Police are looking for a white male wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket and riding a bicycle in the area of the Dollar General store on East Main Street in Batavia. He reportedly "threw product" at a female customer inside the store after "becoming irate" following some sort of exchange. He was last seen leaving on the bike behind the store, which is located at 412 E. Main St., #3. Batavia PD is on scene.
In recognition of Power Ball reaching a $500 million prize pool, the New York State Lottery has provided Southside Deli with two tickets to this Sunday's Buffalo Bill's game at Ralph Wilson Stadium as a prize for a raffle drawing.
To enter the raffle, you most drop off a losing scratcher at the deli. Write your name and phone number on the back of the ticket. The winner will be selected Friday night in a drawing from all of those losing tickets. (If you don't have a losing ticket, go to Southside, buy some scratchers and leave a loser behind with your name and number on it for the drawing.)
Southside Deli is located at the corner of Ellicott and Liberty streets, Batavia.
The winner of the drawing gets both tickets. There is only one prize.
The future of professional baseball in Batavia seems, for the time being, inexorably tied to the future of baseball in Binghamton and Ottawa, Canada.
Now it seems, contrary to a prior report, the Binghamton Mets will not be moving to Ottawa, which means the Muckdogs won't be moving to Binghamton.
Baseball America reported the move, relying on unnamed sources, and then ESPN reported the deal fell through.
The response from Michael Urda, president of the Binghamton Mets?
Urda, who said he was “tired of answering the same questions every two weeks,” insisted no one from the ownership group or the organization had talked to Silver. He called the idea that “city officials” inquired about acquiring Batavia “ridiculous,” saying, “Who are ‘city officials?’ ”
Urda added that the idea that city officials would pursue a team also does not make sense because the B-Mets ownership group signed a four-year extension on their player development contract (PDC) with the New York Mets in August, and a five-year extension with the city on the lease for NYSEG Stadium prior to last season.
The article points out, however, that those deals would not necessarily be an obstacle to moving the franchise.
On the other hand, the investment group in Ottawa seems to be distancing itself from the Binghamton rumor.
Richard Billings, chief operating officer of Beacon Sports Capitol, told the Ottawa Sun on Tuesday that ESPN’s report was “inaccurate. ... We’re not there yet with a deal, and hopefully we’ll have something announced soon.”
The bottom line: Go ahead and buy those 2013 season tickets, get your outfield sign for your business. Your team still needs you.
Press release:
Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6328, The Clothe a Homeless Hero Act, which was introduced by Rep. Kathy Hochul (NY-26). The legislation will require the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to partner with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and local charities to distribute unclaimed clothing left at airport security checkpoints to homeless and needy veterans and veterans’ families. The bill passed by voice vote with strong support from members of both parties.
“As cold weather approaches across much of the country, this legislation will be a greatly needed help for homeless veterans while we work to end homelessness for good. It is unconscionable that so many of our veterans are homeless, and we must support our returning heroes. I am proud that my legislation to assist veterans passed with the bipartisan support of my colleagues,” Rep. Hochul said.
“Since joining the Committee, Rep. Hochul has worked tirelessly to identify bipartisan solutions to our nation’s problems, and thanks to her thoughtful leadership, the House took a small, but important, step in support of our veterans in passing H.R. 6328. We owe it to our veterans to do all that we can to ensure they get the helping hand needed to get back on their feet when they return from the battlefield.”
According to the VA, approximately 75,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and about 20,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been homeless within the last five years.
Hochul has consistently supported the needs of veterans throughout her time in Congress. She introduced the Vocational Employment and Technical Skills Act (VETS Act), which would make it easier for veterans to receive professional certification in skills they performed while members of the armed services. Rep. Hochul cosponsored additional legislation to encourage the hiring of veterans, including the Hiring Heroes Act that modernizes and improves programs to assist our veterans with the transition from service member to civilian life.
A robbery just occurred at the Dollar General store on East Main Street in Batavia. The suspect fled on foot, heading east of the store toward Harvester Avenue. The suspect is described as a black male, 6-feet tall, about 240 pounds, wearing a camel-colored jacket. Multiple police units are responding to the store and the area. The suspect "pointed a pocket at (the clerk), indicating he had a gun."
