- Ithaca Common Council approves payment agreement with Cornell University - The Ithaca Common Council voted 9 to 1 on Wednesday night to approve a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cornell ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2023/10/12/local-news-ithaca-common-council-approves-pay-deal-with-cornell/
Front Entrance to 4-H Acres at 418 Lower Creek Rd, Ithaca. (Cornell Cooperative Extension) This is a press release from Tompkins County 4-H. To submit Community Announcements to WRFI Community Ra...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/07/28/tompkins-4-h-fair-hosts-family-fun-day/
Zoe Van Nostrand, the Marketing & Visitor Experience Coordinator at the History Center in Tompkins County, talks about the new exhibit on display at the museum, "Breaking Barriers: Women's Live...
The Friends of Stewart Park gathered on Sunday, July 11 to celebrate the park's centennial with cupcakes and music. The Centennial Birthday Bash took place one week after the initial planned date...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/07/12/the-friends-of-stewart-park-celebrate-the-parks-centennial-bash/
Volunteers clean up debris at Stewart Park. (Provided) ITHACA, NY -- Stewart Park is still closed to the public and, as a result, Friends of Stewart Park are cancelling their Family Fun Day today...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/07/07/stewart-park-remains-closed-family-fun-day-canceled/
(Friends of Stewart Park) ITHACA, NY -- Friends of Stewart Bark are postponing the park’s centennial birthday celebration until Sunday, July 11th. It was originally scheduled for July 4th, but ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/07/02/stewart-park-centennial-celebration-postponed-due-to-storm-damage/
Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles (Michael Memis/WRFI) ITHACA, NY -- Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles (RIBs) is reopening after being closed since September 2020, but not without friction. RIBs functions as a...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/07/01/bumps-in-the-road-as-ribs-reopens/
Open Doors English, the Julie Rudd Coulombe Language Program, is celebrating the beginning of its second year. Liz Susmann, co-director of the program, talks about her school and how it moved rap...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/06/25/open-doors-english-language-program-welcomes-students/
SUMMARY Juneteenth is now officially a federal holiday. President Biden signed it into law on Thursday, making today Juneteenth’s first federal recognized celebration. Businesses are closed. Ma...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/06/18/remembering-bishop-cecil-a-malone/
WRFI Community Radio News contributor Esther Racoosin speaks with Cynthia Henderson and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. They are the director and lead writer, respectively, of the Cherry Arts new headp...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/05/21/the-cherry-arts-presents-the-headphone-walking-play-trap-door/
WRFI Contributor Esther Racoosin talks about how she and many other casual birders have developed affection for an Eastern Screech Owl holed up in a dead tree in their neighborhood. For more info...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/05/14/novice-birders-meet-their-friendly-neighborhood-eastern-screech-owl/
On this episode of Which Way Forward, we explore many, many opinions and views on the Reimagining Public Safety process. All these comments and thoughts are from the public feedback period of the...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/05/07/episode-6-the-publics-opinion-on-reimagining-public-safety/
The 2021 Spring Writes Literary Festival, organized by the Community Arts Partnership (CAP) of Tompkins County, begins Wednesday, May 5th and continues to Sunday, May 16. Thirteen different wri...
Each year, Cornell University awards engaged research grants to community centered projects. This year, they awarded four grants totaling 192,000 dollars to community centered projects. One of th...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/16/cornell-engaged-grant-to-support-opioid-use-research-project/
The warm days of mid-April bring a new feeling of assurance and excitement to many, but it also spells uncertainty for New York’s Homeless. In New York State, Code Blue is in effect anytime the...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/15/with-code-blue-coming-to-an-end-homeless-services-shift-gears/
On April 1st, Ithaca and Tompkins County submitted their plans for reforming public safety. Although the Common Council and the County Legislature have committed to the points of their plans, the...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/09/which-way-forward-what-the-plan-is-made-of/
Ithaca has seen an increase in the number of shots-fired cases in the last few months, as well as other gun related incidents. One of the most concerning examples was a 12 year old boy finding a ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/07/enough-is-enough-new-anti-gun-collaborative-forming-in-ithaca/
New York’s state senate and assembly districts are redrawn every 10 years, after the census. In 2014, New York joined two other states with a constitutional amendment to move redistricting to a...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/02/redistricting-new-york-state-an-introduction/
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https://www.wrfi.org/2021/04/02/leslyn-mcbean-clairborne-talks-reimagining-public-safety/
Jason Molino, Tompkins County’s Administrator, released a letter to the community to mark a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect life in Tompkins County. He sat down with WRFI New...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/03/19/county-administrator-jason-molino-talks-one-year-of-covid-19/
Pamela Tan is both a member on WRFI’s news team, and also volunteers with her son’s youth hockey team. Everything from grocery shopping to the way we see our families has been affected by COV...
A “Back the Blue” rally held on Sunday, on the Ithaca Commons. Ralliers were there criticizing in full the Reimagining Public Safety Draft Report from the City of Ithaca, and Tompkins County....
Katie Hallas, the Coordinator of the Community Food System Plan, discusses Tompkins Food Future. This project will create a local food system whereby sustainable, equitable healthy and affordab...
Southside Community Center hosted a Black Town Hall to talk about the Reimagining Public Safety draft report. It was held on Thursday, March 4th, and titled, “The Future of Public Safety?”...
