"The strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people's reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty."
The Farm Gate reports that $27 billion of Barack Obama's stimulus package is slated for rural programs.
The package includes $200 million for public safety, libraries and education; Another $500 million will be used to guarantee loans for rural housing; Rural community drinking water systems will receive $1.5 billion; $100 million will be used to spur $2 billion in loans and grants for rural businesses.
Click the link above for more details.
(via the Rural Blog)
Funny, I was just thinking a night or two ago -- I wonder if there shouldn't be some sort of Boston-Tea-Party-inspired protests in New York.
In tough economic times, business owners naturally start looking for ways to cut expenses.
Because marketing budgets often seem so flexible, many owners are tempted to think cutting back on advertising is an easy choice.
But study after study shows, businesses that maintain or even increase their advertising budgets during economic downturns thrive while their penny-pinching competitors suffer.
David Chase, one of the leading thinkers in online advertising, posted an educational piece recently on how businesses that increased marketing during the Great Depression overtook their competitors in market share.
Because so many companies cut spending during the Great Depression era, advertising budgets were largely eliminated in many industries. Not only did spending decline, but some companies actually dropped out of public sight because of short-sighted decisions made about spending money to keep a high profile. Advertising cutbacks caused many customers to feel abandoned. They associated the brands that cut back on advertising with a lack of staying power. This not only drove customers to more aggressive competitors, but it also caused financial mistrust when it came to making additional investments in the no-longer-visible companies.
Both anecdotal and empirical evidence support the case that advertising was the main factor in the growth or downfall of companies during the Great Depression. To put it bluntly, the companies that demonstrated the most growth and that rang up the most sales were those that advertised heavily.
Among the examples Chase cites, Chevy overtaking Ford, Camel Cigarettes regaining top brand position and Proctor and Gamble coming out of the Depression as strong as ever.
One of the things I love about Western New York in general, and Genesee County in particular is the sense of history I get from visiting its villages and towns.
All of the county's of WNY once played such a prominent role in the economic vitality of the nation, not to mention its contribution to culture and politics.
For all the short-sightedness of the city to tear down three city blocks of majestic historic buildings and build an ugly, non-functional mall, WNY is nothing like California, where the words "new" and "progress" are nearly sacred. The idea of preservation is nearly unheard of.
Thankfully, most of WNY's villages are still in tact. There are so much great architecture on display when you drive from town to town (avoiding the Thruway as much as possible).
Yesterday, while searching for a picture of Le Roy, I stumbled across this collection of historic photos of Genesee County.
Above is an old postcard from the collection, a picture of The Batavian Office Building the Masonic Temple on East Main Street.
Brian Mann says the appointment of Kirsten Gillibrand to replace Hillary Clinton as New York Senator re-exposes the Urban-Rural divide in New York.
Within the Five Boroughs, the reaction to her red-state tendencies has been fierce. Before she had been officially named, Gillibrand had liberal opponents lining up to dethrone her.
I'll admit it: I was taken aback. I thought the obvious backing of New York's Democratic elite -- Schumer, Paterson, Clinton, Lowey, etc. -- would be enough to establish her progressive credentials.
Not so. The liberal blogs have issued a collective shriek of rage.
The main issue, according to Mann, is gun control.
Unfortunately, he links to no urban/progressive blogs to support his statements. I'm not sure if he's fairly characterizing the position of urban bloggers. It wouldn't surprise if it were true, but I'd like to see some links.
Do you agree with his basic proposition, that urban progressives see Gillibrand as a rural rube, a gun-toting hick? Do you care?
(via The Rural Blog)
Firefighters were battling a blaze at 12 Elm St. Saturday night, when a second alarm was sounded for a fire at 45 Walnut St., according to a report in the Democrat & Chronicle.
The Elm St. fire caused an estimated $2,500 damage to a multil-family complex,
The two-apartment building on Walnut was gutted, causing an estimated $50,000 in damage.
Off-duty firefighters and units from the Town of Batavia were called in to help Walnut St. blaze, which took 25 minutes to suppress.
