Frack Flak Fudges Facts

“Thumbs Down for Frack Flick,” David Palmerton’s July 7 letter, is only his latest personal installment of industry propaganda and misrepresentation. I attended the recent panel discussion at the Environmental Science and Forestry and personally asked him a question that I had researched and knew the answer to.

Thumbs Down for Frack Flick

 In response to Ed Griffin-Nolan’s “Fracked Again” in the June 9 Syracuse New Times, I offer a different cautionary tale, the one about how New York and its economy may suffer if we don’t take action now to continue natural gas production in our state. While the “documentary” Gasland offers plenty of drama, there are many facts the film doesn’t get right.

To the Point

I would like to compliment Ed Griffin-Nolan for “Rock Opera,” his very even-handed and informative May 26 article about hydrofracking in Central New York.

—Michael Demmon, Manlius

Bus Stop

As a local-government watchdog since the 1970s, I battled Warren Frank’s Centro/Central New York Regional Transit Authority (CNYRTA) on its Joe Camel ads, lack of women and minorities on its board, no bus shelters at busy corners and no bus bike racks.

It was tough getting Frank to say “uncle,” since he was AWOL while living in California. In 1992, Centro refused to end the $50,000 yearly Joe Camel bus and shelter ads. After months of lobbying CNYRTA—which was negotiating a long-term tobacco ad—at a Common Council session, I stalled Centro’s $1 million budget grant for busing students to city schools. I then worked on a lawsuit charging Centro with violating its own ad decency rules by accepting tobacco ads. Frank caved in and removed the Camel ads for New York state lottery ads.

Centro eventually added women and minorities to CNYRTA, and bike racks on buses (1999, four years after Rochester), but to this day Centro lacks shelters or benches at busy corners on Westcott Street and Lancaster Avenue and still fails to hold public meetings to hear riders.

  —Austin Ted Paulnack,

Coordinator, The Accountability Project, Syracuse

  EDITOR’S NOTE: Warren Frank, former executive director of the Syracuse bus system Centro, passed away at age 85 on May 31.

Central New York’s music fans were reeling this week over the loss of two movers-and-shakers in the music industry. And since their deaths just slipped in before the publishing deadline, the best way to honor them was by dipping into The New Times’ voluminous photo files for snapshot salutes.