The drive to get a skatepark built in Rochester is probably at its lowest point in the eight years since the push began, organizers say. The high point was in 2011 when the City of Rochester included the park in its capital improvement plan — that, organizers say, showed commitment to the project. But now, […]
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Unsafe at any speed?
A fiery derailment of a CSX oil train in Mount Carbon, West Virginia, in February showed the destructive potential of these trains. Twenty-seven of the train’s 109 oil cars went off the tracks — some catching fire or exploding. A nearby home was destroyed in the fire, which continued to burn for five days. The […]
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Now what?
The controversy surrounding a historic church on the city’s west side has outlived the church itself, which burned in a three-alarm job late last month. The building was torn down. The former Westminster Presbyterian Church at 660 West Main had been the focus of a tug of war between, on one side, the building’s owner, […]
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The road to health
Transportation planning is no longer about simply making sure that vehicles can get from here to there as easily and with as few mishaps as possible. As a discipline, it has become more holistic. It now emphasizes tying public transportation to communities and destinations, accommodating cyclists and pedestrians on key corridors, and making sure that […]
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Schools for sale
City Hall is looking for buyers for two of Rochester’s oldest school buildings. Abraham Lincoln School 22 at 27 Zimbrich Street and Henry Longfellow School 36 at 85 St. Jacob Street are both in the northeast section of the city. The Rochester school district has closed numerous schools over the last 15 years because of […]
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Curbing workplace aggression
Talya Meyerowitz recently asked a group of CEO’s and entrepreneurs to think about a personal encounter that made them feel belittled and humiliated. It didn’t matter if the incident had just happened or if it occurred 20 years ago. “Go back to that feeling, whether it was on the school yard or in the board […]
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The Vargas future
Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s contract with the Rochester school district ends June 30, 2016. While it may seem premature to be thinking about it, the school board will need to have a serious discussion in the next few months about whether to renew that contract or start the search for a new superintendent. It’s hardly a […]
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Schools are no haven for transgender youth
A recent report from the New York Civil Liberties Union says that discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming youth is pervasive in the state’s public schools. During the 2012-2013 school year, there were nearly 25,000 reported incidents of harassment related to gender stereotypes and sexual orientation, according to the report, “Dignity For All? Discrimination Against […]
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Wooly bully
The hemlock wooly adelgid is a tiny invasive pest, similar to aphids, that preys on native and ornamental hemlock trees. The bugs kill the trees needle by needle and limb by limb; an unaddressed infestation can mean a slow death. This summer, a crew from the state Department of Environmental Conservation is surveying the state […]
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Reining in e-waste
Consumers have an insatiable appetite for electronic devices, whether it’s the powerful smartphones in their pockets, the massive television screens on their walls, or the sleek laptops they carry with them. The electronics industry understands that appetite well, and it’s constantly churning out new products to render the old ones obsolete. And every time a […]
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New-school fuel
On large dairy farms with lots of cattle, manure management is no minor task. Farmers have to be deliberate about how they store it, and mindful of the environmental impact of mountains of manure. And then there’s the odor. Some of the traditional ways that farmers have stored manure — in holding pits called lagoons, […]
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A zero-waste world
Khoury Humphrey has a philosophy: to ignore a problem is to condone it. This viewpoint led him to begin thinking of ways to feed the homeless and poor in the City of Rochester, and to eventually form Flower City Pickers — an idea he came up with while recovering from an illness earlier this year. […]
