Published on December 05, 2020
Dear City Colleagues,
Across city government, I imagine we have people who live in every single Syracuse neighborhood. When each of us head home, we all see different challenges and concerns. Some neighborhoods are suffering from vacant housing. Others are haunted by the sounds of gun shots. And still others are worried about the conditions of streets or too much trash and litter.
Each of those concerns is important and worthy of attention by City government. It’s why we can’t have a “one size fits all” approach to addressing quality of life problems in the City. And it’s also why I’m so pleased the Office of Accountability Performance and Innovation is making quality of life its priority area in 2021.
With support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the i-team will dig deep into the inequities that exist in quality of life across our neighborhoods and develop systemic, sustainable solutions to fix them. They will follow a simple but effective three step plan: listen, analyze and problem solve. They expect to be sharing plans with city departments in the middle of next year.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the i-team comes up with. And seeing a day when quality of life concerns in every neighborhood are shrinking to things that are smaller and might not even being noticed today. That means the work will never stop, and I welcome that challenge. Thank you, and have a great weekend.
Ben Walsh Mayor