The Post-Standard’s columnist Sean Kirst profiled longtime SUN member Claire McGrath. You can read the whole piece here.
Our favorite quote from Claire:
If more people believed in their neighbors, and participated and cared more about their neighborhoods, I think we’d get a lot of things cleaned up and a lot more done.
Just saw this as I passed by! Check out the sign on the corner telephone pole at Midland and W. Ostrander Avenues:
Talking with neighbors, it’s clear that this sign is a measure of the frustration that residents in this area have with the open-air drug dealing that has gone on for years.
This sign isn’t an expression that drugs will not be tolerated (a “drug-free” zone.) This is an expression of frustration that the drugs are so plentiful they may as well be free.
Without a doubt, the highlight of SUN’s 35th Anniversary Gala celebration held on October 20th was Claire McGrath’s appearance to accept her award for Lifetime achievement with SUN. She showed us all, at 84 years young, that she is still a firebrand!
Claire accepting her award at the dinner:
Here’s a photo of Claire confronting then Deputy Mayor Tim Carroll at a 2008 meeting on vacant houses:
From the SUN proclamation:
Claire McGrath: Lifetime Achievement Award
Claire McGrath is a force of nature, a forceful and determined woman, always willing to speak her mind and to fight for the causes she cares so deeply for: her family, her political party, her union, seniors, the disabled—and thankfully for all of us—for SUN.
Claire has been involved in practically every issue that SUN has pursued, joining us in the 1970’s at the beginning our campaign for property tax reassessment. She has held every office on our Board of Directors and always had a seat at the front table at public meetings, hearings and negotiations. She was always known to yell out—“I don’t need a microphone” and she was right.
Claire’s most famous line was documented on the front page of the Post Standard in 1994. SUN had invited the newly elected Mayor Roy Bernardi to a large public meeting and he attempted to slip unnoticed into a seat in the audience. Claire patted the seat next to her on the dais, and yelled out “We have a seat right here for you. Welcome to OUR world Mr. Mayor.”
As a young woman, Claire and her family were working at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941–the day of the Japanese air attack. Claire witnessed history as a teenager—she made history in Syracuse as an adult. SUN will eternally be in her debt.
We’ve heard it all before: state and local budgets are stretched thin and we’ve got no choice but to make deep cuts to our schools and services we all rely on. We’re broke–we can’t even think about dedicating money to create jobs or speed our economic recovery.
But we do have the money. Each year, New York spends $3 billion on corporate tax subsidies in the name of job creation. But too much of this money is wasted on corporations that game the system by cashing in on tax breaks while creating no jobs, poverty wage jobs, or even cutting jobs. With a small army of lawyers and lobbyists, greedy corporations have figured out how to avoid paying taxes while working families and less-savvy small businesses are asked to pitch in more or make sacrifices.
If corporations stopped dodging their taxes (and our politicians started holding them accountable for paying their fair share) we could spend what was needed to create good jobs and meeting the needs of our communities.
Sign the petition today to demand good jobs for the 99%, not giveaways for the 1%.
Unfortunately, the way New York’s economic development system is set up makes it easy to swindle taxpayers. Hundreds of shadowy agencies operate largely outside of public view, and most of the time, we have no idea we’re subsidizing these corporations. That Bank of America down the street? You paid for it. Those luxury apartments? You paid for that, too.
Though we can’t expose them all, we’ve just launched the Corporate Tax Dodgers Hall of Shame website to highlight some of the all-stars of corporate subsidy abuse. Check it out, discover who your footing the bill for and nominate some of your favorite tax dodgers.
Check out the short video documentary about SUN shot by Joseph Smooke for last week’s Media Immersion project of the National Press Photographers Association. The seminar set almost 40 talented folks scrambling around Syracuse looking for subjects.
Joseph has long worked with community groups both in the U.S. and abroad. Not so long ago, Joseph was the executive director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center in San Francisco. The Center provides a lot of services to both youth and senior citizens and also has a strong community organizing philosophy. Thanks Joseph!
Thanks also to SUN leaders Louise Thompson, Bob Korzuch, Johnny Roberson and Anna Morris for talking about their experiences for the camera–and now the world!
