“Definitely the roads. The pot-holes are wicked bad. I live in the suburbs and they’re bad out there too. The whole city is really bad with pot-holes.”
(Brad Chrantz, of the Eastside neighborhood in Syracuse, unaffiliated with a political party, 24, hotel employee in Syracuse)
“I think one of the major things should be looked at is the — not only light synchronization but to look at the obsoleteness of some of the stops that are apparent here in the city. The inordinate amount of time that the lights remain on red in an intersection … It’s something that should have been done a long time ago. Two mayors prior to, said that was one of the things they claimed they were going to fix, but I don’t see any changes. Stephanie can do something about it—it’s a minor thing—it’s just a couple of real aggravating areas where this happens and it backs traffic up terribly.”
(Ernie Mosier, 61, of the Sedgwick neighborhood in Syracuse, unaffiliated with a political party, van and industrial truck driver for 15 years)
“I would like to see money given back to the schools. They took a lot of money from the schools over the last two years. A couple of schools don’t have a music program anymore. I think that’s a big, huge deal not having the arts in the school, and that’s a huge problem. Kids not able to play an instrument or explore their artistic abilities are really left out, and it’s really unfortunate. Schools are way more important than the roads or anything else. This means a lot to me, since I have a 13-year-old and a 7-year-old… in Huntington, so they’re in the city school district.”
(Kiki Simmons, 32, of theWest Side neighborhood of Syracuse Democrat, supermarket cashier)
“They need more businesses downtown. There’s no place to go down there. There used to be a restaurant on Salina– The Taste of India– that closed down and moved to Liverpool… That place was really nice. There used to be a café right next door to the Landmark. Thatt closed down. It closes down so early downtown now.”
(Autumn Utley, 23, of Syracuse, hostess, unaffiliated with a political party)
“The public transportation system here is good. I’m not happy that they cut some lines and routes. I know they cut them going to DeWitt. They cut them going to Camillus. The out of the city ones they’re cutting. Those are the ones, I thought, that they would need more of.”
(Gladys Utley, 56, of Syracuse, Democract, works at Subway)
(Joe Frandino is a senior with dual majors in political science and newspaper journalism.)
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