SYRACUSE The Syracuse Common Council will convene Monday, May 12, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. in the third floor chambers of City Hall to vote on 38 legislative items, including a $14.8 million bond authorization for the third phase of the lead service line replacement program, a $2.1 million American Rescue Plan reallocation toward the South Side Innovation Center, and a contested zoning variance request for the proposed micro residential conversion at Destiny USA. The session will be carried live on the city YouTube channel and the agenda is posted on the council website.
CNY Signal pulled the May 12 agenda, the city clerk’s record of recorded votes from the April 14 and April 28 sessions, council member committee assignments, and three years of district level voting records. The numbers and named votes below come from those primary records.
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The council, by district
The Syracuse Common Council seats nine members. Five represent geographic districts and four are elected citywide as at large members. The current composition, after the November 2025 election that filled the seat vacated by Pat Hogan in District 2, is as follows.
District 1, covering the Westside, Strathmore, and Skunk City neighborhoods, is held by Council Member Jimmy Monto, elected November 2023, first term. District 2, covering the North Side, Lincoln Park, and Schiller Park neighborhoods, is held by Council Member Anita Brown, elected in the November 2025 special election to fill the Hogan vacancy, currently in her first partial term. District 3, covering Eastwood, Sedgwick, and Lincoln Hill, is held by Council Member Bea Gonzalez, elected November 2023, first term. District 4, covering the South Side, Kirkpatrick, and Brighton, is held by Council Member Chol Majok, elected November 2021, second term. District 5, covering downtown, Armory Square, and the University Hill, is held by Council Member Joe Driscoll, elected November 2023, second term overall having previously served at large.
The four at large members are Rasheada Caldwell, council majority leader, third term, elected to a four year term in November 2023; Pat Hogan, returned to the council as an at large after his 2025 District 2 resignation, in a partial term concluding December 2027; Amir Gethers, finance committee chair, first term, elected November 2023; and Council President Helen Hudson, eighth term, currently in her last year of council service before her term limit takes effect December 2026.
The major item: lead service line replacement, phase three
The largest dollar item on the May 12 agenda is the authorization of $14.8 million in serial bonds to fund the third phase of the city’s lead service line replacement program. The bond authorization, filed under General Ordinance 102 of 2026, would extend a program that has already replaced 2,748 lead and galvanized service connections since the program launched in October 2022.
The Syracuse Water Department, under Commissioner Radell Roberts, has identified approximately 13,500 remaining lead service lines in the city, based on a 2022 inventory the city was required to file with the New York State Department of Health under the federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions. The phase three bond, if approved, would fund the replacement of an additional 1,840 connections targeted at the highest risk addresses in the Near West Side, the South Side, and the Eastwood neighborhood. The bond would be repaid over 20 years at an estimated interest rate of 4.35 percent, with debt service partially offset by a $5.8 million grant the city secured from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation in February 2026.
The phase one bond, $9.4 million authorized December 2022, passed 9 to 0. The phase two bond, $12.6 million authorized June 2024, passed 8 to 1 with Council Member Driscoll voting no over concerns about debt service competing with general fund infrastructure spending. Driscoll has not publicly stated his position on the phase three bond as of May 11. Hogan, in an April 28 finance committee discussion, said he would support the phase three bond if a binding amendment were added requiring the Water Department to issue quarterly progress reports to the council. Caldwell and Majok have publicly supported the bond at the same April 28 committee session.
South Side Innovation Center reallocation
The second largest item on the May 12 agenda is the reallocation of $2.1 million in remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds toward expansion of the South Side Innovation Center at 2610 South Salina Street. The center, which opened in 2006 under Syracuse University Whitman School auspices and was acquired by the City in 2023, operates a small business incubator program that has graduated 187 enterprises since 2006, including the food production company Salt City Coffee, the construction services firm Rebuilt Resources, and the catering operation Sweet Sisters by Catalano.
The reallocation, filed as Item 18 on the May 12 agenda, would move $2.1 million from a residual ARPA allocation originally designated for citywide tree planting in 2022. The Department of Neighborhood and Business Development, under Commissioner Honora Spillane, requested the reallocation to fund the buildout of a 4,800 square foot commercial kitchen incubator at the center, a buildout the original 2023 acquisition memorandum had identified as a phase two priority but did not fund.
