Yesterday the Downtown Ithaca Alliance hosted a forum for the seven declared mayoral candidates focusing on the issues of downtown, economic development, and growth. The turnout was excellent, with a standing room only crowd, and the candidates did a great job offering their visions and the prescriptions for moving us forward.
As a nonpartisan organization, one might wonder why we chose to host such an event. The answer is simple – we want the community to better understand how the candidates will confront the very real and difficult issues that the new mayor will face on day one. Ithaca, like nearly all other cities in New York and elsewhere, faces a daunting task of balancing its budget in this time of fiscal stress. It has three and only three options: raise taxes, cut expenses and therefore services, or generate new revenue. Raising taxes is a very unpopular option. Cutting services sounds good – until the service we want is no longer available the way we want it. When police are unable to respond in a timely manner or when a building burns because there was not sufficient building department staff to inspect it ahead of time – cuts become difficult and dangerous. That leaves raising new revenue through growth as the most palatable and logical solution.
What do our candidates think about growth? How will they guide and steer development? These were the key background questions that suggested to us that it would be useful to ask candidates to better articulate how they would seek to deal with growth – both in downtown and citywide.
The DIA staff is preparing an economic impact assessment of the Commons and downtown. Without even forecasting and projecting opportunities that hopefully will appear in the future given proper nurturing, we calculated that there are about $100 million in possible downtown projects that developers have already identified as possible for the short and mid-term. Most of these projects are not public and remain ideas that are waiting to be launched. The new mayor will have much to say about whether these projects are encouraged and developed, or remain simply dormant ideas. A portfolio of $100 million in new projects would generate over $850,000 in new City property taxes, once these projects reach their normalized states. In this economy, that is a lot of new revenue and that would be only for the projects we currently know about. That is also just the property tax; downtown projects provide jobs, spending, sales tax, and other spin off benefits that help the City’s bottom line. The new Mayor, working with the DIA, will have the opportunity to identify and promote far more development activity as well – in downtown, in the West End and at the now vacant nearby Emerson facility.
Take the time to read the written responses provided by our candidates to six key questions posed by the DIA. These responses can be found on our web site. While the DIA will and must remain strictly nonpartisan, we encourage the community to take interest and learn about the vision and views of each candidate. This is a crucial time in the life of our city and the role of the new Mayor will be paramount. Democracy is not a spectator sport… it requires an informed electorate. Take the time to learn about the good people who are competing to be our next mayor.