Syracuse University is partnering with the Syracuse City School District to give three dozen high school students the chance to explore college life for free this summer. Up to 36 rising high school juniors will be able to take classes through the university’s Summer College Program.

Mayor Ben Walsh says students will have the opportunity to thrive.

“We need to make sure that our kids have all the tools they need and also understand that there are different pathways to progress. It may be graduating from high school and coming to Syracuse University to get your degree. It may be going through a CTE program and going straight into the workforce. The goal is to provide as many pathways to support our kids (as possible),” Walsh said.

The virtual program runs for three or six weeks during the summer and allows students to explore potential majors and get them excited about college. Executive director of pre-college programs at University College Chris Cofer says that’s key in selecting the right candidates.

Executive director of pre-college programs at University College Chris Cofer said the program is aimed at students who need encouragement to go to college.

“There are some kids who are ranked #1, they are top notch, set to go to an Ivy League school already, this course would be great for them and (schools) can nominate those students, but I’d rather find that student who needs that extra little push to get them excited about their future,” he said. “It’s important that we’re reaching students for the growth which they experience through the course is most impactful.”

Sponsorship of the city school students was made possible in part through a donation from IBEW Local 43 and the National Electrical Contractors Association - Finger Lakes Chapter. More information about pre-college programs or how to sponsor high school students is at precollege.syr.edu.

Starting Wednesday, Syracuse University will begin vaccinating students, faculty, and staff who haven’t yet been inoculated against COVID-19. The university has received an initial allotment of 1,600 doses of the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the state and Onondaga County.

Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie says their Barnes Center health and wellness team is ready.

“When the county first stood up its vaccination effort in January, unbeknownst to a lot of people it was Syracuse University’s health center team that was part of the county’s team doing the vaccinations,” Haynie said. “That team has been trained, they understand the protocol, they are uniquely suited to very quickly turn around and set up a vaccination clinic here on our campus.”

Many campus faculty and staff have already been vaccinated based on other eligibility criteria, but Haynie says they don’t have specific numbers. The university sent a pre-registration email last week, and will be working from that list to schedule appointments. Meanwhile, Haynie says they’re counting on personal accountability to avoid additional spikes in infection.

“That behavior is the only proactive thing you can do to protect yourself and others from COVID. We’ll continue to message accountability and the responsibility we all have not just to the campus community but to the Central New York community.”

Haynie says having all students vaccinated will help reduce COVID-19 cases on campus. Currently, 169 SU students actively have COVID-19 and nearly 1,500 have recovered over the course of the pandemic. SU expects to receive more doses in the coming days and weeks.

The SUNY system is rolling out much the same effort. The first shipment of more than 18,000 single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines are being distributed to its 34 campuses this week.

Despite CDC guidelines discouraging travel due to COVID-19, AAA says more Central New York families are definitely getting away for the Easter Holiday and Spring Break. In recent days more than 1.4 million across the state went through security checks at airports. AAA Spokesperson Elizabeth Carey says warmer temperatures are leading people to southern destinations.

“Orlando is number one, it always seems to come in number one no matter what the travel holiday is. Ft. Lauderdale is second, followed by Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and then Montego Bay, Jamaica. Nashville comes in a number five,” Carey said.

She says the floodgates of travel reservations in started coming in after New York lifted out-of-state quarantine restrictions. A lot of people like to flock to amusement parks in Florid, but Carey says you’re required to plan ahead.

“Right now, for Universal or Disney you need to make a reservation to go in the park. It’s not like back in the day, ‘Oh we’re going to stay at Grandma’s house and maybe on Thursday if the weather is good we’ll head over to the theme park.’ You probably won’t get in,” she said. “This is something you need to plan in advance with your travel consultant.”

The overwhelming majority of travelers are choosing to drive for the holiday and spring break. The AAA team suggests adhering to strict masking requirements, using hand sanitizers and packing wipes, water and extra snacks to minimize the number of stops. Director of CNY Travel Brian Murray says don’t anticipate all services to be available at hotels because of COVID-19.

“Some amenities may not be available in many hotels like room service or fitness centers. For extra peace of mind, wipe down surfaces using disinfecting wipes in a hotel, that includes door handles, remotes, faucets and light switches,” he said.

