In a setback for Rochester’s public power movement, the Monroe County Legislature Tuesday rejected a proposed feasibility study to replace Rochester Gas & Electric with a public energy utility. Members of Metro Justice blasted the decision, but vowed to fight on.

Metro Justice and Labor Call on Adam Bello to Support Monroe Residents Over Business-Insider Lobby

Metro Justice and Rochester-area Labor leaders held a press conference Wednesday to announce the re-introduction of legislation for a public utility study in the Monroe County Legislature, and urged County Executive Adam Bello to support it. 

“The introduction of legislation is a critical victory for the effort to bring RG&E in Monroe County under public ownership, so that all county residents benefit from the savings, transparency, and community control that having a public utility entails,” said Mohini Sharma, Organizing Director for Metro Justice.

On Wednesday, November 29, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), challenging the agency’s decision to grant a right-of-way permit for an industrial wastewater pipeline through the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.

Drilling along the construction route of this pipeline has already led to multiple spills of hundreds of gallons of drilling fluids onto federally protected land and wetlands. According to the suit, USFWS’s permit approval process violated the federal requirement for government-to-government consultation, as well as the requirement for sufficient environmental review.

After nearly a year of advocacy for a public utility implementation study by Metro Justice and its allies, Monroe County took a first vote to join the City of Rochester in funding a study on a public alternative to RG&E in the Monroe County Area. The vote did not pass, with holdouts citing procedural rather than substantive issues. Still, opportunities remain to fund and commission the study.

Metro Justice is a democratic organization with hundreds of members, and a long history of opposing systemic oppression, imperialism, and war. As Metro Justice leadership, we cannot stay silent in the face of unfolding atrocities. We honor all our community’s grief, and hope for a just peace.

Metro Justice responds to County Executive’s public utility concerns 

Metro Justice is surprised and disappointed that the County Executive would take a position on a public utility study without having a command of all the facts. 

Dear ROCLA (Rochester Committee on Latin America) Members and Friends,

Thank you so much for your continued interest in ROCLA’s mission. We value your attendance at our programs, your support of our work, and especially your ideas and input.

Our latest ROCLA Summer 2022 Update on the Americas Newsletter is now availabe! There is so much happening in Latin America that we research many articles to choose those that are included here, and we aim to cover a variety of countries in each newsletter. But of course we miss things too. So we welcome any articles, reports, or ideas you would like us to consider, and, of course, your feedback about our quarterly content. Please send them to: [email protected].

We appreciate and thank you for your continuing support! Please click here to read our Summer 2022 Newsletter!

With gratitude,
The ROCLA Steering Committee

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, revoking the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide and leaving the right to reproductive justice in the hands of the states. Abortions will soon be banned in thirteen states, with more to follow, and the accessibility of a safe, private abortion for millions of individuals will be made increasingly difficult. 

Concurring opinions demonstrate the Court’s willingness to strip Americans of the liberty and personal privacy embedded in the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause. In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas signals that the rights to same-sex marriage, contraception, and other protected activities are at risk with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

When our world, our rights, our freedoms are being bombarded left and right, seemingly on a daily basis, it can be easy to get to a level of frustration and fatigue.  The last two years of the pandemic were hard enough.  Not only are we still dealing with Covid 19, now we are back at it fighting fights we thought we had already won. Is this really where we are in 2022, fighting, ONCE AGAIN, for people with uteruses to have the right over their own bodies? The potential backlash from the reversal of Roe v. Wade could be catastrophic to reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and further burden poor and disenfranchised communities  Our neighbors of color are being violently attacked in senseless acts of terrorism. We are watching as voter rights are being attacked seemingly unchecked in state after state, district after district. We are watching as forces of empire, capital, and fascism have turned Ukraine into a warzone and taken hundreds of innocent civilian lives. And the tragic latest….the murder of 19 children, and two teachers, by a teenage gunman with an AR15 rifle, and over 300 rounds of ammunition. 

Corporations and the greedy politicians that serve them rely on us burning out in the face of tragedies and attacks on our rights, so that we stay exploited and the rich stay rich. But, that moment where there just seems to be so much going on that you don’t know what direction to look in, or where to start that, and you get that overwhelming sense of dread, fatigue, and feel the optimism slip away….that is when we turn to each other for guidance, for strength, and for support to fight back harder. We, as a Metro Justice and Rochester community, will continue to be resilient. In numbers, we have strength.

Now is the time to continue to fight side by side together,  and turn to each other for guidance, for strength, and for support.

Then we stand arm to arm and show those with power that we can be a powerhouse ourselves.

To everyone who joined us -- 

It was an honor to be in solidarity with you to defend reproductive justice last Saturday.

Our only way to build and protect reproductive justice, once and for all, is to build collective power against the ruling class and take bold action. We must organize with vision, strategy, creativity, and militancy. 

All sponsoring organizations, including Metro Justice, are debriefing our activity so far and discussing next steps. Here at Metro Justice, we plan to encourage the formation of a local strategy and organizing plan that coordinates with a national strategy. Our Organizing Director, Mohini Sharma, is contacting national networks to ask if such organizing conversations are happening at a national level, and how we can plug in. We hope to have an update for you next week!

In the meantime, we encourage you to join us at Metro Justice to stay active in the movement. (Read on to learn how!)