Dick Case reminds us today that Destiny isn't off the radar. And by Destiny, he means a mall expansion. The key hasn't even been taken out of the pocket yet on the Destiny project.

Here's the big hit:

Know this: Another deadline approaches for the Pyramid partners, and it's a big one. Some of that steel stacked along Hiawatha Boulevard has to be dusted off by the end of the year or the city folds its tax agreement.

Sure, the city could still grant an extension (and probably would, if it was asked). But another question is, what exactly is required for the tax agreement to take effect? The agreement says essentially that Pyramid has to begin work on the mall expansion by the end of the year. Does that mean they can dig a hole and stick a beam in there and then let it sit for six months – or forever? It might.

It seems like there are no more legal hurdles to getting the expansion going, even if some of the mall tenants do decide to take their case to the Supreme Court. Hell, the folks at Pyramid even settled an outstanding lawsuit by paying some former business partners $100 million and admitting no wrongdoing.

Yeah, we didn't do anything wrong, but here's $100 million just in case we did. That should smooth everything over.

With the Canal Corp. maybe finally offering someone else the opportunity to buy the Inner Harbor and a whole lot of other development going on in the city, I think Case drives it all right to the point:

Over the last few months, the community seems to have moved the eggs from one basket to many. We're going ahead on smaller bits of private enterprise without ties to Destiny. History tells us this is the best course for our town.

Best course, indeed. It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket – it's even worse when you know the basket has a hole in the bottom.

Monday Night Poetry is moving from the Coffee Pavilion to the Downtown Writer's Center. Here's the e-mail from host Jane Cassady.

DEC 4! Extended open and WELCOME CELEBRATION. THERE WILL BE CAKE. For those of you who don't know, Phil Memmer, poet and head of The Downtown Writer's Center, invited us to use their space for our beloved poetry night. I take this as a HUGE compliment and you should too. We are now at:

The Downtown Writers Center
(inside the YMCA)
340 Montgomery St.
Syracuse, NY

Because Jen Pashley's workshop is in there before us, we have a new start time:
Sign-ups 8:30-9pm, open mic starts @ 9pm.

Shiny things about the new place:

• Free coffee and bring your own snacks.
• We have the room to ourselves so we have even more freedom of expression than we had before.
• More seating and a more audience-shaped room.
• Free books! The DWC Anthology will be there for thetaking our first night and all the nights.

And 2 Awkwardnesses:

• Be on time. The doors lock to the outside at 9:30, so we can get in and out, but you'll have to wait till a break if you come after 9:30. I'm letting people leave their phones on to help with this issue a bit.
• We're no longer at street level, so that cuts down on the chance of walk-ins. That means we need to set up new synchronicities-spread the word any way you can think of: take flyers, blog us, repost bulletins, etc. Phil's plugging us at his events, too, so that should help.

For those of you without the ability to contact Jane through her MySpace page, you can contact me and I'll pass along the e-mail.

Also at BlogJosh.

Here's a question: What do you think Vera House would have to do to have $42,000 a year pulled from its state funding?

How about trying to give domestic abusers therapy and anger management?

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

That's right, New York is the only state in the country that strictly forbids rehabilitation programs from trying to change abusers. That's right: If you're in a program for domestic abuse, basically you're told what you did was wrong. Over and over and over and over.

Why? Because, says Sherry Frohman, who runs the state's Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence:

"It's not about being rehabilitated. They can stop using violence at any time. The reality is, they manage their anger just fine. They're not uncontrollable."

Right. Because if you just keep saying, "You did something wrong," over and over, people will just decide to stop using violence and get in control of themselves.

Kenneth Corvo, a Syracuse University prof who studies domestic violence, says that while New York is the only state that expressly forbids therapy in its programs, it's not the only state that does a lot of finger-wagging.

New York's philosophy is pervasive across the country, Corvo said. "We're haunted by this model," he said.

The dropout rates for batterer programs that follow the state's philosophy are high, Corvo said. When the dropouts were asked why they quit, they said, "Why would we go and be insulted?"

Fantastic.

To make a donation to Vera House, which also assists abuse victims, click here.

Who works for whom? Jim Walsh, a Republican who has spent the last 18 years in Congress thanks to Central New York voters, won a close race in the 25th District.

The race was close because people in Onondaga County – and the City of Syracuse in particular – leaned heavily toward his Democratic challenger, Dan Maffei.

Rather than take the close race as a message, Walsh grimaced at voters in Syracuse and said, "I'm really disappointed in you."

What Walsh should have said was, "I'm sorry I disappointed you. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to rectify what I have (or haven't) done."

I mean, how many 18-year incumbent congressmen had entire blogs for the sole purpose of electing their opponents?

