Stories from

Photos taken this evening in Le Roy.

The Botts-Fiorito American Legion Post #576 this evening honored those who were captured and never returned or lost in war as part of POW/MIA Recognition Day with an empty chair ceremony at their post in Le Roy.

Press release:

 Congressman Chris Jacobs (NY-27) is releasing the following statement after the announcement Thursday evening that an additional $14 billion would be committed to the Department of Agriculture’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Rep. Jacobs is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture.

“I applaud the President for his continued commitment to our nation’s farmers. With this additional $14 billion in coronavirus aid, farmers will be better equipped to weather the effects of the coronavirus and to continue to feed American families,” Jacobs said. “While this aid has helped the agriculture industry, more assistance is needed. Regrettably, Senate Democrats blocked legislation last week to provide more funding for farmers, and now Speaker Pelosi is refusing to replenish the Commodity Credit Corporation that funded this additional CFAP aid. Farmers have supported our nation throughout the entirety of this pandemic, now is not the time to be playing partisan games with their livelihoods. I urge Congressional leadership to resume negotiations on a new coronavirus package and to provide the critical assistance our farmers in Western New York and across the country need.”

The $14 billion will support the second version of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP 2). The program was created to support growers and producers of agricultural commodities. More information and a list of eligible commodities can be found here: https://www.farmers.gov/cfap

Dave Twichell carries a sign that reads "Babies Lives Matter" in front of the Planned Parenthood location on West Main Street in Batavia.

Twichell said he has been making frequent protest trips to the location by himself for years.

"I'm out here as much as I can be," Twichell said. "Somebody's got to stick up for those who can't speak for themselves." 

Press release:

Nate McMurray, Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 27th District praised the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announcement that Western New York native, conspiracy theorist, fear monger, and embattled HHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo would step aside from his role at HHS on a 60-day leave that extends through the Nov. 3rd election. The Department also advised that Caputo’s aide, Paul Alexander, will leave his post at HHS permanently. 

“I said it in April 2020 and I’ll say it again now: the President was beyond reckless to install Michael Caputo — who, by his own admission, has absolutely no scientific training or expertise — as ‘spokesman’ for HHS in the middle of a public health crisis in the first place,” McMurray said. “I wish Caputo well in recovering his faculties over the coming weeks, but this turn of events comes as no surprise. 

“Caputo has been a ‘yes’ man for Donald Trump since 2014 when he spearheaded a smear campaign to muscle out other bidders in Trump’s failed attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills. This spilled over into his shadowy work on Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent House of Representatives investigation during which Caputo was brought before the House Intelligence Committee. His latest smear campaign, accusing the learned scientists of the Centers for Disease Control of ‘sedition’ and ‘resistance’ when they have only been hard at work these last many months against the coronavirus, was the last straw.

“It’s clear that Michael Caputo’s loyalty doesn’t lie with the American people, but solely with Trump. His hiatus from HHS is welcome at this critical time in our public health crisis, but at the same time is too little too late. I call on Caputo to step down permanently and leave the scientific experts at the CDC and HHS to do their jobs for the American people.

“Meanwhile where is my opponent? When Western New Yorkers and every day Americans need Chris Jacobs, whether to vote correctly or to stand up for them and denounce Caputo’s and Trump’s organized assault on science, the CDC, and public health and safety, Jacobs’ head is firmly planted in the sand as he protects his own political interest over the public’s health and safety. The lack of leadership is staggering and the silence deafening.”

Here is Michael Caputo's statement, which Caputo sent to The Batavian yesterday, about his leave of absence:

After consultation with President Trump and Secretary Azar, I have decided to take a temporary medical leave of absence to pursue necessary screenings for a lymphatic issue discovered last week.

My experience mirrors that of many Americans. When I first noticed I was losing weight, I thought it was because of a new exercise and diet regimen. But over time, I realized there may be other factors causing my weight loss for months.

Instead of taking the time to see my doctor, I failed to do so. This was a mistake, and contributed to my stress level, along with the increasing number of violent threats leveled at me and my family back in Buffalo. But every American battling COVID — in every city in every state across the nation — has been under enormous pressure. I am just one of them.

I’ve learned so much in friendship with the doctors of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. Sometimes we disagree, but we work in unity to defeat the virus and we care for one another. I want to thank Dr. Tony Fauci for conferring with my personal physician as we get the healthcare I long needed, and yet neglected, through the pandemic.

Our family is blessed. We urge all Americans to see their family doctor for the health care they need but have missed for months during this crisis. Do it today.

