GUESTOPINION Contin u ed From Page 6
level, for example helping to implement the $32 million Green Facilities and Fleet Capital Program passed last year. The goal of the program is to decarbonize the County’s facilities and fleet by 2026. The Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) also created powerful tools to fight climate change, starting with its “Density Policy” (now called the Community Incentive Investment Tax Abatement Program, or CIITAP), combating sprawl and creating a more sustainable — and economically viable — city center. We incentivized solar development, enabling more than a dozen major projects to be built, providing solar to thousands of Tompkins County residents. The Enhanced Energy Incentive Policy gave builders just the boost they needed to invest in state-of-the-art green buildings. In at least six projects, totaling more than 800 apartments, builders proved that heat pumps can work in multi-story buildings. Tompkins County has had enthusiastic municipal partners along the way! Counties in New York don’t have the power to enforce building codes or land use regulations, so it’s been critical that the Town of Dryden and the City and Town of Ithaca have been forging new ground with their
THE TALK AT
YOUR LETTERS Re: Real Crime Data in the Wake of Disinformation
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n her opinion piece published in last week’s Ithaca Times, Alana Byrd forgot to mention who she works for. Ms. Byrd moved to Ithaca last fall to take up a lobbying and organizing position funded by People For the American Way (PFAW), a national not for profit “progressive advocacy” organization. Our own former mayor, Svante Myrick (whom I consider a friend), has worked part time for PFAW for the past 4 or 5 years. He has now taken a full time position as PFAW’s Executive Director. Ms. Byrd has landed in Ithaca as a “hired pen,” tasked with helping Svante promote his vision of what police reimagining should be. PFAW’s website is already boasting about what they call “the Ithaca Model.” In fact, this model is far from being fully built. Common Council and the citizens of Ithaca won’t even see the initial recommendations of the Reimagining Task Force until this week. Ms. Byrd’s opinions may express the positions of herself and her employer,
codes, to make sure new buildings will be nearly fossil-free. What’s next? What are today’s high school students calling on us to do now? It’s safe to say that young people, speaking up at a critical moment, inspired the City of Ithaca to take bolder action than it had before. The Ithaca Green New Deal can be traced directly to those voices. [Former] Mayor Svante Myrick should count among his many accomplishments hiring the city’s first-ever Director of Sustainability. Luis Aguirre Torres has been setting in motion the City’s ambitious building electrification project, with the additional goals of promoting equity through green job development, and upgrading housing for low-and moderateincome residents. Local governments, businesses, and non-profits in Tompkins County have been leaders throughout the state for more than two decades now, finding innovative and practical solutions to address the climate challenges we face. We can be proud of what we’ve done so far, even as we recognize there’s so much more to be done. Martha Robertson was a Tompkins County Legislator from 2002 – 2022 representing the Town of Dryden and a member of the Industrial Development Agency from 2006 – 2022.
but they demonstrate a lack of familiarity with IPD and do not shed new light. Ms. Byrd clearly doesn’t care much for the Ithaca City Police Officers’ union, the Ithaca Police Benevolent Association, or PBA. This is not surprising because the PBA and former mayor Myrick have been at loggerheads off and on for years. Some of the PBA’s statements about Mayor Myrick have been over-personal and inaccurate, in my opinion. Some of their Facebook posts have been less than helpful in bringing our community together. That said, it is understandable that PBA union membership, who went without a contract for the past 10 years of the Myrick administration, might be concerned about losing their jobs going forward. Cops are career professionals. They have families, too… For Ms. Byrd to claim that the PBA is attempting to scare the public and use disinformation as their “primary ammunition” is an exaggeration, and demonstrates a lack of understanding and empathy for both our IPD officers and for the residents of Ithaca. In a letter to a West Hill newsletter written last December (in which she also failed to mention who she works for), Ms. Byrd argued that “IPD officers aren’t doing their jobs,” and that “their workforce could be cut.” I strongly disagree with this statement. If you have only lived in Ithaca for a short time, you wouldn’t know that IPD used to have enough staffing for neighborhood bike patrols and walking beats. IPD had more investigators with broader training, a traffic
