[Music] [Music] [Music] okay the special meeting of the Atlanta County Board of Commissioners is called to order adequate notice of this meeting to address a specific urgent me matter was not provided because it could not be provided in enough time due to short notice of a state leap fund grant for the central Municipal Court of Atlanta County and the grant needs to be accepted by the county executive on before July 11 the county executive's office was advised by the state DCA in the afternoon of July 8th that a grant anticipated not to exceed $1 million is available for the municipal court but it has to be set by agreement by July 11th or it will not be available to the county at all the state has a funding calendar and July 11th is the deadline for them to finalize the grant with the county the clerk of the board made calls to see if it was possible to get notice of this meeting to the public out before July 11th and the clerk was advised on July 8th that the earliest notice could be published in the Press of Atlanta committee is July 13th the clerk also contacted the hamon Gazette who indicated the earliest notice could be published in The Gazette is July 10th elap fund Grant anticipated not to exceed an additional $1 million to the County Municipal Court is a significant matter that needs to be addressed this meeting without adequate notice is not ideal but is in the interest of the county county taxpayers and everyone using the County Municipal Court to secure this grant funding that will be lost if we did not act on this urgent matter today the potential to receive an additional $1 million will be substantially impact the Court's ability to function as it provides a variety of services to help litigants with access to resolve legal matters and get access to other essential Services than Municipal cour provides losing up to a million dollars that cannot be recovered will be a substantial law to the court and the public it it serves beyond the obvious obvious budgetary assistance grant money will help the court maintain its ability to serve the county as a shared service and handle a high volume of cases from throughout Atlanta County Action today to obtain money that will improve court services is critically important to the public the state has told the county that if the agreement is not authorized and signed by the county on July 11th the money will not be available today's emerging public meeting will be limited to a vote to confirm three4 of the Commissioners present are authorizing the meeting without adequate notice and if the emergent meeting is authorized by the Commissioners a discussion and vote narrowly limited only to whether the board will authorize the county executive to agree to the leap fund grant for the County Municipal Court the Board of Commissioners provided notice and otherwise attempted to notify the public about this meeting on July 9th 2024 in the following manner posted online with the Press of Atlantic City radio Outlets were notified posted on the bulletin boards at the Atlantic County Office Building in Atlantic City the Stillwater building in Northfield and the clerk's office in manding posted on the County website and the Board of Commissioners web page and on the County's social media platforms and on on July 10th 2024 a hard copy of the meeting notice was published in the hamton cazette and as I previously stated the county just became aware of the urgency needed to authorize the leap fund Grant on July 8th there was no notice of the July 11th deadline prior to this after exploring a possible meeting with adequate notice the county determined this meeting was required because there was no way to have a meeting with adequate notice and meet the stes deadline to receive the leap fund Grant and I just really want to take one minute to really commend and thank all the Commissioners you know that um took their time away to uh be here today and um you know thank you and thank Jerry and our Administration to make this happen as well and Tara thank you for you know all your efforts put putting into this uh we have an opening prayer is Andrew there I am here lead us oh God that we may be leaders of our community and continue to guide us in the decisions we make for the service of others amen amen everyone can uh face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance allegiance to the flag flag the United States United States of America and to the Republic stands one na indivisible and justice for all okay Madam Clark we have a roll call Bas here Martino here Burns here horsey pres da here G here Parker what's going on good to hear you commissioner Cory present grizzley here sir here I'll entertain a motion for the Commissioners to vote to authorize this meeting without adequate notice pursuant to njsa 10 4-9 so move move mooved by commissioner Burns and second and by I think uh commissioner Parker any commissioner comments anything from the public b roll Bas yes fortino yes Burns yes horsey yes B yes G yes Parker yes grizzley yes K yes motion carries okay the purpose of the special meeting is for the board to consider resolution number 381-2020 to consider and act only on the Urgent matter of authorizing the county executive to accept the terms of leap grant funding for the central Municipal Court of Atlanta County resolution 381 please emergency resol olution authorizing a Grant application and acceptance from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs division of local