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.
According to City Auditor Phil LaTessa, Democratic designee for the 119th state Assembly District seat on the November 2 ballot, the information his people have been gathering indicates that the party’s powerhouse 17th Ward will not see much vote splitting in the September 14 primary. LaTessa lives in that ward, but so does opponent Sam Roberts, and opponent Jane Fahey-Suddaby is hoping to take advantage of the 17th’s traditional affection for female candidates. “The 17th Ward is a loyal Democratic ward,” LaTessa maintains. “They will come out in mass for the primary. We’re not expecting a huge turnout this year. But 17 always comes out and votes. I don’t believe 17 is split up...
When Joan Christensen was elected to the 119th state Assembly District seat, with a surge of support from the city’s 17th Ward carrying her to a Democratic primary victory over party designee Joe O’Hara, she projected a tenure of eight years in that office. As Christensen chalked up successive re-elections, without much serious opposition, strong sentiment emerged among party regulars for Sam Roberts, a County Legislator and veteran party stalwart, to inherit the nomination when Christensen stepped down. If there was any possibility for representation of the local communities of color at the state level, conventional wisdom at the time concurred, it was the 119th...
Jane Fahey-Suddaby inherits some name recognition in her bid for the Democratic nomination in the race to replace the retiring state Assembly Person Joan Christensen. She will need some advantage as she faces a primary battle with two party heavyweights, former County Legislator Sam Roberts and City Auditor Phil LaTessa. While she is a newcomer in contesting for a ballot line, however, she is anything but a stranger to the local political scene. “I don’t like to think of myself as the typical politician,” she says, “even though my family has been involved with politics. I’ve been involved with campaigns, hosted, done some fund raising and done petitions, but I never felt compelled to put myself out there until last August when New York State government broke down...
After years of culinary deprivation, Wednesday, June 30 will live on in local history as an occasion of grilled liberation. Cheeseburgers reappeared on the menus at Pastabilities. Cooked precisely to order, with lettuce, tomato and purple onion, a dollop of red chili relish and an increase in price appropriately comparable to the rise in the cost of living, return of the prodigal
palate pleaser proved to the Senior Editor that all was, indeed, right with the world. Later that week, however, he was reminded that there are some holes in space that even the most succulent of cheeseburgers cannot fill, especially in Albany...
Howie Hawkins didn’t want to run for governor this year. As in recent years—and probably really in the back of his mind during his perennial campaigning over almost two decades—he would rather work on someone else’s campaign, help build the Green Party locally, and play a significant role in landing that illusive electoral victory that he considers his party’s next logical level of local political achievement. But Greens around the state told him he should run, just as local Greens, as well as a significant number of local Democrats, had urged him to run last year for the 4th Common Council District seat...
In October 1968, the Senior Editor (SE), then Editor and Publisher of the underground Nickel Review, was posed with a cosmic question. It took only four decades to deliver the answer.
Richie Havens was playing a concert at Cazenovia College, and the SE arrived late for the pre-concert press conference. As he knelt to set up his tape recorder on the coffee table in front of the singer perched on a stool, Havens looked down at him, and interrupting himself in mid sentence, asked, “You’re a Scorpio, huh?” The SE nodded, pleased to be placed in the appropriate constellation.
“You got Sagittarius rising?” Havens asked. The SE shrugged. He honestly didn’t know.
“Find out and tell me next time you see me,” Havens said...
Edgar Auden Philbrick, taken by his mother, Lorca Shepperd.
It was a good start. We shook hands. Actually, he gripped my proffered finger briefly in his five month old palm, and we shook. He arrived asleep, but awoke to be fussed over by the folks at the Enchanted Bazaar, before settling into a table in the back corner of the front room of the Dinosaur BarBQ, to be handed back and forth between his mother and father, with one supported stand up. My grandson...
