e e e e e e e e e e e e that's uh calling the work session meeting of Monday June 24th to order uh at 6:05 p.m. all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America to the indivisible andice Madam clerk roll call please council member brusher council member Co sure was here pleas C council member Harris here council member Patel here council member PTI here council member poiner pres council member schmuel here Madam cler please read the adequate notice adequate notice of this meeting as required by the open public meeting Act of 1975 has been provided by the annual notice sent to the home news tribute Star Ledger Desi talk and news India times on December 12th 2023 and post domain Lobby missal complex on that same date thank you madam clerk uh moving on to number four oral petition and remarks uh we will start from the list uh but before we start I want to update on the decorum aspect of this uh moving forward if someone is disrupting the speaker that is recognized then I will give them a point of order uh for Distributing the meeting and the second time I have to do that I will ask some officers to escort them out so that we can have a good meeting all right uh first person in line Alo Su hi good evening everyone uh today I would like to talk about couple of things uh just before sorry you have to give your name and address okay sure uh hi I am alok Su and I live at T Quincy Road Edison okay you recognized yeah I've been living in Edison for the last 12 years and there's one thing which I found after staying I mean after couple of years or something that the garbage collection fees that was including in the taxes itself and that's when I I noticed that they are much higher than what my neighbors in other on the other streets are paying because they have options they have private garbage collection and there are options and they are paying much lower than what we are paying so I came here before as well in the past I asked the same thing that give us an option as well I mean it's unfair that other people have an opt option they can select from multiple providers but we can't do that and if we can do that at least it should be reasonable it should not be double or triple what other people are paying so that's one thing i' I've I've brought it to everyone's attention before and I'm coming here again I mean there are other people also complaining about the same thing and what I what I noticed was I'm not sure if it's related uh I read somewhere there's a $1.4 million bond that Township is asking for and am I right to assume that part of that money is going towards the garbage collection is there any more questions you have and we can answer all of them at the end no that's one of the questions so if that is the case then I think I mean we are already paying higher uh fees for collection and then this is also an additional burden either I mean the garbage collection fees should be divided across the township so that even people who are who have the option for privatization they can share the burden as well I mean it should it's not fair to us that we are paying double or three times what others are paying so that's one thing the other thing I want to talk about is and uh thank you uh councilman pel for bringing it up uh in the last meeting is about excessive Lighting in lot of new houses so lot of new houses now what they're doing is they're putting lights in the softs that's like 25 30 ft high and those lights they are like every four five ft they have a a bright light and that all around the house so if you count I mean there are like somewhere between 20 and 50 lights on on these houses and when they turn all these on it doesn't look like you are in a quiet neighborhood right I mean it's so much light it feels like you are in a commercial setting and on top of it people who are in the adjoining houses that there's no privacy I mean it's it's it's the light is trespassing into their their the Y backyards and in the houses as well I can attest to that I I get light inside my bedrooms from the neighboring houses and I mean some people are considerate they they turned off the lights but some I mean like uh uh week two weeks ago I mean all lights in one of those houses are on which I mean I live next to and I was getting light all night long my wife my daughter couldn't even sleep because her bedroom is towards that house so that's another thing I like to bring to the council that if something can be done because it's not just one scenario everyone is doing it now so at some point it can get out of hand if it's not controlled at this point okay thank you okay thank you Al uh so we'll start with the first I know this is an issue that's been brought up before for the trash um private versus public uh anyone want to take a on you as to why there is certain I tried looking to myself as to why certain portion of the town has private and certain part doesn't sure um I would just defer to the attorney this is just the way the sanitation District's been set up I I don't have that answer um off the top of my head it's certainly something that I can investigate and find out more about uh I don't know why Edison in particular is set up if you can please uh address because yeah I'm barely able to hear at least they should be able be here on uh so the council said that he's going to look into it he doesn't know top of his head but he'll get back to us on Wednesday I have looked into it in the past and I think coun B you have too as well and it's some convulated issue that started back really back in the day and it's been stuck and hasn't moved forward and unfortunately there is the cost of DPW that as a whole everything that DPW does is the cost that Township Town residents have to pay it's not just the trash collection that's being charged but we can look at the fair Wess of it maybe and see if that number is a little too much for the public side or the private side but that is something we can look into as for the lighting I think we have dark sky compliance yep I I can update on that you know I'm in constant touch with Mr Al uh last year even earlier you know we we looked into that we don't have any specific ordinance in place and I did for that to Sonia and we said we look into announc that ordinance and I will also be able to give multiple addresses because this is a new trend any new house that's coming on stanville Parkway or the Parker or any of those especially giant houses has anywhere from 25 and I can tell you some of those have more than 50 Y and when the homeowner is not willing to cooperate or they're not putting Dawn to dust type of timer it becomes an issue for the neighbor and that is where I send is it a health it is zoning I know Jim yet has been very Cooperative he does a wonderful job when we call him but if we can put some sort of a legislation some ordinance that will prohibit you know those type of uh I'm not saying the houses but at least limit uh the number of Lights the exterior we want bright lights because of the uh safety issue but too bright is also a challenge and also if you can limit in terms of the timing you know can they shut those down at least de it at around 9:00 and if you can measure that that would be helpful thank you thank you Council Mel and Sonia go ahead sure the current ordinance does not govern over one um one or two dwellings um it covers everything else however it's a policy decision so if that is what the council wishes to look into I can work with the attorney on that yeah I think that would be something we are interested in uh there in out in Midwest I think when we were looking for Billboards there was a dark sky compliance uh essentially trying to keep the night sky as dark as possible during night times so we can look at the stars rather than just light pollution I'll be interested in something like that might might be too hard to implement in Jersey but we can certainly look at the excessive lightning and try to update the ordinance to reflect and try to contain the overe excessive lighting that the new houses will have okay okay thank you I mean I someone Al you can't be recognizing for your time is up so you can't talk thanks yes for the attorney um let's say that we wanted to to change that garbage pickup we wanted to add people or subtract people you know because they came out and they say my neighborhood doesn't want it or my neighborhood does want it does that fall underneath this body or would that be the administration can you can you get us an answer on it I can get I can get you an answer on it I I know this is an oddball one but right if you could you know kind of then let us know um where it falls where the authority is for the it it really depends on how it's set up so I'll have to okay thank you council president Council poter thank you council president in regards to the exterior lighting on the sofits um can I just get clarification from councilman is that on primarily Second Story sofits like at at the eaves and whatnot um my initial thought is maybe having a guideline similar to how we have uh height restrictions on lamp posts Street posts because at at a certain point right like you won't be able to see it after a certain height um the dark sky compliance I don't know would really play into it because if it's underneath the sopit the s's already covering it so anything above it wouldn't necessarily be reflecting upwards um to the history of the garbage and this is just my understanding um as the the township developed and as Parcels were sold off and and developed as part of those development agreements they uh they went with private uh garbage pickup as part of those agreements as the properties were uh subdivided and eventually developed so this is going back as council president has said uh decades I think originally was like in 1960 something like that uh the township had updated uh the ordinance in 99 and recodified it in 2007 uh when I did my research last year on it the information I was Finding was dating back to the 70s and 60s from the origination of how we got to this point so just wanted to add that thank you council president counc if I make a comment on that I know what the issue that thank you coun president Al brought was I don't think it is yes it is a public public private garbage issue the reason that issue has been surfaced because the residence has been taxed the garbage has been taxed by the value of the house so if there's a old house which is valued at $500,000 their garbage tax total tax is significantly lower than a million dollar house pretty much they have the same garbage the same service same number of trips so why would they pay so that is where this body probably can work with Administration to find out rather than look into public or private can we be competitive and be partial and give the fair treatment regardless the size of the house or the valuation of the house that's the problem there thank you council president thank you Council Patel we will look into this a bit further uh next person uh Vikram OSHA hello hi uh I'm VI moja 200 Compton Avenue you recognized yes so uh like I'm I'm here for the same reason actually and I did come with Alo a few years back also and I think this is my third time I'm coming for the same reason uh it's it's like unfair like uh we so I think Mr patle already elaborated on the numbers so but to be specific it you charge like 218 uh of the house value whatever the house value has been defined so for example somebody on next street is paying like $400 I'm paying like 7 60 or 800 odd 80 odd dollars and Alo is paying like $900 so why this is so unfair like you know when when I look at the other site the garbage collection site they they charge you like $30 per month twice a week so it's really unfair I think and uh and like uh I just saw like you know during this week we saw a lot of pictures about that Optimum and uh the the competitor like you know you guys you it's it's a good job like you know you should have competition uh as Mr parel explained I think we should have competition for garbage collection too uh so that uh even if we say $500 it is $500 right right so that's what my concern is too okay thank you thank you and and one more feedback I have to tell you I have been watching you guys from last seven months on YouTube and I have become big fan of you guys so it was real thing for me to see you all uh and it is like a movie for me thank you thank you uh thank you viam and like we said we are going to look into it and try to figure out please uh like you know because you know Mr lawyer told me like you know I have to look into it I've I've heard this answer like you know few times before too please look into it okay okay thank thank you wam uh next person Joy chip free sh Freeman 41 Main Street you recognized um a statement you made earlier about the Quorum and I know you said it about the audience but the Quorum needs to be AC Crosshair also when people cut people off from the Des when they're speaking here too somebody needs to knock the hammer I know you can't make them go out the room but somebody needs to tell them to stop interrupting people while they're speaking I'm just saying it's fair on both sides of the coin okay and I want to talk a little bit about fiscally responsibility and financial accountability physical responsibility responsible means not spending money irresponsibly and impulsively Financial accountability results from holding an individual accountable for effectively performing a financial activity and this is what I wanted from this Council but I'm seem like I'm not getting it and and with this Administration they're telling us like everything you guys done that has never been done before correct nobody ever has borrowed that much money in a bond in my lifetime in here been here since you lines nobody has spent close to $200 million on bonds of on money at like paying a mortgage for a house all right now the questions I asked I'm just saying that's very disturbing to me because maybe because I'm a senior and it bothers me now uh they sent the seniors over to the senior building and they had to go to the Pavilion thank God it wasn't 200 degrees a day like at normal is and how you going to have a cooling center when the air conditioner is not working all right I digress when will the remediation be complete uh for the Mercury and stuff at mini bville okay people need to know who they have to contact about the high grass in the neighborhood because rodents hide in the high grass and it's very dangerous when you're coming outside you see something coming from there because I heard that's no longer in zoning so it moveed to health or somewhere but people need to know these are the things you need to sell send to them in the mail maybe in your Illuminator or whatever but please send them to them um when is the remediation going to start on Stelton school okay uh how much money is being allocated for infrastructure how much money is being spent on the continuous water main breaks when will the streets be paid or repaved I'm still waiting over a year for the list of the streets that were PA counc Ian Jo just can you repeat the infrastructure uh you're moving too fast for me sorry okay how much money is being allocated for infrastructure okay because I see a lot of shovels in the ground but I don't see nothing else but shovels in the ground all right how much money you got that one of being spent on the continuous water main brakes when will the streets be paved or reach pave I'm still waiting on the list of streets when will we be afforded a realistic budget presentation with rehears without rehearse questions and stuff because I noticed when councilman pel asking legitimate questions about the finances uh he was berated and called names but uh if you do go back and you want to see a real presentation go back to 2020 and when you can see the mayor and everyone ask me a lot allowing them all the question questions all the time they wanted and even the audience was allowed every question that they wanted to answer about a budget and I just think that's irresponsible and and my opinion of a council that allows that you know and you don't question our money you don't question how it's being spent and that's why I have the problem with the financial accountability and I have a problem with the fiscal responsibility that's what you're supposed to be doing for us and I know we going to get you're telling me we're getting this we're getting that oh person has done all these things before but nobody has ever put me in this much debt before okay so maybe y'all don't worry about debt but the seniors do and the seniors seem to think that they're being short change because maybe does nobody thinks that their vote matters so um the seniors building I hope we get together with the cooling station and I hope we doing something better and also somebody wants to know also what are they changing the name of the Stelton school from the darthy draw building I don't know and they also want to know uh about the splash park uh why is it like a private opening or whatever I don't know why that is a private opening but I know if you go to February 2021 you will hear Tom Lany saying Joy ship Freeman you will get your two splash parks y thank you Joyce um moving on to the questions when will many be we completed with the renovations Sonia council president if I could have uh Ray porio come up to the stand thank you good evening good evening as you've noticed uh bunch of the Public Works employees came out tonight and the gist of that is to say thank you each and every one of you have a very difficult task whether it's police whether it's Public Works whether it's fire um and I personally wanted to thank this Council um this Council the councils before starting and uh with Sonia with Moren with Tom lanky um truly appreciated all of the time energy and effort that you guys have realized about us rebuilding our facilities and rebuilding our equipment and I've asked you know I I asked my people to come out I've asked a bunch of employees to come out to support pres for your specific for now for your specific question just right it was a specific question he given a speech I just was wondering if you if you caught that or not yeah I just wanted to thank you councilman Brash I appreciate understand it's the the thing I'm trying to keep no no problem um on that vein uh the I let me see if I can answer all the counsil woman ship's former councilwoman ship's questions the gym at mini reveal is down to concrete now um that means all the hazards material has been removed uh I believe they're starting on the floor the wooden floor in the next couple days that's a several week process and that should be done shortly um what else what other questions that you have that I can answer the Stelton School remediation when will it start it's ongoing it's ongoing ongoing uh I think what else you can ask a date