No Strings Geneva

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35148231982523284242026-03-03T03:25:47.117-05:00No Strings GenevaGeneva's fact-based point of view.Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-42194307018854592872010-05-28T11:06:00.002-04:002010-06-01T11:18:51.424-04:00Special Double Radio Post: Is 'Option 4' still an option?

In our last two Finger Lakes Morning News interviews with Ted Baker on WGVA radio (April 16 and May 21), we discussed our point of view that Ontario County’s process for deciding which one of five building options ought to be pursued for the permanent home of Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) Geneva Extension Center had a preordained outcome, an outcome which, itself, was ill conceived. Now

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-16151056336967331412010-05-20T23:31:00.002-04:002010-05-20T23:37:14.153-04:00What the Electeds Neglected and the Public Pointed Out in the Former Geneva High School Debate

The Ontario County Board of Supervisors unanimously set the course for “Option 4” at their May 13th meeting, declaring its intent to raze the 1926 Geneva High School building in favor of a new one story structure that Projects Committee Chairman Dick Calabrese (R-Gorham) assured the public would last “50 years.” In doing so, the Ontario County Board of Supervisors put aside a number of

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-15131687579978828272010-05-10T09:45:00.003-04:002010-05-10T09:46:41.589-04:00Discussion about FLCC Geneva Center Continues

As you know, the debate about the Pulteney Street campus center for Finger Lakes Community College continues. As we work on our next installment, be sure to follow the discussions that continue after the posts. We welcome any and all comments, so long as the author signs his/her name to them!Read more here.

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-58619947174088658302010-04-15T23:35:00.000-04:002010-04-16T00:12:44.043-04:00Keep Community in Finger Lakes Community College

No Strings Geneva has long championed “a more robust Finger Lakes Community College extension campus in the City of Geneva.” As our post two years ago asserts, the educational opportunities and workforce development that educational facilities provide ought to make them a top local priority.And that’s why it seems so odd to us that the current discussion of the fate of FLCC’s extension center

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-41613968058380811032010-03-08T23:58:00.003-05:002010-03-09T00:05:47.388-05:00FLCC Projects Committee Wants Questions on Proposed Geneva Extension Center:We Want Answers

Thursday, February 25, the Finger Lakes Community College Projects Committee, which is chaired by County Supervisor Richard Calabrese (R-Gorham) and includes Geneva City Supervisor Rocky LaRocca, and additional Supervisors and members of the FLCC staff and Board of Trustees, met to discuss public presentations regarding the proposed Geneva Extension Center.To kick off the meeting, JMZ Architects

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-37208485713587357662010-02-18T22:32:00.004-05:002010-02-19T15:37:58.802-05:00BS (as in Bait and Switch) Part II:Wonderful Bait for a Sinister Switch

On March 29, 2009, NY State Senator Mike Nozzolio’s website read “Senator Nozzolio Delivers!” What was it that he was delivering? Over $26 million in State dollars for projects bundled as the “21st Century Geneva Plan”-- and what turned out to be lots of bait for local practitioners of bait and switch. $5 million of the bundle was dedicated to a “signature building for the Finger Lakes region

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-82420176142340996262010-01-31T21:56:00.002-05:002010-01-31T22:13:54.629-05:00Is the Red and Black In the Red or in the Black?City Schools Seek $12.5 million in New Borrowing

A year ago, we ran a series of posts concerning the Geneva City School District's proposal to shift from two K-5 neighborhood schools to one primary (PreK-2) and one intermediate (3-5) school. The plan was brought to our attention by faculty and staff who were concerned that the effort was misguided in several ways. We don’t deal in leaks and rumors, so we didn’t post until we’d checked out the

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-66267711250528514192010-01-24T20:34:00.002-05:002010-01-24T20:59:31.818-05:00Bait and Switch Anyone? "The Bloggers" Preview Posts and a Citizenship Academy to Come in 2010

Our recent appearance on Ted Baker's WGVA morning radio show featured a discussion of our post on Tiger Woods, Obama, and spin. We also previewed the themes we're looking to cover as NoStringsGeneva enters its fourth year, this coming March. True to our original mission, we remain focused on public decision-making and accountability. We also remain committed to providing a fact-based point of

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-62599673043324382202010-01-13T06:18:00.000-05:002010-01-13T06:18:00.396-05:00Are Things Going "The Blog Way?"

