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Green Party Candidate for School Board Places Desegregation and Diversity at the Forefront

Rob Romano/WAER News

  A number of candidates have been designated to run for the Green Party ticket in this November’s elections. Howie Hawkins will run for Syracuse City Auditor, Frank Cetera is a 2nd Common Council District hopeful, while Raymond Blackwell is running for the Syracuse City School Board.

26-year-old Blackwell wants to add more geographic diversity to the district. 

  Those who say it’s very diverse tend to only look ethnicity-wise. But when you look at socioeconomic status we’re not diverse at all. We are overwhelmed with students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch so the type of diversity that creates a learning environment is not present it’s absent”                 

Blackwell graduated from Syracuse’s Fowler High School in 2007.  He knows people see his youth as a weakness, but Blackwell says he has a lot of energy and that we need new leadership. His campaign is focusing on desegregation of the city schools and improving diversity. He adds one way to deal with these problems is with magnet schools.

We are definitely asking for funding to create magnet schools. For example, the restoration of the Central High building that has been vacant for quite some time now. I have a vision. We have a vision to restore that building and use it as a county school where you would have 60% of the population from the suburbs and 40% of it available to Syracuse City school district kids”       

Blackwell also considers the green party to be a source of new ideas which could improve the city schools. He is running for 1 of 4 seats that are being contested in November’s election.

CANDIDATES FOR COMMON COUNCIL AND CITY AUDITOR

Frank Cetera is running for a seat in the 2nd district of the Common Council that is currently held by Chad Ryan. Cetera is a certified New York State Small Business Advisor with an office on North Salina Street. He has worked alongside The Westside Residents Coalition among other organizations as a community activist, and is founder of the Alchemical Nursery, a group that works on urban landscaping projects.

Credit howiehawkins.org
Howie Hawkins is running for Syracuse City Auditor on the Green Party ticket.

  Howie Hawkins is running for Syracuse City Auditor, which is a position currently held by Marty Masterpole. Hawkins ran for Governor in 2014 and received about 5% of the vote. He is a teamster who unloads trucks at night. If elected, he wants to institute a Syracuse version of New York City's "Checkbook NYC", a tool that tracks all aspects of city spending in real time and places it in the public domain. 

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.