Dr. Edward C. and Ruth Atwater. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Briccetti

Edward C. Atwater’s home — initially in Batavia and later in Rochester — was a dead giveaway of his passions.

The late doctor and medical historian kept collections, from thousands of books and print materials to thousands of architectural slides and posters, throughout his and wife Ruth’s home from top to bottom.

Ned Atwater knows the posters well. Collected by his dad on the topic of AIDS for decades, Ned at one point counted out 6,500 duplicates while the artifacts were being organized.

“He never boasted about it at all … it’s the largest collection in the world, and he could have cared less. It was about the messages and content, and he was the messenger,” Ned said from his home in Canandaigua during an interview with The Batavian. “It was important that he collected it and got it out to the public.”

Attending the debut of a six-years-long project that, at last, puts the senior Atwater’s efforts on proper display at Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery, was “super emotional,” Ned said.

The exhibit, Up Against the Wall: Art, Activism, and the AIDS Poster, is a collaboration between Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) and the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester. It runs through June 19 at the Gallery. (See related article, "Former Batavia resident's collections ..." )

Exhibit curators and editors chose 165 samples out of the 8,000-poster collection. Ned had seen “all of those,” he said, and remembers Christopher Hoolihan’s frequent visits to their home. Hoolihan was rare books and manuscripts librarian at the Edward G. Miner Library at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry.

“And he'd come over every Monday night for 20 years to my parents house, and my mom would cook them dinner, and then they’d go down to the basement, which is where the book collection was, and they'd work on the books,” Ned said. “And the AIDS poster collection was in the attic, and so Jessica (Lachman, co-editor of the collection’s book) would come over. Jessica was there every Tuesday, so I got to know her quite well. Those were a couple of important people in the same collecting sphere that he was in.”

Collections, Donations ...
Atwater’s collections have gradually made their way to the University of Rochester as prized relics of medical history. AIDS took hold in the 1980s, and Ned clearly remembers how little the government was doing to prevent or raise awareness about it. Organizations across the globe, including municipal health departments, began to create posters as visual reminders of the life-threatening AIDS epidemic.

Dr. Atwater didn't start collecting posters until 1991, and was in his mid-60s by then, Ned said. Three decades later he was still collecting, shortly before he died in 2019 at 93. Posters are from many countries in multiple languages, and they stray from one another by colors, images, wording, message and target audience. Ned attended the debut with his sister, Rebecca Briccetti, of New Hampshire. 

“Rebecca and I went into the show, we were, I think, both astounded at the show itself, the professionalism in which the Memorial Art Gallery had done it. And, you know, just the messages that it all conveyed. It was really a very good overview of the AIDS posters over history. I thought it was just so well done,” he said. “And the people at the Memorial Art Gallery even told us that in a visual sense, they think it's the best show they've ever had. ‘Wow,’ we thought, and we were pretty surprised and humbled by that. My father would be absolutely thrilled.”

The collection of posters fills in the story, from graphic pictures of men and condoms to more generalized messages that no one is immune to the disease. It was such a heavy and insidious topic and disease that took hold in a public that was ignorant of its causes, symptoms, and life-threatening nature of it. 

“The AIDS epidemic really hit hard. My father was in touch with Dr. Fauci about it,” Ned said. “I had a lot of friends in the gay community in Oregon. One of the biggest turning points was that it wasn’t just in the gay community.”

While Edward C. Atwater was a renowned medical historian and collector, he was also “such a humble guy,” Ned said, someone who took the time to listen during a conversation, take an interest and ask thoughtful questions. Those traits fed his desire for knowledge and details, and he often acquired them in the forms of various rare books, patented medicine bottles, organ pipes, architecture slides and AIDS posters.

“It was important that he collected it and got it out to the public,” Ned said, addressing the poster varieties. “It was a visual thing; some are really funny, and scary, compassionate. Some of the most graphic ones are from Germany and France.”

Those displays may have been more explicit, he said, but the messaging was effective.

