Quick Takes (v60): The Times Are Surely Changing

Happy pay day, college athletes! Get your money while you're hot!

I'm torn on the whole Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) changes in college athletics. New NIL rules allowing student-athletes to profit off their 'brand' through sponsorships or corporate partnerships went into effect yesterday.

The NCAA adopted what they're calling an interim NIL policy, after several states passed legislation allowing this kind of benefit for athletes. According to NCAA president Mark Emmert,

This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image, and likeness opportunities. With the variety of state laws adopted across the country, we will continue to work with Congress to develop a solution that will provide clarity on a national level. The current environment — both legal and legislative — prevents us from providing a more permanent solution and the level of detail student-athletes deserve.

Some student-athletes jumped into NIL deals right away; for example, here's the story of Hanna and Haley Cavinder, twin basketball players for Fresno State. They'll be part of a national campaign for Boost Mobile - a company that's going whole-hog on deals with college stars. CEO Stephen Stokols explains that it's not just national deals, there's more.

... he's interested in the appeal that many college athletes have on a local level. He said deals could range from annual contracts worth large sums of money to in-kind deals where Boost provides athletes with free cellphones and service plans in exchange for promoting the company on social media.

A lot of these guys are local heroes... We think it's a big opportunity to get regional and local with relevant names in those markets. ...We want to be one of the biggest companies embracing [the college-athlete marketplace] early. We hope to play a role in helping to shape it. There is a lot of gray area that will hopefully be more defined a year from now.

In my neck of the woods, Syracuse University has rolled out a new program, called ACCELERATE, for kids. The program expands upon one started last year, which provided "every student-athlete with real-time multimedia content access from Syracuse Athletics' communications and creative services teams" which they could share on social media. Now, 

...Syracuse Athletics will offer an intensive bootcamp to all student-athletes beginning in September 2021. This bootcamp will allow for subject matter experts from Syracuse University and the corporate world to deliver practical knowledge to student-athletes on entrepreneurship, brand building, creating a business, finance, accounting, contracts, and agents. The bootcamp sessions will help student-athletes further develop their own personal brands and prepare them for the real-world implications of starting their own personal business.

Other schools will surely offer similar programs, which is great for the athletes. All of them - whether they're in school primarily to enhance their brand and create opportunities to go to the next level, or if they're in school to get a degree and move on to a career outside athletics, this is knowledge that will help.

And, good for the kids to have the chance to make money, instead of their schools making money off them. And let's not forget the coaches, too, some of whom are raking in millions in salary, shoe-and-apparel deals, and other sponsorships. That the student-athletes are the only ones not making money for their services is wrong, and has been for a long time. 

But the NCAA's insistence on prohibiting the kids to be paid for the work they put in - often a full work-week (or more) during the season - in order to preserve the 'amateur' status of the kids? That's nuts. 

I'd rather see all the athletes, in both revenue-earning and non-revenue earning sports, get a salary for the hours they put in, instead of giving them free reign to rake in outside money. And they'd get paid for all their time - games, at practice, in the weight room, traveling, watching film - the whole nine yards, as it were. A salary would ensure that all students on a team, whether they get a lot of playing time or not, will benefit. 

And how about some revenue sharing? Could a small percentage of conference money, TV revenue, ticket income, and the like could be divided up among all athletes, based on some formula that people smarter than me could develop? I bet it could.

An added benefit? With athletes being paid by the school, not by corporate interests, you won't see players competing against each other for the same NIL sponsorships, or worse, bad blood spilling over onto the field if one player gets a better deal than a teammate. 

I don't know what the perfect solution is, but there are good ways to do things, and bad ones. This NIL thing seems like a bad way to do a good thing.

Grains of Salt (v49): Syracuse Partners with SU on Data Analytics

Continuing the collaboration that is the hallmark of Mayor Ben Walsh's administration, the city of Syracuse and Syracuse University have a new agreement on data-sharing.

The agreement, reported in the Daily Orange, will allow SU students access to municipal data on which they can perform analytics and hopefully identify opportunities.

The article recaps emails with Sam Edelstein,the city's chief data officer, who advised that select data will be shared with the students. The city both collects and creates data, he said, and added

We know that students get great experience working with real data like the types that we collect - and we get the benefit of experts helping us to make sense of the information.

The Common Council approved the agreement at the end of July, after discussion privacy concerns. Councilor Khalid Bey was one who expressed concern, as noted in this report from WRVO.

I'm certainly a person that's for creativity and innovation, but we have to be careful about being creative at the expense of the taxpayer. Hackers are very good. We learned that. I want us to be a little more clear about what we're doing. I can see the value of the exchange. But I thought the downplay on our concerns with security, relative to the data, was a little negligent. 

Even though Edelstein said much of the information is already made public, or could be -  most of it comes from infrastructure projects - Bey is right to be concerned, and the city should take privacy concerns seriously. It's particularly timely, given the recent ransomware attacks on both the Syracuse City School District and the Onondaga County Public Library systems.

No one benefits when these concerns are downplayed, certainly not the administration.

SU will receive only copies of the data, via the cloud, not access to the systems where the data is stored. Edelstein said the city will choose the data carefully, and "is sensitive about what data is presented, especially if it contains personally identifiable information." The Common Council should request regular updates from Edelstein on this.

