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State may require county to put elections commission on separate network at cost of $20K or more
There's nothing "cast in concrete" yet, Information Technology Director Steve Zimmer told members of the County Legislature at the Ways and Means Committee meeting on Wednesday but New York State is considering requiring all counties in the state to segregate the computer networks of elections commissions from any other computer network in the county.
It's not clear yet, Zimmer said, exactly what the state will require but in Genesee County, at a minimum, that might mean a new high-speed Internet line going into County Building #1, where the election commission operates, with new switches, and taking the commission's computers off the network currently in that building.
That will cost at least $20,000, Zimmer said.
What he doesn't know is if he will also be required to install a separate fiber optic from County Building #1 to the main data center to further segregate the elections commission from the rest of the county network.
No official directive has been issued yet but Zimmer expects the state will mandate some change in advance of the 2020 election.
"Everyone is scared to death of the Russian hackers or that something is going to happen with the 2020 election, so the state is coming up with a lot of ‘what ifs’ and 'what do we need to do to improve security in local elections offices,' " Zimmer said.
Batavia man admits in Federal Court to accessing child pornography on public library computer
A 55-year-old Batavia man who was arrested in January 2017 after staff at the Richmond Memorial Library observed him viewing what appeared to be child pornography on library computer entered a guilty plea yesterday in Federal Court to a count of access with intent to view child pornography.
Robert Roy Richmond faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced Aug. 27 by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford.
An FBI investigator was contacted by local law enforcement after a library employee who was working in the DVD section saw a man at a computer looking at a pornographic picture of a child in fishnet stockings.
As soon as the man left, the employee shut down the computer and put an out-of-order sign on it in order to preserve any potential evidence until police arrived.
A subsequent forensic examination revealed that there were seven images on the computer which met the definition of child pornography.
Richmond was identified as the suspected computer user because he had to input his library card number to access the system. He was also identified as a suspect by the employee through a photo lineup.
Fire reported at Le Roy Meadows Apartments
A possible fire is reported at 18 Genesee St., Apt. 5 E, in the Le Roy Meadows Apartments. Smoke is reported in the building. Le Roy fire and ambulance are responding along with the city ladder unit.
Caledonia Fire Department is on standby. Everyone is out of the structure, but firefighters on scene are unable to make entry and request a second alarm.
Bergen and Pavilion are called along with a fast team out of Mumford. Stafford to fill in at Le Roy station.
UPDATE 4:43 a.m.: The second alarm is canceled. Fire is extinguished, per command. Ventilating structure.
Structure fire reported on Ridge Road in Elba
A structure fire is reported at 4325 Ridge Road in Elba. The initial call was for the smell of something burning inside the residence. The location is between Fisher and Quaker Hill roads. Elba Fire Department is responding along with Mercy medics. A person at the scene is said to have trouble breathing.
Upstate completes purchase of former Alpina plant
Press release:
Upstate Niagara Cooperative announced today that they have completed their acquisition of a yogurt plant located at the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park in Batavia.
The Western New York-based dairy cooperative had signed a purchase agreement on Feb. 28th to buy the facility from Climb Your Mountain Inc. in a transaction facilitated by Harry Davis & Company.
“We’re very excited to have finalized our purchase of this manufacturing plant in Batavia,” said Larry Webster, CEO of Upstate Niagara Cooperative. “As a dairy cooperative owned by farm families throughout the region, this acquisition is located central to our member milk supply.
"This production-ready facility is only a few years old and represents an investment by our member-owners towards continued and long-term growth for our cooperative. We look forward to adding manufacturing jobs within the Genesee County community while offering additional products and manufacturing capabilities to our customers.”
Exact plans regarding when the plant will reopen and what products will be manufactured at the facility have yet to be announced.
The Upstate Niagara Cooperative is continuing to work with the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) on this project. In the last decade, dairy products manufacturing companies have invested more than $500 million into facilities in the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park and Genesee County has more than 1,500 acres of shovel-ready sites to accommodate additional growth in the dairy, food and beverage industry.