Sean Kirst says Walsh is a decent guy, but he missed the point of the vote being so close. And a couple of dozen people have written in – check out his blog.

Walsh needs to go in 2008. What kind of politician is disappointed in people who don't vote for him? Usually when people don't vote for someone, it's because the candidate disappointed them. We owe Walsh nothing. He owes us his job.

There's a story in today's Post-Standard about a downtown tenant who has racked up seven parking tickets in two months because he's got no place to park overnight. He can lease space in a lot from April until October, or he can put his car in a parking garage, but he won't have access to it after the garage closes – perhaps even as early as 10 p.m.

Plus, he's perfectly willing to pay for parking – there are just not enough spaces available.

And it's not going to get any easier, with a bunch of apartments going into buildings that are under renovation downtown.

The big argument is going to be for more parking. Isn't it always? If we had better public transit here, though – more buses and trains going where people need to get when they need to get there – people could just dump their cars, and with them, the need for parking.

People do it in bigger cities all the time; why not here?

For those of us who live less than two miles from downtown, the buses run about every hour after business hours. For those who live a little further out, they stop running altogether fairly early in the evening. Early enough that you have to drive if you expect to eat dinner and catch an hour of live music downtown and still manage to get home.

And if we don't want to invest in more buses, guess what? We can just dig up the road and use some existing rail lines. Canal Street and parts of North Clinton Street still have intact tracks under the pavement, and who knows where else that's the case? If we had a north-south train running every 20 minutes down the Salina Street corridor and an east-west train on the same schedule (staggered by a couple of minutes, of course, so people could transfer easily) running along the SR-5 corridor (Erie Blvd. East and West Genesee Street), hundreds of people could get to work, dinner, and shopping without their cars.

What are we waiting for?

Also at BlogJosh.

Last week, we noted the impending sale of Clear Channel, owner of some 1100 radio stations, a bunch of TV stations, outdoor advertising and more, to a private equity firm.

Thursday, the company announced an investment firm offered $18.7 billion, a premium of 10% over the value of the company's stock, and the Clear Channel will continue taking bids until Dec. 7.

The big draw, says Dow Jones, is neither the broadcast media outlets nor the music venues, it's the outdoor advertising unit.

And to show just how focused Clear Channel is on the outdoor stuff, the company announced that five employees are getting the ax in Syracuse, where Clear Channel owns five radio stations, a television station and a music venue.

They're also dumping 17 stations in Maine and 12 more in Wisconsin.

We've discussed frequently in this spot the plight of about a dozen tenants of the Carousel Center mall. They risk losing their leases to an eminent domain taking because their landlord doesn't want to negotiate with them, and three weeks ago, the state supreme court said that's just fine.

Because, you know, those stores don't have millions invested in their leases or anything, and their "we get to voice our concerns over how a mall expansion might hurt our business" clauses were just put in the leases because, well, because it's a poetic phrase that doesn't really mean anything.

Right. I've been saying all along that this might be the right time for the stores to just say, "OK, we're gone." They haven't done that, but they have taken an intermediary step: they've asked their lawyers to prepare an appeal to the SCOTUS.

The SCOTUS has in the past upheld some rulings for taking property by eminent domain for private development, but the court might take this up, because it's only taking some of the lease by eminent domain – the companies will all have to keep paying their rent in order to keep their stores open, but they would have no say over a loss of nearby parking spaces and mall entrances.

Voice-over: Meanwhile, not far away in a not-too-distant part of town...

Just west of the Inner Harbor – perhaps a mile away from the Carousel Center – Salt City Enterprises has bought 10 lake front properties and has started to rehab the buildings into what will surely be a thriving commercial area.

Yes, Pyramid did great things with Franklin Square. And while they may be the end-all as far as development goes in this town, they are certainly not the be-all.

Eliot Spitzer's been making the upstate rounds the past couple of days, and he took a bus tour through Syracuse yesterday.

He stopped in exactly two places – the Inner Harbor and the SU men's basketball game – and said the city has "potential."

Fantastic.

He's stepping into the top job in the state – a state that owes back taxes on a building in town, holding up a major renovation there; a state that, when it reports to us in mid-January what it plans to do with respect to the Inner Harbor, will have been sitting on its hands for fully 11 months after it said it was dumping the Pyramid Cos. as preferred developer.

Spitzer ran on a platform of change  being a political outsider  not being connected downstate well, people know his name and he's not George Pataki.

So, his telling the mayor, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and other officials that the city has "potential" and that he'd "try to divert some development money" our way might make him feel good, but it doesn't actually help the city in any way.

We'll just have to wait and see if we're getting something besides lip service. I'm not holding my breath.

