Democracy in Action: A young lady exercises her right to vote.

By Tsee Yung Lee

Introduction

Ithaca. A small town in upstate New York known for its liberal politics, vegetarian cooking, gorges, and Cornell University. Only two of these things matter for this article, the first, and the last. For too long the students of this university have allowed a city of which they comprise almost half of the population to slide along without their influence. It's time for that to change. In the upcoming election on November 6, three students will appear on the ballot. I am not telling you to vote for all of them, or even any of them, but you should know they are there. The three young men, Jamison Moore, Peter Mack, and Derek Burrows, don't stand for the same things, they don't belong to the same parties, and they do not all represent the student voice. Not all three of them have our interests at heart. I am going to tell you who these candidates are, and why they are running.

A History Lesson

Think back to about six years ago. Maybe you were in high school, maybe you were twelve, it doesn't matter. Bill Clinton was president, no one outside of Texas had heard of Dubya, and Monica Lewinksi had yet to become a household name. Put simply, the good old days. Here in Ithaca, a new mayor, Alan Cohen, was elected to his first term. Cohen, a conservative, but aware of the danger such a title brings here in Ithaca, had run on an independent line. He was replacing liberal mayor Ben Nichols, a man who had gone head to head with the Cornell administration and won, using tough tactics to protect his city's future. Cohen had different plans for Ithaca. He saw development, he saw more cars, more stores, more people, more money. And he wasn't alone.

Skip to two years ago. In the fall of 1999, Mayor Cohen was facing a tough challenge from liberal challenger Dan Hoffman, who was looking to drive Cohen and conservative politics right out of City Hall. At the same time, East Hill saw something it had never seen before. A student, Josh Glasstetter, was running for Common Council, the City of Ithaca's version of a city council. Not only was Josh the first student that anyone could remember running for anything, he was a Green challenging a dean at Cornell running as a Democrat. In a surprising upset, Glasstetter won, and suddenly the students had a voice. Downtown, Cohen kept City Hall, defeating Hoffman. Cohen had a little help from his friends, a group calling themselves the October Alliance. We'll come back to them.

The ward that the Glasstetter ended up representing was the 4th, notorious for its, as one Tompkins County politico put it, "shenanigans." The 4th Ward, covering almost all of the student housing for Cornell, is not your typical political district. First, it is well over 90% students, the group with almost the lowest voter turnout in America. The vast majority of those students are not even registered to vote in Ithaca, but rather back home or not at all. Second, of those students that are registered, most don't follow politics in Ithaca; they're registered to vote simply as a convenience when a statewide or national race they care about comes up. Then there's Collegetown.

Collegetown, a special business district set up adjacent to Cornell, houses thousands of students in everything from towers of steel and brick, apartments with $40,000 leases, and two bedrooms, two baths, and a Jacuzzi, to cramped apartments best described as "sketchy," and dilapidated houses with more dirt on the walls than paint. Collegetown is also the City of Ithaca's cash cow. The cash the students spend at the stores and restaurants in the district turn into tax dollars for the city. When students come to party on the weekends, Collegetown is typically awash in cheap beer and cheaper booze. The bars overflow, party-goers cram into tiny apartments, revelers shout from the balconies of the high-rise apartments, and pretty much everybody has a good time. Then the cops show up, and that's where the city really makes its money.

A get-tough initiative spearheaded by Mayor Cohen has expanded the Ithaca PD's patrols of Collegetown, bringing more arrests, more tickets, and more revenue. Cohen increased the fine for open container violations to $250, allegedly citing it as a good way to fill the city's coffers. Mass arrests are also a popular police tactic. On First Night, the annual start of the party season on the day dorms open, 41 students were arrested in 2001. The cops have no problem finding people to bust, if they don't get you this weekend, they know you'll be back the next.

The October Alliance

On September 12 this year, Alderman Josh Glasstetter, having completed less than two years of his term, resigned. He said he did it to promote a two-year term for students, but critics pointed out his frequent absence from Council meetings and constituents' difficulties in getting in touch with their young representative. Whatever the reason, Glasstetter's resignation tossed what was going to be a quiet election into the limelight. The race for the other seat in the 4th Ward had been rolling along quietly with few surprises. Now both Common Council seats were available and no obvious successor to Glasstetter had come forward. The ward needed a candidate.

And they got one. Jamison Moore, a student at Cornell, appeared to seek the seat. Riding a unanimous endorsement from the 4th Ward Democratic Committee, Moore had strong initial backing from student groups on campus as well as the community at large. Speaking at a press conference on October 1, Moore outlined where he stood and what he felt. Moore also announced he was working closely with Carolyn Peterson, the woman seeking the other 4th Ward seat on the Common Council. With this strong support from students and residents, and with no opponent, Moore seemed close to not having to run a campaign at all-the seat was his for the taking.

Minutes before the filing deadline, things changed. Mayor Cohen, realizing that his backers' slim majority on the Common Council was under threat, had gone searching for a candidate. Unopposed four years ago, incumbent Joan Spielholz was facing her first challenge, and it looked to be a tough race. Carolyn Peterson was a strong community figure who was well liked and had strong support. Peterson had held a seat on Council in the 5th Ward for 8 years before she took some time off to raise her teenage children. At that time, she had vowed to return to office at a later date, and here she was to claim her seat. Mayor Cohen and Alderwoman Spielholz needed help, and they needed it fast. They needed a candidate who could not only challenge the student vote, but also carry Spielholz to a second term. The hunt was on. Rumors started flying that Cohen was going door to door in the 4th Ward, asking at fraternity houses and sorority annexes if anyone was interested in running for Council. It took until the last minute, but he found someone. Peter Mack, a student in the School of Hotel Administration, came forward to accept the mayor's offer. Filing an independent petition on the same line as Spielholz, the East Hill Unity party, Mack barely had time to get the required 22 signatures, most of them brothers in his house who registered to vote that same day. The race was on.

This is where the October Alliance comes in. Spielholz and Mack are part of it, Cohen is backed by it, and not everyone understands it. With a name seemingly stolen from a South American junta, the October Alliance is a group of mostly conservative Democrats that broke from the party in the 1999 elections to support Cohen over the Democratic challenger, Dan Hoffman. Many people believed that the defections cost Hoffman the election, and they're probably right. The October Alliance takes a pro-development stance centered not around community building, but so called 'big-box' stores like Wal-Mart and Target, that bring tax revenues at the expense of local jobs and community businesses. With over 60 local candidates, the October Alliance, Cohen thought, would be a force to be reckoned with.

The Mayor only missed one detail. October Alliance or no, the 4th Ward had supported Hoffman in a two to one majority over him. The students generally do not follow local political scandal, so simply an October Alliance label will not get the votes he needs to preserve the status quo. The Mayor has underestimated the 4th Ward, and it is going to cost his candidates.

The Candidates

This brings us to today. I'm writing this a little more than a week before the election. During the last month, campaigns have been in full swing, but you wouldn't be able to tell from looking out the window. Only Jamison Moore and Carolyn Peterson have been seen out on the streets, the front lines of a campaign, talking to voters. Moore has received the endorsement of the Tompkins County Living Wage Coalition, and state Comptroller Carl McCall, who might well be New York's next governor. Peter Mack is most notable for having turned down a debate. Joan Spielholz wrote a letter to the Daily Sun criticizing Moore, misspelling his name. As for Derek Burrows, he appeared at a candidate's forum with his opponent Nancy Schuler, the Democratic incumbent, but that's about it.
As for the actual election, the polls close at 9:00 pm on November 6, so get out and vote.