For WXXI, this is connections filling in for Evan Dawson.

I'm Gino finale.

Today's connect you with me Tuesday night, as the results of the June Democratic primary election trickled in, with the unofficial results coming in, mayor Bill Evans easily won a second term as mayor and city council.

All three incumbents running to hold their At-Large seat won reelection.

Two new faces also joined council, Chiara Kiki Smith and Lashonda Leslie Smith.

So we're here to talk about City council, what the composition looks like going forward, legislating and some uncertain times that we're in right now.

So, joining me earlier Sunday, Leslie Smith.

Lashonda.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Mitch Gruber returning to city Council member.

Mitch, thanks for being here.

Greetings.

And Miguel Melendez, thanks for being here.

Thank you.

And we're going to be splitting this hours for the second half.

We're going to have Stanley Marin and, Chiara coming in to talk about, their run.

So, but, you know, first off, let's just talk about key priorities going into, you know, this new year, this is the new Trump administration has already, made some threats and cities like Rochester that are sanctuary cities, that is part of it.

We're just in kind of very uncertain times.

I think the Covid relief dollars ran out.

There was a big thing when we were going through the budget session this year.

What the economics of the city are going to look like over the next couple of years?

I think no one has a clear idea of.

So, let's turn to the new person first to talk about what your key priorities.

I gotta put you on the spot as soon as I possibly can.

I wanted to talk about some of your key priorities here, and, you know, going into the next four years, what you think needs to be done in Rochester.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, I have quite a few things that I'm interested in doing.

Based on my experience leading neighborhood revitalization on the ground with residents doing that community driven development.

But to all of the points that you just made, there are so many things that are unknown to us right now.

And so one thing about me is I'm I'm nothing if I'm not nimble, flexible, leader, and being able to respond in real time to what the actual issues are on the table.

I care about things like scattered site housing, affordable housing.

I care about community wellness.

I want to make sure that we have things like tree equity in our community.

But, the issues that we have at the federal government with Ice, threatening or at least trying to threaten our status as a sanctuary city is an immediate, issue that we all have to, collectively, collaboratively put our heads together about and respond in full force, to anything that's threatening our values as an organ, as a, said, city here in Rochester.

What made you run?

Well, I've been asked to run probably for the better part of the last five years or so.

I am a licensed and clinically trained social worker.

I have built nonprofits from the ground up, that have made significant impacts to community members here in the city of Rochester.

But more recently, I've been doing this work around neighborhood revitalization, and it's required me to spend a lot of time with our local municipality and all of our planning boards, our council members, our residents, etc.

and it lended itself nicely to not just my educational background, my, human centered, person centered lens, but also that underground experience doing affordable housing, working to advocate for, street infrastructure improvements, etc.. And so I decided that it was the right time.

It made a lot of sense with the growth of our organization.

I have capacity to do it.

And so I said, yes, Miguel, your council president right now, and it's, again, weird times that we're in, I mean, what's top of your list right now going into another term?

What what's most important to you?

Well, first and foremost, let me first start by acknowledging, thanking and appreciating everyone who ran for office.

You know, this is hard work.

It's not easy.

There's only five seats.

And we had a great list of candidates this year to consider.

So I also want to thank the public for supporting me to return to City Council.

I think that my work is just getting started, and I look forward to now outlining some key priorities.

So first and foremost, I think we have to be steady and stable locally.

We can't take the bait every time the Trump administration tries to, do something to us against us.

And at this point, I think what we have to do is stand our ground on what we believe in as a city.

I think we have strong values here in Rochester.

We talked about Sanctuary City just a little bit.

But you know, this this is all I know.

I've been a Rochester and since I was born in 1986, and the sanctuary city policy has been in place since 1986 and different iterations.

So we, I think, as a community, have to focus on what we can control locally and what we can control locally is things like our zoning alignment plan coming up this is going to be a critical moment in the city's history, where we get a chance to really look at our zoning deeply in the next, we'll say, 6 to 12 months or so.

In addition to that, I think we have to focus on public safety.

When I went and knocked on doors in this community, there probably wasn't a neighborhood that I went in where someone didn't bring up the fact that they're concerned about public safety in this community, what that looks like, how we do it, I think is, is important.

We need to have critical conversations.

It's got to be everything from policing to our neighborhood service centers to the new action team that we're talking about implementing in the fall.

And it has to be comprehensive.

It can't be a one size fits all.

In addition to that, I want to spend a lot of energy on housing, quality housing, building more of it.

We can't build it using units fast enough in this community.

I think we have a lot of aging housing stock that, you know, if we can figure out more ways to reinvest in those those kind of properties, we need to do it.

I think the land bank is a vehicle to do that.

So the next four years for me are going to be focused on neighborhoods, neighborhoods, neighborhoods and public safety.

