Joe LaGuardia, former State Fair official, dies at 63

Posted by admin on May 14, 2012 | 0 comments

Syracuse, N.Y. — Joe LaGuardia, former long-time marketing director of the State Fair, has died at age 63.
LaGuardia died early this morning at Boston University Medical Center where he was being treated for a blood disorder, according to Tom Young, former Syracuse mayor and friend of LaGuardia’s.
“It’s an awful shock,” said Young, who worked with LaGuardia when Young was State Fair director. “Everyone expected he was going to recover.”
LaGuardia worked at the State Fair for 32 years where his responsibilities included booking concerts and handling publicity. He lost that job in 2007 when the State Fair changed directors.
He subsequently worked as executive director of the Syracuse Lakefront Development Corp, retiring from that job in 2010. He served on the boards of the Syracuse Chiefs and the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame. He also was a past president of Bellevue Country Club.
“He was passionate about his work and he was a real professional,” Young said. “He was equally passionate about the civic activities he was involved in.”
LaGuardia lived in Syracuse. He and his wife, Carol, have three children and three grandchildren.
Young said funeral arrangements have yet to be made.

Traveling Amusement Rides In SC Only Require State Inspection Once A Year

Posted by admin on May 2, 2012 | 0 comments

ANDERSON COUNTY, SC –

Now is the time of year for county fairs and fun, but parents beware! 7 On Your Side found out fair rides don’t have to be inspected every time they move around in South Carolina.

Four year old Jordan Morrison is about to get his first look at the carnival rides at the Anderson County Fair. Jordan’s mom, Jasmine Gaines says, “I’m excited for my son because this will be his first fair.”

The rides at the Anderson County Fair were inspected by third-party, state-licensed inspectors. But that is only because this is the ride company’s first appearance in South Carolina this year. If the rides move to a new location in the state within the year, a state inspection will not be required.

Jordan’s mom was worried when we told her rides in South Carolina do not have to have a state inspection every time they move to a new location. Gaines says, “That does concern me a lot for my child’s safety.”

State-certified inspectors are only required to sign off on the rides once a year, no matter how many times the rides move around. Last July, the state’s director of Labor, Licensing and Regulation told us she was pushing to get more inspectors, so that checks on rides could be done more often.

There’s a new director at the agency now, and after 7 On Your Side started asking questions, an agency spokesperson told us late Wednesday the new director, Holly Pisarik, will also be pushing for changes that would require rides to be inspected more often. LLR says it plans to advocate for tougher regulations next legislative session, which starts in January 2013.

Right now, after that first inspection, it’s up to ride owners and operators to make sure the rides are working safely. James Graybeal is Operations Manager for Drew Exposition, the ride company hired by the Anderson County Fair. Graybeal says, “We inspect every day. Each ride has a ride foreman, and they do a daily inspection.”

Graybeal says parents should also do some checking. He says, “What I like to say to parents is don’t come out here and cut your kids loose.”

He says parents should be looking for a permit sticker on each ride, and they should watch the ride and the operator before they let their children get on. Graybeal says, “It’s like driving a car. You can listen, and you can tell when something’s not right.”

Jordan’s mom will keep that in mind, knowing now that there aren’t as many checks and balances as she first thought.

South Carolina LLR says after the Cleveland park kiddie-train derailment in Spartanburg last year, the agency made changes. Now, they use third-party inspectors. The department says that gives them a “second set of eyes.” LLR randomly goes behind the third-party inspectors and does spot checks on rides.

North Carolina does require rides be inspected each time they move to a new location. That is not the case in Georgia. The Georgia Labor Department tells 7 On Your Side traveling amusement rides only have to be inspected by the state once a year, but not each time the rides move around. The rides in Georgia are subject to spot inspections.

Three children and two adults dead as at least 120 tornadoes batter Midwest ripping through hospitals, homes and tearing apart entire towns leaving dozens injured

Posted by admin on Apr 16, 2012 | 0 comments

Three young girls and two adults have died after tornadoes ripped through an Oklahoma town earlier today in an outbreak of twisters that swept through the Midwest and Plains states.

