This past week, Syracuse University made major headlines after climbing up the ranks in a Princeton Review survey of colleges and universities across the country. In local news, the Syracuse mayoral race is underway, and as the primary election approaches, the candidate pool has started to shrink. Here are the top three news stories from the last week that you should know about.

Courtesy of Raymond Blackwell

Bye Bye Blackwell

Raymond Blackwell was ruled ineligible for the Syracuse mayoral Democratic primary in September as a result of invalidated petition signatures. A majority of Blackwell’s signatories were residents in cities outside of Syracuse. After the Onondaga County Board of Elections commissioners negated the invalid signatures, he did not have the 1,000 signatures necessary to run in a primary. Despite the ruling, Blackwell said he will continue campaigning and hopes people will still vote for him as a write-in candidate. “I’m going to keep running the way I intend to keep running. I had a feeling it was biased from the beginning and that’s why people don’t vote,” Blackwell said, per Syracuse.com. Now that Blackwell is no longer in the running for mayor, only four Democrats are still seeking the party nomination.

Daily Orange File Photo

Money-saving merger

Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney proposed a savings plan in response to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandate that county leaders submit localized property tax savings plans for New York state. Mahoney’s savings plan includes a potential merger between the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Although much of the projected savings have yet to be calculated, the County-Wide Shared Services Plan version 1.0  includes 83 proposals in shared services in areas such as economic development, wastewater and governance. Under the draft, Onondaga County proposed a joint government body named Greater Syracuse Service Council to be created for promoting economic growth and efficiency. Despite the promise of yielding significant savings, the merger has received criticism from local politicians, including Mayor Stephanie Miner. Several critics argue that the merger will affect city representation in a city-county government. Undeterred by resistance to this controversial merger, Mahoney is moving forward with the merger which is expected to be voted on by Sept. 15.

Zach Barlow | Staff Photographer

Ex’CUSE us for partying

All work and no play would make Syracuse University a dull school — but we don’t have to worry about that. According to the Princeton Review, SU was ranked the No. 4 party school in the country. The rankings were determined using the data recorded from the results of surveys taken by 137,000 students at 382 schools. SU has been ranked among the top 10 party schools for the last six years, but this year landed high rankings in a number of other categories. SU was ranked No. 1 in “Students Pack the Stadiums,” No. 6 in “Lots of Beer,” No. 9 in “Lots of Hard Liquor” and No. 14 in “Lots of Greek Life.” The university also claimed the No. 1 spot on the “Best College Newspaper” list, No. 5 in “Best College Radio Station,” No. 8 in “Most Politically Active Students” and No. 13 in “Top 25 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad.”

Published on August 3, 2017 at 8:48 pm