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One of Syracuse’s most intriguing mayors is Democrat James McGuire, who in 1896 bucked a Republican establishment to be elected into office, at just 26.  This week on the Campbell Conversations host Grant Reeher talks with his biographer, Onondaga County Court Judge Joseph Fahey, about the mayor’s times, his legacy, and his controversial activism on behalf of Irish independence. 

A specialty paper producer in Pulaski recently more than doubled its production and workforce. Felix Schoeller, which makes inkjet papers and specialty products, added more than 170 employees in the past year -- boosting its total to nearly 300 people.

Michael Szidat, president of Felix Schoeller North America, says New York state’s economic development agency, Empire State Development, helped the company by giving it tax credits.

The Oswego City School District needs to close a $1.7 million budget gap and is looking at a variety of areas to cut. One thing on the potential chopping block is the Buccaneer Junior/Senior High School. The alternative school was started just two years ago, but already has great support from its students and faculty.
 

Most North Country rivers and streams appear to be cresting or starting to recede after days of rising water. 

A combination of rain and melting snow caused several rivers and creeks to flood in upstate New York, particularly in the North Country and Mohawk Valley. Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a state of emergency for six New York counties this week due to flooding -- including Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Counties.

The Black River, which flows right through Watertown, was above flood stage beginning Monday and closed roads and bridges because of high water.

The Port of Oswego is expecting its shipping season to be delayed until next week, because of ice floes slowing down Great Lakes freighters coming through the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Executive Director Zelko Kirincich says the shipping season was scheduled to begin April 11, but a large amount of thick ice along the seaway forced the Canadian Coast Guard to send out ice breakers to reopen shipping lanes earlier this week.

Local Democrats failed to meet a filing deadline to run a candidate in this year’s race to represent the 22nd Congressional District, which covers an area from Binghamton to Utica and west to Pulaski. Republican incumbent Richard Hanna will only have to get past two Republican challengers in this June’s primary.

Jim Testani is the chairman for the Broome County Democrats. He says the fact there isn’t a Democratic challenger isn’t from a lack of effort. Testani says he met with several potential candidates but says the rising cost of campaigning scared them all away.

The chief of the East Syracuse police department is now faced with the task of phasing out his force by the end of the year. Residents of the village last night voted to dissolve the department and merge it with the DeWitt police force.

The village rejected the measure the first time it came up in October 2012, but taxes have gone up 22 percent since then. The town board resurrected the idea this year and voters passed the measure Tuesday.

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The United States is the world’s largest nuclear power producer, and more than a quarter of New York’s electricity is supplied by atomic energy. As older nuclear plants in the state, and across the U.S., reach the end of their operational life, managing the nuclear waste left behind has become an ongoing national issue.

The Oswego Common Council has voted five to zero to amend its taxi cab law, after working on it for more than a year. The law originally barred people convicted of felonies from driving taxi cabs within Oswego city limits, but sparked a lawsuit from the Workforce Advocacy Center, a group opposing job discrimination.

The Oswego County Jail's inmate population has grown over the past four years, and has forced Oswego County to send inmates elsewhere to be housed. County officials sat at least some of the blame lies with the state.

In this year's budget, Oswego County Sheriff Reuel Todd says he allotted $100,000 to cover the costs of housing inmates at outside facilities. But two months into the new year, Todd had already used $130,000 and is now requesting more funding.

The Syracuse public school system has a plan in place for the future of Fowler High School, one of three it's overhauling this year. The school board has approved turning the school into one focused on public service and law enforcement.

Starting in the fall, incoming students will not attend Fowler High School, but the Public Service Leadership Academy.

The village of East Syracuse is deciding this evening whether it can afford to continue staffing a fulltime police force.

In October 2012, residents of the village voted down the idea of dissolving its police force and merging it with that of neighboring DeWitt. But since that vote, taxes for residents have shot up 22 percent and the town board again approved the measure this spring.

For Janini Puliatti, having more eyes watching over the village is worth the expense.

The new budget for Syracuse public schools includes more state aid than the district asked for, but the school district still has to dip into the fund balance to level its finances.

The Syracuse City School District asked for $7 million from the state in order to balance its budget. Legislators came up with an extra $1.9 million, part of an overall state spending increase on education.

The extra cash will allow them to restore some previous cuts, Suzanne Slack, the district’s chief financial officer, said.

Almost 200 years ago, Utica was home to a passionate abolitionist community determined to rid the young nation of slavery. Now a local group is trying to remind the public of the significance of the city’s role in the anti-slavery movement.

Nearly sixty people came out recently on a typically chilly winter morning to walk downtown Utica streets, each of which had a story to tell from the days of the Underground Railroad.

National environmental groups are trying to focus the spotlight on Gov. Andrew Cuomo, over the issue of the growing international oil distribution center, located just blocks from the state Capitol, at the Port of Albany.   

A small band of demonstrators chanted and held signs Tuesday to protest a confluence of events that has turned upstate New York into a major center for oil distribution.

With its domestic options exhausted, the Onondaga Indian Nation has taken its land claim case to an international commission.

