Growing South and Gregory
Nannett Hayes-Cepero — part
gardener, part entrepreneur — knows that many people think they have to eat organic
to eat well. But with her green grocery, scheduled to open this summer at the
corner of South and Gregory, she hopes to snag a more transitional audience.
Some farmers employ low-spray tactics, she says, while others try to preserve
land by growing the largest amount of food in the smallest possible area — a
method known as bio-intensive gardening. | “There’s nothing really that’s 100
percent safe,” she says. “Everything’s going to have some effect on the natural
environment. So you’re not talking 100 percent safe, but you’re talking safer
and better.” | Hayes-Cepero says she wanted to open a
store even before the Wegmans on Mt. Hope closed. And
she’s had her eye on the Abeles building across from Beale Street Café for
years. But the building, which has been largely vacant for about five years,
became available only three months ago, when developer Howard Konar was able to buy it. | While Hayes-Cepero’s
role in revitalizing the area is more visible, it took Konar
years to iron out details backstage.Like a professional Monopoly
player, Konar spent two years buying up land at the
northwestcorner of South and Gregory. He envisions, he says, an
old-style marketplace with both retail and residential spaces. | That vision
jibes with the hopes of area residents, who saved the building from demolition
about a decade ago. South Wedge Planning Committee executive director Daniel
Buyer says there was a proposal to knock down the building to set up a large
chain store. “It was going to be your typical ugly pharmacy, and it would be
set back, and they would have a parking lot right on South Avenue,” Buyer says.
The neighbors, however, fought the proposal and won; the entire corner was
turned into a city preservation district. (Konar
bought three houses behind the land for parking.) | Hayes-Cepero
hopes to open shop by June. “I grew up in a family where everyone was into
botany or horticulture in some way,” says Hayes-Cepero,
who sees the shop as an extension of her heritage. “It’s blossomed into much
more than just a store.” | Learn more about the neighborhood at
www.swpc.org.
— Sujata
Gupta
‘Brokeback’ as propaganda
Much of art’s charm lies in the way it lends itself to
individual interpretation. While some of us consider the critically lauded film
Brokeback
Mountain to be a heartbreaking tale of love and sacrifice, others see
it as an attack on that nebulous paradigm called family values.
A group calling itself Viewers Insulted by Loser
Entertainment — or VILE — staged protests against the Oscar-nominated film
in front of the Little Theatre this past weekend to draw attention to what it
says is “the Hollywood propaganda machine assaulting American Culture at the
expense of wives, children, and entire families.”
Brokeback Mountain,
which opened in Rochester five weeks ago, has been the subject of controversy
due to its rather groundbreaking depiction of an enduring affair between two
men who marry and raise families over the course of their relationship. Michael
Brennan, one of the organizers of the rally, told City that the protest was “not about homosexuality, per se,” though
VILE’s initial press release stated, “This type of ‘entertainment’
propagandizes the abnormality as ‘norm’ for a predictable agenda (accept gay
marriage).” The parenthetical phrase was omitted from later VILE
communications.
In a press release issued on Saturday, The Little’s acting
executive director, Jennifer Caleshu, said that “while we may or may not agree
with the protestors’ opinion, we respect their right to peacefully share it in
a public forum.”
The Little’s theaters have “a great tradition of presenting
controversial films” she said, “we prefer to let our audiences make up their
own minds about the artistic merit and value of the films.”
Moving on lead
When the city passed an
ordinance mandating that rental residential properties in Rochester built
before 1978 become lead-safe in the next 10 years, many landlords groaned.
Cleanup costs, they said, could force financially strapped landlords to abandon
their properties.
Mayor Bob Duffy will be
discussing the new lead-paint ordinance with one group of landlords — the New
York State Coalition of Property Owners and Businesses, Inc., at its
next meeting, at 7 p.m. February 16 at the Well Party House on Chili Avenue.
The meeting is free to Coalition members, $15 for non-members. Duffy will also
discuss the city’s NET program, which some critics say has been punishing
small-business owners.
While agreeing that lead
cleanup will place some financial burden on landlords, the director of the
city’s Housing and Project Development Bureau, Bob Barrows, says some
government funds are available. Landlords renting to low-income residents, he
says, can apply for up to $24,000 in aid. Clean-up is voluntary for
owner-occupied single-family homes, but low-income homeowners can also apply
for funding if they are undergoing lead abatement voluntarily. To apply for
funding, property owners should call the Housing Council at 546-3700 and ask
for an application.