The total annual tax revenue from all current Genesee County Economic Development Center-backed projects -- more than 160 since 2006 -- will generate more than $8.4 million in additional property tax revenue for local governments once all the projects have matured out of their PILOT phase.

There are more than 90 projects that received a PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) that are now completely on the tax rolls.

A PILOT waives property taxes on the increase in assessed value associated with a building expansion or new construction but requires the property owner to make payments to the local taxing jurisdictions. 

The 71 projects currently with an active PILOT generated $1.5 million in revenue for local governments, such as municipalities, the county, and school districts, in 2019.

The projects with completed PILOTs generated another $3.5 million in revenue for local governments -- revenue that would not have been realized if the property owner had not expanded or started a new project causing an increase in the assessed value of the property.

Steve Hyde, CEO of GCEDC, Jim Krencik, marketing director, and Lezlie Farrell, CFO, shared data on GCEDC's progress during an annual review presentation for the county's Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday.

Hyde and Mark Masse, vice president of operations, both said Genesee County is well-positioned to take advantage of the new thinking among manufacturers in the post-pandemic world, when many companies realize they need to tighten up their supply chains and "reshore" (bring factories back to the United States) their operations. They're looking for shovel-ready sites, and there is ample such acreage in the GCEDC-created industrial parks around the county.

"Companies are taking a serious, hard look at where there are failings in the current system, from raw materials up through shipping," Masse said.

On a recent statewide conference call with three of the nation's top site selectors, one of them, whom Hyde described as the dean of site selectors, praised Genesee County.

"We've been working on getting on his radar for 10 years," Hyde said. "When you start to get on their radar, you've got a shot."

As for STAMP -- the industrial park in Alabama being marketed to tech manufacturers -- there are five companies currently considering siting a new facility there, including a semiconductor company that Hyde indicated Sen. Charles Schumer helped swing Genesee County's way.

These are long-term projects so Hyde said it will be a while before any of these potential suitors sign a deal.

The biggest obstacle to industrial growth in Genesee County is the lack of quality housing stock. That makes it harder to attract companies who want to ensure employees who move here can find quality housing or it means well-compensated employees move to Rochester or Buffalo.

Hyde noted that the average age of a house in Batavia is 73 years, twice the national average.

There are any number of reasons that a child might have the sniffles, or run a fever, or get a stomachache. But since all of these ailments are also potential symptoms of a COVID-19 infection, school districts are under instruction from the State Health Department to isolate children with these and other symptoms until its confirmed that child can't spread the disease at a school, said Rochester Regional Health Pediatrician Dr. Steven Schulz today in a Zoom conference call with reporters.

"Because of low community prevalence, there's a 99-percent chance that those symptoms are due to a different virus, that it's not COVID and that's a good thing and a good place that we're starting out with," Schulz said.

"But because we don't want COVID to spread in the schools and break out, we are being very stringent. Actually, it's the Department of Health that's been very stringent with regulations on what's required to eventually return to school."

If a child goes home with a potential COVID-19 symptom, that child can't return to school unless there is a negative COVID-19 test, and the child is again symptom-free, and a doctor has cleared the child to return to school.

The reason a child must be symptom-free even after a negative test for COVID-19, Schulz said, is because of the small percentage of COVID tests that return a false negative.

Schulz serves on the Finger Lakes Region School Reopening Task Force and is one of the people responsible for writing school reopening guidelines in the region. RRH, parent hospital group for UMMC in Batavia, sponsored today's press conference on what parents should know as their children return to school.

Possible COVID-19 symptoms that could lead to a child being kept out of school include runny nose, congestion, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue, poor appetite.

"There's a whole host of conditions that can cause all of those things, not just COVID," Schulz said. "And so many kids do have chronic conditions, such as seasonal allergies that can have overlapping symptomatology."

For children with chronic conditions, a doctor can verify those conditions and letters written as needed to allow those children to return to school.

What the main focus is on, he said, is the development of new, or different, or worsening symptoms. 

"Every school district has implemented a screening protocol for students and parents to go through before that student set foot sets foot on campus If they screened positive for any of those," Schulz said. "Again, focusing on new and worsening symptoms, in particular, and those would be reasons for an evaluation with the health care provider.

"Obviously, the big one would be a fever. If a child has a fever, they certainly would need to have additional evaluation. So we, of course, would encourage families if there is any concern that their child might have symptoms that are consistent with COVID to contact their health care provider for the next steps."

