UPDATE, Jan. 30: City Council has dropped its request for an ethics investigation into the hiring of Reggie Hill, uncle to Mayor Lovely Warren. Hill’s resignation ends the matter, says a press release from Council.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The press pack —a handful of reporters and photojournalists — decides it’s time for the big move: the breach of the third floor at City Hall, where Mayor Lovely Warren resides, fortified behind a wall of staffers and one laid-back security guard.
The pack has been cooling its heels downstairs going on three hours, hoping Warren or her spokesperson will come out to address the latest development in the new mayor’s speeding scandal. By this point, it had been confirmed that Warren’s driver was stopped for speeding on the Thruway. A second stop — on the same day — was suspected. (Eventually, it was acknowledged that they’d been stopped twice.)
After some shouting and microphone-pointing, the press gets its way and lines up, firing-squad style, across from Warren’s office. But it’s a meager victory; Warren says she won’t talk about the traffic stops or why she let everyone believe it had happened only once.
Warren’s only been in office a few weeks; this cannot be the honeymoon she hoped for. If rubbernecking is your thing, you’ve had a lot to look at. Along with the speeding scandal, Warren faced accusations of nepotism for hiring her uncle as her security chief, prompting an investigation by the city’s ethics board. (Warren’s uncle, Reggie Hill, resigned late last week.)
Warren husband’s criminal record as a youthful offender was exposed. And it was revealed that Spencer Ash, Warren’s pick to lead the city’s Department of Neighborhood and Business Development, had been charged with driving while intoxicated last year. (Ash, a city attorney at the time, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.)
Another knock: Warren’s choice for city corporation counsel, T. Andrew Brown, plans to stay active in his private law practice. It’s an unusual move that has many in the legal community concerned about the potential for conflicts of interest, especially since Brown’s firm, Brown & Hutchinson, frequently represents people suing the City of Rochester. (City Council sought an opinion on the Brown appointment from the Harris Beach law firm. The firm says that the appointment is ethically sound and doesn’t violate the City Charter.)
It’s been a rapid and distressing succession of unflattering headlines for Warren, whose upset victory last fall made history and whose talk of restoring city neighborhoods and rescuing Rochester families from a dismal school district gave hope to the less fortunate half of the “two Rochesters” Warren so often speaks of.
The bad publicity also threatened to overshadow some of the good news to come out of City Hall, such as the coming of a grocery store to the East End. Warren also got credit for helping end a stalemate in the County Legislature, which salvaged a bunch of projects, including a city Costco store.
Warren says that people are missing the point. Her husband’s record, for example, was sealed. So the real story, Warren says, is who leaked a sealed record and why.
“When it comes down to it, family, in politics, is generally off the table,” she says. “But for me, it’s something different.”
And the incident with Spencer Ash occurred when Tom Richards was mayor. So why, Warren asks, does it become a problem only after she takes office?
It is true that the much of the venom coming Warren’s way via social media is unsettling, racist, sexist, and disgusting. And Warren says she’s gotten threats, including threats against her young daughter. Even the “lighter” stuff on social media is laden with schadenfreude.
“People say, ‘If you were white, this wouldn’t happen,'” Warren says. “And I don’t like to think like that. I like to think better of our city, of our world. But it’s just something that I’m faced with, something that I’ll deal with. I’ll go forward, because my goal is to do great things for our city.”
Warren plans to go forward with her campaign promise to create an education office in City Hall. She’s also set on adding police stations to combat crime and improve police-community relations. She is most passionate when she talks about getting people to see the city and its challenges from a different perspective — that of Rochester’s most impoverished residents.
Warren talked about the challenges she faces and her plans for the city in a couple of recent interviews with City. The following is an edited version of those discussions.
CITY: Do you think you’ve gotten off to a rocky start?
Warren: I think there’s something else going on here. All these things are not about me. They’re not about my leadership.
Spencer [Ash], at the time, was a city attorney. So why wouldn’t it come out, “City attorney charged with a DWI?” But it’s attributed to me. In the paper, it’s “Lovely Warren’s appointee…”
[Regarding her husband] How many people in this city plead guilty to a particular crime as a youthful offender, and to have this come out… How does that affect his employment?
Even when it comes down to the security detail: you look at people wanting me to die. Wishing that I was poisoned. It has become such a racial barrier, and a distraction.
I have moved on. I’ve got other business to talk about.
