Cymbal Man Freq.
03-30-2006, 01:18 AM
Boil Water Order: No Fountain Soda At SU Game
Last Update: 10/14/2005 8:57:17 PM
The staff at the (Syracuse University) Carrier Dome are making some major
adjustments to the way things are done there in preparation for Saturday's game,
to deal with the on-going water problem.
First, more than four hundred gallons of bottled water is being brought in to
give to the players.
Fans will not be able to drink water out of the Dome's water fountains: they
have all been shut off. In addition, no fountain soda will be served at the
game, only bottled soda. There will be twenty thousand bottles of soda and water
available for purchase.
All bottles of soda will come with a cup full of ice that was not made using the
city's water supply. Also, there will be no coffee or hot chocolate.
Beer sales will not be affected.
Cymbal Man Freq.
03-30-2006, 01:18 AM
The wildest parties in the University Heights neighborhood can draw 100 or 200
students, all crammed into a single house, drinking until the kegs run dry.
Homeowners say it's not uncommon to see party-goers urinating on the side of a
house, throwing up on the lawn or engaging in far-too-public displays of
affection.
This boorish behavior is a perennial concern for long-frustrated neighbors.
What is new this fall is a crackdown by Buffalo police. Instead of issuing
warnings, officers are making arrests when they break up the worst parties. And
the City of Buffalo is focusing on housing violations at party houses and other
rental properties, citing everything from piles of garbage to illegal basement
apartments.
"I wanted to hit them hard and fast this year," said Chief Mark S. Antonio, head
of patrol for the Ferry-Fillmore and Northeast districts, who promised the
crackdown would continue as long as necessary.
It's the latest effort to limit the worst misbehavior in a neighborhood long
locked in an uneasy co-existence between the temporary student residents and
permanent homeowners.
This push is long overdue, according to people with ties to the neighborhood.
They say they have seen the Heights slip in recent years - with more vacant
properties, a greater number of absentee landlords and fewer homeowners - and
fear for its future. "I see it as a declining neighborhood, and I hope and pray
something is done to turn it around," said Katherine H. Falkides, a
Williamsville resident who, with her husband, John, owns rental properties
there. She added that she checks up on her properties.
The University Heights neighborhood - roughly the streets between Bailey and
Kenmore avenues, centered on Main Street - grew up in the shadow of the original
UB campus.
Even as the heart of UB's academic operations moved out to the newer North
campus in Amherst, the Heights remained attractive to student renters.
The neighborhood offers the freedom of living off campus, proximity to the
shuttles that run between North and South campuses, cheap rents and access to
the Main Street bars.
"The whole night life for UB is in this eight-block radius," said Corey
Blumenthal, a UB sophomore from Long Island who lives on the North Campus but
comes down to the Heights at least three times a week.
Party scene worse
Some people familiar with the Heights say the party scene has gotten worse every
year. Others say the party season just lasted longer this year because of the
extended summer weather.
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in the early fall, young people flock
to the Heights looking for the best place to drink and laugh and flirt and
chill.
Neighbors say they can put up with the small, mellow parties, but they object to
the largest and loudest gatherings.
Buffalo police last fall issued warnings when they broke up large parties and
did so again the first weekend of this fall semester, Antonio said.
"I came to the conclusion that just warning them didn't do anything. They still
had their parties," he said.
In the crackdown so far this fall, Buffalo police have arrested 29 UB students
for alcohol violations, according to Dennis R. Black, UB vice president for
student affairs.
Twelve more students were referred to the campus judicial system based on
information provided by Buffalo police.
Every student arrested for an alcohol violation is suspended from school
immediately, Black said, and then each case is administratively reviewed.
"I think UB is starting to get the hint that the University Heights is not going
to tolerate it," said Bonnie E. Russell, the district's Common Council member.
Homeowners and city officials say students don't worry about anything except
where the next party is, and they don't think about the dangers of large
parties. The homeowners and officials worry that a house stuffed to the rafters
with students is a serious fire hazard.
