Former Ithaca Mayor and current President of People for the American Way, Svante Myrick, in conversation with NYS Assembly member Dr. Anna Kelles. Tabling from local political organizations to share more information.
Svante Myrick is the president of People For the American Way, a leader in the most important fight of our time: the battle to preserve our democracy against the rising threat of authoritarianism. Myrick is sustaining the vision of People For’s founder, iconic television producer Norman Lear, who created People For to counter right-wing extremism and religious bigotry.
As a former mayor of Ithaca, NY, Myrick is deeply committed to realizing the potential of government to improve people’s lives and to the importance of electing progressives to public office. Myrick’s upbringing laid the groundwork for his life of service and civic engagement. He and his family faced homelessness throughout their lives and relied on school lunch programs and other critical public services. These experiences shaped more than a decade of public service in Ithaca, where he garnered national media attention as the youngest-ever mayor in New York State and for his groundbreaking reforms on drug policy, the environment, and public safety.
Myrick is a recipient of the John F. Kennedy Frontier Award and People For the American Way Barbara Jordan Leadership Award, and was named by Rolling Stone as a “Hot Do-Gooder” “public servant to watch,” and in Forbes Magazine’s “30 under 30.” Myrick is a frequent contributor and guest for local and national TV, radio, and print outlets including The Hill, MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and more.
Dr. Anna Kelles represents the 125th District, including Tompkins County and the majority of Cortland County. Assemblymember Kelles serves Assembly Committees on Environmental Conservation, Agriculture, Housing, Correction, Health, and Higher Education. She is the Chair of both the Commission on Rural Resources and the Subcommittee on Agricultural Production & Technology. She is a member of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, the Task Force on Women’s Issues and the Task Force on Food, Farm & Nutrition Policy.
Since taking office in 2021, Assemblymember Kelles has sponsored and passed legislation to protect public health, critical natural lands and underrepresented communities. She brought international attention to the environmental concerns of consolidated cryptocurrency mining using proof-of-work validation methods. Some of her legislative accomplishments include securing state protection for thousands of acres of critical lakefront forestlands and park land, expanding the ban on hydraulic fracking to include a ban on the use of C02, establishing a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining using fossil fuels from purchased power plants while requiring a full environmental statewide assessment on the impact of the industry on our ability to achieve our climate law, creating a statewide comprehensive database of water data to promote comprehensive water quality protection, increasing state investments in the use of native plant seeds on state owned land and establishing a New York native plants designation within the New York State Grown and Certified program. She led successful efforts to ensure all legislation passed and signed into law is gender neutral, direct Medicaid funding to EMS services and ensuring immunity for sex workers when reporting a crime. Dr. Kelles earned a dual bachelor’s degree in Biology and Environmental Studies from Binghamton University and a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Prior to her time in the Assembly, Dr. Kelles served on the Tompkins County Legislature where she chaired the Planning Energy and Environmental Quality and the Housing and Economic Development committees effectively championing affordable housing access, natural resource conservation, protections for immigrant rights, and public health issues, including mental health and supportive social services. Over a decade prior to serving she taught at Ithaca College, served as Dean of the School of Clinical Nutrition at New York Chiropractic College, and as a professor of Nutrition and Public Health at Cornell University.