Check out WBTA for these and other news stories:
• Batavia's Water Bureau put out a notice that a disruption in the water line this afternoon could cause discoloration of the water around State and Bank streets near Batavia High School.
• Other city business from the council meeting last night: A failed attempt to consider changes to the city's event policy regarding overtime fees paid by the city. And a new lease for copy services was signed.
Prologue
Full of cheese and bread and sauce — thank you, Belladessa's Pizzeria — I'm slightly bloated and ready for my first Batavia City Council meeting. It's about six minutes shy of 7:00pm, and folks are still shuffling in, chatting. The board room seems so new it almost sparkles, despite the orange and off-white chairs that look plucked from a middle school classroom circa 1970. It smells like a dentist's office in here. There are maybe a dozen people in the audience, including myself and a man with a video camera. Everyone seems friendly.
That's that for atmosphere.
Part One (The one they call the Business Meeting)
Meeting called to order. (A solemn Christian prayer precedes the Pledge of Allegiance).
Council President Charlie Mallow jokes that he found some "new things" while cleaning up the skatepark during the "green-up cleanup" over the weekend. Wonder what that means.
Of the few decisions by the council tonight, there was only one that may immediately affect folks. That is, the traffic light at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Ross Street will be removed and replaced with all-way stop signs. Watch for that.
Not much else worth mention. First meeting adjourned. Five minute break.
The man with the video camera left. Why did he only tape the business meeting? What is the point of a second type of meeting if it isn't worth recording? Who makes that call?
Part Two (The one they call the Conference Meeting)
Councilman Frank Ferrando told me earlier that the "conference" half of these meetings are spent determining the agenda for the next "business" meeting, giving the council a chance to hash things out before they come up for vote. That being said, there's not much to say here. At least, not tonight. Just a lot of procedural minutiae — deciding whether something is worth deciding. Maybe that's why the guy with the camera took off.
Really, elected officials ought to be lauded if for no other reason than their patience and willingness to go through such process, while we recline in a sofa with a bowl of popcorn and drool at the television in the comfort of our home. Seriously. What do they get paid? Maybe $5,000 per year. Maybe. It may not be entertaining to watch the gears turn, but we should at least rest assured that they're turning.
I must admit, I'm impressed by the general politesse at this meeting. Council members raise their hands to be acknowledged by the president before they speak or ask a question. They often thank each other and whatever guests take the mic. If they raise their voices, it's out of passion, not anger.
Meeting adjourned — 8:35pm. Goodnight.
From the Daily News (Monday):
• Batavia's volunteer city cleanup Saturday was a success. City Councilman Bill Cox told the Daily News, "I bet I picked up 500 butts" — that's cigarette butts. And he wasn't alone.
• Another group of Batavia volunteers are picking up (literally) where Councilman Cox and others left off following Saturday's clean-up. They call themselves Helping Hands: Bringing Pride Back to our Neighborhoods. The first of a series of three cleanups starts Saturday at 10:00am and runs to about 1:00pm at the corner of Evans and Watson streets. Call New Hope Church at (585) 344-2997 for more information.
• The VA Medical Center will host an Award Recognition Ceremony tonight at Bohn's Restaurant.
• Reporter Scott DeSmit wrote: "A teacher at Rainbow Preschool in Batavia remains on administrative leave as an in-school investigation into alleged sexual misconduct wraps up." An investigation by state police found that the allegations were unfounded, so the school decided to perform its own investigation "as a matter of policy."
• The City Council will meet tonight for a business meeting at 7:00pm followed by a conference. Both meetings will be held in the Council Board Room on the second floor of City Hall.
For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.
Wouldn't it be cool to sing the National Anthem prior to a professional baseball game?
Well, here's your chance to see if your rendition more closely matches Whtiney Houston or Roseanne Barr (warning, you really don't want to click that link unless you're completely deaf).
WBTA is sponsoring a contest that will allow the winner to sing the Anthem prior to the July 4 Muckdogs game. (More info: Last item in the April 28 news update.)
The auditions are at Noon on Saturday, May 17. We're not clear on the location, but we think at Dwyer Stadium.
Speaking of WBTA -- previously we reminded you about their Saturday auction. No online word on who won what items (if you won something, leave a comment), but the site says there is another auction June 6. Why is this important? Because everybody loves an auction!
The title of the video says it's from 2007, but it was uploaded just yesterday. It looks like it's coverage of a training exercise.
Recently, we did a post in praise of Margarita's carne sada tacos.
