News Blog

UPDATE: 11:30 a.m.: Local media are reporting that Tom Richards says he will seek a second term as Rochester mayor.

ORIGINAL STORY:

New York State Lieutenant Governor Bob Duffy called yesterday to clarify remarks he made about a potential mayoral bid by City Council President Lovely Warren.

Warren has said she’s considering a run for the city’s top job, possibly forcing a primary against incumbent Mayor Tom Richards. Richards has not said he’ll run again.

• FILE PHOTO
• Bob Duffy

On January 31, the Democrat and Chronicle ran a story with the headline “Duffy: Warren should sit out.” The story was written by D&C staff writer Brian Sharp and quotes the former mayor saying that a Warren-Richards contest “would be a travesty for the city.” Duffy also said he’d support Richards if Richards seeks re-election.

In yesterday’s phone conversation, Duffy said he was mortified by the headline, which, he said, set a misleading tone for the article. His remarks were not directed at Warren or Richards personally, he said, and that he only meant that a sitting City Council president and incumbent mayor should not go head to head.

He said he holds Warren in the highest regard, and praised her tenacity and loyalty.
“She’s been a terrific City Council president,” he said, adding that he called Warren and apologized after the story came out.

Duffy said Sharp quoted him correctly in the article and that he takes responsibility for everything he said. He said he’s stayed out of Rochester politics since being elected lieutenant governor and that he probably shouldn’t have said anything when Sharp asked about the potential mayoral race.

“It’s not my business,” he said. “I probably only added another level of drama that doesn’t need to be added.”

Duffy said he would never criticize anyone for running a primary, because that’s how his own political career began.

“I will not be a hypocrite with it,” he said.

More than 60 school officials, parents, and residents gathered at the Rochester school district’s central office this morning in another organized effort to track down truant students.

In groups of two to four, volunteers were handed a list of students and their addresses from schools 4, 17, 22, 30, and Monroe who have not attended school at all this year, or have not attended regularly. Volunteers visited 90 homes this morning.

Between 11 percent and 12 percent of the district’s roughly 30,000 students miss school on any given day. And more than 4,800 city school students have missed at least three weeks of school this year, which puts them at risk of falling behind.

Superintendent Bolgen Vargas began the push to improve attendance last year. This morning’s outreach was the third this school year. When asked if the district is making progress at improving attendance, Vargas said, “The problem is so big; it’s an epidemic in this community.”

But Vargas has made some progress. School officials have sharpened their attendance record-keeping, and the districtwide attendance rate for last year reportedly improved. School officials say they want to achieve a 90 percent attendance rate this year. The goal, officials say, is to reach at least a 93 percent attendance rate in the future.

As another key deadline approaches in the state's high-volume hydraulic fracturing review, some local elected officials are speaking out about their concerns with the gas extraction technique. And they're also sharing their concerns with the state review.

Yesterday, a group of the officials, all members of Elected Officials to Protect New York, held a press conference at Rochester's City Hall. In a press release, the organization said state officials haven't considered the health costs and the burden fracking will place on municipalities. The organization's website says state officials should keep the current de facto moratorium on fracking in place until a comprehensive study of fracking's health impacts, an in-depth assessment on socioeconomic effects, and a thorough study of the cumulative impacts of fracking are completed.

The event at City Hall included remarks from Brighton Supervisor Bill Moehle and Rochester City Council member Loretta Scott, according to media reports. But Elected Officials to Protect New York has quite a few local members, Democrats and Republicans. They include:

· City school board member Mary Adams
· City Council member Matt Haag
· City Council member Elaine Spaull
· City Council member Loretta Scott
· City Council member Jackie Ortiz
· Brighton Town Board member Christopher Werner
· Brighton Town Board member Jason DiPonzio
· Brighton Town Board member Louise Novros
· Brighton Town Board member James Vogel
· Brighton Supervisor Bill Moehle
· Brighton Town Clerk Dan Aman
· Mendon Town Board member Moe Bickweat
· Rush Town Board member Daniel Woolaver
· Rush Town Board member Kathryn Steiner
· Village of Pittsford Mayor Bob Corby
· East Rochester Deputy Mayor Mark Florack
· Honeoye Falls Mayor Richard Milne
· Village of Churchville Trustee Diane Pusateri
· Village of Fairport Trustee Tim Slisz
· County Legislator Michael Patterson
· County Legislator Carrie Andrews

At 11:30 a.m. today, State Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Fisher will hear arguments on a lawsuit against the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s board.

Attorney Eileen Buholtz is suing the board over its annual meeting and elections, which took place on January 23. She says that neither the RPO board nor its executive committee set the membership cutoff date, which determines who can vote in the board elections. RPO board Vice Chair Patrick Burke has been subpoenaed to testify on the matter, the Democrat and Chronicle reported last week.

Buholtz ran a write-in campaign for a board seat — she was part of a six-member slate. If her lawsuit is successful, the election results could be invalidated.

