October 05, 2005

Mayoral Candidates Pitch Ideas

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Candidates: Mayor Matt Driscoll (D), Joanie Mahoney (R), and Howie Hawkins (G)

Destiny USA

Driscoll said he supports the proposed multibillion-dollar resort. City officials and consultants are sifting through the developer's changing loan and garage-construction plans to make sure they comply with the ordinance that sets up Destiny's payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, he said.

Mahoney is also a supporter. She said the city ought to be doing whatever it can to ensure Destiny's success, moving faster on permits and financing. If cheaper Syracuse Industrial Development Agency bonds can help Destiny build a bigger project or make more profit, would that be wrong, she asked.

Destiny is the wrong deal for Syracuse, Hawkins said. Building it, he said, could lead to the type of sprawl, criticized by urban planners, that he grew up with in California. The city would be better served by helping its residents invest in cooperatives and community-owned businesses.

Fighting poverty

The city's role is to develop partnerships with nonprofit agencies to coordinate services, and that's what it's been doing since he's been mayor, Driscoll said.

While social service programs are the county's responsibility, Mahoney said, she would start conversation and obtain advice on what changes are needed to help deliver services and provide resources.

Hawkins said the city needs to institute a citywide living wage, start a cheap public-power utility, put a fairer tax system in place and put public money into businesses that provide ownership opportunities to average residents.

Lowering the dropout rate

The majority of revenues from two property-tax increases went to the schools, Driscoll said. The next superintendent hired by the board of education must have a dropout plan that reaches pupils as young as fifth grade, a plan for school safety and discipline, and ideas for pursuing a financial systems merger with the city.

Driscoll says he has increased city spending on schools, but the percentage of district funding that comes from the city has fallen, Mahoney said. The mayor ought to take up offers from private-sector experts to look at the school district's books.

A lot of students drop out for nonacademic reasons, such as having to find jobs to support children or siblings, Hawkins said. The mayor should advocate for schools and find money for them but should not "micromanage" policy.

Harnessing neighbors' energy

Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today was developed with great intentions, but its sectors proved too big and facilitators were put off by feeling they were competing for funds, Driscoll said. City Hall is completing a re-evaluation of TNT and a plan is being drafted, he said.

The Driscoll administration damaged TNT when it "decimated" its planning function, Mahoney said. She said she would like to see it revived using planners from City Hall.

Hawkins said he would put TNT "on steroids" by making its territories smaller and introducing "neighborhood assemblies" and reverting to Syracuse's pre-1935 political system, with its representation by wards.

© 2005 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.

Posted by syracusegreens at October 5, 2005 11:38 PM