Today, we come across the blog post of a traveler who stopped in Batavia and found herself at Margarita's.
So you look through the list, and you think about a few things. You think about the fact that you're wearing your Patriots jersey still, and whether or not you want to walk into a sports bar in New York. You think about the notion that your husband is from Dublin, and whether or not you want to know what an Upstate Irish Pub might turn out to look like. You think about whether you ever, ever, ever again want to eat at Applebee's.
Then you take a deep breath, and you go to Margarita's.
And do you know where it turns out you can get the best Mexican food north of the Rio Grande?
Batavia, New York.
Who would'a thunk it?
Well, I'm not sure I'd go that far. There's a lot of land immediately north of the Rio Grande and it's well populated with Mexicans. Though, Margarita's darn good and we'll probably have our launch party there Thursday.
Check out WBTA for these and other news stories:
• The City Council meets tonight at 7:00pm.
• Auditions for the Batavia Muckdogs/WBTA National Anthem Contest will be held at noon on Saturday, May 17 at Dwyer Stadium.
• Several hundred people turned out for the State of the City address.
Check out WBTA for these and other news stories:
• Batavia City Council President will give the State of the City address at an all-night event in conjunction with the Chamber's Business Showcase.
• Kiwanis Club of Batavia will hold its annual Law Day Dinner Thursday, May 1.
It's June 22, 1895. The front page of The Batavian — a newspaper of the times — tells the simple story of a high school graduation, titled: "Sweet Girl Graduates."
"Radiant as the rosy morn was the graduating maiden of the Batavia Academy Thursday night. In ravishing costume and with brightened eye and blooming cheek she stepped on the rostrum of the opera house and with all the glamour that surrounds the pomp and panoply of war pulsing in her heart she gazed into the proud eyes of parents and friends and an immense concourse of people, and in the midst of showers of beautiful flowers was thrown into a dreamy ecstasy of delight."
It's no surprise the author has eyes only for such maidens. Batavia Academy's graduating class in 1895 consisted of 13 girls and a meager four boys. Where were all the young Batavian men at the turn of the century? Were they too good — or no good — for study? Ravaged by war? Bound by the ox to the farm?
No matter. This article's author had no need for them. Full of that very same poetic excess, he describes a few of the young ladies who especially caught his eye. Such as:
"Miss Flora Van de Venter is a piquant, fair-haired girl, with expressive eyes and a complexion that suggests peaches and cream. Her essay was captioned 'Fun and Philosophy of Mother Goose,' but there was nothing frivolous about it, though nicely spiced with humor."
And let us not forget "Miss Florence Quirk, a tangle-tressed maiden in white, (who) gave a learned essay, which evinced deep research."
Or in an article on the same front page (under "Town Topics: Seen and Heard in the Daily Current of Batavia Life").
"The summer girl is with us again. Arrayed in delicate tissue gown and jaunty straw hat, she rides through the streets in all her glory these pleasant evenings. With fan or parasol in hand she graces the piazza or the streets as she makes her periodical visits to the soda fountain. What would the druggist do without the summer girl? But it befits us all to be duly and honestly grateful for the blessing. For the summer girl is a blessing."
It must have been a long, lonely winter.
R-News has an interesting piece about Don Bosseler today.
Bosseler attended Batavia High School in the 1950s, and in 1957 he was a first-round draft pick of the Washington Redskins. R-News says that makes him the highest ever NFL draft pick from the Rochester area.
"It was one of the better classes I can remember," says Bosseler of the 1957 draft. The facts back that up.
1957 produced nine Pro Football Hall of Famers. Paul Hornung, Len Dawson, Jim Brown and Jim Parker were taken before Bosseler; Tommy McDonald, Sonny Jurgensen, Henry Jordan, Don Maynard and Gene Hickerson afterwards.
Bosseler was no slouch. He played eight seasons for the Redskins and retired in 1964 as the franchise leader in rushing yards.
Bosseler was on the "70 Greatest Redskins" list celebrating the team's 70th anniversary in 2002. Don knew the game. He had to, rooming with the likes of Don Shula, Joe Walton and Tom Osborne.
According to Pro-Football Reference, Bosseler scored 23 touch downs (22 rushing) in his career. His best season was probably his rookie year when he scored 7 times and gained 673 yards.
From the Daily News:
• Retired Major Gen. John Batiste will speak at the Batavia VA Medical Center Saturday, May 17 as part of a two-day veterans celebration organized by the Genesee County Veterans Support Network. "His speech will be focused not on the war or politics but on helping veterans," writes reporter Scott DeSmit. Call (585) 344-2611 for more information.
