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wMelissa's AP stories |
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Here are my stories whose links are no longer available. Only the ones with bylines are included here, for the non-bylined ones that I found more interesting, go to melswar.blogspot.com. Thanks! Let me know what you think!
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wFriday, September 24, 2004 |
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July 23
Upstate school district sues state for 'adequate' funding
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ The Utica City School District filed a lawsuit against state leaders Friday, a move aimed at ensuring the district gets its fair share in light of a court order that funding for New York City schools be made more equitable.
"We're asking the court to declare that the educational aid formula violates the New York State Constitution," said attorney Donald Gerace, who is representing the district.
After a suit filed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity resulted in a court mandate that the state change school aid distribution in New York City, Utica officials said they felt the need to file a similar suit in state Supreme Court, Albany County, to seek more funding for their schools.
"We've used the same arguments as the CFE case. Our circumstances are dire," said Utica schools Superintendent Daniel Lowengard.
Without an increase in funds, Lowengard estimates the elimination of 190 positions, and class sizes in the high 30s.
Utica spends more than $3,500 per pupil less than the state average for regular students and close to $5,000 less per special education student, which make up 15 percent of the school's population.
"It's become obvious through the inaction of the governor's office and the state Legislature they want to have a judicial remedy to the state's education crisis," said Gerace.
Seventeen other school districts have expressed interest in joining Utica, according to Robert Biggerstaff of the New York State Association of Small City School Districts, which serves two-thirds of the state's urban students outside of New York City.
Other suits are being prepared in Buffalo, Syracuse and other communities seeking enhanced education funding.
Gov. George Pataki and legislative leaders say they still hope they can reach agreement on a plan to comply with the CFE ruling by Aug. 2, the day the Legislature next expects to be in session in Albany.
Todd Alhart, a Pataki spokesman, said the governor advanced a multiyear plan to help high-needs districts like Utica that would provide billions of dollars in additional aid and demand greater accountability and performance in every school. Alhart blamed the Assembly for the stalemate.
Calls to the state Education Department, which was named in the suit along with the state Board of Regents, Pataki, legislative leaders and other officials, were not immediately returned.
Of the 9,400 students in Utica, about 50 miles east of Syracuse, 44 percent are minorities and 14 percent speak English as a second language. Seventy percent of students are in free or reduced-cost lunch programs.
posted by
Melissa at 9:47 AM
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July 22
Pataki troubled by Berger allegations
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ Gov. George Pataki on Thursday called the Justice Department probe of former national security adviser Sandy Berger "troubling," adding the case may have significantly impacted the Sept. 11 commission's final report.
"To find out that national security documents dealing with Sept. 11 were wrongfully removed, supposedly inadvertently, and then wrongfully destroyed, supposedly inadvertently, raises real questions as to what was in those documents and why they were removed," the Republican governor said.
Berger, who served in the Democratic Clinton administration, allegedly removed highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings.
Pointing to Thursday's release of the Sept. 11 commission's report, Pataki said during a news conference at the state Capitol that "there may have been information that may have changed that report significantly."
The documents in question discussed the 1999 plot to attack U.S. millennium celebrations and recommendations for dealing with the al-Qaida network.
The Government Reform Committee, the main investigative committee in the Republican-led House of Representatives, announced Wednesday that it too will look into the Berger allegations already being probed by the Justice Department.
"There must be a thorough investigation," Pataki demanded. "You have to wonder why that happened."
When questioned further as to why Berger may have taken the papers in question, the governor said he had an idea, but refused to elaborate. Pataki also said he has never had access to classified documents of a similar nature.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said he wants to see any paper trail between the Justice Department and the White House because of "the questionable timing" of leaked news revealing the Berger probe just days before release of the Sept. 11 commission's report.
Also Thursday, Pataki praised the Sept. 11 commission's recommendation that homeland security aid be doled out by Washington on using a "threat-based" standard instead of on a per-capita basis. Pataki and other New Yorkers have argued that since New York is a proven target for terrorists, security costs are higher here than virtually anyplace else in the country.
posted by
Melissa at 9:46 AM
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June 18
Exhibit opens telling story of Route 22
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
TROY, N.Y. (AP) _ It starts in Manhattan, then snakes north, following close to the New York-Vermont line. Through Patterson, Essex, West Chazy, Route 22 stretches 350 miles from New York's City Hall Park to Montreal's Mount Royal Park.
Benjamin Swett found himself driving up that highway one day, armed with a camera. The trip, and the many that followed, resulted in "Route 22: An Autobiography of a Road," which opened Friday at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy.
"When I started out, I had this idea that this ribbon of concrete would be the link between places that were radically different," said Swett. He found the towns and cities were linked, culturally and historically in ways other than their coordinates.
"Not until I began to look more deeply into the life of this road did I begin to see how, despite so many surface anomalies, different points along the road are connected in deep and often surprising ways," he said.
Historical markers for the Revolutionary War stand at the sides of the road in anonymous towns _ towns that Swett said "look as though they may have gone through some more recent battles themselves."