But do you wish you had been upfront about the fact that there were actually two traffic stops?
I’m not talking about that anymore.
How is T. Andrew Brown keeping his stake in his law firm not a conflict of interest?
Christopher Thomas, who was part of the transition team, did extensive legal research based on the case law and everything, and there was no conflict as long as [Brown] and his firm put up a firewall.
Any clients that had anything against the city, [Brown] had to ask to be removed from those cases.
He would have to get rid of those [cases] and remove himself and his firm. The firm would have to disclose to the court that they had to be removed as counsel.
I’ve seen a memo that was prepared from Chris Thomas before we even extended the offer to Andrew that there would be no conflict and there was nothing wrong with this.
It’s widely presumed that James Sheppard resigned as police chief last year because you wouldn’t have kept him on. Why not? He was popular, did a ton of community outreach, and if there are cultural problems within the police department, he really wasn’t given enough time to change that.
It was the chief’s choice. I didn’t ask him to stay, I didn’t ask him to leave.
The chief came in to me and he said, “Look, I’m tired. I’ve been doing this job for 30 years. I think I’ve given everything that I can give at this point in time. I want to take a break, so I’m going to retire.”
That was his decision. I didn’t say “You have to go,” or anything.
He also had indicated that early in the summer, before the primary, he was thinking about retiring. So that wasn’t a decision I made for him.
But if he didn’t want to retire, would you have kept him?
It doesn’t matter.
Speaking of police, Richards put money in the current city budget to study adding police stations. But it sounds like you’re skipping the study and going right ahead with a reorganization, from two stations to four.
We’re going to utilize [that money] to figure out exactly how much it would cost, how we could actually implement this four-quadrant system.
The interim chief has done a lot of work and has lot of background on studying this. And it’s something that not only our police department and members of our police union have called for, but it’s also something that our residents have called for.
The $50,000 was for figuring out if we should do this. I don’t think we need to study if we should do this. We know that we should. We need to figure out how much it’s going to cost.
What we’re doing now is not the best way of policing our city, and we’ve heard that from not only the people that are on the ground, but the people that receive the services. So we have to do this.
What are your thoughts about the city’s red-light camera program? There’s been controversy, including the fact that despite numerous stops, city employees aren’t required to pay the fine.
I know that this is up for review [the contract between the city and Redflex expires on December 1, 2014], and I believe that the legislation in the state of New York sunsets this year.
I think it’s something that we have to study to see, did it do what we said [it would], and that was to reduce accidents.
I’m going to talk to City Council about not extending the contract until we do a study on the feasibility, long term, and is it giving us what we expected as it pertains to safety.
There are concerns, and I know that some people on Council have concerns. Is the equipment working properly? I know there was an issue with [the timing of yellow lights] — have those been corrected? Are people actually paying?
So I think that before we make a decision, we need to have some more information.
You got credit for rescuing the Costco project, along with the rest of the projects in the county’s capital program, from partisan gridlock. And people are talking about a new era of cooperation between the city and the county. How do you know this relationship won’t be one-sided? After all, the county doesn’t have the best record in terms of its treatment of the city.
Our city residents are fifth in the nation for childhood poverty. When we look at the Costco project, over 1,000 full-time jobs will be there. We [will] have over 1,500 construction jobs.
Look at MCC — the downtown campus — the potential to do startup businesses there; the potential to do innovative, educational ideas.
We know that we have a skill-set deficiency here with middle skills in our manufacturing companies. Expanding MCC’s program to help city residents be able to go through training programs and get good paying jobs — the opportunity is there.
So when I look at [the county’s capital program] and how that benefits the city, I look at, how does that benefit the person that lives on Avenue D? When we look at jobs, especially retails jobs like Costco — it’s on a really good bus route where city residents can get there.
So you have to look at the bigger picture.
The city and the county are working on other things, like the county chargebacks to the city as it pertains to the traffic control devices and the housing of unarraigned inmates. Those issues are not off the table. Actually, one has been solved. We just haven’t released that because we want to release it as a package deal.
Where else do you think the county can help the city?
When it comes to social services. When it comes to workforce development dollars. Those are dollars that the county controls. Are there ways in which we can partner, since a lot of people that are affected by those particular programs live in the city? I’m looking forward to sitting down with Kelly Reed [the county’s human services commissioner] and her team to talk about ways in which we can look at social services, and how they provide services to city residents.
