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It came out of the blue. I used Stephanie Miner’s attendance at a Council meeting to give her an invite to SUN’s December meeting. The mayor-elect accepted our invite, but she also asked me to be on her transition team. I was honored, so I said yes–even before I knew my employers wouldn’t object. (Thankfully, our By-laws only outlaw elective office, not temporary advisory board positions.) Only later, in a phone call, did I find out I was going to chair a sub-committee. Too late to back out now!
So, I’ve written a lot on this blog about how organizers should work through others, how politics should take a back seat to activism–all the things a good organizer believes in his/her bones. So why the transition team?
Through my work at SUN, I’ve developed a definite opinion on the city’s housing policies and what needs to be done to improve the housing in low-income communities. We’re drowning in a sea of vacant houses and the needs of low income families are generally not being heard over the din of landlords and other investor/developers.
Yes, the best way to deal with this is by creating a powerful organization of low income people to fight for our rights. Well, I’ve helped to do that and we’ve won some battles. But organizing is also about seizing opportunities and thinking about new ways to cut an issue. For housing activists, the election of Stephanie is a watershed event. We have a mayor who actually understands and cares about our issue, as well as having the intellect to help advance the cause. But there are many other battles out there to be fought as well–each with their own set of impassioned advocates. We need to get housing set as a priority.
Or maybe I’m just impatient. I’m under no illusion that any unique individual skills put me in this position. I’m at this particular intersection of organizing and politics because SUN has employed me to fight the good fight for 16 years and someone in power finally stopped and asked for our opinion–even asked us to help frame the questions and craft potential responses.
I’m an instrument of my community group and we’d be fools to turn our back on this opportunity. I’m sitting at the table because of the hard work of many folks in our community to create a better life and improve the housing in their neighborhoods. I can’t let them down.
The day after Howie Hawkins lost his bid to become the 4th District representative on the city’s Common Council, his 15th unsuccessful run for political office, he got arrested at a direct action protest in favor of a single-payer health insurance system.
All I can say is, “Welcome home to direct action protest, brother!”
During the past month I have been involved in helping to organize a large national protest against the American Banker’s Association, while simultaneously volunteering for the Stephanie Miner campaign for Mayor of Syracuse. My contributions to each function were relatively small, but each gave me a glimpse at how activists and politicians view the social change biz. I realize that I belong with the activists.
Since I’ve become an organizer I’ve shied away from involvement in political campaigns–mainly because my free time is limited what with the odd hours and evening meetings that organizing requires. As much as I wanted (and needed) Barack Obama to win last November, my contributions to that campaign were limited to a lawn sign, signing up for the website and casting my vote.
I got involved with the Miner campaign for selfish reasons–I know her and I know that she understands the housing, crime and development issues that I confront in my work life as an organizer. If Stephanie won this election, my job would perhaps become easier–Syracuse would have a mayor that is on our side. So I signed up as a volunteer–nothing fancy, making phone calls every week and being a phone bank captain on election day. But, I was on board.
I’m very happy that Stephanie won and I am hopeful that our city will embark on a new and more intelligent course–systematically dealing with the issues I care about. But I am under no illusions. Change doesn’t come at the ballot box, it comes from the pressure put on the politicians by everyday citizens. That’s why I organize. It might be easier to get a meeting now and the new folks at City Hall will undoubtedly be brighter and more responsive. But it doesn’t guarantee change.
In a Republic, we elect politicians we think will do what we want them to do. But there is no contract and most politicians face a fractured electorate with conflicting viewpoints. If I want something accomplished, I stand a much greater chance of seeing it happen by organizing people to fight for it, rather than hoping that the politician I voted for (and maybe even volunteered for) agrees with me.

Stephanie Miner took 50% of the vote in a three way race–a very
solid showing–and became the first woman elected Mayor
in a Big 5 city in New York State. So much for my lawn sign jinx.
After only backing losers for years I’m 3-0 in the last three races
Obama, Maffei and now Miner.
All three of those politicians are strikingly similar, despite the
obvious differences. Young, smart, policy wonk-ish. All of the
them, even Obama who has become an icon of cool, place substance over
image. Plans are clearly articulated and well
thought out.
New politics? It’s about time.
