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The event, which is free and open to the public, will include an array of activities for children and families, including: a petting zoo, bounce houses, pony rides, performances by children’s bands, balloon artists, face painters, a magician, juggler, popcorn, hot dogs, cutting of a Rec Center-shaped ceremonial cake, c... |
“They’re going to be acting as if it were 1915, talking about the times … what’s going on in the Scripps’ world and in La Jolla (at that time),” said LJPR first vice-president Cindy Greatrex. |
The event program will begin promptly at noon with remarks from representatives of the La Jolla Historical Society, La Jolla Town Council and La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. State Assembly speaker Toni Atkins (representing the 78th District, which includes La Jolla) will also present a proclamation from the State of Cali... |
This children’s wading pool, donated by Ellen Browning Scripps, was added to the front lawn area of La Jolla Recreation Center (near Draper Avenue) after its founding in 1915. This image (circa 1931) and other historic photos will be on display during the centennial event, noon to 4 p.m. July 25. |
LJPR president Douglas Fitzgerald and the city’s Parks & Recreation director, Herman Parker, will present a commemorative bronze plaque to be mounted near the Rec Center’s main entrance off Prospect Street. Two large urns filled with flowers will be installed on pillars located on each side of the main entry stairs — j... |
“This has been a big meeting and recreation place for generations of kids and adults,” said Fitzgerald, who joined the LJPR board after serving for years as president of La Jolla Tennis Club. |
Greatrex noted that La Jolla Rec Center is among the oldest public recreation centers in the country. |
“This is the oldest one in America that we could find that has a playground,” she said, noting that several so-called “community houses” — essentially rec centers without playgrounds — were established before La Jolla Recreation Center. |
Ex-IMF director Carlo Cottarelli’s appointment as Italy’s interim prime minister was spurred by President Mattarella’s “obligation” to safeguard the euro and block the new Euroskeptic coalition from taking power, analysts told RT. |
Italian President Sergio Mattarella announced the appointment on Monday, following his controversial decision to withdraw his support for the new government. Mattarella had objected to the Euroskeptic coalition’s choice for economy minister, Paolo Savona, insisting that the post must be reserved for someone who would n... |
In remarks given shortly after, Cottarelli vowed to establish a new government “very quickly” and tackle pressing issues ahead of fresh elections to be held in the fall or early next year. |
"I'll present myself to parliament with a program which – if it wins the backing of parliament – would include the approval of the 2019 budget. Then parliament would be dissolved with elections at the beginning of 2019," Cottarelli said. |
However, Italian journalist Marcello Foa told RT that Cottarelli’s chances of forming a new government are “non-existent,” noting that the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and its rightist coalition ally Lega Nord are unlikely to support Cottarelli’s efforts because they would then “lose all credibility with... |
According to Foa, Mattarella’s recent political posturing has been motivated by a desire – perhaps even an “obligation” – to protect “the markets” and Italy’s status quo with the European Union. |
Lorenzo Pregliasco, professor of political science at the University of Bologna, believes the president was quite clear about the reasoning behind his recent decisions. Mattarella had “basically said we cannot afford to have a minister of finance who is such a vocal critic of the euro currency,” Pregliasco told RT. |
“What’s being said is that there are some mysterious powers behind the scene that are taking over,” Foa noted, adding that many Italians believe that Mattarella was somehow “obliged” to sabotage the formation of the new Euroskeptic government. |
To make matters worse, the media’s one-sided reporting has exacerbated the political crisis, Foa noted. Italy’s media were “totally against the [new] government. Totally. I mean, there was no real diversity – just a few newspapers [supported the coalition]. The others were all giving Mattarella’s version of the crisis.... |
Three of the stock market's best dividend stocks just got better. |
Most income investors are looking for strong and reliable investments with an excellent track record. This is why I take notice when some of the stock market's most established dividend stocks increase their dividends. |
In September, three well-known dividend stocks announced meaningful increases to their dividends, extending their long history of dividend increases another year. These stocks were software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), fast-food king McDonald's (NYSE:MCD), and industrial manufacturer and home-technology company Honey... |