For those flying internationally at this time, they will still be required to test negative for COVID-19 or show documentation confirming they recovered from COVID-19.

Congressmember Claudia Tenney (R-Utica) hasn’t wasted any time re-connecting with small businesses after taking office last month. Her recent tour of the 22nd District continues a tradition she began in her previous term.

She says she hears quite a bit about unemployment benefits because it puts many workers and businesses in a quandary.

“These restaurants were saying, ‘We’ve got people who’ve worked with us, they’re great employees, but they’re getting $400 a week on unemployment and an additional $300 per week until August.’ Many of these businesses are getting to the end of their season in August but they can’t get employees to come in because they make about the same working or staying home.”

Tenney says that situation might cause some unnecessary tension.

“(Business owners will) do anything for their employees to help but sometimes the law gets in the way, and creates a hostile relationship that never existed before,” she said. “They want to help their employees but they also want to keep their business going and so this unemployment insurance is sort of a double edge sword because it’s great and we need it, but it also can hurt some of the small business owners.”

Add in uncertainties about school and child care, and Tenney says it’s a real dilemma for employers and workers. Meanwhile, three of her bills have already passed the House in just the last week, and she continues to work across the aisle. Tenney says that might be in contrast to popular sentiment.

“Everyone thinks it’s worse than it is. It’s usually at the top — the leadership, the media — but I’ve found that a lot of my colleagues are willing to work together,” she said. “I’m trying to do a bill and Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez’s (D-Queens) staff is working with it. She might be interested in it as well, a new bill dealing with the nursing home issue.”

She says The Essential Caregiver Plan is not just aimed at New York but the nation, based on feedback from seniors and advocacy groups on best practices and policies for facilities during a pandemic. Tenney says she’ll also be pushing for a bill to ease restrictions on farmworkers, and is working on legislation to address immigration.

Central New Yorkers applying for the 1,200 jobs at massive Amazon facilities in Clay and Dewitt might be keeping an eye on the outcome of the unionization effort at an Alabama warehouse.

Workers there and at other Amazon facilities have complained about very demanding working conditions with few breaks and insufficient pandemic safety precautions. Syracuse University Whitman School Assistant Professor of management Lynn Vincent said a ‘yes’ vote would be momentous.

“A ‘yes’ vote here could galvanize workers at other locations, not just the Syracuse location. I know other locations are watching Alabama. We all are.”

However, Vincent said a ‘no’ vote won’t stop the momentum. She says civil and workers’ rights movements have been gaining traction over the past year or so.

“This is part of a larger conversation that we as a nation are having about racial and economic disparities. So this conversation is not going away, regardless of the outcome of this vote.”

She also noted that this is just a continuation of a tradition of unionization in the U.S., even as technology and the workforce changes over time.

“Technology has changed, the job that they are doing may have changed, but the expectation of very demanding, physical jobs for comparably lower wages is the same,” Vincent said. “We also see the same pattern of power, where the workers collectively have considerably less power and opportunity than their organization does.”

Alabama warehouse employees are getting support from Black Lives Matter, the NFL and even seem to have the empathetic ear of President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), among other politicians. A cadre of House Democrats visited the warehouse earlier this month.

Amazon, meanwhile, has aggressively tried to shut down any unionization effort, actions Vincent says are unfortunately legal. Voting in Alabama is currently underway through the end of the month. A vote count will take place March 30.

Syracuse’s Mayor Ben Walsh and a local jobs advocate are lending their voices to a move to allow more local workers to take part in federally funded public works projects. Jobs to Move America is trying to lift a 30-year-old ban on any geographic hiring requirements in road, bridge or other projects that get federal money.

Jobs to Move America wants the federal ban on local hiring lifted in order for projects to benefit local economies.

“What we’re trying to use Syracuse Builds for is the conduit for a pathways to apprenticeship program in partnership with local labor. But we also know there have historically been barriers in the trade particularly to communities of color,” he said.

Walsh says lifting of the ban would help some of the thousands of jobs for the I-81 project to go to local people. Deka Dancil with the Urban Jobs Task Force has been trying to find ways around the federal ban against local hiring in Syracuse. Her group did a study that showed the racial disparities of government-funded projects. It showed 87% of workers on such projects were white, while the city population is only 49% white.