People have said to me, it’s so degrading, how they’re talked to [at social services]. One of the things I would talk to them about is to do sort of a “mystery shopper” — I got that from [the TV show] “Undercover Boss.” Sometimes you really need to just be the other person and see how they’re being treated. What’s the process like? Are we truly providing the best service we can to the residents that are the most vulnerable?
Education was at the heart of your mayoral campaign. When do you expect to create your education office at City Hall? And would the head of that office have classroom teaching experience, or be more of a policy person?
It most likely will be something created in the budget. Part of that is, we need to have someone who is a full-time grants writer.
It’s to really work at giving parents choices: working with city schools, charter schools, parochial schools to give city residents choices and information about our city.
[He or she will be] more of a policy person. Not that the person wouldn’t have some experience in education. But more, how do we work with these different types of educational institutions? How to utilize what we have — our recreation centers — in a way that enhances our children’s educational life.
In the summertime, we have 300, 400 kids who attend some of our recreation centers a day, so how do we bring programming in there that will help with that loss of math and reading skills over the summer? Who can we partner with? Who has money for this? That type of thing.
In addition to the full-time grants writer, you mentioned that there would be another person in this new department. What would he or she do?
The other person will look at, how do we work with charter schools, national charters to bring them here? How do we get information to parents about the schools that are coming here? For example, there will be four new charter schools in Rochester opening in the fall. How many parents know about that? How many parents really see those as an option?
So that’s the type of stuff that we need to get to our parents so that they can make an informed decision.
How will you go about recruiting charters for Rochester?
We have people here that are doing it already. You work with people like Joe Klein [founder of E3-Rochester, an organization that plans to bring charters to Rochester], people like Carrie Remis [an advocate for parents and charter schools].
It won’t necessarily be our job to go to these different cities, but to look at these different models and say, “Have you looked at what’s happening in Philadelphia? Have you looked at what’s happening in New Orleans?”
How do we look at those cities that have had issues around urban education and see if some of their people want to come here and help us? How do you be a liaison?
One of the major issues here with charter school is, where are they housed? People say, “You have a lot of vacant buildings. Why can’t you use one of those?” Well, to bring those up to code, to now have a gymnasium, a cafeteria, all the amenities that you need for a school, it costs a lot of money. Is there a way you can work with your foundations to develop a revolving loan fund? Are there ways we can work with the city school district to see if they will allow some of these charters to utilize some of their facilities that are half empty?
What do you think of Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s plan to have area colleges take over city schools?
I think that we are in such a crisis here, we need all the help that we can get. It’s interesting that he’s saying, “Look, we can’t do this by ourselves.” And that’s what I’ve been saying. We need help. And if help is with our colleges, if help is with our charter schools…
But we can’t shoot in the dark with this stuff. We need to figure out how to implement those things that can help the 30,000 students that we have in the city school district and the other thousands of students that we have in our city.
It’s no secret that your talk of focusing neighborhoods during the campaign set the business community a bit on edge. Some are worried about progress downtown stagnating. Do you intend to shift resources from downtown to the neighborhoods?
No, I don’t think so.
The residents and neighbors I talk to want neighborhoods to be safe, to be clean, their streets to be paved. If you plant more trees in areas…. So there are little aesthetic improvements that you can do.
Maybe there are ways where you can do sort of a mayor’s challenge for corridors. You can help with some matching dollars for exterior improvements with paint and other things. Making sure you’re demolishing dilapidated housing. Really, those little things that can go a long way in making people feel better about the community that they live in.
You’ve said that you want the Rochester Broadway Theatre League to build its new performing arts center downtown. And you’ve floated the idea of pairing it with a downtown movie theater, putting a surcharge on the movie theater tickets to cover the arts center’s operating shortfalls. What if the surcharge doesn’t raise enough? And wouldn’t a new downtown movie theater hurt the Little Theatres?
Look, if you’re a City of Rochester resident and you want to go see a Number 1 blockbuster, there’s nowhere you can go in the city to see it. Our residents should be able to experience the greater parts of life without having to be subjected to the fact that there’s no place for them to go in the city and watch a blockbuster.
The Little Theatre, usually the films they get are Sundance films that are just being released. Smaller films. They wouldn’t even show the same type of movies at all. [The Little does show first-run, popular films. The Little’s offerings this month have included “Philomena,” “Nebraska,” “American Hustle,” “August: Osage County,” and “Inside Llewyn Davis.”]
