good evening ladies and gentlemen and Welcome to our December 4th 2023 council meeting our first item on the agenda is a call to order and arise to the Pledge of Allegiance so please rise I pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number two is reading of the sunshine statement and a roll call by our Deputy municipal clerk M Lawrence de this meeting of the denell andboro council is called personman to the provisions of the Oakland public meeting Clause this meeting of December 4th 2023 was advertised in The Courier on January 5th 2023 and as a teleconference was noticed on the official website on November 29th 2023 on the public B board on North Avenue on November 29 2023 and again adverti in The Courier on December 3rd 2023 mayor sento here council president Rio here Mrs Albertson here Dr dun here Mr paon President Mr Sigman here and Mr vandar here okay um item number three is any old business anything that mayor council has to discuss for old business no without further Ado we move on item number four is new Business Council discussion any new business for Council okay without hearing any I would like to just make an address at the front of the meeting um as we all know know overnight on Saturday into Sunday there was a fire at the dellen hotel in rap skeller um this is sad news for the town um fortunately the fire was contained by our emergency services and thankfully no one was hurt so I just personally on behalf of myself and the municipality want to say thank you to the dellan fire department the dellan rescue squad dellan police department and the mutual Aid as well as the dellan office of emergency management and search team for being on um and as well as the Carol fund for acting very quickly um at 2:00 in the morning ter and I are having conversation um but as usual the town came together and was there to support the den rat the hotel R skeller uh Rich Jim who are the owners and the staff of family to the buroughs in Ellen and we know they're going to come back stronger from this and as a community we know we'll come around them and support them and uh we wish done well in their rebuild and uh we'll be there for him but again the Emergency Services a round of applause to you for your much so thankfully it was God bless you thank you again and uh with that item number five on the agenda is the approval or meeting minutes um of our November 20th council meeting can I have a motion in a second R Alon any comments or edits to the meeting minutes as they currently stand without hearing any from councel we have a roll call please yes Mr PA joh yes Mr R yes Mr sigment yes Mr Vander yes okay item number six on the agenda is a proclamation recognizing Arbor Day um I do not see a member of the shade tree commission audience but council member dun as liaison to the commission would you like to read the proclamation whereas in 1872 Jay Sterling Morton proposed to the ne Nebraska Board of agriculture that a special day he set aside for the planting of trees and this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska and whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water cut Heating and Cooling crops moderate the temperature clean the air produce lifebeing oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes fuel for our fires and countless other wood products and whereas trees in our burrow increase property values enhance the economic Vitality of business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are source of joy and spiritual renewal now therefore I Jason F dento mayor of the burough of dellan do hereby Proclaim Friday April 26 2024 as Arbor Day in the burough of denella New Jersey I urge all citizens to celebrate har day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and further I urge all citizens to plant trees to Glad in the hearts and promote the well-being of this and future generation dated this fourth day of December 2023 thank you council member it feels just like yesterday this time last year we were reading the same Proclamation for April 2023 I'm flies Okay item number seven on the agenda is our resolutions so Mrs stat is your read out the resolutions please give uh myself and Council any opportunity to discuss them or ask any questions resolution number one is to pay the bills little bit Rios second Mrs alerson yes Dr joh yes Mr Fon yes Mrs R yes Mr Sigman yes Mr yes resolution number two to amend resolution from September 18th 2023 number seven awarding the contract to all risks for mold remediation andent at the fire house move it Alberton second MK that's a quick question I think I asked this back in September about the mold right that it's just that do we know if it's going to be mitigated after this or is this going to be aing unfortunately because the elements and the way circulation is inor T something continua get the B thank you question Mrs Alberton yes Dr D yes Mr F yes Mrs R yes Mr Sigman yes Mr Mar yes resolution number three approving a concept plan in connection with the Redevelopment agreement by in between the bur of dellan and the dellan resc squad second Sigman council member alberon uh Daniel halin are you on the line this evening from our planners uh yes can you hear me yes can you just briefly discuss your perspective of the project so council's aware before this moves over to planning board yeah sure so this is an application to uh remove an existing uh vacant long story building at 635 ground book Road and to construct uh a three story uh building consisting of various facilities for the rescue squad including uh classroom uh uh educational purposes obviously lounge and uh sleeping spaces as well as uh parking and maintenance of the vehicles we submitted a a letter dat November 29th 2023 uh which hopefully you all had a chance to read which uh basically states that it's uh our siging that the uh the proposal is