>> Coming up.
"need to know."
how ROCHESTER Mayor plans to save money and give better service to city neighborhoods.
How another young life was lost to violence.
We examined the program targeting 8 root cause of conflict.
The inability to forgive.
And, the latest from our Capitol Bureau correspondent, Karen DeWitt.
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>> The news magazine since 1997.
This is "need to know."
>> Welcome to this edition.
My name is Julie Philipp.
ROCHESTER City Mayor said that this is challenging.
He faced a $24 million deficit going into the budget process.
He came out of it with a $478 million plan that includes a consolidation of three areas of government -- the Department of Community Development, the Department of Economic Development, and the neighborhood empowerment team.
If the City Council wants to know, what is the change and what does it mean.
This is Molly Clifford, the administrator director.
Thank you for coming in.
I know that you have PGA tickets.
>> Nice to be here.
>> The idea was to bring the city government into the neighborhoods but when you took the job there was a lot of controversy over the offices.
Can you characterize what you saw when you came into the office?
>> Well, the concept of net always been a great one.
It is great to have these many city halls where people can go if they do not want to go downtown.
Pay for parking.
Whenever.
They can get their questions answered.
We also do code enforcement.
We have police officers in each of the offices as well.
They're working together with their parents.
Great concepts.
Part of the issue has to do the expectations being very high when net created.
You can go in these offices and get anything you need to accomplish.
That is not true, mostly because it is not particularly efficient to do things that way.
We cannot have a staff from all of the department's issuing every kind of permit, every kind of item --
>> Not a true mini hall.
>> What we hope to involve into is more of that concept.
Where people are going to be able to get more done in the neighborhood Service Center.
In each of their parents.
>> You want to kind of fulfilled that.
The current plan is to blend these three departments.
We call it the Department of never met and business development.
There is one department.
No more net offices.
How will that work.
How will that bring about efficiency?
You just said it is impossible to have mini city halls.
>> It is about what is necessary and what the focus will be.
Frankly, we're not there yet.
As you know, the mayor has seven budget meetings throughout the community over the past six months.
He heard from neighborhoods and residents about the kinds of things that they would like to see brought to them by neighborhood spirit brought closer to them.
What we have said is, here is the model.
Will have four neighborhood service centers.
We will combine these departments and a way that makes sense for the customer.
We work towards that over the next year.
We will really get at what that model will be.
>> He said that there is a lot of overlap between those three departments that are coming together.
What are the areas of overlap?
>> Really, everything that each of the department's does it really impacts of neighborhoods.
Certainly, the net losses with public safety.
With community development.
Their housing program.
With economic development, commercial development, along our neighborhood strips.
Everybody has a slightly different focus.
What we would find is that we could be working along side of each other but not necessarily know what each other was doing.
>> Can have a specific example?
>> You can say a corridor, perhaps.
Economic development plans when they were offering grants to some of the businesses.
We worked very closely with the road on a businesses that are having trouble in making trouble for the neighborhood.
That communication was not always there to say, hey, who can we be assisting?
Who do want to pull back a little bit because they're not fulfilling their responsibilities?
>> So they're getting in trouble and they're getting grants?
>> It does not happen often but it is enough or we feel that there is a team of people who are working on thurston Road and the neighborhood surrounding that, we will be in communication.
We will know what the priorities are.
We will always be talking in the same language to the neighbors and them to us so we're on the same page.
>> We're basically moving more people from downtown into these new -- I still haven't gotten the name down -- Department of never and business development centers.
The name for the centers right now is the never read service centers.
The idea is to, yes, have a team that is assigned by quadrants.
It is up for that group.
Whether they will be in the Office 24/7 or five days a week.
Not clear yet.
Will be working with the neighborhoods to figure out what kind of model works best.
But there will be a team, part if not all of their job will be, what can we do to make the southwest, with the never wanted to be?
>> Why close two of them?
there are six and two of them are closed.
There will be four centers that are temporary right now.
You will decide permanent locations for them later.
Or drop it down to four?
>> The city as a whole is moving towards the quadrants Service delivery model.
It seemed to make sense.
Obviously, there is a cost associated with having more offices.
Overhead, etc.
What we want to do is consolidate the location but we will be providing more services.
We really think that people will see an enhanced level of service rather than a reduction.
>> Talk about the needs.
Is it the same in every neighborhood?
>> Absolutely not.