Data sources: Yahoo! Finance and Morningstar. |
Microsoft announced a 7.6% increase to its quarterly dividend on Sept. 19. Payable on Dec. 14, the higher dividend marks the software company's 14th dividend increase in a row. |
The dividend increase was a slight deceleration in dividend growth -- but not by much. In 2016, Microsoft increased its dividend by 8.3%. Further, for the company's past three dividend increases, Microsoft has averaged compound annual dividend growth of 10.7%. |
With a payout ratio of about 57%, Microsoft looks well positioned to continue increasing its dividend in the coming years. But the case for dividend growth improves even more when investors consider the company's trailing-12-month dividend payments as a percentage of free cash flow. Microsoft only paid out about 38% of... |
On Sept. 21, McDonald's announced a 7.4% dividend increase, payable on Dec. 15. It marked a notable acceleration from last year's increase, when the company increased its dividend by 5.6%. The increase gives McDonald's an extremely rich dividend history, with annual dividend increases going all the way back to 1976. |
With a payout ratio of just 60.8%, McDonald's has plenty of room for more dividend increases in the future. Even more, the company's strong earnings growth recently helps make meaningful dividend growth in the coming years even more likely. The company's EPS in its most recent quarter was up 36% year over year, or 19% ... |
It's also worth noting that while the 2017 dividend increase was the lowest of these three companies, it has the fattest dividend yield. |
Announced on Sept. 29, Honeywell's dividend increase was the strongest of these three companies. It boosted its quarterly dividend by 12%. That compares with an 11.7% year-over-year increase last year. |
Of all three of these stocks, Honeywell's dividend growth in the coming years is arguably the most certain. Not only does the company boast the lowest payout ratio, but management has also explicitly committed to growing its dividend faster than earnings. Dividend growth is a core tenet of the company's fiduciary appro... |
"Since 2010, and including the 12% increase announced today, we have increased the dividend rate 10% or more eight times," management said in a statement along with the announcement of its dividend increase. "This is consistent with our approach to return capital to shareholders through our aggressive capital deploymen... |
All three of these stocks offer a good balance of dividend yield and dividend growth. |
Improvements to city schools such as Woodlawn are expected to total $64.5 million and take several years to complete. |
Construction work in six Schenectady elementary schools is on schedule to start as soon as April, with the biggest overhauls planned at Martin Luther King and Woodlawn schools. |
The projects were on track to be approved soon by state officials and scheduled to go out to contractor bids in early-2019, Larry Tune of Turner Construction told the city school board Wednesday. |
“In March of 2019, we look to be awarding projects and commencing construction in April where feasible,” Tune told the school board. |
The construction is part of a $64.5 million capital project approved by voters in 2017 and focused primarily at the elementary school level. Some early work has been done in crawl spaces under the high school and to improve Lincoln Elementary’s boiler system, but the construction slated to start in the spring and inten... |
Woodlawn and MLK are both set to get about $13 million in work, remaking entrances, main offices, libraries, classrooms and the guts that run the buildings. Schenectady Superintendent Larry Spring called the MLK and Woodlawn projects “comprehensive overhauls.” Construction is expected to last well into 2020. |
A handful of other schools – Lincoln, Paige, Van Corlaer and Zoller elementary schools and Schenectady High School – are set for work ranging from $500,00 to $4 million, some of which has already started. |
Beginning in the spring, schools, particularly MLK and Woodlawn, may have to shuffle use of classrooms and other spaces as parts of the buildings are closed off for construction. The most disruptive work is scheduled over the summer break. |
Another set of projects, for approximately $8 million of improvements at both Pleasant Valley and Yates schools and about $10 million at Hamilton, is still working its way through planning and approval and scheduled for construction starting in 2020 – at which time district officials are scheduled to start planning for... |
Over 9,000 employees responded to local surveys that ultimately crowned Rochester's 2018 Top Workplaces. |
If there’s one mantra that companies on 2018’s Top Workplaces list could have in common, it’s this: treat and value employees as if they were customers. |
Named companies run the gamut from small consulting firms to large car sales groups or school districts. Some companies are regulars on the list — others are breakout winners. But all stood out in their employees' minds as workplaces that pride themselves on building their employees up through collaboration, transparen... |
