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Sheep in the roadway in Pembroke

By Billie Owens

Sheep on the lam have been discovered and officers are working diligently to corral their woolly quarry, located at 1833 Genesee St., between Ellenwood and Colby roads in Pembroke.

But it seems some of them do not want to go gentle into this good afternoon, nor quietly.

"You got a lasso or rope? This one's not going to go willingly," says an officer.

It is decided that a lasso would be employed.

UPDATE 12:57 p.m.: A ewe has been spotted by a hedgerow. "She's stopped running. I think she's too hot." And the officer is hot on her heels.

UPDATE 1:04 p.m.: "I'm still looking for an owner. I've went east, and haven't found anyone to the west yet." The deputy says that after checking four houses east of the location and three thus far to the west, he is heading now toward West Batavia to continue the search.

UPDATE 1:11 p.m.: "The unknown is in a hedgerow in the woods. It's unable to be caught. So I don't know what they are going to do," reports a deputy, who then went back in service. There is reportedly a sheep farm in the vicinity, off of Route 5, and deputies are heading there. The search continues.

UPDATE 2:24 p.m.: Deputies are returning to Genesee Street after locating the possible owner -- in Corfu -- who is also going along to determine if the sheep are his.

UPDATE 2:51 p.m.: "The sheep caper has been completed," a deputy tells the Genesee County Emergency Dispatch Center. The stocky, hooved mammals are grudgingly going right back where they came from -- to property owned by a fencing company (we can't make this stuff up) located "off Route 77, south of the viaduct." It's Bellevue Farms. (It would not be surprising if the owner scolded them -- futilely of course -- for being very BAAAD.)

Photos: On the job, sealing a driveway

By Howard B. Owens

In California, I didn't see many asphalt driveways. For whatever reason, most homeowners there prefer concrete (weather, I imagine, is a factor).

It didn't take long after moving to Western New York to figure out that here asphalt is the preferred surface for driveways, and if you're a homeowner who takes routine maintenance seriously, you periodically get your driveway sealed.

A couple of years ago I suggested to Scott Kopper, owner of WNY Blacktop Sealers, that I come out to one of his jobs some time and take a few pictures and learn a little bit about why sealing an asphalt driveway is important. This morning, we actually finally got together for one of his jobs.

Here's what he told me: "A blacktop drive way is a big investment and you want to protect that investment. What blacktop sealing does, not only does it look good, but it makes your driveway more resistant to oil, gas leaks, power steering fluid, and it doesn't oxidize as quickly from the sun beating on it, which means it doesn't crack and break as easily. "

I was surprised to learn the sun does more damage to asphalt than winter salt and snow. Winter damage occurs when a driveway does crack and then ice gets into those cracks, expands and makes them worse.

Josh Dibble was helping Scott this morning at a residence on Vine Street.

Photos: Batavia Little League in championship game

By Howard B. Owens

Batavia Little League played a championship game at MacArthur Park on Wednesday. When I left, Batavia was ahead 7-1 or 8-1, but I've not yet received final results from anybody. Evan so, here are photos from yesterday's game.

UPDATE: Batavia won 9-4 and now advances to a sectionals round, which is hosted in Batavia this weekend. Teams in the tournament besides Batavia: Penfield, Auburn, Fredonia, Portville and Orchard Park.

Broadbent: One Batavia family learning the hard way the damage bath salts can do

By Howard B. Owens

Up until Friday, Melissa Broadbent thought her brother Bradley was really turning his life around.

He had a job, he was trying to do the best he could by his son, within the limits of court orders and the demands of the child's mother.

Then, seemingly overnight, and just three months removed from his last prison term, Bradley Broadbent discovered "Amped," a form of bath salts that is reportedly sold at a shop in Batavia.

"Previous to that day, he was doing well for himself," Melissa said. "He worked in a flower shop, he gained better employment, he was trying to become a good member of society."

Last Friday, Bradley thrust himself into local headlines when he climbed atop the roof of a home on Hutchins Street and then began jumping from roof to roof, yelling something about the police being after him.