Housing and access to opportunities are critical to me.

So if the three of the people here, Mitch, you're the longest serving wow member.

And, old, old man River over here.

Yeah, exactly.

You can see the gray in your beard already.

You know, I think you've seen a lot of change happening in the city over, the, over the years, through the pandemic and now through, you know, the situation we're at right now.

And we spoke last night about focusing on what we can do locally and what council that you're capable of doing.

So I want to give you a chance to kind of expound on that a little bit of, you know, what, you think some of the critical issues here are that City Council in and of itself, has some power to actually influence and control.

Absolutely.

First, let me, echo Miguel in thanking all the candidates.

Let me congratulate Lashonda on a wonderful campaign and happy to have her, as a, as a colleague and also just personally just thank you to all the people who volunteered and supported my campaign.

It's, it is, a very humbling experience.

No matter how many times you run to answer your question, as concisely as I can, I really believe that there are, first, that we just passed the city budget.

Right?

So, like, where we can sit here and talk about all the legislative policies that we have, but at the end of the day, the course for the next year is largely set.

The budget passed six three.

The budget is incredibly transparent.

Anyone who wants to hear three full days of budget hearings can go on to YouTube and look at all of them.

I'm sure you have yourself, you know, people can go to open gov, which is our our portal for the budget and look at what our priorities are.

The budget really does, dictate much of what the next year is going to look like.

But I do want to, talk about a little what I mentioned last night.

And just to expand, expand upon what Miguel said.

You know, it is very easy right now to get distracted by the noise and this campaign, this race, unfortunately, there was a lot of noise and a lot of conversations about things that really are not necessarily germane to what the city has, control over.

We did not we do not have the ability to have a guaranteed basic income program in the city of Rochester.

And yet every single time people came on this very show to talk about their candidacy, 20 minutes were spent on, on GBA.

I want to focus on what we can actually control, and I'm going to list three of them in particular.

Number one, our Vision Zero plan to make our streets safer, literally, for people who walk, bike and take the bus and drive we have right now have unsafe streets because people largely, are not following traffic safety laws.

And we need to put some time and energy into figuring out education enforcement and engineering to fix that.

So that's one, vision zero.

Number two, I want to make massive investments in our public market over the next couple of years.

We're seeing the Trump administration slash food stamp benefits.

We don't have the ability to control that.

God knows I'm going to try.

I'm sure everyone in this community can do their best to advocate to maintain food stamps, but we can't stop that.

What we can do is make sure our market is more accessible to more people, and is a place that more folks can stretch their food stamp benefits as far as they possibly can go.

That's something in our control.

And finally, just finishing some critical infrastructure projects that we started with Arpa dollars is so important.

There are so many cities who use Arpa dollars to plug budget holes that the money just kind of went away and plugged a hole, and I could look to our east and west and show you those.

We spent Arpa dollars on things like investing in our tree canopy.

As Lashonda talked about.

We need to finish that work.

We have a goal of 6000 trees.

We got to get it done.

We replace 80% of our lead service lines.

We have to get to 100%.

Water is something that we control is probably, other than our people, our most important asset.

We need to stop thinking about all the different flashy things that people want to talk about on the campaign trail, and get back to what people used to call Milwaukee, sewer socialism, right?

The best way to be a progressive is to fix the infrastructure that we have and make it the best possible thing for the most number of people.

We need to work on that.

So I want to touch on something, you know, really critical that I saw last night is the voter turnout was, frankly, abysmal.

Typically in, mayor primary elections, we see about 20,000 to 20,500 voters, which is still pretty bad to begin with.

For a city the size of Rochester, about 210,000 people for 20,000 people to show up in the Democratic primary is pretty bad.

We saw 13,400 last night.

A little bit over 13,400.

And, that's down about a third from where it was.

I thought we were up to 17,000.

Are we up to 17,000?

Yeah.

Isn't that wasn't.

Yeah.

I'm not sure that everyone voted in the mayor's race, but I think there were 17,000 ballots cast.

I don't know if that's city only or or not.

So I'm.

I'm referring to the ballots cast in the mayor's race in and of itself.

Got it.

Either way, yeah.

Either way, either way, no argument that no matter what.

And the question that stands out is, why?

I mean, why do you think that people just don't seem to care this time around?

You had 15 people running in the Democratic primary for city council seats, three candidates for mayor.

You'd think it would be an election season, especially with everything happening in the political environment where people would care.

But it doesn't seem like people in Rochester did very much so.

Whoever wanted to take that first.

Miguel, you seem interested.

Yeah.

I'll start with, you know, I think voter apathy is a real thing right now.

And it's always been, in our community.

But this seems to be, for whatever reason, a very troubling and difficult thing.

And I don't know the answer as to why it is that way right now.

