In the midst of preparations for war, with budget crises looming in Albany, in Monroe County, in City Hall, it’s easy to overlook one of the biggest crises of all: the waste of minds that is taking place in the Rochester school district. We’ve heard about that crisis so often that we’re bored with […]
Mary Anna Towler
Mary Anna Towler is a transplant from the Southern Appalachians and is editor, co-publisher, and co-founder of City. She is happy to have converted a shy but opinionated childhood into an adult job. She credits a grandfather for instilling in her a love of politics. And she makes no apology for her liberal views.
Posted inNews & Opinion
The Richards factor
Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson still won’t say whether he’ll be a candidate for County Executive in November, but he’s giving every indication that he will. And while several other Democrats hope to run, the nomination seems to be Johnson’s if he wants it. Meanwhile, the political community is awash in reports that Tom Richards, […]
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Doing the math: the middle-school dilemma
When our son, proud alumnus of the Rochester school district, was a high-school senior in 1988, he and his classmates wore a T-shirt created especially for them. Its wording: “They saved the best till last.” The school was Monroe Junior-Senior High School, of which his (we thought) was the last graduating class. The next […]
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The union under a radical president
Read more about The State We’re In in the Cover Story section The state of the union is one of rising unemployment and a growing number of people with little or no health insurance; of reckless energy use and the trashing of the environment. Of a growing disparity between rich and poor, encouraged by the […]
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Can we talk?
This month, as you may have heard, Louisville, Kentucky, leaped from 67th to 16th on the list of the largest cities in the US. Well, it wasn’t exactly one fell swoop; the jump — which happened because the city and county governments merged — was the result of an election in 2000. Which was […]
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The great divide: behind the School Board anger
The Rochester School Board entered the new year with one of the deepest — and angriest — divisions in recent history. And while to outsiders the rancor may seem rooted in personality differences and power struggles, the division is more significant than that. All seven School Board members are Democrats, but some of them […]
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Biz wants Doyle out
Rochester-area business leaders want County Executive Jack Doyle to not seek re-election next fall. Officially, the reason is the “personality clash” between Doyle and Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson. But it’s clear that members of the business community are deeply concerned about Doyle and his effect on the community and its economy. They made […]
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Why we ran that cover
We set off a bit of controversy with our November 27 cover, a collage that included a woman’s bare breasts. Some readers called or wrote to complain. Some newsstands refused to distribute that issue of our newspaper. And here at City,we had a rousing staff debate about the cover. One reader called the cover […]
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To the barricades!
So how depressed are you? The media had predicted that last week’s election would be a cliffhanger. What a hoot. But we should have seen this rout coming. The Democrats caved on Iraq so they could focus on the economy — and then had no message. No plan. No conviction. No fire. Meantime, the […]
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Courage! Courage!
How bad do things have to get in what we used to call The Community of Monroe? Do only half a dozen county legislators have the guts to do the right thing? Next week, the Lej will vote on Jack Doyle’s proposed budget. That budget will ramp up the cuts we’ve already begun to […]
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A model for metro
When I moved here in the 1960s, Rochester was a community of promise, with a bustling downtown and great plans for the future. It felt more vibrant, more big-city than the two Southern cities I knew best, my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, and Nashville, near which my husband grew up. That’s no longer the […]
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New York State Governor: Stanley Aronowitz
Government in any state is an easy target for citizen criticism. But in New York, the criticism is justified. Run by a handful of political leaders, deliberations and decisions often made in secret, dominated by money and special-interest influence, New York makes a mockery out of democracy. This year, in particular, New Yorkers may […]
