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1967 San Diego mayoral election

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1967 San Diego mayoral election
Flag of San Diego, California.svg

← 1963 November 7, 1967 (1967-11-07) 1971 →
Mayor Frank E. Curran.jpg
Nominee Frank Curran Allen Hitch
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote 96,597 47,230
Percentage 67.2% 32.8%

Mayor before election

Frank Curran

Elected Mayor

Frank Curran

The 1967 San Diego mayoral election was held on November 7, 1967 to elect the mayor for San Diego. Incumbent Mayor Frank Curran stood for reelection to a second term. In the primary election, Curran and Allen Hitch received the most votes and advanced to the runoff. Curran was then reelected mayor with a majority of the votes.

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  • ✪ Future Infrastructures: The Over and Under of I-81
  • ✪ José Esparza Chong Cuy, “Building Cycles”


Hello. My name's Lawrence Davis. I'm the undergraduate chair of the architecture here at Syracuse University. And also a resident of Syracuse since 1994. So I have a couple of different hats to wear here. But welcome, welcome, it's great to see this crowd, not just of students, but of people from around the community, I suspect, maybe even further. I know we have a lot of visitors, this is the admitted student season to come and visit the school, so they're visiting the school today as well. And I think they're seeing something pretty interesting thing here that's very lively. The discussion on I 81 in Syracuse is now I know at least over a decade old, and there are at least two, maybe three options under discussion. One is to keep a version of the existing elevated viaduct. Two is to replace it with an on grade urban grid or three is to keep the grid is and build a tunnel under it to keep highway traffic flowing through the city. It's vital to know that this kind of discussion is happening in other cities and suggests that ours here in Syracuse is just a single example of a larger trend. So that end, and that's the intention of this event today, is to bring outside and some inside experts who can paint a larger picture of this kind of urban transformation and use that to inform us in our efforts to develop an intelligent way forward. The use of the plural term infrastructures, you'll notice in the title, is intentional. Not only are we looking at an interstate highway, automotive transportation infrastructure, but we are also interested in looking at the many other infrastructures that engage highways and each other that are found in a given city. Together excuse me they create a metabolism for a city that influences the interaction of numerous economic, social, political, ecologic, material, and spatial systems. Changing one always changes the others. Whether the proposed changes are good or bad of course is a subject of debate. But if you look at the history of cities and in this country that goes back a few hundred years and in other parts of the world thousands of years, change isinevidentble. Cities never change the same. With what to do with the I 81 viaduct in downtown Syracuse, we are facing this type of transformation, the type of change that happens, once, let's say, every 50 years, maybe even 100 years that. Said, even if we take it down or bury it, the imprint, trace, impact of the current elevated highway will not go away, it may linger maybe in ways we don't expect. Regardless of the at approach selected we need to look at impacts at two scales, locally and regionally, which incidentally seems to describe the two principle groups or sides of the discussion about the highway and what to do with it. So tonight I would like to thank the team working together conceived and developed and organized this event, Liz Camel from architecture, Carol from Maxwell, Grant Reeher, who you will meet in a minute, also from Maxwell. It's been an honor, and more importantly, interesting to work with them. Their input has been essential on this now the second interdisciplinary collaborative symposium between two schools, Maxwell and architecture. Towards this collaboration, I'd like to thank Jamie Winters, who made the connection between our school and Maxwell possible, I'd also like to thank the deans of each school for their support and finally thank our speakers who braved some treacherous weather to get here coming from Washington and Boston. But they will also along with Grant Reeher who will introduce them, bring to bear their expertise ton this subject. So with that I would like to introduce Grant Reeher, professor and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell School. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Thanks, Larry. We've got a great panel to discuss the complexities of the I 81 issue and how it factors into the future of the city. It's been called the most important decision for the city in a generation. In had the order in which they will speak we have Alex Krieger, and by the way, they will come up to the podium I think to give their initial remarks and then we will sit in the chairs to have our discussion. But we have Alex Krieger, a professor in practice of urban design at what Harvard University graduate school of design. He has taken a big picture and long view be look at cities and at urban design. Joseph Kane, a senior research associate and fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, and he focuses on the built environment and infrastructure. Jonnell Robinson, a geography professor here at the Maxwell School, where she serves as the community geographer, and she employees geographic information system and has worked on projects that are defined by the local community here in Syracuse. And in addition to those three wise folks, we also have the honorable, not that imply that you're notalso wise, Ben Walsh is the mayor of Syracuse, he's the first independent mayor in the city's history, prior to serving as mayor, he was deputy commissioner of the city's department of neighborhood and business development, and prior to that he graduated from the Maxwell School's MPA program, that's a fact we're very proud of. So thank you for being with us here, mayor. Here is our format: Each of the speakers as I mentioned before will come up and they will offer their initial thoughts and reactions on this topic, and they will speak for about ten to 15 minutes or so. And then we'll have a discussion among the panelists and that discussion I might or might not pose a question depending on what they have to say to each other then we will open it up to a conversation of the whole. And when we do that I'd like to ask you to raise your hand and wait to be recognized and wait for a microphone to be brought to you so that your question or your brief remark can be heard by everyone and also that you are part of the archive that we are making from this event. And then after that that you give the microphone back. [ Laughter ] So having said all that, Alex, we'll start with you, and again, thank to all four of you for making the time to be here. [ Applause ] >> Well, thank you for inviting me. I understand you've been at this for a decade. Let me tell you, you're got another decade at least to go, unless you happen to be in China or Asia as you will see in a second. I don't know all the intrigue of the specifics about this, but I've spent a fair amount of time in my career burying highways, so I thought I would show you a couple of those projects, two of them intimate involvement for many years, the third in Korea, really as a kind of an advisor only. And I think it's important to understand that this is an international phenomenon, you're not alone. This will accelerate as opposed to diminish in importance for sure. So let me tell you one amazing immediate effect. So look at this, this is Boston when we had our elevated highway. And you can see it was built cut through the city, these were long warehouse buildings and they were cut, they were cut to allow this thing to come on through. I'm sure that happened here as well. Right? You could see a little you will see a little triangles appear there, those buildings were cut. Guess what? So there it is, highway is there. Even before the thing was completed it was being transformed. So the amazing transformation of the area adjacent to these things is incredible and instant and certainly pays whatever pays off whatever billions of dollars it cost to do this. So just a couple things. So of course the big dig as was called there. Now to the project I'm going to show you involved tunnels, but that's not the point. The point is the gift to the city as a result of what happened. So the big dig, you know, cut through, '50s project, there was actually part of the great interstate highway system that which throughout the country. And there were good reason in a sense to do this because cities were thought to be sort of dying creatures as opposed to suburbs and this was going to help them. Of course the opposite tended to happen. Accelerated. In our case of course this is I90, and you can get from Seattle to Boston. That was to be a good thing. The reason it was done in about Boston, the reconstruction, it was going to get to us Maine as well without a stop sign. As opposed to end downtown in this catastrophe. So it was built for about 65,000 vehicles. It was accommodating almost 200,000 towards the end. So by the way, this was I'm sorry to report to you, it's been kept a secret, this was a highway widening project. Not a highway elimination project. Right? But in ordered to widen and elevated highway you had to destroy the other half of the city or you had to bury it. Fortunately, the second solution was accepted. Amazing act of construction. The reason it took so long and cost so much that was you had to build a wider tunnel directly below an existing piece of steel that had to be maintained for 18 years. A pretty incredible engineering process. And regale you with images like this for a long time, but I won't as I go on. Truly this is all being done while the highway was fully in operation up above, right? So lots of planning done early on about what should be the result of this. On the surface. And there are proposals actually this was a proposal we worked on about a series of open spaces and restoration of the scar that was caused to the pink of the city was going to go across as well. Ultimately, the decision was made to make it more continuous as a greenway, a green belt, once you say it's for Rose Kennedy, the thing was done, at least in Massachusetts, right? So parts of it look terrific, I have been as much of a critic of this, not the not the burial, but the result, because it parts of it look fantastic and in a sense like sort of intended but unfortunately, the stuff below has to come out. And when it comes out it still is very much highway like. So notion of a continuous green way doesn't actually exist at all although it's a little deceiving, because right right after this picture gets cut off you see something like that up above. Now, the other thing that we have to be you have to be very watchful for, right, these traffic engineers have a way of getting you through the back. We new have in Boston twice as many overhead highways as we had before. There, look at that. Right? Once the tunnel was in place, unfortunately it was in place where it needed to be in place, where the city was, it had to emerge with the proper sort of with the proper radii to keep traffic moving and many of the things we didn't anticipate was how much overhead highway we wound up with even as we buried or highway. So beware. Keep at it. So as a consequence of many years of work on the so called big dig in Boston, we were invited for a competition in Shanghai, they were impressed with what Boston had done and in anticipation of their kind of world's fair they wanted to kind of turn their attention towards their river and actually towards emerald city, the future Manhattan, across the river, where kind of world's tallest buildings are being built and so forth. So that was their principle port, you can see it was always a little bit of a mess, but over time it wound up instead of these kind of cool horse cuts it wound up being 12 to 14 lanes of traffic that separated people from the water. You can see a fairly narrow actually it was a levy because the river does still kind of flood a little bit. Very narrow. So we were asked zero it was a competition which we fortunate naturally were sort of prevailed and we were asked to get rid of most of the traffic. So I mean if you're in China you can just do that. It's actually very convenient. [ Laughter ] And unfortunately, if you lost a couple of people in the process to construction 24/7, no one minded as much. So what took 18 years of construction in Boston took two years in Shanghai. And you will see. So this was as much space that was recovered because the 12 to 14 lanes wound up being a proper boulevard, which is what you're trying to achieve, right? And of course in China they didn't care that traffic was horrible during the construction. Now, they didn't need to be 12 lanes of traffic there, they weren't going to the to all those buildings there, actually many were abandoned before this was gone. They were going elsewhere, like on 81, right? So in fact only four or five lanes needed to get here. Which is what happened. So just kind of drawings from competition, that's not so important, but you can see below that was the existing condition at one of its narrower points, ten lanes and various ways to reduce it to four, sometimes six lanes with parking and then the benefit of course was a much wider promenade. So again drawings from the competition, and one of the amazing thing about if the Chinese decide to do it well, they do it well. The trees planted were enormous. If you go to Boston, they were twigs. We ran out of damn money, right? In China they planted pretty sizable trees. So this shows kind of during construction all kinds of havoc which we can't accommodate here, of course, but you the result has been incredible. On any given day upwards of a quarter to a third of a million people walk along this promenade, partially to observe having of course these old customs houses that were built by the Europeans when the China first opened itself up, but also looking across the river towards Pedong, where 21st century Manhattan takes place. It's been an amazing transformation. And guess what, no one cares that eight lanes of traffic somehow disdissipated itself throughout the rest of the city. That's the thing, you see. You're doing this not for the immediate impact, which may be troublesome for some, you're doing it for the future of your city. Decades and maybe even centuries ahead. So those are two projects that I spent