Displacing people from their homes around Interstate-81 and improving Syracuse’s workforce are issues that Khalid Bey, incumbent Democratic Party candidate for Common Council District 4, cites as some of his major concerns in the city.
Bey faces Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins in the Nov. 5 election. District 4 includes the neighborhoods of University Hill, Brighton and Southwest.
Democracywise posed two questions on some key issues to the candidates in some of the contested races this fall. Here are Bey’s concerns:
The Future of I-81
What should be done with I-81 and why?
Bey told Democracywise: “I have no answer about what should be done with the Interstate. We need to be sure that we’ve exhausted every potential idea.”
In an interview on March 27, Bey told CNYVision, “I would like to see a boulevard or something similar with commercial spaces for businesses or offices for retail. I’m very pro-density, I’m pro-business. I would love to see, even if it’s not a boulevard, something where you have businesses and living spaces on both sides of the street, something for the entire length of Route 81. It produces more money for the city on the ground, and we need to generate as much revenue as we can locally to sustain ourselves.”
And in an interview with WSYR on July 15, Bey said he is concerned about potentially displacing people who live beside I-81 from their homes if a boulevard is constructed or if the existing road is widened. “You’ve got people who are invested here, that live here, they’re not planning to leave this city,” Bey said. “Those are the kind of people we have to make sure we take care of.” It’s becoming a habit in Syracuse, he said, to move poor people out of their homes for development.
Improving the Local Economy and Reducing Poverty
In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Syracuse and Onondaga County have not yet recovered from the 2008 recession. In the city, unemployment was 14 percent and in 2012 more than a third of city residents lived in poverty. For children, 55 percent were living in poverty. Those figures are a four-year high, according to the Census Bureau. And in Onondaga County, median family income in 2012 was$64,324. That’s compares to $67,661 in 2008 and $65,666 in 2011.
What specifically would you like local government – the County Legislature and/or the Common Council –do to improve the local economy and help reduce poverty? Why do you think your proposal would help?
Bey told Democracywise: “I cannot specifically speak for the County, but will speak about what I believe to be government responsibility in general. Government, at every level, but especially municipalities, should develop a respectable workforce development initiative in an effort to strengthen our workforce. Nothing short of a skillful, working populace will resurrect our city. The practice of borrowing to eliminate debt has proven to be a bad one. Workforce development is the best use for public money, after education, healthcare and infrastructure.”
(Elizabeth Beeson is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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