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City Settles Noise Ordinance Suit With Evangelist

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An apparent breakdown in communication among city officials may have led Ithaca police officers to enforce the city’s noise ordinance against an evangelical preacher last August in a way that had previously been deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.
The “misunderstanding” will now cost the city $10,000 as part of a settlement it reached on Feb. 12 with Syracuse resident James Deferio, who sued the city last November, claiming that the city violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

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Shoe-Throwing Incident at Common Council Meeting Draws Attention to Security in City Hall

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When Robin Palmer ’58 launched a shoe at Mayor Carolyn Peterson last week at a Common Council meeting, he said it was his goal to attract attention to his pro-war position.
Regardless of his objectives, Palmer’s actions — which brought a routine Common Council meeting to a halt for nearly an hour — have garnered regional and even national media attention.
The Ithaca resident said that since last week, phone calls from across the country have been flooding in.
While he said that he’s received a mixed bag of supportive and critical comments, overall he is satisfied with the response.
“I’m happy with the reaction,” he told The Sun yesterday, “I wasn’t on an ego-trip. I was trying to assert my position.”

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Univ. Budget Cuts Plague Slope Day

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One of Cornell’s most visible student events appears to have fallen victim to the University-wide budget cuts that were announced earlier this week.
Slope Day, the annual concert held on Libe Slope on the last day of spring semester classes, will receive significantly less funding from the University, which has historically offered financial support for the event, according to Mandy Hjellming ‘09, chair of the Slope Day Programming Board.
Hjellming said that this the SDPB will be forced to cover an estimated $70,000 that the University had provided in the past for logistical and infrastructural expenses. That figure is a low estimate and the actual deficit could actually be higher, she said.

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University Set to Slash Budgets

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On Saturday, the Board of Trustees approved cuts to the University’s operating budget, increased the cost of tuition for the next academic year and further extended an external hiring pause and construction pause that were first implemented last October. The move comes as the University reels from a 27-percent decline in its endowment, drastic cuts in state funding and a decrease in philanthropic contributions.

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Judge Dismisses Libel Suit Against Cornell

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Earlier this month, a federal judge in California dismissed the second of two libel lawsuits filed by Cornell alum against the University that sought millions of dollars in damages. The lawsuit alleged that Cornell and its attorney acted improperly in responding to his original libel lawsuit in 2007.
On Jan. 6, United States District Court Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz ruled that Kevin Vanginderen’s ’83 case against Cornell could not go further in the legal process because Vanginderen did not sufficiently prove that his case was well-founded. The judge based his ruling on California’s “anti-SLAPP” legislation, which seeks to curb expensive, unfounded lawsuits against people engaged in protected First Amendment activities.

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Memorial Service Planned for Lanzing ’09

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The University has scheduled a support meeting for Cornell student Matthew Lanzing ’09 who died in Ithaca on Jan. 12. Lanzing was a film major from Bradenton, Fla. He was 22 years old, according to his Facebook profile.
Lanzing’s friend, Scott Weiss ’09, remembered him as an outspoken, politically-active member of the Cornell community, and was a member of Cornell’s International Socialist Organization and student anti-war groups.
Weiss, who lived with Lanzing for the past several years, said that he decided to come to Cornell, in part, because he had met people like Lanzing when he was a pre-frosh.

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Cornell Closes Tower Café Due to Budget Constraints

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While the University’s current financial outlook did not directly precipitate the café’s closure, Younger said, the need for fiscal frugality at all levels of the University made last December a particularly good time to eliminate one of Cornell Dining’s facilities.
“It wasn’t a hasty decision,” he said. “We had been looking at this for a while. Over the past 5 years, participation [at Tower Café] never got to the levels where we wanted it to be.”

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Hot Truck Founder Robert Petrillose Dies

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At a school where the faces across campus change at a rapid pace, one would be hard pressed to find an institution that has more consistently or significantly played a role in Cornell student life during the past several decades than the Hot Truck.

It’s no surprise then that current Cornell students and alumni are mourning the loss of the founder and longtime operator of the Hot Truck, Robert C. Petrillose Sr., who was known around campus as “Hot Truck Bob.” Petrillose died on Dec. 8 in Elmira, N.Y. after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 77 years old.

Petrillose started his career at the family-owned Johnny’s Big Red Grill in Collegetown. While working as the chef and manager of Johnny’s, Petrillose started his pizza truck business in 1960.

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Students Protest Ties To Co. With Alleged Labor Law Violations

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The labor and management practices at a California hotel — owned by a company that has close ties to the University — are drawing criticism from a hospitality workers union and student groups at several college campuses.
Workers at the Hilton Long Beach and Executive Meeting Center in Long Beach, Calif. allege that the hotel managers are unfairly interfering with their desire to organize. The Hilton Long Beach is owned by HEI Hotels and Hospitality, a company founded in 1985 by Gary Mendell ’79 and Steve Mendell ’82, both of whom graduated from the School of Hotel Administration. HEI owns 30 luxury hotels across the country. The company maintains a “very active relationship” with Cornell, according to its spokesperson, Jess Petitt ’05.