Latest news with #NiagaraCounty
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Missing Lockport attorney located in Niagara Falls
A missing Lockport attorney was located by Niagara County Sheriff's deputies at a Niagara Falls department store on Saturday afternoon. Deputies were called to the store about 3:30 p.m. Saturday to interview Scott Stopa. A release from the sheriff's office about half an hour later said it was determined he was safe. Family members had reported Stopa had not been seen or heard from since Tuesday. 'Our family is extremely concerned for his safety and well-being,' Stopa's sister Jenny told the Gazette Thursday night. 'No one's heard from him and his phone is at his home.' Stopa is a partner at Ben & Stopa Attorneys-at-Law on East Avenue in Lockport. He lives in the Town of Cambria. Stopa's online profile indicates that his legal practice is 'family-law focused.' The profile says Stopa 'represents clients in divorce, custody, paternity, and guardianship proceedings.' He is also described as a 'court-certified' child guardian. Filicetti said Thursday members of his office's Criminal Investigation Bureau had been working on Stopa's disappearance since the missing person's report was first filed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Missing Lockport attorney located in Niagara Falls
A missing Lockport attorney was located by Niagara County Sheriff's deputies at a Niagara Falls department store on Saturday afternoon. Deputies were called to the store about 3:30 p.m. Saturday to interview Scott Stopa. A release from the sheriff's office about half an hour later said it was determined he was safe. Family members had reported Stopa had not been seen or heard from since Tuesday. 'Our family is extremely concerned for his safety and well-being,' Stopa's sister Jenny told the Gazette Thursday night. 'No one's heard from him and his phone is at his home.' Stopa is a partner at Ben & Stopa Attorneys-at-Law on East Avenue in Lockport. He lives in the Town of Cambria. Stopa's online profile indicates that his legal practice is 'family-law focused.' The profile says Stopa 'represents clients in divorce, custody, paternity, and guardianship proceedings.' He is also described as a 'court-certified' child guardian. Filicetti said Thursday members of his office's Criminal Investigation Bureau had been working on Stopa's disappearance since the missing person's report was first filed.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Sheriff's disability registry helps police identify people with special needs
A new Niagara County Sheriff's Office initiative allowing residents to voluntarily pre-identify if they have communication difficulties is one the sheriff has enrolled in himself. The public can request Disability Response Decals for vehicles and homes and register themselves or someone they care for who may have dementia, developmental disorders, or disabilities that affect communication. 'I have a daughter with disabilities and I have one on the side of the vehicle that she is in,' said Sheriff Michael Filicetti. 'I also have one on the house. The whole idea is to give a first responder a heads up that someone is potentially non-verbal and it alleviates some of the unknowns on why the person is acting the way that they're acting.' 'When you sign up to get a decal, you could also make a request to have an alert added for the residence,' Filicetti said. 'So when 911 comes in, there's not only a sticker, but they get a call from dispatch that a person who's there has autism or Down syndrome. It can also alert to contact a caregiver with contact information provided.' 'It's really preloading information so we know who we're dealing with,' he said. 'There's been tragedies across the country where first responders dealt with an individual with disabilities, not knowing they have disabilities.' Filicetti said emergency responders assess situations by asking questions and observing an individual's response. While deputies get training on people with disabilities in the sheriff's academy, he said there is still a potential for cues to be misinterpreted. Describing a possible response situation, he said, 'You're asking questions of somebody who is not capable of giving a response. It may lead you to believe that something is going on in this house because they're being evasive and not answering. In fact, it's not that at all. They have a disability.' 'I think it's a great idea,' said Maureen Wendt, president and CEO of the Dale Association senior center. 'Any time we can make it easier for first responders in a situation, all the better. It's something that I would want for our participants in Memory Minders, so we could get it in the hands of caregivers as well.' 'There's a certain amount of chaos or increased activity going on anytime there's an emergency situation,' Wendt said. 'Sometimes you would have three different entities respond and they all take down documentation separately. Especially if there was somebody with dementia, and their caregiver wasn't home at the time, getting the right information as quickly as possible would help the situation.' Doug Usiak, executive director of Western New York Independent Living, a disability advocacy organization, expressed concern that anyone could register someone they know in the system. 'These registries are open to the public,' Usiak said. 'I've heard of cases where neighbors enter the next door neighbor. You can fill that registry out about me, based on whatever it is you know about me. It infringes on your right to live independently and freely in your community and gives people the authority to label you.' 