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Syracuse City Hall, pictured April 16, 2024. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

Editor’s note: This story is part of CNY Decides, a collaboration between Central Current and WAER Syracuse Public Media to demystify the political process and bring you the stories and information you’ll remember in the voting booth in 2026. Click here to read, watch and listen to other installments in the collaboration.

Three Democrats will vie this summer for the Democratic Party nomination in a race for an at-large seat on the Syracuse Common Council. 

Incumbent Helen Hudson, a former council president, will look to retain her seat on the council, to which she was appointed in February following a vacancy. 

Progressive challengers Cjala Surratt, a downtown business owner and longtime community organizer, and Moise Laub, a Syracuse city schools budget analyst, aim to challenge Hudson to appear on the ballot under the Democratic Party line in November. 

The winner of the primary on June 23 will face Republican candidate Raymond Dague.

Read about the candidates and their policy positions below.

Helen Hudson

Hudson, a mainstay of Syracuse politics, told lawmakers in February she is running again to continue the work she started on the council in 2012 when she started serving her first term. 

Pictured: Helen Hudson Credit: Courtesy of the City of Syracuse

Hudson did not respond to several requests for an interview with Central Current. 

Lawmakers appointed Hudson to the council in February via a 6-2 vote after she intermittently participated in council meetings in 2025 due to medical and personal reasons. 

That vote came after current Council President Rita Paniagua vacated her post to become president of the legislative body. Paniagua’s tenure as president came on the heels of Hudson’s, who is the first Black woman to have ever held the office of council president. 

For 20 years, Hudson worked as a community services liaison for the United Way of Central New York. There she built bridges between the organization, community members, and the local American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

During the interview with the council, Hudson focused on her experience serving Syracuse youth. Some of that work included co-founding Mothers Against Gun Violence, an organization that brings support to the mothers of homicide victims, as well as creating the Pathways to Apprenticeship initiative. That program is designed to give unemployed youth a road toward successful careers in the construction trade, she told councilors. 

On housing, Hudson said she wants to continue her work on the board of the Syracuse Housing Strategies Corporation. The housing strategies corporation is set to give millions of dollars in low- or no-interest loans and grants to gradually address issues with the quality of the city’s housing stock and affordability — particularly some of the city’s middle class neighborhoods. Hudson is one of nine board members. 

Hudson wants spur improvements for the Syracuse City School District’s portfolio of schools, she said. Hudson currently sits on the Joint School Construction Board, a body tasked with financing and constructing large remodeling efforts and overhauls to school facilities.

“I am in the community, and I talk to the community a lot,” Hudson said in February. “Working and talking to them is very critical, which is my expertise.”

Cjala Surratt

Surratt, who owns the Black Citizens Brigade vintage store downtown, said she is running for council to bring her years of policy experience and work in community organizing into the light. 

Her store is a reflection of Surratt’s interests and values, she said. In addition to selling contemporary and vintage books, clothing, records, and other items, Black Citizens Brigade hosts events centered on community education and arts programing in collaboration with museums and theaters. 

Surratt has also been involved in policymaking efforts in the arts and culture space, with a keen interest in the arts’ intersection with identity and social justice. She has worked with organizations like the Light Work photography studio, Voices for Creative New York, and the Redhouse Arts Center. 

For Surratt, bringing that experience together and connecting efforts between industry, philanthropy, and different levels of government. 

Pictured: Cjala Surratt Credit: Courtesy of Cjala Surratt

“We can’t remain siloed. We particularly know now that we have to pay attention to more intergovernmental policy that’s happening,” she noted. 

A part of that is having better communication with the state as Albany lawmakers navigate lengthy budget processes that set the tone for municipal budgeting.

Offering critical services to city residents has fallen on area nonprofits, and that increased workload, Surratt said, has made it difficult to work with a federal government that has placed obstacles toward adequately funding services.

A potential solution backed by Surratt to achieve more financial independence from changes to funding at the state and federal levels would be for the city to demand some of its biggest tax-exempt property owners to pay more. The city negotiates agreements with tax exempt entities like Syracuse University and Le Moyne College to receive payments in lieu of taxes. 

To address the city’s housing woes, Surratt said the city needs to increase its supply. The current federal administration, however, has curtailed some of the housing options that guaranteed affordability and opportunity for underprivileged communities, Surratt said. 

The Greater Syracuse Land Bank, Surratt said, is an example of how affordability and opportunity for underserved communities can meet to fulfill demand. The land bank is a nonprofit that facilitates the return of vacant and abandoned properties to productive use. That land is typically donated by the city.

Surratt added that she would like to help the city incentivize development of a varied inventory of housing. She noted that a bulk of the available housing stock is meant to serve students, who Surratt called a transient population. 

Additionally, residents want more accountability for the enforcement of property condition regulations, she said. In Surratt’s time knocking on doors on the campaign trail, residents have said they would like to see the city enforce property codes guidelines.

Affordability and access to economic opportunities will be key to the future of the city, but the current conditions are staggering, Surratt said. For instance, Surratt highlighted the number of children in Syracuse living in poverty, around 46%, she said. 

Voters have told Surratt they want to be a part of highly industry specific training and career pathways in academia, medicine, and tech, while also hoping to see that same breadth of opportunities for other professions.

“If we really want people to be here, we have to share with them that there are dynamic, amazing, exciting things that are going on here,” Surratt said.

Regardless of the outcome of the primary, Surratt will still be on the ballot in November under the Working Families Party line.

Moise Laub

Laub said he decided to run for office after he was laid off from his job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in late 2025. At the time, Laub said, he did not know what resources he would have at his disposal to navigate getting laid off. 

“I saw where I didn’t have a lot of safety nets there for me,” he said. “Luckily, there was something, but there’s a lot of people that didn’t have any options for childcare, housing, or even finding a new job.”

Laub, a military veteran who is now a budget analyst for SCSD, said getting laid off made him empathize with Syracusans who are “one accident away from the worst situation.” 

Pictured: Moise Laub Credit: Courtesy of Moise Laub

That experience made him want to run for office and focus on providing stability for families — including job readiness, transportation and child care. 

When it comes to finances, Laub has had a front row seat to watching the struggles of city residents. He has been the president of the board of directors at Syracuse Cooperative Federal for the past five years. Laub has helped guide the credit union in helping residents access housing financing. 

Laub, a Haiti native and veteran, purchased his first home two years ago with the help of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He said the VA was vital to him purchasing a home. 

“I have seen abject poverty, and I can see how housing plays an important role in the poverty that we have,” he said on the value of being a homeowner. “I have seen some of the regulations or financial burdens that are in people’s ways, and some historical issues that I have seen that kept people out from being homeowners.”

Part of addressing some of Syracuse’s housing woes also includes repairing the city’s distressed housing stock, Laub said. That will be crucial as the region anticipates the arrival of Micron’s semiconductor manufacturing plant. 

Laub wants the city to explore how it can bring in more revenue to protect against state or federal funding becoming more unreliable, he said. Similar to Surratt, Laub said he would like to see city tax-exempt property owners pay more into the city’s coffers. 

“I’d be willing to sit down with all the council members and the neighborhoods and listen and talk and work with them and come up with a solution that’s going to work for all of us,” Laub said. “It is going to be a collaborative process.”

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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...