“It’s time that we move beyond business as usual, and we use these projects also as vehicles to correct the racial, environmental and economic injustices in their initial builds. The call for justice has been knocking on the door quite a bit in the past year, and this is just one way for our new administration to answer,” Dancil said.

Jobs to Move America also did some research. They examined a pilot project which suspended the local hiring ban. Program Director Christy Veeder looked at whether a local jobs provision hurt bids on a public project.

“What we found is that there was no difference in number of bidders or bid price for projects that had local hire compared to projects that did not,” Vedeer said. “For the projects that did have local hire, in pretty much every case, the number of bidders was equal to or greater than the number of bidders on non-local hire projects.”

The group is hoping the Biden administration will follow that finding and lift the ban on local hiring language in contracts. They say it would channel a portion of $90-100 billion of investments in public projects back into local economies and workers.

A Central New York case of rape and murder is prompting a federal government review of how suspects are monitored before their trials. Local victims’ advocates have fought for seven years to improve pre-trial release after the horrific crime.

CNY Case of David Renz helped spur a GAO review of home monitoring, after Renz disable ankle monitor before raping, murdering back in 2013. WAER's Chris Bolt reports on advocacy efforts for victims and pending legislation.

Many in Central New York remember the case of David Renz. He raped a 10-year-old and murdered a woman, all while he was supposed to be at home with an ankle monitor on, which he disabled. Bill Cregg was there to comfort Lori Bresnahan as she died. He’s fought to improve home monitoring ever since the 2013 crime.

“We continue to see murders, domestic violence and sexual assaults on our children from individuals wearing electronic monitors on pretrial release today,” Cregg said.

His efforts and pressure from Congressman John Katko (R-Camillus) have finally caused the Government Accountability Office to review failures of pre-trial release. In the Renz case it was reported that probation ignored 46 alarms that he was tampering with his monitor. John Duncan was a U.S. attorney in Syracuse at the time and says the system has to be better.

“We are in times now where there are current efforts to reduce the number of people held in jail pretrial and you can look at New York bail reform laws as a prime example of that,” he said. “But it’s very important that if people are released pretrial that the public feels secure. If someone is let out that they’re not going to be a risk."

Katko sponsored a bill in Congress calling for the GAO review to examine pre-trial services, the response to tampering warnings of electronic devices, and the criminal history of those on pre-trial release.

“We can’t move forward until we get a full view of the depth of the problem. I think we can all acknowelege that there is a problem and I don’t want judges to get a false sense of confidence that a system works when it’s not,” Katko said. “Not only are we going to find the bad things, we’re going to find the good things. We’re going to have an appropriate discussion once we educate the public on what we need to do.”

The review comes at a time when more suspects of crimes are not being held in custody, due to bail reform and other factors. Katko adds the GAO review will help improve his legislation on pre-trial release and probation.

Katko bill would direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to:

• Provide data on the number and types of federal crimes that individuals on pre-trial release have been charged with over the past 5 years

• Examine policies that guide federal Probation and Pretrial Services officers in their response when an electronic monitoring device indicates either tampering or noncompliance with pretrial release requirement

• Review actions being taken to ensure Probation and Pretrial Services officers are adhering to the monitoring and supervision policies in place

• Examine staffing and resource challenges Probation and Pretrial Services face and extent of their coordination with state agencies to help administer probation and pretrial services

The results of two undetermined State Senate and Assembly races are clear enough for Democrats to declare victory. Onondaga County is just about finished counting absentee ballots after a two-week delay. Assemblymember Al Stirpe will represent the 127th District for a seventh time after defeating the GOP’s Mark Venesky by more than 6,100 votes.

Democrats John Mannion and Al Stirpe claimed victory in their state races this week with ballot counting finishing up at the Onondaga County Board of Elections.

Based on its prominence this election, Stirpe thinks absentee voting is here to stay.

“More than anything what this has shown is that when you make it easy to vote by mail, a lot more people vote and hopefully that will continue because our democracy depends on it,” he said.