He was taken by Mercy EMS to UMMC for evaluation, but that night, Bradley reportedly fled the hospital and went to his ex-wife's house on Tracy Avenue and entered her home.

That action led to a charge of burglary in the second degree.

"I don't believe anybody should be selling it," Melissa said. "For some people it’s a high, but for other people something doesn’t quite click and it’s not safe to us and the rest of the world."

If convicted of the burglary charge, it would be Bradley's third strike and mean from 20 years to life in prison.

And that's what has Melissa Broadbent most concerned.

She thinks the system has failed her brother. And the failure of the system, she said, was never more apparent than it was on Friday.

Melissa said when she came across Bradley that morning, she could tell he was high and learned from a friend that he had allegedly ingested bath salts, a substance for which she had no real prior knowledge.

She said she tried contacting her brother's parole officer, but he was on vacation and nobody from the parole office "bothered," as she put it, to call her back.

A call back and an effort to pick him up might have meant the entire Friday would have gone completely different for her brother, she said.

Then, after her brother was taken to UMMC, Melissa wonders why he was lightly restrained at the hospital. Melissa believes he should have been shackled by handcuffs so he couldn't escape until he came down off his high.

Then there's the issue of the burglary charge for entering his ex-wife's home.

"She was leaving a key in the mailbox for him," Broadbent said. "How was he supposed to know he wasn’t supposed to come in that day?"

Now that Melissa has gotten a quick personal and Google-search lesson in bath salts, she is perplexed why the substance is so easily available in Batavia and why anybody in good conscience would sell the substance to another human being.

"There's a chemical in it, a specific chemical, that makes you come out of your element and makes you do things you would not normally do," Melissa said. "It is not safe, not for anybody, not for the person doing it and nor for the person walking down the street.

"There's no way to test for it. People who want to find a mental escape, they're going to do it because it's legal and it's so easy to get. It needs to come off the street before somebody dies."

Bradley Broadbent was first arrested, she said, on a robbery charge when he was 16. He and a partner stole one dollar from a store and Broadbent spent eight years in prison.

When he came out, Melissa said, he was a changed person. He was anti-social, didn't know how to interact with people, distrusted everyone and was hostile to people he met for the first time.

The family wanted to help him, they said, so in the hope of getting him into treatment, they provided information to law enforcement that led to his arrest.  Rather than receiving treatment, however, she said Broadbent was sent back to prison.

"That didn't help him at all," she said. "That made him worse."

Now, with a possible third strike, Melissa is worried the system will once again come down hard on him and send him to prison for the rest of his life.

She hopes, somehow, someway, the system will do better than that by her brother.

"He is in need of mental care," Melissa said. "We know him. The people who know him, know he needs that. The system doesn’t know him. They don’t know he needs that and the system doesn’t care. That’s what I would like to see happen. My brother needs mental care. He needs help mentally. He doesn't know how to handle himself emotionally or mentally."

She isn't of a mind to sugarcoat any of the things Bradley has been accused of doing in the past. She just wants the best outcome for her brother.

"I don’t defend anything my brother has ever done," she said. "If he’s wrong, he’s wrong."

The rapid lessons in bath salts has made her very afraid of what the presence of the substance means for Batavia. She's worried -- more certain -- that not enough will be done soon enough about bath salts.

"It seems nothing ever gets done until it's the absolute worst and then people open their eyes and do something," she said.

Nicole Lang, the mother of another person whose life is allegedly being harmed by bath salts has said she's ready to set up a picket and a protest of a local shop allegedly selling the now controlled substance.

"I’m with her," Melissa said. "I’m all with her. The people selling this stuff, they’re not dealing with the consequences. Yet the people who love their family are the people who have been tainted by the effects of it."

New federal ban offers hope, but local law enforcement still grappling with difficult bath salt situation

By Howard B. Owens

Nearly every day of late, emergency dispatchers in Genesee County field multiple calls related to people getting into trouble or causing problems while apparently high on a substance benignly called "bath salts."

Area law enforcement officials recognize the problem, and even though most of the compounds known as bath salts are now a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance under federal law, the tools available to police officers to deal with these sometimes bizarre events are limited.

