okay we are streaming and recording ready yep good evening and welcome to the city council's budget Workshop meeting for February 27 2024 the time now is 712 p.m. will all everybody rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance Al flag flag United States the United States of America it stands stands na one nation under God indivisible Liberty will the city C please read the public meetings act this budget Workshop meeting was called pursuant to the provisions of the open public meetings law notice of this meeting was published in the record on February 12th 2024 in addition a copy of the notice was posted on the city's website the bulletin board in the municipal building and filed in the office of the municipal clerk on a four mention date notice on the bulletin board has remained continuously posted please take notice that in accordance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 col 4-6 at seek and local Finance notice 2020-21 establishing standard protocols the city council of the city of Englewood adopted resolution number 66-2 d624 authorizing the city of Englewood schedule of Council budget Workshop meetings for 2024 to be held remotely via Zoom members of the public who wish to participate in the meeting May do so by clicking on the link by calling or clicking on the links below at 7 p.m. or by dialing 6465588656 uh please see link on our website individuals will be able to fully participate in the meeting including providing public comment public comments may be submitted by 3 pm on the date of the meeting either through Written Letter or email to meeting cityofinglewood.org all written comments shall be read during the public form portion of the meeting and shall be subject to the same time limitations for public public speaking duplicate of comments shall be noted for the record and summarized the agenda for the meeting can be found on the city's website at www.cityofinglewood.org a separate meeting will be used if closed session is required proper notice having been given the municipal clerk is directed to include the statement in the minutes of this meeting City cler please do the roll call councilman Rosen here wasi here councilwoman David councilwoman David I see she's on screen I'm G assume she's here assume she's here yeah councilman Wilson good evening president thank you and council president C here also present is Mayor Michael wild city manager Robert S Hoffman and CFO Michael calman and engineer France F's on standpoint so the budget Workshop agenda for tonight is the police department office of Emergency Management Department of Health and the recreation department in that order we have uh chief gy on screen I don't know Bob what order you wanted to go in um yeah we we'll we'll go we'll go and police OEM just as the council president cob uh indicated if I could I'll just make a I'll just make a quick introduction of the the overall budget and then we can go into the police department um budget so the the 2024 draft budget um is 77,4 27730 uh this is a 3,475 increase or uh 4.05% over 2023 and then some of the some of the costs that make up this $3 million increase include an increase in health insurance premiums of about $600,000 liability insurance is up 257,000 uh We've budgeted for the master plan in here in this 20124 budget that was 125,000 um our pers pfrs costs went up about 274,000 uh we have an increase in debt service of 231,000 but we will be paying addition pre uh premiums down um we also have contractual obligations that are part of the increase and then we have additional software uh for uh for the city um that uh that will will help in various areas and then we have a new line of celebration of public events um our Revenue increased by 9.8 9.08% over 2023 and then um one significant reason for that was that when of our Pilots increased from $135,000 to $500,000 in 2024 um the city anticipates total revenue for 2024 of 14,1 185,900 level which was 2,974 40 um and that that Inc that had increased in 2023 for the first time in over 11 years uh the city's using the same amount of surplus as in 2023 we're using 3 milli1 100,000 in Surplus and the amount to be raised by taxes is anticipated to be 61 milon $126,300 40 um and the proposed budget has a tax levy increase of two 2.59% and this equates to $159 40 mun ible tax increase for the average home which is assessed at [Music] $471,500 is the budget number Ken I yeah I just wanted to um thank uh Bob and and Michael you know this budget is the the most readable one I've had in in many years thank you I really made it very easy to follow you know the numbers and I really appreciate you know I don't know exactly how much time he spent in it but but by the quality of it it looks like you spent a great deal of time so I really appreciate that and thank you for the effort thank you thank you it was it was a team effort we but we appreciate it thank you anybody else have anything to say Bob I guess we from my point I'm not going to hold the but the the the presentations up but I have uh some questions that I could take offline sure with M so we can start with the with the chief for the consideration of time I I will do the same have discussion offline with the city manager and the CFO okay I'll just uh preface the uh police department just saying that the uh salaries went up $47,000 which is a 3% increase and the other expenses went of $50,000 which is an 8.3% increase the other expenses the main thing that went up was a lease for off duty cars which we are subsidizing by moving $60,000 worth of revenues that we received for administrative fees excuse me real real quick Mike what was 88.3% I'm sorry I missed that that was the other expenses what what do you mean by other expenses everything that's doesn't include salaries operating expenses all their all their operating expenses what is that car cars radios specialized Services uh training you know equipment repair leasing of cars stuff like that all right you know the and when Michael me mentioned the uh the compensation that that's that's contractual um based on on recent settlements so so if with if with doing 8.3% already right and and thank you for bringing that out Michael I appreciate that um is is a large number of that 8. um eight 8.3 for new vehicles yes so the we we move miscellaneous revenue is not anticipated which is not an anticipated Revenue had all our our administrative fees when we do off duty we collect administrative fees so last year it came out to a few hundred, so what we did in this year's budget was we moved 60,000 of that to anticipated revenues to cover the cost of the vehicle leases so there's an anticipated participated um anticipated revenues you're talking about fines tickets so forth no it's the administrative fees that we receive when we have off duty we receive administrative got it okay got it right so and it's so it's basically going to be a wash it we will the the the administrative fees earned in 2024 will be able to offset the offset the cost of the the leases of the cars so so last question real quick do does that increase when we do road work when our police officers are doing road work for where whatever the entity comes into town yeah that's the off duty yeah the best private duty so we need to get more administrative fees then okay I got it okay that's it for me oh Chief you want to do the share screen yes I will um good evening everyone thank you for having me um just real real quick want to thank uh Mr Hoffman and Michael for helping you know for their assistance in uh putting together this budget so I'm going start off with a you know a summary of our 2023 activity and then move into our 2024 activity so I'm going to share my screen now okay so I'm going to start off with a uh with a summary of our uh of our staffing uh so as of today's date the angood police department has 80 swort officers one special law enforcement officer class two and 31 full-time civilian employees this includes our most recent four hires that were sworn in in November of 2023 um those are our only officers that we sworn in 2023 actually um that year last year we saw five active officers retire um and then this year with two retirements in the first two months of 2024 and two pending retirements in the first half of uh of this year we're quickly going to be back down to 7 need officers um and it's also important to note that we could see uh you know up to to 10 or more retirements over the next couple years um and additionally for the uh entirety of 2023 we had one officer on extended medical leave as a result of a work-related injury uh here you'll see I've included our most recent Personnel data sheet uh which I know you all familiar with it shows the demographics