Outside The Walls of Fortress Arcuri

Congressman Michael Arcuri will finally be holding a public meeting with his constituents, in conjunction with Utica Mayor David Roefaro:

October 17th: Mayor Roefaro will be having lunch at The Balkan in South Utica at 12:30, joining him will be Congressman Michael Arcuri.

Make plans to be there. It should be a memorable occasion.

Another Pin In The Map

"Unknown Assailant", the most prolific and dangerous gunman in Utica, opened fire again last night:

Two people were shot Wednesday night at the intersection of Jay and Nichols streets, according to Utica police.

Police said Zeffaire Hobbs, 18, and LeShawn Thomas, 17, both of Utica, were being treated for nonlife-threatening injuries at St. Elizabeth Medical Center. Police said the pair was taken to the hospital privately. The shooting happened around 10:05 p.m., police said.

Police are investigating and no arrests have been made.

That means another pin my Crime Tracker map that keeps a record of violent crimes and arsons since the first of the year. It's till horribly undercounting incidents, since I haven't gone back and filled in many crimes from earlier in the year, but it's up to date as far as the last two months are concerned.

Red pins are violent crimes.

Red pins with dots are violent crimes where someone was actually injured or killed.

Yellow pins are arsons.

The blue pin is the home of Mayor David "See no evil, hear no evil" Roefaro.


View Larger Map

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+31

It's now been a month since Utica Mayor David Roefaro missed his self-imposed deadline to resolve the Hotel Utica crisis.

Last month, the city's Urban and Economic Development Commissioner, Robert Sullivan, said that he and his crack staff had developed "several plans" to deal with the problem and were in the process of selecting their final solution. Supposedly, as he stated when interviewed by WKTV, we could expect a press conference "in the coming weeks".

Obviously, we're still waiting.

Mr. Roefaro's administration has continued to demonstrate, time and time again, a level of inability to handle this matter that truly boggles the mind. They've now spent months allegedly working on the problem and, despite constant talk of "getting tough" and "cracking down", have absolutely nothing to show for it. In the meantime the city has been on the hook for close to $10,000 a week covering the Hotel's debts.

That leaves us with only two possibilities for why the Roefaro administration continues to hem and haw while the city treasury hemorrhages cash: they're either incompetent or corrupt.

Given Mr. Roefaro's close ties to the owners of Hotel, and his support for the infamous "Friends and Family" plan, we should probably be praying that he's just incompetent.

Let The Weekend Begin

Another weekend, another shooting in Utica:

At least one person was shot in East Utica early Friday night.

The victim was being attended to on the porch of 777 Blandina St. before being taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

Utica Public Safety Commissioner Daniel LaBella confirmed at least one person was shot in the 6 p.m. incident.

Police also were believed to be involved in a foot chase with the suspect near Blandina Street but apparently eluded capture, according to police radio transmissions.

And with that, another pin gets added to the Utica Crime Tracker map.

Red is a violent crime.

Red with a dot is a crime where someone was actually injured or killed.

Yellow is an arson.

Blue is Mayor Dave "I'm cleaning up this city, one gum wrapper at a time" Roefaro's home.


View Larger Map

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+26

My, how time flies.

It's now been almost a month since Utica Mayor David Roefaro failed to meet his 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica crisis. Taxpayer's are still subsidizing the lavish lifestyles of the Hotel's owners even as Mr. Roefaro reportedly negotiates some sweet deals for holding his own fundraising events there, but there's nary a peep from City Hall about when the empty promises of "getting tough" will come to pass.

This comes on the heels of the mayor's hissy-fit last week over the mounds of garbage lining Utica's street. It seems to miss his notice that the half a million dollars a year the city is paying to cover the Hotel's bad debts could be paying for multiple full-time cleanup crews to pick up trash around the city.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

It's increasingly obvious that Utica Mayor David Roefaro is woefully out of touch with the state of the city. How else to explain his laughable obsession with littering just days after the city convulsed with one of the bloodiest weekends in it's history?

With that in mind I've finally launched a project I've been considering for a while- an interactive map tracking violent crimes and arsons across the city. Thanks to Google Maps it's a simple matter to mark locations where crimes occur as they happen. For the purposes of this project I'm defining violent crimes as those involving a weapon or resulting in the death or injury of a victim. I'll update the map on a daily basis with new crimes as well as go back over time to add those that happened since the first of the year.