In the City of Batavia, Police Chief Shawn Heubusch said the approach his department is taking to deal with bath salt-provoked incidents is first a public safety issue.

"First and foremost, any responding officer is checking the welfare of people," Heubusch said. "First comes public safety, the safety of the people involved, checking to see if medical attention is needed, giving it to them."

If a crime has been committed, an individual under the influence of bath salts might be arrested, Heubusch said, but the first order of business is that person's health and safety.

However, since at a local level, the possession and even the sale of these so-called bath salts are legal, there isn't much local law enforcement can do to combat the spread of the drug.

But that doesn't mean any Genesee County residents or businesses that might sell bath salts should feel comfortable distributing the compounds outlawed as a result of legislation sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The federal government's top law enforcement official in Western New York said today that investigators will respond to any complaints of the substances being sold locally, whether the complaints come in the form of tips from concerned citizens or media reports suggesting such sales are taking place.

"What the public can expect as with any reports of criminal activities is that law enforcement will look into it as appropriate," said William Hochul, U.S. Attorney for Western New York. "I can’t comment on specific cases, but the way we do our job in law enforcement is we look for possible violations of crime and we investigate it. If it rises to the level of a federal offense, we will prosecute."

Hochul praised The Batavian and Rochester's WHAM 13 for aggressive reporting on the bath salt issue during an exclusive interview with the two news outlets at the Sheriff's Office in Batavia.

"The public needs to be aware that the side effects of these substances is that to an extent they can be deadly," Hochul said. "We've had any number of episodes where people have acted violently, or they've gone into cardiac arrest, and that's just what we know. There's a long-term effect that still remains to be seen. So, the best defense, as with most drugs, is for the public to get educated."

Schumer's legislation bans MDPV (methylenedioxypyrovalerone) and mephedrone, the active ingredients in bath salts.

Reportedly, the chemicals found in bath salts cause effects similar to those of cocaine and methamphetamine, including hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts.

In Batavia in recent cases, people have climbed on rooftops, waved knives at people in a threatening manner, claimed to be attacked by ghosts, reported hearing gunshots and have been combative toward medical personnel during emergency responses to deal with their seizures.

Family members of individuals reportedly on bath salts have said that users  expressed suicidal thoughts and engaged in self-destructive behavior.

The paranoia, violence and self-destructive thoughts of people on bath salts are a safety concern for the public and emergency personnel, local law enforcement officials say.

"People using these substances are sometimes unpredictable and sometimes become violent," Heubusch said. "The officers do a great job of limiting contact with these people and ensuring everybody is safe."

Sheriff Gary Maha said fortunately, no situations involving his deputies have gotten out of hand, but officers have been responding to numerous medical calls involving bizarre behavior.

"Our officers are trained to protect themselves," Maha said. "It doesn’t matter what type of situation. It can be a dangerous situation. This person could have a knife he’s swinging around or whatever and they will have to take appropriate action to protect themselves and protect the public.

"We haven’t come across a situation yet where an officer needs to use a Taser, but our officers are armed with Tasers and trained in using them," Maha added.

Det. Rich Schauf said that with all the information available now about bath salts, and the fact that it says right on many packages, "not for human consumption," the real question is, why are people using them.

"The unfathomable situation in all this is why would somebody do this to themselves," Schauff said.  Why would somebody ingest something that they don’t know what it is. ... that's the real question: How do you stop somebody from hurting themselves?"

While that may be a question without an answer, Hochul's office is taking seriously the issue of enforcing the new ban on bath salts and synthetic marijuana, he said.

"We will now be able to treat bath salts the same way we treat cocaine and heroine," Hochul said. "(We can) use all of our federal techniques that we have available, including wiretaps, undercover operations, and hopefully bring these cases to closure much easier and much more successfully."

Up until the new ban was signed into law by President Barack Obama, federal law enforcement had very limited tools to combat bath salts and synthetic marijuana.

The chemicals used to manufacture these drugs were part of a DEA emergency schedule as controlled substances, but that only meant that law enforcement had to prove in a court of law that a person selling the substance did so with the intention they would be used for human consumption and that the effect of the substances was in fact similar to that of meth or cocaine.

