Fun, funky-fresh newzoids for your reading pleasure.

• A lotta people came out to see the new voting machines:

Hundreds of residents turned out Thursday at the Medley Centre in Irondequoit to check out one of the new machines, which will eventually replace the old lever-style machines that have been in use here for more than a century.

(snip)

Janet Wettenstein of Rochester was ecstatic about the machines’ ADA aspects.

“It’s totally 100 percent easier,” said Wettenstein, who is blind. “I don’t have to have John Q. Democrat or John Q. Republican go in the machine with me. It’s now 100 percent independent.”

One new voting machine will be in each polling site by the November election, Quinn said.

Those machines will be for use by people with disabilities only; other voters will use the old machines.

By next year, all voters in New York will use the new machines, he said.

• And MCC’s student government is helping encourage young voters to get to know the current voting machines. Good on them. Some of the issues from students interviewed?

“I would say where the money goes,” said Benjamin Campbell.

“Funding for education, and definitely welfare,” said Alexandra Dietz

“Probably Iraq. I just feel like the war should be done by now,” said Laura Vishneowski.

These students represent the fastest growing block of voters in the country. Candidates are taking notice.

“It’s time for a change and I think Barack Obama has that change,” Fabrice Broyld said.

• Brighton Supervisor Sandy Frankl plays Clinton at a mock debate with students at RIT.
• Mayor Duffy’s paying off the Fast Ferry loan.
• The D&C Ed Board correctly reminds us that though John Edwards has left the building, the populist issues he fought for should not. (Note the right-wingers predictably attacking the messenger instead of the message in the storychat. Goobers.)

Edwards’ message must not be lost: More must be done to bridge the gap between the nation’s haves and have-nots.

(snip)

In Rochester, for instance, U.S. census data showed in 2006 that the child poverty rate had risen to nearly 40 percent — the highest among all New York cities.

Look, too, at recent data showing that 2.6 million New Yorkers live in poverty. This is occurring in a state that still remains among the richest in the country.

• They also hit a twofer, weighing in on new-ish Attorney General Mukasey:

Mukasey, like his predecessor, will continue to look like the micromanaged tool of the political White House until he takes a hard and unequivocal stand on torture and the treatment of prisoners.

• Let’s rephrase that one to bring it a little closer to home:

The Monroe County Leg will continue to look like the micromanaged tool of County GOP head Steve Minarik until they take a hard and unequivocal stand on using the same winning recipe for selecting Public Defender that produced Ed Nowak. (And until they stop ignoring Dems and ramming through self-serving county contracts and unFAIR plans.)

• Residents in Greece say their town board ignored them in their rush to approve a Wal-Mart. I’m shocked, shocked, I say!
  

  RAW, Residents Against Wal-Mart, and other citizens sued the town in October over its approval of a Wal-Mart store at Northgate Plaza. The residents charge that town officials had their minds made up about the store and didn’t properly listen to residents’ concerns.

  Hmm…maybe the town administration would have time to listen if they weren’t so busy serving the county’s interests.

• Other ways of handling development: “Riding herd on the developers” talks about the hands-on approach Victor and Canandaigua are using to manage development. An interesting note, they’re opening town department jobs to others, just like ER Mayor Jason Koon tried to do when he first took office. Business as usual, most times. Which is why, instead of a screaming, shouting match from their relatives, all you hear about it is a civil paragraph in the paper:

…some housecleaning of both paid and volunteer officials in Canandaigua and, in Victor, a threatened housecleaning.

Canandaigua’s longtime town attorney, Derek Brocklebank, resigned after being placed on interim employment. Former Planning Board Chairman Terry Fennelly was refused reappointment. And unless Planning Consultant Ron Brand is willing to switch from part-time to full-time for the town, he, too, may be ousted.

In Victor, rather than reappoint the full slate of town consultants for another year, the Town Board opted to extend each of their contracts by 90 days, in effect making them interim workers. Meanwhile, applications from outsiders will soon be accepted.
That could mean a big turnover in the people who advise town officials on everything from lawsuits to landscaping.

And development.