And the performing arts center? It belongs downtown. The RBTL, when you look at the amount of money they generate, from hotel stays to restaurants to people coming from all over the region to see our shows….
I think [the operating deficit] is something that we have to look at. Talk with RBTL and a developer: “How much money can we raise for this? What is expected from government, if anything? How can we make it work?”
We are the city of the arts. We need to highlight our assets and have a “We can do this” spirit. In the summertime, why don’t we have people along Main Street, performing? Not necessarily panhandling, but performing. Liven up our atmosphere and don’t leave it to mischief.
It’s not about why it can’t work; it’s how can you make it work in the most fiscally responsible way?
Some people were taken aback when you threw that downtown waterpark idea out there.
What I was saying was, we have a lot of standalone gems like The Strong museum. And we don’t market it and package it in such a way that really helps us maximize our visitors and our tourists.
So how do you look at that asset and build upon it? So I said, “What if we did a waterpark next to The Strong?” And from that it came, “Oh, we’re getting a waterpark.”
The point was not necessarily that we’re building a waterpark, but we have to build on our assets. To be able to say that our community embraces families and within a five-day stretch families will be able to have a great time and do something different each day.
A recent report by the Community Foundation and ACT Rochester painted a grim picture of the situation in Rochester regarding concentrated poverty. It says that for an unfortunate combination of reasons and historical trends, Rochester’s poverty is unique and profound. How do you even begin to address that?
If people aren’t educated and they don’t have access to good jobs, then they’re stuck in a desolate situation. So you start to make people feel better about where they live, about their neighborhoods, about their services. You start to look at ways in which you can give parents choices about their child’s educational outcomes. You start to look at attracting companies to Rochester, and you see how you can get your small companies to become mid-sized companies to become large companies.
You go back to basics. Don’t look at it as, there’s nothing we can do to help solve this issue. But how do we? What are the little things we can do to really move the mark?
The people that sit around the table are the people least affected by what’s happening on the streets in everyday life. Not that those people don’t care, but you see things from your frame of reference.
A perfect example: when the Greater Rochester [Health] Foundation first started to do neighborhood programs like Project HOPE, they said, “Oh, yeah, we’re going to bring in doctors and we’re going to do blood pressures and we’re going to do all types of health screening.” And one resident said, “Look, I have rats in my basement. I don’t care about my blood pressure.”
Many of the health disparities in neighborhoods are really connected to the environment in which [people] live, and so we have to look at it [through] a different lens. I think that’s why the Health Foundation, many of their programs [ended up being] very successful. They haven’t gone in and tried to say, “We know what’s best for this neighborhood.”
At the end of the day, if you get buy-in from the people that have to live there every day, the results will be that much greater.
Some of the things that our children have to face on a daily basis, they need to know that you can be born and raised in the city and you don’t have to be a victim of your circumstance. Our children need to see that there’s a way out. You’re not alone.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2014.
Sorry, but this interview was over for me with the answer to the first question. Yes, Lovely this is about you and your actions. How could your actions not be about you?
The rocky start is about Warren’s lack of good leadership. She had to know hiring her uncle would be controvesial. She had to know being stopped for speeding TWICE was nothing but stupid. She had to know appointing Chris Thomas would be controversial because of the conflict of interest.
Warren and the people of Rochester need to remember the important fact that the people hired Warren. Taxpayers pay her salary. Warren is just an employee of the citizens of Rochester. People have every right to question her judgment and her actions.
Lovely is starting these fires and she is getting burned along with the people of Rochester.
Here are my thoughts as I read this:
About 8 years ago, I was part of a group interviewing for part-time jobs. There were enough jobs for everyone there. A criminal background check was required. One person didn’t get the job because the background check revealed he had lied on the application.
Even though I consider myself to be a very safe driver, there have been occasions as both driver and passenger that I also prefer not to talk about.
Lawyers are not ethicists. And vice versa.
Sheppard wanted to stay, but he had to go.
Police reorganization will cost more.
We’re all patiently waiting for the red-light program to end.
I very much doubt that even one person from our neediest neighborhoods will be getting on a bus to go to work at Costco.
The “Undercover Boss” idea would have worked great for walking around the city without security.
Education……..More money to be spent.
Don’t worry downtown, neighborhoods won’t be getting much.
