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Potential Miscommunications

Tenants Union And Pols Rally To Stop Eviction

Habitat For Humanity Attorney Says People Close To Owner Were Contacted And Passed Info Along

By Matt Dougherty

On August 19, the Ithaca Tenants Union (ITU) held an eviction blockade and press conference from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 417 South Aurora Street. e event was organized to stop Kathy Majors, an immigrant from Laos who has lived in her home on the slopes of South Hill for nearly forty years, from being evicted by Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland County. e eviction was scheduled to be conducted by the Tompkins County Sheri ’s O ce on August 19 at 10 a.m., however it still hasn’t taken place by the time this story went to press.

According to Mayoral Candidate and ITU member Katie Sims, “ ere is an order to show cause led and it is going to be reviewed by the court on Monday. However, in the meantime the eviction warrant is still valid so it can be executed any time a er Monday.”

During the press conference, ITU member Genevive Rand explained that “Habitat for Humanity bought Kathy’s home of nearly forty years on a tax foreclosure a er she and her family fell behind on taxes during the pandemic.” Rand continued by saying that the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) auctioned o Kathy’s home to Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland County for $6,662 and subsequently hired attorney Michael Perehinec, to seek an eviction warrant to remove her family from the property.

“It’s a totally irresponsible thing to do,” said Rand.

Habitat for Humanity prides itself on helping families build strength, stability and self-reliance by assisting them in their journey to access decent a ordable housing. eir website describes the organization's vision as “a world where everyone has a decent place to live.” e ITU says that , by purchasing Kathy’s home from the IURA for just under $7,000 so it can be renovated and given to a new family, Habitat for Humanity is actively undermining its previously stated values.

Kathy lives in the home with her husband James Lukasavage, who works as a long-haul truck driver, their teenage son, and an elderly tenant identi ed only as Steve. e home was foreclosed upon by Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca in June 2021 and sold to Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland County in August of the same year, but Kathy—who is unable to read her second language of English— says that nobody has tried to directly communicate with her in an accessible way.

According to Kathy, “Every year I’d go to pay my taxes just ne, but when COVID-19 hit everything shut down.” She said that for years she would walk down the street to pay her taxes in person at Ithaca City Hall, but when pandemic era regulations resulted in City Hall moving its operations online she was unable to read the sign on the locked door notifying residents that they would be required to pay their taxes online. As a result, the property has accumulated over $10,000

At the rally, Alderperson Jorge DeFendini said, “this situation was brought up because during a global pandemic, our government failed to make clear to people,” such as homeowner Kathy Major pictured at left, “how it would continue to function in languages other than English.” (Photo: Ithaca Tenants Union)

Continued on Page 10

T A K E N O T E

 HAPPY MEALS TOP LONG LIVES — The average New Yorker would give up ve years of their life to keep eating fast food, according to a survey conducted by DrugGenius.com. That’s not the worst result from the survey. More than one in four New Yorkers (27%) think moderate consumption of fast food has health bene ts; 20% believing that tacos or burritos have the greatest health bene t of fast foods. Just goes to show you what a di erence shredded lettuce can make in perceptions. And in the battle of vices, Big Macs beat booze: 60% said that if forced they would give up alcohol rather than fast food.  TOMPKINS RANKS IN MIDDLE OF TOP 50 NYS COUNTIES FOR INCOME — According to the website Stacker, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, Tompkins County has a median household income of $61,361 which is 13.7% below the New York State average and ranks us as 24th out of the top 50 (out of 62) counties in New York State. 28.1% of our households earn over $100,000 while 13.9% of our households earn less than $15,000. Nassau County ranks first on the list while Schuyler County ranks 50th.

VOL. XLII / NO. 53 / August 24, 2022 Serving 47,125 readers weekly

ON THE COVER:

“Ithaca Neighborhoods” by Marshall Hopkins © Ithaca Times, (Special section cover photo: Josh Baldo)

NEWSLINE ....................................3 SPORTS ..........................................7 IC / CORNELL FOOTBALL PREVIEWS ....................................8

Teams face opposite challenges

NEWCOMERS GUIDE ................11 ART ..............................................27 STAGE ..........................................28 FILM ............................................29 DINING .......................................30 TIMES TABLE .............................32 CLASSIFIEDS ..............................34

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G AZETTE : TOM N EWTON

IN UIRING PHOTOGR PHERQ A

By Josh Baldo

WHAT’S YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE?

