It didn't take long for a young entrepreneur to fill the space that had been Casino's for decades.

The venerable Le Roy restaurant closed just months ago and Le Roy-native Sam Hillburger said when the space became available, he thought, "perfect."

He grew up with Casino's and liked the location.

His new eatery, Sammy HIlls, opened a week ago and serves hamburgers, hot dogs and plates.

The location is perfect for his ambitions he said, because he just wants a small restaurant where he puts out good food.

"I'm not in it to be big and expand," Hillburger said. "It's a small kitchen where you can put out some good food and call it a day."

Patties are fresh, hand-pressed every morning and the meat sauce and chicken are fresh dipped every morning.

After graduating from Le Roy High Sschool, Hillburger went to a culinary school in New Hampshire. He worked for three years at Alex's Place and for a time at the Avon Inn. Now he's ready to see what he can do on his own.

"I was ready to work for myself," Hillburger said. "I've always done it somebody else's way and I'm ready to do it the way I want to do it."

A lot's changed since Gary Diegelman became an emergency dispatcher 33 years ago.

When Diegelman started there was one computer in the dispatch center. There was a manual typewriter for incident reports and a handwritten blotter book.

Today, a dispatcher sits in front a multi-line phone with six computer screens to track calls, incidents and the location and availability of first responders.

On his first day on the job, Diegelman was told, "here's a chair. Here's your training manuals. Sit down and shut up."

On his second day on the job, there was only one other dispatcher scheduled to work, Tom Graham (now town justice in Oakfield). Graham turned to Diegelman and said, "I hope you know what you're doing because you've got fire dispatch."

Today, a dispatcher is put through a minimum of four months of training before they're allowed to take calls and make dispatches on their own.

All of the changes that have taken place to make the Genesee County Emergency Dispatch Center what it is today is enough change for Diegelman, he said.

"Everybody says you know when it's time, and it's time," Diegelman said during his retirement party at the Sheriff's Office on Park Road. "I've been through so many changes I don't want to go through any more changes. With this new radio system coming and everything else, it's time."

Sheriff Gary Maha praised not only Diegelman's persistence in a very stressful job but the experience and dedication he brought to the department.

"I think he enjoyed the job," Maha said. "He learned a lot and we will miss his experience and his expertise. Like any job, you've got to be able to enjoy the job to be able to stick with it as long as he did."

During his 33 year career, Diegelman received four commendation awards, a certificate of appreciation, a meritorious award for continuous excellence, and a distinguished service award.

The job of a dispatcher alternates between times quiet and calm and then moments if not hours of overwhelming call volume.

Computers, Maha said, haven't necessarily made the job easier. There's more information to track.

It takes a person uniquely suited to the job to make it as a dispatcher, Diegelman said. You've got to be able to handle the lulls as well as the times of frantic work. You've also got to be able to deal with a public that can sometimes be surly and uncooperative.

"You need to be able to hear the public, what they want and be able to help them," Diegelman said. "You get people won don't really know what they want and you need to stir them and help them get to the right spot and then you get people who are belligerent and don't treat you well on the phone and you've got to control your emotions."

And then, he said, "there are a number of people who don't often call an emergency dispatcher and when they do, they want something and they need something and you're the first one they talk to."

The job is all about serving the public, Diegelman said.

One call Diegelman remembers the most is the night a woman called and thought there was an intruder breaking into her house. It's not an unusual kind of call and often such calls prove to be unfounded, but this time, somebody had broken into this woman's house and while Diegelman was still on the phone with her. Somehow during the attack, the intruder realized the woman was on the phone with a 9-1-1 operator and fled.

The intruder was never caught, but the woman suffered no serious injuries and thanked Diegelman later for being there for her.

"You've got to be that person who can take the call and not let it get to you because the next day you've got to go on," Diegelman said.

After 33 years of service, Gary Diegelman will no longer be taking those calls.

LISTEN: Gary DIegelman's final transmission as a dispatcher.

A car carrier semi-truck is disabled and blocking traffic at Oak and Richmond.

Batavia PD responding.

The Yngodess Shop shows off the building facelift and new sign!  We're gearing up for the Wine Walk next weekend. Stop in a see us! Stay update on what's happening at The Yngodess, located at 73 Main St., in the City of Batavia. Visit us on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/TheYngodessShop

The victim of an assault on State Street yesterday afternoon was released from the hospital this morning and his alleged assailant was jailed last night without bail.

