For those of you from outside the area, you might not know that much of upstate New York has had some massive flooding this week. NYCO has had some wonderful coverage, linking to stories, accounts, and photos. Check out her posts here and here.

There have been extreme responses from both sides in regards to the settlement deal the Common Council voted down on Thursday. And considering what the council rejected, the responses are really not-at-all thought out.

This was not an up-or-down vote on Destiny. It was not even an up-or-down vote on the mall expansion.

In 2000, the city and the developer reached a tax-break agreement that would extend the Carousel Center's status of being off the tax rolls by 30 years, after its then-current 15-year deal expired at the end of 2005. In exchange for 30 years of no taxes, Pyramid, the mall's developer, would have to build a large expansion – and it would have to show the city it had the financing to build the expansion. This deal was reaffirmed in 2002.

Sometime between 2002 and 2005, Pyramid lost its primary development loan – a loan that was promised to be about $360 million. In 2005, another bank came up with an offer about half that, and release of the funds was contingent upon the city selling construction bonds.

Mayor Matt Driscoll felt in December of 2005 that the promised construction loan was not enough financing for Pyramid to build the expansion required of the tax deal, and so he ordered the Carousel Center back on the tax rolls on January 1, 2006.

Pyramid believed it had enough financing in place, and so the first Monday of the new year, the company filed suit against the city to (a) take the mall off the tax rolls, and (b) get on with the things it had to do in order for the financing to be released.

On March 9, Judge John Centra ruled that Pyramid had met its requirements, and that the city should proceed selling bonds and taking some mall tenants' leases by eminent domain, so that construction could begin (some tenants had clauses that allowed them to approve or reject expansions; others had parking space requirements that would make construction in the parking lot difficult without first building a new lot to add spaces).

After that ruling, the city had to decide if it would appeal, and lawyers for the city and for Pyramid worked on negotiating a new agreement that would avoid an appeal. The company waited until the last possible day to file the ruling (after the filing, the city was legally required to take some action – including working on an appeal), and negotiations continued.

The mayor, the developer and County Executive Nick Pirro – the county also has a tax stake here, as we work on a county government system in New York – sat down and worked out a settlement agreement. As part of the agreement, the city would not appeal Centra's ruling.

The agreement required the approval of the mayor, the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency (the appointed board that would be in charge of selling bonds and taking the leases), the Common Council, and the County Legislature. The mayor, having negotiated the agreement, quickly approved it. SIDA, having been appointed by the mayor, did the same. The County Legislature said (wisely), "This is really up to the city; if the Common Council approves it, we'll follow."

Thursday night, the Council decided not to approve it.

Rejecting the settlement leaves open the possibility that the city may appeal Centra's ruling. It doesn't mean the mall won't get the expansion, and it doesn't mean Destiny – which is still only a concept with no actual plans – is off the able. It may not even hold up the process at all, because the tenants who would lose their leases are due in court Sept. 14.

There's still a tax break agreement out there that has been activated. Pyramid has some financing, though not as much as the city would like. And for 30 years of tax breaks and city assistance in the eminent domain proceedings, Pyramid is remaining awfully tight-lipped about what it's planning and who may be part of the mall plans.

For those of you in favor of building a gianter mall in Syracuse, don't worry. Pyramid still very much has that option. For those of us who don't want the mall, we have several points we need to keep fighting – for me, it will primarily be the eminent domain taking of both the leases and a number of businesses along Hiawatha. We should not be using a public process for private gain – especially when there's no legal recourse if there happens to be no public gain from the project (and you can say all you want about how it will bring jobs, but if it never gets built, or if it never gets populated, all we've done is kick a bunch of people out of their businesses and taken more land off the tax rolls, and we can't sue Pyramid for it).

The Syracuse Common Council has done the right thing. They voted down the Carousel expansion deal with a 6-3 vote. Yesterday's reports said it appeared to be 3-2 in favor, with four undecideds.

I dropped off 10 copies of this letter at lunch today, and the receptionist was on the phone, trying to get e-mail inbox limits raised because councilors' boxes were full. Everybody was trying to get heard today.

And enough of the right people did. Thank you, councilors.

The Common Council will vote tomorrow night on the Carousel Center expansion agreement (see the post below for more info). As such, there's not time to mail this; I'll be heading downtown on lunch to drop it off. Feel free to join me in Council chambers with your own letters.

Syracuse Common Council
City Hall
233 E. Washington St.
Syracuse, NY 13202

22 June 2006

Dear Councilor:

I’m writing again to encourage you to vote against the proposed Carousel Center expansion settlement.