If unconditional absentee voting passes the legislature, it will advance to a public referendum vote next November.

In the 50th Senate District, Democrat John Mannion declared victory over Republican Angie Renna. He may be sworn before January because the seat has been vacant. Mannion says the lack of representation has hurt the 300,000 residents in the district.

“That is incredibly impactful in normal times, but it is even more impactful when we’re facing an economic crisis and we’re in the midst of a public health crisis,” he said.

Mannion flipped the seat to blue that was long held by Republicans John DeFrancisco and briefly by Bob Antonacci, who left mid-term after he was elected to a seat on the state Supreme Court. Mannion says he’ll leave his 28-year teaching career to focus solely on his new role. He and his fellow lawmakers face daunting fiscal challenges created by a pandemic that is only getting worse.

“That’s going to impact any legislation. I have certain areas that are important to me, that includes education, environment, healthcare and ethics which is really the reason I got into this,” Mannion said.

Stirpe says they’re going to be making a lot of hard decisions in an effort to provide decent education, healthcare, and other basic services.

“Revenue to state and local governments has taken a serious hit, in particular not-for-profits have been starved through this process. A lot of people depend on the services they provide just to exist.”

Stirpe fears there will be drastic cuts if federal relief doesn’t come soon.

While these state races are now appearing to be decided, other Central New York races are still up in the air. New Yorks 22nd congressional seat is still unclear, with recounts and legal challenges disputing results nearly a month after the election.

A Syracuse University Law School Professor says President Elect Joe Biden won’t have a problem catching up three weeks after the election because his team has been preparing all along. William Banks says Biden’s planning began when he clinched the democratic nomination last summer.

President-elect Joe Biden and his team have been preparing for the presidency since he clinched the democratic nomination, according to an SU Law professor.

He thinks the delay by the Trump Administration to share information to Biden will be “negligible to none.” However, he feels it comes with other costs.

“I feel a great deal has been lost symbolically and I believe our democratic institutions have been severely beat up by the bruising battles that have been fought for no good reason.”

Biden’s team can now engage in daily national security updates and classified briefings with the Trump Administration. Banks says Biden’s cabinet is filled with diversity and experience.

“Some of them are from the Obama administration, so of them much further back, like John Kerry who will be a cabinet-level official responsible for climate change. It’s Kerry’s deep passion,” Banks said.

Kerry previously served as President Obama’s Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017. All of Biden’s security team appointments announced Tuesday have ties to the Obama administration, where Biden served as Vice President.

Other appointees include Antony Blinken to become Secretary of State, Avril Haines as the first woman to serve as Director of National Intelligence and Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as Homeland Security Secretary.

Despite the election results being certified by the General Services Administration on Monday and the conclusion of legal challenges in Michigan and Pennsylvania, President Trump has yet to concede the race.

Laci’s Tapas Bar in Syracuse has been a staple of the city’s Hawley-Green neighborhood for over a decade. After ten years, the restaurant is set to close December 19th.

Laci's Tapas Bar will close after ten years in the Hawley-Green and supporting the growth of other businesses in the neighborhood.

Owner Laura Serway says the COVID-19 pandemic played only a small role in her decision.

“It’s probably 20 percent, at the most, of my decision, but it’s not. Eighty percent is me. COVID is a challenge. I just got off the phone with another restaurant (owner), it’s a challenge for him as well. All of us are going through it,” she said.

For Serway, the hardest part has been informing her employees things would be coming to an end. However, she is working to make sure her six full-time employees have a job lined up before things close.

“That’s the hardest part of this whole thing. They’re my family. Seventy-five percent of my team has been with me three years or more.”

Laci’s Tapas does more for the community than just serving food. Serway and her former co-owner, Cindy Seymour, have helped revitalize the once struggling Hawley-Green neighborhood, and created an annual give back celebration that has raised thousands for local non-profits. Serway wants to make sure in the next phase of her life she continues giving back.

“I am very passionate about my community and I want to be positive that no matter what I do next it will be at the top of my list to have the opportunity to help people,” she said.

In its final month, Laci’s Tapas will be open Thursday through Saturday with a limited capacity. Although, the restaurant may be open additional days to keep up with the demand from loyal patrons. It is strongly recommended you call ahead to make a reservation. Laci’s is longtime supporter of WAER.