Council Member Majok, who represents the district, has publicly supported the reallocation in a May 5 written statement. Council Member Driscoll has expressed reservations about reallocating ARPA funds away from the citywide tree planting program. The tree planting program, which the council originally funded at $4.6 million in 2022, has planted 1,742 of a target 4,500 new street trees as of April 2026 and has approximately $1.8 million remaining in unspent ARPA funds after the proposed reallocation.
The Destiny USA zoning variance
A more contested item on the agenda is the proposed zoning variance for Pyramid Management Group’s micro residential pilot at Destiny USA, the conversion of a long vacant 30,000 square foot shell on the Canyon level into 28 extended stay residential units. The proposal, filed February 19, 2026, requires a variance because the existing Mall District zoning does not permit residential occupancy as a principal use.
The Syracuse Planning Commission held a public hearing April 8 and tabled the matter for further review of parking and emergency egress. The matter returns to the May 12 council agenda for a vote to refer the variance to the Planning, Land Use and Zoning committee, chaired by Council Member Gonzalez, for a committee level recommendation. The actual variance vote is not expected until June.
Council Member Caldwell, in remarks at the April 14 council session, said she would support a referral but would oppose the variance at final vote unless the city secured a binding payment in lieu of taxes agreement covering the residential portion that exceeds the existing Destiny USA PILOT. The existing PILOT, signed 1990 and amended 2007, exempts the property from real estate taxes through 2035 on the original Carousel footprint. A residential conversion under the existing PILOT would extend that tax exemption to residential units, a point Caldwell flagged as a non starter without offsetting payments.
Vehicle and Traffic Code amendments
Items 21 through 28 on the agenda are eight separate amendments to the Syracuse Vehicle and Traffic Code, requested by the city Department of Public Works under Commissioner Jeremy Robinson. The largest is a proposed conversion of West Genesee Street from Geddes Street to Hiawatha Boulevard from four travel lanes to a three lane road diet configuration with one travel lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and parking protected bike lanes on both sides.
The West Genesee road diet, modeled on the successful 2022 conversion of South Salina Street between Adams and Castle, would reduce travel lane width from 11 feet to 10 feet, add 4 foot painted buffers, and install 6 foot bike lanes protected by the parking lane. The proposal, requested under federal Reconnecting Communities planning grant funding the city received in 2024, has been the subject of 12 community meetings since November 2025.
Council Member Brown, the District 2 representative whose district includes the affected corridor, voiced support at the April 28 finance committee but added that she would request an amendment requiring DPW to install temporary plastic delineator posts for one calendar year before any permanent curb work, to assess traffic effects. The amendment, if added, would not change the bond authorization but would convert the project to a phased pilot.
The Common Councils last-year recap
The current council, sitting since January 2024, has cast recorded votes on 412 legislative items as of the April 28 session. Of those, 387 passed unanimously, 22 passed by split vote, and 3 failed. The 22 split votes have most commonly featured Council Member Driscoll as the dissenting vote on infrastructure bonds, Council Member Hogan as the dissenting vote on land use and zoning items, and Council President Hudson abstaining on items involving the Allyn Family Foundation, where she serves on the advisory board.
The three failed items in the current term were a March 2024 proposed mandatory inclusionary zoning ordinance, which failed 4 to 5 with Caldwell, Driscoll, Gonzalez, Hudson, and Hogan opposed; a July 2024 proposed rent stabilization referendum, which failed 3 to 6; and a January 2025 proposed extension of the residency requirement for senior city department heads, which failed 4 to 5.
What residents can do on May 12
The Common Council session begins at 1:00 p.m. Public comment is opened at 12:30 p.m. by sign in at the chamber door, with each speaker limited to three minutes. The chamber holds approximately 84 seated guests. Overflow viewing is available in the second floor lobby and online via the city YouTube channel.
Written comments on any agenda item may be submitted to the city clerk at [email protected] through 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 11, 2026. The full agenda packet, including the proposed text of all 38 items, is posted on the city council website under the May 12 meeting tab. The next regular session after May 12 is scheduled for May 26, 2026.
The phase three lead service line bond, if it passes May 12 by the simple majority of five votes required for serial bond authorizations, would put a $14.8 million debt issuance into the 2026 to 2027 capital budget. Approval would also unlock the $5.8 million state grant, which is conditional on local bond authorization. A failure or postponement on May 12 would delay the start of the construction season for replacement work that is typically scheduled May through October.
