Our expert couldn’t tell the difference
Plenty
of Rochester’s indigenous exports have put the Flower City on the big map.
Bursting with Rochester pride, I love to see hometown products hit the market.
I’ve got a few ideas of my own, too. How about Zweigle’s White Hot — the other whitening toothpaste? Or Genesee Cream Ale Rinse? Or a new
environmentally safe cologne, Ektachrome,
By Kodak? In all seriousness though, somebody is marketing a scent from the
region — “Highland Lilac Of Rochester.”
           “Highland Lilac” perfume was first
developed in 1967 by horticulturalist Dan Morgan out of seven blends of lilacs.
With months of research here and the help of production talent at International
Flavors and Fragrances, the sweet scent of lilacs hit the market.
           “It was a big hit,” says Morgan, now
a resort developer in Florida. “It was used in the Sister Cities Program, and
picked up by all the department stores.”
           Selling out to a big cosmetic
company a few years later proved fatal.
           “They said they could take it into
Europe and Japan,” says Morgan. The company ultimately went out of business
with the Highland Lilac perfume left to wither on the vine. Until…
           It came back after a 30-year hiatus.
And boy does it smell sweet. My sister loves it. The ladies in my office were
mixed between loving it and comparing it to an air freshener. It kinda reminds
me of soap. Regardless, It smells just
like lilacs, and could serve as nostalgia for those who were foolish enough
to leave our fair city.
—
Frank De Blase
No
taxes, no office
If
Governor Pataki approves spending the $1.5 million that Democratic Assemblyman
David Gantt included in the legislature’s transportation budget, a permanent Department of Motor Vehicles
office will likely reopen in downtown Rochester. Considerably less likely,
however, is the prospect of that office reopening in its former digs: the
Sibley Building on East Main Street.
           It’s not because Sibley’s owners
don’t want it there. Quite the contrary. As detailed in this week’s cover story
(see “Big debt downtown,” page 10), the building’s owners, Rochwil Associates,
are desperate for tenants.
           That’s the problem. With so much of
the building vacant, Rochwil doesn’t have the money to pay its property taxes.
And according to a Rochwil representative, the state will not renew a lease for
a state office in a building that owes back taxes. Rochwil owes $122,033 in
taxes and late fees. It’s also nearly $4 million in arrears on payments it’s
scheduled to make as a condition of its participation in the county’s PILOT
(Payments In Lieu Of Taxes) program. (That figure also includes late fees.)
           The
state closed its downtown DMV office at Sibley on April 1, apparently in
response to its own budget problems. Its lease at Sibley would have expired in
October. Assemblyman Gantt’s bill does not specify where restored DMV services
would be located, just that they would take place “at a fixed location within
the City of Rochester.”
           Gantt
spokesperson Bob Cook says he’s also heard that the state has a prohibition
against renewing leases in tax delinquent properties, but says it’s unclear
whether the state would enforce it in this case. He also raised the possibility
that the state could reopen the office at Sibley until the lease expires this
fall.
           The spokeswoman for the state’s
Office of General Services says the state does have such a policy in place, but
that a lease could be renewed in a delinquent building if its owners have an
arrangement to eventually pay the back taxes. As also mentioned in this week’s
cover story, the city and Rochwil will likely continue negotiations over taxes
and other issues in the near future.
Judging
George
Monroe
County Executive Jack Doyle weighed in on the state budget stand-off earlier
this month, declaring himself fully behind Governor
Pataki’s budget proposal. “Unfortunately, the State Legislature’s spending
plan will cost Monroe County and its hard working families dearly,” Doyle was
quoted as saying in a May 6 press release from the governor’s office. Doyle
complained that the state lej had failed to provide Medicaid relief to counties
like ours, saying this “will be a crushing blow to local budgets that are
already beginning to buckle.”
           Doyle said Pataki’s plan “included
nearly $12 million in added savings for Monroe County alone.” Of course, it
also would have saved the state over $31 million in funding to the Rochester
City School District alone. As a result, the city schools could save on the
cost of providing pre-kindergarten and kindergarten to children; offering
sports, music, gym, and art; and paying librarians and hundreds of teachers.
(That’s based on a plan district Superintendent Manny Rivera outlined should
the state funding not be restored.)
           The state lej’s plan would restore
that money to Rochester and provide many millions more to other school
districts in the county, among other restorations. The proposed restorations
are intended to ease property tax increases many Monroe County communities would
likely enact to fund education in their school districts. It would provide the
funding through a state sales tax increase and a temporary increase in the
income tax rate wealthy couples and individuals pay. Pataki has pledged to veto
most elements of that plan.
           Given the county executive’s
prominent role as an advocate for the county in Albany, voters might be curious
what this year’s two declared candidates for the seat think of the competing
state budget plans.
           The Democratic contender, Rochester
Mayor Bill Johnson, refuses to endorse either plan. “The irony is that there’s
merit in both sides,” he says, but those involved in the debate have “missed
the big picture.”
           “Certainly, the governor’s budget
cut out some very important services,” Johnson says. “But there needs to be a
careful examination about what needed to be restored.” Rather than accept the
argument that Pataki’s cuts would automatically lead to property tax increases,
Johnson suggests that Pataki’s plan could be beneficial, in that it “maybe
would have forced localities to be a little more thorough in [their] own
budgets, if this is the real bottom line.”
           “Neither side, in my opinion,
settled back and really engaged in the kind of analysis that would lead to
reform,” Johnson says. He says he’s concerned about the high overall tax rate
in New York, and says “I wish there had been some effort to sit down and deal
with the long-term implications” of raising taxes.
           Because of the nature of state
politics in New York, Johnson says legislators usually focus on short-term
goals and act in their individual district’s interest — an approach that
ignores “the big picture.” They can also be blind to the legislation right
before their eyes.
