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.
When Roy Bernardi sat to project the possibilities for his second, therefore last, term as mayor, he reflected that not much could be accomplished. “Everyone on the Common Council is running for mayor for next time,” he reflected then, “and developers are waiting to see if they can get a better deal from the next administration.” Along with the cynical humor, however, Bernardi had a sense that the Mayoral Odyssey of 2001 could make history by electing an African-American to succeed him in City Hall. He mentioned a dozen potential candidates, mostly Democrats, but including Otis Jennings, who sought to bear the GOP standard four years ago, and recently garnered the Republican designation for this fall’s election...
Cut off from e-mail and the Internet, Samadee reconsidered running for office. With the water shut off in City Hall, even in the office of the Water Department, the upcoming races for mayor and Common Council seats posed inconvenience, especially for his aging bladder. Admittedly baffled by the challenge of achieving sustainable deconstruction and lacking the super power to see through the walls at City Hall in response to demands for transparency in city government, he was mostly concerned that not having a horse in the first seven laps of the Bellevue Stakes would deny him any contention. The Hall Monitor had told him that race was over anyway, since Stephanie Miner had rode her mule across the finish line with a handicap of 73 points...
TAGS: Internet,Samadee,Howie Hawkins,Bellevue Stakes,Syracuse city pools,syracuse city hall,Senator David Vitter,Frank E. Melton,Candie’s Foundation,Bristol Palin,National Teen Pregnancy Awareness Day
Confounded by the prospect of contemplating a political future without the benefit of e-mail or Internet, Samadee surveyed the weekend dishes piled up in the Sunday bus pan. Anticipating one of his two most effective coping mechanisms, he tied on his maroon apron with a block C and turned the faucet to fill the sink. There was no water. His first thought was last winter’s shut-off campaign, which the city had waged because of more than $6 million in delinquent water bills. The effort had brought in about $700,000 from 1,600 properties with an amnesty ending in October, and almost all of the 230 shut-offs in November and December had paid up and gotten turned back on...
“Our mission in the youth department here at CNY Works, Inc.,” Andrea Schnobrich wrote early last spring, “is to serve as many youth as possible in appropriate, meaningful jobs in safe settings, while providing exceptional supports, academic enrichment and opportunities to gain marketable skills, and to provide the community and businesses a view of our local emerging workforce at its best.” A tall order in a blue collar city with almost all of the factories closed, and an educational system with an overemphasis on college prep. Every summer for the past two generations an agency has used federal funds to create jobs for local youth who meet income guidelines with acronyms ranging from OCETA to YOP...