Recalling Batavia and the farm ...
Although Ned’s father and mother moved from Batavia before Ned’s childhood, he recalls the fun times he and his sister Rebecca had visiting the small city and Genesee County. The siblings also visited their mother’s homestead farm in Stafford. There were horses, sheep and “the smell of the barn,” Ned fondly recalled. He and his sister would take the bus from Rochester to Batavia and visit both sides of the family.

“I used to love to go there, we’d go on a whim on the weekend … hanging out in that big old house, and we’d sneak over to the RCA factory to see the color TVs,” he said. “You really can't mention my father without mentioning my mother; they were married 67 years, and she was really my father's wing woman.”

One thing his father didn’t do was to push Ned into a similar career path. There was no cajoling or needling on the topic, and Ned’s career took him down a more artistic path as a furniture maker. He and his sister fondly remember taking the bus from Rochester to visit their grandparents, Edward P. and Rowena Atwater, who lived in the well-known Atwater House on East Main Street, a rambling structure that accommodated extended family and the constant presence of dogs, Rebecca said. 

Ned often preferred the country life in Stafford, where his mom Ruth grew up. She and Edward C. married in 1951 and lived in Batavia, where Edward grew up and attended school. The couple later moved to Rochester closer to his workplace, the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Briccetti was looking at a screenshot she had taken of her father’s childhood diary, with notations about current events and the $5 his grandmother gifted him. He noted when the Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey while carrying 99 passengers. 

“What a thing for a little boy to write,” she said. “I’m just completely going down memory lane here.” 

The Renaissance man, The Godfather ...
A part of that memory bank includes how much his parents embraced people, from children to adults, with their generosity and care for humanity. So much care, in fact, that Dr. and Mrs. Atwater were asked to be godparents to at least a dozen children, including Kathleen Harleman, Director Emerita of Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois. Her parents became good friends with the Atwaters and thought there would be no couple better for the symbolic guardian role than Edward and Ruth. 

“I always thought of Edward as a Renaissance man or polymath, a person with wide-ranging knowledge and interests in many fields and deep expertise in several areas,” she said. “He epitomized the characterization, being highly educated, a gentleman, cultivated in the arts, and immensely charismatic. Edward’s professional and personal practice, teachings, writings, and collections extended beyond internal medicine (specifically rheumatology), to embrace the history of medicine, as well as major health reforms and global activism.”

Later in life, Edward wrote Women Medical Doctors in the United States Before the Civil War: a Biographical Dictionary. Harleman loved that his efforts “highlighted these female pioneers,” she said. She came from Illinois to see the exhibit, and rated it as “superbly conceived and presented.”

“They explore multiple aspects of the subject with a truly impressive range and depth of voices and expertise. The individual contributions of writers in the publication and for the QR codes in the exhibition are very powerful, as is the exhibition design of the installation and the book's graphic design,” she said. “Edward would have been happy and impressed with the levels of thought, care, and execution that have gone into the exhibition, publication, and programming. My hope, shared by many others, is that this exhibition will travel globally.”

Given his proclivity for research and detail, it may come as no surprise that dinners at the Atwater home included open conversation “about pretty much everything,” Rebecca said. However, she learned more about HIV and AIDS by reading about it for herself.

“The crisis became apparent for what it was … so I didn't have to hear about the AIDS epidemic and HIV from my father, I was reading about it myself. I was living in New York City, a horticultural and culinary editor at the time. And I was reading about it. Rolling Stone Magazine did a very important job in communicating the urgency of this emerging crisis and a lack of national attention, and political attention,” she said. "I know there are a lot of people still out there that really associate this as being a gay disease. And there's still an enormous amount of people there that just don't understand it. And my hope is, this is going to provide good information and change those misconceptions if it's possible. Still, the poster has as much power as anything, you know, to change people's minds, or just to make them realize basic things about AIDS.”