About 750 employees and managers packed the Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center on Wednesday night to commemorate the workplaces that engage their passions each day. |
"(That) speaks volumes about you and your employees … and the recognition that we're turning back to the community in the form of understanding and celebrating the value of our employees," said Dennis Floss, director of client strategy at the Democrat and Chronicle, at the event. |
The Democrat and Chronicle has partnered with Philadelphia-based Energage (formerly WorkplaceDynamics), an employee research and consulting firm, since 2014 to determine the area’s 2018 Top Workplaces, based on employee feedback. |
Any employer was eligible, as long as it had at least 35 employees in the Rochester metro area. Employers could be public, private, nonprofit or governmental. |
Ninety-two organizations agreed to take the survey, the most ever in the history of the Rochester program. Of those employees who received questionnaires, 9,868 responded, either on paper or online. For 2018, 60 Rochester-area employers scored well enough to earn recognition on the Top Workplaces list. |
The employee survey gathers responses on 24 factors covering seven areas, including effectiveness, connection and manager relationships. |
In describing 2018’s winning companies — Dorschel Automotive Group, Datto Inc. and SunCommon NY (winners in their respective large, midsize and small employment size categories) — employees repeatedly mentioned the companies’ care about their workplace potential as well as more practical needs, such as benefits and pai... |
“The goal is to create an employee experience that inspires people to deliver the kind of customer experience we’re looking for,” said Michael Fass, chief people officer at Datto Inc., a data protection company. |
Many of these companies offer avenues for employees to give back, allowing days off for volunteer activities or contributing to local charity initiatives such as Foodlink and Habitat for Humanity. |
Datto even sent employee teams down to Texas and Florida last year to assist in disaster response for businesses following last year's devastating hurricanes. |
At Dorschel Automotive Group, 2018’s winner in the large employer division, processes and people work hand in hand to make the workplace run smoothly. |
The company, which employs about 484 people, defines and streamlines its procedures to tamp down confusion and stress, and works tirelessly to match prospective or current employees to job placements that are good fits. Dorschel also won the division in 2016 and placed second last year. |
Employees at Datto, which employs 1,400 and about 200 in the Rochester area, are provided with top-notch tools and knowledge to do their jobs to the highest standard possible. |
“Empowerment is part of our culture, and that emanates through the organization from the top down,” said Fass. The company pays 100 percent of its employees’ health care premiums, and new parents can take up to 16 weeks of paid family leave. |
The company also has a ball pit, a Lite-Brite wall and a video gaming area in the office, for the moments when you just need to relive your Chuck E. Cheese days. |
A standout star on the corporate scene over the past year has been SunCommon, a solar energy company that has grown 606 percent over three years, as reported in 2017. |
The company expects to grow 50 percent to 100 percent annually, and topped Rochester's Top 100 list last year. |
But for all its corporate accomplishments, SunCommon employees still feel that their workplace is their second family. Walk into the office and you’ll see employees’ dogs hanging out in brainstorming meetings. You won’t see punch cards — employees need only to get the job done, and they can make up the time if they hav... |
Other companies take the extra step in providing spaces for the employees to bond and take a break. At financial advising firm Sage Rutty & Co., President and Chairman Wayne Holly wields a spatula for hot dog lunches. Dog Day Fridays are a tradition at media and communications agency Butler/Till. |
But these activities ring hollow without the foundation of a solid company’s relationship with employees, which is built on trust and respect, said Anne Catillaz, Sage Rutty's corporate vice president of operations. |
“You have to be doing the right things day in and day out as a company, and then layer on some of the fun stuff,” said Catillaz. |
Includes reporting by staff writer Mary Chao and freelance writers Sandra Beckwith and Krista Gleason. |
Who needs an international day for women? |
It’s strange to be reminded that International Women’s Day is more than a century old. Somehow it always gives the impression that it is an idea that has not quite caught on. |
Worse than that, and in this part of the world at least, International Women’s Day, unlike Mother’s Day or even the Oscars, has never broken out of the ghetto of officialdom and succeeded in being marked on the emotional calendar of ordinary life. |
