A second person has been arrested in connection with Monday morning's robbery at the Greater Chautauqua Federal Credit Union in the village of Falconer. Ellicott Town Police Chief Bill Ohnmeiss says town officers and Jamestown police found 61 year-old Thomas Bartlett Senior hold up in a home on 15th Street in the city early Tuesday night.
Ohnmeiss says Bartlett was allegedly driving the car used to help primary suspect 22 year-old Kyle Senear of Jamestown flee the scene. He says Senear entered the 51 East Main Street location about 9:30 AM Monday... and, he demanded cash.
Senear was able to flee on foot but was found in Jamestown later in the day.
Both Bartlett and Senear are charged with second-degree robbery and are jailed pending further court action.
Anyone with information on the hold-up is still asked to call City Police at 483-TIPS that's 483-8477 or Ellicott Police at 665-7083. The FBI is now assisting in the investigation.
A Frewsburg man convicted of committing health care fraud using a "side business" he operated while he was teaching in the Salamanca School District has been sentenced to three-years supervised release and six months home confinement in federal court. In addition Acting U-S Attorney James Kennedy Jr. says 66 year-old Leo Kronert was ordered to pay just over $59,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service by U-S District Judge Lawrence Vilardo.
Assistant U-S Attorney Maura O’Donnell, who handled the case, says Kronert was a part-time chiropractor in Salamanca and submitted false claims for payment to Medicare and private insurance companies seeking reimbursement for his alleged services.
She says the fraudulent claims totaled about $92,000 and included bills for patient visits on dates during which Kronert was travelling out of the area as well as bills for an individual who did not reside in Western New York.
Strong winds hit the Jamestown-area by early last night anD some gusts apparently led to some downed power lines in the immediate Jamestown-area.
The Board of Public Utilities Electric Division reported an outage that began just after 8 PM Wednesday night.
BPU Spokeswoman Becky Robbins says the streets affected were in the area of Ellicott, English, Allen, Lexington, Tower and King Streets. Robbins said line crews were called in deal with the outages. Power was back on by 9:45 last evening.
Early Wednesday more than 1,100 National Grid electric customers in the Falconer-area were without power for about two-hours after a large tree came down on some lines near a substation.
National Grid spokesman Steve Brady says the tree came down in the Falconer-area about 5:30 AM. Brady says the outage affected 1,153 customers in the Falconer and Kennedy areas. Brady says power was restored to everyone just after 7:30 AM Wednesday.
More Wintry weather returned to the Jamestown-area late last night ushered in by strong winds as a cold front passed through the Jamestown-area.
The National Weather Service is continuing a Wind Advisory for all of Western New York that runs through early this morning.
Forecaster Jon Hitchcock in Buffalo said late yesterday that the winds would pick up for everyone once the front crosses the area. Hitchcock added that temperature's would begin to nose-dive.
Hitchcock says March is continuing a weather pattern that produced the warmest February since weather records were first kept in Buffalo in 1871. He adds it comes just two years after we had our coldest February ever. Hitchcock says the new February record high average is 34.8-degrees eclipsing the old record of 34.1-degrees set in 1998.
Hitchcock says temperatures will drop to more seasonal levels tonight through the early part of the weekend.
With the transition to an interim Superintendent complete the Jamestown school board will begin work later this month on a 2017-18 budget proposal for voters to decide on in May.
That from Interim Silvia Root following her first school board meeting Tuesday night. Root says with former Superintendent Tim Mains leaving for his new job in the Mid-Hudson Valley and her coming into the district they're getting a later start than last year.
However... she says she's already been discussing the situation with School Business Manager Vern Connors. Root says the school board has also been busy with other business prior to dealing with the budget.
The Jamestown District and all others have also been waiting for a final state budget. That spending plan is due by April 1st. Last year Jamestown took advantage of additional aid to keep current staffing levels, and begin to rebuild the district's undesignated fund balance.
The preliminary, 2017-18 budget will be presented to the school board at it's March 15th meeting. A final plan needs to be approved by April 21st for the public vote on May 16th.
Dunkirk's top elected official says he backs NRG's renegotiated payment in lieu of tax agreement for the Dunkirk power plant. Mayor Willie Rosas discussed the PILOT Agreement that was approved on Tuesday by the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency Board earlier Wednesday.
Rosas says as mayor he has to look at the big picture. Under the new agreement the city, the Dunkirk City School District, and Chautauqua County will split an annual payment of $420,000. The payments will begin during the school district's 2017-18 fiscal year and the city and county's 2018 fiscal year and continue until the conversion project's completion or the school district's 2022-23 fiscal year and the city and county's 2023 fiscal year.
Payments will then increase as power generation units are returned to service. Rosas says that without the revised agreement it's possible the repowering would not go through.
There is no change in gasoline prices in Chautauqua County this week with prices remaining "relatively stable" across the region. That from the AAA Fuel Gauge Report which says the price for regular, unleaded remains a "flat" $2.50 a gallon. AAA adds that national prices have only fluctuated a couple of cents over the past 27 days.
The Fuel Gauge says today's average price for regular unleaded gasoline is $2.29 per gallon, which is the same price as one week ago, same price as compared to one month ago and 55 cents more than the same date last year.
In mid-March, prices will likely rise as more refiners begin to switch from winter-blend to summer-blend gasoline and driver demand increases. AAA says prices in both the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions remain relatively stable with New York at $2.46 a gallon overall.