Last Thursday, the Heights was just coming to life at 11:45 p.m. as about a
dozen people were hanging out on a porch at a Winspear Avenue home, playing
video games, drinking and smoking.
"If you keep [a party] within the confines of the house, there should be no
problem," said David Williams Jr., who lives at the house with three others.
Homeowners have left
Several students said residents shouldn't be surprised to find student parties
in the University Heights, and those who can't deal with it should leave.
Matt Serwacki did. He and his wife lived for 20 years in a home they loved at 66
Minnesota Ave., until selling it in 2002.
Large parties, the BB-gun pellets that punctured his windows and the gang fight
he witnessed from his front porch drove him from the neighborhood, Serwacki
said.
He also owned five rental properties in the neighborhood, but sold them all
between 1998 and 2004. "The neighborhood collapsed," said Serwacki, who added
that he kept tabs on his properties when he lived there.
Homeowners view some Heights landlords, particularly those who live out of town,
as part of the problem. Some properties have racked up dozens of housing
violations over the years, for everything from garbage left out in the open to
illegal apartments.
"I tell [the students], "Pretend mom's living across the street,' " said Brian
Hayden, the sole city housing inspector for the University District.
Hayden is a member of the neighborhood's Problem Property Task Force, which
includes representatives from UB, Buffalo police and transit police, as well as
landlords.
Falkides, a landlord who owns a number of properties in the Heights, doesn't
condone the most obnoxious parties but said police need to stop violent crime,
too, not just quality-of-life problems.
Some observers see other signs of concern, such as more vacant rental properties
in the Heights this year. They suspect many students are living in the new,
privately owned apartment complex built on Sweet Home Road in Amherst.
Sister Jeremy Marie Midura of St. Joseph University Church was among those who
said it seems there also are fewer owner-occupied homes in the neighborhood
today.
Building community
What can be done to save the Heights?
St. Joseph University Church members at the end of August took matters into
their own hands, personally visiting about 500 homes on Englewood Avenue,
Merrimac Street and surrounding blocks. They handed out fliers and encouraged
people to talk to their neighbors, Midura said.
"It's a lot harder to be a bad neighbor if you know the person who lives next
door," she said.
Residents and officials said they want to see the police crackdown and the
cooperation between the university and other affected parties continue.
Antonio, the police chief, suggested ending the UB buses that run until 2 a.m.
between the North and South campuses. He said that at that late hour they serve
only as party shuttles.
But UB's Black rejected that notion and said the 4 a.m. closing time for bars in
Buffalo is a bigger part of the problem.
Hayden, the housing inspector, and some homeowners would like to see UB buy and
rent houses in the neighborhood, so that the university would have control over
what goes on.
UB once tried buying and reselling homes in the Heights, with limited success,
but now sponsors a program that helps school employees buy homes there.
Everyone agrees it's a matter of finding that balance between the interests of
students and homeowners, and many residents said they're not giving up on the
neighborhood.
Florence Mercer, who has lived on Englewood Avenue for 51 years, vows to stay,
even though her children urged her to sell her home after her husband, David,
died in April. "It's nice to have the students around. Also, for the businesses
here, without the students there'd be nothing," she said. "It's still a nice
area."
Cymbal Man Freq.
03-30-2006, 01:18 AM
Delphi Corp. isn't the only one filing for bankruptcy these days.
Thousands of area residents are scrambling to get their paperwork done before
new bankruptcy laws take effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday that will make it harder to
get out of debt.
"We're just sitting here with our mouths open," a shell-shocked-looking JoAnn
Walker, deputy in charge at the clerk's office of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
Buffalo, said earlier this week.
Walker and weary co-workers have toiled nights and weekends for the last few
weeks, cramming like college students during exam week, to try to keep up with
the overwhelming deluge of paperwork that the Monday deadline has created.
"It's the most we've ever seen," she said.
The sheer volume has not only the clerk's office staff, but judges, lawyers and
trustees alike shaking their heads and laughing nervously.
