It’s an end of an era for Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney. This week marks her last week in office for the county. Mahoney sat down with us on Wednesday to reflect upon her nearly 3,700 days in office.

"We have accomplished a lot of things, we have started a lot of projects and finished them,” said Mahoney.

Among the projects Mahoney speaks of are the building of the Lakeview Amphitheater, funding new windows for the civic center, and one of her favorite accomplishments being ahead in green infrastructure. Mahoney also was the chair of the New York State Thruway Authority.  

"I would say the big picture for me, is I started out wanting this to be a place where young people wanted to stay,” said Mahoney. Her intentions from the beginning were to make a county where millennials would want to stay and secure jobs.

Among her accolades there are a few things Mahoney wishes she could have got done, including the challenge with race in society.

"We need to recognize that we are all in this together and that we do better when we are all in this together,” said Mahoney. “We will never be who we can be if we leave a whole section of our population behind."

Mahoney will be shifting her focus to the education world in November. She is slated to become a chief operating officer at SUNY ESF, with a special assistant role at SUNY Upstate Medical University. 

"I am going to take a few weeks off and then I am going to get started up at SUNY. I am very excited about it," Mahoney said.

As far as Mahoney’s time in public officer she told Spectrum News to never count her out.

"I definitely have the bug for public service to never say never," she said.