“Sweets, but especially chocolate cupcakes” – Brianna M.

“Jimmy Johns Subs” – Tyler L.

“Steaks” – Rachel E.

“Pizza” – Gesten M.

“Crystals” – Erin L. Coffee Battles Still Percolating

Both Starbucks and Gimme! Coffee Face NLRB Complaints

Charges Of Union Busting And Unfair Vote Counting Served Up By Ithaca’s Baristas

By Matt Dougherty

Starbucks workers in Ithaca, New York, successfully unionized all three Starbucks locations in April 2022, as part of Starbucks Workers United’s (SBWU) nationwide unionization effort. Since then, Starbucks has closed its pro table Collegetown location and workers at all three locations have accused the company of union busting, leading to complaints being led with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Meanwhile, one of the local competitors to Starbucks, Gimme! Co ee, has recently completed the process of dissolving their worker union in favor of transitioning to a worker cooperative, also leading to complaints being led with the NLRB. e SBWU worker committee led an Unfair Labor Practice charge June 4 with the NLRB. e SBWU alleged that Starbucks closed its location on College Avenue in Collegetown in retaliation to union activity that is protected by federal labor law and to stop workers elsewhere from organizing. ere are currently ve unfair labor practice charges being investigated according to Kayla Blado, director and press secretary at the O ce of Congressional and Public A airs for the NLRB.

e charges accuse Starbucks of violating multiple sections of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) by attempting to undermine union activity.

Speci cally, SBWU has accused Starbucks of violating Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) of the LMRA by discharging, laying o , disciplining, and refusing to hire job applicants because they were prounion. ey also allege that the company violated Section 8(a)(5) of the LMRA and refused to collectively bargain with employee representatives before making the decision to close its Collegetown location. e NLRB website explains that Section 8(a)(3) of the LMRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer, "by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment, to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization." According to the NLRB, “an employer that violates Section 8(a)(3) also derivatively violates Section 8(a)(1).”

Section 8(a)(1) of the LMRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with workers' right to self-organization. According to the NLRB website, this section makes it illegal to “ reaten employees with adverse consequences, such as closing the workplace, loss of bene ts, or more onerous working conditions, if they support a union, engage in union activity, or select a union to represent them.” Starbucks Corporate says that the closure of their Collegetown location was a result of health and safety issues with the store and did not have anything to do with recent union activity. Representatives from the company say the closure of the Collegetown location was caused by an over owing grease trap that management ignored for months.

Workers agree that the grease trap was an issue and that the store needed to be temporarily closed to clean it up. However, instead of cleaning it up, the company is choosing to permanently close the location, e ectively laying o the employees that recently voted to unionize.

“ e grease trap has been a problem at our store since I started in 2017 and our manager has said that we need to stay open, stay serving customers, and clean up the grease,” Starbucks worker Beck Maclean said during a recent event in support of SBWU.

“We walked out on strike over [the grease trap], and now that it’s become a hazardous problem. ey’re trying to shut our store down instead of xing it, like they had years to do,” Starbucks worker Benjamin South said.

Starbucks also said that pandemic era restrictions resulted in decreased foot tra c that drove down the store's revenue, making it harder to turn a pro t. However, the location is one of the prime retail spots in the City and surrounding businesses have continued to remain open, so it seems unlikely that the location was struggling to make a pro t.

In addition, the Collegetown Starbucks has been operating since 2005 and the company only raised their concerns over safety and pro tability at the location a er the store unionized.

According to SBWU, this is a clear attempt by Starbucks to scare workers across the country away from unionizing by retaliating against its own employees.

Gimme! Coffee Baristas formed a union under the Workers United Union prior to the business becoming a co-op. (Photo: Ari Dubow/Cornell Sun)

Members of the SBWU and their supporters have been a frequent Ithaca presence since the closing of the Collegetown store. (Photo: File) Continued on Page 10

Ithaca’s Ariel Gold Finds Balance Through Reconciliation

By Mark Levine

Mention the name Ariel Gold and you’ll likely provoke an extreme response. Some see her as a hero, daring to stand up for those she believes are oppressed, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others feel or how unpopular it makes her in some communities. Others see her as a firebrand, rudely pushing her agenda, even if it, unintentionally or not, contributes to other brands of intolerance and discrimination. But if you step outside of the political sphere a different, a more nuanced person comes into focus: someone who at this point in her life has been able to achieve the kind of personal balance that many of us seek; someone whose Twitter feed now includes her recipe for a cornmeal plum scone as well as her recipe for Middle East peace.