of our department um I won't go into the details of it here but for anyone who would like to review this um it can be found on our website again this is our most updated version of it I want to again in 2023 to go over our calls for service so in in in last year we recorded 52,1 126 police calls to service this is a 15% increase from 2022 so you're aware these events Encompass all the services and activities that we provide to the community including but not limited to Crime response and deterrence medical assistance traffic accident response and forcement uh crime reporting criminal investigations extra attention checks and Community engagement um you can see from our numbers going back to 2019 with exception for 2020 obviously we know we were impacted by covid that year but you can see that uh each year overall call volume is is increasing last year we had 2,292 criminal cases they were initiated that's up 7% from the previous year we made 464 arrests and 42 DS also all increases from the previous years our traffic tickets uh our Personnel issued 3,689 summonses for moving violations uh which is up 51% from the previous year and 13179 summonses for parking violations up 16% uh both very impressive increases by our our officers uh in this slide I I I made up a breakdown of our activity by by Ward you'll see that I I labeled it by sector just you're aware um you know the sectors are Loosely based off of our of the wards as we know them um you'll see two additional ones in the right right hand um you'll see a sector five and in outof town categories uh just for you so you're aware um you know I added these this information to make the the table more complete um our computerated dispatch our CAD where all our calls are are activities are recorded um you know sets these parameters based off location um and it was this you know the Sector 5 was added early on when we put our CAD together this encompasses an area which extends from the uh from the railroad tracks West to the monument and then covers from demerest Avenue down to McKay Park so it's an area that overlaps what we would know as parts of the third and fourth ward uh so you'll see the overall number of calls broken down by sector um along with our 911 calls are disturbance calls uh which Encompass you know DV complaints that we go to fights Merchant customer disputes landlord tenant disputes and and noise complaints um you'll see our your our extra attention checks which includes checks to our schools our houses of worship and our business checks we also have a breakdown of accidents that we responded to along with motor vehicle stops below that you'll see parking enforcement activities which includes any self-initiated enforcement for summons as warnings includes tires being marked Etc and then also our parking complaints which represents calls to the Communication Center from our residents and it may also conclude summonses warnings or tires marked um just indicate at the bottom one of the numbers under parking enforcement uh for the sector four you'll see it's um it's significantly higher and that's just as a result of some targeted enforcement due to you know specific issues we had on the street we're in touch with the resid there and they were aware what was going on so it's not necessarily that we issued that many more summonses on that street so you just want to make sure you're you're aware of that uh a few of the things I want to highlight for 2023 uh include our department schedule change uh the the arri together program our hiring initiative and then our Community Affairs events so uh to talk about the the schedule change briefly after the city came to an agreement with the police Union 2023 brought our first works works scheduled change in in over 30 years um there were some growing pains and adjustments were made our guys did a good job getting acclimated to new hours but overall the change has been uh very positive it's resulted in more efficient deployment of our Personnel enhanced supervision and other benefits uh such as ability just to have officers attend training on their days off so we're not taking off the road and as Mr Hoffman had anticipated and we spoke about it didn't adversely affect our our budget you guys are all aware 2023 also brought about the beginning of the arrive together program um so this program pairs local law enforcement with that mental health screener to respond together to Mental Health crisis calls this program has been used with success throughout the state uh but it's only just recently been introduced to Bergen County at the end of 2023 in uh October November of the all the municipalities in Bergen there's only seven towns participating or obviously we're proud to be one of them we were included because we have one of the highest percentage of Crisis Intervention team trained officers in the county uh and we have a great relationship with Care Plus who uh who provides the mental health screener they also helped us getting included because of our officer performan in situations our dedication to training and we have a high call volume with these types of instance uh just so you're aware right now we're the only municipality in Bergen utilizing a co-response arrive model which means that our officers respond with or almost simultaneously to the mental health screener uh responding to an active Mental Health crisis call the other jurisdictions that are participating are conducting follow-up services with their screener which is something our screener does as well and um you know we initially started with uh I think it was two to three days a week we're up to four days a week and there's hope that we can extend that to five or more days um so so far the program has been going very well uh I'm really proud to present this part so uh this past fall the city announced our first police entrance exam in over five years uh I knew from speaking with my colleagues and other police agencies that many departments are having a tough time recruiting new officers so uh early on um we we discussed how we're going to publicize the test and get the word out there as best we could which we did on a our variety of social media platforms um the police department partnered with pastors Taylor and Beach over Community rever given at Shiloh and that with Kate over at the public library helped us out to host we end up hosting three recruitment and information seminars throughout the fall um these were really I think they were very well received and they gave us a chance to meet face to face with our potential applicants to provide some of the knowledge and insight to police work that they may not have and what to expect in the process of becoming a police officer in our city but also in general um we were able to offer mentoring opportunities to our applicants before the process began to help them prepare for it and then our officers also attended the job fairs at Bergen Community FD U Kane University Montclair New Jersey City ramley and Patterson University additionally we contracted with the medical group that actually conducts the fitness test for the County Police Academy in November they came out to angood and they conducted a pre-assessment f fitness test for our applicants it was offered to all our applicants those who chose to participate got to experience the assessment firsthand what what they could expect going into the process and them to get feedback from the representatives so they could uh you know get better idea of how to improve their results in order to be successful in the assessment so the feedback we got from these events was overwhelmingly positive and uh it undoubtedly helped us increase in the number of applicants we received so we're in the middle of process now I'm not going to comment much further on that here but I'm really looking forward to see how our candidates do um it was really a great example of the PD and the community working together to get the word out and uh I'm I'm proud of the effort we made I canest say this is the the most work we ever put as a py into the recruiting process ever um by far um as far as our community outreach again another another thing we're really proud of this is just the list of some of the things we did in 2023 um grout Girl Scout tours read Across America chief for a day uh we participated in some uh block parties community events uh you know the pop program was a great success that we had a lot of interaction with um we did a lot work with the center for alcohol and drug resources um Health Department Fair Interfaith Council lot of lot of good things a couple things I really wanted to hit on uh include our our first ever Anglewood night out so um or angood our move movie night in the park