Buckel pauses to speak with a local resident while campaigning door to door. (Melanie Hicken)
Tom Buckel has knocked on a lot of doors lately.
On this Friday afternoon, he strides down rain-splattered Pleasant Avenue on the north side of Syracuse. He sports a pale blue button-down shirt, khakis and his running shoes. He checks names off his clipboard list of likely voters as he advances from one door to the next.
“I want to engage people,” Buckel says in between doors, “and give them a chance to talk and tell me what’s on their mind.”
Behind the white metal door, for example, a mother new to the area laments her disappointment with local libraries while her 3-year-old daughter squirms and giggles at her side. Behind the bright red door, a couple — who have spent 37 years in Syracuse — stress their dismay about a deserted, boarded up house down the street. Behind the pale blue door, a woman cuts the visit short to bathe her disabled mother.
This grassroots campaigning is Buckel’s main tool to unseat four-term incumbent Onondaga County legislator Jim DiBlasi for the 7th District seat in the Nov. 6 election. Buckel, the challenger, is a Democrat. DiBlasi is a Republican. The 7th District spans the north side of Syracuse and the Lyncourt area.
For the past four months, Buckel has been a familiar figure on the district’s streets, at neighborhood meetings and anywhere he could start a conversation with potential voters. So far, his tenacity is paying off — at least with some buzz among politics-watchers. The Post-Standard, for example, has reported that the 7th district race is “the most hotly contested race to watch for an Onondaga County Legislature seat.”
This is Buckel’s second run for office. More than 20 years ago, at age 28, he aimed for Congress. Then, he recalls, he was a young Catholic Democrat with a “starry-eyed ideal” of democracy and faith. But that wasn’t enough to unseat Republican incumbent George Wortley in the 1984 election for the 27th district Congressional seat.
Now, at age 51, Buckel still exudes the idealism of his youth, say those who know him well. But this time around, they agree, he has the experience and patience to back up his commitment to his religious and civic faith.
“He has a lot more patience with constituents and the whole process,” said Mary Buckel, his wife of almost 26 years. She cited his many hours spent at local events, such as neighborhood-watch meetings, which he attends weekly.
For his part, Buckel says, he once again “wants to try to make a difference.”
Now, he adds, he wants to “jumpstart the community in a different way.” He calls for updating “outdated county government” by consolidating city and county resources and targeting crime with stricter local ordinances and more community-watch programs.
Buckel has spent most of his life in Central New York and boasts of CNY roots spanning four generations. He was born in Syracuse in 1956. He attended Catholic parochial schools throughout his childhood. He graduated from Canisius College in Buffalo in 1981 and graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1981. After law school he came home to Syracuse and started as an associate at the law firm of Hancock & Estabrook, where he is now a partner. He married Mary Elizabeth Vossler in October 1981. They have three children: Elizabeth, 21; Anne, 16; and John, 15.
As Buckel recalls it, his interest in politics was sparked as a 12-year-old boy when he shook Lyndon B. Johnson’s hand during a visit by LBJ’s to Syracuse. Throughout his young adulthood, he stayed in politics: student government president in college; campaign worker for other politicians after law school.
The 1984 Congressional race seemed like the next logical step. Buckel took 43 percent of the popular vote and was set to run again. But his first daughter was born and, he recalls, his priorities shifted. He and his wife decided the political lifestyle was not right for his plans as a father. Instead, he threw himself into volunteering on local charities and Democratic campaigns.
“I think it was the right choice for us and our children,” Buckel said. “It’s so difficult to do both.”
But with his children now in their teens, Buckel describes himself as drawn back into the politics by some pressing local issues: a shrinking population and a stagnant local economy.
Buckel traces his belief in public service and civic duty to his heroes: his uncle the Rev. Ron Buckel and Robert F, Kennedy. Pictures of both hang on the walls of his office.
