Eight years ago this Senior Editor was alerted to a new face on the local political scene, but one that was anything but new to politics. Having cut her political teeth in Albany under the mentorship of then Governor Mario Cuomo, Stephanie Miner was announcing her candidacy for Common Councilor-at-Large. She won that year, and was reelected four years later, and established herself as a power player, especially as the most severe critic of Developer Robert Congel’s efforts to create Destiny by the lake.
Then a resident of the Westcott Nation, she has since moved to Bradford Heights around the corner from Alfonso Davis and up the street from Otis Jennings, making it a neighborhood of contenders for this fall’s mayoral election. Miner took a significant step toward her electoral goal last week by winning 73 percent of her party’s city ward committees voting, over Davis and her major opponent Joe Nicoletti.
This week Miner returned to the Montgomery Street site of her first interview as a candidate in 2001, and reflected on her eight years in city government. She is prohibited by term limits from running again at-Large.
“What I have learned is that people are very open to ideas and innovation and change,” she noted, “as long as you give them a chance to express their thoughts and ideas about the state of our community, so that there has to be as much give as there is take. I have found that over the past eight years, as long as you stay open to that process, and you make sure you do as much listening as you do talking - that by and large good things happen at the end of the process.”
You’ve had a number of options to consider, moving on to run for another office, including state legislature. Why mayor?
Because I think with my particular skill set it’s the best match. I am somebody who is very interested in ideas, making decisions and making change, and I’m not somebody who shies away from controversy or taking risks. Sometimes to my detriment I run toward that. Given that in Syracuse we’re at a defining moment, and what we need is to embrace change, embrace fresh thinking, and to a certain extent take risk. That’s what I bring to this race. I have that ability to articulate a rationale, to articulate a direction that we need to move in, and also to bring people together and say we can not look backward toward our future, we need to look forward, and that means we need to think about what Syracuse can be, not what it was.
Has your style developed in part from working with Mario Cuomo?
We’re all a product of our experiences, and working for him in the way that I have, and being able to watch him in the way that I have, was very important to how I learned to think, and how I learned to articulate something. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with him when I did, and for the period of time that I did.
Given your sometimes running toward controversy, some observers have characterized your style as cold and prosecutorial. Is that fair?
No. I don’t think it is fair. And I think what you saw from the Democratic committee in particular, and I’m convinced that you’ll see the voters (just as they did in 2001 and 2005) don’t feel that way. I think this community is tired of backroom deals. They want accountability, and what I have always said is that you only get accountability by asking tough questions in public. We’re only going to get the best solutions to our problems and the most innovative ideas by discussing it in public. Because if backroom deals and backroom ideas were the savior of our community we wouldn’t have the problems that we have. That makes some people very uncomfortable because there are sacred cows who have done very well in backroom deals. Those are not the people or the interests that I represent.
One of your controversies has been with Mr. Congel and the whole drive toward Destiny. What role does that play in our community, what role should it play, and how would you deal with it as mayor?
The Destiny process has shown in very clear detail what is wrong with the approach to economic development in our community. We saw a developer come in, spend, arguably millions of dollars to promise this community some ephemeral sort of Walt Disney World on Onondaga Lake. And when the public body, i.e. the Common Council, said no to that, saying what you have promised the community you have not documented or made a commitment to build. When we said no, they went around and made a backroom deal.
Now, four or five years later, what has been built out there is in stark contrast to what has been promised. So I think it is a testament to what’s wrong with economic development policy, and I also think it’s a testament that voters will see, that even when all the forces are marshaled, all of the insiders, all of the status quo, all of the quote smart leadership of are community, got on the bandwagon and said, Destiny, Destiny, Destiny, and I stood in front of those people and said “No,” said it publicly and articulated my rationale, and have the scars to prove it, what I think that shows is Stephanie is a woman of principle.
We can see the millions and millions of tax dollars that we’re losing. It’s the single largest piece of taxable property in Syracuse, the single largest taxable property in Onondaga County that is now paying no taxes. The developers said we’re not going to pay taxes because what we’re going to give to you is going to be so much better. And it hasn’t been. And there’s been no accountability to that project.
