Sports

Sports

Roy is the Reason

By Steve Lawrence

Irecall interviewing Jim Butterfield — the legendary Ithaca College football coach — when he announced his retirement. Butterfield and I walked out into the football stadium, looked at the sign that read “Jim Butterfield Stadium,” and the beloved mentor told me, “When I saw that sign, I thought I had better check my pulse, since they don’t usually name a field for you until you’re dead.”

Roy Staley — another local sports legend by any measure — might have a similar feeling when legions of his former Ithaca High School swimmers come to Ithaca on Aug. 27 for the Ithaca Swimming Reunion. According to its Facebook page, the three-day gathering will give participants a chance to “Reconnect with old friends and fellow swimmers from the past 50 years,” and adds, “Events include evening drinks, a fun swim meet, a picnic....and more!”

I spoke with Allyssa Barnes and Kimberly Niefer about the upcoming event, and Kim said, “I started planning this well over a year ago — then we endured the cloud of COVID — and we are now expecting around 100 people to attend.” She added, “We’re happy with that number!”

The gathering will start with a gettogether at Liquid State on Friday, while Saturday will feature a swim meet at the Ithaca Swim Club and a picnic at Myers Park, plus a fun trivia contest.

“It has been so much fun prepping for that,” Kim stated. “We have been joking about our workouts, and even things like the names of Roy’s dogs — many who were named after Ithaca High swimmers!”

The weekend will wrap up with a gathering at Stewart Park on Sunday. When asked if any of the alums will attempt to replicate the 39-mile swim from one end of Cayuga Lake to the other (a feat accomplished by Ithaca High swimming alum Claire de Boer), Kim said, “Uh... no. We’re having coffee and donuts.”

Allyssa was the first to bring me into the loop on this story, and when asked why she was attending she replied, “We all think that Roy is the reason we’ll be there. He had such a positive impact on all our lives.”

Kim’s last year on the Little Red swim roster was the 1974-75 season, and she talked about the swim meet that will take place on Saturday. “We want it to have as ‘official’ a look and feel as possible,” she offered. “We will have a timer, a referee, a meet official, and we will try to recreate some of the old relay teams.” Sounding stoked, Kim said, “It was enough encouragement to get a lot of us back in the pool!”

Allyssa was part of Staley Part II, so to speak. She said, “Roy had left for a time, but he came back when I was there from 1987-1990. The program was just getting off the ground, and he said, ‘I think we can build something.’”

Build something they did... The IHS girls varsity win/ loss record was without parallel: they won all dual meets from 1989 through 2013 (except for one loss to Johnson City in 1998) and won all Southern Tier Sectionals from 1989 to 2012 (that’s 23 years!). The Little Red also unofficially won the State Meet in 1993, 1994, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

In Kim’s words, “Roy created a powerhouse of a program in the state for many years and he has impacted the lives of almost 900 kids over 50 years.” She added, “I am looking forward to giving swimmers the opportunity to recognize Roy for his dedication to developing kids through swimming for so many years. I also know Roy is excited to hear how swimmers’ lives have progressed and what they are up to now. “People are traveling from all four corners of the country: Washington state, California, Florida and Massachusetts.” Kim added, “Among those attending are IHS Hall of Fame swimmers Dave Singley and Terri Hoppenrath, Olympian Alex Myers and ‘old timers’ Dick Chelekis, Ken Harris and Bob Slater.” Allyssa said, “When you attend a class reunion, it’s just your class. I am really excited to reconnect with so many of these swimmers, to experience this intergenerational gathering and to hear about how swimming played such a significant role in peoples’ lives. Like so many, I have tremendous gratitude for the community that Roy has built, and I can’t wait to shake the hands of some of these people and say, ‘The stories I heard about you and your work ethic got me through a lot of workouts.’”

Ithaca High School Swim team alumni are planning a reunion this month. Most were coached by Roy Staley (above) during his 50 year career in Ithaca For more information about the reunion visit the Ithaca Aquatics Club website: www.ithacaaquaticsclub.com/reunion

show that in June 2020 sellers were on average getting 97% of their listing price, while in June 2021 they were getting 103.5%.

According to Warren, Bushberg and Johnson, the real estate market in Ithaca is “strong.” And while this certainly benefits sellers and real estate agents, it’s maybe not such a good thing for the average Ithacan.

For low- or moderate-income people, a $300,000 home is not affordable, and the current market is only further alienating those folks from homeownership.