for the the the roofing has been uh just about completed they're doing the uh tying up on some of the faser boards uh the windows should start in about two weeks and as we said before we do anything on the inside of the building we want to go ahead and make sure we buttoned up the outside of the building and then we'll continue along on the project um this is probably a year-long project okay and uh the splash park uh I'm guessing about the soft opening would you know okay I I have President you may um that's a soft opening mayor okay mayor vent yes and it's the Edison sports teams it's the kids sports teams that are uh invited to attend the soft opening point of order please no talking outside of the person that's recognized I think Ray I think you answered everything you could so you're good uh council president the director here could I ask him question question uh let me just finish with the question that Council woman Joyce said and we'll get back to him when we get to him uh who do we contact for the high grass the Department of Health for the high grass that would be the health department Health Department okay uh how much money is being allocated for infrastructure specific to overall in the capital Bond ordinance I would think of just refer to the capital Bond ordinance okay so what's the total number so 28 mil roughly uh no it's not because part of that is also for other items Council pointer if you know uh on a separate question in fact just while that information is being pulled up about the uh Road resurfacing um when that will be performed I don't have an exact date obviously but I did notice on our on the bid opportunities on the website that we should be getting uh the bids are due one was due last week and one is actually due tomorrow so hopefully we will have that before us uh fairly soon um thank you council president thank you Council pointer uh well Sonia do you have the answer yes 16 million about 16 million okay and uh are we changing the name of the school there is no plans to change the name of the school and there was a question on the continuous main break I didn't quite catch it I don't know if you caught it about the water main brakes uh councel uh Joyce unless you recognize I don't want you know anyone to speak point of order Jo thank you so I didn't quite understand the question rather it was a comment it was a water main brakes do we have a estimated cost as to how much it costs on all the water main brakes it could depend on how large scale it could be so if there's a specific one I can certainly give you um a cost estimate of what we spent last year yeah that'll be good so follow up before Wednesday okay all right uh now it's open to anybody that would like to speak anyone raise your hand Elizabeth Conway 20 Netherwood Circle you recognized okay just two things I moved in to Edison 41 years ago and my sister already lived in town and she lived over off of planfield a and I live off at Inman AV and when we compared our garbage bills mine was more than hers not by much but it was more than hers and when we start to compare she had Town garbage and I had private garbage but then when we figured out that she was paying so much per the assessed value of her house versus me paying the assessed value of my house it was cheaper to stay private the only difference was if I had any kind of special pickups I have to pay extra over and above my garbage to the private Carter whereas in the town she can call and they'll go pick it up so it it depends on how much you're getting in and out but if I have a choice I'll stay where I am because it's cheaper in the long run and the reason they had given us initially was because so many different uh housing developments were coming about and the town couldn't keep up with how much garbage they would need to do now a number of years ago they started going back to and I know off of like Featherbed Lane that went to town garbage versus private and it looked like our area of town were was going to and I just kept my fingers crossed that it wouldn't get to where I was so this way I wouldn't go so much higher so that's kind of the history so depending on the give and take that was uh the difference between private garbage and public garbage but my only question is regarding this Bond and within the bond I'm told that so much of it is for road now in the past we used to get every year so many roads would be paved and there'd be a cost to that many roads being paved and that was in its yearly budget I don't understand why this is becoming a capital Improvement because it's only going to take in part of the town or is this Bond going to take care of everything else because a to my understanding a capital project is for something special where roads are not special this is something that you're going to do well past any of us living our land is going to need uptake our roads are going to need uptake so I don't understand if somebody could explain why road work would be a capital project rather than in our yearly budget and then the final thing is I know I missed I usually look at the the agenda before I come and I believe it was last month I looked at the agenda and I didn't see anything so I waited to go to Wednesday but I heard on Monday there was a something to do with a budget presentation now a number of years ago there uh I think it was mayor lanky I think it was lanky he gave a presentation over at middle six college for the budget and I remember it was in July or August and I was dumbfounded that he was doing a budget for that year in August and I'm like you know it's almost over why are you doing it now so I was kind of glad to hear that the budget's now been moved up but we really didn't get a chance to come out and specifically here the town budget because it's getting so pricey it would be uh more beneficial and I think people would feel better if they heard more about what's being spent in the town and that's it thank you thank you Elizabeth for enlightening us with the history uh as for the capital versus yearly budget Sonia can you answer that so Road improvements always been part of a capital Bond ordinance um and the reason why it's because of the life cycle of uh Road improvements yeah so generally what capital budget is is anytime we have a really large expenditure we look at the prodct whatever that we're building and how long that life cycle is so I think roads are 15 years if I'm not mistaken K do you know how long we expect the roads to last it's for resurfacing generally uh up to 15 years correct okay so we have we assuming 15-year life cycle on those and th we always have been Capital expenditures um moving on anybody else that would like to speak all right seeing none can I get a motion to close the public portion motion to close second all right motion by Council vice president second by councilman Coy all in favor I okay moving on to number five review of minutes any questions or comments all right number six report from all Council committees uh starting with my right councilman brusher um yes I I was talking with some of the people on the cable committee uh we had discussions uh the other day that since Comcast is coming in we're looking to get a a point of contact from Comcast um I mean it's great that they've come here um you know it does bring some competition I believe and I I think competition is always a good thing um you know this is something that they just decided to do but we'd like to have a point of contact so that when the residents call and they say you know they opened up my lawn and they did this and they did that that um well we could actually do a followup um as oppos to put it on the administration because when we did optimum optimum was on the administration the past administration and this Administration and and they actually did a horrible job of of any sort of followup with the cable companies you know they're too busy I guess um doing roads or or cleaning the parks um but residents were actually very upset with Optimum um their service actually got a lot better right once we had this committee and this committee started working um the committee solved 99.4% of all problems from Optimum um even from council members and and your neighbors that you've come to us with um it's not our job to do it but to to help the administration I'd like to see if we can do this with the um with Comcast so if we can get like a contact from a trouble shooter there from the administration um I believe they they have someone now we'd like to get that for the committee um and that was that was kind of the extent of you know what we had there um I mean we did talk about our Township uh Broadband which we still don't have answers on because I've asked the administration they gave us a feasibility study and I told everybody now this is just jokingly okay because some of my colleagues probably have looked at the feasibility study but when you looked at the feasibility study it was feasible for a certain price point and I don't know if any Council people looked at that price point as compared to what Optimum is forget about Comcast right just what Optimum is they the feasibility study they couldn't compete with the optimum rates that we have out now so that was one of my questions from the administration we talked about the cable thing where we have $2 million to invest in this Broadband except it's not feasible and I haven't gotten answers as to why we should move ahead or move forward with it the answer I got was the equipment this is for the equipment but if it's not feasible then why are we doing it in the first place why are we spending the money and and granted it was given to us by the state but each and every person here you pay Township taxes right you pay state taxes you pay federal taxes so when you hear the government people telling you you know we got it from this other entity What I Hear in my ear is you took it from my pocket so your uncle took it from my pocket uh um so I'd still like to get those answers from the administration as to why we're moving forward when we haven't received that feasibility study redone yet or relooked at um in fact I I'd asked the rest of the council Sonia could you send the feasibility study to the rest of the council so they can look at it and then I'll bring this up as a discussion item as a separate thing for us next meeting it is posted on the website but I certainly can recirculate it yes if you could thank you that that would be it counc Brer Council m thank you council president I had an informal meeting with our director for DPW and I had a chance to drive around first thank you guys for being here and thank you for all your hard work not just team leadership supervisors but employees and staff um we touted all the great work being done but I physically had to come and see it and we had a chance to drive around I shared with uh one of my colleagues uh about the great work that's happening that they may have not seen over the last 60 days or so but we had a chance to drive in around papy park there are new uh walking paths going around Treeline walking paths uh they are absolutely beautiful and it wasn't done through private it was done by these guys in this room and some of who are not in this room who could probably could not make it tonight for other reasons in families but it kudos to you just in papani park the amount of work that's been done there is quite amazing our colleagues I know have been there already and I'm proud to say you know Edison is certainly in a better place today with this with you all of you here in addition to that I had a chance to walk through and this was probably a 45 minute you know uh tour which was jammed in we went through the entire building here uh especially downstairs all the improvements to the basement to the police uh locker rooms that were completely redone the bathrooms Hotel style bathrooms were done by this group right here not by a contractor not by somebody else and I just couldn't believe what we did with an affordable budget and got it done um it goes on and on from the lock rooms from the police department from the hallways it is completely redone down there and it's quite amazing because all of us on this Council and those who are in this audience have seen not a lot improved in this building in a long time so thank you I'm glad we had this meeting I appreciate the director taking the time and and I could have spent another two hours with them uh so I do want to share that with our committee and I hope we our next meeting we have together to go over more so congratulations guys and thank you very much thank you Council mcco and thank you d W uh Council vice president yes um the cultural arts commission met June 11th and so I joined the ray poro and DPW fan club first of all because we didn't cover this then because I I I didn't know about it then but the fante house the the um the work on the Fon house has started and it's really going in Earnest and and we are so so excited about this so thank you guys again uh from the meeting the uh still talking about some of the small ball things but uh things that uh that could enhance the township we're talking about the complex and the entrance bricks as a fundraiser some pricing is in progress that that that some pricing in progress has been made contract has to go out to bid to be done through the ba the company is fund brick it needs administrate of approval it's in limbo right now Sonia do you have any updates on that this is about the the bricks this was for the using the bricks as a fundraiser for the for the front of the complex here so we haven't fully um discussed how we would roll something out like that so at our next meeting um know Ray is actually technically not here but he's here um at next week's meeting we'll discuss with him and the mayor how we would execute that all right meaning next meeting we usually have a weekly meeting with DPW um to disc all of our projects so that would be discussed then okay um let's see uh the Edison art Society uh Tony mesero our chairman spoke to Liz Han and who is the director of the Edison art Society explained our process applications need to be filled out through Mary McAvoy given to Tony 30 days before the exhibit the cultural arts commission reviews it and approves each application Michelle sudakar one of our uh commission members wants to work with Liz which I think would be a great idea utility boxes um this is per Mary McAvoy the township is trying to get in touch with utility companies in order to make this happen and decorate the utility boxes miral locations list was given to the mayor for the second time Tony had emailed it mayor said he would reach out to separate locations any idea on the whole concept of the mural locations this this has been this has been an ask twice now sure um if you could just send that directly to me because I would have to get in contact with our attorneys to work out any specific agreements regarding the utility boxes so um I'd like to follow up with our attorneys see exactly where we are on getting those approvals um so it's it's more than just um the communication between the mayor these are actual agreements that would have to so this is true for murals and utility boxes correct we'd have to get any sort of um specific agreements between the utility companies to be allowed to do that okay I know there are several towns have done that uh but it does require agreements okay um the uh so on September 25th is the Edison jazz festival as part of of the middle sex County jazz festival um Judy Tindle who's the point person for the jazz festival had spoken to patri Patricia timman the superintendent's administrative assistant and they're looking to find a space indoors at one of the high schools perhaps if it's a rain if it's a rain date um also we spoke with once again with Ray poro and we're going to get some platforms for the dance the jazz dance troop that's going to be performing um one question we had is that we had had the opportunity to to move the Jazz Fest our jazz festival to Friday the 27th because per Amoy dropped out and it opened up Friday which would have been a great day for us to do that but we were told that that wasn't possible because the fall family Festival is being held the next day we wondered is there any possibility that we can talk about changing the date since the middle sex jazz festival is always going to be that last Wednesday through I think Saturday or Wednesday through Sunday um every year is it possible to look to moving the fall family Festival either a weekend before or a weekend after just so that they wouldn't because we could have Friday going forward so is that something we can look at we can certainly look into it okay um uh we approved bylaws we pretty much followed the uh the ordinances from the town and other parts are borrowed from Robert's Rules uh um Michelle sudakar shared a link for the Edison Poet laurate Society and we wondered if we might be able to help her in the society out maybe having readings at coffee houses or the guebo over at papani local businesses maybe at foron house um and let's see um another important question here and this is something I raised with the chief of staff but I never got an answer to it we need to raise $2,000 for expenses for the jazz festival in September uwal uh had ra had gotten $250 in a donation but we still have we have $2,350 in expenses already middle sex County granted us $3,300 for sound um the question still is who does the check get written to last year the town our understanding is the town had paid for the jazz festival um we want to know where the money would go how much do we how much we Judy suggests we might need $4,500 who does the check go to how much do we who does get made out to and we need a line item in the budget and this is something I discussed with the chief of staff and I did not get an answer so the um if I may yes the actual budget that's done to the New Brunswick um project I forget the acronym but they we don't necessarily um have any sort sort of um tangible funding for it it's something that they provide it's a grant through them which we received right and we received a little bit more when per thoy dropped out okay so um all of the expenses actually go through them and I it's my understanding they pay the artists themselves so what your what additional are they looking for additional funding yes okay so if they're looking for additional funding I could just make the suggestion that given that it is usually a count a council representative come out come out of the Council budget um I don't if it comes out of my budget it's neither here nor there to be honest with you it's a very it's a small nominal amount however it's a community event so looking at all community events it could come out a recreation so if you just um actually shoot me an email with the request for the funding that's usually how it's