Thirteen years ago, William Magnarelli had an epiphany at a Christmas party. The revelation came to him after a former Syracuse Carrier Corporation employee bent Magnarelli’s ear about losing his job.
“It got me thinking. Carrier left a knowledge base in Syracuse for air quality — they did make air conditioners .I understood there are these knowledge bases.” (William Magnarelli, 120th District assemblyman, Democrat)
And those knowledge bases have become a touchstone in Magnarelli’s assembly career.
Magnarelli, a Democrat, is running for re-election to his fifth term for the 120th state Assembly District. His opponent is Republican Kristen Rounds. The 120th District includes Northside, Westside, Eastwood and Valley areas of Syracuse; the town of Geddes and Van Buren.
Magnarelli has a strong advantage in the district’s voter enrollment. According to the New York State Board of Elections, as of May, 2008, there are more than 29,000 Democrats registered voters and about 20,000 Republicans in the district.
Magnarelli entered the political arena in 1995 as a Common Council member of the city of Syracuse. In 1998, he won the open seat for Assemblyman of New York’s 120th District. In 2007, he lost the race for Onondaga County Executive to Joanie Mahoney. Mahoney won 60 percent of the votes, Magnarelli only won 36 percent.
In this election, Magnarelli faces little opposition from his challenger. Republican Kristen Rounds has no fundraising committees and does not have a campaign Web site. Her campaign office did not return five calls seeking interviews.
Magnarelli portrays himself as a family-man with deep political roots. He is the father of three grown children, Lisa, Bill Jr. and Ann, and has one grandchild. One of his daughters, Lisa, lives in Clinton, N.Y. She’s a college administrator at Hamilton College and Magnarelli says she often drives to Syracuse for dinner at home with him and his wife Karen.
Magnarelli describes dinner at his home this way:
“The typical Italian family that you see on TV — we get loud and rowdy around the table, eating a lot of great food.” (William Magnarelli, Democrat)
In politics, he followed his older cousin Armond Magnarelli, who served on the Syracuse Common Council and on the state parks and recreation committee.
“Armond basically paved the way for this Magnarelli.”(William Magnarelli, Democrat)
At the age of 83, Armond died in February of 2008.
William Magnarelli continues to follow in his cousin’s footsteps. Armond served on the Syracuse Board of Education. Assemblyman Magnarelli is a member of the Committee on Education. He says his newest endeavor for Central New York is trying bolster support for a program to get more local high school students into college.
“Education is what is going to create the jobs of the future.” (Bill Magnarelli, Democrat)
The “Say Yes to Education” initiative would provide free tuition to any SUNY or CUNY college for graduates of the Syracuse City School District. Magnarelli has won $1 million from the state to fund the program and private organizations are also chipping. A pilot program has been started for the Syracuse High School class of 2009. Syracuse University’s Chancellor Nancy Cantor is championing the program and has recruited a few colleges to offer free tuition, including SU.
On job development, in 2000 Magnarelli took a major role in a partnership that brought $2.5 million to Central New York. The money went to the Workforce Development Initiative. Now, eight years later, the Metropolitan Development Association of Syracuse and Central New York reports the initiative has trained about 3,000 local workers for manufacturing jobs.
Republican William Barclay is assemblyman for New York’s 124th District and works with Magnarelli on the Board of Ethics Committee. Barclay disagrees with Magnarelli on a number of fundamental partisan issues. But he says Magnarelli makes some sound decisions for the area.
“When it comes to Central New York, I would probably agree with him on a lot of things — lowering property taxes and getting more jobs in the area.” (William Barclay, assemblyman of New York’s 124th District, Republican ).
Tess Brickett is chairperson of the Van Buren Democratic Committee. She says Magnarelli is vital to the Van Buren Democratic Committee. She has seen him at the Memorial Day parade, Seneca River Days and the Celebrate Baldwinsville event. She calls Magnarelli indispensable to a recent Democratic Committee dinner that drew about a hundred people.
“If we said to voters of Van Buren, ‘Come out and meet us,’ there might be three people here. But if we had Bill Magnarelli, then you can see the kind of crowd we get.” (Tess Brickett, chairperson of the Van Buren Democratic Committee)
The election is November 4th.
For Democracywise, I’m Chloe Sommers.
(Chloe Sommers is a graduate broadcast journalism student)
-30-
