HISTORY: ANNUAL DINNER, MAY DAY, VRA, ZPAC

The more things change, the more they remain the same, they say. But though we are still fighting so many of the same battles, we have not only stayed on the field but steadily moved forward, in ways our parents and grandparents could perhaps see better than we do now.

The more things change…! Metro Justice has been doing dinner fundraisers since we were Friends of Fight. But they haven’t always been Annual Dinners. Various older members have remembered spaghetti dinners of years past, and Denise Young was able to help me tie down a few details on those: they were held until sometime in the 1980s in church basements with kitchens (she remembers Immaculate Conception in Cornhill), and were considered more in the way of periodic dinner fundraisers than a specifically annual event. 

TELL VERIZON "NO" MEANS "NO!"

The effort to site a six story cell tower on Portland - across the street from this church - has once again arisen, zombie-like. Verizon’s special permit was denied by the City Planning Commission (CPC) last August, then again (in slightly altered form) on March 30th. This should have been the end of the matter, unless Verizon went to the trouble of making an appeal to a federal court with a claim that denying their special permit for their preferred location (in an under-resourced neighborhood where they were able to get a speculating landowner to do a deal) “effectively prohibits” them from providing cell service to the entire area, which is against federal law. They have not made a federal appeal. 

Instead, after the vote to deny the Special Permit at its March 30th meeting, a city lawyer asked our local CPC to vote on a determination that the denial constitutes “Effective Prohibition” of service, despite the fact that this local board has no jurisdiction in federal telecommunications decisions and this is not the correct legal route. When this vote failed, he placed the same question on the agenda for their next meeting. 

ANTI-WAR POTLUCK REPORT

At last Sunday’s potluck, 7 of us came together for an opportunity to discuss Metro Justice's previous work with the anti-war movement and future possibilities. The conversation was a frank one, that understood that we were not here just because of Trump but years of the executive office taking a stronger role in starting wars and Congress letting it happen. 

ANNUAL DINNER VOLUNTEERS WANTED

If you get Metro Justice emails, you will know by now that our Annual Dinner is taking place on Saturday, May 9th, and we're looking forward to it! Besides being our most important annual fundraiser — and thus an event that enables so much of the other work we do — it is also a wonderful occasion for us to sit down to a meal together, catch up on the doings of the past year, and have some fun.

PROTECTING OURSELVES FROM OUR GOVERNOR

Direct action heats up New York’s budget season this year as we approach Hochul's bid for reelection. On Tuesday March 25, about 100 activists blockaded the State St entrance to the NYS Capital, demanding the passage of NY4All, a bill which would protect our immigrant neighbors. After blocking traffic on State St, activists and politicians took the party indoors and chanted, sang, and salsa’d in front of security and their turnstiles. “State Police were told not to arrest protesters that day, and the demonstrators left a few hours after the rally began.” (Told by who? Traditional knowledge suggests that the Governor’s office - even Hochul herself - has a hand in directing the behavior of State Troopers operating within the Capital Complex.) Read the rest!

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THE WEEKS TO COME

Need a community pick-me-up? There's lots of choice coming up, as spring comes over Rochester! And a few items to push as well: If you haven't made your voice heard lately about Hochul's egregious efforts to derail climate sustainability, tomorrow is the last day! Meanwhile the deadline has been extended to 4/15 to protest STAMPS horrific plans to turn the Tonawanda Seneca's sacred forest into a data center. And tonight is the Planning Commission meeting (5 pm) and public hearing (6 pm) at City Hall regarding Verizon's renewed request to erect a 6-story cell tower on Portland Ave. So, as Emma Peel would say to Steed in the original Avengers - "We're needed!"

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

"A lot going on" is becoming the new normal. That may not feel like a good thing - but when it is activism going on, it is! Trump and crony capitalism are doing incalculable damage both nationally and locally. One unfortunate collateral casualty is our collective peace of mind, with new demands and annoyances daily from emboldened corporations to add to our smoldering existential fears. Life was never easy and never will be, whatever the marketing campaigns and addictive algorithms are telling us, but our best lives are lived with other real people, fighting for what is right for all of us. That will be our route toward both a more equitable future and to greater personal peace amid the chaos of the present. 

ANOTHER BUSY WEEK

There is quite a bit newly in the rear view mirror this week, as we look back on the 1199 informational picket demanding a contract from Rochester Regional's Unity Living Center, the Really Big Lobby Day in Albany (see below!), an 1199 press conference on Medicaid, and a Healthcare Town Hall in Geneva that looks forward to those we are planning soon in Rochester and Buffalo.

Proposed billboard on Monroe and Canterbury / 60' cell tower / 936 Portland Ave - same scale

Over the past few years a coalition of neighborhood organizations has fended off three proposed digital billboard variance attempts and succeeded in protecting Cobbs Hill Park with the first Preservation District in over 30 years. Over the summer, Ames Grigg and neighbors in NorthEast Rochester protested the erection of a 60’ broadband-carrying (high intensity, high volume) cell tower at 936 Portland Avenue - and won as well. This month both of these zoning variance applications have been resurrected, and the cell tower (revised for a smaller footprint but same purpose) could be approved as soon as March 30th - and could then be used as a precedent for other carriers to build more and larger broadband cell towers in other residential neighborhoods, without having to ask. Ready to defend our neighborhoods against the megacorporations who increasingly prey upon them? Sign up here, and read on.