The Democratic candidates for mayor took center stage Thursday at a mayoral forum hosted by Central Current. From left to right: Councilor Pat Hogan, Councilor Chol Majok and Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens. Credit: Maddi Jane Brown | Central Current

Tensions between city officials and the Common Council undergirded much of the discourse in a Thursday Democratic mayoral debate between Councilors Pat Hogan, Chol Majok and Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens.

The candidates are competing for the Democratic line in Syracuse’s mayoral race. Primary day is June 24. Hogan won the Democratic designation in March, while Owens won the Working Families Party line, opening the door for an independent run in the general election should she lose the primary.

Central Current managing editor Chris Libonati and reporter Patrick McCarthy moderated the debate, which was hosted at the Everson Museum. Over 200 attendees filled the seats of the venue. 

Throughout the 90-minute debate, Hogan, Majok, and Owens clashed on the city budget process and housing projects but found common ground on how they’d handle challenges presented by federal immigration policy.

Candidates find some consensus on whether to collaborate with ICE

Though the candidates clashed on other topics, all three gave nuanced responses to questions on the city’s strenuous tethers to ICE operations.

The Syracuse Police Department owns and operates several surveillance technologies, including Shotspotter and Flock Safety license plate readers (LPRs). Along with several other law enforcement agencies, the department has a Memorandum of Understanding to share data with the Onondaga County Crime Analysis Center, from which the data can flow to New York State police databases, some of which are now being shared with ICE.

While SPD still owns and controls the data collected by its surveillance systems, some police surveillance technology manufacturers have signaled an openness to collaborating with ICE. 

The Democratic candidates gave similar answers for how they would respond to learning that the manufacturer of an SPD-operated surveillance technology (Flock, for example) began sharing all its data with ICE.

Though aware of SPD’s data-sharing practices with the County sheriff’s department, state police, and federal authorities, Hogan said his role as a councilor has not afforded him full insight into SPD’s current data-sharing policies and their pertinence to certain crimes. He said that he would consult his police chief to get a full understanding of what data is being shared.

For Majok, any data-sharing relationship with ICE would require a court order. The councilor believes it is important to protect potentially sensitive data collected on New Americans in Syracuse but acknowledged it may benefit the safety of the community to share data with relevant law enforcement agencies.

But if there should be a process in which SPD has to be able to share information that is pertinent to the community and to the community consumption, Majok said, “… they should be able to have access to that data as much as they can, protecting the privacy of individuals.”

Owens, whose role as Deputy Mayor has given her a closer look at SPD’s data-sharing practices, said she would go straight to the top, and contact the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, which oversees the OCCAC.

“[NYS DCJS] Commissioner Rosado was in town just yesterday. I shook hands with her. I talked to her. I know her,” Owens said. “I would absolutely get on the phone and talk to her about the concern of the citizens and the Mayor of the City of Syracuse of sharing that data.”

Owens and Majok both found common ground on whether they’d appear at a press conference with Tom Homan, the former acting ICE director and current “border czar” for President Donald Trump.

“So I’ll be very skeptical why, but I still have to do the business of the city,” Majok said. “If it is what is needed for the people of Syracuse to be done, I would do it.”

Owens took a similar tack, saying her appearance alongside Homan would be conditional. The deputy mayor said if the purpose of Homan’s visit was to pressure the city to rescind the police department’s policies against facilitating immigration operations, she would not attend. She would appear if ICE and police identified “criminal entities” in the Syracuse community. 

Hogan took the toughest stance on a public appearance with Homan, implying he would find an excuse not to appear with Homan. Hogan explained that his son’s marriage into a Mexican-American family in Dallas, Texas guided his answer.

“So this is personal to me,” Hogan said. “I think there’d be a fishing derby down at Onondaga Park that day – and any day, there’d be a fishing derby that I’d have to attend – rather than appear for that with that man.”

All candidates agreed they would not allow the Syracuse Police Department to sign an agreement with ICE to perform immigration enforcement duties with ICE oversight.

