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Museum reviews: Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, NY

Rochester, NY’s failed fast ferry: What went wrong?

The geography of Rochester, NY

Places to volunteer in Rochester, NY

A guide to grocery stores in Rochester, NY

These articles were published at Helium.

Here’s the story: More Than 1,000 Gather in Protest at Rochester’s 2010 Anti-Tax Tea Party

The Rochester Tea Party organizers have scheduled another outing for all of us that oppose the big spending, high taxing, big government. There was a hugely successful gathering last year and they hope to make this year’s even larger and louder.

Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010
Time: 11:30 am EDT to 1 pm EDT

Location: Genesee Crossroads Park

The park is located in downtown Rochester, NY, on the west bank of the Genesee River north of Main Street and south of Andrews.

Further information can be found at the Rochester Tea Party website.

Photos from the April 15, 2009 Rochester Tea Party

On a bitterly cold March day, 40 of us braved the elements to hold Rochester, New York’s first Tea Party protest. Governor Patterson was in town, just down the street, and we wanted to let him know we were unhappy about his budget for 2009. New taxes, new fees, and the same old politics as usual in Albany.

We also were angry about the actions of the Obama administration and our elected representatives in Congress. Spending bills had shot through Congress without time for evaluation and consideration, and without any effort to include the Republican minority. Promise after promise that Barry Obama had made during his campaign had already been broken in less than the first 100 days of his administration.

We listened to speakers, sang patriotic songs and marched with our homemade signs. We received a little local press but the leftists demanding tax increases were far more numerous and they received most of the attention.

The dedicated volunteers who put that Tea Party together resolved to join the national movement and hold a second on April 15. It was a workday, but it was also the day income taxes were due to be paid to both New York State and the Federal Government.

A great deal of work went into the April 15 event. The day was sunny, but a cold wind was blowing. That might be seen as a prediction of the future for all Americans if the current policies and trends are not reversed.

We rallied first at a park, and over one thousand strong we marched. A second ralley with speeches was held at the County Office Building. We marched again, to City Hall where the final set of speakers addressed the thousand plus standing there.

Why go to all this trouble? Just what were the concerns of the people who protested at Rochester’s Tea Party?

The protesters came from all over the political spectrum. Amidst those differences, there were some common themes.

We are concerned at the amount of debt that the United States is going to incur, and the tax payments that the next generations will be forced to pay to service that debt.

We are concerned that state and local governments continue to raise taxes and fees.

We believe that government is being conducted in the same old way when it has to change.

We are upset that so many political appointees and politicians are tax cheats and corrupt.

Term limits were a popular subject. Cutting government spending was another.

The people at the Rochester Tea Party were mostly folks that had never been to a protest in their lives. Mark that statement. Never been to a protest. Imagine the anger and worry that would impel these people to come to the Tea Party.

Governments, at all levels, have come to a place where voters and taxpayers feel left out of the process. The people who marched feel that they no longer control the people who are being elected. They are bewildered and anxious about the changes that they have seen in the practice of what is supposed to be a free and democratic political process. Wry jokes were being made about ending up on some government list for being at the Tea Party.

Politicians and bureaucrats routinely ignore most taxpayers and voters. Once you are elected to office, you have an overwhelming chance of staying in office until you choose to leave. If you are a bureaucrat, practicly nothing can be done to remove you from your position or deny you a raise. For the people at the Tea Party, government has become something to distrust, perhaps an enemy, but certainly no friend.

That is not what our Founders intended. This must change and it will change. July 4 is the next set of Tea Parties on the schedule nationally. Between now and then, the movement will grow and July 4 will see Americans exercising their rights like never before and vowing to take back their government.

The 2010 Tea Party can be found at this link.

One of the signs from the April 15 Tea Party in Rochester, NY

The 40 who braved the cold in March for the Rochester NY Tea Party were joined today by over 1,000 more Americans fed up with politics as usual.

The Geneseo College Republican Club held the traditional tea dump at the April 15 Tea Party protest in Rochester, NY.

