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Minutes Matter - July 2025
It is 3 AM and you wake from a sound sleep to a piercing noise. As you wipe the sleep from your eyes you realize it is your smoke detector sounding, but why would it be beeping? You have recently changed the batteries. At the same time, you are collecting your thoughts, you begin to smell smoke. You realize this could be an actual emergency and your children are sleeping in their bedrooms down the hall of your two-story Grand Island home. You jump up in a panic and grab the doorknob in your bedroom and it is hot, extremely hot. Now there is more smoke coming from under the crack at the bottom of the door. You need the Grand Island Fire Co. and you need it fast because in a situation like this MINUTES MATTER!Its 5:30 in the afternoon and you have just finished dinner with your spouse of almost 50 years. You settle in to watch the evening news and have a little bit of dessert. You briefly reflect on how good life has been. You have worked hard and retired, raised your children and are enjoying grandchildren. As you are watching the evening news, you hear a strange sound, look over, and see that your loved one is slumped over unresponsive and struggling to breathe. In a split second you face the horror that your beloved spouse is suddenly and unexpectedly in cardiac arrest. You need the Grand Island Fire Co. now and fast because MINUTES MATTER!
It is 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday and they have been calling for Lake Effect Snow for the past few days. You work in the City of Buffalo and the snow band was supposed to stay south near the Ford plant and Hamburg. However, as the day unfolds the snow has become heavier. It has now moved north, and visibility is reduced. Your employer says it is time to go home early and beat the storm. As you start leaving the city and heading for your home on Grand Island the snow is piling up and you can barely see 20 feet in front of you. You are thinking if you can get home and ride out the storm for just 1 day the weekend will be here and everything will be fine. You make it to Grand Island and you head down the parkway. Visibility is almost zero and the wind is whipping. Then your car slides off the road into a ditch and your airbag deploys. You are dazed and confused, and you are not exactly sure where you are and you can’t see an address, but you can make out the Say Cheese Pizza sign through the snow. You need help from the Grand Island Fire Co. and you need it now! You tell the Fire/EMS dispatcher who is in the building at 2275 Baseline Rd. on Grand Island that you are on the Beaver Island Parkway and you can see Say Cheese. Without any research, GPS or electronic assistance, the dispatcher has a particularly good idea where you are because they are ON Grand Island and know Grand Island.
Why do I share these realistic scenarios? Recently, some members of the Grand Island Town Board (NOT Councilman Bahleda) have advanced a plan to discontinue Grand Island-based fire rescue and EMS dispatching and transfer those responsibilities to Erie County for potential “cost savings”. Decades ago, Grand Island Fire leadership and Town Board members made the decision that Grand Island was a unique community in the northernmost part of Erie County. We are quite different and separate from the City of Buffalo and the south towns and the sometimes-overwhelming emergency services demands that exist there. Grand Island Fire wanted to function independently and be fully self-contained for the residents of Grand Island.
It makes absolutely zero sense to take Grand Island emergency calls and have them dumped into a basket with all the other calls that are going on in Erie County. The current Fire Company leadership has tried to communicate the importance of maintaining Grand Island’s emergency services independence for residents and first responders. However, this has fallen on deaf ears by some of our council members who in my opinion have a predetermined agenda. I will not name names or shame, but you can do your own research and make your own decisions. These council members and political power brokers use a thin veil of “financial accountability” and “due diligence” to justify their attempt to shut down Grand Island Fire dispatching; they throw around saving two or three hundred thousand dollars a year, however a home on my street pays approximately $208 a year in fire tax which gets a resident 24/7 Fire/rescue/EMS AND professional dispatching! My calculation breaks that all down to about $.54 CENTS per day. Why on earth would any Grand Island Council member who is supposed to be trying to do the BEST for Grand Island residents want to take your once in a lifetime emergency, possibly the worst time of your life and send it to a dispatcher downtown who is juggling multiple incidents, possibly short staffed and may be working a mandated double shift versus having a fully trained dispatcher you’ve been paying for through your local tax dollars right here on Grand Island?? That is a good question to ask your Town Supervisor and your council members because, as I see it MINUTES MATTER.