Here's how things look as of today. Red tags with a dot denote crimes where someone was actually injured or killed. Plain red tags mark violent crimes without direct injuries. Yellow tags are arsons. Just click on the tags for more information about the incidents they represent.


View Larger Map

You can reach the map directly over here.

Update: At the suggestion of a kind emailer I've added a blue tag marking the location of the Mayor's home. As they said, it should quickly become obvious why Mr. Roefaro hasn't a clue about how dangerous his city is.

Priorities

You would think that after one of the bloodiest weekends in history, with two people dead and multiple victims in the hospital with gunshot and stab wounds, there would be some kind of official response to the soaring levels of crime in Utica. That was indeed the case at last night's Common Council meeting as Mayor Roefaro took the gloves off and imposed a policy of swift and decisive action...against littering.

Think twice before throwing that gum wrapper on the ground.

Mayor David Roefaro submitted a letter Wednesday to the Utica Common Council urging the council members to take an aggressive approach toward eliminating littering in the city.

There already are fines for littering, but the fines can be dropped or reduced by judges, Roefaro said. A minimum, mandatory fine should be instituted to make residents know they will have to pay if they litter, Roefaro said.

“We’ve got to be proactive, and we’ve got to hit them in the pocketbook because that’s the only way they’re going to stop littering,” he said.

People are being gunned down in the streets in an unprecedented wave of violence, but Mr. Roefaro's primary concern is the growing menace of food wrappers and empty soda cans.

That popping sound you just heard? That was my head exploding.

Seriously, no one can be that out of touch. It's beyond my comprehension that an elected official could be worrying about cracking down on littering without having the slightest bit of concern about the steady stream of shootings, stabbings, and arsons that fill the news on a daily basis. Sweet Jebus, even the most disconnected OCD neat freak would realize the unsightly bloodstains on the sidewalks and the empty bullet casings in the gutters trump a couple of gum wrappers.

While the city's violent crime doesn't appear to hold much interest for Mr. Roefaro, he did manage to work himself into a hissy-fit on another issue:

During a caucus meeting before the council meeting, officials discussed a parking-garage complex planned for downtown.

Councilman Frank Vescera, D-1, said he thinks some issues regarding the project could better have been addressed if the project’s environmental review was first submitted to a committee instead of directly going before the entire council.

“A big project like this should have gone through the committee,” Vescera said.

In response, Roefaro said the more than $10 million in state and federal funding allocated for the project needs to be earmarked before the end of the month or the city will lose the funding.

Roefaro stood up and said loudly that the complex was a good project.

“If you don’t want it, then throw it out the window,” Roefaro said, as he threw a stack of papers, including the meeting’s agenda, across the length of the caucus room.

Roefaro continued to express his frustration before leaving the caucus.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Roefaro said before exiting.

He did not attend the council meeting.

I suspect Mr. Roefaro isn't the only one who can't stand how city government is being run at this point.

Update: A kind emailer suggests that the parking garage project is just another facet of the Roefaro "Friends and Family" plan designed to reward the Clark family, owners of the Adirondack Bank building. I don't think that's true, since I seem to remember this project has been in the proposal stage for years. It may well be a giveaway for the Clark family, but it's not one exlusive to Mr. Roefaro's administration.

Update: Another kind emailer sends along this link to the Governor's proposal for developing downtown Utica:

Downtown Parking, City of Utica

The City has stated the lack of available parking in downtown as the key difficulty in convincing businesses to locate or stay in the area – a fact the City says is supported by situation of the nearby Harza building. In 2005, the Federal Government committed $5 million and in 2006 the state committed $5.5 million toward the construction of a new parking garage in downtown and renovations to the Hotel Utica’s parking garage. The goal expressed by local leaders is not to have parking serve existing downtown workers (many public sector), but to meet the needs of new downtown private sector tenants.

Components of the Project:

• Construction of a new parking garage downtown in the Genesee Street corridor to serve new private sector needs

• Renovations to the Hotel Utica’s parking garage

Economic Development Potential:

• The construction of a new parking garage is expected to create more parking for area businesses

Funding:

• Total project cost is $16.5 million
• $2 million in existing State resources

Projected Date of Completion:

• 24 – 36 months

Based on the criteria set forth here it's hard to see how the Charlotte Street facility would do more than service the existing crowds from the State and County office buildings. Or is the project the governor is talking about something totally different?

