Laura Lewis shares her goals as new acting mayor of Ithaca

Last week, Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick announced that he will be stepping down from his position to start his new role as executive director of the liberal thinktank People for the American Way, with his official last day as mayor being Feb. 7 of this year. Alderperson Laura Lewis was sworn in as acting mayor last week, with Alderperson Ducson Nguyen being the alternate acting mayor.

Myrick made the announcement at last Wednesday’s Common Council meeting, also releasing a letter to further detail his future plans. While Myrick is looking forward to the next chapter in his professional life, Lewis said she is also excited to be picking up where Myrick left off.

“I am really honored, incredibly honored, that Svante asked me to serve as acting mayor,” Lewis said. “He will be available during the transition to answer questions, to offer guidance. I’ve received a number of very positive comments, people offering well wishes, offering to provide assistance. … I’ve had very positive, encouraging comments from others. And that’s heartening.”

Lewis will be acting mayor of Ithaca through the rest of this year, as she intends for the winner of the next general election this November to take over her role in 2023. But even with only a year to work with, Lewis has her sights set on a variety of issues and projects.

Lewis, originally from Buffalo, is a first-generation college student, completing her undergraduate studies at SUNY Binghamton and her masters at SUNY Albany. She went on to work in student services at Ithaca College and, later, at the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell University, where she worked for 30 years. She has two grown sons, one in Florida and another in Hawaii.

Lewis has also been involved in various avenues of community service, including serving on the Board of Directors at Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services (INHS), as chair of the 5th Ward Democratic Committee and as a board member at the Tompkins County Democratic Committee. She also was a volunteer on Myrick’s campaign the first time he ran for mayor and has been one of his supporters ever since, she said.

Lewis first ran for Common Council in 2017 and was re-elected two years later. In that time, she’s been most proud of her work surrounding affordable housing.

“I decided to get involved on Common Council because I really wanted to follow through on my interest and my passion for affordable housing,” she said. “As we look at sustainability issues, there’s so many reasons to support the densification of population in the city of Ithaca. I live in Fall Creek. So, I have, in the before times, been able to walk to meetings. The walkability of the city is really important. So, the growth of housing, especially affordable housing, but we do need housing at all price points. So, I’ve been pleased to be able to work on those issues.”

Just last year, Lewis served on the Ithaca Eviction/Displacement Defense Project along with other city partners. She successfully proposed legislation and a budget request to Common Council for a Right to Counsel program, helping to provide legal representation to tenants in eviction court.

“That will enable and ensure tenants in eviction court having free legal representation,” she said. “We don’t have good documentation on eviction court. We do, though, know that landlords, predominantly, they are represented in the eviction court by a lawyer. And the vast majority of tenants do not have legal representation. So, there’s that imbalance in the discussion, power imbalance. And this Right to Counsel program will ensure that tenants — some of whom are the most vulnerable — will have representation in eviction court.”

Lewis said she’s also proud of her work regarding the ongoing Reimaging Public Safety process — which on the city’s side includes measures like the establishment of the new Department of Public Safety to replace the current Ithaca Police Department — and her work on the Ithaca Guaranteed Income program, which was passed late last year (see tinyurl.com/y5kwshfh for more information).

All along the way, Lewis said she’s thoroughly enjoyed working with Myrick and other Common Council members over the years.

“He’s a wonderful leader,” she said regarding Myrick. “He is someone who is so thoughtful, and I think a colleague said it perhaps best at Common Council on Wednesday night when he said — this is an Alderperson George McGonigal — ‘When Svante sees a problem, he immediately asks, “How can we address it? How can we be creative in responding to a challenge, to a problem before us?”’ Some people would not approach issues with that problem-solving, critical thinking, tackle the issue, posture that Svante has for 10 years as mayor.”

While the pandemic has been challenging to tackle at Common Council, Lewis said the support and cooperation from all councilors has always shown through.

“The pandemic has required us to develop other ways of accomplishing the work that’s necessary in the city of Ithaca to respond to constituents, to respond to problems and issues that come up, and I feel that we’ve been able to do that because of incredibly dedicated and talented staff in the city,” she said.

Still, Lewis has missed the personal connection with both Common Council members and the public.

“What we lose [is] … going to a meeting, and being a few minutes early and saying hello to colleagues, saying hello to members of the public who come to our meetings, whether it’s Common Council or it’s a committee meeting, and then being able to chat with people at the end of a meeting,” she said. “It’s that informal connection that is far more difficult, in some ways impossible, to capture on Zoom.”

This year, Lewis said many of her goals as acting mayor center around following through on initiatives that have already been put into motion, including addressing the community’s needs as it heads into the third year of the ongoing pandemic.

“I think first and foremost, we have to pay attention to how we respond and how our residents, including our staff, respond to the ongoing pandemic,” she said. “We want to make sure that our community is safe. We’re so fortunate to have a really top-rate county health department. And my goodness, they have certainly had to use the word ‘pivot.’ They have had to respond during this pandemic.”

Lewis also plans to work with the Reimagining Public Safety Working Group — who will make recommendations to Common council at its March meeting — as well as various building projects like the Green Street Garage.

Lewis said she’s looking forward to what’s next for her, including working with Nguyen as her alternate and other members of Common Council.

“[Nguyen and I] have a very good working relationship and have had such for a number of years,” she said. “And I will say there have been very strong and productive working relationships amongst all 10 of us on Common Council during my time on council. Now, that is not to say that we have agreed on every single issue, every single vote, but we have worked very, very well together. And we’ve worked really well with staff, have relied on staff tremendously. We have, now, four new Common Council members, and one who is relatively new. … And so, we’re at a point, we’re at a new chapter. We’re building our team, our Common Council team.”

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@vizellamedia.com.