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Statement by The Rev. Gary Brinn, Elmira City Council (D-4)

11 March 2024

On May 24, 1972, Norfolk Police Officer Kit Hurst lost his life during a botched narcotics raid. Kit’s little brother was my best friend. His dad was a cop too, as were my grandfather and great-grandfather.

Fifty years later, one of my sister’s closest friends, Rochester Police Officer Tony Mazurkiewicz, was gunned down in cold blood. His killer was sentenced a couple of weeks ago.

I have understood the risks our law enforcement officers face every day my entire life. Those risks are made worse as our communities are over-run by assault weapons and ghost guns, and by narcotics that begin in Communist China, pass through the failed narco-state of Mexico, and end up in our streets, where they kill addicts like my nephew Josh.

We refuse to provide treatment for the mentally ill and chronically addicted, choosing to pay much more in the long-run as they cycle from prison to the streets. This is a reality all of our first-responders face.

Anyone who says I do not support cops and do not understand the challenges of law enforcement is lying to you. I do support law enforcement. But I do not support this contract with Elmira’s police union, despite being the son of a union-member firefighter myself.

We may be in a hot economy, but no one is seeing these types of raises. Elmira’s elderly, dependent on social security, are not getting a cost of living adjustment that looks anything like this. Our teachers are not getting raises like this.

To find this sort of pay increase, you’d have to turn to the CEOs who are destroying America’s middle class and impoverishing our working class. Unless you are one of those CEOs, you probably should be paid more. That isn’t a question. The question is whether we can afford to pay our police more on the backs of our taxpayers. And that answer is no.

This contract exceeds our budgeted contingency, and combined with an un-budgeted overrun in healthcare costs, breaks the city’s budget only two months into the fiscal year. The City Manager and Mayor have had the back of our police officers while stabilizing the city’s finances. Their good faith is not reciprocated here.

The current economic model for policing in small cities is simply not sustainable. Taxpayers cannot continue to be held hostage to this broken system. I’d like to think the union understood this, but since so few of our police officers live in Elmira, I have my doubts.

In the long-term, this strategy is self-defeating, as a city being bankrupted by soaring police salaries cannot take on the quality of life and community care issues that help reduce crime. This contract locks us into a fiscal death spiral that ends up with Elmira as a war zone patrolled by an occupation force.

I appreciate the hard work the mayor and the chamberlain put into negotiating this agreement. And I trust them when they say New York’s binding arbitration system ties our hands, so I will vote to approve the contract today. But going forward, I will not vote for new hires who do not reside in the City of Elmira or have not committed to move into the city. I am formally requesting that the City Manager no longer group all personnel transactions in a single resolution, forcing the council to accept or reject multiple individuals across multiple departments.

I expect the chief and the city manager to come back to this council with significant cost containment measures. If I spend more than I make, there are consequences. The same is true for the city.

If you are not outraged by these numbers, you are not paying attention. I encourage the citizens of Elmira to demand reform, in policing, in how contracts for public servants are negotiated, and most of all in our misplaced political priorities that fund incarceration after there are victims instead of treatment and rehabilitation before there are victims.

Call your representatives in the County Legislature, in Albany, and in Washington, and if they refuse to listen, throw the bums out.

Thank you.

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trumpclinched their parties’ presidential nominations Tuesday with decisive victories in a slate of low-profile primaries, setting up a general election rematch that many voters do not want.

The outcome of contests across Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state was never in doubt. Neither Biden, a Democrat, nor Trump, a Republican, faced major opposition. But the magnitude of their wins gave each man the delegate majority he needed to claim his party’s nomination at the summertime national conventions.

Not even halfway through the presidential primary calendar, Tuesday marked a crystalizing moment for a nation uneasy with its choices in 2024. 

 

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Webb may have found evidence for the long-theorized first generation of stars — as well as the most distant active supermassive black hole to date. GN-z11, a galaxy that existed 430 million years after the big bang, is giving up its secrets.

This extremely bright galaxy was discovered by @NASAHubble and is one of the earliest distant galaxies ever observed. Webb found the first clear evidence explaining why it is so luminous: a 2-million-solar-mass central supermassive black hole rapidly gobbling up matter.

Observers using Webb also discovered a pocket of pristine gas in the galaxy’s halo. Theory and models both suggest that clumps of helium like these may collapse to form Population III stars, the first generation of stars in the early universe. These stars have never been observed. They’d be made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium (unlike modern stars, which contain heavier elements) and be massive, bright, and hot. Finding them is one of the most important goals of modern astrophysics.

