Final tally on budget cuts, Troy City Hall moving, Schenectady HS pegged as dangerous, cemetery ordered to bury woman in five days, visiting frat brothers may or may not have peed on couch
The final tally on the state budget cuts made by the Legislature for this year: $427 million. Combined with the $630 million already cut by David Paterson, the state budget is now $120.9 billion -- that's about $1 billion from where it started. [TU]
The Troy City Council has approved the plan to lease the Verizon Building as a replacement city hall (the current city hall is slated to be torn down for a waterfront park). Troy could be moving its offices by the end of the year, pending a study of how its new digs should be arranged. [TU] [Troy Record]
The state Ed Department has tagged Schenectady High School as "persistently dangerous." The Schenectady school school president called the label "an outrage" and said the methodology used is flawed. [Daily Gazette] [TU]
In a sort-of-similar story, St. Peter's Hospital in Albany and Samaritan Hospital in Troy scored low on a Medicare report card for death rates (St. Peter's for pneumonia, Samaritan for heart failure). Both hospitals say the rating system is flawed because it doesn't take into account patients who didn't want to be revived. [TU]
Remember that woman who was supposed to be buried in St. Agnes cemetery, but her plot had mistakenly been given to someone else? A judge has ordered that her body buried -- along with those of her two family members -- in five days. Somewhere. The Albany Diocese, which owns St. Agnes, has been ordered to pay all the associated costs. [Daily Gazette]
Verizon says it will be going to back to inspect every one of its FiOS installations because there's a chance they don't meet safety standards. [TU]
The work on the steps at Saratoga Springs City Hall will take another two weeks because the footers laid are a half-inch too short and need to rebuilt. [Saratogian]
The owner of the Clinton's Ditch bar/restaurant in Schenectady plans to build a replica of the historic firehouse that once stood next to the restaurant. It would be Schenectady's first historic replica project. The new old firehouse will be serve as an extension to the bar. [Daily Gazette]
A band of visiting frat brothers from UVA have been ordered to pay damages after they broke into, and partied at, a Union frat house. A number of pieces of furniture may or may not have been peed on -- alas, forensic testing was never done. [TU] [Daily Gazette]
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Comments
Is "claiming that the methodology is flawed" the new way of shrugging off responsibility? Twice in one day...
... said James Cronen on Aug 21, 2008 at 10:16 AM | link
First, relying on a school to self report (and self categorize) an incident is a true lesson in ethics. I suspect if all schools were honest, there would be many more on this "persistently dangerous" list. I would look very closely at any district which appears squeaky clean.
But this weighted scale means nothing. Who decided that pulling a butter knife is five times worse than the fist fight in the gym involving six kids?
... said Abby on Aug 22, 2008 at 10:23 PM | link