SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- This city has one of the worst lead paint problems in the nation.

Statistics vary on lead poisoning among city children, but it's bad no matter which way you look at it. A study last year from Quest Diagnostics showed Syracuse had the nation's highest percentage of lead poisoning among children from 2009 to 2015. Some experts disagree with that characterization, which is much higher than figures reported by Onondaga County.

Still, there's no question this city has a serious lead problem. Adding to the issue is the lack of city funds to fight exposure to lead paint. In 2014, federal officials announced they would not continue funding for the city's lead abatement program, citing faulty testing procedures and errors with quarterly reports. The city was again denied a grant in 2015. Those grants were worth up to $2 million per year.

With that in mind, we asked the nine people running for mayor the following question:

Syracuse's lead abatement program was shut down in 2015 after the federal government yanked the grants that funded the program. One year later, a study found we have the nation's highest percentage of lead poisoning among children. How do you think the city can best combat its severe lead problem?

There are five Democrats in the race, as well as a Republican, a Green, an independent and a candidate attempting a Libertarian line. Click on a candidate to jump to his or her response or scroll through all responses below.

Raymond Blackwell (D)

Alfonso Davis (D)

Chris Fowler (I)

Howie Hawkins (G)

Laura Lavine (R)

Marty Masterpole (D)

Joe Nicoletti (D)

Juanita Perez Williams (D)

Ben Walsh (I)

The candidates' written answers to the question are given below, in alphabetical order. They are provided as submitted, with minor editing for style. They were asked to limit responses to 250 words.

Look for a new candidate question each week. Have something you'd like to ask all the candidates? Email Chris Baker at cbaker@syracuse.com with the subject line "weekly question."

Raymond Blackwell (D)

It is a tragedy that so many people in Syracuse and in this country are subjected to such substandard housing conditions. While this is a national issue there is a lot more local leadership could be doing to mitigate the housing stress many families in Syracuse feel. In 2014, CNY Fair Housing produced a 75 page report full of suggestions to address housing inequity in the region. As mayor such initiatives would be a priority for me. I would work with the governor and local authorities to address the issue immediately.

Alfonso Davis (D)

Even though lead paint was outlawed in 1978, it's still common in Syracuse due to most city homes being built before 1978. There could be close to 60,000 city homes that contain lead paint. Did you know that Syracuse was one of the first U.S. cities to establish a lead program and was often cited as a model for other cities? Being the nation's highest ranked city linked to lead poisoning rates is not only unacceptable, but it is wrong. How can we fix this? My plan as your mayor is to:

Meet with HUD locally and our city inspectors to understand in full detail why we were cited for poor management and to ensure that those issues have been fixed and is currently in good standing. I believe, we have a knowledgeable code enforcement staff that can handle making the positive changes needed. Meet with our Congressional delegation finding a way to reapply for funding, reinstate the lead abatement program for the city and discuss alternative funding sources. In the meantime, ensure that our children and family members are receiving lead testing as needed, being screened, followed-up with and properly assisted through the Onondaga County lead program. Work with local agencies to ensure that all residents are educated on lead paint hazards, ways to stay safe in the interim and provided a resource to notify the city to receive a follow-up when the program is reinstated.

I care about the Syracuse community and our children.

Chris Fowler (I)

Decades of disinvestment in low income communities in Syracuse have left thousands of families trapped in unhealthy and inefficient housing. It has been almost 40 years since our country made lead illegal and yet today 250,000 new cases of childhood lead poisoning are reported nationally. Even small levels of lead in an infant can alter cognitive development, creating lifelong problems, and exposure happens fast. Two major problems, according to research, are that children with lead poisoning are seven times more likely to drop out of school and 6 times more likely to enter the juvenile justice system.

I will soon unveil my "Healthy People, Healthy Community" initiative that addresses the challenge of creating a healthier community by:

designing more walkable neighborhoods,

reducing car dependency,

increasing access to local fresh food,

retrofitting homes to be green to reduce the exposure children (particularly infants) have to toxins like lead.

