Career
Walsh began his policy career working for Laborers Local 633, working on construction jobs around Onondaga Lake after his graduation from Ithaca College.[2] Following this, he worked for the political actions staff of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in Albany. In 2002, Walsh returned to Syracuse to run his father's congressional campaign.[3] Following his father’s campaign, Walsh traveled to Ireland, where he stayed for three months and interned for then Prime Minister of Ireland Bertie Ahern.[2]
Walsh eventually returned to Syracuse to work for SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, educating municipalities about brownfields.[2] He went on to become the deputy commissioner of the city's Department of Neighborhood and Business Development under previous mayor Stephanie Miner. Here, Walsh created the Greater Syracuse Land Bank and was part of the redevelopment of Hotel Syracuse. He also worked on the Metropolitan Development Association, a precursor to CenterState CEO. Additionally, Walsh served on several boards and community groups around Syracuse, including serving as president of the Gifford Foundation board.[2]
After resigning from his position at city hall in 2015, Walsh worked for Mackenzie Hughes law firm as Business Development Director, prior to launching his campaign to become the mayor of Syracuse.[2]
Mayor of Syracuse
Walsh was elected mayor of Syracuse in 2017 while running on two minor party lines, the Independence Party of New York and Reform Party of New York State. In what was generally seen as an upset, Ben Walsh won the election with 53.2% against four other candidates, namely Democratic frontrunner Juanita Perez Williams as well as the nominees from the Republican, Green, and Working Families Party.[4]
Policy Plans
In January 2019, Walsh introduced his major policy plan, Syracuse Surge, at that year's State of the City. The goal of the plan was to modernize Syracuse’s economy and prepare it for equitable access to new technology (as anticipated in projections in the Fourth Industrial Revolution) through both public and private investment.[5]
The mayor's plans have included establishing a science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) school at the old Central Technical High School and was expected to open in Fall 2022.[5][6]
In January 2020, Walsh announced the Resurgent Neighborhood Initiative (RNI), a plan for housing and economic development focused on ten neighborhoods and business corridors throughout Syracuse.[7] The RNI plan was expected to add 200 new units of affordable housing to the city. Despite the negative impact of the pandemic, the program's progress has continued.
Police Reform
Mayor Walsh made an executive order regarding police reform. The executive order included the enactment of the Right to Know law which requires officers to give their name, rank and reason for stopping someone during every interaction with the public. The officers are required to leave their information if no arrest is made. Additionally, the executive order includes equipping each patrol car with a dashboard camera, securing more body-worn cameras for patrol officers and new training guidelines such as education on the history of racism in Syracuse and the United States, among other things.[8]
The Mayor's Office to Reduce Gun Violence
Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration created The Mayor's Office to Reduce Gun Violence, tasked with conducting a Syracuse Violent Crime Assessment and recommending interventions for its Community Violence Intervention Plan.[9]
Appointment of Lateef Johnson-Kinsey
On April 1, 2022, Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration appointed Lateef Johnson-Kinsey, a pastor at The Well of Hope Church, as director of The Mayor's Office to Reduce Gun Violence.[10] Johnson-Kinsey is the executive director of Transforming Lives & Community and was previously the Dean of Students at Syracuse Academy of Science.[11]
The Safer Streets Program
On March 7, 2023, Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration announced The Safer Streets Program, a $1 million proposal from The Mayor's Office to Reduce Gun Violence and Lateef Johnson-Kinsey recommending paying known gang members a weekly $100-$200 stipend not to commit violent crime and to attend training, therapy and career coaching. The program uses federal funds from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan.[12]
Johnson-Kinsey claimed that his office found that the gangs are not fighting over drugs or money but over feuds and personal disputes.[13]
Controversy over stipend program
The Safer Streets Program proposes stipends to alleviate poverty for 50 of the city’s most at-risk individuals between the ages of 18 and 24, many of whom have criminal records and gang affiliations.[12] The payments are designed to help gang members with basic expenses and are available if they avoid violent criminal behavior and participate in other program initiatives.[14]
This was met with pushback from the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association and opinion pieces by local politicians.
Syracuse Police Benevolent Association President Joseph Moran said, “You’re actually paying stipends to individuals who are documented gang members to maintain good behavior and obey the law. It really was a surprise to us to see that. I know it doesn’t sit well with the membership. It really doesn’t sit well with myself.”[12]
In a Post-Standard letter to the editor, 2nd District City Councilor and Democrat Pat Hogan wrote the following: "There is no doubt that the city of Syracuse… has a gang problem that leads to acquisition of illegal guns by gang members and indiscriminate gunfire in our city neighborhoods that results in injury and death to gang members and, tragically and way too often, the innocent… We need to aggressively use every means at our disposal to stop this violence. Paying gang members is not the answer… I will never support paying stipends to gang members who are still engaged in criminal activity."[15]
Attracting Public and Private Investment to Syracuse
The city of Syracuse was awarded a $500,000 grant in the beginning of 2019 by the New York Power Authority to buy and replace all of the city’s streetlights with energy-efficient lightbulbs. The Walsh Administration claimed the purchase was estimated to save the city $3 million per year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6,100 tons.[16]
On April 18, 2019, JP Morgan Chase selected Syracuse as one of five winners of its inaugural Advancing Cities Challenge; the City of Syracuse was awarded $3 million. This money is for improving tech sector jobs and not-for-profit organizations in low- or middle-income neighborhoods with the overall goal of training young people, veterans, and people of color for future careers.[17]
In April 2021, Amazon donated $1.75 million to the STEAM school at Central Tech in order to further increase access to tech education in the city.[18]
Syracuse's Columbus Monument
Ben Walsh worked with InterFaith Works, a local charity, to lead community discussions on Syracuse's Christopher Columbus monument in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, he established a formal advisory council, the Columbus Circle Action Group, to consider ways to modify Columbus Circle. That group put forth a number of ideas, but in its report[19] stopped short of suggesting that the statue should be removed. Nonetheless, on October 9, 2020, Walsh announced he had decided to remove the statue and other parts of the statuary from the monument and send the statue of Columbus to an unidentified “private location.”[20]
In response, the Columbus Monument Corporation and 27 Syracuse taxpayers sued the City and Mayor on May 16, 2021, to stop the plan.[21] The petitioners argued that the monument was privately funded and that private funds were integral to the monument's renovation by the City in 1992, and that Walsh lacked the legal authority under city law and a 1990s contract with the state to remove the monument or any part of it. On March 11, 2022, Supreme Court Justice Gerard Neri granted the petition in part, finding that the City has a legal duty to maintain the monument in its current form and place and that the Columbus Monument Corporation was a third-party beneficiary of the City’s contract with the State, a contract in which the City promised to maintain the Monument on a long-term basis.[22] Mayor Walsh immediately announced that the City would appeal Justice Neri’s decision. As of now, there is no date for the appeal to be heard.
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