Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. This November, Syracuse will elect a new mayor. Joining me today is the Republican candidate for the position, Tom Babilon. Mr. Babilon is a senior attorney at Hiscock Legal Aid, and he also has experience as Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city, where he worked with housing, neighborhood and business development, and labor and employment. I want to note that I also plan to have the other three mayoral candidates on the program in the coming weeks. So, Mr. Babilon, welcome to the program, you’re first, and thank you for doing that, and thank you for making the time to talk with me.
Tom Babilon: Well, thanks for having me on, Grant, I appreciate it.
GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. And so let me just start right in with the core question. You know, you have painted Sharon Owens, the Democratic nominee as kind of a continuation of the Walsh administration, so I wanted to ask you about the Walsh (administration). What are your main criticisms of the Ben Walsh administration?
TB: Well, I've got several. I don't know if we've got time for all of them. Primarily my biggest concern with Walsh has been his disregard for balancing the budget. It seems like every year he's increased the budget. I think the city operations budget increased over $100 million alone under his watch. And, you know, because of that, we've had three tax increases that were implemented in, you know, six 1% tax increases. You know, we've got a new sidewalks tax, water rates have increased. So really, you know, there hasn't been very much transparency. You know, he's been caught numerous times not telling the truth or his administration has to the Common Council. So that things like that and then also, you know, I think, he's really decimated our police force and not been very good with public safety, which is another concern of mine.
GR: Okay, we'll get into all those then. Let's start with the budget, which is obviously a big part of what the mayor is going to have to manage. You said, and you've got on your website I think too, that you're going to look through the entire budget for efficiencies and try to eliminate the waste and, you know, fraud that you can find in there. Historically that doesn't generate big savings when people try to do that. So if you really want to rein in the spending, tell me a little bit about what areas you'd be looking to cut into, because I think that's the only way that that is going to happen.
TB: There's a lot of things just for working at the city that a lot of people don't know, that actually happen. Like, for instance, the DPW workers, the trash workers go home at noon, regardless of how long they've worked, as long as they've completed their routes, things like that. You know, we’re supposed to reduce the number of men on the truck, I believe when we got the new carts and that never happened. So there's certainly things like that that can be looked at. Maybe doing more than one route. There's also issues in the Codes Department, you know, we've got like eight guys that are doing rental registry inspections and, you know, not very many guys doing other things, things like that we can look at. But also there's a lot of spending that, just doesn't, like the, you know, the mayor's office to reduce gun violence. I think that was a $1.5 million expense that really hasn't produced any kind of results. There's all kinds of things like that that get spent. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my office and I would get a call from someone telling me not to collect money that's owed to the city or just to not file judgments You know, and other people, you know, t it depends on who you know, which is is another thing that I really don't like about city politics and I want to change. There's really a lot more money than you would expect with waste and fraud and part of that is, you know, the kinds of things we do with that money, not just money that's wasted on a program, there's a lot of programs that don't present any kind of results at all.
GR: Well, what would be your top priorities? It sounds like, you know, the police force would be one, but where is it most important to you to maintain the effort that the city's making or even increase it?
TB: Well, with regards to the police, I mean, the problem we have with the police is, you know, we've got 200 less officers than we did when I moved here in 2003. We've lost over 100 since 2017, 80 of them I think in 2021 alone, 30 people resigned. So we need to bring up the ranks back up to around 550 people is the first thing we need to do, because simply, the police don't answer calls. I mean, you can talk, I mean, I don't know where you live, Grant,I don't live in the greatest neighborhood. I've had to call 911, I can't tell you how many times in the last 20 years, and I can't tell you how many times, you know, they don't even show up, or they'll call you, we’ll show up when we can, or they don't show up at all. I mean, I had someone tell me about a home invasion where they didn't show up until several hours later a few weeks ago. It's just we're so understaffed, it's the biggest problem. You can't really blame police for it because we're just so understaffed. And part of that is because of things that happened under this administration, including residency requirement for police officers, because that limits the pool of, you know, of new officers that are going to work for us. And, you know, basically, there hasn't been a lot of support from the mayor's office historically under this last administration. You know, from calling the police department an institution of, you know, having institutional racism to, you know, basically, you know, defunding them to a certain extent, telling them not to answer certain calls, telling them not to enforce certain things, cutting ShotSpotter, which is a very important tool for them, I believe they cut license plate readers at one point. There's all kinds of things that they haven't really had the support from the mayor's office that I think they deserve. You know, and the other thing is, you know, we've got other departments, like particularly the mayor's office, I think that spends a lot of money that really is unwarranted.
