I just culled this from the October newsletter sent out by Syracuse First, a non-profit organization promoting the development of a local living economy:

Studies have shown that for every $100 spent at a local-independent business $73 STAYS IN THE COMMUNITY versus $43 at a non locally-owned business.   If we were to commit a small 10% shift in spending in Onondaga County we could erase the debt, create over a 1000 new jobs, reduce our collective impact on the environment and generate $130 million in new economic activity.  All without a single taxpayer dollar or spending more then we already do.  It really is that simple.

Some fifteen years ago, I happened upon Roadside Magazine, which was then publishing a small review of diners. Their byline was so appealing, I started using it as a signature on my emails:

Recipe for an American Renaissance:
Eat in diners. Ride trains. Shop on Main Street. Put a porch on your house. Live in a walkable community.

I’d like to add: shop in locally-owned shops on Main Street. We’ll all be better for it.

There’s no doubt about our need for them, but we’ll believe even known liars if they just whisper “jobs!” in our hopeful ears.

Remember all the jobs that were supposed to be produced at the Mistake on the Lake?  Used to be called Destiny, then it was just a mall expansion, and then Mr. Congel’s bank figured out they were going to lose a lot of money. Banks are in the business of knowing what’s a good deal or not. But I’d bet there are still people out there who believe that “Destiny” is destined to rescue jobless Central New Yorkers.  Oh, please.

So here’s the siren song again: JOBS! …in one of the most dangerous businesses there is: gas and oil. Never mind the environmental catastrophe hydrofracking is, never mind the loss of our clean drinking water, our clean air, our natural resources that all enjoy and that attract tourism. Are these fracking jobs really a boon? Just ask the people who are defending those who have suffered unimaginable loss trying to earn a living in gas and oil:

Oil and Gas Accidents

People employed in the oil and gas industry are subject to some of the most hazardous industrial conditions in the US. Serious injuries occur to even the most experienced oil and gas workers and the severity and duration of injuries, with recovery times that are nearly twice as long, are far worse than in other industry sectors.

Nearly half of all fatal injuries were attributed to highway motor-vehicle crashes and workers being struck by machinery or equipment. Gas explosion injuries, fires, chemical burns and dangerous falls or falling objects or equipment– workers are often hit on the head or back by tools or equipment—are just a few of the dangers occurring on a regular basis in the oil and gas industry.

The oil and gas extraction industry employed about 380,000 workers in 2006 and employment is growing. However, increases in oil and gas activity correlate with an increase in the rate of fatal occupational injuries, particularly when inexperienced workers are not sufficiently trained in safety and precautionary measures.

Hydrofracking promises 20 years’ supply of natural gas.

What we’ll get is the destruction of our water supplies, the poisoning of our agricultural and recreational land and, as a result, a drop in the tourism dollars that come here because it’s clean and beautiful in upstate New York.

When that 20 years is up, WHAT WILL WE HAVE LEFT???

A writer in Cooperstown’s Freemason’s Journal has said it very well:

Ask the mayor of Dish, Texas, folks in Dimmock, Pa., or other places where gas drilling problems are documented. Discuss alternatives to fossil fuels and ban gas drilling. Gas companies are temporary, but cancer is permanent.

MAUREEN CULBERT
East Springfield

SIGN THE PETITION
BAN NATURAL GAS DRILLING IN NEW YORK STATE

Think this (below) can’t happen to us?

If not, what are you thinking?

CAN YOU DO THIS WITH YOUR TAP WATER? from JOSHFOX on Vimeo.

Our ground and surface water systems: Priceless

Upcoming events

How green was their valley…

Hydrofracking sites scattered around the Upper Green River Valley, Wyoming.      Onondaga County could look like this, too.

He was eager to tell me, “Mom, I cleaned the kitchen, can I go now?” but I knew better. What he said was not true and I was going to be left with a real job.

This is what we have with the hydrofracking process that threatens to remove “clean” natural gas from the earth in a most unnatural way. It brings to our surface water and our air hundreds of chemicals to contaminate the only natural resources we have of value in upstate New York: clean water, clean countryside and clean air.

We’re going to have an unimaginably large job on our hands if we allow this to to happen to our land. Remember when our parents thought it was fine to dump waste into Onondaga Lake?  Do we want to leave this kind of mess to our kids?

We don’t have a seaside, we don’t have a big desirable city (check the real estate values if you disagree on that last part), we don’t have anything but the one thing New York State has been seriously developing lately: our beautiful and historic towns, parks and byways. Frack the land and frack the water and we have NOTHING LEFT. People, our other natural resource, will continue to leave. We already know what a problem that is.

Cornell may be full of those annoying academic types, but heck, there are a few really smart people who just may be good at research. They have put a moratorium on hydrofracking on their land. Would it not be a good idea to find out why before we allow it to start anywhere else in New York State?

