“I live in a nice neighborhood. On the other hand it’s surrounded by neighborhoods where things aren’t as nice. Violence in the city is a real scary thing. I mean young children shooting and stabbing each other on a regular basis—it’s, it’s almost like, is this really our city that this could be happening in?”
(Thom Green, 47, of Holly Green neighborhood of Syracuse, hairstylist, Democrat)
“I want just a huge public works program that will employ folks from the central districts, 24 and 25, where only 25percent of the people have high school educations and where unemployment is ramping. There are blocks in Syracuse where no one has a job.”
(Walt Shepperd, 68, political writer for the city Eagle, independent)
“Well, I like to see them concentrate more on the city and more on issues here in Syracuse, to clean up the city and make it more attractive for the students to come down and feel safe down here. This is a very big issue.”
(Angelique Mango, 53, of Syracuse, owner of Way off the Beaten Path in Armory Square, Democrat)
“I would like development in the city to be more organized. And I would like this neighborhood, Armory Square, to be much more careful about whom they rent to. That is, not chains but local people.”
(Tom Cunningham, 65, of the Westcott neighborhood of Syracuse, Democrat)
“School funding is big because I have three sons — so the school is very big for me and making sure that they have money in schools as far as for athletics, football, just so the kids have something to do. Because that helps my kids tremendously, as far as keeping them out of trouble and just having them focus on something other than, you know the things that kids can get distracted with nowadays.”
(Damian McKenzie Sr., 33, of Syracuse, department manager of the Wireless Center in the Camillus Wal-Mart, Democrat)
(Silvia Milanova is a senior in newspaper journalism and nutrition.)
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