As part of the lawsuit, Buholtz wants the RPO to turn over a full membership list with contact information; as a candidate she’d be entitled to that information. It would help her reach out to members to make them aware of her candidacy.

During the annual meeting, members elected eight board members, all of whom were endorsed by the board. Jeremy Moule

Rochester Mayor Tom Richards and Police Chief James Sheppard will host their fourth public forum on violence in Rochester at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, in Cobbs Hill Park, Lake Riley Lodge, 100 Norris Drive.

Citizens are asked to discuss the issue of violence under four broad categories: open-air drug sales and drug houses; gangs, guns, and the culture of violence; bullying and truancy; and house parties.

RPD crime prevention officers will be available at breakout sessions for each topic and members of city staff serve as facilitators. Citizen suggestions are recorded and used to enhance the Rochester Police Department's long-term violence-reduction strategies. Christine Carrie Fien

The Rochester school district will hold several meetings of interest this week.

Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas will hold the first of several public forums on the district’s proposed 2013 to 2014 budget at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, February 4, at Rochester International Academy, 1 Edgerton Park.

Vargas will make a presentation to the board on the core curriculum initiative at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, which involves a major realignment of core academic standards at the federal, state, and local levels. Vargas describes this as the most pressing challenge the district faces this year. The meeting is in the RCSD central office, 131 West Broad Street.

And Vargas will deliver his “State of Our Schools” address at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 6. Vargas and school board President Malik Evans will discuss the status and future of the district. The event is at All City High School, 180 Ridgeway Avenue.

The SW Education Committee, a subgroup of the 19th Ward Community Association, will hold a meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, February 4, to discuss School 16, the latest information they have regarding the school’s status, and preparations for a meeting with RCSD Superintendent Bolgen Vargas. The meeting is at the Arnett Branch of the public library, 310 Arnett Boulevard. Tim Louis Macaluso

We’re all buzzing about Bob Duffy’s public smackdown — wrapped in a PC package, of course — of City Council President Lovely Warren’s mayoral ambitions. Our former mayor and current lieutenant governor said Warren shouldn’t run — yet — and that he’s throwing his support behind incumbent Mayor Tom Richards.

“Rochester needs them both,” Duffy said in the D&C.

It’s pretty ballsy of Duffy (pictured right) to insert himself into a race that doesn’t exist yet. Neither Warren nor Richards, for that matter, have said they’re going to run. It’s especially curious when you remember that Duffy began his own political career by challenging the party establishment — he forced a primary against endorsed mayoral candidate Wade Norwood.

It’s also fascinating to see Duffy come out against Warren — a protégé of State Assembly member David Gantt — when he was so solicitous of all things Gantt during Duffy’s failed bid for mayoral control of the Rochester school district. Duffy and Gantt haven’t always been besties — their relationship is best described as an off-and-on marriage of convenience. And Duffy needed Gantt to pass mayoral control legislation.

I guess things look a little different from the state capital.

Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas met with school board members last night to discuss his evaluation.

The seven-member board’s chief responsibility is to hire and supervise the superintendent. But board members’ evaluation of Vargas is also a review of their own skills as a publicly elected body. And their participation in and influence on the superintendent's decision can’t be minimized.

The board will likely commend Vargas on his communications efforts and accessibility. No superintendent in recent memory has been so available to parents, teachers, students, and community members. Between his public appearances and his monthly Coffee and Conversation open-mic sessions, this superintendent isn’t hard to find.

And Vargas should be credited with confronting long-ignored problems like truancy and reading proficiency. He’s also forged a functional relationship with Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, as well as Mayor Tom Richards.

But the modernization plan, which involves shrinking the district’s footprint and closing some city schools, is just one of several major issues that will require the board and the superintendent to work with more synergy than in the past.

Jolting the district out of its status as the lowest performing of the Big Five districts and implementing rigorous teacher evaluations are equally pressing concerns.

A lot is at stake. Too often the decisions made by superintendents, with the board’s acquiescence, have been unproductive and even counterproductive. Reconfiguring city schools from K to 6 to K to 8 is arguably a good example.

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I'm kind of surprised by the amount of attention and press the predatory habits of cats has received lately. The New York Times, for example, wrote an editorial, "Soft and Deadly," encouraging cat owners to keep their pets from freely roaming outside.

What's giving the story legs is a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. It says that in the United States, "free-ranging" domestic cats kill 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds each year, and 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion mammals. Stray cats — feral cats, for example — do the most killing, it says. The study was conducted by researchers from the Smithsonian and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

This is an important, but old, issue, so the sudden interest caught me off-guard. Since 1997, the American Bird Conservancy has run a campaign about keeping cats indoors. And that's only one of several such efforts, though some focus more on cat health than on wildlife impacts.

This morning, Cornell University sent out a statement from Bruce Kornreich, associate director for education and outreach for its veterinary college's Feline Health Center. Kornreich said the study's findings highlight an important ecologic issue. He also said that educating cat owners about the need to keep cats indoors and educating the public about the commitment involved with cat adoption is crucial. Both will help control stray cat populations, he says.