Anchored by Tom Schuh:
General Motors has announced the details of an $890 million investment to upgrade its V-8 engine operations at five plants, including the Tonawanda Engine Plant. GM and union officials joined Governor David Paterson this morning to make the announcement. More than 700 jobs are expected to be saved or created at the Tonawanda facility. GM is also announcing investments at factories in St. Catharines, Ontario; as well as Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.
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A flood-ravaged hospital in Gowanda will be rebuilt, but not at its current location. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to find a new site for Tri-County Memorial Hospital. Senator Chuck Schumer pushed for the move, saying a rebuilt hospital on the old site would still be susceptible to future flooding. FEMA now will spend nearly 14-million dollars to tear down the old hospital and rebuild at a new location which has not yet been identified. The facility has been closed since last August when flood waters measured seven feet in the hospital basement and topped out at two feet above the ground floor.
Buffalo police are asking the public for help in finding two armed suspects accused of attempting to rob a deli over the weekend. Cops say the two men are seen in surveillance photos at a deli on Hampshire Street Saturday night just before 9 p.m. Anyone with information about the suspects is urged to call the police tip-line at 847-2255.
West Seneca police have identified the man they say opened fire on officers over the weekend. Jerome Brylski allegedly began firing at officers Sunday afternoon on East and West Road. Brylski’s children say they had been trying for more than a year to get their father help for paranoid schizophrenia. Crisis Services counselors were on their way to Brylski’s house on Leydecker Road when West Seneca police pulled over the car he was riding in. Brylski and the driver of the vehicle he was in were injured in an exchange of gunfire.
Some suburban residents could be paying more for their utilities in the future. NYSEG is asking the State Public Service Commission to allow an increase of about 11-dollars a month in its average electric bill. Natural gas customers could see a rate increase of more than 21-dollars a month. The Public Service Commission is holding a public hearing this Thursday at the Lancaster Village Municipal Building from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The city of Buffalo is launching a two-point-five-million-dollar campaign to fix broken sidewalks. The funding for the repairs comes from Buffalo’s general fund, as well as variety of city and outside sources. Eleven miles of sidewalks are set to be replaced.
A Niagara County environmental group is planning a rally next month about a potentially-leaky radioactive site. The Niagara Watershed Alliance says it wants more community involvement in the 191-acre Niagara Falls Storage Site in the Town of Lewiston. The land is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, and is said to harbor radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project. Members of the Watershed Alliance say they want the community to have seats on a Restoration Advisory Board. The rally is planned for May 22nd.
New York’s late state budget may not arrive anytime soon. Governor Paterson warns that stalled budget talks could drag on, if state Assembly leaders insist on borrowing money to fix the state’s fiscal crisis. The Governor wants state lawmakers to cut spending, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is open to borrowing two-billion dollars to cover some of New York’s budget shortfall. New York faces a nine-point-two-billion-dollar deficit, and the state budget is 27 days late.
Democrat-turned-Republican Steve Levy has won the endorsement of the Cattaraugus County Republican Party in the race for Governor. Catt County GOP Chair Paula Snyder says Steve Levy has generated a lot of excitement. The endorsement is a blow to Rick Lazio’s campaign. He had been courting Cattaraugus County support for a few weeks. Lazio has already earned the backing of the GOP in Niagara and Chautauqua Counties and was looking to further solidify his Western New York support. Levy was also chosed over Western New York businessman Carl Paladino.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is calling for federal legislation to reduce the number of fatal car crashes involving teen drivers. Her law would require states to set up minimum standards for new drivers. Senator Gillibrand wants all states to follow New York’s lead and begin using a graduated driver’s license program for young motorists. Drivers under 18 would have limited nighttime driving and increased supervised driving hours before their a road test. Gillibrand says half of the 65-hundred fatal collisions on U.S. roadways in 2008 involved teen drivers.