I sat at the public input session on Tuesday, unable to voice my opinion in front of television cameras due to an employment policy. And while I’ve written before to let you know my feelings on the mall expansion, I wanted to chime in again before you hold a vote.

I want to focus primarily on the arguments we heard Tuesday. Those who are in favor of this expansion deal seem to have been given talking points.

You heard laid-off Destiny employees encourage you to “vote for Destiny.” Destiny is not the project before you. It is a mall expansion, and the developer has refused to put in writing a commitment to hire back those laid-off workers.

You heard someone tell you that the public perception of what Destiny will be is incorrect. If this is truly a public project, we shouldn’t have to form a perception – we should have every detail necessary to know precisely what it is. And again, you are not being asked to approve Destiny USA.

You heard more than one person tell you that the guaranteed money the city will receive from the Carousel expansion is better than property tax money from small businesses, because small businesses are unstable and frequently go under. The truth is, the more small businesses a city has, the more likely it is to thrive, and small businesses beget other small businesses. Malls beget parking lots – and the parking lot on the rendering we were handed Tuesday replaces much of the oldest neighborhood in the city.

You heard someone tell you it was her lifelong dream to buy a car, and her maintenance job at Carousel has allowed her to do that. I understand that it’s important for people to reach their goals, but most jobs at an expanded Carousel will be retail positions and will not afford people the opportunity to purchase new cars.

You heard people tell you that mall jobs are great jobs for single mothers and for their children to grow up in. A gallon of gas costs what most mall employees take home in exchange for a half hour of work. A meal at the mall the worker eats on his or her break will cost at least a full hours’ take-home pay. The price of these goods will rise faster than retail wages in the coming years. These are not good jobs that will help people live well throughout their lives.

You heard people tell you that people are leaving Syracuse because of a lack of opportunity. You heard people tell you that their taxes are too high. According to the rendering, the city will be required to take an awful lot of homes in the North Side by eminent domain. By doing so, you’ll be taking homes away from people who live here, and taking their properties off the tax rolls when you hand them to the mall developers. The city will not be able to afford to offer those displaced people incentives to stay in Syracuse; the city will not be able to afford to not raise taxes after taking so much more land off the tax rolls.

If the Carousel expansion is to go through one way or the other, it needs to not have the city’s explicit stamp of approval. The mall is good for the developer – it is not likely to do any good for the city.

I can’t think of a worse way to harm the future of Syracuse than to approve this deal. Please vote no.

The Syracuse Common Council held what they were calling a public info session on the mall expansion last night at Henninger High School. It was, instead, primarily a misinformation shouting match (story).

We were told at the outset that during the day, an appeals court had scheduled a hearing on an eminent domain taking of some mall tenants' leases for September 14 – a ruling that will probably hold up the process somewhat.

The speaking audience was primarily in favor of the project, though for quite a few of the wrong reasons (we'll get to them below). I rather figured this would happen, as the 'for' contingent is fairly organized – some 200 former workers for Destiny USA who were laid off when it turned out they were hired mainly for show, and the businesses that have been working in some capacity as contractors with Pyramid (the mall owner) for the past decade or so.

The 'against' contingent, however, is a group of primarily emotional people, some of whom can't get up in front of a television camera without company approval – which kept them from speaking.

Here are some of the arguments (with counter-arguments) for the project we heard last night:

• Vote for Destiny; I need my job back. The Council is not being asked to approve Destiny. This was made very clear when settlement talks started. It's a mall expansion. It takes an exisiting large mall, adds a smaller mall, a 1,000-room hotel, and then another small mall. This is not the mammoth theme park-type thing called Destiny USA. In fact, Pyramid has been very keen on making sure we know this is a "Carousel Center expansion."
  
