Top Row: Incumbents Michael Heagerty (WF-District 1), Patrick Hogan (D-District 2), Ryan McMahon (R -District 3), Tom Seals (D-District 4); Middle Row: Republican Matthew Rayo (District 1), Green Party Candidate Howie Hawkins (District 4), Democrat Nader Maroun (District 5), Democrat Dorothy Matthews (District 3); Bottom Row: Republican Fanny Villareal, Democrat Lance Denno, Democrat Jean Kessner; Not Pictured: Republican Tristan Daedalus (running for District 5 seat)
For city voters, the November election offers choices in almost all the Syracuse Common Council races.
All eight Syracuse Common Council seats are up for election. Of those, six are contested. The election is Nov. 3.
“We have very competitive races ahead of us and we want to make sure we can do what we can to win,” said Diane M. Dwire, chairwoman of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee.
The Onondaga County Republican Party did not respond to requests for information for this story.
Syracuse is a heavily Democratic city with Democrats holding seven of the eight seats. The GOP has only one seat, held by Ryan McMahon in Common Council District 3 in the far southern part of the city. But the party is fielding candidates in five races.
Democrats have 38,863 registered voters, or 57 percent. Republicans account for 12,980 voters, or 17 percent.
For the Common Council, two races are not contested. In District 2, the incumbent Democrat Pat Hogan is unopposed. Also unopposed is the Democratic candidate for Common Council president, Van Robinson.
The ballot will also include candidates for Syracuse mayor. In the mayoral primaries on Sept. 15, Stephanie Miner won the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side, Steve Kimatian beat the party’s designated candidate, Otis Jennings. Jennings is on the ballot and campaigning as the Conservative Party candidate.
The candidates will most likely focus on a highly localized campaigning because of the small size of their districts, said Thomas Raven, an assistant professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
“Candidates will have to focus on the ground game,” said Raven. “They don’t have a media budget, but they can go out and shake hands”
Here’s a look at the Common Council races this November:
District 1
Michael Heagerty lost the ballot line for the Democratic Party because of some political missteps this summer. Heagerty fell two signatures short of the 335 required to run as a Democrat. One of the missing signatures was his own. The blunder was revealed after his opponent, Republican Matthew Rayo, challenged Heagerty’s petitions. Rayo is a first-time candidate running on Republican, Conservative and Independence tickets. Incumbent Heagerty remains on the ballot as the candidate of the Working Families Party. District 1 is on the north side of Syracuse.
District 2
Patrick Hogan, the Democratic and Working Families candidate, is seeking his third term in the Common Council. He is running unopposed. Hogan is a teaching assistant for the Syracuse City School District and was formerly the deputy commissioner for the Syracuse City Recreation and Parks Department. District 2 is comprised of the northwestern part of the city.
District 3
Ryan McMahon, the incumbent Republican and Working Families candidate, is running for his fifth term (correction: he was elected in 2005) as council’s minority leader and its only Republican. He is a vice president of The Funding Source, a mortgage bank. His challenger in this election is Dorothy Matthews. Matthews, a former member of the Syracuse Board of Education, is running on the Democratic and Conservative tickets. District 3 is made up of the far southern part of the city.
District 4
Incumbent Tom Seals, a Democrat, is seeking his third term. He faces challenger Howie Hawkins, the Green party candidate. Hawkins has run for political office 14 times at the local, state and federal levels. District 4 includes downtown, the Syracuse University area and several neighborhoods around Thornden Park.
District 5
Running on the GOP and Conservative tickets is 21-year-old Tristan Daedalus. Daedalus, a senior at the University of Buffalo, is stressing public education and public safety as key issues. His opponent is Nader Maroun. Maroun, the Democratic and Working Families candidate, was on the Common Council from 1987-1989. His key issue is economic development. The seat is empty because the incumbent, Democrat Lance Denno, decided to run for one of the at-large seats. District five is made up of the eastern part of the city up to the DeWitt border and includes LeMoyne College.
At-Large (two seats)
Three candidates are vying for the two at-large seats. Republican and Conservative candidate Fanny Villarreal is running her first Common Council race. She is the director of family and community development at P.E.A.C.E Inc., a community service organization. On the other side of the ticket, both Jean Kessner and Lance Denno will run as Democrats and Working Families candidates. Key issues for Kessner include creating green jobs and public education. Kessner is a community and government affairs director for Aids Community Resources. Denno is a retired Syracuse deputy fire chief and represented Syracuse’s District 5 since 2008. At-large candidates represent the entire city.
(Steve Doane is a senior newspaper journalism major.)
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