Could be a plethora of things.

I also don't want to make excuses, but man, it was hot yesterday.

So I think there's some barriers to people getting to the polls.

I do think that we have to look at this.

I mean, I would rather have high voter turnout and lose then low voter turnout and win.

And that's me personally, because I think democracy has to work for the people.

And it is my hope that, you know, this is something we can continue to look at and support the Board of Elections and other people in the community to make sure that we increase not only registration, but turnout.

Yeah.

And I would add to that, I think people are just, not engaged in the civic process.

Folks don't know enough, don't understand enough.

I had the opportunity to listen to these guys, other candidates and our mayor speak a lot over the last six months, and there is so much that I learned, even as a very engaged person in this community, that I didn't know was existing.

So I do think that, we have to think a little bit more deeply about how we get information to people to help them understand the impact that they can have, and then, of course, I mean, all of what's happening at the federal level, people are feeling like, Miguel said that feeling very apathetic and feeling like I can't make a difference.

Anyway, we have to somehow change that for folks, you know?

The only thing I would add is that this is not a Rochester problem right now.

The Democratic Party across the board, let's remember, this was a Democratic primary.

The Democratic Party is is in a state of of crisis right now.

And, I think we're all trying to figure out what that looks like.

We lost a lot of people off the voter rolls from, the last time that I ran, because people have been leaving the Democratic Party.

We need to demonstrate locally that the Democrat that the Democratic Party can get things done and has a place to coalesce, in particular in opposition to what's happening out of DC right now.

And I every time I knocked on the door, I talked to folks about how important it was to really invest in local elections.

This is actually the place, I would argue that we really, if we're really going to figure out how to change and strengthen the Democratic Party, it has to start at the local level.

It's our job now to get people excited about what the Democratic Party can do.

And I don't I think last night was really, a loss for the entire community that we saw turnout as low as it was.

And by the way, that includes making all sorts of accommodations that weren't there.

The first time I ran for office.

There wasn't early voting when I first ran for office.

There is it's it's easier to vote.

We're seeing less voter turnout.

That's a reflection of our party needing to do things better and different.

And I am committed to that work, not just with my colleagues on council, but with my colleagues in the county legislature.

And frankly, with, Chairman Dave and the Democratic Party generally.

I really want to see us figure out a blueprint to make people excited about the work that we do.

So I do want to we've touched on this a little bit, the sanctuary city policy.

And, you know, some of the threats coming from the Trump administration.

But I really want to give a chance to like, give that some space.

This is a really critical thing that the city is facing right now, being sued by the federal administration.

It's kind of a big deal.

The mayor being named in a, the Department of Justice lawsuit and the.

Well, yes.

What does standing up to it look like for all of you, to defend against this and to spend to defend Rochester's status as a sanctuary city, which we've had since 1986?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What does that look like?

So I can lead off on this one, too.

So first and foremost, I do want to just kind of educate the public on where we are, generally speaking, high level.

So we've responded to the initial lawsuit.

We adjoined ourselves to Trump versus San Francisco, which is fighting against the idea that sanctuary cities, could be defunded in some way.

And, we had a motion to intervene by the New York Civil Liberties Union with four organizations that are, filing that motion to intervene.

And so there's a lot of moving parts with the existing policy, I think, as a council and as a community, we we all, are firm in our belief that we have the right to have this policy.

First and foremost, it stood the test of time.

It's legal.

There's no issues with that.

From our perspective.

And that's what's being, challenged and considered, with this federal action.

But what I would say is, once we clear that hurdle and figure out how are we going to, clear the docket, if you will, on this issue?

We do need to have conversations as a community about where do we go from here in terms of what are the next steps, what are the concerns that the public has?

There is, a piece of legislation sitting in committee right now, which we've we've put on hold just based on the fact that we have these pending litigation issues, that we need to contend with.

But I think all of us, to a person on city council currently and hopefully in the future, all agree that we stand firm in our policy.

We believe that we have the right to be a sanctuary city, and we want to make sure that we are putting forward the strongest version of of whatever that means.

Moving forward.

It has to be legal.

Has us stand the test of time just as the current existing policy.

So I think in the moment to to answer your question directly, I don't want to jinx this.

So let me knock on wood.

We have not had an incident since the March 24th incident, to my knowledge, that involved our PD.

So I think the message was sent, at least internally, that we do not participate.

We will not participate.

And if someone does participate, I think we will have stern and strong responses to that.

Yeah.

Here's what I'll add.

And first of all, I appreciate President Melendez, leadership on this.

It this it cannot be easy to see your own name, in in these lawsuits.

And, I think that Miguel has done a fantastic job of shepherding us forward on this.

But I'll answer your question as explicitly as I can.

I think the best way to fight back is by understanding what the punch was in throwing a counterpunch.

