If the Village of Corfu expects any state aid to help with tornado clean-up, it will have to prove it needs it.

New York Governor David Paterson this afternoon made a quick visit to Corfu along with State Assemblyman Steve Hawley.

The governor spoke with Corfu Mayor Todd Skeet in front of the Pedals and Plants Greenhouse on Route 33, a business that was destroyed by Saturday’s twister.

Paterson made the stop in Genesee County earlier this afternoon while en-route today between appearances in Buffalo and Rochester.

LISTEN: Governor Paterson speaks to Corfu residents

UPDATE (by Howard, 9:55 p.m.): Tim Yaeger, emergency management coordinator for Genesee County, and I spoke shortly after the governor's visit. He said state emergency officials will tour Corfu tomorrow to further assess the damage and the needs.

"The costs go up on a daily basis," Yaeger said, but declined to speculate on the estimated total cost at this point. 

The clean up work involves debris strewn over a three-mail area, fallen trees, damaged trees that need to be cut down and stumps that need to be removed. Yaeger also said the apartment building next to Petals and Plants is no longer inhabitable and the residents are being assisted by Red Cross.

A Batavia businessman, found guilty of failing to file three years worth of tax returns, may owe the state nothing.

Cregg Paul, the former owner of the Employee Leasing Network, was in Genesee County Court this morning for what was expected to be a restitution hearing.

Paul just recently filed the tax returns for the years 1999 through 2001. Paul maintains the business sustained a loss in those years, and he owes no back taxes.

The Attorney General’s office, which had prosecuted Paul, wants the state tax department to audit the returns. If they find the returns accurate, Paul will owe nothing.

At this point, all signs are go for the City of Batavia’s revised charter proposal to be on the voting ballot in November. And that means a vote on the consolidation of the city and town will have to wait.

The nine-member Charter Review Commission met last night at City Hall. The focus of the meeting was to vote on whether to put the charter proposal up for a popular vote in November. The commission did not officially move to do so; they’ll wait until Aug. 24 to decide. But Commission Chairman John Roach says they’ve already got a majority within the commission who want to move forward with the charter.

Besides, says Roach: “The consolidation people should have been aware that we have a charter commission that legally has precedence.”

One of the new additions to the charter is the ability of city council to appoint committees to work on issues outside of council meetings. Currently, every issue before the council must be debated in regular meetings. Roach says an approach-by-committee would streamline city operations.

“Most bigger governing bodies have sub-committees,” said Roach. “It makes things a little more efficient. Instead of nine people arguing over every little detail, you have a committee of three or four who work it out.”

Roach said he doesn’t believe a committee approach would stifle the public comments that have become a staple of regular city council meetings. He says citizens would simply have to attend more meetings, like the committee appointees, if they wanted to voice their opinions.

Some back pay is due Batavia Police Officers who have been working without a contract for the past four years.

The state Public Employees Relations Board has issued an arbitration finding that gives city police a retroactive pay raise of 1 percent for the period April 2005 to March of 2006. A raise of 2-percent has been directed for the period April of 06 to March of 07.

City Manager Jason Molino declined to comment on the award pending receipt of the final report.

www.perb.state.ny.us/pdf/ia2009-10/ia2007-003.pdf

The Genesee County Legislature on Wednesday unanimously reappointed Eileen Kirkpatrick to a second five-year term as Commissioner of Social Services. Her salary was established at $84,487 per year.

As commissioner, Kirkpatrick manages the most expensive department of county government that includes the supervision of welfare and Medicaid benefits.

Legislature Chair Mary Pat Hancock created an ad-hoc committee to study the length of terms for county legislators as well as the total number of legislative districts. Hancock instructed each legislator to name one representative from each legislative district to serve on the panel. She said the committee would also investigate whether or not the legislator’s terms should be staggered, as to avoid all positions coming up for re-election in the same year.

Hancock left open the possibility that two or three additional members would be named to the study committee in order to insure “a cross section representation” of the county. She said she would expect the committee to issue recommendations by October or November of this year. No recommendation could take effect until after the general election this year.

There are currently nine members on the county legislature, each serving a two-year term. All the terms expire in the same year.

Prior to the start of the meeting, County Election Commissioners Richard Seibert and Dawn Cassidy announced that their office had received an American Flag flown on board a C-17A aircraft on missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. The flag was sent on the recommendation of Sgt. Paul R. Dillion of LeRoy who wanted to recognize the Department of Elections for insuring the receipt of his absentee ballots while he is on duty with the Air Force in Iraq.