As we have started hitting the streets, knocking on doors, I haven't had much time to blog lately.  But I think what I'm going to show you is very important and is a perfect example of why we need change in our local government. 

You're not going to see something like this in the media or at any upcoming forums.  This may seem to some as a personal attack, but it's not.  This is about issues - how our government is run and what is done with our tax dollars. 

In case you missed it, a number of Green Rochester candidates attended the most recent City Council meeting and attempted to put in a bid on Midtown Tower.  This offer was not only ignored, but mocked by the current mayor as "political theater".  When the vote for the deal to give a $430,000 property away to a Tom Richards campaign donor, came up, the current City Council President objected to the parking provision of the deal, the least expensive part, but in the end, ended up voting for the big chunk of the corporate welfare, as did the other elected officials. 

GR Mayoral Candidate, Alex White, posted a blog about the whole affair called, Midtown Tower of Lies. 

Links to the blog post was shared on Facebook by a number of people.  But City Council Member, Carolee Conklin was not content with getting everything they wanted.  She had to defend her decision on a constituent's Facebook page.

What follows after the jump is the edited conversation between the constituent [LW], Ms. Conklin, fellow GR City Council Candidate, Dorothy Paige and myself.  The only edits made were removing the constituent's name, removing unrelated comments by people not involved in the conversation and Facebook jargon ("reply", etc.)

I have been meaning to blog on this for a while now, but things with both Green Rochester and Benny Warr have been so hectic that I haven’t had a chance to sit down to collect my thoughts.  

For those who do not know the situation, on May 1st, Benny Warr was on Jefferson Avenue when members of the Rochester Police Department decided to clear the public sidewalks of everyone.  Yes, you’ve read that correctly.  There was no crisis; marshall law was not enacted.  The police do this in neighborhoods that are mostly inhabited by people of color.  But we will get to get to that a bit further down.

Benny was on Jefferson Avenue in his electric wheelchair when the police told him to leave.  He decided to go to a friend’s house via the bus.  Seems that waiting for the bus was not acceptable to these police officers, so to get Benny off Jefferson Avenue, they decided to arrest him.  Again, we will get to the problem with this further down.  

Some of you may know that in my work with ADAPT, I have been arrested participating in civil disobedience.  Most of my brothers and sisters in ADAPT have disabilities and many use wheelchairs.  I have seen a number of police agencies, both local and federal, arrest people in wheelchairs.  I have never, ever seen a police officer use this technique.  (Yes, this is a link to the higher resolution video of the arrest)

Benny ended up in the hospital with broken ribs and other injuries.  

If you follow Green Rochester, you know that all of the candidates have been working on behalf of Benny and his family.  We were involved in the planning of the rally of support that happened last Saturday and from this incident, we will continue to be involved.  Not only that, we will be using this incident and others that occur on a daily basis to continue to mold our collective and individual platforms to deal with the problems we are having with our public employees who we pay to “protect and serve”.  You can help by signing this petition.

So what problems are we having?

I feel that people's lives and the quality of life are the most important things.

While we do need corporations and businesses, the needs of the corporations should not be put ahead of the needs of the people.

Meeting the needs of the people who live, work and study in this city is very important.

There are many issues that need to be dealt with concerning housing.  The quality and quantity of housing needs to be improved for both renters, homeowners and the homeless. We need to expand the opportunities for everyone to purchase a home.

People need to feel safe in their neighborhood.  We need to work towards reducing crime in the city and to better deal with illegal drug activity.

The city needs job training programs and we need companies that are operating and profiting from their businesses here to assist the City. Those who are building in our city should be required to provide job training and jobs for the people who are here so that they can make a living wage.

We need to protect our environment and be a city that uses renewable energies.  We need to keep our water pure and to not accept Fracking water from anywhere. Our city should be a Frack Free zone. The City of Rochester should be working better to preserve our waterfalls, rivers and lakes and to make sure our community is clean and healthy for its citizens.

Dorothy Paige was born and raised in New York City. In 1980 she returned to Rochester where she had lived previously. She resides in the Dutchtown neighborhood of Rochester.

She has completed an A.A.S. Degree at MCC in Human Services. 

In 2000 she completed her Bachelors Degree from SUNY Empire State College and continued her education in Counselor Education and English at SUNY Brockport.

She has previously worked for  Action For A Better Community with the Head Start Program. 

Ms. Paige joined Americorp in 1997 and began her assignment in the South Wedge working with the homeless and a Food Program that served 50-75 families a week.  

Ms. Paige has also worked with the YMCA, Pathstone and Experience Works which assists people in the areas of homelessness, education, community organizing and employment.

Ms. Paige has been an active member of the community and has been involved in improving the lives of diverse populations in the city as a volunteer activist.

Ms. Paige is a single parent with two children who graduated from School of the Arts and East High School. One has received a Bachelors Degree and is working on a Masters Degree and the other has an MLS from University of Buffalo.