Her father loved to play piano and organ, and sang as a youngster in choir, she said. His collection began then, with organ pipes, and later one of his first collections was of patent medicine bottles, which he researched, and then wrote papers on the patented medicine purveyors, she said. 

“He just loved that. And then finally he and mother realized, you know, this is just too many bottles, this is too big a collection to keep. And they gave it to the university,” she said. “And from there, he moved on to a different kind of collection. And that was medical trade cards. I mean, my goodness, I remember coming home from school and, instead of picking up a comic book, or you know, a favorite young adult fiction book, or maybe working on your math homework, I would eat an afternoon snack while leafing through these enormous bound books of plastic pages into which father was keeping his medical trade card collections. And he was constantly adding to them for years until my mother realized this is just too much to keep at home … and they gave those to the University of Rochester. I think during all of this time, as an historian, he was interested in collecting ephemera in the realm of popular medicine. And that became a thread through his entire historical collecting life.”

It was a passion he was devoted to until he died at age 93. Shortly before that, Rebecca’s husband Fred took him out on a snowy day in New York City and Greenwich to scour collector’s shops. Atwater talked to fellow antiquarians, and they would step out from behind their display tables to say “Dr. Atwater, it’s so good to see you.”

“Obviously surprised that this ancient gentleman would be still out looking for more material," she said. "It was very moving.” 

Job and employment data released recently by the NYS Labor Department indicate a strong labor market for Genesee County.

There are 21,500 non-farm jobs in Genesee County, up from 21,000 a year ago.

The total number of private-sector jobs grew from 15,900 to 16,300.

The county's unemployment rate for February 2022 was 4.1 percent, down from 6.2 a year ago and the lowest rate for any February since at least 1990.

The total labor force (the number of people working or seeking work) grew from 29,000 to 29,200.

The total number of local residents employed in February was 28,200, up from 27,200.  The number of employed in February 2020 was higher at 28,600, which was the highest level since 2009 when it was 29,600.

The total unemployed -- people still in the market for jobs -- was 1,200, down from 1,800 a year earlier and lower than in 2020, just before the start of the pandemic, when it was 1,600.  The February total for Genesee County was the lowest since at least 1990.

The state's unemployment rate is 5.1 percent and the nation's is 3.8 percent.

In a recent report, however, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (a Federal agency), New York has a higher labor under-utilization rate than the rest of the nation. 

Labor under-utilization is a measure of the number of people who are unemployed, employed part-time for economic reasons, and those marginally attached to the labor force.

For New York, the rate is 12.2.  Nationally it is 9.4 percent.

New York City's under-utilization rate appears to be pushing up the state average.  In NYC it is 15.5.  For the rest of the state, the data is not broken down by county so the statistic isn't available specifically for Genesee County.

Press release:

Carl Ribbeck, Jr. of Batavia has claimed his $1,000,000 prize on the New York Lottery’s 25X The Cash scratch-off game.

The winning ticket was purchased at Harry’s Niagara located at 563 East Main St. in Batavia.

Ribbeck, Jr. received his $1,000,000 prize as a single lump-sum payment totaling $579,390 after required withholdings.

All top prizes on the 25X The Cash game have been claimed. Players may continue to cash lower-tier prizes through 2/16/23. New York Lottery players can check the status of any scratch-off game by downloading the Game Report at nylottery.ny.gov.

New York scratch-off games generated $4,231,742,980 in total sales during the fiscal year 2020-2021. School districts in Genesee County $13,961,635 in Lottery Aid to Education funds during the same time period.

Mercy Flight is landing at the Pembroke Fire Hall, responding to a burn-victim call in the area of 8600 South lake Road.

The victim is described as a man in his mid-50s with first and second-degree burns to his face, hands, and check from a fuel fire.

The fire is out.

The patient is conscious and breathing.

UPDATE 1:04 p.m.: Mercy Flight is airborne in route to ECMC. Pembroke Fire is back in service.