 

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ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – In a 6 to 1 vote Monday night, the Elmira City Council voted to approve a new 4-year-contract with the Police Union representing Elmira Police Officers. The agreement includes raises totaling 29% spread over the life of the contract. 

Officers will see a 10% increase in 2024, with back pay, and another 10% increase in 2025. Two more raises of 4.5% each are set for 2026 and 2027.

 

Read the rest here.

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Visitors to Topaz Farm on Sauvie Island just outside of Portland, Oregon last October didn’t encounter a corn maze but rather a kid’s maze cut through a field of sorghum. It’s easier on the soil, explains Kat Topaz, who owns the farm along with Jim Abeles. Topaz and Abeles put up a sign explaining the choice, and they frequently take the opportunity to explain their farming decisions to visitors.

“We call ourselves an ‘experience farm,’” says Topaz. “But we could just as easily call ourselves an educational farm.” 

Topaz Farm grows vegetables, berries and more—but it also participates in something called agritourism, a broad term that includes activities and events that bring visitors to the farm. This relationship between the farm and the greater community has been critical to the farm’s survival over the past few years.

When Abeles and Topaz first acquired their land on Sauvie Island, it had been conventionally farmed for decades and had “virtually nothing good in the soil,” says Topaz. As they began to farm the land, they also endeavored to learn about regenerative techniques to foster healthier soil—supplementing with microbes, biochar and more. But these things don’t transform soil overnight, and in the meantime, it was difficult to make enough income through traditional farming alone. This was coupled with other mishaps that often befall small farms. The first year, deer ate two acres of strawberries while Topaz and Abeles were sleeping. This past year, squash bugs helped wipe out their pumpkin crop. Their forays into agritourism have kept the farm afloat.

“We think that for farmers to become sustainable financially and to remain in business and to keep farming, they have to have the flexibility to have diverse revenue sources,” says Abeles.

They aren’t the only ones who feel this way. When announcing the results from the 2022 Census of Agriculture this February, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said that many farmers rely on off-farm income to keep their production afloat, and he supports diversifying farmers’ income streams to keep farming economically feasible, although he didn’t mention agritourism specifically.

But despite many farms depending on extra revenue, which agritourism can provide, farmers such as Topaz and Abeles face challenges in navigating agritourism laws. According to Oregon’s legal code, farms can have “farm stands” as long as no more than 25 percent of the sales are attributable to “incidental items and fees from promotional activity.” This includes some but not all aspects of agritourism. But it doesn’t always make sense to Topaz and Abeles what fits into which category—it’s a problem, since there’s a hard cap on incidentals. For example, if they sell tickets to a farm dinner and prepare guests food made from the produce harvested on the farm, this can’t exceed 25 percent of their “farm stand” income. 

Other issues emerged. They were told by a county official that if they host live music, it can’t be called a concert. But it is OK to call it a “harvest festival featuring a live music performance.” If a class of school children comes to the farm for an educational field trip and it’s raining (as it often does in northwest Oregon), Abeles and Topaz want to be able to utilize tents, but the county has flagged this as an issue as well, with the outcome yet to be decided.

“We used to say Mother Nature was the most challenging part of farming,” says Topaz. “We’ve replaced that with Multnomah County and the state being the most difficult thing that we deal with. And we’re not alone.”

 

Read the rest here.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A union representing New York City firefighters is raising concerns about possible disciplinary action against its members after state Attorney General Letitia James was booed and a pro-Donald Trump chant broke out during a fire department ceremony last week.

The Democrat, whose office won a $355 million penalty against the Republican former president for lying about his wealth last month, faced a chorus of jeers as she addressed a department promotions ceremony Thursday in Brooklyn.

“Come on. We’re in a house of God,” James responded as some in the crowd at the Christian Cultural Center also aggressively chanted Trump’s name. “Simmer down.”

Fire officials, in an internal note shared widely on social media, called the conduct “grossly inappropriate” and disrespectful to fellow firefighters and their supporters attending the special occasion.

Department members have a right to express their political beliefs, the note stressed, just not on the job.

 

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What do you think? Were they out of line or within their constitutional rights to free speech?

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With some 70 degree days already hitting much of the upstate region, an early spring may not be a good thing, according to Jason Londo, an associate professor of fruit crop physiology at Cornell University. He said with warmer weather, fruit crops may start dropping their defenses.

“We typically get plenty of cold weather in the month of March and even into April,” Londo said. “So the more heat we have now, the less defended our crops are to those types of freeze events that could happen,”

As temperatures increase, many fruit crops lose their resiliency to the cold, making them more susceptible to frost or cold damage. A late freeze last May caused damage to some apple and grape crops across the state. This year, Londo is remaining optimistic.