UPDATE 6:53 p.m.: The suspect is further described as having a mustache, a small Afro hairstyle, and also wearing jeans.
UPDATE 7:55 p.m. (by Howard): On the scene, Sgt. John Peck said the suspect is described as a possible Hispanic male, medium skin tone, probably in his 20s, wearing a hooded Carhartt-type jacket.
The suspect handed the clerk a note "threatening harm" and pointed to his hip indicating a gun possibly in his jacket pocket or under his coat.
The clerk complied with the demands of the note and opened the drawer. The man reached in and grabbed all of the cash out of the drawer.
Peck said detectives are reviewing video footage from the store's surveillance cameras.
It's possible the suspect has been in the store before.
The suspect was last seen running toward Pizza Hut.
"As far as we know it was just him," Peck said.
Local law enforcement responded quickly after the robbery was reported, Peck said. Besides three Batavia PD patrols, the State Police and the Sheriff's Office had cars in the area.
"By sheer luck, we were very, very near," Peck said. "We don't think any vehicle was involved. We saturated the area and turned up nothing so far."
As near as investigators can conclude, 25-year-old Quayshawn D. Smith was tired, drunk and driving a car with broken suspension April 22 when his 1997 white Buick Century crossed the center yellow line on Lewiston Road and smashed head-on into a minivan driven by a 74-year-old Oakfield resident.
Both Smith, of Mill Street, Medina, and Rosemary Calla, of South Main Street, were dead before the first emergency responders arrived.
While Sheriff's Office investigators draw no conclusions in a recently completed final report on the accident, the three proximate probable causes for the accident are contained in witness statements, observations by investigators and a medical examiner's report.
The ME's report took many months to complete, which is why the investigation wasn't closed until a week or so ago.
According to the Monroe County ME, Smith's BAC was between .08 and .12 (depending on whether the urine or blood sample is used) at the time of the crash. He also had marijuana in his system.
Two people from Geneseo told investigators that they had been with Smith the night before the accident drinking, first at local bars and later at an after-hours party at a residence.
Before going to the house party, Smith gave his car keys to a friend so he wouldn't drive, according to a statement.
Another more recent acquaintance in his statement said he obtained the keys prior to the party, but when he thought he was going to walk home, gave them to Smith's friend.
Smith's friend denied having the keys at the party.
The acquaintance ended up staying at the party and then got a ride home from Smith. Smith's friend was also a passenger in the car.
According to the acquaintance's statement, Smith was weaving while driving the two passengers back to the friend's house, but he attributed the weaving to Smith being tired, not drunk.
Back at the house, the three men were going to get something to eat, but nothing in the house appealed to them, so Smith decided to leave. Smith's friend offered him a place to sleep, but Smith declined and said he was OK to drive.
The friend said he didn't consider Smith drunk, just tired.
At 6:10 a.m., another Geneseo resident who was driving to Clarence reportedly saw a white sedan pulled over on Route 63 south of the Peoria Curve. The driver observed a man in dark clothing with a hoodie pulled over the side of his head and walking back toward the driver's side door as the witness passed.
There's no evidence this was the same white sedan driven by Smith, however, the Geneseo resident said the white sedan eventually caught up with him (he said he was driving 55 mph) and was weaving in the roadway, sometimes acting as if he wanted to pass, even over a double-yellow line, and the swerving back into the shoulder of the road.
At Route 20 and Route 63, the two cars went separate ways, with the white sedan continuing northbound on Route 63. The Geneseo resident said he intentionally delayed his left turn onto Route 20 so he could observe the driver of the white sedan, whom he described as a black male.
The Geneseo resident never called police until after he learned of a white sedan being invovlved in a double-fatal accident on Route 63.
The accident was reported at 6;46 a.m. in the area of 7936 Lewiston Road, Batavia.
Smith's car crossed the double-yellow line and the two cars hit head-on with the impact area being about 3/4 of the front of each vehicle.
The black box (EDR, for electronic data recorder) in the Buick indicated that Smith wasn't wearing a seat belt, but emergency responders all reported finding Smith strapped in by both a lap belt and shoulder harness. Sgt. William Scott who prepared the reported concluded the EDR reading was in error on that point.
