Legislature Democrats replaced half of OCIDA’s board. Republicans offered $5M toward affordable housing to stop them.
Laura Robertson
Laura Robertson is a staff reporter covering Onondaga County. Prior to joining Central Current, she lived on the edge of the Bering Strait in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a reporter for a year. She graduated from Princeton in 2024, and speaks English, Farsi, and some Thai. She grew up just west of Binghamton in Tioga County and is excited to return to upstate New York.
Laura won the 2025 Nellie Bly Cub Reporter Award from the New York Press Club for her story on an infirmary profit model that led to dozens of deaths in New York State jails. A 2024 recipient of an Overseas Press Club scholar award, she’s interviewed Alaskan gold miners, Russian draft dodgers, and former Syrian freedom fighters, and reported from Tajikistan. She’s particularly interested in money flows, the intersections of business and politics, and how those things affect people on the ground.
You can reach her at lrobertson@centralcurrent.org with tips about things going on around the county, or with recommendations of ways to get to know Syracuse better!
Posted inAquarium Project
Onondaga County Legislature unanimously passes law requiring more disclosure for aquarium donations
The law would require county leadership to disclose names of donors who gift more than $10,000 to fund the aquarium to the legislature’s chair.
Posted inEconomic Development
Onondaga County Legislature Democrats set plans to overhaul economic development agency
Democrats plan to put four new people on the board of the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency.
Posted inImmigration
In the U.S. Western District of New York, your judge may matter more than your immigration case
For detained immigrants filing habeas corpus petitions, the luck of the judicial draw could mean the difference between freedom and remaining in detention.
Posted inImmigration
A Syracuse man’s family got him out of ICE detention. He still lives in fear of deportation.
When ICE detained Rafael, his family relied on TikTok, Instagram reels and themselves.
Posted inImmigration
What is a habeas corpus petition?
Explaining one of the only ways detained migrants can be released from ICE detention.
Posted inAquarium Project
Friends of the Zoo comes to agreement with McMahon after alleging the county was ‘threatening the very existence’ of the nonprofit
Friends Vice Chair Megan Thomas on Tuesday accused county officials of carrying out a “campaign of retaliation” after the nonprofit declined to contribute $1 million toward the aquarium.
Posted inAquarium Project
Onondaga County officials are ‘threatening the very existence’ of Friends of the Zoo, nonprofit’s leadership says
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon asked Friends of the Zoo officials to donate $1 million toward the county’s aquarium. When Friends officials gave a lukewarm response, pressure mounted, they said.
Posted inAquarium Project
The aquarium gets a new name and new donors — as Onondaga County Legislature Democrats try to curtail McMahon’s power
For the last year, Chief Fiscal Officer Kristi Smiley has been able to accept donations on behalf of Friends of the Aquarium without approval by the legislature. Democrats proposed legislation to change that.
Posted inNews
‘What I needed was here’: How Ruthnie Angrand became Onondaga County’s poet laureate
Angrand brings together a complex range of influences – from her Haitian-American identity to her background as a classically trained singer – in her spoken word poetry.