By the time this article hits the streets, the 12-year administration of Mayor Bill Johnson will have less than 20 days left Robert Duffy|WilliamJohnson|Rochester mayor Although Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson was a strong supporter of Bob Duffy, so far he’s not happy with the changes his successor is making in City Hall. In a recent […]
Krestia DeGeorge
Posted inNews & Opinion
Next urban comeback: at Lyell and State?
When you think about the area around Lyell Avenue and State Street, you probably don’t envision a thriving international district with Wi-Fi coffeehouses and loft-style apartments. But that’s exactly the vision that animates Mitch Rowe. A veteran City Hall employee, Rowe took his first plunge into commercial real estate about two years ago when, along […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
GOP deficit disorder
Ah, the hot topic of budgets. Unless you work in your company’s finance department, odds are the word makes your eyes glaze over. But for the parallel universe contained inside the Beltway, and for the watchdog groups monitoring it, budgets are a different story. For those people, things are just getting interesting. Two weeks ago, […]
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Mayday! (Are we shuffling off to Buffalo?)
For Monroe County, next year marks the end of an era. After 2006, the county’s annual budgets will almost certainly top a billion dollars. In fact, we may even top that mark in 2006. The budget proposed by County Executive Maggie Brooks and adopted by the legislature in a 24-5 vote last week totals $998.9 […]
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After the party
Celebrating the returns: Democratic Party Chair Joe Morelle, School Board President Darryl Porter, and Mayor-elect Bob Duffy. There was no single moment when the excitement started brewing at the Democrat’s election-night party at the CrownePlaza. But by the time Mayor-elect Bob Duffy made it to the stage for his victory speech, the term “fever pitch” […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Looking for a change
Talk with Republican candidate John Parrinello about his campaign for Rochester mayor, and you quickly realize that one issue dominates his focus: public safety. Like the erratic orbit of a comet around the sun, Parrinello’s mind seems tethered to the problem of crime, no matter what he’s talking about. Discussions of schools, administrative appointments, or […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Looking for signs of life in the Lej
Last year, the prestigious BrennanCenter for Law and Justice at New YorkUniversity branded the New YorkState legislature the most “dysfunctional” in the United States. The phrase stuck. Even people who’d never read the report hopped on the Albany-bashing bandwagon. The momentum the BrennanCenter generated carried past the splash of the initial press coverage and, improbably, […]
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The Lej roundup: power and possibilities
For the first time in its history, the entire county legislature is up for grabs
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Taking care of (bad) business
Illegal. Arbitrary. Unconstitutional. These are just a few of the printable adjectives being thrown at the city’s new “certificate of use” program in the conflict it has touched off. On one side of the conflict is the City of Rochester. Last November, City Council overhauled the program the city uses to license certain small businesses. […]
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No Slaughter in the House?
If New YorkState’s delegation to the House of Representatives has a bastard stepchild, it’s MonroeCounty. Almost no one seems to want much to do with it. Our suburbs are split among three Republican congressmen whose homes — and primary centers of interest — lie elsewhere. To the west there’s Tom Reynolds, with a base in […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
It takes four to make a marriage
What do you get when you cross the distinctive dialogue of David Mamet with a Victorian drawing room comedy? One obscenely funny, complicated play. Once dubbed the “poet of the f-word,” Mamet’s signature clipped tone and often vulgar style makes a surprisingly believable (if occasionally awkward) marriage with the florid turns of phrase that proper […]
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Room with a view: the other big project
Five years from now (assuming the fast ferry’s still around) what will a Torontonian visiting Rochester for the first time experience? Posh housing? Streets lined with hip boutiques? A waterfront park? A combination of all those or something completely different? That’s the question city officials are starting to wrestle with now, as they enter the […]