That is one of the great of thenet and a quadrant model.
Four quadrants are very different from each other.
They have very different needs.
And the ability to really tailor what kind of services we can provide.
It has been effective and we think it will be even more so.
>> What about at this street level.
I have these four never met service centers and live in the city.
What will I see?
What is different?
>> Again, because we are in the development, I cannot say today what it will look like in one year.
Certainly some of the things that have been talked about our, you know, you business owner who may be planning an expansion or something like that.
There will come to the neighborhood Service Center and they can find out what grants might be available to him.
What kind of permits he may need to do the expansion.
If the business owner has a problem location next door, what kind of help he can get to ease debt.
You have that all in one stop.
Before that, you have to call a different department, depending on what your question was.
Oftentimes, those things were facilitated, but sometimes it or not.
And oftentimes people do not know where to start.
This will be a much more efficient and much more effective model.
>> There is talk of taking some of those big programs such as clean sweep and that sort of thing in localizing it into a quadrant.
>> Right.
I think we have found, and I'm sure the any kind of business, the more you know about your customers, and the park more your customers know you, the better relationship you and have and more effective you can be.
With a clean sweep being an example, we worked very closely to the never to say, what are your priorities?
What Parks Do you think need more help?
Where is the most graffiti?
And really working to set those priorities.
>> Coming out of the service centers, we might see more efforts just localized efforts, not a citywide, not announced citywide, just something that you service centers and the neighborhood groups determined.
>> Exactly.
Hopefully, we bring in other partners, both in City Hall, and the Fire Department, and if there is something with smoke detectors that is an example.
We have recreation youth services.
If we're having issues with the recreation center, they can be part of that as well.
>> Are you reinventing the wheel or are using some other community or business model?
>> Well, we know that the concept of service centers exists in other places.
Nobody does it quite lyse this.
-- quite like this.
Some are more customer Service Center at and if you have a particular question you can get it answered but not the planning for the productivity.
For the team-based model.
I think this is really going to beat New and every community is different.
Again, because we listen to our customers over the past six months, I think we're really developing a model that they want.
>> When do you think this -- You said that it is progressive.
It is not all decided.
How long before we see a final version?
>> Well, the budget basically entails facing this in up until July 1 of 2009.
We hope that it is sooner.
But we want to give ourselves the time to do it right.
Merging the three departments, large departments, and this city is a real challenge.
It is not something that is was done in a while.
Between all kinds of union issues or just bureaucratic information technology issues, it is a large endeavor.
So, it will take a little while.
>> What does this mean for your job and the administrators of those other two apartments?
-- departments?
>> We laughed that they will move in with each other.
Of course, will act as a team.
Frankly, we do not know yet.
We do not think that any of us are focused on ourselves.
What are focusing on what is best for the city.
>> But you kind of have that question, do I have a job after I have developed all of this?
>> You know, I am sure that we will have jobs out there.
Again, it will depend on the model and was the right fit for what.
Again, that is not a focus of ours.
For us will want to make sure that we have a city government that is as responsive to the community.
>> Who will bring about the effort?
>> It really has been the three of us.
We have been talking about this over the past year.
Saying, hey, how do we work this better to provide these services?
We know that there are some overlapping things.
We know that --
>> Has anybody been named a director?
>> No.
>> Will somebody named?
>> I'm assuming so.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Sure.
>> Mother Clifford is the neighborhood empowerment team director.
The budget includes an overall increase and public safety.
This was announced the day before Daniel Davis' funeral.
He was a 16-year-old boy who was gunned down.
There are many approaches to fighting such violence.
This includes putting more police officers on the street or showing young people better ways to handle conflict.
That is an approach being tried at the Center for Youth Services and ROCHESTER.
Carlet Cleare reports.
>> I think that it will start to change our attitude about the violence in this city.
>> He is talking about forgiveness.
He is a facilitator for the power to forgive Project at the center for youth.
The initiative aims to help the community heal by teaching people to let go of offenses.
>> Rather than just talking about how difficult life is and how it impacted they are by violence, we thought it would be helpful to give our young adults and teenagers and even children the opportunity to really find some strategies and tools.
And forgiveness seems to be exactly what was needed.
>> I think about it as having something better in your mouth.
And you're chewing on it.
It cannot spit it out, you cannot swallow it.
You know?
It is only bad for you.
You have that bitter taste in your mouth.
Nobody else knows.
