“There are children from ten years of age to 14 years of age pulling people off their porches at night for no reason and beating them and putting them in the hospital. And I would like to know how’re you going to stop it? The police officers in Syracuse claim they can’t find them even though we show them where they live.”
(Cynthia Wright of Syracuse, 58, unemployed, Democrat)
“The city has struggled for years to deal with the abandoned houses in our neighborhoods and have progressively made the problem worse. They’ve set up systems that allow investor owners to pick up these houses, not make any repairs… One of the biggest resources we have in the South and West sides of the city is amazing architecture, amazing homes that just need some care.”
(Phil Prehn of Syracuse, 53, community organizer at Syracuse United Neighbors, Democrat)
“Even though I’m a resident, I’m actually an immigrant myself from Senegal. And I started getting involved in this issue locally because border control and immigrations customs enforcement was really starting to round up undocumented people left and right in this neighborhood — snatching people up even when they were just going to the grocery store.”
(Aly Wane of Syracuse, 36, volunteer with Syracuse Peace Council, Green Party)
“For me personally, I use gas in my home, and I really can’t be against fuel and a way of getting that fuel out of the ground. I know that they’re using fracking and hydrofracking in other parts of the country… Though I am troubled by hydrofracking, I’m conflicted. It’s an issue that should be decided by the stakeholders.”
(James McGinty of Syracuse, 51, teacher at Nottingham High School, unaffiliated with a political party)
“We don’t have a foreign policy. Our foreign policy is if you don’t do what we want, we take it or we kill you. Simple as that, that’s our foreign policy. Look at now, they’re talking about striking Syria. You look at the news media – 100,000 dead, 60,000 refugees. Well, what is striking going to do? Kill more people, right? That’s our solution.”
(Midhat Essi of Syracuse, 53, owner of Munjed’s Middle Eastern Café, unaffiliated with a political party)
(Marwa Eltagouri is a senior with dual majors in political science and magazine journalism.)
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