Hawkins will fight for jobs, seniors and working people

November 04, 2011

To the Editor:

Howie Hawkins has been tirelessly working on behalf of our community for more than 20 years, and he knows what we need.

Parents need a better education for their children. The unemployed need a living wage and a fair share of city jobs. Seniors need a community center that won’t close because of budget cuts. Renters and homeowners need a public power supply and the freedom to choose renewable sources of energy. Bikers need bike lanes and bus riders need to not worry about their route stopping or fares increasing.

Hawkins understands that we need to fight back, not cut back on our schools, our jobs and our future.

If you want true representation in government, vote for Hawkins for 4th District councilor on Tuesday.

Ranjana Venkatesh
Syracuse

Community Ownership & Endorsement Of Howie Hawkins

Saving Our City: A New Development Paradigm for the Common Council
by David G. Van Arsdale
November 4, 2011

The exodus of middle-class industrial jobs from CNY and the subsequent growth of low-pay, part-time and temporary work, has devastated economic progress for ordinary citizens. Urban working-class communities have been especially hard hit, as those with resources fled for brighter skies, concentrating poverty, or at the very least its impact, among those that stayed. Syracuse is now home to some of the most concentrated urban poverty in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau.

Our City is at a critical cross-road and has to make a decision. If it wants to build strong schools and communities it has to find a development model that can reverse the plight of poverty with good paying, secure jobs. The Destiny model certainly failed on a number of fronts, highlighted by the fact that most dollars spent there get sucked-out of the region by its multinational tenants. The development by education and medicine paradigm has better served the region and needs to continue; though most new employees in those sectors are highly educated newcomers to CNY, not Syracuse’s working-class communities. Furthermore, many of those employees select to protect their assets by living in “better-off” neighborhoods, outside the City, which obviously does not help the city’s tax base.

There is yet another model, however, that could bring back middle-class job growth in our City. The model is experiencing success in other post-industrial cities like Syracuse. It’s the community-ownership model.

This model rests on the pillar that community-owned enterprises remain committed to the overall health of their communities. The NFL’s Green Bay Packers are often cited as a successful example in the model. With shares of the team sold as non-appreciating investments in a community corporation, the Packers can never leave Green Bay, a city of only 100,000. Other community-owned enterprises exist in a variety of work sectors, for example, the Vida Verde Cleaning Cooperative of Massachusetts, the worker-owned Home Health Care Cooperative of Brooklyn, NY, and the Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland, offering employment in agriculture, laundry, and solar energy. Workers in these enterprises earn middle-class incomes and their jobs are quite stable, given that they decide democratically how to compete and remain local.

The community-owned model also includes small ownership groups who sign-on to public charters and community-based banks and investment firms. While Syracuse might need some time to manifest a community-owned national sports team (I vote bringing back the Nationals), three decisions that the common council could manifest immediately include: 1) making illegal the selling of underemployed workers in the City through employment agencies like Labor Ready and Kelly Services and replacing such for-profit labor brokers with worker-owned hiring halls; 2) create a resolution supporting the transfer and development of vacant factory space into community-owned enterprise; and 3) endorse the creation of a municipal development bank – the sort of bank that could fund community-owned enterprise and the return of a this time city-owned Syracuse Nationals.

Sure, other things can and should be done to make our urban neighborhoods more livable: 81 can come down and noise and pollution barriers should go up along 690. But nothing can improve the quality of life in our urban neighborhoods more, more quickly and more evenly, than creating good paying sustainable jobs for the residents of the neighborhoods. This is how you build a real city budget with the power to improve the lives of all residents. This model should be enacted by the common council. And with any luck, if Howie Hawkins finds his way to the council this year, there will be a strong voice for the community-owned paradigm, a model that can save our city.

Former GSO president endorses Howie Hawkins for Common Council

Letter to the Editor
Wednesday, November 2, 2011

As a former Graduate Student Organization president from 1997-98, I think the university community should take a long, warm look at voting for Howie Hawkins (Row F for future, on the bottom line) for the upcoming Common Council race on Tuesday.

Hawkins understands that we need a progressive agenda for this city to avoid bankruptcy. He understands issues like snow removal, absentee landlord "fails" and the need for better bus service and a bike/pedestrian friendly place to live. He wants a community hiring hall; a municipal development bank to promote fair hiring for those without "connections" at City Hall; and to promote the creation of living wage jobs at least $13 an hour plus health care. Both ideas have worked elsewhere.