The Reimagining Public Safety Draft report has made waves in Ithaca and Tompkins County, and has even rippled into the National news. Here, we track how the draft report was first released to t...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/03/05/reimagining-public-safety-draft-report-from-release-to-now/
The City of Ithaca and Tompkins County legislator held a joint town hall on February, 25th to field questions from the public on the draft report. WRFI News Director, Jimmy Jordan, speaks with An...
With the shift in presidential administrations, how immigration policy will change is one topic of concern not only on a national level, but also in local communities like Ithaca. In the past w...
https://www.wrfi.org/2021/02/26/shifting-immigration-policy-and-its-impact-on-the-ithaca-community/
Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca have released a draft of their Public Safety Reimagined report. The report comes in response to Governor Cuomo’s executive Order 203, mandating municipali...
LBrown-Allegations-ICSD-Avgar Ithaca City School District Superintendent, Dr. Luvelle Brown has been accused of professional misconduct. The allegations against Dr. Luvelle Brown come from his ex...
Members of the local Cayuga Bird Club started out the New Year in an energetic and optimistic fashion by participating in a long-standing local tradition, the annual Christmas Bird count. This ci...
Three environmental groups: NYPIRG, Earthworks and Food and Water Watch, have published an analysis showing that some municipalities in New York State have been granted permits to use liquid wa...
On November 22, 2020, Area Congregations Together, also known as ACT, hosted a virtual Thanksgiving Service. Suzanne Scholten, one of the organizers of the service, talks about how ACT decid...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/11/26/area-congregations-together-hosts-2020-virtual-thanksgiving-service/
Jennifer Tennant, Artistic Director of Spring Writes literary festival and Robin Schwartz, program manager of the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, talk about this year's festival. ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/11/17/2020-edition-of-spring-writes-literary-festival-is-virtual/
Yael Saar and Margaret Royall are the organizers of a local Get Out the Vote initiative called Parents2Polls Tompkins. The two voting advocates discuss the car-side service, that helps parents ...
Robin Schwartz, Program and Grant Director of the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County talks about the 2020 Greater Ithaca Art Trail. This fall, the art trail takes place the weekends ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/10/07/2020-greater-ithaca-art-trail-offers-in-person-and-virtual-visits/
Joseph Campbell, President of Seneca Lake Guardian, talks about a proposed new garbage transfer facility to be constructed in the Town of Cayuta, in Schuyler County. The New York Department of En...
Adam Zonder, Production Manager of the Hangar Theatre talks about a special virtual rally taking place Tuesday, September 1st, called “The Red Alert Solidarity Movement”. This movement is...
A conversation with the Ithaca City School District Athletic & Wellness Director Samantha Little about the future of high school athletics during the pandemic.
Cornell Botanic Gardens presents a remote youth education program called "Plants Have Families, Too"! The program is facilitated by Raylene Ludgate, Youth Education Coordinator, as well as by Gra...
In the last four months the coronavirus pandemic has upended our lives and changed life as we know it. Along with differences in: the way we see friends and family; go to work; and go on with eve...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/07/17/implementing-telemedicine-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-audio/
WRFI News Intern Phoebe Harms takes a look at how two religious communities in Tompkins County have adapted their services online during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/07/16/in-the-name-of-zoom-religious-communities-and-covid-19-audio/
David Foote, Chair of the Ithaca chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, talks about the upcoming car and bike rally, called, “Defund the Ithaca Police Department!" It is taking place ...
Local activists are observing Juneteenth with a rally taking place in downtown Ithaca at the Bernie Milton Pavillion on Friday, June 19th, 2020 at 12 pm. The theme of the rally is: Decriminalize,...
We’re into week 12, but still in the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic. New York state’s Southern Tier is continuing into phase two of reopening. The state is relaxing restrictions surrounding i...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/06/01/stories-from-quarantine-from-the-lives-of-wrfi-volunteers-audio/
Earlier this year, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo issued an Executive Order mandating that the New York State Board of Elections automatically mail every New Yorker a postage-paid application for an ab...
Dr. Joseph Campbell, Program Officer in the Research Resources Section of the Office of Biodefense, Research Resources and Translational Research talks about how his section is advancing drug and...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/05/01/niaid-advances-drug-and-vaccine-testing-to-combat-covid-19-audio/
Educator Laurie Rubin talks about how and why we should take time to go outside and observe the natural world. The former elementary school teacher developed a curriculum using nature study to in...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/04/22/educator-laurie-rubin-talks-about-observing-the-natural-world/
Jessica Gosa, Executive Director of Foodnet Meals on Wheels, discusses how her organization is adapting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes how Foodnet is changing its procedures to ensur...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/04/10/foodnet-meals-on-wheels-serves-clients-amid-covid-19-pandemic/
Local volunteers are sewing face masks in response to shortages of protective gear for health care providers, people in the service sector and community members from COVID-19. Here we speak with ...
Juliana Garcia and Josh Dolan, two of the organizers of the Tompkins COVID-19 Mutual Aid Response Facebook Group, discuss what they and other activists are doing to assist local residents during ...
https://www.wrfi.org/2020/03/23/local-activists-establish-tompkins-covid-19-mutual-aid-response/