Performing Arts Center?!! Movie Theatre?!! Waterpark?!!
The mayor seems to have a good understanding of what the neediest need.
I wrote Chris Thomas but meant Andrew Brown.
Former Rochestarian here, considering moving back home. Currently living in Toronto.
Does Mayor Warren…
a. Smoke crack on video?
b. Have a substance abuse problem?
c. Drive drunk?
Is the Mayor?
d. Cavorting around with drug dealers?
e. The suspect of an extortion/murder plot?
f. A joke in the international media?
If the answers to all these questions are NO (and shocker! they are!), then I’d be happy to give her the benefit of the doubt to these incredibly flimsy excuses for a “scandal” and give her the customary “first 100 days” in order to judge her leadership.
In the meantime, I’m almost certain that everyone in Rochester has actual things that they really should be spending their time worrying about.
@John K, thanks for the laugh! On the other hand, Rob Ford has simply set the bar too low for pretty much everyone; put another way, he’s wrecked the curve. Is it true that Canadians are taking perverse pride in this?
In less than one month in office, Lovely Warren has managed to amass an alarming number of ethical concerns – more than most elected local officials accumulate in an entire career. She has deflected, ignored, and mishandled most of these, and in doing so has incurred questions about her integrity and suitability for the office she holds.
At a cost of many times the average annual income of the people whom she pledged to serve, she created a personal “security” force comprised of personal family members and acquaintances. Her justification is based upon threats which she has failed to make public. She has escalated, rather than quelled, divisiveness by implying that those threats are based on race and gender bias – a direct violation of her campaign pledge to unify Rochester.
In a community accustomed to open government and accessibility, she alone has no published email address. “info@cityofrochester.gov” is unacceptable – just as with every other city official, publishing and responding to “warrenl@cityofrochester.gov” is the only responsible way to serve the city.
I was very hopeful that a Warren administration would be a progressive and positive move for our City, but so far I have been overwhelmingly disappointed. Mayor Warren, your office represents a pledge to serve us, not a pedestal of privilege upon which to elevate yourself above us. You are expected to be responsible and responsive to us, and to earn our trust and respect. It’s time you began to do so.
White residents are still suffering from seeing a person of color rise to position of substantial political power- You call it White Backlash, commonly known as Racism. In the 1800s’ after during the era of Reconstruction- Whites formed organizations like the Ku Klux Clan where they used terriosm, including lynching, intimidation and Jim crow laws to remove blacks from political power after they won their seats rightfully and legally. When Obama became President they formed The Tea Party (modern day Ku Klux Klan) as a guise to ridicule the President with racial undertones and scrutinize his ideas and efforts as soon as he got in office. The things scrutinize were of such needed attention; sounds familiar. Bill Johnson had to endore being called names like gorilla or orangutan. Lovely Warren received so many racial threats to her life and to that of her family because the people of Rochester chose her to be their mayor, she done nothing else. Whites have always demonstrated that after a person of color rise to a position of significant political power- White Backlash is sure to follow but the sad thing for them is that Lovely is here to stay and you either get with it of continue to be on the sideline with the rest of your racist buddies. Rochester is a city with a lot of upside and we all should work as one, no matter what is your ethnicity to reach its apex.
In addition, The City Newspaper along with the D&C and several Broadcast news outlet in Rochester needs to add much more persons of color to positions where they have more power on how the stories are written and reported because they all sound like media organizations of the segregation era. When are you guys going to come to the conclusion your representing a city that’s 85 percent minority. Who are you guys writing news story for because it doesn’t reflect the view and perspective of the majority population. Don’t be like Kodak. They missed the technological curve in their profession don’t miss the viewership curve in the media; specifically in the City of Rochester or you will be sorry. The minority communities are tired of this and just last week (the news is not reporting) many prominent community members, organizations and political office holders met in unification to somehow send a signal to Rochester media that they have to start becoming true journalists and stop reporting in ways to form an imaginary false depiction of Rochester instead of the reality.
“And wouldn’t a new downtown movie theatre hurt the Little Theatres? “
This question sums up this entire debacle. The Little Theatre is one movie theatre, and it has its own character and atmosphere. Why can’t there be another theatre with a different character and atmosphere? Why wouldn’t they be able to not only coexist, but thrive together? What if people watched movies at both theatres together regardless of what quadrant of the city they live in? *Gasp*
Rochester is a good city, but it will never be a great city until we can ask these difficult questions and eliminate the deep-seated fear of “the other side” that all Rochesterians experience.
