Green Pathways Out of Poverty

Syracuse has the 3rd highest poverty rate and the highest black poverty rate of the 100 largest US cities.

A Citywide Minimum Wage that is a Living Wage
Expand to existing Living Wage Ordinance to cover all workers in the city through a citywide minimum wage, as Santa Fe, New Mexico has done. Attach to the new Living Wage Ordinance minority and city resident hiring goals for all jobs with the city and city contractors and a Community Hiring Hall to help reach those goals.

Raise Minority Employment Goals from 10% to 40%
People of color and city residents dont get their fair share of jobs with the city and city contractors. Raise employment goals to reflect Syracuses people of color population.

Community Hiring Hall
Require city departments and contractors to hire qualified workers from a Community Hiring Hall if they cannot meet minority and city resident employment goals. The Community Hiring Hall will provide job counseling, placement, training, and support services to help people get into and stay in training programs and jobs.

Crime Prevention through Youth Jobs and Recreation
Open and staff schools and parks nights, weekends, and summers.

Stop the "War on Drugs" and Mass Incarceration
Redirect the $6-8 million the city spends on enforcing drug laws to harm reduction and prevention efforts. Treat drug abuse as a health problem, not a criminal problem.

Development Without Displacement and Gentrification
Development should raise up low-income people, not remove them through rising property values that price people with limited incomes out of their neighborhoods. Protect existing residents through Inclusionary Zoning and Community Benefit Agreements that require developers to build affordable housing and through Community Land Trusts that enable neighborhoods as a whole to benefit from rising land values.

Rebuild Syracuse Green

Green Job Corps and Green Tech Training Center
Create unionized green jobs through public works to restore Onondaga Creek and retrofit our energy, transportation, housing, water, sewage, and waste recycling infrastructure for economic and ecological sustainability in an era of rising energy costs and global warming. Build a partnership among unions, community organizations, contractors, manufacturers, and the city to provide a skilled workforce for green tech sectors through a Green Tech Training Center and Green Job Corps at the Community Hiring Hall, especially for at-risk youth and ex-offenders.

Public Power for Affordable, Green Energy
Syracusans pay four times more for electricity to National Grid than the people in Solvay and Skaneatales pay to their city-owned power companies. Replace National Grid with a public power utility to cut energy costs, restore responsive customer service, and build city-owned clean, renewable energy sources.

A Municipal Bank for Community-Owned Enterprises
Redirect corporate welfare for absentee owners into public investment in community-owned enterprises: cooperatives, resident owner-operated businesses, and corporations where voting shares are restricted to city residents. Create a Municipal Development Bank to help plan, finance, and advise community-owned enterprises.

Model Green Neighborhood in the Inner Harbor
Develop the inner harbor neighborhood into an ecologically sustainable neighborhood with homes, schools, parks, jobs, and shopping within walking distance. Require developers of the Inner Harbor to meet the US Green Building Councils highest Platinum Standard for its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development, including the maximum points for affordable housing.

Fair Taxes to Fund City & Schools

The poorest 20% pay 14% of their income in sales and property taxes while the wealthiest 20% pay only 7%.

Fully Funded Public Schools
Fight for a fair statewide school funding formula. Commit to a regular annual increase in the city contribution to the school budget.

City Income and Commuter Tax
A progressively graduated city income tax, including a tax on the 40,000+ commuters.

Progressive Property Taxes through Land Value Taxation
Cut the property tax, make it progressive, and stimulate inner-city development by taxing only land values, not improvements like homes and businesses.

Grassroots Democracy and Proportional Representation

Neighborhood Assemblies
Neighborhood Assemblies in the 25 or so real city neighborhoods where each resident has a voice and vote in planning neighborhood development, guiding the local delivery of city services, participatory city budgeting, and electing neighborhood representatives to Common Council, the school board, and other city boards and commissions.

Fair Elections
Instant Runoff Voting for single seats like District Councilor and Mayor. Proportional Representation in Common Council Elect district councilors from the Neighborhood Assemblies and an equal number of at-large councilors by party vote so the overall composition of the council is proportional to each partys vote.

Democratic Community Media
A citizen-elected board to govern PEG (public, educational, government) channels and a public access video and web-based media creation center, well-funded by franchise fees. Broadcast meetings of city council, school board, county legislature, and public commissions and hearings. Broadcast more diverse news sources like Democracy Now, Aljazeera English, France 24, and BBC World. Provide universal community access to internet. Negotiate these community media provisions into the Time-Warner franchise up for renewal in 2007, or start a municipally-owned telecommunications utility that will provide democratic community media.

Syracuse for Peace, Freedom & The Enviornment

The federal government is wasting money on war and militarism, restricting our rights and freedoms, and failing to address people?s basic needs and the global warming crisis. It is time for the Common Council to join many other cities in resolutions calling on our federal representatives to:

Stop the War and Bring the Troops Home

Restore the Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties

Repeal the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. End warrantless email and phone surveillance, secret detentions, arrests without charges, secret ?evidence,? no access to lawyers, military tribunals for civilians, and ?extraordinary rendition? to the CIA?s global network of torture centers. Restore the right to habeas corpus.

Cut the Military Budget and Invest the Peace Dividend in Schools, Jobs, Housing, Green Energy, & Ending Poverty