News Briefs

Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Apr 15, 2008

84 percent say

Rochester is improving

Results of the City of Rochester's Customer Satisfaction (CSI) Survey released Friday revealed that 84 percent of residents think Rochester is improving.

The survey polled 646 city residents, business owners and landlords from Nov. 2007 to Jan. 2008, with the question: "On balance and all things considered, do you agree with the following statement? There's still a long way to go, but the city is improving."

"This is an amazing vote of confidence for our team at City Hall because it comes from our customers," Duffy said. "I am pleased that the overall results of our survey are positive. But our customers also feel we need to improve in certain areas. We intend to keep working hard to make Rochester the best place in the nation to live, work and raise a family."

Duffy noted that public safety, the city's most important priority, weighed heavily on people's minds: Nearly half of respondents indicated they do not feel safe.

"People did have concerns about public safety and that is disheartening," Duffy said. "By a nine-to-one margin, they overwhelmingly support the city's efforts to curb violence by continuing to invest resources in public safety."

A summary of the survey can be obtained by calling (585) 428- 7135, or visit www.cityofrochester.gov.

$25M to help with

foreclosures

Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders announced Friday that the 2008-2009 budget includes a $25 million earmark to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, according to a release from the governor's office.

The Subprime Foreclosure Prevention Services Program includes grants and aid to nonprofits to provide financial counseling, mediation, legal representation, negotiation and other services to borrowers facing defaults or foreclosures.

"It's estimated that up to 50,000 New York families could lose their homes to foreclosure by the end of this year," Paterson said. "This program will ... allow a great many senior citizens and families who have been targeted by subprime lenders to hold on to their homes."

The program will be administered by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) in consultation with the Banking Department and the Office of Court Administration.

Pictometry signs

international agreement

Pictometry International Corp., a leading provider of geo- referenced aerial image libraries whose technology is used to capture oblique image libraries, recently signed an exclusive technology licensing agreement with Kokusai Kogyo Co. Ltd. (KKC), a leading Japanese mapping and surveying company, according to a release from the company.

Pictometry also announced it is showing off technologies for the insurance industry at the Property Loss Research Bureau and Liability Insurance Research Bureau (PLRB/LIRB) 2008 Claims Conference, to be held at the Boston Marriott & Hynes Convention Center in Boston through Wednesday.

Edward Jones ranks

first on list

The financial services firm Edward Jones recently was named first among small- or medium-sized companies on the "Best Companies to Work for in New York" ranking, according to Kelly Olczak, a financial advisor for Edward Jones in Bushnell's Basin.

The New York State Society for Human Resource Management State Council teamed with the Best Companies Group of Harrisburg, Pa. to rank the state's best employers. Thirty were named "Best Companies to Work for in New York," and were divided into 15 large companies and 15 small- or medium-sized companies based on the number of people they employ in New York.

The ranking was based on an employer inventory of practices and an anonymous survey of associates, asked to agree or disagree with several statements about the firm, teamwork and their individual experience at the firm. Edward Jones has 124 branches in New York.