Overcoming Challenges

By Jacquie Simone

Ioanna Vlahos beams as she says how much she loves her job. Three years ago, she hardly ever smiled: She battled severe panic attacks and bipolar disorder, which hindered her ability to find steady employment and support her three children. Then she came to Challenge Industries, a local non-profit that helps people with physical and mental disabilities find employment and become more independent. After several training programs, she was employed as an administrative assistant at Challenge and now helps other people overcome obstacles just like she did.

“Challenge has given me and other people the opportunity to see that we do have skills, that we can be productive and that we are employable,” Vlahos said. “It gave me a life.”

Challenge Industries has been operating in Ithaca since 1968, but this month it will move to a new building to decrease expenses and provide more services to people like Vlahos.

“The new space will allow for expanded services, a more efficient and safe environment for providing services and a lower operating budget,” Emily Parker, Challenge’s director of development, said.

The board of directors had discussed relocation for more than four years and decided last year to move from 402 E. State St. to the South Hill Business Campus. The move was originally planned for December 2008, but the state budget crisis delayed the relocation until fall 2009. The Challenge staff members plan to begin work at the new location in late December.

Challenge offers a variety of services to adults with disabilities in Tompkins County, including helping them find and keep work and live independently. About 800 people participate in Challenge services each year, which are organized by about 100 staff members.

“It’s important for everybody—anybody—to have work, and maybe sometimes especially people with disabilities, because otherwise their quality of life isn’t so great,” Erinn Seward, an employment adviser at Challenge, said. “Everybody needs to have some place that they’re needed, some place to keep busy.”

When people with documented disabilities first come to Challenge, they are usually interviewed to determine their level of experience and ability. Challenge’s clients, as they are called, have a wide range of disabilities, from depression to cerebral palsy. According to Seward, this makes it important to give specific attention to each person and assess his or her individual needs. After the initial evaluation, most people are enrolled in Job Club, where they learn how to develop a résumé and behave in a work environment. Challenge job placers then determine which types of work would be best for the person and help them arrange interviews.

Some clients with particularly large obstacles to employment are placed instead at Challenge’s work floor, where they perform repetitive manual labor and are paid for the amount of tasks they complete. Their assignments include packaging the produce from Challenge’s garden at Finger Lakes Fresh. In the current building, the work floor is near the staff offices. The layout of the new building allows for more designated areas for such tasks, which Seward said will create a better work environment. Additionally, the South Hill location has a loading dock, which will make it easier for people at the work floor to access the trucks they need for their assignments.

“At the new building, everything will have its own space,” Seward said. “Right now, all of us with offices are on the same floor as the work floor; it won’t be that way anymore.”

If Challenge matches clients with an appropriate job in the Ithaca community, employment advisers like Seward meet with them at least once a month to monitor their success. Workers can decide whether they want their employers to know about their involvement with Challenge, which determines if the employment advisers talk with the bosses and visit clients in the workplace. This relationship continues as long as the client wants. Seward said most clients are successful in their jobs, because Challenge offers a strong support network and helps them adapt to the new employment environment. However, she said Challenge also emphasizes independence and personal responsibility.

“It’s a struggle, because you want to see everyone be successful,” Seward said. “The biggest problem, especially with mental health, is that sometimes people just fall off. You could do a lot of work, and it could be disappointing to watch people put a lot of effort in and, because of their illness or disability, not succeed.”

Many of Challenge’s clients work at the dish rooms in the Ithaca College dining halls. The new location on South Hill will enable employment advisers to more closely monitor the employees’ progress. Deb Mohlenhoff, a member of the Ithaca Common Council and the assistant director of community service and leadership development at Ithaca College, has worked with Challenge for years and said she hopes the move will create even stronger bonds between the non-profit and the college.

“The proximity to campus will allow them to do a whole bunch of innovative programs where their clients will actually come to campus and have some direct experience with some of the campus programs and student organizations,” Mohlenhoff said. “That, to me, is a really exciting benefit of them being on South Hill.”

In addition to employment services, Challenge also offers programs focusing on socialization and life skills. The organization hosts a variety of discussion groups and craft sessions, where people can explore new hobbies or learn about current events. These services are offered as part of the Life Options program, which helps people with disabilities form social connections and develop new interests. The Life Options participants go on field trips, perform volunteer work, take independent study and exercise classes and engage in other activities not necessarily related to employment. Seward said these programs should be expanded, since many Challenge clients are senior citizens who are more concerned with living independently than having a job. She said the new building will provide more specific spaces, such as a kitchen where members of the Life Options program can learn to cook.