Woodrow Clarence Horseman, 37, address unknown, was charged with assault, 2nd.

The name and age of his alleged victim have not been released.

Det. Kevin Czora said Horseman and the alleged victim are acquaintances, and while there may have been a verbal exchange prior to the victim being hit, witnesses said they saw nothing they believed would have provoked an assault.

The alleged assault occurred on State Street at about 3:15.

The alleged victim was reportedly unconscious when transported by Mercy EMS to the Mercy Flight hangar for air transport to Strong.

Well, the morning started out nice. Then the sun disappeared. Here's a picture from Cook Road, Bethany, from my short drive this morning.

The Batavia girls swimming team put together a 94-63 win over Wilson at the GCC pool Thursday and the girls were clearly excited about the victory after the meet.

As the second smallest Class B team in the Monroe League, team wins are hard to come by for Batavia, but the program continues to develop promising young swimmers said Co-head Coach Sarah Geitner.

"We have a lot of very young swimmers, but everybody has fantastic attitude and wants to learn," Geitner said.

Because the school doesn't have its own pool, it can't field a modified team so it's a little tougher to build a varsity program, Geitner said.

"At the start of the season, we weren't sure if there would even be enough girls for a team and now that we're up to 14 girls, we're really excited," Geitner said.

Two girls joined the team this week.

At the top of the young roster are freshman Natalie Amico, junior Emily DiBacco, seventh-grader Elle Fulton and sophomore Brooke Leddon, the team's lone diver.

For the 14 girls on the team, team spirit was in strong supply at Thursday's match. Not only did the swimmers cheer their teammates, they cheered the Wilson swimmers as well.

Geitner said she would like to get more of the girls involved in the YMCA swimming programs to take an interest in joining the Batavia High School team.

"In order to grow a better program, we want to encourage more Y swimmers to come in and take the test," Geitner said.

To purchase prints of photos, click here.

Patricia Ann Herzog, 46, of Ross Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny.  Herzog is accused of stealing $465.11 in merchandise from Walmart.

Nicholas Joseph Mungillo, 19, of Union Square, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Mungillo is accused of stealing $137.93 in merchandise from Bed, Bath & Beyond.

David M. Kohmescher, 32, of McCall Road, Rochester, was arrested on a warrant related to an aggravated unlicensed operation charge. Kohmescher was stopped by Rochester PD for an alleged traffic violation and found to be a warrant suspect from the Town of Le Roy.  He was turned over ot the Sheriff's Office, arraigned in Town of Le Roy Court, and released.

After covering Batavia High School girls swimming at Genesee Community College (post on that tomorrow), I decided to go for a drive through our beautiful county and make a few pictures.  Here are three shots from the drive.

First stop, above, Warboys Road, Byron.

Along North Byron Road.

Darkness on the edge of town ... Judge Road, Oakfield.

Volunteer firefighters from Pavilion, Bethany, Le Roy and Stafford are responding to a barn fire on Cowen Road in York.

Bergen has been asked to fill in at Le Roy's hall. South Byron to stand by in its own hall for Stafford.

A seriously injured man is outside in the area of State Street and Hutchins Place in the city. He is unconscious and was possibly involved in an altercation. Police are on scene and Mercy medics are proceeding there.

UPDATE 3:29 p.m.: A suspect is in custody. At this point, police do not believe a weapon was used. A witness said the unconscious man was punched by another man.

UPDATE 3:34 p.m.: An ambulance is transporting the patient to the airport hangar so he can be flown by Mercy Flight to a hospital.

UPDATE 3:54 p.m.: Mercy Flight is transporting to Strong Memorial Hospital.

Out on Route 5 this morning, kind of in the Bushville area, crews were harvesting potatoes.

The smell of natural gas at Byron-Bergen Central School prompted the principal to pull the fire alarm in order to evacuate students. The natural gas alert came to dispatch through RG&E. Bergen Fire Department is on scene. Mutual aid from Le Roy fire is also requested. The school is located at 6917 W. Bergen Road.

UPDATE 9:29 a.m.: "We do have an odor at the high school in the kitchen area and they are checking out the elementary school as well," says Bergen Command's firefighter Michael Crosier.

Le Roy Fire Chief Tom Wood is in charge of operations at the elementary school

RG&E workers just arrived. The superintendent had the elementary school evacuated as a precaution but no odor is of natural gas is reported and the odor of natural gas was found in the mechanical room.