GR: Well, are you running on, any pledges or promises regarding taxes, especially new taxes? Are you sort of making a public stand on that?
TB: Yes. I think, you know, I would love to reduce the tax burden of the citizens of Syracuse. I don't know if that's going to be possible right off the bat. Certainly I would pledge to no new tax increases because I think that, we've had more taxes in this last seven years than I think any mayor in recent history, you know, and he wanted to taxes more. I mean, the Common Council has now cut him off twice on tax, I mean, he wanted to tax another 2% tax increase this year. And I believe in 2019 he wanted a 4% tax increase and they cut him down to 2%. So I mean, he just says this, you know, he wants to spend a lot of money, but you need money to spend money and he's taking that from the people that live here, and it's caused a lot of people to leave the city. I think the tax and the crime has really caused us to lose a lot of people from living here.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the city of Syracuse Republican mayoral candidate Tom Babilon. So there's two big things I want to ask you about, and I'm going to ask all candidates about this. Whoever the next mayor is, they're going to have to manage two really difficult things that provide opportunities, but also challenges. And the first one is the taking down of I-81 and the redevelopment of the East Adams Street area, which kind of is close to where you live. So the taking down is already happening. But what are your biggest priorities and also concerns about where this project goes from here?
TB: Well, I mean, it’s certainly going to be a mess when they're doing the construction. And, you know, we've got to have, you know, make sure that the DPW controls the traffic properly, that's going to be the immediate concern. But my biggest concern about the project is, you know, what are we going to do with the land when the highway comes down, which is, you know, some of my, other people that are running for mayor have, you know, come forth with their ideas. I think that we need to use that land for its highest and best use. I really think it's going to be very valuable property, probably some of the most valuable property in the city of Syracuse. And I think that it needs to be used for, you know, uses that are going to create income, create for the city, revenue for the city, taxes for the city, sales tax for the city, property taxes for the city, things that are going to make people stop in the city and spend money. You know, some of the other plans have called for public housing there, which I think is the worst possible use. You know, it's going to create a tax exempt property, most likely, and it's also it's not really going to be a suitable place for housing I don't think. It's going to be some of the most heavy traffic in the city, because I've been to these projects in other cities and people, historically, a lot of people do not take the route that they're supposed to take. They'll take the straight route through the city, they'll drive through Almond Street and continue on I-81 south on the other side of the city. So it's going to be a very, very high traffic area and I think the last thing we need to do there is add in a component of residential housing.
GR: Well, the people that are going to be displaced, there are, a lot of them are in public housing and those public housing areas have kind of run their course of useful life. So what happens to those folks then if we don't put public housing back in that East Adams neighborhood?
TB: Well, there is, I mean there is public housing proposed, where McKinney Manor is now, they’re putting in proposals to renovate that. I don't know if it's going to replace all the housing that's, you know, all the people have been displaced. I know in the interim that the Syracuse Housing Authority is having a problem placing those displaced residents. I don't know what the final numbers are going to be. And I'm fine with, you know, housing on that area where we already have residential housing. I think the plan is to increase density, where the, McKinney manor is. So I'm fine with that plan. My problem is, on both sides of Almond Street, where there’s going to be the this vacant lots now on one side and there's a highway on the other where there's soon to be vacant lots, I think that needs to be developed, commercially, you know, that's my position.
GR: Okay. And then the other big thing, of course, is Micron coming in, that's not in the city, but it's going to certainly affect the city, the mega microchip facility and Clay. What are your biggest priorities for how that affects the city, and again, concerns as well?
