Local clinical social worker and Cornell SC Johnson College of Business alum G.P. Zurenda ’88 has announced his candidacy for the Fifth Ward Common Council Seat.
Zurenda’s platform is based on addressing the tax imbalance in Ithaca and increasing affordable housing. He felt compelled to launch his campaign due to the skyrocketing tax rates in Ithaca, and the ways that they have been harming locals.
“Tax increases have really been significant enough that if they don't stop, we're going to have to move, and I don’t want to,” Zurenda said. Feeling the urgency of this issue, Zurenda wants to help bring costs down himself.
These tax increases have contributed to city-wide housing affordability issues, according to Zurenda. He hopes to fix this issue by making amendments to zoning and to “stop giving tax abatements to large developers, many of whom are from out of town and [establishing] tax abatements for people that own the current housing stock.”
Tax abatements are tax reductions that, for a set period of time, allow people to pay a decreased property tax. These abatements are typically used to encourage people and businesses to buy property in an area.
Zurenda also suggested that Cornell was not paying enough to Ithaca, and that this was contributing to the insufficient tax revenue that the city was generating.
“I think that that issue needs to be looked at so that basically, everybody pays a fair share, and so the students that are voting in the city of Ithaca are contributing to the tax base of the city of Ithaca,” Zurenda said.
At the same time, Zurenda acknowledged that there are challenges in the current political climate that would make it difficult for Cornell to account for this at the moment.
“With what's going on in Washington … the situation for Cornell has really been placed in a situation of extreme uncertainty in the last couple of months,” Zurenda said. “So, I don't think it's time to be beating Cornell up over these issues.”
He was also concerned about how the role of the operational lead of Ithaca has shifted from the Mayor to the city manager, stating that we have not “successfully transitioned,” which has contributed to tax increases.
“Last year, they reported that they were doing a zero increase budget, but our tax bills went up anywhere between eight and like 17 percent because of costs that were contractual,” Zurdenda said. As a member of the Common Council, Zurenda believes he would be given the opportunity to better advise the city manager on how to keep costs down.
Zurenda expressed that he wants Ithaca’s neighborhoods to remain vibrant, and that the city’s middle class should be protected rather than threatened by “taxes [that] have been going up dramatically.”
“I think we need a vibrant middle class for Ithaca to remain the Ithaca that we like,” Zurenda said.
The candidate also voiced his support for Ithaca’s Green New Deal, a bill that aims to electrify buildings in Ithaca, the more environmentally friendly option to fossil fuels. The city said they would leverage different private capital, aggregated building portfolios and government incentives to reduce building electrification costs. However, according to Zurenda, there is a current lack of incentive for homeowners to convert to sustainable energy in a rental-based housing market.
“[Ithaca’s Green New Deal] doesn't work because it doesn't pay people that own homes to upgrade,” Zurenda said. “There's no economic incentive for the landlord to convert because it's the tenant that's paying the bills.”
Zurenda suggested that tax abatements could be implemented in order to encourage both landlords and homeowners to make the switch.
The candidate grew up in Elmira, and has loved Ithaca since high school, when he would make frequent trips. His connection to the city was solidified when he attended Cornell for his Master’s of Business Administration and decided he wanted to live in Ithaca permanently.
For the past 20 years, Zurenda has been a full-time social worker in Ithaca. Zurenda also works as a psychotherapist, life coach and a small business consultant — providing him skills which he believes would aid him in office.
“I have a lot of history with making the tough decisions [to make] an organization successful,” Zurenda said. “I have a lot of experience dealing with people and problems, so I think that fits in really well with trying to run the city.”
Also running for the Fifth Ward Common Council seat is a sophomore in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Hannah Shvets ’27. Shvets is an Ithaca native who has based her campaign around workers’ and tenants’ rights.
A third candidate for the Fifth Ward seat is Deborah Fisher, a martial arts instructor running on a platform concerned with housing affordability and responding to federal actions that have been affecting Ithaca residents.
Zurenda is running to get involved in the finances of the city, and keep costs low for Ithacans.
“I've been following how things have been going in city government, and I've had some thoughts that I might be helpful to be able to control costs without cutting programs,” Zurenda said. “So I figured I'd take a shot.”
