Syracuse city residents gathered at the South Side Innovation Center on South Salina Street on Monday evening to discuss community concerns during a Q&A and panel session with local officials, including Mayor Ben Walsh. 

NewsChannel 9’s Jennifer Sanders spoke with Walsh in a Q&A and moderated the panels, which consisted of different sets of local officials. Walsh stopped taking questions after the first panel. 

South Side residents discussed issues such as crime prevention, housing and the state of the city’s education system during the nearly two-hour event. 

Angela Wright, the chair of the Voter Task Force, said the goal of the event was to get solution-based answers to problems. 

Given the recent gun violence, Sanders, along with residents in attendance, were quick to press Walsh and other panelists about how to mitigate city crime.  

“I need the streets to be safe for my kids,” Common Council member Latoya Allen said during the second panel. “And for everybody else.” 

Some residents asked about community policing. Residents had previously called for satellite police stations in different areas, Walsh said, but he added that many of these satellite stations would be understaffed, something that could be dangerous for the city.   

“The worst thing that we can do, and have done, is to open up a (satellite) station, and then have it sit as another vacant storefront in our neighborhood business districts,“ Walsh said. 

As the search for a new police chief continues, Walsh said that his administration is now in a vetting process. He said the administration is on target to find a new police chief by the end of the year.  

Walsh praised the Syracuse City School District’s improvement over the past year despite residents’ concerns about the district’s low ranking among New York state’s major cities. English language arts and math scores have improved by 2 percent throughout the city, he said. He added that a summer jobs program created 1,000 jobs for local youths. 

Still, the district was ranked fourth out of five major cities within New York state, Sanders said. Walsh was quick to call this result “unacceptable,” but pointed out barriers, including housing instability, lead poisoning and hunger, that put students at a disadvantage. 

The test scores don’t indicate that Syracuse’s students or teachers are incapable to teach or learn compared to people in suburban districts, he added. 

“We have some of the best schools and best teachers and best students anywhere,” Walsh said. 

As Walsh opened the floor to questions from the audience after the first panel, Midland Avenue resident Aggie Lane expressed concern about the construction workers renovating the Interstate 81 viaduct. She noted that the private construction companies are utilizing mostly white, male workers, which she didn’t feel accurately reflected the city’s diverse population. 

“We want our city to be built by city residents,” she told the panel.  

Phil Turner, a local pastor, expressed a need for gun control throughout the city. Sanders pointed out the amount of vacant housing on the South Side. Another attendee expressed a need for college graduates to stay in the Syracuse area and contribute to the workforce. 

Walsh finished taking questions after the first panel, but multiple common councilors, public workers, current Syracuse Police Department Chief Frank Fowler and Department of Public Works Commissioner Jeremy Robinson took more questions from the audience.  

After the panels, Wright said that the city’s budget will be released at the end of October. The panels and forums were a way to advocate for funds that can help fix issues addressed during the forum and for residents of the South Side to meet the mayor.

Published on October 2, 2018 at 12:18 am

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326