so as you probably know a lot of towns do a National Night Out in the middle of summer I think it t typically around August 2nd which is uh you know the middle of summer people are working people are on vacation so uh it occurred to us it might be a good idea to kind of do something a little earlier in the year right at the end of the school year so I would say this is probably our most successful event of the year um we had infl inflatable bounce houses dunk booths giveaways Touch of trucks uh experiences food trucks and then uh you know it ended up in showing an animated film for all the attendees so I think we end up having over 300 people at the event and was uh really well received and we've already started planning the event for this year um our junior Police Academy it's been around for well over 20 years uh this year was really special as a result of a $30,000 Grant we received we were able to expand the program so um I I have this is a a special thing for me because I spent time in our juvenile unit I ran the academy for a couple years and I'd always wanted to try to do a two-e Academy and I always wanted to try to expand the roster typically because of you know our our limitations whether budgetary or Manpower we had to keep it around 25 or 30 kids we were lucky so this year with this assistance from this grant we're able to get it hold the uh Academy for two weeks and we're able to expand the roster to 50 angland residents so it was it was really it was really special thing for us to do is important that we were able to expand that and uh obviously it was clearly our most successful academy uh so far so we're excited to see how it works out this year and then uh this past fall we participated in our first faith and blue weekend which is it's a nationwide event and it's obviously created to bring our law enforcement and local Faith leaders and how to worship together so the weekend began um with members of the epd and the Interfaith Council being in uh named honorary captains of the uh football team the white Mar football team at their Friday at home game so that was a really nice thing and then over the course of the weekend we had officers attend services at eight different houses of worship um so that really helped us build you know continue our connections with the with the community and the our faith-based leaders um to touch upon our training uh in 2023 our officers attended approximately 70 different training classes totaling almost 4,400 hours of training um which averages about to to about 56 hours per officer uh it was it was you know like I said 70 different classes included Crisis Intervention training field officer search and seizure classes biased crime investigation case law um domestic violence update update DWI detection interview and interrogation crash classes and then uh you know several uh command of executive leadership and supervision classes um we're able to partner with the women's right information center on the Avenue to come into our lineups they conducted some training on human trafficking uh we worked as always with the Bergen County Center for drug resources they spoke with our officers about their services their resources and helping the homeless and for our drug and alcohol addicts and then uh you know just keep in mind this this list of training does doesn't include our mandated firearms and active shooter training which accounts for another 33 hours for each officer um I want to touch upon some of the grants um we've been very lucky to work with Millennial strategies to help us out with our grants um we're able to secure multiple grants in 2023 so this includes uh an upgrade to our Communications um which will ultimately help our bring our equipment to a level where we can qualify for additional grant opportunities um as I said the junior Police Academy expansion was a huge success and then the other three several of the other accounts there grants there account for uh traffic related enforcement and services distracted driving clicker a ticket uh and DWI enforcement and then finally at the bottom uh we got a grant for body armor replacement which is a you know a year yearend thing that we need with all our officers and it's important to get that that support to help us out so uh moving on to 2024 uh some of our goals obviously want to build upon what we did last year um specifically with hiring and our community outreach so and and filling our specialized unit um it year is going to be important that we continue to hire and promote additional officers to maintain our staffing into offset pending retirements um our accreditation process is still moving forward so that's a good thing for us and the increasing accountability our officers with the start of police licensing this past January it's it's more important than everything that were staffed and supervised properly unfortunately you know we've seen in the past how quickly a delay in hiring and promoting can have a huge impact on our operations um though we'll soon have soon have a solid list to hire off of it's still a long process and it just needs to be reiterated that we got to be cognizant of the amount of time we're going to need to get a new higher trained especially if they don't already possess their police certification so just to be clear you know a new recruit attending the police academy in the next class which for us will be July of this year they're not going to be ready for full duty to help us out with our Manning until at least April of 2025 that's accounting for attending the police academy and then going through our our field training process um because of Licensing there's more strict requirements and timelines mandated by the state that's going to require us to do more work and vetting to be done of those new hires in advance so if we delay our hiring um you know we risk not meeting those requirements those timelines and that could uh have some serious you know repercussions including delaying sending that person to the academy um with the five retirements we saw in 2023 and uh you know hiring the new officers at the end of the year we were unable to assign any additional offic officers to any specialized units so as we continue hire it'll be more realistic for me to add Personnel to these units um on a positive note uh on a on a over the past few months I was able to draft a shared service proposal that I to be able to put a school resource officer back in our schools um so I'm hopeful that we'll hear some good news from the public school district in the coming months um as you may be aware in recent years you've also had a significant increase in the number of applications for firearm related permits and and Criminal expungements by the end of 2023 our Firearms applications were up 38% from 2022 so in processing that we have a record Sergeant we have two full-time civilian employees but but uh in order to keep up with that and the thousands of expansions we we received you know there's been times where we've had to put a police officer on a temporary assignment to help out with the both those duties so um it's uh it's it's not it's effective to get the job done but it's definitely not an efficient use of our Manpower and certainly not a long-term solution so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get some assistance with uh some more civilian employees in that in that unit uh as far as the training of our officers that's a it's you know it's been a huge commitment for our PD for a while now and it's absolutely one of our priorities earlier this year you're all aware we hosted Dr Kevin gilm Martin who spoke to it was over 700 officers about officer Wellness uh that was attended by the majority of our almost all of our police department and uh we're up we're lucky to be able to partner with several groups that were able to help us provide the training at uh no cost to our city and then later this year we've we've scheduled another training uh company to come in to do a of instruction on case law for all our officers um another another thing I want to discuss is over the past few years um officers all of the state have been receiving training and deescalation that's something all of us are familiar with but as a followup to this the PTC is working on a uniform defensive tactics module that will eventually go Statewide so that's something that's coming down coming out of the pike the uh the idea for this is ultimately for officers to become familiar with safer defensive tactics as an alternative to using High levels of force uh some departments have already started doing this they they've they've contracted or partnered with different Brazilian jiu-jitsu schools in anticipation of this so we're in the