done and we can certainly then allocate the proper funding for that okay great um and finally um Diana jaffy is uh she's a member of the domestic violence uh team and uh she'd like to make it known she'd like to make it known that this domestic violent team exists and wonders if maybe we should do an exhibit supportting the gallery signs silhouettes of women and men who have died as a as a display um so this is a this is another project we might want to to take on um lastly and I wasn't here for this part because I had to go to the library board meeting but uh Kathleen carluchi brought up the rise up chorus the local choir the director director does fundraising might possibly have them for the fron house by the Tower or by the towers um and we'd like to promote we'd also like to promote scouting we haven't had any luck yet but we'd like to promote them in the gallery uh we have no meetings scheduled for July as of now right now the next meeting is August 13th moving to library board that was also on June 11th um Miss Massie stated she attended the njla conference and it was quite good some topics that were discussed were artificial intelligence and book sanctuaries as Massie mentioned that Jenny pooh director of the hobok and free public library well this already happened discussed the book sanctuaries on June 18th at the New Jersey library trustee Association Miss Massie said the library has uh collection development policies place to book sanctuary and support intellectual Freedom so basically this is the uh this is to make sure books that have been banned elsewhere are still available um as M Miss messie announced the next meeting of the friends of the Edison Public Library will be held July 10th um Alan kimman the the director stated the 2023 audit had started was expected to be completed at the end of July he provided an update on the Sprinter van that's the smaller van it's currently being repaired and should be back this week uh he stated that North the North Edison project will go before the planning board in July and should be going to bid in August he thanked the staff for the work preparing the main branch for renovation the first floor has been gutted He also mentioned that he was looking for the Strategic plan and wants to reimagine the Clare Barton Branch to make it unique there continues to be good support from the community uh he said the regular bookmobile is going gang busters its principal way of doing Outreach he is looking forward to the summer schedule and speaking of summer schedule the library will be adding three extra hours at the main branch and two extra hours at North Edison and Clara Barton branches um it was acknowledged the shared Serv Services agreement is still needed um the summer reading program begins June 20 began June 22nd this year's theme is Adventure begins at your library uh uh it was also mentioned that the library is offering online cooking classes through the library Chef the next meeting of the library board will be on July 9th that is all thank you thank you Council vice president councilman P Council pointer none at this time Council m not at this time I'd just like to Echo my Council colleagues and thank the DPW uh driving around town this past four weeks I've seen a tremendous amount of Roads uh paved and trees being planted and all the 90 Dee weather so thank you very much for your uh for your services thank you Council M and none for me as well uh moving on to point number seven point of light any council member have point of light Council pointer thank you council president um the month of June is Men's Health Awareness Month many people men particularly do not take proper care of ourselves uh I do not have the number in front of us or in front of myself but I believe it was about 60% of men actually don't go for regular checkups uh as someone who's about to be entering the age of 40 uh particularly with like PSA prostate cancer and such like that I just want to make it known that it's important to make sure to go see your doctor thank you council president thank you councilman pointer any other council members all right seeing none couple announcements on my side July 4th celebration starts at 300 p.m. the fireworks starts at 9:30 :30 p.m. at Lake papani uh Township offices will be closed on Thursday July 4th and for the July Council meetings they will take place on July 22nd which is the work session and July 24th which is the regular meeting uh moving on to number 8 uh 2024 calendar year Municipal budget and solid race budget A and B any questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to number nine from the business administration a through D any questions questions or comments yes question um councilman bresser the um the increases are are these the same that we've given to the other unions yes they are okay and do we have a count um that more than a majority of the Union supported this yes okay thank you thank you Council Brasher any other council member uh a question for me for a what is the purpose of us doing it with Township of mro does it make it cheaper for us it does when you do it in bulk okay all right uh moving on to number 10 councilman pointer sorry sorry I didn't see you there um just in regards to uh 9C and 9d um as was stated before the good work that our Department of Public Works does so I am happy to see the contract before us thank you council president thank you councilman po pointer uh moving on to number 10 from the Department of Finance 8 through F any questions or comments um yes council member pressure and and this could be tied into number eight um so we're we're going to adopt the final budget um but we have a resolution to amend the budget do we have to do one before the other yes procedurally we do the resolution to amend the budget and then adoption since it's not a major Amendment uh we're still allowed to adopt the budget Wednesday evening well who who determines um major because whenever I talk to the attorney well not not not you but when L's here you know we change it an is to ath it's a major change oh no I'm sorry it was Michael we changed stuff like just change one word it was a major thing um but let me ask another question about that what are we actually doing with that where's that money coming out of we're reducing a number correct the bottom line for the budget amendments are are a wash they're basically zero each other out they do these are technical amendments that came from the state uh the state goes through after we submit our budget that's been introduced and they go through and do a detailed analysis of our budget and uh basically they came through and recommended that we make these certain technical amendments uh there no nothing where the bottom line it doesn't impact total Appropriations total revenues or the amount to be raised by taxation and what was the reason for making those changes and what exactly were those changes uh they're outlined in the resolution I could pull up the resolution if you well get it like I right I I see that but the public just sees amended 24 right so so again it's it's about kind of getting it out to the public so what were the changes and and and why would the state make those recommendations it's all according to the budget examiner for example uh we're using our remaining arpa funds the American Rescue plan funds in the budget and they direct us in addition to anticipating it in as a revenue they want us to offset an item of expense a specific item of expense not just the bottom line amount to be raised by taxation so just to simplify it and to have no problems with uh their interpretation of how we're using the money we're applying it against police salaries and wages okay so so the overall budget you're saying is going to be net zero right we're not going up we're not going down correct but the police salary and wages we're going to have an increase in no what'll happen is if uh the the amount that was in police salaries and wages will be decreased by the amount we're using from the American Rescue plan funds and then we'll have a separate appropriation for that American Rescue plan funds so bottom line is they both equal where we were at at budget introduction okay so so what was that $700,000 correct okay so so you put 700,000 from the rescue plan money into the police budget and then you took 700,000 out of the police budget where did you put it into American Rescue plan money into an appropriation for that boy you lost me with that one um so you you you you put it in and you took it out and you put it back into the same category correct really okay um I'll take that I'm going to have to relisten to this as I talk to an accountant on this one I think but yeah it's it's unfortunate but uh the state does this they go through like I said in great detail uh they we we had to amend certain things uh because of recent changes in state law uh with respect to insurance andity bonds some of it was inside the cap some of it was outside the cap and they wanted us to make some minor changes and put more inside the cap than outside the cap uh but again the bottom line did not change now that document that you sent that I have right does that have the all those changes in the budget because you know it was I seen I only seen the one XL Spreadsheet I think it was um that showed the number um in thece police you know where that was but it didn't show me that it was going back into the American Rescue plan money oh the budget summary no CU we didn't change that because the bottom line didn't change it's just like a subac account breakdown of police salaries and wages if police salaries and wages was a million dollars at budget introduction uh between the appropriation for police salaries and wages and the American Rescue plan it's still $1 million it's still the same all right I'm not going to take any more of your time today but I will call you tomorrow sure um to go through what I received just to kind of go through and so you can show it to me absolutely thank you thank you council president thank you anyone else uh council president um just on the other item in regards to I think it's sanitation just to explain that for the publish reference uh we are taking money from other expenses and as being allocated towards the retirement uh the retirement fund uh to councilman Brasher's question uh I think it was last year's budget but if you look under police they had the arpa funds listed as a separate line item so if if it was presented how it was originally presented here that 25 million number would have been 29 but they broke it out similar to what this amendment does uh again just for example purpos when you talk tomorrow thank you council president thank you Council pointer anyone else right seeing done moving on to number 11 from Department of Health a through C any questions or comments question back a all right um we're amending the membership of the official continuation of the Edison Township sustainable Green Team um I didn't get to look at the backup in this so can somebody explain what we're doing and and and why we're doing it Sonia sure so this is reappointment of the members um it's my understand the current members they're just reappointments um we do need to do that uh before we so we applied for sustainable Jersey and uh we there are a couple things that we need to get done and this is one of them um to reappoint those members or members to The Green Team okay so this is just a technicality we have the same people yeah nothing changed as far as I understand okay perfect thank you anything else Brer thank you Sonia councilman poter thank you council president uh along the same lines for item a I'm happy to see the appointment reappointments um sustainable Jersey offers the township a lot of opportunity particularly with grant funding so um and the guidelines that they recommend for us to earn points which go towards like Tree City status um and other uh other like comparison purposes uh it's at the end of the day this is a great thing thank you council president thank you counciler and I agree I think this is a good thing to get grants and we should continue uh moving on to number 12 from the Departments of planning and Engineering a through F any questions or comments council president Council vice president um the 56 Elliot Place um and it's going there will be this will be unit for five people is that correct yes I just wonder because it's I looked it I looked it up and um I were I I guess I'm concerned about the size and are we talking about this would be for five individual people to be occupying rooms in there from what I understand this is like a group home that people are constantly moving in and out of correct currently it's a four-bedroom there's construction so it'll be a five-bedroom so the units equal bedroom bedroom regardless of size do they share so they share kitchen space or justes someone come correct it's a group home okay all right thank you okay uh anyone else council president councilman Brer oh um counil okay um as far as that that group home who Edison owns that building that that home son so there's a deed restriction so uh if the attorney could just elaborate um other than that there's really not much to it other than the deed restriction it's usually 30-year deed restriction or up until the sale yeah it could be anything um I'm not sure about the specifics of of this deed restriction but it could be 30y year it could be 10 um that that's generally how that works let me let me tell you what a problem I have here and and I'd like this body to look into this um I I just became aware of this so so here's a a home right it's a group home I think everybody would agree that we need things like this um it's privately owned it's not owned by the township okay the township is going to give money they're going to end up building an extra bedroom this person will hold on to this property receiving State funding to pay the mortgage and everything else right to take care of the people in ins side which is a good thing but then at the end of the day after 30 years he doesn't have to keep it as a group home because right now this goes towards our COA obligation is that correct like the these group homes and senior homes is all part of our COA so yes so when we have a COA obligation this is the biggest scam pulled on the taxpayers of New Jersey okay they have this COA thing where we're required to build lowincome um so that we have everybody we have rich people poor people all within our community and again I don't think people disagree with a lot of that but here's where the scam comes in somebody comes down they buy a property they get their co- requirements and instead of being allowed to build a 100 Apartments because of the Kaa they're allowed to build 120 but the 20 they got to do at the Lesser rate for affordability and that all sound it wonderful but the part that the public doesn't know is that a lot of this stuff after 30 years I've come to find out or or there's a time frame they no longer are low income so at that point they no longer rented out to low income they charge market rate and then what happens is you have a different Council body at this time 30 years later maybe one of our grandchildren sitting up here and they get told that they have to conform to the co-op obligation the COA obligation that their grandfathers took care of so as a body I think this is a major issue we should look into because we have worked um towards our COA obligation um I I know my councilman at the other side as we've looked at a lot of this but but I was unaware up until recently that there is a time frame where it reverts back and what I believe is any any public funds that we do should come with a deed restrict restriction to Eternity and where I go with that is I get that they own the place and they should be able to sell it but if they sell it they should actually have to pay us back that money at that time so 30 years from now $100,000 isn't going to be worth what it is today but it would still be nice to get something back from these people um so real quick on to the COA obligations is the that something we can change as a body here or that something that's State related and we have no say as to after 30 years it going back the reversionary um I guess nature of some of these is something that's permissible under the state law but it's not necessarily something that a Township has to engage in on some of this stuff um the obvious advantage to that being that it encourages people to enter into the program knowing that they will get those advant AG is be able to provide uh you know for the township the advantages you able to provide a certain amount of affordable housing uh under certain circumstances it can actually count double towards your obligation um for a set period of time while you work on development plans or applications for additional more permanent solutions to the problem um for these individuals they do get the advantage of having um you know State funds available to them uh while at the end of the day being being able to then sell the property and make a profit on it uh while it being restricted for you know whatever period of time it is so there there are pluses and minuses to it but it's not something that the township is required to engage in necessarily unless the fair housing plan calls for it unless the Department of Community Affair steps in there may be Builders remedy suits that come in and say we want to do this depending on whether or not you're actually in compliance with your obligations you're specifically referring to this um the group home stuff but I'm saying what councilman brusher is asking whether those Co obligation can expire after 30 years or can we extend them further uh you can extend them further uh they don't necessarily have to expire after 30 years if that's what you're asking um you you can deed restrict things permanently um or at least semi-permanently nothing's ever really technically permanent um when you're talking about land use um not necessarily anyway so you could extend it further out um you could renew it at some point the same as you would do with like a pilot um or other uh tax break uh tax advantage situation so those are negotiations that could occur in the future a future governing body could sit down and say okay what's going on with the co- obligations what do we need to do and who do we need to talk to to see what what we can do to fulfill these obligations sooner okay all right thank you counc any other comments um yes enf this is really for the attorney I'm not really sure what's going on here but I I have an ordinance right and then I have a resolution and you know in my mind the ordinance is a law um that's good you know in perpetuity and and and the resolution is kind of like a yearly thing so why do we have both like why would why are we doing both legal question yeah yeah no just give