consistent with the Redevelopment plan uh simply from the perspective for the purpose of this report that uh it is a permitted use um as far as uh uh any variances that are required we are deferring to the planning Board review process as we don't have both site plans at this point uh there may be variances there may be some uh things that may need to be determined as far as the parking uh an actual parking ratio would have been required for this that there no direct uh comparable use in the park reiring sections of the burough standards but uh not having any plans we don't know at this point if there are anying conditions so that'll have will be handled during the planning planning process um feel like that that sums it up if anybody's got questions I can answer okay thank you Mr halin David would you like to say anything on behalf of the rest of squad the uh the new build the new uh building right um currently we have a twostory or we're working on a three story plan we do have a two story that's what you're have for the concept two story uh it's uh be able to uh house all of our operations of what we need it's going to be a special building where it needs to have special requirements to meet our operations I have nothing else really to on [Music] matter no I think just looking at this you know proposed plan and what they have set up it's you know obviously everything they've been looking for and from what they're you know moving from going into especially being new they can kind of design it the way they would like to design it and the way you know that'll be the most practical and long-term uh setup for them for the future so yeah no this looks like a good uh conceptual drawing for well I commend you guys too I he's done a really good job on nice design as the Val of the downtown and I think uh this comes through it's going to give you a break futuree again if anybody wants to know the denel rescue squad think great come back and they're looking for volunteers if anybody's interested good Roberto are these are these your colleagues are these nurses great [Music] so squad's looking for Vol fing so okay anybody else in Council okay once once approve if we can get this conceptual on the website I'm very sorry sure Redevelopment to people is a very exciting project and uh like I said you guys got a great feature thank you for what you do okay no further questions let's take a roll call Mrs Albertson yes Dr yes Mr Fon yes M Rio yes Mr Sigman yes Mr Vander yes I'll just really quick special notes for council member John please [Music] very all teamor here great okay let's continue Appropriations for the 2023 operating account Mrs Alberton yes Dr dun yes Mr Pon yes Mr yes Mr Sigman yes Mr Vander yes resolution number five is authorizing the inclusion of $2,679 as a special item of revenue for chapter 159 into the 2023 Municipal budget second Mrs alberon yes Dr dun yes Mr Bon yes Mrs Rio yes Mr Sigman yes Mr Vander yes resolution number six to a a contract to MIDI County Pur sewer improvements to palaski Street move it second Rio Mrs Albertson yes Dr dun yes Mr pum yes Mrs Rios yes Mr Sigman yes Mr vanderark yes resolution number seven is in support of assembly bill number 4536 Senate bill number s 304 to establish minimum registered professional nurse staffing standards [Music] have a questions um I know this is an out of Bing resolutions mon but in terms of there's a nurse shortage right so what happens if the hospital can't meet these standards that are proposed does anybody know yes to [Music] absolutely please name my name is so um a lot of people are leaving from nursing and there is an apparent shortage not because there's not enough nurses but because there's not enough nurses willing to work under the conditions as you may already know we've been on strike for over 120 days and the hospital said that they couldn't hire the 10% additional stuff we needed yet they were able to replace all the nurses that were working there for these four months and paying them double or even triple than the salaries that we have so it's not really that there's not enough people to be able to work those jobs it's just that there's not enough people to be able to work under those conditions and that sense so people are playing the nursing profession at least in the hospital setting because they're not willing to put up with that okay so this would help support you in terms of okay thank you thank you thank for your hard work on bringing St alberon yes done Mr F yes Mr Rio yes Mr Sigman yes Mr V yes congratulations this will be sent out [Music] [Music] was okay next on our agenda is item number eight which are Council reports um council member Alberton anything to report this evening I want to thank Fire Department department for their Qui response with the known Hotel fire as always it takes great care of our community um we still have time to support the fire department by purchasing a Christmas tree uh they're open Thursday and Fridays from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m downtown denan management organization is having Christmas in in denan along with the dock out downtown outing uh and it's be September December 16th there'll be a photo spot for selfies for fun family picture taking Christmas carolling and children's games in the afternoon again if you spend $100 at denalan businesses and submit your receipt you'll receive a $20 gift card to a denal business it's a wonderful way to shop for holiday gifts and enjoy the company of your fellow residents and business owners in town J American Legion is still collecting toys for tods drop off at the legion and the fund is collecting spoiler trees gift cards snacks and men's clothing in sizes medium to 2x for the displaced residents from the dellan hotel uh please check my Facebook page or email me at T alerson at Denon D nj.gov for drop