerce trumps tradition three-day weekend.)

In the four decades since, Earth Day has become a bloodless holiday for pallid urbanites, the sort of technology-dependent yuppies whose rare encounters with the unregulated outdoors usually end in paralyzing fears of Lyme disease. Earth Day is about as green as a $100 bill.

The City of Batavia hosts an Earth Day event Saturday at Lions Park/Wallace Street, rain or shine, starting at 9 a.m. (in the actual press release, the city does give a nodding glance to Arbor Day).

The Batavia Youth Bureau will present "The Benefits of Gardening and Composting. There will be a tree planting ceremony by local Girl Scout troop #42153, a seed-starting display and a proclamation by the City Council.  Volunteers will then organized into trash pick up crews for a city park or downtown.  Every volunteer will get a chance to win a tree.

Somebody designed a lovely flier for the event. You can download the PDF here.

Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer issued a press release reporting that three Democratic leaders are moving forward with a bill to reinstate STAR rebate checks.

The rebates were cancelled in the recently passed state budget and Ranzenhofer has been raising alarms about it since well before the budget was presented.

Press release follows the jump.

Albany, NY- Over the last several days Deputy Democrat Leader Jeff Klein along with Democrat Senators Craig Johnson and Brian Foley have announced that they are going to move forward a bill to restore STAR rebate checks.  It seems they are taking a backwards approach to government namely-“they voted against it, before voting for it.” Their conversion is certainly welcome, but also likely to be too little, too late.

During the months of February and March and during the budget debate that followed on April 3rd Senator Ranzenhofer was the most vocal and passionate advocate for the restoration of STAR rebate checks in the State Senate. He stood up for his constituents and for his fellow Western New Yorkers while area Democrat Senators voted in lockstep with their New York City leadership to eliminate property tax relief. “During the budget debate I pleaded with my democrat colleagues to stand with me to protect the taxpayer. I pointed out that during an economic crisis we could not afford to put any additional property tax burden on struggling families. I put forward an amendment to restore STAR checks only to see every Democrat, these three included, vote no. I am happy that Senator Klein has heard the outcry from the people of this state and now adopted my position on this issue.  I hope that he can persuade his friends the Governor and Speaker Silver to join with me in also supporting taxpayers,” said Ranzenhofer.

With Speaker Silver saying that the Assembly will not pass this plan and the governor saying that there is no money to pay for the cost it is unlikely that the Klein scheme will ever become law. “While Senators Klein, Johnson and Foley refused to protect property taxpayers during the budget debate, when they could have made a decisive difference, I welcome them to this battle now. I call on them to offer the restoration of STAR rebate checks as a stand-alone measure, and allow a simple up or down vote in the Senate and demand the same of the State Assembly,” said Ranzenhofer. 

Finally, Senator Ranzenhofer called on Senators Klein, Foley and Johnson to be pragmatic when it comes to cutting spending and paying for programs.  “I have proposed and continue to support a 15% across the board spending cut plan, to be implemented working with agency and department heads to improve efficiency and streamline government.”  Senator Ranzenhofer’s plan stands in stark contrast to the unrealistic Klein plan which counts heavily on collecting $500 million from cigarette sales on Indian Reservations which have never been collected.  “If we are going to solve problems, we have to be realistic,” Senator Ranzenhofer said “We can’t use revenue that may or may not be collected in the future to pay our bills today, that is the height of fiscal irresponsibility,” concluded Ranzenhofer.

Press Release from Detective Todd Crossett, Batavia Police Department:

The man in this photo is wanted for questioning in a larceny, that occurred today, outside the Tonawanda Valley Credit Union, at about 1220pm.  If anyone has any information into who this person is please contact the City of Batavia Police Department at 345-6444 or the confidential tip line at 345-6370.

I just called Todd with this information:  I saw this gentleman this morning in the Jackson St. parking lot, behind Main Street, half way between Ken Mislter's new gym and South Beach (I was walking down to take the picture of South Beach I used in this morning's post). That would have been about 10:30, I think. He was looking out at the parking lot like he was looking for somebody.  He did look at me and answered my "hello" tentatively. He had such a distinctive look, I was curious about him and all most stopped to chat -- wish I would have.

If you saw him around town, you should call the police department. I'm sure it would be helpful to trace his movements.