a great deal of time on. The third one is the best. And I thought we were kind of play with you to show you. Again my role on this project was quite minimal as a advisor. Anyway, kind of last image of the on a daily basis, I don't know how many of you visited Shanghai since 2012, but it always looks like that. You could not get there through those 12 lanes of traffic prior. So this is this is my favorite project. And of course my favorite student, this is he was a student at the graduate school of design. Became mayor during this project, he since then has become President of Korea. And so this highway, like in Boston had to be widened. And this President Lee said, let's just get rid of it. And of course people thought he was just nuts. Right? So Seoul has worse traffic than Syracuse, worse than Boston or New York. Traffic is horrible. So the idea you would eliminate this was an impossible thought. And he just said let's get rid of it. So there it is, of course first you will see it first filled a kind of creek at the surface, that was enough, so another layer was built on top. Notice the scale of the buildings on either side of it. For a moment, right? So then the renderings appeared and of course people thought that was just crazy, it will never happen. It happened. But in a fairly short period of time. That actually is a photograph. It's one of the most favorite places now in Seoul, Korea, to walk through. That was the original creek which over time became a sewer, obviously, as these things happen, that's why it was covered first and then kind of covered again by several layers of highways. You can see it being recently restored, you can see what it looks like now, across 7 kilometers. It's amazing. The air is much cheaper in this area. Much cleaner than anywhere else, actually, in Seoul right now other than out in the mountains. You can see the before and the after. And there of course you can see scale of the buildings there when it was a highway, you can see the scale of it right now. So highways don't bring development, don't listen to the mall guys, right? Highways don't bring development, actually, wonderful public spaces bring development. [ Applause ] Civic spaces. Beautiful spaces. Spaces that are they can breathe freely in bring development. You know what? Traffic in Seoul still sucks. But the benefit has been utterly enormous as it will be for Syracuse as if you persist. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> I don't have a fancy slide show, but I'll just start. So I wanted it thank the University first of all, for giving me the opportunity to be here today. And I'm excited to be part of this conversation. It's actually a bit of a homecoming for me because my both my parents and grant parents went to Syracuse University, so excited to be here and connecting with the with everyone here. So I'm interested in I 81 I would say not only as a researcher, which I will get into in a second, but through friends and family in the area too, which I think is significant when thinking about any infrastructure issue. In other words, it's not just about the physical design or engineering specifications behind a given project. But what it means as a community asset and larger built environment surrounding it. So this conversation I think so is particularly timely and relevant. That's where a lot of my work takes me at the brookings metro program in DC where I focus on the intersection between infrastructure and economic development. So my background, I'm an economist and planner. So a bit of a weird hybrid, not only focused on pulling together and analyzing granular metrics and data. But also fascinated with planning and policy implications for decades to come. So while I'm based in DC, I'm in order to nature that a lot of my work takes me far outside the belt way which in my opinion is a lot of the innovative infrastructure plans, projects and leadership has been taking place for some time. And of course also in different places across the country where a lot of the heavy lifting and hard decisions financially and otherwise are taking place too. The point of this these infrastructure needs surrounding I 81 in Syracuse more generally are not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a larger shift we're seeing across the country. Where local leaders and other community partners are having to address thorny infrastructure challenges head on that simply can't wait and need to be addressed now from devising policies and plans to coming up with the money needed to actually get something done. And if anything, this bottom up approach is flying in the face of federal inaction and dysfunction on this front. So with that said I'm going to quickly run through some observations I had on three front. First the evolving infrastructure concerned as I see them, second, looming funding and finance considerations and then third the ongoing economic implications. I imagine a lot of these same thoughts will come up so I hope this will help set additional context if nothing else. So first, the infrastructure itself I think it helps to take a step back and ask not only about the past and present, but also the vision for I 81 future. It's not just a abstracts planning, design, or engineering exercise, but [indiscernible] many types of residents, businesses and many others that use the interstate including the neighborhoods affected and widespread region concerns at play, when I 81 the viaduct were first constructed, the primary federal goal for transportation was centered on the interstate highway, fueled by growing auto use, miles travels [indiscernible] outcome for a half century or more with the goal for connectivity and speed. This translated to states and localities as well and still leads a legacy we're all living with today. Indeed we know that pace and nature of this development has led us to many environmental and economic costs and we are in an era of repair and replacement. Particularly true given the age and ability of many structures to handle increased traffic. Politically the desire for new infrastructure in additional capacity even where it might not be needed is strong. Nationally we often lack a clear vision or priority for what infrastructure should mean in the coming decades as is often easier to follow past precedent instead. After all, ribbon cutting ceremonies when repairing potholes or maintaining existing roads or systems. That doesn't mean there aren't trends happening. Where many places in transportation users are shifting preferences towards transit and other modes to get around. It's not just about the need for speed, but about access to economic opportunity. Can people reach jobs easily, can they get to the doctor? Can they get to school? These and other questions are pressing and may not always be easy it answer given difficulties measuring and acting upon them, especially since they run in stark contrast to the ways in which we design and manage much of the transportation infrastructure. Moreover, the rule of technology, including connected vehicles and the prospect or other new services over time could radically transform the transportation preferences and needs for the communities. It's hard to see how the technologies will emerge, but we can't simply focus on the shiny object, the technology itself, without beginning to conceive what it means for the way we plan our communities and consider the future of place. What will it mean for roadway design, housing and so on. Of course issues of governance, federal, state, and local remain complicated. Although it may be simple to think about shifting responsibility to one or two of these actors, the roles are intermixed and various federal lists access and coordination need add cross different projects and assets, whether talking about any number of issues, it's not simply going to be the federal government coming with one silver bullet solution, but take a combination of roles and responsibilities and sharing of risks and rewards. And this is true at a regional level two. Multiple municipals and other groups have to be at the table. Seen in this light, the possibilities are intertwined with existing needs and priorities for the physical infrastructure now and are taking place at a time of great shifts in the way we think about transportation regionally and nationally as well. We're seeing this to the years of debate in various options explored for I 81's future, and the ripple effect for the city itself and surrounding towns and suburbs, including impacts going to adjoining roadways and other neighborhoods. It's not just limited transportation either but future plans and designs for communities including a movement towards smarter more sustainable growth as seeing through the rezone Syracuse experts other efforts. And of course I can bring this up in the panel, but other cities of course are thinking about this right now which I think are particularly pertinent to this conversation. So there are a vast assortment of infrastructure issues at play and perhaps the biggest is money, which I will briefly cover next. As we all know, since much. Infrastructure is in need of repair, there may be an appetite to get something done now p but the technical and financial feasibility is an ever present question and any potential redevelopment and investment does not often come quickly or easily. Once again Syracuse not alone in this respect, especially when we think of the larger national conversation continuing to take place on this front. Federally, for example, the needs to come up with durable revenue sources to pay for infrastructure improvements is nothing new and remains a vexing and politically toxic conversation where it's often easier to keep kicking the can done the proverbial road, I'm sure we have heard the backlog of repairs across the country. While leaders debate ways to jump start the investment. Still we are stick with programs inadequate. The federal gas tax remains a revenue for the highway trust fund, that supports many of the projects nationally, yet the gas tax supports lower O lower levels of revenue, particularly since it was not raised since 1993 and not indexed to inflation at that time. Meanwhile in addition to uncertainty surrounding revenues, the ways in which certain agencies allocate funding to states does not always target the places of greatest need or alternative types of infrastructure projects but instead continues to spread funding evenly like peanut butter across the country, predominantly focused on roads and highways. There are some extensions to this including a tiger grants program [indiscernible] within USDOT, which I know has helped support already projects in Syracuse, but those are the the exception than the norm, unfortunately. Current proposals from the Trump administration also remain highly uncertain and lack details to achieve bipartisan support. I won't get into all the dimensions of the administration's plan, but I will say its emphasis on considering new types of revenue remains an area of interest. In addition it's focused on [indiscernible] reforms and workforce development infrastructure sector represent areas of further consideration and inquiry, however its overall dine which looks to dangle about $200 billion in federal money to incentivize states and localities to generate up to $1 trillion of investment is questionable to say the least. Through infrastructure incentives program, transformative projects program and rule infrastructure program the administration is looking for states and localities to cobble together more money than ever before supporting up to 80% of project costs in some cases. States like New York and cities like Syracuse we know already have their hands full and simply do not have the endless pool of resources to pay for more infrastructure spending even if they would like to. And while it's hard to tell where the administration plan is going and separate proposals on capital hill are headed, I will say the federal cavalry is likely not coming in a time soon. If it does, the current plans do not provide the long term certainty, flexibility, or vision to improve the country's infrastructure for decades and generations to come. This also says nothing of the proposed cuts to existing federal transportation programs envision the by the administration. I don't think places where complain if more federal money rained down on them, but Washington is not going to come up with a grand solution, and state and local leader are likely to remain in the driver's seat. This has been a reality for some time. States and localities account for more than 75% on public spending on transportation each year. They remain best attuned to the details and timely planning considerations on the ground. I'm not a believer in what is known of full [indiscernible] but it's going to take a full range of federal state and local actors working together to devise new approaches and not being afraid to pilot new approaches and designs much we are seeing this in many places across country celebrating completion of region wide efforts focused on transit and accessibility along with multimodal improvements, passage of ballots rev revenue da, and majority are passing providing millions of dollars for projects in Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Above all, what's working for these places is the acknowledgment of the pressing fiscal challenges at hand and in that infrastructure represents as generational investment. And these strategies are are based on local concerns and priorities. In many ways I should have led with this, but the simple fact is that a federal state and log leaders must base the infrastructure decisions for other projects it must be in light of local economic context. We're at a time of income inequality nationally and some of the highest rates of poverty are found in Syracuse of the I 81 has left a scarring legacy and impact on many of the communities and any future efforts must explore ways for more inclusive economic development. The development of more liveable connected public paces would help as has been envisioned as part of the community grid option, for instance, but any increased property values and land development should also closely connect to the needs of these residents and neighborhoods, including the need for affordable housing. The design construction operation and long term maintenance of any future improvements to I 81 itself or other adjoining project represents a huge employment opportunity as well. A lot of my research has focused on infrastructure jobs, short term and long term positions related to infrastructure oversight nationally which represent career pathways with low barriers to entry and equitable wages. And local hiring and training efforts should be a focal point of the I 81 