Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 35

DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE BUS 12D Flight reduction American Airlines cancels some flights, including one from Rochester, to cut costs. Page 9D 10.11D 9D 9D STOCKS FUTURES MARKET HIGHLIGHTS ROCHESTER, NEW YORK DemocratandChronicle.com SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2005 NESS THE MARKET At a glance DOW NASDAQ Bon-Ton still intends to stay here But chain will close 2 Syracuse-area stores stores from the Northeast to the Mid-Atlantic, selling apparel, home furnishings and cosmetics. Like other department store chains, it has been struggling financially. The company lost $1.4 million, or 9 cents a share, for the second quarter ended July 30. That compares with a loss of $388,000, or 2 cents a share, for the same quarter in 2004.

MCHAODemocratandChronicle.com MARY CHA0 STAFF WRITER Bon-Ton is closing two of its stores in the Syracuse market, but the retailer has no plans to exit the Rochester market, a spokeswoman said. "As far as Rochester is concerned, there is nothing to report on changes at this time," said Mary Kerr, spokeswoman for the York, regional department store chain. "We are Properties. Mike Kauffman, manager of Eastview, said Bon-Ton is performing well at his mall. "All indication is it's business as usual here," he said.

"We haven't heard anything but that they will continue to do business here." Bon Ton operates 141 owns Medley, formerly Irondequoit Mall. Same with the other malls, said Dennis Wilmot, vice president and regional director of leasing at Wil-morite Property Management, which manages East-view in Victor, Ontario County, Marketplace in Henrietta and Greece Ridge for Macerich JK We'll! ml irate iff expanding stores and relocating stores." The leases at the two Bon-Ton stores in Syracuse, at Great Northern Mall and Shoppingtown Mall, are set to expire in January, which is when the stores will close, Kerr said. Bon-Ton has long-term leases with Eastview Mall, the Mall at Greece Ridge Solar tour ami mm Utility seeks protected, 6-year role as distributor i ANNETTE LEIN staff photographer Shawn Lessord powers his Brockport home using a series of solar panels and a wind turbine, seen at left, that is mounted on his roof. Lessord says he has cut his annual electricity usage by 40 percent since 2001. Energy advocates want all of us to see the light Area residents open their homes to show how they save by harnessing the sun, wind 10,568.70 15.92 2,151.69 10.47 Stocks of local interest, 10D AT A GLANCE LOCAL 2 stores open at Eastview Mall Two stores have opened at Eastview Mall in Victor.

Ann Taylor Loft opened Thursday in the Kallmann's wing. CJ Banks, a women's plus-size apparel store opened Friday in the Lord Taylor wing. Talk to focus on Kate Gleason Janis Gleason, who is researching the life of one of Rochester's best-known citizens of the 19th and early-20th centuries, will speak on "Kate Gleason: Myths Realities" at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Welles-Brown Room of University of Rochester's Rush Rhees Library. Kate Gleason (1865-1933) began her engineering career in her father's Gleason Works machine-tool factory.

Deal benefits CooperVision CooperVision Surgical a division of contact lens maker CooperVision will have exclusive worldwide rights to distribute products made by Gebauer Medizintechnik GmbH for use in laser refractive surgery. Area projects get $15 million Tt 2 Senate Appropriations Committee approved more than $15 million in Department of Defense funding toward projects in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region. The projects are being done at VirtualScopics LLC, Integrated Nano-Technologies, Infotonics Technology Center in Canandaigua, Rochester Institute of Technology, General Motors Corp. in Honeoye Falls and Photon Gear Inc. of Ontario, Wayne County.

Staff reports COMING UP What's cooking Hot dogs in Pittsford. In Monday's Democrat and Chronicle Gas gauge Average gasoline prices Self-serve regular, per gallon 12-month weekly high and low High: $3.34 on Sept. 11, 2005 Low: $2.01 on Jan. 21, 2005 Rochester N.Y. state National j34q $2.97 -4 cents High 3 20 $2.96 3 10 i no $2.84 2,80 2.G0 16 24 16 24 30 lb 24 30 Sept.

S'-pt. Supt. 'Rochester area includes Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Seneca, Wayne and Yates counties. Staff graphic KEY INDICATORS T-note, 10-year yield, 4.33, up .06. A Dollar vs.

yen, up .74 yen to 113.60 Gold, NY Merc, down $3.30 to $469 Oil, light, sweet crude, for November delivery, down 55 cents to $66.24. NEWS TIPS Call Business Editor Ellen Rosen at (585) 258-2320 or (800) 767-7539 from outside Monroe County. YANCEY ROY ALBANY BUREAU ALBANY New York State Electric and Gas Corp. will roll back electricity rates by 10 percent but only if New York regulators approve a plan that guarantees the utility's role as a power distributor for six years. The Public Service Commission over the past decade has moved toward a free market model for energy distribution one that encourages private companies to compete with regulated utilities such as NYSEG and its sister company, Rochester Gas and Electric Corp.

The proposal presented by NYSEG on Friday would protect its role in the equation over the next six years. NYSEG said its proposed rate decrease would save consumers $71 million beginning next September. The plan also would continue to allow customers to choose a "fixed price" option that protects them Center and The Marketplace mall, Kerr and mall officials said. They would not specify when those leases end. Bon-Ton owns its space at the Medley Centre.

But the chain has not given any indication that its arrangements will change, said Adam Bersin, owner of Bersin Properties, which 6 The technology was developed by a Stanford University researcher as a way to help the disabled control a computer. Auragen believes it is the only company using eye tracking for Web usability studies, Gissin said. Jay Eskenazi, director of usability services for Expedia, the online travel site, said his company loves the service. "We've found a lot of times, people's assumptions aren't quite right," he said. "We've seen certain parts of the site where people weren't looking and redesigned the site.

