batavia

There may be a theater, possibly a dinner theater, in the future of the former Carr's Department Store location, if owner Ken Mistler can line up appropriate funding through the BID.

Mistler does not have many specifics on the proposal at this time, but has been working on putting together the project for several weeks.

In response to an e-mail, Mistler said:

I do not have any exact plans until the Engineers get back to me... Engineer hopes to give me my plans/answers early next week.

In a comment on The Batavian, Mislter acknowledged that he paid only $10,000 for the Carr's building, but has spent a good deal of money renovating it.

• $214,000 on the Jackson Street façade
• $22,000 on replacing windows
• $87,000 on the back façade, which helped preserve the structure
• $58,000 on new roofs
• $42,000 on the front façade
• $150,000 on repairs from leaks due to broken pipes (the elevator and dry wall were damaged)
• $20,000 on a new sprinkler system
• $15,000 on heating and air conditioning

In another comment, he said:

I offered Old Navy 4 years free rent on a 7-year lease. After 4 attempts they finally replied. They are not currently seeking any type of retail location in your (our) demographic. Now I will look toward entertainment.

The Carnival is coming to town. Work crews are busy now on Jackson Street setting up 10 rides for kids of all ages (so long as they're at least 36 inches tall).  The carnival opens Friday afternoon.

Calista Miakoda, a second-hand clothing and accessory boutique, opened today on Ellicott Street in Downtown Batavia.

Owner Kaitlin McGratf is 19 and spent her whole life in Genesee County, growing up in Bergen.

She's dreamed of owning her own clothing store since she was 12, she said, which is when she picked the name for the business. She doesn't remember which language the words come from, but Calista means "most beautiful" and Miakoda means "night sky" (roughly).

"My dad always owned his own business," Kaitlin said. "I don't like working for other people too much, and I thought it would be fun (to own her own business). It's (clothing) has always been a hobby of mine."

Assemblyman Steve Hawley says he will vote against a bill aimed at legalizing marijuana for medical uses.

"I voted against it last year and unless something miraculous happens I'll be representing my constituents and their wishes and will be voting against it," said Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,I,C Batavia).

Bill A07542 was submitted by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, chairman of the Health Committee.

It would allow New Yorkers with serious medical conditions to grow up to 12 marijuana plants or possess up to 2.5 ounces of the weed. The bill includes legal protection for a patient's primary caregiver and physician. A similar proposal was previously passed by the Assembly only to die in the Senate.

Even though the bill hasn't cleared the Assembly yet, we have a call into Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer as well to check his position on the topic.  We will update this post with his response, should we get one.

Hawley said last year's bill had a number of problems. He thought it lacked sufficient controls and made marijuana too easy to get.

Thirteen states allow medicinal use of marijuana. According to a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, "nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety. . .all can be mitigated by marijuana."

The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, has been approved for medical use by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency since 1986 in synthetic pill form (Marinol). But consuming it in natural form -- which many physicians say is more effective -- continues to be illegal.

The New England Journal of Medicine says inhaling THC is more effective than taking the synthetic pill because "smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be therapeutic." It also enables tighter control of the amount ingested.

Proponents claim marijuana can be an effective treatment where other medications have failed -- for at least some patients who suffer from HIV/AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and other life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

Gottfried and other supporters of medicinal marijuana use maintain that this usage doesn't undermine the message that using illegal drugs is wrong. They note that many controlled substances that are legal for medical use (such as morphine, Valium and steroids) are otherwise illegal.

But opponents of medicinal cannabis say making it lawful indeed sends a mixed message about drug use, at best. They say the legislation exploits public sympathy in order to legitimize drug use and provides loopholes to drug dealers.

This morning, I arrived at the Main Street location where two homes are being demolished to make room for a low-income apartment complex in time to capture this video.

Joanne Beck wrote about the project a few days ago.

