Donna Marsh O’Connor
Growing up, Donna Marsh O’Connor was going to be a writer. She never wanted to go into politics.
“It was the last thing I thought I would do,” said O’Connor. “I always thought I would be writing and teaching.”
She still teaches rhetoric and writing at Syracuse University. But now, O’Connor also sits on the Liverpool School Board and is seeking her first term on Onondaga County Legislature.
For the County Legislature, O’Connor, a Democrat, is running against Republican John Dougherty to represent District 2. Also on the ballot David Stewart for the Independence Party. But he’s declared he’s not campaigning and supports the Republican, Dougherty.
O’Connor and Dougherty candidates look to fill the seat of longtime legislator Bernard Kraft, who died in July. District 2 includes the Bayberry area, the Route 57 corridor, Liverpool, and west Clay.
The election is Nov. 3.
In her campaign for the District 2 seat, O’Connor highlights her experience as a teacher and school board member. And she describes herself as a fiscal conservative. “People are sick of the same old politician. I’m not a lawyer or businessperson per se,” said O’Connor. “But I think I’m unusual and different and necessary.”
O’Connor was born in Bronx, N.Y., and she attributes a lot of her straightforward attitude to her upbringing. “My father was brutally honest,” said O’Connor, “you tell the truth, you don’t hedge, and you don’t put flowers on things. You take it with a grain of salt, you recognize your weakness, laugh it off and go forward — I guess I brought that with me to Upstate New York.”
O’ Connor has called Syracuse home for the last 27 years. She came here for graduate school after receiving a bachelor’s degree from SUNY-Oswego. She took courses towards a master’s degree at Syracuse University in its writing program. She lives in Liverpool with her husband, Robert, and their two sons, James and Jackson.
Her daughter, Vanessa, was killed during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York. Vanessa was working in the second World Trade Center at the time. O’Connor is now a member of the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization that advocates change in government policies on war.
Her political involvement isn’t because of her daughter’s death, she says. But she acknowledges that the tragedy has made her realize her passion for helping others.
In the classroom, O’Connor says, she’s not scared to talk about controversial issues like race and class. And it’s this refusal to shy away from hard questions, she says, she’ll bring to the political field.
“I know how to ask the questions,” said O’Connor, “that gets people to thinking more deeply about issues and priorities.”
Issues and priorities like money. As an example, O’Connor cites the October announcement by County Executive Joanie Mahoney that Onondaga County faces a $4.1 million budget deficit. Mahoney plans to lay off 51 county workers and cut the hours, and paychecks, of 2,149 others.
That dismays, O’Connor, though she has not said she’ll fight the cutbacks. “We’re not just talking about numbers,” O’Connor said. “We’re talking about how we want to live our lives, our values.”
The deficit has people asking why Mahoney didn’t know about the financial situation the county now finds itself in, O’Connor says. “If the county exec says you really didn’t know there would be a multi-million-dollar gap — then someone or someone around her is being less than honest,” she argued.
On the Liverpool School Board, O’Connor’s tenacity has won points with her colleagues. She follows up with what she promises, says Democrat Patricia Mouton, president of the school board. Each of the board members serves as a liaison to a school in the Liverpool School District. One of O’Connor’s schools had received multiple complaints about one of their teachers.
“She saw it was taken care of and didn’t drop the issue, even when she was moved to being liaison at another school,” Mouton said. “She kept up with that issue to make sure it was taken care of — and it was.”
O’Connor spent weeks talking to the teacher, principal, and superintendent.
“Donna’s very persistent at getting to the truth,” said Republican Joe Unangst, Liverpool education commissioner. “She looks at things with respect to whether they’re right or wrong — not Republican or Democrat, or left or right. She’s an activist and hard-working person that’s trying to get the right things done.”
In November, he’s crossing party lines, he said, to vote for O’Connor.
On fiscal policies, O’Connor stressed what she calls shared responsibility across income groups. Employees should try to take pay cuts before people are laid off, she says, and pay cuts should be made from the top down.
“We have to make sure we don’t cut jobs from families,” she said. “We need to be responsible with people’s resources and people’s lives.
As for her pursuit of politics, O’Connor says she just wants to make a difference. “ I want to have done something good,” she says, “something that’s more than just good for my own family.”
(Jessica Shaw is senior finance and broadcast journalism major.)
(This story corrects the status of O’Connor’s graduate studies at SU and corrects the amount of the budget gap she cites as “multi-million-dollar.”)
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