New and not-so-new faces for Syracuse legislature
At-large: Hudson, Rotondo
Community activist Helen Hudson, lawyer Kathleen Joy, bookkeeper Joseph Rotondo and teacher Kurt Schmeling are the four candidates vying for two at-large seats on the Syracuse Common Council. At-large councilors represent the whole city and serve for four years.
Hudson, 51 (Democrat, Working Families), has never run for office before. She co-founded Mothers Against Gun Violence and has been active in counseling crime victims through the Trauma Response Team. Hudson, a union liaison to the United Way, believes she can be a “fresh voice” and can work across party lines.
Joy, 50 (Democrat, Working Families), is the only incumbent in the group, having served on the council since 2005. She is the majority leader. Joy recently sponsored legislation to ban hydrofracking within city limits. She says her priorities are neighborhood preservation, schools and creating opportunity in the city through economic development.
Rotondo, 62 (Republican, Conservative, Independence), runs his own bookkeeping business. He taught math at Fowler High School for 14 years, retiring in 2009, and has been heavily involved in youth athletics. Rotondo said he’s a “numbers guy” and wants to bring more discipline to the budget process.
Schmeling, 70 (Republican, Conservative), a teacher at BOCES, believes the city has to cut spending to avoid a fiscal control board. He’s a big proponent of forming a municipal power company to attract industry and jobs to Syracuse. He advocates cutting overtime and reducing the size of the police force.
Joy stressed that she was the only one of the four who is an incumbent. That may not be an advantage, given the friction between the council and Mayor Stephanie Miner’s administration that has produced gridlock. Joy also supports amending the city charter to give the council veto power over decisions by the planning board. But if the council could overturn a planning board decision, then why have a planning board at all?
Our endorsement goes to two candidates who will bring fresh perspectives to the job: Hudson, to further her work of making the city a safer and saner place to live, and Rotondo, whose background in the schools and number-crunching will be an asset.
1st District: Rayo
Matt Rayo says he got into politics two years ago because he wanted to encourage young people like himself to stay in Syracuse. After completing one term representing his North Side constituents, Rayo has gained experience — and still has that sense of mission.
The Republican councilor and graduate of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry has a small business recycling cooking oil as biofuel and helps manages his family’s rental property business, giving him insights into the key twin areas of housing and small business development.
Rayo’s Democratic opponent is Jake Barrett, whose job as asset manager for Catholic Charities also gives him credibility on housing issues, particularly as he settles refugees and the homeless into apartments of their own. Barrett chairs the board of the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency and is active in North Side community organizations.
Barrett says city leaders must manage in tough economic times. He wants to make sure those who use city services live in the city — or share the bill. He says his capacity for straight talk would serve him and his constituents well.
Rayo is encouraged that the new school superintendent is improving relations with City Hall — though he remains reluctant to commit more city resources to the schools. He anticipates the Urban Renewal Agency and Land Bank legislation recently enacted in Albany will be “tools in the box” to clear housing code violations and tackle neglected properties.
These are thoughtful and engaged candidates. However, Rayo’s combination of youth and experience give him the edge. Besides, the nine-member council needs at least one Republican.
3rd District: Dougherty I
t’s refreshing to see a political campaign featuring opponents rather than combatants. That characterizes the 3rd District Common Council race in Syracuse.
Democrat Bob Dougherty and Republican Jim Stelter are vying to fill the seat left open by Ryan McMahon, who’s running for Onondaga County Legislature. It’s the first run for office for both.
Dougherty, 60, and Stelter, 61, live a block apart on Edna Road in the Valley. Both are retired from jobs in county government. As kids, they played Pop Warner football together. As parents, they coached each other’s kids in youth sports. They even carpooled to their meeting with the editorial board.
Dougherty, a former probation officer, has been a facilitator for Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today and, as an avid cyclist, he’s an advocate for a bike-friendly Syracuse. He says he wants to focus on the problem of vacant housing, especially on the city’s West Side, and on supporting city schools. “You can’t have a city for the elderly and childless,” he says.
Stelter wants to use his experience as civil engineer to inform city planning, and to “take consolidation to another level. We need to do that in order for the community to grow.” He also wants more attention paid to infrastructure repairs in his district.
Both candidates approve of police surveillance cameras and both say they would have voted to give more money to the school district in last year’s budget, a move that was vetoed by Mayor Stephanie Miner.
In a statement typical of their friendly campaign, Stelter told columnist Dick Case that whoever wins the election, “The real winners will be the people in the 3rd District.”
Agreed. Alas, only one person can win. We tip the balance to Dougherty, who will bring to the council a firm grounding in neighborhood concerns, insights into public safety from his years as a probation officer and a willingness to work with members of both parties.
4th District: Hawkins
The race to fill the Syracuse Common Council seat being vacated by Thomas Seals pits perennial Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins against Democrat Khalid Bey.
Hawkins, who works for UPS, has run more than a dozen times, for everything from governor and senator to mayor and councilor. He advocates for public power in the city to generate jobs and energy savings; a municipal development bank to provide training grants and job-ready employees for local enterprises like grocery, hardware and clothing stores in underserved areas; fully-funded schools and city services through tax reforms that include a city income or commuter tax; enforcement of the city’s living wage ordinance, combined with a “community hiring hall” to increase minority employment in city contracts.
Bey runs a small publishing company. During his three years as regional coordinator for the New York State Senate Democratic Conference, he worked to ban embalming fluid that is used as a cheap and dangerous intoxicant, and mediate between property owners and neighborhood preservation advocates around Syracuse University. He says if elected, he would hold monthly meetings in each of his district’s eight wards. He stresses the need for compromise and seeking common ground on contentious issues.
Addressing the frosty relations between councilors and the mayor, Hawkins says if he couldn’t win over the mayor, he would try to build a veto-proof majority on the council. His progressive ideas, common-sense approach and undaunted quest for an opportunity to serve make him the stronger candidate.
5th District: Maroun
Nader Maroun, the Democrat running for re-election as 5th District councilor, is opposed on the ballot by Republican W. Bruce McDaniels. McDaniels did not actively campaign for the seat and declined an invitation to meet the editorial board.
Maroun has been an active supporter of the schools, building ties with the Board of Education, and works hard to represent his district, which includes the University area and Eastwood. He deserves re-election.