“I’m nervous, but it just depends, if it calms down and it just kind of goes through the rest of spring very cool, we’re fine,” Londo said.

 

Read more here.

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Eric Carmen wrote and performed some of the biggest power ballads of the 1970s and '80s. Many of them became famous from the movies they helped score. Carmen wrote eight top 40 hits; his best-known songs include "Hungry Eyes," an integral part of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack from 1987, and "All By Myself," which has become a romantic comedy staple.

Carmen died in his sleep this weekend, according to a statement on his webpage.

 

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ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) -- Chemung County Executive Christopher Moss released a statement on Facebook, asking the Chemung County Industrial Development Agency to be more transparent about their role in financially supporting First Arena in Elmira. 

Moss and IDA Chairman Mark Margeson said First Arena is currently being operating the Chemung County Capital Resource Association, a subsidiary of the Chemung County IDA.  

They said the IDA has been giving thousands of dollars to the CCCRA to keep First Arena open. But Moss said he wants to know why the IDA is discussing issues regarding First Arena in private meetings and not giving the public a chance to hear about the facility’s status. 

“Look, if we want people to support the arena because we’re not getting enough fan base there...that monthly IDA meeting ought to be giving out public information: this is how many people went through the doors, this is what it cost us,” Moss said.  

 

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Nearly a decade after New York passed its controversial fracking ban, the debate over resource extraction in the state has returned.

Gathered at the state Capitol earlier this month, a group of elected officials, environmentalists, and anti-fracking advocates repeated a chant many knew well. Calls to “Ban fracking now!” rang out, with state Sen. Lea Webb leading the crowd.

Webb, like many of the others who had gathered to rally against a new gas and oil extraction proposal in the state, has made this demand before. Yet, many believed that fight was long over — New York banned hydraulic fracking in 2014. Since then, as oil and gas companies began fracking in neighboring Pennsylvania and other states, shale formations in the Empire State have remained untouched.

But now a new proposal to drill into the Marcellus and Utica shales has revived the decades-long fight and surfaced questions over the feasibility of a "greener" method of extracting oil and gas.

 

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It is a direct function of the county legislature to manage and maintain the route slip systems and processes. It enables the clerk and deputy clerk of the legislature to produce documents to conduct the business of the county.

Margeson said that the county executive left the clerk and deputy clerk out of training and information sessions for the new software, which essentially hindered their ability to do their jobs.

Margeson added that Moss wants to control the route slip process because of what he says is a, “perception that in the past, some of the resolutions may have been modified or changed.”

The accusation by Moss was made against the now former clerk of the legislature, Cindy Kalweit.

Kalweit told WSKG that any changes she made in her capacity as clerk were made to reflect appropriate attachments and formatting for policy and resolution language.

Kalweit retired in February after 19 years of service with Chemung County, due to what Margeson said was her perceived treatment by him and the county executive in her position.

“During that whole process, Cindy became very frustrated, and felt that we- I’ll say me- as the chair didn't support what she really felt, and that she felt that we were being really taken advantage of,” explained Margeson. “[That] it appeared that I supported the county executive versus supporting her, which wasn't really the case."

Multiple attempts to reach the county executive went unanswered.

 

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A biotech company that hopes to resurrect extinct species said Wednesday that it has reached an important milestone: the creation of a long-sought kind of stem cell for the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth.

"This is probably the most significant step in the early stages of this project," said George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-founded Colossal Biosciencesin Dallas.

The woolly mammoth was a big, shaggy species of elephant that roamed the tundra before going extinct thousands of years ago. Colossal has been working to bring the mammoth, the dodo bird and other extinct species back to life using the latest cloning and genetic engineering techniques.

And now the company says scientists have for the first time created induced pluripotent stem cells for the mammoth's closest living relative: Asian elephants. The company plans to describe the work in a scientific paper that will be posted on the bioRxiv preprint server. It hasn't been peer-reviewed, but the company says that's in progress.

 

Read the rest here. 

What do you think? Should scince be trying to resurect some extinct species?

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The Buffalo Bills announced  today the release of the following players: safety Jordan Poyer, center Mitch Morse, defensive back Siran Neal, wide receiver Deonte Harty and running back Nyheim Hines.

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ELMIRA - The West Division Champion Elmira Pioneers are excited for their 139th season at Historic Dunn Field in the PGCBL and are incredibly excited to announce opening day is coming soon.