TB: Initially I think it's, what I've read, I think it’s going to take several years before their even operational. So it's going to be the construction of the plant that's probably going to happen under my first term, at least start. And of course, you know, making sure that city residents are available, make sure they get part of that construction work, that's certainly a concern. You know, I don't really have a lot of concerns about the project in particular because, frankly, it's outside my jurisdiction or any mayor's jurisdiction. You know, we've got to make sure we have the people that are available for the jobs and maybe encourage people that are going to be working there or working on the construction to live in the city. You know, one of my main things I want to do is I want to make the city of Syracuse a place where people want to live, not where they want to leave. And it's too often right now you talk to people and they say, I can't wait to get out of here, why am I still living here, why do you live there? And I want people to say, no, I want to live in Syracuse, I want to live in the city.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Tom Babilon. The Republican attorney is running for mayor of the city of Syracuse in this November's election. So I wanted to talk to you a bit about something that's been in the news a lot lately, and you were also in the Syracuse Post-Standard talking about this. And it has to do with the enforcement of immigration law by ICE and the relationship between the federal government and local governments, regarding that. You said in the paper, if I understood you correctly, that you would not enter into any kind of formal agreement with the federal government to help with immigration law enforcement, because, first of all, it violates state law, which forbids those kinds of agreements, and then, more importantly, you said, because the Syracuse Police Department doesn't have the extra bandwidth to deal with that rather than more pressing problems. I think you've already spoken to the concerns you have about the police department. So am I relating your position about right on that?
TB: That's, you're absolutely right on my position on that.
GR: Okay. So I have some hypotheticals here though if I could press you on this. So what would you do as mayor though, if ICE made a particularly heavy thrust in Syracuse? I mean, we saw this set of arrests up in Cato, you know, with those workers. What if we had in the city of Syracuse a much heavier ICE presence, how would you deal with that?
TB: What can the mayor do, really? I mean, you saw the Oswego mayor come out and say, oh, I don't agree with this, I'm a Republican, please don't do it. It's not going to stop ICE from going and doing whatever operation that they want to do. I don't really think that the mayor can do anything. If there's some kind of egregious raid that I feel that I need to speak out on, of course I'll make a statement. But in reality, I'm not going to stop Donald Trump from doing anything that Donald Trump wants to do.
GR: Okay. And then what would you do if there were significant street protests that erupted? If something like you say, particularly egregious happened, you know, and those folks started to try to interfere with the work of ICE, we've seen that in other cities. So what happens then?
TB: Well, I mean, I think I’ve talked a little bit about public safety before. Public safety is always a priority of mine. And, you know, if there's some huge protests, then I think we need to have a police presence just to make sure that they don't get out of control. I mean, we all lived through the George Floyd protests, and we saw what happened in many cities where, you know, businesses were looted or there there were set on fire, and you know, some police really didn't have things under control. So I think that we definitely need to have a police presence to make sure that everything is fine, that people are not going to have their businesses looted, the people are not going to have their homes or businesses set on fire, you know, or anything, any kind of property crime or, you know, could be even a violent crime, you don't know what's going to happen at these things. So I think that, certainly we need to have a police presence to monitor to make sure that everything's okay. But, you know, people have a right to protest, if people want to come out and protest and they abide by all the rules that are in place, I welcome that. I'm a very big person on free speech, and I think everyone should have their opinion and have their opinion heard. And if you disagree with that, you can have your opinion heard. That's how America works.
GR: Okay. And that topic, and you already, I think, spoke to this in one way, but it invites another set of questions that has to do with the fact that, you know, you're running under the Republican Party banner. So one obvious question that I would want to ask you is how you view the Trump administration so far. You mentioned that you know, there’s nothing a mayor can do to stop Donald Trump, what Donald Trump wants to do. But how would you assess what this administration has done so far?
TB: Well, I mean, I agree with some of the things that Donald Trump does, other things I don't agree with him. You know, it's a mix, almost like any other president. You know, I think that if you're going to put me on the spot, I think we're in better hands then we were last year. The other thing that happens with Donald Trump is he proves me wrong. I think that he's wrong on something and then, you know, six months later, I'm like, wow, okay. This whole thing, like tariffs for instance. Everyone thought it was going to be a nightmare, I was not in favor of tariffs, I thought was a terrible idea. And here we are several months later and we don't have the crazy inflation everyone thought was going to happen. And apparently our revenues have gone up, and we're talking about paying down the deficit with those money. So, I mean, I can't, there's certainly things I disagree with Donald Trump on. I'm not, you know, I always was a, I'm a kind of person that was always for more open immigration. I was never a, you know, a close the border type kind of guy. But I think his, you know, when you look at his immigration actions, what's going on now, it's kind of sorta in response to what happened last four years when we basically had an open door policy. We said everyone come in, we will house you we’ll feed you. You know, we put a huge strain on our public safety nets to such a point where even like the mayor of New York City was complaining about it, you know, the most liberal place, probably on the planet. So I think, you know, what he's doing as far as a mass deportations is in direct response to, you know, what happened to the Biden administration and I think probably both of them went a little too far.