That all changed on Monday.

"It’s much better for the community to know now that the substances are -- no ifs, ands or buts -- illegal to possess, to sell or posses with intent to sell," Hochul said.

While law enforcement officials take seriously the apparent increase in bath salt-related calls, they also say it shouldn't be overstated as some sort of community epidemic.

The majority of calls, according to Schauf, involve the same people repeatedly, and those calls are generally confined to people who have had law enforcement contact prior to bath salts becoming an issue.

Heubusch agreed.

"I don’t believe this is a widespread, mass hysteria type of event," Heubusch said. "It does seem to be a small group of people."

The other factor that may contribute to bath salts being part of a greater consciousness in Batavia, Schauf said, is more people understand what bath salts are and what they do, including cops and medical personnel.

"We might have been dealing with this before and we didn't know it," Schauf said. "Now that it's identified, you have this effect of everything is bath salts the minute you see somebody who is irrational."

All of the law enforcement officials we talked to today also said bath salts are just the latest fad drug. They pointed to either Ecstasy, PCP, sniffing glue, meth and even LSD as "fad" drugs of the past that eventually stopped being a common problem.

"We've seen different peaks and valleys in the past," Maha said. "We've seen LSD and we don't see that much anymore, or PCP, and we don't see that much anymore. They have all come and gone and hopefully this will as well."

What worries law enforcement officials that while federal -- and even possibly, someday, state legislation -- might outlaw bath salts as we know them today, there are probably chemists somewhere trying to cook up the next intoxicating brew.

"We have to be concerned about it," Hochul said. "I read one report that said this (the new law) is like raising the wall a little higher as the floodwaters grow. We certainly hope at a certain point that there won't continue to be creation of illegal substances, but given the advances in science and the willingness of people located throughout the world to try and make money through the selling of illegal drugs, it’s reasonable to assume there will be continued efforts to avert this law."

Hochul had two other bits of advice for community members who are concerned about bath salts.

First, if people plan to picket -- as Jason Lang's mother suggested doing -- an establishment suspected of selling bath salts, they shouldn't worry that such action would interfer with a federal investigation.

"If you’re a mother or a parent with concerns, you still have to do what you have to do to protect your family within the bounds of the law," Hochul said.

"We have an obligation to investigate violations of the federal law using all of our tools and there are ample tools to investigate the fact that somebody may be illegally selling drugs," Hochul added. "If somebody is protesting on the one hand, they should not be worried that would impede our ability to use one of our other tools to investigate violations of federal law."

The second bit of advice was directed at any landlords who might be leasing property to a business that could be selling bath salts.

The property can be seized under the federal forfeiture law.

If a judge determines the property owner knew a business was selling a controlled substance -- and media reports indicating such transactions were allegedly taking place -- a judge could rule the property owner should have taken action to ensure such sales were not being conducted on his property.

"If the landlord wants to keep his property, the landlord's obligation should be to make sure there’s no illegal activity occurring on his property," Hochul said. "That’s another advantage of having very assertive media in exposing this to the public at large. What did the particular owner know and when did he know it?"

Heubusch and Hochul also said the entire community has a role to play in combating bath salts in Batavia.

Community members, they said, need to call the police about suspicious activity, cooperate in investigations and educate each other about the dangers of these chemicals and compounds.

"This is a perfect opportunity for the community to come together and help others out," Heubusch said. "Whether they call us, they call 9-1-1 to report a suspicious event, or when the officer does arrive, report what they saw to that officer. ... We will do what we can to protect this community, but we do need help from the community itself."

PHOTOS: Top, Chief Shawn Heubusch; first inset, U.S. Attorney for WNY William Hochul; second inset, Sheriff Gary Maha.

This story was produced in conjunction and cooperation with The Batavian's official news partner, WBTA, and Sean Carroll, reporter for WHAM 13 in Rochester.