How might city taxpayers benefit from the new collaboration? Edelstein mentioned dashboards for individual city departments are a possibility' these could complement the city's Performance Dashboard, which gives a whole-city look at things like financial and neighborhood stability and service delivery. l'll talk more about the Dashboard in another post.

I agree with Edelstein on the bottom line here. Again, from the WRVO article,

We just have a lot of information and we're going to collect a lot more of it in the coming years. We will never have the staff to be able to analyze all of it and make the decisions  that we need to make. Tapping into expertise and resources at the university is kind of a no-brainer to me. 

The goal is to have the project up and running this fall.

Grains of Salt (v48): Performance Park

I'm trying to catch up on posts I had in draft last month, from before and after vacation, so thanks for bearing with me.

I saw a post on the Facebook page of the Near West Side Initiative (NWSI) announcing something called Performance Park.

Just want to introduce everyone to Performance park. This is a multi-use space created to promote health, recreation, arts and parking. The parking spots are going to be wide and include outlets so the space can also be used for farmers markets and even food trucks as well as promoting local entrepreneurship. A cultural space that's for everyone, and accessible to the community. Its also an expansion of our indoor performance space (SALTspace). We are looking to make this a Mecca of performing arts for members of our communities. The park will include: 87 parking spaces, Athletic equipment and surface solar power, sight lighting and security, Performance Stage and Built in viewing/seating areas, Onondaga county/save the rain storm water retention systems, Trees and Landscaping, and Community Art. 

Intrigued, I started digging around to see what other information I could find on this project. Before we get into that, though, here's some background on the NWSI.

The not-for-profit group got its start under the 'scholarship in action' umbrella of former SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor (who listened to me once, much to my surprise). Cantor spearheaded a number of collaborative projects with the City of Syracuse, including the Connective Corridor, the Warehouse building at the edge of Armory Square, and more. SU provided staff, support, and financing for the NWSI and helped guide the group for the first ten years, before pulling back in 2017.  Other founding partners included the Gifford Foundation and Home Headquarters.

The organization focuses on arts, literacy and technology in what's called the SALT District, which is now home to WCNY, our local PBS TV station and a broadcast hub for several other affiliated stations, the Gear Factory and other studio space, Skiddy Park, and much more.

Performance Park, it seems, has been part of the vision for a while now.  Here's a link to a 2015 design plan for the project, created by Locus Design + Communications, showing  2018 construction date.  From the plan,

What do you do with 77,000 square feet of vacant land adjacent to one of the country’s most innovative public broadcasting stations within one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods?

The Near West Side Initiative saw the potential for massive impact, but they needed a vision they could present to others.  A vision that showed a socially/culturally positive community asset that also generated revenue for the NWSI.  

LOCUS created a multifunctional urban space that supports economic development of local small businesses, provides a place for neighborhood kids to hang out, and establishes a permanent outdoor performance venue for the city’s many different theaters and performance groups. 

It's got solar -roofed market stalls, rainwater collection, play areas including chess and ping pong tables, parking, performance space - it's a pretty cool design.

I'm not sure why construction didn't start when the proposal thought it would, or whether it was held up waiting for it to be approved by the Common Council, which is was in April 2017 - but what is important is that construction is now underway, and we can look forward to the opening of this new, innovative space in the not too distant future.

Wondering on Wednesday (v157)

I'm thinking maybe we'll do something different tonight, and not talk about anything having anything to do with anyone who's anyone, and instead wonder about completely different things, how does that sound?

I wonder how many people believe in the spirit of all of the holidays people celebrate at this time of year?  I'm not talking about religious beliefs, I'm talking about people who believe in the true spirit of opening hearts and homes (and yes, wallets too) to help others, to entertain them, to encourage and support them?

For example, there's the man in West Virginia who paid off a woman's mortgage so she and he sons wouldn't lose the only house she had ever owned. The anonymous donor is now five years into this tradition of helping someone else out of the goodness of his heart.

It looks like I came and gave a great gift to someone, but in fact the gift is to me because if you never felt the spirit of giving, there's nothing like it. It's the best feeling that you can have. This is the best Christmas present that I will receive this Christmas.

I wonder how much longer he'll be able to keep this up, and I hope that there's another Santa waiting in the wings to take his place when the time comes.

This type of charity is similar to what we've seen around the country in recent years, when people walk into a Walmart and pay off the entire layaway balances - $40,000 or even $50,000 at a time.  It's both an anonymous thing, and a famous person thing now. Tyler Perry and Kid Rock are among the celebrity types who have done this.  I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty cool when no one knows who did it, vs. it being a household name.

Need another example? There's a website run by fans of Syracuse University sports - nunesmagician.com  - which combines a love for the Orange with an irreverent streak with a charitable streak. The last time SU went bowling, the guys at Nunes Magician ran a campaign to get folks who weren't going to the game to put up money for tickets so kids in the bowl town could go tho the game.

They're at it again this year, seeking to raise $14,444 (44 being an important number in these parts) to hopefully send at least 130 underprivileged Orlando-area kids to the Camping World Bowl.  The kids get to sit in the SU section, get SU merch, food while they're at the game, and get to be part of something they'd otherwise have no way to experience. So far, more than half the needed funds have been raised via a gofundme page and a hashtag - #cusetixforkids.  I wonder if folks would be willing to share the hashtag and the fundraising page?  That would help.

Need more examples?

