Tagged: Syracuse

The Syracuse Salvation Army is taking senior citizens to the New York State Fair this week.  It’s the kind of thing the Salvation Army has been trying to do since the city closed its own senior center. But the merging of seniors from the two centers has been an adjustment for some.  

After more than one hundred years in circulation, Syracuse's newspaper is cutting production to three days a week.

The Syracuse City School District now has a blue print for the next five years, that administrators hope will take it from being one of the poorest performing districts to one of the most improved urban school districts in America. The plan calls for changes across the board.

The state commission that is supposed to come up with answers to the problems in public education in New York is in the midst of a statewide fact-finding tour.  They are getting an earful about how to improve schools, including when they came through central New York Tuesday.

Expanding pre-kindergarten and spreading resources evenly among schools around the state are some of the major suggestions.

The debate over extending the Bush-era tax cuts is very much an issue in the race for the 24th Congressional district.   Democrat Dan Maffei is criticizing incumbent Ann Marie Buerkle's support for keeping the tax cuts in place for everyone.

The mayor of Syracuse begins her annual series of community meetings Thursday evening. This year the meetings will be held in city parks, and come with a twist.

Police are installing more cameras on the streets of Syracuse. The addition is part of a program they say has already cut crime, and in neighborhoods that need it the most.

For more than 22 years shoppers have flocked to the Carousel Center Mall in Syracuse. That name goes in the history books today, as the mall is re-branded as Destiny USA.

Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., has often been called the most polluted lake in America. It was hammered by a one-two punch: raw and partially treated sewage from the city and its suburbs, and a century's worth of industrial dumping. But now the final stage in a $1 billion cleanup is about to begin.

Standing in his office amid stacks of reports, scientist Steve Effler glances at an old front-page headline of the Syracuse Herald-Journal: "Divers find goo in Onondaga Lake."

Last week on the Campbell Conversations, we heard Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner talk about the city's deep financial challenges, and also reflect on the Destiny USA saga.

In this week's continuation of the conversation, she discusses suburban and rural views of the city, the Say Yes program, and her relations with the city council. She also talks about her recent experiences as co-chair of the State Democratic Party, and the political futures of Andrew Cuomo, as well as herself.

Repetition is the name of the game to turn high schoolers into good entrepreneurs.

All this week, high school students taking part in an entrepreneurship boot camp at the South Side Innovation Center (SSIC) in Syracuse have been forced to practice pitching business ideas and cold-calling clients over-and-over.

"The practical piece is really key," says El-Java Abdul-Qadir, and instructor at SSIC.

This is the first year of the boot camp and twenty kids are taking part, but organizers are hoping it will get bigger next summer.

Syracuse's threat of legal action against the Destiny USA mega-mall has prompted a matching threat from the mall's developer.

The dispute involves whether the developer owes the city a $2.2 million dollar payment because of delays in the of the construction of the mall.

In 2002, Destiny USA struck a deal with the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency (SIDA). The arrangement allows the mall developer to make 30 years worth of payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT).

It's been a year since gay marriage became legal in New York state.  Since the initial rush the Syracuse City Clerk's office says it has seen a steady number of same sex licenses applications. Through Mid-July, that means 135 marriage licenses issued to gay and lesbian couples.