Frank Hobbie was killed with his daughters, aged five and seven, when the storm hit the trailer park where they lived in the town of Woodward, while Darren Juul died at his home nearby alongside his ten-year-old daughter.

At the storm’s height, tornadoes popped up faster than they could be tallied. The National Weather Service had received at least 122 reports of tornadoes touching down in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

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The killer weather hit the northwest town of Woodward, Roscoe Hill, and battered buildings including houses, a hospital, a jail, an Air Force base and other buildings around the region, officials said.The Mayor said that many residents were caught unaware after storm sirens failed to sound.

Woodward suffered the worst of the destruction from the storms, which also struck in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. Woodward City Manager Alan Riffel said 89 homes and 13 businesses were destroyed, and bloodied survivors in the 12,000-resident town emerged to find flipped cars and smashed trailers.

Sheriff’s office dispatcher Matt Jones confirmed that two people were dead but said he did not have immediate details. He says the tornado hit part of west Woodward and the nearby town of Tangier.

The National Weather Service said the tornado was reported at 12:18 a.m. on Sunday. Woodward Mayor Roscoe Hill said 37 people were injured in the twister, including several critically.

Sirens were not apparently working when the tornado struck as their electricity had been cut by the storm earlier. He said the sirens had been sounding loudly from storms on Saturday afternoon.

‘We had a little tornado earlier … and they blew all the sirens. When this one came in, our sirens weren’t working. We didn’t have a very good storm alert,’ Hill said.

The tornado flattened 87 homes and 13 businesses, up to 250 search and rescue units arrived in the town after the twister hit.

Retired firefighter Marty Logan said he spotted the tornado when it knocked down power lines, causing flashes of light, and saw a radio tower’s blinking lights go black. He later saw a man emerge from a twisted, wrecked sport utility vehicle that had been tossed along the side of the road.

‘The guy had blood coming down his face,’ Logan said. ‘It was scary, because I knew it was after midnight and a lot of people were in bed.’

Authorities said a signal tower for Woodward’s tornado sirens was struck by lightning and hit by a tornado early Sunday morning. Police Chief Harvey Rutherford said the tower that was supposed to send a repeating signal to the town’s tornado siren system was knocked out.

Considering the tornado struck at night and the sirens were damaged, it was remarkable that there wasn’t a greater loss of life, Rutherford said. ‘We had the hand of God take care of us,’ he said.

Woodward was among the many communities in the nation’s midsection under a ‘high-end, life-threatening event’ that had been issued by the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. The center specializes in tornado forecasting and emitted the extraordinary warning nearly two days before the bad weather hit.

Dave Wallace, chief executive officer of Woodward Regional Hospital, said 29 people, five of the in critical condition, were brought to the hospital for treatment of injuries ranging fractures and serious injuries to cuts and bruises. Three patients have been transferred to other hospitals and four were admitted, he added.

‘We transferred them to a hospital with a higher level of care,’ Wallace said. ‘We’re not a trauma center.’

Michelann Ooten, an official with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said that emergency crews remained very much in search and rescue mode at first light, hours after they began operations in darkness.

‘They’re still going door to door and in some cases there are piles of rubble and they are having to sift through the rubble,’ she told AP. ‘They are trying to identify if anyone is still in there, trying to account for everyone.’

Storms were reported yesterday in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Emergency officials in Iowa said that high winds or a tornado damaged a hospital in Creston, but no injuries were reported. Authorities also said about 75 percent of the small western Iowa community of Thurman was destroyed, with no injuries reported there either.

In Nebraska, baseball-sized hail shattered windows and ripped siding from houses. In Oklahoma, more than 5,000 people gathered for a rattlesnake hunt in Woods County scattered when a tornado touched down there, said the county’s emergency management director, Steve Foster.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, which specializes in tornado forecasting, had warned of a ‘high-end, life-threatening event’ nearly two days before the bad weather hit.

The American Red Cross summoned volunteers to drive relief trucks from Oklahoma City to aid the rescue crews in and around Woodward he said were pressed to the limit by the immediate disaster response.