The Elmira Pioneers opening day will be Friday May 31 st vs the Batavia Muckdogs at 6:35 PM with postgame fireworks sponsored by Southern Tier Custom Fab and Hilliard Corporation. If you have not bought season tickets make sure to get them by calling their offices at 607-734-2690 or www.theelmirapioneers.com.

A full 2024 schedule will be released soon.

Bucky Dent, former New York Yankees player and manager will come to Elmira on Friday April 19th at the Clarion Inn located at 760 E Water St presented by Hilliard Corporation and Blaze Brockway Contracting. The event will have a special meet and greet session with the speaker.

Bucky Dent was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the first round of the 1970 draft. Dent played for 11 seasons as a player in Major League Baseball, won two world series, three all-star appearances, and was named World Series MVP in 1978. Dent also spent 10 seasons as an assisted coach and was the New York Yankees Manager from 1989-1990.

Tickets for both events are on sale now and start as low as $50. Call 607-734-2690 or email General Manager Marc Witt at mwitt.canusa@gmail.com

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As our climate changes, our food is at risk of immediate dangers such as fires and floods. But there are long-term impacts that have already changed the makeup of the food you eat.

Think about a strawberry. How big is it? What color is it? It’s March—are you able to find a strawberry easily in your local grocery store? 

Chances are, yes, you could find strawberries at the store for sale. They’d be about the size of a golf ball, probably bright red and cost a lot of money. It’s likely not surprising that the strawberries your grandparents and great-grandparents were eating just a few generations ago were quite different. They were smaller, probably closer to the size of a quarter, a deeper red hue and they most likely weren’t around at the tail end of winter. 

Certainly, the change in availability is in part due to ease of imports and prevalence of greenhouses today. And some of the other changes are due to breeding and genetic engineering that creates berries that are hardier and more robust for that very shipping. 

But some of the changes, especially the ones we can’t readily see, are due to climate change. 

 

Read more here. 

What do you think?

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When New Yorkers toss something into the recycling bin, the expectation is that the item will be turned into something else. But it turns out that’s actually pretty rare when it comes to plastic.

Most plastic ultimately winds up in landfills — even if it initially was sorted for recycling.

“There's very little plastic that can be recycled,” said Manhattan Assemblymember Deborah Glick. Glick is the lead Assembly sponsor for a bill gaining momentum in New York’s state legislature. It would require companies to pay to manage their waste and reduce their plastic packaging production.

It’s one of the major bills pending in the legislature that takes aim at curbing New York’s plastic production and consumption amid growing concerns over the environmental and health effects of plastic waste.

The legislation, called the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, places more requirements and government oversight onto companies that produce plastic waste. It also would require producers to reduce their plastic packaging by 50% within 12 years.

 

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HORSEHEADS, NY (WENY) -- A Horseheads man announced his candidacy on Tuesday, March 5th for Horseheads Town Council. Art Laurey said he has 27 years of experience with the Sheriff's Department and is a former Marine.

He said he has a lifelong commitment to serving his family and community. Laurey said he "brings a passion for promoting conservative values with a focus on health and wellness."

Laurey said he decided to run for Town Council because of his deep-rooted desire to continue serving his community.
 

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The Chemung County Sheriffs Office is investigating a motor vehicle collision involving two vehicles which occurred on February 29, 2024, on County Road #2 in the Town of Chemung.

At about 11 :45 p.m. Sheriffs Deputies were dispatched to the area of County Road #2 just north of Hoffinan Hollow Rd. to investigate the collision. Upon arrival, deputies discovered an overturned van with two occupants in it on the shoulder of the road. The occupants were taken to Robert Packer Hospital and treated for minor injuries.

While interviewing the operator of the van, Chad Burgess, Burgess informed that he was driving his vehicle in a southerly direction on County Road #2 when a pickup truck approached his vehicle from behind. According to Burgess, as the two vehicles continued south, the pickup truck struck his vehicle multiple times causing Burgess to lose control of his vehicle, leaving the shoulder of the road, and overturning.

Deputies did not locate a pickup truck at the scene, however vehicle parts from a pickup truck were located at the scene along with signs of fresh fluid on the road surface. Deputies followed a trail of fluid which led them to a pickup truck on Hoffman Hollow Rd. Deputies found two subjects with the pickup truck, one seated in the passenger seat and the other standing outside the vehicle.

As a result of the investigation, deputies determined the vehicle was operated by 38-year-old Ryan E. Purvis

As a result of the investigation, Purvis was arrested and charged with DWI and Assault in the Third Degree. The investigation continues and additional charges are likely.

The Sheriffs Office was assisted by the New York State Police.

