Human interest profile

FANTASIA'S JOURNEY; CARING ADULTS TEAM UP WITH THE GAME OF BASKETBALL TO HELP PUT A ROUGH LIFE ON COURSE

BYLINE: By Donna Ditota Staff writer
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1LENGTH: 2849 words

She can finally talk about it without crying.

The times when her mother tried to conceal her crack habit. The times when she hid her toddler sisters at school to protect them from the parade of drugs and strange men in their house. The times she escaped a strict foster parent to visit her mother's hospital bed, so she could touch her and talk to her and maybe cry without anybody watching.

Fantasia Goodwin wishes some invisible hand had written it down so she could remember more clearly, more vividly. There are times in her life, the years between her 10th and 13th birthdays, when so much transpired that she struggles to recall exact dates and exact sequences. Her foster parents. Her mother's death. Her grandmother. Her father. Her repeated attempts to run away.

All represent pieces of a fractured, fuzzy puzzle.

"My life," she said, "was just chaos."

Goodwin remembers one moment, though, with perfect clarity: Sept. 6, 1998. The date she arrived at Graham Windham, a group home in Hastings-on-Hudson, where she would spend the next eight years.

At Graham, 12-year-old Fantasia Goodwin found a community of people who cared. At Graham, she purged part of her past and absolved some of the people who abused or neglected her. And at Graham, she discovered basketball, which has delivered her to Syracuse University and a starting spot on the women's basketball team.

"I always say she has a guardian angel," said Debbie Waters, the woman who with her partner, Charles Mathis, has essentially adopted Goodwin. "Because how she's gotten this far is a miracle."

Bad habits and strange men

Goodwin was born on Nov. 10, 1985. Because of her mother's drug habit, records show, she lived with foster parents until she was 7. By then, her mother, Alice Thorpe, convinced authorities she could care for her children and gained custody of Fantasia and her two younger sisters, Essence and Natasha.

At first, Goodwin said, her mom made a happy home in their Brooklyn apartment. Then she met a man, Goodwin said, "who got her back into that stuff." Strange men started showing up. They cooked drugs in the apartment, and a distinct, disturbing smell permeated the place.

One of the men who regularly visited, a man named Kirk, sexually abused her, Goodwin said. She resisted telling anyone for a long time because Kirk provided the family with food and bought them a television. She worried, she said, that by telling someone Kirk was touching her inappropriately, he would be sent away and she would be blamed for shutting off the family's lifeline.

"I had to take care of my sisters, because my mom was not stable," Goodwin said. "I had to bring them food from school lunch and stuff like that. My mom wouldn't be there and there'd be guys in the house. Sometimes, I'd bring (my sisters) to school with me. I'd hide them or they'd just stay outside all day."

Authorities intervened when Goodwin was 9. Goodwin thinks a neighbor tipped them off. Her sisters went to live with an aunt, and Goodwin, who had a different father than her sisters, was assigned another foster mother. When she was 11, she learned that her mother had lapsed into a drug-related coma.

There were scheduled hospital visits with the foster mother, her son and a social worker. But Goodwin resented their presence. The visits seemed sterile and forced. She longed to talk to her mother, to hold her hand, to be alone with her.

So she'd sneak out of the house and navigate the trains and buses to the hospital. The nurses, she said, treated her kindly and allowed her to visit whenever she wanted.

"I used to go to the hospital to watch her," Goodwin said. "Just watching her there. Hoping she'd wake up. Sometimes she'd breathe real heavy. It was a big thing, just going over there."

' look just like my father'

While her mother languished in a Brooklyn hospital, Goodwin's paternal grandmother gained custody of her. Goodwin had never met her father and was curious about him, she said, so she prodded her grandmother to make introductions. That summer, her grandmother drove her to South Carolina for a family reunion.

"And that's when I first met him," Goodwin said. "He just got out of jail for doing a bid (serving time). I noticed him before I was even introduced to him. I look just like my father. And he was just crying."