Here are some additional pictures:

Today's Deal of the Day: A $25 gift certificate from T.F. Brown's in Batavia. The Batavian's Good Deal Price: $12.50 -- HALF off!

T.F. Brown's is one of my regular choices for lunch. The food is great and when I'm in the mood I can catch up on the sports world from one of the several television sets in the bar and dining area.

Rules: The gift certificate must be used by within 30 days of purchase. It is not valid with other offers and has no cash value. By law, gift certificates cannot be used for purchase of alcohol.

How to win: Purchase using the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. After the first person to hit the "buy now" button completes the purchase, PayPal will let you know that the item has been sold. Ideally, the winner will arrange to stop by my office on Main Street before 5:00 p.m. to pick up the gift certificate. Mail is an option, but it would be better to hand you the gift certificate. 

If you want to be notified via e-mail of future Deals of the Day, sign up for the Deals of the Day e-mail list by clicking here.

Merchants: If you would like your business featured in Deal of the Day, call Howard Owens at 260-6970.
 

SOLD

The Charter Review Commission has finished its review of the City of Batavia charter and will soon submit its revisions to the City Attorney for review, chairman John Roach says.

The big surprise, Roach said, is the need to clarify how a vacancy is filled on the City Council when a member resigns his or her seat for any reason. The vacancy is supposed to be filled according to party affiliation, but what that phrase means exactly wasn't defined.

Councilman Bill Cox brought the issue to the commission because he noted that while he's a Republican, he was elected on the Democratic and Conservative party lines. Roach said Cox would want to see the seat go to a Republican if he left office.

“There’s another feeling that the party that elected you should get to back fill your position, but it’s not really spelled out," Roach said. "So out of the clear blue we found ourselves (thinking) ‘OK, let’s define what affiliation means.’”

Roach's suggestion: Affiliation is defined by the party line that gave a candidate the most votes. In the case of Bill Cox, that would be Democrat.

Another big change to the charter, Roach said, would allow the City Council to operate through subcommittees, like the County Legislature. The charter won't require subcommittees, but will make the creation of a subcommittee system possible.

“If this goes through, these nine people all trying to be on TV, grandstanding for the public," Roach said, "That will all disappear. You’ll have your committees like other governmental agencies and there will be no grandstanding and things will get done much, much better.”

The proposed charter will also require a mandatory review of ward boundaries.

The wards haven't changed in 20 or 25 years and the number of voters in each ward are no longer evenly distributed. There aren't big differences, Roach said, but the problem will only get worse if not corrected. The revised charter would require boundary changes every 10 years after the national census.

As an example, Roach mentioned that wards 1 and 2 are different sizes, and the ward boundary runs down the middle of Vine Street. If both sides of Vine were moved into ward 1, then they would be even again.

“Everybody’s known it. It’s no real big thing," Roach said. "But after 25 or so years, it’s time for them to just adjust it. It’s politically unpopular. Nobody wants to say, ‘well, now you’re in my ward.’” By putting it in the charter, they can say, ‘those charter guys did it.’ It gives them cover for doing what they should have done all along."

Another surprise for Roach and the commission was that New York prevents the city from creating a public safety director position that combines police and fire duties, as once heavily discussed in the city, because cities the size of Batavia must have a police chief.

“When we first started this idea, we were not aware that there was a New York State law that required a police chief  for a small department like us," Roach said. "I was surprised how micromanaging that turned out to be. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. I figured here’s a way to save some money. This makes sense. And boom, there’s a state law that stops us.”

The charter will expand from 19 sections to 20 so it can address the role of the city historian.

New York requires cities to have historians. Currently, it is an unpaid position and filled by Larry Barnes.

"It was never defined, what is his job, who appointed him, for how long, and what was it we wanted him to do," Roach said. "So in the charter we’ve now established how long can he be appointed for, who does the appointment and what is it we really want him to do. It’s a minor change to the charter and it costs no one any money."