Between Oct. 1 and 5 p.m. Thursday, for instance, 2,584 new bankruptcy cases
have been filed to the Buffalo offices of U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western
District of New York, according to Bankruptcy Judge Carl L. Bucki.
During the same period last year, he said, there were 153.
"And that was a relatively heavy month last year," said Bucki, who is
anticipating a steady, busy schedule until at least the end of this year.
The phenomenon has struck across the country, with at least 20,000 new cases
being filed every day over the last couple of weeks, according to statistics
compiled by California-based Lundquist Consulting Inc.
In April, President Bush signed legislation that tightens requirements for
filing for bankruptcy, making it much more difficult and complicated, especially
for people who want to file for what's known as Chapter 7 bankruptcy - which
allows debtors to have their unsecured loans, particularly from credit cards,
wiped clean.
The new laws are designed to steer debtors to seeking Chapter 13 bankruptcy
instead, requiring them to pay back at least some of the loaned money.
The changes also tack on additional paperwork and new requirements for debtors
to undergo credit counseling and education and lengthen the amount of time that
can lapse before a debtor can reapply for bankruptcy protection.
A small uptick in the number of bankruptcy cases filed was noticed around the
time the new rules were announced. But the massive wave of new cases did not hit
until about September. At the federal courthouse in Buffalo, 2,503 cases were
logged last month. Bucki called that a staggering number, considering that since
1978 - when bankruptcy laws were last overhauled - the number of monthly filings
has rarely exceeded 1,000.
One small silver lining for the bogged-down bankruptcy community is that the
vast majority of the cases are being filed electronically.
"If we had to do it manually, . . . we could not do it," Walker said. "We could
not process this much paper."
But this also means that cases can be filed up to midnight and the clerk's
office will have to be staffed until then to handle any glitches in the computer
system.
Bankruptcy attorney Jeffrey Freedman said he had to stop taking new cases midway
through September so his staff could keep up with the crushing workload.
"Oh, yeah, people are working tons of overtime," said Freedman, who has been
providing catered lunches and even dinners to his employees at his 15 offices to
keep morale and enthusiasm from disintegrating.
Bill Lawson, another bankruptcy lawyer who also serves as a trustee, said he has
encouraged several clients to file now rather than after the Monday deadline
because of the more convoluted paperwork and the higher fees.
"They would have went [into bankruptcy] eventually," he said, "but it was
precipitated by the fact of the new law."
The changes to Chapter 7, which make up the bulk of the new cases entered over
the last six weeks, will be especially tough on middle-income people. Those who
earn less than the median income (which in New York State is $39,463 for a
single person, $48,496 for a family of two; $57,430 for three, etc.) will remain
eligible for the more forgiving protection, Freedman and other lawyers
explained.
Among the last-minute filers this week was an 81-year-old Buffalo man who asked
that his name not be used because he has many friends in the community. After
undergoing debilitating surgery last year and unable to continue doing his
freelance research work, the man found himself no longer able to make payments
on his car loan and credit cards.
"My only income is Social Security, so it probably wouldn't have affected me one
way or the other," the man said after filing for Chapter 7 on Tuesday. "But I
wanted to do something. I thought I'd better clean up. . . . My conscience
bothers me that I can't repay this stuff."
Cymbal Man Freq.
03-30-2006, 01:18 AM
Samsung pleads guilty to felony price-fixing
10/14/2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - Samsung, the world's largest maker of memory chips for
computers and other gadgets, will pay a $300 million fine in a guilty plea to a
felony charge that it secretly conspired with industry rivals to fix prices and
cheat customers, federal officials said Thursday.
Two of Samsung's leading rivals earlier paid fines totaling $345 million and
pleaded guilty to involvement in a scheme the government said boosted prices
consumers paid for computers between 1999 and 2002.
The investigation started in 2002, a year after memory chip prices began to
climb even though the high-tech industry was in a tailspin. At the time, the
hikes were attributed to tight supplies, although then-Dell Computer chief
executive Michael Dell blamed them on cartel-like behavior by chip makers.