UPDATE 9:33 a.m.: One engine from Churchville is requested to stand by in its hall to provide coverage for Le Roy. Bergen. Bergen command says the smell of natural gas at the high school is coming from a couple of different areas.

UPDATE 9:49 a.m.: Responders are doing a second walk-thru of the high school. There was the odor of natural gas coming from the pool area. When the walk-thru is completed, Le Roy can go back in service.

UPDATE 10:14 a.m.: Stafford also was put on standby for Le Roy and is back in service, along with Le Roy and Churchville.

UPDATE 10:39 a.m.: Bergen command says RG&E has identified a few leaks and crews are working to repair them. The school will be closed for rest of the day and the children are being dismissed.

UPDATE 10:45 a.m.: Bergen command asks dispatch to have a deputy respond to the Byron-Bergen Central School because there are a lot of parents showing up to get their children and "some aren't too happy about things." A deputy is responding.

UPDATE 10:57 a.m.: A Le Roy fire official sent us the following corrections to this post (which have also been noted above):

1) Churchville was put on standby for Bergen, not Le Roy;

2) Stafford was on standby for Le Roy;

3) No odor of natural gas was reported at the pool;

4) In addition to leaks at the high school, the odor of natural gas was found in the mechanical room of the Elementary School.

UPDATE 11:25 a.m.: This message has been sent to parents at Byron-Bergen.

Dear Byron-Bergen Parents and Guardians,

This is Byron-Bergen Superintendent, Casey Kosiorek. I want to inform that students of the district will not be returning to school today as a result of a gas leak in both buildings. Elementary students may be signed out at the Bergen Fire Hall.  Jr./Sr. High School students may be signed out at the track. Students that can't be picked up will remain at these locations until they can be bussed at their regular time. Lunch will be provided. This evening's Elementary Open House has been cancelled. We will keep you updated as we continue to work through the situation.

UPDATE 11:36 a.m.: The students are evacuated and the schools are closed, according to the superintendent.

UPDATE 11:56 a.m.: The Bergen assignment is back in service. RG&E remains on scene.

After Jerry Greenfield's talk at Genesee Community College yesterday, I stopped to take a picture of the GCC clock framed by autumn color. Greenfield is co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc.

Batavia resident Donald R. Carroll dedicated himself to his community and spent most of his life helping youth in Genesee County: He lived by his motto, “Pay it forward.” He is well known in Western New York for his charity work, which has raised thousands of dollars for many young residents of Genesee County over the last 30-plus years.

Carroll was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last March and succumbed to the disease Wednesday morning. He was 58.

A former employee at Angelica Healthcare, he stopped working after his diagnosis, but he continued to devote his life to raising money to buy toys for his yearly Christmastime party for children in need.

“Don was a very humble man who truly believed in paying it forward,” said Jerry Foster, his sixth-grade teacher, lifelong friend and helper with Don's various charity efforts, including the annual 5K run and Toys for Kids.

“His personal life experience and the lessons he learned from his aunt who raised him, made him the man we all knew. Right up to the end he was concerned about missing this year's Toys for Kids toy distribution party. It was always an emotional time for him, a person who definitely knew the meaning of the words poverty, compassion and caring.”

Carroll graduated from Oakfield-Alabama Central School in 1974. Instead of following the trend of going off to college after getting his diploma, Carroll decided to join the workforce and focus on his passion for helping less fortunate children.

He was born in Kansas City, Kan., but he and one of his sisters ended up being raised by an aunt in Oakfield after losing both parents at an early age.

“I lost my parents when I was 5 and people were very generous to me and my sister at Christmastime. That’s something I never forgot and that’s why I do it,” Carroll said. “I strongly believe all of us become who we are because of life experiences and the way we react to those experiences. We can pick up the ball and run with it, or we can fumble our way through life. I chose to run.”

For his first organized project, he partnered with the Genesee/Wyoming YMCA to raise money to send kids to camp. The fundraiser was successful for 23 years.

Shortly after the camp fundraiser, Carroll switched his focus to helping students with college expenses. He started a 5k and 10k run in Batavia to support the Genesee Community College Foundation.

Carroll collaborated with the YMCA over the years on many different occasions; most recently they combined efforts for Don’s Secret Santa fundraiser to give gifts to children at Christmastime.