government services to administer leap grant funding to offset cost associated with educ educating State Police summonses originating in municipalities not participating in the central Municipal Court of Atlanta County amount not to exceed $1 million okay um moved by commissioner Cory seconded by commissioner G any commissioner comments can't hear none any comments from the public I do have a comment it's nice that it's ni that it's nice that they're hearing us and they're doing something about what we have been you know asking for for quite some time some funds are coming down it would have been nice to have been given a little bit more timely notice notice thank you commissioner Parker any other commissioner comments anything from the public would judge blee uh like to make any comments I would thank you uh chairperson ker for uh getting this on the agenda so quickly I thank the Commissioners uh for having a quarum on such short notice I thank Tara alapena for assisting in that regard uh and as always I thank Jerry D raso His Marvelous staff uh for making this uh come to fru I'll be brief uh it's rare as a member of the independent branch that I get to come before governing uh aies or legislative bodies uh so I will be careful with my words but let's start historically um I've been the assignment judge a little over two years um literally I think my first day on the job we opened up Central Municipal Court uh it's the first of its kind in in the state of New Jersey it was a collaborative effort between Judiciary uh and the county and the state uh and unfortunately we realized uh some uh mistakes that occurred and one of which was that uh all of the participating towns in central Municipal Court would also have to service All State Police cases for nonparticipating towns throughout the county uh I'm told the impetus for that was to create an incentive for other towns to join uh as we've seen through the years it actually has created a disincentive so the stakeholders in central Municipal Court Mr do raso and his staff and the county executive went to work uh we approached Senator Palestina about changing some legislation that happened extremely quickly and that impact of that legislation is that those State Police cases uh that were in nonparticipating towns will be returned to those towns for judic but I want everyone to understand the timeline that will not start until August 1st of this year we are still responsible for completing all of the State Police cases that are presently in central Municipal Court that could take a year or or longer uh but it's an incredible step in the right direction from an efficiency standpoint and a fairness standpoint uh and we really see uh that by January February we G to have a great impact on our ability to really serve as the towns that have taken the leap and joined us to to further bulur that is what happened today uh we I want to thank um very sincerely Jackie Suarez the commissioner of DCA uh Rick ricardel from DCA and Eileen Brandon all involved with the elite grant program we had discussions about this for a long period of time um I had the pleasure of being in Trenton when one of our judges was being reappointed and had a face to face with Jackie Suarez and all I can say is I was extremely extremely impressed uh and every kind word that was said about her was uh accurate and uh less than a week ago I had a phone call from Miss Suarez saying we have the money for you so that is why it happened so quickly uh those of us that who understand government state government uh we understand that things work quickly and when Opportunity Knocks we we should uh you know use that opportunity uh so my sincere thanks to all uh this is going to the goals that we're all trying to do of consolidation uh of trying to save taxpayer dollars uh this money hopefully is going to be t targeted to try to reimburse those towns that participated in a fair Manner and I know um the county is going to go to work on that right away uh we do everything openly and transparently we'll have meeting with the stakeholders so everybody understands what is going on uh I'm also proud to happy to hear the voice of commissioner Cory and welcome him back uh and also within this year we are able to have a consolidation of a joint Court of Atlantic City and pleasant Ville which we're very excited about so this is um a great day uh for Central Municipal Court I want to thank again commissioner Suarez Senator Vince paltin our County exec and our chairperson marine corn k for getting this done uh and uh we're very excited about it on behalf of the centralal Court everyone have a good evening thank you very much judge BL okay we will have a roll call alas yes Martino yes Burns yes fory yes B yes Gad yes Parker yes Grizzly yes K yes motion carries once again I'm going to thank the Commissioners for always putting their fiduciary responsibilities as a priority so thank you uh okay um anyone attending virtually that would like to speak please raise your hand and I will call upon your name and a request to unmute will be sent please state your name and the town you reside you'll be provided up to three minutes to speak uh we're now open for public comments anybody from the public no okay I'll now entertain a motion to adjourn move second okay motion made by uh commissioner Gad second by commissioner Parker all those in favor okay we are now adjourned thank you again [Music] [Music] 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