By David Tyler
Publisher
There is a stark contrast between the two candidates for Onondaga County Executive.
Republican Ryan McMahon has used his campaign to promote what he sees as a series of accomplishments by an effective government in the year since he was appointed to the position following the departure of Joanie Mahoney.
“We’re talking about what people care about — what impacts their families, their neighborhoods,” he said.
Democrat Tony Malavenda, on the other hand, has focused his campaign on shining the spotlight on what he considers a broken system of government. The county, he said, has been “squandering assets” through mismanagement and “cronyism.”
In separate sessions, both candidates came to the Eagle News offices ahead of the election for a conversation with Eagle’s editorial team.
Malavenda sees himself as a reformer. He said his former position as the founder and CEO of Duke’s Root Service — a national firm that worked with more than 3,500 municipalities across the country — gave him the opportunity to see how governments in other parts of the country worked to foster growth and economic success, while Onondaga County fell behind.
Government modernization, Malavenda said, should be a top priority. That includes developing a countywide land use plan and taking advantage of new technologies so the county, towns and villages can pool data, communicate and strategize together about priorities.
Malavenda’s modernization plan also includes eliminating redundancies between county and municipal governments. He pointed out that there are more than 30 highway departments or DPWs “in a county you can drive across in 30 minutes” and added that the region could better maintain roads and plow snow if the players in power were less concerned about “protecting their own fiefdom.”
Onondaga County, Malavenda said, is hampered by government cronyism, starting with what he called the “pay to play” system in which area firms support the incumbents with large campaign donations in return for lucrative contracts with the county. He said his campaign would not take any donations from anyone doing business with the county. The vast majority of the money his campaign has taken in has come from a single donor: himself.
“I’ve cashed out my business, but it shouldn’t have to be that way,” Malavenda said.
Malavenda also believes this November’s election is an opportunity for Onondaga County to more fairly draw legislative district lines that he believes the GOP has gerrymandered to ensure the Republican party stays in control. He wants an independent commission to be tasked with redrawing those district lines following the completion of the 2020 Census.
“It’s the same players — generation after generation,” he said. “It’s a system that I’m bothered by.”
Where Malavenda sees a broken system, however, McMahon sees progress.
McMahon cited a recently-passed budget that included a small tax decrease, and a county government that has strengthened relationships with the City of Syracuse and the dozens of towns and village throughout the county.
“We promised unprecedented collaboration,” he said, “and we think we’ve delivered on that.”
Since taking office in late 2018, McMahon has held a series of town hall meetings throughout the county to listen to local residents and promote his PIE plan, focusing the county’s attention on three core areas: poverty, infrastructure and economic development.
McMahon cited 7,000 private sector jobs that have been created in the county in the past year, along with the massive proposed warehouse facility in Clay that promises 1,200 more jobs.
“Our marketplace is growing twice as fast as Albany and Rochester. We’ve diversified our economy overall,” he said.
McMahon praised the county’s work on helping villages revitalize their core streetscapes, and a new initiative to help municipalities take advantage of their waterfronts.
While systemic poverty remains one of the county’s biggest challenges, McMahon believes some of the initiatives the county is undertaking will make a difference, including investing in early-childhood education and an innovative program with the rideshare company Lyft to provide transportation to jobs for impoverished people.
“We believe we’re making progress in each area,” McMahon said.
Malavenda believes the county should do much more to combat poverty, including partnering with local universities to identify programs that are working around the globe and bring them back to Onondaga County.
“What we’re doing isn’t working,” he said. “We should be willing to do innovative things.”
In McMahon’s view, the county should be strategic about which initiatives it funds, making larger bets on solid opportunities even if it means making fewer bets, and pitching CNY at big business site-selector conferences.
“We’re not going to win every opportunity, but I want to be at the table so I understand why we didn’t win,” he said.