The EDR recorded the Buick's speed at 52 mph just prior to impact.
Scott could not recover the data from the 2002 Mazda minivan driven by Calla because its software was incompatible with the software used by both the Sheriff's Office and State Police.
Using mathematical calculations, Scott concluded Calla's speed just prior to impact was 39.93 mph.
"It is possible that the driver's age or a recognition of an impending collision could have allowed the driver of the Mazda to reduce speed just prior to impact," Scott wrote in his report.
While Smith was over the legal limit for blood alcohol content at the time of the crash, and had been up all night, according to witnesses, the suspension on his car was also damaged.
It had a broken left rear trailing arm. It's the piece that connects the axle to the frame and keeps the axle from moving forward and backward.
Rust on the part indicates it had been broken many months, or longer, prior to the accident and that Smith had been driving the Buick in that condition for some time.
It was probably moving backward and forward two to three inches, according to Scott's report.
"This would have been enough to give the feeling that the vehicle's rear end was steering the car to one side or the other," Scott wrote.
Investigator William Ferrando obtained Smith's mobile phone from the vehicle and concluded Smith had been neither making a phone call nor texting prior to the accident.
The phone proved crucial to making a notification to a member of Smith's family.
While Smith was living in Medina at the time of the crash, not long before he lived in Brooklyn and his neighbors didn't know how to contact his family.
Ferrando was able to call Smith's aunt using Smith's contact list on the phone. The aunt at first didn't believe Ferrando was with law enforcement because Smith had once pulled a similar prank on her. The aunt told Ferrando that Smith's mother was deceased and she didn't know how to contact his father.
Smith had been enrolled in a carpentry program in Medina, but was employed at Brunner International at the time of the accident.
One of Calla's daughters was notified of her mother's passing that Sunday morning shortly after the accident by a uniformed deputy who went to her house in Oakfield.
A two-car accident with a minor injury is reported at Bethany Center and Ellicott Streets roads. Stafford fire and Mercy EMS are responding. A person is complaining of neck pain.
UPDATE 7:01 p.m.: Stafford is back in service.
UPDATE 7:09 p.m.: A 31-year-old female is being taken to UMMC with complaints of back, shoulder and neck pain.
Press release:
Several employees of Liberty Pumps contributed to the purchase of items to be shipped to help with Super Storm Sandy relief efforts. Items sent by Liberty employees included cleaning supplies, first-aid supplies, toiletries, food items, paper products, baby items, batteries, winter clothing, pet items and much more.
Also contributing to this shipment was C&M Forwarding, a local trucking company that shipped this huge pallet at no charge!
Press release:
As part of the City of Batavia’s Strategic Plan the city is redeveloping its Web site and is looking for community members to submit their pictures.
Anyone that would like to submit their picture(s) for consideration to be used on the city’s Web site should e-mail the pictures, preferably as a JPEG, to jfreese@batavianewyork.com.
Pictures will be accepted at any point throughout the year; however, to kick off the development of the new site, the first round of pictures should be received by Monday, December 17th.
The photographer of any picture selected for use on the city’s Web site will be identified on the Web site and will be asked to complete a release for the city to use the picture(s).
Possible subjects to consider would be seasonal pictures throughout the community, landmarks, fireworks at Dwyer Stadium, Muckdogs, sporting events, community events, parks, and any other subjects that represent Batavia and will highlight its attributes.
Please call 345-6333 with any questions.
'Tis the season to support your local business owners ...
Today we feature Cory Richenberg, Hardcor Audio, Mike Barrett, Barrett's Batavia Marine, and Phil Pies, Max Pies Furniture.
A woman and two children reportedly suffered minor injuries in a two-car accident in the area of 8294 Slusser Road, Batavia.
East Pembroke fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.
UPDATE 3:03 p.m.: Fire police requested to the scene.
UPDATE 3:42 p.m.: Two patients being transported to UMMC. Sounds like very minor injuries, if any.
Press release:
The Batavia Area Jaycees will be out driving around on December 9th looking at all the homes that are decorated for the Holiday Season. Judging will take place within the City of Batavia limits.