• There was the woman who set out food for a dog that was waiting for its owners to return home after the Camp Fire in California; she also located the homeowner's other dog almost 90 miles away.
• Or the man who gave up his first class airline seat to a mom and her sick child. 
• Or the Cabela's Santa who got down on the floor with a blind, autistic child and allowed the child to feel his clothes, his beard and his 'twinkling eyes'

This type of stuff happens all the time, in my neck of the woods and yours. Just as, we know, all that other stuff we're NOT wondering about tonight does: the palace intrigue, the inside baseball stuff, the sausage making that is politics and government in this day and age. 

Enjoy the interlude - we'll be back to the regular wondering next week, if not sooner. 

Grains of Salt (v38): A Personal Touch

Question: If you received a letter from your local government, and the envelope included a personal note, would it inspire you to open the letter?

And if, instead of the garden-variety form letter, you had a personal note from the mayor, would you maybe pay your past-due taxes?

Seems that's exactly what happened right here in Syracuse when Mayor Ben Walsh and others staffers sent handwritten notes to folks with outstanding taxes -- which brought in $1.47M over a four month period, according to this article.

The idea to send the notes came from the folks at the X Lab, a think tank at SU's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The guys from the X Lab worked with the city on how to reduce foreclosures and increase tax collections, and came up with the idea trying a personal note after doing some research into how people respond to different types of communication.

Here's how it worked: around 1900 people got the standard government issue form letter, but another 3800 or so got a handwritten letter, some of which also included a note on the envelope. The purpose of the letters was the same: notify the property owner of the delinquency and try to get them to pay up.  The personal letters went further, explaining that if they didn't pay up they'd lose their homes, but the city didn't want that to happen. The letters also explained some of the city services that the taxes support.

The results were pretty impressive: people who received the note on the envelope paid 88% more than the control group, the ones who just got the form letter. Even the folks who got the letter without the note on the envelope paid 50% more than the control group.

Walsh, a Maxwell grad himself, noted

This partnership with X Lab helps both the City and our residents. It's the kind of positive outcomes that occur when you aren't afraid to innovate and try something new. By using evidence and data to improve government services, processes and initiatives, we are helping to balance the budget while at the same time improving the health and well being of our citizens. 

Delinquent taxes are a long-standing problem in the city, with some $30M outstanding on over 2700 seizable properties,where the owners are more than two years behind - before this project started. And, there's another $9.6M outstanding on this year's taxes.

Also long-standing problems? Housing instability and poverty. Which is why it's great that we're seeing innovative approaches to these problems, and that we're seeing collaboration between local governments, SU and other educational institutions, and organizations like the Allyn Foundation, which provided grants for X Lab collaborations.

And honestly, this is exactly why Ben Walsh was elected mayor - to find innovative ways to improve life in the city, to find and work with any willing partners to try and solve these long-standing problems, and to get us back on track financially. 

Kudos to everyone involved.

TGIF 3/23/18

Around these parts, we're especially glad it's Friday, as our hometown cardiac kids, the Syracuse University Orange, are playing tonight in the NCAA's Sweet Sixteen!

Last team to get into the tournament, three upsets in a row, close games against high-scoring teams which all either had really, really bad nights or had a really, really hard time with our deadly Boeheim zone defense, which is, according to fans and experts alike, nothing at all like a standard 2-3 zone.

But that's just the first reason we're in TGIF mode.

I was laughing today, trying to follow the president's tweets about how happy he was with the spending bill, that he'd sign it, that he was unhappy and wouldn't sign it, and how happy he was to have a signing ceremony, and in the end, how he signed it anyway. Not that there was ever a chance that he'd really veto the measure -- that would not make for a happy Friday, would it? I mean, Trump taking credit for shutting down the government? Not on your life!

I'll have an OrangeVerse post for you with his full remarks tomorrow, but here's just one piece of it.

But I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It's only hours old. Some people don't even know what's in it - $1.3 trillion - it's the second largest ever. President Obama signed one that was actually larger, which I'm sure he wasn't too happy with either. 

Probably made President Obama's day with that comment, don't you think? And Nancy Pelosi's day, too? Talk about TGIF!

Tomorrow's #MarchforOurLives is another reason to be in a TGIF mood. I know, I know -- they're too young, they don't know what they're talking about, they don't have any experience, and my favorite, they should be nice to people instead of marching and protesting and all that. But the truth is, in order: they're not, they do, they have the worst possible kind, and they are. Lots of people disagree with their message, but their participation, and their effort and their working to make a difference should be recognized and celebrated.

Finally, tonight, I'll close with this delightful comment from Dr. Ben Carson, the fish-out-of-water HUD Secretary who has been all over the map on the $31,000 dining set that was ordered by "career staffers in charge of the building" - except that it wasn't. Seems Mrs. Dr. Carson was very much involved, and Mrs. Dr. Carlson was very much thrown under the bus by her husband. In testimony before a Congressional committee investigating the debacle, which came to light when a complaint was filed by a staffer unhappy about the way-over-the-limit spending.

I left it with my wife. The next thing that I, quite frankly, heard about it was that this $31,000 table had been bought.

The Secretary cancelled the order after it was brought to his attention (by the media, not by anyone at HUD) and presumably is now trying to make amends with his wife. You can watch his statement here.

TGIF, everyone and Let's Go, Orange!

The Update Desk: The SU Bookstore

This one is the story that will never die, I'm afraid.

