As Tuesday's Democratic Primary looms, the campaigns of three candidates for the Syracuse Mayoral Race were busy trying to get their word out today. In addition to fulfilling his duties as City Councilor, Pat Hogan planned on attending a rally today on a key campaign topic.
“Syracuse Firefighters have a rally at station house seven which was closed by the mayor and then there will be a kick-off rally basically to try and take back the city and put the city in a new direction starting tomorrow.”
Hogan still pledges to re-open the fire Station and the Ida Benderson Senior Center that were closed under Stephanie Miner’s Administration. Mayor Miner believes the primary is a referendum on the job she’s done…and says she’s made tough choices that were sometimes not popular, but necessary. Her tenure has allowed her to change the script for this campaign.
“Four years ago people said to me all the time you know seems like the city is dead nothing is moving, nothing is going on, often punctuated by the Destiny mall situation. Four years later people feel just the opposite there’s a lot of activity in the air, there’s a lot of activity downtown, there’s a lot of activity in our neighborhoods, there are still tremendous challenges and the difference now is I have a lot more knowledge than I did four years ago. And I also have a track record.”
Miner admits to being a little worried about turnout…but says the campaign will be reminding people to vote tomorrow. Alphonso Davis is the third candidate hoping his supporters can come out on primary day. He’s spent a lot of time pushing vocational programs to fight unemployment.
“If we really talk about trying to combat that we have to create avenues, creating avenues is creating jobs, giving them resources, real resources that they can then tap into and become successful young people as well as tax payers within the city of Syracuse to help build our coffer.”
Davis has run a largely critical campaign. He says Miner has benefitted from progress, even though little of it came from her ideas. Polls for Primary voting open tomorrow at noon.
