Stories from

The Daily just put up 11 photos from yesterday's storm coverage.  The photo gallery set up is a little awkward to navigate, but there's some good shots.

Roger Muehlig writes this morning about Bella, a two-year-old Staffordshire-bull mastiff mix, belonging to Tim and Julie LaPorte of Stafford, who gave birth last week to 15 puppies.

A normal litter is is about eight puppies.

Mother and pups are doing just fine.

Mom doesn't play favorites.

"She's wonderful (at feeding). She rotates them. She stays with them all day," Julie said.

It sounds like Bella is a designer dog.

We're really proud of the coverage that Philip Anselmo and Brian Hillabush provided today. If you liked the coverage, please e-mail all of your friends -- be sure they know that a visit to The Batavian is worthwhile because we're going to provide complete and timely coverage of the important and interesting news of Genesee County.

The Daily News has posted the following notice on its web site:

DUE TO STORM: Your Friday paper may be delivered with Saturday's edition.

Also, here's the Daily's latest storm story by Scott DeSmit and Joanne Beck. Key bit of information, GCC was shut down today.

We've had so many posts so far today that some of our earlier posts have flowed off the home page.

And we've got more posts coming from Brian Hillabush and Philip Anselmo.

If you're just hitting the site for the first time today, or might otherwise have missed some coverage, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "next" link on the pager to see any coverage you might have missed.

Also, we continue to welcome any weather pictures or stories you might want to post.

WBTA has posted an MP3 audio interview with Tom Nizoil, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Buffalo.  He says snow is falling at a rate of one- to-two inches per hour and that traffic conditions will remain treacherous throughout the day.

Here's the view from the web cam at the I-90/Batavia Interchange.

As the satellite image above shows, a large storm system is moving into Western New York. You can follow the progress of the storm on Weather.com,

WBTA reports that all schools in Genesee County have already announced they are closed today in anticipation of heavy snow and gusting winds.

The National Weather Service reissued its winter storm warning at 3 a.m., with an upgraded prediction of up to 10 inches of snow. Snow could fall from one to two inches an hour during the morning hours, and the heaviest snow fall could be accompanied by thunder. The warning is in effect from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.  While the morning and afternoon storm might dump as much as 10 inches of snow on the region, the evening snow showers could add another three inches.

We encourage you to be safe today.  You can post your own storm updates and information on The Batavian.  Of course, we'll be covering conditions throughout the day. You can also turn into WBTA for storm news updates. We imagine the Daily News will also offer updates.

UPDATE 8:20 a.m.:  The current radar map shows snow falling on the entire region, but we haven't heard yet of a single flak falling.  Have you seen any snow yet?

UPDATE: 8:39 a.m.: Below are web cam images from the I-90 Pembroke Interchange and the I-90 LeRoy Interchange. It looks like the first one shows snow and the second one does. Well, I managed to surprise myself -- thought I was grabing still images from the web cam, but actually the images are refreshing right on our page. As I look now, at 8:46 a.m., big flakes can be seen on the LeRoy cam.

But look at this image from Alden

So, we keep hearing warnings: Lots of snow heading our way.

First, we encourage you to be safe, but if you do happen to stick your head outside and snap a picture, post it to The Batavian.  Or video. Or tell your storm-related story on the site. Let your Genessee County neighbors know how the storm is affecting your part of the community.

We've added a "Business" section to The Batavian.

We will continue to cover business news as we can, but we want local business owners and managers to know that they are welcome to post their own business on The Batavian.

What is allowed: Anything that qualifies as news -- information that will be interesting to readers.

What is NOT allowed: Pure advertising/marketing messages, such as "20 percent off sale" or "we have the best store in town."

Examples of "press releases" you might want to post:

• New business opening
• Relocation
• A new manager or key employee
• Retirement
• Grand Re-Opening event
• Anniversary (good chance to write about the history of the business)
• Advice to readers related to the business specialty.
• New product or service (but this needs to be informational, not promotional)

Please be careful not to republish verbatim material for other publications, which would constitute a copyright violation.

The Batavian reserves the right to remove any content editors determine doesn't meet our guidelines. We may also promote your post to our home page, but make no promise to put any particular post on the home page.