“The Genesee County Economic Development Center is pleased that the Upstate Niagara Cooperative is strengthening their investment into producing excellent products and great careers at the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park,” said Steve Hyde, president and CEO of the GCEDC.
“With our tradition of agriculture and strong farm families, as well as our infrastructure assets, shovel-ready sites, and workforce talent, Genesee County is truly a dairy, food and beverage powerhouse.”
The Upstate Niagara Cooperative and its members were recognized earlier this year by the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce as their 2019 Agricultural Organization of the Year.
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GC Interagency Council has two $1,000 scholarships to offer, deadline to apply is May 1
Press release:
The Genesee County Interagency Council is pleased to announce that we will be offering two $1,000 scholarships.
The first scholarship will be for a high school senior living in and attending high school in Genesee County, in good academic standing, and majoring in Human Services, Social Work, Sociology or Psychology (at any college).
The second scholarship will be for a student currently attending Genesee Community College, in good academic standing and majoring in Human Services, Sociology or Psychology.
Because the goal of this scholarship is to support those students who have a strong drive to contribute to the field of Human Services, special consideration will be given to those students who have already demonstrated a commitment to the field through their employment, volunteer, academic, or extracurricular pursuits.
The deadline for applications is Wednesday, May 1. The awardee will be notified by June 1 and presented at our June 19th picnic meeting.
Our last year’s scholarship recipient was from Batavia High School and prior to that, Byron-Bergen!
If you have any questions, or to obtain an application, please contact your area high school guidance counselor or contact Amy Swanson at Amy.Swanson@co.genesee.ny.us
Local historian documenting Genesee County's 'rich and fascinating legal history' for state project
Above, Michael Eula, Ph.D., Genesee County historian, looks at a letter from the New York State Bar Association, inviting Genesee County to participate in the Historical Society of the New York Courts’ County Legal History Project.
Genesee County is among more than a dozen counties which have been invited by the New York State Bar Association to participate in the Historical Society of the New York Courts’ County Legal History Project.
The project entails documenting the law itself in each county and how it has changed through the years, said Genesee County Historian Michael Eula, Ph.D.
Eula received a letter April 1 from Leah Nowotarski, of Warsaw, a member of the Committee for Bar Leaders of New York State, requesting Genesee County’s participating in the history project. According to Nowotarski, a number of counties, including Clinton, Dutchess, Franklin, Rockland and Westchester, have already completed their histories, which are posted on the Historical Society of the New York Courts website.
Other counties which have also joined the project are Albany, Broome, Columbia, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Nassau, Ontario, Putnam, Queens, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady and Wyoming.
The history project is being led by Jonathan Lipmann, retired chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals; Stephen P. Younger, past president of the New York State Bar Association; and Marilyn Marcus, executive director of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.
“This is an opportunity to showcase Genesee County’s rich and fascinating legal history, and how that legal history functions within the wider context of New York and national history,” Eula said. “Genesee County laws, and the courts that administer them, are examples of how the traditions are continuously being adjusted to the changes evident in the development of Genesee County’s history.”
Eula has chosen the title “Flexible Tradition: the History of the Courts in Genesee County, New York, 1802 to the Present” for his submission to the project.
While he has already begun research on the project, he anticipates it will take him a year to complete.
“Being county historian is not the only thing I do,” Eula said. “I am also the County Records Management Officer, so at best, I get to spend an hour and a half a day on the Legal History Project.”
Eula said he is happy Genesee County was included in the Historical Society of the New York Courts’ County Legal History Project.
“I’m going to look at courthouses we have had in Genesee County, their architecture and the famous cases which were held there,” Eula said. “I will also look at the law itself in Genesee County and how it has changed to keep up with a changing society.”
Eula said he has a whole archive of documents from the 1800s to search through. There is information on civil cases, criminal cases and much more, he said.
He will also explore how punishment has changed over time and how we define family law.