Other businesses that shut down in August are Jail Hoss Rock Café on South State Street, Greenwood Winery on Collamer Road in DeWitt, and BU Brewery on Brewerton Road in North Syracuse.

One bright spot, after Kelley’s Bar and Restaurant on Velasko Road closed, it was sold and re-opened recently as Chelsea’s Restaurant. Syracuse.com reports that the majority of the original Kelley’s staff was re-hired.

Syracuse has an important connection to the latest Coronavirus vaccine study recently in the news for its 90% effectiveness in early trials. Not only have volunteers here been getting the vaccine, an Upstate Doctor is playing a critical role in getting it approved.

Syracuse has strong connections to the Pfizer study that is developing a coronavirus vaccine and showing initial results of 90% effectiveness. WAER's Chris Bolt reports a local infectious disease expert is playing a prominent role.

Upstate Medical’s Chief of Infectious Disease Doctor Stephen Thomas has been named lead investigator for Pfizer’s nationwide study that includes Syracuse and more than 100 other sites.

As for the vaccine’s effectiveness, Thomas calls the news “very encouraging,” and better than many flu vaccines if it holds up. But he has concerns, even after approval, starting with residents believing in it.

“People have to be willing to take it. You have to be able to have enough doses to get to the people who are at risk,” Thomas said. “You have to be able to make sure that you can ship the vaccine and store the vaccine at the right temperature, and then you need processes and infrastructure in place to insure that people have access to both doses of the vaccine.”

Thomas anticipates the vaccine could be ready for front line workers and those most vulnerable by early 2021, but he cautions people not to put too much faith in it to reverse the entire pandemic.

“It is not going to be just vaccination that is going to drastically change the epidemic curve for COVID in the United States. There’s going to have to be continued and improved public health intervention. Get your flu shot, wear masks, physically distance, avoid crowds, avoid gatherings, those sorts of things,” he said.

As lead investigator, Thomas will be reviewing the nationwide data to confirm its veracity. He says that’s critical to make sure the pharmaceutical company is double-checked.

“To have another set of eyes outside the company to look at that information (is important), but it’s important to know, the study is still ongoing and I remain blinded, which means I have no idea who receives a vaccine and who receives placebo,” Thomas said. “And that’s incredibly important because the blinding process allows us to reduce bias.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also weighed in on the vaccine trial’s preliminary success, and congratulated Thomas for his role in a press release Monday.

"It's great news that Pfizer/BioNTech is seeing positive results from its vaccine trial, and I'm proud one of New York's foremost infectious disease experts has been selected to lead its worldwide vaccine trial. On behalf of the family of New York I would like to thank Dr. Thomas for his work fighting this invisible enemy," Cuomo said.

So Syracuse, through clinical trial volunteers and now Thomas’ oversight, is playing a key role in finding a vaccine to slow the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Onondaga and Tompkins County Women’s Opportunity Center has had to trim just about all of its staff, due to the financial crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Financial problems are mounting at a time the center’s directors say they’re help for women is needed most.

The non-profit organization offers free programs and services to divorced and other displaced women who are re-entering the workforce. The Center receives funding from the Department of Labor, but Board Member Aryn Fields says they haven’t seen a dime from the government since March.

“The Department of Labor grant that we receive every year is 40% of the overall budget of the Women’s Opportunity Center and it covers 100% of the payroll,” she said. “Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, we haven’t received any funding for payroll, which is why we had to take the extraordinary measure to lay off all of the staff members except for one manager in each office.”

One-on-one assistance, here a mock interview, has been curtailed due to funding cuts, but still offered.

Back in March, the WOC moved the majority of its instruction online. But since July, clients could meet with a staff member at the office or a local coffee shop for life coaching or computer instruction. Deputy Director Amy Canavan says the loss of most of the staff is raising anxieties.

“These people are scared. They don’t know how they’re going to keep the roof over their head, they’re afraid of how they’re going to get a job, they’ve been cut back and their unemployment insurance is super low, parents that were only eating every other day before getting jobs are now back to eating every other day to make sure their kids have enough food,” she said.