I mean, it's a lot of people, I think I think it's very hard in politics, in government, because there is a kind of, desire to communicate things in a multitude of ways.

Everyone has a different way they want to be communicated to.

Everyone likes to see different things happen.

By the end of the day, we were served by a lawsuit, a frivolous lawsuit by the Trump administration.

We responded, by the way, the answer that the city law department provided is a public document, and it's beautifully written.

And for people who question what the city is doing, read the document, don't don't come in and ask us what we're doing.

Read the document.

And then to Miguel's point, the NYC crew is working with four community based organizations, faith based organizations, and refugee serving organizations, and new American serving organizations who are standing by our side and saying, this is frivolous.

We this policy works.

Here's why we're going to defend it.

Miguel and myself, both in different ways, have helped and facilitated those processes.

I worked with NYCHA you for a long time with some of those community organizations to get them to intervene.

The answer is we were punched with a frivolous lawsuit.

We counterpunch by beating that frivolous lawsuit.

Then, by the way, we think about what a countersuit looks like.

That is what fighting back looks like.

And I understand that doesn't work for everyone.

And people want to see different things, and people want to see voices be loud.

And and maybe that's not what fighting looks like for everyone.

But I'll tell you, as a legislator, the most important way to fight back is take their frivolous argument and put it back in their face and win litigation.

Yeah.

And I would just add to that, being on the ground with the folks so people who are most impacted by this, folks who are living in fear, and not just the individuals, who are immigrants, but our nonprofit organizations who are serving them, fate of feeling like they're going to face some sort of retaliation, making sure that everyone understands their rights.

We're doing everything that we can from a legal standpoint and from the perspective of a legislator.

But we're also, really human focused and human centered and thinking about the mental and emotional impact that our community is facing as a result of this.

You know, echo a point that Mitch made that if you do want to understand what the city is doing and how they're addressing this issue, Reading Corporation Counsel Patrick Beef's argument, it is, very thorough.

And, you can juxtapose that to the legal argument that being made by, the Department of Justice, these are publicly available documents.

You can look them up in paper, and they are, yeah, they really lay out what the issues are at hand here.

So I do think that, we're kind of in this chaotic period, but, it's easy to overlook, you know, what's actually happening amid the chaos, right?

Like the, the incremental bureaucratic things that are happening that do matter at the end of the day.

Well, you know, I would argue that we may not be in a chaotic period in terms of this.

I mean, this specific piece of, litigation that we're talking about, as Mitch said, is frivolous.

I mean, this is ridiculous.

So, so I think we just need to do the work, counterpunch, and focus on what we can do to make sure that people in Rochester are protected.

I would argue, too, but that this, this administration, the, this federal administration for voting is kind of their thing.

Like they, they, they love frivolity.

It doesn't mean it's impotent, though.

Like, they they can just bog you down with so many legal actions that eventually you just like.

All right.

I concede that seems to be the strategy that's being happened in a lot of cities across the country.

You can see this, in lawsuits have been filed against, media organization like, I believe CBS was one of them.

The legal argument that is affecting the funding for public radio, like, and PR that we are, you know, woke propaganda is a masterclass in frivolity, but it's working.

So, yeah, but which is all the more reason why it's important to understand what our answer was.

The Trump administration, our formal answer to the lawsuit and the we have the NYC blue intervening on our behalf.

We are not letting a frivolous lawsuit bag us down.

We're not letting it stop us or scare us.

We're doing exactly what you should be doing in this moment.

But shift gears a little bit.

And we talk a lot about, you know, violent crime and, public safety are the kind of things that are top of mind.

Pretty much anyone you asking?

The anyone in the city of Rochester.

Now, granted, you pulled some data that June 20th 2nd to 2020 4 to 2025.

Most recently, available statistics on this 188 shootings in the city.

Compare that to March 17th, 2021 to 2022.

That's the peak we saw about 430, so it's gone down significantly.

But I don't think anyone's happy that there's been 188 shootings in the city in the past year.

What are the anti-violence initiatives that are effective and that we can build upon?

What works?

And, let's I know I'll start with you on that.

Yeah, sure.

Well, oftentimes when you see crime, in communities, it's a correlation with high poverty.

And so we have to ensure that our neighbors have what they need in order for them not to turn to the street.

So we need to ensure that we have effective, workforce, priorities in place to ensure that people are working.

We need to make sure that we're working in partnership with our local police department, to bring back community policing.

I think, when I was growing up, there were folks that walk the beat, our neighborhood service centers, or the folks who were involved in that kind of work, were new people who were in the neighborhood.

And I do think that that is an effective strategy to make sure that we are ensuring that people have resources that they need so they don't have to turn to, this life of crime.

And that's that really is the bottom line.