This is a matter of political will. We have found the will and the resources to subsidize multinational corporations and change laws to help big money donors, but what are we doing for our most vulnerable children? This problem is solvable with targeted, cost-effective and time-efficient interventions.

My campaign is not about fitting a square peg in a round hole. A better version of Syracuse awaits if we are willing to do things differently, not just a different version of what we have. Politics as usual is not working; we need a new way.

Howie Hawkins (G)

Lead abatement must become a top priority. It is inexcusable for Syracuse to have the nation's highest child lead poisoning 46 years after the Surgeon General's 1971 urgent recommendation to prevent and treat lead poisoning in children.

Safe housing is a right. It's a crime to rent properties that poison children. The lead crisis reflects our racial and economic housing segregation, with its highest concentrations of black and latino poverty, and fifth highest concentration of white poverty, among the nation's metropolitan regions.

With 65% of city residents renting, we must start by requiring landlords to remove lead and receive a lead-safe certificate before renting. The ordinance that Common Council voted down last year requiring inspections of all rental housing every three years must be adopted to enforce lead-free renting and other housing laws.

After 20 years of funding, the city lost its federal lead abatement grant in 2015 for faulty testing procedures and quarterly reports. This poor management must be corrected. While the federally-funded county and the state-funded Green & Health Homes Initiative lead abatement programs are helping homeowners as well as landlords, the city should seek to restore federal funding for its own lead abatement program to more rapidly resolve this problem.

Lead abatement is costly. But lead in our children hurts their academic performance, memory, and motor skills. It increases their likelihood of school suspensions and then incarceration in the correctional system. If we don't pay for lead abatement upfront, we pay even more on the back end.

Laura Lavine (R)

Lead poisoning is a serious hazard that causes significant biological and neurological damage that can lead to life-long including chronic health problems, learning disabilities, diminished intelligence, and increased need for special education services. Lead has also been linked to crime rates and their associated costs.

Lead exposure is highest for children under six. There are different sources of lead but lead-based paint is the most widespread and dangerous. Poor, urban minorities disproportionately reside in housing containing lead-based paint hazards, creating significant inequity in health. With Syracuse having the highest concentration of poverty among blacks and Hispanics, and the highest percentage of lead poisoning among children, it is mystifying how Syracuse's abatement program came to be so roundly criticized that the federal government refused to continue to help a city in such dire straits as ours.

One researcher estimated that each dollar invested in lead abatement returns $17 to $221. The city should redirect its wasted dollars toward this problem, cooperate with the county which has a successful program, work with the state and federal governments to find more funding for Syracuse and to create tax incentives for homeowners to address the problems in their own homes, and provide subsidies for Syracuse-based painting contractors to do the abatement. My ability to work with all stakeholders will be instrumental in accessing funding for this essential work.

Marty Masterpole (D)

It could be a bumper sticker: LEAD is a homonym for LEAD. Of course nothing is as simple as a bumper sticker - fiscal reality remains what it is, but there are things that we can do, now, even without federal funding and that starts with leadership. Here are four potential starting points for tackling this crisis:

1. Strengthen city code enforcement regulations regarding lead based paint hazards. The city's property conservation code does not address lead poisoning hazards in city households. It does not require any testing of peeling paint for lead hazards and does not require remediation of such hazards. This initiative could be modeled on the program in Rochester.

2. Educate homeowners undertaking home improvement projects on the importance of using contractors who are certified under the Environmental Protection Agency's "Renovate Right" regulations. These contractors are trained in techniques that will minimize the risk of exposure to lead hazards.

3. Encourage the city school district to provide instruction on the dangers of lead poisoning at every city elementary school.

4. Work cooperatively with Onondaga County on federal grant applications addressing lead poisoning hazards throughout the county and to target such funding in areas with the highest concentration of documented childhood lead poisoning cases.

