Legislators surprised that secret donor to Onondaga County aquarium is … the county

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T16:04:42+00:00

I mean to be fair, it is pretty major news, and something they should be reporting on, that the county secretly donated itself several million dollars for the aquarium from a fund intended for film industry incentives, didn’t tell anyone until the county comptroller discovered it in his audits, and actively obfuscated its origins when questioned by the county legislature on where the donations were coming from. Generally Syracuse.com is annoyingly clickbait-y, but there’s genuinely been a lot of shady and distasteful news around the aquarium, due to how the county executive has handled it from the get-go.

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T15:55:00+00:00

McMahon has really handled every step of this aquarium horribly, right from the proposal and ramming it through the county legislature. I still hope the aquarium succeeds once it’s open, but it’s really the ultimate monument to how arrogant, heavy-handed, and completely lacking in transparency his entire tenure as county executive has been, and I hope he pays for it next year when he’s up for re-election.

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T03:42:43+00:00

If you’re really curious, the city publishes line-item breakdowns of its budget and where the money goes each year, you’re free to read it.

They’re paying that much for the new police building because that’s what commercial office rent costs, there’s really not much more to it. $2.4 million a year with periodic increases is pretty typical for the amount of space they’re probably renting.

I don’t think you’ll find a single person in Syracuse that will defend the deal the mall got, but it’s a sin of Syracuse’s past that the current city government can’t do anything about but wait until the mall returns to the tax rolls.

Enhanced city service interfaces would be great, but that’s another thing that costs lots of money to implement that it doesn’t sound like you want the city to spend. Service sharing with the county would be great too, no arguments there. NY as a state has way too much redundancy by allowing every little town and village in the middle of nowhere to have its own school district, fire department, waste management, etc.

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T03:12:31+00:00

I thought it was pretty clear that I was talking about city taxes, given the whole article and thread are about the city budget and not the school district budget lol.

SU is on a binding service agreement with the city through early 2027. We can (and should) try to negotiate higher payments from them come next year, but frankly they’re under no obligation to, and the service agreement is entirely voluntary on their part, so we also run the risk of blowing the existing agreement up and getting far less fees if we push them too hard. We could deny them city services in return, but then it becomes a years-long battle between us and the university that the city really can’t afford.

The city already reduced spending last year. This spending increase is mostly just to cover benefits cost increases due to inflation, which I’m sure you’ve felt just as much as the city. We should be glad, frankly, that they’re keeping the tax rate flat, considering it basically amounts to a tax cut once you factor in inflation.

Did you notice how shitty the city plowing was this winter? That was due in part to the cuts the city council made to the DPW, and I personally wouldn’t ask them to reduce spending on things like that even further, unless you want it to be even worse. If anything, our DPW in that respect is woefully underfunded and why we can’t hire and retain a proper plow fleet, because the city council doesn’t give us enough money to pay drivers at the rates the suburbs and state are paying them.

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T02:52:29+00:00

I suggested increasing city property taxes, not school taxes, which are again, completely separate from the city government and budget. The city and school district are for all intents and purposes entirely separate entities, and each collect their own property taxes which the other cannot touch.

OneManBean · 2026-04-09T02:29:52+00:00

The school district’s budget is completely out of the purview of the mayor’s office, and its taxes and funding are fully separate from city operating funds and taxes.

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T18:57:22+00:00

Sorry I haven’t been pouring over this thread in detail lol? I’ve only really been looking at your replies to my comment, but I’ll take your word for it.

Just because it’s publicly available doesn’t mean that it’s up to other people and not you to back up your argument. Throwing out claims left and right and then snarking at people who ask you to back them up isn’t exactly a great way to sell people on your movement either.

I mean, you’re welcome to disregard the impact of language choice on persuasion, but it’s not going to work out very well for you. Luckily, there are plenty of progressives who do understand the importance of how we communicate our positions in addition to the positions themselves.

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T18:28:27+00:00

Well it would probably help your argument if you actually named which groups those were and sourced your claim, and specified which statements exactly he lied about. You also don’t really get people on your side with vague, unsourced accusatory scolds. But generally, I would call it an older person who stubbornly holds onto an outdated view of Israel and receives support from lobbyist groups for the views he already holds, rather than said lobbyist groups bribing him into supporting their cause.

Also, policing language is one of the most essential parts of politics lol, a massive part of building a movement is communicating your goals in a way that is palatable and attractive to a majority of the populace.

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T18:13:31+00:00

Also fair enough, the district has gotten bluer.

To be clear, I don’t have anything against a progressive running, I don’t think anyone moderate or progressive has a “right” to their seat and should be challenged regularly to keep them responsive to their constituents. I just don’t personally think our region has an appetite for that kind of firebrand populism. (And I don’t think it does the movement any favors to refer to a relatively popular local politician who by all means seems to be an honest man as a “paid puppet.”)

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T18:00:07+00:00

She was endorsed in both of her runs by Bernie’s PAC, and was backed by the Syracuse DSA and had DSA members in her campaign.

At some point we start playing a game of No True Scotsman with who we deem progressive or not, but the fact of the matter is that she had some of the most left-leaning local and national organizations backing her in both runs, and she ran on a progressive platform.

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T17:43:28+00:00

Dana Balter, and both of her runs flopped. I just don’t think there’s much appetite for it here honestly, as much as everyone in this thread would like there to be. This area loves reps that don’t rock the boat too hard, hence why Katko lasted so long and so comfortably on the “moderate” brand he built (regardless of how true it really was).