Having grown up in the city of Rochester, I was exposed to quite a bit of of what you're talking about.

I was given every single opportunity to be, someone who could have been involved in these kinds of crimes that we're talking about.

But it was other opportunities.

It was Summer of opportunity program that, got me out of the house and out of a crowd of individuals who had, you know, were up to no good and taught me some skills that made me look at other options that were available in life.

So it is a multifaceted, approach to this multifaceted issue.

Housing, when people are desperate, they result to desperate means.

So we need to make sure that people are housed.

We need to make sure that people are fed.

We need to make sure that there are resources at the ground level in every single neighborhood.

And we have to work in collaboration, in partnership with our police department.

And that there.

Yeah.

I will add a couple things.

I agree with a lot of what Lashonda said.

I think in addition to that, you know, we've been spending the last couple of years expanding our violence prevention services in the city.

You know, God raised Victor.

So, Victor Sanders.

So who spent a lot of energy the last couple of years reimagining what else we could be doing in the space of violence prevention?

I think a lot of the reduction in crime, and specifically homicides and shootings as a result of having a multi-pronged approach to addressing gun violence.

So what I would say is that an area of growth for us as a city is to continue to look at our pathways to peace model.

We've had many different iterations of Pathways to Peace over the years with full time workers, part time workers.

And I think that there's very strong validity to when you have someone that could be out in the streets building relationships and building relationships with people who might be involved in, you know, illicit activity or some other kind of activity that you can actually reach them and build that relationship in a way that hopefully transitions them away from a gun and into something else.

So, so I think having those civilian led programs, expanded upon as we continue to do this work, looking at our neighborhood service center models, one of the things that, mentioned I care deeply about is figuring out how we use our neighborhood service centers more of as hubs and communities and, become stronger assets in neighborhoods that used to be pathways to peace workers, that that worked out of neighborhood service centers in each part of the city.

So thinking about how these things all interplay with each other is important.

And then lastly, I think the key is that we have to create more economic opportunity for our residents.

And we do that.

I think we start to see, less crime in general and specifically less reason to get involved in some of the other areas where you can make money.

Yeah.

The only thing I'll add is, you know, I think we we invested a lot as a city in the creation of the offense about prevention.

That that was one of the the first things that happened in the Evans administration.

And, and our council has, has passed budgets that have invested in that, but a lot of it has been built on the availability of Arpa dollars and the, the, the difficult thing over the next couple of years is going to be figuring how to transition some of that stuff and make it more sustainable.

I think we did it in this budget.

We're not seeing any drastic cuts to the Office of Violence Prevention, but we're going to have to keep being thoughtful and nimble about how some of that stuff gets integrated into the work the city already does.

That's really, I think the neighborhood service centers can and should be a really critical part of this.

But I think that the structures right now are in place.

I don't think those numbers that you listed, I don't think those numbers came down out of chance.

I think that interventions that we've started on have been working, and we need to keep making sure to double down on them.

Yeah.

And I would argue it's, you know, it's a mix of two things that, across the country, the pandemic, there was a spike in violent crime that we saw nationally.

It went up and then it went down across the country.

However, in Rochester, I think the problem was particularly acute.

We saw, an extraordinary spike.

And now we're seeing, a decline that is, pretty rapid.

It's pretty much in line with where we were before the pandemic.

So that's, good, but not great.

I mean, it's still, Rochester has always had a problem with violent crime.

And, going back to the new normal or the old normal isn't necessarily a positive thing.

And I think when people talk about public safety in some of their concerns, that's the thing that they keep coming to.

It's like, you know, if our baseline is still a pretty high rate of shootings at that, great.

No one's no one's taking a victory lap from where we are, right?

Yeah.

There's still there's still a lot of work to do.

On a different now, Brian Sharp to send us, some numbers on the voter turnout.

Rochester saw 18.7%, voter turnout, compared to 29.8% in Albany, 24.5% in Buffalo and 17.6% in Syracuse.

So we fared a little bit better than Syracuse.

But did pretty worse than pretty much everyone else.

So, it's again, a kind of, the tough scenario of, how you find civic engagement right now.

When I think everyone is just kind of fixated on what's happening on the national and international level.

Yeah, a lot of those cities had had, much closer, contested mayoral races.

And, you know, I think as much as the council races where, you know, I'm sure all of us would like to think that people are coming to the polls just to vote for council members.

You know, at the end of the day, the mayoral ticket really is, the thing, just as with any of the top of the ticket is what draws people to the polls.

And I think we, that that's part of a reflection, I think in the last two races that were much tighter, much more tightly contested mayoral races.

But again, bottom line is we have to figure out how to make people excited about the Democratic Party.

That's that's the job of us right now in this room.

All right.

We're going to take our first break of the hour, and we come back.

