Tagged: Syracuse

Central New York is waging war on litter. A wide ranging coalition of Democrats and Republicans, and state and local officials, want to get the word out that tossing trash on local roads is bad form.

Some of upstate New York's mayors are putting their brains together to deal with looming fiscal nightmares.

A Syracuse IT firm says a state grant will help it train and add new employees.

Former Syracuse mayor Matt Driscoll visited IV4 in downtown Syracuse Monday to announce the grant. Driscoll is now the director of the New York Environmental Facilities Corporation.

The $50,000 grant is part of the money the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council secured late last year.

The road is clear for another grocery store to move into the empty Wegmans Pond Street location on Syracuse's north side.

Wegmans, which closed its store there last month, has agreed to sell the property to Morgan Acquisitions.  

Mayor Stephanie Miner says the deal doesn't stop another grocer from moving in.

Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long is challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-NY) fiscal record.

Long stopped in Syracuse this afternoon on an upstate New York campaign swing.

Taxpayers in New York are sending too much money to Washington, Long contends.

There's an old promotional video the developer behind the Destiny USA megamall released several years ago. It includes images of glass-enclosed golf courses, huge hotels and helicopter tours of upstate taking off from Syracuse's Inner Harbor.

Despite ending by promising "grand opening, summer 2004," you won't see any of that on the shores of Onondaga Lake today.

All you'll see is an even bigger mall - despite developer Robert Congel winning a 30-year property tax break worth about $600 million as an incentive from the city to build the Disney Land-like attraction.

The first of 550 tons of steel beams has been pounded into the foundation of the new Upstate Cancer Center in Syracuse.  Up to now, most of the work has been prepping the area next to the existing hospital entrance.  

For COR Development President Steve Aiello, Monday's vote by the Syracuse Common Council was a long time coming.

Aiello's firm was selected earlier this year to redevelop the city's Inner Harbor. Then it was granted a memorandum of understanding from the council in February.

But it wasn't until yesterday that the council officially voted in favor of Aiello's $350 million proposal.

While visiting Syracuse today to promote a new bill to help small businesses, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand rebuffed the criticisms of her opponents that she has moved further to the left since taking office.

"I have the exact same values as I’ve always had, and that’s fighting for New Yorkers, fighting for small businesses, and helping get this economy back on track," said Gillibrand.

(CORRECTION June 18th, 2 p.m.: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the estimated cost of environmental cleanup. That amount is roughly $12 million.)

The topic was the redevelopment of Syracuse's Inner Harbor, but it didn't take long for a councilor to bring up the elephant in the chamber: the failed expansion of Destiny USA.

But Steven Aiello, president of COR Development, didn't have much choice on the timing of his meeting with the Syracuse Common Council.

It was just last week that grand plans by the developer of Destiny USA were finally laid to rest.

Aiello isn't looking to build a mall, but councilors couldn't help but raise concerns. The proposed project is just down the road from what was once going to be Syracuse's Disney World.

Veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and their families will get a special welcome home this week at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse.   The idea is to show these vets that the community appreciates their sacrifices.

New York state's overall high school graduation rate continues to rise slowly over time. But one-quarter of students statewide don’t graduate high school after four years. These statistics are according to the New York State Education Department’s release of high school graduation rates for 2011.

The Roman Catholic Church continues it's opposition to the Affordable Care Act clause that requires employers to pay for birth control, a practice the church opposes.  But the fight has gone beyond the confines of the Catholic Church.