‘They’re in chaos mode,’ said Rusty Surette, a regional communications director for the American Red Cross in Oklahoma City, speaking of authorities in Woodward.

He said trucks with cots, food, water and medical and hygiene supplies would head to the area, where a shelter was established in a church for those rendered homeless.

In Kansas, a reported tornado in Wichita caused damage at McConnell Air Force Base and the Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing plants. A mobile home park was heavily damaged in the city, although no injuries or deaths were reported.

Yvonne Tucker rushed to a shelter with about 60 of her neighbors at Pinaire Mobile Home Park. She said people were crying and screaming, and the shelter’s lights went out when the twister hit. When they came back outside, they found several homes destroyed, including Tucker’s.

‘I didn’t think it was that bad until I walked down my street and everything is gone,’ said Tucker, 49. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I’ve seen it on TV, but when it happens to you it is unreal. I just feel lost.’

Iowa emergency officials said a large part of the town of Thurman in the western part of the state was destroyed Saturday night, possibly by a tornado, but no one was injured or killed. Fremont County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said about 75 percent of the 250-person town was destroyed. Some residents took refuge at the City Hall.

A hospital in Creston, about 75 miles southwest of Des Moines, suffered roof damage and had some of its windows blown out by the storm, but patients and staff were not hurt. Medical center officials were calling other area hospitals to determine how many beds they had available in case they needed to move patients.

In Nebraska, baseball-sized hail shattered windows and tore siding from houses in and around Petersburg, about 140 miles northwest of Omaha.  In southeast Nebraska, an apparent tornado took down barns, large trees and some small rural structures. Johnson County emergency director Clint Strayhorn said he was trying to determine the twister’s duration and the damage it caused.

‘I’m on a 2-mile stretch that this thing is on the ground and I haven’t even gotten to the end of it yet,’ he said, walking the path of destruction near the Johnson-Nemaha county line. He didn’t immediately know of any injuries.

At least 10 tornadoes were reported in Kansas, mostly in rural parts of the western and central sections of the state.The county where Wichita is located was declared a state of disaster and said preliminary estimates suggest damages could be as high as $283 million.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback acknowledged that the damage could have been far worse, noting in an interview with CNN that residents appeared to have heeded safety warnings. ‘God was merciful,’ he said.

Kristin Dean, among the Wichita mobile home residents sheltering from the storm, said she was shaking as she was being pushed from home in her wheelchair. She was able to grab a bag of her possessions before going into the shelter and that was all she had left. She lost her mobile home, and the windows in her car shattered.

‘It got still,’ the 37-year-old woman, who’s in a wheelchair after hurting her leg a month ago, recalled of the scene inside the shelter. ‘Then we heard a wham, things flying. Everybody screamed, huddling together. It is devastating, but you know we are alive.’

Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Sharon Watson said Rice County said several buildings in Rice County were damaged, including one housing the sheriff’s department and jail. Inmates were transferred because of the damage. She also said homes were damaged or destroyed in several other counties.

In Creston, about 75 miles from Des Moines, the Greater Regional Medical Center suffered roof damage and had some of its windows blown out by a storm, said John Benson, a spokesman for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Patients were being moved to a hospital in Osceola, about 30 miles away. No injuries were reported.

Strong storms knocked out power in Des Moines, Council Bluffs and Sioux City. The National Weather Service in Des Moines also received reports of high winds that toppled at least five semis on Interstate 29.

In southeast Nebraska, an apparent tornado took down barns, large trees, and some small rural structures.

In northeast Nebraska, Boone County Sheriff David Spiegel said baseball-sized hail had damaged vehicles, shattered windows and tore siding from houses in and around Petersburg, about 140 miles northwest of Omaha. Johnson County emergency director Clint Strayhorn said he was still trying to determine how long the twister was on the ground and how much damage it did.

‘I’m on a 2-mile stretch that this thing is on the ground and I haven’t even gotten to the end of it yet,’ he said Saturday afternoon as he walked the path of destruction near the Johnson-Nemaha county line. He didn’t immediately know of any injuries.

Two possible tornadoes were reported father south in Nebraska near the Kansas border, and as many as 10 others were reported in largely rural parts of western and central Kansas, including one north of Dodge City that was said to be on the ground for a half-hour, weather officials said.

