Last
fall, Wegmans shuttered its Mt. Hope
Avenue store, despite neighborhood objections. Now the company may be brewing
up a different but oddly similar situation at another branch.
           Two years ago, City Newspaper reported that the supermarket chain was eyeing the
possibility of expanding the popular East
Avenue store. The evidence was mainly facts on the ground: The company had
bought up almost all the properties between the store and the corner of Winton
Road.
           Neighborhood activists and
preservationists were concerned that the company might bulldoze some
19th-century buildings — part of the historic Brighton village center — to
make way for a big-box design and additional parking. But company spokesperson Jo
Natale said there were “no plans at the present time to expand.”
           Now company officials and City of
Rochester staff are sitting down for what Natale calls “preliminary
meetings” about the block’s future. Do these plans involve demolition of
any historic structure that Wegmans owns, like the 1895 “Green Building”
(1895) that once housed a Women’s Christian Temperance Union chapter? Natale
won’t comment specifically.
           Things remain at “a preliminary
planning stage,” she says. “We have not made those decisions… We don’t
have any details to discuss.” She adds the company is keeping lines of
communication open to neighborhood groups.
           Joni Monroe, head of the Rochester
Regional Community Design Center, says community groups will soon meet with
Wegmans. She recalls that back in 2001, various groups took part in a design
charrette focusing on this very block.
           “We’re putting together some
things from other cities,” Monroe says. She recalls touring a Whole Foods
market in Washington, DC, that could set a standard. “It’s not a big box
affair,” and it’s “beautifully designed” to blend with the
cityscape, she says.
           Monroe finds lots of good things in
the existing East Avenue Wegmans. “People who shop there,” she says,
“go for the intimate scale.” The low ceilings and low lighting add to
the intimacy, she says.
           The president of the
Culver/University/East Avenue Neighborhood Association speaks in the same vein.
Wegmans now has a fine opportunity before it, says Sib Petix, a Park Avenue
resident who’s also a realtor. “I’d love to see them save those buildings
and build around them,” he says.
Pieces
of sky
Henny
Penny is no friend to County Executive
Maggie Brooks. The county’s fiscal condition is serious, Brooks says, but
the sky is not falling.
           “I’m a little more optimistic than
that,” she says.
           Still, the county executive told her
Budget Advisory Team last week that
nothing is more important than the work they’re doing right now.
           “This is our priority,” she says.
“We’re counting on you.”
           The county legislature raised the
property tax more than 13 percent in the current budget to deal with a $42
million budget gap. Things look tough for 2005, too. State revenue to the
county is down $7 million in the governor’s budget proposal. And many say the
county has exhausted its ability to make cuts, sell off assets, and to use
one-time revenues to plug the dam.
           Moody’s
Investors Service has put the county on a watch list. The agency is concerned
that the county’s structural imbalance continues despite the steps taken to
balance the 2004 budget.
           Brooks charged
her advisory team with a top-to-bottom review of county government. The team
will identify cost-cutting measures and streamlining and consolidation
opportunities.
           It is time
to be bold, she says.
           “I want
you to look at government in a way we’ve never looked at it before,” she told
team members. “What we need is sweeping reform recommendations. The low-hanging
fruit is gone.”
           Nothing is
off the table, Brooks says, except tax increases. Brooks ran on a pledge not to
raise taxes.
           Brooks did
not establish a deadline for the team to finish its work. But she said it would
be “nice and useful” to have some information when the county starts its
budgeting process in April.
Gay
marriage here and now
At
the Auditorium Center the other day, Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley
director Chuck Bowen opened a program on same-sex
marriage with what he called a “symbol” — an announcement that
child care was available down the hall. Then came another symbol of an evolving
movement: Bowen said the Alliance’s youth group now has 400 members.
“They’re here participating today,” he said.
           The audience was 250 strong, and
outspoken. Local attorney Jennifer Gravitz described a form of silencing,
though. Gravitz said her life partner couldn’t join her at the podium and be
identified because she works for a religious group not covered by SONDA, the
state Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act. “She’d be fired for
saying she loves me,” said Gravitz.
           Ross Levi, the Empire State Pride
Agenda’s policy director, surveyed the legal and political landscape: the
Massachusetts court decision that establishes full marriage rights, for
example; and San Francisco’s issuance of some 3,000 marriage licenses to
same-sex couples.
           But Levi, who noted the estimated
1,700 legal privileges and duties attached to marriage, covered more than the
law. There’s something special about marriage, he said. Nobody, he said, ever
called home to declare, “Mom, I’m getting civil unionized!” He predicted
success in achieving full civil rights. “It’s no longer a matter of if,” he said. “It’s when, and when is now.”
           And he meant now: There are roughly 10,000 legally married same-sex couples in
the US already, he said. The big question, he said, is whether New York State
will recognize these legal civil marriages performed elsewhere.
           This will eventually come down to
local authorities. And, said Rochester city councilmember Tim Mains, activists
have already approached City Hall to see if marriage licenses might be issued
to same-sex couples. Officials have said they lack authority to do this, said
Mains. (New York’s constitution isn’t as helpful in this regard as
California’s.)
           What about the state level?
“All the Assemblymembers and senators were invited to be here today,”
said Chuck Bowen. “Do you see any of them?” No, sighed the audience.
So the take-home message was about political involvement. A Gay Alliance
handout (see www.gayalliance.org for background) emphasizes the basics:
contacting elected officials, writing letters to the editor, and so forth.
           The Pride Agenda
(www.prideagenda.org) is circulating a “Pledge of Resistance” that
sounds more militant. Signers take this pledge: “to mobilize in defense of
civil marriage for same-sex couples and against any federal amendment to the
Constitution… or state action here in New York to codify civil marriage as
between one man and one woman.”
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 2, 2004.
