RHINOS REPEAT?
In 1999, the Rochester Rhinos did the unthinkable: they beat
four straight Major League Soccer teams en route to claiming the US Open Cup
title. In doing so, they became the first lower-level team to claim the Cup in
the MLS era. That put Rochester on
the national soccer map, but did it also set the bar unreasonably high for
future Rhinos squads?
Last Wednesday, Rochester
played its opening match in the 2006 Open Cup tourney, thumping the lower-tier
New Hampshire Phantoms, 5-1. That victory was expected, but now the Rhinos have
to play MLS’s New England Revolution, on August 2. From here on out it’ll be
all MLS foes, which raises the question: can the 2006 Rhinos replicate the 1999
run?
Current Rhinos assistant coach Bill Andracki, a goalkeeper
on that 1999 team, says it’s possible, but he also says it’s almost unfair to
compare this year’s edition to the Cup-winning squad, which featured Rhinos
legends like goalie Pat Onstad, defender Scott Schweitzer, midfielder Yari
Allnutt, and forward Doug Miller.
“That was a great team,” he said after the win over New
Hampshire. “On paper, I would have put that team up
against anyone.”
The level of play in MLS has improved over the last seven
years, Andracki said, which will make it tough for the Rhinos to beat four
straight top-level teams this year. But, he added, the teams in the United
Soccer Leagues First Division, which includes Rochester,
have also gotten better.
Andracki also believes the 2006 Rhinos have the potential to
beat any team in the country, including those in MLS. However, he said, the
fates need to be aligned just right. “If we can put away our [offensive]
chances and come together for a common goal, this team certainly has the
potential to make a good run at it,” he said.
— Ryan Whirty
DATE
OF RECKONING
If
at first you don’t succeed… wait a few years and try again.
That’s
the strategy County Legislature Republicans appear to be following. Two years
ago, County Executive Maggie Brooks’ Budget Advisory Team handed her a stack of
recommendations to help get the county out of financial trouble. Some of those
she followed; others were consigned to the dustbin. And a few lay in limbo.
Prominent
among these was a proposal to shift the county executive’s deadline for
presenting the next year’s budget. Currently, the deadline is in mid-October
— a few weeks before the election. The advisory group recommended moving it
to mid-November. Their reasoning: that would prevent partisan politics from
influencing budget decisions.
The
Republican majority in the CountyLegislature tried to get
just such a proposal passed, but the Democratic minority objected — as did
the overwhelming majority of speakers at a public hearing. Their concern was
that the proposal was really designed to protect legislators and the county
executive from a bad-news budget before the election.
Last
week, Legislature President Wayne Zyra and Majority
Leader Bill Smith resurrected the proposal, urging the legislature to “take
decisive action now.”
A
cynic could be forgiven for noticing two things. First: next year, by the
county’s own estimates, the budget deficit will be well over $50 million. By
that time, Brooks may have run out of all but the most difficult options for balancing
the budget — draconian cuts or a property-tax increase, both of which she has
consistently ruled out.
Second:
next year Brooks will be up for reelection.
The
Zyra-Smith proposal will be discussed in the
Legislature’s Agenda-Charter Committee and Ways and Means Committee on August
2, at 5 and 6 p.m. respectively,
in the legislative chambers of the CountyOfficeBuilding.
—
Krestia DeGeorge
BOARD RACE TIGHTENS
Jeff Henley’s withdrawal from the Rochester School Board
race leaves the seat without an incumbent, and that could make this fall’s
election more competitive.
Henley, who was appointed to the board early this year to
fill a vacancy, had served for only six months. The Monroe County Democratic
Committee had endorsed him as its candidate for a full term, but he faced a
primary in September, challenged by financial advisor Allen Williams and
attorney Van Henri White.
Despite his short service, Henley had
the advantage of incumbency and name recognition. But he pulled out of the race
July 10 after police accused him of driving while intoxicated, a charge he is
fighting. A few days later, the Democratic Committee designated Williams as Henley’s
replacement.
“I think it will make for a very interesting and competitive
race,” says former board member James Bowers. “They are both highly qualified
candidates, both African-American men, both very successful in their fields.”
While Williams is known among political insiders, he lacks
White’s name recognition. White hosts a talk-radio show on WDKX, is a former
assistant district attorney, and for four years of the Johnson administration
was a special assistant to the mayor for crime and violence. In addition, he
has represented clients in several high-profile cases, including some against
the CitySchool
District.
Henley will serve on the board
through the end of the year, the remainder of his appointed term. And last week
other board members were expressing regret that he won’t be continuing. “He has
made a solid contribution in a short time,” said Board President Domingo
Garcia.
“It’s unfortunate,” said board member Tom Brennan, “because
I think those of us who know him can say he’s not a reckless person. He is
never polarizing. He’s been an attentive listener, and he wants all voices to
be heard.”
— Tim Louis Macaluso
ON-THE-JOB REVIEW
It’s been a tough three months for Rochester’s
new police chief, David Moore. Violent crime is keeping pace with last year’s
high rate, and on the day of a City Newspaper interview, an attempted robbery
resulted in yet another death. In a half-hour discussion, Moore
talked about his initiatives to deal with the city’s violence.
“Nothing is new under the sun,” said Moore,
“particularly in police work.” But how an organization allocates its resources,
he added, can either propel a unit forward or leave it stagnant. “I think what
we need to do is do a better job with our resources,” said Moore.
“I really do.” When he took office, he said, he promised to spend 90 days evaluating
his department. Now that those 90 days have passed: “The assessment is that
we’re doing a good job, but we can do things more efficiently.”
