Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner on Monday openly expressed her displeasure toward a recent report recommending the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County merge their governments.

The citizen group Consensus published a 112-page report on Thursday recommending the consolidation of government, saying the merger would save money. The report also recommended consolidation of the Syracuse Police Department and the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office and unification of village and town courts to establish a regional court system, among other things.

“You’re wiping away the entire city government,” Miner said. “You’re taking away all the city assets and then you’re saddling the city which includes property owners, voters, business owners with all the debt which is over a billion dollars.”

Miner initially issued a press release following Consensus’ publication of the report in which she dismissed the recommended consolidation as “the worst form of corporate looting.”

During her 25-minute press conference, Miner pointed out that the report did not mention what to do with school districts, saying they will be left afloat without anyone who is going to ensure they receive a “correct share of funding.”

The citizen group supports the consolidation of the governments for multiple reasons, saying the merger will save money, improve government services and stimulate the area’s economy.

Consensus has proposed that the governments be combined into one legislative body with 33 legislators. The legislative body would be composed of 29 districts and four at-large representatives, with each representative carrying one vote. Consensus also recommended that a chief executive be elected by voters within the county to run the proposed city-county legislative body.

The report states that one benefit of the merger is that each legislator would represent fewer constituents, which could help individual legislators address specific regional concerns better. The report states that the constituent ratio — the number that indicates how many constituents are represented per one legislator — would be brought down to 16,103 citizens per legislator, instead of the current ratio of 28,834 citizens per Syracuse Common Councilor and 27,558 per Onondaga County legislator.

Miner, however, expressed her skepticism toward a suggestion that the new government would increase the city’s representation under the new legislative body, saying this would ultimately abolish the city.

The Consensus report expects a referendum to be held in 2017. Syracuse holds a mayoral election in November this year.

The Syracuse mayor is at odds with County Executive Joanie Mahoney, who previously said in a statement to The Daily Orange that she encourages people to approach the report “with an open mind and study the facts.”

Miner’s frustration is also directed at New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who awarded $500 million in 2015 to the central New York region as part of his Upstate Revitalization Initiative. He later said the state awarded the money to the area because Syracuse and county leaders pledged to merge their two governments, according to Syracuse.com.

Miner during Monday’s press conference said there are certain people who are “clearly” pushing this merger effort, even though she refused to name who those individuals are.

When asked what is going to happen next, Miner said she anticipates people will have a discussion on the conclusions described in Consensus’ final report. Noting that there have been several other efforts for city-county government consolidations in cities across the country, Miner said every consolidation that she has seen has ended up costing taxpayers more money.

“The recommendations don’t benefit the people in the city of Syracuse and that’s my job as a mayor: To stand up and to say what I think benefits them and don’t think benefits them and why,” Miner said.

Published on February 13, 2017 at 9:37 pm

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