Rochester Beacon (https://rochesterbeacon.com/author/letters/page/2/)
The county’s increased annual contribution to Finger Lakes Community College is money well spent. The college has an annual economic impact of $108.5 million in the county and nearly $198 million regionally.
Although there are other ways of generating power that also produce little or no CO2, they may not be as reliable or as practical as nuclear power.
Of the 13 announced candidates in the 2024 presidential race, one is clearly the best choice when it comes to the most important issue of our time: climate change.
I worked in corporate planning at Niagara Mohawk (now National Grid NY) during the 1980s and 1990s, when the industry restructuring you describe so well began to take hold. (“Exploring a community utility, Rochester Beacon, Sept. 28, 2023.) That was what I’ll call a second wave of regulatory change in the utility industry—certainly well-intentioned, whatever one thinks of the actual results. The first wave of change was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and its logo was the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). Following the oil embargoes and price shocks of the 1970s, dozens of electric utilities across the country were building nuclear generating plants and running up breathtaking cost overruns on them.
Mitch Gruber maintains that the University of Rochester should contribute more financially to its home city. But his argument undervalues the university’s research, education, and health care missions that benefit the community.
Renaming the City of Rochester or Monroe County is not going to happen, but giving new names to certain schools and public spaces will make clear Rochester’s commitment to the justice and morality.
Dissatisfaction with the ownership and management of Rochester Gas and Electric has prompted a campaign, led by led by Metro Justice, to take over the utility. But the half-million-dollar public power feasibility study recently approved by the Rochester City Council is a waste of taxpayer money—because taking over RG&E would produce no financial benefit, and the ownership and operating expense would impact the poorest residents harder than other consumers.
A recent Rochester Beacon article about an anti-racist education program that Take it Down Planning Committee/Faith Community Alliance Coalition developed in conjunction with the Rochester Museum and Science Center is quite distorted and has a crystal-clear, right-wing-slant.
Most people want to avoid difficult conversations about how to “move from” the horrors of the dreadful, prevailing poverty and racism. A “moving forward” antiracism conversation offers a more hopeful possibility.
Tens of thousands of Bhutanese citizens—including more than 15,000 Bhutanese Americans who live in the Rochester area—have been forced to flee their homes due to persecution and discrimination by the Bhutanese government.