If a child at a school does test positive, the Health Department will take over, conduct contact tracing, and determine if any other children were exposed and take proper precautions as necessary. If proper social distancing has been maintained and masks are worn properly, it may not be necessary to quarantine other children.

One thing parents can do to help the entire community, Schulz said, is to ensure they and their children receive a seasonal flu shot.

"It's especially important this year," Schulz said. "COVID and flu have a lot of overlapping symptoms and people can theoretically be infected with both. The concern with that is that we could overwhelm our health care system not just with COVID, but also with flu. Both together could overwhelm it even more.

"So the flu vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect you and others around you from getting the flu. And we are encouraging everyone to get that as early as possible this year."

A local farmer reports seeing this triangular-shaped object flying over his fields last night at about 8:45. He said he posted about it on Facebook and at least one other person said they saw something, too, and one person sent him this photo. Did you see anything?

Le Roy Principal Tim McArdle produced this video.

Press release:

Dear Sheriff Sheron:

As past and future Presidents of the FBI National Academy Associates, New York State & Eastern Canada Chapter, it is both a privilege and an honor for us to officially endorse you for re-election as Sheriff of Genesee County, NY.

The FBI National Academy is considered to be the most prestigious and premier law enforcement training in the world, with less than 1 percent of police officers being selected to attend. The 10-week program is held at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., for law enforcement executives to enhance their credentials, standards, knowledge, and networking cooperation worldwide.

You were selected to attend Session 196 of the FBI National Academy; and since your graduation, you have remained active in the Association on both the New York State/Eastern Canada Chapter and National levels, assisting in providing training conferences for law enforcement officials. Because of your dedication to police professionalism, you were selected to the Chapter's Executive Board, and ascended to Chapter President. Under your leadership, our Chapter was selected to host the first ever FBI National Academy Associates' National Conference outside the United States in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2012, you were unanimously selected as the Chapter's Secretary/Treasurer, where you served for the maximum number of eight years until 2020.

As a law enforcement leader, you exemplify the motto of the FBI National Academy, "Knowledge, Courage, & Integrity." It is for that impeccable leadership, and the accomplishments stated above, that we endorse you for re-election as Sheriff of Genesee County, NY, in 2020.

Fraternally,
Scott Fraser Chief of Police
Brockville Police Service Chapter Vice - President 2020

Mark R. Gates
Deputy Chief of Police
New York State University Police, Buffalo Past President 2015

Nate McMurray, candidate for the NY-27 congressional seat in this November's election, threatened me this past weekend.

The threat wasn't the first one McMurray has leveled at me.

The first threat was on a phone call on Feb. 16. That was the day we published this story: McMurray tweeted about his employer but mostly after he was put on unpaid leave.

Feb. 16 was also the first day in my professional journalism career, which goes back to 1986, that a candidate for public office, at any level, yelled at me over the telephone. To be honest, I shouted just as loud in my rejoinder. It was heated. I'm sure profanity was involved. It was a bizarre and disturbing conversation to have with a man who claims he's the best person to represent us in the House of Representatives. 

I don't have a recording of this conversation. Perhaps McMurray will release the recording he suggested he made. He has intimated -- part of his course of threats against me -- that he records all of his conversations.

I'm not sure what to say about a man who records all of his conversations without informing the other party. It's legal in New York. That doesn't make it ethical.

This conflict arose from a story we published Feb. 15: Nate McMurray's employer, owned by the family of his NY-27 opponent, placed him on leave without pay.

The story prompted Michael Caputo -- an Erie County resident, longtime Republican political strategist, and one of the early media supporters of The Batavian (he had me on his former television show once) -- to post a tweet suggesting I wasn't a real journalist for not including the assertion that McMurray was potentially placed on leave because of use of twitter to criticize Delaware North.

I immediately called Caputo and complained about the tweet but also admitted he was right: I should look at the timing of McMurray's tweets criticizing Delaware North. Caputo apologized for his rash tweet, and I believe he deleted it. (I can't confirm this because Caputo deleted all of his tweets after he joined the Trump Administration as assistant secretary of public affairs for Health and Human Services.)

I informed McMurray I intended to do a follow-up story. McMurray questioned my judgment. I told him -- as I remember it, but McMurray has the recording, not me -- that Caputo's criticism was valid. As a matter of journalistic ethics, I should look at those tweets. I also made the statement, as quoted back to me in a later text message by McMurray, "I do not want to deal with Caputo's army. I don't want these people on my back." I trust the accuracy of McMurray's quote since he apparently has a recording that I don't have.