It was back in July of 2012 that I first wrote about the bookstore/fitness center/retail complex that was proposed by the Cameron Group LLC for a corner of the Syracuse University hill. The first post was on the question of offering a 30 year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT agreement. It was actually the second time that vote was being considered; the first time, it was pulled in the face of certain failure.

The second post, on the same day, was announcing the not-surprising outcome - approval of the deal by a "bitterly divided" council on a 5-4 vote. To get the approval, there were some binding attachments to the deal, including minority hiring requirements for the developer, and fitness programs for minors, to be developed by SU. If these requirements were not met, the PILOT could be revoked.

Fast forward to April 2014, when we next heard about the bookstore project - or, I should say, the lack of a bookstore project.

The Syracuse Industrial Development Agency's directors asked their lawyer last month to look into the status of the $20 million project after noticing no construction occurring at the project site at the northeast corner of University Avenue and East Adams Street.  The same agency declared the developer, Cameron Group LLC, in default of its tax deal in November because construction had not started by the August 21 deadline included in the deal.   

Say again?  The project was given only the second 30-year PILOT ever offered by the SIDA (Carousel Mall/DestinyUSA being the first) and nothing was going on at the construction sight? For the second time? Ah, but everything's OK, we were told. The developer promised to get the building completed on time, ready for opening in June of 2015, and there should be no concern, honest everything's fine.

Then, in June of 2014, SU fired Cameron Group, noting that

The developer has been unable to adequately address the University's concerns or demonstrate a credible ability to successfully complete the project as it had contractually agreed to do so.

Shortly thereafter, the university and the developer filed suits against each other; settlement negotiations began, and bike lanes remained blocked.

In August 2015, the University took steps to restore the construction site to its pre-development status, making it pretty again, opening up the bike lanes, laying sod and the like.

And now, we learn that SU is suing Bond, Shoeneck and King, their lawyers, for failing to include a clause in the contract with Cameron that would have required them to act a little more aggressively to get everything in order.  The missing clause notes that "time is of the essence" and, had it been present, SU feels they would have been able to fire the developer for lack of progress without being liable for anything.

And had time been of the essence for the developer, rather than for the Common Council who felt a special session was necessary to get this thing approved in the first place  back in 2012, we might have a thriving facility up on the Hill. Instead, we've got no development, no $64K a year in taxes, no new bookstore, no fitness programs for city kids, and so on.

We've got nothing.

Winners Never Cheat

Am I the only one who was a little confused by the editorial in Sunday's Post-Standard about the NCAA's investigation of and penalties for SU's basketball program (and the football program, if anyone cares)?

The very much rambling column by the editorial board declared that

NCAA standards are so exhaustive, schools maintain whole staffs of people to monitor and enforce them. Some rules are picayune; others are simply inane. But rules are rules, and SU admitted it violated at least some of them. Not all violations are equally severe, however. 

OK -- so, lots of rules are petty, or trivial, or silly, but some are serious and meaningful too. Either way, they are the rules that NCAA members need to meet. SU has a compliance office staffed by people who are supposed to know what the rules are; they have an athletic director who should be familiar with compliance, having worked at one of those schools the editors highlighted as having received similar penalties; and, of course, they also have a basketball coach who has been through this before.

The editorial continued with this:

We question whether the punishment in this case fits the crime. (After all, no state or federal laws were broken).  

So that's our ethical threshold now - no state or federal laws broken, so we're OK?  The rules are petty and ridiculous, so why follow them? And there are too many of them, how can we possibly keep track?

Failing drug tests. Cheating on class work. Accepting 'extra benefits' including, it's alleged, players being paid for or given academic credit for doing very little work at a local YMCA. A school provost and the Athletic Director and others doing everything possible to secure eligibility for a player who clearly was not meant for college absent his ability to play defense. Violations going back to before SU's National Championship in 2003, which against all odds was left standing unscathed.

These are the things in the NCAA's report, many of which the university admits to, had self-reported, and had gone so far as to self-impose a post-season ban in a year that the team would have needed a miracle to secure tourney eligibility, but a ban none-the-less.

In addition to the 'no laws were broken' viewpoint, we have the "everyone's doing it" defense, such as it is.

I can only imagine friends who have kids who participate in athletics in school telling them it would be OK for them to cheat since everyone does it. What's the lesson there?  And why would a parent work hard raising their children to be honest players, honest students, when coaches and athletic directors are going to bend the rules?

Well, you try to hard with your kids, because winners don't cheat and cheaters don't win, or at least they're not supposed to, and if they get caught they get punished. Remember last year's Cinderella Little League team, Jackie Robinson West? Or the Skaneateles football team under Tim Green? Isn't that what's supposed to happen? What about Lance Armstrong, who cheated for years, denied it vigorously, even going so far as to create a special website to debunk the charges, only to finally come clean. Isn't that what's supposed to happen?

SU has indicated they will appeal, and Boeheim is clearly planning on it, based on his comments at the Hardwood Club dinner this past Sunday night. It will be interesting to see play out is the appeal process:

• Will either SU or Boeheim seek to have the more than 100 vacated wins restored? 
• Do they focus on the twelve scholarships that were taken away? 
• Do they try and ditch the probation, which didn't include any tournament bans but require the school to follow the rules, even the picayune ones? 
• Does SU offer Daryl Gross as a sacrificial lamb?
• And how long will it take for any decisions to be made?

Earlier this year, Jim Boeheim  famously pointed out that he doesn't give a shit whether people think he runs a clean program. 

