Kenyata Calloway, who is running on an independent line to be the Onondaga County Legislature's 9th District representative, faces Republican Bonnke Sekarore and Nicole Watts. Credit: Courtesy of Kenyata Calloway

Editor’s note: If you’d like to read about Kenyata Calloway’s opponents, you can read about Bonnke Sekarore here and Nicole Watts here. Central Current’s election coverage is supported in part by a grant from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

Longtime community advocate Kenyata Calloway has spent a lifetime working for Syracuse’s youth.

Now, Calloway is seeking a new venture: a seat in the Onondaga County Legislature.

Calloway is running on an independent line in the Legislature’s 9th District, which is composed entirely of Syracuse’s North Side. The race for District 9 took on an unusual turn in June, when incumbent Democrat Palmer Harvey failed to obtain an adequate amount of valid ballot signatures to appear on the Democratic Party line.

Harvey has since ducked out of the race, leaving three candidates vying to replace her. Calloway is facing Nicole Watts,running on the Working Families Party line and an independent “Northside Rising” ballot line, as well as Republican newcomer Bonnke Sekarore, in the race to represent the city’s North Siders.

Calloway currently serves on the Onondaga County Youth Bureau, as well as the Community Folk Art Center Board at Syracuse University. 

As a Syracuse native, Calloway is concerned with providing critical services to the oft-underserved residents of the North Side. She hopes to protect Syracuse’s at-risk families from potential lead hazards, empower the city’s youth, revitalize city neighborhoods, and fight for affordable housing for those who need it now more than ever.

Syracuse’s North Side, Calloway said, is a melting pot of disparate ethnic and financial backgrounds, where New Americans live alongside residents with deep, multigenerational roots. Likewise, Calloway sees the North Side as a place where city residents of all incomes co-exist but within their own silos. Calloway herself has lived in the North Side for 30 years, and purchased her home there a decade ago.

With an emphasis on collaboration, Calloway wants to blend that melting pot and build a stronger community. 

Along with her new foray into the political realm, Calloway is currently earning a degree in journalism at SU, which she hopes to use to elevate the experiences of her fellow Syracusans.

“We have such a great story to tell, and people have not been telling the positives,” Calloway said. “There’s so much positive out there, and I just want to tell the story.”

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

Central Current: How will you make up for the potential lack of funding for the aquarium?

Kenyatta Calloway: So my biggest thing would be to sit down with the budget, discuss the budget, and to be able to to see how we can work that out. So without knowing the full budget — I know it just came out recently — I’m still trying to see what we have to use to work it out. Just really seeing what we have to use, and not use.

CC: How will you handle the loss of funding to services like SNAP and Medicaid?

Calloway: That is my biggest concern. Dealing with people within our neighborhoods right now that use those services is like the biggest concern for me, and to see what we can do. We know what they’re going to give us from New York State or DC, but how can we supplement them? How is the city able to supplement them? 

I don’t want to say, pull resources from somewhere else, but be mindful if we can pull resources from somewhere else, and are able to supplement them until we figure out what’s going to happen with that.

CC: The Legislature passed two resolutions to transfer a parcel of land along Onondaga Lake to the Onondaga Nation. As a legislator, do you believe you have a role in facilitating a transfer? If so, what is that role?

Calloway: For it to be already passed, my role would be to be able to make sure that we are holding to what we said we’re going to do.

So if it’s something that was prior to me, I don’t feel like I have a right to say if we should go back on it or forward on it. But making sure that we are holding to what we say we’re going to do, and making sure we move anything forward in that aspect.

CC: In a hypothetical scenario where federal funding for Onondaga County is conditioned on the basis of the county sheriff’s office cooperating with ICE operations, would you be in favor of supporting that collaboration? Why or why not?

Calloway: I would abstain on that one.

I would abstain from saying how I would be able to affect it, because I haven’t read the policies. I’m big on not making any decisions without reading what the consequences are for these decisions.

CC: If the federal government basically said we’re going to withhold your Medicaid funding, unless your sheriff’s office partners with ICE?

Calloway: We will all say that what’s going on right now — it’s not fair, it’s not constitutionally correct, and they’re trying to withhold funding and jobs, and take away rights due to what they feel – if it’s not in the Constitution, we should not be doing it.

I’m 100% standing on that.

CC: As Micron ramps up, how do you plan to monitor and ensure that Micron lives up to its lofty promises to protect Central New York’s bountiful natural life?

Calloway: I am a camper. I am 100% outdoors. That is what I believe and do. 

We know that we want to see growth in our city financially, we know that that’s what Micron is bringing — but growth doesn’t mean destroying the future for our families and our kids. 

So rules and regulations have to be put into place, and they have to be followed. We have to hold that up to responsibility for everybody. And putting in procedures and policies, and ensuring that they’re being followed, I believe that is up to the County to hold it accountable.

CC: If ICE approaches Onondaga County and requests sensitive information to aid in what it says is a “criminal investigation” – and refuses to provide more details – should Onondaga County furnish sensitive data from a department like DSS to federal authorities with unclear motives?

Calloway: No. That’s just like the HIPAA laws with medical — it’s the same thing. 

We cannot give up information without documentation. That’s just the law. 

So it’s the same when people sign up for these things, we tell them that this information will not be transferred to XYZ. So that’s what I believe in. I believe in the HIPAA. I believe in not transferring information without documentation.

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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...