Carroll wanted to ensure that underprivileged children would not be disappointed on Christmas morning. This project has recently been expanded to provide grade-school kids with supplies for school and winter coats.

Despite preferring to achieve results rather than garner recognition, Carroll received numerous awards and certificates for his humanitarian efforts. In 1997 Carroll was named Geneseean of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce and he was inducted into the Oakfield-Alabama Central School Hall of Fame in 2009.

MVP Health Care awarded Carroll the Ultimate Game Changer in 2012. The contest was looking for people who make a significant difference in their communities by making them better, healthier places to live.

“All of the game changer finalists are examples of the kinds of everyday heroes MVP wanted to celebrate,” said Denise Gonick, MVP’s president of Operations. “Don’s story, especially, is wonderfully inspiring. Despite all the hardship in his life and, now, his illness, Don has never stopped giving back and paying it forward. It’s a reminder that wherever you are, whoever you are, you can make a difference.”

Foster now serves as a member of the fund committee, which has a mission to carry out Carroll’s last wish.

“His main thing when I talked to him was, he wanted to make sure the kids’ party goes off in December,” Foster said. “I promised him it would.”

The committee will discuss how to proceed with fundraisers, including the Donald R. Carroll 5K that has been part of Summer in the City each year.

Carroll didn’t want to be the center of attention, so he requested that there be no calling hours and no memorial service, Foster said.

“A Celebration of Don’s Life” will be held instead at 7 p.m. Monday at Grace Baptist Church, 238 Vine St.

He is to be cremated and his ashes spread on his Aunt Ruth Anderson’s grave at Hillside Cemetery in East Pembroke.

Memorials may be made to the Donald R. Carroll Toys for Kids Fund, care of Grace Baptist Church, 238 Vine St., Batavia, NY 14020.

New York Times: Iran’s Leader, Denouncing Holocaust, Stirs Dispute

It is possible, Jerry Greenfield told the assembled audience in GCC's Stuart Steiner Theater this afternoon, to run a business that is both socially conscious and profitable.

Ben & Jerry's did it, and it's a culture that remains in place even 12 years after Greenfield and his partner Ben Cohen sold Ben & Jerry's to Unilever for $326 million.

From early on in the company's history, Greenfield said, he and Cohen shared a vision that the company would buy raw materials locally, invest in the communities where Ben & Jerry's  operated and donate to charitable causes.

They also did things like find suppliers such as a bakery in New York that employs disadvantaged workers (the bakery makes brownies for Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream).

"The way we approached it was to think how can we find ways to bring social and environmental concerns right into the day-to-day business activities so it's not central to what we do but just a part of what we do," Greenfield said

Greenfield's appearance was part of Wolcott J. Humphrey III Symposium on Leadership and Community Life.

Several times during his talk, Greenfield referenced "community" --  like where Ben & Jerry's buys product or where Ben & Jerry's donates money or how it supports its employees. He encouraged the audience to support local businesses and businesses that share the customer's values.

"I think everything is essentially local," Greenfield said after his talk. "For Ben & Jerry's, the farmers that we buy milk and cream from are neighbors. We want to support our neighbors."

Students at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia were paid a special visit today by members of the State Police out of the Batavia Barracks, Troop A.

The troopers hosted an ice cream social (ice cream donated by Perry's) and interacted with the students, letting them touch their holsters, pet the K-9, sit in a patrol vehicle and blast the siren themselves.

This past winter Troop A hosted a fundraiser and donated the proceeds to the School for the Blind. They dropped off the donation around Christmas and had so much fun, they decided they wanted to find a reason to come back

"We received a donation and so we thought we would come out and give it to them," Sgt. David Martek said. "It's just something for the kids. We had a good time with them last year and we just thought we'd come back and do something fun for them."

Other uniformed personnel participating today were Trooper Nicole Berostko, Trooper James Jackson, Trooper Michael Swarthout and Sgt. Mike Dembrow.

Martek said, however, it was really the Batavia Barrack's civil staff who put the event together, arranged the donations and were on hand to serve the ice cream.

A $10.8 million upgrade to the county's emergency radio system is expected to greatly improve the reliability and efficiency of emergency communication, but the unintended consequence is that citizens, off-duty first responders and the media could all be in the dark for months or longer once the new system is fully operational.

It's a bit of a surprise to everybody involved, but the new technology being installed by Rochester-based Harris RF is incompatible with even the most advanced consumer scanners currently on the market.

