Incumbent Democrat Rasheada Caldwell is running for an at-large seat on the Common Council. Credit: Courtesy of the City of Syracuse

Democrat Rasheada Caldwell is running for re-election to an at-large seat on the Syracuse Common Council, aiming to continue working with community leaders to create legislation.

Caldwell, who works as the coordinator for youth family services at the Allyn Family Foundation, will appear on the ballot under the Democratic Party line. She has served two terms on the Council, but wants to use the experience she has gathered to go beyond her legislative efforts.   

“I still have more work to do,” Caldwell said. “I enjoy being a part of the community and helping create legislation. I also enjoy the financial piece of the job, but I also know I have more work to do.”

Caldwell is running for one of two at-large seats with no Republican opposition. Hanah Ehrenreich, a Democratic Socialist living in the Westcott neighborhood, is also in the running for one of the two seats under the Democratic Party line.  

Central Current asked Caldwell and Ehrenreich five questions about the issues facing the district and the city as a whole. Below are Caldwell’s responses:

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

Caldwell: No, not with the way it is right now. It’s not that I’m against Good Cause Eviction, and I need to make sure that statement is understood. There’s a lot of great things in Good Cause Eviction that we need to pull out… but there’s a lot of things that do not apply to our community. 

When the legislation first came out in 2019, Good Cause Eviction things were different. It is 2025. We went through a whole pandemic, which has created so many differences. So we have to look at that. We gotta look at how things have changed.

CC: 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?

Caldwell: I would just help support the administration, pushing them to look at budgets, talking to the hierarchy, the senators to try to encourage money to flow through the city of Syracuse. I want to push that and be an advocate on the administration’s side to help make that happen.

CC: The city has a backlog of properties in the foreclosure process that could help the Greater Syracuse Land Bank and other housing partners rehabilitate and build new housing. How will you help speed this up?

Caldwell: There’s not a backlog because the Land Bank has tons of houses already on the list that are not being sold or still need to get work done. 

We need to make sure that we’re being smart, that we’re making sure that we’re taking care of our community. We’re making sure that it’s safe when we’re taking the houses and that we are going through all of the steps [of foreclosure]. Sometimes we move too fast and then we have all these houses, then we’re responsible, and then the neighborhood starts falling apart. 

One of the biggest things that I want to do is make sure people have education, that they know about financial literacy and that they have gone through all the processes to try to keep their house. That should be our first step as a government, not to take it. There’s processes that we put in place to try to help people, and that should be first and foremost.

CC: Mayor Ben 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 Walsh’s Surveillance Technology Executive Order?

Caldwell: It depends, I think that it is very important that people feel safe, but we also have to protect them from the new wave of technology invading their privacy. 

We have to continue to have those conversations. We have to continue to ask questions, and I think we have to make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the community, not always making sure you’re safe, but also protecting privacy. 

I think that that’s not an open and shut question. I can’t say yes or no, every situation is different. It’s more of when that situation arises or what they’re trying to implement. There should be guidelines with anything like that period. 

CC: 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?

Caldwell: I stand by cutting the budget. We have to make sure that you understand, we didn’t make the decision on what to cut. The administration on that side decided to cut what they wanted to.

We have probably, like a little bit over 100 something jobs still vacant in the city. Probably close to 200 jobs vacant in the city right now. That alone just shows that there might be money flowing… every department has availability where there’s nobody working, so that means there’s money available there.

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...