The money comes with a
caveat, however: each property owner must provide a 20 percent match. So for
every $4, a property owner must pay $1. The conditions of the grant also
specify that even if landlords are certified in lead cleanup, they can’t do the
work on their own properties.
The city faces its own costs
as a result of the new lead ordinance. It must hire and train certified
inspectors — a cost initially tagged at around half a million dollars.
Currently, the city is seeking outside grants and private financing sources.
When city officials draft the budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year, they will
likely add the money to the Neighborhood Empowerment Team’s operating funds.
NET will oversee the program.
City officials say they hope
to begin testing rental units by July 1. However, officials are still waiting
to hear from the state’s Building Codes Council, which reviews policy changes
made at the local level. The Council, says Deputy Mayor Patty Malgieri, has to approve any change that is seen as more
restrictive than the uniform fire prevention and building code.
HighFalls country
The High Falls building that
once housed Jillian’s will soon be home to a multi-faceted complex, Saddle
Ridge Entertainment Resort.
City officials had high
hopes for Jillian’s, but that entertainment complex wasn’t able to make it.
Saddle Ridge marketing director Eric Schilder says
the new venue will be different because of its broader focus: five different
attractions under one roof.
“This is an adult-driven
entertainment complex with multiple venues,” he says.
Here’s what you’ll find in
the 40,000-square-foot former trolley barn:
Saddle Ridge’s main focus
will be country music with line dancing, cowboy-hatted
gals dancing on the bar, and a mechanical bull. Top 40 music will be offered in
The Yucatan Liquor Stand. The Cheyenne Super Club will serve BBQ, steaks, and
over-stuffed sandwiches with live local and national entertainment after 10
p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
The Palm Bar will have an
upscale atmosphere and high-end tapas menu. And King Pinz will feature a retro bowling alley, salvaged from
Jillian’s. “It’ll be like the Disneyland of the High Falls district,” Schilder says.
The grand opening target:
late March-early April.
Fighting the Patriot Act
All nine Rochester City Councilmembers have signed a letter to Senators Charles
Schumer and Hillary Clinton opposing the Patriot Act. “The lowered standards
for property searches and pen register, secret records searches, roving wire
taps, and a blurring of the line between criminal investigations and foreign
intelligence erode the essence of democracy, chilling First Amendment rights
and weakening the Fourth Amendment,” Councilmembers
wrote.
Unless it is renewed, the
Patriot Act will expire on March 10. City Council’s stance brings to 27 the
number of cities and counties in New York that have passed resolutions against
the Patriot Act. (Nationwide, nearly 400 municipalities have signed similar
resolutions.) Rochester’s a little late in the game, though: Albany County,
Ithaca, and other New York governments spoke out as early as 2003.
The new top
cop
Rochester’s new police chief
is described as a “smart guy,” intellectual, reserved, soft-spoken — and
experienced.
In appointing David Moore — currently the chief in
Laurel, Maryland — Mayor Bob Duffy said he wanted someone who “rose through
the ranks,” someone who had “big-city street experience.”
Rochester’s population
dwarfs Laurel’s 19,000, and the Laurel city-hall website boasts of the city’s
low crime rate. Moore’s through-the-ranks service, though, included five years
in the Camden, New Jersey, police force and 20 years in Colorado Springs, where
the population is more than 360,000 (but the violent-crime rate is low). He’s
been head of the force in Laurel for four years.
During his campaign for
Mayor, Duffy repeatedly pointed to a link between crime, education, and
employment, insisting that crime can’t be solved without addressing the other
two areas. He drew that link again last week with the Moore announcement, saying
that he had sought not only someone with strong management skills but also
someone “who understand that you fight crime by preventing crime.”
If Duffy continues to lead
on that issue, getting the community to buy into his approach, he’ll make
Moore’s job easier. One area that Moore will have to fight on his own: labor
relations. When he was police chief himself, Duffy had a tense relationship
with the Rochester police union. The union is tough, and Moore hasn’t had a lot
of testing in dealing with unions.
This article appears in Feb 15-21, 2006.
