As a baker's son, I'm generally pretty aware of my surroundings when it comes to availability of cakes and bread. I've had a few conversations in the past few months with people along the lines of, "how come there's no bakery in Genesee County?"

Well, there is a bakery in Genesee County, and it just hadn't sunk into my head yet, but I happened to make a couple of trips out to Bergen this week, which reminded me about Greg'ry's Bakery and Cafe.

I stopped in there today -- they have a fine selection of locally made bread, cakes, scones, muffins and cookies. I'm glad I came across it again.

The above photo depicts Oak Orchard Creek little more than a quarter-mile upstream of Lake Ontario. From the creek mouth to Waterport dam, this is a much wider stretch of stream with a more diverse fishery than found upstream. But on this day, with the exception of few bumps at the end of the line, neither the trout nor salmon were willing to cooperate.

Having moved upstream in search of warm water species, Mike Draper works a rubber worm in hopes of enticing a bass or pike.

The creek bank along a stretch of stream known as "Fiddler's Elbow."

Drake mallards and a lone hen soaking up the sun.

Doug Harloff plying the waters of Marsh Creek, a feeder stream spilling into the Oak Orchard at Twin Bridges.

On the return trip empty boat slips signify the close of the boating season.

Tonight the City of Batavia Democrats are holding another Meet the Democrat Candidates Night at Notre Dame High School.  Sara Burk-Balbi, Phil Ricci and Julie Wallace will all be present as well as Chris Charvella, Candidate in District 8 for the Genesee County Legislature.  It is at 7PM and in the school Cafeteria.  

I would like to take this moment to encourage everyone to come this evening and talk with our candidates.  They are young, bright and caring.  I also encourage you all to ask them questions and give them your idea. 

I should also mention that there are two conflicting meetings that Rose Mary Christian and Legislator Ed DeJaneiro will be attending.  If they have complete those meetings prior to the end of the Meet and Greet they will stop in as well.  Rose Mary is attending a meeting on the expansion of Rte 63-Ellicott Street and Ed has a County Legislature Meeting.

Please join us tonight for our Meet and Greet at Notre Dame.

The spread of H1N1 flu virus has prompted a change in the visiting policy at United Memorial Medical Center.

As a result, starting this week no one under the age of 18 is allowed to visit patients. Heretofore, as with many hospitals, visitors had to be at least 14 years old, although there was flexibility and reasonable exceptions were made.

"We're becoming more restrictive about visitors -- it's for patient safety," said UMMC spokeswoman Colleen Flynn. "We don't want them to become infected. The virus can be especially harmful to a patient with an already compromised immune system."

Also under the new policy, there can only be two visitors per patient at any given time and visiting hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.. Certain units, such as intensive care and pediatrics, may have more time restrictions.

Maternity patients are only allowed visits from their spouse or significant other, and grandparents. Exceptions are considered on a case-by-case basis by the nursing supervisor on duty.

Any visitor showing signs of infectious disease, such as a bad cough, will be asked to leave and given a mask to wear on their way out of the hospital.

"We are taking reasonable measures to protect patients, which is our number one priority," Flynn said.

All UMMC healthcare workers have been getting on-site H1N1 vaccinations, which were mandatory. That requirement was lifted, except for those with direct patient contact, which are innoculated first.

The H1N1 virus has been declared a national pandemic. As with other flu viruses, a person can be infected and contagious for 24 hours before showing any symptoms, which can hamper control efforts.

This strain, first identified in spring (not typically the flu season) is considered unusual because children are among the hardest hit.

Flynn said the hospital has seen an increase in the number of young flu sufferers. Some local peditricians are reportedly "swamped" with flu cases and some schools are grappling with absenteeism due to the flu or fear of catching it.

"Most cases are dealt with at home," Flynn said. "People treat it just like they would any flu. But because so much media attention is being paid to (H1N1), sometimes they tend to think the sky is falling. That's not necessarily true."

But do wash your hands frequently.