With the best will in the world there has always been something self-conscious and forced about it. |
Of course it is understandable that women engaged in life-and-death struggles across the world grab any excuse to force their way to the lectern. |
On this day in 2012, for example, a woman called Etenesh Daniel addressed the United Nations’ Women and Africa symposium. |
Presumably, as an Ethiopian farmer, her chances of addressing such an auspicious gathering would normally be nil. However, there’s something seriously wrong with an ostensibly humanitarian system that allows itself just one day a year to be addressed by women living in poverty. |
Apparently the UN’s slogan for this year’s IWD is “Equality for Women is Progress for All”. Who knew? |
Much more successful are the three spoof magazine covers created by the Catapult group in the United States. Childbride , Good Slavekeeping and Thirteen take the war to the huge commercial women’s magazines Brides , Good Housekeeping and Seventeen in order to highlight how we women in the rich West profit from the supp... |
Part of the celebration by the Guardian newspaper included a feature listing the “Fifty Most Influential Women in British Sport”. |
In a spirit of solidarity with all the aching heads who have to come up with headlines about International Women’s Day – really, who cares? |
Women across the world have enough battles to fight without taking trying to integrate International Women’s Day into our lives. |
In Ireland we already have a day designated for women, January 6th, Nollaig na mBan, which is also the feast of the Epiphany. |
And there are signs of change: a spokeswoman for Dublin City Council confirmed that this year it does not have any events on its calendar to celebrate International Women’s Day. |
This is the reality: International Women’s Day has never become relevant to ordinary women’s lives here. |
For the most part it remains the property of professional agitators and a fig leaf for an officialdom which will do nothing practical – on childcare, on maternity services, even on public lighting and policing to make our streets safer – in order to improve women’s lives. |
Mayor Oscar Leeser, who will complete his first term in 2017, said his decision was not related to his health. |
Mayor Oscar Leeser said Thursday that he will not seek re-election, but added that the decision is not related to his health. |
During a budget workshop, Leeser said he wasn't fighting against a proposed tax rate increase for votes because he didn't plan to seek a second term. |
He later told news media that he believed he has reached the goals he set for himself and the city when he took office in 2013, primarily creating jobs in the region. He also said he never intended to be a "long-term" politician. |
"I am very humbled that the people trusted me to do this and we were able to produce results," Leeser said. |
Leeser said there's still work to do in what's left of his term and he wants to continue to solidify some of the things that have already been established. |
“We’ve still got the nine months to continue to do the job," he said. "We want to make sure that we don't go backwards and whoever takes over has a great platform to continue to work with," Leeser said. |
The next city election is in May. |
“I wanted to give people to time to prepare for the election — to give people the opportunity to prepare to run," Leeser said. |
Municipal Clerk Richarda Momsen said the filing deadlines for the May election have not yet been posted by the secretary of state. |
"They are usually posted in the fall," Momsen said. |
Momsen said a potential candidate could begin fundraising if a designation for a campaign treasurer is filed, but so far no one has filed such a designation. |
City Rep. Emma Acosta said she has been asked by different individuals if she would be running for mayor. |
"I haven't given it a lot of thought yet," Acosta said. "You kind of have to consider the pros and cons." |
Acosta said the mayor had been talking off-and-on recently about whether to run for re-election. She said he also had mentioned that he would make an announcement in August. |
"I really thought he was going to run again," Acosta said. |
City Rep. Cortney Niland said Leeser has been a phenomenal leader and has seen the city grow and progress over the past few years. She also said she hopes that drawing attention to the region and bringing companies to El Paso as the mayor has done with his familiarization tours will continue. |
Leeser, 58, was diagnosed in October with stage 2 malignant melanoma, a serious skin cancer that if not treated in its early stages can quickly spread and be fatal. Leeser had surgery in November to remove the melanoma, which he said was caught at an early stage. |
He took a four-week leave of absence for health reasons in May, although at the time he would not say whether the health issue was related to the skin cancer. |
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