ACTS-CNY

The ACTS Civil Rights for Immigrants Team just held a successful rally yesterday Feb. 2 in front of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office in Syracuse. The CRI Team hand delivered during the rally to Sen. Schumer’s regional director Julie Miner a letter calling for compassionate and comprehensive immigration reform and a laminated copy of the 14th amendment. Freddy and Bambbi Rodriguez gave witness to their heartbreaking situation: Freddy has been ordered to be deported and he has chosen to voluntarily leave in March. The hope is that he will be able to apply for reunification. Right now, let’s all pray that the Rodriguez family will be reunited once again and soon. On February 27, the CRI Team is organizing an event to embrace the Rodriguez family in prayer. More information to follow soon. For coverage, please see:

• Post-Standard
• News 10

Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the presence and activity of federal agents of the Department of Homeland Security in Central New York-raiding workplaces and detaining people while they shop, pick up their kids, go to church, and do laundry.

As a result, many in our community have: visited immigrants detained in our local county jail and at the federal detainment center in Batavia, New York; helped raise and post bail for detained individuals; helped them connect with loved ones; sought legal counsel on their immigration court cases; traveled with them to immigration court in Buffalo; and offered spiritual and material support to families as they face fears and hardships. Many have worked to educate our community about the complex issue of immigration as well as to preserve the rights of all workers. We have stood in witness at the CNY Regional Transportation Center to call for an end to racial, ethnic, and religious profiling of people seeking to travel. Continue Reading »

Economic Development & Jobs Task Force WINSCommunity Benefits Agreement

The ACTS Economic Development & Jobs Task Force won yesterday (June 10, 2009) a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for the billion-dollar rehabilitation of Syracuse schools.

The Syracuse School Board unanimously passed a CBA that will provide training opportunities for Syracuse School students, and start a pipeline of trained young people for careers in the construction field. The Syracuse School System will be embarking on a ten year, billion-dollar rehabilitation of every school in Syracuse.

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Download the 2008 ACTS-ion Report here.

ACTS at the Gamaliel Foundation International Leadership Assembly 2008: Realizing the Promise

Leaders of the Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse traveled to Washington, D.C., on December 3-5 to join thousands of other Gamaliel Foundation affiliate members and allies at the “Realizing the Promise: A Forum on Community, Faith & Democracy”. In 2007, in Iowa, we received a promise from then candidate Barack Obama to make certain that, when elected, grassroots leadership of Gamaliel and allies would be at the table during the transition to help shape the agenda. ACTS representatives traveled to realize that promise. Continue Reading »

After our November, 2007 Action Meeting, the Economic Development/Jobs Task Force has worked with our community allies and partners to advocate for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for the Syracuse Schools Reconstruction Project.

Community Benefits Agreements are a new economic model being used successfully in many cities throughout the country and the State of New York.  CBAs have been used to ensure that communities benefit from development projects in their neighborhoods, ensuring accountability and transparency and other benefits such as hiring and paying a living wage to local workers as well as utilization of minority and women contractors and businesses.  A CBA is a binding contract between the community and the developer, which benefits both the community and the developer.  CBAs benefit the developer because it provides community support for the use of public monies for the development project.  In our case, we are also looking to establish a youth development and training program in the city school district that will allow students to get experience in the building trades, therefore providing students with more options either to pursue college or to enter a building trade that will provide a decent salary with benefits that can facilitate the student to stay in the greater Syracuse region.

What progress have we made?

• We have done focus groups in various member congregations, and we have organized and held a public meeting on August 6, 2008, at St. Lucy’s Church.Present to make commitments of supportwere: Syracuse Board of Education Commissioners Calvin Corridors and Ned Deuel, Common Councilor Van Robinson and Common Council President Bea Gonzalez, Syracuse City Schools Superintendent Dan Lowengard and Ms. Christine Fix, representing Mayor Matthew Driscoll.
• We presented our CBA proposal to the Syracuse Joint Schools Construction Board (the board that is charged with overseeing the Syracuse Schools Reconstruction Project) on October 8, 2008 and weare starting to negotiate an agreement. We also want to thank Syracuse Community Health Center CEO Dr. Ruben Cowart as a communitymemberof the JSCB and former JSCB member Common Councilor Bill Ryan for his past efforts with us.
• We thank our community partners for their support and guidance: the Central and Northern New York Building and Construction Trades Council, the Spanish Action League, the NAACP, the Minority Contractors Association, the Syracuse Alliance for a New Economy, the Service Employees International Union 1199, and Syracuse United Neighbors.

So what do we want?

• Finalize the CBA for the Syracuse Schools Reconstruction Project.
• Create a new framework with CBAs as a model for all future development in Central New York.
• Emphasize not just that we need more CBAs in our community, but WHY we need CBAs.
• Expand community participation in economic development.

ACTS “FAITH & DEMOCRACY” MEETING:

A TESTAMENT TO OUR GROWING POWER FOR GOOD

By all media accounts, and by most counts from people participating at our ACTS Faith & Democracy meeting on Sunday, Oct. 26, we had an overall turnout of over 1000. The Post-Standard, gave us over 1000. The TV news channels as well as NPR gave us over 1200. This is the best coverage ACTS has received; here is the Channel 10 news clipping.

Here’s the link for the photo gallery, thanks to Wendy Colucci. Continue Reading »

Our voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts are in full swing. We are focused on: 1) in and around our member congregations in Syracuse and its suburbs, 2) African-American and Latino communities in the south, near-west, and north sides of Syracuse, and 3) immigrant communities.

We are conducting phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, and mass mailings as well as “Citizenship Sabbaths” in our member congregations.

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ACTS Receives Recognition from Joint School Construction Board

On Wednesday, August 6, 2008, the Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse (ACTS) held a Community Forum at St. Lucy’s Church. ACTS obtained public commitments from a majority of members of the Joint School Construction Board (JSCB) to meet with ACTS and our community allies by October 15 in order to begin negotiations for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for the Syracuse schools renovation project that is estimated to spend $1 billion over the next 10 years. ACTS will meet with the JSCB on Oct. 9.

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At the public meeting in November, County Executive Joanie Mahoney committed to working with the ACTS Justice Taskforce to establish procedures that will allow every person incarcerated at the Justice Center or Jamesville to obtain a New York State DMV photo ID upon his or her release. Continue Reading »