It’s been six months since the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Onondaga’s claim to 2.6 million acres of land in central New York. In the lawsuit first filed in 2005, the nation says land was illegally taken from it in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the city of Utica, the north-south arterial, which connects three major state routes, has divided the west side from the rest of the city. But after years of debate, the state Department of Transportation is now rebuilding the road, with the goal to make the arterial safer and allow people and cars to move more freely between the two sections of Utica. The city says the project will also help its revitalization effort.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was at Fayetteville-Manlius High School Monday announcing an initiative to restore funding to school safety programs. Funding for the federal grants has declined by more than $100 million over the past four years.

April 15, besides being tax day, is the first day that owners of semi-automatic weapons will be required to register their guns with the state police. 

The head of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, a gun owners and pro-Second Amendment rights group, says his members don’t like the new requirement that they register any assault weapons they own under the state’s gun control laws.  

Tom King says while he’s not advising gun owners about whether or not they should register, he says those that want to comply are finding the new rules hard to navigate.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo continued his publicity tour Monday on the recently passed state budget with a stop in Syracuse.

Cuomo, a Democrat, was a late edition to the agenda at the annual meeting of CenterState CEO, a business development group. About a thousand business owners and local leaders attended the luncheon at the OnCenter.

The governor praised CenterState CEO's president, Rob Simpson, and Onondaga County's "phenomenal" Executive, Joanie Mahoney.

Only half of the children in Onondaga County are ready to start their primary school educations when they reach kindergarten, a new report from the Onondaga Citizens League has found.

The report, the latest from OCL in annual studies looking at community issues, says more focus needs to be put on educating children before they reach a classroom.

There are 27,000 children under the age of five in the county. They'll go to 18 different school districts.

Syracuse University has formally entered “The Kent Syverud Years,” as the school’s new chancellor was inaugurated Friday evening.

Syverud took over for Nancy Cantor as the university’s 12th chancellor in January, but the school laid out the orange carpet Friday, and laid on the pomp and circumstance, in a ceremony at Hendricks Chapel.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was the first member of Congress to offer the U.S. Export-Import Bank the opportunity to visit small businesses in her state. The result was a meeting last week at Filtertech in Manlius with the bank's president.

Filtertech designs and manufactures industrial size liquid filtration systems.  

In 2008, the U.S. Export-Import Bank financed the manufacturing of a project Filtertech produced with a company in Italy; a project that helped keep them in business at the time.

Upstate New York’s cities need to make investments in quality of life if they want to recreate their past economic vitality, according to a local expert on cities.

Mildred Warner of Cornell University recently held a conference at the college on the economic state of upstate New York’s largest urban centers.

She says the region’s cities aren’t getting the "full gamut" of rediscovery by younger generations because they’re not investing enough in areas like quality of life and infrastructure.

Young people today are a giving generation, according to a recent poll that shows that  75 percent of millennials donated to causes in the calendar year.  

But the tried and true charitable strategies of galas and golf tournaments often don't cross the generational divide. With this in mind, one Syracuse start-up is hoping to offer charities a chance to reach younger givers using something they relate to: social media.

Most people don't want to make plans for their own death, or for the death of their loved ones. But talking about death can assure that needs and wishes are met, and that patients are as comfortable as possible.

This week on Take Care, Amy Tucci, president and CEO of the Hospice Foundation of America, discusses how hospice care can ease the pain of death. Tucci explains how hospice care can not only help patients, but also their families.

Click 'Read More' to hear our interview with Amy Tucci.

If bent the right way, a balloon can be used to make an animal. If pumped with hot air, a balloon can be used to fly. Balloons have many different functions, mostly in the realm of fun. But, balloons have also been used to save lives through a procedure known as angioplasty.

This week on Take Care, Dr. Amar Krishnaswamy discusses angioplasties. Dr. Krishnaswamy is an interventional cardiologist in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and interventional cardiology.

Click 'Read More' to hear our interview with Dr. Krishnaswamy.

In a continuation of last week's conversation about government whistleblowing, host Grant Reeher talks this week with two actual whistleblowers, both of whom tell powerful stories about their experience.  Susan Wood blew the whistle on the Food and Drug Administration's political stonewalling on the approval of the morning-after pill "Plan B," and Thomas Drake blew the whistle on the National Security Agency's "Trailblazer" data collection project, and was later charged with espionage, bef

A campaign by the New York State Community Action Association to change perceptions of poverty was launched last week in Albany. The "From Poverty to Opportunity Tour 2014" is running in conjunction with a series of speaking events around the state that will feature people sharing personal stories of their experience of poverty.

Karla Digirolamo, CEO of the New York State Community Action Association put together the anti-poverty tour to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Economic Opportunity Act or as it's more commonly known, President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

Several local politicians, including Rep. Dan Maffei (D-Syracuse) and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman appeared at city hall in downtown Syracuse to throw their support behind the federal Smartphone Theft Prevention Act.

The act would require smartphone makers to install a “kill switch” on their devices that would allow customers to delete data and deactivate their phone remotely.

Schneiderman says the major manufactures have the technology to do this but are choosing not to.