More money for Syracuse-area projects.
That’s a main theme in the re-election campaign for Republican state Sen. John DeFrancisco from the 50th Senate District. Or, as he puts it in his campaign slogan: “DeFrancisco Delivers.”
“I don’t think you can go to an art venue in the city of Syracuse without finding that my fingerprints were on it trying to get some funds to make it happen,” said DeFrancisco in a recent interview.
This election DeFrancisco is running on three party lines: the Republican, Independence and Conservative. His only opponent is Democrat Carol Mulcahy, whose campaign is non-existent and who hasn’t raised any money. Mulcahy has been DeFrancisco’s only opponent for the 50th Senate District in the last two elections.
The general election is on Tuesday, November 4th.
The 50th Senate District includes Syracuse and most of Onondaga County.
This election year, DeFrancisco is running under the slogan “DeFrancisco Delivers.” On what DeFrancisco has delivered, he points to:
- The $4.15 million dollars he brought back to the 50th Senate District in the last two years.
- His voting record on keeping property taxes down and home heating help.
- Bills he sponsored that increase penalties for crimes, including “Jenna’s Law” and a proposed “Tiffany’s Law.”
DeFrancisco has deep roots in the Syracuse area. He graduated from Syracuse University with an engineering degree and later received his law degree from Duke University in 1971. DeFrancisco has a private-practice law firm in Syracuse, where he now works with his son, Jeff, and a former state senate aide, Charles Falgiatano. DeFrancisco has three children and five grandchildren with his wife Linda.
DeFrancisco became part of political scene more than 30 years ago. In 1978, he won election to the Syracuse District School Board and later became its president. From the school board, DeFrancisco was elected to the Syracuse Common Council where he served as a councilor at-large and president for 11 years. In 1992, DeFrancisco ran for the 50th Senate District seat and has held the position since.
During his most recent two years in the state senate, DeFrancisco brought home $4.15 million dollars to the Syracuse area in member items, the earmarked state spending for each legislator’s district.
Two of those include a $30,000 grant for the Vera House and a $47,000 grant for the “Prosecutor’s Response to Offenders Using Drugs,” or P.R.O.U.D, a program run through the Onondaga County district attorney’s office that gives non-violent felons an alternative to drug court.
For the Vera House, the $30,000 grant allows the organization to create a program that educates teens about preventing and ending sexual violence.
Loren Cunningham works with the Vera House and praises DeFrancisco for the grant to try to prevent sexual violence. “It’s hard to get funding for programs like that. So we really appreciate the senator’s support,” said Cunningham, who is the education director for the Vera House.
For the P.R.O.U.D. program, the $47,000 grant kept the program going after it lost its primary funding in 2006. The senator’s grant gave them the money it needed to hire a social agency to evaluate a non-violent felon’s eligibility for the program, said Rick Trunfio with the district attorney’s office.
“The grant was extremely critical to the program to allow it to move forward,” said Trunfio.
On his voting record in the state Senate, DeFrancisco has supported a four-percent spending cap on state spending, a similar cap on property taxes, help with home heating costs and a death penalty for some murders.
In a candidate’s questionnaire from The Post-Standard, DeFrancisco stressed that controlling state spending is a necessary step toward getting New York’s fiscal house in order. “These are tough fiscal times for New York State,” DeFrancisco told the newspaper. “If families have to reduce their spending in a down economy, government should do the same.”
On legislation sponsored during his 16 years in office, DeFrancisco put forth a number of bills named after Central New Yorkers who were killed. In 1998, the state government enacted what’s called “Jenna’s Law,” which eliminated parole releases for all violent offenders.In 1997, Jenna Grieshaber was killed by Nicholas Pyror, who had been released on parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence from a stabbing.
Jenna’s mother, Janice Grieshaber expresses gratitude to DeFrancisco for the law, named after her daughter. “It meant a great deal because it marked Jenna’s life and it showed that there could be justice in the world,” said Grieshaber, who also founded the Jenna Foundation. “It showed that people like Nicholas Pyror would pay a price. If that law would have existed at that time, she’d be alive.”
In 2007, DeFrancisco also sponsored a proposed “Tiffany’s Law,” named after 20-year-old Tiffany Heitkamp. In 2006, Heitkamp was killed in a boating accident in which the boat driver was intoxicated. The driver had a record of driving other vehicles under the influence of alcohol. The bill named after Tiffany Heitkamp would allow those offenses to be taken into consideration in sentencing from convictions in boating-while-intoxicated offenses.
The bill has the senate, but has been held in the assembly’s transportation committee since March.
DeFrancisco deplored the assembly’s inaction. “Why hasn’t it passed the Assembly? God only knows. It should have passed. We’ve had other bills like that pass the Senate that haven’t passed the assembly including bills that increase penalties,” said DeFrancisco.
In a ninth term, DeFrancisco calls for making the state Senate what he considers more fiscally responsible in the recent economic meltdown. To do that, DeFranciso urged local governments need to take action on consolidation, a move that combines municipal public services with the county like law enforcement.
“It’s a role I’ve been a part of for many years. We gave money to many of these municipalities to study the impact of consolidation to try to gather the support to do that,” said DeFrancisco. “I will definitely continue those efforts, but now it’s not a question of talking any longer or studying. It’s a question of getting it done.”
(Racquel Asa is a graduate student in broadcast journalism.)
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