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CNN — Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce is retiring from the NFL, the 36-year-old announced at an emotional news conference Monday.

Likely a future Pro Football Hall of Famer, Kelce is a seven-time Pro Bowler and six-time All-Pro selection. He spent his entire 13-season NFL career with the Eagles, including the team’s 2018 Super Bowl win.

During a lengthy news conference lasting around 40 minutes, Kelce broke down in tears on numerous occasions as he explained what football has meant to him during his childhood and professional career.

“I’ve been asked many times why did I choose football, what drew me to the game, and I never have an answer that gets it right,” he said. "The best way I can explain it is what draws you to your favorite song, your favorite book. It’s what it makes you feel – the seriousness of it, the intensity of it. Stepping on the field was the most alive and free I had ever felt.”

Following the Eagles’ 32-9 playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January, it was reported Kelce had told his teammates he was retiring. However, he declined to make his retirement official, raising the question of whether he might return for one final year with the Eagles. But on Monday, he tearfully announced the end of his playing career at a news conference attended by his family and Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni.

 

See the rest here.

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Competition between agriculture and solar development in the Northeast continues, but some researchers suggest they don’t need to be mutually exclusive endeavors.  

Max Zhang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Cornell University is researching agrivoltaics, which combines solar panels with agriculture.  

“We set up microclimate monitoring at solar farms to understand how much solar radiation can reach the ground under the panel or near the panel, what is the soil moisture like, temperature — so those all have a direct implication on what kind of crops can thrive under those conditions,” Zhang said.  

There is existing research that shows what crops can grow under certain conditions, so once Zhang has gathered that data, he will be able to look at what works best in specific regions

 

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 “Friends in Low Places” is arguably Garth Brooks’ best song, as it never fails to get people to smile, sing along and have a great time. That’s the vibe Brooks is hoping for when he opens the Friends in Low Places Bar and Honky-Tonk on Thursday in Nashville. That same day, a “Friends in Low Places” docuseries about the making of the bar premieres on Prime Video. Cameras rolled as Brooks, his wife, Tricia Yearwood (who has hosted a popular Food Network show and knows a thing or two about hospitality), and their team created this new business.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to ban the Republican former president over the Capitol riot.

The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots. That power resides with Congress, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. 

Trump posted on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”

The outcome ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Trump, the front-runner for his party’s nomination, off the ballot because of his attempts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

 

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INDIANAPOLIS - Once again, Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane has to find a new backup quarterback to stand on the sideline and watch Josh Allen play.

The Bills have been incredibly lucky in that Allen is basically a Sherman tank. He hasn’t missed a game since Nov. 11, 2018, the last of the four he sat out in his rookie season due to an elbow injury.

Since then, Allen has started 98 straight games counting the postseason, the longest active streak of any NFL quarterback and the 15th longest in NFL history.

Matt Barkley started the last game Allen was inactive and he was great in a 41-10 blowout over the Jets. But since that day, Buffalo’s backup quarterbacks have thrown a grand total of 87 passes combined, including just 15 since 2021, and none of those were by Kyle Allen in 2023.

The Bills paid Barkley $2 million to do essentially nothing on game day in 2020. They paid Mitchell Trubisky $2.5 million to essentially do nothing in 2021. They paid Case Keenum $3.5 million to do nothing in 2022. And they paid Kyle Allen $1 million - a veritable bargain - to do nothing in 2023.

Who’s next in 2024?

 

Find out more here.

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Last year's The Marvels failed to make a major impact at the box office, both in comparison to the debut Captain Marvel and compared to other entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and star Brie Larsonoffered a disappointing update about her future with the franchise, noting that she has nothing to discuss at the moment. Anyone who has been following the MCU over the past year knows that the franchise has been seeing more disappointments than usual, as both The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania were considered financial disappointments as the small screen's Secret Invasion also failed to ignite much excitement in fans. While we can't rule out Larson's return to the franchise entirely, it's possible that even Marvel Studios doesn't know the best place to bring her back.

When asked by Extra about her future with Marvel, Larson bluntly expressed, "I don't have anything to say about that." It's worth noting, though, that she made her remark and followed it with a wry smile, possibly teasing that she was leaning into the well-known shroud of secrecy around all MCU projects.

Despite making many public appearances during awards season, this is one of Larson's first updates on the beloved franchise in months, with her last remarks about Carol Danvers's future coming last November. At the time, Larson was much more optimistic about what was in store for her character's future.

"I don't want Marvel to come for me, but there is something," Larson previously explained to Entertainment Tonight. "There is definitely something, to answer your question, that I would want to say, but I am not going to so..."  

 

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