law enforcement detail, more cultural sensitivity training and more time for real community policing. These are the very services that Ithacans are asking for in the reimagining outreach sessions. Currently, some IPD shifts are so understaffed that when more than one or two major incidents happen in the City at the same time there are not enough officers on duty to respond to each call. Ms. Byrd writes that our concerns about recent rolling gun battles in Ithaca are overblown. She explains that they were caused by individuals engaged in personal conflicts; that these shootings don’t represent a structural change in the violence level here. Ithacans, regardless of their skin color, ethnicity or socioeconomic standing, don’t care if the people driving through their neighborhood shooting at each other know each other or not. They want the violence to stop. People want to feel secure letting their children play outside. They don’t like bullet holes in their houses. It doesn’t matter if these crimes happen more or less than a couple years ago, or ten years ago. There is too much gun fire and violence in our neighborhoods now. I wonder if Ms. Byrd has had any interactions with IPD since her arrival in Ithaca. Has she actually spoken with any of our officers? That might better inform her. It’s easy to put political spin on a complex issue, especially when you are trained and hired to do so. We don’t need spin. We need racial healing. We need for IPD officers to spend more time out of their cars, interacting with and helping all of our residents. We need honest open communication, and respect for everyone. One thing Ms. Byrd says in her op-ed sounds pretty good, and that is, “To ensure safety, both real and felt, we have to ensure a positive, trusting relationship between every officer and every member of our community, regardless of their background.” Well yes, that is what we want. And I believe that is what IPD officers want also. -George McGonigal City of Ithaca Common Council First Ward
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ontrary to your claim, as someone who has lived in the Ithaca area for over 15 years it is clear that crime is on the rise here. And not just thefts as you mention but violent crime, stabbings, shootings and murder. I believe that the IPD does a good job of being culturally diverse in its hiring and culturally sensitive in its practices. They deserve support for the job they are doing. The idea that one police office costs $150,000 is ludicrous and makes all of your other arguments that much less believable. A quick visit to the city website shows that police officers make $44,891 starting salary and a top salary of $70,222. Which is 7-10% below industry average. As a social worker I saw the need for a different response to the mental health crisis that befalls our community and country in general and I am sure that the IPD would welcome more help in that regard. Adding Ma r ch
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non-armed peace officers to deal with nonemergency mental health crises is a great idea and this can be accomplished while keeping the police force intact. -Brion Scimae, via Ithaca.com
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h please, bank robberies every few months and regular armed robbery on the Commons [are] not “personal disputes.” -Jon Lucente, via Ithaca.com
hanks so much, Alana Byrd, for this thoughtful article. We can’t remind one another enough, especially in the wake of the dishonest efforts of the PBA to manipulate crime statistics, that the overwhelming majority of the crimes that are so easy to sensationalize are being committed by a handful of seriously mentally ill individuals who need the intensive support that is not being provided here or nationally. This is the real crime of unconscionable levels of wealth inequality and it can be addressed only by fair taxation of the 1% and guaranteed living wages or guaranteed income. Such policies may sound radical to a public drowning in misinformation, but plenty of mainstream economists have come to the same conclusions as Marx, while rejecting violent revolution in favor of sane social policy. Increasing numbers of CEO’s are facing the fact that current levels of wealth inequality are destroying the entire system, in addition to the dignity of all. -Barbara Regenspan, via Ithaca.com
Write to us! Say something or respond to an article by writing editor@ithacatimes.com. Letters must be signed and include an address and phone number. We do not publish unsigned letters. Letters may be edited for length and readability. To the Editor, Ithaca Times, 109 N Cayuga St., Ithaca, NY 14850
G oodbye M arshall :( Marshall Hopkins, who has been the production director and designer at this newspaper since the summer of 2015, is moving on to a job as a book designer for the Cornell University Press this month. During his six years at the Times, he spearheaded workflow efficiencies, created a new template, and designed over 280 covers. In the process, he helped the newspaper win numerous prestigious design awards, including the NY Press Association’s award for Overall Design Excellence, twice, once in 2017 and once in 2020.
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