At the end of our most recent WGVA radio appearance, host Ted Baker asked us to reflect on the blog’s influence on local politics over the years. Capraro was quick to point out that it ought to be up to our readers to determine how effective we’ve been in advocating for open and accountable government, and community based civic engagement. But with the third anniversary of

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-73003795776540042102010-01-02T14:05:00.000-05:002010-01-10T14:28:50.408-05:00Tiger Woods:A Case Study of Public/Private in an Age of Spin

Golfer Tiger Woods— AP Athlete of the Decade and the wealthiest athlete in the world— is taking “an indefinite break from professional golf” in response to a flood of reports on his now admitted “infidelity.” (you can find the full story here)Since professional athletes and politicians have a great deal in common—they live in the public eye and are celebrities of sorts—we thought aspects of the

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-9410676755737853232009-12-22T06:38:00.002-05:002009-12-22T06:56:12.171-05:00What's Old is New Again

The five meetings held by the City last month to introduce its new Office of Neighborhood Initiatives and the conceptual framework for its mission, revealed something interesting and important about the City: Long time residents located their fondest memories—“better days”-- somewhere in the past, and wanted to recreate a City and neighborhoods where good things happen like they used to in the

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-30113999323433802522009-12-04T11:45:00.000-05:002009-12-04T11:45:00.488-05:00Maybe Geneva Needs a "Kamikaze Council":Listening to the Drumbeat of the Numbers

Our most recent appearance on Ted Baker’s Finger Lakes Morning News focused on the City of Geneva’s 2010 budget, its multi-year financial plan, and the economic climate’s effect on municipalities in general. If the City maintains a “business as usual” approach, it will lead to business unusual, as in bankruptcy.We believe that one thing New York State has done correctly with regard to cities has

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-20337405606173464392009-11-19T18:44:00.001-05:002009-11-20T07:06:07.349-05:00"Business As Usual" Will Put the City Out of Business:Thoughts on the Multi-Year Financial Plan

The New York State Comptroller requires municipalities to file multi-year financial plans that look at 3-to-5 year projections for revenue and expenditures, and the likely corresponding impact on property taxes.In 2007, the City Council held an in-depth work session on the City’s first such planning document. In it, were projected huge deficits, an annual property tax increase of 3%, and a

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-49011834227270580592009-10-27T06:59:00.001-04:002009-10-27T06:59:00.090-04:00Should a Councilor Ever Have to FOIL?Say It Ain't So, Mr. Manager and Mr. Attorney

Some of her colleagues on Council took Augustine to task for using FOILed records (i.e., records obtained under New York’s Freedom of Information Law) in our recent post on filling it up at the City pump. One of our readers expressed the same concern in a signed comment to the post: “Forgive me for being rude, but the City of Geneva appears to function in a unique way. It is not common for

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-22391487880981654372009-10-23T20:48:00.002-04:002009-10-23T20:59:28.533-04:00Fuel For Thought: Readers and City Manager React to Gas Post

In response to our post on fuel consumption and the City budget, we received two signed comments that raised interesting points or questions that warrant more discussion:First, we agree with Mark that the main point of our post was to suggest that the City’s published budget is virtually impossible to follow, that the numbers just didn’t seem to add up, for whatever reason. Our attention was

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-68027102112785025982009-10-07T20:14:00.000-04:002009-10-09T17:17:45.998-04:00City Manager's 2010 budget proposal is a call to action

It will be impossible for the City of Geneva to sustain year after year of zero per cent property tax increases AND retain its current administrative structure AND current service-delivery model. City Manager Matt Horn sent that message loud and clear to Council and the citizens of the City of Geneva in his 2010 budget proposal. In our view, Horn’s challenge is not a threat to raise taxes, but

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-15307478546978237222009-10-04T16:13:00.000-04:002009-10-04T20:46:03.160-04:00"Follow The Money"Bloggers Resume Talk Radio with Ted Baker on WGVA

After a late summer’s hiatus of a few weeks, we resumed blogging with a fact-based point of view on the City’s own gas station, “Filling it up at the City Pump,” and resumed our regular time slot on Ted Baker’s morning radio show. Ted spoke with us about that post and other financial matters as the City ramps up for the 2010 budget process. Our effort to reconcile what the City spends on gas

