Council reviews plan for Progress Park EV‑charging pilot tied to two grant applications

City staff briefed the Syracuse City Council on a proposed pilot to install two Level‑3 electric vehicle chargers at Progress Park, funded by two complementary grants: one from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and a utility grant program. The administration said the combined grants would cover the project so there would be no up‑front cost to the city if both awards are secured.

An unnamed city staff member said the city lacks in‑house expertise to design and implement EV charging infrastructure and that a private partner would write the grants, design the project, procure chargers, install them and perform five years of maintenance. "There is no cost to the city," the staff member said. The staff also said the vendor would expect to be reimbursed from grant proceeds if awarded.

Councilors and staff debated a removed proposal that would have waived competitive bidding. "We should be RFPing everything we possibly can," a councilor said, while staff said the vendor partner must meet tight grant application deadlines (the state deadline was identified as July 27) and the technical specifications and engineering calculations required make rapid competitive procurement difficult in this instance.

Councilors asked whether revenue from chargers would flow to the city and whether maintenance costs after five years are known. Staff said that "the city" would receive the revenue and that revenue could be directed to a maintenance account, but specific post‑contract maintenance charges were not available. A councilor asked whether the firm proposed to lead the project is local and whether the procurement would support minority‑owned or union contractors; staff said the named vendor, Jaycomb, is based in Canandaigua and that capacity among local firms to provide turnkey grant writing plus design and maintenance is limited.

Several council members pressed for more time and transparency. One asked for more lead time to review procurement details and capacity information so the council could evaluate tradeoffs between speed and competitive process. The administration committed to providing additional information and outreach to councilors and to follow‑up briefings before final action.

The council agreed to hold the items for Monday to allow further review and additional materials from staff. The administration said one of the grants is a rolling application while the other has a firm deadline and that if only one grant is awarded the project likely would not proceed because the combined project cost exceeds $400,000 and the city does not have remaining budgeted funds to fill a large gap.