“Challenge will benefit from having more efficient space that will improve their productivity,” James Brown, president of the United Way of Tompkins County, said. “They’ll be able to serve more people, and they’ll be able to do a better job of serving people. In addition, this will allow them to partner with other agencies and expand existing partnerships. In some ways, it’s going to transform the agency.”

The United Way is one of several state and local sources of funding for Challenge, including the Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities, the Office of Temporary Disability Assistance, Medicaid and Tompkins County Department of Social Security. Since many of these agencies depend on the state and county budgets, Challenge has been trying to cut operational expenses. The move to the South Hill Business Campus and subsequent sale of the State Street building will generate extra revenue.

“The move now is a matter of cost in some ways,” Seward said. “This building is very old, and they’ve been here for a long time, and it’s costly to keep it up. In some ways, it’s not working for the program.”

Challenge employees said the move will benefit both staff members and clients. Vlahos said she thinks the move to a new building will allow the organization to offer more services and help Tompkins County even more than it already does.

“I think Challenge should be in every county,” Vlahos said. “It’s necessary because it puts people who have lost all hope to work and it gives them hope, a sense of pride, a sense of self-respect. It helps the community.”

Below: Ioanna Vlahos discusses how Challenge Industries helped her.

Environmentalists Speak Out Against Gas Drilling

By Jacquie Simone

Ithaca is famous for its natural beauty and progressive politics. Recently, community members have been speaking out against natural gas drilling in Tompkins County, fearing it will negatively affect the environment and possibly change the identity of Ithaca itself.

(Above, L-R: Shaleshock members Ken Zeserson, Lisa
Wright and Jim Mathews oppose drilling and are trying
to spread information about hydrofracking.)

“Because of our environment, we’re not going to have a life if this happens,” said Ken Zeserson, the planning board chair for Ulysses.

Residents have an opportunity to voice their opinions regarding gas drilling, since they are now in the middle of the public comments period for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement. This 809-page document, released Sept. 30, explains the potential effects of hydraulic fracturing, a method in which millions of gallons of water and chemicals are pumped into the soil to release natural gas. The public hearing period, during which community members can submit comments to the DEC about the document, ends Dec. 31, an extension from the original deadline of Nov. 30.

Tompkins County is located on the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation stretching from New York to Tennessee that contains the largest natural gas reserves in the United States. The shale is about one mile underground, which previously meant that energy companies could not access the gas through conventional drilling methods. Last year, however, Gov. David Paterson signed a law allowing the shale to be tapped through two technologies called horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking.

Hydrofracking consists of forcing 2 to 9 million gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals into the shale through a well at high pressure. This pressure fractures, or cracks, the shale and releases the gas trapped within it. About half of the fracking fluid remains in the ground, and the other half comes out of the well and must be disposed of as industrial waste. Each well can be fracked up to ten times.

Gas companies say this is the most efficient way of accessing gas reserves, but environmental and community activists have voiced their concerns about the impact on water supplies and land. The DEC stated that its preliminary tests show that hydrofracking can produce radioactive wastewater. The Ithaca-based group Toxics Targeting has reported 270 instances of contamination in the last 30 years resulting from gas drilling, based on the state’s environmental data.

“They basically explode stone and turn it into gas, and they do it with chemicals,” Zeserson said. ”It comes up later, with toxic materials from the earth that normally occur there and should stay there, like arsenic and radon. It’s a totally different type of drilling.”

In order to drill, energy companies must have property owners sign away their mineral rights through gas leases. Landowners who agree are paid, although the amounts vary from 15 dollars to hundreds of dollars per acre. At this point, over 2,500 gas leases have been signed in Tompkins County.

Zeserson is a member of Shaleshock, a grassroots organization that began in Ithaca in August 2008 to raise awareness and oppose hydrofracking. Shaleshock initially only showed DVDs about drilling and held forums, then expanded to connect with town supervisors. The group currently has an e-mail list of about 120 people and has been focusing on encouraging people to speak out against hydrofracking during the DEC’s public comments period.

“A lot of us are trying to figure out how we comment on this thing intelligently so we can get noticed, the way the DEC comes out with its recommendations and how its work is going to permeate,” said Lisa Wright, who co-founded Shaleshock with Autumn Stoscheck and other community members.

Despite criticisms from Shaleshock and other community members, drilling companies say they consider hydrofracking an efficient, environmentally sound practice. Mark Scheuerman, the manager of government and media relations for the drilling company Fortuna Energy said hydrofracking is an environmentally efficient method because it minimizes the aesthetic impact of drilling. Eight to 12 wells can be made off a single surface pad, which can range from five to 15 acres. He admitted that drilling requires 40 to 50 days of “intense industrial activity,” but after that time there will only be a small well apparatus visible. He also acknowledged that there have been several instances of hydrofracking negatively impacting the environment in other states, but he said New York’s strict regulations will prevent such problems in Tompkins County.