I'm not a Boeheim 'hater'. I'm disappointed in him, and I hope that he'll take some time, as he prepares a plan to save his legacy, to rethink that comment he made back in February. To think about how it impacts his kids, all the rest of the kids in our local schools, and all of the parents and fans and alumni and community organizations that rely on the SU basketball team to help get them through the long, cold winter.  

Wondering, on Wednesday (v2)

In his current campaign ad, which lets us know that he supported a bill to withhold Congressional paychecks if a budget is not passed, why at the end does incumbent Dan Maffei say he supports the message because "we've gotta hold them accountable?"

Please say it's guaranteed that Matt Park will be The Voice of the Orange, now that Syracuse University has agreed to "maximize (their) interests" by renewing their agreement with IMG for broadcasting and multimedia rights?

Do you wonder how our Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo, is sleeping these days now that he's lost yet another attempt to keep Zephyr Teachout off the primary ballot, and union support for his candidacy is wavering?

How did all of the thirty-something, passionate, extremely articulate blacks who are commenting on Ferguson manage to become so successful in the face of hopelessness and hate, and why isn't anyone asking them how they did it?

How can they legitimately call it Sav-On Gas when the price was as much as 40 cents per gallon higher than lots of other stations last Saturday?

Will this be the year that New York State Fair finally tops the 1,000,000 attendance threshold again?

Pick up the Phone, Make that Call

The other day, in one of my posts about Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner's State of the City address, I mentioned the Greater Syracuse Land Bank.

As I noted, the Land Bank had taken ownership of the house next door to us, but I didn't have a lot of information on what that meant. I knew that the goal was so help increase property tax collection, and to help get abandoned properties back on the tax rolls, but other than that I didn't know much.

But first, a little bit about the neighbors.

When they moved out in December, what I'd call a less than optimal relationship came to an end. We sure didn't see eye to eye on the simple things that go into being good neighbors. There were many times during the years they lived here that the lawn was waist-high before they tried to weed-whack it into submission. And there was the time that their tree fell onto our garden; after discussion, it was agreed that we would hire the contractor and our families would split the bill, provided it was below a certain threshold. Suffice to say, I never got their half; rather, it was 'my fault' that I wanted the tree moved, instead of waiting for them to take care of it. In the winter, the sidewalk was either not shoveled, or shoveled in a path about six inches wide - and yes, there's a school three doors down.

There were days, no, weeks and months that it seemed like everything they owned was in the yard, in the driveway, on the back deck, or on the front porch. Their garbage cans and recycling bins would stay in the yard, or the road, or the middle of the sidewalk, for days on end.

And yes, in case you're wondering, we did mow, and shovel, and bring the trash cans in, pick up junk from the yard, and things like that, in a neighborly, non-confrontational way.

Sadly, if we hadn't seen them move, it would have been hard to tell that they did. From our house, we could still see their front porch cluttered with broken furniture and other debris; the rug that had been haphazardly thrown over the railing of the back deck a few years back was still there, frozen now; and a healthy supply of broken toys, tools, chairs, tables, and quite a bit of just general junk stayed behind.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I called the Land Bank office to find out what was going to happen with the property, and what the protocol was if we saw folks lurking or hanging out. Obviously we would call the police, but were we supposed to call the Land Bank office as well?  And were the former owners supposed to be around?  The answer to those questions were yes and no, respectively.

I also asked if there was any way the property could be cleaned up a bit; after all, it's a house that needs work for sure, but it's pretty unattractive with a swimming pool ladder in the side yard (the whereabouts of the pool remain unknown). Debbie, the woman I spoke with in the Land Bank office assured me she'd check into it and call me back.  Within 90 minutes, I got a return phone call, and Debbie let me know that she had spoken with another woman in the office who had immediately written up a request to have someone check the property.

Today, when we got home from work, everything was gone. Rug, pool ladder, broken toy hanging from the tree way out back, all of the junk from the porches, the driveway, the yard, behind the garage - everything. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be a massive understatement.

The last time I tried something like this,I emailed then Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor and asked if the university might be able to help us combat violence in the city; within a matter of days, the SU Athletic Department made an anti-violence video that played in the Carrier Dome and as a public service announcement on the all the local television stations. This time, I asked someone to help make my neighborhood a little better in the near term, while they worked to find someone who would help make the neighborhood better over the long haul -- and they did.

Neither of these ideas come close to the rocket-science threshold; similarly,acting on them, by sending an email to SU's chancellor or calling the Land Bank office, didn't take a lot of effort on my part.

And that's the message here: we have the power; we just have to use it.

• If you see trash on the ground, pick it up. 
• If you have an empty lot or an empty house in your neighborhood, mow the lawn in the summer and shovel the snow in the winter.
• If there's a chance that a public servant might be able to help you out, ask them.
• And if you have an idea, share it.

I'm never going to have enough money to influence a politician or get face time with a famous educator or businessperson, but if I care enough to try, I might just get someone to help out.  

I encourage you to care, and to try. 

About That Stadium

Last night I offered my second post on Governor Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address. I noted he called out the collaborative efforts that we've grown used to here between Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney and Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, and how they could be an example for other leaders in any of New York's 10,500 jurisdictions.

Another focus of last night's post was the issue that has apparently slowed the collaboration, the Onondaga County - Syracuse University - SUNY Upstate Medical University - private developer - Sonofa Governor plan to plop a $500 million sports stadium in the city of Syracuse.  Notably absent from the collective planning was Mayor Miner, according to several reports. The mayor has some questions; other politicians and community leaders do as well. I do too, a few of which have been answered to some degree in this interview WYSR's Joe Galuski did with Joanie.