Barry Goodwin served two state prison terms for drug offenses, the second for possession of crack cocaine, according to records provided by the state Department of Correctional Services.

On a subsequent trip south later that summer, Fantasia fled from her grandmother as the two were heading back to New York. When her grandmother stopped for gas, Goodwin said, she bolted from the car and knocked on the door of a stranger's home to plead for help. Living with her grandmother, she said, had grown increasingly difficult. Police officers arrived and she was driven to the Gaffney, S.C., home of her aunt, Cassandra Goodwin.

"(The police) came with my mom," Cassandra Goodwin said. "(Fantasia) didn't want to go back. So she came to stay with me. I had kids her age."

She stayed with Aunt Cassandra and her three children, slept in a bed with a cousin and attended school for a few months. Sometime during her stay, she said, her grandmother called to relay news of her mother's passing. Born on March 28, 1966, Alice Thorpe died 10 days before her 31st birthday.

Meanwhile, money grew tight at Aunt Cassandra's, and Goodwin - in need of knee surgery after a car accident - wound up back in Brooklyn, where she stayed with her grandmother and had the surgery. But child care authorities again intervened. Her grandmother lost custody and Goodwin re-entered the child care system. She spent time in Geller House, a facility on Staten Island where children are held until the court system determines their fate. And then she was assigned to Graham.

Hard transition to group care

Graham Windham, the nation's oldest nonsectarian child care agency, sits hard by the Hudson River. Today, 165 children live in 12 campus cottages and attend school on the premises. Gerry Leventhal, director of the residential program at Graham, said residents are referred to the agency by family court.

"All of them have been victims somewhere along the line," Leventhal said. "They haven't had the family support or community support, or the schools haven't been a positive experience for them. They've had to not make it at other places. Other failures justify them to be here.

"They've been abused or neglected. The kids have not had those foundations that you'd want every kid to have: unconditional caring. Enough love to let them know they're of value. And they've been transient."

Leventhal described Goodwin's experiences as "more extreme" than most kids assigned to Graham. He consulted documents in her file, which he estimated to be thicker than 150 pages, to confirm her tumultuous childhood. Graham records are private, but because Goodwin was relying on 10-year-old memories to recount her past, Leventhal agreed to check those records to substantiate the events that Goodwin willingly divulged.

"Fantasia," he said, "is a credible reporter of her circumstances."

Her transition into the structured group setting was marked by resentment and rebellion. At the start, Goodwin made it clear that she didn't need what Graham was offering.

She refused to participate in group meetings, where girls cried openly as they revealed secrets of their past. When those same girls became the subjects of campus gossip and teasing, Goodwin resisted further. She cursed and talked back. She got into fights. She was, as Graham mentor Lisa Linnen put it, "quite difficult."

"Nothing was working for me. I was just so mad all the time," Goodwin said. "I felt like no one cared. They said they cared, but I didn't trust nobody."

Enter basketball

Goodwin soon found something to care about. Leventhal started a girls basketball team the same year Goodwin entered Graham. She signed up without knowing much about it. She remembers her first few efforts as comically futile. Balls bounced off her knee. She tossed up air balls.

But she kept coming back. She liked the game's physicality, the way it rewarded her aggression. She felt good when she scored points and her team won games.

The school, said Leventhal, spared no expense with uniforms to instill a sense of pride in its players. And Goodwin proved to be a natural athlete and a fast learner.

That first season, Graham competed in an informal league against other group homes. During the semifinals of the year-end tournament, Goodwin sank a shot from about 15 feet that won the game.

The gym erupted with excitement.

Leventhal said he jumped up and down with everybody else.

"That felt so good," Goodwin said. "The crowd was into it. Everything was like in slow motion. It was like "yeeeaaahhhh!' Everybody ran on the court. They held me up like I just won a boxing match or something. I was happy. Oh my God, I was so happy. I said, "I like this. I want people to cheer for me and carry me around the gym when I make a winning shot.'

"That's the only time I felt happy. My self-esteem was so high. And I knew after that everything would be all right. There was more to life than just fighting and running away and running away from my problems. So basketball was pretty much my cure. It healed a lot of pain."