Questionnaire from Suzie B. Anthony's Wordpress page
Posted by · September 15, 2013 9:32 AM

City purchase of property damaged by demolition contractor
Posted by · July 19, 2013 11:25 AM

Louise Slaughter's Support For Tom Richards
Posted by · July 15, 2013 10:56 AM

David Atias was born and raised in the City of Rochester.  A Franklin graduate, David has a Bachelors of Science in History and Masters of Education in Secondary Education from SUNY Brockport.  David has worked for a number of non-profits in the area, including Hillside Childrens Center, St. Joseph's Villa and The Center for Youth.  He has taught in the City School District and various suburban districts as well.  David has served on the boards and steering committees of a number of local groups including Metro Justice, Rochester Roots, Coalition for Justice in Education, Rochester Human Rights Day Committee, the Rochester chapter of Move to Amend, Rochester ADAPT and the Transportation Action Group.

David is currently the Assistant Director of Advocacy at the Center for Disability Rights.  He lives on Kansas Street and is engaged to Evora Sutliff.

City Council Candidate Forums
Posted by David Sutliff-Atias · September 10, 2013 10:09 PM

Crime in the 19th Ward
Posted by David Sutliff-Atias · August 26, 2013 11:20 PM · 3 reactions

Green Rochester in Candidate Forums
Posted by David Sutliff-Atias · July 25, 2013 8:32 PM

As a member of the Rochester City Council, I will continue to organize community support for the political and economic reconstruction of our City, with a priority on people and planet rather than corporate profit.  Upon election, I will focus on implementing the following programs:

City Office for Cooperative Development

Corporate welfare as a strategy for economic development has clearly failed our communities, with an extreme lack of living wage work available to our citizens.  Instead, we must use our City's resources to create new jobs in the form of worker-owned cooperatives.  Using the Mondragon Cooperatives of Spain and the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, OH as models, we can rebuild our urban economy to provide living wage jobs for all that need them.  The Office of Cooperative Development will play a  crucial role by overseeing the distribution of start-up funds, providing technical assistance for these democratically-managed workplaces, and leveraging economic support from community anchor institutions such as the University of Rochester.

Neighborhood Councils & Participatory Budgeting

I will introduce a Charter revision to establish elected neighborhood-level councils that will be given authority over certain aspects of City administration.  Bringing democracy down to this level will encourage and enable more Rochesterians to be involved in our community's political processes and be more invested in their neighborhood's success.  As part of this decentralization, the neighborhood councils will administer a participatory budgeting process, in which all members of the community will be able to designate City budget funds for needed projects.

Other policies that I would support as your next Councilmember:

1. An Independent Civilian Review Board overseeing the Rochester Police Department
2. Restorative justice, that heals rather than punishes for crime
3. Guarantee quality food as a human right
4. End the use of City resources for home foreclosures
5. Introduce curbside compost pickup
6. Divest City funds from national banks
7. Prioritize mass and active transportation in all City planning
8. Encourage the use of City-owned land for urban agriculture
9. Extend existing hydrofracking moratorium to a permanent ban, and pursue legal action against New York State if fracking is allowed anywhere near Hemlock & Canadice Lakes.
10. End the profiling and criminalization of Rochester's communities of color, particularly youth, by the RPD

Drew Langdon grew up in rural upstate New York, in small town called Oakfield.  After spending several years studying at Houghton College, Langdon made the decision to move into the City of Rochester’s Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood to become a worker-owner at Small World Bakery.  

Small World was Langdon’s introduction to cooperative ownership models, which he has since embraced wholeheartedly as the solution to many of our community’s problems.  Other cooperative projects which he has been a part of include a housing cooperative, Ant Hill,  and the recently-formed Rochester Organization for Workplace Democracy.  He is also working on the incubation of a worker-owned grocery store in Rochester’s southwest neighborhoods to help eliminate a large urban food desert.

Langdon has also been active in combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in communities across the country.  He was a member of the 2010 Soulforce Equality, traveling to Christian colleges to educate on the intersections of faith, sexuality, and gender.  He has also been active in statewide campaigns for marriage equality and the passage of the Gender Expression Non-discrimination Act (GENDA).

In 2012, Langdon was the Green Party’s candidate for New York State Assembly in the 137th District.  In this two-way race against Democratic incumbent David Gantt, he received 4498 , or approximately 12%, of votes cast.  He has previously worked on Alex White’s campaigns for mayor and City Council in 2011, as well as Dr. Jill Stein’s 2012 presidential campaign.  In December, he was elected as a co-chair of the Green Party of Monroe County.

Growing Our Future: Food Security & Urban Agriculture
Posted by Drew Langdon 🌻 · October 14, 2013 11:49 AM · 1 reaction

How Democracy At Work Can Revive Rochester's Economy
Posted by Drew Langdon 🌻 · October 13, 2013 5:05 PM

Pride & Poverty
Posted by Drew Langdon 🌻 · September 18, 2013 8:22 PM