I initially wondered about the proximity of the suggested location to the elevated section of Route 81, which folks around here know will reach "the end of its useful life" in 2017. Conversations on what to do with the highway continue, with the public comment portion of the discussion coming to a close this week. The solutions for 81 haven't sounded all that creative -- a 'boulevard' in place of the elevated highway is the leading proposal, I think -- but it would be interesting to picture how the two projects would intersect, what the construction schedules would be, and how we ensure that we get full value out of both.

Our infrastructure issues, which span the width and breadth of the city, would not likely be improved by the development of the stadium and the other 1 million feet of commercial and residential space in the neighborhood, which according to Mahoney's radio interview would include a couple of small parking garages and a hotel. (There are close to 12,000 parking spaces within half a mile of the proposed location). And note, of course, that we still don't have a convention center hotel, and this project won't give us one.

I was confused on what the tax status of the project would be. SU and SUNY Upstate are generally tax-exempt, and it would be a concern if the stadium property also was tax free.  Mahoney indicated it would be privately owned, and taxable.  That's a good thing, as long as we actually collect taxes on it. Typically developments end up with Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) deals, as well as sales tax exemptions on construction, waiver of filing fees, and so on -- so I would hope that the tax-ability of the property was realized very quickly, rather than after some 10, 15, 20 or even 30 years, as has been the case on past development projects.

I wondered, If we build this and SU will come to play there, is it for basketball? Football? Lacrosse? All of these?  Does SU really want to give up the largest on-campus basketball arena and instead rely on a private facility at an off-campus location? That surprises me, unless that's the only way they'll be able to get 35,000 or more in to a game.

Because, we all know, of course, about the 'down-sitting-donor' yoga pose which is regularly exhibited at Carrier Dome events, and maybe this new facility could solve that problem. Of course, then would you have folks get football season tickets at the Dome and other sport season tickets at the new place? And parking passes at both? How's that going to go over with the old guys who pay big bucks for their front row seats or their luxury boxes? I'm trying to picture my company, who has some limited sponsorship at the Dome, having that conversation in the executive suite.

Carrier Dome from Onondaga Lake

Or, does the new facility get used for SU football too? Better for the donors, I guess. But what then becomes of the Dome? Can't imagine that SU would let her sit there unused, occupying critical on-campus real estate. Could we -- would we -- lose our iconic Teflon bubble? Lord, I hope not!

And the Syracuse Crunch?  Mahoney indicated in her newspaper interview that they might be on board. Doesn't that leave a gaping hole in the Oncenter schedule? And, correspondingly, in the wallets of the businesses that rely to some degree on Oncenter events to bring in revenue? Are we just going to sacrifice those businesses for the new ones that will grow up in the new stadium neighborhood?  I know that's Governor Cuomo's style, as he showed us with his Tax-Free NY plan, allowing new businesses and their employees to be tax free, while everyone else pays as required.

Mahoney indicated this would be a 365-days-a-year facility, that would get us the events that currently hop over Syracuse travelling from Rochester to Albany and vice versa. That would be a good thing - it would almost have to be a mandatory thing, so that we could get some money out of the hotel room tax.  And that we'd have concerts, which SU couldn't put on for the general public without having to make a crazy stretch to prove an educational component and protect their tax status. So my question about getting a Springsteen concert, well that could theoretically happen if we built this thing.

All that's well and good, I guess.  My main concern with this is that we have a private university, a private stadium owner, a private developer with his million feet of stuff, and yet, it sounds like something close to half of the project funding-- over $200 million from the state alone, with additional contributions from SU, Onondaga County, and others -- is coming from public dollars.  I griped about that when we taxpayers spent over a billion on the new Yankee Stadium, and another $800 million or so for the new Mets playground. I complain about it every time someone comes with hand outstretched and says "I have a great idea! It's so good I want you to pay me to make it happen!"

I understand bold ideas, and creative thinking, and a bunch of people sitting around talking about fun stuff.  I just hate when those conversations take their inevitable turn to government coffers.

And I wonder where are all the limited-government folks, because they should be screaming about this. And because I'm not sure, but I don't think you'll find mention of a stadium anywhere in those pocket Constitutions people are so proud to carry around. 

Fortune Favors the Bold (Pt 2)

In his State of the State (SOTS) address, our Sonofa Governor Andrew Cuomo touched on many subjects; see my summary here. One of the things that he specifically mentioned was the uncommon collaboration between Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner and Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney.

Cuomo is familiar with both women. Miner is the co-chair of New York's Democratic Committee, and in her role as our 53rd mayor she's frequently butted heads with the governor on financial issues, among other things.  Mahoney, a Republican, participated on Cuomo's transition team and is also a member of his Moreland Commission to clean up Albany. Here's what he had to say about our leaders:

And there is a ray of hope because there are local leaders who are stepping up to the plate and I would like to take a moment to recognize the great Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney and the Mayor of Syracuse Stephanie Miner who are working together. They are working together to see if they can achieve consolidation and shared services between Onondaga County and the city of Syracuse. We wish them well and we hope other leaders follow their example because that is exactly the right course. 

