By Ken Jackson
Syracuse City Eagle
Election day is less than a week away and the contest for Syracuse mayor is going down as a historic match up. Will Matt Driscoll win? Will Bea Gonzalez hold on to the Common Council presidency?
Did Green Candidate Howie Hawkins' Sustainable Syracuse plan resonate with those who've felt left out of the political process? Oh, so many questions.
I'll offer a few observations heading into the final days of a campaign that's heating up by the hour. Regardless of the numbers on Election Day 2005, Howie Hawkins has won.
How's that you say? Well Hawkins has brought his ideas into the mainstream community. Never before has a mayoral candidate addressed issues of people who at one time were represented by a progressive Democratic party. Democrats were famous for bringing blacks into decision-making positions. Not this Democrat. Driscoll's mouth says yes but his diversity activity says no.
If Driscoll loses the election, political pundits will attempt to call Hawkins a spoiler for providing an option to voters who've long grown tired of the two-party system playing catch with political office from party to party, generation to generation.
Neighborhood people realize that it doesn't matter what's build down by the lake if our neighborhoods aren't vibrant, economically sustainable entities. Hawkins' plan calls for real community involvement similar to the way Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today was supposed to work. In other cities, the neighborhoods can have budgetary input, determine what priorities are important in their particular area. You know: kinda like a democracy.
Whether Destiny USA happens or not, Syracuse is in need of new ideas, ideas that recognize that this city can't just exist on big-box development alone. As a kid I worked inmost of the businesses on Marshall Street on University Hill. That world doesn't exist anymore. A neighborhood kid can't find a job when all entry-level jobs have fled to the suburbs where transportation for an inner-city kid is almost impossible.
Even with the designation of being in an economic development zone you'd be hard pressed to find an Armory Square merchant taking advantage of the benefits of hiring inner-city residents.
This is a city where 30 percent of our residents are poor. Not just broke, but poor. And those who make the decisions have sashayed around this city for more than four years telling us that, "help is on the way." Help is not on the way. Millions of dollars that could have been used for neighborhood economic development were left sitting on the table while the affected community plays host to venues known as Crack Alley, a formerly wooded area taken down after Syracuse United Neighbors staged a protest.
I'll say it again: If you look at cities across America, you see more and more blacks in policy-making positions. Not in Syracuse. It seems like Syracuse City Hall under the ethnically challenged Driscoll administration has no one at a policy level that can bring diversity issues to his attention.
At a recent debate, the mayor spoke with pride about the city's minority business goals achieving 20 percent, my question is how can the mayor hold contractors to a goal that he doesn't meet for his upper-level administration?
One thing you can say about Howie Hawkins and his campaign for mayor: He's caused people to think about something other than Coke and Pepsi. He's truly the Un-Cola candidate. He deserves serious consideration.
Ken Jackson is editor and publisher of Urban CNY and a Syracuse resident.