Onondaga County

BIOGRAPHY

Legislator Ellen Block represents the 5th District in the Onondaga County Legislature, an area that stretches from Salina to DeWitt. Though she grew up in New York’s lower Hudson Valley, Legislator Block spent much of her childhood visiting family in Liverpool, and those ties eventually brought her back to Central New York. She and her husband, Nic, moved to Onondaga County in 2008 and settled in Lyncourt the following year, where they still live today.

Legislator Block has spent her career working with people who need support the most. She worked in long-term care and with the elderly population at PACE CNY before earning her master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling. She later worked at ARISE, the Salvation Army, and Helio Health. Today, she’s a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor at Psychiatric Services of CNY.

A political newcomer, Legislator Block won her first bid for public office in November 2025. She says her counseling background taught her to listen with an open mind, without pushing her own beliefs onto the people she serves, a skill she now brings to representing her constituents.

In the Legislature, Legislator Block serves as a member of the Health & Human Services Committee and the Public Safety Committee.

Legislative priorities include:

• Bringing greater transparency and accountability to county government

• Holding developers and property owners to ethical, sustainable standards

• Redirecting county resources toward community programs, after-school initiatives, and workforce training

• Meeting regularly with constituents to hear their concerns firsthand