“We think those are isolated incidents that aren’t representative of the entire industry,” Scheureman said of the contaminations of water supplies and other related environmental impacts.

Fortuna currently owns 23,000 natural gas leases in New York and Pennsylvania and has produced 65 to 70 percent of New York’s natural gas since 2002. Sheuerman said the company has had a positive relationship with communities in Pennsylvania where they operate drills. He asserted that natural gas drilling has a positive economic impact on landowners, state and local authorities and local businesses since gas companies pay taxes and service industries often come to drilling communities.

“It’s a terrific economic development opportunity for whatever state or states are able to participate,” Scheuerman said.

Environmental activists disagree with this optimistic view and have expressed concern that drilling companies will not take measures to protect the environment and affected communities. Helen Slottje, an environmental attorney in Tompkins County, criticized the DEC for lacking strict regulations for drilling companies during a Nov. 5 public meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ithaca.

“There’s very few ‘musts’ and lots and lots of ‘shoulds’ and the like, which sort of leads to the question of, why have a Generic Environmental Impact Statement in the first place if the idea is to have standard rules and procedures for how you’re going to handle these permits, and then you decide you’re not going to have any standard rules or regulations?” Slottje said.

Scheureman said the DEC document does not provide specific enforcement measures because gas companies already must comply with state and federal laws, which regulate wastewater treatment and other areas. He said over a third of Fortuna employees are dedicated to “compliance issues,” such as landowner issues, disposal requirements and well permits.

As the DEC finalizes its regulations for hydrofracking, the gas companies and activists are trying to make their opposing views known. Scheuerman said he thinks the Generic Environmental Impact Statement process is important but has taken too long. Shaleshock and other community members, however, are trying to make the most of the public comments period and will hold a Nov. 19 rally in the Commons at 4:30 p.m., followed by a public hearing at the State Theater.

“It’s really important for people in our region to become educated about what all these issues are and how it could impact them,” Wright said.

Below: Community members gathered at Ithaca's Unitarian Universalist Church Thursday, Nov. 5 to discuss the Department of Environmental Conservation's Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement. By Jacquie Simone, The Ithacourier

Game Designers Get Chance to Score Points At Ithaca Game Jam

by Alex Palombo
(Right: Screenshot of "Paradoxical Irony," one of two games developed during the 24-hour Game Jam)

Junior Corey Jeffers said he designed his best video game his freshman year at Ithaca College. The game was called "Sadiyah Search," and delved into the complex history of the Middle East with rich graphics to match the intense plot. The game - part of the serious gaming genre - took him about three months to complete, and involved everyone on his floor. His friend down the hall did the graphics, his RA composed the synthesizer score, his roommate wrote the story and his floormates recorded the voiceovers.

"I love that game, still to this day," he said.

Jeffers and other gamers got their chance to create their own videogames at the first annual Ithaca Game Jam on Nov. 7. Hosted by the IC Game Developers Club, the event gave graphic designers, sound designers, writers and programmers 24 hours to build their interactive multiplayer dreams from scratch.

Club President Chris Hendrickson said that teams typically divide the rolls of animation, sound and programming among themselves. They start with the concept and goal of the game, and then use technology like Photoshop and 3-D animation software Maya to put together the final product.

"The whole time, you have the project building and building from different people working the whole time as hard as they can on whatever specifics there are," he said. "It's kind of amazing how it all comes together so quickly."

The Jam is based on last year's Global Game Jam, which both Jeffers and junior Ryan Giglio attended in Albany, N.Y. The Jam was hosted simultaneously worldwide, and gave teams 72 hours to create a game on the computer. Both Jeffers and Giglio are officers in the Game Developing Club at IC - Jeffers is the treasurer, Giglio is the vice president.

Hendrickson said that like the Global Game Jam, all the teams will start with the same specifications for the games, but will not end up with the same results. This year, the Ithaca Game Jam quote was "If you follow all the rules, you miss all the fun." Both teams came up with vastly different results, as Hendrickson predicted.

"Everybody is working from one limitation," he said. "But from imagination, it goes in so many different directions."

The two games that came out of the quote were called "Jimmy's Adventure" and "Paradoxical Irony." In the first game, Jimmy is supposed to break the rules that his grandmother gives him, so that he can move from level to level. The second more developed game, "Paradoxical Irony," players must use different keys to break the four basic rules of the game: players cannot walk through walls, touch fire, breath underwater, or live after being shot.