Angela “Angie” Dickson remembers vividly what went through her mind as the plane carrying her and family members from their native Republic of Ghana approached New York City in 1999.

“I thought, this is the American Dream. That’s what we all wanted; to be able to go to school and for all the opportunities that are here,” said Dickson, recalling that September flight when she, then 16 years old, began a new life for herself.

Today, Dickson (photo above) is the confidential secretary to City Manager Rachael Tabelski, serving in that capacity since December when she was hired to replace Lisa Casey, who became the clerk of the Genesee County Legislature.

While her early days in the Big Apple were filled with wonder and awe – “It was much more established than Ghana (a West African country), which had so little,” she said – Dickson was able to carve out her place as an excellent student – graduating eighth out of 263 students at a high school in the Bronx.

Then, it was on to Buffalo State College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Health, Education and Wellness Promotion in 2007. Eight years later, she had obtained her master’s degree in Health and Wellness with a concentration in Human Resources.

“I was determined to make a better life for myself and my child,” Dickson said during a Wednesday afternoon interview with The Batavian at her office at City Hall. “My oldest daughter, Annabelle, was born in 2003 and she and I came to Buffalo.”

Dickson, who speaks several languages, including Spanish, French and multiple Ghanaian dialects, was recognized at Buffalo State for her advocacy for single mothers seeking an education. She was the recipient of a humanitarian award and also was included in an edition of the Who’s Who in College publication.

“I have dedicated my life to mothers looking to better themselves,” she said, “as I had to do it on my own.”

In 2008, Dickson entered the workforce, taking a case manager position with Schiller Park Community Services on the East Side of Buffalo, and in 2013, she was hired as a provider relations specialist with Fidelis Care at the insurance company’s regional office in Getzville.

During her tenure with Fidelis Care, she said she worked with hospitals and doctors on insurance coverage, often traveling to Akron and Batavia, which were part of her territory.

She also met the man she will be marrying on June 22, contractor Ed Griffin of Akron, and the couple and family moved to Corfu. (Incidentally, Angie and Ed were winners of GO Art!'s recent Wedding Giveaway contest, which features the ceremony at Seymour Place plus catering and numerous gifts from local businesses).

“When COVID hit, I was working from home, which was nice, but afterwards, we transitioned back to the office,” she said. “And I didn’t really want to make that drive to Getzville every day.”

Dickson also said the Akron, Pembroke and Batavia area appealed to her, with its rural setting and friendly people.

“With Batavia being one of my groups (at Fidelis), I came to love it,” she said. “I got to know people in the community and I just fell in love with it.”

She found out about the job opening with the City of Batavia, applied and was hired.

When asked how things are going so far, Dickson acknowledged that the work is “totally different from what I’ve done most of my adult life … working for a government, but I was looking for something that would be challenging and yet meaningful.”

Each day on the full-time job brings something new, she said, whether it be working on the budget books, coordinating meeting schedules, steering correspondence and residents’ inquiries to the right departments, assisting with City Council agendas and documents, or setting up meeting rooms “to make sure everything is in order.”

“I’m learning so much and, again, the community is just amazing. I hadn’t met people like this. Just to say ‘Hi’ to someone and they say ‘Hi’ back. It’s not like that in the city,” she said. “I had to get used to the fact that it was OK for people to say hello to me.”

Dickson said she appreciates that Tabelski affords her the leeway to work on a project without micromanaging it.

“Rachael trusts me and believes in me,” she said. “She gives me a responsibility and lets me do it.”

Tabelski said she is pleased with Dickson’s performance and cheerful outlook.

“Angie is a great addition to the city staff. She has an amazing positive attitude and approaches her job with a team-oriented spirit,” she said.

Outside of the office, Dickson enjoys gardening – something she picked up since moving to Corfu -- and traveling.  The couple has five children -- Corey, Maya, Annabelle, Alexander and Angelina.

Dickson said she is assisting with the city’s presentation at the Genesee County Home Show, which is scheduled for April 8-10 at the David M. McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena on Evans St. She said she will be there at different times and is looking forward to interacting with the public.