In addition to his previous campaigns, including the Living Wage Campaign, now law, and the Citizen Review Board, now law, he has promoted clean, affordable energy through a municipal power company like in Solvay, N.Y., where residents pay less than half of what we pay. In some cases, off-campus student households pay as much as 50 percent of their monthly rent on their heating bill.

Finally, he has his eye on the ball and does his homework. He is focused on making the top 1 percent in this state, namely millionaires, pay their fair share so the 99 percent of us don't have to continue to lay off hundreds of teachers; cut crime-preventing, after-school programs; and cut two fire fighters and police officers from every shift. He says that the city has to speak up for itself and fight back. Hawkins also cares about the necessity of speech and assembly rights on and off campus for a healthy democracy, despite the troubling patterns that seem to persist.

Voting locations include SU's Bird Library, Erwin First Methodist Church on Euclid Avenue, Ed Smith Elementary on Broad Street or the Petit Branch Library on Victoria Place off of Westcott Street. In previous elections, the campus community has determined who wins, so if you decide to vote, you will decide who wins. The Post-Standard endorsed Howie Hawkins, saying, "His progressive ideas, common-sense approach and undaunted quest for an opportunity to serve make him the stronger candidate." It's time.

Zac Moore
GSO President, 1997-98

Students should vote for Howie Hawkins for Common Council

Letter to the Editor
November 2, 2011

Tuesday is Election Day. This may surprise some of you because local elections often go unnoticed. But the interesting and most important fact is that, in local elections, your vote actually counts. Syracuse University students rarely vote in local Syracuse elections, but the decisions made in our local government directly affect the lives of students.

This year, the common councilor position for District 4 is at stake. This district encompasses the campus and all the outlying, off-campus housing. In this district, the student voice matters a great deal — we are important because of our sheer population size. We all might as well vote, as we do live in this city for the majority of the year, and voting takes literally less than 10 minutes. The city has even recognized the importance of the student vote and has created a voting center right in E.S. Bird Library.

Now the question is: who to vote for? In this particular election, there is no Republican running, so now is the perfect time for a third-party candidate to be given the chance to prove himself. Howie Hawkins is the Green Party candidate, and he has dedicated more than 20 years of his life toward social issues plaguing our city. Hawkins has concrete ideas for ways to improve our economy, our jobs, our environment and the lives of students.

He proposes that the rich pay their fair share of taxes so schools and senior centers can remain adequately funded. He has been fighting for a living wage so that those who have jobs can actually support themselves and their families. He is also environmentally conscious — he wants a publicly owned power supply so we can all choose renewable sources of energy for our homes. But Hawkins has also never neglected the student community. He wants to reform our inadequate system of bike lanes and to expand and make our bus system more useful. Hawkins understands that students have been paying far too much for our utilities, and our off-campus housing areas are dominated by slumlords.

For those who sympathize or are active in the Occupy movement, consider this: Hawkins has been a working man all his life, he is an ally of the poor and underrepresented and does not accept corporate donations. He is the 99 percent and will continue his lifelong fight against the 1 percent.

Hawkins has been an activist his entire life, and he deserves our respect and our vote. Vote for the Green Party on Tuesday

Ranjana Venkatesh
Senior in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and College of Arts and Sciences

Bey-Hawkins debate scheduled for tonight

The Post-Standard
November 1, 2011

To the Editor:

Many Syracuse University and SUNY ESF students are unaware of the issues concerning the city and the district they live in. We at NYPIRG are trying to change that.

We have registered about 400 students this semester, and now encourage them to vote Nov. 8. The next step is educating students on local politics.

At 6 p.m. today in Watson Theater, NYPIRG is hosting a debate between Howie Hawkins and Khalid Bey, candidates for the Common Council’s 4th District seat. Hawkins, of the Green Party, and Bey, of the Democratic and Working Families parties, will debate issues of the district that includes the university neighborhood.

The debate will focusing on job creation, education, taxes and public safety, but students and the public will be able to ask about what concern them most.

Mallory Lang
NYPIRG Voter Mobilization and Government Reform Intern
Syracuse