conversation and involve collaboration not just among engineering and construction firms but by the city agencies, workforce development groups, educational institutions and other community partners. Beyond the city itself I 81 should represent not just an economic challenge but an economic opportunity. Even where with the ongoing vigorous debate it's compelling all types of residents, businesses and other groups to collaborate and come to the table with different ideas. These issues do not exist in a vacuum but require input across the entire region about probably require more analysis too. What does it mean for commuters coming from the suburbs, what does it mean for residents that don't come to the city every day, shippers, truck drivers and businesses who depend on 81 as an artery. We're an an inflection point where continued planning is needed but also action is needed too. And ideally that action can help strengthen and expand and ultimately transform Syracuse's economic foundation and make it into a national leader that other cities with similar challenges can follow and look toward as well. Thanks. [ Applause ] >> Good afternoon. It's an honor to be here and it's really warming to see how many people are interested in this issue on the Syracuse campus and local neighborhoods. I want to start this conversation by echoing some of the things we've already heard in the sense that this is indeed a once in a generation opportunity for Syracuse to make a decision about what happens with its interstate infrastructure. And we know that over 50 years ago mostly men, white men sat around a table similar to this at the federal government level and started to make decisions about where the interstate highway would be constructed. And most of those decisions were made in a sense that the highways would go right through the middles of city. And we know that highways are good a bringing people to and cities but we had to in this day and age think about going right directly through cities. So some of those decisions were made based upon some of the data that were available at that time. And self decades prior during the 1930s and 1940s the federal government backed the homeowners loan corporation as an agency to go through city by city to figure out what areas would be invested in through home mortgage loans in which areas would not be and this was not unique to Syracuse, but in Syracuse we had federal officials walking our streets and delineating neighborhoods as those neighborhoods that should receive mortgage loans and those were areas that are in green or blue. And areas that should not receive federal loans, and those were the areas demarked in red and yellow or an orange color. So those maps from the '30s and the '40s started to set the stage for the urban renewal and highway construction projects that would happen in the next couple decades in Syracuse. And I think this history is really important for us to take into consideration as we move forward and start to think about how we address infrastructure for the future. So the highway was built in spite of a good deal of local resistance, I have here several quotes from locally elected officials as well as appointed officials who thought that the highway would bring nothing but turmoil to the city. So the highway eventually was constructed where the federal had denigrated areas as unfit for home mortgage loans. Those red areas. And in those areas primary were made up of African Americans and Jewish families after the great migration north to escape Jim Crow laws, many of the African Americans what came to Syracuse settled in and around the area of the highway. Today nearly 75 years later you can see in this map on the right that we have a majority of our African American and Latino populations living to the western side of interstate highway 81. So when the urban renewal was happening as well as highway construction these people were forcibly moved into inferior housing structures located to the southwest of our city. And today as you drive through those neighborhoods you noticed our most heavily concentrated areas of vacancy and abandoned housing. So we've seen some real consequences from the highway that have stemmed into modern times. So it's been has been compared to Boston when the highway was built literally a swathe of land was cleared and you can see where the existing city grid was severed in order to create the highway. Just have a few pictures here of interstate highway being built around 1967 through the middle of the city, the interchange with 81 and 690. So at that time several city grid streets were severed in order to create the highway. When the highway was built our population was around 250,000. As soon as the highway was built we saw massive exodus from city primary to the suburbs, so we saw our population decline almost 100,000 to what it is today, around 145,000 people. So whereas early planners thought that people would use the highway to come to the city and that we would attract people to the city, we may have attracted them on daily trips or in their daily commute from the suburbs, but we saw the in fact the highway being built right through the middle of the city made people want to leave the city. In those times there was little to no public input into the decisions that were happening. Most of those decisions occurred at the federal and state levels with minimal input, not only from our locally elected officials here in Syracuse, but also the people who lived in and around Syracuse. Now, that has changed in the last decade or so, where we've been discussing what might happen next with Interstate 81. In 2005 NYSDOT began its planning and invited public input into what would happen with Interstate 81. From there the Syracuse metropolitan transportation council continued to solicit community input around its I 81 challenge from 2011 to 2013. And similarly, there's been over groups who have made a part of their mission to raise awareness around the various options that exist for our community with 81. I will talk briefly just about a couple of them. Save 81 is the predominant organization or organized group of constituents who propose keeping 81 as a viaduct or now as a tunnel option. The rest of the organizations I have mentioned here, alliance of communities, transforming Syracuse, the CNY solidarity coalition, and rethink 81 are leaning toward the community grid model. So I have done a good deal of going through the various information that's been made available from these groups and there's a few things that I've noted and what I've been seeing. Whereas save 81 has been very good at coining really great slogans such as Carmageddon or that if we do the community grid it will cause community gridlock, I haven't seen a lot of data or facts behind some of the really fear mongering language that's been used to talk about how the community grid will cause economic it will depress economic vitality within the city and it will crush our fragile economy we've been working so hard to build. So I can go through some of that more during the question and answer period if people are interested, but rethink 81 as well as the other coalitions have done a much better job at using data to support their findings. And I want to bring up an info graphic that one group in particular put together. A group of constituents on the north side of Syracuse was interested to take all of the information that was being put out by NYSDOT and the SMTC and distill it in a way that would be more palatable and more easily understood by the local community members. There's been a lot of discussion that while community engagement has been much better with this round of discussing what would happen to 81, that vernacular used and the schematics are still quite difficult to digest by the average Joe. So this schematic was developed using data from New York State Department of Transportation. A white paper that was done by rethink 81. As well as a feasibility study that came tout to evaluate the tunnel options. So the viaduct would create a highway in its current place, it would be 10 feet taller, 20 feet wider. Still maintain the high speed highway and the downtown exits would remain largely untouched. That would cost about $1.7 billion, which is equivalent to the New York State total that we have every year to pay for infrastructure projects, transportation infrastructure projects throughout the entire state. The timeline for redoing the viaduct is about 47 years. And it's estimated that 24 buildings would be demolished. And within those 24 buildings there's about 683 employees that would be displaced. Estimations suggest that about $8 million in tax revenue would be lost from the demolition of those buildings that are currently on the tax roll. And there would be 0 acres returned to our tax rolls. Looking at the commuter times that the NYSDOT has published, there's a general sense that commute times would probably increase or decrease about two minutes. And as you probably all heard Syracuse has been often referred to as the 20 minute commute city. So by and large when we're talking about what kinds of commute implications we will have from a community grid, we're only looking at a couple minutes give or take. And for many of you who probably navigate our city, you know that a lot of the highway traffic is focus who live in the city who want to get on 690 or 81 to get to their destination just a little bit faster. But when things like the closure to 690 west onramp happens and you have to take local streets anyway, you indeed still can find your destination and you will get there within about two minutes than if you had been traveling on the highway. I experienced this firsthand the other day when my daughter's school field trip from a city school to the zoo wouldn't take 690 west onramp, and by gosh we traveled through the city. And we were there in just a few short minutes. The community grid alternative focuses on replacing 1.2 miles of the elevated viaduct through Syracuse. High speed traffic would be routed around city. Primarily through almond, Crouse, and Irving avenues. For the traffic that's coming into the city from the south. Estimated to cost a little less than the viaduct at about $1.3 billion. The construction time would be about four to seven years. And as far as we can tell, there would be about five buildings demolished. Which would displace about 83 employees. It would generate potentially $5 million in tax revenue because of the land that would be freed up around the interstate highway. Think of those dead zones, that's what they're referred to, dead zones, that's the technical term of the areas that exist around the interstate highways that are largely parking lots or just vacant space that is undevelopable because who wants to build their business right next to a highway. They estimate about 7 acres and the commute would be changed by two minutes either way. The tunnel option long has been dismissed as being to expensive and taking too long, but through much political advocacy at the regional level, the tunnel option has become another option that the draft environmental will consider. Tunnel is supposed to replace about 1.7 miles of viaduct, through tract will be maintained but fewer connectors downtown. And we will talk about the lack of those connectors in a minute. It's estimated to cost $3.6 billion and as we just heard from our friends at brookings institute where that money going to come from? Probably not all come from the federal and state government and will probably require local input as well. And there's estimated to be about 12 buildings demolished. Because this study is new and the new tunnel study didn't get into much other than the engineering aspects of it, it's still difficult to understand what the true property tax base and commute implications will be. But I want to look just a little bit more closely at some of the options with the community grid as I mentioned traffic in city would be dispersed throughout many of our local roads. One thing I am curious about is the impact to our underground utilities on those local roads. I've had the opportunity to study infrastructure with the I team, the innovation office for the city of Syracuse for a couple of years we know that our city water and sewer infrastructure is in distress, particularly in our downtown areas. So what would happen if we did have increased traffic on those roads? That's something that I'm really interested to see moving forward. So the other aspects of the community grid that are important to note are one second, let me find my page. Several of the one way streets that exist around the highway would be converted back to two way streets. And several of the severed streets that were severed during the completion of the 81 project would be reconnected to establish a community grid that was present when our population was 250,000. Almond Street, which is the spine of the community grid, would have bicycle and pedestrian enhancements. So this is a way to think about transportation infrastructure more broadly conceived than simply replacing our highway with a viaduct. Fewer properties demolished and the land available for redevelopment is pretty significant. I want to show a quick comparison of the 24 plus or minus buildings that would be demolished if we rebuilt viaduct versus the potential five properties that would be demolished if we built a community grid. I want to talk a little bit more about the highway tunnel specifically because that has reemerged as a potential in spite of the fact that NYSDOT had already concluded it would be expensive to build, the lengthy construction project would probably reroute most of our traffic through 481 or other rural routes to the east and the west of the city, and it's costly to maintain and operate. Now, this had been taken off the table and recently had been pushed back in by largely by Senator DeFrancisco and other locally elected leaders, and I can understand their feeling that they didn't want Upstate New York to be slighted, that they really wanted to see all of the options fully vetted before we came to a conclusion because as we've all been saying, this is a once in a generation opportunity. So an additional $2 million study was commissioned, and was just released in December 2017 that vetted nine tunnel options, four of which were deemed feasible. The four tunnels that are deemed feasible called the red, orange, green, and blue tunnels, again all cost over $3 billion, would take about nine years to complete, if they are completed on time, and then they have about a $10 million annual operating fee, and that's to work with the exhaust that needs to be pumped out of the tunnels for example and to maintain those tunnels. Now, some of the advocates of the tunnel option