Earlier this month, the Ithaca native took the helm of the Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA (FOR-USA). Gold isn’t the first Ithacan to play a significant role in FOR-USA. Dorothy Cotton—Civil rights icon, Cornell fixture, and winner of the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award—and Jim Murphy— leader in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement—both of Ithaca, were key members of the organization.

The first Jewish executive director to assume leadership of the nation’s oldest interfaith peace and justice organization—FOR-USA was founded in 1915— Gold spent the prior seven years as national co-director of Code Pink Women for Peace, most notably advocating for the controversial boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) efforts against the Israeli government. Some of her advocacy was seen as belligerent, such as her well documented confrontation with the actor Ashton Kutcher in which she publicly urged him to use his position with Airbnb to stop it from operating in Middle Eastern settlements.

Gold was the product of a uniquely Ithacan mixed marriage: her father went to Cornell and her mother went to Ithaca College. While she lived in other places after her parents divorced, her father remained in Ithaca and Gold returned, eventually graduating from Cornell’s School of Human Ecology and subsequently choosing to remain and raise her family here. It was her parents’ involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement and then her closeness to the Grady family of Ithaca, heroes in the Catholic Worker movement, that inspired Gold’s activism. The Grady’s melding of spirituality and social justice led to Gold’s searching for and then finding similar social justice elements in her own Jewish faith.

Like many who are called to activism and parenthood, Gold has had to strike a balance between obligations to her family and her causes. Her mother was a role model in this, and in many other things. “I was raised into activism,” Gold remembers. “My mother would bring me with her to protests and events on the weekend, because I had school during the week. I tried to raise my family the same way. My children are 20 months apart and I remember bringing them in a double stroller to New York City for a march against the Iraq War and finding the ‘family unit’ of the march, which is safest place. As they started getting older I had to make a choice: soccer practice versus protest. We went to soccer. As they got older I could balance it a bit more, but that’s because Ithaca provided us with a support system. I knew my children could catch a ride from someone we knew or walk home with friends.”

That Ithaca support system included her friends from the Catholic Worker movement as well as her fellow congregants from Congregation Tikkun v’Or, Ithaca’s Reform Temple. Gold was an active member of the congregation since before her social activism took on such a high profile.

“It wasn’t until my children were in their early teens that I really started getting involved more fully. Even then it was difficult. There were times they’d say things like, ‘it’s such a pain in the neck that you got arrested and I had to make my own dinner.’ And even now there’s a need to find a balance. I remember when in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement there was a point when my daughter was like, ‘Can you not get involved in this event, because I need to be myself, and if you’re there, you take over.’ And I agreed.”

Gold is also trying to bring balance to the types of issues she tackles, for instance, international versus domestic.

Ariel Gold tending the tomatoes in her Ithaca garden. (Photo: Provided)

UPS DOWNS &

Ups

The Girl Scouts have announced that Raspberry Rally™ cookies will be joining their lineup for 2023. While the new cookies will only be available online, this variation on Thin Mints® could well be battling the extraordinary Samoas® as the best Girl Scout cookie.

Ups

Years ago people worried a mall in Lansing would kill downtown Ithaca. For all its ups and downs the Commons and Downtown Ithaca remain vibrant and relevant while malls everywhere are struggling to stay viable and looking to reinvent themselves.

HEARD SEEN &

Heard

Historic Ithaca is holding its annual clean-up of the historic Ithaca City Cemetery on Saturday, August 27. The cemetery was established in around 1790 and the almost 8,000 graves cover more than 16 acres. You can honor our former neighbors by reaching out to https://www.historicithaca.org/ friendso thacacitycemetery.

Seen

It seems like there are people who wouldn’t think of just dropping their trash on our streets but think it’s okay to leave their garbage all over our parking garages. They may be cold and uninviting, but don’t forget those facilities are where lots of visitors get their rst impression of Ithaca.

IF YOU CARE TO RESPOND to something in this column, or suggest your own praise or blame, write news@ithacatimes. com, with a subject head “U&D.”

QUESTION OF THE WEEK Are you planning to vote in the August 23 election?