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+21

It's now been three weeks since Utica Mayor David Roefaro and the crack staff of the city's Urban and Economic Development Department missed their self-imposed 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica crisis.

While the multi-millionare owners of the Hotel continue to enjoy the benefits of a regular flow of cash from the city things aren't quite so bright for the rest of Utica. The condition of downtown continues to worsen, as a new wave of graffiti starts covering the abandoned buildings and empty storefronts of what was once a proud city. These are exactly the kind of structures Community Development Block Grants were supposed to save, but instead of using those funds to stop urban decay the city continues to spend it's millions propping up the lavish lifestyles of a few, politically connected figures.

Reaching New Heights

The Mad Max-ification of Utica continued over the long holiday weekend, as the city's already soaring crime rate hit an unprecedented level of violence. In just three days the city managed to rack up it's 30th arson fire of the year, yet another domestic stabbing, a double shooting that claimed one fatality, and capped things off with another murder on Monday night.

For the year so far that gives us 26 unsolved arsons (and the highest arson rate in the nation), 6 unsolved murders, and 16 unsolved shootings.

Update: The Roefaro administration's response to this weekend's violence? An essay contest:

Utica Mayor David Roefaro is announcing a "Why I Love Utica" essay contest. The contest is open to all Utica City School District children in the third and fourth grades.

The top ten winners will be announced the week of October 6, 2008 and invited to an award ceremony at Hanna Park, the following Saturday, October 11, 2008, where the top ten speeches will be read by the winners. Mayor Roefaro will present the winners with an award and refreshments will be served.

I think a lot more kids would love Utica if huge swathes of the city weren't no-go zones.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+15

It's now been over two weeks since Utica Mayor David Roefaro and the crack staff of the city's Urban and Economic Development Department missed their self-imposed 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica crisis.

The silence is, as usual, deafening.

In the meantime the city has wasted just under $20,000 keeping the Hotel Utica afloat and filling the pockets of it's multi-millionaire owners.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+13

It's now been nearly two weeks since Mayor David Roefaro failed to meet his self-imposed deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica. Today the Observer-Dispatch editorial board joins the growing chorus of voices saying it's time for less talk and more action:

In mid-May, Utica Mayor David Roefaro said he’d find a solution within 90 days to Hotel Utica’s chronic problems making tax and loan payments.

Those three months have come and gone, and Roefaro has failed to make good on his word. Indeed, the hotel hasn’t made a loan payment since then, and it remains behind on its city tax payments.

So much for bold promises. What the city needs to do is what it’s failed to do this entire decade — use its negotiating and legal powers to force the hotel to meet its obligations.

So far, the administration's response to calls for it to actually do something has been to lash out at anyone pointing out their epic failure. This whole sorry situation could probably have been avoided if city staffers were chosen on the basis of their expertise instead of their political and personal ties to the administration, but the Roefaro "Friends and Family Plan" has left the city of Utica with a management team that obviously isn't up to the task.

Update: Damn, I've been exposed! A conspiratorially minded emailer suggests that the OD's editorial, along with the one on the Roefaro "Friends and Family" plan from earlier this year, is proof that I am, in fact, one of the paper's editorial staff. Even more troubling is that the emailer has figured out my "hidden agenda" and plans to make a formal complaint to the FEC.

I desperately hope they aren't lying. Do you realize how much material I'd be able to milk out of that? I'm not sure how criticizing the Hotel Utica and Mr. Roefaro would earn me the ire of the FEC, but bring it on. Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+12...Just Nine Years To Go!

CNY Homepage has posted more of their interview with Utica Mayor David Roefaro on the Hotel Utica issue over here. To summarize: Despite his earlier statements to the contrary there never was a 90-day deadline and it might take nine years to resolve the problem.

Nine. Years.

Just to recap, here's what Mr. Roefaro was saying in October of 2007:

We must give the hotel the opportunity to make good on their debt. However, inevitably if the hotel can't meet their business commitments, foreclosure is the only option. We can't hold just a few businesses to policy and we can not allow tax payers money to finance private interests.

Here's what he was saying in May of 2008:

Mayor David Roefaro said in 90 days the city should have a resolution to Hotel Utica’s continuing pattern of falling behind on its tax and federal loan payments.

The CNY Homepage Link video featuring his initial repudiation of the 90-day deadline is over here.