If anyone knows Rose Mary Christian better than anyone, it's me, her daughter. Throughout the years I have seen my mom tackle tough issues, read council packet after council packet, and always accept calls from city-wide residents who call my mom for her help because they know she gets things done.

From when I was little, I always remember my mom being involved with community things and helping people. She has been a Brownie leader, a softball coach, assisted families that needed a helping hand, volunteered for numerous things and causes, she orchestrated and accomplished sending close to 50 parents of deceased Vietnam veterans who were killed in action to visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and most importantly she has been a wonderful mother.

I have multiple sclerosis and there was no MS support group for people in Genesee County. In 2007, my mom is the person who initially contacted the right people to get a group started, and now, our group of about 12 members, called "Miracle Strides" has been running successfully and making great strides ever since. This group has been so beneficial for all its members. My mom has also turned out to be quite the nurse by giving me my weekly injections of the medicine that I take.

My mother has never put Council before her family, but let me tell you, being in the position she is in, people can be very demanding of her at numerous places. Whether it be at a restaurant while we're having dinner, at a grocery store, clothes shopping, and even church, yes, church. People all the time stop my mom and want to talk politics, see where she stands on the issues, or what she's going to do about that or this. No matter what, she always takes the time to answer the questions and discusses people's concerns.

When you or a loved one is in politics, you need to have tough skin. Tough skin we both have, and I have her to thank. Thank you mom for being the person you are and always being there to help me and so many others. I am so proud of you and what you have accomplished. Of course, no doubt, you have my vote Nov. 3 for county Legislature!

Kravings Kafe, Valu Plaza, W. Main Street, Batavia, NY: Recently opened, it offers soups, salads and sandwiches, fresh and flavorful; Monday through Saturday. We have $10 gift certificates for $5.

Great Kutz, in the Valu Plaza, 4152 W. Main St. Road, Batavia, NY: Great Kutz is Batavia's newest full-service hair salon. Women, try Great Kutz for a haircut at the incredibly low price of $7, exclusive offer from to The Batavian. (gift card can be applied toward other services, but not products).

Matty's Pizzeria, 4152 W. Main St., Batavia, NY: Matty's is another Batavia favorite for pizza and wings. We have a $20 gift certificate for $10.

Herbly Wonderful, 3701 Pearl St., Batavia, NY: Winter teas, spices and fall colors for your home in stunning floral arrangements and seasonal wreaths are now available at Herbly Wonderful. We have a $25 gift certificate for $11.

South Main Country Gifts, 3356 Main St. Road, Batavia, NY: Handcrafted items, gifts with a regional flair, candles, teas and spices -- South Main has a wide selection to please most any interest. We have a $20 gift certificate for $9.

Settler's Restaurant, 353 W. Main St., Batavia, NY: Settler's has a 25-year history of serving great, affordable breakfasts, lunches and dinners to Batavians. We have a $20 gift certificate for $10.

NOTE: If you've never bought Deal of the Day before, or are otherwise unfamiliar with the rules and process, click here.

SOLD OUT

Ronald Eugene Murphy, 29, of 409 Cedar Circle, Spencerport, was picked up by the Genesee County Sheriff's Office on a warrant for alleged criminal possession of a controlled substance in the 7th degree out of Monroe County. Murphy was turned over to the Monroe County Sheriff's Department.

Batavia will finally get to see what a roundabout is all about starting Friday when construction of the Walnut Street project is finally finished.

No more construction cones or workers holding up traffic. Drivers will be able to navigate through the circle in real time and see if they like how traffic flows.

The roundabout will be closed Friday Thursday from 5 to 7 a.m. for a final repaving, and then the route will open Friday morning with no fanfare -- no ribbon-cutting, no speeches, no coffeecake and donuts -- you can just drive on it.

A police officer is being dispatched to Tops Market where a woman says she spotted a possibly rabid fox.

The caller said the fox came up to her car snarling and drooling at the mouth and looked very skinny.

The woman is staying on scene to point out the location of the fox.

UPDATE 11:28 p.m.: The police officer who responded reports that the animal is gone, but he's checking the area.