“Growing up as a kid I revered the things they tried to accomplish with youth, with justice,” he said. He admired, he said, his uncles’ work mentoring children and Kennedy’s work in fighting for equal rights for all citizens.
Buckel credits his Catholic upbringing with teaching him the importance of helping those less fortunate. He has, for example, worked extensively with the disabled and the economically disadvantaged.
Longtime friend Tom Taylor met Buckel in the early 1980s when both were volunteers for the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. Even then, Taylor said, Buckel aspired to follow in his heroes’ footsteps.
“He wanted to make a difference like they did,” said Taylor, “and thought a good way would be through the political process.”
When becoming a politician didn’t work out, Taylor remembers, Buckel plunged into volunteering. Buckel, for example, spent seven years mentoring troubled youth in Syracuse city schools.
“He is very tenacious,” Taylor said. “If he believes in something he will stick with it.”
Sister Elizabeth John “EJ” Simson has seen Buckel’s commitment to both the local community and his Catholic faith firsthand. In 2002, Simson, a member of Buckel’s parish, asked Buckel for help with regional ministries of the Sisters of St. Francis. He has served on their advisory development board ever since.
“He has a heart for the underprivileged and the poor,” Simson said.
Taylor and Simson, among others, tick off a laundry list of Buckel’s local involvement: Four years on the board and three years as president of Legal Services of Central New York, which represents low-income, disabled and elderly CNY residents. Five years with the Catholic Charities Refugee Program helping to settle and support Afghan refugees. Five years on the board of the Everson Art Museum. To name a few.
But campaigning takes even more time, says Buckel. “This is an all-consuming endeavor,” he said.
Indeed, Mary Buckel is has seen very little of her husband lately. He’s barely been home, she says. “He likes to long distance cycle and he hasn’t done any of it lately. And I don’t think I’ve seen those golf clubs out at all,” she said with a chuckle.
If elected, Buckel lists as his three main goals:
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Modernize what he calls the “outdated government” by consolidating city and county services and sharing resources. “Competing interests are stumbling over each other now,” he said.
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Increase the population. But as of now, Buckel admits, he’s not quite sure how to do this. Instead, he says he thinks it’s important to get the community thinking about possible solutions.
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Reduce crime by creating stricter ordinances to discourage illegal activity, such as one that would call for seizure of property involved in drug buys and prostitution solicitation. He also supports “community-policing” of the district’s neighborhoods, meaning a combination of local services to patrol the area.
“We can and should dispatch teams of people from every county agency, the police and sheriff, social services, building inspectors, public works, economic development to the high crime areas,” he says on his Web site.
Back on Pleasant Avenue, Buckel’s campaign style is simple. He listens to residents’ concerns and interjects his experience and plans. He often waves his hands in the air, trying to make a point.
In his door-knocking visits, he tailors his goals and experiences to the specific concerns of residents. He searches for connections or common acquaintances, like how he lives a few minutes away or that his children also attend local Catholic schools.
To the couple concerned about deteriorating homes Buckel emphasizes he lives nearby and is also angered by county inaction about deserted homes. Perhaps they could be sold to the poor or refuges for low prices, he says. To the woman living with her disabled mother, Buckel shares his work with disabled adults at L’Arche Syracuse, a community home for adults with disabilities. To the mother concerned about libraries, he offers the possibility of improving them through consolidating county and city resources.
He continues from door to door, where he will be until the sun has set. In the morning, he will be at it once again. It’s a lot of work, but to Buckel, public service simply makes sense.
“Public service is a part of who I am and how I was raised in this community,” he said. “I want to be a viable source to help accomplish change.”
THE BASICS:
Tom Buckel
Age: 51
Hometown: Syracuse, N.Y.
Family: Wife, Mary; three children: Elizabeth, 21, Anne, 16, and John, 15
Education: B.A., political sciece and history, Canisius College, 1978; law degree, University of Virginia, 1981
Career: partner, Hancock and Estabrook LLP
www.tombuckel.com
(Melanie Hicken is a junior newspaper major.)
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