While Mr. Roefaro continues to waffle about what he actually said, much less what his administration actually intends to do, the city continues to pay thousands of dollars a week keeping the failed Hotel Utica project alive and lining the pockets of millionaires.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+9

Nine days have now passed since Utica Mayor David Roefaro failed to meet his self-imposed deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica fiasco. I'll refrain from too much self-congratulation (and the inevitable blogger triumphalism) and simply point out that the Observer-Dispatch has finally covered the story:

Hotel Utica remains behind on some tax and loan payments more than three months after Mayor David Roefaro said the city expected to find a solution to the difficulties within 90 days.

City and hotel officials said they still are communicating about their options and are working on plans that would allow hotel officials to consistently pay on time.

This is exactly where we stood three months ago, so Mr. Roefaro and his staff have the dubious distinction of accomplishing absolutely nothing in the last 90 days. This despite repeated pledges to "resolve" the issue or at least "reach a consensus" on the problem. Put simply, Mr. Roefaro has been lying through his teeth.

Hotel officials paid more than $132,500 in Utica City School District taxes on July 21 and more than $40,700 in Oneida County taxes on Aug. 19, according to school and county records.

But the hotel is past due on almost $70,000 in city taxes and has missed its last four U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development loan payments to the city, according to city records.

“Some tough decisions have to be made by the ownership,” city Urban and Economic Development Commissioner Robert Sullivan said. “Because that cannot and will not continue.”

That's tough talk coming from a man that's delinquent on his own payments to the city, a situation that, amazingly, hasn't resulted in his resignation or firing. At this point the idea that anyone would take Mr. Sullivan's pronouncements seriously is beyond laughable. Could someone please order him a big rubber nose and some size 36 shoes? If the man is going to beclown himself so thoroughly it's only right that he dresses the part.

On May 15, Roefaro said a solution to the hotel’s payment difficulties was expected within 90 days.

Now, about 100 days later, Roefaro says that goal wasn’t set in stone.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said.

Nor, apparently, much of a work ethic. I know the funeral and embalming business doesn't exactly run at a breakneck pace, but you would think Mr. Roefaro would have some appreciation for making an effort in order to meet a deadline. Otherwise we would be hearing from more of his funeral home customers about how bad dear old Aunt Milly smelled at her viewing.

Hotel Utica General Manager Tony Zaleski said the hotel had a strong summer with 90 percent occupancy in August and about 80 percent occupancy in July.

“As with anything else, we said all the taxes would be paid by the end of the summer,” he said, “and that will be the case.”

Zaleski said he wasn’t aware the loan payments haven’t been made because owners Joseph Carucci and Charles Gaetano handle those. He said he expects the payments to be on track soon, but the hotel spent about $200,000 this summer paying off school and county taxes.

“There’s just only so much money,” he said.

If the Hotel Utica has a 90 percent occupancy rate and still can't meet it's financial obligations it's time to accept that it simply isn't a viable concern. It's doomed to failure, and having the city continue to prop it up with millions of taxpayer dollars does nothing more than prolong the inevitable. Actually, it's the worst thing the city could do- with each passing day the hotel's debt, and the city's liability for same, continues to balloon ever higher.

In July 2007, Hotel Utica was behind more than $300,000 in taxes and had missed multiple loan payments on what was originally a $5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that the city guaranteed during the Edward Hanna administration.

The hotel soon made the payments and renegotiated the loan deal, but then fell behind $215,000 in taxes by May.

Roefaro and Sullivan said they will continue to work with hotel officials on how they can meet the loan demands, but they stressed the need to begin making up some lost ground.

“They’ve got to start paying their money,” Roefaro said.

Roefaro said he can’t estimate when the situation will be resolved, but he has been and will continue meeting with the hotel’s owners to determine a plan as expeditiously as they can.

This is exactly where we were 90 days ago.

No, strike that. This is exactly where we were a year ago, back when Mr. Roefaro was just a candidate. He was mouthing the same "They have to pay, it's not right, something must be done" line then and he still hasn't accomplished anything.

I know the Mayor has had a busy schedule of parties, golf tournaments, and personal appearances, but is it too much to ask that he does some work that doesn't involve swinging a golf club or slurping down cannolis?

Since the crack squad at Utica City Hall can't seem to come up with a plan of action, much less carry one out, I'll offer up my own. It's not like I could do a worse job, right?