me one second because I did actually look into this on Friday because I had the same question uh and it actually made sense I believe that we had to do one and then the other one in order to do the other so just give me one second just to double check if I can pull it out did you have any other comments that would be it all right nope that's Public Works council president if I can just in regards to a I would ask the admin ation if I could see the plans of the conversion from the four to five rooms because when I look at the the property itself um I question that so if I can just see how they're converting that getting that fifth room I'd appreciate it um I pulled up the from the DCA about the deed restrictions and it says sub chapter for a period of at least 30 years provided however units located in high poverty census tracks or can go to a period of 10 years that's from the state DCA deed uh deed item if I had to take a guess on the resolution and the ordinance resolution recommends it to the planning board planning board is hearing it would then figuring to hear it before the ordinance adoption which would be at the next meeting July 17th our next meeting here I believe is like July 24th at which case we would have the planning board's review of it and be able to act on the ordinance that's at least my thought process with it thank you council president thank you Council Council pres that's that's exactly right it's the resolution to refer it the ordinance to actually do the adoption so so in the past what we did was we would do the resolution first then they would come back to this for all the other ones we've done for for all my time here in all time I've watched and then we would do the ordinance afterward so this is like fast track unlike changing Clara Barton from four stories to three stories where we dragging that out this is what I call the FastTrack project right uh because I I've just never seen the two together we've done one and then we've done the following one I think this might just be the issue of we only have one meeting in July and the planning board is in July prior to but you can call it whatever you like council president I I did confirm that and had the same question as our attorney and uh Mr North grave had worked on this and he said you can technically do it this way and again with one meeting per month um it was recommended uh that it was done this way right thank you Sonia uh any other question I just want to comment first I fully support a in this for affordable housing I don't see any scam here uh and I'm listening to my Council colleague here I he does raise a point of the of the indefinite 30 years versus that but there are multip things that happen among affordable housing first we give a chance for people to get into a home and or get into a rental for a time period and the purpose of that is to step into their career and to move up and and and and be able to afford so and if a pral homeowner benefits after 30 years after working you know a job as a driver or working a job you know in labor and they finally win the value of their home 30 years from now God bless them because we've given them a chance with our funding which is which is enforced by the state to do it the problem I see that you my Council colleague it could be disappointed is we should raise the percentage because it's only 20% so they get 10 moderate 10 low but I don't know a property today that's a full rental uh today that we can point to uh what my colleague mentioned but I will sort that out with him off off topic but this has been a great opportunity for people to who can afford to get into this and it's out there if you have a mortgage person that can help you follow through with this it's a long process but we have awarded a few people over the last couple years an opportunity to buy a home and and that's a great thing um when it comes to developers who build and build 100 units and only have to devote 20 I wish they can devote 30 I mean that that would change that'd be a game Cher so I don't see a problem and that's just what other T other towns are doing not just ours the other 534 municipalities are doing the same thank you council president thank you Council m co counc on a Sonia you can you please confirm that this falls under the Coe obligation if you can confirm that this falls under the co obligation that's number one number two is my Council said that you know looking at his background in this area is this property is owned by an individual from Edison because what I know for the fact that not just this one but there are many of this type of resolution the outside entity is coming with unknown name uh probably they are in Florida or somewhere else in some Island they are purchasing taking the advantage of these grants building it so my question on to you is can you please find who the owner is and the reason I'm saying is probably we need to look at if the same owner is buying multiple properties within the township that's number number two and number three is uh do we know the F this really fits into the fifth bedroom F it's complying with the township ordinance are we just bending backward to make this uh property affordable because we have some you know bigger houses which are expensive but that is where we should be you know giving more grants to that so three question number one does it really falls under Kaa number two is is this owned by the Edison resident number three is is is does this follow the uh our zoning ordinance in terms of f Etc thank you council president and I have the question on E and F I get it things can be done to Fast Track but not the normal case for the normal resident not the taxpayers this is something specifically done for a very obvious reason we I understand we have the limited meetings in a month of June July August but this is nothing something has to happen tomorrow it can wait for a month uh again if you are setting this precedent we have done this in the past but let's set the set the process for every single application that comes to this di so we are fair again my point is we are fair not pushing three if we know the redeveloper let's push it and get things done that's my personal request not that you know I'm against of this it's just the fairness to the other applicant thank you coun president thank you councilman p uh any other council member council president Council po I'm sorry no no no that's a I just wanted to uh just add a note and I don't think there was any ill intent in what came out but when we SP when we speak about affordable housing it's not all just lowincome housing it's lowincome it's moderate it's seniors it's veterans there's there's often a stigma associated with affordable housing and that's why I just wanted to make that statement thank you council president thank you councilman poter Council vice president yes um so I just looked up 56 Elliot place and it was sold on February 22nd of this year to youth Consultation Services Incorporated on East Salem Street in hackin saac thank you Council vice president uh any other questions or comments in counc person just want to make it clear that you know I'm not against because we have approved this it just that if it is an ed Edison business or Edison resident doing this I'm perfectly fine but we shouldn't be letting outside entities coming in because they don't have any interest in maintaining or making sure that the resident is safe and I will give the example cons K I'll be happy to walk you to the neighbor hoods and then you'll realize what the problem is I'm again not against this type of properties but you'll realize where where we land up when the owner is not from medison thank you sir council president we don't get a chance to choose where a development home goes that's not our choice if he's still talking about a he is but I mean there's you can't decide on where we is where we allow a development Place de development place or an affordable house place to be it's the applicant who comes with the home so you can't dictate where they are you can't quantify and say we're going to have uh young kids and development issues over here in the north end but not in the South End you can't say affordable house it's that's how it goes not not necessarily because we are talking about now the spot zoning I'm not questioning that I'm question that's blockb councilman Co you recognized you can you finish and then I'll recognize counc offline councilman P I see part of where you're at but there's no jurisdiction that allows to pick where people go to choose for affordable housing Andor development housing or any affordable housing thank you councilman Coyle and thank you Council P let's take this offline and I I mean if we have Edison people applying great but since we don't have that and this is what's in in front of us this is what we get to vote on uh moving on to number 13 uh a through H any questions or comments council president Council vice president on d e and f on um d and e where will these where will these materials be going so we are talking about this Pete and we are talking about grounds materials where are these planned uh Sonia sure I have um DPW here and they can expand on on it um for the grounds material um that's going to go in various Parks uh playgrounds um and on the you mentioned partac Peak Corporation the additional grounds MH there is uh pavers as well in here that's mainly going um on Oak Tree where the tennis court are being built those are for walls MH Mr poro has anything to add um but that was the gist of it in the future in the future would we be able to uh when there are these kinds of things as resolutions would we be able to have more specifics about where these things are to be placed you certainly can sometimes again with these projects they are in a variety of places okay and the you have any other questions uh well I have on on F but that's not uh that's for truck that's on truck parts um okay well the other one was for f the change order this is a big one this is uh what by my calculation of 46% increase for this change order and I I'm getting a little weary of the change orders and I'm wondering what happened here to to your to your question for your first two m um we send through just like many of the other different departments send through a more of a generalized resolution example lows right with a dollar amount associated with that it can be for any of the public buildings part Tech P one of the things they do is soil they do wall block so th those are more generalized um whether it's going to be parks around our buildings or or whatever it may be so um I can always have a conversation with you offline and tell you where our head is at generally but but it it this isn't meaning we're going to spend those dollars this means that we've taken a look at what some potential projects may be um and we've come up with that dollar amount and all depends upon weather and time and things of that nature so I I certainly can go ahead and try to give you a little B more information and again I'm always uh pretty much every one of you have contacted me before if you have any questions on any resolution that we do as far no go ahead go ahead um as far as far as the truck this is and Mark you want to come up for a second I'm G I'm G to ask Mark to come up um it's a little B more complicated um this isn't for a singular thing if I remember correctly this is to hold us over to the next bid that's correct the uh the current contract is up for rebid for actually it's just going into effect for the heavy duty truck parts and this one specifically is for Campbell freight liner Campell supplies us with a lot of different parts for a lot of different Vehicles across all divisions of the town that includes Fire Department fire apparatus uh dump trucks garbage trucks everything kind of coalesces and we've you know we've purchase a lot of similar equipment so this is one of our bigger vendors that we've taken on more and more inhouse work rather than sending out to vendors so naturally our cost a little bit on our side goes up rather than paying vendors to do the work for us we're doing it in house and if I could just add to that one one of um one of the things that we are doing is you have a lot of older vehicles that um we've started to go ahead through that replacement program in the past couple years um the freight liners is an older vehicle than what we've typically purchased or what we have left those are 14s 15s um so they require more love for lack of a better term um you know I if the township continues down the path of staying with the capital budget and doing the reinvestment into the equipment necessary you won't have these such large repairs um it came down to there was a point in time where there's nothing going on so now we're finally starting to get caught up so in the future you see those numbers drop as well okay thank you thanks Mark all right any other council members yes counc bresser um I'll tell you what I'll just stay on that that one for a second yeah right I there was a large increase I I do see that I was kind of disappointed cuz I my impression was is that with all of the new vehicles that we've approved that that number would have went down not went up by sub such a a substantial amount there um another question was G 19 rolloff containers what do we use these rolloff containers what are we going to do with these These are going to go into the new recycling center 19 rolloff containers we we don't have a current recycling center so we're starting from scratch so obviously that's just to get it going and and okay so we have a recycling center and and the rollof containers are how big roughly these are 40 14 and 14t long 20 yarders and so here I'll tell you what so there let's say they're 20 yarders my question is you have 19 containers what are we putting in them and I do understand it's a Recycling yard right so so you'll have concrete you'll but but I'm going 19 items that we're recycling what do we have that we need the 19 containers for I think Ray could maybe Enlighten us on this so again we're very excited about this project this is the first recycling center that Edison has seen in years um we we intend to do a variety of different material and what what the advantages or disadvantage depending upon how you look at it um the hook trucks that we've bought um they can hold up to a 20 yard 18 point whatever but generally speaking it's about a 20 yard rollof so you so um we're going to have whether it's Electronics or um cardboard or bulky waste or things of that nature we expect to go ahead to be able to um while one's being filled we expect to be running containers back and forth um not to mention that uh it's our intent to be open seven days a week for this recycling center so as the ba had mentioned this is some trial and error in there the container certainly won't go to w waste because we have gotten hook trucks for each of the different divisions that they can use those containers so it's like I said it's not it's not like they're just going to go ahead and sit idle we we Ed matter of fact six of them when we were doing the um walking trail around town so okay so could we get a list of the items that you're going to let let me take myc I know where you say you're going to want to replace one so that doesn't mean that that we were going to recycle eight things and you have a double because when the guy pulls it he's going to the dumper he's going wherever he's going and he's coming back by the end of the day in the inm S you're putting one back while that one's gone okay so so right so here's what I understand let's say that you have nine your guys are not going to take nine dumpsters at one time to go drop them off um that you need to put the other nine back in its place this is something where it might be there for two weeks before you move it um depending on what you're what you're using it for so I'm looking for a list because we have 19 containers I'm just looking for a list of the items that we can no problem you know no problem recycle um council president if I could just add to that it looks like according to the vendor uh and the itemization there's a discount for the amount of um containers were buying so there's about a 13 change savings so if each container is $7,000 you're L you're getting two additional free or let's say it two additional containers um that you probably weren't anticipating and getting so with that and and that's what happens when you buy in bulk so there's some savings there that we were looking at so we were able to get the two extra son listen I I I I get that I've told my wife that I got a deal on fish and rods okay that's why I bought the for once um it didn't go over well but 6 plus two right 6 plus two I'm just looking for and she's still not listening to you right all right guys Focus no problem we'll provide you a lust okay council president while the director's here it's fair to ask to ask this question what does a hook truck cost us today three 300 three plus I think it's a great investment this opportunity is that we going to start saving money where do you see this play going when when we're up and running and at two years from now convenience workflow opportunity it's time saving I mean I think it's all of the above I think it's all of the above you know we we've had some since my Inception here some very lengthy conversations regarding hook trucks um it's the Swiss Army of trucks you know you can do a rollof a chipper a flatbed a you know whatever it is that you want a brine uh a brine application to it so um I think it'll definitely be advantageous to the town but to councilman Brer specific point I'm more than happy to provide you with a list understanding that you know we we may put a cardboard dumpster there and I'll speak for me personally Joe comes to my house every day Joe is the Amazon delivery guy right so I personally would fill up a pickup truck full of cardboard and bring it down there now if you have on a 20 yard container and you have 20 other rays that are around town you'd fill up that container like that so we we just we don't know a lot of it's trial and error from the from the gecko but I will provide you the list of what we intend to do and um Ray just one thing I don't know if any I still have the floor council president yes you I just had the floor so but any overall Ry I'm not going to ask you more questions but I think just overall to the council colleagues this is a great opportunity I mean we were sitting in the Dark Ages I came here in '92 asking about rolloffs and I remember Bob hack thought I was crazy but but rolloffs have been going on in other departments and contractors around the country and around the town it's a convenience play at the plate it's a great workflow process it adds more opportunity for guys to continue working they don't need to hold a dump truck hostage when