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City Council's political action committee is holding a cocktail reception on June 5 to raise money for incumbent Council members. Question No. 1: "City Council has a political action committee?" Why, yes it does. The Committee for an Effective City Council has been around for many years, says Council
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So I suppose the next step could be digging up graves to raid the corpses for valuables. From Huffington Post this morning comes a story about aggressive debt collection at some hospitals. Faced with escalating health care costs, patients who don't pay their bills, and reduced reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid,
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What, exactly, constitutes "downtown" Rochester? The most consistent definition seems to be that downtown is everything within the Inner Loop. If you look at a map, the loop surrounds downtown like an amniotic sac, or "moat" - as some people call it. But Heidi Zimmer-Meyer, executive director of the
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Damn, I feel bad about the Brixners. Jerry and Irene Brixner are the Chili couple who were in that terrible crash earlier this week. She died, and he's apparently in rough shape at the hospital. I've known Jerry Brixner almost all of my life. He used to come around my neighborhood
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President Barack Obama has told ABC News that he now supports marriage equality. Obama said his evolution -- he previously supported civil unions -- is "based on conversations with his own staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and conversations with his wife and own daughters."
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Are you following the case of Captain Bruce Kevin Clark? He's the former Spencerport man who died suddenly and so far without explanation while on a Skype chat with his wife. The incident happened on May 1 while Clark was reportedly on a base in Tarin Kot, Afghanistan,
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Lowest forms of life: blue-green algae, slime mold, John Edwards. I caught an assignment to photograph then VP candidate Edwards several years ago, when he appeared in Rochester. He had his "Two Americas" thing going on, and he clearly relished playing to the crowd. My impression at
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My colleague Tim Macaluso and I spend a lot of time talking about the Rochester school district. It's never an encouraging discussion and usually ends with one or both of us throwing up our hands and saying, "but what are you going to do?" Tim sometimes improvises and
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The City of Rochester will probably make changes to its landmark process as a result of the battle over Cataract Street's old brew house, says Mayor Tom Richards. But it's important that the process is undertaken carefully and thoughtfully, he said. The Cataract Street fight exposed a flaw
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Mayor Tom Richards' initial reaction to being asked to handicap the Maggie Brooks-Louise Slaughter congressional race was pretty much what you'd expect. "What, are you kidding me?" he said in an interview yesterday. "How much of a dope do you think I am?" But he did offer a few thoughts. The
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UPDATE: The D and C has apparently taken Rau's blog down. We've got a PDF copy at right. ORIGINAL BLOG: Democrat and Chronicle blogger Andy Rau has written an offensive, irresponsible post about Congress member Louise Slaughter's health. The blog is tagged "Alzheimer's Disease," and Rau takes every opportunity
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Just a quick hit for you on the Culver Road armory. According to a representative of the South Wedge Planning Committee, a three-story restaurant run by the same people who run Black and Blue on Monroe Avenue in Pittsford is set to open in the coming months.
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Some choice morsels came out at today's City Council meeting on the Mt. Hope College Town project. One of the most newsworthy is that negotiations with YMCA have ended, and a Y will not be part of College Town. What that means for the future of the
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We may get a resolution to the fight over the Cataract Street property tonight. There is an 8 p.m. joint hearing of the Rochester Preservation Board and City Planning Commission to determine if the old brewhouse should be made a local landmark. A vote could come
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I agree it's time for Occupy Rochester to move on from Washington Square Park. The encampment seems to be producing a backlash, though I'm not sure why. And how can Occupy accomplish anything substantial when its participants are spending so much time and energy fighting to stay in the
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I've been looking through the budget documents that the city has made available on its web site. My initial impression is that it would be hard to make a judgment on something like eliminating the Rochester Police Department's mounted unit without proper context. How many arrests does the unit
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Hand me my pitchfork. I'm ready. The hypocrisy on display here is just sickening. Let's hear one more conservative pledge allegiance to family values while cheating on his/her significant other. Let's hear them bag on entitlements while collecting Medicare and Social Security (I'm looking at you, Ayn Rand). Let's see
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Right at the end of HBO's new movie, "Game Change," Woody Harrelson looks at Peter MacNicol and says, "Imagine, a proud pot-loving washed-up TV star playing a top Republican strategist. That's liberal Hollywood, for ya." I kid. Actually, the movie ends with John McCain, played by Ed Harris, giving his
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Those fighting to save the Cataract Street building often point to the fact that North American Breweries received two offers for the brew house as proof that the company refuses to entertain alternatives to demolition. NAB's plans to tear down the old brew house hit a snag
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I'm trying to get a handle on how serious this latest attempt to save the Cataract Street brew house is. North American Breweries, which owns the property, wants to tear down the brew house so it can build a visitors' center and other amenities. An application has been filed