There's going to be an open house from 2:30 to 4:30 and again at 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28 to discuss the pavement rehab project planned for Route 63/Ellicott Street. It takes place on the second floor of Batavia City Hall, located at One Batavia City Center.

Representatives from the state Department of Transportation will provide the following information about the project, which spans from Ellicott and Main streets to Cedar Street:

• Pavement repairs, milling and asphalt resurfacing, new pavement markings
• Re-striping lanes from the four now there, down to three
• Expanding parking on both sides of the street
• Construction work planned for summer 2010
• Traffic maintenance on Ellicott during construction operations using daily lane closures
• Having both nighttime and daytime construction

For questions or comments, call Dan Farrelly at (585) 272-4875 or e-mail him at dfarrelly@dot.state.ny.us

Here's the official project description:

The DOT is preparing plans to repair and resurface 1.7 miles of Route 63 (Ellicott Street) in the City of Batavia.

The scope of the work includes asphalt pavement repairs, pavement milling 2.5 inches in depth, a 2-inch-thick asphalt overlay, new pavement markings and cleaning of drainage structures.

The pavement markings are planned to change the traffic pattern from four lanes to three lanes, with parking on both sides of the road.

This work will restore a smooth ride, as well as preserve and extend the service life of the Ellicott Street pavement.

Regarding traffic control, traffic on Route 63 (Ellicott Street) will be reduced to a single lane in each direction during pavement repairs and resurfacing operations. Day and nigh time lane closures are planned.

No Route 63 traffic detours are proposed.

"I fought the law, and the law won."

Peter H. Scrooby is going to try and do what Bobby Fuller and The Clash said they couldn't do, fight the law and win.

Scrooby asked for a jury bench trial (the charge is not serious enough to warrant a jury trial) tonight in Darien Town Court on his disorderly conduct charge. Scrooby was arrested at the Kid Rock concert July 15. The Batavian featured him as one of three defendants arrested that night as part of a story about the Darien court on a concert night.

While the other two defendants featured in the story long ago accepted guilty pleas and have moved on, Scrooby isn't rolling over for the law.

The Rochester resident has retained Batavia attorney Thomas Burns, and Burns indicated his client doesn't think he did anything to warrant his arrest and the charge.

"It's very important to him," Burns said. "It's a matter of principle. Despite the fact that it's a minor charge, he's willing to invest the time and effort to let the truth be known as to what happened."

Scrooby's trial is set for Feb. 1 at 5:30 p.m. in Darien.

We are experimenting with an online survey for the County's 2009 Election. The survey will be up until Friday evening. We will publish the results over the weekend. Please read the instructions carefully.

NOTE:  Please follow the instructions. Do not vote in multiple jurisdictions.  I just deleted half of the first 12 survey responses because people voted in every race, or, more common, both contested Legislature races.  You can't vote in both District 7 and District 8.

var PDF_surveyID = '290AD911A70E920F'; var PDF_openText = 'View Survey';

Citing personal reasons, Town of Alabama Supervisor Guy Hinkson is stepping down from his elected post.

He informed the Town Board of his decision last night, but he will continue to serve until a successor is appointed, which is the most likely scenario for filling the job. That person would need to seek reelection next fall in order to remain as supervisor.

There was nothing political about his decision, he said.

"I've been going through some personal difficulties," Hinkson said tonight. "The apartment I was in had a fire. I had to find another place to live that night. I moved out of town (to his mother's house in Bergen). I fully intended to complete my term and stay in Alabama."

The fire occurred Aug. 29.

"I really don't want to have to resign," he said. "I've put a lot of work into the issues that will be coming before the board in the next year. But it looks like I'm going to be living (in Bergen) awhile. Life is what it is and you deal with it."

Specifically, he was looking forward to working with colleagues on the proposed wind-power project and the development of an advanced technology park.

Hinkson is a conservative Republican. He had two years left as supervisor.

Neighbors need to start talking with each other more, said City Manager Jason Molino during Monday night's City Council meeting.

