So, here is the deal.  The Daniele family - owners of Mario’s via Abruzzi want to build a car wash on the corner of Monroe and Clover - the site of an old gas station.  The Town of Brighton doesn’t allow car washes within town limits so the Daniele’s need a variance.  Plus - that corner is a really, really, really, busy intersection and there is genuine concern on the negative impact to the traffic pattern.  A few Wednesday’s ago there was a Public hearing.  Lots of people showed up and spoke their minds.

Prior to that meeting,  an email was sent by the Daniele family offering a bounty on positive comments in exchange for a $25 dollar gift certificate to their restaurant.  The email didn’t exactly say you had to speak one way or the other - but come on - you get money to speak on an issue that the Daniele family favors.  You are going to speak against?  Hardly.

So  via the D&C

BRIGHTON — The owners of Mario’s restaurant on Monroe Avenue apologized this week for an e-mail sent out to customers offering a $25 gift card to anyone who showed up at a Brighton Town Board meeting Wednesday to speak about a car wash proposed by the family that owns the Italian restaurant and catering business.

…

The offer did not fill the chambers with people, Brighton town officials said, and board members did not find out about the e-mail until after the meeting. But Town Supervisor Sandra Frankel was not amused by the family’s actions.

“It was an inappropriate and unfortunate tactic that they used, but I am glad that they realized that it was not a wise move on their part and have apologized for it and now we need to move forward,” she said.

…

“In an act of poor judgment, we sent an e-mail yesterday that we now realize was inappropriate,” stated the e-mail signed by Mario Daniele, co-owner of the restaurant. “We ask for your forgiveness and know that your e-mail will not be used by us again for any purpose other than special offers for our restaurant.”

The question I have is, who sent the original email?  family Patriarch Mario Daniele himself or one of his family members?  Anyone out there have the email in quesiton?

Anyway, the arrogance and ignorance that underlies this email - well, it might be a good way to run a restaurant but not a public comments section.

What do you think?

Here is Keith’s take on Shirley Sherrod’s situation:

One of our favorite downstate congressmen here at RT, Rep. Anthony Weiner of Queens, went absolutely firebrand yesterday when the House was debating a bill to finally help compensate 9/11 workers. When Republicans objected to the bill on procedural grounds, here’s what happened:

A congressman screaming his guts out on the House floor every once in a blue moon can be pretty cathartic, don’t you agree?

The City of Rochester approved the use of Red Light Cameras.  We can debate the Public safety or big brother aspects or converting public safety into revenue opportunities aspects another time.

The governmental arm known as the Rochester City Council approved their installation.

Well, they have to be installed somewhere right?  Well, how about on the traffic poles in the city?  Sounds - um reasonable.   But not so fast - apparently the County Government owns some of the poles and said not so fast.

via the D&C

A proposal that would allow the city of Rochester to use Monroe County traffic poles to install red light cameras was defeated by a panel of lawmakers this week, forcing the city to look at other options.

The intermunicipal agreement, brought to the County Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee by County Executive Maggie Brooks at the request of Mayor Robert Duffy, was defeated 9-2 on Wednesday, with both Democrats and Republicans opposed.

…

In light of the vote, the city will install the cameras at intersections where it does not need county clearance and will try to use other infrastructure at the remaining intersections, said Duffy spokesman Gary Walker.

This is an example of the multiple layers of government all resulting in a confusion by citizens.  Only the most informed can distinguish the levels and the responsilibly of each level.

Mark my words - At some intersection, someone will likely remark - Stupid government.  they are in ineffective because it has separate poles for utility lines, traffic lights, the traffic cameras, and the whatever other signal there is.  Must be the unions fault.  It’s probably in their contract.

What did Pogo once say?  We’ve met the enemy and he is us….

Tea party activist and Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is saying that despite his efforts to set up another line on the ballot for the Tea Party, he will step aside if he loses the Republican primary to the establishment choice Rick Lazio. He said he didn’t want to play the role of the “spoiler,” but barring an unforeseen implosion, Andrew Cuomo is almost certain to be the next governor of New York.

The Buffalo News has more:

Paladino campaign officials insisted that there was nothing new in Paladino’s comments and that he won’t serve as a Cuomo spoiler.

“This is a hypothetical,” Paladino campaign manager Michael R. Caputo said on the question of whether his candidate might not run on the new third-party line.

“We don’t see how we lose this,” he added about his bid to defeat Lazio in the primary.

Paladino has been gathering signatures to form a “tea party”-like line called the Taxpayers Party.

Quinnipiac released a poll yesterday showing Lazio leading in the primary 39-23 with a third of the electorate unsure. That represents some slippage in Lazio’s previously unassailable position among New York Republicans.