early stages of looking into this but I'm hopefully that's I'm hoping that's something we'll be able to offer to our officers and then obviously just continued uh Advanced supervisory training leadership for our our supervisors uh as far as uh you know in the coming year for community outreach um the work this unit does is is more important than ever before and I'm really proud of of the work our departments are doing in this area um creating opportunities for these positive interactions it's going to continue to be a priority for us so we plan to continue with many of the previously mentioned programs um hopefully to introduce some new ideas and opportunities to connect with the public uh including our upcoming 125th anniversary celebration so in the past many of events were were funded using our seized funds at no expense to the city and I I suspect we'll be able to do much of that going forward um we utilize those funds when we can but there are times when we cannot use those purchases those funds there are limitations to it and there are times when it's going to come out of our operating budget so it's just something we need to consider uh you know going forward in the coming years as this becomes more and more uh important part of our operation so um for right now that that concludes my uh my presentation I'm going to stop sharing and then uh you know if you have any questions uh I'm here for you again thank you council president um uh thank you very much chief that was a fantastic presentation and um just looking we have over 50 attendees and I think uh allow them here to hear you and and you know that's the most I've ever seen at a budget hearing so I think that shows you know tremendous amount of community support and so congratulations on that I think that in my 10 years of budget hearings I think that's an all-time record I've seen I just have a couple questions about uh recruitment so given you know the you a recruit today might take 14 months until they're on the job you know so um something you've talked to the council about before our transfer transfers you know from other departments within the city or from other police departments Statewide C can you explain what that is yes so for those that aren't aware so um you know myself getting hired in engood I was a police dispatcher um and I was hard as a police officer so I had no prior police experience I had no certification so I had to go through the Burton County Police Academy for uh you know for you know I think it was 20 something weeks at the time I started in August I finished in December um but that's just the beginning of your training it's x amount of time in the academy once you successfully graduate then you start your field training so so our recruits now who go to the academy and without their certification we're hiring a new officer who's never had any new new candidate with no experience they'll start the academy in this July they'll graduate sometime in December and then they have to learn to be a police officer in Anglewood and that process can can take you know we have a very I'm really proud of our our field training program it's very intense it's very uh it's uh it's very encompassing and um they you know we've had people that haven't uh finished the the process because you know it's something we take very seriously and we can't afford to have uh someone not make it through just because you made it through the academy isn't the guarantee you're going to make it through our field training process so that does add a certain amount of time onto onto the training so as opposed to someone who has a PTC certification who may have been a police officer in another jurisdiction they'll go through the hiring process obviously the background betting process would be the same but instead of attending the police academy they can jump right into their field training process which uh you know may be just as long as an as a new recruit or maybe a little shorter given that they have a little more police experience so um there there's pluses and minuses to both um but there is a time where we need to get people on the road as well and you know we've done that over the last couple years so you know it's just two two good options for us so when you have an acute shortage that might be a process that you look at absolutely so um you know obviously it's great to and it's preferable to get homegrown candidates but if someone there's a police officer in another jurisdiction and and they realize it's not a good fit for them um you know what options do they have do they just have to stick it out for the rest of their lives or or they they can look at other cities that might be hiring is that correct yeah you you do I mean I I can I'm happy to say I I've been happy here for 20 plus years and I I can probably count on uh two hands the amount of officers or less the amount of officers that have left here to go to other departments um we've taken on people from other departments so I guess in that sense it's probably like any other line of work where people go to different employers and try different things in this case they're staying in the same line of work um but it's it's um you know it it it does it does happen where someone may want to apply to a town because they uh you know they want more activity they want less activity may go for monetary purposes but it's it's not uncommon well I think angle Wood's one of the great cities in New Jersey so it makes complete sense for me that someone would want to come here and and work with you um and when someone does a a transfer do we get to see what their record is at at that City we we do we we we complete a very very in-depth uh detailed background check um which now with licensing is is um it's spelled out even more but the by all accounts we're doing exactly what the state is mandating to do we were already doing it but we do have access to view um Internal Affairs files and things like that so um you know uh you know we're not uh you know if you're familiar with the pass the trash uh laws and whatnot you know we're we're we're very cognizant of the potential of getting someone else's problem so um we're we're very careful and that's on our mind when we encounter when we do a background check on an officer from another jurisdiction and if we're fully staffed is that going to help keep our overtime costs low I mean yeah there's always you know there's going to be a correlation between full Staffing and and overtime um you know overtime is a tool that's used in many departments you know to help manage things and there's a lot of good things come it uh but um in in general if we are fully staffed you would see a a you know a decrease in in over time okay thank you and and thank you for a great presentation thank you councilwoman wasowski okay thank you good evening um first of all I just want to uh thank um Michael calman and U Mr Hoffman for a very readable budget it was I I'm really very pleased with the way the budget budget was presented to us uh line by line and it really um made it a lot easier to understand so uh thank you for taking the time and doing that um second of all I want to welcome all the attendees it's great to see so many attendees that are here in support of our chief and support of our Police Department thank you for coming tonight um I want to thank you uh chief for an excellent presentation um and and um I also want want to thank you for all the work you put in in the in the in your recruitment effort um I saw what you did what what you and the department did and you did an excellent job so thank you for that I have a few questions um you mentioned about the increase 15% of uh calls do we know why we have that increase or is that something we need to look at you know I I I can't give you a definitive reason why that increased um you know I um you know it could be any number of things relating to um you know population our city you know increased commercial people you know businesses coming into the city people traveling through the city um so it's definitely a number of things I couldn't put my finger on any one in particular though I'm sorry okay and um I just wanted to mention that when you were showing the the data for the different wards that unless I read it wrong in the second ward there seemed to be as it was an outlaw both in terms of mvas and motor vehicle stops so that's something maybe we we could take a look at you know another time as to um you know as to why the second ward was an outlier there's a lot of construction going on there's a lot of roads closed um you know speeding complaints and all so I I would want I would want to look at that a little closer um in terms of the arriv together