One of the most famous cases in Genesee County history is that of local businessman R. Newton Rowell, who walked into their bedroom and found his wife with her lover Johnson Lynch, the great-grandson of President John Adams. Rowell shot and killed Lynch, but the jury acquitted him.
“That is an example of how society and views have changed,” Eula said. “He probably wouldn’t have been acquitted today. I will also be looking at the law in terms of what is and isn’t acceptable behavior in Genesee County.”
Another interesting fact -- most people don’t realize we had slaves in Genesee County until New York abolished slavery in 1827.
“Even before then, as far back as 1813, slaves who were accused of a crime were given the right to a trial by jury,” Eula said.
The historian said it is interesting to note how a court itself is structured.
“You always have the judge on a platform, so we have to look up,” Eula said. “That tells us we are in a place of authority. Words used by lawyers in a courtroom, as time has gone on, have become almost like a foreign language.”
Eula will also explore how the legal world affects a typical resident of Genesee County, such as a hard-working farmer who is summoned as a juror. When he comes off the fields into a courtroom, it is a very different world from his normal one, Eula said.
Eula will also be submitting photos with his essay.
“I am very happy the Bar Association included Genesee County in its project,” Eula said.
Photo by Virginia Kropf.
Hawley announces expansion of Gold Star Families' Scholarship
A statement sent today from Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) following the expansion of the MERIT Scholarship to veterans who lose their lives or become disabled in the line of duty.
“Gold Star Families and disabled veterans have been neglected for far too long and today we are finally righting an injustice and fulfilling our obligation to them," Hawley said. "We will never be able to fully repay our veterans and servicemembers for their role in protecting our nation but I am proud to have led the statewide bipartisan effort to see that the MERIT Scholarship is expanded.
"It is paramount to cover all of our nation’s heroes and their families under this program, and I thank Governor Cuomo for doing the right thing.”
Batavia native helping students with reading and more in the Peace Corps in Jamaica
Liz Richards, a Batavia native, has been serving with the Peace Corps in Jamaica, where she is involved with a project called Camp GLOW – Girls Leading Our World. Pictured above are the young girls she worked with during the four-day camp this year. Richards will co-direct the fourth annual camp in Jamaica in August.
Joining the Peace Corps is something Liz Richards had always thought about.
A 2009 graduate of Batavia High School and a 2012 graduate of Brockport State College, Richards earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at the New School in 2014.
She didn’t decide to follow her dream of joining the Peace Corps until she was working for a tech company in Manhattan, she said.
“While there, I was responsible for corporate responsibility and service initiatives and realized how important volunteerism was to me, and that I wanted to build a career out of community development,” Richards said. “Peace Corps was the best way to do that, and the experience so far has really been incredible.”
Richards is a Peace Corps volunteer in the education sector in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica. Her main project is literacy tutoring for struggling readers in grades one through six.
“But being a volunteer means so much more than that,” Richards said. “We learn about each others’ cultures, seasons and holidays, both inside and outside the classroom.
"So far, students have loved seeing pictures of Western New York snowstorms, learning about Thanksgiving and celebrating both countries’ Independence Days, where we talked about our shared history as former British colonies.”
Right now, Richards is working on two big projects, one that will bring a wide range of opportunities to her school and one that will benefit teenage girls all across the island, both of which she said are incredible passion projects.
Over the last year, Richards has been working with teachers to address some major needs at their school, including getting parents more involved in school life, giving girls safe and gender-equitable access to sports, and improving the overall quality of physical education classes, which right now are sparse due to lack of access to proper equipment, she said.
The result was a partnership with a Peace Corps Small Grants Program called “Girls Netting Success.” This project will address all of the needs above, and more, by helping them start a netball team for girls in grades five and six, Richards said.
It will also give students the opportunity to socialize with each other and regional schools through Jamaica’s national primary school netball league. In addition, Richards said it will help teachers guide the girls toward healthier lives; give parents an outlet to participate through extracurricular activities; and will be truly gender equitable by giving boys a safe place to play netball and football, too, and will allow teachers to give more comprehensive physical education classes.
