Robinson is running unopposed for the Common Council president seat
Bea Gonzalez has yet to cast a single vote in eight years as president of the Syracuse Common Council.
“The one time there was a tie,” she recalls, “I was on vacation.”
Breaking a tie is the only chance the Common Council president has to vote, according the Syracuse City Charter. That makes the office unusual among the nine other councilors.
Democrat Van Robinson is running unopposed to succeed Gonzalez in the Nov. 3 election. Robinson has been an at-large councilor for eight years. He can’t seek another term as an at-large councilor and Gonzalez can’t run again for council president because of term limits.
The president’s other responsibilities include meeting regularly with the mayor and Council leadership, deciding on committee assignments for councilors and reviewing proposals on which the Council will make decisions. The council president becomes mayor if the sitting mayor cannot finish his or her term.
It is not unusual for a city council president to have a significantly different role than other members, said Kristi Andersen, political science professor at Syracuse University.
“The bigger cities in New York operate under some different governing rules than do smaller towns,” Andersen said. “Because of the city’s size, it can make legislative sense to have a nonvoting member, as they do in Syracuse.”
In the upcoming election, Robinson brings a resume of political and civic work. Before being elected to the Council, Robinson was president of the Syracuse/Onondaga County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — or NAACP — and an executive for the insurance company, GHI.
If elected, Robinson will become the first African-American to serve as Council president.
Robinson did not respond to four requests for interviews for this story.
Robinson’s vision for Syracuse includes tearing down the Interstate-81 overpass downtown, he told the Syracuse New Times. He wants to continue the economic development around North Salina Street. He is a supporter of the Destiny USA project of building a mega-mall at the Carousel Center.
Gonzalez, the outgoing president, praises Robinson’s experience. “He knows the workings of City Hall really well,” Gonzalez said. “So he will make the most of it.”
For her own tenure, Gonzalez expresses pride in her accomplishments. Gonzalez was appointed in July 2001 after then-Council President, Matthew Driscoll, became mayor.
She has presided over more than 200 meetings.
But one stands out more than the others: a 2007 special-session vote on the Destiny project. Four councilors were upset with tax breaks given to the Destiny project’s sponsors. Those councilors hired lawyers to challenge the mayor’s authority to make the deal. They wanted to sue to give the Council more power.
But, Gonzalez recalls, she didn’t think the councilors could win the lawsuit. She forced the vote, she said, so that the Council could move on. “I couldn’t understand why we would waste money, precious dollars, on a lawsuit,” Gonzalez said. She added, “It was the defining moment of my presidency.”
She is proud of that session, Gonzalez said, because it was an example of one of the Council president’s responsibilities: holding councilors accountable to voters.
“It was a moment in this city when people saw government and decision-making out in the open,” Gonzalez said. “And that is why we have this office.”
(Dan Scorpio is a junior with dual majors in newspaper journalism and political science.)
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