Articles by Steve Yablonski

Over the weekend, the Port City celebrated what the area is best known for – Winter. 2014 marked the ninth annual Warm Up Oswego festival. The YMCA adopted the festival in 2006 in order to raise money to renovate the Armory and to create more programs. Temperatures lingered in the teens Saturday and the windchill made it even colder. But hundreds of people braved the weather in and around the Oswego YMCA Armory. Throughout the afternoon, hundreds of people wandered around the Armory to check out the vendors’ wares and watch the various demonstrations and performances.

Teresa Woolson’s son drowned in Lake Ontario on Aug. 9, 2012, while swimming with a group of friends. His friends told her and the police that he’d purchased a synthetic drug, “Avalanche,” from the Xtreme Underground and used it before he went into the water. She and her family are leading the charge to keep these “designer drugs,” mostly aimed at young people, off the streets.

January 2014’s temperature was down. But, even though the snowfall was above average, the total precipitation was below average overall. The average temperature last month was 2.8 degrees below normal. Total snowfall was 2.8 inches above average, but it was very dry. So the overall precipitation was 1.03 inches below average.

The fire chief will present his findings to the council later this spring. The mayor and councilors will incorporate that information into their own study of how to restructure the department.