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Each week, syracuse.com will look back at some of our most important and valuable journalism from the previous week. Here are six stories for the week of Oct. 26, 2025. Subscribe to get the Syracuse.com Exclusives newsletter delivered to your email inbox every Sunday. Syracuse schools poised to pay 2 retiring execs $250K to stay on as consultants The Syracuse City School District is poised to pay $250,000 for two former high-paid officials to keep working for the district after retirement. Superintendent Anthony Davis will retire Oct. 31. Former Chief Information Officer Timothy Moon retired this summer. The school board unanimously approved a consulting contract with Moon’s company, Silver Moon Data Compliance and Consulting, in August. The district will pay Silver Moon up to $125,000 over the course of two school years. Later this year, the school board could approve a $125,000 contract with Davis’s company, TD22 Consulting. This contract would run until the end of the current school year. Micron’s little-known dominance: It leads the world in memory chips for autos While Micron Technology’s fortunes are soaring thanks to the explosion of artificial intelligence, the company has quietly become the world’s biggest producer of memory chips in cars and trucks. Micron is by far the biggest automotive memory supplier, churning out more than 300 million chips a year for vehicles. The tiny, transistor-packed chips make their way into everything from entertainment systems to dashboard displays to automatic braking systems. The frontrunner in Syracuse’s mayoral race is clear. Can any of the others win? A huge party enrollment advantage. Big leads in campaign funds raised and spent. Prominence in the incumbent administration. That historically lopsided primary victory in June. Syracuse Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens is the clear favorite, on paper, to become the city’s next mayor. But until all of the votes are cast and counted in this year’s general election, nothing is guaranteed. The three men competing against Owens in this year’s race continue to express confidence they can win. Concrete plant proposal near $100 million Syracuse aquarium draws McMahon’s ire Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon is opposing a company’s proposal to restart a long-dormant concrete plant two blocks from a $100 million aquarium the county is building at the Syracuse Inner Harbor. Heidelberg Materials, one of the world’s leading producers of cement and ready-mixed concrete, has applied to the city for a special permit and site plan approval to reopen the concrete batch plant at 411 and 421 Spencer St. How has Syracuse basketball built chemistry in a short window? ‘We all share the same goal’ Throughout the spring and summer, whenever Syracuse basketball coach Adrian Autry issued public remarks about his 2025-26 team, he made sure to underline the importance of retaining his two best players from last season. JJ Starling and Donnie Freeman are back. And they were influential, Autry said, in deciding which players the Orange would pursue in the transfer portal. But if their return signaled a triumph for the program, it also revealed a stark reality of college basketball in the portal era. Saab is soaring in Central NY: Radar maker is expanding here and across the nation