Well, today we learned that things aren't always perfect with our Dream Team.  The topic that has them on opposite sides, at least for now? Building a new sports facility in Syracuse, primarily for SU.  This article provides a lot of the details on the proposed project, which Mahoney has been working on for a while. Here are some highlights of the deal, now not expected to go through:

• perhaps as much as $200 million in state funding, through an agreement with Cuomo, to go towards a half-a-billion dollar project slated for the old Kennedy Square neighborhood sandwiched between the University Hill medical complex and Water Street.  That area is already being developed as part of Upstate's seemingly endless appetite for expansion and SU's Connective Corridor initiative
• a commitment from the developer of the site to look to get an additional one million square feet of mixed development (residential and retail) near the area for the stadium
• contributions from SU, the 'major tenant', and from the County Legislature towards the project
• a private company to manage the facility.

Given their prior collaborative efforts it seems uncharacteristic that Miner was only brought in towards the end, after much had already been put into motion but Mahoney admitted that was the case. She also indicated that Miner balked, stating

I see this as a tremendous opportunity for the whole region, but I don't want to do it over the mayor's objections.  At the end of the day, she is the mayor and she gets to set her priorities.  My priorities, or the state's priorities, or Syracuse University's priorities for the city don't take precedence over the mayor's priorities. 

Those priorities for the city are mundane things, like replacing 100-year-old water mains before any more of them burst; new police cars, which are being replaced more slowly than they likely should be; mandatory water treatment initiatives; repairs to existing recreational facilities actually used by city residents, as opposed to a stadium that would only be visited by city residents.

I'm sure those priorities also include trying to do something about our neighborhoods and nearly 2000 abandoned properties; our schools; fighting crime; providing services in a city that's close to 50% untaxable, and all those other things that mayors are supposed to worry about.

Miner will undoubtedly have further conversations with Mahoney; she did send questions to SU chancellor Kent Syverud, which you can read here.  Syverud, on his second official day as chancellor, issued a statement, including these wise words:

I would hope that no community leader, including me, would be criticized for asking relevant questions before reaching a decision. 

I couldn't agree more.

Frankly, I'm astonished that Mahoney, the Legislature and all of the other interested parties cooked up this plan without engaging the city - I mean, I can only imagine what Joanie would think if I got together with her neighbors and came up with a plan to put a gazebo in her back yard, then presented her with about 70% of the details and said "Come on Joanie, let's go!" I expect I'd be met with a 'lack of enthusiasm' don't you?

To Cuomo's point in the SOTS, let's hope that other leaders who are looking to follow Miner and Mahoney down the path of collaboration don't take this little misstep as a sign that partnering with other jurisdictions - we have over 10,000 of them in New York, after all -- is the wrong way to go.  It's absolutely the right way to go, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it here in Central New York.

And to his point that 'fortune favors the bold', one of things that sticks out the most on this is the 'bold' hand of the Governor, the hand that guides things behind the scenes and then presents them for everyone to take in when he's done, whether they like it or not. Reminds me of the old adage, if you can't play nice, pick up your toys and leave.

If  Onondaga County ends up losing hundreds of millions of dollars because Cuomo and Mahoney failed to engage a critical stakeholder, and chose instead to plop a gazebo in the middle of that stakeholder's back yard, shame on them.

Tossing the ED coin: Tails, You Lose

As I noted the other day, economic development is like a coin toss – sometimes business win, like The Sound Garden did, and sometimes they lose.  And businesses aren’t the only winners and losers – people like you and me can win or lose depending on how the deals go.

Take, for example, the businesses along Syracuse’s Connective Corridor, who had the threat of having to pay special maintenance fees to keep the Corridor looking in tip-top shape hanging over their heads for a while.

What is the Connective Corridor?  Well, it’s kind of hard to describe.  It's a vision, more than anything else. It's over $40 million in grant money, spread over multiple phases, to make a 'connection' between Syracuse University and Syracuse, the city.  Here’s the official description:

The city of Syracuse is home to three major universities, more than 30 art and cultural venues, and shopping centers all within close distance to one another.  In the coming months and years, nodes of the Connective Corridor will be stitched together and showcased with new urban landscapes, bike paths, imaginative lighting, public and interactive art, signage, and way finding systems.

What’s that mean?  Well, there’s been a lot of work done along East Genesee Street, University Ave, and part of Fayette Street.  Traffic patterns are different; new lighting has been put up; bike lanes are in; there’s a lot of color coordination – and to be honest, it looks pretty good. There’s been a lot of talk about the giant red benches in the park on the 700 block of Genesee, and more about the cool sidewalk at Syracuse Stage. Overall,  things seem to be looking up. 

And the  work means there’s now a need to maintain all of this connective tissue, as it were. Businesses along the Corridor were notified recently that the Syracuse Common Council was

considering a proposal to merge properties along the Connective Corridor into the Downtown Special Assessment District (DSAD). Since the district was created in 1976, downtown businesses have paid an extra fee on their taxes for maintenance and other services provided by the nonprofit Downtown Committee of Syracuse. It would be the first expansion of the special district.

That fee, for the Connective Corridor businesses, would have been more than $28 per foot of frontage; about $149,000 would have been raised from around 50 businesses in the area. The money was to have been used to add a couple of dedicated maintenance folks to keep the Corridor in shape.  

There were some businesses that were OK with the fees, but certainly for many of the smaller businesses along the way, the fee would have been very hard to bear, and hard to pass on to customers as well.