GR: Do you think that you, being a Republican, might give you some kind of ability to distance the city or distance yourself from him without incurring kind of the wrath of Trump? I mean, he seems to be very antagonistic toward Democratic mayors, that's for sure.
TB: Well, I'm not going to fight with him. You know, I think I've said this a few by events before. One of the things, the city is very dependent on federal funding. You know, we just we lost $30 million on the 81 project. We're supposed to possibly lose several million dollars a year in HUD funding. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to say, oh, Donald Trump's horrible, Donald Trump is evil, because that just kind of brings on his wrath exactly as you say. I'm not going to upset the president. If he does something horrible, I'll let him, I'll say something about it. But I'm not the kind of person that thinks everything that he does is horrible, which unfortunately, is the position of a lot of people these days. You know, you talk to them and they can't do anything, you say something that everyone should agree on. Hey, Donald Trump, you know, negotiated a peace deal in the Congo. Oh, he's terrible, you know, I mean, there's people that that have that position, and I'm certainly not one of them. I think that I could facilitate a better, you know, relationship with the president than maybe Sharon Owens can and I think that's going to result in higher federal funding for us.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the Syracuse mayoral candidate, Tom Babilon. So this to me, the next question I wanted to ask you seems to be something that has really, I've been here for 35 years, and it seems like it has been haunting the city the entire time. It has to do with the responsibility of the surrounding towns and villages for the city's success and welfare and I wanted to know how you see that. Do you think that the towns and villages do have some responsibility for the city, because people who live in those places often work in the city? And then are they meeting that, or do you have thoughts about how that relationship might change?
TB: Well, I think that we have, you know, responsibilities towards each other. I know it's not a one sided deal, you know, it's definitely not a one sided deal. And this is something we talk about often is, when I talk about public safety is, if there's a problem in the city of Syracuse there’s a problem in Solvay, there’s a problem in East Syracuse. We are all, all are interconnected. I don't necessarily think that the city, you know, that the people, in the towns and villages have an obligation to make sure that the city succeeds. But I think that we all have a mutual obligation to make sure that, you know, when we're working together or we need to work together to make sure that we have, you know, better cooperation, especially with public safety, with public works, you know, I mean, there's all kinds of things we could work with the county, with them on. And I think that, you know, the county, I'm sorry I'm off a little bit, but I think, you know, the county has a responsibility to the city, the city has responsibility to the towns of villages. We all have to work together in the next four years.
GR: Okay, now, one of the things you mentioned right at the beginning was one of your priorities would be increased transparency. And I wanted to give you a few minutes to lay out what you see as the problem there, and then what plans that you would put into place to make the city’s government more transparent.
TB: The the biggest problem I see, and this is from working with the three different mayors and working in the core counsel's office, is that, the city, the Common Council doesn't have their own attorney, they don't have their own representation. And that makes it very uneven. Such to the point where, you know, the mayor can literally tell things to the Common Council that are untrue. And it has happened lots of times in the past, and there's nobody to come back and say, well, that's not accurate, you know, and the Common Council relies on this. I mean, there's numbers of times when the mayor has has lied to the Common Council.
GR: Well give me a couple examples of the worst ones, okay?
TB: Well, they told the Common Council that the Payroll Modernization project had been bid out when it was a no bid contract, and they were asking for the contract to be renewed. So, I mean, that was a huge, you know, the council flat out asked administration is this bid bid out? They said yes, it was bid out previously. Okay, we just want to re-award the contract that was bid out. That was never bid out. You know, those kinds of things happen all the time. And there's instances where, you know, for instance, if you look at City Hall commons, City Hall Commons has been vacant for two years now. It was sold by the Walsh administration, supposedly they got the contract to sale and they moved all their people over to rental, and they're renting it in a commercial building now. So, you know, the anticipation was that this property was going to sell and it was going to be redeveloped and it would be put back on the tax rolls. Now here we are two years later and it still hasn't been sold. I mean, there's, and the reason because of that is, is because what happens is the Corp Council, they come, the mayor says I want to do this, and the Corp Council says, ask the Common Council for authority for the mayor to do something, whatever that may be, authority to sell City Hall Commons. And the Common Council says, sure, you have authority to do that. Now, what should happen is, the contract should be negotiated between the mayor's office and the buyer, and that contract should be presented to the Common Council for approval. And then that way, they would know exactly what kind of deal they're getting into. This has never been done. And I will, first of all, I'm not going to lie to the Common Council. I'm probably the most honest person you ever going to meet. I hate lying, it's terrible, so that's that's number one. Number two, I want the council to know what they're approving. I'm not going to try and hide anything from them. So, and I think that we need a tracker from how our money's actually spent because when you see the budget and you see like, okay, $1.5 million for that, $2 million for that, you don't know how it's actually spent and there's no good tool that says this is how we spent the money. So I think that we also need to know how the money is spent, and I think that needs to be public.