have said, well, you know, they just rebuilt Tappan Zee Bridge to the tune of $4 million, why wouldn't they rebuild Route 81 to the tune of $4 million? Tappan Zee Bridge also charges a 5 dollar each way toll, so I'm wondering do the city and regional residents how they feel about the potential of using a fee based system where they would pay a toll every day to use one of these tunnels. Some of the tunnel options seem to have some environmental justice consequences that we haven't yet had the opportunity to study. And if we are concerned about undoing or rectifying past environmental injustices, these are things that I think really need to take consideration. First there would be a jet fan system that removes exhaust from the tunnel and those exhaust tunnels those exhaust fans would probably put out their exhaust in some of the neighborhoods that are already affected here. There are another interesting thing to note about the tunnel is that if you're planning to go downtown to our educational facilities, SU and ESF, for example, or our hospitals, you wouldn't use the tunnel. You'd get off before you got onto the tunnel. So if a good deal of our traffic is coming into the city to get to our eds and meds and downtown area, the tunnels just doesn't seem to make that much sense. It's been projected that about 2,000 cars during the daily morning commute and afternoon commute would use the tunnel. So it seems like quite a large expense to go through for such small volume of traffic that's continuing to travel all the way through the city. So this tunnel option even though it had been dismissed has now back on the table and will be included in the draft environmental impact statement. Which will measure the social, economic, environmental impacts of the three options now, the viaduct, the community grid, as well as one of the tunnels. It's presumed that they'll study the orange option, which was the preferred tunnel that was in the in that study, but it's unsure which tunnel would actually be used. One of the other things I want to note about the tunnel in terms of its environmental justice impacts is that the staging area for entering the tunnel would be located about a block away from Dr. King Elementary School. And the environmental and social justice impacts of what that staging area would look like is relatively unknown at this point. But again, if we're concerned about doing right by these neighborhoods in particular, we'd want to pay particular attention to that. And the community grid alternative much of the severed streets that connect the south and southwest neighborhoods to where we see most of the employment opportunities, at our hospitals and educational facilities, would be much easier to access. We know historically that we've had a tremendous amount of job growth around Syracuse and our suburban fringe area, and those areas are very difficult for low income neighborhood residents to get to our public transportation is lacking, and if you don't own a car it's difficult to get to suburban areas. This opens the pathways back up between the east and west of the city so commuting between the more low income neighborhoods to our areas of employment around our education and medical facilities is enhanced. So I just want to conclude by suggesting that there has been a good deal more of public input than historically when we built the highway the first time around. But what often is seen is that that input is still largely skewed. There are not many African American or Latino voices that are being heard through this discussion. When I go through and I read all of the letters to the editor and the comments that have been submitted over the last ten years, I see mostly politically elected officials who have commented from the region. When I visit 81 Save 81's website and I click on the various statements that have been put out by our surrounding town supervisors and transportation authorities, I'm not seeing any very clear evidence of what they find to be the negative impacts to the city and the region by rerouting traffic. It seems more of a not in my backyard type of argument than it does have any real consequence for regional economic development or city equipment development. As we know, strong cities make strong regions. And if we have an opportunity to do something with 81 that will bring about economic opportunity and economic revitalization to the city I think we will see those ramifications throughout the region, which will be good for everyone. There was a sense that if we rerouted traffic around the city to 481 that we would have economic development opportunity in other areas and not in the city itself. But as you know, if you travel the highway or through the community grid system, there's not that much traffic that goes through Syracuse right now. Increased traffic over our community grid system might improve economic vitality of our downtown stores and businesses and restaurants by having even more opportunity to serve regional customers. So I'll leave my comments there until we bring it back together for our combined conversation. Thanks. [ Applause ] >> Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Ben Walsh, and relatively new mayor of the city of Syracuse here, and boy if I wasn't convinced that the community grid option was the right option before this panel, I certainly am now. So nice job. [ Applause ] Going last is a blessing and a curse, Jonnell pretty much took every point that I wanted to make on why I support the community grid, but I am going take this opportunity to reiterate them, because one thing I've learned over the past decade is that as much as we continue to reiterate the case and try to inform the conversation with data, there's still a lot of people that it hasn't gotten to. So I'm going to try to reiterate some of those points right now. So people often ask why am I such a passionate advocate for the community grid? So I try to take them through each one of the alternatives and give them just some highlights. That Jonnell covered in great detail. So let's look at the viaduct. The comment I hear more than any other, whether I'm talking to city stakeholders or suburban stakeholders is why are we even talking about this, just leave it the way it is. It's fine the way it is. People don't understand that the status quo is not an option. New York State DOT has said that the elevated viaduct has reached the ends of its useful life. So if people want to see a void continue through the city as Jonnell pointed out, it has to be higher, and more importantly, wider. And what that means is important property demolitions at a time when you look at what's driving investment in our city, much is the adaptive reuse of our historic building stock, and we're at that time we're talking about demolishing more properties when our city has seen more than its fair share of demolitions. We're talking about displacement of residents. It's so important to have that historical context that we had to understand the wrong that was done to the city of Syracuse when 81 came through. Against the objections of all of the city officials. So this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to right a past wrong. And again, with a viaduct option we're talking about displacing more residents and businesses. And selfishly, as the mayor of a city that is facing a substantial operating deficit going into my first budget, the viaduct takes more properties off of the tax rolls when tax exempt properties is that issue is probably our most significant challenge. So for me, the viaduct isn't even on the table. Then we look at the tunnel. I am always I always gravitate towards compromise, and I love the idea of us finding a compromise, a win win here in this debate, but the tunnel is not that. Again, for many reasons you've already heard. Alex, I'm going to steal your line, as you appropriately said, the stuff below has to come out. And people I don't think understand that. That means cars, you talked about that ingress and egress out of the tunnel, the disruption that has on the existing street grid is significant and can't be underestimated. As Jonnell pointed out, the air. Environmental justice is such a critical component of this, and the tunnel has to be ventilated. And in many cases we're looking at ventilation towers that are going to disrupt the streetscape that is allegedly going to be preserved if a tunnel comes through, and when I had chance to sit in a briefing by the consultant that had been hired by the state to do the most recent tunnel study they said we don't have to use venting towers, we can vent it on each end of the tunnel. And if that's even possible, as Jonnell pointed out, what's at the southern end of the tunnel? An elementary school. So that's where we're going to ventilate. It makes no sense to me. This idea of Carmageddon, the numbers move around, but we are funneling the mast majority of traffic that comes along 81 through the city into the city, upwards of 80% of the traffic that comes through the city goes down in. And right now comes into the city through existing bottlenecks, those being the Harrison and Adams onramp. So this idea that we're dumping all of this traffic into the community grid, we already are, and we have an opportunity to make a more efficient grid. So that leaves us with the community grid option. I mentioned opportunity to right a past wrong. I mentioned the opportunity to put more properties on the tax rolls. And as I think Joe, you correctly pointed out, it's an opportunity not just to see development, economic any kind of economic development in this community, which for a long time I think has been has been the approach, any development is good development, we know that's not the case. Gives us an opportunity to be intentional and inclusive in the development. And I often point out that what accept is separating the elevated viaduct are two of the most prosperous growing areas not just in the city but in the region in downtown and University hill, but we can't underestimate the impact on the southern and northern end of this project area, namely on the south side and looking specifically at pioneer homes, central village, Syracuse Housing Authority properties and to the north around the near north side, we have an amazing opportunity to reknit the fabric of the city and to do it in a way that emphasizes mixed income. And mixed use development. So it's a great opportunity. Not just economic development workforce development. And again that was brought up. You know, I've been as many of us have been frustrated by the delay of the state decision making process. But what I start to find myself getting upset about it, I remind myself that if the decision was made tomorrow, we as a community would not be ready to take full advantage of the economic opportunity that we're going to be presented with. We don't have the workforce right now. We don't have our contractors don't have the capacity. And so what I've tried to funnel my frustration into identifying opportunities to build that capacity over the next year as to the final decision is being made. We looked around at models, we found what we think is a great model in San Francisco and their city build initiative, and are adapting it to what we're calling Syracuse build. And we're working with the folks in San Francisco to bring all of the right partners, the workforce development partners to the table to make sure we are building our capacity, make sure we are building a workforce especially in our most marginalized neighborhoods that isn't just prepared to take advantage of the short term construction opportunity but the longer term economic opportunities that are going to come from the right type of development. On a lighter note, I have said throughout this debate that there's something that just really bothers me about the fact that as we look at out at other communities and what they're doing, you look at I often point to Dallas and Dubai that are going to be piloting driverless flying vehicles, forget about driverless driving vehicles, we're talking about driverless flying vehicles and here we are debating whether or not we want to double down on twentieth century infrastructure as trying to prepare for a 21st century economy. It's crazy, but here we are. That being said, as much as I'm reflecting on the tone that I just took there [ Laughter ] I have tried not to take that tone during the first few months of my administration because the reality is it is not productive to be dismissive of those that disagree with us. So I really have sincerely tried to engage with those that don't share my opinion, namely our my suburban counterparts. To understand where we as a community to help address the issues. Because if you dig down on them, the common factor is most of the issues people are concerned about are issues that exist today. And unless anything is done about it will be issues that exist after this project is done whatever we do. So let's just take a couple examples. So our neighborhoods in Dewitt, where we're talking about rerouting the through traffic around 481. They have concerns about what that traffic will do, how that will impact their neighborhoods. But if you start to talk to them about 481, you'll find that certain things that weren't done when 481 with was constructed to begin with, namely sound attenuation, and also the way in which that current onramps and off ramps are configured has caused issued for quality of life issues for Dewitt. That exist today. Their concern of course is if we go if we make the wrong decision from their perspective that those issues could be exacerbated. My position is let's not wait let's separate these issues and try to work with the state and take advantage of that opportunity that we have to fix the problems that weren't addressed officially. I think we have an opportunity to do that. I sat with town of Dewitt supervisor, Ed Michalenko, the other day and told him that and offered to help. I'm happy to use some of my political capital to help solve these problems. Similarly in the Finger Lakes, you talk to the folks in Skaneateles and Auburn, they have a problem with trucks driving from the south up 81 instead of going all the way up to the Thruway and going over these are trucks that the final destination is Seneca meadows landfill in Seneca Falls, they are cutting through the towns and villages right now. The concern is that if we add an additional rerouteing around 481 that will exacerbate that problem. It may, it may not, but the fact is it's a problem today. I'm convinced with the right people at the table there are solutions to that problem sued. So I've encouraged our counterparts to focus on what those potential solutions are and again I will march arm and arm well them to Albany and try too fix