offs location and thanks to everyone who has already helped us out and that's all I have to say thank you thank you council member council president Rios yes Jan Public Library please join us for fun activities at the library on December 12th we will have a candle making program please register um please make sure to register on December 18th we have a beginners taiichi class and as always check out our website and Facebook for more programs the Board of Ed had a full house on November at the November meeting this past week Board of Ed recognized students of the month with certificates they announced and North retirement effective December 22nd and has been instrument mental and valuable member of the school system and the community and we will miss her and I want to thank her for all that she has done for all the students including Mike we would like to congratulate Carrie Johnson for receiving the GMC gold division for Coach of the Year award and's see the ESL class will be moving forward with collaboration of the General Public Library we are looking at two classes open to ellan residents only don't forget telan High School's play is of It's a Wonderful Life will be December 8th and 9th Greenbrook fled commission next meeting will be December 6th via Zoom that's up okay thank you just the council aware for Carrie Johnson a letter was sent on behalf of congratulations CC member Vore yeah building con GRS regarding the boiler at Hall Friday 121 we needed to call a technician to inspect the board because of the high reading of coo technician tried service in the unit but unfortunately is beyond repair Alex is currently working on options for Girl Hall heating with a tax office court office Chambers mayor's office and the rec office also thank you to DPW for decorating downtown with re and new roping um home beautiful doesn't it yeah very classic look thank you council member council member done yes for recreation uh recreation basketball program registration is open for children's grade K through sixth grade this will take place on Saturday mornings at Faber gym the program starts on January 6th and takes place each Saturday in January and February you can register online at Recreation website uh as we all know the was pouring rain yesterday so the annual Christmas tree lighting which was supposed to happen yesterday will happen next Sunday uh same time 6 pm at Washington Memorial Park um this is a fantastic Community event with hot chocolate caroling Brass Band and of course a visit from Santa so I hope you all join us um the annual Health decorating register by 12:13 keep your holiday lights on between 6:00 and 10 p.m. from December 15th to 20th a judging will occur during those times the registrant is not required to be home for the judging the winning registrant will be notified by the recreation department before uh December 24th you can also register for this on the recreation website Santa around town another classic Dell and tradition on Christmas Eve our incredible fire department will escort Santa around town this year Santa will start on the north side of town starting around 10 AM we still we have the Sant tracker again that's that okay uh annual senior citizens holiday party this year's party will occur on Saturday January 6th at noon at St John's any senior interested in joining can call the recreation department the recreation department as always would love to have the mayor and Council join the party um Club is growing we're now meeting every Sunday we were meeting every other Sunday so you can drop in whenever you were able to our next run is this coming Sunday December 10th at 8 am. in Washington Park registration is required but the program is free also on the recreation um website we run in all kinds of weather we were out Sunday in the rain so I'm join um shade tree commission as always if you are interested in having a tree planted please contact the dell and shade tree commission and the last parking authority meeting of the year will be held on December 13th at 6m in the parking authority uh building um and so happy to report that daily parking continues to increase uh and so that's good news for our parking authority which really struggled during Co all I have for to thank you council member Sigman anything for us out there in the virtual world yes thank you uh so for DPW the crew has routinely cleared the catch basins and inspected the streams they continued the curbside Leaf bag pickup throughout the burrow uh they cleaned up the leaves on all the burrow properties and Parks they ran rolloff loads to the dump they took down the Hometown Heroes banners and the American flags in the downtown and put up the wreaths uh and on the decorative light poles uh they also put up the Christmas trees throughout the town uh and they decorated the Gazebo and Washington Park and installed Greenery on burrow Hall which has been said it looks wonderful uh they perform maintenance uh to the truck number five uh truck number 40 truck 25 and the Salter on truck 33 and the PD car 501 and uh winter is coming so a snow reminder about parking restrictions during snow emergencies to permit the snow plows to operate freely and unimpeded to keep the burrow streets and Road raids open for essential and emergency functions During the period commencing 1 hour after after the snow has been continuously falling and ending 12 hours after the snow ceases to fall no person shall Park stop stand or leave abandon a vehicle on any streets within the burrow of dellan alternate off street parking during snow emergencies is available at the American Legion Post 119 at 137 New Market Road at McCoy park off of North Washington Na and Columbia Park off of Orange Street uh also we ask you please do not shoot snow from your snowblower onto the plowed streets uh it does cause a hazardous icing condition on the