So did Linnen.

She lets down her guard

Linnen works as a liaison between Graham's residential facility and its schools. She described Goodwin's early days at Graham - her tantrums and subsequent silences - as "testing the waters." She was not unlike other children who came to the facility full of mistrust for adults who had failed them.

But Linnen saw something in Goodwin. She coached a youth basketball team and got permission to take Goodwin off campus to compete in a Saturday league. She invited Goodwin home for picnics and holidays and introduced her to family members.

"When she was acting out and rebelling, I didn't take it personal," Linnen said. "I told her, "I'm not going to hurt you. Give me an opportunity to show you that.' I felt I had the opportunity to give her something she was lacking, to build her up and let her know that there are some good people out there."

"She took time to speak to me," Goodwin acknowledged. "She was just real open with me. I never had anyone who talked to me like she did. She always wanted to know how I was doing. She checked up on me, made sure my work was done, made sure I had what I needed."

After awhile, Goodwin let down her guard. She confided in Linnen and felt confident enough to share her story in group meetings.

She was also excelling on the basketball court.

She averaged 33 points per game during her career at Graham's Martin Luther King High School. Leventhal said she shot about 50 percent from 3-point range her senior year.

Her athletic ability and her leadership qualities earned her a measure of respect at Graham. She was selected to speak at her high school commencement. Her poignant tribute to her mother, combined with her hopeful future of college, moved everyone to tears, Leventhal said.

Goodwin paused to collect herself when she mentioned her mother. Goodwin got her first tattoo when she was 17. Alice Thorpe's name rests inside a heart, flanked by the dates of her birth and death.

"It was difficult to forgive her, because when I needed her, she wasn't there for me," Goodwin said. "But you still always love your mom, no matter what. I knew it was tough for her. Drugs are a pretty strong addiction. And she picked drugs over us. And there were times when I had to be strong for her - like I was the mother and she was the child. But I don't hold no grudges against her."

Enter new parents

By commencement, Goodwin had met the two people she now refers to as her mother and father. In the summer of 2003, Debbie Waters and her partner, Charles Mathis, were organizing a Salvation Army youth basketball team in Yonkers, a few blocks from Graham. Waters and Mathis recruited Goodwin and a high school teammate to play on their team. Waters has no biological children, she said, and grew fond of Goodwin.

She and Mathis took Goodwin on shopping excursions. Goodwin's previous shopping experience consisted of picking out clothes from the Graham gymnasium. The couple treated her to nice restaurants, where she learned to order from the menu. They sent her greeting cards for no apparent reason. And they exposed her to the supermarket, where they bought food and planned meals.

"Fantasia didn't have all the tools," said Mathis, "but she had the intellect. We saw her drive and her determination to succeed, not only on the basketball court."

Mathis and Waters attended Goodwin's final season of high school games and helped with college preparation. By then, Goodwin displayed Division I athletic talent, but her inattention to schoolwork in her first two years of high school, combined with a lack of groundwork for the SAT, meant that she was destined for junior college.

Mathis and Waters helped her enroll at Monroe College, which has campuses in New Rochelle and the Bronx. In 2005-06, Goodwin set the NJCAA Division III season record for points (867) and scoring average (27.1). That season, the Mustangs went undefeated and won the NJCAA Division III championship.

Division I coaches showed interest, Waters said, but were reluctant "to take a chance on a group-home child." When Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman called during Goodwin's final season at Monroe, he found a receptive audience.

But Hillsman, too, was leery of Goodwin's background, of her ability to assimilate into a college culture that demanded self-imposed structure. He made a deal with Goodwin: Call me after every game and update me with your progress.

Hillsman said Goodwin kept her part of the bargain. He offered a scholarship, she accepted, and last May she enrolled at SU for summer school.

For the first time in eight years, Goodwin lived free from institutional guidance. Hillsman said she initially struggled with the responsibilities of being a student-athlete. She arrived late to basketball meetings, missed study hall and left classes before they finished.

