Left to right: Charlie Crafts, Jordan Spear, Luke Bassette (Jennifer Sheppard)
“I know her personally. And I live in the city. And I voted for her, but my most humble opinion is that she’s a little bit too legal…I think she needs to let companies just be companies and grow and hire new employees and not put restraining orders on them and reasons they can’t do things…If somebody comes to you with a plan that I have a small business and I want to buy this plot of land next door and I want to add on and I will add 30 more employees to it. Let the guy do it.”
(Bob Sisson, 60-plus, of Southside Syracuse, small business owner, registered Republican)
“I think cleaning up the city is really important. I mean, you’d have to change the citizens in order to do that, but I think that would be really important…Here’s an idea: Instead of charging me a fine when I don’t snow plow the sidewalk that you made me have, why don’t you hire somebody to do it, since I’m paying taxes on it?
(Luke Bassette, 25, of the Tipp Hill neighborhood, Army veteran, registered as a member of the Independence Party)
“She should push more with the whole Destiny USA thing. That would definitely help with the whole economy and jobs. Also, renovating downtown Syracuse. We have a huge college here. we should have a big tourist area.”
(Jordan Spear, 20, of West Side Syracuse, waitress, not registered to vote)
“Number one: She should support the arts community, wholeheartedly. Basically, get the culture established that will allow Syracuse to operate the way it used to: with a little pride. Until they develop a culture and people can care about Syracuse that doesn’t have anything to do with basketball, then they’ll probably move forward by supporting the arts and all of the co-relative entities go with it, like the economy and jobs.”
(Charlie Crafts, 60-plus, of North Side Syracuse, registered Democrat)
“She needs to look for ways to build more of a cooperative relationship with the city’s school district. She really needs to look at making the environment in the city more attractive to out-of-the-city businesses, current businesses to move into the city and invest here. Genuinely making herself available to input from the residents that live in the city, in particular, really listen to people and what they need to happen for this city to continue to be an attractive place for people to live and invest.”
(Sam Gammon, 40-plus, of the Syracuse University area, business manager of Peaceful Schools, registered Democrat)
(Jennifer Sheppard is a graduate student in magazine-newspaper-online journalism.)
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