Incumbent Tom Seals won the Onondaga County Democratic Committee’s designation on May 24. Challenger Charles Pierce-El says he will still seek the seat, forcing a primary election on Sept. 18. (Update by Nancy Madsen)
When voters on the city’s South Side decide who’s going to represent them on the Common Council, they’re usually two months ahead of everybody else in Syracuse.
The reason: The race for 4th District Common Council seat is all about the Democratic primary, which this year is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 18.
This year, as in the past, the race will be to see which of at least two candidates in this largely Democratic district gets the party’s nomination. The other will gather signatures and support where he can, and get his name on the primary ballot that way.
The incumbent is Thomas M. Seals, who was first elected in 2003. He did not respond to repeated requests for interviews for this story. In March, Seals told The Post-Standard that he intended to seek re-election and hopes to win the Democratic party’s nomination. He’s twice won election by challenging the party’s chosen candidate in primaries.
For the 2007 election, Charles Pierce-El, a retired auto worker, is hoping that he’ll win the party’s nomination this year to replace Seals.
The 4th District is made up of several very distinct and different parts of Syracuse. It includes downtown, the Syracuse University area, the neighborhoods north, west and south of Thornden Park (including portions of “Westcott Nation”), as well as parts of the city’s impoverished South and East sides. The issues are pretty much the same from year to year: More jobs, less crime, better education.
Here’s an early look at the 4th District candidates and the race:
Charles Pierce-El
A native of Syracuse, Pierce-El has worked on Democratic campaigns from Robert Kennedy to John Kerry.
“Every Democrat you can list, I worked on their campaign. Carried their petitions, knocked on doors. Thirty years plus,” he said.
But, he said, he’s no party hack. “I wouldn’t carry your petitions unless I could talk to you,” said Pierce-El. “You have to persuade me that you’re the best candidate. I cannot go to my neighbor or anybody in my community, and say, ‘Well, sign this because the party says this guy is okay.’ I have to feel comfortable with you.”
He’d be surprised if he didn’t get the party’s nomination, Pierce-El said, but he’s also philosophical about it. “We’re just up and running. I have a headquarters. We’re going to do some voter education and talk about the issues,” he said.
Pierce-El is itching to get his hands on local issues, to see to it that, as he puts it, the 4th District gets it fair share of city services — from trash pickup to public schooling. He’s also ready to tackle some thorny city-county problems that have been dragging on for years.
One example is the Midland Avenue Regional Treatment Facility, first announced in 1999. It is a large sewage plant slated to go into a neighborhood that is mostly poor and predominantly African-American.
“To me, the way they’ve got it set up, it’s environmental racism,” Pierce-El said. “After we had engineers and scientists and professors go to communities that had the same type of plant, they had it underground versus above the ground. They work more efficiently and a lot more maintenance-free. The problem that the county has is that it costs more to do it underground. But in the long run, you benefit by it being underground.”
“We’re not saying we don’t want it in our community. The people aren’t saying we don’t need it because we know that you need it. But we’re saying make it feasible for us as well,” he added. “And the county says, ‘No, this is it regardless of whether you like it or not. This is the way it’s going to be.’ We feel it’s unjust to the people of the area, who have roots there, who have to live there.”
Pierce-El, 60, is a longtime community activist. He is best-known as a co-founder of the Faith Hope Community Center. Opened in 2003, Faith Hope offers after-school programs ranging from boxing to computer skills. The project received a Post-Standard Achievement Award in 2006.
He has been married 38 years and has six children. He changed his name from “Charles Pierce” several years ago to reflect his heritage as a Moorish-American.
“People need to start voting because these are instances where your vote counts,” Pierce-El said. “That’s why I do the voter education instead of the voter registration. Because if you educate people to what the process is, they’ll make it their duty to go out and vote.”
Tom Seals
The incumbent, Thomas M. Seals, has been the outsider in previous elections. A retired police officer, he’s already won two terms on the council without support from the Democratic Party’s leadership.
In 2003, the Democratic Party endorsed incumbent Mike Atkins. Seals easily beat him and candidates from the Republican and Independent parties. In 2005, the Democratic Party supported Steve Coker. Seals trounced him and a third candidate, Khalid Bey, in the primary. There was no Republican candidate.
The Post-Standard reports that Seals is making a concerted effort to win the party’s nomination this year. But he’s prepared to run without it if he has to, the paper reported in March.
Seals made his mark during his first term in getting the city’s “Living Wage Law” passed. He protested in Albany to get more money for local schools, and made news by going to jail as a result.
His second term has been quieter. His agenda at Common Council meetings has mostly involved funding for events at senior centers and for improving local parks. The biggest news he’s made this term was voting against accepting an out-of-court settlement from a lawsuit the city lost over the expansion of Carousel Center into Destiny USA.
Seals, 66, is also a Syracuse native. He was a military police officer with the Air Force before he became Onondaga County Deputy Sheriff in 1964. He then served as a Syracuse Police Officer from 1966 to 1996. He is married, with seven children.
Seals could not be reached for this story. He did not return eight phone calls — four to the Common Council offices, four to his home — nor respond to four e-mails, all made over a period of two weeks.
(Jim Baxter is an ’07 graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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