84.2% Yes. Local elections have the most effect on our daily lives. 10.5% No. I only vote in presidential elections. 5.3% Wait, there’s an election next week?

NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: Who would you support in a Subway Series?

Visit ithaca.com to submit your response.

It Don’t Rain in Indianapolis

By Charley Githler

The state of the world being what it is, I’ve taken to reading old newspapers instead of scrolling through the parade of disasters in my news feed. It still feels like reading the news, but I know how the stories end.

Last Friday, I was working my way through the Ithaca Journal from Wednesday evening, March 5, 1941. It was a happier, more hopeful time. e only things they had to worry about were Nazis, the Imperial Japanese Army, and the enduring e ects of a global depression.

I was intrigued to note that the Dionne Quintuplets used a product with the ungraceful name “Musterole” for chest colds. Also, that the Cornell ROTC program was inviting local military and patriotic orders to the annual military ball at Barton Hall, which was going to be called the “Blitzball”. at actually struck me as being in questionable taste, given what was going on in Europe at the time. en, on page three, I saw a headline that stopped me dead in my tracks: Ithaca to Have Orange Groves, Palm Trees – In 235 Years.

It was a short article, and bears quoting almost in its entirety:

e US Weather Bureau revealed an astonishing northward migration of warm climate had been uncovered by checking crop and weather records for the past 80 years.

According to J.B. Kincer, chief of the bureau’s climatology division in Washington. e “growing season”—the time between the last spring frost and the rst fall frost—has increased by from two to three weeks in the past 80 years.

At this point, I googled Mr. Kincer. It turns out Joseph Burton Kincer was a legit world-class climatologist. He’d been drawing attention to worldwide warming trends since 1933 and laid the responsibility for the Dust Bowl at humanity’s feet. He was pretty well-known and respected in his day. e article went on: e “growing season” of 1860 has moved 225 miles north since then. It is now as long in the vicinity of Indianapolis, Ind., as it was in 1857 around Nashville, Tenn.

If this migration continues at the same rate, Ithaca, in a short time—a mere 80 years—will have the same climate as Indianapolis has now, it was pointed out.

Continued on Page 10 Every Saturday morning Ithaca members of Extinction Rebellion are outside Chase Bank protesting its lending to fossil fuel companies. (Photo: Provided)

The Inflation Reduction Act Is Just The First Step

By Sheila Ann Dean

What’s with the people holding signs about climate and Chase Bank o the east end Commons every Saturday morning? We are protesting at the Ithaca branch of Chase Bank because it lends more money to fossil fuel companies than any other bank in the world; more than $382 billion dollars since the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treatment on climate change was adopted in 2015. e other top funders of coal, oil, and gas are also banks in the United States: Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, but Chase is the only one with a storefront in Ithaca. So to oppose its role, Ithaca climate activists with Extinction Rebellion started a weekly vigil in January of this year.

I found them on Earth Day, when I was su ering from climate despair, with worries for my son, nieces, and nephews, and their children; and with concern for all those on our planet who have been suffering climate disasters for years, yet have done little, if anything, to contribute to them. Admiring the Ithaca group’s spirit and commitment, I’ve returned each Saturday since to join them.

Ithaca is replete with groups focusing on climate issues that have been instrumental in encouraging the City to be the rst to declare a goal of net-zero carbon emissions. is magni cent work toward electri cation has begun. We are also fortunate to have a County legislature and Boards of surrounding towns with some awareness of climate issues.

Is this e ort still important even a er passage of the In ation Reduction Act? Yes, it is. While we happily have this legislatively determined rst step launching, the act is loaded with concessions to the oil and gas industry. ese inclusions are a bitter pill to swallow when scientists and the International Energy Agency have clearly stated that to avoid future climate disaster we must have no new oil and gas development.

Back to Chase Bank in Ithaca. While we have some legislation now, we still have dirty industries blithely burning away oil, gas, and coal and the new act does not directly or immediately a ect emissions. If nancial institutions such as Chase stop lending these companies money, they will more certainly falter as renewables thrive. Activists will continue to help make sure this happens.

What can you do here in Tompkins County? Certainly vote, but also join us every Saturday at 11 a.m. in front of Chase Bank. Snip up Chases’ credit card, if you have one, by year’s end unless they take action. Or nd another approach or group to work with. Make changes, however small, in your own life. Our personal struggles with climate despair will endure as the brightness of the In ation Reduction Act fades, but taking actions somehow helps.