Corey Williams, the Common Council's 3rd District representative Credit: Courtesy of Corey Williams

Corey Williams in January will begin his second term on the Common Council.

He joined the council in 2024, representing the council’s 3rd District.

Williams chairs the council’s Finance, Taxation, and Assessment Committee, and is a member of the council’s committees on Public Works, Public Transportation, and Neighborhood Preservation. Outside of elected office, Williams works as a data analyst for the Syracuse City School District.

He has deep family ties on Syracuse’s West Side, and has strove to blaze inroads within the East Side neighborhoods comprising the council district he now represents. Williams completed a master’s degree in Public Administration at Syracuse University, and holds a doctorate from the Environmental Science and Forestry.

With expertise in data analysis, storage, and management, Williams in his next term wants to wrangle Syracuse’s oversight of the city’s disparate surveillance technologies.

“We’re living in a time where the technology is evolving faster than our legislation, and our policies can’t keep up with it,” Williams said.

Editor’s Note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Central Current: How would you vote on good cause eviction legislation if brought to the council for a vote tomorrow? 

Corey Williams: I would vote in favor of ‘Good Cause Eviction’ legislation. 

It got withdrawn from the agenda a while back, and just because it got pulled from the agenda doesn’t mean that the dialogue and discussion on the topic is stopped. We as a council continue to have discussions around it, and continue to engage with community groups about the topic. 

I came out in favor of the legislation a while back, and continue to follow through with a vote supporting Good Cause, if and when it comes to the table. I hope to see it reintroduced with the new council, and hopefully we’ll be able to take that vote soon.

Central Current: How will you find millions in revenue to address the potential multi-million dollar fiscal cliff the city could be facing this next budgetary cycle?

Williams: I think that revenue is only one side of the equation. We definitely need to do a better job in terms of identifying revenue sources, but we need to think about our expenditures as well, and making sure that every dollar of taxpayer money being spent is being spent with intentionality and with purpose. 

Since the current year budget was adopted, I have started meeting with the administration and their revenue enhancement group to target areas for revenue growth, whether they be small or large. 

But I see that as moving in a positive direction, both in terms of identifying money, but also in terms of having a working and collaborative relationship between the mayor’s office and the Common Council. I think that we need to examine all aspects of our financial operations and try to figure out where we can be doing better.

Central Current: The city has a backlog of properties in the foreclosure process that could help the landbank and other housing partners rehabilitate and build new housing. How will you help speed this up?

Williams: When items come before the council, I think that it’s our job to do our due diligence to make sure that all procedures on the city’s end have been followed, to make sure that residents have received notification, in accordance with the foreclosure process. 

If and when we can be assured that that happened, or is happening, I think that it’s our job to move ahead with the process and transfer ownership to the Land Bank.

Central Current: Mayor Walsh established protections and policies aimed at safeguarding Syracuse residents from over-encroaching surveillance technology in his 2020 Surveillance Technology Executive Order. The protections, though, are not codified into city law, meaning that a future mayor could strip the safeguards and set the stage for unrestricted and potentially intrusive and dangerous use of these technologies. Will you codify the protections and policies established in Mayor Walsh’s Surveillance Technology Executive Order?

Williams: Surveillance technologies are going to be one of the most important issues for the upcoming council to address. We’re living in a time where the technology is evolving faster than our legislation, and our policies can’t keep up with it. I think that we need to do something, and I think that the council should engage with the legislative process to address this.

I don’t know that I would codify what the mayor put in place. I think that that is a good starting point for the dialogue and discussion. But I also think that we need to look at other municipalities and learn from what they have put in place. 

For example, The New York City legislature has put the POST Act in place. That’s something that I’ve been reading about and trying to figure out if some aspects could be relevant to our situation in Syracuse. It’s a topic that I’m engaging with and hope to learn more about, and adopt some type of common sense protections that balance the civil liberties of our residents with the need for law enforcement to have appropriate tools to do their job.

Central Current: Now that the dust has settled, how would you evaluate the Council’s decisions during this year’s budget battle with the City of Syracuse? Do you stand by the cuts the Council made?

Williams: I do stand by the cuts the council made. We’re a couple months into the fiscal year, (and granted, we’re early in the fiscal year), but I’m yet to see the negative impacts that were projected.

I think that we had a very calculated and measured approach to the areas that we cut.

The council will take appropriate action, should we run into a situation where we need to identify additional funds.

Read more of Central Current’s coverage

Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...