For Deborah Fisher, a newly announced candidate for the Ithaca Common Council’s Fifth Ward, the reason to run was clear. “Local government is becoming incredibly important, and it’s going to save lives and protect people,” she said, referencing the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations and DOGE cuts in major agencies.
Fisher currently works as chief instructor at Ithaca Aikido, a dojo located on South Cayuga Street.
Fisher joins Hannah Shvets ’27 in the June 24 Democratic primary for the open seat being vacated by Clyde Lederman ’26, who chose not to run for re-election.
Shvets has been endorsed by the Ithaca Working Families Party, the Ithaca Tenants Union, and the Democratic Socialists at Cornell. Fisher has not yet been endorsed by any group.
“[We] share the same fundamental goals in making Ithaca a better place,” Shvets said regarding Fisher. “I consider myself a pragmatic progressive.”
While Fisher thinks Shvets has similar political positions to her, she explained that she differs in her years of experience.
“I have 20 years of experience working with lots of different kinds of stakeholders to solve really big creative problems,” she said, connecting previous nonprofit leadership to the problems Ithaca is facing.
Previous to her current position at Aikido and as a nonprofit consultant, Fisher founded the nonprofit A Blade of Grass. The organization focuses on supporting artists who are engaged in social activism and has an anartist-run board, which Fisher helped implement.
As the Fifth Ward encompasses all of North Campus and some of West Campus, Fisher believes collaboration between the city and the University are necessary, especially amid freezes in federal funding.
“Cornell is under incredible threat from the federal government right now,” Fisher said. “The federal government is proposing a huge increase in the tax on University endowments from 1.4 to 21 percent.”
Fisher also believes that Cornell still has opportunities to contribute to the city, in ways that “affect both the city’s bottom line and theirs,” like the Ithaca Bikeshare.
“What if Cornell’s budget got so tight that it could imagine something as bold as reducing health insurance and instead directly paying into healthcare for all Ithacans, whether they go to Cornell or not?” she said “as a thought experiment, not a policy proposal.”
Despite the Trump administration’s threats, Ithaca has remained a sanctuary city, limiting the Ithaca Police Department’s cooperation with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement regarding illegal immigrants. Fisher believes the status should “absolutely be kept, and it’s also important to make sure that we’re actually funding the programs that help immigrant populations receive important services.”
Fisher has made revitalizing the city through common council tax and housing policy a centerpiece of her campaign. When asked about Ithaca’s recent budget showdown, which resulted in a property tax increase of 2.8 percent, Fisher said, “I’m much more interested in making taxes more progressive.”
She also believes one of the main issues standing in the way of revitalizing the Commons are vacant stores owned by large companies headquartered outside of Ithaca.
“There’s tons and tons of empty storefronts that are in downtown Ithaca that Fishman Wakefield and Ithaca Renting are just letting sit open for years, and that’s draining money out of Ithaca,” Fisher said. “People should be fined for that.”
Beyond fining empty storefronts, Fisher believes rent stabilization must be balanced with an increase in the supply of housing. In order to do that, she believes in cutting the red tape of zoning meetings, describing herself as “absolutely a YIMBY [Yes In My Backyard],” which is a movement that supports building more housing and reducing zoning restrictions.
Fisher believes the role of the Common Council is to “streamline the process in which we get development, which is affordable housing units that comes out of the community and not out of a huge corporation,” she said. “The only people who can build in Ithaca are the large corporate developers that can tolerate the cost of going to so many zoning meetings.”
Fisher explained that “whoever wins this race is going to have to tackle a lot of big problems,” adding “this is a moment like no other.”
Atticus Johnson ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at aj639@cornell.edu.