Molino was giving the council an update on the work of the Neighborhood Improvement Committee, which previously brought forward programs for additional enforcement of yard clean up and property improvements.

There's a three-pronged approach to neighborhood improvement the city should pursue, Molino said:

• Compliance with property standards use and regulations
• Community Development Block Grants to help low-income property owners fix up and maintain their houses
• And community engagement.

Here's Molino's full comment from last night on the community aspect of neighborhood improvement:

We’ve had some preliminary talks about how we can also facilitate the possibility, facilitate neighbors getting out and communicating more with each other, whether through national night out types of events, where you’re getting neighborhoods, blocks, streets out so that they’re socializing and communicating with their neighbors.

A good question to ask is, "Do we know 50 percent of the neighbors around us?” If you don’t, why not?

Those types of things are really going to be the crux of improving what you want to improve in terms of neighborhoods. You want to get neighbors communicating with each other, creating a dependent neighborhood where people look out for each other, they communicate, they talk, because if you’ve got undesirables that want to relocate into the area, they’re not going to want to come to a neighborhood or a street where neighbors are looking out for each other, neighbors are talking, neighbors have good relationships with law enforcement in the city to be able to report problems. That’s going to deter them from coming to that neighborhood, if  they’re non-desirables, so to speak.

It’s going to help with a little bit more pride, a little more esprit de corps. People are going to want to talk with each other, to communicate, to bring a little more of that sense of community back.

We’ve seen a little bit of a down spiral, and I don’t think Batavia is uncommon. It’s like a lot of communities. People are not volunteering as much, people are not familiar with their neighborhoods anymore. I think we want to try and bring that back. The way we want to do that is working with some of the departments, getting into select neighborhoods -- each is going to be different -- getting the people on the streets communicating with each other and talking with each other. Those are the types of things that I think are really going to make a difference in the long term.

I told Jason after the meeting that his little speech sounded a lot like something I might say on The Batavian. So many community problems can be solved just through a higher ratio of social connectedness. Communities with higher connectedness have less crime, better graduation rates, higher average income, less disparity between high- and low-income wage earners, better physical health, lower infant-mortality rates and lower teen-pregnancy rates. 

I recommended to Jason a book you've seen me mention before: Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. Putnam's work (Putnam is a sociologist) pretty much backs up everything Molino said.

More chatter about trash in council chambers last night.

The city continues to wrestle with garbage. Who should pay for its removal and how much?

City Manager Jason Molino, responding to a council request a few weeks ago, presented a report on what 11 other municipalities do, ranging from no garbage pick up to pay-per-bag formulas.

In the end, the council decided, more or less, to have Molino come back with more information. Molino said staff is working on presenting information on models like the one currently employed in Orleans County (per parcel) and a unit-by-unit fee model.

Council President Charlie Mallow asked what's wrong with the current system. Currently, the cost of garbage collection is wrapped into the city's property-tax rate and accounts for about 7 percent of the bill.

One concern, raised by Councilman Sam Barone and others, is that tax-exempt properties (possibly up to 24 percent of parcels in the city) aren't paying for garbage collection, though they benefit from the service.

"I’d like to expand it. I’d like to see leaves picked up," Mallow said. "It seems like a good service now, I don’t see why you would change it. If anything, I hear from elderly people who can’t get rid of their leaves and twigs now. They don’t have a car and have no way to get rid of it."

Mallow also pointed out that by including garbage collection as part of property taxes, the money can be deducted from the homeowner's Federal incomes taxes. Going to a fee-based system would end the tax deduction.

Councilwoman Marriane Clattenburg said she thought the payment method currently in use is fine, but asked Molino to look further into the new system in Auburn. It's like Batavia's, but that city recently added an opt-out/fee system for tax-exempt properties. In Auburn, nonprofits can opt-out of the service, but if they continue to use it, they must pay for it.

She said she was concerned about changes that might lead to higher garbage costs for lower-income families.

