A familiar name and face is looking to return to the Syracuse Common Council. Democrat Pat Hogan is seeking his old second district seat, which he held for eight years before term limits forced him out in 2013. The wide-open seat covers the Northwestern area of Syracuse. Hogan says his door-to-door campaign strategy is important when connecting with constituents.
“People and the families sort of know me and they will call you and you have to address those problems. It’s real politics, it’s neighborhood politics, making sure you have advocate for the neighborhoods,” said Hogan.
Hogan says he wants to focus on issues like crime, education, and the Syracuse STEAM programs as a part of the city’s economic growth initiative. City voters will be deciding on whether or not to have a non-partisan independent commission of residents create new council district boundaries after the 2020 census. Hogan would like to see all councilors represent a district.
“Usually all the constituent concerns go to the district councilors, which is all well and good, but sometimes in particularly a second council district we have eight different neighborhoods, they all have different concerns. I think if we had nine district councilors, I would think that would be a better accountability and I think might lead to a more diverse council too” said Hogan.
Hogan currently serves as chair of the board for the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency. He’s confident he will be able to handle both positions.
“I don’t for see any kind of conflicts between my chairmanship of OCIDA and the current city administration because we’ll be dong projects mostly outside the city. I talked to lawyers for all the entities involved and nobody said I can’t serve as OCIDA chair, plus be a vice chair of the land bank” said Hogan.
The Green Party’s Bill Bass is also on the ballot, but he didn’t respond to interview requests. On his facebook page, Bass signed theFair Maps redistricting pledge in October and supports localizing half of the jobs for the upcoming I-81 construction project.