It’s sunny and in the 50’s with a brisk wind here in Rochester, NY. Three stops were planned for the Tea Party, a downtown park, the County Office Building and City Hall. About 600 at the park heard speakers and sang songs. They marched down a closed Main Street to the County Building for another rally and grew to around 1,000. By the time the marchers moved to City Hall, the crowd had swelled even further.

One of the signs from the April 15, 2009 Tea Party in Rochester, NY.

The crowd held all races, and every age group from toddlers to the elderly. The Geneseo College Republican Club marched with Ron Paul supporters, Libertarian Party folks, and ordinary Americans at their first protest.

No protest on behalf of liberty would be complete without a Liberty Belle cheering for freedom.

Bob Lonsberry on 1180, WHAM, is covering the event from his window seat on Main.

Rev. Tommy Davis, one of several persons of color at the April 15 Tea Party in Rochester, NY, addresses the crowd.

PRESS

• WXXI – PBS
• R News
• Democrat & Chronicle
• Channel 13 WHAM

Here are the collected photos.

Here are some pics from today’s snow storm.

snowing around 1130 am

Another money making scheme

Snow depth at 1420

Here’s an article I wrote about what tourists can find to do in Rochester, New York.

LINK

One of the little known stars of the sporting world is from the Rochester, New York area. Jenn Stuczynski is a top woman’s pole vaulter, and she just broke her own American record.

R News

Roberts Wesleyan grad Jenn Stuczynski broke her own American Record in the women’s pole vault, clearing 16’3/4″ at the Adidas Classic in Carson, California.

Her previous mark of 16′ was set at the same meet last year. Stuczynski missed at three attempts at the World Record of 16’5-1/2″, coming close on her third attempt.

Stuczynski was an NAIA All-American in basketball and track & field at Roberts Wesleyan before learning the pole vault from coach Rick Suhr, who runs a pole vault school.

The reigning indoor and outdoor National Champion, Stuczynski missed the end of last year’s outdoor season with an Achillies Tendon injury but was back as the best vaulter in the U.S. by February.

Her next meet is May 31 at the Reebok Grand Prix outside New York City. The women’s pole vault is on the last day of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team, July 6th in Eugene, Oregon.

I ran track in high school, low those many years ago. I never could figure out the pole vault, just as well. Yet another event to be bad at.

This woman is a phenom. She ought to be on everyone’s lips just like the golfers or the WNBA. She competes against others but also against herself with every vault.

Jenn Stuczynski page at US Track and Field site

A Guide for Tourists Visiting Rochester, New York

R News

A former Monroe County 911 operator is under arrest, accused of accessing highly sensitive and restricted law enforcement information, including that on a terrorism watch list.

Nadire Zenelaj, a native of Albania, is accused of 230 counts of unlawfully accessing restricted law enforcement and criminal records by computer, for her own purpose not related to any official business.
Authorities say Zenelaj had been doing this over a three-year period.

Investigators say Zenelaj had clearance to the information because of her status with the city as a 911 operator and accessed the information at times when her job did not call for her to do so.

On three of the 232 occasions she allegedly accessed the database, authorities say Zenelaj accessed information linked to the site’s terrorism watch list.

She now faces numerous charges, including computer trespass – a Class-E felony.

City leaders relieved Zenelaj of her duties as a 911 operator in December.

Mayor Bob Duffy issued a statement saying that the city is “looking at the many ways in which fraud can take place and taking the necessary steps to protect our citizens.”

In her defense, Zenelaj offered the following statement:

“I totally deny the allegations of computer trespassing and misconduct. Anything that I did at the 911 center was with the training they had given me. I wasn’t the only one. Just about everyone in my position has done the same regardless if whether they hit on any information that was sensitive or not. I deny in any way, shape or form that any information was disseminated. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a straight and legit person. I don’t have any terrorist ties.”

Democrat & Chronicle

Zenelaj, who was a 911 operator, is accused of unlawfully accessed highly sensitive and restricted law enforcement and criminal records information for her own purposes on multiple occasions, according to a news release from city officials.

She also allegedly accessed highly sensitive information pertaining to the terrorism watch list and obtained this sensitive information for personal reasons, not related to official business.