I think Scott Wagner is spot on.. and as for “Mitt Romney,” why is it not right for City residents (regardless of color) to question the conduct of the Mayor the last month without being labeled racist? We all have a vested interest in seeing Mayor Warren do well, but I think that we have a right to be disappointed about the lack of judgment and honesty
“Mitt Romney”, I am offended by your implication of racism and / or sexism. For what it is worth, I supported Lovely Warren’s candidacy and primary success in print (go read the City Newspaper archives for confirmation of this assertion). I am proud to support public servants in their endeavours where it is deserved, without respect to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or any other personal preference. I am similarly unrestrained from criticism where it is deserved, without respect to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or any other personal preference. To do otherwise in either case would be to display bias.
I stand by my comments about Lovely Warren. I believe she has made mistakes, and that she has inappropriately implicitly used the race and gender defense to attempt to silence criticism of those mistakes. I also believe that she can and should acknowledge those early missteps, learn from them, and go on to realize her potential to be a positive and unifying mayor for all Rochestarians.
This has nothing to do with race. Speeding has nothing to do with race. Hiring your uncle has nothing to do with race. Hiring someone clearly in conflict of interest for a position has nothing to do with race. Having African American reporters coming these stories wouldn’t change anything if the reporter just reports the facts.
To Scott Wagner and concerned resident: You guys always go to the “Just b/c I criticize a person of color doesn’t mean I am a Racist.” Then you smooth it off with blacks always pull the race card, “It’s reverse Racism.” It’s not only what you say but also when you say it only when there’s a person of color is in the position. In the era of reconstruction the black political leaders where scrutinize as politicians who didn’t have the intelligence to run government but the white southerners to them was qualified despite more than 90 percent of the white southerners who took there place after being illegally thrown out of office were 90 percent illiterate. Obama wasn’t qualified he was just a community organizer despite he was a constitutional lawyer and the first Black president of Harvard law school and many in America felt fine with a vice president like Sarah Palin who couldn’t answer one debate question. Mayor Warren wasn’t qualified despite she’s an attorney and has serve on city council as a member and president for many years. mayor Richards was qualified but he was out of touch with the minority community the majority population in Rochester. In addition, they were no controversy or scandal when former mayor Richards went against state ethical laws by holding the job as corporate council and serve as Mayor or when Democratic head Joe Morelle use his position to put his son in office. They were no controversy or scandal when Maggie Brooks hired her husband at the airport and hired all her friends to run county LDC’s they were no controversy or scandal. So, as I stated in the beginning “It’s not what you say but also when you say it when there’s a person of color is in the position.”
If Tom Richards, Bob Duffy, Bill Johnson or Tom Ryan had hired his uncle, got caught speeding twice by said uncle and mayor – and then prevaricated about it when honestly asked – the media would be handing him his head. Every one of us knows this. Many of those of us who have championed Mayor Warren and want her to succeed are pretty disheartened right now. The fence-sitters cannot be impressed at this point. And the haters have more ammo than ever. I do hope things get better; it would be a win-win for all of us. But it won’t get better by pretending accountability is for someone else. BTW, in this thread, the startling irony is the real Mitt Romney is far less bigoted than pretend “Mitt Romney.”
“White residents are still suffering from seeing a person of color rise to position of substantial political power”
Clearly Mitt has never been to Rochester. We had a Black mayor elected for three terms with lots of support from white residents.
The editorializing in this piece is outrageous. Fien paints a picture of the press in the first few paragraphs as a bunch of marauding thugs. Really?
What’s happened to Warren is not a result of a wayward press corp. She has made dubious decisions in her hiring and in her handling of events. She’s still stonewalling on the speeding issue and slicing the legal niceties about Andrew Brown not to mention the Chief Sheppard departure. Is it any wonder that people are concerned and question whether she is up to the job when she seems to be handling a number of sensitive issues in an amateurish manner?
I don’t really care about the speeding tickets (there were none) but if Reggie was traveling 97mph, I DO care about that. I also care about honesty and truthfulness and wish that Mayor Warren had simply been honest/forthcoming about the Thruway stops. When it became apparent that she withheld information (i.e. TWO stops and not ONE) an apology would have gone a very long way to build trust and credibility for the ‘nay sayers’. Instead, she opted to “not talk about that” anymore and suggested that she really wasn’t paying attention to the fact that she was stopped twice in one day on the NYS Thruway (i find that very hard to believe and, surely, by the time she was first interviewed on the topic she had time to remember being stopped twice!).