those solutions. A little closer to home, town of Salina, in many ways their economy is built around the current configuration of 81 and the Thruway and that's the reality of it. But that's looking very myopically at the relatively economy economy that that town. There will be short term pain on some of the those businesses, especially the hotels and motels built around that interchange, but I think if we take a more regional approach to economic development we help them to benefit in the longer term. The mall, I think Alex, you mentioned that, you must be aware that we have a mall here, and [ Laughter ] and they have not been shy in sharing their opinions about essentially any scenario that does not have 81 going right across their front door is a problem for them. Again thinking myopically in short term, I understand their concern, but they're thinking about economic conditions today as opposed to broader and larger economic implications that you have to take into consideration when you look at what we could become and what we could develop, we're looking at the size of the existing pie as opposed to actually increasing the size of the pie and how we how everyone might be able to benefit from it. So it's important that we aren't dismissive of those concerns, but my focus is trying to help our partners to address those issues and also help them to understand why just as they don't want traffic driving up this main street right in front of their front door, I think it's okay to say that we in the city of Syracuse don't want it either, and we've had to live with the impact of having that be the case for 50 years. And again, we have a chance to right a significant past wrong. So with that I look forward to continuing the conversation with the panel. [ Applause ] >> Thank to all four of you, I have one specific question of my own that is a concern that none of you really talked about, Alex hinted at it briefly once. If we have time I'll work that in. That's kind of my pet question, so I don't want let me start with the two other thing first, a general question for the group, before that a specific question for the mayor. And I want to jump off of the subtitle of the panel here, the over and under of I 81. And just ask you given where things are right now, what is your read of the likely outcome? What if you can put probabilities on it even, what do you think is the decision that is going to be made? >> Grant, the campaign is over, I thought we were done with the hard hitting questions. It's a good question. And I'm not going to take a shot at a specific probability, but I think one of the things that strikes me in this debate is that what I've heard from a lot of the tunnel proponents, namely elected officials, is when we have this the conversation, the debate they say let's take money off the table for a money. Take money off the table. If money's not an issue, what's wrong with the tunnel? And I proceed to explain to them what's wrong with the tunnel. But what has money not been a consideration, especially these days? And I would like to think that as the federal debate on infrastructure has moved forward and while still not clear, the current administration's at least initial proposals have made it clearer, that there is not going to be this huge pot of money that we're going to be able to tap into and do whatever we want with. So I think between as easy as it is to use fear and misinformation to influence the debate, I think I have hope that we have the facts and the data on our side and combined with the fiscal realities that we're all facing that ultimately we do come to the community grid as the right option. >> So let me put this general question to the group. As the mayor pointed out in his remarks, you seem to be in heated agreement on this, the four of you. Or at least I could not detect as a political scientist, this is my habit to always listen for the conflict, I didn't really hear any among the four of you. So just general question for the group, I don't know who wants to jump in, but did any of you hear anything from your colleagues that you would either want to comment on, probe a little bit, investigate a bit further among the group here? >> I'm always happy to say something, I'm not sure if I can answer your question there. Well, most of the assumptions about cost, forget about it. That should not be the decision. It should not be the decision about cost. By the way, the Boston project was estimated to cost go $.8 billion, it wound up costing $16 billion. There's actually a secret there, which is we got 300 acres of parks out of it, among other things. We got all kinds of improvements to traffic he will elsewhere in the city as well because for a while while the spigot was going, our leaders added signs saying thank to the big dig project and so the scope expanded dramatically. By the way, that was another benefit, actually. Now, of course I'm not suggesting you're going to spend $16 million, but the point is these large scale endeavors have other potential benefits as they get going. And that should be thought about as well. I don't know enough about Syracuse to know whether the tunnel is a terrible idea. The only reason that a tunnel would be a good idea is if regional through traffic was a imagine issue, that was case in Boston, if it's not, the tunnel is just as bad adds a viaduct, it's just less visible except when it appears. The tunnel is like another bypass, another way in which American urbanism went awry, a lot were built around the city, and that's where the suburban development took place. So the tunnel wouldn't be helping very much; it's just a fear of traffic which we should get over. So I think the tunnel can be as disruptive as the viaduct. The benefit that you all have and it's true in other parts of the country right now is that you have to do something. You have to do something. And that's the important thing. So keep pressing upon that. >> I'll just add, you know, I don't have a definitive stance one way or the other, right, of yes, let's definitely do that, definitely do that. I'm always more, it depends. Let's see more data. It was helpful to see some of those metrics that were calculated and even if one option is selected offer another, it's not as about mission is accomplished once that's been selected or preferred, there are still significant questions and next steps in terms of the execution of the construction, the design, the maintenance, and particularly what the benefits will mean at a community level and so I'm looking at this in many different places across country. New Haven actually is dealing with a very similar issue at the moment with Route 34, I believe, and they're doing a downtown crossing project and they've received actually federal support through tiger grants and they are dealing very similar issues, they've got Yale University right through, but tremendous levels of poverty in the neighborhood, so there's this opportunity where there's a road that is reaching the end of its useful life as the engineers like to put it, and they're doing something about it, experimenting with it, but going in different phases, they have a phase one, phase two, phase three. And it's requiring a lot of collaboration, not only with the city leadership, but with groups and community organizations to make sure those benefits actually translate to some of the most vulnerable members of the community in terms of housing, so if there isn't just an influx of gentrification, because with increased property values that isn't just mission accomplished, that needs to translate into actual opportunity for everyone. And so I would just urge everyone as we're thinking of the actual design and execution and what's chosen, chose the option that's not where it ends, in many ways that's where it starts and that's where the conversation has to keep going. >> We're involved in that project, I mean, I know it very well. It's true it begins as a kind of a social justice question because there it's Yale or it's African American very minority income areas. One of the reasons why it's going slowly is actually try to mitigate the negative effects of gentrification as well. But in that case a surface boulevard is ultimately going to happen as opposed to a rebuilding of a tunnel of a viaduct or a tunnel. So most of the time that would be the better solution. There also there's some kind of imperative to get lots of cars through Syracuse as opposed to engage in Syracuse. >> So I am going to ask my pet question then. And, Joe, you just alluded to it when you said this isn't the end, it's the beginning of a process. And you mentioned the construction itself. So one of the thing that I worry about most in thinking of this is something that is there regardless of the option that gets chosen, and Alex, I'll go back to your first presentation on this, because you alluded to this briefly. There will be disruptions, there will be problems and some people are going not enjoy the process, but the three cities that you put forward as juxtapositions to ours, not saying you intended it that way, but nonetheless, are large cities with very solid bases, I mean, those cities aren't going anywhere and they're vibrant. And I don't think that can necessarily be said about Syracuse. And so what that what I worry about is the construction process itself. So Jonnell, you said four to seven years or nine. I'm going to be optimistic and say seven, all right? Let's say it's a community grid, seven. What happens during that time period and how does it affect the city and how does it affect people's impressions of the city and in particular what I worry about is and, mayor, you know this very well, you know, the sales job that has to be done and the management of the relation between the city and the suburbs. So what happens to those folks outside if as we're experiencing this construction project? I don't know if any of the four of you have best practices or warnings or any other things that we should be thinking about as we think about how does this actually get done. That's what worries me. >> Well, I'll start by saying that there are many negative perceptions that keep our regional occupants out of the city as it stands now, so I can imagine that the thought of being caught in construction traffic would also be a deterrent to come into the city. So for whatever option does end up making its way through, I think we do have to do a really good job of helping people navigate while that construction is happening. When I look at the various alternatives and I look at the existing street network of Syracuse, I can only imagine that by virtue of trying to avoid construction that we will have a bit of a community grid temporary system on our hands. And that traffic that is trying to just go from north to south or south to north directly through the city would still use 481 as an alternate route or some of our rural routes through the eastern suburbs. So there's going to be impact regardless. And I think mayor Walsh made a good point that if we can start to think proactively about what some of those trade offs might be with our suburban counterparts earlier rather than later, some of their concerns might be alleviated regardless of what option happens. I've long heard that Skaneateles and other villages are concerned about the truck traffic going to the waste facility, and I can't imagine that there's not a solution that doesn't look at either relocating the waste facility or figuring out other ways for us to move our waste into those waste facilities as one example. But I think that we have to do a tremendous job of making people aware of the construction impacts and helping them navigate our city both in the short term while we're undergoing construction as well as the long term. >> So again I think that the tunnel would be the worst. Absolutely the worst. There's no question in my mind. The viaduct would be pretty bad too. The advantage of the grid would be that you might start actually by improving the surface streets and letting that all that stuff thing's not going to fall down tomorrow. You don't have to start by demolishing 81, you can start by finding ways of improving the streetscape. So that's already a benefit. So again I think the grid, the community grid, that alternative I think might be least disruptive. Secondly, there are other benefits. In Boston there was 18 years of 100% construction employment. Not to mention for planners, designers, and community activists. [ Laughter ] And actually, one of the major almost a third of the cost of cost attributed to the Big Dig was actually investment in sort of mitigation costs, right, that were dealt with on a fairly serious way to properties that were being kind of most affected. So it's not all downside. I mean, I'm not trying to create a panacea, there are disruptions, but there are also upsides of undertaking a major multi year construction effort. And looking ahead to the benefits that will will result as well and the employment possibilities in the interim. >> I would just add, you know, when it comes to a lot of these bigger infrastructure projects the devil is in the details. >> Of course. >> And so tossing around anecdotes and saying there will be something like this or we think there will be impacts here, that's probably not going to fly into the only politically, but in the cost and what benefits might translate across the whole region, not just the city, but perhaps even 100 miles a way. 81 is a big roadway that goes far beyond Syracuse, it's one of the biggest freight corridors in the country. It's a big even $1.3 billion I think was the cost for the community grid. That's still a lot of that's a lot of money. It's less than 4 billion or whatever the tunnel option would be. There's a lot of risk, but a lot of reward. But the sooner I think that there can be action or at least granular metrics behind this, then all the better because, I mean, I'm not privy to exactly what the state's timeline here, but I know in like Texas, Dallas is another market that has been dealing with similar issues with I345 and TEXDOT was saying if you don't get your act together, we're going to repair it, we won't wait for you to sit on your hands. It's hard, you want to be thorough, you want to be calculated, but time is pressing. So any a way, it's not easy but the more more granular can help. >> I don't have anything to address your worry, Grant, but a couple of anecdotes, one was in my conversations with some of our suburban counterparts there has been some some cases an acknowledgment that problems they have can be decoupled from 81 and can be addressed right now, but I guess I should give them credit for their candor, an unwillingness to begin talking about solving those problems or exploration of solutions to those problems