$300,000 is a large sum of tax payer money to lose. Blame rests squarely on City Council and the city's legal department. City council over-reached, and one of two things happened: their legal councillors did not strenuously try to deter this illegal legislation-which makes me question what are we paying these attorneys for??? Or, the City's legal department tried to all ends, to deter city council from enacting this legislation, but were ignored. Which ever it is, the tax payers, small businesses and citizens of this city were short-changed.
Don Sherman, voice of reason. I do disagree regarding research with fetal tissue.
Research will sadly lack if fetal tissue was not available. Fetal tissue has helped create break-throughs in some heinous diseases. But if people rather fetal tissue be thrown away or buried where it does none any good, so be it, and as for you who suffer from diseases cures could have been found for, well remember you might have been helped or healed, were it not for narrow minds.
In response to Mary Coffeys comment about landlords, are you saying you support landlords spying on their tenants to make sure they behave? Is it ok for a landlord to install cameras all over the building to see what their tenants are doing? Should landlords now now be able get rid of any tenant they believe is breaking the law with out proving such in eviction court? It seems that you believe that tenants have no right to privacy and are subject to big daddy landlords. Because if not, how then do you expect the big bad landlord to be responsible for what their tenant does, if they don't have these powers. How do you expect them to prove a tenant is a drug dealer in eviction court, when police can't for conviction?! Stop blaming landlords for bad tenant behaviours and start with the bad tenants instead!
"A second avenue is to encourage more city families to stay in the city and send their children to city schools. Two ways to do that, I think, are to recreate neighborhood schools, and to create several test-based, selective-enrollment high schools."
This is part of the solution. Additionally, to attract families currently choosing suburban life, enforce quality of life issues that run rampant in the city. Issues such as loud music, trash on lawns, illegal parking on front lawns, the list goes in. A big one is Stop blaming the landlords for bad tenant behaviors by fining them and not the tenants for misdeeds. If people don't have money to pay fines, community service will do...like picking litter up in their neighborhood! As it stands now, parental rudeness towards neighbors teaches children to disrespect others and this translates into the classrooms. Our city fabric of life is being torn apart by government policies actually encouraging bad behaviors because there is no enforcement or consequence for them. Once city dwellers who think they can behave with no thought to their neighbors, get an attitude adjustment, you would be surprised how popular city living would be.
"Decades ago, Rochester tried integrating its schools by mixing children from high-poverty schools with those with more middle-income students... Thanks to the movement of middle-income families to the suburbs, the district's population as a whole is predominantly poor...The school-integration program didn't cause that."
Um...actually it did. My parents moved us to the suburbs for several reasons. School 16 was 1block from our home but my sisters were forcebly bussed to the other side of town when aged 7 & 8. Beaten up for lunch money twice, my parents had enough. We moved. Variations of this story are why there was a mass exodus. My parents chose to live near the grade school so their children could walk to & from, under watchful eyes if neighbors who knew all the kids. My parents wanted their children in a neighborhood school. When that option was removed, we moved.
Maybe now parents have all kinds of reasons to NOT want their children in neighborhood schools, but most of those reasons will fall away once parents realize the benefit of keeping their children close to home. Perhaps a sense of neighborliness and community could once again develop. Instead of spending our state tax dollars enriching oil cartels, perhaps we could keep those dollars close to home and use them directly on students & teachers or reduce school taxes, or better yet...all three options!
Sad most commentator seem to endorse this bad and un statesman-like behavior
Re: “City went too far regulating alcohol sales”
Rochestarians don't need continuously encroaching legislation. I don't want to live in a "Nanny City". I might want to go to the store at midnight to buy smokes and beer. I don't want law-makers enacting laws which don't allow me my rights as an adult citizen of this nation. I am an adult-Key word - Adult. I am capable of making decisions for myself. If I chose to be a nuisance to my community, arrest me. If not, leave me alone to enjoy the rights I should be enjoying as an American citizen. And, I mean all my rights.