Will that stance deter other developers from exploring possible development in the city?
I don’t think so. In fact I’ve spent a lot of time in this campaign talking to small businessmen and developers and they want accountability and they want predictability.
They don’t want a system where you go to City Hall and economic development benefits are handed out based on some sort of ephemeral nothingness. Everybody wants a system where there’s predictability for the business owner and accountability for the taxpayer. We need a rationale for development, and if developers can fit into it they will get benefits, and if not, they won’t. That’s what developers tell me they want, because time is money.
Inevitably what ends up happening is that the larger developers who have the amount of income to keep a fleet of lawyers and fleet of accountants on staff end up benefiting from the system. And small businessmen and small developers, who don’t have that, don’t end up getting any benefits.
Are the WBE and MBE offices in City Hall able to function to counter that trend?
It can function better than it is right now. But there are some significant obstacles with the MBE and the WBE. Defining what participation means, the amount of bonds that businesses have to hold to do work. Some of that is controlled by the state, some by the economy. But that’s clearly something we need to move forward to, particularly in terms of workforce development, making sure that we take the citizens of our city and use whatever tools necessary to give them an opportunity to enhance their skill set.
Workforce development should occur through the school system, which has an announced drop out rate of 50 percent. How do you impact the school system from the mayor’s chair?
You have to do it. We’ve seen it done across the country. Michael Bloomberg jumps right off the page with that. We will never be a great city until we have a great school district. I know that from knocking on doors and talking to people. People feel compelled to move with their children because they don’t trust the school system. The way the mayor gets involved is by standing up and saying I will be accountable for this, for these results, for the process and making sure it gets better. We’ve seen an increase in test scores recently, but the drop out rate is unacceptable, the test scores continue to be unacceptable, the achievement gap between minority students and white students continues to be unacceptable.
That’s why when I saw Say Yes come down the pike two years ago, I got my colleagues together and said this is an investment, a new idea. Let’s not talk about the empty rhetoric of believing in education, and not doing anything about it. Let’s take the resources, as finite as they are for this city, and invest it in Say Yes. The Common Council led the charge before anyone else with the exception of Nancy Cantor. This is an innovative idea to an old problem that we have not been able to crack the nut on. Most importantly by providing children from poverty the kind of services they need so that they are ready to read, that their mental health has been taken care of, their physical health has been taken care of, and all of the other upheavals that we see happening in their lives.
We have an opportunity here to change the face of urban public education, just like hundreds of years ago we had a chance to change the face of the country by building the Erie Canal, and then by Willis Carrier developing the air conditioner. We have a proud history of innovation in this community. Somewhere in the last 30 years we got off track. The times demand innovation. The people in this community want innovation, and given the fiscal situation we’re going to see people start to make decisions that they otherwise wouldn’t make.
The fiscal situation isn’t helped by more than half the property in the city being off the tax roles. Is it time to start taxing the non-taxables?
That’s controlled by the federal government and the Internal Revenue Code and state law. So that’s not something a city can talk about. But should we be talking about shared services, should we be talking about what’s the most efficient way to provide services, like fire protection. We have a Fire Department with the highest rating, so we pay less on our fire insurance. There’s got to be a way to take that asset and combine it with the need they have out in the county for more protection.
Do you think you and County Executive Joanie Mahoney could have productive discussions about sharing services, is it the people involved in those talks who have the real impact?
I think the people involved have a huge impact. We have seen Joanie not just talk about the importance of the city, but she’s actually put resources behind it. Whether code enforcement or funds for Say Yes. She comes out of a city background. I served two years on the Council with her. I think there’s real opportunity there, because, just like any relationship, in order to make decisions together, you have to trust the other side. And for a long time there hasn’t been any trust with the city and county leadership.
It’s not just a lack of trust. When you’re putting a sewerage treatment plant in our neighborhood, or you’re talking about putting a sewerage treatment plant in one of our very few thriving economic districts, and we say the technology is out of date or think about the ramifications of using Onondaga Creek to transport poisons, and they turn their backs on us and say they’re going to do it anyway, then it makes it hard to think about having a meaningful discussion about moving things forward. Joanie’s been an absolute 180-degree change from that.