She said her feelings of gratitude run deep.

“I’d really like to say ‘thank you’ from the bottom of my heart to each and every person who has made me feel welcome,” she said. “It’s overwhelming, the amount of support that I have received.”

Photo of Angela Dickson by Mike Pettinella.

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Genesee County leaders, knowing that they wouldn't be able to avoid building a state-mandated new county jail forever, say the financial plan they have put in place will shield taxpayers form having to bear any of the $70 million cost.

“We’ve been planning for this through our sales tax negotiations that have been going on previously, four or five years ago, with the idea that the growth in sales tax and then sales tax proceeds in general will help fund this operation,” County Manager Matt Landers said following today’s special Committee of the Whole meeting.

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County jail project bids come in under budget; legislators approve all six contractors

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“For us at the county, we're glad to say that we have the resources to not have to have a property tax increase to pay for this jail, because we'll be able to use a good chunk of our reserves that we've set aside along with sales tax proceeds that have come to us. So, we feel confident that no county property tax increase will be needed for this jail.”

The county has set the wheels in motion to bond the expense over 30 years. When asked about the yearly payment, Landers acknowledged that it’s “pretty daunting.”

“Yeah, it's considerable but, again, we've been planning for this for years and making sure that the growth in sales tax -- and we're being smart with how we spend our money -- and basically set aside and earmark in our mind how much we need to grow in sales tax,” he replied. “We feel confident at this point that sales tax proceeds in the near future are going to be enough to cover debt service payments, along with some potential reserves that we set aside in prior years as well.”

County Legislature Chair Rochelle Stein, who called the approval of the bidding and funding resolutions as “a hallmark day for the county,” pointed out that the county’s recent 40-year sales tax agreement with its municipalities set the stage for the jail funding.

“I want to mention the very sometimes unpopular 40-year sales tax agreement and the cap of the $10 million for the villages and towns outside the city. That's what affords this debt service payment on that 30 years schedule,” she said. “And the jail is a county responsibility. It’s one that we can't push off to a different level of government.

“So, taking the steps to assure that this responsibility is well funded and it is carefully planned is part of a lot of the work that Matt's office has done. And the legislators have been very involved in asking the good questions like what was asked here today.”

Stein addressed comments from residents that the county should have built a shared jail with Orleans County to save money.

“We did try to go down that path with our neighboring county. The will was there from the legislators but it wasn’t so much supported through the rest of the rank and file,” she said. “We also would have need 47 different bills (pieces of legislation) at the state level in order to enable it to be a shared facility.”

Landers said there was the issue of the state legislation to allow the county to do a shared jail plus timing entered the equation.

“But the nice that about the jail being built is that it allows for expansion,” he added. “It has been built (designed) with all the right size mechanicals and everything is built so that if Orleans wants to in the future, and the state allows for it, we certainly would be receptive to adding a pod or two and to allow for Orleans County to share this Genesee County Jail.”

Sheriff William Sheron said a facility to replace the county’s original jail, built in 1902, has been a long time coming.

“When I started in 1977, there were plans on the table to build a new jail on land that was purchased (on the site of the former State Police barracks on East Main Street) in recognition that the jail was obsolete,” he said. “For whatever reason, that didn’t come to fruition and in the mid-1980s, we put the addition onto this jail (in the city).”

Sheron said the county has put together “a great team” dedicated to fiscal responsibility.

“We’re not going to build a Taj Mahal; we're going build a facility that's up to standards and … be able to offer more programs for those that are involved, those that are incarcerated, and hopefully make some improvements in their lives and better working conditions for officers.”

Stein thanked key players on the team, specifically Assistant Engineer Laura Wadams, Deputy Highway Superintendent Paul Osborn and Purchasing Director Chet Kaleta, and her colleagues on the legislature.