In Salina, Kansas, tornado sirens sounded after a possible tornado was spotted nearby. National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Scott also said tornadoes were reported in the central and western Kansas counties of Pratt, Stafford, Rush and Hodgeman.

There were reports of a home damaged in Rush County and an old schoolhouse damaged in Hodgeman County.

Tornado threats caused some weekend festivities to be called off. The threat prompted University of Nebraska-Lincoln athletic officials to cancel the annual spring football game minutes before Saturday’s kick-off.

 

The McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, relocated 16 aerial refueling tankers to Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota because of the risk of hail from the storms. And four air refueling aircraft from Forbes Field in Topeka were flown to Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and three other aircraft were moved into hangars to protect them from the potential for large hail in the Shawnee County area.

Forecasters warned that even once the danger Saturday night passed, the threat from the storm system wasn’t over. Severe weather was also possible for a significant band of the center of the country on Sunday.

‘The threat isn’t over with tonight, unfortunately. Severe weather is possible again tomorrow from east Texas and Arkansas and up into the Great Lakes,’ said Bill Bunting, chief of operations at the Storm Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service.

Watch video here

The Flood Won’t Stop the Fair

Posted by admin on Apr 15, 2012 | 0 comments

Owego, NY (WBNG Binghamton) The scars from September’s flood are still healing in Owego.

Thanks to some volunteers, one of the places many remember for the fun times will be ready to welcome some more this summer.

At the Tioga County Fairground volunteers must take down the old, before building the new.

“It is a big project and in my opinion it’s just starting the completion process,” says Owego Mayor Kevin Millar. “I really do not know how much more work the Fair Board has to do, I’m just here as a helper to help move metal and wood.”

All of these efforts are to host the Tioga County Fair this summer.

“We’ve had people that have come both days and just come down and pitch in, and they’re working hard,” says Fair Board member Clover Perrotta. “I can’t believe how hard they’re here working they’re just to volunteer.”

When flood damage from this past September left the Fairgrounds without electricity, water, or safe structures, people of all ages showed up this weekend to start the rebuilding process.

“What happened is just so tragic because of the flood and everything, it just broke my heart. I needed to help out,” says 11 year-old Lauren Gwardy.

A local business owner even heard about the cause and donated heavy duty equipment to help the demolition process as much as he could.

“We had support equipment that would help the fair committee and the other volunteers so we thought it would be good to bring the water trucks down, bring the excavators down, get the buildings torn down that needed to be torn down,” says Eric Johnson of Johnson’s Pools and Spas.

Community support that the Fair Board members needed to see to believe this summer’s fair would take place.

“Until this weekend I was very, a little skeptical, as to whether or not we were gonna be able to pull it off and really have the fair this year,” says Perrotta.

The volunteers at the Fairgrounds completely demolished one damaged horse barn, and salvaged another all within two days.

Spring Fling: Food, Music and Carnival Fun

Posted by admin on Apr 11, 2012 | 0 comments

Spring Fling: Food, Music and Carnival Fun

The story of how three donkeys landed two Oswego County families in court

Posted by admin on Apr 11, 2012 | 0 comments

 

Oswego, NY — A trial date has been set in the case concerning who owns two Oswego County donkeys.

The jury trial will begin July 16 in state Supreme Court in Oswego.

Betty and Henry Suhr, of county Route 85 in the town of Oswego, say the two donkeys belong to them. They maintain they loaned the animals to Kim Sitzer, of Hannibal, seven years ago and can’t get them back.

They are suing Sitzer, contending she treated the donkeys negligently, defamed the couple’s character and was responsible for having them falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted.

 

 

 

This is the sad tale of Libby, Olive and Arturo.

Anyone who travels Route 48 between Fulton and Oswego may be familiar with the names. Signs adorn both sides of Ozzie’s Antiques, chastising the Oswego County Sheriff’s office and others involved in the lives of the three.

Libby, Olive and Arturo are donkeys that Betty and Henry Suhr, of County Route 85 in the town of Oswego, say belong to them. They maintain they loaned the animals to Kim Sitzer of Hannibal seven years ago and can’t get them back.