And when new scanners are released -- perhaps as early as the first part of the year -- they are likely to cost as much as $500 to $600 each.

Sheriff Gary Maha is a big believer in the idea that citizens with scanners help solve crimes.  Clearly, when he spoke with The Batavian in the spring about the new radio system, he didn't anticipate the new technology would be incompatible with existing digital/trunking scanners.

"We're few and far between out there," Maha said. "We need all the eyes we can possibly have. If we have a bank robbery, we put that information out over the air so some citizen down the road may see the vehicle we want and can call 9-1-1. It's a benefit to us to have the people out there watching. They're our eyes and ears out there."

In recent weeks, we've had discussions with Maha about the situation and he said he's interested in finding a solution.

Getting scanners into the hands of media outlets is one thing. One solution that's been used in other parts of the country is for local law enforcement to lease emergency radios, with the outgoing transmission capability disabled, to news outlets. These radios cost in the neighborhood of $4,000 each, so it's still an expensive solution.

Another solution is putting streaming feeds of emergency transmissions from the P25 system on the county's Web site. But it's unclear at this point if the county has the available bandwidth or necessary technology to make this happen.

A Web-based solution would help both media outlets and make transmissions available to all county residents who care to tune in.

The Sheriff along with Undersheriff William Sheron met yesterday with executives at Harris.

Sheron said that Harris indicated it's a problem beyond the scope of their work, but said they are aware of other jurisdictions doing exactly what the Sheriff is considering.

"We're certainly aware of the issue and are interested in finding a solution," Sheron said.

Genesee County isn't the only jurisdiction facing this issue, as more and more agencies switch to the new technology and RadioReference.com's forums are filled with discussions about the situation.

What The Batavian has been able to piece together from the forum posts as well as interviewing Gerry Oliver, owner of G&G Communications in Le Roy, is that:

• A company called GRE America made a radio that was designed to be compatible with Phase II technology, but the company went out of business. Its radio was imperfect technology and needed improvements and wouldn't necessarily work with Harris RF communication systems. BRS Phase II TDMA radios can be found on Ebay, but you take your chances buying one.
• A company, The Whistler Group, Inc., has acquired GRE's intellectual property and is planning to enter into the scanner business. It didn't specifically announce a Phase II scanner, but presumably they'll bring one to market, perhaps before the end of March.
• Representatives from Uniden have dropped hints in Radio Reference that the company -- which is the largest manufacturer of scanners -- is close to announcing a Phase II scanner. Estimates of when it will go to market range from fiscal Q1 2014 through the end of 2014.
• Oliver believes that even after the switch-over, fire dispatch will remain on channel 4612, which means scanners currently programmed to pick up that channel will still be able to hear the fire dispatcher. There just won't be any chatter from emergency responders in the field answering the calls for people still listening on old scanners.

Radio Reference is an organization of ham radio operators and scanner enthusiasts. Through RF, volunteers from around the nation make their local emergency communications available on the radioreference.com Web site. Every smartphone app that allows people to listen to police and fire calls on their iPhones and Droids uses RR feeds, so if RR doesn't have working Phase II scanners, then those apps won't work for P25 jurisdictions.

Harris officials would not comment for this story.

The county has until March 1 to stop using one of its current 800 mhz channel so that the bandwidth becomes available for an inter-operable communication channel for federal Homeland Security.

Steven Sharpe, director of emergency communication, said installation begins next month, but current scanners will work on existing emergency channels until the P25 infrastructure is in place and operational.

Migration to the new system for emergency users should begin in December.

Beyond that the schedule of the transition depends on other factors -- from FCC licensing to tower crew availability -- though all equipment is scheduled to be installed by Feb. 1, giving the county one month to meet the 800 mhz channel deadline.

What happens at that point largely depends on what the county can make available to citizens and media for monitoring emergency transmissions, and what Whistler and Uniden make commercially available for purchase.

Oliver said there are a lot of people concerned about the issue, and people should be concerned.

"This is a public safety issue and it's a public information issue," Oliver said. "There's the average listener who pays taxes and thinks they have a right to listen in, but there's also the issue of firemen, off-duty police officers and EMTs -- how are they going to listen?

"I hope there's a solution for safety sake," he added. "Let's say I'm an (off duty) EMT and I live down the street from a call, a scanner might tell me, do I respond? What should I do if I hear nobody's responding? Those are the people who need scanners."