Tearing down Interstate 81 to create more livable areas and establishing local, for-profit businesses will improve the city of Syracuse, says mayoral candidate Kevin Bott.
Bott is running on the Green Party ticket and face Mayor Stephanie Miner — a Democrat — and Conservative candidate Ian Hunter in the Nov. 5 election.
Democracywise posed two questions on key issues to the candidates in this year’s race. Here are Bott’s thoughts:
The future of Interstate 81
What should be done with Interstate 81 and why?
Bott: “I think the focus on I-81 thus far has been on how to move commuters in and out of the city. And I will say that the Green’s position is that we really feel strongly about the need to study what can be done for people who live in the city and to think about the livability of our city,” he said, adding that he believes the city needs to think more about a livable, walkable city. He added: “My personal view is that the city will be better off in both the short and the long term by rethinking the elevated highway, taking it down and promoting the needs of people rather than the needs of commuters and cars.”
Said Bott: “I think pretty much only good can come from creating more designed and open cities that value the people there and values people walking around the city and feeling ownership of the city.”
Unemployment and 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?
Bott: “I think you have to take those stats along with the other significant challenges in the city, which are the public school system and the increased prevalence of homicides, which is a really significant and startling fact of city life; that they’re potentially on pace for historical highs in the city. All of those are not going to be solved if you don’t solve the issue of poverty.”
He added: “First and foremost, in our mind, is the need to stabilize people’s lives with real jobs, with real living wages.” Of the Green Party’s position, he said, “Our take on this is consistent with what several progressive cities around the country are doing, which is to re-imagine what an economy can look like in an American city, in a post-industrial reality and that is the focus on local, worker-owned, for-profit businesses. We are in a perfect situation here in Syracuse to reutilize these abandoned factories and to help cooperatives of workers come together and reanimate the city through all sorts of technology — and I would be the first one to advocate for becoming a leader in green technology.”
(Maddy Berner is a senior with double majors in newspaper and online journalism and Spanish.)
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