First, the city needs to determine if the Hotel Utica is actually a viable business. At this point every indication seems to be that it isn't, but a thorough audit and analysis of it's financial situation would put the question to rest once and for all. One would think the city would have already done this, but history demonstrates it's never a good idea to put any confidence in the capabilities of city workers.

Second, the city has to decide what to do based on the results of the audit. If analysis shows that the Hotel has a snowball's chance in hell of actually meeting it's obligations the city and hotel need to come to an agreement that includes a timeline of operations and regular benchmarks for success. If the audit shows the hotel's business plan won't work, or if the hotel fails to meet the terms of the agreement mentioned above, the only option is foreclosure.

Yes, that's a drastic option, but it's the only one the city has. If the hotel isn't a viable business the sooner the city forecloses, the better. Waiting just makes the process more expensive, since the city's loan liability grows with every passing day.

In the meantime the city needs to start shopping the property around and see how much it could get for it, either from another hotel chain or a business looking for some prime downtown real estate. Call me crazy, but selling off the building go at a fire sale price of one or two million dollars seems like an acceptable, if non-optimal, option. With the outstanding balance of the loan topping six million dollars the city would be in the hole for four million dollars, and that's equal to the interest the city would be paying for the next eight years anyway.

Wasted money? You bet. But we've already wasted millions more on the Hotel Utica and it's time for the fiscal hemmoraghing to stop.

Update: Here's a flashback to what Mr. Roefaro was saying back in 2007:

Hotel Utica's owners have consistently failed to meet loan repayment terms since 2001, and have fallen behind on their taxes the past two years. How should Utica address this situation?

The Hotel Utica situation is a bi-product of both the Hanna and Julian administration that lacked both the commitment to tackle real business issues and the integrity to admit when they made some serious mistakes.

We must give the hotel the opportunity to make good on their debt. However, inevitably if the hotel can't meet their business commitments, foreclosure is the only option. We can't hold just a few businesses to policy and we can not allow tax payers money to finance private interests.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+8

We're now eight days past Mayor David Roefaro's deadline for resolving...er..."reaching consensus on"...the Hotel Utica fiasco.

Servicing the Hotel's debt costs the city $1315 a day, so another $10,520 in desperately needed public funds have vanished into the ether since Mr. Roefaro's 90-day deadline was reached. That's on top of the millions of dollars the project has already consumed.

For some more background, check out Joe Kelly's interview with the Hotel Utica's General Manager over at CNYHomepage.com.

Update: This is kinda related to the "Observer-Dispatch Deathwatch" below, but a kind emailer points out that the only outlets of any kind covering Mr. Roefaro's inability to handle the Hotel Utica issue are all online. None of the traditional news outlets, be it the OD, WKTV, or what passes for news at the local radio stations, have done anything on the issue for months.

What I find particularly interesting is that CNY Homepage is produced by the broadcast group that owns WUTR, WFXV, and WPNY, none of which could realistically be described as "news" outlets. I believe the last locally produced newscast on any of those stations happened back in 2005, just before their ownership consolidated operations at the former WUTR studios on Smith Hill. It's unfortunate that the area's population collapse made that consolidation necessary, but I think it's notable that the low cost of distributing content via the internet has, to an extent, once gain made them a viable news source.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+7 And Roefaro Speaks!

Utica Mayor David Roefaro has finally responded to questions about his handling of the Hotel Utica fiasco via a video at CNY Homepage. You'll find the clip over here under the title "The Link 8.19.08".

I'm assuming I'm the blogger referred to in the opening blurb, so I'd like to point out that I haven't claimed Mr. Roefaro promised to resolve the Hotel situation in his first 90 days in office. I've merely taken him at his word based on the May 15th, 2008 Observer-Dispatch article on the subject:

Mayor David Roefaro said in 90 days the city should have a resolution to Hotel Utica’s continuing pattern of falling behind on its tax and federal loan payments.

That self-imposed deadline ended last Wednesday.

As you can see from the clip, Mr. Roefaro doesn't think anyone should expect him to, you know, do what he said he would do. In fact, it appears he's now claiming that his earlier statement, or at least the version of it referenced in the OD story, didn't actually mean what it seemed to mean. He didn't promise a solution in 90 days, he just promised a "consensus" in 90 days.

Okay. I'll bite. What's the consensus?

