NEWSLINE

N EWS LINE

TC3 Foundation Defaulted On Dormitory Bonds

By Matt Dougherty

The Tompkins Cortland Community College Foundation has been in default on over $30 million worth of bonds since 2019. e bonds were issued in 2013 to build seven new dormitories at the Dryden campus of Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3). ere was approximately a million dollars of bonds due July 1 of each year beginning in 2017, ratcheting up to larger amounts due in 2027. e Ithaca Times reached out to the TC3 President’s O ce as well as to other representatives of the college but as of the time this issue went to press we have received no comment.

Michael Lachman recently told e Ithaca Times that the $200,000 worth of bonds he holds were due on July 1 of this year, but that “…they were in default, [TC3] did not repay the principal. In addition to that, they've been in default for the last three years.” ese bonds have an interest rate of 5%, so the Foundation is currently in default on roughly $30,000 worth of interest.

Lachman told the Times that as a result of the default on these bonds he has personally lost $230,000. “I guess what's frustrating to me is that there seems to be no visibility. I've been monitoring the semi-annual reports from the Community College and if you go online you can look into nancial statements, and they make no reference to the fact that these bonds are in default,” said Lachman.

He continued saying, “ e only thing they reference is that they've failed to meet their debt ratio requirements. I just want to make the community aware of this situation to try to bring some visibility and transparency to what's going on there.”

Lachman said that he has held these bonds for quite some time and that the Foundation was making their interest payments but beginning two years ago they put a stop on them. “I was told it was somehow related to COVID,” he said. However, if payments stopped in 2019, that would be before the rst con rmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, which was in 2020. e intent of the bond issue was to raise funds to build the new dormitories. TC3 is part of the State University of New York system and has been trying to expand over the past few years in an attempt to better compete for students with other two-year SUNY schools.

Reportedly, the Community College hasn’t generated su cient enrollment to make the investment on building the dormitories pro table. According to Lachman, “the revenue stream which is designated to repay these bonds and pay the interest is supposedly generated by the dormitory occupancy levels.”

According to Lachman, “if you look at TC3’s balance sheet they have a bond fund reserve of about $1.5 million dollars that is supposed to be used to make principal and interest payments in the event of a default and they haven't made any payments from their reserve fund.”

TC3 has expanded and renovated its residence halls as part of an effort to transform from a commuter college to a 24/7 campus. (Photo: Holt Architects)

Continued on Page 16

T A K E N O T E

 Rotary Funds Ugandan Project — A grant from the Ithaca Rotary Club has funded a project in Uganda to produce reusable feminine hygiene kits, allowing dozens of girls to attend school during their menstrual periods. The rst set of kits created by a cohort of girls in Gulu, Uganda, was delivered to local schools this summer. The girls began six months of training as seamstresses in May at a women’s cooperative in Gulu. The project was funded by the Ithaca Rotary Club’s Dozen Dinner Draw ra e, which this year raised $15,000 for two nonpro ts that support the menstrual hygiene of girls in Uganda, South Sudan, and Guatemala. An additional $10,000 challenge grant, o ered by Backyard Brands, Inc., was provided to the project in Uganda. The project in Uganda has been championed by Rotarian Gertrude Noden, an Ithaca education consultant who founded Words into Deeds, a nonpro t that promotes youth awareness and engagement in local and global human rights issues.  Student-Built Cars On Display At The Glen — Winners Circle Project in coordination with their partnering schools is holding its second annual Mamba Championship at Watkins Glen International on September 9. This day-long event will begin with one of the student-built cars being driven by two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Al Unser, Jr. in the Bugatti Parade that leaves Watkins Glen International at 9:05 a.m. and arrives at Smalley’s Garage on Franklin Street. Between 12:50 and 12:55 p.m., the three student-built cars will participate in an exhibition drive around the track by two-time defending TransAm champion, Chris Dyson, Former Trans Am champion, Tomy Drissi, and Unser. The awarding of the 2nd Annual Mamba Championship Trophy will take place afterward in the Victory Circle. The studentbuilt cars will be on display through Monday, September 12, in the Trans Am paddock area of the racetrack.

VOL. XLIII / NO. 3 / September 7, 2022 Serving 47,125 readers weekly

ON THE COVER:

“ e Sonata” by Brian Keeler (Special section cover photo: Josh Baldo)

NEWSLINE ....................................3 SPORTS ..........................................7 CAP CELEBRATES 30 YEARS ......8

Arts organization uni es diverse elds

PERSONAL HEALTH ..................10 FALL ARTS PREVIEW ................11 ART ..............................................17 DINING .......................................18 FILM ............................................19 TIMES TABLE .............................20 CLASSIFIEDS ..............................22

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G AZETTE : TOM N EWTON

IN UIRING PHOTOGR PHERQ A

By Josh Baldo

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE MOTTO?