they're just doing a mulch job or they're doing a drop off of of piping or any equipment or Lumber so whether you choose to use these all for recycling or not have at it because I think you need 20 more and I I I'm looking forward to every time I see we have a flatbed we have a short truck we have these are just things have been happening in the landscape world and the contractor world for 20 plus years so exciting I'm looking forward to it and thank you thank you councilman coil thank you Ray right I wasn't done but my Council colleague shocking me telling me that we need 20 more um make it a 100 Joe it's not your money but let me go on it's only $19,000 councilman Coy please councilman Brer yes thank you uh resolution c um professional service contract for lerer architectural Engineers for a feasibility study for construction of a new garage for the Department of Public Works we're going to pay them $84,000 and and what what are we getting for this $84,000 there are inspections and there's construction oversight for the project construction oversight so you're hiring them them as like a construction manager um essentially not as a not to do a feasibility study uh no this includes construction oversight and inspection services um as well as there's some in the report itself there's some inous um see the the word all right the feasibility study struck me as as an odd um construction manager I get you want to hire him as an architect or designer I get I just don't get the feasibility study of building a garage the the primary focus of this resolution is for a feasibility study um we we know what we're looking at we know what we want to do we have an idea uh on square footage we've done a program schedule um we're looking to bring this professional aboard to put all the conceptuals together do the Environmental Research to make sure that what we're looking to plan planning what we're planning on doing that there's no problems uh that we should run into like we have with other uh Municipal facilities um and they'll put together the cost estimates of what it what it is that uh they feel the industry trend is um I think we all have some good ideas roughly um but this way when we're putting together our wants versus our needs they'll be able to kind of delineate that a little bit better of what's what they're seeing in the community um and and give us a budget to work from of um if we want to do a they believe it'll cost X if we want to do B they believe it'll cost um C dollar and they'll put the conceptual together so when we let me ask you a question I I thought we determined that we didn't didn't didn't we go out to bid for a whole CM thing and the business administrator told me sitting in this seat and her in that seat that we were going to hire someone inhouse because this here right here is you you said wants and needs right I'm saying dreams but you're asking these people to come up with your dream you know you should be able to put together a cost estimate as to what it would cost to build that building being that you're the head of of DPW and and I believe that you actually can do that I think you'll even admit that as far as the environmental impact we have a a thing it's called the engineering department and we have civil people down there that I believe are so well versed in that that they should be able to do that so my question is why would we hire an outside person if you were going to tell me as a construction manager I was on board when Ray just explained that it was a feasibility study right I'm I'm losing with what the administration has been telling me for quite some time that now is contradictory to what the director just told me so why wouldn't we be doing this in house Sonia so is there a construction manager with this a uh with C sorry so with regard to the comment on construction manag this is Project Centric so for this project specifically to raise point this is what we're looking to do uh you're talking about a separate project well I I I I understand that but you hiring like you hiring a construction manager a construction manager that you would hire and you'd pay $180,000 $190,000 a year would be doing the Jets field he'd be doing all of your turf fields your um splash park this garage right one person would do all of this um he would need somebody maybe do a little secretarial type work but but that's your construction manager you know they don't just do one project so I thought we were hiring someone not for the one project but we were doing this globally you know to look over all these aspects to give Ray guidance um towards his feasibility study as opposed to paying a company $84,000 to tell us if we could build a garage and maybe what the cost would be like this is preposterous I I'll I'll be honest with you um this is something I just I I I've heard it I I totally disagree at this point with this um this just seems like a sham um it feels like I've been lied to by the ba um the administration and thank you for bringing the truth out on this you know I I I was almost misled in this till I just heard but but I think you're I think you're mixing oranges and apples now I do this right listen with all due respect right I did this for a living for 30 years I was this guy right but when I dealt with people like you that knew something about this right they always took that on their own shoulders and they did their part of that work that's where I'm going we have an engineering department we have a DPW director we have people that are qualified to do this and we're not we're shifting this to an outside vendor and and that's where when I use the word Preposterous this is this is where it comes from okay because you are qualified you could do this you could do budgets you've done budgets um you've put together numbers I know where engineering department is so here I have a one hand you're doing it here and then you're not doing it makes absolutely no sense but for $84,000 to have somebody tell you it's feasible to build a garage is just that's plain nuts and you know what council president I I don't want to go on any more on that subject move on to my other one but that's just where I am I I've been totally let down by by this entire Administration on this one um the $80,000 for Campbell I got right the 19 H resolution authorizing professional service contract to cers engineering and design for engineering service for renovation of the site for the Angels field this year is for them to design the new soccer fields it's for the three components I believe if you look at your backup documentation they put together a conceptual they will be much like we would do with the uh Road garage they'll put together the bid documents and then they'll do the construction oversight they're going to take care of the whole thing right they're going to do the enging the whole thing and and what was the dollar amount that we had for the Angels field as as far as estimated cost yes correct 5 million 5 million is that what we approved L right with Angel few are you talking about under the capital Bond ordinance yes we we we allocated funds for the um Angels field I I thought it was 3.8 but I'm just looking if somebody can find what that number actually was you said five um it's about 10% the their class is about 10% estim I know where you're going about 10% of the estimated you're jumping ahead of me now you see where I'm going though I know you know where I going this counc presid Council are you done well no I'll tell you what my my point here with this okay and and this is for my colleagues to see um this year I'm going to say it's roughly 10% whe whether it's 9.5 or or it's 11.5 it is not the 20% that my colleagues voted on for other engineering things that I have brought up over the years um this year I think is 10% or councilman pointer would you say is this 20% uh no this is 10% but your analysis of previous authorizations I would say is misc mischaracterizing the actions of this body oh that's okay okay Council poter I have no problem with that I'll I'll find the one or two in particular that I'll bring up at next meeting I'll bring up everybody's vote and I'll read the rad call on it so it'll be fine Bring Out The the breakouts of administration design and all the other stuff thank you okay right so so tell you what on you I'm happy that you have this one and that we're kind of getting down from the 20% range down into like a 15 or 10% um that's where I was going with this so thank you for this one thank you councilman brusher uh anybody else council president councilman poter uh yes to Ray if I may um I saw in the backup that they would provide three conceptuals now I disagree with my colleague at the other side because in Home Remodeling this would be like a design and build type thing right but this is just the design aspect of it now we have a conversation whether in-house ous but that to me is separate of what is actually going on here on here this is the design aspect of it my question though is when we spoke in regards to the bond itself you had mentioned that the goal would be the buildings to be pre-cast construction is that still the intention going forward part of what the architect and and what I would what I would run a council what we just talked about with angels field where we have we awarded three different stages here with the architect rewarding stage one same exact principle and I believe it will be and that's my opinion and some may disagree with it but that's okay um that's one of the things that he's going to evaluate whether preast or um you know what we had originally kicked around was for the office spaces doing pre-cast and for the uh garage spaces doing a lack of a technical termal pole barn type situation um part of what his evaluation would put together is to evaluate those two costs to find out what's more efficient and effective for the township thank you and one other question in regards to item G with the containers on the backup it originally stated for utilizing grant funding but my understanding is that that may have been adjusted they're both grants we just switched which Grant we were going to go ahead which one are we utilizing we're going to use clean commun we were trying to do um uh clean communities and they said we couldn't use that so we're going to use our T thank you council president thank you Council pointer C president Council motion Ray um 13 C and 13B these uh Professional Services the they they they budget the project they the'll put cost estimates and what would be their liability for uh change orders I think that's a loaded question sir I it as far as their liability for change orders based upon you know they would have to do something either through Arrow or emission meaning that they were charged to do X and um they did not fulfill their license responsibility however that's really more a legal question and a question for the ba is do we have a contract to them regarding change orders is that in their contract do they have is there a skin in the game on their end for change orders I don't believe and again I I'll I'll defer to the attorney but um I don't believe that you can go ahead and VI state of New Jersey not like not like the private sector where you say it's local public contract so it's a whole different world correct we're Guided by the local public contracts La so there's uh um there's specific guidelines as to what you can or cannot do for change orders um so it really is just to go back I don't mean to give you it is a loaded question because it's dependent and we'd have to obviously prove something like that that um they did it um in a way to circumvent uh you know perhaps this Council or the Township's ability to uh pay for something or do something okay thank you thank you Council M uh anybody else all so as for me Ray I do have some questions for you sorry U so I'm not sure if you would know with the H which is the colat engineering for the Angels field there is a portion that talks about pedestrian circulation has that been finalized because open space really wants to connect Road 2 and Kilmer would not be finalized at this stage because we haven't awarded you're awarding them a contract hopefully Wednesday okay so I would like that to be really plain and clear I would like something to connect Road two and Kilmer for pedestrian walkways especially doing in that parking lot that is something open space is very interested in U now moving on to to see what why is the reason that we're hiring this company and not doing it inhouse well you're going to go ahead and have them evaluate multiple disciplines that this is what their profession is what they do it's not just a general engineer to say go ahead and put together engineering plones um this is this is what they do this is what they're and I'm sure some will will leave after this and go ahead and check their website and you'll see the multiple buildings that they've gone ahead and do uh this is going to add guidance to the township you know we have and I think there's a policy um debate that I'm kind of caught in the middle of which is above my pay grade but um they're going to go ahead and uh put together several different conceptuals cost out those conceptuals no different than what we're doing in Phase One of angels field same exact principle so council president um the reason why you get these proposals from various engineering firms just so all of the council knows is that you've already vetted these engineering firms and what that means is with all of the projects any projects that we have we can certainly go to any one of them um that is because we went through the fair and open process of vetting these engineering firms so um it it's that's really the pool of firms we use to do all of our projects throughout the year but essentially the reason we're going with them is that they're more professional and they would actually be able to give us something new information that our in-house people would not have so so they are known um just from an industry and I'm sure um Mr brusher knows having done New York construction they're structurally they are a huge um firm that does a lot of Structural Engineering so they they they are experts I would say in that field okay uh the other question I had the phase two uh is the phase one done for B the Edison courts phase one is done phase two we awarded at the last council meeting um this is for the construction oversight of phase two and then uh I believe July well depending on on a successful passage of the capital budget um we'll go ahead and phase three will be on the docket Chan okay that'll be it for me thank you r i the director but I just wanted to comment um I listen to my Council colleague and I do understand I'm in full support of this although the feasibil feasibility study for the garage um I'm in full support of this but I I am looking forward to seeing the contract uh before I vote on Wednesday but from what I'm listening if we want to have a state-ofthe-art garage uh you need to do this I'd have to say there's two things you look at when you delay things since I've been on the council we've been waiting for a DPW garage and councilman ptil and I have been on nine years we're still waiting for a DP DPW garage so let's forget about the fact of the 84,000 let's talk about all the equipment and the elements being in the outdoors and the wear and tear factor and what we lose on the appr appreciation depreciative equipment being out there this money is well used to do the right thing to get a state Art Garage that all the disciplines are in place and the workflow cles make sense what the director may think is great today in his experience would never compete with the experience of of this feasibility study so before I do vote I will look at it I will speak to my Council colleague as well but I'm looking forward to the garage finally coming together thank you all right thank you moving on to number 14 from the Department of recreation and B any questions or comments yes um Council vice president my concern about the fireworks is what is being done to protect the animals in the shelter I wonder if Dr Patel are you here um Dr patella is here and what we have is U provided temporary shelter for our animals um when the fireworks do go off meaning at places at at various houses or we've used a van in the past unless there's other plans to do something else if Dr Patel has any other ideas but we've taken him into um temporary shelter okay I'm wondering if going forward there are now fireworks that are that don't don't make the noises that don't make the booms and things like that and I wonder if that's something we might look into going forward I'm not aware of any um to be honest with you I I I I'm going to do I have some research I can send to you on that but I think I think it might be time to do that I mean it's not just obviously the animals in the shelter but it's it's all animals It's All Pets all around I I do want to just um just a statement obviously Evo however um the 4th of July is Round the Corner um and I know they made this application before the Fire Marshall and was approved um whatever that's worth so there is some a timing issue so oh I understand that I'm I was said going forward okay all right sure thank you thank you Council vice president any other council members all right seeing none moving on to number 15 from the chief of police A and B any questions or comments um yes Council brusher the uh another wording one here that I really love the the non-fair and open contract um we signed up I guess to we have CAD drawings what is this CAD this is to keep record management this is for dispatch records uh Services right now let me ask you a question why is it like um this is non bid right so what this means when it's non-fair and open that uh there were uh solicited um quotes if you will from various vendors okay to maintain this it it's like a proprietary Software System correct yes so so only the one person can work on it correct so we really have to go with that person yes and we've done it on uh a yearly basis so these are one-term contracts right but but they'll get the contract next year because they're proprietary if this same services are maintained and um adhere to what it is that we need them to do to maintain our records um I or or we're going to have to pay for a whole new system and then which would be another proprietary um that would probably be in the hundreds right so right so we' have to spend hundreds again which we've done in the past right we've done this with payroll systems here on a regular basis every every Administration figures a new way to write payroll Meanwhile my grandmother used to do payroll back in the day um I think she started with ADP but this proprietary thing uh I'd like to see if the administration can kind of come up with something and and and I'll tell you why I've recognized that this