About a month ago, Cornell ILR student Clyde Lederman ‘26 (D) declared his candidacy for the Ithaca Common Council. The Review sat down with Mr. Lederman recently to discuss his candidacy and the largest issues facing the fifth ward—the constituency he is running to represent—and the broader Ithaca community.
In the wake of redistricting across New York state, Ithaca’s five wards have been redrawn significantly. Each ward sends two representatives to the Ithaca Common Council, which governs the city. After redistricting, Cornell substantially contributes to two wards: four and five. Ward Four primarily comprises Collegetown and West Campus, while Ward Five contains all of North Campus, Cornell Heights, and some residential areas on Linn Street and University Avenue. Each ward has about an equal population, though the demographics of each are wildly different.
On the composition of Ward Five, the area Lederman is running to represent, he remarked: “this is a ward now that’s been redrawn, that’s … 90-95% students.” This change comes as many on the Common Council objected to concentrating the student population in a single ward, largely in an effort to maximize representation for permanent residents.
Lederman, when asked about the necessity of representing the student population, responded that students are “a transient population with permanent interests.” Though Cornell students move rather frequently, Lederman estimated that as many as 60% of current North Campus residents—his would-be constituents—would return to North next year, as “we now have the second year housing requirements.”
Cornell’s infamous frugality in its dealings with the City of Ithaca is also a concern to Lederman, specifically from his perspective as a student.
“[Ithaca] is not wealthy, we have the sixth highest income to property tax ratio of any municipality. And that tells me, particularly as a student, we need to do more to make sure our voices are represented, and that the money is going where … it lifts up everyone, not just small sectors or portions of that population.”
Qualifications
Lederman, at 19, would be the youngest person ever elected to the Ithaca Common Council. Svante Myrick, Ithaca’s former mayor, was elected to the Common Council at age 20 before serving as mayor for just over a decade. Lederman’s opponents have made his age an issue in the race, but he is undaunted.
“I think [my age] is a good thing. It that means I don’t take anything for granted and feel I have to work a lot harder in order to hear everyone and make sure I’ve bridged that gap, which is really so important to me. … I think ‘I need to prove myself here,’ and I think that’s a good thing for people who are elected officials.”
When asked about his qualifications, Lederman went into depth on his passion for municipal government. Beginning in his native Rockland County, NY, Lederman has experience with local government. He specifically discussed his work on a municipal consolidation plan, equivalency regulations for public and private schools, and more generally “spending a lot of time thinking about how municipal governments can function and where they can be more creative to meet the challenges we have.”
For Lederman, the “why” is building a better relationship between Cornell and Ithaca, one where both communities feel as though they share a mutually-beneficial relationship. “And for me, that starts with students saying, I’d like some of my tuition dollars to go towards hiring a second and third building inspector so that there’s actually some code compliance. I’d like to see a properly funded bus network, a city where we have the resources to have decently paved roads.”
TCAT
Cornell’s contributions to the city have become a common local topic this year, resulting from the administration’s refusal to increase contributions to Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit corporation (TCAT). Lederman’s proposal to improve TCAT will come to be a common refrain with his platform: encourage Cornell to contribute more. Despite accounting for a vast majority of riders, Lederman noted that Cornell does not contribute a correspondingly large sum to the program’s continuation.
Lederman also addressed community demands to make TCAT free. While he supports a program, much like New York City’s Fair Fares program, to subsidize TCAT for those who cannot afford it, his priority would be fixing the service.
“My approach starts with investment in expanding the network. I would say having a functional network and expanding frequency and decreasing headways comes above making [fares] free. … I’m in favor of hopefully finding a model that can make TCAT free. … But there’s no point in making a system free if it’s not workable.
“I think we can have programs like [Fair Fares], where we make it free for people who are most affected by the fare price.”
TCAT, Lederman noted, is not merely necessary for those he is running to represent on North, but the entire Cornell and broader Ithaca community.