• Volunteers are being sought for a city clean-up Saturday. If you're interested, get to Williams Park on Pearl Street by 9:00am.
• Reporter Paul Mrozek writes that the town of Batavia "will maintain a water main that is owned by the village of Oakfield but runs through Batavia." Meanwhile, Batavia has a contract to buy the water plant where the main originates. Mrozek explains that the "mothballed" plant "has been stripped of its equipment so the building is available for storage." Once acquired, the land will be turned into a park with hiking and nature trails. Holes in the story: the Town Supervisor says the plant "will, at some point, become the property of Batavia." Some point this year? Some point in the next decade? Fifty years from now? Also, if the main originates at this defunct plant, what purpose does it serve? And if it is owned by Oakfield, why will Batavia maintain it?
• From a Letter to the Editor: "Revise, review and proofread; reconsider and repeat. Understand that modern times reward those with a fluency in the spoken word and a facility with the written word." So goes the advice from Donald Weyer to the Daily News and its readers.
For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.
In Batavia business lore, there are few who loom as large as Joseph Mancuso, an incurable entrepreneur who bequeathed ambition to his children as if it were a heritage.
Mancuso died Tuesday at the state Veterans Home in Batavia, the Daily News reported. He was 88.
Reporter Roger Muehlig writes: "A son of Italian immigrants, Mancuso grew up during the Great Depression and once picked beans on a farm for $1 per 100 pounds."
From those modest beginnings, Mancuso flourished. He was a star athlete in high school, class president, later became a master sergeant in the Army Signal Corps and, once he returned home from World War II, became the first president of the Batavia Area Chamber of Commerce, Muehlig reported. (And those just a few of his social successes).
But the big fish came a little later:
"In 1956, Massey-Ferguson, the largest industry in Batavia, N.Y., closed down, leaving vacant an 850,000 square foot complex of multi-story buildings and driving unemployment to more than 20 percent. The Mancuso family wanted to reverse the situation. They purchased the complex and charged Joe Mancuso, then a hardware store manager, with filling it, creating jobs and making money.
"He tried to find a single company to rent the behemoth plant riddled with maintenance needs but after a month resolved that was a "crazy" idea. Instead, he decided to divide the building and rent to separate businesses that he would nurture by providing shared office services, assistance with raising capital and business advice. Within a short time he had recruited his first tenants, including a winery, a charitable organization and a chicken company. "We were out on the road a lot of the time, trying to interest investors and attract companies to the center," he told the NBIA Review, "and in a joking way, because of all the chickens, we started calling it 'the incubator.'" The name stuck long after the chicken company left, and Mancuso would forever be known as the man who coined the term business incubator." (From the National Business Incubation Association Web site).
"Joe was a visionary, years ahead of his time," Steven Hyde, president of the Genesee County Economic Development Center, told the Daily News.
Friends may call at the Gilmartin Funeral Home and Cremation Company on Friday, May 2, from 4:00 to 8:00pm. A Memorial Mass will be held Saturday, May 3, at 9:30am in St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church, 122 Liberty St., Batavia, NY 14020. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the local Boy Scouts, the Batavia Kiwanis Club, the YMCA or the National Incubation Association. Go here for more details.
UDPATE: Buffalo News Obituary.
Who needs Kmart when you've got downtown?
Twenty or so vendors of the now homeless Gensee Country Farmers Market may already have a new place to sell their fruits and vegetables: downtown Batavia. An offer to the vendors to join the Batavia Public Market came only a few hours after the Daily News reported that Kmart booted the county farmers from its parking lot after a 10-year commitment.
"We'd love to have them," said Don Burkel, downtown economic developer. More vendors mean more buyers, he said, "and we've got room for more."
Burkel heads up the fledgling downtown market that opens for its second summer season in June at the Center and School streets parking lot (across from O'Lacey's Irish pub).
Any vendors interested in setting up shop downtown should call Burkel at (585) 344-0900 and request space.
The Batavia Public Market will be held every Saturday from 9:00am to 2:00pm starting June 28, and runs through October 11.
From the Daily News:
• Warm weather means flowers... and hardhats. Construction is underway on the Batavia Towne Center at Park Road and Veterans Memorial Drive. Target is already hiring at an office on Main Street, nearby the WBTA studios. The store should be finished by July, and Lowe's should follow soon after. Other tenants will include: Bed Bath & Beyond, Petco and Michael's, an arts and crafts retail chain.
