Community Members

Recently, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden went to Florida for a town hall. At that town hall, they unveiled the recipients of high speed rail funding throughout the country.

Of the $8 billion doled out to several states, New York only received a small sliver of that. While the $151 million New York received is better than nothing, it is not as good as it should be and is a far cry from the almost $600 million requested.

"The awarding of high-speed rail money by the federal government in February turned into a test of which state officials could transcend partisan bickering and agree to pony up a bit of their precious local resources -- and which couldn't. States along the Northeast corridor failed to get much funding, despite their overwhelming objective need."

http://www.harrydavis2010.com/node/5

Monday, 8:08 PM:
btw, I am a candidate for the New York State Assembly, 131st District. I hope others will follow and out vote Gantt & Morelle!
I just got back from the bus to Albany. Today, 29 of us talked to dozens of legislators & staff in Albany. The takeaway is they thought Duffy & Gantt & Morelle spoke for all of Rochester on the theft of voting rights. Now, they know better! :) It might take another trip or two but we will get the job done! btw, there will be a march on March 4 from the Liberty Pole to city hall to protest Mayor Duffy's school takeover. Watch tonight's 11PM news. I think CH 10. They got me departing the bus
with my T_Shirt that says: "Just say no to drugs & Mayoral
Control"
I am opposed to mayoral control of Rochester city schools. What mayoral control in cities like New York and Washington D.C. has taught us is that allowing the mayors to run these school districts hurts, not helps, the system. In these cities, the student performance among minority groups is poor and the gap is widening. And as Dr. William Cala pointed out in his op-ed in the City Newspaper, spending by cities on these school districts has increased. As an example, he cites New York City, where mayoral control under Mayor Michael Bloomberg increase from $12.5 billion in 2002 to $21 billion in 2009.

If we are going to invest more money in education, it had better be working. Taxpayers, and more importantly, our students deserve the best. And in Rochester, they deserve better.

That is why mayoral control is not the answer.

In his op-ed in the Democrat and Chronicle, former Mayor Bill Johnson asked several important questions. One of those questions was:

"Since urban districts with concentrated poverty generally require more, and not less, resources, what guarantees can be extracted in advance from state government to insure a successful takeover?"

The truth is Albany can�t make guarantees. New York City is in a different position. They have more money they can invest in their city�s education while also receiving state funds. But for Rochester, we are dependent on state help. And during these tough fiscal times for the state and Governor David Paterson proposing cuts to education, that help from the state won�t happen.

To answer Mayor Johnson�s question, there are no guarantees. The state government can�t help. If anything, our education funding will be cut by Albany and we must do more with less.

One of the great crimes we have seen with mayoral control is its negative impact on minority students. In a city like Chicago, test scores for Black and Latino students are improving, but very slowly. And that improvement in many cases means moving out of single-digit percentiles into the teens. Going from eight percent proficient in a certain subject area (i.e Math) to 12 percent might be considered an improvement, but it�s still a disappointment. Combine that with the test scores of white students that aren�t any better and mayoral control is an experiment that has failed.

Rochester should not make its students part of that experiment. It has been proven in other cities to be a failure. It only gives more powers to mayors who believe they need to take the reins from school boards and school administrators and run the schools themselves. The problem is, as history has taught us, they aren�t doing any better.

In New York City, the Board of Education was replaced by a panel set up by the mayor and those individuals, instead of serving on behalf of voters, serve at the pleasure of the mayor. That is not what we need. We need independent thinkers who oversee our education system. We do not need people who will be beholden to the mayor, whether that�s Mayor Robert Duffy or anyone else down the road.

We need a board of education who was accountable to taxpayers and responsible for achieving the best possible education for all of our students. And it must be free of mayoral influence.

I oppose mayoral control and will continue my opposition against running our city�s educational system through City Hall. The future of our students should not rest with one solitary individual, but rather a classroom of competent teachers working with our bright minds to raise test scores and to increase student performance.