Swallow it or spit it out.
>> He says that he are lots about revenge and payback.
>> All whole culture is a dirty Harry and, what is the one with Charles Bronson where there is a vigilante who goes out and kills all the bad guys.
And it is the reciprocal kind of violence.
>> To try to combat this mentality, that Center brings in teenagers to watch a video clip.
This one was about a California boy who kills a pizza delivery man as part of a gang initiation.
>> I shot him.
>> Afterwards, they discussed the film.
>> What did they do?
They started speaking out against violence and for forgiveness.
>> Here, they are encouraged to talk and expressed painful experiences.
Help each other, and learn how to move on.
>> You have to find it within yourself.
That place where you can open up and just let it go.
Let it go.
It is better.
>> One young lady had this big breakthrough.
She is really upset and angry and one day, she realizes that, wow, I'm really angry.
It is eating a hole in my stomach.
>> I never will -- I'm so miserable with my life right now.
>> Some of them said that they get the concept of forgiveness.
But it can be hard to make it work.
>> In the community, when we think if I care too much, then that opens me up for victimization.
So I need to be hard.
I really need to be tough.
I really need to put on this front that you cannot hurt me and I will hurt you kind of thing.
We need to get past that and really start to care about people.
>> We're hoping that something will work with power and love and forgiveness.
It delivers a different message.
Maybe, it will give each other a break.
You cannot just jump to the wrong conclusions.
We look into each other's sole and see how Bible and precious people are.
And that's slowly, we begin to resolve the terrible violence and retribution in the other kinds of damage that people do to each other.
>> 4 "need to know," I'm Carlet Cleare.
>> The forgiveness project is one element in the WXXI Education Department's of forgiveness initiative.
This was funded by this institute.
Good to our website www.wxxi.org/forgiveness.
>> It is time for our monthly report from the need to know's Capitol Hill correspondent.
We have her on the phone today.
Hello, Karen DeWitt?
>> Hello.
>> Governor Paterson was in the hospital this week.
>> Early Tuesday morning, which also happened to be his 54th birthday, he went to the hospital because he had extreme pain in his left eye.
It turns out after they did some tests that he has this kind of rare form of a kid glove, and yet to have laser eye surgery.
He joked later that he got it but he was reading and he was reading instruction on his iPod.
And that led to his pain.
It must've been a condition that had been building up over the past several weeks and now of Friday, he had to go in and get the right eye operated on as a precautionary measure.
He said he was a little bit anxious about that because that is his good eye that he can see out of.
But it is a fairly routine procedure.
Usually, they're not any complications.
He should be OK.
If it did sort of through the capital once again into a bit of a tizzy because there's been so much uncertainty there this spring.
>> When he is back in business and feeling better, he is vowing to fight public worker unions.
Some questions over how successful he is likely to be at that.
>> That is interesting because when he was Senate Minority Leader through his long career in the Senate, he was known as a friend to unions.
He collected a lot of money from unions for various campaigns.
His father, Basil Paterson, is the lawyer for two of the biggest unions in the state.
Health-care workers and the transit workers.
The unions have a lot of bills that would like to get through to kind of a sweetened health-care benefits and pension benefits.
Lately, the governor has been saying, we do not have enough money this year to do everything.
It is not going to be business as usual.
It will be interesting to see the legislature expecting to pass some of these bills and if the governor actually vetoed to that.
If he does veto them, with the legislature override it.
It is viewed as one of his big tests to see if he actually has changed and how much is going to stand up to people around Albany.
>> Observers speculate that that will happen fairly soon because the bills will be passed before the Legislature leaves?
>> Yes.
In their only five weeks left to the session.
Time is running out.
>> Switching subjects a little bit, back in January, the former governor came to ROCHESTER with the person he just named the head of the new property tax commission to look at property taxes in New York state.
The commission was supposed to deliver a report this week that did not happen.
>> One of the key words and that Property Tax Commission, when they do to the report there.
To recommend a property tax cap.
It was mostly postponed because of scheduling issues around Memorial Day holiday.
They thought maybe they should do it and they can get more attention for it.
It is just as well with the governor.
They probably had to cancel that anyway.
But they will recommend a cap and a so-called circuit breaker that sort of subsidizes property-tax is on a sliding scale for some of the poor New Yorkers.
That will come up and who knows where it will go?
The opposition is already gathering steam.