is an inherent problem um that that you have just with Town Hall you had a many fire alarm vendors and HVAC vendors and their proprietary and then you go out to other people right and then the systems don't get maintained um so is there an end around to the proprietary system not under the local public contracts law um if something is proprietary um we go through the process it is non-fair and open it's noted as such and that's um and I'm sorry the deputy chief just actually enlightened me that it's been around since he was a police officer so we've um the uh likelihood of it maybe you know being um presented to us in a different way may not be the case um but again we are following what the law allows us to do when it comes to a proprietary Software System or anything that may be proprietary in nature right I that's my okay um right and if we don't use them then the system falls apart because we use someone else and then they patch it in with their system if if if it were to be successful so we wouldn't be we don't know that uh all right um thank well thank you Council vice president and if you want me to update on that and thank you Sonia for explaining this this is there for since I first got elected and way before that the reason we have is it's more from the compliance it's a record management system so we need to keep this continuous otherwise the the migration cost and new software cost will be humongous and we might get into the compliance related issue so I'll be happy to support this one okay anything else for 15 okay seeing none 16 from the chief of fire okay seeing none from the Township Clerk number 17 17 seeing none all right moving on to number 18 from the council member of the planning board Council po pointer thank you council president plan board held its monthly meeting on Monday June 17th the following items were disc discussed or acted on uh resolutions were first acted on first was P 5254 Comm developers 70 R Boulevard minor subdivision approval and all these resolutions were approved p 11-202 2 75 Carter Drive final site plan approval P 06223 yourway construction preliminary and final site plan and p13 d2019 979 Amboy Avenue revised for number of affordable housing units under miscellaneous the master plan vote was carried until July 15th uh the master plan committee was unable to meet with the planner to discuss the final adjustments and an extension for application P 5242 for minor subdivision for 90-day extension was approved next a closed session was held in regards to Legal actions from a recent decision by the board after the closed decision or after close session the following applications were heard first was P 8-22 3779 New Durham Road LLC applicate applicant was seeking final site plan approval to demo the existing single family home and construct an office building this was a continuation of a previous hearing where only preliminary site plan approval was granted the applicant was being heard to verify that concerns by the board previously brought up were were being addressed this included the indress erress in and out of the building no left turn out of New Durham and others having heard testimony the board opened it to the public and with no one wishing to speak closed the public portion a motion was made to approve the final site plan and was voted in favor 60 with one member absent from the hearing the next applicant being heard was p02 d202 4 blueberry Village Incorporated at 453 planfield Avenue applicant proposed to construct a daycare facility on current vacant land to be a light Bridge Academy the facility is figured to be approximately 10,500 ft and would provide care from infant to pre it has an anticipated child population of 160 providing 45 plus spaces for parking the applicant's representation represent representatives and Witnesses provided testimony as to the general operation of the facility traffic impact sanitation concerns and others having heard testimony the board opened it to the public and with no one wishing to speak to close the public portion motion was made to approve the preliminary and final site plan it was voted in favor 60 again one member absent from the hearing the final matter was P22 d222 just Nation llc at 271 Meadow Road this was another continuation in which the applicant and the ad objector representative presented final Arguments for the board's consideration the final vote did not occur considering the totality of everything presented and the vote is scheduled to occur at the August 19th meeting with no other matters being heard the meeting was adjourned the next schedule meeting is Monday July 15th at 7M here in council chambers thank you council president thank you Council M pointer moving on to number 19 unfinished business ordinance for further consideration and public hearing and final adoption ordinance 2221 2024 any questions or comments counc president just just a question because this is again pertaining to uh doing the public portion we discuss this is $1.4 million Pond for sanitation department uh how this will be included in terms of taxing the resident because we do have the different tax rate but is because this is going from a specific budget or this will be part of the sanitation budget this will be part ofation okay so this will not be okay just just want to double confirm correct yeah Sanitation District thank you moving anyone else all right moving on to ordinance 2224 -224 any questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to discussion Adam so before we do does any council member have questions for this uh DPW or anybody because so we can let them go absolutely good job guys thank you keep up the good work thank you guys so you guys don't have to stay if you want to you're more than welcome to but you don't have to thank you council president if you everybody just be dismissed as quiet as possible yes okay that includes everybody you what do you uh Brian if you don't mind can you stay sorry Brian you weren't quick enough you had your chance all right uh so let me go with you first that's fine all right so I'm going to have Council vice president go first so Brian your part can be taken care of and then you can leave early okay okay ready yeah so I'm going to go down on my on my Council points to D the North Edison Baseball parking lot Paving and um I was disappointed to hear as were the people from North Edison Baseball that now it doesn't appear that the paving is going to be taking place till close to the end of the season or after the season is that correct that is correct yes um was there a delay because I seem to recall that when this was brought up earlier this year that it seemed like this would be done either before or during during the season was there a delay in assembling the bids we had to cancel a bid due to uh conflicts with the water and sore Department projects and that was on that part of the bid so we put together a new list of roads and parking lots to replace those roads it would be Contra it's contract 3 and once I get the okay from Administration we'll be putting that set out to bid do you have a Tim table now on when this can start because it's really in bad shape and it is a hazard to people who could F who could trip and fall and all the different pox and and pothole kinds of things in there until we go through the bidding process and award it it I can't give you a t an exact time frame all I can say is towards the end of this year Council Vice President also this being on the capital Bond ordinance as an add-on um obviously it'd be subject to funding um but we are taking that into consideration having the parking lot I just want to know when we did go and do out the inspection there was are no um eminent hazards that uh would or could um could I guess um were unsafe that it couldn't be used in you know during the season now so that's how we based it in in terms of priority on safety correct right can can there be any temporary patching at all done I can talk with DPW to see what they can do for us temporarily yes I I think at least having that would be would be something so thank you for staying you're welcome thanks do you want to just go on with you can all right um all right so I had a resident who approached me about the crime and the burglaries the house the the the house invasions and I was wondering about um and and it seems like this has been a big topic lately um I'm wondering if we have any statistics on home invasions in particular uh if they have in fact gone up this year over last year and in the meantime what and also what remedial actions are being taken on this so um deputy chief good evening everyone so in regards to the uh home burglaries um alome home invasions with the anticipation of them trying to steal a vehicle through the use of key fobs that's pretty much what most people are referring to um we started off the year with with a few like literally right out of the gate um we did in fact step up our efforts significantly um in terms of a Personnel uh Township wide primarily North End however um Mark units unmark units um extra patrols directed patrols a lot of other things including decoy cars that been mentioned and as a result we have seen a certainly a decrease in the numbers over the last few months and I can say that it's certainly a contributing factor is the efforts of the Edison police department in making that happen do you know do you know for the year for the previous year statistics last year let's say until this year do you know if the reports of home invasions or um your logging of home invasions has been higher than last year I'd have to I'd have to compare the two I don't have statistical information in front of me um we certainly had a significant number of last year like I said the year started off literally there was a couple two or three right out of the gate right after the first of the year um and we have had some in the last 6 months but overall the numbers are uh down okay now I can't compare down from last year I'd have to compare the two yes if you can if you get those statistics I would I would appreciate sure I'm hearing about more high-tech going on in terms of these burglar so whether it's finding a way to disable um the cameras or whether I'm hearing about cameras that they are placing in bushes of of residents houses to to be able to keep track of who's coming and going and when they're coming and going all right I can't I can't vouch for that part of it I can tell you that um most of the burglars that were're dealing with in terms of these home invasions are juveniles or uh early or late teens I should say um uh as far as their high-tech you know knowledge if you will I mean they're using in many cases cell phone communication they have Lookouts um they're using stolen cars that they're stealing elsewhere to now try to steal another car um whether they're using cameras or not I'm not entirely sure I'd have to do some investigative work on that but uh for the most part they're not overly Hightech you know they're they're prying open uh in many cases a window or sliding door um they're they're looking for key fobs and they're ultimately trying to steal a high-end Auto auto you know vehicle so as as far as them being over high-tech not that we've seen But U they may have some that are using some more technology that we're not aware of now on the flip side obviously we're using quite a bit of technology in terms of cameras and alprs which is very beneficial in us trying to locate these stolen cars to determine when a stolen car enters our jurisdiction so we have some advanced warning of that so we can now dispatch units into that area to deal with again a potentially stolen vehicle trying to steal more vehicles okay all right thank you deputy chief you're welcome um next one is the greenway when I bike The Greenway a lot and what I've noticed is that there is a terrible lack of benches of seating for people who walk the greenway and I'm thinking especially for seniors this is this is a a big problem and I know that the greenway is um run by the county but the idea that I had and I really want to speak to to I actually wanted to call Santi Nara one of our County Commissioners and talk to her about this but I wondered if I I had a a thought about uh if there was a way for the Edison Corridor of the greenway um if we could this would be something that the cultural arts commission could could do and it could be a great fundraiser if there was a way that we could do some fundraising and have companies corporations private people who would sponsor a bench and then if we wanted to have some of the our local artists paint the benches or whatever and the bench would then designate the the donor's name um I I understand this is kind of a thin needle to thread but I I wondered if there would be any possibility for some kind of coordination between the county and the township at least for the Edison part with uh where benches are concerned anyone uh Sonia trying to clarify the 4th of July event um here for Council Vice President we were working simultaneously your question was related to the the benches in the the benches so um I'm trying to get some confirmation regarding the benches in the greenway that you'd requested so I'll get back to on that one yeah it's it's about coordinating through the county it's about uh if the cultural arts commission could use that for a fundraiser and go to corporations companies or individuals and have them sponsor the benches that would be so that they would be paid for and would give people a place to sit and then we can have artists decorate them we can do that in the same manner that you mentioned about the um the uh Stone right so we can discuss that as well please let add that onto your agend to the agenda of items okay uh trash another in my biking adventures coming back on Amboy um a couple of weeks ago the trash strewn about about Amboy that curb sides was really really disgusting it's disgraceful and of course it's not just confined Amboy it's all the main quarters of Edison um and it's something that that so I have seen for myself I've had a lot of Resident complaints about it um what can be done about this um it's it really does not show a better side of Edison we've had this ongoing uh back and forth with do to to hold them to these issues um again I'll certainly circum circulate that to our engineering department to make sure that if there all of the corridors are being addressed um so it's an ongoing issue unfortunately we've been dealing with do okay lastly rebr again we come to the rebroadcasting of the council meetings so I was told last that it was moved from 10 p.m. to 900 p.m but for seniors that's really not much of a difference and if you're talking about meetings that are three hours which they so often are I don't know how that helps the seniors I'm not sure what the resistance is to moving this to a much more feasible time that would accommodate the needs of people who are not going to stay up that late but want to be kept informed of what's going on um I don't have an answer for you I said communicate with the mayor um certainly regarding the time and time change do do you have any idea when the chief of staff told me that it was being moved from 10 to 9 do you have any idea what res what the resistance is to moving this to something more like 600 or 700 p.m. I I don't get this I I don't I don't have that all right I would this I really really would like an answer to this has come up over and over and over again and um I I am not satisfied with this at all thank you thank you Council vice president moving on to councilman brusher for budget I um I was going to go through all my items that I sat down and and spoke about on the budget um but seeing that my colleagues have an extensive list um I'm going to make more of a general broad statement I did sit down with the um Administration and with a few of my colleagues at the other end um that they gave us time to to review the budget um in in looking at the budget in general there's areas that we have of like Surplus or reserves um that we have that we increasing and I'm not even debating whether that should be increased or not we also had many many items um I I I could probably number them up there's probably 50 or 75 um we had income that comes in where I disagreed with the administration on the numbers that they use um they went with a more conservative number and I'll use a number like the Latchkey program which was a milliion 721 but the administration's figuring that they're only going to take in a million6 which leaves $121,000 of Revenue that they'll probably realize over the course of um next year and and that in itself isn't really a problem um then we go to certain things like like our um expenditures where last year and I'm going to use the council as opposed to going through any one department and picking on a department um but the council itself had $121,000 left over last year unused in the budget um and as opposed to us reducing those costs we're going to carry those costs moving forward so they're going to end up being um used elsewhere or they'll be used for reserves later on and well that in itself again is an an an issue um so not one of these three is an issue but when you add all three together when you add the Under reporting Revenue coming in and then you know kind of over figuring you know what you're spending so you're carrying a higher number um it's basically over taxation um in in my mind um and with my colleagues we we did talk about this um we didn't use the word over taxation I think somebody said whether we whether we come in at 1% you know 0% 2% 2 and a half% or 3% right it's it's a judgment call um based upon your elected officials you know in when I went through all of this I came up with approximately $9 million we could be below zero and I'm not advocating for below zero but I was advocating for more for something that was more sustainable so that we would do more like a 1.7 every year and just do that as opposed to this up and down that that we typically see um which to me revolves around like political campaigns um you know my fear is that we have this number now and then next year what we look at since it's a political campaign for um you know Council people in the mayor we'll will'll be at a zero right or at a 05 which to me means the administration went and did the over taxation of the public you know this year to make it look like they were Heroes next year um but because of these many issues I do believe that we could build everything we choose to build I do believe this budget could be reduced below the 2% easily without affecting any aspect in the public you know you can't say that we're going to cut from any children or anything or any park work because I'm I'm not talking about that I'm talking about spending what we appropriate the money for so to me I believe that we are being over taxed um as