From right to left: Raman Shetty, Dominique Felder, Ian Pratt, Marian Berda and Barbara McClinton (Mojgan Sherkat-Massoom)
“Basically taxes, taxes, and taxes in New York state. There are too many taxes — sales tax. When you run a business, it’s like there’s no break. If the government had a program which, where they would back small businesses and work with banks, then we could create a lot of jobs, number one, and also small businesses won’t shut-down.”
(Raman Shetty, 50, of Syracuse, owner of Subway in Armory Square, unaffiliated with a party)
“I feel like the government is not doing their job as far as helping people out that want to do something with themselves. Instead they’re helping out a lot of people that have a whole bunch of babies and that’s not willing to work and stuff. I just think it’s a debauched Republican system that’s trying to set people back — positive people back. They don’t want to see, especially like, well, I don’t like the word minorities. But you know especially like people that’s poor or they’re considered to be a minority — black, Latinos, or whatever. I think that they don’t want us to come up — it’s like the survival of the fittest or the strong versus the weak.”
(Dominique Felder, 24, of Syracuse’s Southside, substitute teacher’s assistant in the Syracuse City School District, Democrat)
“I personally don’t understand the whole teaching, job loss thing myself. Anyone you talk to is — they’re concerned about larger classrooms. There’s too many students for the amount of teachers that there are. But we are laying off teachers left and right and you know we’re closing school. I just can’t understand that. The biggest concern is that children aren’t actually getting the attention that they need. But no one is taking into account that we’re also getting rid of teachers every day.”
(Ian Pratt, 35, of Syracuse, a cook at Tully’s restaurant, Republican)
“Well, living in Central New York, I think you know just like the rest of the nation- jobs are our main concern. Our unemployment rate is high, we’re losing more services in our neighborhoods and our towns and stuff.”
(Marian Berda, 52, of Syracuse’s Westside, works at SU’s Study Abroad Program, Democrat)
“I know from being at Dunkin’ Donuts this bus system is crazy. Like right here in the middle of nowhere- they really need a bus terminal. From watching the bus system, I see that there is a lot of crime going on. We watched an elderly lady being victimized by some young youths the other night. They really need to centrally locate the busing system. Here it’s too chaotic.”
(Barbara McClinton, 47, of Syracuse, Dunkin’ Donuts employee, Democrat)
(Mojgan Sherkat is a broadcast and digital journalism graduate student.)
-30-
