Syracuse, N.Y. — Six Democrats will compete for the party’s nomination for a pair of Common Council seats on Tuesday in the most crowded race in city politics this year.
The race includes many well-known city activists, neighborhood advocates and volunteers with a wide array of work and community experience.
The winners in the primary will very likely end up on the city council. There are two Republicans running for the seats — Randy Potter and Norm Snyder. The Democrats, however, have a massive voter enrollment and have historically clobbered Republicans at the polls.
The six Democratic candidates are: Rasheada Caldwell, Alfonso Davis, Walt Dixie, Amir Gethers, Kayla Johnson and Ronnie White Jr. They are running for two at-large seats on the council. Voters can choose two candidates.
The first open seat is currently held by White, who was appointed to the council last year after Tim Rudd resigned to take a job with Mayor Ben Walsh. White is seeking election to the seat for the first time.
The second is held by Khalid Bey, who is not running for reelection this year. Instead, Bey is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor. If he’s unsuccessful in his run for mayor, he will leave the council, where he’s served for 10 years.
The crowded race means winners will likely emerge with a plurality of the vote, not a majority. Someone who gets 30% of the vote citywide, for example, may end up one of the winners.
At-large councilors serve four-year terms. The council job pays $30,000 a year.
The election is Tuesday, June 22. Anyone registered as a Democrat in Syracuse can vote in the race. Early voting is open now and ends Sunday, June 20.
Running in the Democratic council primary are:
Rasheada Caldwell
Caldwell, 45, is the coordinator of youth community planning and development for the Allyn Foundation and a familiar community activist.
What are the first things she would do if elected? Listen and learn.
“When you go into anything new, you’ve got to learn first,” she said.
As a councilor, she said, she would work to build more programs to support the city’s young people and make them want to stay here or move back here after they’re grown and gone.
Her son, Rasheed Baker, was killed outside the family’s home in The Valley in 2017. In the aftermath, Caldwell founded a youth organization called Let Me Be Great #44. She’s spent much of her career and free time working with the city’s young people.
“I think we have to continue to build on our youth, let them know we love them,” she said.
Caldwell is one of the two candidates designated for one of the seats by the Onondaga County Democratic Committee.
Ronnie White
White, 37, is an attorney in Syracuse who was appointed to the Common Council earlier this year to fill the seat vacated by Rudd. He formerly worked for the Onondaga County Law Department.
He said that his legal background is a big asset to the council, especially when drafting new legislation.
“I think that government needs to work, and work for the people. In order for that to happen, we need our best and brightest to step up to the plate,” White said. “I’m someone who has had experience all over the government. I have the experience needed to affect the process.”
White points to proposed legislation regulating dirt bikes and ATVs that initially would have made it a misdemeanor to ride the vehicles in the streets. He said he pushed back on that, arguing that the vehicles shouldn’t be criminalized for a first offense. He said the council and the administration reached a compromise so that illegal operation of the bikes wouldn’t be a misdemeanor until a third offense.
Among his top priorities are bringing municipal WiFi to neighborhoods to ensure affordable internet access, and establishing housing standards that would make it easier to hold bad landlords to account.
White has also been designated for a seat by the Onondaga County Democratic Committee.
Alfonso Davis
Davis, 55, is longtime community activist who operates his own insurance business and works part-time for Spectrum. He’s run three times for mayor of Syracuse as a Democrat.
Davis said he’s the most experienced candidate in the race, as he’s spent 35 years as an activist. Notably, he said, he led the recent effort to block an outpatient addiction facility from moving into a neighborhood just south of downtown.
“I felt that the council needed some strong leadership and someone who would represent the people,” Davis said. “I would say my 35 years of community activism makes me more than qualified.”
His top priorities would be combatting poverty through job opportunities and reforming the police department. He said he believes all police officers should live in Syracuse.
He is married to city court judge Felicia Pitts-Davis and lives on the East Side.
Amir Gethers
Gethers, 27, is a contract compliance officer with Onondaga County, where he ensures fair access to government jobs for minority and women applicants. He also works some of the time at his family’s funeral home, Gethers Funeral Services.
It’s his first run for public office. He said his experience with his family’s funeral home has given him a unique role within the community and prepared him for the constituent service piece of the council job.
Among his top priorities are equal employment opportunities and accountability for people in powerful positions, from school board members to the mayor, he said. He said he would also bring a critical eye to how the city spends money.
“The mural was a great idea…but to hire someone from outside New York, there was no common sense to that,” he said. “If we’re going to talk about being a community, we have to use local people.”
Kayla Johnson
Johnson, 28, led 40 days of marches last summer with the activist group Last Chance for Change. She’s remained active with Rebirth Syracuse, an organization advocating for reforms within the police department.
Johnson, who lives in the Hawley-Green neighborhood, said she decided to run last year after the protests. Her group sent a series of demands to the mayor regarding police reform and those demands were not met, she said.
“I realized the only way to get change is I will have to get a seat at the table,” she said. “So here I am.”
Police reform and accountability top Johnson’s priority list. But she said she also would push for programs to help kids in the city, including more funding for the neighborhood community centers and efforts to make sure young people have jobs.
She also would like to see more resources and shelter space for people who are experiencing homelessness.
Walt Dixie
Dixie, 66, is executive director of Jubilee Homes, a non-for-profit housing and job training agency on the city’s southwest side.
Though he’s been active in the city and politics for decades, this is his first run for public office.
Dixie said he’s running because he’s someone who knows how to get things done. He was crucial to bringing the PriceRite supermarket to South Avenue in 2017 and his organization has worked to build housing on the south and west sides of Syracuse for decades.
“I’m always the person where if someone wants to do something, I’m with you,” Dixie said during an event with a group of city ministers who have backed him. “The people have spoken. They don’t need more meetings, more discussion.”
He said he’s working to bring a seafood restaurant to the old B&B Lounge by the end of the year, and he wants to make sure government does its part to encourage good, fair development throughout the city’s neighborhoods and business corridors.
“I don’t want to talk about what the good old days used to be,” he said. “I want to say that the good days are coming today. The only thing stopping us is ourselves.”
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