“Genesee County is not waiting for things to happen. The legislature that is serving this county is getting the job done,” she said. “Thank each and every one of you for your hard work that brought us to this day -- your commitment, your creativity, your patience, and most of all your courage during this time in our society where everything is in flux and changing. All stood fast, tall and committed to this project for this county.”

Don Burns did something recently he probably never imagined when he graduated from Batavia High School in 1992 -- dress up as Darth Vader and recite one of Shakespeare's famous monologues in the Richmond Mausoleum. 

Burns, now a teacher in Rochester, was both Darth Vader and executive producer of a Star Wars fan film, Tomorrow & Tomorrow.

The production was a project of 501st Legion's Garrison Excelsior, a worldwide not-for-profit costuming group that raises awareness and money for charities while spreading its members' love for Star Wars.

So far, the film has raised $1,200 for Make-A-Wish.

Burns and another Garrison conceived of the film.

"While researching for upcoming lessons, I happened upon a short film about a Stormtrooper reciting Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech," Burns said. "As an English teacher, and Darth Vader, I've mused with Vader as the title character in Macbeth and was disappointed that I was beaten to the punch. My friend, who is a mask-maker by profession, encouraged me  to look further into it and together we mapped out a way to get it done."

Half the movie was shot at Rochester's Sunken Garden and half at the mausoleum in Batavia.

The film was directed by Joseph Palluconi. The editor was Mark Lukenbill. 

"When all was said and done, it turned out better than I ever had a right to imagine," Burns said.

Here's a behind-the-scenes video about the making of the film.

The Marshalls store on Veterans Memorial Drive in Batavia Town Center is being evacuated because of sparks and smoke coming from a light fixture in the building.

Town of Batavia Fire responding.

The project executive for the construction management firm working with Genesee County on its new county jail project this afternoon said everyone should be “very happy” with the bids that were submitted for the six work areas that have been identified.

“Considering the economy and what's happening around the world -- the amount of work that's out there right now -- I think we should all be very happy that we have these results. They are very, very good results to be honest with you,” said Mark Bollin of The Pike Company of Rochester during a Genesee County Legislature Committee of the Whole meeting.

The special session was scheduled specifically for the awarding of construction bids for the $70 million, 184-bed jail initiative.

Bollin (photo above) went into detail about the companies that submitted low bids and answered questions from legislators about the project, that is scheduled to break ground on May 9 on land next to County Building 2 on West Main Street Road. He said work will take place over 20 months, with a projected completion date of January 2024 (plus another two months for close-out and punch list items).

As reported earlier today on The Batavian, the six low bidders are as follows:

General Contractor - LeChase Construction Services, LLC, of Rochester, $34,980,000;

Site Work - Bayside Paving Contractors Inc., Shortsville, at a stipulated sum of $3,792,000;

Food Services Equipment Work - Joseph Flihan Company, Utica, at a stipulated sum of $826,800;

Plumbing and Fire Protection Work - Thurston Dudeck LLC, Ontario, at a stipulated sum of $4,362,000;

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Work - Bell Mechanical Contractor, Inc., East Rochester, at a stipulated sum of $5,112,000;

Electrical and Security Electronics Work - Kaplan-Schmidt, Inc., Rochester, at a stipulated sum of $8,200,000.

The total of the six bids -- $57,272,800 -- is $2.7 million less than what The Pike Company budgeted for the work listed above, Bollin said.

Legislators unanimously voted in favor of accepting the bids, and also voted on amending the project reserve fund to increase the amount to be bonded over a 40-year period to the $70 million figure.

Bollin said his company solicited for bids throughout New York, advertising in different places, including the Builders Exchange to Rochester and Buffalo.

“The Pike Company also has a system where we sent out the advertisement to bid to upwards of 5,000 individuals throughout the state,” he said. “So, we actually had very good participation. There was a number of projects that were out to bid at the time. Contractors are busy right now. But we actually did have very good versus participation.”

He advised that each of the six contractors have a “definitive scope of work” and each are aware of their exact responsibilities.