Action step:

Attend the Citizen’s Community Forum on Hydrofracking.
Wednesday February 10, 2010 at 7pm
Nottingham High School, 3100 E Genesee St, Syracuse, NY

Well, just look around. Wherever you are right now, take a look. What tells you where you are? Probably anything that is both familiar and unique. If it’s some place you call “home”, you are likely to be taking rather good care of it. And if it’s some place you recognize as someone else’s home, you are likely going to treat it with some respect.

Are you outdoors, perhaps, sitting in a cafe somewhere?  Did you take a walk today and notice anything that told you where you were? Again, whatever oriented you to where you were was probably something both familiar and unique.

Now take a walk down your street. If you live in Eastwood, walk down James Street. Notice what is both familiar and unique about each building. Would your elderly neighbor feel the same way about what you find orienting? Or would she be thinking about something else that used to be there, some place that held the memories of times spent with friends and family now gone. If some of the buildings are gone, then there’s a sense of loss. If most of the buildings are gone (as in Batavia), then there is a profound sense of disorientation and loss of ownership. Why care about it or respect it any more?

In the January/February issue of The Atlantic, there is an article about the historic shopping arcades of Paris, built in the first half of the 19th century. I quote:

In an increasingly homogenized Paris, where Ralph Lauren is camped across from La Madeleine and Tommy Hilfiger colonizes the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the businesses in Paris’s historic passages—or arcades—still exude an orienting sense of place.

These unique yet familiar – to Parisians – urban environments let you know where you are. The signs in the shops are all in French. But if you saw signs in English, why you might be in Watertown …

or Buffalo:

What tells us that we’re in Eastwood?

The consequences (of increasing rates of obesity), however, are clear enough. Not only do health risks increase, but obesity can be costly: It reportedly adds about 9 percent to the nation’s health care expenses. That’s tens of billions of dollars spent each year. In Maryland, the United Health Foundation estimates that obesity adds more than $7 billion (or nearly $1,100 per person) to annual health costs.

This may not be news to doctors and others who have long advocated for the public to adopt a healthier diet and to exercise more, but a more holistic approach to public policy is needed. From taxing sugary soft drinks to encouraging “smart growth” and walkable communities, the state needs to both enable and encourage a healthier lifestyle.

So let’s start with a healthy diet.

It’s been said that getting a person to change the way they eat is harder than getting them to change their religion. But there are a couple things that have  proven to change the way one eats: hospitalization or an early death.  Neither method is desirable.

My question to the reading public is this:

What can we as a community do to encourage each other, our families and our neighbors, to gradually give up highly processed foods and substitute them with real foods?  How might the design of various aspects of Eastwood encourage us to eat more real foods?

If we must have a gas station (before it’s converted to an electricity dispensing station or fuel cell store), then let’s be sure we’re looking at all the options.

In this article, Urban Blight: It’s a Gas!, you’ll see quite a variety of gas stations, all of which have been built and which make economic sense to someone.  Which might make sense for our neighborhood now, in 2009?

What about the design of the whole site, if we assume a gas station must go in at this corner? It could be any of those in the above article, or it could be something like the lower picture you see here:

I see the Real Food Co-op and an ice cream parlor on the lower floor, luxury apartments on the second floor and a roof garden on the top. What do you see?

To be brief, the proposal is for a Sunoco gas station with its usual A-Plus convenience store, plus space for three more businesses. Mr. Wolniak assured the audience that they had, over the years, tried out a variety of ways to site the buildings. Limited by the requirements of Sunoco to make the signs and the pumps visible, the businesses can’t front onto James St.

Some concerns were raised, among them the feasibility of having two gas stations within a quarter mile of each other. One person said, “We’ll end up with an empty gas station,” in reference to the Mobil Station, “instead of an empty lot.” Others were concerned about the new traffic patterns created by two entrances from James St.  One already exists but is not used, and the other, even closer to Midler, would be the largest one and would be new.

Mr. Wolniak said that a traffic study has been done that indicates that 35,000 cars per day go by on James St. and 19,000 per day on Midler. However, no traffic study focused on the new use of curb cuts on James has been done yet. It was indicated that there is a tenant lined up for the convenience store but not for the other three shops.

Common Councilor Kathleen Joy pointed out that there will be many more opportunities for public input, since they will need a special permit for the gas station and waivers of the design guidelines.

Site plan: James St. and Midler Ave. southwest corner

View from James Street

View from Midler Ave

November 29, 2009
2:00 – 6:00 pm
VFW Post #3146
2000 Le Moyne Ave
Mattydale, NY

This is at the corner of Le Moyne Ave. and Factory Ave.

$15 for adults
$5 for children 6-12 years old
$35 for a family of four

Entertainment, food, beverage, raffles, silent auction

Advance sale tickets can be purchased at the No Name Diner, 3900 New Court Ave, Syracuse (Eastwood).  All the information and a picture of the new vehicle can be found at Signal99.