As a kid, Al Stirpe remembers his father getting calls at 2 a.m. Someone’s child was sick and they needed the Coke syrup from the machine in his family’s restaurant, Albert’s Restaurant.
Those childhood experiences, Stirpe says, still shape his political philosophy. “When people call and ask for your help, you do your best to help them out in their situation,” he said.
Now Stirpe, a Democrat from North Syracuse, is running to reclaim a State Assembly seat that he lost in 2010. In a rematch of that election, Stirpe faces incumbent Don Miller, R-Clay, for the 127th State Assembly District. The district includes the towns of Clay, Cicero, Manlius, Pompey, Fabius and Tully.
The election is Nov. 6.
The 127th district, formerly the 121st district, favors Republican Miller in voter enrollment. Of the district’s 90,624 voters, 31 percent are Democrats, 34 percent are Republicans, and 25 percent are unaffiliated with a political party.
As he campaigns, Stirpe portrays himself as a job-creator for Central New York and a strong supporter of residents’ needs. Others who know him well say he is always willing to listen to his constituents, he identifies with his constituents, and tries his best to meet their needs.
“I think he’s listened to all his constituents and weighed out what was best for the people of his area and voted accordingly,” Pat Costello, president of Local 43 International Brotherhood of Electrical workers, said.
Stirpe was born and raised in Clyde, N.Y., about 45 miles west of Syracuse. He graduated from University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He now lives in North Syracuse with his wife, Chele, and their daughter, Alexandra. Stirpe also has a stepson, Chris, and a stepdaughter, Jesseca.
His political career started in 2006, when he was first elected to the then-121st State Assembly District . In the next election in 2008, he beat Miller by 13,000 votes. But in 2010, Stirpe lost to Miller by 900 votes.
He blames that loss on the country’s anti-Democratic Party mood in 2010, when Republicans swept many offices across the country. “I don’t feel 2010 was a real referendum of the job I’d done. I think it was more about where the country was at,” he said.
In his two earlier terms in the Assembly, Stirpe said, he built a record that will appeal to voters. He cited bringing jobs through grants or regulation changes to SRC Tech, Seneca Data, Stickley Furniture, Robert’s Office Furniture and Concepts, and Syracuse Castings.
Local 43 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers endorses Stirpe’s campaign. Pat Costello, president, said the group supports him because of his willingness to work with the union and business to employ local workers. “He had a nice voting record that supported the needs and concerns of the people back home,” Costello said.
Patrick Mannion, former vice chief executive of Colonial Financial Group, praised Stirpe for listening to concerns about changes in insurance legislation. “He’s been very attentive to listening to true issues,” Mannion said. “He’s willing to listen to both sides of every issue.”
Both Costello and Mannion credit Stirpe with a willingness to listen and identify personally with his constituents.
For his part, Stirpe attributes that interest in constituents to his days working in the family restaurant. For example, he recalled when workers from a visiting circus would come into the restaurant. He would hand them menus. If they looked at the menus upside down, Stirpe said, he knew the men couldn’t read. So he would help them.
“You have to meet people where they are,” he said, “instead of where your expectations are.”
In his campaign, Stripe said, he’s trying to recreate that small-town sense of connection. His headquarters is a small house on Taft Road in the middle of North Syracuse. His mother-in-law cooks food for the volunteers, he said.
He has stayed in Central New York, he said, because of that feeling of closeness in geography and relationships. “I like the fact that I can be in an office downtown in Syracuse and I can drive fifteen minutes later I can be picking apples in Lafayette or at a strawberry farm in Baldwinsville,” he said. “There aren’t many places that you have those extreme opportunities.”
He credits his parents with teaching him to value helping others. “The only thing I remember my father ever telling me” recalled Stirpe, “ was, ‘The most important thing is to make sure you leave the world a little bit better place than it was when you got there.’”
(Katya Rivera is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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