Canavan adds that they were able to secure funding for their clients to borrow computers to continue instruction online. Now with the closing of the Syracuse office, Canavan worries other centers around the state could close. This, at a time when more women are seeking help to find a foothold in the job market.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic we’ve had an increase in calls for outreach from the rural areas, and we are now servicing clients from Alexandria Bay all the way down to Binghamton because we are online, and we have a lot of women in those remote areas without any other source of support,” she said.

Fields shares some ways their center is looking for donations.

Donations help the center, whether they're professional clothing to help with work attire, computers, financial donations or volunteer time.

“At this moment, we’re really looking at the donors who have donated in the past to trying to tap new donors. We know this is a financially hard time for everybody, but we really have no other choice right now other than to ask the community to help us,” she said. “We’re really in a dire situation and we need all the help we can get.”

Both Canavan and Fields say they have heard nothing from either the Labor Department or State Legislators about when or if promised funds would be released. Those interested in donating time or resources can go to the Women’s Opportunity Center website at womensopportunity.org.

Former Vice President and Democratic Nominee for President Joe Biden endorsed democrat Dana Balter for the NY-24 congressional race Wednesday. Balter is hoping to unseat three-term republican Rep. John Katko in November. Balter lost the race against Katko in 2018, but won the democratic primary this July after not receiving the Onondaga County Democratic Party’s endorsement.

Balter is the first down-ballot congressional endorsement of Biden’s campaign. Biden was named the democratic nominee for president at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee last Thursday.

“I am incredibly honored to receive Vice President Biden’s endorsement,” Balter said in a campaign press release. “Vice President Biden has always been on the side of working families, and the impact of his accomplishments cannot be understated.”

She emphasized Biden’s experience in the field of health care legislation, an issue that Katko has repeatedly attacked Balter on. Balter has supported Medicare for All previously, but Biden said he would not sign such a measure as president.

“Because of the Vice President’s role in passing the Affordable Care Act, 20 more million Americans have health insurance, and people with pre-existing conditions — like myself — can no longer be denied coverage. I look forward to fighting alongside him to continue expanding health coverage to every American,” she said.

NY-24 has been named one of the most vulnerable districts in the country for republicans to loose in the 2020 elections by some analysts. Balter and Katko will face off for a second time at the ballot box on Nov. 3.

The owner of 2 local fitness clubs says people are coming through the doors and getting reacquainted with safety protocols after being closed for about five months. Governor Andrew Cuomo's order allowed gyms and fitness centers to begin reopening Monday, and local officials have been allowed to further delay reopening until September 2nd.

One local gym owner is happy to reopen the doors to customers and says people are adjusting to new safety regulations.

Although, Randy Sabourin of Metro Fitness says there is only a heightened sense of disinfectants and social distancing requirements because of COVID-19 because always took measures to cleanse surfaces and protect members. The real threat to your health, he says, is if you don’t exercise and maintain proper nutrition.

“There’s certainly many reasons why exercise can reduce your risk for a variety of illnesses and if you were to be afflicted with COVID, it would not impact you as severely as if you had not been taking care of yourself.”

He says underlying diseases is somewhat self-inflicted and much of that is behavior and how active a person is or not, and those fitness options were taken away when gyms closed. The state requires that all fitness club members must wear masks. Sabourin says there has been some pushback and trainers are adjusting the pace of workouts because breathing is somewhat restricted now. But, there are some exceptions, depending on a person’s health.

“We have clients with medical conditions and they have been speaking with their doctors, but according to the mandate the only option is a (face) shield as opposed to a mask. We have a few that are looking at that as an option so they can breathe a little more comfortably and still protect themselves and their fellow members,” Sabourin said.

Metro Fitness takes members’ temperatures as part of a health screening when they arrive. Sabourin has already seen an increase in personalized training clients. He thinks people are drawn to their gyms because the client to customer ratio is much smaller than the larger workout chains with more people.

Similarly, Syracuse University has reopened two of its gyms on campus. The Barnes Center at the Arch, which opened last fall, is reopened with social distancing restrictions as well as a satellite gym in Ernie Davis Hall. Other satellite gyms remain closed on the campus. Masks are required at all times on campus, including inside the gyms.