Syracuse Common Council Meeting – January 7, 2026
Syracuse Common Council Meeting – January 7, 2026
The Syracuse Common Council met on January 7, 2026, to consider a variety of items including contracts, grants, land use, and public safety measures. Several items were discussed at length, with some held for further committee review or withdrawn.
Discussion Items
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Financial Empowerment MOU (CFE/United Way): The council discussed a memorandum of understanding with the Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) and United Way to provide financial counseling and legacy planning services. The program had been paused and is now being restarted. Council members requested data on services provided, promotion efforts, and language accessibility. The MOU language was distributed late but mirrors a previous agreement.
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Item 11 – Emergency Signal Preemption System Contract: Adjustment to change vendor name from GTT to MyoVision (with GTT as DBA) and extend contract to five years with a five-year renewal option. The council clarified the name change and contract terms.
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Items 12-17 – Parks and Recreation:
- 12: Agreement with Elite Gaming for eSports programming at Southwest and Wilson parks. Commissioner praised the program and discussed expansion to other parks.
- 13: Battery recycling program with OCRRA. Concerns were raised about fire safety, overnight storage, and potential for improper disposal. OCRRA staff explained safety measures, education, and collection schedules. Council suggested a pilot at City Hall.
- 14-15: Withdrawn for further work.
- 16-17: Annual licensing agreements with ASCAP and SESAC for music in parks.
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Item 18 – Micro Mobility Program Extension (VO): Discussion on extending the agreement with VO. Council held the item for a committee meeting to allow further questions and input from constituents.
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Items 19-22 – Fire Department:
- 19: Agreement with Kraus Health for Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for firefighters. Chief described the need for mental health support. Council requested usage data.
- 20: Agreement with WellNow for fire physician services (physicals, respirator exams). Extension of existing contract.
- 21: Renewal of overtime reimbursement agreement with ATF for two task force officers. Council clarified it is a renewal.
- 22: Withdrawn.
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Items 23-26 – Assessment, Parking, and IT:
- 23: Held for update on progress.
- 24: Assessment roll corrections for two properties.
- 25: Lease of 100 parking spaces at Geddes Street shopping plaza for police headquarters. Council expressed concerns about capacity and congestion.
- 26: Transfer of an IT position from Parks to IT department with associated funds.
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Items 27-35 – Code Enforcement and Land Bank:
- 27: Held pending state meeting.
- 28-29: Technical corrections.
- 30-35: Property transfers to land bank. Item 30 withdrawn due to internal discussions. Director noted that properties still have redemption periods.
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Items 36-39 – Various:
- 36: Held.
- 37: Held for committee meeting on Parkside Commons.
- 38: Executive session for legal advice.
- 39: Establishment of a Muslim funeral home at 4400 South Salina Street. Council discussed the zoning use and site improvements.
Key Outcomes
- Items 14, 15, 22, 30 were withdrawn.
- Items 18, 23, 27, 36, 37 were held for further committee discussion or updates.
- An executive session was approved for legal advice.
- No formal votes were recorded on the remaining items; most were discussed and will be acted upon in future meetings.
Meeting Transcript
You uh consistently raise the concern of people that own the homes and do not properly pass on the property uh through a will or an estate or something like that, thinking, hey, that's for people that are wealthy. This is uh a program that you all approved our application uh for, and it gets rolled into the MOU. The timing of this coincides with the fact that uh if you recall, we've awarded the uh FEC management to the United Way, and so the counselors are now employees of United Way to get them back up and uh and fully functional. Uh the cities for financial empowerment requires that we have the MOU in place. It happened to just expire right at the same time. Um, but we needed to have that contract in place with United Way, which is why we're doing it now. Mike, do we have any data of how many people they've served already? Um we do, and I can get you all of that. Uh and specifically it is CFE's database that we use for that. So that's that that that and the training are the two things that we access through this MOU. But yeah, what uh what time period you want to look at the last year or what you want to what what's what's important. United Way is over transitioning, they're doing the training. So just seeing like you know, so that people can see how many people are being served, even in demographics that are coming in. I think it's a phenomenal program. Um no question about that. But just so that we know, you know, the people that are coming in and making sure they're being served, and uh so uh Rafiki Fulgren's is our uh FEC program manager on the city side, and he will put some together some information that I'll share with all of you. Yeah, so once we're up and running, um when all of this gets resolved, how about letting the community know that this is available to them? How are you promoting this? So we do have built into uh both the uh uh the budget for the United Way and then through this fifty thousand dollar grant that we got some money there as well for marketing. Yeah. Will you have languages available? They uh I believe they use language line. Um they have had uh multilingual people on staff. Uh-huh. Uh so uh look to serve it a few different ways. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And also where is the language for the MOU? Oh, they just got it. I um I I did get it around four o'clock after the book was sent out. I'll send it to all of you all. Okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. Okay. The language is basically the same language from our previous MOU. Uh that's um, I believe has got incorporated uh what's in the short title here around the legacy planning. But uh we had um it's it's the draft that CFE provides for us, and law did a thorough review on it for us, so that we're we're not asking for anything that's wildly different than um you've approved. Yeah, exactly. So in the transitioning where we were not operating operational, right? Correct. So then we don't owe retroactive to nothing. I'm sorry, say that again. We don't owe any retroactive um anything money to anyone. No, no, and there's no um uh with the way the MOU operates, it's really the permissions for accessing the training and the database in exchange for our commitment that that is the system we will use. Right. Um and then the 50,000 is a separate grant, but the timing of it means that it's appropriate to roll it into the MOU because it's an additional service that we'll provide. Okay.
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