roads uh after it's already been plowed and that is all for me today okay thank you council member speaking of snow and salting truck Mr Miller how do we look on the salt for this year good we got one more lo yeah council member Paul John okay for the D Police Department police depart stopped accepting applicants for the new position of police officer the resumes and candidates have been re reviewed and the first round of interviews have taken place the next round of interviews are scheduled for next week just wanted to give a shout out and thanks to the dell and PBA Local 146 to Joe Dudley and Duos and everyone else that involved in the great two-day event that they had this past Friday and Saturday uh it was a fun time for both young and old a great way to add to that festive Spirit of the holiday season and more importantly in the spirit of giving so it was another very successful toy and gift card drive so thank you to all those that participated and attended that uh Rescue Squad just talking about that great drawing concept uh of the new resue Squad building as we just presented Ed as the mayor stated and I will say as well The Rebirth of the rest Squad is definitely now in full swing so it is a perfect time to check out their website maybe volunteer or look at it because it's a definitely a bright future for this squad so it's time to uh to get on board and and enjoy the ride there so if anyone's interested visit theel rescue.org for more information and uh Jeff wanted me to mention that he is on him and like Jan AR aable to be here today because it's Jan's birthday points for Jeff and to wish Jan uh paraa following the mayor's announcement about the Second Street do project the burrow request parsa to inspect the sewer main on Second Street where the project will take place and that's from the middle SE border to Washington adue all updates and full report of the findings will follow and as you mentioned Mr May earlier about the telan hotel here's the wishing a quick reopening for the telan hotel thinking of all those affected by the fire from Rich and gym as well as the bartender servers chick staffs and tenants please keep them in your thoughts especially during this holiday season I know that theel hotel will come back even better than before and I will definitely be one of the first in line when they do open back up especially for a crop of that French onion J Second Street and we can have them look from just do the entire thing being that they already just in case we're able to go straight to the other side of the Border yeah perfect thank you um okay um the middle County Mill and paave project and hand striping inclusive of sherrow 25 M per hour and striping their intersections the pox to discourage drivers parking the intersection uh that's going to probably start this week um hopefully right that's what we've been told tomorrow I think better uh New Jersey American water has installed the water mains and water service lines in Long North Washington Avenue so that project is thankfully hopefully to a close until next year when they repay the road uh client Place uh the notice of award and contract uh books have been forwarded to the contractor from an execution and submission of bonds and insurance once they're submitted um we'll be able to start scheduling a preconstruction meeting so we one step closer to uh getting that road done uh Lincoln Avenue um we understand that the replacement the uh the rapid Beacon Light Equipment is approximately five weeks out fortunately uh so this is the only item left on that project and we can close and get the remainder of our grant back so we can uh pay that Bond off because that was a 100% fully paid project through Grant so that's good news uh resy Squad location remediation a drafted remedial action work plan uh for the strip joint property um which is a upholstery just so we're aware um rash Squad new location has been we have newcomers in I want them to be aware of what it was um has been submitted to the buau for review so the firehouse rebuild update most of the trades have H finished a rough work and drywall on site the old windows are being removed between uh the 7th and 8th of December with the new windows being installed on around December 11th um so we expect the front facade repair work to start possibly this week and the contractor uh starting work on the pad for the generator is also supposed to be this week the denel station development our engineer teamy Associates continue to coordinate with prism the developer through um relative to the completion of all work and final cosos that will be issued or grant money announcement uh we I'm happy to announce that uh we have rece we've been a recipient of the New Jersey Department of transportations fiscal year 2024 Transit Village grant for $529,000 towards lighting improvements on bound Road between Madison and the municipal boundaries so basically from M all the way down to the middle SE border basically now that would basically be 75% of our downtown with intive L so that's very exciting news so we rote the Grant and uh the project is going to be envisioned to include decorative lighting plant hangers um I spelled hangers wrong that's okay uh and banner arms and other related work and again this is in addition to our recent awarding of $496,000 for Second Street improvements on in phase two under the municipal aid grant so for fiscal year 2024 it's exciting to say dellan has received a total of 1 milli2 2,620 in Grant um which now leads us since 2020 we are now just around $45 million do in Grants so that's very exciting um because you know money doesn't grow on trees [Music] so uh finally uh mayor oral town hall on Redevelopment in dellan is uh Thursday December 14th at 7 pm um we'll discuss the topics of uh Redevelopment in denell our ongoing Redevelopment projects affordable