We are eager to get news from any business in Genesee County.

To learn how to post your own news, check out our tutorials on our Help Page.

If you are interesting in advertising, contact Howard Owens, (howard (at) the batavian (one word) dot com, or 585-260-6970).

Cindy Morelli says in her "about" on her profile that she's looking for a job.

We have a Jobs section for employers looking for help, but we haven't really set up a way for a process for job candidates to let potential employers know of their availability, but if you write a blog post about your experience, qualifications and the kind of job you're seeking, we'll find a way to highlight your post.

We're continuely on the look out for local bloggers -- Batavia needs more of them.

In checking member profiles tonight, we found the blog of  Arlana Pathammavong.

Mostly, it's a personal blog of her interests and observations, but she's a good blogger and includes some tidbits of local interest, such as this post about the Pok-A-Dot.

A chimney fire has been reported at 8824 Lovers Lane, in Corfu. It has been upgraded to a second alarm fire.

We'll most more information when it's available.

UDPATE: 5:24 p.m. The alarm has been down graded and some units returning to stations.

Who would steal a laptop and computer and then send it into the manufacture for servicing?

Whomever swiped Rich Clark's laptop last week, that's who.

Mr. Clark, 27, just dropped by The Batavian office to let his know his computer arrived safely at the service center today.

On Thursday, we highlighted a classified Clark had posted on The Batavian noting that a black box had been stolen from his work truck.

It turns out the box contained a laptop, valued at $1,000, that Clark and labeled and set up to send back for service.  Whoever took it -- whether he saw the post on The Batavian or not -- dropped the box in the mail and it arrived safely at the service center.

Clark, who operates his own satellite installation company and works for IGT, said he couldn't believe the computer had been returned. "It's just amazing. Amazing," he said.

The idea of consolidation of local governments is on its face appealing. It holds out the promise of cost savings, if not lower taxes, as well as reduced regulations on businesses.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo thinks there are too many government agencies in New York.

“Simply put, our system of local government is broken. It has been outpaced by globalization, regionalization, and an ever changing marketplace,” he said. “The density of local government in New York is astounding. There are 10,521 overlapping government units, providing duplicative services creating needless, wasteful bureaucracies.”

The questionable assumption in Cuomo's statement is that globalization and regionalization (never heard that word before) is a good thing.

One could make the case that the smaller the government agency, the closer it is to the people it effects, and the more responsive it is to small group or individual needs.

Here are some other assertions worth further examination:

The law is filled with anachronisms. More disturbing is that the law contains provisions that are relics of the past that conjure up images of “poll taxes.” In some cases, an individual may vote to dissolve or consolidate governments, such as special districts, only if they own taxable real property in the area.

Comparing current laws in New York to racist policies of a Jim Crow era is a pretty loaded. What civil rights are being impinged by the current system?

Again, the idea of consolidation has its appeal. With 10K+ government bodies in New York, you can be assured that many are receiving totally inaccurate oversight.

As a young reporter in California, I loved covering special districts because they received such little attention from journalists. That lack of oversight encouraged a devil-may-care attitude among the officials charged with running the districts. Their expense reports were often a playground of excess if not outright maleficence. There's no doubt that there are redundant and uncessary districts in WNY.

However, I would be leery of any consolidation scheme that diminishes a small town's ability to engage in self rule. Residents shouldn't lose the ability to rub elbows with the elected officials who decided how to spend their tax money.

(Link via Buffalo Pundit)

A child riding in a vehicle northbound on Alexander Road suffered a minor injury when a southbound Jeep Grand Cherokee reportedly served into oncoming traffic.

The Jeep clipped the other vehicle and then careened into a telephone poll -- severing the poll about half-way up its length -- near 8804 Alexander Road.

The child was transported to a hospital for evaluation, according to Deputy Richardson, primarily, he said, as a precaution.

The Jeep was driven by Kayla Tyoe, and the vehicle had two additional passengers.  The other vehicle was driven by Tracy Cooper.

Richardson said the investigation is ongoing to determine what caused Tyoe's vehicle to reportedly cross into the oncoming lane.

UPDATE: The Daily just posted a story with a few additional details.