Afternoon News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on October 27, 2020
Tis’ the season to be thankful, that you are allowed to go home. SUNY schools are implementing a new policy which is supposed to protect the families of students who are going home for the holidays. In order for the students to leave campus they have to test negative for COVID 19. Students will be tested at most 10 days prior to leaving campus. If they test positive they will be required to quarantine on campus till they test negative before going home. There has been no announcement on how this will be enforced and the plan for testing will be announced by November 5th.
Byron, Pavilion and Stafford are getting more money t help with water infrastructure. Byron will get nearly 10 million dollars half in a grant and half in a loan to extend safe potable water to about 600 people. Pavilion will get 567 thousand dollars as a loan to build a new 300 thousand gallon water tank and pipeline to serve 2495 people. Stafford is getting 3 million dollars about half and half loan and grant to extend water to 185 residents who don’t have safe drinking and cooking water. This money is coming from the USDA and is part of 891 million dollars being sent out by the Trump Administration to 43 states.
COVID Update: Genesee county has 5 new cases and 13 new people are on travel quarantine. 2 people have recovered. The case at premiere Genesee tested negative soon after testing positive so has been removed from the numbers for Genesee county. Orleans county has 19 new cases and 16 new people on travel quarantine. 5 of the new cases are students at Albion elementary, middle and high school. 4 of the students were not in school all of last week. Contact tracing has been completed for the 1 student who was in school. There are 19 active cases in Genesee county and 37 in Orleans.
It may just be a piece of plastic and metal but for many people the political yard signs are an expression of their first amendment right to free speech. For other, they are so offensive they can’t help themselves. Police in communities across western NY are reporting a rash of political sign thefts in the last 2 weeks. At least 4 people have reported signs stolen in Batavia. Others have reported signs stolen in Amherst, Niagara county, Chautauqua County, Rochester and Buffalo. The majority of thefts have targeted trump signs but at least one occurrence here in Batavia was teenagers stealing Biden signs. Stealing political signs in NY is a misdemeanor punishable with a fine of up to 1000 dollars and up to 90 days in jail.
The case of the 2 teens who were arrested after the deadly shooting in Lockport a week and a half ago has been turned over to a grand jury. One of the boys has confessed to the shooting saying that they were trying to hit 2 people they knew were at the Halloween party. The shooting killed one person and injured 5 others.
The City Council wants to build a new police station on the Alva Place parking lot, the Genesee country Farmers Market is not pleased with that plan. The market has moved 11 times in the past 15 years and each move costs them organization and customers. According to Elizabeth Carr, representative for the Market, “it takes at least two years “to ramp back up to full capacity.” City Council President Eugene Jankowski says he is surprised by the displeasure as they had proposed the police station months ago and no one complained.