With the city’s population approaching 40 percent of color, does the very small percentage of people of color at the State of the City address indicate a sense of disenfranchisement from the political process among the local communities of color? If so, how do you counter it from City Hall?
The political process encompasses a lot of different things. One of the great things about being an elected official or a public servant in Syracuse is the tremendous diversity that we have. It’s never the same. It’s never dull. It’s never boring. Part of being a citywide leader is trying to figure out what is it that unites us all? What is it that unites a single mother on the Westside trying to find day care with a family in the Valley with a neighboring vacant property with an absentee landlord, worrying about their investment, to a family on the Eastside with kids about to leave Ed Smith wondering if they should leave the city? There is a tremendous diversity of problems, tremendous diversity of different groups in the city.
The frustration that is felt is that there has got to be better solutions than what we’re doing right now. Why, for instance, should New York City have a higher graduation rate and a lower crime rate than Syracuse. What sense does that make? I don’t think it’s unique to any one particular group. I think there is frustration all around. And part of that is good. That’s the tension that makes government better. I would not say that the composition of the audience at the State of the City is an indicator of anything other than who got invited, who can take time out of their schedule to be there.
What kind of people are you looking for to work in City Hall if you win?
That’s one of the most important decisions that a mayor does make. What I would be looking for, first and foremost, is people who are smart. Right below that is people who have the same ethic about government and about people as I do. And people who are able to listen as well as make decisions.
Would you tear down Route 81?
Based on what I know now, it wouldn’t be the city that would tear it down, but I would weigh in and opine in favor of tearing it down, yes. I think it’s a real opportunity to unite the city, to have tremendous use of public space. I don’t think that the City of Syracuse, first and foremost, should be used as a place to get from the south to the north quickly.
Syracuse seems to have a lingering negative self-image. Where does it come from and would you do as mayor to reverse it?
I look at it from a different perspective. I think the people of this community have very high expectations, and I have never been in any place that has as many people willing to give up their time and energy to sit together and meet in groups to talk about how the city and the community can be better. I think what you see is all of these people who really believe, and are willing to take action, to make the community better, and yet are frustrated that their ideas aren’t listened to, that nothing seems to happen. I think that’s because we’ve had a leadership that has sort of said I want to look to the lowest common denominator. Instead of leading people, it has sort of said let’s talk about how can we bring Syracuse back to what it was in the 1950s. That’s not our future. The citizens of this community know what our future is, or they have a sense of what it should be, and there’s been a disconnect between the leadership and the neighborhoods. The result of that disconnect is what people perceive as a negativity.
What is that future?
We can have a community that embraces people who look different than each other, that embraces innovation, whether moving forward with the environmental sustainability movement in terms of economic development and development of quality of life. That looks at innovation on an education level and says that we are on the cutting edge of what the rest of the country should be doing, and probably will be doing. And we are not going to settle for the same old empty rhetoric.
What’s the first decision you want to make as mayor?
The first decision is to develop a rationale for how we give away our finite economic resources, and at the same time look at streamlining the process for economic development for the city and the county.
Is there any fun in city government?
There’s a lot of fun in city government. The people you meet, the places you go. There’s a tremendous richness about the City of Syracuse. I’ve been blessed to represent the people of Syracuse. What they have brought to me is that I have laughed with people I would never have otherwise had the chance to meet.
A scenario currently pondered by veteran observers of local politics harkens the election of 1993, when Democrats were favored, but splintered after a rough primary, allowing an incredible Republican victory. How does that scenario play out in your mind?
There are a lot of things that would have to happen to get to that scenario. But I’m convinced that my vision for the city, my history of embracing innovation, and being decisive in leadership, is what’s going to appeal to people in the city, Democratic primary voters, and then voters in the general election. I think that that kind of scenario is simplistic and doesn’t give enough weight to what essentially is going to be a campaign about ideas and the future of the city. It’s not 1993. It’s 2009.
To arrange a Q&A with Walt Shepperd - contact Ellen Leahy at 434-4888 ext. 319 - or e-mail her at city@cnylink.com.