Club advisor Kim Gregson said that both teams did a huge amount of work, but had programming trouble due to the time constraints of the challenge.

"At about 2 a.m., not two hours in, both groups went 'This isn't going to work,' and had to totally reprogram how they were going to do it," she said. "But the idea was still there, and their level concepts were still there, but they realzed what they ahd started with as a basis kept them from jumping or something."

Gregson said that the Jam not only gave aspiring designers the chance to create their dream games, but also introduced designers to each other and incorporated team members outside of the classroom. In addition to participants at Ithaca College, teams called in help from other students - including a Skype to one team member who was studying abroad in Italy.

Junior Giovanni Colantonio, host if ICTV's game-centric show "Game Over," also agrees that gaming and designing games can bring people together.

"I think it's a really interesting idea to have people with the same interests to come together to create art together," he said.

Gregson argues that game design not only creates art, but useful technology to other fields as well. She cites the serious games genre as proof of this, and also extends the scientific developments of game designers to other fields. Citing the motion sensitive Wii-mote and Microsoft's Project Natal, she said that videogame technology has massive potential for other fields, including medicine. And with higher quailty graphics and games, more research into faster tecnhology will be done in all fields to keep up.

"It's bringing those things that you see in science fiction into the house," she said. "So everybody's exposed to it and you start to see it as a normal part of life. To me, that's the biggest boom to technology, research, and funding in the future. If I can use it in my house, I want to see more of it developed."

(Below: Students at Game Jam talk about the rejection of the Gaming Major at the Park School of Communications)

Ithaca Fire Department Receives Funds From Cornell University

by Alex Palombo

As many local fire departments struggle to find funding, the Ithaca Fire Department gets some of their money from an unexpected source: Cornell University.

According to John Gutenberger, the vice president of Governmenta nd Community Relations at Cornell University, the IFD received around $660,000 of a $1.1 million contribution last year from Cornell to the city of Ithaca. Gutenberger said the university has a long history of making contributions to the city for health and safety, going back to the protesting of the 1960s.

"A lot of student unrest was spilling out into the community, so that's how [the contribution] started," he said.

Now that there is less student unrest and public safety threats, the university continues to make a contribution to the city, as what Gutenberger calls a "memorandum of understanding," or a way to acknowledge the difficult job the IFD is taking on.

"It's more of a recognition of life and limb," he said.

Even though both the university and Ithaca College are tax exempt non-profits, they are still covered by the town and city of Ithaca for fire service. Acting Fire Chief Tom Dorman said that while the IFD could always use more funding, the department has an obligation to protect the city and town of Ithaca, whether they pay taxes or not.

"I would be lying if I said we wouldn't like more money from tax exempt places," he said. "But again, it's not a requirement. We have an obligation to protect the whole city, whether they pay taxes or not."

Dorman went on to say that the two colleges are not the only tax exempt places in the town that the IFD protects. The Red Cross, churches, and other nonprofits also pay no taxes but are covered by the department as well.

Carl Sgrecci, the vice president of Finance and Administration at Ithaca College, said the college does not make monetary contributions to the fire department because of the rules keeping the college from spending students' tuition on donations. However, the college has given to the IFD in other ways. In addition to some students volunteering as firefighters and providing some venues for training of firefighters in teh past, the college provided the IFD with land.

"We made the land available where the fire station is here on South Hill," Sgrecci said. We, in essence, gave that to the city to be able to build the fire department, with the proviso that if for any reason they should discontinue using it for the fire station, that it reverts back to us."

Ithaca College junior Rachel Corcoran said that she wishes the college gave back more to the IFD in exchange for their service.

"The fire department in Ithaca protects us from fires and also helps out with other emergencies," she said. "They deserve our support, whether it be through monetary contributions or more volunteer work."

Sgrecci said that the college often gets a bad reputation in the area for not giving back to the community. But he believes that in addition to being the second largest source of employment in the area, the college's contributions to Ithaca are often overlooked.

"I don't feel we need to be defensive about what we do," he said. "We're obviously a major employer, but we have a whole raft of ares where our students and employees are participating in organizations throughout the community."

With Budget Cuts, Ithaca Fire Department Will Not Hire New Fire Chief in 2010

By Jacquie Simone

The middle-aged men lounged in chairs, chatting and watching television on a Saturday afternoon. Suddenly, a series of loud beeps and sirens echoed throughout the common room of the Ithaca Fire Department’s central station. Lt. Rob Covert smiled as he and Chris Kourkoutis rushed to the gleaming red fire engine.