They're using this delay --
>> Rumors are saying that there is a delay that is allowing the opposition to actually mount a battle.
>> They have had press conferences this week.
They have had teleconference calls.
The have invited reporters to this.
They do not want to see it happen.
The alternative is to just have a circuit breaker and to finance it by imposing new taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers.
That is something that Governor Paterson said that he does not want to do.
But there is a lot of Democrats in the Assembly that want to do this.
This may kind of lock up the proposal for a while.
>> That sounds like Governor Paterson, when he is feeling better, will have a lot on his plate in the next month or so.
>> Absolutely.
He was thrust into this job.
New York is in the middle of the issues and problems.
It is a tough job.
>> Let us switch a little bit to people who want that job.
Election 2008.
Every seat in the state Assembly and the state Senate are up for grabs.
People keeping in very close eye on the state Senate this year.
>> That is right.
The Republicans are holding on to the majority by just one seat.
One of the most interesting races this right in Rochester.
The senator who was the Democrat switched to Republican and he is being challenged.
The challenger has been very aggressive.
I get email all the time criticizing him and calling him out on various points.
The Democrats are going to knock off all of the older senators from Long island.
Now you have the S.I. with the congressman the Bidault having to deal with family and not run again.
They might have to take a Republican senator and have him run for that seat.
That means the GOP has to come up with a new candidate for Senate.
This is all in a year that it is believed that Democrats are going to sweep things in November.
The GOP is a pretty nervous.
One mitigating factor is the new governor gets along very well with the Republican Senate majority leader, Joe Bruno.
He may not work as hard to try to get rid of a broad enough -- of a Bruno.
>> Thank you for joining us.
>> Thank you.
>> Karen DeWitt was joining us from Albany.
It is time now for the Business Section with the Democrat and Chronicle.
>> Matt Daneman is a business reporter for the "Democrat and Chronicle."
>> As we have been talking about numerous times, he wants to buy energy and for more than one year this has been going on.
Regulators, federal and others, had signed the paperwork.
It is all good.
New York State is a very time-consuming process.
They had hoped for some kind of movement by this day.
Friday.
Whether that is going to happen is still anyone's guess.
Even if there is movement, there is a procedural thing.
Is going on a much, much longer.
And a number of lawmakers are starting to get this.
>> But if New York does not want us --
>> Exactly.
There are hangups about needing to sign up on much better rate decreases for New York than they have already.
Who knows where this is going to go.
>> American Airlines is going to cost a little bit more before you get even on the plane.
>> Gas prices are having all sorts of recall affects all the time.
Early this year, American and other carriers said that if you check a second back, it will cost $25.
American is now saying that if you check one back, it will cost you $15.
Undoubtedly, other ones will follow this.
Why wouldn't they?
They have to recoup costs.
Somebody else open the floodgate.
More ripple effect of help pump prices will hit your pocketbook in many different ways.
>> Average price of gas?
>> It was just above 4:00 four dollars.
>> OK.
There's always been concerned about whether the Mall will ever take off.
It showed a little bit of a sign of light and now --
>> When of its main traffic drivers along with the stores is Steve and berries.
It is closing as of Sunday.
It will be located out on buffalo robes.
-- Buffalo road.
It is not good for this small.
It opened in 1990 and it had 100 stores.
Now it only has half of that.
The one sort of option that seems to be existing for the ball is it that has these people were elements in place with an intent to build a movie theater with regal Cinemas.
Maybe that will bring the foot traffic and that the place really, really needs.
It is a ghost town.
>> 1 reason -- why did Stephen and barry's take off?
>> The principals were there.
They're talking about what a great producing store it was.
It is doing well.
We have a long-term lease.
A couple of months later, they say the foot traffic just is not there.
We're going out.
What does this portend for the other stores?
It is hard to say.
>> Or that offered a deal?
They got up and said something?
>> The question.
I do not know.
It really boils down to apparently someone somewhere sharpened their pencils and said, this store is not producing.
>> OK.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Have a good holiday weekend.
>> You, too.
>> We're out of time.
Join us next week as we look at how the various congressional races are shaping up and why upstate New York is losing clout in Washington, D.C.
This is Julie Philipp.
Enjoy your holiday weekend as well.
>> Previous broadcasts can be seen if you have time Warner's on demand service.
Go to Rochester on demand, Channel 111.
Then look for WXXI news.
You'll find a selection of recent programs.