We're going to have, Chris Smith, who the, newly elected city council member be coming in.

So do next.

I'm Maggie Mack, coming up in our second.

Our guest, host Gino Fanelli, continues the conversations with winners of the Democratic primary.

And this time he's talking with winners of the Rochester City School District race.

Corey McCullough, Camille Simmons and Heather Fineman came out victorious.

We talked to them about their goals for the district if elected in November.

That's next hour.

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Listen here on WXXI and we are back on connections discussing the City Council primary results last night.

I'm joined now by Kiara Smith, newly elected city council member.

How are you feeling?

I'm not.

I think I'm still in shock the same way I was yesterday when you talked to me last night.

Could you pull while you're making a little bit more?

Yeah, I feel, I'm still in shock.

Seems a little surreal.

Still, I'm trying to catch up to all the text messages and calls, and I'm.

I'm like a deer in headlights a little bit, you know, same as last night when you talk to me.

Yeah.

Our previous guests just left, that the group of council members that kind of ran, aligned with the mayor.

Yes.

You ran on the people's right, which is aligned with, the Democratic Socialists.

And you know, what struck me is I spent most of the night, Malik's party at the Strato and on the ninth floor in the ballroom, kind of very ritzy environment, and left.

And I met with, you all at bar band ending.

I'm Monroe.

Very different environment as well.

Both of you had wins and both of those slates saw people, incumbents and new people come into office.

And it speaks to me that voters are looking for two separate things at the same time that there's establishment and there's even grassroot organizations that are, you know, coming up and that you are much, very, very much involved in.

So I want to talk about, you know, your role in the people slate and, you know, the campaign that you ran and what you are offering to the people in the city.

Oh, well, my role with the people slate began during protests, to be honest with you.

So I started out as a volunteer.

With Free the People.

And it evolved because of my positioning around gun violence and subsequently around, you know, the food boxes in one, four, six, two, one during Covid.

And so my campaign is, you know, my tagline was working every day for everyday people because I represent everyday people.

I had been outside, as some would say, supporting, volunteering and just playing a role in the background because I really wanted to understand who they were and what they were about, to make sure that our values were in alignment and shout out to free to people.

Shout out to the people.

Slate.

Because the strategy, the the volunteerism, just the love and the support that we got on behalf of the people, for the people was just like, bulletproof.

Like we we were so empowered by community and we had so much, less that we were working with, than others.

But we were motivated by the will of the people.

And I think that's what got us here today.

While Carol was talking, we were joined by top vote getter Stanley Marin.

Yes.

Top vote getter.

Okay.

Stanley, took in the, highest number of votes for any city council member.

I believe the only one that crossed 6000.

In, again, a very low turnout year.

We were just talking about the, kind of juxtaposition between the mayor's slate of candidates, which include, Miguel Melendez, Mitch Gruber and the Shandon Leslie Smith, who were just on the show, and, the people slate, which is more of a grassroots movement and, which you had been involved in from the very beginning, ran in the first run of the People's Slate back in 2021.

So how are you feeling now reelected?

And, you know, what's what's been what's top priority for the future?

Yeah.

I'm truly filled with gratitude.

And have some hope reignited, going up against the mayor slate.

Going up against really the mayor, knowing how much money he had?

It was, I will say we were nervous.

We were very nervous.

But we knew that our message was popular.

We knew that at the end of the day, people want their basic needs met.

They want housing.

They want food.

They want their children to thrive.

So we were able to run with, our working class message, and that resonated.

I'm just very excited and hopeful for our city, and I'm just so proud of our volunteers for of our community for showing up.

And we have a lot of work to do, despite, us being the people slate and the others being on the mayor slate.

However, I do believe that everyone who ran is running because they have some care for the city and they want to help our community.

So with that being said, I'm so open and willing to work with, the mayor slate, the mayor himself, and whoever is willing to help our community, I'm willing to work with them.

The composition of city council, with the three person progressive block, and the six person more establishment block remains the same.

Now, Kim Smith is, declined to run for reelection.

Karen, now you're coming in that kind of replace that Lashonda would be replacing Willie Lightfoot, who also declined to run for reelection.

And we have the same mayor above, all of that.

So in a lot of ways, there's different people, but it's the same kind of dynamic.

And, I want to just build on what you're saying a little bit.

How do you work across those lines?

Because I spent a lot of time at city council meetings watching, you all fight with each other, which is entertaining, but it's, also the idea of, okay, how do we effectively get past that?

I think that from both sides, I have heard that we're willing to do it, but how do we do it?

How do we get people to.

How do we get you guys to play nice with each other?

Yeah.

So I think it's important to distinguish distinguish between petty political fighting and principled, disagreements.

I think a lot of the times we do have principled disagreements, as in we think about how we want to allocate the funds that we have in our city.