'We have not run into this scenario,' Filicetti said. The sheriff said the registry information is confidential, and family and guardians would likely register someone with a communication disability. 'We did this for my daughter,' he said. 'She wouldn't have done it herself.' The sheriff said that during registration, caregivers provide their contact information for use by dispatchers. This step would also help verify their relationship. 'At the end of the day, the person would have to put the stickers on the car or house,' Filicetti said. 'If somebody called and said their neighbor had dementia, please put a sticker on their house, we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't take requests from an uninvolved party.' Community members can call the sheriff department's non-emergency phone number at 716-438-3393 to register. The information required to add an alert for a person with disabilities includes the person's full name, date of birth, height, weight, emergency contact information, and some details about their disabilities.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Growing concern for native trilliums
Niagara County's nature lovers may remember when forests were adrift with blooming native trilliums in early May. Those local trails of trilliums are fewer and farther between. Conservationists have long been cautious about interfering with trilliums, with numerous pressures on their survival, the woodland wildflower needs humans to be more hands-off than ever. On a hike this week on the 75-acre Lytle Nature Preserve in the Town of Lockport, trillium blossoms were hard to find. Josh Randall, natural resources educator for the Niagara County Cooperative Extension, was perplexed. He had a photo of a trillium in bloom from the property from late April last year. In the woods, ferns, Jack-in-the-pulpits, and spring anemones were regulars in the preserve, but trilliums could be counted on both hands. 'Trillium likes stability,' Randall said. 'They have become hyper-specific to certain environments.' What they specifically want is undisturbed, damp, deciduous woodlands, where the trees lose their leaves, and the sun reaches the ground in spring. 'Say you have a farm field and let it go for 10 years,' said Rich Ring, chief botanist with the New York Natural Heritage program. 'I don't think you're going to get trillium back there. Part of their life history is to come up and leaf out and bloom before the leaves are on the trees. They're forest plants.' Rich said white trilliums like a richer soil with a higher pH from limestone underneath. Richer soil is ground that has accumulated years of decaying leaves. This need for soil that has never been dug, and their slow growth rates, leave trillium populations fighting for their survival when other pressures are added. 'We don't want to lose these plants from the native areas,' said Ring. 'They're very pretty, and when people see them on trails, they are tempted to pick them. But even with picking, the plants won't tolerate that too many times.' Six species of trillium are native to New York state. In Niagara County, the most common are the great white trillium and the red trillium, which are on the state Department of Environmental Conservation's exploitably vulnerable plant list. Ring said legal protections for native plants are different than for animals. 'If you own 100 acres and have an endangered animal on your property, you do not own those.' However, plants growing on privately owned land are the owner's property. Ring said the exploitably vulnerable status reads that 'a plant can not be picked, removed, damaged, or destroyed without permission of the owner.' Encouraging landowners to protect trilliums by not cutting woods, mowing wild areas, digging plants, spraying, and introducing livestock is important for the plant to rebound. While it is tempting to think that people could just grow more trilliums in the protection of their gardens, Ring said that's not a solution. While the need for undisturbed soil and forest canopy is a major challenge, the plant's glacial growth rate prevents gardeners from making any real progress. With woodland plants, like trillium, Randall said the majority of the plant's growth is underground in branching, rooted colonies. Once a colony is established, it puts more growth into leaves and flowers. 'The more woods that get developed, the patchier these areas are going to be,' Randall said. 'Trilliums can live for decades,' Ring said. 'They take several years at least before they will start to flower. They need to grow and save energy in their early life, and store that energy.' 'We don't generally encourage people to purchase them,' Ring said. 'These plants are adapted to not moving. Their genetics may be especially adapted to the site they're on. So if you buy a bulb, you don't know where they're from. It may not be from New York. Conserving what we have, rather than augmenting, is what we'd encourage.' Human development also increases chemicals in groundwater, Randall said. Fertilizers help invasive plants like honeysuckle and multiflora rose take off, which can overrun trillium. Phosphorus from detergents and potassium from burning wood can also interfere with the balance of the water and soil, Randall said. Ring said deer pose a big threat to trilliums from grazing. He said rises in deer populations are a factor in the reduced presence of trilliums even on protected lands and nature reserves. 'Because that's such a problem, it's all the more important for people to not do the same thing,' Ring said of harvesting trilliums. 'Trilliums can live for decades.' 'It's hard to keep deer out,' he said. 'If you have a little patch of trillium that you'd like to protect, you could put a cage around it.'