until a decision is made, because they don't want to show their hand or impact that decision. So that's frustrating and again really increases the urgency for me that a decision needs to be made and on a more positive tone, I had a small business owner recently talk to me about the opportunity that he saw from the construction and that was saying there might be some restaurants that are going to be severely impacted during construction that can change the business model temporarily, whether through food trucks or other could actually cater to those construction workers or related opportunities. But again, the longer that we're focusing our time and energy and resources on debating what's the right decision the less time we're going to have to be focusing on how we take full advantage of the opportunity in front of us. >> Really important thing is to get going. >> Right. >> Thing will happen. [ Applause ] $1 billion is like less than 100th of an aircraft carrier. So a billion dollars is not that much money if you decide of a particular priority. I know I'm being naive, so you can say it's a lot of money, but you can also say that it's not a lot of money given the capacity of this country if you just rejigger a couple of things. >> I did [ Applause ] >> At one point I saw a statistic that said 12% of our gross national product travels from south to north on Route 81. So if 12% of our GDP is resting on what we do on this highway, then coming up with $1 billion to fix it might not be too outlandish. >> I guess when I say a billion, I'm thinking as the current debate is in Washington, which is also another timeline, which is moving even probably more glacially than this, for that, in that drop in the bucket, which it is federally speaking, yeah, but if there's an expectation as this seems to be at the moment, that if you guys want to do this, you have to pick yourselves up by your own boot straps and are you at an operating deficit, that's the challenge and a lot of places across country that aren't the Bostons, Seattles, that kind of have their revenues relatively speaking in order, or at least are growing, you know, it's easier for them to have the appetite or really the way, the means to do some of this. But unfortunately, there are a lot of of places across the country x it's not just transportation infrastructure, water infrastructure, when we think of Flint, Michigan, other places kind infer middle, declining populations and they have significant fiscal challenges that need to be weighed alongside some of these invest am needs. >> Boston was the Detroit of the 1950s and '60s. It lost 250,000 out of a population of 600,000. So about the time that the decision was made back in 1982 or something, actually Boston was not the Boston that it is today. The big dig may even have had a small role in making Boston the Boston it is today rather than the way it was. So it's not entirely fair to say it's easy in Boston but it's hard somewhere else. Actually get going. And amazing things will happen. Again, said in a kind of naive way. [ Laughter ] >> We've got a really good chunk of time here for audience to make brief remarks or very brief remark or pose questions to the group. And it's an over full room, so I know we're going to have tons of questions, so it's good to leave this much time for it. So again, if I could just ask you to raise your hand and do we have one microphone or two microphones going around the room? One, okay, one. So we will just call on folks one at a time and we'll take this gentleman here who is near you, Larry, and then if you could if you do have a specific panelist to direct your question to, please do include that. >> Thank you all for your insight here today and your thoughts. I would like to move us right off of whether we like one or the other and go to the process that we're in. We've taken so long because of a process of the state and the DOT and delay tactics which do nothing but prolong the decision that we need to make quickly. We have a better situation, we have a city county with a long history, we actually have a city county planning organization that could work together to take us forward as the voice of what the community needs, the whole CNY community. But we seem to have a lot of delays by having the DOT as the lead agency. Is there anything you can tell us in your other projects about how a community like ours can get its act together, city county to define its goals as the mayor is putting his energies into, and get to the right decision with the DOT quickly? We need to support the DOT, they're good folks doing good work, but they're being delayed. Thank you. >> That's an interesting question. Anybody want to jump in on it? >> No. [ Laughter ] >> I can call on people. >> [away from mic] >> [away from mic] at the benefit to I'm sorry, looking to the benefit of a win win all around, showing that to the public and then letting the public lead us to those good visions. The strength is in the good news that this thing can mean to all of us for the next not one generation, I'm at the point now where I have grandchildren, so I'm talking this is a three generation decision for all of us. It's the greatest opportunity we've had in city planning. It's the greatest economic transition to our past. It's the greatest transition to equity in housing and fair access, to better businesses on the north Salina and south Salina, the community's got a lot of good news here and I think that we can do this but the process has been very difficult and the misinformation that's out there has no been able to confronted by those who have the data which is the DOT. The DOT has tremendous amount of information but it's having a lot of trouble getting it out to the public. So we need to express the win win across the board and show the public what the real facts are. Thank you. >> Pressure from the community of course would be essential. But I think some strong leadership at every scale, city councilor, mayors, Congressmen, governors is also very important. Actually, back to Boston for a second, it's actually or political leadership that kind of took an awful lot of risk and pushed it against, you know, equally difficult odds. There's no way to make this thing easy, not at all, but I think that sustained and consensus leadership at every level of government I think would be very important. And perhaps support obviously by strong community support for that as opposed to opposition from community. Or certain parts of the community. >> I would also add, I mean, as I kind of mentioned in my presentation and then also you talked about, Alex, that brings up Boston, there are other places testing out things. So looking beyond Syracuse, maybe going to New Haven and be like what is working, what isn't. Go to Boston. What did we learn? There are examples out there, I mean, so that I think would help at least set a little bit more of a stage to getting that better information. >> Jonnell, did you want to add something about the community piece? >> Well, there's been several attempts since 2005 to bring together members of the community and locally elected officials to talk about these issues, but they're done often in isolation, there's not coherence among them. They're either neighborhood based or at a regional level, and attendance varies and some of our most outspoken community members tend to go to those. So I think for one, it is on us as a community to get out into the actual neighborhoods and help people understand what's at stake and get their opinions. I have often wondered if this is something that would be useful in a referendum, I heard you folks mention in other communities there has been a referendum vote on what to do. But I agree with Bob that we do need to have some kind of a regional vision. And we've been lacking a regional economic development strategy and vision for a very long time. And so if we were to just take 81 off the table, for example, and think about where do we want to be as a community, as a city, and as a region in 20 to 50 years it might make more sense for us, an option might emerge from those conversations that feeds into our goals to be a city that's equitable and that has equality and growth and that we're trying to raise the tide for all ships at one time and we're interested in thinking about how we continue to make the city strong in order to feed strong suburbs. >> I saw a hand shoot up right away over here. You've got the microphone, okay, there you go. >> My question actually really comes off of the previous comments just now. Specifically about the need to reframe and reengage reframe the discussion and reengage the community on this. Because fatigue has been used as a pretty good tactic, and I think that's all the tunnel really has amounted to. But specifically Jonnell, and you had a slide that indicated five an estimate of about 5 million in revenue, which I'm guessing is annually but might be low, I think, could that be part of the reframing that the city of course has financial needs that are pretty immediate and that this is more than just an infrastructure or traffic problem but it's a matter of what do you do with prime economic development real estate? Do you, you know, pave over it or dig it up for ten years? So I guess the question is what needs to happen to reframing, reengage the community on this right now? >> That's a really good question. I think we have an opportunity to do that because we have a new locally elected mayor and a mayor that I have to say >> Sets the right tone. >> That's right. But if I can just reflect on what I witnessed during the campaign and the first few months in office, I think our mayor has done a phenomenal job of engaging stakeholders and residents and constituents that have long been left out of many dialogues in our city especially as relates to economic opportunity. So at least now with the new change in leadership and now that we see the new independent study that's come out on the tunnel this might reinvigorate our conversations, but it is difficult to get around that fatigue. When I talked to south side residents I work with, they're just like just make the damn decision already. So we can get on with our lives. But when I ask do you know what that means by making the decision, do you know what's at stake? Do you know what the costs are? Do you know what we might add or detract from our local communities? There's not really that awareness. So somehow the myriad public conversations that we've had around this issue over the last 12 years have still not really permeated within our local communities. And that's not just in the city, it's in our suburbs as well. And as far reaching as up to Watertown when the mayor of Watertown wrote an op ed suggesting he wouldn't support the community grid because he wouldn't have as easy a commute to the airport. That's completely unfactual. So we have to get to the suburban and rural communities as well to make sure we're working with the same set of facts before we can try to come to consensus. >> Go ahead. >> Hi. So this might turn out to be more of a comment than a question. And it really, Jonnell touched on this about a referendum before and just thinking about all the different voices that have been excluded from this conversation and the presumption that we live in a democratic society, even though democracy's dangerous sometimes, should we not be having a referendum on this, even a nonbinding referendum would send a very clear message. In the three or four years that I've been asking people about this, I have asked two questions, who decides and when? And these are questions that, you know, keep getting shoved off and moved off. And I think because it has such a large impact on the city of Syracuse, we should be deciding and when we decide that I don't know, but as soon as possible. And I don't know, maybe this is a question for the mayor, has the question of a referendum come up or is that something that we can actually enact, are there legal political mechanisms that we can use to even create a nonbinding referendum on it? >> It is not come up in the conversations that I've had. I'm frankly really intrigued by that idea. Did you have a specific thought on referendum or just in general? Okay. But I'm very much open to that idea. I'd adjust from kind of monitoring different rev revenue da that have passed or not, 75% of transportation ballot have passed. If the case is made to voters, often voters do voice their support for infrastructure. It's not just again an engineering project, preferred alternatives and environmental impact statements but this is something we deal with every day and this is a very visible form of infrastructure, unlike a lot water infrastructure which is buried and out of mind. But also they have failed to pass before, in Atlanta, they tried to pass it failed, but then came back a year later and it passed. It's kind of this winding process. It's not just an absolute drop dead decision on one date, but kind of goes onward. >> Could I make a frivolous suggestion? Next July 4th shutdown 81 and allow people to walk all over it. Maybe have the fireworks there. And then see what happens to the traffic. [ Laughter ] >> [away from mic] couldn't think of a better birthday present. >> Now, where it's not entirely frivolous is if there's actually some resistance to oh, my God, how could it possibly how can we possibly survive, prove that the world does not end. A couple years ago, speaking of auto what was that was called, Los Angeles had to reconstruct 405. That was really going to be the end of the world! Guess what? It wasn't. A couple of cities actually have tried, perhaps not at the scale of an interstate highway, you would have to have the support of the next TEXDOT, what I'm involved with, but New York DOT, right, have actually done something like this. That is, you know, shut down a piece of a road, make it a kind of a celebratory event and see what happens. It may actually prove referendums can have the opposite effect. I don't know, but if there really is strong resistance to this, prove that the end of the world will not come. All those trucks will still get through and, you know, you're just going to be two minutes late. So there's other ways to kind of find I way to overcome what is sort of ingrained and now old idea that the car and our ability to get anywhere as fast as possible depends upon use of their car on highways. One of the points that she made about how it doesn't take you any longer, Dallas is a perfect example of that. Everyone is on the highway. Everyone is on the highway. And they're building highways, I'm sorry to report. No one is on the streets. And people are starting to realize there's a movement like this actually in Dallas too, if you drive on the streets you can get places faster. You