Sharon Owens will take the oath of office as Syracuse’s next mayor in a private ceremony Wednesday evening. But before then, outgoing Mayor Ben Walsh will end his administration the same place he started it.
On that first New Year’s Eve as an incoming mayor in 2017, Walsh climbed the rickety stairs to the bell tower that watches over Syracuse City Hall. He’ll do that again.
"It's a great view of the city," Walsh said. "It's a special place, one of many special things about being here in City Hall. So I will be up there on New Year's Eve."
Walsh has been mayor for eight years and is term limited from running again. He was Syracuse’s first independent mayor, the grandson of another mayor. He’s proud of what his administration has accomplished, on a micro level.
"We focused on the nuts and bolts of city government first and foremost," he said. "Our job is to deliver services that the taxpayers pay for. And when you go down the list from our new semi-audit trash collection system, our new municipal sidewalk program, the fact that we paved over 100 miles of roads, we did the basics, we did them well, and we made significant improvements."
He’s also proud of the more long range accomplishments.
"Certainly housing has been a priority from day one," he said. "We've built a lot of new houses and new apartments with partners. We finally have the Interstate 81 project underway and that was not a foregone conclusion. We had to work hard to make sure that New York state understood that there was strong support for the community grid, which their consultants told them was the best option. We took on the Syracuse Developmental Center, a long vacant, blighted tax delinquent property. We seized it on back taxes and demolished it and we just closed on the financing for the first phase of the project. We built a new high school."
Walsh was sometimes criticized for a deliberative decision making process. But he said he simply stayed true to himself.
"I'd rather take the time when I have it, but when I don't, I make hard decisions and again that's what I was elected to do," he said.
Walsh, who comes from a Republican family, is not registered in any political party. He said being an independent was hard when it came to running for office. But once he got there, had its advantages.
"Every other elected official I worked with was a member of one party or the other," he said. "I think in some ways it allowed me to work with members of both parties because I wasn't seen at least as a direct threat representing the other side."
He doesn’t rule out running for office again someday. But for now, he's moving on to run the New York State Canal Corporation, which he said ticks all the boxes.
"I think as long as I'm in a position where I can do good and help people and it doesn't involve running for office, that's likely going to be where I'm certainly happiest, but I also think most comfortable for the foreseeable future."
So, on his last day as Syracuse’s 54th mayor, he’ll watch Owens, his deputy for the last eight years, be sworn in as Syracuse’s first Black mayor.
"I’m gonna give her and probably a lot of others a big hug and then hopefully unceremoniously walk out the door and into the next chapter of my life," he said.