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Growing concern for native trilliums
Niagara County's nature lovers may remember when forests were adrift with blooming native trilliums in early May. Those local trails of trilliums are fewer and farther between. Conservationists have long been cautious about interfering with trilliums, with numerous pressures on their survival, the woodland wildflower needs humans to be more hands-off than ever. On a hike this week on the 75-acre Lytle Nature Preserve in the Town of Lockport, trillium blossoms were hard to find. Josh Randall, natural resources educator for the Niagara County Cooperative Extension, was perplexed. He had a photo of a trillium in bloom from the property from late April last year. In the woods, ferns, Jack-in-the-pulpits, and spring anemones were regulars in the preserve, but trilliums could be counted on both hands. 'Trillium likes stability,' Randall said. 'They have become hyper-specific to certain environments.' What they specifically want is undisturbed, damp, deciduous woodlands, where the trees lose their leaves, and the sun reaches the ground in spring. 'Say you have a farm field and let it go for 10 years,' said Rich Ring, chief botanist with the New York Natural Heritage program. 'I don't think you're going to get trillium back there. Part of their life history is to come up and leaf out and bloom before the leaves are on the trees. They're forest plants.' Rich said white trilliums like a richer soil with a higher pH from limestone underneath. Richer soil is ground that has accumulated years of decaying leaves. This need for soil that has never been dug, and their slow growth rates, leave trillium populations fighting for their survival when other pressures are added. 'We don't want to lose these plants from the native areas,' said Ring. 'They're very pretty, and when people see them on trails, they are tempted to pick them. But even with picking, the plants won't tolerate that too many times.' Six species of trillium are native to New York state. In Niagara County, the most common are the great white trillium and the red trillium, which are on the state Department of Environmental Conservation's exploitably vulnerable plant list. Ring said legal protections for native plants are different than for animals. 'If you own 100 acres and have an endangered animal on your property, you do not own those.' However, plants growing on privately owned land are the owner's property. Ring said the exploitably vulnerable status reads that 'a plant can not be picked, removed, damaged, or destroyed without permission of the owner.' Encouraging landowners to protect trilliums by not cutting woods, mowing wild areas, digging plants, spraying, and introducing livestock is important for the plant to rebound. While it is tempting to think that people could just grow more trilliums in the protection of their gardens, Ring said that's not a solution. While the need for undisturbed soil and forest canopy is a major challenge, the plant's glacial growth rate prevents gardeners from making any real progress. With woodland plants, like trillium, Randall said the majority of the plant's growth is underground in branching, rooted colonies. Once a colony is established, it puts more growth into leaves and flowers. 'The more woods that get developed, the patchier these areas are going to be,' Randall said. 'Trilliums can live for decades,' Ring said. 'They take several years at least before they will start to flower. They need to grow and save energy in their early life, and store that energy.' 'We don't generally encourage people to purchase them,' Ring said. 'These plants are adapted to not moving. Their genetics may be especially adapted to the site they're on. So if you buy a bulb, you don't know where they're from. It may not be from New York. Conserving what we have, rather than augmenting, is what we'd encourage.' Human development also increases chemicals in groundwater, Randall said. Fertilizers help invasive plants like honeysuckle and multiflora rose take off, which can overrun trillium. Phosphorus from detergents and potassium from burning wood can also interfere with the balance of the water and soil, Randall said. Ring said deer pose a big threat to trilliums from grazing. He said rises in deer populations are a factor in the reduced presence of trilliums even on protected lands and nature reserves. 'Because that's such a problem, it's all the more important for people to not do the same thing,' Ring said of harvesting trilliums. 'Trilliums can live for decades.' 'It's hard to keep deer out,' he said. 'If you have a little patch of trillium that you'd like to protect, you could put a cage around it.'
