C-Town Convenience Store

By wpengine | February 5, 2004

Tops Markets, LLC has announced it will divest its 204-store chain of convenience markets. The stores, located in New York, Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio, operate under the names Wilson Farms, Sugarcreek and Tops Xpress. Locally, the sale will include the Tops Xpress at 409 College Ave., which has been open since Dec. 1, 2000.

Though a time frame has not been established for the convenience stores’ sale, Tops intends to sell the properties as operating stores. No buyer has been established yet.

“Our intent is not to close them, but to obtain full value for all of our assets,” said Stefanie Zacowicz, Tops spokesperson, in a statement to the Ithaca Journal, “[though] we can’t say what any buyer will do.”

Wilson Farms opened in 1969 as a division of Tops. Since then, it has grown to 127 locations. In 2000, Wilson Farms acquired the Sugarcreek chain, which had 67 locations in Northern and Western New York. An additional 10 stores operate under the Tops Xpress banner.

Tops employs nearly 2,100 people through its convenience stores, including store associates, field specialists and operations support.

The divestment of its convenience store holdings is just one of many moves Tops’ Netherlands-based parent company, Ahold, is currently undertaking. Ahold, which is the world’s third-largest food retail and foodservice group, is trying to recover from an accounting scandal that occurred early last year. At that time the company unveiled an 880 million euro earnings overstatement.

On Nov. 7, Ahold announced a “Road to Recovery” plan that aims to return the company to an investment-grade profile by the end of 2005. Along with its divestment of convenience stores in the U.S., Ahold has sold stores in Chile, Paraguay, Malaysia and Indonesia and is currently selling its supermarkets in Brazil, Argentina and Spain. In October, Ahold sold its Golden Gallon fuel and convenience stores, which are located in the southeastern U.S. to Pantry Inc. for an estimated $187 million.

Overall, Ahold hopes to restructure its portfolio such that the company’s focus is shifted to core food businesses. Ahold has hired the Chicago-based investment banking firm William Blair & Company, LLC. to assist with the sale.

The Sun will report on the sale and future of Collegetown’s Tops Xpress as it is made available.

Archived article by Tony Apuzzo

Reactions to Patriot Act

By wpengine February 6, 2004

The fate of the Patriot Act is currently at stake. On Jan. 23, a federal court declared part of the Act unconstitutional. A counter act modifying the Patriot Act is now making its way through Congress, and President George W. Bush is faced with having some of his most prominent anti-terror legislation expire. The Patriot Act was originally implemented by President Bush in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “With my signature, this law will give intelligence and law enforcement officials important new tools to fight a present danger,” Bush said at the bill’s signing. Five groups and two U.S. citizens brought the constitutionality of the Patriot Act’s ban against providing “expert advice or assistance” to terrorist organizations before the courts. The plaintiffs had found themselves threatened with 15 years of jail under the Patriot Act for giving advice on lawful and nonviolent activities to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Both groups are currently on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The groups pleaded that the ban violated their First- and Fifth-Amendment rights. The judge’s ruling agreed with the plaintiffs and stated that “the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals,” said U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins. “The ban is impermissibly vague in its wording.” “I do not believe that the recent decision by Judge Collins was correct. We are currently in a war on terrorism, and while none of our civil liberties should be infringed by the government while it hunts down terrorists, any person who actively seeks out foreign terrorist organizations and ‘advises’ them on anything most certainly undermines our national security,” said Ellis Oster law ’06, chair of the Cornell Law Republicans. It was the first federal court case to declare part of the Patriot Act unconstitutional, and according to Emily Whitfield, director of national media relations for the American Civil Liberties Union, “there are more than 230 communities around the country who have passed resolutions calling for the repeal of certain controversial sections of the act.” Currently, the ACLU has a case against the Patriot Act pending in Detroit. In Congress, the new Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act has been brought to the floor. If passed, the SAFE Act would monitor the Patriot Act by modifying the “sneak-and-peek warrants,” calling for more proof before allowing the use of roving wire tapes, and making FBI officials display reason before they could access library and other business records. “We oppose limiting the Patriot Act through the SAFE Act. We hope that this will be the last challenge to the Patriot Act’s constitutionality,” said Darren Rumack ’04, president of the Republicans of Cornell Coalition. The continuing existence of the Patriot Act has been given high priority by the Bush administration. In his Jan. 20 State of the Union address, President Bush requested Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act before its expiration in 2005. In addition, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in response to the SAFE Act that the President would veto the bill if it reached his desk. Here in Ithaca, the Common Council has been open about its opposition to the Patriot Act since it unanimously passed the Resolution to Defend the Civil Rights and Liberties of the People of Ithaca in February 2003. “I am heartened by it; any pieces that get declared unconstitutional is a good thing. … If we start giving away our basic freedoms, then nothing is left to protect,” said Common Council Rep. Dan Cogan M.S. ’95 (Green-Fifth Ward). Common Council Rep. Michael Taylor ’05 (D-Fourth Ward) agreed, saying, “I and other people on the Council are anxious to see the [Patriot Act] go.” On whether the current court decision will stand, Prof. Stephen Yale-Loehr, law, said, “The courts tend to defer to Congress and the executive branch on matters of national security. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recent court decision gets reversed if it is appealed to the Supreme Court.”Archived article by Casey Holmes
Meet the Trustees