“I think [a broken bus service] is unfair. To everyone who lives here, everyone who works here. It’s a big issue with employees. I think—for the better—we don’t have a ton of on campus parking, but if you want to get out to B Lot and it’s 20 degrees, it’s not nice to walk a mile to and from the morning and afternoon…”
Lederman’s other proposal for increasing contributions to TCAT is approaching the third local sponsor: Tompkins County. “I think it’s in the county’s interest to expand service, and they have more cash than the city does [and can] draw on a larger, more diverse tax base.”
“We’re not talking about a lot of money here, this city has a $90 million budget,” concluded Lederman, “[T]his is not a huge expense, but it is one that will positively affect the lives of everyone in the Cornell community, and people outside it.”
Housing
Lederman also spoke at length on the ever-worsening housing crisis in Ithaca. He began with a shocking statistic: “Ithaca has, I believe, a 1% vacancy rate …Which is a huge problem … because there’s no excess capacity.”
Ithaca’s housing market is infamous for its inflexibility, with Collegetown renters often signing leases more than a year in advance. Lederman believes this is an issue with supply, as demand is not going down anytime soon.
Lederman began by addressing the possibility of development further afield from Ithaca, such as in Varna and other surrounding localities. However, he pointed out that there are incredibly difficult—and expensive-to-fix—infrastructure challenges with expanding housing capacity in the rural surrounds of Ithaca.
Lederman believes the pressures on the local housing market are largely artificial, with zoning regulations creating prohibitive difficulties for small-scale developers.
“I think what we’ve seen is if you’re a wealthy developer, you can get basically anything through, you can sue the municipality, you can get past the planning board. But this doesn’t work if you’re a smaller developer … I think we increase the costs of projects unnecessarily.
“We have a huge monopoly landlord problem, there are only a couple of folks who control the rental market here in Ithaca, and because of the low vacancy rate, it’s not like you can price shop.”
Lederman’s proposals to fix the “monopoly landlord problem” are largely based around reforms to Ithaca’s zoning code. Lederman would begin by improving Ithaca’s provision for “accessory dwelling units,” as he said:
“[ADUs] are any dwelling that’s secondary to the primary (single family) residence, turning a garage, basement, or attic into an additional dwelling. These are done in California, I think what you basically find is 1-2% growth in the total number of possible units per year. It’ll probably be more when you have greater housing pressures.
“But what they do is they allow regular people to rent out and convert other parts of the property they own into additional dwellings. It eases the tax burden for people, especially older folks who want to be able to stay in their homes but may not have the income necessary to pay, such as an increase in property taxes. They help diversify the types of people [offering units for rent].”
Lederman’s other proposal for tackling the housing issue includes zoning reforms like axing “parking minimums in places like Collegetown.” Ithaca’s zoning code requires certain numbers of parking spaces, which creates a large “barrier to build” in high-density areas like Collegetown, especially for smaller-scale developers.
In short, Lederman argued that what Ithaca is lacking for housing at present is a plan.
“How can we increase supply, and do it in a way that’s really sustainable? What’s not working now is us not having a plan and just having more illegal housing. And that’s just creeping up South Hill, it’s creeping into the Heights. This is not working. I think what we need to be is really proactive. We need to figure out where we want to concentrate development, and figure out how we can reduce barriers so it can occur in a sustainable way.”
Lederman also critiqued his opponents for urging caution on zoning reform, saying:
“My criticism of my opponents is that a lot of times what you hear is ‘go slow,’ or ‘this is ambitious, but we need to be reasonable.’ And I think you can ‘go slow’ if this is not a problem where you have people paying $1,400 for a studio apartment, … the people who say ‘go slow,’ have luxuries that the people who are affected don’t.”
Lederman also spoke of how the housing issue can be one that unites both the students and permanent residents of Ward 5 and Ithaca more broadly, specifically the trend of illegal housing. Many “places that are otherwise residential … converted illegally into student housing. It’s bad for permanent residents [as] it affects home values.”
Illegal housing impacts students as much as permanent residents, “because that just means landlords can be more exploitative and do things that don’t follow health and safety codes.”