Democratic State Chairwoman June O’Neill said of Paladino: “What a surprise — another wacky statement from Carl Paladino. This early surrender is because he realizes the people of this state would never elect a racist and a sexist as governor.” He was previously embroiled in a scandal involving offensive joke e-mails that he sent to friends.

And so, and so, and so it goes.  The House, yesterday approved $37 billion in emergency appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which Eric Massa told us was unwinnable and every nation who tries to take on the Middle East, sooner, or later learns that they’re not going to win.

Here’s the final rundown on the voting.  I was pleased to see that Maffei and Slaughter both voted no.

Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	148	102		4
Republican	160	12		6
Independent
TOTALS	308	114		10

It’s time to go.  We’ve learned nothing.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

~Benjamin Franklin

So simple, yet our fearless leaders cannot wrap their heads around it.

I’m in Burlington today.  The opportunity to speak with Governor Dean was presented to me, and I took it.  In between returning from Netroots and appearing on the Ed Show, I caught up with Howard outside his office at DFA.  (Interestingly enough, his scheduler’s father-in-law was my Spanish teacher in 8th grade at Honeoye Falls-Lima, and her husband was set to run Eric Massa’s re-election campaign.  Oh well, the best laid plans…)

I was introduced to Howard and had the chance to ask the burning question, “How do we reconcile the progressives to President Obama’s agenda/policies/ and lack of meaningful change?  How do we inspire them to stay on board and move forward?

Well, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when his response was, we keep pushing from the left.  We encourage the administration to grow a spine.  We elect more better Democrats. We call them as we see them.  We raise the intensity and stop letting the right get away with their usual racist rhetoric.

The governor continues to identify the propaganda from the right and on Sunday called out FOX News for being racist.

Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, offered his candid assessment in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” in which he criticized the cable network for being complicit in the controversy.

“Fox News did something that was absolutely racist,” Dean said. “They had an obligation to find out what was really in the clip. They had been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony Black Panther crap and this business and this Sotomayor and all this other stuff.”

To be fair, I would mention that the Sherrod clip was not shown on FAUX News until after she had been dismissed from her position.  The point, of course, is that the clip was shown as it had been posted on Youtube by Andrew Breitbart with no explanation of the context from which it was taken.  Shabby reporting at best.  Racism at worst.

Howard has recently had surgery and is on the mend, but it doesn’t slow him down and he continues to inspire.  What I learned from the governor during his days in the presidential primary was,

Never give up.  Never give up.  Never give up.  NEVER-GIVE-UP.

His message remains the same.

Giving up is not an option.

Might want to check out the recently released documents covering the war in Afghanistan. It is good, eye opening read that detailing the complexities of distilling the War in Afghanistan to a media sound bite.

Read the documents - they are as enlightening as war (any war) is complicated and difficult.

This link via the New York Times has some of the documents including these findings.

• The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
• • Secret commando units like Task Force 373 — a classified group of Army and Navy special operatives — work from a “capture/kill list” of about 70 top insurgent commanders. These missions, which have been stepped up under the Obama administration, claim notable successes, but have sometimes gone wrong, killing civilians and stoking Afghan resentment.
• The military employs more and more drone aircraft to survey the battlefield and strike targets in Afghanistan, although their performance is less impressive than officially portrayed. Some crash or collide, forcing American troops to undertake risky retrieval missions before the Taliban can claim the drone’s weaponry.
• The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded paramilitary operations inside Afghanistan. The units launch ambushes, order airstrikes and conduct night raids. From 2001 to 2008, the C.I.A. paid the budget of Afghanistan’s spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is 20 years old.  I was surprised when I heard that it was only 20 years old.  Anyway what does it do?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications.

I suspect like most civil rights acts - there is still a lot to do.

Now about that same sex marriage thing.

Yeah, the madness is back in the news because it hasn’t gone anywhere.  Recall, the Medley Centre, a center of commerce in Irondequoit turned albatross is supposed to be redeveloped.  Recall the big splash developer Scott Congel made when he announced he purchased the mall and was doing to redevelop it.  Big plans were announced with hotels, movie theatres.  Heck, newly elected Supervisor D’Aurizio had a gut feeling that all was well but remember there is a lot not to like with this deal.

Well  the D&C has an update and it isn’t pretty.

Is there an over due payment?  Well, read this passage and you tell me.

Congel is overdue on a $500,000 payment to the town, one of several benchmarks placed in the March 2009 payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreement. But even that payment’s due date is disputed.Town Attorney David Kresock said it was due in April 2009. Former supervisor Mary Ellen Heyman, who lost to Mary Joyce D’Aurizio in November’s election, said last year that the payment was to have been received on Sept. 1, 2009.

Patrick Malgieri, who was the town’s attorney when the PILOT was signed, said last year that the payment was due on what is known as the “entitlement date.” That would have been April 7, 2009, unless there was a legal challenge to the project, which would have backed up the due date by 12 months.