  One Carousel Center maintenance worker, a 63-year-old woman, said it was her life's dream to be able to buy a car, and that her job at the mall has finally allowed her to do that. Honestly, great, but I know I'm not living in a city full of people who want to get no further in life than buying a car. Some of us would like to eliminate the need for them altogether. [And an interesting aside: The drawings handed out at the meeting put the parking lot to this expansion about 3/4 of a mile from the mall, so after driving to work, this lady would still need to hop on a bus to get to the building. Why not cut out the middle man?]
• A $60 million annual PILOT payment is better than the $0 annually promised in a 2002 contract. Maybe, but the PILOT money can go toward paying back investors. Even money guaranteed to the city is way under what the property tax assessment would be, and, as more than one person pointed out last night, none of the money goes to schools. ShoppingTown Mall, in DeWitt, pays property taxes, and the Jamesville-DeWitt schools get about $1 million in revenue from the mall. The much larger Carousel Center, however, puts no money at all in Syracuse schools' coffers.
• Small businesses are bad for the city because they're unstable. I don't think you'll actually find a city official anywhere in the country who would agree – even in towns full of strip-mall development, it's the independent, locally-owned businesses that show a community is thriving.
• My property taxes are too high, and the money promised to the city will help alleviate them. Nowhere in the settlement agreement is there a request for an ordinance to keep property taxes flat. And the PILOT money guaranteed to the city will be less than the property tax assessment. If Carousel were on the tax rolls, there would be a lot more property tax income – and if the expansion does roll south to Bear Street, it takes a lot of houses and small businesses off the tax rolls.
• All the naysayers are misrepresenting what Destiny is. Again, the council is not being asked to approve Destiny. But if this is going to be such a public project, why don't we have enough information to know exactly what this is going to be?
• I want a better future for my kids. Angela scribbled down something rather accurate: Working at The Gap? Really. Or maybe they can get maintenance jobs and fulfill their life-long goals of buying a car.

Notably absent from the supporters' arguments were previous assertions that the wealth would flow into downtown. Lawyers and architects locally said they would benefit, but it appears that no one is under the illusion anymore that people will actually leave the mall to shop and eat downtown.

A notable against argument: Developer Robert Congel, with whom the city would be contracting on this, is due in court Oct. 3. His former business partners at other malls are suing him for some $100 million. Does the city really want to contract with this guy before we see what this is all about?

If this giant mall expansion is going to happen, it needs to be without the city's blessing.

Just a brief follow-up to this post. Alive in CNY contributer Angela and I went down to the Block Party on Thursday. There were easily 800 people there. If we could just do a little bit – really, a little bit – of smart development down there, there would be an average of 800 people there every day for many hours a day. The Canal Corp. really needs to get off their duffs and kick Destiny off the project. I'll be writing them this week. Won't you join me?

If you head west on Onondaga Street from South Salina for about three-quarters of a mile, you'll see a good cross-section of the economically depressed near southwest side of the city. Stay straight onto Onondaga Ave. (rather than doing the dog-leg thing to stay on West Onondaga), and you'll start seeing larger structures. Right on Bellevue then a quick left onto Summit, suddenly, you're in Strathmore, which looks like a wealthy suburb with huge homes with huge yards and two SUVs in every driveway.

It's enough to make a boy on a bike with a "My bike hates your SUV" bumper sticker just a might bit uncomfortable.

The good people of Ruskin Avenue, however, close off their street and open up their porches once a year for Art on the Porches. There's music at each end of the street, and the lawns and porches are covered in art (and maybe a little food).

Thankfully, I didn't bring much money – enough, though, to grab a spring roll at Lao Village's stand (thanks, Angela, for that suggestion). I might have spent far too much money on hand-painted percussion instruments from John Heard, pen-and-ink sketches from biker John "Jaw's" McGrath, tile work from Loudeac, and hand-made journals from Concepcioun (though everyone knows now what they're getting for their birthdays and hanuchristmakwanzaa).

After an hour and a half at Art, I swung back downtown for a breve at Coffee Pavilion – thanks, Justin, for knowing what the heck it is, as it's not on the menu – and some quality time at Juneteenth.

And quality it was. A parade, a gospel choir, some note cards (it seems you just can't get decent blank cards anywhere anymore). And the best damn lemonade on the planet. Actually, if you're in town, you should stop reading this and get to Omanii's Lemonade Heaven at 1206 South Ave. right now. Why are you still here? Go!

I got to spend some time talking to the folks from the Eastern Farm Workers Association (I may have to donate a web page). They're pushing for fair wages and subsidized health care for mainly minority workers. I also spoke a bit with the 40 Below folks, who are pushing to keep young people here.

Condolences go out to Lyndell and Ember. Sorry we're going to have to miss you tonight – doubly so, considering the reason. We'll catch you Labor Day weekend.

The Inner Harbor is just an unreasonably gorgeous part of the city – and most people only get there getting lost on their way to or from that giant pile of concrete across the street from the giant pile of steel.

The New York State Canal Corp. – a part of the New York State Thruway Authority that is trying to become independent – is responsible for what goes on at the harbor.

What's there, roughly, is a short but beautiful walking path, an amphitheater, a dock, and plenty of space ripe for development &nadsh; development along the lines of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which has an aquarium, a mix of local and national shopping and food, outdoor ice skating in season, and music.

