In her farewell speech Friday afternoon, outgoing Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner reflected on what she said were her most difficult moments in office and railed against economic programs that failed to bring the benefits developers promised the city.

She made no mention of a future campaign for New York state governor despite rumors she has been entertaining a bid to replace Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The address, which she gave in Syracuse University’s Maxwell Auditorium, was Miner’s last speech as mayor. She has been in office since 2009.

The respect of the title of mayor, Miner said, went along with the expectation she would try to solve people’s problems. She said her largest problems as mayor were rooted in poverty, violence and justice.

Miner spent about one-third of her speech discussing gun violence in Syracuse.

“That first summer of my administration was a bloody summer,” she said.

When she entered office, Miner said, she’d receive a notification about murders “what seemed like every Sunday night” that usually involved two young black men. After weeks of those notifications, Miner added she was “wrecked” by feelings of desperation and failure.

The lowest point of her time as mayor came in 2010, after a 20-month-old child was shot in his car seat in Syracuse’s South Side neighborhood.

When Miner offered condolences to the baby’s 19-year-old father, she said she felt he was the only person in the city who didn’t realize what he had lost. When a reporter asked the father weeks later what he would have said to the murderer, the father said, “you missed.”

“I realized I had a choice,” Miner said. “I could relegate this violent experience as an aberration and say that it was other people, that it was not my city, that it was not my neighborhood, that it was not my community.”

In that moment, Miner acknowledged she had to admit to herself a 20-month-old could die a violent death in the Syracuse community. To solve problems, Miner said she had to understand them.

“You only do that through reflection and introspection,” Miner said.

She also recalled the 2016 Father’s Day shooting in Skiddy Park that left one black man dead and a police officer injured. Syracuse had before then been spared the violent riots that occurred in cities after the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray.

Social media was “on fire” with unsubstantiated claims, Miner said. People said there had been no gunfire. The dead man wasn’t armed. The Syracuse Police Department unnecessarily and aggressively engaged with a peaceful Father’s Day party.

“Well-intentioned people, in the climate we are living in, thought it might be true,” Miner said. “But while they thought it might be true, they were willing to ask me if it was.”

After the Father’s Day shooting, Miner said people self-identifying as members of the Black Lives Matter movement told City Hall they wanted to march. She said she worked with the organizers of the movement so they could peacefully exercise their rights and present their grievances.

“That meant being conscious of our police presence,” Miner said. She added she didn’t want a similar situation to Rochester.

The mayor played a video of Rochester police officers — clad in riot gear and face masks — policing a Black Lives Matter protest and entering violent confrontations with demonstrators.

To support the demonstrators’ right to peacefully protest, Miner said she went out onto the steps of City Hall. She talked to marchers when they asked. She didn’t make snap judgements.

“How will we ever find justice or equity if we won’t even stop to listen to each other?” Miner asked.

Miner spoke out against the economic segregation that she said plagued Syracuse, where richer people lived in the suburbs and poorer families lived in the city.

Traditional economic development and tax incentive strategies are unlikely to benefit city residents and leave “large swaths” of people behind, Miner said.

Those policies, Miner added, only benefit politicians and campaign contributors.

She pointed to the $180 million Destiny USA project, which developers promised at its groundbreaking would include a 47-story, 1,300-room hotel.

“It all seemed so surreal, because it was,” she said. The tax revenue and jobs never materialized, though, she added.

She said the list of failed development projects continues to this day.

Although Miner did not mention any candidates by name, Juanita Perez Williams and Ben Walsh — the two frontrunners in the Syracuse mayoral race campaign — have clashed about campaign contributions and Walsh’s connections to developers.

Miner has endorsed Perez Williams in the mayoral race.

After the nearly hour-long speech, Miner held a Q&A session with members of the audience. Though she was asked about her future political career, Miner did not say whether or not she would run for governor.

Earlier this month, Miner ruled out rumors she would challenge Rep. John Katko (R-Syracuse) during the 2018 congressional election. She will take a job teaching a class at New York University in the spring, she announced in a tweet last week.

The two-term mayor, elected in 2009, is the first woman to hold that office in Syracuse.

Published on October 27, 2017 at 8:22 pm

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18