

Syracuse's next mayor will lead a city at a crossroads.



Year by year, the city edges ever closer to a fiscal cliff. Poverty ensnares one out of every two children. Violence plagues neighborhoods where poverty and hopelessness are most concentrated. City schools struggle against these currents. Through it all, the streets must be paved, the burst pipes must be fixed and the snow must be plowed.



Syracuse's next mayor also must mend the relationships fractured by the current mayor, thoughtfully change the conversation from conflict to collaboration, deliver a hopeful vision of a city that can grow and thrive, and set a new course to make that vision a reality.



Of the four individuals seeking to be the next mayor we endorse independent Ben Walsh. From our point of view, Walsh is the candidate who can lead Syracuse into a new era more effectively than three others vying for the office - Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, Republican Laura Lavine and Democrat Juanita Perez Williams.



Walsh's campaign slogan, "rise above," is what his mayoral bid has felt like: a movement to transcend partisan labels and dogma, to appeal to all parts of the city and to enlist Syracuse's young people to join its older generation in the fight for the city's future.



People know the name of the son of a congressman and the grandson of a mayor, but he has run on his own record of accomplishments as the city's head of economic development for six years under Mayor Stephanie Miner.



Economic development: Spreading the wealth



It's no accident Walsh's years in City Hall coincided with the resurgence of downtown. The symbolic centerpiece of its revitalization is the historic Hotel Syracuse at the foot of Warren Street. It was vacant for a decade and at risk of demolition before Miner's administration took the property by eminent domain, constructed a financing plan and recruited a developer to restore it. Walsh spearheaded that 2 1/2 -year effort with patience and grit, resulting in a justly celebrated success.



Walsh's acumen in this arena is what sets him apart from his nearest rival, Perez Williams, a lawyer who has had successive roles in the military, state government, higher education and City Hall. Growing the city's tax base is the backbone of its future, creating revenue and jobs that can be targeted more effectively to impoverished areas.



Walsh's challenge, should he become mayor, is to leverage downtown's success into also raising up the city's poorest precincts.



Walsh began that work by helping to launch the Greater Syracuse Land Bank. The land bank fights blight by taking tax-delinquent properties and selling them to owners who will fix up and live in them. The land bank has returned hundreds of properties to the tax rolls and collected $11 million in sorely needed revenue. Walsh acknowledges complaints that the land bank erodes, rather than rebuilds, neighborhoods through demolitions and long-vacant properties, and pledges to appoint board members more sensitive to neighbors' concerns.



Walsh also would merge the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency with Onondaga County's IDA, ending the self-defeating practice of developers playing one agency against the other, and he would tie business incentives to community benefits.



Crime and policing: Staffing, technology and a new chief



The argument over how many police are needed to effectively patrol the city has been a key theme of the campaign. Walsh believes the city needs more officers - and that more of those officers ought to reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of Syracuse. He would recruit from underrepresented populations, incentivize officers to live in the city and negotiate a "reasonable" residency requirement in the next police contract.



Walsh would rely on cameras in neighborhoods, where they are wanted, and place body cameras on officers to protect them and citizens.



One of the first important decisions the next mayor faces is hiring a high-quality police chief. Walsh would direct his chief to adopt community policing strategies and to attack quality of life issues, in concert with other city departments such as Codes. He must take care not to repeat the mistakes of other communities where "broken windows" policing led to civil rights abuses. Along those lines, Walsh should direct the new chief to cooperate more fully with the Citizen Review Board.



Walsh also should empower his chief to speak to the public directly, candidly and frequently, without the mayor at his or her elbow. And when he and the chief disagree -- and they will -- the soft-spoken Walsh will need to forcefully assert his point of view.



Fiscal crisis: Averting a state control board



Syracuse's next mayor confronts a stark reality: a structural deficit that could eat up the city's rainy-day fund in the next three years, raising the specter of a state control board with the power to unilaterally slash staff and cut services. Other fiscal challenges will arise, including possible cuts to federal funding for cities and expiration of the city-county sales tax sharing agreement in 2020.



With half of city properties tax-exempt, raising taxes on the remaining property owners is not an option. The city can't organically grow tax revenue fast enough to stave off a control board. Service agreements with Syracuse University and other nonprofit entities help but aren't enough to close the budget gap.



Of all the candidates, Hawkins offers the most developed program for raising revenue - a progressive income tax for people who work in the city. That would be a disaster, driving employers who could move or expand elsewhere to do so. Perez Williams says the city has a spending problem, not a revenue problem; she would streamline services to cut costs.

Walsh would rely on data to track the performance of city services and find inefficiencies. He also intends to explore sharing more services with Onondaga County - a realistic and achievable goal. The mayor, and the people he surrounds himself with, will need to think creatively and decisively to keep the city from going broke.



Politics and partisanship: Time for a change



After eight years of constant sparring between Syracuse's mayor and all comers, we think the city needs a leader with a different approach.



Walsh, by seeking to "rise above" party affiliation, offers collaboration over combativeness, inclusiveness over ideological purity, a broad array of perspectives over groupthink, us and them instead of us vs. them. If he truly is a Republican in sheep's clothing, as Perez Williams claims, voters will feel betrayed and Walsh will be a one-term mayor.



At this moment in time, when everyone is tired of just treading water, Walsh offers Syracuse voters a track record of city-building, a vision for the future and the inner calm and resolve to meet the severe challenges ahead. Elect Ben Walsh the 54th mayor of Syracuse.



Why we endorse



The purpose of an editorial endorsement is to provide a thoughtful assessment of the choices voters face in an election. We offer editorial endorsements to stimulate the public conversation and promote civic engagement. Voting is a privilege and an obligation of citizenship. That part is up to you. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7.





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