I also DO appreciate that the Mayor has not turned this into a race issue. I wish her well and hope she’ll get through this and get on with moving the City ahead!
I would like the community’s opinion about my post and “Mitt Romney”‘s response. I do not believe that my comments or similar ones are racist, since they would be aimed equally at any official whose behavior was as Ms. Warrens regardless of racial or other characteristics. However, “Mitt” is insistent that I am racist and blind to being so because I am a male Caucasian. What do others think? I do not really care for my own interests but I do care to know if the community is allowed to make critical observations about our leaders despite their respective characteristics.
At least I use my real name and image in my posts.
-S
Scott, I find absolutely nothing in any of your postings that remotely hints that you’re a racist. I totally agree that if some other politician (let’s say white and male for the sake of argument) had done the same actions (and lack of actions, such as being forthcoming about issues), the same amount of attention would have been paid to them.
Contrary to Warren’s belief- she brought a lot of this on herself. Race and Gender have nothing to do with it. It’s her decisions that have caused unnecessary angst and comes across as amateurish.
It looks like T. Andrew Brown has been cleared by a third party firm and I am good with that. Her husband’s past history is a non discussion point although perhaps as a role model for others on turning yourself around.
I still, cautiously, believe in her. I would like to think that she’ll learn from this and could still be an effective mayor. But, some of her ideas are out there. A water park next to the Strong museum? oh brother. Aim high. I agree with her in that a mainstream theater would not compete significantly with the Little. The Little has mostly independent movies.
Time will tell; hoping for the best.
If the attack on Lovely is not of racist origin then why all of the complaints are only coming in great majority from mainly white people.
I hope this doesn’t sound overly racist, but I’m still waiting for the details on the security detail. The mayor’s over-the-top limousine service somehow doesn’t seem appropriate for Rochester when the mayor of Albany drives her own SUV and pays for the gas with her own money.
When Warren was campaigning, neighborhood revitalization and neighborhood-based economic development was a major theme. But now in this interview she says all that means is that she will plant a few trees, tear down a few houses and slap a coat of paint on some exteriors. This is already being done. Where is her grand plan for the neighborhoods? This is NOT what she campaigned on and it sounds now like she is thoroughly backtracking on the promises she made to the residents of our city. This promise to the neighborhoods was something I was actually hopeful to see proceed forward vigorously. Something is amiss here and I wish that City News had dug deeper.
If the attack on Lovely is not of racist origin then why all of the complaints are only coming in great majority from mainly white people?
Mitt Romney, you stated that the City of Rochester is 85% minority. That is incorrect and shows a very real misunderstanding of our city’s racial and ethnic makeup. In fact, per easily found US Census data, the City of Rochester is 38% white non-Hispanic, and 16% Hispanic all races. Black non-Hispanics make up roughly 40% while Asians (by far the fastest growing segment of our city’s population) make up 3%.
This is a diverse but segregated community. Lovely could not have won without support from the white community. To suggest that all white folks are Tea Party right wingers is just ridiculous. Honest criticism of elected officials is a fundamental component of a healthy democracy. No elected official in our community has faced as much criticism and scrutiny as Maggie Brooks due to the scandals, patronage, and hyper partisanship experienced under her leadership. She is white and her detractors are largely white as well. This is not about race, this is Democracy and sometimes it gets messy. Making this about race is cheap, childish, and insulting.
Very well said, MAT.
Matt my question continue to be: If the attack on Lovely is not of racist origin then why all of the complaints are only coming in great majority from mainly white people? No one on this comment section has attempted to answer this conclusive question. Why? Because your response will reveal and prove what I have been saying repeatedly in prior comments. They are people of caucasian descent that supports Lovely but I am talking about those who didn’t and can’t get over it; like you and the many others that continue to rant racial undertones guise in a fashion as if your are simply making honest observations. Get over it: Stop crying and ranting about insignificant crap like speeding tickets. Answer the question anyone: If the attack on Lovely is not of racist origin then why all of the complaints are only coming in great majority from mainly white people?
