Your 15 Eagle Newspapers community weeklies are archived here, in PDF format. Search now!
Sep
04

Hockey mom to the rescue


Posted by wshepperd | 09/04/08

“McCain just won the election,” the Wannabe said brashly as he helped the Has Been and Samadee set up a table which had been stacked up against the wall on the downtown side of Hanover Square. It was an early evening during State Fair Week and the Square was deserted. But it wasn’t raining, so they pulled up chairs and waited to see if anyone was going to open for business. “Just when they thought Hillary’s people couldn’t get any more pissed off,” the Wannabe continued, not even looking for response from his tablemates. “They outflanked the Democrats on the progressive front with a woman who opposes women’s reproductive rights. And such a Republican lady...


CATEGORY: General Society





Aug
27

Either or, not both


Posted by wshepperd | 08/27/08

Samadee sat at a table outside in the early evening on Hanover Square reflecting on his chances of entering the presidential race. They seemed slim. In all the time he had contemplated finding a righteous way to run, he had just never found an appropriate time and place to announce his intentions. Also he was beginning to understand the ramifications of his first campaign promise, not to solicit or accept any campaign contributions. In the year and a half that they had been running, Obama and McCain had raised half a billion dollars between them, and look what kind of messes each had bought for themselves.

McCain couldn’t remember where to go home and Obama was being hoisted on the petard of history...


CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: samadee, hillary, african american,syracuse,obama,mccain



Aug
22

Short day’s journey into Wal*Mart


Posted by wshepperd | 08/22/08


The Has Been had never been to Wal*Mart. The Wannabe hectored him for months, warning that lacking that experience he was flirting with being labeled as culturally deprived. Actually, talk of bargains never moved the Has Been. His self-imposed mandate to support downtown retail meant that except for shirt, tie and hanky sets at Bergan’s, and wedding, birthday and holiday gifts at Enchanted Bazaar, he did very little shopping. And except for Extra Bucks at CVS, and Corner Bistro entrees from Stouffer’s, he never clipped coupons. But reports that Wal*Mart management had issued memos to store supervisors, instructing them to scare employees regarding the coming election with warnings that if the Democrats win they could lose their jobs, had intrigued him...


CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: walmart,syracuse,bergans,shepperd,samadee,wannabe



Aug
14

Only Fair


Posted by wshepperd | 08/14/08

Approaching his second turn at the helm of the New York State Fair, Dan O’Hara claims plausible deniability when asked if he snuck into the annual agroentertainment bash as a youth. “I worked out here as a kid in high school shoveling horse manure,” he recalls. “What I learned then was the uniqueness of every element of the Fair operations.”

After taking on issues during his first effort last year, especially that of smoking, he reflects, many people were thinking he wanted ultimately to change the whole culture. “That was really not the intent,” he says. “People have to understand that this is an agricultural event with the focus that developed somewhat more on entertainment...


CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: shepperd,O'Hara,state fair,spanish raymond,



Aug
07

Made in a day ‘zine


Posted by wshepperd | 08/07/08

Creation of ArtsWeek, the effort to link the annual summer Arts & Crafts Festival with the also annual Jazz in the Square, was chronicled with the arts week ‘zine, made in one day by the Urban Arts Rangers, a group seeking to foster connections through art in Syracuse. On Saturday, July 26, between noon and 6 p.m., the group: Tom Gokey, Chris Wildrick, Drew Stanley and Joanna Spitzner, solicited content for the ‘zine by talking to attendees, handing out cameras, paper and pencil, and printing editions as material evolved...


CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: syracuse,Bernardi,mayor,dowtown,Fahey,Michael Heagerty,Gifford Foundation,Brian Moore, Ruby’s Soul Food,Gwen Lawson,Mick Mather,Joe Nicoletti,Rory McMahon



Jul
24

What color is vision?


Posted by wshepperd | 07/24/08

40-Below held the first in a series of orientation sessions for potential political candidates last week at Ohm in Armory Square. The panelists, all elected officials, joked about the setting being a touch posh compared to their usual working environs. The location, however, known originally as the Zodiac, was a key element in former Mayor Tom Young’s vision for development of the area anchored by the former home of the National Guard, a vision fostered by his observations on the development facilitated by the city of Baltimore around its harbor. At the time development was facilitated in Armory Square and Franklin Square, but since then, other than extensive discussion, and finally initiation of expansion at Carousel Mall, local vision for development has been cloudy at best...