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-66465859792288582232009-09-22T17:50:00.001-04:002009-09-22T23:15:45.619-04:00System of a Down Isn't the Only Group Concerned About "The Toxicity of Our City"Water Quality and WasteWater Treatment Loom Large In Many Minds

Our readers may recall that as the question of the composition of leachate and the general quality of Geneva’s drinking water loomed large this past summer, we discussed City of Geneva public works director Gordy Eddington’s guest editorial in the Finger Lakes Times. (You can reread that post here) We wrote, “Eddington’s piece was really not about leachate at all, but, rather, the reported

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-75381228352389555962009-09-17T21:32:00.003-04:002009-09-17T21:50:35.991-04:00Filling It Up at the City Pump (Part I):Why Doesn't the Amount Coming In Equal the Amount Going Out?

The City of Geneva maintains its own little filling station, consisting of two pumps which dispense gas and diesel fuel to designated City vehicles. Certain City workers, and some staff from two other, non-City agencies (the Geneva Housing Authority and the Geneva Business Improvement District—more about that in Part II) are authorized to fill it up at the City pump. The City purchases the fuel

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-56679710099063391952009-07-15T14:13:00.002-04:002009-07-15T14:57:45.591-04:00Vacation's All We Ever Wanted

Readers, please be advised that Capraro and Augustine are taking advantage of a summer lull in City government activity and will be taking a break of our own. We will be devoting the remainder of our summer to researching and writing major posts which will appear this Fall. As always, we appreciate your support of NoStringsGeneva, Geneva’s fact-based point of view, and we’d love to hear what

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-42922492561740425142009-06-21T21:31:00.002-04:002009-06-21T21:41:49.261-04:00Gordy, Just Show Us the Data

The Sunday (June 7th) edition of the local paper featured a guest appearance by Geneva City Director of Public Works, Gordy Eddington, presumably prompted by all the talk around town about leachate. However, Eddington’s piece was really not about leachate at all, but, rather, the reported performance of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. The City’s plant and our water, he says, are in

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-75777725194030756032009-06-03T16:35:00.002-04:002009-06-06T18:23:14.863-04:00‘Mount Trashmore’ Could Give the Visitor’s Center a Run for its Money:Recapping Our Recent WGVA Appearances with Ted Baker

For those of you who missed our last two regular appearances on WGVA radio with Ted Baker, we thought we might re-visit what we covered by connecting two seemingly disparate issues in one post: the Visitors’ Center and leachate. Our purpose is to keep our readers thinking about the public policy priorities of our region, and, more importantly, how they ought to be determined. Back in April, Ted

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-595797090614816852009-05-18T22:37:00.002-04:002009-05-18T22:58:15.751-04:00How Green Is Our City (Part 1):How Clean Is Our Water?

How Green is Your City? (2007), written by Warren Karlenzig, features the “SustainLane US City Rankings” for “urban sustainability” of the 50 largest cities in the country. The City of Geneva is not on the list, but we felt Geneva ought to conduct its own assessment of just how green we are. Karlenzig defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-11139011569041202412009-05-12T22:12:00.003-04:002009-05-12T22:20:02.157-04:00Setting the Table For a 'No' Vote:25 Unanswered Questions About the Leachate Contract

Last week, a motion was brought forward for Council to authorize the City Manager to enter into negotiations with Casella for a possible leachate line from the Ontario County Landfill to the City of Geneva Waste Water Treatment Plant. In our previous post, we had called for a tabling of the motion, and, Wednesday night, it was tabled.At the time, the table seemed the only responsible vote for

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3514823198252328424.post-55588521890849029302009-05-06T12:33:00.003-04:002009-05-06T13:13:36.357-04:00Contract Garbage and Leachate and Gasification--Oh My! (part II):Rising's 2005 City/Casella Contract Locks Geneva Into Multi-Year Deal

Despite numerous statements that no such contract existed, a 2005 contract (click here to read the contract) signed by former City Manager Rich Rising, released to the public today, locks the City into a 10-year agreement to treat leachate from the Ontario County Landfill. The contract stipulates that the leachate may be transported to the Doran Avenue (Geneva) treatment plant (WTP) “via

Capraro and Augustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03881918528025859018noreply@blogger.com0