The 2004 Monroe County budget may or may not include big social service cuts. It may also include putting welfare on a charge-back system. Safety Net is a state program for people not eligible for the federal welfare program. The cost is split between the state and the county. One proposal floating around in the […]
Christine Carrie Fien (FORMER)
Posted inNews & Opinion
The sleazeball zone
You’re a victim of domestic violence and you’ve finally decided to get help. You need to get out. Now. You contact the Monroe County Department of Human and Health Services and you and your children are sent to… the Cadillac Hotel?! “That place is horrible. That’s the last place you want to send a […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Wound-lickers need not apply
Coming up on her one-year anniversary as Democratic Party chair, you might not think Molly Clifford has much to celebrate. Look no further that this year’s county executive race, where Democratic candidate Bill Johnson lost to Republican Maggie Brooks by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. The results, Clifford says, were surprising because polls […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Top secret: Monroe County budget
I’d say the county budget process this year reads like a dime-store novel, but that wouldn’t be fair. It has more literary merit than that. And there is so much more at stake. There’s pathos aplenty, to be sure. See the throngs of desperate people who’ve been turning up at lej meetings, alternately begging […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Partial truths
The ban on so-called partial-birth abortion is all talk and no teeth. And it has created a weird middle ground in an otherwise polarizing debate. “The devil himself would have signed this bill,” says the Rev. Flip Benham, national director of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. “This piece of legislation will not save the life […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Dumping on the city
So much for that city-county romance we were promised post election. The county legislature may vote this week on a $972 million budget proposal. Republican county legislators say they are running out of options to close a $42 million chasm in the 2004 budget. The sales tax increase proposed by Jack Doyle is dead […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Health scare: So long, school nurses?
It seems exactly backwards: guaranteed medical care for suburban school kids, but none for city kids, where the need is greatest. “Sometimes, they’re [school nurses] the primary health-care provider for our kids,” says city schools spokesperson Barbara Jarzyniecki. The county health department administers the city’s school-nurse program. It has done so since it […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Goodbye, to that old black magic
We hold these truths to be self-evident: 1) You can’t cut taxes and maintain the same level of services; and 2) Even acknowledging the truth of the first, people will punish the candidate who says tax increases are a possibility. But Bill Johnson’s not the only person who says Monroe County might have to raise […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Sizing up the battle for school board
There are 10 candidates running for four open seats on the Rochester School Board this year. Four Democrats will face off against four Republicans, an Independence candidate, and a candidate running on the Working Families line. The Democrats — Malik Evans, David Perez, Willa Powell, and Shirley Thompson — were profiled in City Newspaper‘s […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Sleight of hand
It’s not so much a feeling of desperation; that implies a certain quickness — a racing, clinging quality. No, the mood in the St. Paul waiting area is slower, somehow. Men sleep. People wander in and out, checking the jobs-posting boards — nearly empty at 3:30 p.m. on this particular Friday — and to […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Bob feeds the elephant
You’re afraid of Bill Johnson. You’re afraid, Pittsford, that Bill Johnson wants to put city kids in your schools. You’re afraid, Fairport, that Bill Johnson wants to steal your wallet and give its contents to the city. You’re afraid, Chili, that a city mayor can’t possibly have the interests of the suburbs […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Will PaeTec bail out?
The city is committed. The state — following a tumultuous week where it looked like things might fall apart — is committed. The Rhinos, certainly, are committed to getting a soccer-specific stadium built in Rochester. So is the team still feeling the love from its stadium’s namesake, PaeTec Communications? The Perinton-based telecommunications company […]