Around the Ward
Lederman also touched on issues that specifically affect the non-student areas of Ward Five. The new district, which includes areas of Ithaca around Fall Creek, has recently been upgraded in flood risk by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Lederman remarked that “this will dramatically increase people’s flood insurance over the next decade or so.”
In response, the candidate proposed approaches that would lessen insurance costs for residents of the area.
“Looking at ways that we can do pooled insurance, and using the collective bargaining power to get some sort of discount there. There are a variety of federal programs… that exist and other cities have done. But that’s one of those persistent issues of like, let’s just lower costs for people if we can and sort of be creative.”
Another issue that unites students and permanent residents is Ithaca’s building inspector problem: there’s only one. There are long wait times for any projects that require inspections, such as “if you want to get an addition done on your home,” says Lederman. “There’s delays and administrative problems because there’s simple capacity issues for permanent residents and students” alike.
Finally, Lederman touched on Ithaca’s accelerating affordability crisis. A major component of the problem, Lederman said, is property taxes. “Ithaca is becoming increasingly unaffordable, that means displacement. And so I think for me, that’s the top of the agenda.”
State of the Race
Lederman will face Jason Houghton in the Democratic primary for the fifth ward seat. Houghton has lived in the Ithaca area for 17 years and works as an IT manager for PNC Bank. Both candidates are running on similar issues, namely renegotiating the memorandum of understanding between Cornell and the city, an agreement signed twenty years ago that governs how much Cornell pays the city for municipal services. The memorandum, which ends in June of next year, has been a target of local politicians who accuse Cornell of not paying its fair share. This last fiscal year of the current arrangement, Cornell will pay the city $1.575 million.
Each of the five wards in Ithaca sends two representatives to the Ithaca Common Council: one for two years, and another for four years. Due to redistricting, every seat is up for election this year. Lederman and Houghton are contesting the two-year seat in the fifth ward.
As the fifth ward is deeply Democratic, whoever wins the primary is the overwhelming favorite to win the general election in November. Lederman has argued that the date of the primary is problematic, specifically due to the massive number of students who live in the ward. New York used to have two sets of primaries: one for local elections (in early September) and one for federal elections (in June, so as to comply with federal law). In 2019, the state consolidated all primaries in June to avoid confusion.
“I think where this runs into problems is that we see that the primary elections … occur at the end of June, when only 5-10% of the total population is living here.” That the fifth ward is, by Lederman’s estimation, 90-95% students “creates a real ballot access problem” when elections are held in the summer months.
Critics might respond that students, as transient residents, should not be represented as permanent residents. Lederman responded that, “for folks who say, ‘well, students don’t return,’ … the state passed a law saying ‘you need to have polling places on college campuses.’ This reaffirms that students are a clear community of interest, the state recognizes this, and [the state] wants them to be able to vote.”
Lederman closed by pointing out the double-standard, saying:
“Everyone loves student voters when they’re voting in congressional elections, … but when it comes to the municipal elections, I think for some folks, there’s real hesitancy.”
In Ithaca particularly, the hesitancy is rather profound. Cornell student-politicians have a rather mixed history. Some, like Svante Myrick, serve the city for years, while others quickly leave after graduation. Lederman urged voters to consider each candidate “on a case-by-case basis.”
“I hope that the voters see that my motivations are to really improve people’s lives around here and being creative, and perhaps leaning into places and policy solutions that others wouldn’t have thought about are being a little more aggressive, but I think that’s what the city needs.”
Going Forward
Lederman believes Ithaca has incredible potential; however, he believes the local government must be aggressive in pursuing new solutions to the problems faced by the local community, eschewing the ‘go slow’ attitude of other politicians. Lederman’s opening remarks seem a fitting place to conclude:
“We can be—if we want to—a national leader on municipal approaches to climate issues, which every municipality in the country will need to, and I want to be more bold on that as opposed to less. And I think it’s also about finding places with relationships between permanent residents and students. Students represent an increasing share of this city, but it also doesn’t mean that they should be dismissive of the concerns of people who’ve made their lives here. … That’s where I’m coming from and why I’m doing this.”