CATEGORY: General Society




Jul
18

Bus boarding for City Hall


Posted by wshepperd | 07/18/08

Samadee began pondering the 2009 mayoral race last December at the Palace Theater. Watching the set up for a Winter Showcase featuring Amanda Rogers, the Johnson Irish Step Dancers, Five to Life and the Blacklites, he saw Joe Nicoletti conferring with Michael Heagerty about the then soon-to-be-sworn-in Common Councilor’s swearing in ceremony. Nicoletti had been running for mayor since elementary school, losing a 1985 primary to Tom Young and winning one against Joe Fahey two terms later, only to lose the general election to Roy Bernardi after being heavily favored to win. That was as a Democrat, the party he also represented as a Councilor-at-large and a state Assembly Member. Later, when his party didn’t come knocking on his door to draft him for a nomination that he felt should have been his automatically, he flirted briefly with an attempt to snag the Republican nod. It looked like it might be possible until state Senator John DeFrancisco called the move inappropriate because Nicoletti wasn’t really a Republican. The ultimate lesson was that this is not a town that drafts its mayoral candidates. Not even Coach Mac.

Asked then about his intentions for next year’s race, Nicoletti said it wasn’t time to talk about it yet, but that it would come clear when the time was right. Recently Samadee began reflecting on the senior editor’s 2001: A Mayoral Odyssey series in the New Times, which began in August 2000. It predicted the winner of the very open race would be the first candidate out of the chute, and profiled Matt Driscoll, who had sent out letters to his party’s honchos requesting their support the previous spring. Actually, Councilor Kate O’Connell had snared the party’s designation and was ahead in polls, but when Sept. 11, 2001 cancelled Primary Day, voter mentality shifted to the “don’t change horses in mid-stream during crisis” mentality, and Driscoll, who had moved into the Mayor’s Chair from the Council presidency when Bernardi resigned, carried the day.


Time to cross lines
Then Democrats had bemoaned their situation. The last thing they could afford, they noted, was a mayoral primary, which was also the last thing they could avoid. That season’s selection process cost half a million dollars. Primary talk arose again four years ago, as Young openly expressed dissatisfaction with elements of Driscoll’s administration, and Calvin Corriders actively explored a challenge. Both demurred, but Corriders said he would be back in four years, with adequate funding. Now Corriders cites family and business interests as higher priorities, but the busload of “potentials” is already overcrowded. Four years ago current Councilor Pat Hogan was also talking a primary challenge to Driscoll, and he since has shown bi-partisan support, having been elected running on both Democrat and Republican ballot lines.

Bi-partisan support only cuts in after securing one’s own party backing, as seen in Joanie Mahoney’s squeaker primary victory followed by a thumping win in the general election for County Executive. But a candidate who has worked across party lines, as Nicoletti did during Bernardi’s second term, could strengthen the bridge being built between city and county government, and more easily navigate the road toward merging services. It might also answer the quandary faced by the local GOP, way behind in voter registration and wondering if a mayoral campaign would be worth anywhere near its cost. Some are advocating cross-endorsing a Democrat in hopes of getting a deal. Others question what kind of deal could be.


Big push for Miner
For Samadee, it was coming clear that the time was getting right. Even before the Labor Day launch of real campaigning to replace Jim Walsh in Congress, backstage maneuvering had become visible. Nicoletti has been aggressively initiating the necessary contacts.

“And it won’t be anything like ’93,” one supporter, a veteran of city, county and state electoral wars is promising.
Corporation Counsel and former Common Councilor Rory McMahon is also known to be contemplating a run. In order to head off those, and any other aspirants, Democratic heavy state Assembly Member Bill Magnarelli is sparking a drive to sow up the mayoral nod for Stephanie Miner early.

This move is causing some consternation among the communities of color, which constitute 40 percent of the city’s population. Council president Bea Gonzalez has been actively exploring a run, and Councilor Van Robinson and former County Legislator Sam Roberts have been mentioned prominently. The growing feeling in those communities, as it has been since Bernardi’s second term, is that, politically, it is their time now.


CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: syracuse politics,syracuse mayoral,Samadee,Senator John DeFrancisco,Palace Theater,Driscoll,New Times




spacer

City Scuffle

Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for nearly four decades. Shepperd's column appears each week in the City Eagle.

Subscribe

Archives