actually can get places faster, especially during rush hour. Yeah. So try shutting it down for a day. You'd have to get some, you know, obviously support from officials. >> I'm going to mark that on my calendar twice now. Three times. It's the mayor's birthday and fourth of July and I want to jump in on that if I could >> [away from mic] >> Just I want to throw one note of caution though to the idea it's in the a reason not to do it, but a note of caution about the referendum. That's and more generally, which is that my sense is that there is not universal but a consensus that has emerged and is continuing to emerge on this issue in favor of the community grid. If you reinforce that and you put it in a sense in writing through a referendum and then the unthinkable happens, my concern would be is what does that do for political legitimacy and community engagement and the city and thinking about the city and the state, which has already had a history there? So that's not a reason not to do it, but I think it would be something just to bear in mind as we think about that. There was a hand that shot up there. >> Yeah, so this follows after what what Grant just said. So the whole question about framing, we heard the facts are kind of on the side of the community grid. But we also know that facts are not what decides thing in our political or social life anymore. And so what we need are sound bytes and good stories and we need advertising, like, you know, lobbying and money behind it. And I worry the same way about a referendum because I think money is on the side the lobbying money is on the side of defeating that kind of a referendum. So figuring out how to tell those stories and I like idea of looking at places that are more like Syracuse than Boston or Seattle that have done this successfully I think Milwaukee is another one we could look at. But really thinking in terms of the stories and also something that didn't really get said, I mean, the city suburban divide in this is a set of narratives that go way, way back in American history and are probably more potent now, the kind of hatred of the city by the people who don't live in cities is pretty intense. And so figuring out stories that really transcend that I think the way Ben has been trying to work with people outside the city to really tell a joint story on how we are one community is incredibly important but it's also really hard. So getting our creative people involved in coming up with these kinds of stories and story lines that can unite us is really important. Thanks. >> Hi. It's up here. So infrastructure can often be used almost like chess pieces, as bargaining chips. I was really taken, Grant, by your question to the panel about the probability of which outcome would be chosen. So I want to turn that question back around on you you as a political scientist, if you don't mind. So we all know that John DeFrancisco is running for governor. We also all know who he's running against. That's supposed to get a laugh. [ Laughter ] Okay? So does this decision >> I think it's the county executive first, but go ahead. >> Is he not running for governor? >> But he's got to get past the county executive. But go ahead. >> Okay. So does this become part of a voter enticement or a voter yeah, I guess a voter enticement device, so who does Cuomo need more? Does he need CNY at all or does he need the city of Syracuse or does he need to somehow sway voters in the suburbs in order to get re election or it this not figure into this at all? So I'm just wondering if these kind of state level politics since state DOT is making this decision might not play into this and do we see the election become another excuse for kicking can down the road yet again? >> Wow! >> It's a complex problem and it was a complex question, so I apologize. >> No, that's okay. You're putting me on the spot and I'm going to ask for help from my panelists on this. Let me try to say a couple quick things. First I wouldn't presume to try to get inside of a politician's head and certainly wouldn't presume to try to get inside Senator DeFrancisco's head. However, my experience of him over the years is my sense that he's kind of telling things like it is for how he sees things, and my sense of the timing of this is that the I 81 stuff may predate the more serious run for a governor. But, again, I can't get inside his head. What I would say though I think in thinking about the politics of this in terms of governor's race and there's someone sitting behind you probably has a better read on this than I do, but that is that I think incentive of the governor probably is just to delay the decision. Because you're going to make some people angry. And the concern would be to make the fewest people angry rather than try to count up how many people am I making happy that are going to vote for me because of this versus being angry. So if I had to put my money on some idea of what would be sort of the politically most desirable thing, it will be to delay to have that decision come after an election. Having said that though, the landscape of New York and the politics of New York and where the voters are and who is going to vote for whom because of party identification and all that kind of makes this in some ways rounding error for the people that are here, but in terms of the impression that it makes across the state and having the controversy and having the blow back from that, that is something that could, you know, have an impact beyond Syracuse. So that's probably the way I would think a politician is thinking of it. I don't know if any of you want to jump in on that one. [ Laughter ] You want to talk about this, don't you, mayor? [ Laughter ] >> Hi. Thank you for speaking. So my concern is something that hasn't been addressed yet but it's something that maybe Mr. Krieger's fourth of July plan might allude to. So there's some sort of a general inclination towards the city grid plan. But no one talked about the pedestrian safety or pedestrian connectivity that would happen if there was an increase in traffic. So like there's a there's a worldwide trend of everyone moving to the city and I guess you would want to dense is I phi Syracuse if terms of population but what would that mean for pedestrian connectivity and safety? And the projects that Mr. Krieger shows earlier, the Korea project and one in China, had he all turned highways into pedestrian projects, the waterfront or the river. So what kind of ideas or research has been done in terms of pedestrian connectivity? >> You know, the streets today may not be so safe. So this is why I'm saying that one of the advantages of undertaking the community grid project is you would first start with improving the streets that are there. You would invest in them. You can even start doing some tomorrow in there's a little modecum of money. Apart from highway demolishing or not, there's a tremendous I appreciate the comment about cities versus suburbs. There's a bit of a revolution going on right now, the suburban is waning a little bit. There's a lot of investment on a simple level, when I mentioned arbor day, I wasn't kidding, improving the normal streets in a city by widening sidewalks, planting trees, improving storm water management, so forth. One of the things that could start with the community grid is by improving the streets that you have to the point where people will start to appreciate that as opposed to worry about more trucks killing pedestrians when the highway comes down. So I don't have a panacea here, this is not panaceas for any of the issues we're discovering but I think being a little bit more adventure some as opposed to being cautious is not the way to succeed. >> I'd also adjust sort of juxtaposition to the mid twentieth century model of conjunction reduction and maximizing speed I would say a lot of planners now have discredited that. They know it's not right. Engineers, I don't know. At least at a state level, I mean, there's a lot of vested, you know, interests and just the training even of that is the way in which we still very much design and plan our big infrastructure projects >> [away from mic] >> That's right. >> [away from mic] >> That's right. So point is I think you're right, I think there needs to be kind of this bottom up full look at the built environment, not just sort of where it ends at the curb. But how it all works together. >> I agree that we do need to pay attention to alternative modes of transportation, like walking and biking and our historic emphasis zero on putting cars on highways and traveling at very high speeds doesn't do that. With the different alternatives that are proposed for Syracuse, clearly I think viaduct, raising the viaduct has the least opportunity to improve pedestrian and bicycle modes of transportation in the city. The tunnel does allow for improvements for pedestrians and bicycles, as does the community grid. What I think is interesting about the community grid and thinking about how we move around the city more holistically is that we do we will see improved pedestrian traffic going under the highway or near the highway. So if any of you get off at the Harrison Street exit there's often pedestrians that are coming from some of the medical facilities on the western side of the highway to the hospitals on the eastern side. That's an incredibly dangerous and scary area to navigate. And the community grid and tunnel obviously would help to reduce those problems. With the community grid I think it would force us as a community to think about other intersections and passageways for pedestrians, and like cars, people are going to be distributed differently. So for our entire city if we have to ripple out our thinking to think about how we improve bicycle and pedestrian passageways throughout the rest of the city that we're having a positive impact on environmental degradation that's caused by using vehicles all the time. >> So let's try to squeeze in two last questions and quick questions, quick answers. You got one over here, Larry? >> I'll try to be quick. Good luck. So to Mr. Krieger Krieger, sorry, you had given examples about other cities and how they had went through it. My question involves the nature of those cities. As Syracuse we're very diverse city, both racially and economically with like some wealthier surrounding towns. But one thing I find is people don't want to drive through the city, like when the traffic gets dispersed through city, they don't want it dry through the city because that's where like the black and brown people are. In any of those other cities have that encountered problems like that? I guess it could be to anyone, if anyone has done research, I haven't, but have they encountered that problem and how can did they handle it? >> You're asking of course an almost impossible question to answer. Because it's an abstract issue. Again, Boston is not undiverse, Boston has also has been called very racist and has a racist history, not trying to project some kind of a heaven there, right? There are far fewer trees today in Boston that people white or otherwise fear to drive through than there was 25 years ago. That's all I can say, right? So things change. Right? Boston, again, has incorporated about several hundred miles now linear miles of bicycle lanes. That's crazy in a way because we have no straight streets and they're pretty narrow. And at first people thought this was just as insane as the guy in Korea saying we'll just stop the highway. Guess what, the number people now using bicycles is enormous. So what has to change and what is changing too slowly, but what is changing is the hierarchy that says the car is the most important thing. Right? And at some point you start hitting a little bit of a calibration where the bicycle is just as important. Or the pedestrian is just as important. And you can see this happening on certain streets, right? Where the pedestrian gets to be arrogant, how do you get there, right? The first pedestrian acting arrogantly will get killed. [ Laughter ] But at some point, right, the arrogance of a pedestrian or the cyclist will start to affect others. And that is happening. Not just in big cities, it is happening in cities. The question is how you get it going. How do you get it going? Syracuse may not be ready yet. At some point it will be. I can give you many examples around the country where all of a sudden there's a bit of an equilibrium between I in the car being more important versus I as a cyclist is just as important. That's a slight roundabout way of getting to your answer, but I don't know how fearful people are in Syracuse. I can tell you that over 25 years a tremendous difference has happened in Boston where fewer such people feel somehow that they do not want to drive through a certain kind of street. I'm sure there's still some who do feel that way. >> I'd like at the add to that briefly. I look up here that looks look a pretty scary place to walk around. So I think we need to think about how our infrastructure and how our past poor planning decisions have perpetuated and created that sense of insecurity when you don't have density and development, it's not just the viaduct, it's the in one to two block radius in every direction where you are surface parking and no man's land and we know people feel safe when they're surrounded by activity. And so I think that we can if we do this the right way we can increase that sense of safety both real and perceived. >> One last super quick one. Yes. >> So I will preface my question with a statement, the city of San Diego already did at least some version of this, and I would ask you to consider electronic traffic management, enhanced traffic management system in the entire corridor, especially about about you have the community grid. For example, in this room almost everybody probably has a smartphone. So if I had an app on my smartphone that said you should be turning left here now because there is an analysis by a major overarching system that's looking at the entire corridor, directing traffic and optimizing it, you know, even factors of air pollution, that kind of stuff, to really optimize it, I think Syracuse has the opportunity to create a showcase here out of this really difficult challenge. Thank you. Please consider it. >> Put it on a Garmin, maybe a smartphone, I've almost been hit too many times by distracted drivers, but I get the point. That's all we have time for. I'm sure we had tons more questions, but let me thank the panelists again. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Joseph Kane, Alex Krieger, Jonnell Robinson, Mayor Walsh, thanks to the four of you, you have really I think helped us to even get more clear on this than maybe we were before. So thanks a lot. [ Applause ] (Event concluded at 6:05 pm.)