“It was a tight market before and it’s just gotten tighter,” Johanna Anderson, executive director at Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services said. “We’re regularly dealing with people who have been putting 10-20 offers on homes and they’re losing out nonstop. Not only is it a financial toll if you put in the amount of time it takes to visit potential homes, but also an emotional toll to get your hopes up […] and then to have that dream not realized. It’s really a challenge.”

Anderson added that the increase in cash offers has also made it harder for people who are low- or moderate-income and have to finance their home ownership.

“This is an area that sees a larger amount of cash offers in pre-pandemic times, but now those are even greater,” she said. “When you require bank financing there are limits to how much you can put in on an offer, there are certain steps required like an appraisal to make sure the home is valued at the appropriate ratio, and they will require a home inspection to make sure there are no issues.”

She said sellers are often inclined to go with an easier, faster selling route by accepting a cash offer, where the buyer can decide they’re willing to forgo the standard appraisal and inspection procedures.

Additionally, with homes being priced so high, it puts people without a lot of extra money in their budget in a tough spot.

“A person who is considered low or moderate income means there’s not a lot of wiggle room, so you can afford your monthly house payment, but if there’s a massive maintenance issue, that can throw people over the edge,” Anderson said. “So oftentimes people can only afford fixer up-

pers, but don’t have the necessary means to make those improvements. So you’re in this vicious cycle of owning a house by living in unsafe conditions. And deferred maintenance issues can get worse and worse.” She said she’s seen instances where people’s households are expanding but their income is not, so they’re unable to afford to leave the home they’ve outgrown and find something new within their price range. The Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services administers a program that can help lower income homeowners with maintenance issues, but Anderson said there are caps on how much can be spent. With the labor shortage pushing contractors’ prices up and the rise in cost of materials, Anderson said that money isn’t going quite Above: Carol Bushberg, owner of Carol Bushberg Real Estate (Photo: Provided) Below Karen Johnson, the president of the Ithaca as far as it once did. They also have a program

Board of Realtors (photo: Casey Martin) that aims to get more affordable housing on the market by building new for-sale houses or buying homes and rehabilitating them, but Anderson said it’s not enough. “We’re limited in the amount of homes we can get up for sale, so it’s really a drop in the bucket,” she said. “We have massive wait lists for those homes.” However, Anderson said she’s optimistic about the future of affordable housing in Tompkins County. “The city and county have done a great job of bringing experts together and coming up with creative solutions, and some of those solutions are just being brought into reality right now,” she said. “I appreciate there’s a real dedication of our state government, county government and city government. They see this as a high priority and that makes all the difference when everyone’s on the same page, knowing this needs to be addressed.” Though as these programs get off the ground, she recognizes it won’t be an immediate fix. “Will this be taken care of in the next six months? No,” Anderson said. “All of these 110 North Cayuga St., Ithaca repstudio.com • 607-272-4292

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an articulated rent threshold built into rent increases to help better determine what constitutes an unconscionable rent increase. As it currently stands, the legislation proposed by the Ithaca Tenants Union does not have an analogous provision. Brock considers the inclusion of this as a “linchpin” of a good cause law and expects that determining what is “unconscionable” will be the subject of back and forth negotiations because there are so many possible ways to compute it.

“[Unconscionable rent] is something I think will need to be massaged.” Brock said. “I’ve seen so many different variations of what a threshold is. The underlying component is we want people to be able to stay in their home, but we also recognize that landlords have responsibilities and they need to maintain the unit in good order. We don’t want to unfairly impact landlords either.”

Due to the inclusion of provisions like unconscionable rent hikes and more specific clauses, Murtagh considers the legislation in Albany “stronger” than what the Ithaca Tenants Union is proposing.

“I think I personally would support something that looks like the Albany law over what the Ithaca Tenants union is presenting,” Murtagh said. “But obviously this is like a community decision so we’ll put it out there in the public and we’ll get feedback on it to try to make the best decision possible.”

Considering the resistance that landlords have already displayed in communities like Utica and Rochester where similar legislation is being considered, Murtagh expects considerable pushback from landlords in Ithaca.

Landlords are primarily concerned that the law will constrain their ability to evict a tenant. Rand disagrees, however, with this central concern. She believes that landlords are upset about the way the legislation redistributes power from the landlord to the tenant.

“The law is taking the power away from landlords and giving it to tenants,” she said. “Landlords, of course, have a self interest from an authority and a monetary perspective to have as much power over the property as possible. So they’re always going to object to this because it benefits them to have as much power in the relationship as possible, but that does not benefit tenants.”