Fifth in a series. The community organization I work for organized an issues forum with the three candidates running for Mayor of Syracuse. These highly subjective and biased ruminations on the candidate’s remarks (I have endorsed and volunteer for Stephanie Miner) are solely those of your humble blogger and may not be reproduced without the expressed, written consent of Major League Baseball. Or if you buy me a nice present. Or if you ask nicely.
Here are the current perceptions of neighbors living in the south, southwest and near-west sides about the crime in their neighborhoods, even after all the efforts of concerned neighborhood residents, the current administration and the police department: Hundreds of drug houses and corners with open sales of illegal drugs; frequent gun shots; loitering gangs on corners and at vacant houses; poor or no response to 911 calls–especially to non-emergency/quality of life issues and to ANY issue on weekends; vandalism and property destruction; reckless driving and speeding–both cars and 2-3-4 wheeled motor bikes.
Two questions: First, please give us your definition of community policing. Second, as Mayor, how will you use your definition of community policing to make our neighborhoods safer?
Otis Jennings: Otis believes that real community policing would mean having a police force that builds realtionships with the neighbors and engages the community. Mr. Jennings believes that one way to deal with crime in our neighborhoods is to increase the number of police on the force. He mentioned that there is a class of potential officers currently undergoing training and that the incoming federal stimulus money will enable the city to start another class this coming year. He committed to maintaining the police force at this higher number of officers, even after the stimulus money has been used up in three years. Oh, and he feels our pain. Someone busted into his car and stole his GPS device while he was out campaigning.
Stephanie Miner: Stephanie believes that true community policing results when neighborhood residents have developed relationships with police officers that they know and trust. When this trust level increases, information is shared more freely and crimes are solved more easily. Too much emphasis on crime suppression has led to an atmosphere of fear and distrust of the police. Too many residents are unwilling to share information with police officers. In addition, Stephanie believes that the poor response time of the police is due to their traveling from call to call dispatched from 911. Ms. Miner believes the city could improve response times by using the kind of technology that will enable the police to better analyze crime data, systematically identify problem spots and more efficiently deploy police officers.
Steve Kimatian: Steve believes that community policing results when uniform police officers are working in a community on a regular basis–to the extent that they are known by residents as the neighborhood beat cop. Steve has an overarching philosophy of zero tolerance for what may be referred to as petty crimes: noise, parking trash. He wants to establish a baseline of order in the community, so that residents respect and maintain their property and neighborhood out of respect for their neighbors. Mr. Kimatian also has a five point crime program, but only discussed one point–a youth curfew. He believes that there are too many kids out late at night and they can be exploited by gangs. Steve acknowledged that not all kids can be taken home because of problems there, so he would invest in a counseling/service center where kids can be evaluated and referred to needed services.
Stephanie Miner
Second in a series. The community organization I work for organized an issues forum with the three candidates running for Mayor of Syracuse. These highly subjective and biased ruminations on the candidate’s remarks (I have endorsed and volunteer for Stephanie Miner) are solely those of your humble blogger and may not be reproduced without the expressed, written consent of Major League Baseball. Or if you buy me a nice present. Or if you ask nicely.
The organization I work for asked each candidate to respond to a 50-odd answer questionnaire on neighborhood issues. We then crafted an individual question to ask each candidate at the forum based on one of their responses.
Stephanie Miner: You oppose SUN’s call to increase Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for both the SHARP handyman grant program and the Urgent Care owner-occupant loan program for emergency repairs. We live in economic times when credit is tight and incomes are stagnant. These programs have been called the loans of last resort for many families. How do you propose to help families stay in their homes if you oppose increases to these historically underfunded programs?
Stephanie replied that her answers didn’t reflect a disinclination to help families struggling to finance home repairs, but her desire to systematically change the entire Community Development Block Grant program. A new administration will have the chance to make the program more efficient, fund more direct housing issues and decrease the city’s reliance on the money to fund City hall salaries and overhead. She said no to our requests for these programs because she wants to create something better.
First in a series. The community organization I work for organized an issues forum with the three candidates running for Mayor of Syracuse. These highly subjective and biased ruminations on the candidate’s remarks (I have endorsed and volunteer for Stephanie Miner) are solely those of your humble blogger and may not be reproduced without the expressed, written consent of Major League Baseball. Or if you buy me a nice present. Or if you ask nicely.