As a Democrat, I'm sure McMurray is familiar with the concept of "cancel culture" -- the practice of bands of political extremists piling on people on Twitter to demean and threaten them, even threaten their livelihoods and personal safety, to enforce some perceived politically correct orthodoxy. It's not just a leftist thing. Trump supporters do it, too.

While I'm on friendly terms with Caputo, I also know the most single-minded of Trump supporters follow him on Twitter. Caputo is nothing if not expert at stoking the passion of Trump's base (as I think this New York Times article out yesterday illustrates (since this coverage, it appears Caputo has deleted his Twitter account)).

Any sane person would want to avoid getting "canceled" by the paranoid and angry mobs of either the left or the right. 

But that isn't the reason I wrote the story I did. Caputo had a legitimate point about the ethics of not including that information. It was something that I didn't even think about while working on the first story. It was an oversight that needed to be corrected.

My concern about Caputo was real, but that wasn't the reason I pursued a follow-up story. If I thought Caputo wrong about our failure to look a little deeper, I wouldn't have cared what he tweeted, but I saw no reason to volunteer for abuse in a situation where I had no real defense against his accusation.

There is a reason I never married the girl I dated in college. McMurray's twisting my statement into some a charge of capitulation to Caputo reminds me of her. She was an expert at turning an innocuous statement into an argument. It's what manipulators do.

The ironic thing is, the follow-up article, I contend, was quite favorable to McMurray. It showed Delaware North didn't suspend him because of his tweets. The tweets mocking the Jacobs family and Delaware North all came after McMurray's leave of absence began.

So while Caputo was right on the journalistic ethics of not looking at that aspect of events, he was wrong on the facts of the case.

Still, McMurray was angry. In our Feb. 16 call, he threatened to expose me as a toady to Michael Caputo. I loudly suggested to him that would be a bad idea, and he backed down.

Over the course of his threats, McMurray has questioned my journalistic credibility, calling me an activist. The insinuation is that I'm in the pocket of either Caputo or Jacobs, or both, or that I have a secret anti-McMurray, pro-GOP agenda.

The funny thing is the frequent commenters on Facebook who, every time we publish one of McMurray's press releases, try to engage in their own form of cancel-culture attacks on me and The Batavian, all think I'm on McMurray's payroll.

McMurray conveniently ignores the fact that early in the 2018 campaign, The Batavian was the first publication in the district to take his candidacy seriously. We did the first substantial interview with him.

Covering McMurray has never been about McMurray's politics. He's a candidate for federal office. He deserves to have his voice heard. It would be unethical to deny him a platform to be heard. It's why we publish all of his relevant press releases no matter how inane I might find them personally. We've done nothing in publication but treat him fairly.

Even after these attacks from McMurray started, we showed up at one of his campaign events and published a video that most would think reasonably and accurately captured the event with no anti-McMurray spin.

I suspect McMurray's anger about the Feb. 16 article had more to do with the fact that I quoted Caputo at length in the story than the fact that I did a follow-up.

I already knew McMurray hated Caputo. He had made his animosity clear months earlier in a private dinner meeting at Eli Fish Brewing Co. I also knew Caputo hated McMurray. More than once, he's said to me, "McMurray is a punk."

The next conflict came up around June 16, when we published five video interviews with the candidates in the NY-27 special election. McMurray proudly tweeted out a link to his interview with The Batavian but falsely claimed that Jacobs refused to submit to an interview. I retweeted his tweet and pointed out this error, linking to the interview with Jacobs.

Within minutes, McMurray started sending text messages. Among his claims, that I had told him that Jacobs had refused to sit for an interview. I never told McMurray any such thing. I can guarantee you, McMurray has no recording to support that assertion. He also said, accurately, that I would inform him once I had secured an interview with Jacobs. I neglected to follow through on this promise, which I had forgotten about until he reminded me.  

Be that as it may, I would expect a candidate for federal office to be informed enough about the media coverage of his own race to know when an interview is posted with his chief rival before making a claim that is falsifiable. How he could have missed an interview with Chris Jacobs on the home page of the best-read news source in Genesee County is something I can't explain.

Our ensuring testy text exchange included McMurray stating, "Time to start calling you out, Bro," followed by "I got tape."

To me, this was another threat. It was another attempt at extortion, another attempt to bully me into not bucking McMurray's campaign narrative. 

Later in July, there was the debate about whether Genesee County is a "news desert," the latest trendy phrase among media pundits about rural counties without sufficient local news coverage.