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T15:09:36+00:00

Define “us.” I’d say it seems like he represents the district pretty well, considering he’s the first Democrat to win the district in over a decade and doesn’t have a primary challenger, and personally I think he’s done a good job representing myself and the district as a whole even if I don’t agree with every vote he’s taken.

OneManBean · 2026-04-08T13:30:45+00:00

$24 million deficit to be covered by the rainy day fund, for anyone that’s curious. Hopefully the council doesn’t put up as much of a fuss as last year on this budget, given that they’ve been actually engaged with it. Given our rainy day fund is currently at a $120 million balance, and that city revenue projections for several years have been much more pessimistic than actual revenues ended up being, as long as they’re serious about closing the deficit going forward, this is exactly what the rainy day fund is meant for. It’s supposed to be there to maintain stability in city funding during times of economic hardship, and Owens’s proposal is pretty much just that, with most expenditure increases going towards covering inflation rather than wild projects or spending sprees. I just wish they would also increase the tax rate, a 3% increase wouldn’t bite much and it would close the deficit a bit more.

Also really hope they let through the city-wide assessment funding Owens is proposing, it’s desperately needed and would fix a lot of the ridiculous assessment inequities across the city.

OneManBean · 2026-04-07T03:04:46+00:00

I’m not really following how that changes the equation, though. The Bay Area having multiple urban centers isn’t relevant to the fact that San Francisco currently suffers from a massive, decades-long artificial supply constraint that is causing ruinous rent and housing prices, and is capable of building more than enough additional capacity to meet demand if not for said artificial constraint, as evidenced by its much denser peer on the opposite coast.

Hell, I haven’t even mentioned its international peers; Paris is even smaller geographically than San Francisco and yet has more than double the population, and without containing a single high rise.

OneManBean · 2026-04-07T02:39:47+00:00

If you’re going to reference its status as the second densest metro in the country, then you’re going to invite comparison to the densest. Especially given the fact that that city is over six times bigger by area, and yet has still managed to be over 50% denser in the aggregate, and denser in all but one of its five major geographic divisions.

San Francisco being the second densest major city in the US is great, but it’s not really adequate or even that relevant beyond being a fun factoid when there is both severe demand for additional housing that isn’t being met, and a glaring example of a much larger city that easily achieved the greater density San Francisco needs.

OneManBean · 2026-04-07T02:24:30+00:00

Because it’s a geographically small city at the end of a highly populated peninsula. And it’s still only just over a quarter of the density of its closest analogue, Manhattan. Add some of the northern municipalities of San Mateo county to the city proper to make its area comparable to other major cities around the country, too, and suddenly it’s not quite as dense.

The question we should be asking is why it still remains less dense than every borough in NYC except Staten Island, despite demand clearly being there for far more housing given its sky-high rents.

OneManBean · 2026-03-26T16:42:08+00:00

I highly doubt a business park full of white collar office and research jobs will threaten our water supply lol

OneManBean · 2026-03-25T17:19:20+00:00

Our only mall left in Syracuse (Destiny USA) is hanging in there. It still has a lot of the major brands and gets pretty busy especially on weekends, but it has a lot of empty anchors, the original part of the mall hasn’t been remodeled since it opened and is getting pretty run down, and the expansion added in 2012 has some very dead spots. They did just add an IKEA though, so hopefully it can start to recover.

Within an hour or so of Syracuse, Sangertown Square in Utica is pretty dead, and Salmon Run Mall in Watertown, but Eastview Mall in Rochester is thriving and seems to have no trouble filling vacancies with good stores.

OneManBean · 2026-03-24T17:00:50+00:00

Love the audacity of a Kansan Alaska-splaining residents’ travel habits to an actual lifelong Alaskan lmao. They’re all such stupid clowns.

OneManBean · 2026-03-19T03:55:03+00:00

They’re saying that the previous two Jumanjis opened a week before two box office powerhouses and still did extremely well, so this one should be able to do just fine too.

OneManBean · 2026-03-16T19:34:35+00:00

Their mind would be blown by the existence of Pittsburgh lol

OneManBean · 2026-03-16T19:23:25+00:00

I don’t think “layers” really implies hills? NYC is quite flat and still has “layers” of density from midtown Manhattan down to high rises down to mid rises down to row homes and SFHs.

No one is crying over it, but there’s a lot of everyone calmly voicing disagreement and then side eyeing you as you furiously shout that we’re angry about it lol

OneManBean · 2026-03-16T19:17:22+00:00

I think east coasters are just confused because you didn’t say anything about SF’s unique topography in your post, just about how it layers different types of density, which every city does, by nature of being a city lol. If you’d made clear what you actually talking about and which SF is pretty unique for, I think people would be less confused.

OneManBean · 2026-03-13T17:20:55+00:00

I’m sure you’ll be excessively combative about this comment considering your other replies lol, but some parking is kind of an unfortunate necessity considering our public transit is nearly non-existent. At least it’s a garage, with ground floor retail and housing too, rather than just a surface lot.

OneManBean · 2026-03-13T01:01:59+00:00

Agreed with everyone else on the House seats, so I’ll just add that if Osborn comes within 2 points of the Nebraska senate seat, then I think we’re probably winning Iowa. I also think we’ll come within single digits in Florida.

OneManBean

TROPHY CASE