Have any of our other mayors been stopped for speeding on the thruway? Mayors of other cities? Probably. Have those stops been reported by anonymous folks and reported on? If no one is researching that, then yes, this is all a Lovely Warren pile on. Whether you pile on for racism, sexism, or anger at the political upset in the city, it’s still a pile on
So “Mitt Romney” claims that the complaints against the mayor are “coming in great majority from mainly white people”. How does he know this? Is there some secret code in the Rochester City Newspaper blog that identifies the race of those who comment? Are they identified in the media by their race?
And another thing. I think that the Rochester City Newspaper should ban and delete comments from people using political and/or celebrity names. Continue to allow anonymity but don’t allow people to hide behind names that attempt to either legitimize their comments or disparage the person whose name they are using.
Hey Bert no one’s talking about your usage of a Muppet’s name. Poor Muppet! Secondly, Blacks have been dealing with Racism predominately from whites for over 400 years, you don’t think we know racism when we see it or hear it by now? And I know you would love for opposition comments to be deleted so you and the others can continue to character assassinate the Black Mayor and guise racial undertones in your comments unabatedly. They are guys like me who are going to take the time to question your honesty and intentions and so far the comments have no honesty and are laced with racist intentions. Reading these senseless and unsubstantial attacks on the Mayor then question why former chief Jim Sheppard told her to hire security promptly until she could officially shows all racial implications. She had to do certain things b/c people like the one’s commenting to protect herself and her family The Tea Party didn’t last despite; like most of you they also tried to hide their racial intentions guise in what they call an honest debate and honest criticism: sounds familiar. The Tea Party didn’t survive. They all have given up, so should those remaining confederates commenting on this story. The War is over, Lovely has won; whether you like it or not.
“Mitt Romney”: I read your rant but you failed to provide proof that all of the complaints are coming from ‘mainly white people’ as you claim. I could say that all of the complaints are coming from space aliens, but not providing any proof wouldn’t make it true. And no one is trying to delete your comments, Just use your own name or a simple pseudonym rather than dragging down someone else’s good name. Keep it civil, please.
Bert you stated me to Keep It Civil! look’s whose talking. To me, speaking truth to racial hatred is Civil. Have you ever heard of the Civil Rights movement. You know the movement of those that laid their life on the line to confront racism and stereotypical bigotry. When those participants marched and were beaten and ravage with dogs those who did it and authorized it say they were doing it b/c the protesters were not acting civil eventhough it was done non violently. They called it civil disobedience. Sitting at a counter of a restaurant, riding in the front of the bus, acquiring a descent education to school of choice, the right to vote or RUN for public office; all was deemed uncivil; if you were black. Attacking the Mayor for unsubstantial crap such as speeding tickets which many mayors, government employees, EMS service members, fellow police officers and even Masons most always gets a courtesy pass on to you is CIVIL? It doesn’t even adds up; so let’s call it for what it is- Racist. And as far as you tell me not to bring down the name Mitt Romney a good man is preposterous and laughable in the eyes of Black America for very GOOD REASONS. Bert, you’re so out of touch with the 2014 world. The days before 1964 will never return, so why can’t we just all get along, stop attacking the mayor for speeding tickets and protecting herself and family. If you were mayor and received such credible threats you would be a fool not to unofficially hire someone promptly until you could officially knowing the process takes time. So stop it and either support the Mayor or take the advice of my grandmother, “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. Now that’s Civil! What you’re doing is not and what I am doing is just pointing it out b/c it has no place in the 21st century!
Bert: How do I know people the people making these unsubstantial criticism of our Mayor is white? Simple read through the comments mines are the only ones that show diversity all others are choir ready! Be honest do you think even a small percentage of these comments scrutinizing her for unsubstantial woes are from blacks? If so; laughable and it shows how much those are willing to hide their true feelings and intentions about the Mayor. Just Stop it you’re sounding unintelligible and it’s revealing.
Bottom line: Warren ran as a populist. Transparency was a central campaign promise. Those are colorblind principles. And yet, her press sec. has shown an utter contempt for the media and continues to throw red meat to Warren’s base in order to deflect. The press office has brought a lot of this drama on itself and whipping up the base to cry racism is ultimately a very short-sighted strategy. Warren needs to be considered credible by the press and the establishment if she’s to deliver the public policy change for her base she promised. This is all very sad, actually.
All, thank you for your participation. Comments on this story are now closed.
Chris Fien
City News Editor