Education and policy-making will not remove our need for lead abatement, but it will reduce the hazards of living with lead, hazards that disproportionally fall on the vulnerable, in particular on children in poor communities. We need to take the problem seriously, and action soon.

Joe Nicoletti (D)

According to the federal agency, the lead paint remediation funding was yanked from the City of Syracuse as a result of the city not fulfilling the necessary reporting requirements. It is my understanding that the city has been working with our federal representatives to have Syracuse be allowed to apply for the next round of federal funds.

As mayor, I will petition the federal government to give my administration the opportunity to accept new funds so we can demonstrate that the required reporting documentation will be provided. The people of the city, with the nation's highest percentage of lead poising among children, should not be made to suffer due to a grant reporting dispute between Syracuse and a federal agency.

Lead paint poisoning is a national health crisis in cities with older housing stock; it impacts children for their entire lives and must be addressed in the most aggressive manner and with our Federal partners.

The City of Syracuse lead paint program was once regarded as a model in the administration of lead paint remediation, I am confident that the city can once again be a leader in addressing this crucial health issue facing the most vulnerable among us....our children.

Ben Walsh (I)

Lead poisoning among children is a crisis in our community and under my administration it will be treated as such. As mayor, I will immediately take four actions to facilitate the prompt remediation of home health hazards throughout the city.

First, I will aggressively seek new funding through the HUD Lead Hazard Control grant program and all other available sources.

Second, I will build upon the existing Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Greater Syracuse model and bring together the NYS Attorney General's Office, Home HeadQuarters, the County Health Department, and other community partners to take a more holistic and collaborative approach to home health.

Third, I will implement a more proactive code enforcement model that will detect and prioritize properties most at risk, and hold non-compliant property owners accountable by refusing occupancy.

Fourth, I will leverage my relationships with area lenders to develop a revolving loan fund to connect responsible property owners with financial resources to remediate hazards and improve housing quality.

We know young children in our most distressed neighborhoods, predominantly children of color, are disproportionately impacted by lead paint poisoning and substandard rental housing. We know children with high blood lead levels have lower IQs, higher suspension rates, and other behavioral health problems. And we know other toxins in the home like radon, asbestos, mold and infestations are also poisoning our children.

We know the time to act is now, and as mayor, I will bring the right people together and take immediate action to protect our children.

Juanita Perez Williams (D)

Lead poisoning in our children is an entirely preventable condition in Syracuse yet the city administration sits idle doing nothing. Why? Because our city refuses to pass a more stringent rental registry policy to empower our codes enforcement. Rochester has seen a 90% reduction over the last 15 years in children with elevated lead levels because of aggressive anti-lead efforts.

While Syracuse has been unsuccessful in its three most recent attempts to get lead remediation funding from HUD, the city's lead problem does not lie in its inability to garner federal funding. These funds never came close to addressing the issue of lead poisoning at the scale needed. Even when the city was successful in obtaining these funds, the maximum award only addressed fewer than 100 units a year. Consider the fact that there are over 35,000 rental units in the city that have the potential for high lead levels.

The answer to the problem is proactive code enforcement that requires periodic inspections of all rental property to ensure they are not poisoning kids. NYS currently requires regular inspections of all buildings containing three or more residential units. However, there is no required inspection for one- and two-family rental units which make up almost 20,000 households, many with children. This will change when I am mayor. It's easy to blame other tiers of government, but the solution lies with us here locally and how we deploy our resources to protect our children.

Read the candidates' answers to questions about:

Making the city a better place

Consolidation

Blodgett repairs

Mayor Miner

Poverty

Deer

Their best idea

Property taxes

The Land Bank

Sanctuary city

Crime

The NYS Fair gondola

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Snitches, privilege and neophytes: Takeaways from the 2nd forum

Which candidates have kids in city schools?

Syracuse's next mayor will inherit a city on the brink of financial disaster