The following categories will be looked at:
· Most Traditional
· Simple & Elegant
· Most Colorful
· Most Commercial
· Overall
This contest and the awards to be given out are meant as a friendly community project. If you have any questions about the contest, you can contact the Batavia Area Jaycees at bajny@yahoo.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BataviaAreaJaycees, on the Web at http://www.bajny.com/ or leave the Jaycees a message at 585-343-5775.
People have asked if they could pay by credit card, and now they can. Yesterday, I checked off a long-standing item on my to-do list and set up credit card processing for The Batavian.
To pay by credit card, you have two options:
Of course, PayPal is still an option. Click here for a page with the options.
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As a young man in the late 1970s with a wife and two children, Leo Hunter decided he needed a career, not just a job, to help support his growing family.
At the military recruitment station, Hunter had about an hour wait before he would raise his right hand, swear an oath and become a United States Marine. He asked a captain if he could use a phone and call his wife.
He told her what he was about to do.
"Well, if that’s really what you want to do, we’ll just have to live with that," Hunter recalled his wife saying.
He then asked her if he had received any mail.
Yes, she said, something that looked like it was from the government and a couple of other items. He asked her to open up the letters.
One was from the FBI, offering Hunter a chance to advance in his application to become an agent and the other was from the State Police inviting him to take an agility test as the next step in his application process.
Hunter never became a Marine.
He chose the State Police over the FBI, reasoning that the FBI might move him anywhere in the U.S., but at least as a trooper, he would always be in New York.
On Friday, friends and family will gather to celebrate Hunter's 30-year career as a trooper and criminal investigator. He retired earlier this month.
"I don't think I would have gotten the kind of training I wanted if I had joined the Marines," Hunter said. "In the Marines, they just tell you what you will do, and who knows what that would have been. I'm sure I would have been in public service, but who knows how long I would have been in the military. I always had some idea of doing something as a career."
Hunter's life as a public servant hasn't been confined, though, to just wearing a badge. He also did something right for society by raising six children, from the time they were ages 7 to 13, as a single father.
All of his children are adults now and leading good lives.
Thameena lives in Batavia and is a nurse manager at ECMC. Shabaana works at Dent Sleep Study in Buffalo. Saad (Leo Hunter Jr.) is a staff sergeant in the Army, a combat engineer with the 101st, and will be deployed to Afghanistan next month. Saad has three children.
Yasmeen is a wife and mother living in Batavia with one son and another child on the way. Hunter's twins, Sumiyya and Safiyya, both received track scholarships (North Carolina and SUNY Buffalo). Sumiyya, who was a Division I Big South champion in the 800 meter, now works for the IRS. Safiyya just returned from a two-year Peace Corps mission to Mozambique.
Hunter said he raised his children with the idea that he was there to be a parent, not a friend.
"As teenagers, we were horrible," Thameena said. "In being a cop, he had to do what was right to raise us. Then we didn't like it, but now we understand it. We appreciate it. If he hadn't done it, we probably wouldn't be here."
It's been said that it takes a village to raise a child. To hear Leo tell it, in the case of the Hunter clan, it took all of Batavia.
There were parents, friends, neighbors and family members, along with other cops, who all looked out for the five girls and one boy Leo was trying to raise on his own while working a demanding job after he and his wife divorced.
"They were the other eyes I might need," Hunter said. "They shared the same concerns and my kids knew this. They benefited from that love and caring that we found in this community."
It must have been crazy around the Hunter household on Montclair Avenue. Leo was a soccer coach and Girl Scout leader in a home of children and their friends always coming and going.
Every day Hunter made sure he knew what his children were doing and where they were, Thameena said. As the oldest child, she helped around the house, especially with the younger children, and each night, Hunter made sure the chores were done, homework completed and the whole bunch in bed by bedtime.
As teens, of course, the kids would have social lives that would take them out of the house, but Hunter kept tabs on them.
"We would go out at night and when we came back, he would ask questions," Thameena said. "We always thought he was being nosy, but he was being a dad. He always knew what was going on."
Hunter had that detective's skill and knowledge in interrogations.
Thameena remembered one time when one of the children damaged an item in the house and Hunter wanted to know which one did it. She said they laugh about it now, but Leo placed each child in a different room of the house so they couldn't talk to each other and get some story straight, just like a good detective would do with multiple suspects. He then went from room to room and questioned each one individually.