Hillsman knew all about her past. And when Goodwin neglected to follow rules, the first-year head coach battled with his need to exert proper punishment and his desire to show he understood and cared.

"The first month she was here, we butted heads a lot," he said. "The structure was the hardest thing for her. But you want to discipline her, because you want her to make it. You want her to do the right thing."

Goodwin starts at forward for SU and averages 12.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. She's shooting 42 percent from 3-point range and 44 percent from the floor. Against Pittsburgh on Jan. 16, she led the Orange with a career-high 22 points and nine rebounds.

At 5-foot-11, she is often dwarfed at the forward spot by taller opponents, but Hillsman said her tenacity allows her to compensate. If the coach has any criticism of Goodwin, it's that she sometimes plays too unselfishly.

The meaning of happiness

Her surrogate parents, Debbie Waters and Charles Mathis, have moved to Shillington, Pa., where Goodwin has her own room. The couple monitors her games on the Internet and keeps careful track of her schoolwork. Debbie Waters, whom Goodwin refers to as "Miss Debbie," said she communicates with Goodwin daily.

Lisa Linnen brought about 50 Graham students to SU's game at St. John's last month, and friends from Monroe College showed up, too. A large Goodwin contingent watched the Orange in Connecticut earlier this month. Goodwin, said Leventhal, has become Graham's poster child for success.

"I don't like dwelling on the past too much, but sometimes I do think, "Damn, how did I do it? How did I manage to do it?"' Goodwin said. "It's just my stubbornness, my pride. I had to make it. I didn't want to make any excuses, like I had a tough childhood. That's not an excuse. That should make you want to do better."

She was fueled, too, by everybody who doubted that the daughter of a crack addict could make something of herself. She remembers elementary school guidance counselors telling her to be content with staying out of trouble, that kids like her don't achieve.

But Goodwin wanted more for herself.

These days, she flies on chartered planes to places she's never seen. She attends college classes and thinks about playing basketball overseas and then coming home to start a foundation for troubled kids. She describes herself as "jolly," and people who know her say the description fits.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Hillsman gazed at a poster-sized photograph of Goodwin and teammate Keri Laimbeer that rests against a wall in his office. The two are leaping on the SU sideline while the game unfolds in front of them. Goodwin's smiling face registers unbridled joy.

"I look at that picture and I think, "How can that girl be so happy?"' Hillsman said. "Because she had every reason to be bitter. When you look at what she's been through, this kid had every reason to be just another kid that didn't make it. She had every reason to give up and she never did."

Newsmaker profiles

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)

July 16, 2006 Sunday FINAL EDITION

TWO LAWYERS WHO COULD AFFECT THE FUTURE OF SYRACUSE; THE CAROUSEL TAX DEAL FIGHT

BYLINE: By Greg Munno Staff writer
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1LENGTH: 291 words

John A. Cirando works on the 10th floor of the M&T Bank Building in Syracuse. David M. Garber has an office on the sixth floor.

Cirando bleeds New York Giants blue. Garber's heart is emblazoned with New York Yankees pinstripes.

Both grew up and live in the Syracuse. Garber went to public school, Cirando parochial.

Cirando is active at his church, St. John the Evangelist; Garber at Temple Adath Yeshurun.

Garber and Cirando both shy from publicity and favor the legal research and writing aspects of their jobs.

Cirando eats lots of vegetables - he even has a salad named after him at La Cuisine on North Salina Street. Garber's wife describes him a carnivore who often enjoys steak.

Both men made profound changes in their lives after recent medical troubles. Cirando had open heart surgery and has since lost 60 pounds. Garber had a hip replacement and had to give up playing handball and competitive running.

But for all their similarities and differences, it is their reputations as lawyers that have thrust them into the middle of the raging political and legal battle between Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll and the Common Council.

At the heart of the conflict is a deal between Driscoll and developer Robert Congel, owner of Carousel Center mall. The deal provides the city with new revenue from the expansion of the mall in exchange for the city dropping its appeal of a court ruling that favored the developers.