You can have this big ad, and you realize that's not what people are looking at." Traditionally, the 10- turing is over, said Sean McAlinden, chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. Already, GM has said it plans to cut 25,000 jobs before 2008. "It's our Category 5, our economic New Orleans," McAlinden said. Largely because of deep discounts, many analysts predict that sales for the year will be about 17 mil- grid is Schaefer, usage overextend "Eventually pay to Schaefer, Wind FX do energy hopes invest in in place. To very vulnerable," said predicting that future energy by Americans will again the grid's capacity.

we're going to have to update the grid system." who founded Solar Inc. in the early 1990s to consultations and install renewable equipment in homes, more property owners will solar and wind power, especially with new federal tax credits spread the word, Schaefer is NISHAD MAJMUDAR STAFF WRITER As long as the sun rises and the wind blows, renewable-energy advocate Chris Schaefer won't pay another gas or electric bill. That's because the Bristol Center, Ontario County, resident is completely "off grid." Using an array of solar panels and wind generators, Schaefer can generate heat and electricity for his family without purchasing a single cubic foot of natural gas or kilowatt-hour of power. The only major energy expense he has is about $1,200 per year for A group of Rochester and Finger Lakes-region homeowners will open their renewable energy-equipped homes to visitors today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For directions to participating homes and to see what each home is equipped with, visit www. solarandwindfx.comdirections 2005.htm or contact Chris Schaefer at (585)229-2083. propane cooking fuel. "You remember the Northeast power outage (of 2003)? Our power sees market in eye A call for storm aid to weigh suffering Jim Laurito NYSEG president calls proposal "good news" for customers. from volatile energy-price spikes, a choice preferred by many households, NYSEG officials said.

In exchange, the company has asked the PSC to approve the rate plan for six years. That would include renewing a provision that gives NYSEG a 35 percent markup for distributing power generated by independent energy companies. did not present a rate proposal on Friday. Last year, under a deal with the PSC, received approval for a slight increase in electricity charges through 2008. NYSEG President Jim Laurito said the mark-up NYSEG, PAGE 9 Walter Bastian U.S.

official sees daunting task in Gulf region. pipeline on the floor of the Gulf that has to be assessed," he said in an interview Friday. One method that worked after the Central American disasters was making sure properties were rebuilt with the latest materials, Bastian said. "You had to build smarter and use the new technology that was available," Bastian said. While in town for the dinner, Bastian said he was impressed by the local business communities' exporting acumen.

He also lobbied for greater acceptance of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, ratified this summer "What CAFTA really does is open their markets to our products," Bastian said. "We're getting the same treatment we've been giving (Central America) for the last 21 years." DTYLERwDemocratandChronicle.com CI Auragen DAVID TYLER STAFF WRITER Auragen Communications wants to look at you while you look at the Web and in doing so, help businesses fine-tune their Web sites. And some big-name clients, including Dell Inc. and Expedia have taken heed. The Rochester company has been quietly offering a technology that tracks the movements of eyeballs across a computer screen.

The system uses infrared cameras positioned in a case around a computer monitor to follow a surfer's eyeballs and record data. Patterns start to emerge that show clients which ENERGY, PAGE 9D tracking year-old Auragen has focused more on helping clients build an online presence, rather than evaluate the effectiveness of those sites, Gissin said. "Five years ago, this would have been a nice experiment," said Auragen Senior Vice President of Client Services David Thiel. Now, companies are viewing it as a vital way to measure customer behavior. Eye tracking is fueling growth at Auragen, Gissin said.

The 50-person company hired two workers to help conduct eye-tracking studies and expects to hire two more in the next few months, Gissin said, a DTYLERii DemocratandChronicle.com lion vehicles, unchanged or up slightly from 2004. But they say sales figures to be released Monday could show GM sales down 30 percent for September and Ford sales down 20 percent. "The only bright spot left this year could be December, which is typically driven by year-end sales campaigns," said John Casesa of Merrill Lynch, parts of their Web sites are hot and which are not. "If your 'help' button is hot or your 'buy' button is cold, that tells you something about what people are doing when they visit your site," said Steve Gis-sin, who heads Auragen's eye-tracking team. While eye tracking is not a new technology, Auragen's version has some key advantages, Gissin said.

Participants aren't required to wear cumbersome headgear, which can make surfers self-conscious about where they are looking. And Auragen's version just requires a brief session to calibrate the computer to a surfer's eye movements. lower health care costs, and Ford Motor which is crafting a new restructuring plan that's likely to include job cuts. And if Delphi Corp. declares bankruptcy as it has threatened, that could set off other bankruptcies among smaller suppliers.

The Big Three and their suppliers could cut as many as 75,000 jobs before this latest round of restruc DAVID TYLER STAFF WRITER Rebuilding the Gulf Coast economy will be a daunting job and one that will need to be carefully balanced with the equally important need to relieve human suffering, the deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Commerce said on Friday. Walter Bastian came to Rochester on Thursday to speak at the annual banquet of the Rochester Business Alliance's International Business Council. In the late 1990s, Bastian helped the department design reconstruction programs after hurricanes Mitch and Georges when those storms hit Central America. The Commerce Department, which contains the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will play a critical role in rebuilding the economy, he said.

Crews will have to assess damage to ports, map obstacles that may have shifted in shipping lanes and check beaches for damage, Bastian said. "There's 33,000 miles of U.S. auto industry expecting slower sales DEE-ANN DURBIN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DETROIT The U.S. auto industry is bracing for an autumn chill. Analysts predict dismal sales for the Big Three this fall, as rising gas prices eat away at sport utility vehicles' popularity.

Tensions are high at General Motors which is pressuring the United Auto Workers to.