far as this budget is concerned because we we have these three Avenues and well not one of them like I said NE none of them are indefensible um I can make a judgment for any one of them I just can't make a rationale for all three of them when I put all three together it looks like over taxation so with this moving forward I I'll speak a little bit about that tomorrow but I'm not going to belabor to point anymore U my Council colleagues have a lot more issues here um that are very daunting so um I'll receive my time there thank you council president thank you councilman brusher councilman Coyle thank you council president um I just wanted to also add to some discussions I had with DPW and some discussions I had with other Council colleagues I had a chance to visit the garage the new the garage that's been updated and I have to say uh when it comes to um the quality management and uh of all the parts I mean our system and parts there is quite amazing every part that a truck needs any piece of equipment is inventoried we look like you know an actual Auto you know part store if you go back to it's scanned it's it's unbelievable and I invite you know the colleagues who have may not have seen it to go check it out it's completely organized and I have to say tip my hat to the mechanics at DPW because they're doing a phenomenal job on inventory when it comes to cost savings that Mr brusher mentioned here and and in his opinion we have had some great cough savings when it comes to that department amazing I imagine our tenure to today has been a significant difference and I was just amazed on how everything is in a really a tech operation when you scan out a part they know what truck is going on uh and how long that part will last um quite interesting they they have a parts counter so you can't leave with something without checking out and being scared and and and qu and not to include all the other things we do asides what we may have not have done before uh we handle all truck repairs there so I thought that just a quite a quite amazing feat um and I'm very impressed I was listen to my Council colleague uh Council vice president about our different home invasions and and things that are happening and um never happy to hear that always believe that we should be on the front but I'm also proud that we hired more cops in in in town and we've also made some significant changes to to you know apprehend different people and the public safety meeting we had um in you know in closed doors we've made some Great accomplishments in in Catching people and although the the police chief may not brag about that we've done some great things and I'm truly proud of of of that accomplishment so um never hurts to continue to push to have more safety but I think we've had some Great accomplishments um to the ba to the council president where are we with our economic developer the position for economic development so we did go through the process uh received um a bunch of candidates went through the interviews um quite frankly we didn't find anybody that was qualified under the economic developer position um so what that led us to believe is I believe we need to look more for someone with a position that has planning expertise a planner if you will um that we could hire to work on uh what the vision um is for economic development so we're going back to the drawing board um recirculating a a job description if you will for a PL for planning Services um I know it's difficult to actually get someone who is um on board for planning services we often usually get professional service contracts for those for those things but it would be really ideal to have somebody inh house to work on that so that's something we're now going back to the drawing board uh to provide more of a planner um planner uh Vision if you will okay and another questions I have is you know we we discuss in different Finance meetings and as a council uh some colleagues certainly have expressed us doing some strategies that Woodbridge and carat have done with Redevelopment and what carat does is they have a Redevelopment agency and they also have an entity and what an entity does is they purchase property and they you know get together with the community and they develop and design what the community wants and what makes economic sense and after acquiring that property and getting the development rights they sell that out to bid to a developer in the in the town makes a profit um mayor McCormack spoke in his um state of Township address of the 15 plus million dollars they put back into their budget and and just curious when are we going to when it looks at Ken to through the council president to Ken it you do you hear some of the part I'm saying where the towns create Revenue in in doing this what I'm getting at is wiring we doing it and collectively as a council for some people who may or may not believe in it this isn't is a no-brainer instead we're allowing developers to develop property they're making the profit and and and and making a run the township some things we don't want in town the township could create an economic development agency um and which has been done in a number of instances around the state uh it is in like an independent Authority a separate go government entity requires approval by the local Finance board and yes the funding can go directly to the Redevelopment agency or through the Redevelopment agency to the township so it could become an additional source of Revenue you know through the council president I hope through the ba and Ken we can sit down with some of the council and the other part of the council to walk through this process because you know all we see from here and what the audience sees is developers developing property and and residents feel they're getting rich and it's not what they want in their neighborhood and and and I and I agree and where do we take the step in acquiring property you know and and the other part today I see is we have nothing in our bond for you know for acquiring property today and I'm fine with that but at a different time are we able to bond can we add money in our and another separate bond to do that you could certainly do a separate Bond ordinance uh for any acquisition just like we did with silver lake or anything like that so that's um separate Bond bonding mechanism if you will for acquisition okay because what you know if anybody has not got a chance to watch the mayor carteret's say the township address or the mayor wber State the township address they continually acquire property before a developer does and they they create something that the community wants that's e economically feasible to sell two out to bid and each time they make profit this is this has been talked about we just never have done it and we this council's talked about creating revenues this is a easy Revenue opportunity for us that we let go to builders and developers that we can take advantage of I'm just wondering when and hope I'm just asking to call a meeting that we sit together to look at this because it's a strategy that two Mayors are doing right now they've made 40 plus million back into the tax tax base May mayor Woodbridge taking over property 40 plus million across the last 10 years and we've done nothing so I know it's it's not a politically friendly thing to do but it's it's important that we at least look at this opportunity before something else coming to our residential neighbors that we don't want uh that that we hear the highest complaints over so I I'll yield my time to the next uh council member thank you very much thank you councilman Coyle uh councilman Patel thank you council president and thank you councilman Kyle for giving me the time uh the question on the Master Plan update I saw the update from my Council colleague it's moved to July 15 at the same token we do have the resolution pending with the planning board how that's coming on uh because you know I did see some properties on cell when I was in that neighborhood uh unless we really finalize this master plan which is getting moved month after month it will impact that neighborhood and hopefully do we have the definitive day that by July 15th in by August something is going to happen in terms of the master plan or it still going to be the master master master yeah the master plan that's up for July if I'm not mistaken yeah is there any reason that you know this is getting moved because I'm hearing this from last good two years now after it was developed so it wasn't it wasn't the administration's uh call on this I believe that there was some additional information that uh the The Firm was requested by the committee the subcommittee um so that's why and then there was a uh sent over to the planning board so with that we only have one meeting in July and that's why it's pushed out that far and are we like again to ask the question in black and white are we sure that this will go through in July 15th again it's up to the board to that's a planning board yes but will this be on the July 15 that will not move again further in August or September is that's the Assurance I'm I we will we will certainly aim towards that okay thank you the next one is a flooding again this is I'm following up for many many months you know some of the areas that I did add I do see certain things in bond but not everything especially Summer Street uh I don't know what's happening with car cart I did not see very specific to calart the more important now is yes these are the old project but the JP Stevens we ended up closing the school this you know student lost a day and you know the school got extended is there anything we can probably snicking into this year's budget uh not the budget but in terms of any infra work uh JP St gr Avenue flooding we could so what we did in the bond cap in the capital Bond ordinance was put in a uh blanket number for situations that arise just like this so we I'll take this over to engineering to see if that's something that can add into that line item in the capital Bond ordinance thank you uh the next one is water stream cleanup scheduling in fact I was involved in couple of those in past during mayor Lan's uh Administration now this is another uh when I visited Winding Brook area that neighborhood it's very decent neighborhood uh close to million dollar house and what we found is the the stream I don't think it is ever maintained uh or anyone even looked at that so if you can please have someone to go there look that neighborhood because it literally eroding the backyards of the residents and they have no idea where to go and that's exactly the reason I'm bringing this up if you can please follow upon the winding Brook area uh water stream area and if you can put them on schedule for the regular cleanup that will be helpful uh next one I received the email uh updates on the Kilmer Cricket field uh thank you Ray for responding uh to that request the council meeting broadcast schedule my Council gague thank you Council vice president I'm again same sentiment I received many phone calls from Seniors uh they can hardly watch these Council meetings again I have no idea why we change the schedule uh of broadcast schedule for the council meetings and I don't know what is happening with the zoning meeting and planning meeting broadcast there but that's certainly a concern the budget thing you know I received the most of the information thank you uh Sonia thank you everyone you know giving that information very helpful I might have couple of questions but what information I have is good enough at this point in time and you can expect another email or something asking additional the funding for various youth programs we discussed this few times I was told that we are going to revisit possibly impact on a budget small not the huge but have we finalized the numbers yet okay so um we had a study done um right now it's in draft mode um reason being is because we need to go over all of the financials and the impact that it may have because there are impacts to all of the um to all of the youth um some some could be negative some could be positive so we want to make sure one that that does obviously doesn't adversely um uh affect any of those current ones that we have been funding for the last few years uh there's several recommendations that are going to be coming down to the council uh we do need to discuss this with the mayor to go over our findings um we appreciate the help of Mr Brer there was a lot of historical knowledge and based on you know why the calculations were done the way they were so the recommendations that we hope to bring to this Council are that they are um consistent across the board not just from a calculation standpoint but from a policy standpoint that one we really look at the um field usage uh any user agreements and what would qualify these groups um and I'm talking about only youth I'm not talking about adults I'm just strictly talking about youth so that did happen we did dis I I discussed it with our financial team what that looks like what that means but we do need to meet with the mayor just to let him know that there are impact and that there are several recommendations um obviously so but our first and foremost um hope is that we don't adversely affect anybody in in the immediate future so we don't anticipate just to get back to your question we don't anticipate changing anything in the budget okay okay and maybe not even in the next year's budget because we do want to give everybody time to understand potential changes that would come down the road understood I was in fact you know expecting increase in the budget so that we can incorporate the new sports who applied and that's what my Hope was but if if there is a way if it is recommended if we can uh circulate study or socialize that among the council member yeah we certainly will once we do finalize that we just want to go over those findings perfect thank you the last one is the senior programs because we are in summer time uh are this the senior program for the mini bille and our Woodbridge senior center they are going to be same similar any changing changes that's happening so we've um we're looking at different programming I know there was a grant with regard to yoga that um it there was obviously a limited amount of classes but we've understand that there's a need for that so we're looking to redo that we just recently hired a new Senior Services um social worker if you will um reason being is the other person that's there now is moving out of state so uh we're looking to get that person um started in the second part of uh July so but none of the programming should be changed or that obviously the seniors want to continue to do there's no effect to the clubs uh but if there is any programming that um and we've gotten emails that they want to continue yoga for instance please let us know and we'll make sure to get that across to the coordinator or even our health director perfect the reason I I I brought this up is I did receive a few emails phone calls asking specific for yoga yog right uh I know it might be on the Woodbridge Center but I don't know if we have more of those classes on the both the SES so we balance the audience there and that's the expectation is that whatever we have at the Woodbridge Center we expand that to mini Bal perfect thank you thank you council president thank you councilman Patel councilman pointer thank you uh council president if I may can I pass off to councilman sh I'm kinding of having a coffee that's councilman sh thank you council president um so uh regarding the agenda I I got uh my question answered ready uh thank you to council president and the the the clerks for uh for getting the the agenda a lot earlier I used to get a Friday afternoon I get a Thursday so thank you for that appreciate the hard work uh for being uh project manager so we touched we touched on it today um how beneficial it be to have a project manager uh that works for us and uh that does does our in-house work uh between between the uh the two Professional Services that we we're about to vote on on uh Wednesday and uh the uh change orders in the past uh adds up to significant dollars uh so project manager is somebody that would keep the project moving uh under budget minimize change orders so my question to the administration is is this something that um you would consider uh having a project manager and if so what would be the next step so I think um councilman uh Schall is uh reaching out to the mayor to discuss the potential ideas for construction manager um and what that Vision looks like for perhaps the engineering department and the benefits of it obviously uh councilman brusher we shared the um same view that it would you know be beneficial that the township have somebody in-house but again it's project dependent there's also a a cost analysis to how often you're going to have these large scale projects and do you keep someone there's always a benefit to having somebody in house um but I'd reach out to the administ to Mayor specifically about having a u role such as that okay I I don't think that the Professional Services will ever be eliminated no I understand be minimized with something like that thank you thank you councilman councilman pointer thank you and I appreciate the uh opportunity for this small break um if I can start with project status updates I had sent a list for updates on current projects that we are having to our business administrator do we have any of those updates uh not at the moment I'm working on those still so I'll get them to you I'll follow up at the uh in uh July's meeting um ordinances for consideration we had a couple previously tabled ordinances first at the end of last year was revising the definition under truck Depot and I'm hoping that we can bring that back to the table uh for anyone that may not be familiar with it it is modifying the definition of truck Depot to essentially make it a requirement that if you have a plot of land you have to have a physical structure on it if you're to house vehicles on it so I.E you can't just have a vacant piece of property that is a parking lot um the other one is in regards to the PDF requirement I am wondering or I would like to see this brought up even at at a reduced version if it's just for the application process and not necessarily putting it online uh I my interpretation of the recent Oprah law changes uh there are certain items pertaining to Safety and Security that to councilman bresser's original uh concern about certain layouts being posted online may actually conflict with that so I'm wondering if we would be amendable just on the application process of having a PDF uh requirement I'll gladly poll I will gladly do a councilman coil in the sense of bringing all my documents and showing how many pieces of paper I have from uh this year alone going forward um I'm wondering if we can