Related stories:

Large metal bin on fire at scrap yard

By Billie Owens

A roll-off metal scrap bin is on fire at Eddy Arnold Scrap Processors, Inc., located at 2216 Angling Road in Corfu. East Pembroke Fire Department is responding. The bin is next to the office.

UPDATE 5:53 p.m.: The fire is out. They are checking for hot spots.

UPDATE 6:05 p.m.: East Pembroke is back in service.

Report of gunshots fired from truck in Basom remains under investigation

By Howard B. Owens

A report Tuesday night of a drive-by trucker firing shots out his window in Basom is still under investigation, but a possible suspect has been identified, Sheriff Gary Maha said today.

The subject deputies believe may have been involved may also have been arrested for DWI in Erie County.

Maha said it will take a little time to put the whole case together because law enforcement agencies in Genesee, Erie and Niagara counties are all involved.

Dog locked in red car at Walmart

By Billie Owens

A red car in the parking lot of Walmart allegedly has a dog locked inside with the windows rolled up this summer afternoon. A Sheriff's deputy is responding to the complaint.

UPDATE 4:13 p.m.: The deputy is going to have someone at the customer service desk inside the store page the registered owner of the car over the PA system. The car is registered to a woman in Stafford.

UPDATE 4:22 p.m.: A few minutes ago, the deputy reported "The owner has come out of Walmart and is taking the dog away." Next, the officer asked what the temperature is and a dispatcher replied: 84 degrees.

UPDATE 4:32 p.m.: Typically on these types of calls, no other information is put forth over the scanner. If a citation is issued, there's no press release about it. But we will do a follow up on this issue soon.

 

Car crash at Main and Bank

By Billie Owens

Two vehicles crashed at Main and Bank streets in the city. There are no injuries, but it is blocking traffic, which the police are handling.

PHOTO (by Howard): I was walking on East Main just west of Jackson, heard the collision behind me, turned around, snapped this shot before the smoke even cleared.

Photo: Free Slurpee for 7/11

By Howard B. Owens

It's July 11, and you know what that means -- free Slurpees at 7-11 convenience stores.

Above, Zach Paris, of Alexander, draws himself a cold one at the store in Batavia, corner of East Main and Elm streets.

Law and Order: Woman allegedly waving knife in street believed to have been on bath salts

By Howard B. Owens

Emily Smith, 28, of 31 Williams St., Batavia, is charged with disorderly conduct. Smith is accused of waving a carving knife while in the middle of Williams Street, threatening people and alarming them. The alleged incident was reported at 11:52 a.m., Tuesday. According to a police report, Williams and a neighbor were allegedly intoxicated on bath salts and began to believe they were mad at each other, leading to a confrontation.

Jason Barnhardt, 25, of 108 Tracy Ave., Batavia, is charged with criminal contempt, 2nd. Barnhardt is accused of living at a residence on Tracy Avenue since June that he was allegedly barred by court order from being at. Barnhardt's residence was reportedly discovered during an emergency call to the residence Monday.

Angry mother confronts store employees she believes sold bath salts to her son

By Howard B. Owens

The mother of Jason Lang marched into 420 Emporium, at 400 Ellicott St. Batavia, tonight and demanded that employees sell her "Amped," a brand of bath salts she believes had been sold to her son at the store earlier in the evening.

She said she is trying to make a point -- that the recently opened head shop is killing her son by selling him the chemical substance.

For her trouble, she was issued an appearance ticket for alleged trespassing.

Jason Lang, previously arrested for allegedly making false reports to law enforcement in 9-1-1 calls, was bailed out of jail recently, according to his mother, Nicole Lang, by an employee of Lang's cab company.

"I want them to stop selling to my son because they are killing him right now," Mrs. Lang said.

Sgt. John Peck said that as a parent he sympathizes with Mrs. Lang's position, but said, "she's not going about it the right way."

Mrs. Lang said she went in the store, tried to buy bath salts, was told to leave and then left. Peck said store employees saw and what he observed himself is something different.

According to Peck, Mrs. Lang was told to leave, and did, but then stormed back in, disrupting business transactions in the store. After Peck and Officer Kevin DeFelice arrived on scene, Peck said Mrs. Lang reentered the store and started yelling at employees.