Another project Richards is really excited about is Camp GLOW, which stands for Girls Leading Our World. The first Camp GLOW was hosted by Peace Corps volunteers in 1995 in Romania, and in August, Richards will co-direct the fourth annual Camp GLOW in Jamaica.
Purpose of this four-day camp, Richards said, is to empower campers with lessons about self-care and confidence, healthy living, healthy relationships and goal setting. Campers will then take these skills back to their communities and continue to empower themselves and others.
“We are excited to be partnering with a Jamaican organization called 'Young Women of Purpose', which specializes in career training for young women ages 13 to 25,” Richards said. “The most exciting part of this camp is watching campers see themselves in the women who facilitate workshops and learn from us the qualities that strong women have in common across borders.”
Richards said it is exciting to show the community that means the most to her – her Batavia community – some of the things happening in the Jamaican communities, which have opened their hearts and stories to her, and in some way have become her “home away from home.”
“Anyone is welcome to contribute, and even a dollar can make a big difference,” Richards said. “Jamaicans have a saying ‘wan, wan koko, full basket,’ that means ‘we fill our baskets one coconut at a time.’ But even sharing stories like these is a contribution.
"The most important thing Peace Corps has taught me is that we are one global community and we build friendships by sharing our stories.”
Anyone wishing to support Richards efforts in Jamaica can log on to Camp GLOW Jamaica 2019 Peace Corpshere and make a donation.
Submitted photos courtesy of Liz Richards.
Batavia women's senior hockey team wins area's Scottsville tournament
Submitted photo and write-up by Head Coach Craig Jackson:
The Batavia “Babes on Blades” women’s senior hockey team finished off another strong season this year by competing in and winning the area's annual Scottsville Women’s Senior Hockey Tournament during the last weekend of March for the second year in a row.
In the first game, the Batavia team defeated the always tough Buffalo “Stampede” by a 6 to 1 score.
The second game of the tournament was against the Brockport “Ladies on Ice.” Batavia started fast and were up 3 to 0 at the end of the first period. Brockport tightened up with the teams trading goals. Batavia won the game be a 6 to 2 score.
In the third game of the tournament, Batavia played against the host team Scottsville “Chicks with Sticks.” This game was more of a defensive game between the two teams with Batavia ending up with a 3 to 0 win.
The championship game finished with a rematch against the host Scottsville team again. Batavia scored the first goal about halfway through the first period and never looked back as they ended up with the win by a 8 to 0 score. Strong defensive play and goal tending during all the games was key to the tournament win.
Debris burning a lawn on Pearl Street Road, Batavia
A large amount of debris is reportedly burning on the lawn at 3816 Pearl Street Road, Batavia. The fire was called in by a neighbor. Town of Batavia Fire Department is responding.
The location is between Treadeasy Avenue and Donahue Road.
A statewide burn ban has been in effect since March 16 and it ends May 14.
Car traveling eastbound in westbound lane of the 490
Law enforcement has been dispatched to the I-490 in Le Roy for a report of a car traveling eastbound in the westbound lane.
Monroe County has been notified.
UPDATE 6:41 p.m.: Law enforcement is out with the vehicle near mile marker 6 in Churchville. There's no need for EMS. Her husband is coming to pick her up.
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City chicken 'running at large' at East Main and North Spruce
City police are asked to respond to East Main Street in the area of North Spruce Street for a chicken reportedly running at large.
UPDATE 5:57 p.m.: "Any direction of travel on the bird?" asks an officer. The response: "In the parking lot of a doctor's office on North Spruce, heading toward East Main."
Batavia CTE Center students earn six top awards at NYS Spring HOSA Conference
Photo, front row: Kyra Konopski (kneeling) and Mia Hampton; back row: Shelby Bridge, Brianna Gilliat, Faith Jones and Danielle Mason.