take a look at a couple of additional items we talked about this uh earlier today in regards to Lighting in the sofits and just having a height value to that um other municipalities have a definition pertaining to motor vehicle service uh surface versus just uh surface area and I think that's done because of drainage requirements so I would like for us to take a look at that and I know we passed the tree ordinance earlier or modified the tree ordinance earlier this year I would like for us to consider having a more concrete minimum fine for people that remove uh trees that are unpermitted I'm not talking about if you have a a dead tree in your yard and you have to take it down like obviously that's a safety concern but if you're building on a property and you clearcut like 20 trees without having it permitted for that's wrong right now how our ordinance reads it refers back to the general penalties which is a $100 to a $2,000 range I would just like the minimum to be more concrete amount uh in regards to and that would be for initiatives um if anyone is willing to help I put together a Planning and Zoning Board guide I.E like how the boards actually operate and what the processes are I just don't have the time to make it look pretty for distribution so if anyone is willing to help out and this is just a public request please reach out to me at J pointer Edison nj. I'll gladly share the document and if you can help me uh make it look nice for distribution I'd appreciate that last year Walt stal had reached out in regards to the township previously having a quality of life for sure but this dated back to 2000 and considering some of the particularly Tech technological advances we've had since then I'm wondering if we can get this updated as well in regards to potential projects that we as a council or the administration uh could consider one item I would be interested in is at parts right now we have like the signs that say by my area capestro park right I would like to have something that's next to it that actually shows maps of the surrounding area with running routes so taking capestro as an example I can give you Mile Pass around the neighborhood I can give you uh 5K pass that utilize The Greenway that utilize uh Grand View that can if you're willing to take some side rows go to Roosevelt Park um so I'm wondering if that would be something that the administration may be interested in finally for for programs um with the recent Heatwave my my wife's grandmother didn't have any AC units in her facility this just it caused a lot of issues on her end what I found out though is that there are other municipalities that have kind of like a uh a trade or a uh an assistance program where people can donate their used AC units for people that may need them so I'm wondering if we could consider that type of program here um I did have as my final item committee and board appointments with current vacancies uh my document here did not save unfortunately on all those items so I'll make sure at the July meeting to have the list of what the current vacancies and openings are thank you council president thank you councilman pointer uh as for me uh the first thing is predi safety uh Sonia I was talking to council vice president and she was mentioning the greenway and then I talked to Walt stoal and he said you know we don't have a lot of control over Greenway but what we can do is similar program for Edison and that is where I got this he told me about the 3bs program the benches bike racks and bathrooms uh they are clearly lacking in bike racks in the schools and a lot of places including the town hall we don't have a bike rack here um is there plan to increase bike racks throughout the town I don't see there why not uh is going to be my answer to you if there's specific locations that you're looking to increase bike racks um specifically Town Hall I know with all of the improvements in the park we've um we we should look at that okay uh the other thing was Ben just similar to what council vice president spoke about earlier uh there are a lot of elderly and kids that might be tired and they would like to sit do we have a way to track number of benches around our town do we have a any study I guess along those lines we don't we certainly can do that I think that's a great idea to uh to understand how many we've been adding more some of the pathways we are going to add more benching to okay so I can certainly do that um we can talk about an initiative similar to the bike paths if you will and similar to what uh Council vice president indicated I would like for us to essentially bid out these benches something that uh residents that want to be a lifelong Edison residents and want to put their mark on Edison Township they can bid out and say hey we want to purchase the right to name this bench and maybe also have the commission art commission uh do some artwork uh on those benches that could be you know make it look pretty and make it unique rather than just a stale by benches so that was another program that I was thinking of and the last thing was the bathrooms and this is in particular to hail uh Park and every time I've been to hail Park it's always busy and couple of events that I've been to and I needed to use the restroom and I had to walk to the the closest B uh person's house and that was almost uh 10-minute walk I can imagine an elderly person or a kid cannot hold it for that long or a pregnant woman for that case and I think we do need to increase bathrooms in Parks especially the ones that are utilized heavily I know we are doing one in papani Park which is a good thing but you know maybe hail Park could be our next Target that we can include bathrooms in so especially when it's being used so heavily people can have a place to you know take care of their bathroom needs uh I think the bike paths I just want an update any status update on the jpnl or the Central app Park Sonia sure um with regard to jcpnl I haven't heard anything unless the attorney has with regarding the agreement no we're um at this point we're waiting on and Engineering to get the design over to me so I can transmit it okay perfect uh and for the path on the Central app I know you mentioned it onil that you know we are doing something along that line uh I would like a visual representation of what we're doing and what what the original plan was uh with the the plan that I provided to see to compare and contrast what's the difference what are we doing um now in terms of Road dieting uh I have been an advocate for Road dieting on tal Mage Road I have spoken to the residents there they're an advocate for dieting that road they feel that the 40 m per hour that the cars drive by especially in that residential section of talage Road uh is not acceptable and there's a lot of Walkers there uh a lot of uh people that walk use that area to walk and I think at least in that area maybe we can decrease the roads maybe increase the shoulders maybe put on bike pass or put on Planters to narrow the road there so the cars will have to slow down um and it will increase the space for the residents to walk in that area uh is that something we can do so that would take a um study obviously because of the traffic and all of the 18-wheelers that go through there there's plenty of warehousing so um again this is far beyond and I couldn't sit here and pretend that it's my expertise but just the Turning of those Vehicles would be very difficult if you're looking to uh road diet those situations so I think that it youd need an actual uh traffic engineering expert to look at um those specific di dieting ideas that you have in order to make it pedestrian friendly okay I mean I'm not looking for the whole town Mage Road not part where the warehouses are I'm looking for near the Hill Park and those communities there in that spe section specifically because there are a lot of residents walking to the park and I don't think there's a lot of trucks going in that directions or crossing but again I'm open to a study sure I'm also hoping we can do a pilot uh maybe for a week or to just have Planters to do a temporary uh shrinking or a road diet to see how it affects the traffic and if it doesn't work out fine you know we don't necessarily need to do it but I think having a pilot just to do it for a week to see how it impacts the traffic would be a good idea in that section uh the same issue at uh Roxy AV uh when I was there during the Comcast event a lot of the residents were complaining that the is a through fair and a lot of people just drive through at 40 mph and at the time when we were having the event people were going slow because there were cars parked on both sides and the road was narrower and they were it was automatically slowed down because the road became narrow and people had to be more careful so I think that is another place that I would like to do a pilot or a rope study if it's possible to see if we can um try dieting that road now in terms of town finances uh I know you already spoke about the economic developer I agree with councilman Coyle completely we do need someone that is looking out for the future Revenue aspect of our town uh but I also wanted to talk about the Redevelopment agency that councilman pointer uh talked about last meeting uh Council can you update us as to what's the purpose of red devopment agency how it works and the benefits of it um sure so uh Redevelopment agencies essentially um create a specific aspect of the administration that's separate apart from it because it is a commission-based agency uh it's a mar appointment uh under this form of government but the purpose of it is to identify areas um that would benefit from Redevelopment identify properties that could be benefit from potential Redevelopment um and to to try to act more quickly to acquire those properties because that's their sole focus is um getting involved in developer agreements um identifying specific Properties or looking out for specific properties that might fit a development plan um and it really a little bit goes hand inand with the idea for the economic developer in that they they can work concurrently to I guess uh try to both identify opportunities for development and do so in a way that is economically advantageous to the Township um the town has a Redevelopment agency ordinance it exists uh it is not staffed I think it's been a part of the if I if I remember what Mr Maron said correctly I think he he wrote it about 20 years ago um and it's it's just never been used so and so we essentially have to for ask the mayor to appoint that would be that would be the route to go I mean why it's not used I don't know but there are there are certain disadvantages to having one as well um you know there there's a certain lack of control there's another level of bureaucracy that that's involved in the Redevelopment process um right now I think that most of it's handled through the Redevelopment Council and through the administration's um targeted approach to to things so there there are trade-offs either way I understand but I think having an agency as is already on the ordinance would be a good thing especially if it's sole focus is to redevelop a lot of our properties I understand you know right now we are going where we think we need uh to redevelop and we're targeting them but if there's an agency that can solely focus on it especially in conjunction with an economic developer like you said I think we are in for a better efficiency uh which kind of leads me to the pilot aspect of it um if we can find something that we can develop and we need uh they need funding and it's not necessarily can you talk a little bit about the payment in Le of taxes uh sure so pilot programs pay in Le of tax programs are um economic tools that are used to encourage certain types of growth or encourage certain types of developers to um put things uh into your town that you're looking to do uh they can be very advantageous uh at least in the short term um and sometimes in the longer term depending on what what it is that's developed uh it's used a lot in devel Vel of stadiums uh housing projects things that may not necessarily be economically viable off the bat um for the developer it provides them with a level of certainty for what they're going to be paying into the township provides the township with a level of certainty for what they're going to be receiving uh on their end from that property because that's usually laid out in the agreement for a specified number of years this is what it'll be uh for the developers end they don't have to worry about spikes in taxation they don't have to worry about um having to deal with that level of uncertainty about it and for certain uh economically advantageous developments it's just a way to encourage the developer to build in your town instead of someone else's town so they can be a very useful tool if the right opportunity presents itself and if the right opportunity makes it worthwhile for the development again the like like all things they're there are potential drawbacks to it there are um you know usually it's a lesser payment than the township might eventually receive um through normal rates of Taxation uh sometimes it can encourage the kind of growth that you may not necessarily want so you know with stadiums you have um that as as I I use that as an example not that that's something that that Township's considering but it's the easiest one to think of where you encourage a team to come to a town um but then you have to deal with the increased traffic uh you have to deal with the types of development that occur around that which uh a lot of bars um a lot of uh entertainment venues that may not necessarily cater to a general audience but are more geared towards a very specific very transient crowd that are coming in uh for the games or whatever it is that you've got going on so there are it has to be done in a targeted way it has to be done in a way that makes sense for the overall growth of the township which is why can go like you were saying at the very beginning very well with an economic developer or a Redevelopment agency to make sure that it is being used in a way that's the most advantageous to the township and without some of those or with really mitigating some of those outside risks thank you Council Ken I had a question for you I hear a lot this rumor I don't know if this is true but Woodbridge does a lot of pilots and it helps their um budget uh can you explain why and how that works out basically uh there are different methods of calculating pilot Revenue pilot taxes or otherwise known as otherwise applicable taxes and the majority of the tax dollar goes to the municipality 5% by Statute has to go to the county in certain instances uh like in Edison where approximately say 25% of each tax dollar stays within municipality up to 95% of a pilot dollar can stay with the municipality so that's where a significant Advantage comes one of the challenges on the flip side of that is that the school district tends to be uh or appears to be adversely affected whether they are or not is a question that's constantly debated throughout the state uh but in woodbridge's case they do allocate a certain percentage of their pilot dollars towards the school district either for distinct projects or outright subsidies and so forth okay uh so there's a lot of advantages and the structure is tailored uh generally it's very forgiving in the beginning to assist the property developer with rent UPS or other types of economic concessions or to be able to sell units uh in favor of ongoing Progressive increases so he may build in a 5% annual increase into the municipal payment so it becomes a very qualitative and Def uh Dependable source of Revenue that grows over time sometimes faster than the pace of property tax increases okay thank you uh moving on to the budget I I thank you Ken for providing me that uh 20% breakdown and uh I just want to say that there's a lot of uh ways to you can look at the budget but the at the end of the day we're looking for stability and for the past three years I think we're around 2.5% uh increase in the Township side and I think that is pretty good stability especially going through the inflations that we have uh gone through uh and since 80% of the budget is already baked in that we have no control over uh it's only the 20% that we're really controlling so I think we're doing pretty good with the amount of services that we're providing uh and the last the next item I had was clar Barton I talked to Chairman snowski and he said that the planner uh provided him with the report certified planner provided report for Amboy AV and he's reviewing it now so he should have an answer soon for us so I wanted to up with clar Barton with that and the last thing is broadband Comcast has finally come to our town they're hoping to expand uh by 2026 to 2028 I believe and we should have competition and we will not be Stu stuck with the Monopoly of optimum which is always a good thing capitalism only works with competition if there's no no competition then there's no need to improve so I'm glad we have Comcast now and I hope both Comcast and Optimum provide better service for it and uh that's it for me and the last item the COA procedure and update for the close session I'm thinking to move it to September uh based on what council said that we're waiting on till September till the state yeah the there there's new rules coming out those rules won't be out until September uh for the next round uh and then it may actually make more sense to move it to October I think it's supposed to come out end of September September 19th I want to say um for what those new rules for the next round will be okay so can we move to the last can I get a motion U sure son I just wanted to add though um it may or may not come to the C actually eventually will come to the council So currently CG pnh who not only does our affordable housing um there are process C kind of uh firm that we use they are no longer going to be doing the COA stuff so we have to put an RFP out now um to get some a planner on board to do it so it actually simultaneously goes together and that'll come before the council and hopefully by that time we would have someone in place um because I don't there are other people in the state of New Jersey that do it uh just I don't think cgpn is doing that any longer longer for um in the state okay so okay so U Can I get a motion to move the Clos session from now to this last meeting in October motion to move closed session to the last meeting in October and may I have a second I'll second all right uh all in favor all right and that is moved and can I get a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn yeah I have a second second all right motion by Council vice president second by councilman point all in favor this meeting has ended at 9:02 p.m. e e e e e e e e e e e