Harry Davis
Rochester, NY
www.HarryDavis2010.com

Bike Lanes in Vancouver & Copenhagen.
http://www.examiner.com/x-34336-Vancouver-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m2d20-Vancouver-becoming-a-bit-more-like-Copenhagen

Hi, Mat, Thank you. Yes, I can see what I wrote might be a bit confusing but Broad Street is a city project. The city presented it to the public on December 17 at the library and the city presenters clearly stated when asked that day that "NO." there will be no bike lanes. I do understand that the bridge will be a mall area but the rest of Broad Street does need bike lanes & the city engineer, Mr. McIntosh & Mayor Duffy told me this will happen. I am not sure what Monroe County has to do with is but Mr. McIntosh assured me that even if New York State does not agree, the bike lanes will go forward on the city's watch.

Better Bikeways: Turning a City Street Into a Bike Corridor

http://www.good.is/post/better-bikeways-turning-a-city-street-into-a-bike-corridor/

A Los Angeles dream of turning 4th Street into a bike-friendly thoroughfare.

This is the second entry in our miniseries "Better Bikeways."

Dear hiwayman, yes, those "bike lanes" in front of MCC are a total joke!
But we did accomplish having the City of Rochester agree to
placing a bike lane on the Broad Street Bridge when it is reconstructed
later this year. Hopefully the City will mark the Broad Street bike
lane clearly with, recently approved by ASHTO chevrons & a bicycle
sharrows, as well as lane lines. The Broad Street Bridge is very wide. This will be a definite improvement. Now the City should improve the entire length of Broad Street, within the Inner Loop, from South Union Street to Brown Street by creating
dedicated and well marked (with the aforementioned sharrows) bike
lanes. Proper (min. 6 ft./2 m. width bike lanes really are simply a
matter of paint and the will to provide for citizens who do not have a
motor vehicle and use a bicycle to commute to work or do everyday
errands efficiently.

The Rochester Cycling Alliance said they will monitor the city's promise to make the bike lanes.

This is a small step, but a start.

Matt, I think there are several persons in Mayor Duffy's administration "in charge" of "urban planning" but really, the person responsible is Mayor Duffy. As you know, I asked Mayor Duffy to hire me to help organize these issues. He did not. There does need to be a plan for downtown. I am against urban planning being done by politicians. This will not get the job done correctly. While I applaud Mayor Duffy for working with us this week to get bicycle lanes on Broad Street, if we had a real green plan for downtown, this issue would never have conme up!

It is incomprehensible to me that downtown Rochester, the Main & Clinton area, still remains a total wasteland after so many years. It is so bad, the city & Mayor Duffy are apparently unable to prevent riots from breaking out which is exactly what happened a few weeks ago!

When Bob Duffy campaigned for Mayor in 2005, he promised he would �dust off the jewel that is Rochester.� Well, Mayor Duffy has been re-elected, in an election that unfortunately saw no opposition to his candidacy and a lot of dusting off remains if we are to have a livable downtown.

I have been advocating since 2003 for a green downtown without the pork barrel spending that ren square was. If our government listened to me & the others, we would not have the mess we still have in the core of our city.

I personally have seen two Mayors and countless city council members go by in the past seven years but the root of our city still needs a root canal! When I left Rochester in 1980 it was because I saw the lack of opportunity here and the future of decay was apparent. It is as infected now as it was when I returned to Rochester in 2001. But all politicians were collecting campaign cash to keep the smell of ren square wafting into our noses. mayor Duffy even received campaign cash from the unions last year after he killed ren square! But our campaign for city council did not. Go figure.

It is incomprehensible to me how a city in the 21st century can plan a major development with out the basics of now standard �green development�

Harry Davis
www.HarryDavis2010.com

Howard says:

"Once we accomplish the above stated goal, in my humble opinion, (in order to increase the likelihood of significantly increased participation) --- we need to turn our attention to reforming Rochester’s corrupt, rigged, political and electoral process, which is completely controlled by the same Democrat Party bosses who are attempting to stuff mayoral control down our collective throats."

I say:

Is it time for Joe Morelle, David Gantt & Susan John to go this year???
http://www.harry2009.com/node/522

"By closing out the process in the committees the way it did, Morelle insured a low turn-out in the City, which hurt the County-wide races."