Redevelopment of public housing

Councilors Hogan and Majok laid into Owens early and often about the temporary pause of the Children’s Rising Center, a key portion of the $1 billion redevelopment of public housing. 

Owens serves as the executive director of Blueprint 15, which was supposed to play a key role in shepherding the children’s center. 

Owens and other project stakeholders have blamed SHA leadership for the children’s center project’s pause, but Majok and Hogan said the pause reflects her and Walsh’s lack of leadership. She has been a vocal critic of Syracuse Housing Authority Executive Director Bill Simmons. 

Owens defended herself by joining the criticism of Mayor Ben Walsh, saying their opinions diverged on the best path forward for collaborating with SHA and seeing the project through.

“There needed to be a change in capacity of the housing authority to be able to lead a billion dollar project, the Children’s Rising Center. The last piece of the funding that we worked diligently to pull together was lost because of timing,” Owens said. “I have not given up on that project.”

Hogan said he would have put all the stakeholders in a room and hash it out.

“The mayor controls five members of the seven members on the SHA and his deputy mayor was head of Blueprint 15, and they were the two warring factions,” Hogan said, “… When you control both entities, I can’t see where you can’t find a common path to get this thing done.”

Majok argued that neither Walsh nor Owens has taken true accountability for the pause of the Children’s Rising Center project.

That set off a testy exchange.

“The only person in the room with their sleeves rolled up to make that project even a reality, is Sharon Owens,” Owens said.

“It hasn’t happened,” Hogan said.

I think deputy mayor, even if you started it, you didn’t finish it, you failed at it,” Majok said.

“It’s not done,” Owens retorted.

Although Hogan and Majok think Walsh could have used his five SHA Commissioners to compel change at the top of SHA, both said they believe SHA’s embattled executive director Bill Simmons should remain in his position. 

Owens disagreed. She said she does not believe Simmons should remain in his position.

Should the Bonadio report have been public earlier? 

Majok and Owens sparred over whether a report by the The Bonadio Group, a $20,000 report funded by taxpayers, should have been made public before councilors voted on the budget. 

The report helped guide how the council made about $16 million in cuts from Mayor Ben Walsh’s proposed budget. The council declined to make the report public before they voted on their own cuts. 

During a portion of the forum in which candidates were able to ask each other questions, Owens asked whether such a report should be released to the public before the council votes. 

Majok told Owens he’d once again keep the report private if he had to repeat the budget process. 

“Until you are in the position of a councilor, you would understand that councilors make decisions at 11:59 p.m.,” Majok said. 

Owens chastised Majok’s and the council’s decision to keep the report private, saying they “were were not being public enough with a report you used to determine the taxpayer’s budget.”

In previous Central Current reporting, lawyer and open government expert Paul Wolf lampooned the council’s decision to keep the report public. Hogan responded to Owens by saying that The Bonadio Group audits the city’s books in other ways, so there should be no objection to them auditing the mayor’s proposed budget.  

This budget cycle, the mayoral administration and the council fought often and publicly over how to handle the budget. Councilors were adamant that the budget needed to be more conservative given the uncertainty of federal funding and the country’s fiscal future. 

During the debate, the candidates were asked how they would handle a council who pushes back on their budget. 

Majok, who previously in a letter to Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, that the council needed to be the “adults in the room” on the budget said that “leadership requires that we do not react emotionally because with emotion you lose the opportunity to make collaboration. That’s what happened in this budget season,” Majok said. “I will not make that mistake.” 

Owens said she’d prepare city department officials for the public hearings they have with the council. Hogan said he’d sooner call in the council to talk over the budget’s financial figures. 

To better reduce reliance on the city’s fund balance, essentially its savings, Hogan said the state needs to commit — as it did under former Gov. George Pataki — to increasing aid to municipalities by 2% every year. 

Stay tuned for more mayoral election coverage from Central Current.

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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...

Chris Libonati is the managing editor of Central Current. He is a founding editorial member of the organization and was hired as Central Current's first reporter. He previously worked at the Syracuse Post-Standard...