Swett photographed people _ from a father and son hauling an engine out of a pickup-truck in Crown Point, to bundled up children playing with a toy rocket _ and their landscapes, which varied from a ferry terminal in Essex to Great Meadows Correctional Facility in Comstock to Fort Ticonderoga.
Gina Occhiogrosso, gallery director, found herself drawn to Swett's work because of his process.
"Photography can be detached, but he stopped to talk to the people," she said, looking at a photo of Daphne Kingsley in Whitehall.
The striking portrait, with a smiling college sophomore standing in front of graffiti she painted as a teenager in Whitehall, looks like it could have been taken yesterday or 20 years ago.
"These towns, they once had a bright future," Swett said, captivated by Whitehall. With the emergence of the Thruway and Northway, roads like Route 22 became secondary, and commerce moved toward the traffic centers.
"My pictures don't always show the rosiest of things," explained Swett. An empty J.C. Penney parking lot at Champlain Centre North stares back, hopeless, on the gallery wall.
Another Plattsburgh photo captures six young men in front of a bodega called Munchies, home of the two-for-a-buck-hotdog. Some are smiling, some are not.
Nearby, 13-year-olds Brenna Miller and Amanda Darrah, working as junior docents at the Kent Delord House, look at the camera without expression.
But there are some "rosy" photos. You can almost hear the music glimpsing inside the Knitting Factory nightclub, just blocks away from where Swett believes Route 22 originates.
He believes when Broadway splits at City Hall Park, to the left is Route 9, and to the right begins Route 22. In Plattsburgh, 315 miles north, the two roads intersect again, before Route 22 becomes Canadian Route 219.
"I decided to keep going because it's all the same road," Swett said about continuing on Route 219. "Geography doesn't know national boundaries."
Swett has compiled 60 photos and expanded captions into a book, which will be on display with the exhibit through August 29.
___
On the Net:
www.TheArtsCenter.cc
www.benjaminswett.com
posted by
Melissa at 9:44 AM
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May 14
Residents watch new ship's journey to the lake
By MELISSA MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
TICONDEROGA, N.Y. (AP) _ They pulled out the lawn chairs and waited.
The women sitting at Betty Mason's front yard were excited about the parade _ the police escort, the emergency response vehicles, and the main attraction, a 115-foot-long tour boat on its way to Lake George.
"This is fantastic," said Mason, 66, smiling and looking up at the Adirondac as it was pulled _ slowly _ by her home Friday morning. "I hope all the kids have a chance to see it. It's too bad they couldn't let school out," though a local Catholic school, St. Mary's, did bring children to the site on Thursday.
Although the originally planned eight hour trek through town had expanded to three days, residents of Ticonderoga didn't focus on the closed roads and minor detours. The hulking vessel, which since Wednesday has been carried on back of a specially equipped truck, was expected to launch into Lake George Friday evening.
"What this town needs is a little excitement," said Jean DiFebbo, 77, as she stood at the end of her driveway. The moving crew didn't have to uproot her mailbox, like they did a neighbor's, to squeak the boat by.
"It may have tied up the town for a few days," said Fred Fuller. "But it will give them something to talk about for 40 years."
Fuller, who has lived in the village for 72 years, told the diners at Burleigh's Luncheonette on Main Street about the Adironac's passage through town on Thursday. "It came within feet of the Burleigh House," he explained, hands gesturing the difference. "And there were so many people watching."
The yards, normally dotted with patio barbecues, swing sets, tulip beds and dandelions, also hosted dozens of visitors armed with cameras who wanted to see the operation for themselves.
Edna and Pete Busier decided Friday morning to head 80 miles north of their home in Saratoga Lake to watch. "We didn't want to be sitting next week having coffee and thinking 'wish we saw the boat,' so we came up," Pete Brusier said.
"Most people are treating it like a holiday and parade _ sitting on lawn chairs, waiting for the boat to go by," said Deanna White-Neale, driver of the "Wide Load" escort truck. "This isn't something you see everyday, or every decade."
The Adirondac wasn't the first ship to "drive" through the town. In the 1950s, the Ticonderoga _ another vessel serving Lake George passengers _ made the four mile journey from Lake Champlain to the boat launch.
Mason remembered that spectacle. "I was standing on that corner," she said, pointing just across from her home. "It came up in sections."
"With all the money they spent to make this boat, you'd think the painting crew could've finished the job," joked Kenny Otley, 34, with his fellow EMS workers on standby. Because the more common spelling is Adirondack, someone affixed a paper "K" after the gold painted name, causing many snickers.
After arriving from New Jersey Thursday evening, Maria Robbins, 47, was surprised Friday morning when she went out to run errands and saw the Adirondac coming up her dead-end street.
"It's kind of holding things up," she said, watching the ship inch along Black Point Road. "But it will be nice once it gets in the water."
As temperatures hit the 80s for the third day, the crew of movers, builders, telephone and cable representatives still kept in high spirits.
Joe Nicholas, of Nicholas Brothers Inc., joked with onlookers, "Touch it (the boat). Everyone else in Ticonderoga has!"
posted by
Melissa at 9:36 AM
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