Incumbent Mayor Frank Curran stood for reelection to a second term. On September 19, 1963, Curran came in first in the primary election with 47.2 percent of the vote, followed by former City Councilmember Allen Hitch in second with 32.5 percent. Because no candidate received a majority of the vote, a runoff election was held between Curran and Hitch. On November 7, 1967, Curran easily defeated Hitch a majority of 67.2 percent of the vote in the runoff and was reelected to the office of the mayor.[4][3]

Primary Election results

San Diego mayoral primary election, 1967[4]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Frank Curran 52,355 47.2
Republican Allen Hitch 36,060 32.5
Nonpartisan John Clayton 11,299 10.2
Nonpartisan Gerard A. Dougherty 5,202 4.7
Nonpartisan George Stahlman 4,611 4.2
Nonpartisan Lloyd W. Gough 793 0.7
Nonpartisan Tom Kane 690 0.6
Total votes 111,010 100

General Election results

San Diego mayoral general election, 1967[4]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Frank Curran 96,597 67.2
Republican Allen Hitch 47,230 32.8
Total votes 143,827 100


  1. ^ a b Pourade, Richard (1977). The History of San Diego Volume VII: City of the Dream, 1940-1970. San Diego: Copley Press. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  2. ^ "State-by-State Review of 1967 Elections". CQ Almanac 1967. Washington, DC. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  3. ^ a b Abrahamson, Alan (October 20, 1992). "Former Mayor Curran Dies; Led Downtown Restoration". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c "Election History - Mayor of San Diego" (PDF). City of San Diego. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
This page was last edited on 14 May 2019, at 03:47