While the role of the historian is now defined, the commission is proposing the elimination of the city engineer position. Now that the city's infrastructure is largely built out, there is no need for the job -- which has been vacant for some time anyway -- and so not filling the position will help the city save some money.

After the commission's next meeting, the proposed changes will be submitted to the City Attorney for review.  He will clean up any legal language and return it to the commission. Once that's done in June, a public hearing can be scheduled for July. The revisions can then be placed on the November ballot.

When is the last time you planted a tree?

Friday might be a good day to do it. It is Arbor Day, a day far more community minded than Earth Day, which rolls around tomorrow.

Bill Kauffman brings out this point in a recent essay on Front Porch Republic:

Earth Day was not of ignoble birth. It was the legislative child of Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), a thoughtful liberal, who envisioned it as a national teach-in on the environment. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was a hectoring mix of street theater, corporate p.r., and speeches by such paragons of restraint as Senators Ted Kennedy and Bob Packwood. Funding came, in part, from Dow Chemical and the Ford Motor Company. (The most prominent public opponents of the first Earth Day were the Daughters of the American Revolution, who had also fought vainly against the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which spawned the commerce trumps tradition three-day weekend.)

In the four decades since, Earth Day has become a bloodless holiday for pallid urbanites, the sort of technology-dependent yuppies whose rare encounters with the unregulated outdoors usually end in paralyzing fears of Lyme disease. Earth Day is about as green as a $100 bill.

The City of Batavia hosts an Earth Day event Saturday at Lions Park/Wallace Street, rain or shine, starting at 9 a.m. (in the actual press release, the city does give a nodding glance to Arbor Day).

The Batavia Youth Bureau will present "The Benefits of Gardening and Composting. There will be a tree planting ceremony by local Girl Scout troop #42153, a seed-starting display and a proclamation by the City Council.  Volunteers will then organized into trash pick up crews for a city park or downtown.  Every volunteer will get a chance to win a tree.

Somebody designed a lovely flier for the event. You can download the PDF here.

Press Release from Detective Todd Crossett, Batavia Police Department:

The man in this photo is wanted for questioning in a larceny, that occurred today, outside the Tonawanda Valley Credit Union, at about 1220pm.  If anyone has any information into who this person is please contact the City of Batavia Police Department at 345-6444 or the confidential tip line at 345-6370.

I just called Todd with this information:  I saw this gentleman this morning in the Jackson St. parking lot, behind Main Street, half way between Ken Mislter's new gym and South Beach (I was walking down to take the picture of South Beach I used in this morning's post). That would have been about 10:30, I think. He was looking out at the parking lot like he was looking for somebody.  He did look at me and answered my "hello" tentatively. He had such a distinctive look, I was curious about him and all most stopped to chat -- wish I would have.

If you saw him around town, you should call the police department. I'm sure it would be helpful to trace his movements.

Council members Bill Cox and Rosemary Christian tell Joanne Beck they're representing the concerns of their constituents in raising a long-list of questions about the proposed Masse Gateway Project.

A hearing on the project -- a prerequisite to the city apply for a state grant to help fund development -- is scheduled for tomorrow at 5 p.m.

Both Christian and Cox recently sent a list of questions to City Manager Jason Molino to get answers about the project. In his letter to Molino, Cox said that "private contractors and developers in the city have also raised the concern that often with Genesee County Economic Development Center projects no competitive bidding is done and local contractors frequently do not even get invited to bid, which would create local jobs using local people," he said. "Collectively all of these citizens and local businesses have raised some valid points which need some answers and explanations before we vote on the application and hopefully before the public hearing."

Neither councilman has anything against the principal Masse Place property owner, Tom Mancuso or Mancuso Business Development, they said. But both have gotten calls from residents and are trying to represent those concerns

The list of questions, which Beck includes, should serve as good fodder for the hearing tomorrow night. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: This afternoon I e-mailed City Council President Charlie Mallow for his comments on the Daily article and here is his response:

Questions are always good if your goal is to help move the city forward and avoid mistakes. That is a Council person’s job.