“Live each day as if it’s your last.” – Shawna K.

“Go with it.” – James N.

“Enjoy the life and be positive.” – Liv P.

“Explore.” – Jack D.

“Find happiness.” – Nick D.

Home Dairy Building Recommended For Local Landmark Status

Proposal Centered On It Being Home Of Firebrand Books

By Mark Levine

The Home Dairy Building, as it has been known to generations of Ithacans, could potentially become the City’s next locally designated landmark building, based on the public and o cial support the idea received at a mid-August meeting of the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission. e driving motivation behind the e ort, led by Je ry Iovannone, a historian pursuing an advanced degree at Cornell, is that the second oor of the building served as the home of Firebrand Books, a nationally-recognized lesbian and feminist press from 1984 to 2000. e Italianate-in uenced brick building was built in 1872 for the bookseller and printer Andrus & Church, who did much of the early printing work for Cornell. From 1929 to 2002 it housed the Home Dairy Cafeteria, which served a central role in the downtown business district throughout the city’s development up to and a er the creation of e Commons. In 2003 it was sold to the religious community e Twelve Tribes, which opened a café called the Maté Factor in the retail space. e Maté Factor closed in 2019 and e Twelve Tribes are currently renovating the space in anticipation of their opening a new business called e Yellow Deli.

Firebrand Books, founded in 1984 by Nancy Bereano, a local editor and activist, is seen as the embodiment of the transition from a male-dominated publishing industry to one in which women entered into print and publishing as part of the Second Wave Feminist, Gay Liberation, and Women In Print movements of the 1970s and 1980s.

Firebrand Books is seen as being unique from other earlier women’s presses in that it was founded with an anti-racist sensibility. In addition, Bereano’s catalog included a wide variety of genres, including cartoons, science ction, mysteries, and supernatural ction alongside literary ction and poetry. Firebrand is credited with helping launch the careers of wellknown authors including Dorothy Allison, Alison Bechdel, Leslie Feinberg, and Minnie Bruce Pratt.

A number of residents spoke in favor of the proposal and had statements of support read into the record of the meeting. Bereano was present via Zoom and de ected the credit for the press’s signi cance onto its writers.

While the initial proposal suggested giving the building landmark designation under the name the Firebrand Books Building, members of the commission and Iovannone agreed a er some discussion that the best approach for a building with such a long, diverse history, was to take a chronological description and suggest the structure be named the “Andrus Printing / Home Dairy / Firebrand Books Building.”

Marcel Campbell of e Twelve Tribes noted that the building is already listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Ithaca Downtown Historic District, and while supportive of e orts to acknowledge the building’s historic signi cance, the owners are concerned about potential obstacles they might face in maintaining and improving the building moving forward due to additional designations. Commission members went out of their way to recognize that e Twelve Tribes have been “excellent stewards” of the building. Bryan McCracken, the City of Ithaca’s Historic Preservation Planner, o ered to meet privately with members of the Twelve Tribes to discuss any concerns they may have.

Alison Bechdel’s “Dykes to Watch Out For” comic strips were first publishing in book form by Firebrand Books in 1986. (Photo: Chase Elliott Clark, https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) 141-143 E State would get the designation Andrus Printing / Home Dairy / Firebrand Books Building if it receives local landmark status. (Photo: Jeffry Iovannone)

Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, considered a cult classic in LGBT communities, was published by Firebrand Books in 1993 (Photo: Provided)

Merger Of Public And Mental Health Departments Back On Track

Required Updating Of County Charter Slated For October

By Matt Dougherty

Now that Tompkins County is moving past COVID, it is nally ready to integrate its public health and mental health departments, as was proposed in a 2019 report. e Tompkins County Public Health Department and the Mental Health Department jointly released the report that identi ed areas where the two departments could be improved and outlined a plan to integrate both departments into one cohesive unit in order to streamline operations and make government more e cient. e county was originally given 18 months to complete the merger. So had everything gone to plan, the public and mental health departments would have completed their integration process by the middle of 2021. “But obviously COVID got in the way of that,” said Public Health Director at Tompkins County Health Department, Frank Kruppa.