housing school age children in our Redevelopment projects water Pilots uh payment in taxes and short-term tax exemption program we have in town uh we'll discuss downtown Improvement districts as well as the main street program um and there'll be a question and answer session at the end um I'll act as host and moderate the discussion I'll we'll have our our municipalities Redevelopment professionals present to be the panelist they are doing a prono they're not charging us they just want that for the record and uh students from Ruckers blousing School of planning and public policy will be there to also present on their case study on dellan for downtown Improvement districts and Main Street we'll also have Natalie Panero from Somerville did discussing um downtown improvement district of their success and maybe what denel can consider for our town moving forward um so this will be hybrid it'll be iners and virtual I hope everyone will attend even our nurse friends find out what's going on in dellen and um it'll start at 7 pm Thursday at the senior center in Columbia Park so that is it from me uh count any questions pertaining to my report okay before we open up to the public anything from department heads that you'd like to report to councel uh the Deferred OEM Report with my Deputy delort yes so uh three of us three of our staff responded uh yesterday morning uh to the fire at the dunen hotel uh thankfully as was mentioned there were no injuries but there were 13 people displaced um we collected some preliminary information from these people our primary role when we show up with these fires is to help the people who have been displaced um American Red Cross responded very quickly with a three-person team uh and so we moved from wandering around the scene to the court one uh and we set up here there were I believe two police officers present the three person American Red Cross team uh they took information from uh from the uh 10 of the 13 uh displaced persons uh they that is they the American Red Red Cross gave each person $350 uh debit card uh and a blanket and um it was really quite surprising how much they appreciated the blanket I was very touched by uh they opened them uh like a like someone opening a Christmas present on on Christmas morning um and each person got a excuse me a folder with some information about uh obtaining assistance um we moved everyone to the senior center uh for uh the rest of the night uh the primary reason for that well two reasons first of all space but second of all we wanted to avoid having people checking in at six o'clock in the morning uh and spending the first day's hotel and being kicked out or charged another day at 10 o'clock so we set up 10 CS uh and two of the three of us stayed overnight with those uh 10 people um the senior center was open until about 1 o' um excuse me for the informality of this report we hadn't had time to formalize it but uh oh also collected some information uh some personal information and supplied it to the Carol fund and also gave uh to each of those who were still remaining in the senior center uh a gift card uh to Target several people had already started to leave by early morning six of those remaining were transported to the Ivory Tower Hotel thank you for your work in your service again Carol for working so quickly thank you other department heads before we open up the public okay without further Ado we'll open up the council meeting to the public for any public comment that's item number nine on our agenda we just ask that you please state your name and address ask your question may your state yes so hello again my name is Molina in with your Avenue uh once again I want to thank every member Council your councilman Council woman and uh everybody here present uh it kind of feels like a lucky day and uh today is lucky Sev because um we were number seven on the agenda uh you guys were at the number seven um you know build pass and you actually made it into the list of number seven town to pass this resolution so you guys are joining faville please Lon miltown Edon p park and Franklin Township so thank you very much for that now I also want to let you know that I'm sorry you said we were the least likely to T [Music] it you have Jo you are the seven so we're luy seven days s77 now I have uh some good news and and I say some because um as we say I think we are cautiously optimistic we recently received a notification that we have a tentative agreement with the hospital which means that we may be able to go back to work hopefully by January uh depending on the disclosure of the official contract but our job is not done yet even if we do get a contract we still trying to fight for this whe because this would only not help us and Robert with Johson because our conditions will be better but what you are doing today is helping all those other nurses from the other hospitals like I said those patients that have been in different hospitals uh there is a petition that we have going on for everybody in town uh to try to sign um a letter to send it to the legislators so they can have the same bill that you guys uh you know sponsored uh so once again thank you and if every else wants to you know speak up my gratitude good work by you congratulations members of the public anything think from our Scout friend over here no uh David Ain Squad 247 Penfield uh Janna says thank you to everyone you're welcome jna and thanks again for advoca for for us volunteers and new building is going to certainly help us with operations of course you have our support anybody else from the public please state your name and address okay um without further Ado uh item number 10 is adjournment we don't have any further uh Council business so can I have a motion and a second to adjourn Mo second all in favor any night [Music] everybody this conference is no longer being