Margaret Sullivan is the former editor of the Buffalo News. Currently, she is a media columnist for the Washington Post. Earlier this year, she published a book, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy.

According to excerpts of the book (such as this one from The Atlantic), Sullivan quotes McMurray about local coverage of his 2018 campaign against then-incumbent Chris Collins. As you may recall, Collins was under federal indictment -- charges he would eventually admit to -- for insider trading and lying to the FBI.

But in the more far-flung parts of the sprawling congressional district, voters were far less informed. The largely rural and suburban district includes Orleans County, which, according to Abernathy’s criteria, is a news desert—one of just a few in New York State.

“I’d be going door to door, or meeting with people at a diner or a fair, for example, and in the most isolated areas, a lot of people had no idea that their own congressman had been indicted,” McMurray told me. Orleans County, west of Rochester, he said, was “one of the toughest places.” Some people didn’t even know who Collins was, and many were incredulous when McMurray told them of the federal charges.

“People told me I was making it up,” said McMurray. That shouldn’t have been the case, given that television news stations in both Rochester and Buffalo were giving plenty of airtime to the scandal as it developed, and those stations were available throughout the district. Nevertheless, the constituents lacked access to the in-depth coverage that a newspaper would have provided. At one time, almost everyone in the district had ready access to print editions of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle or The Buffalo News, or were within easy reach of smaller newspapers in nearby Niagara Falls or Lockport.

This inaccurate take on the 2018 election was not only insulting to Tom Rivers, editor of Orleans Hub, but to me, as the publisher of The Batavian. I complained to The Atlantic, The Washington Post, which also Margaret Sullivan, first on Twitter, and then when she didn't respond, via email.

I believe these assertions are demonstrably, factually wrong. I believe corrections are in order -- and are still in order -- for the book, and these other august publications.

The Batavian reaches at least 70 percent of our market -- Genesee County -- every week. Our readership is 10,000 to 12,000 area residents per day. On a market-size-adjusted basis, the Buffalo News would love to reach as many people as The Batavian. In the past 10 years, we've published more than 900 items about the 27th district. While Jerry Zremski, of the Buffalo News, did Pulitizer-Prize-worthy work in uncovering the corruption of Chris Collins, an investigative enterprise, a publication like The Batavian could never hope to duplicate. I do believe our coverage after his indictment was as robust and thorough as any news publication in Western New York. And I know Tom Rivers covered the case thoroughly as well.

There is simply no way that one single voter in either Genesee or Orleans counties went to the polls in November 2018 without knowing Rep. Chris Collins stood accused of federal crimes.

I heard locally many times in 2018 that people would prefer to vote for a Republican accused of insider trading and lying to the FBI than vote for a Democrat, no matter how much that Democrat might admire Ronald Reagan.

I tried to make this clear to Sullivan. Still, her response was, "Nate McMurray was emphatic, in our interview, that he encountered a surprising number of people in some parts of the district (we specifically discussed Orleans) who weren't aware of Chris Collins' indictment. He tied this to news coverage."

In other words, if there were going to be any retraction of these bogus claims of misinformed voters, it would have to come from McMurray.

So I sent a text message to McMurray about his quote, and the conversation soon devolved into an argument about my journalism bona fides and how I had, in his view, capitulated to Caputo. He mentioned the "tape" again.

"You actually said that bro," after I accused him of lying about the substance (not the statement itself, as quoted above, but the meaning) of my comment, "and maybe I record all my calls."

It's evident to me that Nate McMurray, much like Donald Trump, will browbeat and bully reporters who won't genuflect at his feet. If the coverage isn't fawning, it's fake news. If the journalists report the truth, they're an enemy of the people. This is the mindset of the narcissist and the authoritarian. 

We saw it on public display when McMurray blasted the Buffalo News for reporting on his unhinged tweets attacking Democratic leadership.

I can’t believe @TheBuffaloNews is writing about gossip/tweets in the middle of a pandemic.

Never mind that we have another do doing nothing Congressman, defended by corporate forces and making excuses for the worst president in history. BUT HIS TWEETS! @TMZ @JerryZremski TMZ

— Nate McMurray for Congress 2020 (@Nate_McMurray) August 16, 2020

Apparently, in McMurray's world, when the press cover's Trump deranged tweets, it's news. When the press covers McMurray's off-the-wall tweets, it's "gossip."

What set off McMurray this weekend was my response to one of his tweets about a campaign appearance in Batavia without appropriate notification to the local news outlets. 

So I tweeted, "Another politician avoiding the media."

