Democrat Ellen Block (pictured) faces Republican David Carnie in the race for the Onondaga County Legislature's 5th District seat. Credit: Courtesy of Ellen Block

Editor’s Note: Central Current’s election coverage is supported in part by a grant from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

Mental health counselor Ellen Block believes her decades of experience actively listening to people’s problems can translate to responsive leadership in the Onondaga County Legislature’s 5th District, which stretches from Salina to Dewitt.

Originally from the Hudson Valley, Block moved to Onondaga County in 2008 and has lived in Lyncourt since 2009. Block earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling, and currently works as a licensed mental health counselor at Psychiatric Services of CNY Elmwood.

Before that, Block held roles at ARISE, the Salvation Army, and Helio Health, as well as working with elderly individuals at PACE CNY.

Block is a political newcomer, running on the Democratic Party line against Republican David Carnie. Carnie refused to participate in Central Current’s pre-election Q&A series.

Block agreed to run after the Onondaga County Democratic Party courted her for the 5th District race. She hopes to bring greater transparency to the county government, and vows to hold developers and property owners accountable for building and operating “ethically, sustainably, and with our current population in mind.”

Her experience working with underserved populations, Block said, primes her to both collaborate with peers from both political parties, as well as listen to her constituents and other county residents.

“My vision for the future of the county is one where we continue to call Onondaga County ‘home’ and a place where people want to stay because they see family, hope and opportunity,” Block said.

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?

Ellen Block: Frankly, I don’t want to.

I am not for the aquarium. We will have to deal with the fact that there is a structure that is being built, but I think that we should explore options – whether it means we have to take a loss by backing out of a contract or something – and I think we should possibly repurpose that building into something that’s actually needed in the community. 

I don’t know what the answer is. As far as making up for a loss, I don’t think it was a good idea to begin with.

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

Block: So I think that with the losses there, we will have to rely more so on some of our localized resources. So, for example, we have the food pantries, and they have wonderful things like the Food Sense Box. And I think we would have to refer people more to those sorts of programs.

When it comes to Medicaid. I think we would have to rely on things that are more local-based, so things like day centers, things like Meals on Wheels. We’re going to have to rely more on some of those services, that aren’t Medicaid-funded or SNAP-funded,

The Food Sense Box, I know a lot of people who do receive SNAP do take advantage of it, but anybody can take advantage of it as well. I have worked with a lot of programs. I’ve stepped out of the role of being so much in Medicaid programs for the last year or so, but I’ve worked with a lot of them, and I have a lot of connections, so I’d be able to reach out and find out what sorts of things we can plug in.

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?

Block: All of us who are or are running for positions are looking for more accountability in our government. Absolutely, I think it’s our responsibility to push our county executive to follow through with a transfer — and not only follow through with a transfer, but a transfer of land returned in the way that it was originally taken. 

When you take something, when you borrow something, or you have something of somebody else’s, it’s expected that it’s returned in the same condition. So I don’t think that we should be returning something and just saying, “well, we used it, and there it is.” It’s completely contaminated. 

No, we should be cleaning that up and giving it back to them. And I think that, yes, as legislators, we should be putting pressure on the county executive to be giving it back in that manner.

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?

Block: Absolutely not. 

No, I will not support ICE being in our county at all. I will fight against ICE being in our county. And I would hopefully be in pressured talks with the County Executive or Sheriff’s Office to hopefully sway them against working with ICE.

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?

Block: So I think that is going to require a lot more conversation. We were presented with this large quantity of information to go through, in such a short amount of time, to see what Micron was doing to our area.

I think it’s just going to require a lot more conversations with county officials, and involving legislators from both sides, to ensure that things are being built with our local ecology in mind. 

I think we’re going to have to have a lot of discussions, step by step, with them, regular updates from them, and then asking a lot of questions about their practices. It’s hard to tell, it’s such a big undertaking, so it’s hard to say at this point what we will be asking. But I know one of the big questions is, “how are you going to replace what you’re taking?”

There’s so much to this. This is such a large project coming to our area, that there are so many factors involved, that it’s hard to sometimes conceptualize everything that’s going to be involved. You have to think about traffic patterns, and noise pollution, and air pollution, and  housing, all of these. Our area is going to be so largely affected, I think it’s hard to really tell what we’re up against, until we’re at some of those steps.

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?

Block: Absolutely not. And anybody who has protected health information, should not be giving that out to anybody without any release. 

I do not feel like that is a permissible thing to be doing. I’m a mental health counselor — that is unethical.

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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...