By wpengine February 6, 2004

Some of them have famous names and are extremely rich. Others are students. Who are the men and women who make up the Board of Trustees? While Ezra Cornell ’70 and many of the people whose names adorn campus buildings are on the board, some of the more intriguing members may be lesser known to the Cornell community. In a small sampling of trustees, one can stumble across the co-founders of Staples and South Beach Beverages, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and even a part owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Myra Maloney Hart ’62 has been a member of the board since 1999. Currently a professor at Harvard Business School, Hart moved into academia after being an executive at a variety of wholesale and retail ventures. After a few years in the supermarket industry, she co-founded Staples, Inc. in late 1985. Acting as Vice President of Operations, then Executive Vice President of Growth and Development, Hart said she “took responsibility for the directions in which the company would grow.” The company is now valued at nearly $12 billion. Staples went public in 1989 and Hart returned to Harvard for her PhD. Now holding a full professorship at the school, Hart said she wanted to teach because “I could have some influence on the way the next generation does business.” Hart, who has participated in Cornell alumni and club events since her graduation, combined her two career passions when she took a position on the Board of Trustees. The professor-entrepreneur is now a member of the Academic Affairs Committee and Development Steering Committee. Hart also participated in the search for the University’s new president. Chairman and CEO of McGovern Capital LLC, Kevin McGovern ’70 was one of the three co-founders of South Beach Beverages, which was sold to PepsiCo. in 2001 for an estimated $370 million. McGovern’s main enterprise, however, is “helping companies…grow businesses utilizing their intellectual property,” he said. McGovern Capital teaches companies with new technology patents, including water filtration and alpha-hydroxy acid creams used by skincare companies, how to penetrate industries and strategically promote their products. A member of the Board of Trustees since 2001, McGovern is a member of the Technology Transfer Committee. He is also on the board of the Cornell Research Foundation and the Athletic Task Force. “Cornell is, other than my family and my business, the most important thing in my life,” McGovern said. Sheryl WuDunn ’81 was invited to join the Board of Trustees in 2002. WuDunn is the anchor and principal writer for “Page One,” a news segment on the Discovery Times Channel that is a joint venture between The New York Times and Discovery Networks. WuDunn has worked on both the news and business sides of The New York Times as a staff correspondent in the Tokyo and Beijing bureaus and later a project director in Strategic Planning. Before joining The New York Times, WuDunn worked at the South China Morning Post, the Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters. WuDunn and her husband, The Times’ op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square movement in 1990. WuDunn was the first Asian American to win this honor. She and Kristof have also published two books about current political and economic trends in Asia. Some children dream of playing for a professional sports team. Steve Belkin ’69 wanted to own a sports team and officially became a part owner of the Atlanta Hawks, the Atlanta Thrashers, and Philips Arena in September 2003. Before acquiring the team, Belkin partnered with Larry Bird in an attempt to buy an NBA franchise in Charlotte. A member of Cornell’s Board of Trustees since 2000, Belkin is founder and chairman of Trans National Group, a direct marketing and investment company. He founded Affinity Credit Cards and, according to the company website, “pioneered the concept of using direct mail marketing to provide producers and services to the…marketplace.” The official website of the Atlanta Hawks stated that Belkin is “widely respected as a creative, visionary entrepreneur and philanthropist.” Belkin recently received Cornell’s Alumni Volunteerism Award. Although his name will not replace that seen at Philips Arena in Atlanta any time soon, Belkin and his wife did help fund Cornell’s Belkin Squash Courts. In the midst of these rich and famous are two student-elected trustees, Funa Maduka ’04 and Jackie Koppell ’05. Despite their worldwide reputations and household products, “what [the trustees] do outside…plays little to no role” in their board activities, Koppell said. The student representative also said that even those with the most recognizable names “really are interested in what the students want.” Hart said she enjoys contributing to the board because it is made up of “people who represent different points of view, different age groups, and different industry perspectives.” From sports to school supplies, the trustees certainly represent just as many fields as are taught here at Cornell.Archived article by Melissa Korn