This fall, three candidates will face off to complete former Mayor Svante Myrick’s term, after the latter announced in early January that he would be resigning from the position in order to serve as the executive director of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy organization. Whoever is elected to the position will serve for one year as Mayor, to complete Myrick’s unfinished term. Laura Lewis is currently campaigning as the Democratic candidate, while Zachary Winn is running as a Republican. A third candidate, Katie Sims, will also run as an independent. William Metro, the familiar “Magic Man” on the Ithaca Commons, is running as a write-in candidate following Winn’s successful challenge of his petition signatures, which are necessary to run on the ballot.
The Democratic candidate, Laura Lewis, grew up in Buffalo, New York. She has spent most of her professional career in student services at the Industrial and Labor Relations School in Cornell, and has also served on the Democratic Committees, Board of Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services, the TCAT Board, and was elected to the Ithaca Common Council’s fifth ward in 2017 and 2019. She is the chair of its Planning and Economic Development Committee. Following the resignation of former Mayor Svante Myrick in January 2022, Lewis has served as the Acting Mayor of Ithaca.
Lewis stated to The Tattler that her interest in city government began when she retired from Cornell. “At that point, I decided to take my interest and experience with community service and take it to having a seat at the table.” She emphasized that she has not had a career in public office, but as a counselor, working with students at Cornell while simultaneously being involved with community service. Lewis decided to run in the general election this year to continue working on several initiatives that she has been involved with in Common Council, including
helping ensure the right to counsel for tenants.
Lewis stated to The Tattler that her priorities in the coming year would include availability and affordability of rental housing —she noted that this was passion of hers, stemming from her background. Ithaca consists of around 74 percent renters, and as mayor, Lewis aims to establish protections for renters, as well as landlords. Lewis added that rental housing reform was related to sustainability, as more housing within the city of Ithaca would lead to fewer people having to commute in. She added that continuing to work on the implementation of the Ithaca Green New Deal was another of her priorities, and stated, “I was very pleased, as a Common Council member, to vote in 2019 for [Ithaca’s] Green New Deal, and to vote in our budget for a
sustainability director.”
Regarding crime and policing in Ithaca—which she noted as another of her top priorities—Lewis hopes to implement the Reimagining Public Safety plan, which would create a new public safety agency responsible for, according to the Reimagining Public Safety Working Group, centering “the experiences of [Ithaca’s] marginalized and vulnerable populations.” Lewis plans to address what she referred to as, “very very difficult, complex issues around violence in the city.” Beyond this, she hopes to counter substance abuse and homelessness in Ithaca. Lewis emphasized that these are all separate issues that are “sometimes interrelated.” When asked if she plans to run again following this one-year term, Lewis stated that she is focused on the current campaign, and her plans for 2023 are not entirely certain. She additionally noted that “we are
a city of 32,000 people with a budget of 80 million dollars, and that is not enough to do everything we want to do.” In order to address the complexities of some of these issues, Lewis stressed the need for cooperation with Tompkins County, Cornell, Ithaca College, and more.
The Tattler also spoke with Katie Sims, the independent candidate in the mayoral race. She describes herself as an organizer and activist, and has worked on the Green New Deal and the campaign for good cause eviction, which would prohibit landlords from ending a tenancy except when a lease is violated. Sims came to Ithaca to attend college, and has a degree in environmental science with a focus on climate change from Cornell. She has been involved in local climate advocacy since she was a student, being a part of the initial Sunrise Movement in Ithaca. Sims sees running for public office as a “next step to following through on these progressive promises that were being called for in [Ithaca].” She is running for mayor in particular because she sees the position as the best way to follow through on the promises in the Green New Deal, among other goals. Sims especially emphasized her work on the Ithaca Green New Deal, which was adopted by the Ithaca Common Council in 2019—she was one of the original members of the Sunrise Movement in Ithaca that helped push the movement through the Council.
When asked what the biggest issues facing Ithaca are, Sims highlighted housing problems. She drew on her own experiences, adding, “The longest I’ve ever stayed in one apartment in Ithaca is thirteen months.” Sims noted issues for tenants in renewing leases and having to move often—an expensive, time consuming ordeal. Moving often could make it difficult to keep a job, especially if tenants are forced to move out of the city of Ithaca. “It’s just an untenable situation when people are unable to stay in their homes for extended periods of time.” Sims added that she faced difficulties running for office due to her situation as a tenant, which could discourage representation of tenants in local government. Housing problems, Sims stated, were making Ithaca “a place that works less and less for working-class people.” In response to crime and homelessness in Ithaca, Sims wants to invest in housing first, harm- reduction services for addiction, healthcare and community centers, and emergency housing—solutions, she stated, that aren’t
based on punishment.
Sims’s goals, if elected mayor, mostly prioritize following through on the promises that Ithaca has made in the past years. This includes the Ithaca Green New Deal, which Sims hopes to get back on schedule, and tenant protection laws that haven’t protected tenants from leases not being renewed—a problem Sims hopes to solve with good cause eviction. Sims ended by saying that among cities in New York State, Ithaca has the second-highest income inequality. “We have this vision of Ithaca as a place that has a lot of prosperity… Where people are pretty well off. But that prosperity is not shared among all members of the community.” In response, she stated, “One of my big goals as mayor is to orient the city
toward a vision of economic justice… We need to envision an Ithaca where your ability to have housing isn’t determined by which side of the economic spectrum you fall in.”
At time of writing, The Tattler was unable to contact Republican candidate Zachary Winn. Ithaca consists of only 6 percent registered Republican voters, according to the Ithaca Voice, but Winn believes that city government in Ithaca no longer represents the population. Speaking to the Ithaca Voice, Winn stated, “The [Common] Council and the government of the city has, I believe, gone so far left that it is not representative of the average person whatsoever.” Winn’s campaign focuses especially on crime in Ithaca, which Winn writes blog posts about on his website, ithacacrime.com. If elected mayor, Winn plans to end the Reimagining Public Safety campaign. He has also centered homelessness—a problem which the city has previously addressed by relying upon support services. Winn advocates that the trees be cut down in “The Jungle,” a tent encampment behind Walmart and Lowes, so that the encampment cannot be occupied. Speaking to the Ithaca Voice, Winn stated that Ithaca should not be hostile towards the homeless population, but that “People should have to face the consequences of their actions. Ending up in jail for somebody in the spiral of drug addiction can be a positive thing.” Winn ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor in 2007. This year, his goals as mayor include cutting property taxes by 50 percent. He also wants to tax Cornell’s endowment of around 10 billion dollars, and wants the university to pay property tax to the city of Ithaca.
Though this mayoral term will only last one year, it is clear that all three candidates have ambitious goals. Climate change, crime, and housing appear to be the three major issues that this election will revolve around. This election will also bring Ithaca its first new mayor in almost a decade, and only time will tell which direction we will go in next.