Submitted photo and press release:
Batavia Career and Technical Education Center (CTE) students recently attended the New York State HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) Leadership Conference, which was held in Syracuse earlier this month.
Six Health Dimensions students participated in this event, which included more than 300 students who represented New York State schools and BOCES. As a result of this competition, five of the students qualified to attend the 42nd annual national HOSA Conference, which will be held in Orlando, Fla., in June.
The students, their competitions, and their placements are:
- Kyra Konopski, a junior from Le Roy CS – two awards -- First Place in Nutrition; Second Place -- Healthy Living
- Shelby Bridge, a junior from Byron-Bergen CS – Second Place -- Personal Skills
- Brianna Gilliat, a senior from Elba CS – Third Place -- Healthy Living
- Mia Hampton, a junior from Le Roy CS – Third Place -- Home Health Aid
- Faith Jones, a senior from Caledonia-Mumford CS -- Third Place -- Personal Skills
The Health Dimensions Program is offered at the Batavia CTE Center. Health Dimensions students engage in a challenging hands-on approach in the health care field. Participants experience and provide the "human side" of client care at local health care facilities.
All Health Dimensions students spend time in local facilities working collaboratively with staff members, residents, and patients. Students may choose to shadow medical professionals from many disciplines.
About the Batavia Career and Technical Education Center
It's a program of the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership. The Partnership operates as a Board of Cooperative Educational Services offering shared programs and services to 22 component school districts located in Genesee, Wyoming, Livingston and Steuben counties in New York State.
GC Master Gardeners host annual Spring Garden Gala on May 18 -- rain or shine
Press release:
Rain or shine, the Genesee County Master Gardeners will be hosting their annual Spring Garden Gala on Saturday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Genesee County, 420 E. Main St. in Batavia.
This annual plant sale features a variety of perennials, many of which are from the gardens of Master Gardeners. There will also be a selection of houseplants and locally grown geraniums. Plant sale starts promptly at 10 a.m. No early birds please.
Visit the Basket Auction for garden art, gift certificates and a variety of themed baskets. Gently used garden books will also be for sale. Basket Auction drawing starts at 12:30 p.m.
Bring in a soil sample from your garden or lawn for a free pH test (a half cup of dry soil in a clean container). Master Gardeners will be available to answer your gardening questions.
Don’t miss your chance to pick up some great plants at great prices, plus garden art and other interesting items. Arrive at 10 a.m. for the best plant selection. Proceeds from the sale benefit the educational outreach of the Genesee County Master Gardener Program.
For more information contact Brandie Waite at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Genesee County, (585) 343-3040, ext. 101, or stop by the Extension office at 420 E. Main St. in Batavia. Visit the website here.
BHS grad places second in her age group in Florida's 7 Mile Bridge Run
Some of this information is from Ken Dispenza, who also provided the photo.
Batavia resident and Batavia High School graduate Marissa Dispenza, who is 21 (above, right), ran the 38th annual 7 Mile Bridge Run in Marathon, Fla., on April 6 and placed second in her age group (19-24).
A total of 1,500 runners compete in male and female divisions by age groups. Dispenza, wearing bib #430, placed 172 overall with a gun time of 59.16; net time of 58:51.84 and a pace of 8:40.
The 7 Mile Bridge Run is the only known run that is completely surrounded by water from start to finish. The scenery surrrounding the runners is breathtaking. It began as a dedication run in 1982, celebrating the opening of the then new 7 Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. It is officially marked at 6.8 miles.
About the City of Marathon, Fla.
It's is set on 13 islands, known for their beaches and barrier reef. Its elevation is three feet above sea level and it's home to nearly 9,000 people. Loggerhead turtles nest at Coco Plum Beach and Sombrero Beach. Curry Hammock State Park has a sandy shoreline and mangrove creek. The Dolphin Research Center offers interactive demos in a shallow lagoon. Near the City Marina, Crane Point features a tropical forest, bird-rescue center and natural history museum.