One of the big concerns mentioned in the many news stories on this was that the businesses were not aware the fees would be charged when the Corridor work was finished – it was one of those out-of-the-blue things that get sprung on businesses all the time in the form of regulations, fees, special charges, and so on.  And for businesses that were there before the connectivity vision was floated, well, this was seen as a slap in the face.

In the end, the Council voted down the proposal, leaving the DSAD intact (and actually downtown, some would say) -- and leaving the Connective Corridor maintenance-free.  So that would seem like the businesses won, right?  And their customers, folks like you and me, we won too, right?

Well, not exactly.

Listen to Norm Swanson, a long-time local developer; he has three businesses that would have collectively contributed around $22,000 to the fund had the proposal gone through.

Maintenance is everything. Maintenance is taking the money that’s been invested and almost multiplying it. As you continue to put the money back in and keep it fresh, this is what brings new business to locate there.

 

You know he’s right, don’t you?   

You can see it, every day, all around the city.  You can even see it along the Connective Corridor already. This picture taken by Dave Tobin of The Post-Standard last October, shows one of 19 lights that had been damaged even as work was nearing completion.

Next time you’re out and about, look around. Look at the condition of our highway ramps,something local columnist Sean Kirst puts into words so well. Look at parking lots and sidewalks; look at lighting. Look at signage, and plantings, and paint jobs and store windows.  Heck, even look at your own neighborhood. 

Can you honestly say that maintenance doesn’t matter?   No, Swanson’s right: maintenance is everything. 

We won't live or shop where it's a mess, and businesses don't want to move into neighborhoods that are a mess, filled with broken lights and trash and weeds higher than the red park benches... we know this, because we pass by places like this every day, and cringe. We pass by, literally, and take our business elsewhere.

The bottom line is, once these projects take off, it's in our best interest to see them through -- and that means maintaining them when they're done.  And it would certainly help if those in charge have the foresight, going forward, to figure out a way to ensure that after the opening celebration, there's a way to keep the project going on a day-to-day basis.

Unless someone – SU, or the Common Council or the Mayor or the Downtown Committee or the businesses themselves - come up with the money that’s needed to keep the Corridor looking good (and if that means adding a few cents to all of our tax bills, that's OK too), it will go the way many of our other economic development projects: the initial investment is made, but we don't realize the end result we thought we were going to get.  

Tails, you lose.

Thank you, Nancy Cantor

Syracuse University photo

Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor announced this past Friday that she’ll be leaving SU at the end of her contract, which runs through the 2014 school year. 

Over the next several months, there will likely be countless articles on her tenure, some of them positive and some less so, depending on the perspective of the writer or the scope of the article.  Today, I want to share my one and only interaction with the Chancellor, one that I think speaks volumes about her.

Flash back to late October/early November2010, when  Syracuse was going through a bad stretch of violence, including, ironically, at a rally to stop the violence.

I had done a couple of posts on the violence (here and here), and then on Tuesday November 16th, I was sitting at home thinking about everything that was going on, and I had a hare-brained idea and decided to act on it. 

At 8:38 that night, I wrote an email to Chancellor Cantor and asked for her help.  Here are excerpts from that email:

Our city is currently in the midst of a horrible spate of violence, most of it violence by youth against youth... We had shootings on Halloween, we’ve had a murder caught on tape, we’ve had shots fired at a peaceful ‘stop the violence’ gathering. All of it is disturbing, all of it is frightening, and all of it is disheartening. Our city is better than this.

Police Chief Frank Fowler, Mayor Stephanie Miner, and community leaders such as Mary Nelson are reaching out in every way they can, trying to engage local pastors and local organizations, encouraging them to do what they can...in homes, in workplaces, on buses and shops all over town, people are talking, and thinking, and trying to come up with answers...

An idea that occurred to me was to ask members of the SU community...if they’d be willing to appear in short public service announcements calling for an end to the violence. We know that kids look up to famous people, and around here there aren’t a lot of folks more famous than the SU family, both those currently on the Hill and the alumni that we claim as our own.

Is this outside the realm of possibility? Is this something that could be undertaken by students at Newhouse, in cooperation with folks from Maxwell? Does this type of effort fit in with your vision of Scholarship in Action?

Thanks for listening, and thanks for anything you and the SU community can do to help us.

The next day, I received both an email and a voicemail from Henry Wildhack, then an Associate Athletic Director, who had been asked to contact me about my idea.  After a few phone conversations and email exchanges, there was a script in my hand for review - all within 48 hours of my initial email to Cantor. 

The gist of the message was that kids need to stop and think before they pick up the gun, before they get involved with a gang, before they make a mistake that may leave them “six feet under” or behind bars – and yes, those words and images were included in the end product, which was put together by Roger Springfield’s media team and included coaches and players from the football team and both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The script and resulting video perfectly captured what I had hoped for, and was pretty powerful.

If you attended any games at the Carrier Dome that fall/winter, you may have seen my video on the big screen.  If you watched the news on local television during that time period, you may have seen my video, which ran as a PSA for a period of time on several stations.

I say 'my video' mostly in jest – sure, I had the idea, and planted a seed with Chancellor Cantor.  But she was the one who chose not to ignore the email, who handed it off to the people who could make it happen.  And she did it immediately, when we were still reeling from what was going on, and her team cam through in a big way.

Yes, there’ll be much said about Nancy Cantor and her time here in Syracuse. For her response to my idea back in 2010, I'd like to offer this belated thank you.