Whenever I drive down Route 5 into Batavia, I pass by the Pine Grove Inn, which always looks like an inviting roadside bar and grill.
But I've long been perplexed by the "Legal Beverages" on the sign.
I stopped in for a beer late this afternoon and chatted with owner Michele Klees.
She's friendly and quite willing to talk, but she doesn't know much about the sign either. It was there when she bought the place 10 years ago.
As far as she knows, the location has always been a bar, but she's heard that long, long ago, it was a filling station.
I'm far from the first person to stop and take a picture of the sign, she said. It generates a lot of curiosity from Route 5 travelers, but she's never been able to find anybody who can explain the history of it.
Apparently, such notification was required by the state of New York, but I didn't turn up any history in a quick Google search.
Anybody know anything about the sign?
One other curiosity about the Pine Grove Inn -- there are darn few pine trees around the location. A friend of Michele's told me there was once a grove of pines there, but disease took all but one of them.
The bar, beautifully handcrafted by the man mentioned above and another friend of Michele's, is made of a thick piece of pine. I think I'll stop in there again some time. It was a friendly visit.
A woman reportedly suffered a head injury in a single-vehicle rollover accident on Griswold Road east of Warner Road.
We have no information on the seriousness of the injury at this time.
The woman was reportedly in a tan Jeep Grand Cherokee.
We will provide more details when and if they become available.
A 31-year-old man in Byron was struck by a car while he was shoveling his driveway, according to a report on the scanner.
He is complaining of back pain and has minor abrasions. The incident is at Byron and Walkers Corner, according to reports. Ambulances are responding.
Just picked up this from a D&C tweet: Caroline Kennedy is withdrawing from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton as a New York Senator.
OK. Curious move. There must be some explanation.
According to reports from two New York City newspapers, Kennedy decided to withdraw because of the illness of her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
Certainly, Teddy's illness is of great family concern, but correct me if I'm wrong: Wasn't Kennedy gravely ill before Caroline threw her hat in the ring to become Senator?
Surely, there's more to this story than what is being reported.
UPDATE: A friend on Twitter writes "Want to bet that NY Gov. Paterson decided against naming Kennedy and this is a face-saving way for her to bow out?" Makes sense to me.
Which might also indicate, announcement coming soon. My bets are on Cuomo.
Today, President Barack Obama made this statement:
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
On the same subject, the Washington Post reports:
The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears," Obama said in the FOIA memo, adding later that "In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."
His memo on government transparency states that the Obama Administration "will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."
Follow the Post link for full text of President Obama's message.
The need for government transparency isn't just a federal thing. It applies to local government as well. You know, governments like, oh, the City of Batavia.
Whenever a government agency fails to answer timely requests for information, to not ensure all relevant media receives ready and easy access to information, to stymie full disclosure of information by prohibiting government employees from speaking publicly about issues that effect taxpayers, then it isn't really serving citizens to its highest and best ability.
The Batavian site was down for at least 30 minutes today after one of the databases used to manage the site developed a problem and required an emergency rebuild.
After the site came back up, there was another database problem that prevented users from logging in.
All seems back to normal now.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Join us at 11:30 for a non-partisan celebration of a free country's peaceful transfer of power, to witness history and to see if Barack Obama can live up to the hype of his inaugural address (will it be Lincolnesque, FDResque or Clintonesque? If like Clinton, we won't be getting out of their until late in the afternoon).
We'll be at TF Brown's and The Batavian will be providing free finger foods (you'll need to buy your own drinks or own full lunch, if that's what you want).
We don't cover Medina, but the Daily News does. Good coverage by Virginia Kropf, with a couple of dramatic photos, of a Saturday morning fire that destroyed a home there.
Is Batavia well positioned for an economic renaissance? Reading a post on the rural-themed blog the Daily Yonder this morning, I'm thinking the question might very well be yes.
Big rural towns may have even better luck than large cities when it comes to attracting and keeping manufacturing jobs. (It seems the formula for success includes being a home to higher education situated at the crossroads of major highways.) Big towns usually boast health care facilities located inside the city limits, or at least nearby. Having an industrial park within an economic enterprise zone doesn’t hurt either.
