View full sizeHowie HawkinsSYRACUSE, N.Y. -- After 18 previous campaigns for office, including a run for governor last year that got him 59,000 votes, Howie Hawkins has plenty of name recognition in Syracuse, where he is running this year for city council.
But Hawkins, a Green Party candidate, is running against a Democrat, Khalid Bey, in an overwhelmingly Democratic area.
The 4th Common Council District has 7,695 enrolled Democrats — roughly 65 percent of all voters — compared with 66 Greens. Even the Working Families Party, which also endorsed Bey, outnumbers the Greens with 99 voters.
All of that would appear to give Bey an advantage in the Nov. 8 election. But neither candidate is banking on the numbers.
Hawkins, 58, of 410 W. Beard Ave., said he hopes to overcome the enrollment handicap by going door to door through the district, which includes much of the South Side and part of the Syracuse University area.
Hawkins polled 41 percent of the vote when he ran for 4th District councilor in 2009 against incumbent Democrat Tom Seals, who won with 59 percent.
View full sizeKhalid BeyBey, 40, of 217 W. Kennedy St., said he does not underestimate Hawkins, who has “excellent name recognition compared with me.” In his first run for office in 2005, Bey finished third in a three-way primary against Seals and another 4th District candidate, winning 11 percent of the vote.
Seals will retire in January because of term limits. With no incumbent, the 4th District race will be among the most hotly contested in Syracuse.
Bey and Hawkins both talk about the need to address Syracuse’s financial problems and to bring jobs to the South Side, which includes some of the city’s most impoverished areas. But they offer different solutions.
Hawkins promises to sponsor resolutions asking the state to reform the tax code to take more from the wealthy and to share more revenues with cities. In addition, Syracuse should consider a “commuter tax” of 0.4 percent on the income of suburbanites who work in the city, Hawkins said. The new tax would require state approval.
To promote job development, Hawkins proposes a “community hiring hall” where contractors working on publicly funded projects could hire local and minority workers. He advocates establishing a municipal development bank to provide financing for local cooperative businesses.
Bey advocates what he calls a more “incremental” approach. Bey said he would work with the county JobsPlus program to let local businesses such as nursing homes provide job training that leads to full-time employment.
He also said he would work with state and county officials to try to expand the availability of loans or other financial assistance for small businesses.
Bey criticizes Hawkins’ focus on seeking more state revenue for Syracuse, saying the city must become more self-sufficient. Besides assisting small businesses, the way to do that is to make city government more efficient, he said.
As of Oct. 7, Bey had raised $7,729 for his campaign, compared with $5,872 for Hawkins. Among Bey’s contributions was $100 from the political action committee of Mayor Stephanie Miner.
Bey, a former hip hop recording artist, owns a small publishing firm and has published his own self-help books, "The Key to Character" and "The African American Dilemma." As an author he goes by Khalid El Bey, a pen name.
From 2009 through early 2011, Bey worked as a Syracuse regional coordinator for the state Senate, a $38,000-a-year job.
Hawkins works unloading trucks at UPS. He was a co-founder of the national Green Party in 1984, and has run unsuccessfully for public office ranging from city council to U.S. Senate.