• A newborn baby abandoned at United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia last month is safe and healthy. And, while the mother has been identified, she cannot be charged. The law apparently allows a child under 5 days old to be abandoned with impunity at a hospital, fire station or police station.
• City HomeCare & Hospice will be working under the radar for a while, before kicking off a public fundraising campaign later this year. The hospice may eventually build a facility on River Street that would include some beds and administrative offices. Reporter Joanne Beck says: "Provisions can include medicine, equipment and physician, nursing, social work, bereavement and spiritual care." Not quite sure what that means. Holes in the story: Is the hospice building new or relocating from somewhere else? If everything is "tentative," nothing is known, and the hospice is not actually doing anything right now — as Beck writes — what is the story? Also, if this is the "next step," what was the first step?
• Kmart in Batavia kicked out the Genesee County Farmers Market after its 10-year residence at the store's parking lot. The now homeless market starts its summer season on June 10 and runs until October 31.
• Reservations must be made by Friday for an annual awards dinner for the Landmark Society of Genesee County. The dinner will be held May 3 at the First Presbyterian Church, 300 East Main St., Batavia, at 6:00pm. Tickets are $10. Call Catherine Roth at (585) 343-3833 or Lucine Kauffman at 757-2455 for more information.
• The Gensee Community College Foundation wants you to think of higher education this Mother's Day and make a donation to its scholarship fund. A minimum donation of $25 is required. Send your check to GCC and the college will send your mother a nice card. Call the college at (585) 345-6809 for more information.
For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.
The Genesee County Animal Shelter is featuring on YouTube three cats in need of new homes.
WBTA will broadcast all 38 home games for the Batavia Muckdogs this season, the local radio station announced this morning (the station's web site doesn't offer permalinks, so eventually that announcement will scroll down and off the page ... for anybody who finds this item weeks from now).
The station will also broadcast some away games. Wayne Fuller will handle play-by-play.
Via the Buffalo News:
The third annual Spring Gala, a major fundraiser for United Memorial Medical Center, will be held starting at 6:30 p. m. Saturday in the Hampton Inn’s Ambassador Banquet and Conference Center on Commerce Drive.
This is a black-tie event sponsored by the United Memorial Foundation, St. Jerome Foundation, the Jerome League and the UMMC League.
The Buffalo News item includes no information on cost or if tickets can still be purchased or where (we presume there are tickets that cost money -- they expect to raise $50,000).
Several neat items available this Saturday in WBTA's auction.
Having run these type of auctions before, events/places-to-go always do well, especially in the spring, so bid early and bid often (or bid high).
Too bad you can't bid online.
UPDATE: No online word on who won what items, but the next auction is June 6.
During our years as residents in San Diego, my wife and I developed a strong preference for "street tacos".
You might say, street tacos are a Tijuana delicacy. If you visit any town immediately south of the San Diego border, you can buy street tacos.
Where you do you get street tacos? On the street, of course. In New York, you find hot dog stands on many corners. In Tijuana, there are taco stands. What they serve mainly are grilled steak (spiced and called carne asada), tomato, white onion and cilantro piled on two small corn tortillas -- adding anything else to a street taco is like making a martini with vodka instead of gin ... it's just not as good, not as pure (and absolutely forget chocolate or apple).
A lime on the side is nice, but not required.
Of course, throughout most of California you can find many restaurants and taco stands that serve street tacos. In New York, not so much.
The closest thing we've found so far (after much searching in the Rochester area) is at Margarita's on Jackson. Printed on Margarita's menu is an item called tacos de asada. When ordered, you receive two or three (I've been there twice -- got two once, three the first time) tacos -- double corn tortillas piled with carne asada. The tomatoes and onions are served on the side with green sauce. To get a true street taco, you must carefully fork out the onion and tomato, leaving the green sauce behind. There is no cilantro. :-(
That said, I'm very happy I found Margarita's.
Here's one of the great things about Batavia (among many we've found so far) -- lots of family owned, non-chain restaurants. We've been to three of them so far (Margarita's, Jackson Street Grill and Central BBQ) and they've all been a treat.
There's nothing particularly wrong with chains, of course. They have their place and serve their purpose, but nothing beats a good meal at an independent restaurant. Here's to hoping the city leaders act responsibly to protect Batavia's family restaurants. They are important to a community's identity and help give it it's own flavor.
Leave your restaurant recommendations in the comments. I want to try them all.
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