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.
Samadee had let his driver’s license expire before global warming set in. Lady Green had received wise counsel never to apply for one, as long as the reasons were not made public. Together for a decade, they rode buses and walked. Over that time, however, groceries had become a recurring major issue. Heavy snows could stretch the trek with a four wheel collapsible shopping cart to 23 minutes from the heart of downtown to Nojaim’s, where a range of selections from Goya to Sylvia’s to Dinasour BarBQ spiced up each morning’s omelettes. But both agreed that nowhere downtown could the fixin’s be found for their Sunday brunch favorite, Slum-Gullion Squirrel Perlow, which Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking insists goes great with a Grape NeHi...
Teen actors from the Media Unit in Syracuse are just one of the troops represented in the upcoming Michael Harm's Festival.
Teen performers and technicians will compete for more than $4,000 in scholarships this weekend at the Michael Harms Theater Festival in the Carrier Theater at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center. And while the competitive spirit among the seven participating high school and community-based creative cadres will be fierce for the 33rd edition of the annual event, so too will be the respect and appreciation the young folks show with ovations for each other’s efforts. In a televised interview for the teen-produced Rough Times Live, festival director Bob Dwyer recalled that former Cultural Resources Council Executive Director Joe Golden and CRC staffers Gloria Romeo and Carol Jeske had staged the first fete when the building which has hosted every year was brand new...
Mayor Matt Driscoll during the State of the City address, where he announced the city’s balanced budget, is pictured at the podium discussing the Say Yes program.
It wasn’t Bret Farve, retiring, pondering, posturing, pronouncing, playing hard to get when the getter wasn’t going for it anyway. It was Matt Driscoll, and he wasn’t getting another season no matter how much he, his teammates or the voterfans wanted him to have one. Matt was eight and done, like the amended Charter say. Only fools would approach the once and soon past Mayor with the I-know-just-how-you-feel prattle. But somewhere Tom Young is nodding his head, knowing just how much more another four years would have nurtured, sprouted and blossomed so many of the seeds he had planted during his eight. Some withered, some never saw any more light, some were racked over or even swept aside.
Ken Simon reflects on his starting up of the Syracuse New Times - 40 years ago. Photo by Ellen Leahy.
In town for a brief visit, Ken Simon paused for reflection on his 1969 founding of the Syracuse New Times, known in the issues of its early infancy as the Orange Pennysaver. “I had noticed that the Daily Orange didn’t have many advertisements at the time,” he recalled, “which I thought was odd since everything I was experiencing personally and the stuff I was reading pointed to a huge, exploding market. I was a great fan of the nation’s undergrounds, loved the Village Voice and read the Nickel Review...