In Brock’s assessment, rather than restricting the landlord’s ability to evict a troublesome tenant, the law will require more responsibility and accountability on behalf of the landlord.

“The law would require a higher level of management, engagement and correspondence on behalf of the landlord,” Brock said. “I think that [landlords] will need to rewrite their leases to protect their interests and make sure that there is language that includes that lease renewal in there so that it can be easily clarified when the lease begins and where it ends and how a renewal is to happen.”

This added responsibility and engagement, however, is another source of pushback from landlords. Landlords in other municipalities such as Albany say that the eviction process will be more time intensive and potentially expensive due to the extra legal procedures involved in the eviction process. For example, the Albany Good Cause law requires that landlords obtain an order from an Albany City Court judge. Before a judge can grant a warrant, the landlord must establish legal grounds for eviction with proper documentation.

Brock considers the enhanced level of landlord responsibility and documentation requirements a “good consequence” of the legislation for all parties.

“Landlords will really need to document issues that they are experiencing with their tenant,” she said. “If you have a tenant in violation of the lease, there should be a document or written correspondence acknowledging what is occurring, so when it comes to the end of the lease term, and the landlord doesn’t renew your lease for a certain reason, the landlord will be able to demonstrate it if the tenant chooses to challenge [the nonrenewal].”

With the legislative process still in its nascent stages, Murtagh said that it is difficult to determine the level of support among many Common Council members. Many council members haven’t had the time to learn enough about the issue, which is why upcoming discussions about the legislation will be beneficial.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the council members just don’t know a whole lot about this, and just need to learn more about it,” Murtagh said. “I think that’s part of the point of putting it on the agenda next week: taking the temperature of the room and just helping people understand what this is and then moving forward with it.”

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Faith Fisher is a reporter from The Cornell Daily Sun working on The Sun’s inaugural summer fellowship at The Ithaca Times. -Faith Fisher

LOVE, LUCK AND

SURVIVAL Ithaca author Celia

Clement’s book is a firsthand account of her family’s survival of the Holocaust, told through the eyes of her mother and two aunts.

By Tanner Harding

Celia Clement doesn’t consider herself a writer, but you couldn’t tell if you picked up a copy of her book “Three Sisters: A True Holocaust Story of Love, Luck, and Survival.” The book combines the memoirs of Clement’s mother, Alexandra, and her aunts Eva and Judith as they went into hiding during World War II to escape capture by the Nazis.

Eva, Judith and Alexandra, their brother Peter and their parents, Lore and Fritz, were a prominent and wealthy family in Leipzig, Germany before Kristallnacht shattered their idyllic lives. The Jewish family was soon forced into hiding for four years as they tried to avoid being sent to concentration camps, taking shelter in a tiny tool shed in the French countryside. The memoirs tell the story from the three distinct views of Alexandra, Eva and Judith, who were 11, 15 and 14 respectively when the ordeal began. The girls reflect on their fight for survival, including the hunger, fear, family, music and kindness of strangers they experienced. Clement heard many of these stories from her mother over the years and eventually decided she wanted to record them. In a sun-soaked home overlooking Cayuga Lake, Clement spent hours listening to her mother tell the story about their escape from Germany. Alexandra passed away in 2005, and about a decade later, Clement decided she wanted to write a book

Celia Clement (Photo: Casey Martin) about her mother’s experiences. Both Eva and Judith had written their own accounts of what happened during the Holocaust, and Clement reached out to see if they’d be interested in publishing the three stories together.

Clement visited Eva and Judith in Israel in 2016 and fact-checked parts of their memoirs, filled in gaps and ultimately spent what was to be the last summer of Eva’s life with her hearing her stories. Judith passed away in 2019, the year before the book was published.

While putting the stories together, Clement said she thought she’d get away with not having to write the book.

“But several people said, ‘you need to narrate each chapter to give the backstory of what was going on politically and socially in the different countries and cities they were living in,’” Clement said. “So I had to start writing, and it was very difficult for me. I wanted to craft it so it was very succinct but still relevant to the stories.” In her research, Clement said she had learned things about the war she had never known before. “I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable but I’m quite certain there are things you wouldn’t know about some of the things that happened in France, the extent of the collaboration [with Nazis] in France and Switzerland,” she said. “Some of the more horrific things that were going on I included in the narratives in the beginning.”