Syracuse is having music there this summer – a weekly block party, in fact. And hundreds of people are showing up. If hundreds of local residents are showing up for a weekly concert every Thursday, imagine what would happen if it were in use every day, and for multiple purposes! It would even be – are you ready for this? – a tourist destination!

So, what's holding it up? I'll give you one guess. That's right. A few years ago, the Canal Corp. put out a request for proposals, and Destiny USA came back with the winning bid – a $260 million development project. Other than some loose change that may have fallen out of someone's pocket on a tour, the company hasn't dropped a dime on the Inner Harbor.

Back in February, the Canal Corp. sent a letter to Destiny's developers, saying it would seek a new developer for the harbor. That hasn't happened, and no one really knows what the next step is – whether the second developer gets the bid, whether the project can go back out to bid, or whether there is some requirement that Destiny remain on the project.

Dick Case had a great piece on the inner Harbor in yesterday's Post-Standard.

For more on Destiny, including actions you can take, click here.

You meet the most amazing people here. Really. You might be able to tell that from the time stamp.

I dragged out RBR tonight. She's a PhD student, and has been working endlessly. I dragged her out on promise of reading a chapter she's been preparing, and of course, I will read it. But see, the real reason I dragged her out is, she's just amazing.

She's spent six years here, and she's never been to a SkyChiefs game. So we watched them pound on Columbus 10-3. Then, we went to Change of Pace for wings and fries, and then to Cerio's, where she promptly trounced me in two games of darts. And then we came back to the house for scotch and singing. And now it's past 1:30 a.m., and in six hours, I'll have already been working for a while.

And speaking of amzing people, you'll note that there are two new authors to this blog. Amy Lawson-Cassady is ABD in philosophy, works at a book store, and is perhaps the only person who has ever made me feel uncomfortable from an intellectual standpoint (through no fault of her own, as she happens to be a fantastic human being who is overly humble), and Angela Newman, who is that amazing combination of brilliant, observant and funny that always keeps me on my toes. I'm looking forward to having them on board. You should, too.

(Also posted at Turtle Ink)
I think the title of this entry was the theme for Friday night, though I must admit that not all the objects were tiny and not all of them were in rows.
Sometimes, if I'm lucky, when I'm at an art show I want to break the rules and touch a painting. I had this feeling a couple of times this weekend. First, on Friday, Jane and I attended the opening of The Syracuse Salon de Refuse (put together by the Visual Arts Committee of the Cultural Resources Council) at the Syracuse Technology Garden. My fingers itched to just reach over and touch one of the bare tree branches in Margaret Olney-McBride's painting "Shore Reflected." I didn't but I did look at it from quite a few different angles. Also, noteworthy in this exhibit were Donal and Shel Little's print "Felix Anas/Lucky Duck," Jacqueline Adamo's "Market Place" (Jane says think Munter) and an unknown person's (no placard) painting with blue blobs. All these works were in rows, except for "The Chips of Time" by Angelo Puccia, wrapped around a column. (Does the phone work? Was it part of the piece? I am very tempted to find out.)
After the exhibit we went to the Little Gem Diner for some exceptional plates of food and cups of coffee. Jane thinks it was the first time she had been there during daylight hours. Heading back downtown, we stopped at Sound Garden to pick up some Artic Monkeys and peruse the cds. Here is where the theme of the evening became especially apparent. Several cd covers had rows of tiny objects pictured on them. At some point in the near future I will go back and find those cds. Also drawing attention, the vintage t-shirt--on the side of which were technical drawings of a moth with text about behavior, some of it crossed out. Brilliant.
Finally, the evening ended in a movie theatre, art and intrigue in front of us and yapping girls behind us (you paid $8 apiece for a ticket, why aren't you watching the movie?). Yes, the Da Vinci Code. Can I just say Paris we're coming. Ian McKellen is simply brilliant, portraying the grail scholar willing to resort to almost any means to achieve his end. I wished for a little more with the mystery, a little more with cameras lingering on the art and the tombs. But, all in all, a decent flick.
So, here are my recommends for an artful, tiny objects in a row evening:
Salon des Refuse at Syracuse Technology Garden
Little Gem Diner
Sound Garden
The Da Vinci Code

The anti-gay protestors were out in full force at the Syracuse gay pride parade yesterday – all six of them. That should tell us that not only is LGBT community alive and well here, but the community and their allies is winning the battle.

The good news about those six protestors? Jane and Amy totally made out in front of them. And Amy will be making them cookies next year (you know, because she belongs in the kitchen).

My quest to eat primarily local foods – especially produce, since this is an agricultural area – got a boost this week.