Should the city foreclose on the Hotel Utica? Should the financing deal be renegotiated yet again? Should things just continue as they are? Amazingly, even after Mr. Roefaro lowers the bar down to reaching a "consensus" he still doesn't follow through!

Keep in mind that the city is paying $480,000 this year alone to service the Hotel's debt. That breaks down to just over $9000 a week, or around $1300 a day. In a city where significant chunks of downtown look like the post-apocalyptic ruins from a Mad Max film that money could be paying for desperately needed repairs and improvements. Instead, it's being dropped into a black hole never to be seen again.

So the Hotel Utica countdown continues. Without a resolution, without a "consensus", and without any foreseeable end. All to the tune of another $1300 in wasted tax dollars for every day that passes while Mayor Roefaro concentrates on planning parties and attending golf tournaments.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+6

We're now six days past Utica Mayor Dave Roefaro's self-imposed 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica fiasco. There's still no word from the Mayor's office about what, if any, action he's taken.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+5

We're now five days past Utica Mayor Dave Roefaro's self-imposed 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica fiasco. While that situation might not be a priority, despite the millions of dollars it's already cost city taxpayers, don't let it be said that Mr. Roefaro has been slacking off. He's not only had had time to participate in a golf tournament, but planning is already underway for next years much-anticipated mayoral charity ball.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+2

We're now two days past Utica Mayor Dave Roefaro's self-imposed 90-day deadline for resolving the Hotel Utica Debacle. In the private sector missing a deadline by two days is likely to get you fired, but Mr. Roefaro has obviously taken the undemanding standards of government work to heart. And why shouldn't he? It's not like being Mayor is his full-time job.

Heh.

Snarkiness aside, in the unlikely event that the mayor and his crack team of economic advisors actually do issue some kind of plan today I'm willing to bet it consists of, ultimately, doing nothing. Sure, it'll be dressed up with some happy talk about saving jobs and keeping the Hotel on the tax rolls, but in the end Mr. Roefaro will just roll over and let things continue as they are. If he's willing to ignore the fact that his own Economic Development Commissioner is an epic tax deadbeat there's no reason he should hold anyone else to a higher standard.

After all, things like deadlines and standards are what you have in the private sector. Expecting them to apply to government is just a naive fantasy.

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+1

Utica Mayor David Roefaro's deadline to solve the Hotel Utica crisis has now come and gone with no resolution in sight.

To be fair, there's a good chance the Mayor assumes his May 15th pledge to solve the crisis comes due on August 15th, since it's not unusual for people to confuse "90 days" with "three months". Heck, the profit margins of the credit card industry *rely* on people making that mistake. Might as well give him the benefit of the doubt and wait till tomorrow to hear all the details. After all, you can't rush genius.

On a related note, there's a rumor going around that Robert Sullivan, the city's Urban and Economic Development Commissioner, is actually acting as a consultant to the owners of the Hotel Utica. This is obviously just a rumor, since the conflict of interest this kind that arrangement would represent wouldn't pass the sniff test even by the cheerfully corrupt standards of Utica.

Right?

(Sorry for the lack of posting over the last two days. A rush project fell into my lap and I simply didn't have the time to write even the usual dashed-off tripe.)

Hotel Utica Countdown: H - 2 Days

Back in May it seemed as if the long-running Hotel Utica disaster would never come to a close. That's when Utica's visionary mayor Dave Roefaro pledged to resolve the mess in 90 days:

Mayor David Roefaro said in 90 days the city should have a resolution to Hotel Utica’s continuing pattern of falling behind on its tax and federal loan payments.

Roefaro and Urban and Economic Development Commissioner Robert Sullivan Thursday met with hotel co-owners Joseph R. Carucci and Charles N. Gaetano. The mayor said a few options were discussed, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

The Observer-Dispatch on Sunday reported the hotel owes more than $215,000 on its city, Oneida County and Utica City School District taxes, including $18,500 in penalties. The hotel has also missed its last two city-guaranteed payments on a federal loan that
helped the establishment reopen seven years ago.

Mr. Roefaro's 90-day deadline comes to a close on August 13th, just two days from now. With millions of taxpayer dollars on the line his plan is sure to have wide-ranging consequences for the entire city. Will he go ahead with foreclosure? Or will he opt to continue spending close to a quarter of a million dollars of economic development funds a year supporting the Hotel?

In just two days we'll find out.