Evening News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on February 10, 2021
Batavia City Schools has rolled out a new Community Schools initiative based on a national strategy of fixing inequities for students who face issues such as lack of sable housing, food insecurity or lack of medical care. The 4 areas of supporting the, whole child, as the initiative lays it out, are Expanded learning time, integrating student supports such as counselors and clinics, Family and Community engagement with community leaders and collaborative leadership practices including having school staff go out and help with community organizations. The vision statement is to Build a better Batavia by promoting equitable learning opportunities, cultivating healthier families, and establishing a stronger community.
Governor Cuomo announced today that New York State and Baby2Baby Diaper Bank are joining forces to provide diapers to women and children in need throughout New York State. Officials say through the partnership with Baby2Baby, 20 million donated diapers will be made available to New York’s Emergency Feeding Programs to be distributed at no cost through food banks across the state.
The 2019 State budget had a little talked about effect on how the political system works in New York state. It made it so that smaller political parties outside the Republicans and Democrats have to participate in gubernatorial and presidential elections which means they have to get 130,000 or more votes to be on the ballots and also have to run every 2 years instead of every 4. The Serve America Movement party is saying that this unfairly and unconstitutionally limits elections in New York to just the big 2 parties after they lost a court case to not have their candidate dropped from the ballots in 2021 and 2022. Their candidate earned more than the 50 thousand votes needed to be a recognized political party in 2018 and then the law was changed in the 2019 budget and now they would have to get recognized again with almost 3 times the votes.
COVID Update: Genesee county has 28 new cases and 30 people have recovered. Orleans county has 3 new cases and 13 people have recovered. There are 92 active cases in Genesee county and 73 in Orleans.
The temporary order has ended and the curfew is back on in Buffalo. All restaurants and bars must close by 10 pm. There was a temporary restraining order allowing Erie county establishments to stay open to their regular closing time after 100 businesses sued the state.