In the end our residents need real jobs and a turnaround in our local business climate. It is easy to oppose solution after solution; it is very hard to create alternatives. Batavia is stagnant because of the failure to reignite our central corridor and years of ineffective political leadership on this issue. There is this idea that doing nothing is seen as a better alternative than taking any action. Real leaders take point; they don’t throw rocks from the rear.  

Ken Mislter, who currently owns 9 buildings in Downtown Batavia by his count, has reached a purchase agreement for the former South Beach Restaurant location.

The deal will close May 1. Mistler said the building will be immediately available to a lessee looking to open a restaurant.  It's turnkey ready, Mislter said.

"The guy (Alex Giuliani) left the salt and the pepper," Mistler said, explaining how the restaurant is ready to open now.

Alex and Barbara left the location in pristine condition, other sources tell me.

The asking price for the building was $425,000. Mistler said he paid something less than that, but won't disclose the price until after it becomes public record. Separately, he also bought all the equipment.
 

Alex and Barbara Giuliani closed the restaurant unexpectedly three months ago, and the abrupt closure was controversial.

Today's Deal of the Day: A $25 gift certificate from Adam Miller Toy and Bicycle in Batavia. The Batavian's Good Deal Price: $12.50 -- HALF off!

At Adam Miller's you can feel like a kid in a toy store again. It's a great place for gifts for kids of all ages, and for yourself. Adam Miller's is at 8 Center St. in Batavia.

The gift certificate must be used by within 30 days of purchase. It is not valid with other offers and has no cash value. Previous winners of this gift certificate are not eligible for this offer.

Rules: Purchase using the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. After the first person to hit the "buy now" button completes the purchase, PayPal will let you know that the item has been sold. Ideally, the winner will arrange to stop by my office on Main Street before 5:00 p.m. to pick up gift certificate. Mail is an option, but it would be better to hand you the gift certificate. 

If you want to be notified via e-mail of future Deals of the Day, sign up for the Deals of the Day e-mail list by clicking here.

Merchants: If you would like your business featured in Deal of the Day, call Howard Owens at 260-6970.

SOLD

The regional real estate market may be picking up steam, but the impact is muffled in Genesee County, according to Howard Cohen, owner of FearyCohen Realty in Batavia.

Cohen said since the Batavia area is considered a bedroom community -- meaning a lot of folks commute elsewhere to work -- it doesn't get big ups or downs in the market that metro and resort areas do.

"We have a stable market," Cohen said. "Most people tend to stay in the area, even when they buy up."

The Democrat and Chronicle reported this weekend that a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers is heating up home sales.

"The tax credit is making homes go off the shelves," said Garry Britton, an agent at Nothnagle's Fairport office.

Homes priced below $150,000 in good condition are moving swiftly, followed by those under $200,000.

The tax credit is available for first-time buyers, and returning buyers who haven't owned a home for at least three years, who purchase a home by Dec. 31. It allows them to get a tax rebate of up to 10 percent of the selling price, up to $8,000.

Existing home sales for January through March were 1,648 compared to 2,112 in the first quarter of 2008. That's a drop of 22 percent, according to the report released Thursday by the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors. The median house price of a house was $105,000, with half higher and half lower in price, which represents a 3-percent decline.

The data spans a 12-county area from Seneca Lake to Genesee County and Lake Ontario to the Southern Tier.

The tax credit may help improve those numbers, but it probably won't have much impact locally, according to Cohen.

"We don't have a lot of first-time buyers here," Cohen explained. "We're still in a bit of a slump, but sales are a little stronger that in the last period of 2008."

The folks at Bob Harris Realty said they are optimistic that the tax credit will help boost sales, plus buying typically picks up in springtime.

Real estate advisers say to avoid low-ball offers in these categories and to expect a negotiating window no greater than 5 percent.