Morning News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on January 28, 2022
The state office of Cannabis Management says that regulations that will allow pot to be legally sold for recreational purposes are incoming. They are planning on releasing regulations in late winter or early spring and then there will be 60 days for comments from the public. After that period businesses can begin to apply for a license to sell marijuana. About 34% of towns and villages representing about 118,000 people officially opted out of allowing the sale of Marijuana in their municipalities. The OCM says it is actively training more police officers to be DREs, or Drug Recognition Experts. They added they are continuously searching for a device that could be used to detect if someone is under the influence of marijuana.
A Wyoming county optician has been sentenced in connection to Medicaid fraud. The Office of the Attorney General announced optician Thomas Foote, 59 of Wyoming County, previously pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the fourth degree. Thursday he was sentenced to 90 days in state prison, followed by five years probation and he is ordered to pay $74,000 in restitution. The fraud was committed by billing Medicaid for services that were never provided between 2016 and 2019. An investigation revealed many of the patients he claimed to have fitted eyeglasses for were deceased. Nursing home visitor logs and records also revealed he never visited nursing homes on dates he claimed to have provided services.
Batavia City Councilman at-large Jeremy Karas has confirmed his decision to resign from the city council. Karas had just started his first full 4-term the first of this month. He has missed the first three meetings of council this year and says his work commitments have increased significantly over the last couple of months and that is the reason for his absence. Karas is employed as service manager at Temp-Press. Since Karas has resigned, city council will appoint a republican to serve until November when a new candidate would run to fill the un-expired term. City republican chair Richard Richmond says they will be looking for someone to replace him and they are inviting people to be interviewed for the job.
Oishei Children’s Hospital is benefitting from the good plays made by Gabriel Davis during the Bills Chiefs game last Sunday. The Sports Betting and Fantasy Sports company Fanduel is donating 52000 dollars to the western NY children’s hospital, 13 thousand for every touchdown scored by Gabriel Davis.
