Jimmy Monto, pictured, is running unopposed to retain his seat on the Common Council. Credit: Courtesy of Jimmy Monto

Jimmy Monto, the incumbent representing the Syracuse Common Council’s 5th District, is running unopposed for reelection.

Monto first joined the council in August 2022, when councilors voted to appoint him to fill the 5th District seat vacated by Joe Driscoll, who accepted a position in Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration. Monto then won his race for that seat in Nov. 2022, and won reelection in 2023. 

He chairs the council’s Public Transportation Committee, and is a member of the council’s committees on Public Safety, Public Works, and Finance, Taxation and Assessment.

The 2022 appointment and subsequent electoral victory marked the first time in Syracuse history that an openly LGBTQ+ person was sworn in as a common councilor. Monto is the board president at CNY Pride, and also serves on Walsh’s LGTBQ+ Advisory Board.

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? 

Jimmy Monto: Yes, and I am hopeful that the ‘Good Cause Eviction’ legislation will be introduced again next year.

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?

Monto: I think the number one priority for the new mayoral administration coming into office in January is to figure out how to both trim spending and increase revenue.

I think the new Common Council will be willing to go to the table with the new administration, and try to come up with a budget that makes sense for a city facing a fiscal environment that is uncertain.

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?

Monto: So I don’t think that our foreclosure process is a linear process. I think it has to be looked at property by property by property. It is not a one size fits all. We have to be careful that we are not seizing properties that are generational properties, without giving people every chance to try to get caught up and hold on to their home.

So backlogs are going to happen. It’s not a good process.

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?

Monto: Well, the question kind of pigeonholes me a little bit. So let me answer a different question. 

So I don’t know that I would codify what he did, but I think that the common council needs to move to codify some sort of protections for citizens when it comes to surveillance. 

Constitutionally — and just out of respect for our residents — people deserve to have privacy, and they should always expect that they have privacy in their homes and in their backyards. So we need to make sure that we are very clear with our policies, we are not overstepping, and we are not putting residents at risk by sharing the data that we collect. 

I support codifying something. I don’t know if it would be exactly what Mayor Walsh put forth in 2020 that we’d be codifying, but I think the next administration needs to have a concrete policy on how we handle surveillance technology, and how we handle data that we’re collecting from citizens.

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?

Monto: Yes, I think what the council decided to do was prudent and proper at the time, and they still make sense now. I think it’s unfortunate that politics came into play as much as they did during the budget negotiations. But you know, that can be expected.

I think if we’re looking at the overall picture, looking backward right now, immediately following the budget process, we watched the federal government claw back $30 million worth of funding for infrastructure around Interstate 81. We’re watching the federal government make cut after cut after cut. 

I would expect that the next few years are going to be hard for a city that looks like us, and I would expect that the budget for 2026-2027 is also going to have to be carefully negotiated between the council and the new administration.

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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...