Public safety specialist Bryan Housel is contending for a seat on Geneva’s City Council in Ward 5 on the Republican Party line.
Housel, a dispatcher at the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office and Geneva Fire Department volunteer firefighter, who possesses 16-years of cumulative firefighting experience seeks to represent the greater community through his public service background.
Safety is a key concern Housel in the issues that he wishes to face for Ward 5, especially in cleaning-up the Geneva Foundry that poses many health risks to residents in the area.
Housel already accredits the City of Geneva with starting to redress the foundry’s adverse effects, which has resulted in environmental degradation, but desires to continue building progress while in office.
“We’re getting contaminated soil out of there, they’re replacing sidewalks, they’re making sure the properties are safe for our residents to go back in there,” Housel said.
But beyond addressing the physical dangers and threats associated to safety with the Geneva Foundry’s clean-up efforts, he also wishes to ensure that public affordable housing is safe for tenants and residents.
Housel is also heavily interested in fixing the food access and security issue that he recognizes in Geneva.
“It’s not just school age children that are facing this. It’s not just kids; we have our elderly. We have people of all ages suffering from this,” Housel stated.
If elected, Housel intends to review federal and state subsidies that may be directed to open a food kitchen or invest funding allocations towards a Meals on Wheels program for the city.
Housel has even considered retrieving funds from the city budget, all in an effort to do “whatever we can do to make sure that people are getting access to food.”
His greatest goal for Geneva is to “help make our city a uniquely urban great place to live” and Housel considers himself electable because he is “levelheaded and non-partisan.”
“Whoever comes up with the best idea for our city is the idea that I’m going with. I’m not going to be tied to lines,” Housel said.
Listen to the full-conversation with Housel below:
Editor’s Note: Special thanks to WEOS and WHWS Station Manager Greg Cotterill for sharing Geneva Candidate Snapshots with FingerLakes1.com.
– Reporting & Photos by Gabriel Pietrorazio
An undergraduate student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Pietrorazio has written for the Town Times of Watertown, Connecticut and Finger Lakes Times in Geneva, New York. He’s currently a reporter for FL1 News, and can be reached at [email protected].
Gabe covered health and indigenous affairs in the Finger Lakes between 2019 and 2022. His award winning coverage was cited by the federal government and provided residents with an invaluable service during the coronavirus pandemic.