The race for city auditor in Onondaga County closes Tuesday and has become especially heated with allegations of corrupt practices and fierce competition between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In the race are Republican candidate Steve Kimatian, an adjunct television, radio and film professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and Democratic candidate Martin Masterpole.

Kimatian stresses his 25 years of business experience along with his direct allegiance to the people, which he does not feel his opponent can offer as a result of his alleged close, personal friendship with Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner.

‘He will be an independent voice and not a rubber stamp like his opponent,’ said Tom Dadey, Onondaga County Republican chairman. ‘The biggest thing Steve Kimatian brings is his independence of the mayor and Democrats in administration and his experience.’

Kimatian said part of the job of the city auditor is to oversee the work of the mayor, and with Masterpole’s friendship with the mayor, Kimatian did not see how it would be possible for Masterpole to serve effectively.

‘My opponent is part of the inner-circle of the mayor; he is a friend of the mayor. The Post-Standard says he has received thousands of dollars from the mayor for his campaign,’ Kimatian said, referring to an article published in The Post-Standard on Friday.

The article tracked the political donations of Miner. The story said Miner made a donation to the New York State Democratic Committee that was then given to four candidates in local elections at her request, one of them being Masterpole.

The idea of this ‘inner-circle’ Kimatian spoke of is something that Masterpole denies altogether.

‘He alleges that I was part of some inner-circle,’ Masterpole said. ‘The Syracuse newspaper wrote a story just after Miner was elected and chose to put me in her inner-circle, which is a figment of their imagination.’

Masterpole further negated these claims and said when he and Miner served together on the Syracuse Common Council, they voted opposite one another on budget issues, which are often the most contentious issues.

‘He’s alleging that I can’t do a good job because I have a friendship with the mayor,’ Masterpole said. ‘I have a friendship with a lot of people, and I take that as a compliment, not a distraction. I don’t see it as an issue at all.’

Despite Masterpole’s protests, Kimatian said he believes that he is the candidate that can best provide what the city needs.

‘The primary reason why I’m running is because I want to improve the city,’ Kimatian said. ‘I want to help the city. It has been my desire to see our city operate on a more effective level than it is operating right now.’

If elected to city auditor, Kimatian would be responsible for running a fraud hotline for citizens to report suspected instances of fraud, overseeing all financial interactions and expenditures of the city and performing audits, he said.

A resident of the Syracuse area since 1995, Kimatian said he feels that one of the areas in which the city needs improvement is communication. Kimatian had a career in the communications field, working in broadcast journalism and teaching television, radio and film classes as an adjunct professor at Newhouse. Kimatian hasn’t taught at Newhouse for at least two semesters, but he is still listed on the Newhouse website.

Kimatian said he feels the fields of communications and government have significant overlap, and this was one of the things he specifically could bring to the table as city auditor.

Kimatian proposed installing citywide Wi-Fi and televising council and school board meetings. He said televising these meetings would allow citizens to be more aware of the decisions their local government makes at little or no cost to the city.

‘The auditor does not report to the mayor. It reports to the voters, which makes the auditor very important to the taxpayers because that is the allegiance that the auditor has,’ Kimatian said.

With this in mind, Kimatian said the government should act more like a business and treat taxpayers as consumers. He said companies have taken advantage of various social media platforms to better communicate with the consumer and provide a better service. He said he feels this is something the government should emulate.

‘If we were consumer sensitive, we would deal with our citizens in a much more interactive way,’ Kimatian said.

One of Kimatian’s goals is to establish an office of public advocacy, which would serve as a public watchdog and would deal with any and all complaints.

But, Kimatian said his greatest priority is providing an independent voice: ‘It’s not fair to the citizens in this city that government is run in this closed-door manner, and we’re going to break that. We’re going to see that that doesn’t happen.’

cffabris@syr.edu

Published on November 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Casey: cffabris@syr.edu | @caseyfabris