Now, they are suing Sitzer, contending she treated the donkeys negligently, defamed the couple’s character, and was responsible for having them falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted.

And, ultimately, the Suhrs want their donkeys back.

The Suhrs declined be interviewed for this article, but a lawsuit they filed in court tells some of their story.

Their Save the Donkeys Facebook page, informs readers, “Here we are, $25,000 out for attorney fees and without our animals on our property!” And those signs along Route 48 make an accusation of animal abuse and question how a county sheriff’s deputy handled the matter.

The saga began in 2004 when, according to the Suhr’s suit, Sitzer wanted to buy one or more of the Suhrs’ donkeys. While the Suhrs wouldn’t sell their animals, they agreed to loan them to Sitzer so she could use them for breeding. Sitzer would keep any offspring from the female donkeys.

The deal was good as long as Sitzer agreed to take proper care of the donkeys, allowed the Suhrs to inspect and approve the site where Sitzer would keep the three and to could visit the donkeys on occasion, the suit says. If Sitzer could not care for the donkeys, the Suhrs would take them back, it says.

All of this was done through an oral agreement, according to the Suhrs’ court papers.

The Suhrs checked the donkeys a number of times through the years and everything was going well, the suit says. But in July 2009, after an anonymous phone call, the Suhrs checked on their animals and found that Arturo had been killed by a steer and Libby and Olive were being kept in muddy ground with “manure and muck up to their bellies,” according to their complaint.

Libby and Olive also had overgrown hooves, making it “difficult and painful for the donkeys to walk,” had lice and founder, which is an inflammation of the tissue on which the hoof is attached, the suit says.

The Suhrs had the animals seen by a veterinarian. They claim in their suit that Sitzer agreed to let them have the animals back and on July 13, 2009, they loaded the donkeys onto a trailer and took them, while Sitzer wasn’t home — “over the objection of (Sitzer’s) daughter.”

The Suhrs contend Sitzer then “signed an affidavit falsely stating that she owned all three animals and further falsely stating that she gave no one permission to remove the animals from the property.” The Suhrs were arrested and charged with petit larceny and trespass.

Those charges were dismissed Feb. 1, 2010 in Oswego Town Court.

Meanwhile, Sitzer took the donkeys back through “the concerted efforts of Oswego County Sheriffs, including Deputy Charles Midlar …,” without the knowledge of the Suhrs, their suit says.

Sitzer’s lawyer, Timothy Kirwan, declined to speak about the case before the trial. Sitzer also would not comment.

The Facebook Save Our Donkeys page outlines the story from Betty and Henry Suhr and tries to persuade those favoring the Suhrs to come out to the trial. It says, “The purpose of this site is to ask for the public’s support in our effort to save our two donkeys, Libby and Olive, from abuse and neglect.”

KISS, MÖTLEY CRÜE confirm Minnesota State Fair appearances Aug. 29

Posted by admin on Mar 21, 2012 | 0 comments

St. Paul, MN – KISS and MÖTLEY CRÜE have just been confirmed for the 2012 Grandstand Concert Series sponsored by Sleep Number.

KISS & MÖTLEY CRÜE will co-headline this concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 29. Tickets are $81, $71 and $51 and go on sale at 1 p.m. this Saturday, March 24.

KISS performed at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in 2010 and MÖTLEY CRÜE performed in 2005, both to sold-out audiences.

Tickets will be available at www.mnstatefair.org or etix.com or by calling (800) 514-3849. In addition, the State Fair Box Office on the fairgrounds will be open from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 24 and then close until regular hours begin June 4. For State Fair Box Office information call (651) 288-4427.

Tickets for the following shows, announced last week, go on sale Saturday, March 24 as well: The Happy Together Tour 2012 (Aug. 27) on sale at 10 a.m. and Alan Jackson (Aug. 24) on sale at noon.

Additional acts will be announced in the coming months. Visit mnstatefair.org for more Grandstand information.

The 2012 Minnesota State Fair runs Aug. 23 – Labor Day, Sept. 3.