For me, I think it should go primarily towards housing resources.

And for some it's it should go towards, policing.

That is a disagreement around how we should spend our funds.

Some, some of our constituents may feel, similarly to me.

Others may feel similarly to the mayor in the majority of council.

I think it's okay to have those disagreements.

I think it's important to have those debates on the floor, to ensure there is transparency around how decisions, decisions are made.

However, the my issue is when that stops progress from happening.

Right?

So in order to move things forward, one of the things I've always remained open to is actually meeting with any council member, who would reach out and want to meet or actually initiating meetings.

I meet with the council president pretty regularly.

I meet with others, within council who have an interest in discussing, discussing issues.

So I, I remain open to that, but I think the decision to not work together again is a decision.

Right?

We have to have the political will to put our people first and come together to make decisions that help our city.

I am very hopeful.

I'm hoping for a reset.

But it is a decision and we can make a new decision and work together.

Cara, how would you approach that of like, you know, being able to work across the aisle and kind of find middle ground, I guess, of, you know, sometimes very delicate issues.

Yeah.

So I developed this framework a while ago.

It's the early model and it's listen, learn, implement.

You listen to those most impacted you learn from their experiences, and you implement the decisions or the actions that they're asking of you.

So those most, those who are closest to the problem are also closest to the solution.

If we're listening to our constituents and we're doing what they're asking of us, then there is no disagreement because we're doing with what what they're asking of us.

I love the way Stanley, you know, position that, of of, like, you know, there's a difference between, like, petty arguments and then as having, you know, a candid conversation so that community understands why we may not be able to do the things they're asking of us.

So for me, I'm here to listen.

I'm here to learn.

And then I'm going to implement on behalf of my community, as you're asking, I'm not here to be petty.

I don't have time for it.

If if once again, if we're doing with with the people are asking of us, then there is no disagreement.

The only time you're going to get pushback from me is if we're going against the will of the people.

So I want to read an e-mail we got from Alex.

And it is, last night with a clear success for candidates, with candidates with endorsements from the Working Families Party.

Stanley Marin saw a commanding turnout, and Kiki Smith was able to stand out in a crowded room of candidates with Working Family Party endorsed candidates for mayor winning their respective primaries in Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and New York City that the party didn't nominate anyone.

The Rochester mayoral primary feels pointed.

Do you feel that the lack of endorsement for a mayoral candidate impacted the results?

I wrote about the, declination of the Working Families Party to endorse in Rochester, which was a strange move.

They endorsed in every other, city in New York that was having a mayor's race besides Rochester.

So, yeah, I would like both of your thoughts on that.

Do you think that affected the race and, what are your opinions on that?

So I, I can't I am endorsed by the Working Families Party, but I'm not a key decision maker in the working working families Party, so I can only speculate.

Ultimately, I do think, council member Lucien had a difficult race running against, maleek.

With the the sheer amount of money he was able to raise compared to what she was able to raise and spend, a working families endorsement doesn't necessarily come with funds.

So on that end, I don't know that it would have made a significant difference.

My understanding is it was a question of resource allocation with so many big races, like the one in New York City, the one in Buffalo, there was an issue with, with capacity, right, where a newer party here in Rochester.

But I'm hoping that in the future, the Working Families Party will endorse a mayor, will endorse a very progressive mayor, someone like, council member.

And and I'm hopeful, council member Lucien will be staying on council for the foreseeable future.

And, yeah, it's, it makes that block kind of solidified, I guess.

What are some key things that you're looking at right now, proposal wise?

Are you, that three person block has probably proposed the most legislation born out of council than any other group on council.

I probably I'm pretty certain they have, what are some key priorities for you?

Yeah.

So in going around talking to neighbors, I learned a lot about issues.

Are working class communities are facing, right.

There are folks working two and three jobs and still can't make the rents.

Right.

So I'm really focused on working with our partners in New York City to make it easier for municipalities like ours to pass rent stabilization, to keep rents low and affordable.

I'm also interested in introducing, rates a council ordinance that would allow for, people to take their landlords to court who aren't, providing safe housing, as is required by the warranty of habitability within New York state law.

Really, really focused on housing.

I think at this point where we are with inflation and again, people being unable to make ends meet, we have to look at raising the wage in the city of Rochester, there is a living wage coalition who's looking to raise the minimum wage to $21 an hour.

I've been meeting with them, and I am interested in making that happen here in the city of Rochester.

So really, all of this is informed by people I'm talking to at the doors and seeing how we can make sure that people who wake up every day go to work, are able to have their labor allow for them to live comfortably and safely in the city.

Kiki view.

Wow.

But what are some of your top priorities that you have coming in?

So, of course, as Stanley said, as we walked around and talk to folks, you know, safety, community safety, you know, that's always been a priority for me.

