Making news

So I seem to have finally attracted the attention of the NY state Democratic Party's outreach program, specifically the part that keeps tabs on blogs. This puts me on the list for Democratic party news. Hence I got this link, which features a blurb on Onondaga County, which even features Tom.

The front section of the Post Standard has an article on how $400,000 of taxpayer money went to OnTrack, Syracuse's passenger rail service. I'm sure it was news to most readers that we even had a passenger rail service, let alone that it was in trouble. The service was supposed to expand to the regional transportation center and Alliance Bank Stadium. Instead it shut down in July. The company still gets the tax breaks. Yeah, they're running freight on the lines, but this is still an example of how we need to put monitoring in place on our tax breaks before we just hand them out. In general, the rail service seems like a workable idea. When I saw the Post-Standard talk about one county leg candidate proposing a light rail system, I thought it sounded good, and had no idea a rail of sorts was already in place. I think this is part of the problem. No one had any idea about those trains. Also, they do run to Carousel, Armory Square, and SU, but they don't really hit any other areas downtown according to the map. I think this was a feasible idea handled by the wrong people.

Speaking of Carousel, there's also an interesting article on the president of the green building council, who turns out to be from CNY. Yet another reason we should be latching on to this environmental businesses thing. All our politicians talk about it, yet it's yet to take off. Clearly, something's missing and someone needs to find out what and fix it. You'll have to read the article yourself, I can't find the link on syracuse.com. So here's an article on where campaign contributions went.

I've modified the about me to reflect that I'm looking to run a campaign next year. I've actually already had one contact, meeting set for Monday, but I haven't committed to anything yet.