It didn't take but seconds for McMurray, who seems to be obsessed with Twitter, to send me a text message, setting off another argument leading to another threat (screenshot at the top of this editorial). He claimed in the course of the argument that the event wasn't public, but the pictures show it took place at DeWitt Recreation Area. And he posted pictures about it on a public forum. To claim it was a private event is disingenuous. He used a public space and publicized it after the fact in an open forum.

In my jurisdiction, when a candidate for state or federal office makes a public appearance locally, the local media should be notified; otherwise, the candidate is merely dodging public scrutiny. That shouldn't happen in a democracy. In the age of Trump, it's all that much more important to cling to these democratic norms.

And for those who think I might just be picking on McMurray, earlier this month, we received a press release from Rep. Chris Jacobs about his tour of GCASA. While GCASA is essentially private property, the fact that Jacobs thought it public enough to issue a press release about it makes it clear, it was a public event.

The press should be informed of his visit. The fact no invites went out to local reporters is, to me, a clear indication Jacobs wishes to avoid any tough questions about his time, thus far, in office. I can assure you, Jacobs' staff heard a detailed complaint from The Batavian about this failure to inform the local media about his visit to a location in Genesee County.

The fact is, Nate McMurray and Donald Trump are more alike than McMurray will ever acknowledge. Both claim to be men of the people (I'm reminded of the song by The Blasters, Common Man) but are elitist -- Trump by his money (no matter how overstated his actual wealth) and McMurray by his big-corporation attorney pedigree. Both love the media limelight. Both use Twitter to cultivate devotees. Both are narcissists with authoritarian tendencies. Both blame others for their failings and never acknowledge their mistakes. Both attack reporters who dare to tell the truth about them or challenge them in any way.

If you're among those who support either of these men, fine. It's a free country. We don't cover Donald Trump, but we do cover the NY-27, as well as several other local political jurisdiction, and we want to make it clear, The Batavian won't be bullied by any politician. 

We've never been afraid of politicians. We weren't scared when Jane Corwin refused to answer questions about the conduct of her campaign. We weren't fearful of Kathy Hochul when her campaign misquoted our interview with Chris Collins. We didn't cower when Chris Collins ran away from our interview attempts.

If Nate McMurray thinks he can bully us in order to keep us covering him without fear or favor, this editorial should emphatically answer that question. He can't.

The tweet that prompted Nate McMurray's most recent threat against The Batavian.

McMurray misrepresenting the reason for our follow-up story about his being put on leave by Delaware North.

The messages from McMurray after my tweet about him saying Jacobs refused an interview. Note, "Time to start calling you out bro" and "I got tape."

UPDATE 7:20 p.m.: Here is McMurray's text message in response to this piece. He's also blocked me on Twitter.

A motor vehicle accident is reported on Batavia Elba Townline Road at Pekin Road.

No serious injuries are reported but a third ambulance is requested to the scene. All remaining Mercy EMS ambulances are tied up so an ambulance from Byron is requested to the scene.

Town of Batavia fire responded to the call.

Letter from Ed Levinstein:

I am writing in response to your recent editorial article; “School boards get a failing grade on transparency with voters.”  Contrary to your claim of “group conformity,” I am writing this without asking for approval from my fellow Pembroke Central School District board members or our superintendent.  I want you and your readers to know, I have never felt the need or pressure to seek approval.  Speaking only for myself, but with a suspicion that my fellow board members at Pembroke and elsewhere may agree, I take exception to your article. 

I wish to begin by noting where you and I agree; that school board members are elected individually and that the public has a right to know where we stand.  I wholeheartedly agree and there is no debating this in my mind.  However, our board’s decision to ask our President to answer your questions about reopening school on our behalf, in no way equates to avoiding public accountability. Please keep in mind that the board and administration grappled with this plan for weeks.  As a team, we developed a plan that everyone had input on and is fully supportive of and unanimously approved.  The lack of any disagreement does not indicate that any of us are hiding our true opinions or having them suppressed. 

I would like to add that I did respond to Mr. Pettinella’s email after your exchange with our President, John Cima, where you asked again for individual responses.  Granted, my response was still in agreement with John, but this should not imply that I was in some way unwilling or not allowed to give my opinion.  I believe my fellow board members also replied after your second request but this was not included in your follow up Facebook post.