The store manager, Peck said, wanted to press trespass charges.

"We could have charged her with other possible crimes," Peck said. "We charged her with simple trespass."

Simple trespass is equivalent to getting a traffic ticket.

Mrs. Lang said she isn't done protesting against 420 Emporium for allegedly selling bath salts. She and her daughter, Brandi Smith, said they are going to organize a protest picket against the store to raise community awareness about 420 allegedly selling the chemical compounds.

They're hoping, they said, other community members concerned about bath salts in Batavia will join the protest.

The date of the protest will be announced at a later time.

According to Mrs. Lang, a person she encountered coming out of 420 Emporium when she arrived told her he had just purchased Amped in the store and snorted a line in front of her.

"He said he loved it," she said, and then he laughed and walked off.

While Mrs. Lang was out on the sidewalk after one of her previous entries into the store, she said two people -- a former employee of Lang's and a relative of Lang's -- walked past and one of them shoved her into the roadway on Ellicott Street.

She wanted the woman charged with assault, but Peck told her that complaint is still under investigation.

Peck told The Batavian that witnesses who don't know any of the parties involved said Mrs. Lang was trying to prevent the couple from walking down the sidewalk and one of the people simply tried to push her out of the way.

The two people would be interviewed, Peck said, before he reached any conclusions about the case.

Meanwhile, Peck said Batavia PD are dealing with an increasing number of bath salts related calls.

Today, he said, there were at least three bath salt related calls in the city, including one where two people allegedly on bath salts both started thinking the other was mad at the other. One of the people involved ended up going into the street brandishing a knife threatening the other person.

"We've been dealing with it (bath salts) all day," Peck said.

While police were on scene at 420 Emporium, Lang reportedly drove up to a Batavia PD cruiser and told an offer that gang members were out to kill him and drove off.

Brandi Smith said Lang's report to police isn't entirely bath-salt-inspired paranoia. According to Smith, a couple of months ago, Lang turned over to State Police all the Amped he had in his shop -- the former Laughing Buddha -- and that Lang  acquired the supply of Amped from a well known alleged criminal enterprise.

According to Smith, members of the crminal enterprise had laced the Amped with meth, unbeknownst to Lang, and Lang is facing possible criminal charges for selling the substance.

Now, she said, members of the gang are demanding Lang either return the Amped or pay them the money they're owed. 

The Amped in question, she said, is in the custody of State Police.

Finally, both Mrs. Lang and Mr. Lang (Jason's father) expressed displeasure with The Batavian's reporting about Jason Lang. They said The Batavian's stories leave people with the impression that Jason is some sort of "low life."

"Jason is really a good person," Mrs. Lang said. 

She said she wants the community to know he's really a good person just having a problem right now. She said she is worried about his health, but, "he's a really good person."

Photo: Nicole Lang sobs in front of 420 Emporium while awaiting Batavia PD to issue her an appearance ticket for alleged trespassing.

Batavia city and town firefighters responding to controlled burn on Bank Street

By Billie Owens

A controlled burn at 311 Bank St. is requiring the response of city firefighters and mutual aid from the Town of Batavia. According to authorities, this address has previously been advised regarding the requirements of controlled burns.

UPDATE 10:30 p.m. (approximately): Fire is out.

Person in Alabama reports being shot at by driver of truck registered in Basom

By Billie Owens

A person in the area of Crosby and Judge roads in Alabama reports being shot at with a .22-caliber rifle by someone driving a pickup truck registered to a driver on Ham Road in Basom. Law enforcement is investigating.

UPDATE: 11:45 p.m.: A deputy reports recovering a bullet. No further details available at this time.

Steelheads and salmon provide respite from heat, lack of sleep

By JIM NIGRO

It was last Friday morning and despite the early hour the air temperature was climbing rapidly and the humidity was killer; couple that with the fact I was running on not much more than an hour of sleep and it seemed like I was going to be in for a long day. Doug Harloff, on the other hand, was his usual self -- chipper, upbeat, and eager to get down to the business at hand. I didn't know it then, but my disposition would soon match his and my lack of sleep quickly forgotten.