I just again want to commend you for bringing that program into Anglewood um and my my my last my last concern though is you mentioned there were 80 sworn officers right now correct and I think I think if I heard you correctly you said said that we're going to be down to 70 is that did you say 70 78 78 78 and so we're going to be down to 78 when uh that'll be by by June okay and then you said we may have some more re more um retirees after that yeah just uh just those are additional officers that are be that will be eligible to retire okay so things we have to take into consideration okay because you know the one thing I'm concerned about is that the new uh recruits aren't going to be ready to April 2025 and one of the one of um what I hear from residents and this is not just from the second W but from all over the city um our complaints about speeding parking vandalism um we did talk about the motor vehicle accidents and I just don't want to be in a position um where we don't have enough officers I was glad to hear the discussion that you had with councilman Rosen swag about um about lateral transfers and and filling those positions not waiting till April 2025 so um that was good to hear again thank you for an excellent presentation thank you councilwoman David Angela Angela Council councilman Wilson you you want to speak thank you council president good evening to all uh Chief thank you for taking the time out for a presentation um sir and uh Mr Kaufman and Mr Hoffman thank you for your ability to make this presentation a little easier um to understand and to to look at and with that I have a few things that I like to talk about real quick since you made it so easy for me um Chief if I if if I'm to understand correctly did you say the sectors are broke down by the wards and that one one two sectors overlay two Wards is correct or no now I was just trying to to put it in in a more uh I guess in more layman's terms so as you know all our residents arew our our city is broken down into Wards voting Wards um and are what we call how we divide up a town for the police department for assigning calls and whatnot uh we call it sectors um we div you know this it's just dividing the town up in the four areas that we can we Patrol you you know this but uh it's Loosely based upon the w that's that's what I was going off of but also I just want to make it clear that the sector five that was in that one graph I showed sector five overlaps uh several several areas of our town several of the wards so so just so we're clear um sector four is what Ward the fourth ward okay um we're going to have to discuss this probably in depth um probably offline and some of it we can do now uh I've I've taken I perused those numbers in sector 4 and some of them are disturbing to me because it's unparalleled to any other sector and I'm curious to how we got a such high percentages whether it's parking whether it's stopping whatever it is and and I understand that residents will call for situations and you guys respond and thank you you guys for responding we appreciate that but I'm also um concerned about elevated numbers in that particular sector um and and that it's twice the amount of some other sectors so maybe you could sh is is that is that was that your um PowerPoint Chief or was that shared to us and any other that that was in the PowerPoint I can certainly share that with you so you can take a little more time to digest it and go over it and obviously I'd be you know we can always talk about that and discuss a few things obviously you know I have no problem going over that with you thank thank you Chief just just as a point of order there was also there was a a memo that was sent out um that just had had a breakdown we can also send send that out there was a there was a couple of issues there is um related to parking in both the fourth W and the second word that were that in those that memo so we can resend that out but do you understand what what my concern is Mr city manager yep okay yeah um so and and I would like for you to expand a little bit Chief you touched on it so I want everyone to be clear and thank those viewers that thought it not robbery to join us tonight in this budget hearing um the transfers and we understand that you know as we have a declining or aging Department that people are going to opt out for retirement and and other things and other reasons um but usually typically we don't lose our police officers to other departments uh being transferred but we receive more than we transfer out is that is that correct Chief yeah that's that's accurate so I mean for for that part ingood stands alone and we have a excellent track record on our police officers staying with us so kudos to those guys and young ladies that keep it keep us safe at night um but you you did say one thing that I want to point out and I would like to drive this home is in regards to the transfer I understand that at times you will need um Personnel um and if we structure this thing right that we can get ahead of it we don't have to focus on transfers because it what was explained to me before is that it was transfers we can get them out on the street but this evening you made a statement that transfers take just as long as as new applicants no so just to just to clarify um no that's they still have to go through the field training program and I think I said they could take as long as a new officer um but you know obviously with someone with police experience in general they're not going to take as long and I I can probably provide you with our average uh field training length for for a uh for a for one of our transfers if uh if you'd like okay um and and and and I and I appreciate that the the important part for me and for I think our residents is that it takes just as long and so to to me in my mind if it takes just as long I would like to see our our our city residents to have to have that time available to them to join our illustrous uh police force I'm looking at your table of organization as well um and maybe we can get to that at a later date because there appears to be highlighted some vacancies and so that in itself means that we probably need more Personnel is that correct Chief uh yes sir yeah I'd love to fill some of some more of our spots yes okay and and and so how long has the majority of those been vacant how long have we had a need for that uh I mean off the top of my head we've we've gone up and down depending on you know last year we were up to 85 or 86 officers so we had a few less vacancies um also with the new schedule change that that adapted a little bit but um you know H hiring is obviously going to impact that and give us more more opportunities and more options uh to deploy the officers right and we're talking like officers like administrative division for the lieutenant and the investigation division for the captain as as well as well as some other offices and so I I appreciate the fact that you've highlighted that and you've made us aware and I think us as a as a council need to take your needs very seriously in helping you fulfill these needs um but if if we can go to uh the budget from page number 41 um and I don't know if this is for Mr cof where it says vehicle repair maintenance is that not a line for DPW if we look the second one down and if we're capturing 2023 the [Music] actual where is 31,6 6 $ 7963 so that's line line 225 yes yep yep oh I'm sorry I should have gave that to you please forgive me do you want to know what what that entails like I I I know that we have such a um experien DPW and often times our repairs can be done throughout throughout DPW um and and I just want to make sure that we're not adding to the chief's budget that might Encompass into the DPW and that we don't lap over okay um I mean so you're telling me this entry for the $ 31,6 7963 is truly the police department's yes part of that 100% okay because and then we go into uh police department on page number 42 um 41 excuse me 4-01 d25 um I guess the number is 274 uh the third one from the Bottom Police Department um motor Fuel and lubricants so would imagine is that is that gasoline and maybe oil changes or something yeah gas okay and and are are we talking about when when we go one more line down Telephone and Telegraph I haven't heard the word Telegraph and I don't know how long that's just the budget name it it is never it's telephones okay I'm just concerned if we still sending t I'd be worried um and would we be if we go down to the final one for High-Tech surveillance the last one on page number 42 um and it appears that we had it budget out for 15,000 and we came in under budget normally I would say good job could you give us a quick snapshot on what