Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for more than four decades before being asked for press credentials.
He is the Senior Editor of the City Eagle and the Mayor of Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse.
Shepperd is also the producer of the The Media Unit, Central New York national award winning teen performance and production troupe.
Samadee is his alter ego. At least that's the rumor.
Samadee sat in Wild Will’s, surveying the press generated by Caroline Kennedy’s visit last month. Several people walked over to look at the pictures. “Who’s that lady with the mayor?” they kept asking, except for the person who didn’t use the word lady. Bar Food Dan leaned close and in a conspiratorial tone asked if Samadee would be interested in participating in a cook-off, an event aimed at attracting former regulars of the now closed Quigley’s to begin frequenting the Hanover Square corner tavern. Lucking out with a 60-degree winter anomaly, like happened last month, would even enable the event to be held at tables outside, if it didn’t rain, in the face of the city’s over-regulation of such matters.
How to celebrate your ascension? How to accept as real what we knew could never be, had a hard time even watching with any credence as a story on anti-hero television. I celebrated with tears at your acceptance speech, your reference points honoring the battles waged by non-violent warriors, trampled by the hooves of state trooper’s horses on the Pettis Bridge. As a veteran of some of those battles, a generation ago during the Mississippi Freedom Summer, I felt a rush of affirmation. As a very temporary Democratic primary voter, changing registration only long enough to help Jesse Jackson carry the city in his effort to keep hope alive with a presidential campaign, the affirmation was that hope really could be a concept...
Although the Roman Catholic Diocese office was closed for Martin Luther King Day, more than 50 people, including members of a dozen of the Central New York Diocese parishes and one from Park Central Presbyterian, gathered there to pray and sing in protest of the closing of St. Andrew’s Church, and the relocating of its congregation from south of the SU campus to St. Lucy’s on the near West Side. Creative irony inspired the picket signs. “Right to Life of our parishes,” one read. Another, held by veteran activist Kathleen Rumpf, observed the dual meaning of the day: “I have a dream...
Samadee hoped the Sunday night music scene at Manhattan’s would be sufficiently warm to deter discussion of the weather. He hadn’t seen the Has Been and the Wannabe since Election Night and knew they would be steaming with perspective on the Paterson-Kennedy whirligig, which had been chasing its own tail for six weeks. Kennedy had called Paterson to express her interest in being appointed to the Senate seat being vacated by then soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary. Paterson had told Caroline to trek upstate to talk to civic heavies, but definitely not to the press. Since the replacement process was not an election, protocol prevented prospects from actually campaigning, but it was open season for the camps of other interested parties to dump dirt...
