Public safety, racism and housing discussed by Syracuse mayoral candidates at community forum

Syracuse Mayoral Forum

The three candidates running for Syracuse mayor spoke about public safety, economic racism and housing during a forum held at Dr. King Elementary School on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. From left are Khalid Bey, Janet Burman and Ben Walsh. James McClendon | jmcclendon@syracuse.com

Syracuse, N.Y. — Public safety, economic racism and affordable housing were just some of the topics discussed Saturday by the Syracuse mayoral candidates in a community forum.

The forum — which featured Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, city councilor Khalid Bey and candidate Janet Burman — was held at the Dr. King Elementary School on East Raynor Street in Syracuse.

The Syracuse Police Accountability and Reform Coalition (SPAARC) hosted the event, which was also live streamed on the National Action Network (NAN) Syracuse Chapter Facebook page.

The forum was moderated by Shukri Mohamed, of Cuse Youth Black Lives Matter, and Yahkeef “TJ” Davis, of Black Lives Matter.

During Saturday’s forum, Walsh, Bey and Burman took turns responding to moderator and audience questions. Here are some of their responses:

All of you have indicated that public safety will be your number one priority. Are you aware of the existence of any evidence-based programs and do you plan to implement any of them in Syracuse to reduce community violence?

Bey: I am supporter of universal child care, health care and the like. I think what has to be understood is that a lot of what we see, specifically in New York State, requires collaboration between city government and county government, state and federal. It requires those partners in order for the city to effectively execute. We will certainly have to continue in our efforts to lobby our state and federal partners to attract more money so that we could adequately fund universal child care, health care and the like. I am a supporter of all those efforts. I make my best effort to empower people as much as possible.

Burman: One of the things I would like to do is to explore the possibility of extending the school day for children in the Syracuse School District. I am not talking about extending the work hours for the teachers and the staff that are in the school. But extending the time that children are in school and gaining from opportunities beyond classroom instruction. To me the schools are a great place to administer these types of programs to interrupt violence, to prevent violence, to teach children the skills to resolve conflict without violence. At the same time it has the combined benefit of providing more supervision and childcare for kids that are enrolled in school.

Walsh: All too often when we talk about public safety, we focus too much on policing. There is much more that needs to be done. We know that (violence interrupters) are proven to make our communities safer. We are lucky to have a number of different organizations that are doing different degrees of that type of work. We specifically set aside funding in our federal relief plan to fund those violence interruption efforts. We will be funding them going forward through that funding. Based on the results of that work, that is something that I am absolutely looking to make a permanent investment in on behalf of city government. We know that much of the issues around crime are rooted in socioeconomic conditions. We are always looking at best practices. I am very interested in a universal basic income. There are good programs that are working out there. We are going to invest in them and I have a track record of doing that, but we intend to do more.

What are you planning to implement to create tangible protections for citizens against slum lords?

Bey: I think it was 2016 when I initially sponsored the board of inspection legislation which purpose was to hold absentee landlords accountable. Prior to that former councilman Joe Nicoletti led the charge and many of us supported the creation of the board of administrative adjudication whose purpose was to specifically target landlords for housing violations and to find a way around the slow-moving housing courts. Issues relevant to violations would be so backed up, a person would be lucky if they found a remedy or heard from them in a two-year period. We created the board of administrative adjudication to speed up that process. Unfortunately enforcement, with all due respect, has been lackluster.

Burman: What I would do about it as mayor first of all is that my police chief would be communicating any problems with calls to a particular location. I would make sure that my director of code enforcement was an effective leader. Effective leaders set priorities and they set specific measurable goals, and then they go forward to achieve them and make it clear to the people working for them what they are expected to do. That hasn’t been done in code enforcement in decades and its about time that changed.

Walsh: We are currently hiring staff to proactively go out and inspect for lead. We are directing a significant amount of federal resources from our pandemic relief funds to abate lead. We are also using some of those funds to assist tenants dealing with the possibility of eviction. And that’s something that we started long before the pandemic. We actually had a pilot project with the Syracuse housing authority. We were able to reduce evictions by 75% in the housing authority. That’s why we are building new homes. I mentioned new homes going up on Baker and Garfield and Woodland. That’s part of our resurgent neighborhoods initiative, which is focused on building 200 new units of affordable housing in the city of Syracuse. Yes we have seen new housing go up, but much of it is not affordable. We have a housing crisis in our community and we are bringing all of the resources of city government to address it and I will not only continue those efforts but expand on them in the next four years.

What will you implement to bring about fundamental decrease in the economic disparity between black and brown residents in Syracuse and white residents?

Bey: I grew up in Brick City. We had concentrated poverty in 1971. It has always been there. When we talk about efforts to try to eliminate what redlining has created, we have to be honest about the fact that there’s a bit of an invisible redlining that still exists. I made the argument that entry-level employment is the gateway toward long-term employment for many unemployed and chronically unemployed people. It’s an easy fix, it’s a matter of will. It’s a matter of interest. Being very deliberate in our efforts to reduce unemployment. Breaking up concentrations of poverty is not eliminating poverty. Scattering people who are living in poverty around other people who are well to do, is simply trying to hide the fact that poverty still exists.

Burman: The significance of concentrated poverty is that people living in those conditions are also surrounded by crime, are facing food insecurity and are facing problems with housing insecurity. While we don’t want to take those people and sprinkle them around the county, we do need to look at what is happening. The first thing I would do is meet with the faith leaders in the communities. And discuss with them what resources they can bring to the problem. They are not all able to do much as far as providing resources because many of them are struggling for funds right now. The faith leaders have to be an important part of this. Then we go to the business leaders, and the role they can play in terms of getting people ready for employment and hiring the people we have available right now. We need to in some instances help them overcome the transportation challenges that exist. People need a way to get from Syracuse to those plants for viable employment. I would look at solutions such as going to Amazon, going to the chip manufacturer and saying if you want these people you need to buy the vans that can transport people up from the city.

Walsh: We have developed specific programs and projects to be just as intentional in undoing the affects of (historically racist) policies and programs. We are being intentional about where we are building the housing and what communities we are supporting. We are focusing on particular marginalized communities that have historically not been able to benefit from these investments. We have a significant economic opportunity with 81. That’s why we have been working so closely with our community activist and organizations to pull people together for the 81 jobs big table process which led to the creation of our pathways to apprenticeship program. We need to focus our programs very intentionally on communities that have not benefitted. That’s what we will do more of over the next four years.

More on the 2021 elections:

Staff writer James McClendon covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? Reach him at 914-204-2815 or jmcclendon@syracuse.com.

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