Here's are what I see of Batavia's assets:
The article goes on:
Where big towns fall short is population; they need to draw labor from rather broad areas of the surrounding countryside, perhaps as many as four or five counties large.
Batavia is certainly surrounded by rural counties with additional workers, but the close proximity of Buffalo and Rochester may also be an asset. The idea of people commuting from those cities to work in Batavia might drive up transportation costs, but Batavia is close enough that it might not be a stretch to imagine people relocating to Genesee County. They would still be close to their friends and families in Rochester or Buffalo, but living in a great community.
On the other hand, I imagine many people now living in Genesee County and commuting now to Rochester and Buffalo might welcome new job opportunities right in the middle of Batavia.
The biggest negatives facing Batavia, however, remain high taxes and a state government overzealous about regulation and red tape.
Still, with the proper planning and the right effort correctly applied, there's no reason that Batavia can't realize some significant economic growth over the next 10 years.
A new study shows that consumers who shift even just 10 percent of their spending from chain stores to locally owned stores help grow the local economy and creates jobs.
Local Works: Examining the Impact of Local Business on the West Michigan Economy, which was conducted by Civic Economics, found that, if the 600,000 residents of Grand Rapids and surrounding Kent County were to redirect just 10 percent of their total spending from chains to local businesses, it would create nearly $140 million in new economic activity for the region and 1,600 new jobs.
...
In addition to analyzing the economic impact of independent businesses overall, the study also took a close look at four sectors: pharmacies, grocery stores, restaurants, and banks. In each category, the study found that a much larger share of the dollars spent at locally owned businesses stayed in the region, supporting other businesses and jobs.
One of the philosophical underpinnings of what we want to do with The Batavian is to support the community. We do that by covering more local news, by providing a virtual town square for discussions of local issues, and by doing all we can to support local businesses. We offer, for example, the ability for local businesses to post their own press releases on the site for free. We also concentrate our ad sales efforts on local businesses.
It's important to remember that the buying decisions you make effect your friends and neighbors.
On The Batavian, we have a policy -- which most members of the site seem to support -- of requiring people to post using their real names.
From the first week of the site, we had a user with a first name of Laz who posted quite regularly. I had initial doubts as to whether this was a real name, but the way people responded to him initially, I kind of got the impression that this was somebody that other people knew, so I let the name go.
A couple of weeks ago, I got complaints suggesting that Laz wasn't his real name. I wrote him an e-mail and asked for confirmation. I didn't get a response.
Earlier tonight, I banned his account.
He sent me an e-mail after the banning suggesting another name was his real name, and then later suggested that name was one of three aliases he uses.
Here's the thing: We can't check physically the ID of everybody who posts to the site. To some extent, this is an honor system.
But if I have any reason to suspect that a user is not posting under his or her real name, I'm going to suspend that account, or at least challenge the user on the name.
We can't guarantee everybody on The Batavian is posting under his or her real name, but we will make every best, honest effort to ensure real names are used.
Join The Batavian and your friends and neighbors Tuesday for the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States.
Whether you're a Republican, Democrat or independent, you're surely mindful of historic event we'll witness Tuesday as Obama takes the oath of office and delivers his First Inaugural Address.
The Batavian will supply some appetizers/finger foods. Guests will be responsible for the purchase of any lunches or beverages.
The Inauguration Party starts at 11:30 and will run until shortly after Obama completes his speech. Obama takes the oath at noon.
We look forward to seeing you Tuesday at TF Brown's, 214 East Main Street.
Here at The Batavian, we're in a constant mode of making improvements and upgrades to the site.
One feature requested a while back was discussion boards, or forums, a place for people to start their own topics of conversation.
Tom Gilliatt, whom many of you have known as Tom G since the site launched, has agreed to help monitor and manage the forums.
Thanks, btw, to both Tom and Gabor for recently changing their user profile to include their full real name to comply with our requirement for real names on the site.
You can reach the discussion boards through the Forums link in the navigation bar across the top of the Web page.
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