Hunter figured out who did the deed, got a confession, and there was an appropriate punishment.
"To this day, he still knows what's going on with us," Thameena said. "He can tell when something is going on (in our lives). He doesn't have to ask. He knows it. That's something amazing about him. I'm like, 'wow.' "
Leo is a proud father, he said.
"I remember going through it," Hunter said. "I always wanted them to be happy. I always wanted to be there for them and now they have grown up and they're living successful lives, I look at that, I look back and I say, 'wow.' I wish I could take all the credit, but they had wonderful teachers and a wonderful family."
A Buffalo native, Hunter grew up on Northland Avenue in Buffalo, attended McKinley Vocational School and then Canisius College.
His first assignment as a trooper was with SP Boston, then Falconer. After awhile, Hunter was offered an assignment with Troop T, patrolling the Thruway, but that wasn't a route he wanted to take, so he got himself assigned to communications in Batavia. That gave him time to study for his sergeant's exam. Over the next few years, his career included Franklinville, Olean, Wellsville, Boston, Clarence and back to Batavia as station commander.
After two more years running the Batavia station, he was offered a slot in the Criminal Bureau of Investigation. He worked as an investigator from 1994 until retirement.
"Being a backroom investigator is probably one of the bigger responsibilities as an investigator in the State Police because they're not just working on one thing," Hunter said. "They're working on a multitude of things."
At any one time, Hunter's caseload might include child sex crimes, burglaries, fraud and other financial crimes, assaults and even homicides.
The most stressful cases, however, according to Hunter, are the hostage situations, a threatened murder or suicide, where the negotiator must talk somebody out of doing something with permanent consequences.
"When someone is at that line of giving up hope and taking the life of themselves or somebody else, I still have to take a deep breath," Hunter said. "You're traveling to a situation and you just don't know how those things are going to turn out."
For the past 12 years, Andre Dunlap has been Hunter's partner in CBI, but more than that, Dunlap said, Hunter has been his mentor.
It was Hunter who pulled Trooper Dunlap aside at a crime scene once and told him he should apply for investigations.
"I told him I wasn't ready," Dunlap said. "He told me, 'no, you're ready.' "
One of the things that has made Hunter a good investigator, Dunlap said, and something he tries to emulate, is to be sensitive.
"Whether it's a child abuse case, a homicide, a stolen credit card or a rape, handle every case like it was a family member involved," Dunlap said. "Talk to not only victims like they were family members, but suspects, too. Give them respect and they will respect you."
In retirement, Hunter, 55, is staying physically active, he said. He still plays racquet ball (a game Dunlap taught him), though he said injuries have slowed down his basketball game. He's also taken up archery, with the help of a 75-year-old neighbor.
Hunter is also planning on getting married again soon. His fiancé is Dawn Rindel, a clerk in Le Roy Town Court.
As for going back to work, there's usually jobs in insurance investigations and that might be an option, but for now, Hunter wants to keep his free time open for his family, especially his grandchildren.
He looks back on his career and he doesn't talk so much about the cases he handled, but the people he met. He said those are the memories that will stay with him.
"I always felt that even with 30 years on the job, you're always learning something from them, even the new people," Hunter said. "I always felt that if you can learn something from somebody, you learn about yourself."
He pauses and adds, "An older investigator told me once, 'When you have your family and your friends, you’re a wealthy man.' I'm not as wealthy as some, but I'm a wealthy man."
Photo below: Leo Hunter's children (photo submitted by Andre Dunlap).
If you've previously LIKED Valle's on Facebook, you can still enter the contest. You just need to register. Click here to LIKE Valle's on Facebook and/or register for the contest.
A proposal by the city clerk to raise the solicitor and vendor license fee from $25 to $200 failed to fly with city council members Monday night.
While some increase is appropriate, council members said, and other fee hikes met no opposition, the solicitor increase might discourage some street sellers.
"My first reaction was a very strong concern that local vendors are part of our community and probably something like this could present difficulties to some of those vendors," Councilman John Canale said.
Councilman Brooks Hawley called the increase excessive. He said he could support an increase to $100.