And a part of that, is ensuring that our grassroots organizations have dollars to intervene.

Prior to, there being issues within our community.

And I also know that a part of, that is housing, I had someone call me actually the other day, a single mom who had had some issues got behind on her rent since became caught up, and now she's being evicted.

So we have to talk about ways that we keep our families stable within communities.

And, you know, how do we ensure that they have the resources that they need in order to, you know, maintain their living situation?

So community safety and housing will be my priority issues when I get into office.

Yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

And I just want to add, holding RDA accountable.

We have allocated $500,000.

It's been just sitting there.

And we as a council can take make a move and simply do a feasibility feasibility study as a first step.

So I'm hoping that with, new members on council, I did read that, council member elect, Leslie is open to supporting, the city taking on, the feasibility study on our own.

So I'm really excited to work with her and hopefully move our other colleagues to, actually fund the feasibility study as a first step of, looking into replacing our Jenny.

So that's an interesting point, because I think that it's common knowledge that our Jenny is reviled in the city.

People do not like them.

However, if it was to undertake opening a public utility, this would be like one of the largest undertakings of infrastructure in the city's history.

It would be massive and it would be a lot of complicated red tape behind it.

But, yeah, I just wanted to get a sense of like where you're at with it of like what you think could be done.

I know the feasibility study is the first step, but if it's done and say it serves, yep.

This is something we could do.

And it cost $8 billion or $10 billion.

How would we move forward on that?

Yeah, I think at that point we would look at our our city budget.

We look at, what we can bond out.

We would look at how long we can take to pay that kind of money.

We would look at what ways we can work towards it being feasible, which would likely have to include the county.

Right.

We'd want this to be a county wide situation.

The county definitely has more dollars than the city do.

City does, a more a higher ability to lend more money.

So we'd we'd want to work with the county and making it happen.

But, I don't think the price tag should make us shy away from doing this for our community.

Just the level of harm people experience from not being able to pay their bills should make us really relentless in finding an option that works for us.

So I don't think if there's a high price tag, we should say, wait, maybe we shouldn't do it, but instead we should think about how we can strategically do it.

The city has taken on very significant, infrastructure, improvements, as we are seeing with lead pipes.

And we consistently bond for that.

So if we can do it there, I think we can do with the public utility.

I also think about the county and how much money is put into Monroe County Jail, and incarcerating folks in the county.

And if we can put all that money there, we can definitely put money into something positive that would help, a vast majority of our community, I don't know, to you describe yourself as an abolitionist?

Which means prison abolition and no police.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, if that's correct.

Right.

That's a, fair description.

Absolutely.

As an abolitionist, we want to create the material conditions that make jails and prisons obsolete.

Factually, that means we create more housing.

We invest in, quality education for our youth.

We ensure that people have overdose, prevention centers, health care, all the things that we see in thriving communities.

If we have that here in Rochester, we we will start to see our jail and prison population lowered.

And that is a path towards abolition.

It's not saying, okay, tomorrow everything is going to be shut down.

It's actually a positive vision of creating the infrastructure and resources necessary to make, the carceral system obsolete.

So I think that and the reason I ask this is I think that there is a sense right now of, you know, hopelessness in the city.

I look at the voter turnout, how bad it is.

I look at, kind of the economic stagnation that's happening here.

I look at the rent prices for a one bedroom increasing 48% in five years.

The circumstances here are people are strained more and more and does that contribute to a higher sense of malaise?

Does that contribute to a higher likelihood of crime being committed?

Does that contribute to, local society where people just don't care anymore?

I would argue, yes.

And to kind of leave off here of, what is your vision for what Rochester looks like in the long run?

If we were able to implement, things that actually effectively help people survive and thrive, what does it look like?

So for me, I think that looks like safe communities, like the one I come from, where people can sit outside and not have to worry about, you know, gunshot ringing out or individuals, unhoused, sleeping outside in the elements.

It would look like access, barrier free, access to housing and mental health services.

It would look like everyone has medical care, and just an opportunity to just live a life of peace.

And so I know that that sounds like a big pie in the sky world.

But I think that when you talk about the hopelessness of our community living in one four, six, two, one, growing up in one four, six, two one, driving down on Clinton Avenue every single day, there is a sense of hopelessness, and we have to give people something to look forward to.

And I think that's by investing in our community members, in ways that that helps them to thrive.

That's not here, sadly.

Yeah.

I think it's creating a guaranteed basic income for people living below the poverty wage.

It's community school.

So parents can have resources.

It's reallocating funds from the RPD budget and putting it directly in the hands of people so they can pay their rent so they can buy groceries and they can thrive.

All right.

Great.

Well, thank you both for being here on.

This has been the, winners of the city council primary.

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