WATER PLANT HEARINGS SET
The state Department of
Environmental Conservation will hold two public hearings on November 30 on the Monroe
County Water Authority’s controversial plan for a new plant in Webster.
Technically, the principal issues
have to do with the water the plant would suck in from LakeOntario: an average of 35 million gallons a day. That intake,
the quality of that water, the more than 1 million gallons of backwash from the
plant’s filtering system that’ll go back into the lake each day: all those are
subject to public comment. So is possible effect on coastal erosion. There are
even two small patches of wetland — together totaling a little less than 7
acres — that will be disturbed if the project is approved.
But the water plan has drawn
criticism from environmentalists and from Democrats in the CountyLegislature for other reasons. They’re questioning whether a county with a
declining population needs another water plant and its attendant capital costs.
And they charge that the plant will hasten sprawl. Those issues, too, can be
addressed at the November 30 hearings.
The first is from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at the PenfieldTown Hall, 3100
Atlantic Avenue. The second is at 7 p.m. at the SpryMiddle School, 119 South Avenue in Webster. You can also submit written comments at
the hearings or send them to the DEC’s Office of Hearings and Mediation
Services, 625 Broadway, Albany
12233-1550, by Friday, November 24.
— Krestia DeGeorge
HIGH FALLS HOPES DASHED?
A little over six months in business, and the Saddle Ridge
Entertainment complex at HighFalls has
closed, at least for the moment. The sign on the locked doors this past weekend
blamed the closing on electrical problems. But Lewis Norry of Norry Management
(which owns the property) explains it differently.
“There are some things going on here that required them to
be closed right now,” Norry said on Monday. And he referred to “certain things
you have to do when you have a lease.”
He wouldn’t elaborate. “Not until we have a little bit more
resolved with them,” he said, adding that Saddle Ridge isn’t necessarily closed
for good. “Hopefully they’ll re-open very shortly,” he said. “Or we’ll get
somebody else in here right away.”
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Mayor Bob Duffy
expressed both disappointment and optimism.
“Our Economic Development Department stands ready to assist
the parties involved to resolve any issues or help the landlord secure a new
tenant,” he said.
Duffy’s statement also stressed the importance of mixed-use
development in HighFalls,
including “residential elements to attract retail, entertainment, and other
services.”
— Frank De Blase
MONROE’S MONEY
It’s too early to tell much about the proposed MonroeCounty budget for 2007, but at
least there are no big surprises.
The CountyLegislature
will have about a month to consider Maggie Brooks’ proposed budget, which she
unveiled last week. In her proposal, spending will be up a bit, to $1.02
billion. The books haven’t closed yet on the 2006 budget, but at the moment spending
stands at about $1.001 billion.
Brooks had initially projected that there’d be a deficit next
year of about $45 million, which she later revised to about $30 million. In her
proposed budget, she has closed that gap with $23 million in revenue from new
sources — energy savings, leasing space on the county’s fiber-optic network,
and energy produced at the Mill Seat Landfill — and $9 million in Medicaid
savings.
Over the next few weeks, municipalities and interest groups will
be digging into the 700-page budget document. But a few things are worth
noting.
Brooks ended her budget address talking about a possible
$100 million deficit two budget cycles from now. This has become boilerplate
for Brooks’ budget addresses, and there’s a danger that the public will think she’s
crying wolf. The budgets she presents are inevitably balanced, as they must be,
by law. But the problems she faces are real. To solve them, she’s still pushing
what she calls her “community solution.” She wants to raise sales tax by three-quarters
of a penny. And she wants to opt into a complex arrangement in which the state would
take over the county’s Medicaid costs in exchange for most of the county’s
sales-tax revenue.
State legislators will have to approve the sales tax
increase, and Democrats in the Assembly have already said they won’t do that.
In addition, county legislators will get intense pressure from the city,
suburban towns, and suburban school districts, since the Medicaid plan could
lower their share of the sales tax. Brooks showed on Tuesday night that she was
willing to continue to use that plan as a stick in negotiations.
“We don’t want to get into that debate of what to take from
our municipal partners,” she said following her budget speech. The implication
is that the county would take up that debate if forced to.
But if Brooks’ back is to the wall when it comes to a long-term
solution, she’s won one important victory. She has presented the last budget
she’ll have to before her reelection bid next November, assuming that she runs
again.
This budget kept taxes “stable” (in her words) and contained
no draconian cuts. Brooks won’t have to present another budget before voters
next evaluate her performance. Any Democrat running against her next fall won’t
have much of an opening for an attack.
— by Krestia DeGeorge
WITH WHIPPED CREAM
Media critic Michael Miner, reporting in the alt-weekly
Chicago Reader on possible Gannett interest in buying the Chicago Tribune:
“Handing the Tribune to Gannett would be like turning over the New York City
Ballet to RadioCityMusic Hall.”
THE SEARCH BEGINS
The same search company that pulled Superintendent Manuel
Rivera away from Rochester to head Boston’s
schools has been hired to find his replacement.
Last week, the School Board approved a contract with
Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler to conduct the search. The fee: $100,000. The
firm has placed school superintendents and high-level executives in large urban
districts throughout the country, including Los Angeles,
Philadelphia, and Minneapolis.
“We hope to begin interviewing by February at the latest,”
says the board’s vice president, Malik Evans. “I’m hoping we have a candidate
identified by April,” he says.
“Our biggest concerns were finding a superintendent with
experience in an urban district, and one with sensibility for working with
diverse communities,” says board member Tom Brennan. “We’re also looking for
someone who can make a commitment and stay a while, because stability is
important.”
The district received interest from 200 firms, which it
narrowed down to 13. Brennan says it was Hamilton,
Rabinovitz’s contacts in education, including colleges and universities, that
helped it land the job.
No salary range for the superintendent’s position has been
decided.
“The board is entirely in agreement that we are going to
conduct this search out in the open, with as much community engagement as
possible,” Brennan says. “This is not going to be conducted behind closed
doors.”
— Tim Louis Macaluso
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2006.