Zenelaj was fired in December for various violations regarding unauthorized access of computer information and violations of the City of Rochester Ethical Standards of Conduct.

This afternoon, the Rochester New York area experienced a foreshadowing of what medical care might be like during a pandemic. It wasn’t pretty.

Rochester and Monroe County are in the grips of influenza. The local hospitals are overflowing with folks complaining of cough, fatigue, aches and pains and for many elderly, confusion and disorientation.

As the demand builds at each hospital’s emergency department, they go from “green” to “yellow” to “red”. By law they cannot refuse a patient, and even when red the patients keep coming.

Ambulance crews had their usual wait times grow, and grow again, until some crews were waiting at triage for four hours. Each crew waiting at the hospital meant that an ambulance was not available to take another call.

About 2:30 pm I was called in to the East Rochester Ambulance base by our captain. At the time of the call, ER had the only staffed ambulance on the east side of Monroe County, with over a dozen ambulances from volunteer agencies tied up on calls and no ambulances available from either commercial ambulance service.

Shortly after my arrival, I was dispatched by the county, with my driver, to Penfield Ambulance to cover their district and that of West Webster. All four of the ambulances that would normally cover those two areas were tied up.

We were finally released about 6 pm, as ambulances came back into service from the hospitals. It had been slightly busier than normal today and that added patient load would normally have been covered by mutual aid from corps not overloaded and the two commercial agencies. Between the crowds at the hospitals and the busier call volume, EMS services became very scarce for about three hours.

People expect that if they don’t feel well, they will be able to go to the hospital, by ambulance. On a day like today, it is easy to see how this expectation will affect medical care when a real crunch, a pandemic, happens.

What would the next step have been? The logjam was the emergency departments. How can they assess and treat patients faster? Having done this for a dozen years, I could sympathize with a desire to tell many of the patients to go home and come back when they’re sicker. Feeling lousy isn’t fatal, nor is a runny nose or a cough or a cut finger or feeling depressed.

The emergency departments locally are new or nearly new. And the demand has already outgrown the supply. Patients wait, sometimes for a day, to get admitted to a real hospital bed from the E/D.

Quasi governmental agencies determine the number of in-patient beds, and E/D beds, and they keep closing hospitals and removing beds in an effort to keep health care costs down. Since they also control the revenue streams for the hospitals, it’s a real mess. Demand is always greater than supply. The hospital must stay open, without staff or beds for all its patients and it cannot add either without a long fight with an unelected governmental agency or agencies.

For three hours today, if you lived in the wealthiest suburbs of Rochester, your emergency care was dependent upon the fates and whatever ambulance within twenty miles was available. If you got to a hospital, you would have waited hours before being seen by a doctor.

And this was just a taste of things to come.

UPDATE: Democrat and Chronicle

The scale of Sunday’s chain-reaction pileup on Interstate 390 is best described by the numbers:

Thirty-six tangled vehicles.

Twenty-five people injured, including one teenager who later died.
Wind gusts up to 37 mph and blowing snow made seeing past the hood virtually impossible. [snip]

Buses that were headed to the Rochester Institute of Technology to pick up hockey teams were commandeered by the Gates Fire Department and used to keep people warm while the temperature slid to 18 degrees. Firefighters had requested buses as part of the rescue response, West said, but those buses “were in the right place at the right time.”

R News

Emergency crews had to cut four people out of the wreckage. The hardest part was deciding who to treat first.

“They might walk and see a person with a broken arm and say, ‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait,’ as to someone with severe trauma, so that’s the hardest part,” said James Harrington, Gates Fire Chief.

Police say what caused this accident was blowing snow. This part of 390 is located just a few hundred yards from the airport runway. There are no trees to block the wind, causing white-out conditions in a matter of seconds.

A Monroe County spokesperson told R News that the county is not liable for the blowing snow or any damage it may have caused. The county says it is the responsibility of the state DOT to determine whether snow fences are necessary.

At about 12:38 p.m. EST today, the Monroe County 911 Center received a cellphone call reporting a 20 car pileup on I390. In the next few moments, a dozen more calls flooded in. Gates Volunteer Fire and Volunteer Ambulance were dispatched.