Driscoll implemented the deal and dropped the appeal without approval of the council and against the advice of his chief lawyer, Corporation Counsel Terri Bright, who was fired.

Enter Garber, who is now interim corporation counsel, and Cirando, who will attempt to appeal the court ruling in favor of Congel on behalf of the Common Council.

DAVID GARBER: HE'S SYRACUSE MAYORS' LEGAL ACE IN THE HOLE

BYLINE: By Greg Munno Staff writer
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16 LENGTH: 1038 words

When David Garber learned that he needed a hip replacement five years ago and would have to give up the sports he loves, he uttered a phrase he often uses when life throws him a curve - "That's baseball."

"I remember that so well," said Peter Carmen, one of Garber's running buddies who is general counsel for the Oneida Indian Nation and a former partner with Garber at Mackenzie Hughes. "He has this amazing ability to roll with the punches, to stay cool under pressure. It's one of the things that makes him so effective."

It was that attitude that allowed Garber to do battle with a combative common council during his stint as corporation counsel for former Mayor Lee Alexander.

And it allowed Garber to maintain a solid legal reputation even after it was discovered that Alexander had been extorting money from people hoping to do business with the city.

"David had nothing to do with that mess," said Richard A. Hennessy Jr., the former Onondaga County district attorney.

Alexander, a Democrat, served as mayor from 1970 to 1985, when he decided not to seek re-election to a fifth term. A federal grand jury indicted him in July 1987 on 40 counts of accepting bribes and kickbacks on city contracts worth $1.5 million. He pleaded guilty Jan. 6, 1988, to racketeering, conspiracy to obstruct a government investigation and tax evasion and served 51/2 years in federal prison.

Carmen said that subsequent Syracuse mayors, including Republican Roy Bernardi, wouldn't have gone to Garber for legal advice unless they were confident he was clean. "Everyone knew the prosecutors scrutinized David, put him under the microscope, and they didn't find anything," Carmen said.

Garber said he had no clue of Alexander's dealings. If he knew of any of the wrongdoings, he would have gone to the district attorney, he said. He added that he has heard Alexander and his cronies referred to him as a "Boy Scout" and went to great lengths to hide their activities from him.

When Alexander's dealings were uncovered, Garber said, it was the most crushing day of his life.

"In so many ways, Lee was an incredible mayor," Garber said. "He hired professional people and demanded top-notch work from all of them. What we didn't know at the time - and what I don't think we could have known - was that there was also a shadow administration, a second administration, that was carrying out these criminal acts."

Sources told The Post-Standard in 1984 that Garber had been named in a grand jury report that stemmed from an investigation into charges by former police Lt. George Georgiade that Alexander had paid him to "commit political dirty tricks."

There were no indictments in the case, and lawyers for Alexander, former police Chief Thomas J. Sardino and Garber successfully argued that the grand jury reports be sealed forever. Representing Garber was his father, Morris Garber, who had been a popular City Court judge. Then-Chief Assistant District Attorney John Cirando argued unsuccessfully before the state Supreme Court Appellate Division that the reports be made public. Cirando and Garber declined comment on the Georgiade probe.

"The court sealed the reports, so I cannot comment on them, even to this day," Garber said. Garber left City Hall before Alexander was indicted in an unrelated investigation. He joined Mackenzie Hughes and developed expertise in appellate and insurance law to go along with his municipal experience.

Garber told reporters at the time of his departure that he was looking forward to leaving the limelight.

Hennessy, Carmen and others, like Mackenzie Hughes partner Art Wentlandt, all used the word "scholarly" when describing Garber.

"He doesn't like direct attention, but isn't afraid of it," Wentlandt said. "He's steady, competent."

Wentlandt said Garber is a key member of Mackenzie Hughes and that the firm looks forward to his return.

Garber said that's his intention.

"This is only temporary," said Garber, whose new role with the city has been made easier because there are still several people in the corporation counsel's office and City Hall he knows from the Alexander days.