"Once candidates are under the wing of MCDC, original ideas are replaced by generic blandness. Candidates should be about ideas and plans. If they aren't, they shouldn't be running."

In April, just before I decided to run for Rochester City Council, I was told by a Democratic leader that this would be a futile task for me, as all of the decisions had already been made. I was then, and am now, attempting to get a job with the Obama administration in the Health and Human Services Department in Washington to help get stem cell & regenerative medicine resources out to where they are needed. This leader told me to stay focused on the DC possibility and forget playing local politics, because I had no chance with it, i.e. the fix was in.

Obviously, I did not follow this man's advice! I am happy that when I began this course in April that I was one of 20 candidates for five City Council seats. In the end, I was one of 6 candidates for five city council seats thanks to my nomination and endorsement by the Working Families Party. And I thank very much the 1,694 of you who voted for me!

I still want to bring CHANGE to Rochester. I want a downtown that is civilized, where one can live; not the wasteland it is today. The way this will happen is when we have a true democracy in Rochester. Less than 10% of the voters actually chose our leaders this election, in the sense that very few people were involved in the Democratic Party endorsement and nomination process. This process was a travesty as we know from Tom Brennan's experience running for Commissioner of Schools, where in three of the City’s LD committees, he came in third place. But like all the other candidates who did not get 50% of the committee vote, Tom had to enter a run-off at Party convention with the convoluted rule that committee votes for the run-off candidates were entirely up to the LD leader, all of which gave all their votes to David Gantt’s darling Cynthia Elliott, in spite of the fact that she received no more than a few votes from the original committee caucuses while Tom received the third highest in each. Word on the street has it that this was the result of a deal struck with Gantt to endorse her (almost assuring the nomination as well); and in return he would not run another City Council candidate to oppose the others.

Joe Morelle, who presided over this process fixing, either needs to resign immediately or allow the fresh candidates who want to run for office to actually speak for themselves. Once candidates are under the wing of MCDC, original ideas are replaced by generic blandness. Candidates should be about ideas and plans. If they aren't, they shouldn't be running.

An example of this was evident when I and the other City Council candidates presented ourselves in caucus to the committee that David Gantt controls. We all made speeches presenting our case in hopes of a real vote. Mr. Gantt did not even bother to stay in the room to listen to what I had to say, about Renaissance Square, about high tech possibilities with stem cell research for jobs in our area, and for high speed rail. Mr. Gantt was not even in the room when all of us spoke to his committee! Mr. Gannt was outside, seen through the glass window, smoking a cigarette during the entire process! And, when the votes were tallied for David's committee, it was unanimous. EVERYBODY David chose had EXACTLY the same amount of votes!! And who was the leader of the MCDC when this happened? Joe Morelle, that's who.

By closing out the process in the committees the way it did, it insured a low turn-out in the City, which hurt the County-wide races.

We are holding meetings now to have a better look at where we are all going politically. We have Green Party members, Working Family members, and all of you who have no political affiliation. If the Democratic Party in Monroe County wants to succeed, I think it is time we all looked at where it's leadership has taken it and decide if we want to continue in the same direction.

Harry Davis
Rochester, New York
November 7, 2009

Listen to Harry Davis speak on the Bob Smith Show, 1370 Connection, about the lack of bicyle lanes on the new Broad Street in Rochester.
http://www.harry2009.com/node/517

NO BICYCLE LANES!

I am sorry to say but on Dec 17, last Thursday, the "Broad Street Tunnel Improvement Project" held another one of the "open, public discussions" ala ren square style with no real discussion, only a "This Is The Way It Is" presentation to tell us how the tunnel will be filled in. What is completely inappropriate is that they are building a new road WITHOUT informed planning, only engineers & construction people! A whole new road is being built!

When audience members asked if a bicycle lane will be included on the road that will connect to Main Street downtown, the answer was "NO"!

No bicycle lanes for a new road in Rochester.

I asked Mayor Duffy to hire me so that this type of situation can be avoided. We have been having meetings since the election and more will be heard from our group in January

btw, I ride my bicycle every day.