During his first State of the City address Wednesday, Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 announced his intentions to strengthen Ithaca’s relationship with Cornell, support city industries and expand downtown development over the next year. 

Recently elected Common Council members Graham Kerslick (D-4th Ward) and Donna Fleming (D-3rd Ward) addressed the Collegetown Neighborhood Council Tuesday night about their desire to make Collegetown more vibrant.

In a unanimous vote on Wednesday, the Common Council banned the leasing of land owned by the City of Ithaca for hydraulic fracturing, following the examples set recently by several other towns in Tompkins County.

All city departments will face a three-percent decrease in spending, and the city will increase property taxes by 4.02 percent under the 2012 budget approved Wednesday by the Ithaca Common Council.

This year, no students ran for a seat in the Fourth Ward on the Ithaca Common Council. In a district that is composed of 95 percent Cornellians, its residents deserve a student representative.  

Local residents spoke out against a proposed rezoning of Ithaca’s waterfront at a Common Council meeting Wednesday.

For the first time in four years, Ithaca’s 4th Ward, composed mainly of students living in Collegetown, will no longer be represented on Ithaca’s Common Council only by young Cornell alumni.

Common Council members and Collegetown dwellers discussed four initiatives intended to implement the 2009 Collegetown Urban Plan & Conceptual Design Guidelines, plus an amendment that would have increased the chances of a full-service grocery store opening in Collegetown, at the City of Ithaca Planning and Economic Development Committee meeting Wednesday night.

The Common Council granted eight alcohol permits to restaurants in Ithaca.