“There was a schedule included in the bidding documents, along with intermediate milestone dates that each contractor was responsible to meet -- both material deliveries, labor, etc. So, every contractor knew exactly what they were supposed to do,” he added.

Response to the bidding documents sent to prospective companies indicated that “they were probably some of the best construction documents … that they’ve ever seen,” Bollin said. “And that was reinforced by our estimating people who also said that those were a very good set of documents.”

A breakdown of the bids showed that three came in on the site work package, five for the general contractor, one for the food service (which came in higher than anticipated due to the cost of stainless steel and kitchen equipment, Bollin said), five for the plumbing work, six for heating and ventilation and five for electrical.

Bollin said all the contracts are ready to go out, along with notice of award letters that he will hand deliver tomorrow. The selected contractors are required to return the signed contracts along with insurance documents within seven calendar days, “at which time, the county can then sign the documents.”

Bollin said he is confident in the stability and expertise of the companies, noting that he has done work with all of them.

When asked about cost overruns, he said a “field order allowance” of $90,000 is built into each contract, but any charges over the bid amount must be approved by the legislature. He also said that The Pike Company will have personnel on site during construction as a quality control measure.

He said he has received assurances from the low bidders that long-lead materials, such as PVC conduit, electrical gear and air handling units, are being ordered now in an attempt to avoid delays.

“One of the reasons why we don't want to issue the notice proceed until May 9 is to give all the contractors a five week period of time …until we actually start construction to start securing steel and precast concrete,” he said. “I know for a fact that the general contractor is already committed to a steel contractor and he's already starting getting things ready. The precast contractor, I personally talked to him after the bid and he said he's already getting things ready to go.”

Downtown Batavia will be booming with live music once again this summer, organizer Paul Draper says.

After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the annual Ramble event will resume on July 2 at Jackson Square.

“We’ve partnered with GO ART! this year to help us not only grow the entire event but also bring more of a presence to the ‘arts’ side of the festival,” Draper said to The Batavian Wednesday. “We are very excited about the partnership and are looking forward to bringing them into the fold.”

The event’s name has been tweaked to The Batavia Ramble Explore Art & Music Festival. Downtown Batavia is to be filled with art displays, family-friendly activities and, of course, a line-up of hometown bands for a Saturday full of live music.

There are sparse details on the GO ART! and Batavia Ramble Facebook pages, but both promise updates as they become available. Executive Director Gregory Hallock was not available for comment. GO ART! staff posted about the long-awaited return:

“It’s going to be an incredible festival with a ton of great bands, artists, vendors and food. Applications for vendors/bands/artists will be available soon!”

Batavia Ramble has posted an application for bands, with the fair warning that slots are filling up fast for this year.

For more information, go to: facebook.com/thebataviaramble

Press release:

The Town of Byron's Clean Energy Resources Information Committee (CERIC) is a group of residents engaged in finding funding sources and programs to help the Town of Byron and its residents to access clean energy.  Thanks to their hard work, Byron is almost ready to be designated a Clean Energy Community (CEC) from NYSERDA which makes Byron eligible for clean energy project grants.

Interested in lowering your energy bills along with reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions? Our Community Clean Energy Campaign may be just what you are looking for! We were recently approved by NYSERDA to begin our Clean Energy Community Campaign in which we can help you learn about opportunities to install clean heating and cooling systems. 

Meetings are on the third Monday of every month, at the Byron Hotel, at 6:30 p.m. Find out more on our Facebook page (Town of Byron Clean Energy Resources Information Committee) or contact us at ceric.byron@gmail.com. Check out our joint booth with Pathstone at the 7th Annual Genesee County Chamber of Commerce Home Show at the David McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena (formerly Falleti Ice Arena). Stop by for more information on our clean energy campaigns and the HeatSmart Program! 

This morning's sky was stunning, and Frank Capuano, Batavia (top photo), and Jodi Carmichael, Alabama, shared these two photos.

