3 www.minorityreporter.net | JANUARY 6 - 12 | 2014
LOCAL
Winning Projects for
“Voice of the Citizen” Budgeting for Public Safety Vote
840 votes were cast by local residents
and business owners over the past
two weeks as part of the “Voice of the
Citizen” Budgeting for Public Safety
initiative. This initiative gave the
community the chance to vote on what
they feel their specific neighborhood
needs.
The Southwest quadrant winner was
the Jobs for Life career and community
education program which will provide
job referrals and mentors for 30 adults
and tutoring for 60 youth in science,
technology, engineering and math. The
project also includes seminars on block
club leadership, civic engagement,
financial literacy and home buying
as well as a youth disaster recovery
workshop that teaches skills in disaster
preparation.
The winning project in the Southeast
quadrant includes civic engagement
opportunities like traffic calming
discussions and implementations,
neighborhood
enhancement
projects such as mini-Clean Sweeps,
gardens, landscaping and community
collaboration events such movie
nights, health fairs and holiday
celebrations.
The Northwest quadrant winner was
entitled Crime Prevention through
Environmental Design. The items to be
funded in this project include tactics
to encourage pedestrian traffic and
discourage loitering, street drug sales
and gambling. These would be high
visibility pedestrian crossing signs,
increased brightness of street lighting
in select areas, outdoor café seating
for rotating use among the quadrant’s
restaurants, stores and delis, sidewalk
plantings and hanging baskets and
vacant storefront art.
The Northeast quadrant winner was
the GIS Scholars Program. The VOC
funding will allow the program to add
5 to 10 more students to take part in
after-school training in the operation
of Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) technology. The students will
create a mapping project designed
to assist with crime prevention in
selected areas. They will collect data
and identify crime rates through the
mapping technology, create maps
to plot variables surrounding crime
such as property ownership, poverty,
proximity to services and others. They
will publish and share their results.
Mayor Thomas S. Richards dedicated
up to $200,000-up to $50,000 per city
quadrant-to be spent on projects that
were wholly created and developed
by citizens. The winning projects
are scheduled to proceed to the
implementation phase in January.
State of Rochester BookLet Released
The State of Rochester,” which
provides a snapshot of the status of
the city’s financial, infrastructure,
budget, public projects, public safety
and more has been released. The
report
summarizes
Rochester’s
general census information, economic
conditions, housing units, City budget
and finances, City investments, Bureau
of Housing Development program
outcomes and itemizes the City’s
project pipeline. There is also data
on the City’s workforce, festivals and
events and also a crime status report.
“Although we still face many challenges,
we have much to be proud of,” said
Mayor Richards in the booklet’s
preface letter. “We have seen our real
property values continue to increase...
we flattened our population decline
and seen record public and private
investment in our neighborhoods
and Downtown...People have faith in
Rochester and...we need to continue
to build on that investment.”
The booklet will be available at City
branch
libraries,
Neighborhood
Service Centers and as a downloadable
file on the City’s website at www.
cityofrochester.gov/sor.
The data in the report is sourced and
will give the community a factual,
unbiased look at the state of Rochester.
Democrats Say Yes to MCC Downtown Campus Contracts
Democrats in the Monroe County
Legislature voted in favor of two
contracts for the MCC downtown
campus during a meeting of the
Recreation and Education Committee.
The legislation proposed by the County
Executive would authorize contracts
with LaBella Associates for design
services and DiMarco Constructors
LLC to provide design phase and
construction phase construction
management services.
Office Address:
282 Hollenbeck Street, Rochester, NY 14621
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 26352, Rochester, NY 14626
PH: 585-301-4199 Toll-free: 1-888-792-9303
FX: 1-888-796-6292
EMAIL:[email protected]
PUBLISHER
Dave McCleary
[email protected]\
COPY EDITOR
Lisa Dumas
[email protected]
ART DIRECTOR
Catie Fiscus
[email protected]
“This caucus is pleased to support
these two contracts so the work at
MCC can fina H