high surveillance is Chief yeah just you know I don't I don't have apologize I don't have that number right in front of me but that that account is typically used for uh camera maintenance plan so we have as you're aware we have some cameras in our downtown area that's for the upkeep of those cameras okay um and and if if in fact that we have our opportunity guys I would really like to see the council look at that um especially because we have increased numbers we're building more we have new residents and I don't know if our old coverage will cover what we needed to cover and keep all our residents safe so we may be looking at possibly increasing that fact so everyone can feel safe um if we turn to page number 43 the second one down 4-01 d25 d2400 296 Police Department of Food and Drugs what is that oh you don't have that on your thing but I'm sure you you're you know what the caption is Chief what is that Food and Drugs yeah that's typically for our if we have someone in our in our holding cells that's a you know there for extended period of time we we will purchase like a meal from them for McDonald's um you can also also some water Coster in that as well and what is the drugs like Advil uh we don't we don't we probably should get that for everyone here but uh no we we don't I think that's again I that's just a a name that's been assigned to that account for for many years oh we might look at changing that one because it seems like we feeding them Food and Drugs um uh and this is part of my concern if we go down 4 more to 4-0 1-25 d2400 0000 326 um equipment repair and maintenance and maybe this is for you once again Mike um are we splitting those repairs up and giving them different names or should we just be creating a bigger budget for repairs or is this for something in the office radios computers repair excuse me sorry it's their radio maintenance repair radio maintenance slrep boost down Communications all right maybe if we put in radio somewhere that would help me very much um but we won't we won't really need that now right because we've got 90 new radios is that correct 95 oh excuse me just make unless it has a maintenance contract yeah but you know typically for first 12 months we should be good unless I runs over it drops it um care of individuals Chief what is that is is that for individuals that are detained because we're we're probably 300% over our budget on that I know you don't have the numbers yeah Michael that's the 332 number the 332 budget line that was mainly the uh last uh couple meetings ago we uh we we damaged the police department damaged the resident door yeah I have the notes on that one so that that one was used our uh I you're aware of this one councilman the uh our officers responded to a uh a distress call they were provided with an address by the caller was a third party caller they had the force entry and then they found an empty apartment turns out the caller gave us the wrong address luckily we able to find out the correct address and give that person the medical attention they needed but obviously we had to uh you know we we we did right by the family and and just fix their door for them okay I I don't know if this is probably for you Mike I would have never figured that out because it said care of individuals I you know I I can't Mike I I can't even imagine how many categories you have to put things into but I would have never captured that and so as I read these things I would like to have a better understanding especially if we're over budget in such in such an area um and if we're renting Machinery Chief what are some of what are some of the machineries that we rent um and that's the three the 351 line um he doesn't have that in front of him uh Miss I know but yeah but um up yeah that's mostly the vehicles that we talk about earlier we rent vehicles we're releasing the vehicles in the past we've also rented uh you know storage containers and things like that that we didn't that we didn't uh want to purchase in this case it looks like I actually have a c an older copy now but it's used for our uh our destruction of uh you know our shredding services as well okay umk thank you Chief uh hopefully we can discuss some more lines out later date uh and and I think we have a good jump on it and good job uh keep up the good work thank you sir real quick obviously we will touch base about all that information but I I was going through my notes and just so you're aware you know all our hiring obviously we're going to do it within the confines of of the ordinance as we're required to but also I I was looking back and for our new hires from date of hire graduation of the academy and fto you're looking at about 10 to 11 months for an officer who has PT certification you're only looking about a four-month window so there is there is a time difference there that that can benefit us um when we when we need when we need to so just just you're aware okay so now that we've um identified a need on on vacancies and kudos to you guys to giving a test and and and thank you guys and young ladies for coming out taking the test maybe we can have another one real soon in regards to the upcoming loss of membership so we can rely on our residents to fulfill these as opposed to saying that would with time time qualified and that's why we're utilizing transfers I would I would really love to have um our police officers pick ingwood as the first choice and I understand we need transfers from time to time but I would love to see our residents pick ingwood as a first choice yeah that that's the um that that's the overall goal I believe I believe the list is supposed to be valid for three years but we may wind up going through the list before then yeah I'm just saying let's let's let's focus on possibly creating another test so we don't have to keep looking back at these transfer things and we can follow the ordinance that's already on the books okay thank you gentlemen mayor WS thank you council president thank you Chief uh for Stellar presentation my apologies to you and the governing body um I actually was schedule to teach this evening and I uh didn't want to hold the meeting up uh Chief the seamlessness with which uh your office has worked this last year is just unparalleled and I want to make sure that you have the resource to continue that the non-emergency phone number the deployment of officers the diversity of the force um I remember swearing in not just physically fit but very different officers seasoned and new ones you have a really smart uh command and your presentation was really uh very latory I want to make sure um that you play a role uh this coming year in the master plan when it comes to all the developing plans and the policy considerations uh that we and the planning board will put forward with the city council uh for the plans so that the efficiency and the development uh is also girded uh by uh safety um and some of the things that we see built um the uh particularly um I believe it's on Dean Street those storage facilities and some of the things that kind of came through uh in the last generation we want to make sure that we have the lece opinion on it just like we have the environmental concerns and all the other issues so I know that your Department's already in contact with the uh consultant that we hired but it's important that uh we have a continued uh engagement and conversation with you and I joined the good councilman who offered you Kudos uh and thanks for keeping us uh safe you're really doing a stellar job thank you sir um councilwoman David did you want to speak I guess she didn't want to can you unmute your phone and not the zoom just unmute the phone hello hello Angela hello hello yes could you hear Charles could you hear [Music] me Angela yes hold you gotta mute you gotta mute mute your phone all right could you hear me God you have to mute you have to mute yeah you can't have two things going you can't have both you gotta either mute the computer or mute the phone but you can't have both on at the same time unmute there there's something else going on in the background do you have do you have the YouTube going at the same time no I don't no press star six see that unmutes you star six on your phone okay could you hear me yep that's that's oh gosh that took a while I have two computers here and I think the something's wrong my internet I'm in my dining room anyway um Chief um great presentation my question to you could you I mean great initiative 2024 you're looking to hire people through um you know our community which is wonderful um and I know you guys did a big rush of hiring people who do not live here prior to uh January the 1st 2024 or when a police licenser act called the ACT