GR: So, we've got about three minutes or a little more left. I wanted to now get into a little more about you as a person. In some ways, it seems, if I just look at you on paper, you kind of go against type. I mean, you're a Republican running as a Republican, but here you are, you're devoting your legal expertise and your legal work to helping those who need help and to those who can't afford it. So that's not, you're not being sort of a lawyer in a market based system, so to speak, you know? So, what explains that? What is it about Tom Babilon that makes him want to do that?
TB: I've dedicated my entire legal career to public service. I really enjoy helping people. You know, some people, enjoy making money, you know, I kind of said, I'm not going to do that. I, when I can help somebody that needs my help, that makes me feel good. And that's kind of why I got into the mayor's race in the first place, because I would see the kind of things that would happen at City Hall that would make me crazy. I used to do criminal defense work before I worked at City Hall, and no matter what kind of case I had, and I didn't have the worst cases, but no matter what kind of case I had, I never felt bad about representing my client. Some of the things that City Hall made me do when I was there made my stomach turn. They made me not feel right. And that's not the kind of thing I thought that city government should be doing to its citizens. So that’s part of the reason why I decided to run as mayor. And that's that's kind of how I've run my whole life is, you know, I do something that I like, which is helping people, so I get a reward that I actually like my job. I get to go to work every day and happy about that. And, you know, I’ll worry about the money thing when I retire, you know?
GR: (laughter)
TB: I don't need a big mansion on the beach. I'm just happy hanging out with my family, so I'm not too concerned about that.
GR: Okay. Tell me something about the city. What's your favorite place to go in the city when you want to kind of recharge your batteries? Where's your sort of power spot in the city?
TB: My favorite spot to go probably is the creek walk between the inner harbor and the lake. And, I can't tell you how many times my fiancé and I have made that walk or bike ride. Just, you know, it's great when you get down to the lake and you can spot eagles or giant carp swimming in there or, you know, and just the whole walk is nice. And we like to kayak too so we've kayaked that before.
GR: Okay. And then what about, buildings in Syracuse, what are your favorite buildings in Syracuse?
TB: Oh, you know, there's so many beautiful buildings in Syracuse. You know, we were lucky to keep all these historic buildings. City Hall is a great, great example, (it) looks like a castle. You know, I thought I was working in a castle for ten years every day I walked there. And then I worked at the City Hall Commons for a while, you know, it's like a flat iron building, and my office was right in the point of the flat iron so I had like a 180 degree view of the city. It was amazing. There's so many buildings that are beautiful downtown Syracuse.
GR: One last quick question, we just have a couple seconds left. Is there any particular book or anything else you can point to that inspired you to want to do the kind of public service work that you've done?
TB: You know, I can't point to a book. I can only point to some of the, you know, some of the instructors I had when I went to undergrad law school that were very, you know, service oriented, that made me feel like this is something I wanted to do. Originally. I wanted to do criminal defense, I wanted to work at the public defender's office. I did work at public defender's office in Florida for a small period of time. That's what I initially thought I wanted to do. And then, I started working for the city. And then I just ended up, you know, doing family court appeals for people who can't afford lawyers. So, I mean, it's just really I've always enjoyed helping people, and I think it's myself and probably service oriented professors that I had in school.
GR: Okay, we'll have to leave it there. That was Tom Babilon, he's a candidate for Syracuse mayor this November. Again, keep your eye out for future conversations with the three other candidates. Mr. Babilon, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I enjoyed it.
TB: You're welcome. Thanks for having me on, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
