Featured News

The State Environmental Quality Review for the proposed Cobblestone Creek development is expected to be on the agenda for the Wheatfield Town Board at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25.

Changes in Benderson Development's plans for Military Place brought a crowd of concerned residents to the Town of Niagara Town Board meeting on Tuesday.

Merrell A. Lane, 67, of Wheatfield, died Saturday, Aug. 16, 2014, after a lengthy illness in Strong Memorial Hospital Palliative Care, Rochester.

Jazz buffs will again flock to Lewiston this weekend for the 13th annual Lewiston Jazz Festival, where more than 150 musicians will gather in a celebration of jazz music and culture.

Patrons driving to Artpark Tuesday for the Styx concert may have noticed more cars parked off South Fourth Street. Vehicles were on residential lawns - parked both parallel and perpendicular - on the road and in driveways. Some homes had more than a half-dozen parked on site.

If this appeared in contrast to previous Village of Lewiston Board rulings, it was - and it wasn't.

Michael McDonald will co-headline the final "Tuesdays in the Park" concert on Aug. 26. The singer with the distinctive baritone voice was the top draw in 2005 - the first year Artpark & Company went all-out to bring top talent to Lewiston - and drew more than 12,000 for a second appearance in 2008.

Center and North Fourth streets is quickly becoming the Village of Lewiston's coolest corner.

Grand Island High School students took home the People's Choice award and a third-place yellow ribbon from the Chalk Walk competition at the Lewiston Art Festival Saturday.

During the Monday evening meeting of the Grand Island Board of Education, trustees heard reports on a variety of topics, including some important staffing changes. Dr. Andrés Arroyo is leaving his position as assistant principal of Grand Island High School to become principal at Newfane High School. Arroyo has served Grand Island for the past seven years and earned his Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

His resignation comes close behind that of Assistant Principal Michael Lauria, who left his job earlier this summer to become principal at Springville High School. Administrators acted quickly to search for and to hire replacements for Arroyo and Lauria, and high school Principal Dan Quartley introduced the new staff to the Board of Education at Monday's meeting. They are T. Michael Carter and Corey Gray.

Island contractors showed up at Town Hall Monday to criticize a proposed local law that one called "blue collar vs. white collar."

A public hearing at the monthly Town Board meeting was attended by many of Grand Island's contractors, who gave input on Local Law Intro No. 13 of 2014 that would amend chapter 407 of the town code to allow contractor maintenance yards as a special use in certain residential districts, subject to certain conditions.

Just before taking public comments, Town Supervisor Mary Cooke said, "What's currently going on in town right now may not all be legal, and we're trying to figure out a way to allow someone who has a small operation to be able to work in their property that they have without disrupting their entire neighborhood so that we don't get complaints from people who say, 'I live in a residential neighborhood. I didn't sign up for this.' "

The Grand Island Town Board has called the results of the first month of use with the new 95-gallon wheeled recycling carts "fantastic."

In a press release to the media this week, the board said the amount of recycling by Grand Islanders in the first month of using the carts that were delivered in May by Republic Services has increased.

Buffalo Division Manager Terry Schweitzer and Municipal Services Manager Terry Grady of Republic Services met recently with the Town Board to review the recycling numbers and the overall program, the statement said. According to the town, when compared to the same time period last year, the Grand Island recycling rate has increased by more than 30 percent.

The new disability-friendly playground in Veterans Park, part of the Miracle League complex, is now complete and open for play "for the whole Western New York community," said R.J. Wynne, president of the Miracle League of Grand Island and Western New York.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation Facility Siting Board and DEC Commissioner Joe Martens announced this week the DEC would extend, yet again, the public commentary period on the CWM Chemical Services expansion/new hazardous waste proposal application before the agency.

The Lewiston Council on the Arts has revealed its 2014 Lewiston Art Festival winners.

The Skin Cancer Foundation encourages people to enjoy the outdoors while still protecting themselves from the sun. One way to protect yourself is with clothing, which is the single most effective form of sun protection for the body. It's a great way to shield your skin from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, which account for 86 percent of melanomas and about 90 percent of nonmelanoma skin cancers.

"Summer vacation" and "teacher" - when used in the same sentence these words typically produce responses varying from eye-rolling and head-shaking to exclamations of "Boy, it would be nice to have a job that gave me summers off."

The mayor recently met with business leaders and members of the Niagara River Region Chamber of Commerce and revealed plans to bolster Lewiston's waterfront. Collesano envisions additional parking, a recreation area, and a museum highlighting the village's transportation history.

A petition to dissolve the Lewiston Police Department into the Niagara County Sheriff's Office has received mixed reactions from residents, police and town officials.