I do frequently enjoy heading to the farmer's market on Saturday mornings, but this time of year, it's slim pickings – mostly flowers and the last of the winter's root veggies and some stuff left over from last year. As such, my visits are infrequent.

But the strawberries are up early this season, and so it was off to the farmer's market for me this morning. If you're in Central New York (or if you know anything about geography), you know that any strawberries eaten here between, say, October and late June, are from California. But I have a quickly disappearing basket of strawberries grown by an elderly couple in Baldwinsville.

The berries are not uniformly red. They are not uniform in size. They have varying levels of firmness. These would be no-nos in a carton of California strawberries. But of course, in that carton of California strawberries, it's hit or miss with the sweetness. You will pucker on more than one occasion. You may think you just ate a decent carton of strawberries, because you're used to being disappointed by sometimes-sour, medium-sweet berries. But these Baldwinsville berries? Holy crow. The only things that are going to stop me from eating the whole basket before lunch are the weather and the crock-pot – I have a crock-pot full of chili on the boil, and at 50 degrees, it's chili weather.

Update: Greenblade's got strawberries, too!

Harriette McDowell died of cervical cancer on May 26. She was a local business owner and mentor. People really liked her.

I was one of those people. When I was working with the South Side Entrepreneurial Connect Project, Harriette was a big part.

Condolences go out to Kiwi and everyone else who knew and loved her.

Cross-posted from blogJosh. Previous Destiny posts are here.

It's been a couple of weeks since we checked in. In this time, there have been a couple of advancements.

Settlement sent for approval

The settlement agreement reached between developer Bob Congel, Mayor Matt Driscoll and County Executive Nick Pirro has been sent to three different groups for approval. The groups are the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency (SIDA), which would be required to carry out eminent domain takings and sell construction bonds; the Syracuse Common Council (which serves the same function as a City Council or an Aldermanic Board); and the Onondaga County Legislature.

SIDA is scheduled to discuss and probably vote on agreement Wednesday of this week. The meeting is at 11 a.m., which means they don't want public input – at least from people who work a normal day. As a city agency whose members aren't elected, there are no political repercussions either way, and whichever way SIDA votes (they'll probably approve the settlement), they'll get hassle from the other side. Assuming they approve it, people will yell, and they'll have some work to do. If they don't approve it, Pyramid Managament Group goes ape, and probably takes them back to court.

The Onondaga County Legislature has already put off their vote until the Common Council votes. In my nearly three years in this city, this is the first time the county has ever correctly said, "This is a city issue. We'll let the city decide."

The agreement will likely be in committee for the Common Council this week, and probably won't get a hearing before the full council until the second half of June. One sticking point is that there appears to be a clause in the settlement that would exclude the council from any future decisions on the Carousel Center or Destiny.

Mall tenants get stay

One of the requirements of the settlement is that SIDA take the leases of 12 of the Carousel Center tenants by eminent domain. This, for me, is the big issue – if the city starts taking leases by eminent domain for private development, who would want to sign a business lease here? These leases have clauses in them that include availability of parking (number of parking spaces per thousand square feet of retail space within the mall) and a requirement that store officials approve expansion plans. While the latter sounds like the bigger deal, that's usually a rubber stamp process.

The former, however, is trickier. Since the first phase of the expansion will be built in the southern parking lot, new parking would have to be open before much of that lot is closed. One of the subsequent two phases would likely fill in the underground parking garage, which, obviously, would lead to a need for more parking.

The 12 tenants have each asked for a stay on the lease-taking; temporary stays were granted for 11 of them, and arguments for long-term stays for them will be heard June 19; decisions on those long-term stays probably won't come until the fall. The 12th tenant, JC Penney, will have a hearing for the temporary stay on June 19. This means it could be close to December before Pyramid's allowed to put a shovel in the ground (an act which is increasingly physically difficult come December in these parts).

It's a mall, people!

Right now, we have a massive mall. It's called the Carousel Center. Eventually, Pyramid is planning what is essentially an enclosed entertainment-and-shopping neighborhood called Destiny USA. Some renderings have it taking over most of the North Side of Syracuse.

Much ado has been made over Destiny – and much of the ado over the mall expansion has been Destiny-related. That ado has come from both sides. But in the end, the three stages of construction in the settlement agreement make a big mall even bigger.

Here's the thing. I'm not at all against development. But a big mall? What's the point? Giant malls are not the way to bring people into the city. They're a good way to get people off the interstate and then right back on it (which is why many malls tend to be built in suburbs or in far-off corners of cities – lots of room right off the highway). And this particular development is holding up the works on so much other advancement in the city.

Want to have your voice heard? Have some more info.