Mike Dallessandro
Thruway Authority: Why the recertification process keeps tolls low - July 2025
As a Grand Island resident, two things are for certain – the bridges and tolls . Luckily, Island residents are eligible for a Grand Island Resident (GIR) discount plan through New York E-ZPass. Instead of paying $1.75 through Tolls by Mail or the New York E-ZPass rate of $1.00, eligible residents only pay 9 cents each time they cross onto GI. What savings! Before I go any further, I want to share that I am a Public Information Officer for the New York State Thruway Authority who lives on Grand Island. This is not just lip service because I work for the Thruway. This discount is just as important to me as it is to you.As you may have seen on the news earlier this year, the Thruway Authority conducted an address recertification process to ensure the accuracy of the resident discount program. We understand the importance of this program for Grand Island residents, and we want to protect our customers who are eligible for the discount. Anyone who has not completed the process is no longer receiving the resident discount. Ensuring the integrity of our discount programs helps maintain the affordability for all customers who pay their tolls. As it is in every other industry, fraud and abuse only drives up costs.
As part of our initial internal review, nearly 40% of GIR accounts were automatically recertified without any action needed by customers and those receiving the discount were sent multiple letters about the process in January and March. Nearly 30% of those have yet to complete the recertification process to retain their discount. You may not realize this, but the Thruway Authority is not a NYS agency – it is an independent public authority. That means that we do NOT receive taxpayer dollars. Instead, 90% of our revenue comes from tolls and for that reason, we are committed to collecting every toll dollar owed to us. As Grand Island residents, it’s important to remember that over the past several years, tens of millions of toll dollars have been reinvested right back into the four Grand Island Bridges for capital improvements, routine maintenance and inspections to ensure their long-term viability for the region.
If you are an Island resident who did not complete the recertification process but have the proper documentation, the good news is that you can have the discount reapplied by logging in to your online account (www.e-zpassny.com) or calling customer service at 1-800-333-8655. If you’re no longer a Grand Island resident but visit frequently, there are still discount programs available to you. For more information, you can call customer service. From resident to resident, I hope this helps you better understand the importance of the recertification process. From PIO to resident, I am here to help you however I can. If I can be of assistance in any way, please feel free to reach out to me at kelly.holland@thruway.ny.gov.
Kelly Holland - Assistant Public Information Officer, New York State Thruway
Creating Distraction Free Schools - June 2025
The most recent New York State budget process resulted in an agreement to make all schools across the state distraction free by instituting policies that prohibit the use of internet-enabled devices anywhere on the grounds of K-12 schools for the entire school day (from “bell to bell”). This is a monumental chance to take back control of the mental health of our children, and I urge all school leaders and stakeholder groups to seize this opportunity by taking courageous action for the sake of our students, their future and the future of our communities.The typical childhood experiences that most adults had are nothing like those of today’s youth. In the past fifteen years childhood has shifted from being based on play and in-person interactions with other children and adults to being phone-based, virtual, and occurring largely online. This shift has fueled an unprecedented mental health crisis in our young people. Rates of depression, anxiety and thoughts of self-harm have increased tremendously among our youth. Research shows that the only plausible explanation for this trend is the increased use of technology during childhood, specifically, exposure to social media and their destructive algorithms.
In his book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, the author describes four specific ways in which our children have been harmed by their phone-based childhood. American adolescents have experienced social deprivation as their interactions shifted from in-person to online forums. Sleep deprivation continues to impact our youth as their inability to put down their phones intensifies. Their inability to focus their attention continues to worsen, as any teacher today can verify. And most concerning of all, the grip that their cell phones have on them can only be described as an addiction, and thus should be treated with proportional alarm and response just as any other addiction would be. This book should be required reading for anyone professing to be concerned about the state of mental health in our children today.
As I stated, today’s children experience a childhood very different from that of previous generations. Schools, fortunately, are also very different. Communication between school personnel and the community has never been easier thanks to email and the existence of telephones in nearly every room in each school building. Faculty and staff are capable of communicating with families frequently through various means including the parent portal of the student management system and online tools such as Google Classroom. The typical student simply does not need to be in constant contact with their parents by cellphone.
Schools across New York State are in the process of creating policies for internet-enabled devices to comply with this new requirement. Policies must be adopted and posted on school websites by August 1, 2025. I strongly urge those involved in crafting and approving these policies to seize the moment by acting with resolve, and to meet the moment with courage and certainty by instituting policies that are appropriately serious and restrictive in order to change the course of childhood for our current generation of school aged children. Let us not miss this opportunity to act, let us overcome complacency with action, let the will to do what is right overcome the fear of speaking out, and let all of us fulfill our obligation to care for the children whose wellbeing has been entrusted to us.
Sincerely,
Michael Grosso - President, Grand Island Teachers’ Association
To Grand Island Town Council - Reassessment - May 2025
After experiencing 2 reassessments in the last few years, I would like to make the following suggestions and observations which I feel would improve the process.When mailing out the initial reassessment notice, automatically include a sheet showing the comparables used.