The neighborhoods on the south, southwest and near-west sides of Syracuse make up only 15% of the city’s households, but our neighborhoods harbor 45% of the city’s vacant houses. There are over 1,500 vacant houses in the city, an increase of nearly 40% from the totals reported just four years ago. The city’s responses to the problem are clearly not working. Vacant houses are places to buy, sell and hide illegal drugs and weapons. Vacant properties are illegal dumps for trash and junk cars. Vacant houses draw youths who loiter, fight and make noise into the early morning hours. The vacant houses are targets for arson, depress home values and make it hard for neighbors to get homeowners insurance.
As Mayor, what will you do to reduce the number of vacant houses in our neighborhoods, adequately maintain the vacant houses remaining and rehabilitate more vacant houses for new owner/occupants?
Stephanie Miner was incredibly impressive on the housing issues presented to her, not surprising since during her time on the Common Council she has worked closely with our organization and others to improve the flawed Community Development Block Grant program that funds most housing work in low income city neighborhoods. Stephanie emphasized that we can’t demolish our way out of the problem and stated that the city needs to prioritize rehabilitation of properties over new construction. Stephanie also made an eloquent appeal to value the beautifully constructed older homes in our neighborhoods, (“that which makes us unique”) even if it may cost a little more in the long run. To this end, she also feels that the city should invest in deconstruction of houses, saving what we can of our houses rather than carting everything to the dump.
Otis Jennings bombed on this issue–he praised Roy Bernardi’s tax auction of delinquent houses as a means to deal with vacant houses. The auction was something I dedicated 6 years of my organizing life to kill, a program that decimated our neighborhoods. The auction disproportionately hurt the low income folks that could not afford to pay off their back taxes or negotiate a payment plan with the city–resulting in a net transfer from owner/occupants in low income neighborhoods to investor/speculators. Otis also said he would implement the recommendations of a 2005 ESF study on vacant houses. I’ve never heard of the study and he didn’t explain even one provision it contains.
Steve Kimatian name checked the Flint land bank as a way to deal with vacant houses, but he had no seeming recognition that land banks require state approval to create and Governor Patterson has already vetoed a land bank bill once. Steve also seemed to be gung ho for demolition, especially of dangerous homes and those contributing to crime. Steve promised to immediately demolish those houses that were in dangerous condition or a focal point of criminal activity. He also promised to meet with neighbors and listen to their ideas for saving some houses from demolition. However, Steve’s main points on vacant housing seem to involve a back hoe and a wrecking ball.
Since I actually received a request from a long-time reader and fellow blogger asking me to continue discussing the upcoming Syracuse Mayoral campaign, here we go:
1) Joe Nicoletti probably figures he can’t win many votes in the liberal heartland of Syracuse, the University eastside, home of the powerhouse 17th Ward Democratic committee. But he does know how to get some cash out of the area. Check out this article about a city/county kerfluffle over zoning off-campus student housing in the University.
The money quote for politics fans:
Several SU-area landlords have contributed to mayoral candidate Joe Nicoletti’s campaign, but not Stephanie Miner, the Democrats’ designated candidate. On the council, she supported the new law; at least three officials from the neighborhood association have donated to her campaign.
2) A friend forwarded me an e-mail being sent to Otis Jennings supporters, asking them to attend a recent fundraiser at the Dinosaur. Now I thought the Mayor of Syracuse mainly dealt with deploying the city employees who maintain roads, police our streets, pick up trash, put out fires and keep our parks clean.
But apparently, the Mayor of Syracuse also sits athwart our degenerate culture and protects the godly from the evil secular humanists. Some choice tidbits from the e-mail:
If you and I can be honest, we have to admit that we all complain about our liberal government, and how wasteful and ungodly it has become, but we do very little about it. It’s true, isn’t it? Well Otis has tossed his hat into the ring, and is diving in after it! He’s in it up to his eyeballs, and there’s no turning back.
I believe it is the responsibility of faith-filled, patriotic Americans to back people like Otis, and thus impact a godless culture that suffers from a lack of strong moral leadership.
Well, in recent decades, people who defy Biblical principles have “come out of the closet” to challenge those beliefs, and sadly, not enough of us said anything to oppose them. The result is, today what was once shameful and destructive to children and families, is fast becoming the law of the land. And there are tidal waves of new hedonistic rhetoric that push the limits even further spewing out of every media outlet imaginable. Worse yet, in an unbelievable reversal of roles, people of faith are now the ones being invited to go “into the closet.” We’re being told not to dare speak of God and righteous values in the public forum again!