With all due respect to you and other journalists who play an extremely important role in our society, board members are not obligated to respond to your questions. Your inference from our individual silence that we are being stifled or manipulated is speculative at best, deceptive at worst.  The tone of your article and the responses you gave John imply that you think we are answerable to you and that if our responses don’t conform to your formatting and expectation, then we are being obstructive or just too stupid to understand our “assignment.”  This unfair treatment by some media may be why some board members and districts prefer to have a gatekeeper of sorts to prevent being misunderstood.

As a Pembroke Central School Board member, I very much recognize my responsibility to the students and constituents.  I applaud that you and other publications are covering important matters including the reopening plans of districts. However, I feel you are doing a disservice to the community by creating a perception about our transparency that in my opinion, is not fair or accurate. If you had cared about the original topic, I imagine we would have seen an article that discussed the reopening plans of districts in the region. 

Your perception is based simply on our group responses to a couple open-ended questions that I imagine most board members agree on anyway by this point.  Regarding our transparency, please know that the discussions and vote on the plan were held in open meetings that you and the public are always welcome to attend.  Also, the minutes to those meetings are available on our website and upon a request. I’m also personally available to any constituent who wants to know where I stand on a school issue.

Finally, I want you and your readers to understand that aside from the satisfaction of working to provide opportunities for and improve the lives of children, being on a school board is a tough job that we take on cheerfully but very seriously.  It includes a lot of hard work, long hours, long meetings and is completely volunteer.  Most of us do not have high aspirations for public office.  We just want to help the kids in our district be successful and lead happy, productive lives.  

I feel that it is a great privilege to work with a board that is able to work so well together and I hope that the voters in my district will entrust me for another term when the time comes.  It seems almost out of place in this day and age that a group of elected officials can work so well together, which is maybe why you felt the need to create the perception of controversy where there is none.

Sincerely,
Ed Levinstein
Vice President
Pembroke Central School Board

Previously: EDITORIAL: School boards get failing grade on transparency with voters

Previously: Genesee County central school districts unveil plans for reopening this fall

With new social distancing protocols in place, the Batavia City School District opened all four of its campuses today for the 2020-21 academic year.

In 2018, The Batavian reported on school district policies that prohibited school board members from talking to the public about their individual views on school district policy.

In 2020, only one superintendent -- Mickey Edwards in Byron-Bergen -- informed us that only the superintendent was authorized to speak to reporters about district issues and that any statements from board members needed his approval. If we sought their individual views, they could speak as private citizens but he informed us he didn't have their private email addresses. We issued a FOIL request for their district email addresses, which we received.

Though only one superintendent attempted to claim to be the gatekeeper for school board statements this time around, the practice of school board members continuing to avoid public accountability for their position on policy issues is unabated in 2020.

We attempted to survey every school board member in Genesee County on their views related to school reopening in the age of coronavirus. Only two school board members out of 52 in the county responded with individual answers. Alice Ann Benedict, Batavia city schools, responded via email as requested. John Reigle answered the questions as part of an interview about his appointment as a trustee to Batavia city schools.

The school boards in Byron-Bergen, Le Roy, and Oakfield-Alabama provided group responses. John Cima, board president for Pembroke, provided a response that he said was made on behalf of the board.

We did not offer school boards the option of a group response but they did anyway.

We wonder how many teachers in Genesee County would give their students a failing grade for failure to follow instructions, turning an individual assignment into a group assignment?

There was no response whatsoever from Alexander, Elba, and Pavilion.

School board members are elected individually not as groups. The voting public has a right to know -- and every reason to expect -- what each individual school board member thinks about issues of public importance related to their school districts. The failure to be transparent -- and worse yet, forced group conformity -- deprives the public of a robust public debate, something essential in a healthy democracy, about important issues.

The requirement that the views of school board members go through a vetting process -- either superintendent approval or a homogenized group statement -- clearly violates the very idea of the First Amendment, depriving school board members of their right to speak freely and the press of its responsibility to accurately report on government policy.

This new strategy of a group response under the guise of "we speak with one voice" is no less noxious to the concept of a free and open society. It requires conformity and stifles dissent. It clearly sets up a chilling effect on free speech.

School board members will tell us they willingly go along with this "one voice" policy but we have no real idea which board members secretly feel their individual viewpoints are being unfairly kept from the public. "Individuality is fine as long as we all do it together," Frank Burns said in an episode of "M*A*S*H." That's long been the cry of the conformist in their discomfort with dissent. But good policies can't be fashioned without dissent and dissent can't be tested for its durability without healthy public debate.

These policies, as we saw and reported on in 2018, can even have a chilling effect on candidates for open seats in school board elections. How does a democracy continue to function when candidates for office refuse to answer questions for voters?

