On my lunch break, I passed by the public safety building where at least three dozen people are currently protesting. I have no idea what they’re protesting, because I couldn’t stop, but the signs look like a wage fight. I haven’t seen anything on the news, but the 13WHAM truck was definitely there, so I’m looking at them for an update. . .

13WHAM.com confirms what I’d been hearing in whispers yesterday: Paetec is definitely making cuts. A reader flagged this article for me, thank you.

You’ll remember that Paetec has been having some very serious troubles of late, long before the rumblings of our current economic crisis were making headlines. They’ve been down in the penny stocks range for about half a year or so. This has been worrying to Rochestarians, especially in light of Paetec’s plans for the former MidTown center, which may very well be in jeopardy.

The company employs 800 people in Rochester. The rumor I’ve been hearing - entirely unconfirmed by any authoritative source - is that as many as 300 people could be let go. No time frame has been either rumored or announced. I’ll be keeping an eye on this story as it develops.

And once again, if you have information you’d like to share - from scuttlebutt at work to authoritative fact - I’d be interested in hearing it. You can leave feedback for me here, and your information will remain anonymous.

I’m hearing rumors of Paetec layoffs announced today. I’m not seeing anything, but we’ll keep you posted

And of course, if YOU hear anything, by all means drop me a line and let me know what you’ve heard. Thanks!

Of course, it’s being reported everywhere, but I thought this blog aught to make mention of the new plans for Eastview Mall: 57 million dollars in renovations and “more shopping attractions,” which I guess means paying high-end companies to move here? I don’t know. So, could this mean Rochester’s first Nordstrom’s?

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this plan. Eastview is definitely the mall in town best positioned for more expansion, being that they occupy a lot of land currently sitting vacant and get a lot of business. But I worry about the environmental impact (I’m sure there must have been an environmental impact study done, but perhaps that’s in the future). Eastview sits astride some wetlands - at least partially as a result of the previous expansion - which are bearing fruit in the form of migratory birds and presumably fish, since I’ve seen a few blue heron down there.

I also wonder if now is the right time for them to be investing so heavily in more high-end retailers when I suspect the more likely retail bloom will be in the Walmart and Aldi’s category? All projects eventually reach their Peter Principle, I don’t think that the midst of a serious recession is the optimal time to find oneself staring down the barrel of their own incompetence.

Late Update: Rachel Barnhart of 13WHAM points out in her Twitter that there are in fact very few details as to how the money will be used. That makes my concerns about the environmental impact much less relevant that I first thought.

Whoa, did that suck! I switched hosts to a new VPS service, which rocks, but unfortunately found myself bested by Apache2 and the site went down for a few days. Sorry for the interruption! A big thanks to Rottenchester of The Fighting 29th, who was able to straighten out the mess with my configuration and get my back online. Thanks!

And in items of interest this morning, whilst I work on updating the news section:

As a sign of the times, the NYT is reporting that office space in Manhattan is rapidly emptying out ahead of the looming recession. I hope they cleared out the upper floors first. Those are some nice streets to have to wipe the Investor Class off of.

And here in Rochester, the Irondequoit Town Board will be meeting on plans to make the Medley Center - known on this site as the Diddly Center - even less useful than it was as a mall. Don’t miss the comments section on this one.

I find it sort of ironic that they want a movie theatre in the Medley Center when they already have one down on Culver where you can catch a movie, eat some popcorn and watch teenagers knife-fight in the parking lot. We really need another one of those in town? Seriously?

Figure this one out:

In September and the first half of October 2005, would-be bankruptcy filers locally and across the country clogged bankruptcy clerks’ offices as they raced to file petitions in time to beat a midnight Oct. 17 deadline when the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act took effect. Long sought by the banking and credit card industries, the 2005 act put tighter restrictions on bankruptcy filers.
After it became law, filings here and across the country fell precipitously and only gradually climbed back to pre-reform levels.

Doesn’t seem to have all that much to do with the article at hand, which is simply reporting that there is a slight up-tick in bankruptcy filings in Rochester. And if I’m reading it correctly, doesn’t it basically sound like it’s trumpeting the success of the Backruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, while in the second half of the last sentence, conceding that the panic that law caused only temporarily effected any change? Kind of like saying “I slapped my kid a good one. And boy, it took him a long time to forget about it. But he did.”

Maybe Will Astor aught to leave the editorializing to the editorial page.

Just getting reports via News 8’s twitter account, but it appears as though a student with a cell phone inside the cafeteria is texting her mom that there is a lockdown in the lunchroom. It seems that police dogs have been deployed to the school because someone has brought a gun.

Here at DFE, we take student reports with a very large grain of salt. But what the hell is going on?

I made some calls to find out who, exactly, was meeting with Barack Obama’s financial team.  Turns out it is Anne Mulcahy, which is also being confirmed by Huff Po now.  There is a presser scheduled for 2:30pm today.

What is up with this poor kid from the U of R?  Burned body discovered on Halloween.  The name of the student has just been released, so we’re about to know more.  What was he like?  Did he commit suicide or was he killed?  Why Halloween?  And where was he in Mt. Hope Cemetery that no one saw the burning from the road?  Or did it even happen there?

This site actively avoids topics such as this as a rule.  But this one is just too disturbing not to take note of.

I’m here at Rochester for Obama Headquarters on St. Paul by Main, volunteering and making calls. I spoke with Melissa, one of the principle organizers, and she tells me that Duval County in Florida is being exclusively covered by RFO today in our Get Out the Vote efforts. Duval County’s going to be hearing from a lot of people: Rochester for Obama has already made 40,000 calls to Ohio, Pennsylvania and now Florida since the beginning of the weekend.

I’ll keep you updated as I find new info.