He also has been active with city cases under Driscoll before Terri Bright was fired, handling the city's appeal of an eminent domain case involving the county's Midland Avenue sewage treatment plant and the city's tax dispute with some suburban towns over Hancock Airport.

Garber is a voracious reader, and rattled off the titles of several books he recently finished. He's currently reading "31 Days," by Barry Werth, a book about the days between Richard Nixon's resignation and his pardon by Gerald Ford.

But those who know Garber well say he's not entirely a nose-in-the-books, play-by-the-rules kind of guy.

"This will stir up some trouble," Carmen said. "But I'll tell you that against the orders of his doctor and his wife, David will sneak out of his house before anyone is up on Saturday mornings to go running with us."

More on Garber
Past jobs/posts: He was corporation counsel for Mayor Lee Alexander from 1975 to 1985, and has advised Syracuse mayors, regardless of party, ever since he became one of the top municipal lawyers in Central New York.

Family:Wife, Dr. Joyce Garber, a psychiatrist, and three children: Ari, a graduate student at Columbia University finishing a doctoral program in nutrition and public health; Sarah, a third-year medical student at the University of Vermont and former Peace Corps volunteer in the West African nation of Burkina Faso; and Noah, a second-year law student at Syracuse University.

Education: Bachelor of arts from the State University of New York at Binghamton (1967); Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago Law School (1970).

Civic: Co-chair of Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll's Transition Committee. He has been involved in many organizations, including the YMCA, the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, the United Way, the Volunteer Lawyers' Project, Temple Adath Yeshurun.

Fun fact: Garber and his wife have always had at least one parrot and, at times, as many as three. Their current parrot, Tim, briefly went to the University of Chicago with the Garbers' daughter to serve as the mascot of the college's softball team.

JOHN CIRANDO: NO STRANGER TO THE APPELLATE COURT SYSTEM
BYLINE: By Greg Munno Staff writer
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16LENGTH: 958 words

When you work for John Cirando, you get to know - and fear - "the look."
He tilts his head down, raises his eyes and brow up, and peers over his glasses incredulously.

"It's the non-verbalization of "you've got to be kidding me,"' said Richard A. Hennessy Jr., the former Onondaga County district attorney who employed Cirando as his second-in-command.

Current District Attorney William Fitzpatrick knows the look well. He credits Cirando - whom he calls "a dear friend" - with keeping him in Central New York.

As a law student, Fitzpatrick argued a case at a "moot," or practice, trial Cirando presided over. He encouraged Fitzpatrick to apply for a job at the district attorney's office and worked to get the future district attorney hired.

"At that point, the DA's office hired young lawyers based on family and political connections, and I always thought I would return to New York City, where I grew up," Fitzpatrick said. "John changed my life, and he changed the way this office did business."

Despite the talent Fitzpatrick displayed at the moot trial, he and his friend, fellow rookie Assistant District Attorney J. Kevin Mulroy, had a lot to learn and often got "the look."

Fitzpatrick remembers one time in particular, when Mulroy, who died last year, handed Cirando some paperwork.

"Kevin had written something along the lines of "the perp was cuffed and taken downtown,"' Fitzpatrick recalled. "John just stared at him with that look and said, "That's not how we write in the legal profession.' John's a great writer, and he insisted we learned how to write, with the appropriate legal tone, and also in a way that told a clear, concise story."

Cirando said he likes the research and writing aspect of his job. That preference helped shape his career as a top appellate lawyer.

He's had more than 1,500 appearances before the state Supreme Court Appellate Division's Fourth Department alone, which is the court that will hear Cirando's appeal of the Carousel Center mall expansion ruling. He's had hundreds more appearances before other appellate courts, and more than 60 appearances in front of the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, he said.

He has worked on cases that led to the first definitive statement of New York state criminal jurisdiction on an Indian reservation; the first recognition of battered child syndrome in New York; the first appellate consideration of the admissibility of hypnotically refreshed testimony in a criminal case; and the first judicial recognition in New York that brain death is the equivalent of legal death.