If the new assessment on the property exceeds the average percentage of increase in value for all Grand Island (residential or commercial as appropriate) automatically provide an explanation.
Recognize that in many cases, Grand Island homes are unique and that makes it difficult to find comparables when trying to challenge an assessment. Allow comparables of similar age and square footage to be used regardless of whether they are ranches, colonials, etc.
When the informal review is completed (this time it was done by phone), mail the results (including the reasoning for the decision) out in a timely fashion as clearly stated in the initial mailing. This is only fair and also gives the homeowner time to properly prepare should they want to continue challenging the assessment.
Make the taxpayers aware in the initial mailing that they can also meet with the assessor to discuss their assessment. Establish fixed hours convenient for working taxpayers when they can make appointments to meet the assessor. I suspect many people don’t know that the assessor can make changes to the assessment on the spot if an agreement is reached.
I think the process as currently being done is deeply flawed. In this country you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. As currently run, the reassessment process (in many cases) says you are guilty and you must prove them wrong. Please don’t use the excuse that it would be too hard to implement, too expensive or too time consuming. The taxpayers deserve better. A written response would be appreciated.
William Wilson
An Open Letter to the Grand Island School Board - April 2025
[N.B. I am not speaking at a School Board meeting about this because it would be a waste of my time. I am writing it here in the hopes that many Islanders will read it and act on it.]In 2021, I ran for the School Board (I lost). One of the questions on candidates’ night had to do with the draconian (my term) restrictions that the State Education Dept. and the State Health Dept. imposed on the operations of schools. One candidate stated that we are just doing what we were told to do. My response was decidedly different. I believed that we should be demanding that the above entities show justification for their policies. It isn’t sufficient to impose mandates without supporting evidence that they would accomplish their stated goals. We now know that they didn’t accomplish the stated goals nor were they based on any scientific data. We also know that the costs to the purported beneficiaries, the students, were and will be substantial.
Why do I bring this ancient history up? The State legislature is mandating that all new school buses acquired after 2027 be all-electric with the fleet being all-electric by 2035.
I won’t even bother to discuss the safety aspects of doing this other than to say I would never let a child of mine ride on one. The costs of complying with this nonsense will be substantial. Electric buses, today, cost $450,000 versus $150,000 for a diesel one. (One pathetic rationale given for going all-electric is that we will save on oil changes. The battery packs on these buses last 6-8 years and cost $80,000 to replace. You can’t make this up.) That is the price today when only suckers are buying them. When every school district has to submit orders, you can bet the price will rise.
This is only the beginning of the costs. They have to be charged. This will require installing a substation to supply the greatly increased amounts of electricity needed. Of course, it gets cold here in the winter. EVs don’t like the cold so we will have to build a heated (heated by what?) garage to hold all of the buses. We will also need to install a back-up diesel generator with the appropriate sized fuel tank for the times when the grid fails. Because of the massive weight of these vehicles, along with the start-and-stop nature of the bus routes, the buses will go through tires much faster.
Where is the electricity going to come from? The state has made a fetish of prematurely closing nuclear power plants as well as fossil-fueled ones. Solar and wind won’t do the job. The buses will be charged at night. Oh, yeah, the sun doesn’t shine at night. Homes need heat at night. So, who gets first dibs on the power? The School district or the homeowner?
The new (taxpayer subsidized) computer chip plant being built in Syracuse is projected to consume 10% (that’s not a typo) of the electricity consumed in the state. Where is the electricity going to come from?
The geniuses in Albany have never run a successful lemonade stand much less a business. They have no appreciation of the havoc their policies will wreak on families in this state. That’s all right. Their policies sound good.
Based on what I see as an impeding disaster for the taxpayers, I believe that the School Board has a moral obligation to tell us what the cost implications are for our property taxes. They don’t have to provide an exact amount per thousand of assessed valuation. A lower bound, i.e., it will be at least this much, would suffice. The number will shock everyone.
As things currently stand, this train is chugging down the track. The best that can be hoped for given the cowardice of the School Boards around the state to speak up, is that once the mandate starts to be implemented people will revolt at the cost. However, the taxpayers will still be stuck paying for garages, substations, diesel generators, etc. that are unneeded.
Providing the taxpayers with an estimate of the costs is not rocket science. It just takes willpower. Again, in my opinion, the School Board has a moral obligation to do so. It should be provided by the first week of classes this Fall.
James Mulcahy
Grand Island Community Center
Grand Island Cultural Center moves to new role
Thu, Jul 3rd 2025 11:00 am
Article and Photos By Karen Carr Keefe Senior Contributing Writer
