Wednesday News Brief

Proposed Budget for Genesee County Sees a $6.2 Million Increase.

Joanne Beck with the Batavian reports, that the 2025 Genesee County proposed budget has a $6.2 million increase to accommodate rising costs.

The increase brings the total budget to $189,249,435. However, the budget includes a tax rate of $7.57 which is a 51-cent decrease from the current tax rate due in part to increased property assessments. In simple terms, if this budget is adopted a property assessed at $100,000 would pay $757 in annual taxes compared to this year’s number of $808. Genesee County Manager Matt Landers attributed retirement increases, health care cost increases, and jail operating cost increases to the $6.2 million spike in the budget.

Landers also stated that the increase in budget includes ten new correctional officer positions created for the new county jail.

Batavia/Notre Dame United Hockey Team Reveals New Jerseys

As high school hockey season quickly approaches, Batavia/Notre Dame United revealed their new jerseys for the upcoming season.

At Saturday’s Play Hockey for Free event at the McCarthy Ice Arena in Batavia, the home venue for BND United, 18 players for BND took the ice doning the new uniforms. The Seniors on the team helped create the new logo with “Just Dishin”, a graphic design business founded by Notre Dame graduate Matthew Keeler. The new logo is a U with BND written in the middle, similar to the Montreal Canadiens logo.

The new jerseys are funded by the BND Hockey Boosters, which is run by the parents of the players and annually raises around $20,000 through a variety of fundraisers.

Buffalo Sabres Pick Up a Much Needed Victory

Following a 3-game losing skid, the Buffalo Sabres came up with a massive 5-1 victory over their divisional rival the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.

The Sabres went up 1-0 in the first period when JJ Peterka scored and followed it up with a goal by Bowen Byram just 17 seconds into the second period. Ottawa tagged on a goal in the second to keep the game close, but in the third period, Buffalo scored twice in the first 40 seconds to take a 4-1 lead and tagged one more on later in the period to put the game on ice. It was a very chippy game with high tensions, Buffalo RW Tage Thompson said, “Yeah those one’s are always fun, I mean any division rival obviously like Ottawa is a big game and we knew we needed that one. That was a big one for us and both sides showed a lot of desperation tonight. I thought after losing the last three that’s a huge response from us”.

JJ Peterka was big for the Sabres scoring 2 goals on the evening, Peterka credited the Sabres with bringing a lot of energy to the game. Peterka said, “Every line got a lot of energy tonight, it’s just great to see after three losses that we respond like that.

In net Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen played a big role, recording 38 saves in the game and making a pair of impressive saves on two separate Ottawa fast breaks. On his performance, Luukkonen said, “It feels great, just overall, making those big saves, getting the win, and stopping the losing streak and we’ll try to build confidence from there”.

With the win, the Sabres move to 5-7-1 on the season and will travel to Madison Square Garden on Thursday to play the New York Rangers.