The Monroe County Republican convention was held last
week, with hundreds of the faithful gathering to celebrate achievements,
nominate candidates, and generally schmooze with other operatives and
playmakers.
Held at
Logan’s Party House on Scottsville Road, everyone who is anyone among the
county GOP machinery was in attendance. The stars of the evening however, were
the four candidates vying for their party’s nomination for the US Congressional
seat being vacated by Rep. Amo Houghton, R-Corning.
The four candidates — Monroe County Legislators Mark
Assini and Bill Smith, Chairman of the Rochester-Genesee Regional
Transportation Authority Bill Nojay, and Rochester businessman Geoffrey
Rosenberger — were campaigning till the very end.
All had deployed their armies of well-dressed, cordial
staffers to smile and hand out stickers of support, and no matter how many of
these things you go to, it is still a little odd to see grown men and women
with rows of stickers plastered on pressed suits and cocktail dresses.
Smith’s people handed out bottles of water with the
candidate’s face pictured, and Nojay even set up a small buffet of finger
foods. It was all for naught, however, as Assini was declared the eventual winner.
He will face Sen. John R. “Randy” Kuhl, of Steuben County, in the Republican
primary. The winner of that contest will most likely face Democrat Samara
Barend of Corning in November.
One of the
more striking aspects of the evening was the surprisingly large number of
apparently college-aged men and women in attendance. The GOP has, in recent
years, made inroads among college students, traditionally a Democratic
stronghold. The progress was evident at the convention, as dozens of
fresh-faced teens and 20-somethings enthusiastically weaved and bobbed through
the crowd.
While the
number of young people in attendance showed an area where Republicans have made
progress, another aspect was equally revealing of an area where the Republicans
are still struggling: minority membership. After spending several hours at the
convention, I couldn’t help but think, “I see white people…”
A $20 pep rally — with lunch
Anyone interested in learning more about the potential
benefits of the Renaissance Square project on a downtown community should check
out a luncheon May 27 at the Hyatt Regency, in which leaders of similar
projects from other cities will extol the benefits such development has had on
their hometowns.
Wait,
scratch that. You probably won’t get in.
First, it’s
“about three bodies from being sold out,” according to Heidi Marcin,
the marketing director of the Renaissance Corporation. Moreover, though the
event is technically open to the public, chances are you wouldn’t have heard of
it if you weren’t on the mailing list for the RSVP invitation.
Those who
did receive the invite are informed that the cost of the luncheon is either $20
a head or $160 for a table of eight. Checks are to be made payable to the
Renaissance Square Corporation, but Marcin assured City there was no profiteering involved.
“It’s
for the cost of the lunch” and for the space, she said.
Invitations
to the event, titled the Renaissance Square National Models Luncheon,
were made on behalf of Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks; President and CEO
of the Arts and Cultural Council Sarah Lentini; President of Monroe Community
College R. Thomas Flynn; and CEO of Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation
Authority Mark Aesch.
The
speakers’ list includes representatives of the Benjamin and Marian Schuster
Performing Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio, (“Dayton’s premier Wintergarden
Transit Center”) and Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington, (“An
elegant symphony hall built atop a heavy rail tunnel and adjacent to the
busiest public transit tunnel in Seattle”).
The
Renaissance Square Corporation was expecting 250 or so attendees, but there are
about 650 people interested, Marcin said.
On May 12,
Aesch and Lentini were scheduled to participate in a panel discussion regarding
the Renaissance Square project sponsored by the Regional Innovators’
Participation Network (RIPN). The event was cancelled when two of the three
panelists suddenly withdrew because of scheduling conflicts, according to RIPN
co-founder Andy Vaughan, who declined to identify the two panelists. The public
discussion was intended to provide attendees with the opportunity “to ask
questions to those directly impacting the project.”
Food was
not going to be served at that ill-fated gathering, but then again, it was only
going to be $5 to get in.
Crashing Columbia
SUNY Geneseo graduate Stephanie Corrigan crashed Columbia
University’s commencement ceremony Wednesday, May 19.
As a
36-foot banner reading “Stop Columbia Cruelty!” was unfurled,
Corrigan grabbed the mic and began to talk about the “systematic abuse of
animals” she said was going on in Columbia’s labs. While she spoke,
activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shouted
“Stop the torture! Stop the pain! Columbia University is to blame!”
PETA filed
a complaint against Columbia in March after investigating the university’s
labs. The complaint, according to the Columbia
Spectator, was the first complaint PETA had filed against a research
university in more than 20 years.
Corrigan, a
native of Rochester who attended Greece Athena High School, was ejected from
the ceremony along with her fellow activists.
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2004.
