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THURSDAY
nov. 9, 2017 high 49°, low 20°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Health care change
P • House warming
Despite changes to the Affordable Care Act being made by the Trump administration, New York state has remained mostly unaffected. Page 3
dailyorange.com
Serenity for Women, a not-forprofit organization, is enhancing lives of women veterans by providing them with tiny homes on Veterans Day. Page 9
S • Going away
Oshae Brissett didn’t want to leave home to play basketball at a boarding school. But in the end, the move paid off for both him and Syracuse basketball. Page 16
Councilors, experts react to Walsh victory
university senate
Report to detail pay inequality By Michael Burke senior staff writer
BEN WALSH won the Syracuse mayoral race Tuesday night after defeating Democrat Juanita Perez Williams, a former associate dean of students at Syracuse University. Walsh garnered about 54 percent of the vote. josh shub-seltzer staff photographer By Jordan Muller and Sam Ogozalek the daily orange
Some Syracuse Common Councilors said they’re looking forward to working with Ben Walsh, the city’s incoming mayor who clinched a highly contested election late Tuesday night. Walsh, 38, is an independent who, despite running without the backing of a major political party, amassed the support of prominent Democrats, GOP members and business owners. Walsh formed relationships across the political spectrum while working at City Hall as deputy commissioner of the department of neighborhood and business development. Councilor Joseph Carni, a Republican who was re-elected to his District 1 seat
MAYORAL RACE 2017
I know a lot of people in City Hall are really excited that he won. Susan Boyle syracuse common councilor
Tuesday after narrowly defeating Democratic challenger Andrea Wandersee, said he’s looking forward to Walsh’s bipartisan approach to politics. “Ben, winning in such a convincing fashion, it says a lot about Syracuse and a willingness to just look at the candidate rather than political affiliation,” Carni said. “From a numbers standpoint, guys like Ben and I probably shouldn’t be elected because the enrollment is so far against us.” Walsh’s victory opens the door to future unaffiliated candidates and non-Democrats entering elections in Syracuse, he said. Carni is the only Republican Common Councilor. In his victory speech Tuesday night, Walsh said his administration was undertaking a see walsh page 6
syracuse mayoral race 2017
SU political groups disappointed by city election By Jordan Muller and Sam Ogozalek the daily orange
Members of Syracuse University’s College Democrats and College Republicans groups on Wednesday expressed disappointment over the results of Syracuse’s mayoral race. Ben Walsh, an independent who ran without the support of any major political party, defeated Democrat Juanita Perez Williams late Tuesday night, garnering about 54 percent of the electorate. Perez Williams previously served as SU’s
associate dean of students. Republican Laura Lavine received about 2 percent of the vote, coming in fourth behind Walsh, Perez Williams and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins. The Republican was a former LaFayette Central School District superintendent. The College Democrats endorsed Perez Williams in September, while the College Republicans endorsed Lavine last week. Sarah Epelman, president of the College Democrats, stayed clear of Perez Williams’ watch party. She
had bad memories of a 2016 presidential watch party, she said. “My reaction was pretty similar to what most of the College Democrats felt,” said Epelman, a junior political science and policy studies double major, of Syracuse’s mayoral race. “When you work with someone, you commit a lot of time and put a lot of effort into a campaign, and then this happens, it hurts.” Several group members helped canvass for Perez Williams, including Andres Victoria, a sophomore political science major and vice president of College Democrats.
Epelman said she primarily helped set up coordination between Perez Williams campaign staffers and group members. On Election Day, while sitting in class, Epelman said she got a phone call from Nikki Carroll, executive director of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. Carroll told Epelman there were some concerns about the Hill. “This region was having low turnout,” Epelman recalled. “And that’s why Andres and I started phone banking right away, started see election page 7
A forthcoming report on the salaries of Syracuse University faculty members will detail how gender pay inequities exist across certain schools and colleges at the university, SU Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly said at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting. The report, which Wheatly said will be released to the university community sometime after Thanksgiving Break and before the end of the semester, is the result of the work of the 18-member Faculty Salary Review Committee. The committee was created last fall and tasked with reviewing the average salary of faculty members across faculty rank, gender and schools and colleges. The report outlines the committee’s findings and makes recommendations based on those findings.
2019 Year Archbold Gymnasium renovations are expected to be completed source: chancellor kent syverud
Wheatly said Wednesday that the report highlights issues of gender pay inequity in several schools on campus, something she said she found concerning. The report’s findings also reveal that the number of faculty of color “in many units” is small, Wheatly said. The committee was unable to publish findings for some of those units, Wheatly said, because of confidentiality concerns for those faculty of color. Wheatly added, though, that the average salaries of faculty of color “generally do not raise the concerns as are raised by the gender demographics.” After the report is made public, individual deans will review the findings for their schools and colleges and work with the Office of the Provost to make “appropriate adjustments,” Wheatly said. The report will come about three years after SU first opted to not share the data compiled in the Committee Z report, a public record that compared average faculty salaries across gender, schools and colleges and other factors. SU Chancellor Kent Syverud, at the time, cited legal concerns as the reason the university see usen page 7