           Johnson says he recently heard from
a member of our local legislative delegation to Albany, who called “to say,
very excitedly, that something had been restored to the budget.” (Johnson
declined to specify what or who called.) “I said, ‘Well, I’m just curious.
Given that the state’s got a $12 billion deficit, where’s the money going to
come from to pay for it?’
           “The answer was, ‘I don’t know.'”
           Johnson’s Republican challenger,
County Clerk Maggie Brooks, did not respond to several requests asking her
opinion of the matter.
Right
to know gets ‘No!’
As
lawns all over Rochester sprout new growth (and little warning flags), the Monroe County Legislature has
effectively dug a pit for a mild environmental measure.
           Some background: In 2000, Albany
enacted a “Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law” that requires commercial
pesticide applicators to give 48-hour notice to neighbors of properties
scheduled for spraying. But the law applies only in counties that pass a complementary
local ordinance (“opt-in”). Six counties — Westchester, Suffolk, Nassau,
Albany, Tompkins, and Rockland — have opted in. But Monroe County
powers-that-be have not acted, despite pleas from local groups like
Rochesterians Against the Misuse of Pesticides and legislators like Democrats
Lynda Garner Goldstein and Stephanie Aldersley.
           Goldstein took an opt-in proposal to
the Lej in early January. The Environment and Public Works Committee sent it to
the administration “for review and comment” — meaning that, as lawn
applicators were greasing up for the coming season, the measure was put in the
can. Then last week the committee looked at it again, in light of an advisory
memo from county health director Andrew Doniger. In short order, committee
chair Pieter Smeenk “filed” the Goldstein proposal, which puts it out of play
and prevents re-introduction any time soon. (Goldstein says it can’t resurface
until January 2006, unless the Lej majority decides otherwise.)
           At a May 12 news conference,
Goldstein, Brighton Supervisor Sandy Frankel, and representatives of local
environmental groups were not amused by all this. “I’m very disturbed by the
way it was handled,” said Goldstein. “This is an issue that has had a great
deal of community interest.” Said Sierra Club activist Frank Regan: “Monroe
County is keeping the public out of the discussion… It seems that pesticide
spray-drift around children is an ‘unmentionable.'” Lila Bluestone, a member of
the Breast Cancer Action Coalition, said the county should use the
“precautionary principle” — that is, act to reduce exposures now, rather than
wait for absolute proof that a particular exposure will cause an individual
illness.
           Legislator Smeenk says he gave the
proposal its due. The notification issue first came up in December 2000, he
says. And Goldstein’s recent referral, he says, had ample time before the
public. “There have been a lot of speakers on the subject, and a lot of
correspondence pro and con in the last four months.” Moreover, he says, “they
had the opportunity to challenge the ruling [to ‘file’], but they didn’t have
the votes.”
           On the issue itself, Smeenk says he
was swayed by three considerations. First, he views the state law as just
another unaffordable unfunded mandate. Second, he thinks the notification
requirement would hurt small businesspeople. And third, Doniger’s memo convinced
him there’s no crying need for notification.
           The memo shows Doniger’s an agnostic
on the issue: “Someday it may be established that there is a link between
application of pesticides on lawns and the health of the neighbors,” he writes,
conceding that “high levels of exposure” to some pesticides is harmful.
           He does acknowledge that if
low-level exposures are found to be bad, a Neighbor Notification law “could
have a beneficial effect on human health.” But he soon gets bogged down in a
discussion of costs and the health department budget — an estimated $50,000
to $100,000 per year for two to three years to run an enforcement program.
(Some local activists say the estimate is inflated.)
           Doniger sees “pros and cons” here:
“Purely from the perspective of human health, there may be some potential
benefits to adopting the law. However, these benefits are theoretical and not
fully proven.” He also sees “potential disadvantages.” For example, he fears
money could be diverted from other health concerns like “childhood lead
poisoning, food-borne illness, and smallpox preparation.”
           That’s no idle worry these
budget-cutting days. But the memo is imbued with “cost-benefit” philosophy.
Call it the anti-precautionary principle.
Warm
welcome
Lots
of studies point to the disastrous consequences of climate change on oceans and
glaciers, continental climates, and other things global. But now the
Boston-based Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society of
America have brought the issue down to our backyards.
           The two groups recently issued a
report, Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region, which
looks at problems and offers regional solutions state-by-state. The report
predicts “New York’s climate will grow considerably warmer and probably drier
during this century.” Summer temperatures around here could rise seven to 14
degrees Fahrenheit, “roughly the same as the warming since the last ice age.”
There also could be changes in precipitation patterns (with drier soils and
more droughts), more frequent “extreme events,” and declines in Great Lakes ice
cover.
           “Extreme heat days” and increases in
ground-level ozone could seriously hurt agriculture and outdoor-oriented
tourism. (The report emphasizes that “tourism in Upstate New York is almost
exclusively outdoor-oriented,” with the Niagara region and the Great Lakes
shoreline as top attractions.) And human health could suffer as air quality
gets worse and infectious diseases spread more easily.
           US Representative Louise Slaughter
issued a statement about the report, calling attention to its “frightening
predictions for New York’s ecological future,” and urging passage of
“regulations to decrease harmful pollution that causes climate change.” The
report, too, has suggestions in this vein: The state and region, it says,
should reduce their dependence on coal-fired electric generating plants by
adopting renewables like wind-power; limiting urban sprawl; and discouraging
gas-guzzlers and promiscuous road-building. (By the way, we’re one of the most
notorious areas in the country for sprawl and the concomitant destruction of
prime farmland.)
This article appears in May 14-20, 2003.