3) (Full disclosure: this blog has endorsed and volunteers for the Miner campaign.)
ElectWomen Magazine has named Stephanie’s campaign as the 4th hottest woman candidate race in the country.
1) Joe Nicoletti is using allies with extensive feminist credibility to attack Stephanie Miner in nasty sexist terms. In Council President Bea Gonzalez’s endorsement she stated:
“We’ve all seen Councilor Miner in her public persona and I’m looking for leadership that is more even tempered and has a sense of fairness that I have not always seen in my colleague.”
When Assemblywoman Joan Christensen endorsed Nicoletti, she stated:
“Joe has the ability to cooperate, he’s not an obstacle to progress.”
A not so subtle and traditional attack on female political candidates: men have strong opinions and are forceful and decisive. Women are just nasty bitches. Gonzalez and Christensen should feel guilty for stooping to such a low level. Of course, this pair’s real comeuppance will arrive when they will be unable to truly celebrate the election of the city’s first female Mayor.
2) The fundraising totals for the candidates, just shy of two months away from the primaries, shows the field to be narrowing quite substantially. The five Democrats are now really two and the two Republicans are really one.
Nicoletti ($224,889) and Miner ($306,702) have both raised significant amounts of money, largely from the constituencies that back them–Miner from small fundraisers, unions and lawyers, Nicoletti from older pols and business interests.
Tom O’Hara couldn’t get enough petition signatures and has dropped out of the Democratic primary and threatens to run as an irrelevant . . . uh, I mean independent. Alphonso Davis and Carmen Harlow gathered enough signatures, but both candidates have raised little more than pocket change (less than $5,000 for Davis, less than $2,000 for Harlow.) Their vanity campaigns end on primary day.
As for the Republicans, Steve Kimatian is really in trouble (or else is really lazy.) He’s only raised $70,000 and $50,000 of that came out of his own bank account. Does he believe that his little watched Sunday morning TV chat show will give him enough name recognition?
Otis Jennings is raising a decent amount of money–and the paper’s news story focuses on his donors–largely evangelical and suburban. While other candidates would suffer from that kind of support base, Otis is innoculated from this.
As a Republican, overt religious support isn’t frowned upon. As the first serious African-American candidate for Mayor, charges of suburban co-optation don’t ring true. Otis will be a strong candidate against either Democrat, but is ultimately doomed in a town with a 3-1 enrollment advantage for the D’s over the R’s.
I’m sure all of you folks were breathlessly awaiting my endorsement in the Syracuse mayoral election, a contest that will be happening in a short nine months.
The writer of this blog endorses Stephanie Miner in her quest to become the next Mayor of the city of Syracuse.
In my work life, I focus on issues of neighborhood revitalization. This has afforded me the opportunity to work with almost all of the candidates for Mayor and all but one are well qualified (Alphonso Davis–do something, anything, before you run for office. Then run for an experience-appropriate position.)
I am endorsing Stephanie because I believe that she is the only candidate that understands the need for Syracuse to re-think its position on economic development. Since the days when we stole Carrier from its birthplace in New Jersey by offering tax breaks, our community has believed in the tax benefit as a tool for luring business to town.
The problem in these financially troubled times is that those taxes aren’t sufficient to meet some of our community’s most basic needs–educating our children, police to patrol our streets, firefighters to protect our homes, DPW workers to plow and pave our streets . . . the list goes on. So why should we give away our precious tax dollars to some white dude in a suit with a slick Powerpoint presentation? We need leaders that will invest in the human and infrastructure capital that will enable Syracuse to attract real economic development.
Stephanie has an impressive record of fighting for programs that will benefit our schools, yet is strong enough to hold the school district accountable for its budget. Through her role as the chair of the Council’s Education Committee, Stephanie has realized that just saying the future is our children and handing over a blank check to the SCSD is a dangerous proposition. Without oversight and accountability the increased funding may not accomplish its goals, tarring any future efforts to improve the education received by our children.
Still Racing In The Streets endorses Stephanie Miner for Mayor of Syracuse in 2009.