The first-ever Great Contraption Race, held to benefit the It Happened to Alexa Foundation of Lewiston, went off without a hitch last Saturday morning in the lower Niagara River waters between Lewiston and Youngstown.

Jim and Julie Hibbard have opened a new Hibbard's Original Frozen Custard location at the sweet shop located next to Clancy's (formerly Page's Whistle Pig) at the corner of Packard and Military roads, in Niagara Falls.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo traveled to Niagara Falls Friday to announce Uniland Development Co., a Western New York-based development company, has been selected as the preferred developer to rebuild and transform the former Rainbow Centre Shopping Mall in Niagara Falls.

A highlight of the 48th annual Lewiston Art Festival is most certainly the Chalk Walk sponsored by KeyBank.

The grief, the pride and the memories are still alive for the family of Army Spc. Alan N. Dikcis.

The 21-year-old Wheatfield resident was killed on March 5, 2010, in Afghanistan while on a mission to recover another vehicle that had been blown up on the roadway in Kandahar. Dikcis had been deployed to Afghanistan the previous July.

Thanks to the cooperative efforts of State Sen. George Maziarz, County Legislature Chairman Bill Ross and Wheatfield Supervisor Bob Cliffe, signs designating a portion of Walmore Road in Wheatfield as the Spc. Alan N. Dikcis Memorial Highway will be put in place. One sign will be at Walmore Road and Niagara Falls Boulevard, near the Dikcis home; the other at the corner of Walmore and Lockport roads, not far from the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station where Dikcis' body was brought home.

This year's Paddles Up, hosted by the Niagara Greenway Commission, drew tourists and locals alike to Beaver Island State Park to experience the area's largest paddlesports event.

VIDEO, PICTURES: Performing Tuesday at Artpark, Ann and Nancy Wilson proved, once again, they are the world's premier female-fronted rock back.

Joseph Pillittere Jr. honored his late mother Monday by giving away free Silo Restaurant hot dogs. Pillittere's late mother, Joan, was an ardent fan of the popular summer food.

2012 was the year Heart offered one of the best "Tuesday in the Park" concerts in the Artpark series' storied history.

The Wilson sisters and their bandmates will look to equal or better that performance when Heart returns to Lewiston Tuesday to perform in the outdoor amphitheater.

George and Winifred Banks have lost that loving feeling, while their not-so-precious children, Jane and Michael, have run amok - and run many nannies into early retirement. In their hour of need, Mary Poppins (Emilie Renier) appears - out of nowhere - and delivers a spoonful of ... tough love, insight, life lessons ... and, yes, sugar.

I don't have to tell you Favorite's Pizzeria is, well, Lewiston's favorite.

The steady line of customers standing in front of the restaurant counter daily is proof Favorite's has mastered pizza, wings and fingers.

There was good and some not-so-good news on the Town of Lewiston front this week.

The Wheatfield Town Board on Monday decided it had done enough homework and heard enough protests by residents to go ahead and pass a biosolids law for the town.

The Syfy Network has made a name for itself over the years with fun, campy B-movies. Most of the time, these movies exist in a moment, they're enjoyed by a specific group of fans, and that's the end of it.

That wasn't the case with "Sharknado." Not by a long shot.

Niagara County Legislature Chairman Bill Ross has a full load of events listed on his calendar for July.

The Wheatfield resident has one event double-circled on that calendar, however - Wednesday, July 30.

The days are drawing ever so closer to an all-new event taking place in the lower Niagara River. Called the Great Contraption Race, it's a unique on-water competition presented by the It Happened to Alexa Foundation of Lewiston. To run Saturday, Aug. 2, this rather unusual happening continues to catch the interest of would-be participants, almost as soon as they hear of it.

From the clothes we wear, to the music we listen to, our means of transportation and our preferred forms of entertainment, many things have changed since 1939.

You know one thing that hasn't changed in 75 years? People still confuse ice cream and custard.

To successfully present "Mary Poppins" in 2014 - to bravely take on Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, the song and dance numbers - let alone the flying - would take real magic.

Next weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the Winery at Marjim Manor, the family-owned Appleton winery known for its fruit wines, as well as its ghost stories.

The Youngstown Yacht Club hosts the inaugural CanAm Challenge regatta this weekend on Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, July 27 on Lake Ontario.

Artpark & Company will present the popular Disney musical "Mary Poppins" July 31 through Aug. 8 inside the Mainstage Theater.

Leads Emilie Renier and John Barsoian recently met last at The Orange Cat in Lewiston to drink coffee and preview the show.

Paddles Up Niagara, the Niagara River Greenway Commission's annual paddle sports event, returns to Grand Island for its ninth year of operation.

The main attraction of Paddles Up is its 4.8-mile paddle from the Little Beaver Launch Site to the East River Marsh Site and back.