"He's incredibly knowledgeable and organized, and he gets on well with the judges," Hennessy said of Cirando. "A major part of the legal business is credibility with judges."

Cirando has built that credibility in a number of ways, including occasionally undermining his own cases in court.

"There are times he pointed out to the appellate court a problem with a conviction that the defense lawyers missed," Hennessy said. "That builds a lot of credibility. He makes arguments the judges know they can stand by."

Despite Cirando's legal reputation, he makes a lot of time for family, exercise and volunteer work. He talks to all three of his daughters regularly - two called his cell phone during a one-hour interview Thursday. He enjoys walking with his wife, which he does nearly every day, going to Carousel Center for strolls when the weather is bad, he said.

"I really enjoy the relationship I have with my daughters," he said.
And he has been very active with Vera House, doing legal work for the organization, which fights domestic and sexual violence, for free.

"John is a personal hero for me," said Randi Bregman, executive director of Vera House who awarded Cirando the Sister Mary Vera award last year.

Bregman said a lot of people who do pro bono work for nonprofits naturally put their paying business first. "But John makes us his top priority. His service has been unprecedented," she said.

Interesting Bregman, who Cirando volunteers for, and Fitzpatrick, who once worked for Cirando, have inverse views on Cirando.

Bregman described Cirando as having a quiet, gentle exterior that belies a hidden toughness. "He is a very strong man," she said.

Fitzpatrick had this take: "He has this cantankerous persona, but underneath it all he's a softy."

More on Cirando
Past jobs/posts: Chairman of the Fourth Department Judicial Screening Committee to which he was appointed by Gov. George Pataki in 1997. Served in the Onondaga County District Attorney's Office for 16 years, seven as chief assistant district attorney. A captain in the Army who served as a claims judge advocate.

Family: Wife, Carolyn. Three daughters: Lisa Marie Cirando, an attorney in New York City; Julie Lynn Piazza, a personal chef in Grosse Pointe, Mich.; and Jennifer Mary Zulak, an operations management consultant for the Florida Department of Health.

Family ties : Cirando is a second cousin of state Sen. John DeFrancisco, a critic of Carousel Center mall expansion project. Cirando said he has not talked with DeFrancisco, who was out of town traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Education: Bachelor of arts from St. Bonaventure University (1963). Juris doctor from the State University of New York at Buffalo (1966).

Civic: Has held various positions in the state and county Bar Association. A lector at St. John the Evangelist Church; an advisory board member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of America, CNY Chapter; board member, Loretto Health & Rehabilitation Center; a former president and current general counsel for Vera House.

Fun fact: On March 3, Cirando made a hole-in-one on the 138-yard third hole at Laurel Island Links, Kingsland, Ga.

Beat memos

This is a handout created by Professor Steve Davis on Beat memos:

Start your beat memo by giving your beat a title – student housing, for example. Then, describe exactly what you mean. Talk about the type of stories you want to focus on, and why. Really make a pitch for the stories. Comment on the perspective or perspectives you want to write from. The University’s? Students? The community at large?

The beat memo should include:
A list of key resources: Web sites, publications, newsletters, listservs, etc.

A list of key sources you’ll be turning to this semester. These are people. Don’t confine yourself to people on this campus: The list could include a person in a key job on another campus, or someone with a national organization. Make some phone calls; don’t just sit and surf the Web.

Information from serious interviews with three sources, people you expect to be key contacts on the beat. Talk to them about story ideas, sources, trends, what’s happening here and on other campuses. Ask what’s hot and interesting now, and what’s to come. Include quotes. Get specific.

Several story ideas. Conclude with some substantial detail on the idea you are thinking about for your first story this semester.
A list of key events or dates.

Remember: You are in the market for story ideas that play off what’s in the news, or that anticipate what will be in the headlines. Do not come up with a list of feature story ideas that have no news pegs.

This research is very important to you and will set the tone for what’s to come. Make the most of it. Don’t go through the motions.

The memo will be graded and it will count just as much as one of your beat stories.