went in effect my question to you that did you during your recruit are you letting these individuals know that um they their social media would be checked they would have a blood test um done psych psychological evaluation they're going to pull their driver's records um they're going to also see if they're you know uh everything I mean the medical examination I'm looking at this uh the ability test this is like this is like really really um important and not only that it's important also to the new hires you had B in um prior to that so we want to make sure I I I think an audit should be done also to make sure that everything is in place because I thought I heard you say 2025 is when we're going to have everything up to par I teach in Jersey City and I bought some police officers in and you're 90% at um capacity concerning the police licensure act called the ACT to be licensed as a police officer which is new that when in effect this year and I don't want to be behind the eightball U with our Police Department that we're just going to um almost like the school social promote people and say hey we gonna we're going to get there eventually so my question to you um you know is there a timeline on how you're going to get there did you appoint people to take training to make sure that this police licenser act the ACT will be in effect and also I'm looking at um training as far as mental train Mental Health Training and everything I don't see that um that should be a larger budget um uh somewhere but I don't see a lot of training with police and everything knowing that this police licenser Act Right was was um built because of the lack of training on police officers um and also they're going to do they're going to dig into your history about mental abuse emotional abuse and everything so could you let me know how going forward how are you going to do this with the um newly appointed police officers and the ones that's coming up for re-evaluation in three years um and how it's going to be done yeah I I can absolutely uh comment to that and you know it's nice to to hear that that I know the council is all aware of the licensing act uh I'm I'm happy to hear that you're really on top of as well um you know the the good thing about uh the you know the licensing um is that all the requirements um that they're mandating now our city's been doing for a long long time um we've been doing our background checks we've been uh checking social media our officers have been getting their psychological and Medicals um so the vetting process by us and uh is is really intense um you know you know perhaps at some point I could maybe share some some of it with you the process we go through but uh you know just so you're all clear you know January 1st all our officers uh you know were were licensed by the state so right now as of today all our officers are licensed what they did was so so as to not have an entire police department uh need to get renewed in three years uh the state and their wisdom divided it up uh in third so a third of our department myself included my license is up at the end of this year uh third of our department is up at the end of 20 2 and the third department is up in 2026 so I've notified all our officers of their expiration date um the the information I have from the County prosecutor and from the state is that in the next couple months they're going to forward our guidance as to how we're going to start the renewal process for the officers we'll start that in the summer and that way we'll have our time to be able to do the checks and do what we need to do for that group of officers and then we'll repeat the same thing for next year uh as applies to to our new officers uh like I said it's going to be similar to what we've done in the past you know um again there'll be more guidance coming out on that um you know in the near future I suspect but by the time um you know we're going to have to do some of these items obviously before recruits hit the July class so that'll be our first uh test into it but again it's it's not going to differ too much from what we've done in the past with any of our hes all right because I'm looking at it right now the slides I received is domestic violence dishonesty fraud um they license denied a licenser in other places even a lateral move coming from say Hoboken just for the sake of it um that because they worked in Hoboken they came here you could do a a check on where they were before hobok and also I just want to make sure that we're not um you know just passing the trash basically like they do in schools you know absolutely no 100% we're we are not doing that and we will not be doing that absolutely there's there's a lot at stake and there's a lot of eyes on this doing it the right way and we're not going to do it any other way so uh you know rest assured we're going to be following that to a te okay do you think we're going to need an audit to see make not not not not saying that you not doing your job but you think to make sure that uh everything is tracked right you think an audit to be in compliance would be good to have on record uh you mean like going back for our current officers or for our past hires things like that your new hires and the ones that's up for renewals attract them they got to be tracked some somehow you can't just say oh this person's up um in um two months it should be a tracking system so I'm thinking that maybe an outside person to come in and do an audit and maybe track for us if we can't handle the manpower to track uh I I don't think that I mean it might be a little early to get into that right now uh my my gut is saying that I I don't think we would need that right now again I'm gonna have very specific guidance regarding that renewal process um but you know the good thing is I get a lot of guidance from uh the county Chiefs Association from the prosecutor's office so uh and the PTC they understand that this is the first time the state of New jerseyy is doing it they understand what an undertaking this is so uh we're going to get a lot of guidance and uh you obviously there'll be deadlines and things like that but uh you know that might be something maybe to consider down the line but for right now it might be might be a little premature to to to start talking bringing in someone else and paying that money for an audit um but that's just that's just my thought on it right now okay and one more my last question is that um what do you think about um training I mean a mandated training for the office is something that's um psychological even if even if they did pass the test sensity sensitivity training ABA applied Behavior Analysis sensitivity training and everything how to deal with different cultures you know things like that um you know if a person's walking it may having a seizure and you might think that person's drunk but that person's having a seizure and you may arrest that person then that person you know something may happen I'm just like things like that how to recognize things that um that may be the person's Norm but AB normal to that cop you understand training training no we do um I I I do understand what you're saying so our officers are mandated to do certain training like that um our our our um uh you know certain there's certain um deescalation classes our officers are mandated to take but uh you know it's part of our overall plan for training for the officers to include things like that and any number of different things like I said we're including case law and things like that but um you know there's a there's there's a lot of different classes out there that our officers will be going to this year um but there is there is a a one specific one um clear training that our officers attend I just can't I can't apologize I can't think of the of what the acronym stands for but that falls within that realm of all the diversity and and um and you know things like that cultural and uh competency and things like that is this in the budget I didn't see it in the budget these trainings did you put it in the budget there there is uh there you know we do have a line for training in our budget and uh the good thing is too also our uh you know I'm able to use some of our seized funds for training as well which we do frequently so that's that's another option we that we're lucky to have okay thank you thank you okay Chief I'm you ready I have a couple of questions for you and we're going to move this along um you know every year we do this we do a budget and the budget is what we need and it's a needs budget and we reflect on the things that we didn't do the previous year and we we want to reflect on what we want to get done the following year and how do we get better