An integral component in that efficiency,
Moore said, is re-evaluating how
officers respond to calls. High-priority calls, he said, are those involving
life-threatening situations, calls with information that could lead to a
suspect, or responses to an area where shots have been fired. On those calls, he
said, “I think we do a very good job as far as our call-response time, between
5, and I think 10, 12 minutes last time I checked.”
But crimes such as homicides can quickly deplete the department’s
manpower. “Initially, it’s important to have 20 officers at a shooting,” he
said, “but once you realize things are sort of neutralized, we need officers to
get back in service.” Finding ways to return those officers to their beats
faster is one way to stretch resources, he said. And, he said, the department
must do a better job explaining to city residents the difference between low
and high-priority calls — explaining, for instance, that they can’t expect
immediate response to a call about a stolen bike.
“We hear about late response time, that they’re delayed,” he
said. “I think maybe it’s a question of how we educate.”
He doesn’t deny that Rochester
could use more police officers. “I don’t think we need to double our force,” he
said, “but do we need more officers? The more officers that we have, the more
techniques, the more strategies, the more things that we can try.”
But
the department can begin to address Rochester’s violent-crime and drug problems if it gives the
impression of being larger than it is, he said. “We want to give the appearance
that we’re everywhere,” said Moore. To accomplish that and to beef up the department’s
strength in some of the city’s more troubled areas, he recently decided to
place 38 new police-academy graduates in the department’s tactical unit.
Officers in that unit deal specifically with street crimes.
— Sujata Gupta
WE’VE
GOT ISSUES
Fed
up with politics and politicians?
Think
no matter what you do, the situation’s not going to change? The Center for
Governmental Research wants to change your mind. The Rochester-based think tank
is pouring plenty of resources (its own and the Rochester Area Community
Foundation’s) into fighting voter apathy this election season.
“It’s
a vicious cycle,” says CGR research associate Mike Caputo. When voters get
apathetic and check out, politicians have more leeway to abuse the system.
That, in turn, increases voters’ feeling of helplessness and apathy.
Caputo
and his colleagues at CGR hope this is the year to reverse that trend. For the
first time in a dozen years, there’s no incumbent in the governor’s race, and
CGR will try to leverage that fact to get more voters interested in issues and
out to the polls in November.
The
first step: a statewide issues poll. That poll (available on the web at
www.newyorkmatters.org) shows which issues the state’s voters care most about.
Not surprisingly, taxes, education, and jobs top the list. Somewhat more
surprising is poll respondents’ attitude toward taxes. One-third said the level
of taxes was their biggest issue, but two-thirds had a bigger concern: how
taxes are spent.
“It’s
not just ‘cut my taxes,'” says Caputo, “it’s ‘what are you doing with my
money?'”
Last
week Caputo and fellow CGR research associate Erika Rosenberg held a press
conference to release the survey’s findings specific to the Rochester-Finger
Lakes region (Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Genesee, Livingston, Allegany, Chemung,
Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tompkins, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates counties).
Again, the results were not surprising. Taxes and jobs were bigger issues here
than they are statewide. Education ranked somewhat lower than the state
average.
“Rochester was more
negative than other parts of the state or the state as a whole” when it comes
to our outlook on the economy, says Rosenberg.
Both
she and Caputo are former political reporters, which may explain their keenness
to inject substantive issues into this year’s election. They’ve witnessed the
other extreme firsthand.
“You
just see a lot of horse-race polls,” says Rosenberg. “I
definitely think there’s kind of overkill. It definitely takes up more of the
coverage than people would like to see.”
The
CGR issues poll represents only the first step in a drive to keep voters
interested throughout the election season.
In
addition to rolling out similar localized breakdowns of the survey across the
state, the group plans to sponsor a series of forums statewide.
—
Krestia DeGeorge
RACE
OVER
Last
week, the last Democratic primary campaign for a local congressional seat
abruptly ended. PalomaCapanna,
an attorney from Webster, pulled out of the race for Congress in the 25th
district.
The
district, which lies mainly in OnondagaCounty, swings
westward along LakeOntario to include a
few MonroeCounty towns. It’s
been held by Republican Jim Walsh for nearly two decades, but he’s considered
vulnerable.
Capanna had picked up
a handful of important endorsements in her campaign against OnondagaCounty resident Dan Maffei. But last week, she pulled out and threw her support
behind Maffei, citing “the interests of a united
Democratic front for the 2006 elections.”
Her
move frees Maffei to use the considerable amount of
money he’s raised strictly for his fight against Walsh.
—
Krestia DeGeorge
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
In less than 10 years, the South Wedge area’s commercial
vacancy rate has dropped from 27 percent to 9 percent. There is, however, a lot
more work to be done, says South Wedge Planning Committee Executive Director
Dan Buyer.
That’s one reason behind a new SWPC contest. It’s open to
anyone who can come up with a business plan designed specifically for the South
Wedge. Among the businesses the area could use, says Buyer, are an ice cream
shop, a movie theater, and a formal restaurant. Visit www.swpc.org
to view a market study and for a contest application. Submissions are
due by November 15, with winners announced December 1. There’ll be a $1500 main
prize and a $500 prize for a high school or college student.
In conjunction with the contest, the SUNYGeneseoSmallBusinessDevelopmentCenter,
which aids many shopkeepers in the South Wedge, will hold a business-planning
seminar. It’ll be offered on two different dates: 6 to 9 p.m. September 13 and 9
a.m. to noon September 30;
admission is $25. Register by visiting the same website.
— Sujata Gupta
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2006.