My friend, colleague and co-author of this blog Angela Newman – who recently started a local theater blog you should be reading – asks about twice a month when the company's moving downtown. Me, I'm pessimistic, even though our boss almost jumps out of his shoes every time he overhears the conversation.

Of course, I'd love for us to be downtown – not only for the convenience of being downtown, but to be part of a revival down there.

Sean Kirst has a column today about a Syracuse University student who grew up in LaFayette and envisions wonderful things for downtown Syracuse. Better yet, Jason Evans is an architecture student at SU, which puts him in a great position for this vision – twice.

First off, Evans is actually learning a business in which he could design the next great thing downtown. Secondly, the school he attends moved last year into a former furniture warehouse that was sitting around on West Fayette Street about two blocks from Armory Square. Incidentally, if you want to see the Warehouse, it's part of the th3 art open, which takes place tomorrow and then goes on Hiatus until February.

Kirst's piece on Evans comes barely a week after engineering firm O'Brien & Gere said they were moving 330 employees downtown and First Niagara Bank followed up by saying they're moving 65 people into a new downtown building early next year.

If you're thinking about taking your business downtown, now's the time.

Also at BlogJosh.

Sometime in the next week or so, we may hear that one of the largest entertainment groups in the world, Clear Channel Communications, has been bought and taken private, for something in the range of $17 billion dollars.

Clear Channel owns some 1200 radio stations, a bunch of television stations, an outdoor advertising unit and a slew of music venues across the country.

Locally, Clear Channel owns five radio stations in Syracuse, six in Binghamton, six in Utica, and seven in Rochester; they own the ABC television affiliates in Syracuse and Watertown, and the Landmark Theater in Syracuse. I'm not sure about the outdoor operation, but it wouldn't surprise me if they owned at least a few dozen billboards in the area.

Why the diversification? Well, look at it this way: You can have a radio station that makes songs popular, then bully musicians into playing a free tour of your venues under threat of not playing their songs on your 1200 stations. You can advertise the concerts on your radio stations, television stations and billboards, and all the money is just shifting from one of your subsidiaries to another.

But taking the company private could actually provide some benefit to the public. Public companies are accountable to their stockholders. They're required to push their profits as high as they can. This is easily done by sharing resources – including radio personalities, facilities, and news operations. And with the technology available today, the company could easily have one person working, say, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., handling all 24 stations in Utica, Binghamton, Rochester and Syracuse from a remote location, and no one would notice – unless there were an emergency, and all of a sudden, you couldn't get a news crew there, because there isn't one.

Private companies* don't have to please their stockholders. Sure, they have owners and employees and other stakeholders, but if they want to blow money here and there on innovation that doesn't pan out, it's OK – and all the better if it does work out. Private companies have the ability to spend some cash on trying something new without having to justify the expense.

So, I'm thinking this is a good thing. We'll see.

*Disclaimer: I work for Advance Communications, which is currently the largest privately held media company in the U.S.; I'm not sure if Clear Channel would be bigger, but it would be very big.

Tomorrow is Election Day. If you're eligible and registered, vote. If you're not sure if you're registered, go to your local polling place to see if you're on their list. If you're not on their list, ask for a paper ballot – you may be registered at a different address and your vote will be counted as soon as that's confirmed.

If you're not sure where to vote, call your county's Board of Elections; Central New York numbers are here, as well as in your phone book. Some of the boards' web sites have inaccurate information, so take the time to call.

Vote your conscience: If your party's candidate doesn't do live up to your expectations, there's no reason you have to vote for him or her. If you don't think any of the candidates will live up to your expectations, cast a write-in vote for someone you think will (and make sure the candidate you write in is eligible for the office – one must be 25 to serve in the U.S. House and 30 to serve in the Senate).

If you plan to vote for a major party candidate, check to see if the candidate appears on any other lines. Pro-labor Democrats frequently show up on the Working Families Party line; Republicans often appear on the Conservative Party line. If you can vote for someone on a third-party line, consider doing so – it will help keep democracy alive in New York.

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. If you need a ride to a polling place, call a local candidate's campaign office; there are usually volunteers waiting to help out.

I'm not going to recommend any candidates to you. You'll need to make that decision for yourself. Just make it an informed one – don't vote for Candidate A because you like his name or for Candidate B because you like her hair.

Seth says: Vote.

Amy says: Vote. [Also, read more from Amy.]

Today is the last day to request absentee ballots in New York, and also the last day for them to be postmarked. A lot of people are voting by absentee this year; if you're one of them, don't forget to get your ballot in the mail before last pickup today!

My plan for tomorrow: VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote VoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVoteVote then VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer VolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteerVolunteer

Good Luck to us all, CNY! Let's go to work. ps--here's my appeal to family far away.