“We were set to launch in 2020,” Kruppa notes. “We actually had an all-sta meeting in December of 2019 that was our launching point for the merger process. And then, of course, in January 2020 COVID began and things got a little bit o track.” e plan to integrate the two departments into one unit is intended to improve the quality of care for patients who visit both departments and reduce bureaucratic redundancies and make it easier for the departments to share electronic health records.

“Before we were using two smaller units that had the same strength of knowledge, skills, and abilities that this new larger unit has using the same number of people,” said Kruppa. “We've been able to strengthen our ability to support the work of our professionals and the department and do it with the same resources.”

Even though the pandemic has delayed the integration process, it didn't stop everything. Kruppa said that “even though the county had to prioritize dealing with COVID, the Mental Health Department was still able to convert to telemedicine because we felt it was important to get that plan in place.” e next step in the integration process is reforming the county charter. e county charter establishes the Public Health and Mental Health Departments as two separate departments, and it will need to be updated to create a single department that performs the functions of the prior two. Tompkins County is in the review process of that right now and expects that the new dra charter language will go to the legislature for their review and approval in October.

According to Kruppa, “our goal is that by January 1, 2023, we will have that new department established in the charter, there will be updated bylaws for a Development Services Board, and an advisor will be established as a formal position.”

Kruppa also said that the Tompkins County Public Health and Mental Health Departments are already in the process of merging their administrative functions together. “Our back-o ce things like budget and state aid and contracts, and purchasing are places where we saw that we could see some of the most immediate e ciencies, because having smaller units in two departments limited the scope of what they were able to do and certainly limited our redundancies.” e Public Health and Mental Health Departments are also looking at how to build their programming so that they can have the biggest impact with all of the services that they provide for each individual. Kruppa recently said, “that's our ultimate goal, and we're building towards making everyone aware of all of the services that our Department provides.”

According to Kruppa, “When the County Administrator o ered the report to the legislature, he was pretty clear that it wasn't to be looked at as a cost measure.” He continued saying, “For us, our goal was focused on our services, and we wanted to be able to provide the most comprehensive service.”

Kruppa says that Tompkins County Health Department “hopes that anyone who seeks our services will not only get what they think they need, but if they discover that we have something else that might be bene cial to them, and that we will be able to quickly, e ciently, and e ectively get them connected to those additional services.”

The Mental Health Department has been able to move forward with its telemedicine efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: File) The proposed merger has been delayed because the Public Health Department has been focused on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: File) Frank Kruppa says the goal is that by January 1, 2023, the newly merged department will be established in the County charter. (Photo: File)

UPS DOWNS &

Ups

The DA’s O ce has announced that the Ithaca Kiwanis Club will present the next Frank Hammer O cer of the Month Award to Corrections O cer Graden Alpert from the Tompkins County Sheri ’s O ce.

Downs

To the Ithaca activists and advocates on both ends of the ideological spectrum who are using the troubles of real people to score political points. Despite our sophistication we’re still a small town. We should be better than that.

HEARD SEEN &

Heard

People are asking who is going to be publicly promoting or opposing the City Manager proposal. It’s a huge issue for the City’s future and no one seems to be paying attention.

Seen

It’s troubling to see people “sleeping rough” and more and more people panhandling in Ithaca. Whether you use the term “unhoused” or “homeless” doesn’t matter to people in distress. This may be the de ning Ithaca issue in the next few years.

IF YOU CARE TO RESPOND to something in this column, or suggest your own praise or blame, write news@ithacatimes. com, with a subject head “U&D.”

QUESTION OF THE WEEK How much more would you ride TCAT if it were free?

19.0% A lot. It would become my #1 way to get around. 28.6% Some. I might use it for more trips to places right by bus stops. 52.4% Not much. I’d still use my car. It’s just more convenient.

NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION: What’s the biggest issue facing Ithaca right now?

Visit ithaca.com to submit your response.

Bycatch

By Charley Githler

It’s an apparently inevitable problem in commercial shing that there is a portion of every catch that consists of marine animals (unwanted sh, but also marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds) that are caught unintentionally and ideally ought to be returned to their habitat. Similarly, no matter how narrow and carefully dra ed a search warrant is, there are o en items retrieved that don’t fall within the bounds of the search or are irrelevant to the law enforcement investigation. I’m kind of a court-document nerd, and I just love reading these things...

