Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh is gearing up to deliver his final State of the City Address, and he wants the community to know, he’s not planning on taking it easy in his last year.
"People keep talking about me not being mayor anymore,” he said. “I've got another year, and I'm not going to slow down. I've got a lot of work that I want to do."
The fight against poverty is likely to play a big role in 2025, in the wake of census data showing the child poverty rate in Syracuse is the worst in the country among cities with at least 100,000 people. Walsh said that the fight needs to address multiple challenges, including homelessness and the need for more economic opportunities.
Walsh said creating safe and affordable housing remains at the top of his list, and he says there are unprecedented investments happening on the South Side of Syracuse.
"Whether it's along South State, Woodland, and Garfield, Beard, Midland, if you drive around the South Side, it's pretty shocking the number of new homes that are going up through our partners Home HeadQuarters, housing divisions,” he said. “We're going to do more of that. We're doubling down on housing."
City Hall is also focused on economic development in the year to come, including speeding up the permitting process. The city is using two engineering firms to help with permit review and plans to bring on more companies to help. Walsh hopes that will create more jobs.
"We talk a lot about growth, a lot about investment. We need to make sure our processes are prepared to accommodate that growth and that investment, and permitting is one where we would be the first ones to acknowledge, as well as our permitting office, that there's work to do, and we need to get more efficient,” Walsh said.
Walsh said education is also a major priority for his final year. His State of the City Address will be at Grant Middle School, where he plans to highlight facility renovations across the district, including an upcoming $400 million project through the Joint Schools Construction Board.
The State of the City speech will be on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 5:30 p.m.
