BETTY DAVIS(seated) poses with her nieces and nephews in her Lexington Avenue home. Trinity Derby, 3, is on her lap, and TaTyana Armstead, 10, and Thomas Armstead, 12, are beside her. The children live upstairs from their aunt. The Near Eastside is a narrow band of homes, businesses, apartments and housing projects between downtown and Westmoreland Avenue, south of Interstate 690 and north of Syracuse University. Well-kept properties mingle with boarded-up and rundown places, giving portions of the neighborhood a dog-eared look.
We knocked on doors along Lexington Avenue, east of Columbus Avenue, asking our question: "What's the one thing the next mayor of Syracuse should do to improve life on the Near Eastside?" Here's what some of the neighbors told us.
Alexander James, 41, of 315 Lexington Ave., said the next mayor should "give more black people better jobs. I can’t get a decent job." White faces dominate construction work, he said. When city tax money is paying for it, he said, black city residents should get a crack at those jobs. "From what I’ve experienced, they feel all black guys are lazy. They’re not giving us the opportunity to prove we can do the work," James said. "I have a 5-year-old son I’m raising. I need a decent shot so I can raise him."
Matt Driscoll(D): "Our Office of Minority Affairs insures that at least 15 percent of our capital construction contracts go to minority- or women-owned firms. We beat that goal last year, awarding almost 20 percent of these contracts, worth $3.34 million, to such firms. I also insisted that our police and fire departments recruit the most diverse classes in city history."
Joanie Mahoney (R-C-Ind): "I’ve proposed that — as terms of any financing agreement with the city — all major development projects must use local labor and hire city residents. The problem is that Matt Driscoll hasn’t closed many development deals, and the one at the Hotel Syracuse he did close ... failed to include any provision for local labor. ..."
Howie Hawkins (Green): "I would raise the city’s affirmative action goals for minority employment from 10 percent (established in 1973) to 40 percent to reflect today’s minority population, and require the city and its contractors to hire from a Community Hiring Hall, when necessary, to meet those goals."
Betty Davis, 39, of 207 Lexington Ave., said: "Being as I live here on the East Side and I see the kids hanging out, we need some programs to keep the youth off the street. There’s really not a lot of options out there. The ones that are out there are not positive," she said, referring to street activity. She faults the federal government, not the mayor’s office, for the closing of an after-school program her nieces used to attend. "If the government at the top level is not doing their best, there’s only so much the lower levels can do," she said.
For Jeffrey McConnell, 44, of 316 Lexington Ave., the answer was simple: "Get people to obey the ... traffic regulations and do simple things like replacing the missing signs." A trucker by profession, McConnell said he frequently sees drivers roll through neighborhood stops signs. "Odd- even" and "snow emergency" signs have been filched from local curbs, he said. A city worker told him thieves steal the aluminum signs to scrap them for cash. The city could do what Ohio does, he said: Fix thin aluminum signs onto plywood. "It makes them worthless," McConnell said.
Burnese Lloyd, 69, of 326 Lexington Ave., said the next mayor should provide "more police presence to combat the drug traffic." The sight of drug dealers doesn’t pre- sent a good image to neighborhood children, Lloyd said. "Maybe if there was more of an outlet for the kids, maybe a club they could have activities in, that could be a positive," she said. Drug awareness programs outside the schools would help bring home the pitfalls of drug use and of dealing, too, she said: "I don’t think you are ever too aware of things, as a child."
© 2005 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.
Posted by syracusegreens at October 31, 2005 12:01 AM