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Former U.S. Rep. Jim Walsh talks about consolidation of local city and county governments at an editorial board meeting at the Syracuse Media Group on Monday, January 25, 2016. Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com

(Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Onondaga County voters are almost evenly split over whether the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County governments should merge, according to a Siena College poll released Thursday.

Asked if city and county governments should merge into a metropolitan government, 20 percent of those polled said they support the idea, 23 percent opposed it, 56 percent said they need more information and 1 percent said they don't know.

But when asked about some specific government services, a majority of the 940 voters polled expressed support for consolidating them across multiple local governments.

Sixty-seven percent supported consolidating road maintenance, water, sewer and parks; 54 percent favored consolidating public safety, including police, fire, jails and emergency medical services; 61 percent favored consolidating assessment, finance, code enforcement and libraries; and 51 percent supported consolidating economic development.

Fifty-five percent of the voters polled said they support consolidating governance, including the structure of local and regional governing entities.

The poll was commissioned by Consensus, a civic group that has recommended a consolidation of how Onondaga County local governments deliver services, including formation of a metropolitan government to replace the city and county governments.

Consensus hopes that county residents will be able to vote in 2017 on its recommendations to merge government entities and consolidate services.



"This survey reinforces much of what we heard througout the public engagement process," said Jim Walsh, a former congressman and co-chair of Consenus. "We've heard the clear call for consolidating individual government services and sharing costs among municipalities, even as concerns about representation, service levels, loss of local control and the potential for loss of jobs are highlighted as concerns."



"There's a lot of support for consolidating infrastructure, transportation, some of the administrative services provided, water. People understand that if you have two or three entities doing the same thing, that it makes sense to have one entity do that," Walsh said. "The conflict comes with whether merging the governments gets you that efficiency. People know the government they have."

Twenty-eight percent of those polled lived in Syracuse and 70 percent lived in Onondaga County outside the city.

While concerns have been expressed by Mayor Stephanie Miner and other city residents about a potential merger with the county, by and large the Syracuse voters and suburban voters polled provided similar answers to most of the questions.

For instance, 22 percent of suburban voters said they support a metropolitan government that merges the city and county governments and 24 percent said they oppose that. Of the Syracuse residents polled, 17 percent supported a metropolitan government and 22 percent were opposed.

"There are lots of questions about how we deliver this (consolidation) and what are the savings, what sort of job losses are there, and will we lose the local control we have," Walsh acknowledged. "People want better answers than we provided. I think that's where the conflict is. To me i think there's an opportunity (for consolidation) if we answer their questions."

Overall, Syracuse residents expressed less support than suburban voters for the performance of their city, town or village elected officials and with the delivery of most government services.

City residents also were less optimistic than suburban residents about the sustainability of the current economic path of their local government.

CenterState CEO Foundation, which is affiliated with the region's top economic development organization, paid for the survey.

Siena 2016 Poll on Consolidating Government Services in Onondaga County by Michael McAndrew

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