Kerwin Eric Ransom, 58, of Genesee Street, Pembroke, is charged with endangering the welfare of a child and harassment 2nd. Ransom is accused of pushing a pre-teen child. He was arraigned in Town of Pembroke Court, issued an order of protection, and released.

Tina Marie Baase, 59, of Hamlin, is charged with DWI, driving with a BAC of .18 or greater, and moving from lane unsafely. Baase was stopped at 9:34 p.m., March 26, on Route 98 in Batavia, by Deputy Jeremiah Gechell. Baase allegedly failed a field sobriety test. She was issued an appearance ticket.

Jessica Jean Easton, 38, of Easton Road, Esperance, is charged with DWI and driving with a BAC of.18 or greater. Easton was stopped at 8:50 p.m., March 26, on Gillate Road, Alexander, by Deputy Morgan Ewart. Easton was released on an appearance ticket.

Sierra Nicole Biegasiewicz, 31, of Ross Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Biegasiewicz is accused of shoplifting at Walmart. She was released on an appearance ticket.

The Genesee County Legislature, at a Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for 4:30 this afternoon, is expected to accept a bid of nearly $35 million from LeChase Construction Services, LLC, of Rochester, as the general contractor for the $70 million Jail Construction Project near County Building 2 on West Main Street Road.

Resolutions released moments ago by the legislative office reveals six low bids up for consideration, topped by the LeChase bid of $34,980,000.

Other bids are as follows:

• Site Work - Bayside Paving Contractors Inc., Shortsville, at a stipulated sum of $3,792,000;

• Food Services Equipment Work - Joseph Flihan Company, Utica, at a stipulated sum of $826,800;

• Plumbing and Fire Protection Work - Thurston Dudeck LLC, Ontario, at a stipulated sum of $4,362,000;

• Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Work - Bell Mechanical Contractor, Inc., East Rochester, at a stipulated sum of $5,112,000;

• Electrical and Security Electronics Work - Kaplan-Schmidt, Inc., Rochester, at a stipulated sum of $8,200,000.

With more than $57 million likely going to these contractors, the remaining balance of the project as of the March 23 audit is $10,398,462.93.

The legislature is set to amend the Jail Construction Capital Project budget by adding $66,271,467 in long-term bond funds to the $3,728,533 that currently is in a Building and Equipment Reserve (Infrastructure) fund.

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A driver told a deputy he was distracted by his CB radio prior to an accident on Sandpit Road in Alexander at 4:40 p.m., Monday.

The driver of the second vehicle sustained minor injuries. 

Phillip J. Gorny, 53, of Creek Road, Batavia, driving a 2004 Dodge pickup, struck a 2007 Chevrolet SUV driven by 64-year-old Linda Hulshoff, of Broadway Road, Alexander.

Gorny was reportedly northbound on Sandpit Road and allegedly failed to yield to Hulshoff, who was eastbound on Route 20.  His pickup struck the SUV in the area of the passenger side front fender.

Deputy Jeremy McClellan, who investigated the accident, issued Gorny a traffic citation for alleged failure to yield. 

Press release:

The Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) Board of Directors approved financial assistance for a proposed $3.25 million project in the Buffalo East Tech Park at its board meeting on Tuesday, March 29, 2022.

J&R Fancher Property Holdings LLC plans to build a 52,332 sq. ft. facility in the town of Pembroke business park. The warehouse will include a 45,000 sq. ft. pre-engineered steel warehouse building with 7,332 sq. ft. office space.

This project will create four full-time positions and generate an estimated $9 in economic activity for every $1 of public investment. The project requested approximately $900,000 in sales, mortgage, and property tax exemptions.

A public hearing on the proposed project was held on March 21 in the town of Pembroke.

Located less than a mile from Interstate 90 Exit 48-A at State Highways 5 and 77, the Buffalo East Tech Park has previously enabled the construction of facilities for Yancey’s Fancy and Professional Turf Services.