Just six minutes later a State Police officer on scene requested “as many EMS rigs as possible”. As late as 12:50 a caller reported that collisions were still occurring.

RNews

White-out conditions are being blamed for a deadly chain reaction crash on Route 390 Sunday. The crash killed a teenage girl.

Le Ngo, 17, of Rochester, died from her injuries following the 36-car pile-up that occurred around 12:40 p.m. in the southbound lane of I-390 near the Greater Rochester International Airport.

Twenty-four others were taken to area hospitals. Lyubov Klepanchuk, 18, was critically injured. The others suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Motorists say a stopped car was hidden by blustery snow coming off the open fields at the airport. Witnesses say the collisions just kept coming.

“As we’re driving going about 40, 45, there was just a white car just stopped, just in the lane and then out of nowhere we just smashed. And then as soon as we smashed, cars just kept hitting us and it was just never-ending it seemed… It was the craziest experience of my life,” said Erik Ramos, witness.

Strong Hospital reports five people are in guarded condition and another four are in satisfactory condition. Unity Hospital says 12 victims were brought in; six have since been treated and released.

Gates responded, declared a Mass Casualty Incident, and additional resources were requested. The professionals in Monroe County and Rochester City Fire and EMS responded. Chili, Churchville, Greece, Henrietta were among the initial responders from the local region. Rochester City Fire and Airport Rescue responded with extrication tools and manpower. The commercial agencies, Rural Metro and Monroe Ambulance sent ambulances and personnel.

It’s flu season. The local hospitals were jammed. Space was made, people called in, trauma beds made available. One by one the ambulances rolled out with the injured.

The winds continued to blow. The air temperature was 13 and the wind was blowing with gusts over 20 mph. It was bitter cold and the blowing snow made conditions unbearable. These firefighters and EMS personnel did the impossible. They did their jobs.

More help was requested. Spencerport, Hilton, Perinton, Brighton and Irondequoit sent people and vehicles. A staging area was set up at the nearby Public Safety Training Center. People trapped in vehicles were cut and pried out of what was left of their cars. Ambulances continued to transport to the area hospitals.

Mercy Flight was on standby. Other ambulance and fire departments were alerted and manned their quarters or responded to other agencies to fill in for their crews who were out at the MCI.

Honeoye Falls, Brockport, Lima and East Rochester were all called upon. I’m certain I’ve left off some agencies because this was the largest incident in recent memory and a lot of people contributed.

Yes, East Rochester, my medic and I, were asked to fill in at Gates Ambulance base. Our part was very, very small; we never went to the scene and never had to cover a call for Gates. We were there in case someone in Gates needed an ambulance.

By 2:45 p.m. EST, the incident was over. All patients had been extricated and transported. The agencies involved began to recover their equipment and put their rigs back in service.

Curiously, in that two hour time frame, the county was unusually calm. There were a handful of calls but agencies like Henrietta and Gates that have a high call volume were very quiet. It’s as if there was a pause so we could devote ourselves to this disaster.

The lives of a great many people were changed today. The families of the dead and gravely injured, those who were injured or just were in the incident. And, the firefighters and EMS staff are also affected. This is one of those career calls, that everyone involved will remember their entire career. It’ll be the story the old farts tell. It will be the call by which future calls are measured.

As the crews began to return to Gates Base, I could see in their eyes and hear in their voices that change that I am all too familiar with. These brave folks now have an unforgettable memory of tragedy and success, of destruction and rescue. It may be a burden. It may be a blessing.

I cannot calculate the number of people who worked on this call this day. Well over a hundred men and women, mostly volunteers but paid folks too, all professionals. There are people alive this minute because of their work. In that two hour span, safety, succor, life was given as best as could be done by people from all walks of life, from all over the county, working together.

I am proud to be a part of the EMS community in Monroe County. Today shows why.

McCain 40.4%
Romney 37.1%
Huckleberry 12.7%
Ron Paul 6.7%
Rudy 3.1%

Rochester NY and Monroe County

Ambulance duty tomorrow. Going to bed.