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Mayor Warren says Rochester is moving in the right direction

Jason Milton
/
WXXI News

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren outlined accomplishments and goals during her third state of the city address Monday night.

The speech took place in a building owned by CGI Communications on Main Street, which is part of the company’s expansion efforts…and that downtown location was a big reason why Warren held the event there, to tout the construction and activity that has been increasing downtown.

She told the crowd of a few hundred people that she is following through on her campaign pledges of nearly four years ago.

“That we could invest in our neighborhoods and invest in our downtown and we can invest in our people. Well I’m here to tell you, that we are getting it done, we are on the right track.”

After the speech, Warren also talked about initiatives she wants to build on, including finding ways to improve graduation rates.

“Building community schools and doing that as it pertains to our education, we will continue to work with our community partners to bring jobs into our community and to build businesses."

Warren is up for re-election this year, and five other candidates are trying to stop her from getting a second term.

Some of them were at the speech Monday night, critical of Warren's claims about her successes, among them, Democrat Rachel Barnhart, a former TV journalist, who  says Warren is taking credit for things that happened before she took office.

“The only thing Lovely Warren did to cause the  continue rebirth of downtown is to keep giving wealthy developers and residents of downtown our tax dollars; meanwhile people in neighborhoods didn’t get a break," Barnhart told reporters.

Warren says it's only natural for each mayor to build on the successes of their predecessors, but she says the city continues to move in the right direction.

Monroe County legislator and former police chief James Sheppard was also critical of the years under Warren’s administration.

“There’s the reality of what you see of what’s going up in building and what’s going up in development, and the reality of what’s going on in these neighborhoods where people feel that crime is in their face, crime has not been address, the violent crime has actually gone up, and I think those are some of the things that are other people’s realities.”

Warren said in her speech that the most serious crimes in Rochester are at a 30 year low.

Here is what Mayor Warren had to say to reporters after her speech:

Here is video of the entire speech:

Here's a transcript of the mayor's speech:

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.