From the Daily Orange
By Kevin Sajdak
It's around 9:30 p.m. as Howie Hawkins, fully donned in work boots, sweatpants and a hooded jacket, stands outside the United Parcel Service Customer Center. Armed with a stack of leaflets, Hawkins waits for the second-shift workers to leave. With about half an hour before he begins his shift, Hawkins is looking to get the word out about his candidacy for Syracuse city mayor.
He glances down at his watch.
"They should be getting off soon," he says.
The parking lot is silent with the exception of several brown delivery trucks moving around the lot.
Finally, a man walks out.
"You vote in the city?" Hawkins asks.
The man said he already knew of Hawkins and currently has a "Hawkins for Mayor" sign on his lawn.
For the next few minutes, several more people trickle out of UPS, but when approached by Hawkins, they say they don't live in Syracuse.
"They come from all over here," Hawkins explains.
Finally, two men walk out towards the parking lot.
"You guys vote in the city?" Hawkins asks.
"Oh, Howard," one says.
"Howie, you running for mayor? I'll put the word out; you're a good guy," says the other as he walks away with his leaflet.
To those familiar with Syracuse area politics, it should not be surprising that Howie Hawkins' name is on a ballot. It has been there in some capacity almost every year since 1993.
This year, Hawkins' sights are set on the Syracuse mayoral race. Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, is running against Democratic incumbent Matt Driscoll and Republican challenger Joanie Mahoney.
With little money to spend on television or radio advertisements, Hawkins is considered the underdog. But that's nothing new to the 52-year-old San Francisco native.
In 1998, Hawkins campaigned for state comptroller and lost. Hawkins ran again for the same position in 2002, but suffered a similar fate. Last November, Hawkins ran for Congress, but was defeated by Republican incumbent James Walsh.
Despite this apparent tough luck, Hawkins said things are getting better.
"I've seen progress," Hawkins said.
It would appear he's correct. In 1998, The New Times reported Hawkins received about 800 votes for his 1997 bid to become councilor at large. In his 2002 comptroller election, he got 46,006 votes across the state. According to Hawkins' campaign Web site, he acquired 18,000 votes last November. But that number includes a more than 20 percent share of Syracuse voters.
Hawkins said his opponents are preoccupied with keeping the status quo.
"I think there's a lot more Syracuse can do," he said. "The dominant strategy has been corporate welfare. It hasn't worked."
This corporate welfare Hawkins speaks of includes perhaps his most controversial platform - to halt the construction of DestiNY USA.
He said he opposed the tax breaks that businesses would get to come to Syracuse. The jobs created by the construction, he said, are primarily low-paying service or retail jobs.
The rejection of DestiNY and its proposed environmentally friendly energy might seem out of character from a candidate whose party supports a decreased dependence on fossil fuels.
"I think it's a marketing ploy," he said. "It's crap."
Instead of DestiNY, Hawkins is proposing a development strategy his party calls "Sustainable Syracuse." This plan includes a series of ecological and economic policies. The reported $35 million the city of Syracuse saves in public subsidies to bring DestiNY USA here would instead go to public works like restoring Onondaga Creek.
While Driscoll and Mahoney both offer increased police presence as a solution to crime, Hawkins has a different solution.
He recommends more job training and after-school programs to at-risk and low-income youth.
Another Hawkins platform is the emphasis on public power. According to the Syracuse Greens Web site, Syracuse residents pay four times more for electricity to Niagara Mohawk than the people of Skaneateles pay for their city-owned power utilities.
Hawkins would appear to have the political backing of at least several constituents. Ron Ehrenriech is an employee at the Syracuse Cooperative Federal Credit Union and describes Hawkins as "very intelligent."
Ehrneriech has been Hawkins' friend since 1988.
"He has a pretty long-range view of things," Ehrenreich said. "A lot of the ideas he's been advocating for years have become very popular now."
One of these problems, Ehrenreich said, is suburban sprawl.
Hawkins attended Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H., before being drafted for the Vietnam War. After Vietnam, Hawkins didn't return to school. Instead, he focused on what he likes to do - construction. In 1984, Hawkins co-founded the U.S. Green Party.
He arrived in Syracuse in 1991.
Hawkins lives alone and has never been married. In fact, his only familial tie in the Syracuse community is his sister, Renee Perry.
"I think he's just a down-to-Earth candidate," Perry said. "He really stands for what he believes in."
Whether or not Hawkins' ideals will mobilize enough people to pull off what some people would consider a political upset remains to be seen. To Ehrenreich, however, Hawkins has already beaten the odds.
"I think he's already won in that his ideas are getting serious consideration for the first time," Ehrenreich said.
Posted by syracusegreens at October 27, 2005 12:27 PM