The Batavian will continue to press for school board members to be open and honest with the voters who elect them.

Responses to our questions:

• Alice Ann Benedict
• John Reigle
• Group response from Byron-Bergen
• Group response from Le Roy
• Group response from Oakfield-Alabama
• Response from John Cima for Pembroke

Here is a list, by district, of elected officials who did not respond individually to our questions.

Batavia

• Peter Cecere
• Shawna Murphy
• Tanni Bromley
• Barbara Bowman
• John Marucci

Alexander

• Brian Paris
• Molly Grimes
• John Slenker
• Sara Fernaays
• Chris Mullen

Byron-Bergen

• Debra List
• Yvonne Ace-Wagoner
• Kimberly Carlson
• William Forsyth
• Tammy Menzie
• Amy Phillips
• Jennifer VanValkenburg

Elba

• Michael Augello
• Michael Riner
• Michael Hare
• Dean Norton
• Travis Torrey
• Trisha Werth
• Michael Zuber

Le Roy

• Jacalyn Whiting 
• Denise Duthe 
• Christine Dowell 
• Richard Lawrence  
• Peter Loftus 
• William MacKenzie 
• Lloyd Miller

Oakfield-Alabama

• Timothy Edgerton
• Lorna Klotzbach
• Matt Lamb
• Justin Staebell
• Jackie Yunker Davis
• Pete Zeliff
• Daniel Groth

Pavilion

• Marirose Ethington
• Jeff Finch
• Margaret Gaston
• Rebecca Dziekan
• Kevin Stefan
• Callin Ayers-Tillotson
• Christopher Jeffres

Pembroke

• John A. Cima
• Heather Wood
• Ed Levinstein
• Dan Lang
• Art Ianni

Press release from AAA:

Today’s national average price for a gallon of gasoline is $2.19, down 3 cents from last week. One year ago, the price was $2.57. The New York State average is $2.28 – down a penny since last week. A year ago, the NYS average was $2.73.

AAA Western and Central New York (AAA WCNY) reports the following averages:

• Batavia -- $2.22 (down a penny since last week)
• Buffalo -- $2.25 (no change since last week)
• Ithaca -- $2.21 (down 1 cent since last week)
• Rochester -- $2.26 (down 1 cent since last week)
• Rome -- $2.32 (down 1 cent since last week)
• Syracuse -- $2.22 (down 2 cents since last week)
• Watertown -- $2.32 (down 2 cents since last week)

With road trip season in the rearview mirror, pump prices have dropped along with demand. The Energy Information Administration reports that gasoline demand dropped last week, which is helping to bring pump prices down.

Low demand will likely help pump prices to continue their descent as summer fades to fall. Even back-to-school season didn’t lead to an increase in demand for gasoline since so many students are studying virtually.

From GasBuddy:

"Seasonal factors, as expected, are pushing gas prices down in most areas across the country. In addition, oil prices have hit a rough patch on renewed concerns about the economy and falling demand, leaving motorists the beneficiaries for the next few weeks," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.

"No one should be in a rush to fill up as prices will likely continue to trend lower, especially as the summer gasoline requirement ends on Tuesday, ushering in cheaper to produce winter gasoline and a return to less fragmentation in supply since winter gasoline is common nearly coast to coast, making it less of a headache to produce fuel since it can be used universally."

A possible robbery is reported at the Bergen C-Store, which is near the intersection of Route 33 and Route 19 in Bergen.

Law enforcement patrols are looking for a blue or black Hyundai or Kia occupied by two black males.

UPDATE 5:50 a.m.: A deputy on scene reports this was shoplifting, not a robbery.

The Old Hippies and What About Jane teamed up Saturday for an evening of memorable music as part of a summer concert series sponsored by the Elba Betterment Committee in the Elba Village Park.

Food venders included Dubby's Wood Fired Pizza (pictured below), Los Compadres, Lori's Delectable Edibles (desserts), and Bubble Tea.

The final concert of the season will be Wednesday featuring the Corfu Pembroke Community Band in an All-American-themed evening that will include the Betterment Committee hot dogs and hamburgs and serving Mom's apple pie. And, of course, there will be ice cream. Showtime is 7 p.m.

Photos by Kelly Dudley. 

Jason Smith shared this photo of a male cardinal feeding a female cardinal in the backyard of his Batavia home.

A caller reports a bridge is on fire in the area of 9963 Covell Road, Pavilion.

Pavilion fire is dispatched.