So did Councilman Pierluigi Cipollone.
"It's a huge jump," Cipollone said. "Driving in here tonight I was thinking about the hot dog vendor who was here this summer. He makes maybe 10 percent or 20 percent on a sale, so he would have to sell 250 hot dogs and a Coke to recoup (the fee)."
A fee half of that proposed might be more manageable for such a vendor, Cipollone said.
Under city ordinances, any solicitor or vendor who wants to hawk wares or food on the sidewalk or go door-to-door must apply and pay for a license.
Batavia has the lowest fee of any small city in Western New York, said City Clerk Heidi Parker (inset photo), at least among the dozen or so she surveyed. Typically, the fee is at least $300 and one municipality charges $500 while another charges $25 per day.
Raising the rate would help address some problems with door-to-door solicitors, Parker said.
"We're hoping that by increasing the fee, vendors will take their actions more seriously," Parker said. "At $25, if you lose your license it's not a big deal, but at $200, we hope vendors will be more respectful of the people they're visiting."
Councilwoman Rose Mary Christian said she is very concerned about the conduct of some solicitors, but is also concerned about the people who seem to go door-to-door posing as solicitors but might have more nefarious activities in mind.
She recalled calling the police on one suspicious character in her neighborhood over the summer, but when police arrived within minutes of her call, he couldn't be found.
Her request: That solicitors be required to wear and display a conspicuous ID badge.
"I want it pinned right on them," Christian said.
In the past year, Parker said, 27 vendors and solicitors paid for licenses and total revenue was $675. At $200, she said, only four would need to pay for a license for the city to maintain close to the same level of revenue on the licenses.
No decision was made at Monday's conference meeting. Parker will bring back a revised proposal at a future meeting.
The council expressed no opposition to raising the tax search fee -- for real estate transactions to find delinquent taxes and utility bills -- from $5 to $10, or the bounce check fee from $15 to $20.
On the tax search fee, Parker said, "It's not a charge to taxpayers. It's a fee for service."
The tax search fee hasn't been raised in 15 years and Batavia has, and will still have, the lowest rate among the municipalities Parker surveyed. Total revenue will rise about $1,500.
On bounced checks, the raise in revenue will be minimal since the city receives very few overdraft notices each year.
Local artist Brandi Bruggman was at Coffee Culture on Court Street this evening painting the windows of the coffeehouse with snowmen, snow-covered trees and wreathes for the holidays.
Submitted by Lisa M. Compton:
Most people in Le Roy have some opinion on what should be done with the Wiss Hotel. It sits in a dilapidated state on a highly visible corner of Main Street, and is one of the most prominent buildings people see as they are coming and going about their business. It is an embarrassment, an eyesore and a vivid reminder of the problems that have plagued Main Street over the years.
Like just about everyone I talked to, I want something to be done, but what should that something be? I always liked the building, and after hearing so much conflicting information about its condition, I really wondered how bad things really were and if the building was indeed a lost cause.
Inspired by a “Main Street” talk given at a village meeting by architect Rick Hauser, several of us gathered together a small group of like-minded curious people and hired Mr. Hauser’s firm, In.Site:Architecture, to do an assessment of the building as well as a feasibility study that would show whether any efforts to fix the building up were worth it from a financial perspective.
The study shows the building has high potential to be a viable business entity consisting of five apartments on the second and third floors, and several commercial establishments on the first floor. There is a detailed financial plan with ideas for securing funding.
One goal is to form a community Limited Liability Company (LLC) over the next few months to raise the $400,000 needed to get the project off the ground. We think that a LLC is a good way for local investors who may have either services or finances to invest, to participate in a project like the Wiss, and it also keeps profits within the community.
We will be holding a meeting on Thursday, November 29 at 7 p.m. in the Le Roy Village Hall where Mr. Hauser will be giving the talk “Main Street LLC, Community Entrepreneurism and the Case for Private Sector Rehab." It is open to everyone interested in finding out more about the Le Roy New York LLC and the Wiss project.
I am excited about the potential for transforming the Wiss into an attractive part of our community’s busiest intersection, and for doing it in a way that creates a return for local investors and maintains the character of our downtown.
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