“Looks like we’re going for a ride,” Covert said.

Covert and Kourkoutis are two of the 65 members of the Ithaca Fire Department. Recent economic circumstances will bring several changes to the department in the upcoming year, as they submitted a zero percent to the Ithaca Common Council.

One of the most significant implications of the budget is that the fire chief position, which was vacated when Brian Wilbur retired in August after serving as fire chief for 16 years, will not be filled for 2010. Instead, Deputy Fire Chief J. Thomas Dorman will fulfill the fire chief duties until the budget allows for a new chief.

“It’s not going to be an easy year, but I believe we can live with this budget,” Dorman said. “I don’t think it’s going to affect us drastically. I’m much more concerned about 2011 if things don’t straighten out.”

Dorman said he is prepared to take over the fire chief’s responsibilities for the present time, pointing out that there are currently two deputy fire chiefs when there used to be only one.

The Ithaca Fire Department has four stations throughout the city. Under an optimal budget, the force is composed of firefighters, lieutenants, five assistant chiefs, two deputy chiefs and one fire chief. Dorman said that the decision to leave the fire chief position vacant will prevent the department from laying off firefighters, who are represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters union.

The budget was recently submitted to Mayor Carolyn Peterson and the Common Council. The proposed budget requests $9,845,870, with significant decreases in the amount requested for administrative salaries and programs.

Alderperson Deb Mohlenhoff, whose husband has been an Ithaca firefighter for 20 years, said the members of the Common Council appreciate the fire department’s willingness to limit their costs.

“I really admire the fire department for putting the budget together that they did,” Mohlenhoff said. “This year fiscally is going to be very challenging for all municipalities.”

The Ithaca Fire Department has recently tried to limit energy costs by installing high-efficiency lighting with motion sensors and purchasing a hybrid vehicle. However, the fire engines require large amounts of fuel and maintenance despite the department’s efforts to cut costs.

The proposed budget will decrease the amount of money allocated for training programs. In addition to fire calls, the department offers various services to the community, including responding to car and hazardous material accidents and performing rope and water rescue. Preparing for such diverse situations necessitates large expenditures.

“It takes time and money to train people to do these calls,” Mike O’Halloran, an Ithaca firefighter of 4 years, said.

Despite decreased budgets for training and a vacant fire chief position, most members of the department said they would rather accept these changes than risk firefighter layoffs. Assistant Chief Dave Burbank said the Ithaca Fire Department has shown resilience when previously operating under limited budgets. He said that while the 2010 budget will present challenges, the department will not sacrifice efficiency.

“We look at what resources we have available, and we make it work,” Burbank said.

Ithaca Fire Department Reacts to 2010 Budget Cuts

Cornell Buds blossom despite challenges

By Samuel J. Fanburg

ITHACA, NY— As the wind blows across the Cornell sports practice fields, senior Dan Cho stands still. Watching the football team practice in their 26,000 person capacity stadium, Cho slowly packs up the back of his Jeep Grand Cherokee, with red jerseys, an assortment of Frisbees, and orange practice cones.

“I’ve been playing ultimate Frisbee for about six years now,” he says. “What originally drew me to the sport was the ability to be involved with such a team dynamic. I don’t think a lot of people know how much teamwork plays into Ultimate Frisbee. It really requires a team effort to get the disc from one side of the field to the other.”

Dan Cho is the captain of the Cornell Buds, Cornell’s premier Ultimate Frisbee team. Since 2004, the club has been continually competing at a collegiate level obtaining a certain level of notoriety. Last year the team finished with an impressive 33-5 record placing first place in the Regional final until falling to ninth place in the national tournament. Yet, with all their accolades, one thing that continually plagues their team’s popularity is Cornell’s unwillingness to give out as much as funding as it gives other sports.

“It’s frustrating sometimes,” said Senior Garrett Bernstein. “Many times I feel that the sport that I play is unappreciated by my University which sometimes makes me question why I choose to play, but in the end I think it’s the passion that people have for Frisbee that makes it have such a cult following.”

The under funded club has to deal with these issues in unconventional ways. By not having a coach, the team captain simply doubles as a coach instructing the team on how to best compete. In addition, to receive funding for materials the team turns to pass alumnus for assistance.

“We are lucky we have such a close knit alumni network,” said Cho. “By having them finance our activities the team aspect of our club is that much stronger.”

With three other tournaments this season, the team prepares by having practices everyday, but they are not insomuch a hassle as a time to hangout with friends as Senior Dan Cutler observed, “Because we are so marginalized I think that we are able to find solace in each other, translating into a stronger team dynamic.