“It’s not just the $200,000 house, you also have to think about the million-dollar piece of property," Clattenburg said. "Now you cut their taxes 7 percent, where do you distribute that cost to? Back to the person that’s living in $50,000 house. So to me, that’s the problem with this kind of thing and that’s what I’d be looking at – how that adjusts and how it makes everyone’s cost go up.”

Molino will report back to the council with a narrowed list of alternatives at a future council meeting.

In the little town of Scituate, Rhode Island, everyone has primary health coverage -- even the people who can't afford health insurance.

No, Scituate hasn't become an experiment in some single-payer scheme. People in the town banded together and figured out how to make it happen.

The people of Scituate, Rhode Island did it themselves.

No, we don’t give away health insurance – that’s too darn expensive. Instead, we make sure everyone who lives here has primary care (which only costs $25 a month). By coupling together grants, and a little money from the town, and doing bake sales and walk-a-thons, something called the Scituate Health Alliance decided, 10 years ago that we could fix the health care system ourselves – or, more accurately, build one from scratch — by providing primary care medical for everyone in town who doesn’t have insurance. (We also do flu shots for anyone in town who wants one and organize prenatal classes for anyone who is pregnant.)

While the effort isn't without taxpayer support (read, grants and money from the town), it does show how a community can come together to provide a service.

Fire Chief Ralph Hyde will get his light-rescue vehicle, and it's the one he's requested during at least three City Council meetings now.

After a 20-minute discussion at last night's council meeting, the council sort of collectively shrugged and said, "go ahead."

At the end of the discussion, after saying Hyde has "our blessing," Council President Charlie Mallow motioned his hands like a priest, which drew a laugh.

Hyde has sought permission to convert one of the former ambulances -- the newest one, bought within the past year with a state grant -- into a vehicle that could carry additional rescue equipment that doesn't fit on either Ladder 15 or Engine 12.

Council members dithered, asking him to justify the need for the ambulance as a rescue vehicle. Then they asked him to research the option of selling the ambulance and purchasing a new truck, since the ambulance already has 50,000 miles on it.

Hyde's report Monday night put the cost at a new vehicle at between $65,000 and $189,000.

"It would take a $1,000 to convert it, so it’s far cheaper than going out and getting a new vehicle," Hyde said. "And It’s something that we’ve needed for many years."

Previously, Hyde's argument for the ambulance didn't include using some space inside the vehicle to give people displaced from their homes by fire a place to stay warm.

"In the past, we've had people have to wait outside for 30 minutes to an hour, and had to send firefighters in to retrieve shoes and jackets," Hyde said.

The table and benches inside could also serve as a convenient place to interview fire witnesses.

Councilman Bob Bialkowski complained that he thought the purpose of getting rid of the ambulance service was to save money and he expected all six of the city's ambulances to be sold. Mallow pointed out that previously, the council resolution only authorized the sale of the five older ambulances.

A vote was not required on the decision to convert the ambulance into a light-rescue vehicle since the city owns it and it's already assigned to the Fire Department.

Kyle Christopher Monroe, 20, of 4036 W. Main St. Road, Batavia, is charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the 4th degree and criminal possession of stolen property in the 5th degree. Deputy Sanfratello stopped Monroe for allegedly operating his car without headlights on Route 63 in front of Tops Market at 12:30 a.m. on Oct. 24. The vehicle was a 1997 Dodge Caravan, which had been reported stolen in the City of Batavia on Oct. 21. The license plates were reportedly stolen from another vehicle parked at GCC on Oct. 22. Monroe was jailed on $5,000 bail. He was also charged with unlicensed operation, switched plates, unregistered motor vehicle, uninspected motor vehicle and operating without insurance.

Matthew Ryan Smith, 18, of 1705 Lewiston Road, Alabama, is charged with unlawful dealing with a child. Smith is accused of hosting an underage drinking party on Oct. 12 at his residence. He was arrested at 12:04 a.m. today.

A 16-year-old from Byron has been charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. She was arrested after a K-9 alert on her car while it was on Byron-Bergen High School property during a narcotic sniff sweep of the western parking lot. The arrest was made by K-9 Deputy Brian Thompson.