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

PALM BEACH DIVISION

Case No. 22-CV-81294-Cornstarch

PURSUANT TO THE FINDING OF SPECIAL MASTER F. JESSICA CORNSTARCH, the following items, removed from Plainti DONALD J. TRUMP’s residence at 1100 South Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida under the authority of a search warrant executed by the Department of Justice on August 8, 2022, are hereby directed to be returned to the Plainti forthwith:

1. Letter-sized envelope with contents marked “Herschel Walker talking point flash cards” determined to be outside the scope of the subject search warrant. 2. Four cardboard boxes with contents labeled “D. Trump Personal Income Tax Returns 1988-2020” hereby adjudicated to not be germane to the Department of Justice investigation. 3. 18” x 30” portrait painting on felt material of Emmett Kelly, previously mis-identi ed as a portrait painting of Rudolph Giuliani, Esq. Plainti ’s contention that the item is covered by attorneyclient privilege is therefore deemed moot. 4. Typewritten manuscript (379 pages), “Living With Self-Loathing by Melania Trump” determined to be outside the scope of the subject search warrant. 5. Two cardboard boxes with contents pertaining to Plaintiff’s fourth bankruptcy categorized as personal memorabilia and determined to be outside the scope of the subject search warrant.

Continued on Page 16

Supporting LGBTQ+ People This World Suicide Prevention Day

By Ace Dufresne

While 2.5% of the U.S. population reported having attempted suicide at least once in their life, that number rises to 17% for lesbian, gay and bisexual adults and 40% for their transgender peers. is disparity isn’t because a LGBTQ+ identity is in itself a mental illness, but because many LGBTQ+ people are told time and time again, through actions and words, that who we are is wrong, who and how we love is revolting, our bodies are unnatural, and our mere existence a threat. To combat this, I’ve listed ve ways to support LGBTQ+ people in your life this World Suicide Prevention Day [Saturday, September 10].

1. Seek help. You deserve it.

A remarkable organization called e Trevor Project o ers support for LGBTQ+ youth across the U.S. through chat, call, or text. e Trans Lifeline provides transgender peer support in Canada and the U.S. e 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline isn’t LGBTQ+ speci c and is available to call or text at 988 in Spanish or English. Each of these are free, con dential and operated 24/7.

2. Vote.

When I talk to people who only passively follow LGBTQ+ politics, I’m o en confronted by the misunderstanding that if we only wait long enough, we will eventually, gradually, inevitably reach “equality.” Many things are indeed improving, but we have a long way to go. e highest number of anti-trans murders in the U.S. was recorded in 2021, according to the Human Rights Campaign. 2022 has been the worst year in recent history for state legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. e Trevor Project’s 2022 national survey found that suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ+ youth have been on the rise for the past three years.

Anti-trans legislation and COVID-19 have contributed to LGBTQ+ youth’s deteriorating mental health. In 2021, trans and non-binary youth who wanted their legal documents updated were less likely to have attempted suicide in the past year if this was already done. Suicidality can be decreased through access to gender-a rming healthcare for trans and non-binary youth who wish for it. ese are just a few examples of things your vote can in uence.

3. Be out as an ally.

Despite support for both gay and trans rights consistently growing, it’s o en hard, especially for minors in the LGBTQ+ community, to nd people whom they know they can come out to and talk about their problems with. 21% of LGBTQ+ youth who perceive their community as “very unaccepting” have attempted suicide in the past year, in comparison to 8% in a “very accepting” community.

So whether you’re a friend, coach, teacher, parent, manager, healthcare professional, or librarian, letting it be known that you’re safe to talk to encourages vital conversations about LGBTQ+ mental health and needs. Even if LGBTQ+ people don’t take you up on the o er, it’s empowering to know that there are allies not only out there somewhere, but in their own community.

4. Use our names and pronouns.

If the people a trans or non-binary youth live with all respect their name and pronouns, that youth is 11% less likely to have attempted suicide in the past year, in comparison to a trans or non-binary youth whose pronouns and name no one they live with use. is is why we care about pronouns: not because it’s “woke,” but because it can be life-saving.

You may think adjusting your language is hard, but please don’t complain. How are we supposed to have any self-worth if we’re made to feel like basic respect is too much to ask for? 5. Act like we’re always in the room—because we are.

According to a poll from Gallup every fourteenth adult in the U.S. identi ed as LGBTQ+ in 2021. Considering just how many LGBTQ+ people are at risk of suicide, you probably play a role in the lives of quite a few of them. Whether it’s your neighbor, granddad, yoga teacher, employer or hairdresser, you might be able to make a di erence. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. If there’s one thing I hope you take from this article, it’s that it’s worth it to try.

Ace Dufresne is a rising ninth grader at Ithaca High School