Who raised taxes?

Who raised taxes?

You’ve got to give
them points for trying.

            Democrats in the county legislature
have written a reform plan called the “Democratic
Agenda for Fiscal Responsibility.”

            The plan calls for funding
restoration to 13 programs, including the Baden Street Shelter, Urban League,
Baby Love, and city school nurses. Money would be cut from the county’s
finance, law, and communications departments to fund the programs, which were
cut in the 2004 budget.

            “The county already has the
resources to put back programs that have proven to save the county money in the
long run,” says Legislator Bill Benet.

            Dems also
want to make the county comptroller an elected position. The comptroller is
currently appointed by the administration.

            “How else can the administration
demonstrate to the legislature and the public that it is acting with fiscal
responsibility?” Benet asked.

            The reform plan is needed, Democrats
say, because of the county’s declining fiscal health and because “compassionate
and cost-effective governmental services are shortsightedly being cut,”
according to an executive summary of the plan.

            A noble effort it may be, but
Democrats have little chance of seeing any of their proposed reforms carried
out. During an appearance on a local television station last week, Republican
Majority Leader Bill Smith compared Democrats proposing a reform plan to
prostitutes promoting chastity.

Biking straight to Toronto

In all the hubbub about the CATS fats ferry to Toronto —
“The Breeze” will start service next month despite a flesh wound
sustained at a New York City pier
— little has been said about bicycles. It’s known that a bike rack will be on
board. But so far the promo material has been geared
to the main profit stream: motor vehicles.

            The CATS
business office tells us the one-way fare for a bicyclist will be $20, plus $10
for the bike. By comparison, a “walk-on” passenger will pay $28
one-way. CATS is offering a special deal to those who
make pre-May reservations: $40 one-way for a car and driver. Ordinarily that
would cost $60 — $40 for the car, $20 for each person in the car (with some
discounts for youth and seniors). No promos are available now for bicyclists or
pedestrians, say CATS staffers.

            CATS president Howard Thomas says the company has had
discussions with bicycling groups about future collaborations. “A lot of
people have called us about biking events,” he says. But nothing is nailed
down yet, he says.

            Meanwhile,
work proceeds on the northern end of the Genesee River Trail, which will
connect downtown, the Erie Canal trail system, and the
Genesee Valley Greenway to the port
of Rochester and the ferry dock.
All this will provide an environmentally friendly way of getting to Toronto
and back — not counting the bicyclist’s share of the ferry’s diesel
emissions.

Bye to Bob

A lot of Rochesterians are used to
waking up with the smooth baritone of Bob
Edwards of National Public Radio’s Morning
Edition. But now the corporate voice of NPR has spoken, and by the end
of April Edwards will leave the job he’s held since 1979.

            Although
the New York Times reported that
Edwards had wanted to keep his post, NPR turned the radio host into the agent
of his own departure. “Bob Edwards, the award-winning, 30-year NPR veteran
broadcaster and host of Morning Edition since its first broadcast, announced today that he is leaving as host of the
program effective April 30, 2004,
to take on a new assignment as senior correspondent for NPR News.” Edwards
himself played along: “Morning Edition will continue to be my first source for news,”
the news release has him say. “I wish all the best to its new host.”

            So do we. But we couldn’t help noticing that the NPR ombudsman
didn’t sound too pleased with the corporate move; he said thousands of negative
emails had poured in. The Washington Post‘s
Richard Cohen got it right, observing that “various [NPR] officials
descended into the juvenile babble of TV executives, empty words spilling out
of their mouths.”

            Even when
Edwards was just reading the script, he never sounded empty. We’ll miss that
tone of his. Even more so, now that Morning
Edition on WXXI is sprinkled with jauntily slick, commercially-tainted
weather reports from RNews Weather on the Nines. (By the way, the
new Air America
liberal radio network has a show called Morning
Sedition. We’ll give it a try on-line, leaving time for some Democracy Now and host Amy Goodman,
whose smooth intelligence still isn’t aired in Rochester.)

Big, bigger…

Last week the Gannett company, hungry owner of Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle (and a growing
number of other local publications), gobbled up yet another media firm. Gannett
now owns Captivate Network Inc., which Gannett describes as “a national news
and entertainment network that delivers quality programming and advertising on
television screens in elevators in premier office towers across North
America.”

            Imagine:
You can watch ads in the quiet of your office elevator! “We are pleased,” said
a Gannett exec, “to provide this additional platform to our advertisers.”

            Gannett now
owns 101 daily newspapers in the US
(including USA Today), 500 non-daily
newspapers, 22 television stations, trade publications such as nurses’
magazines, The Army Times, Navy Times, and other military
publications, and Clipper Magazine, a
direct-mail coupon publication. In the United
Kingdom, Gannett owns 17 daily newspapers
and nearly 300 other publications.

This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2004.