Our original plan called for a trip to Lake Erie to see about putting a dent in the walleye population, but at the last minute Doug suggested we play the waters of Lake Ontario, "steelhead fishin's been good" he said. As tired as I was, I figured it a good idea to be as close to home as possible. I readily agreed and moments later we were on our way to Point Breeze. 

Doug was still setting out lines when the first fish struck, a feisty steelhead rainbow that quickly got the adrenaline flowing. That said, any sleep deprivation dissipated immediately. The sight of a steelhead leaping clear of the water then tailwalking across the surface or the powerful run of a king salmon has a way of rejuvenating even the most bleary-eyed angler. And on this day we would be accommodated by both species. The king salmon pictured above made several line-sizzling runs, taking out nearly 370 feet of line!

Initially, Doug rigged up two downriggers, a planer board and a flat-line rig with lead core line, the latter being run some 300 feet behind the boat. Each rig produced at least one fish, most of which came from the 60 foot level in waters ranging from 150 - 250 feet deep. Northern King spoons were the hot bait, notably Dream Weaver 42nd's and black NK spoons with silver tape.

The further out on the lake we went the more we felt the breeze and the air temperature cooled somewhat. For the time being we had left some of the heat and humidity behind. From our position about two miles offshore it was difficult to make out the shoreline shrouded in haze. By the time we were ready to call it a day we had four steelheads and two kings in the hold.   

Because Doug lets nothing go to waste whether it be fish, waterfowl, upland game or venison, his recipes for fish and game are vast and varied. And because I would be bringing home an ample supply of fillets, I asked his opinion. Everything he suggested sounded great, the only trouble being, I could only try one recipe at a time. The following evening my wife and I dined on blackened Cajun salmon fillets cooked on the grill. The meal was delicious and the hum of the air conditioner made it all the more enjoyable.

Thanks Doug - it was a great day!

GCEDC approves tax exemptions for companies in Le Roy and Attica

By Howard B. Owens

Projects approved by Genesee County Economic Development Center:

Triple F Services (Falcone Family Funeral): Sales tax exemption on materials, $27,200; mortgage tax exemption, $6,250; property tax exemption, $0. Falcone is planning on investing $602,000 to build a 4,500-square-foot funeral home in the Town of Le Roy. The company is planning to apply for property tax assistance through the Town of Le Roy. Projected new jobs: three.

Upstate Dodge Chrysler and Jeep, Inc.: Sales tax exemption, $24,800; mortgage tax exemption, $0; property tax exemption, $0. Upstate is planning on making a $655,000 investment to renovate an existing building at 125 Prospect St., Attica (Genesee County) and relocate its existing dealership from 15 West Ave., Attica (Wyoming County). Projected new jobs: 17.

Shelter in dire need of small dog kibble and dry kitten food

By Billie Owens

Press release from Volunteers for Animals:

We need help with food! With all the poodles we rescued recently, we are in need of small dog kibble. Some are missing teeth and they all have small mouths so we are in desperate need of small dog kibble!

It is that time of year again and we find ourselves needing dry kitten food to feed our many growing kittens in foster care and those starting to return for adoption at the shelter and Petco. The community has been good to us in the past and we hope we can count on you again to donate dry kitten food to help all our cute kittens grow up healthy and strong!

Please drop it by the shelter during adoption hours.

THANK YOU!

The Genesee County Animal Shelter is located at 3841 W. Main St. Road in the Town of Batavia.

Adoption hours are:

Sunday through Friday -- 1 to 3 p.m. (CLOSED THURSDAYS)

Wednesday -- 7 to 9 p.m.

Saturday -- 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Top Items on Batavia's List

NOW HIRING seasonal agribusiness positions. CDL A & B Drivers to deliver bulk crop nutrients. Potential long-term opportunities. Great for retirees! GENERAL LABOR positions. Daily variety of indoor/outdoor responsibilities. Loader experience a plus. SIGN-ON BONUS and plenty of OT during spring/summer months. Apply in person at: 8610 Route 237, Stafford, NY www.cecrocker.com
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