Malgieri said last year that there had been no legal challenge, and Kresock agreed with that last week. But Malgieri said then that he didn’t “believe that that the obligation to pay the $500,000 (had) been triggered yet,” and town officials would not specify when the entitlement date was or would be.

Read the article - This is a project without a plan.  Remember - there was supposed to be movie theatres and tall buildings, then there was going to be RBTL, heck the article even talks about the remote possibility of a casino.

While Scott Congel is looking for funding, his project is looking for a plan.  Heck of a way to run a development effort.

Any thoughts?

The Netroots Nations conferences are simply high energy events.  You can’t help but feel energized, empowered and hungry for the good fight upon their conclusion.  Anyway, after making it the past two years the collective “we” at RT decided to skip it.  Still there is a longing for that energy.  That said, I would l have loved to been on the ground when President Obama delivered a video address to the attendees.

He reminded everyone that he haven’t moved fast enough but have made some a lot of progress with more changes coming.  The theme, of course, is there is a lot more to do and we can’t afford to slide backwards to the policies that got us here.

Have a look.

What do you think?

Continuing on with our recent theme of Indian American news, there comes an update on the story we reported on earlier this week about the Iroquois Nation’s Lacrosse team boycotting the world championship in Britain because they were not allowed to use their National passports. The team is now saying that although there isn’t enough time to make it to the British championship, they will be issued new passports by the Iroquois Nation that conform to post-9/11 security standards.

WHEC has further details:

The Native American team was denied entry into the World Lacrosse Championships last week in England.

They refused to use U.S. or Canadian passports, saying that to do so would deny the rights of native nations to govern themselves. They hope to play in the Czech Republic next May.

So, in summation, the lacrosse team is not giving up their Iroquois passports, but rather will be getting better ones in the near future that other countries will accept.

As the state budget debate drags on, Gov. David Paterson vetoed a bill passed by the legislature that would have required the governor’s office to seek legislative approval before a tax settlement with the First Nations could be made into law. Because this is a debate between the legislative and executive branches of the state government and not a debate between parties or philosophies, this has the potential to be a rare instance when the State legislature could overturn the Governor’s.

The Albany Times-Union explains further:

This is interesting in that some have suggested it might be the one scenario in which the Senate as well as the Assembly could muster the two/thirds votes for an override. While that prospect has been doubtful to non-existent in the closely divided Senate, with 32 Democrats and 29 Republicans (It was 30 but GOP Sen. Thomas Morahan passed away earlier this month) when it comes to budget matters, this centers on the balance of power not between Dems and the GOP but between the executive and legislative branches.

The New York Post accused the governor of using negotiations with tribes as a “cowardly refusal to enforce state tax law on the reservations.” The Indian Nations in New York had pushed for him to veto that bill so that their negotiations with him or any future governor would not need the approval of the legislature.

“All Fracked Up” is premiering this weekend in the Southern Tier. A documentary about natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, “All Fracked Up” was made by Jeff and Jodi Andrysick of Pulteney, Steuben County. The film is touring the Southern Tier this weekend with more than a dozen showings in the next few days.

The directors describe the movie as a way to encourage more people to get involved in opposing drilling in the Southern New York:

“ALL FRACKED UP” is a hard hitting documentary which shows that hydro-fracking is an extreme technology used to obtain extreme energy with potentially extreme dire consequences. Only 6 out of 100 people have gas leases; however, all of us may suffer terrible consequences such as ruined water wells, devastated property values, rural zoning turned into industrial sites, big city pollution, 24/7 loud noise pollution from large trucks, drilling equipment, and compressor stations. Just watch the movie to see what has happened in PA.

One highlight of the movie is a revealing interview with Anthony Ingraffea, PhD, a Cornell University professor and researcher who helped develop the technology used to hydrofrack the Marcellus shale in PA but now opposes the method because of its inherent dangers. Also, interviews with Joseph Heath, Esquire, a long time environmentally active attorney who just tells it the way it is. You’ll also see the sad horror stories from Dimock, PA as various residents speak about their ruined water wells and property values. And there’s much, much more!

It’s being shown this Saturday in Dundee, Penn Yan, and Hammondsport. Be there or be square!

I don’t know what’s been going on lately, but I just received another in a long line of petitions from the Right.  I even have my “Conservative Party of New York State” 2010 Member Card in hand.??  I must have done something to elicit this kind of attention, but for the life of me can’t figure out what it was.  Last week, it was an immigration piece about illegal immigrants being fed Cabernet and caviar on my dime.  This week it’s, “Stop the Plan to Silence My Values!” straight from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.

No, not THAT Tony Perkins!

But, still enough to make you want to scream.