at what we've haven't done or what we plan on doing and planning so I one thing I want you to explain to me so I have a better understanding you know you went to this new um I guess Staffing the way you staff during the day or um so I know we said you had 80 sworn officers so I I just want to understand how many officers are working a tour right now and what's the hours of the tour so our our Patrol unit uh Works uh four on four off schedule they work 11 hour ships okay and the Staffing could be anywhere from depending on the time of day um know it it fluctuates so we could have up to 12 13 14 officers working at one time or less During certain hours so so and that's you're saying that's just specific to control Patrol I mean right yes sir okay and then our our there's other units our Traffic Unit and our detective Bureau work uh four days on three days off 10 hour 10 and a quarter hour shift so ultimately at the end of the Year everyone works the same amount but those specialized units work work something slightly different what I'm what I'm what I'm getting at you know when we always talk about this number what's the right number and you you right now we have 80 and what I'm getting at is how many people are working per shift each day so people have a sense of what's happening and what's going on so are our our minimum at any given time is seven officers okay seven officers patrolling five sectors we say maybe yeah yeah it depends the tour Commander could assign but yes generally of town yes sir well maybe you can answer this for me too um does every Street in the city of angood get Patrol how many times a day or do they not get patrolled every day yo ideally I'd like to say that our officers I know when I was out there driving around I would hit as many streets in my sector as I could but there's times where you may not be able to do that just being realistic based upon the call volume based upon if you're going from call to call if you're assigned to something um so in yeah in a perfect world you know I'm sure every law officer at least the right to take a ride down each Street once or twice a day keep an eye on things but uh you know there's some days where you may go down one street five times and one street one time um you know it's that that it's the whole idea of random patrolling and and not getting caught up in a you know in in um you know uh try to think of the correct way to put it but um y you want to keep you want to keep with random patrolling that's the best way to be out there I yeah I just you know I I think that you know obviously you do what you do but what I think that would give Comfort to the residents if they all could say that you know Optics are a big thing for people um and patroling granted I know sometimes you get busy you can't do that but you know in in in the you know I think a reality is we want to make everybody feel safe uh we want to make no matter where you live in the city Anglewood you want to feel safe and that everybody's getting the same services and you know when we have a budget and you come and you ask for cars and equipment and tools which I don't have I don't mind doing but I just want to make sure that we are providing the ultimate service to the constituents here you know because that's our audience right they pay they pay the bills and I just want to make sure and I wanted to you know to ask that question um because I think it's important for me to understand but also the public to understand you know how these hours are and how people are working and you know and how the services are uh executed my my my my final question for you is is that how and how are we doing no that's not you know I'd like to see the effort in terms of um really building the relationship between the police department and the community and what commitments are we going to make and be intentional to make it better I know I saw you with the pictures with the Interfaith and all that that's nice that's nice pictures but I want to say that people can say to you you know what we we're making commitments to do these things and this is we're reaching out to all people trying to build that relationship with the community because the community right now you get different feedback and what is it do you have a plan have you considered something that you could do uh that would improve that or just take that away as a thought what what can I improve the relationships with with that what's on the ground with the folks on the ground no I think uh no it's it's it's a good point I think um you know if if we're out there once or twice a year you know it it it doesn't it doesn't it's not going to it's not going to be genuine uh you have to make that a habit you have to you know do that consistently so that's my plan with our Community Affairs unit I know you saw the list and we've had some great events obviously want to build upon that you know the one thing to really go forward with again like it's it's making connections with our faith leaders I think that's a big big uh thing for us to continue to build upon but uh the one thing that I kind of take it back to our hiring is you know I'm I'm really pushing us to get a school resource officer in our schools so you know as I look at our as we're going through this hiring process and we've talked the council talked about you know hiring more angland residents you know we haven't had the interaction in schools over the years where I may be getting kids who are now graduating high school or college I grew up in town that had a young officer that they saw on a daily basis in the school that made her connection with for them to say hey in a few years I want to take a test I'm hopeful that if we get the school resource officer and then build upon that and have a couple of them in five or 10 years I'll have a handful of kids who were in you know who were with principal Thomas now or principal armal and in 10 years ago I remember the SRO what impact they had on me I want to come back and give back to this town so I think that's something that unfortunately I may not see the fruition of during my career but I think that's where we can start that foundation and really go forward with it so um that's that's one of my big hopes well I I I think what's important is you know it has to be built into the culture of the department just like it has to be built into the management of the city as well is that you know these jobs are of service to people right so you know people across the city have to understand that we we all here are in service in some way and form and that's what we have that's the way we have to uh look at that and we're all in this together as a partnership with these residents from the city of angle so and we should look at it like that and all the employees should look at it like that and and deal with it it's not a perfect and it's it's not a perfect magic or whatever you want to call it but we have to look at it I think one of the things that would be helpful and you see when you have guys walking on palisad Avenue that's that's a nice thing to see building relationships with um the the merchants on there but I think that in the wards as well hey you parked a car and you walk down a block or something and you see just to see what it is cuz you you know like I know when you walk you see different things as as opposed to when you're driving right you know and we want people to to just I just think that for me we just want people to feel safe that they could walk with their families anywhere in this town and not feel that something feel threatened or or anything like that and I think that that starts with a culture change to say hey this is what we're going to do and we don't have to follow any other department we can start that as our department here in the city of Anglewood saying this is what we want to do we want everybody to feel safe we want the people to feel safe the officers to feel safe the visitors to feel safe and every like that I think that we provide the equipment when asked or the tools when asked to to do that uh so I I just like to see some more of that uh as we go on to 2024 thank you Chief I think you off the hot seat today Mr cob I ne uh I neglected to mention that Deputy uh city manager John Berner is also uh participating in the meeting right counc president could could I just make four quick notes about the police budget yep sure the um the um the police department was $338,000 under budget this year for overtime which was which was good um the arriv together program the chief talked about um it's four days a week but the uh Care Care Plus is uh is going to attempt to make it five days a week or a minimum of 40 hours be um before June before June 30th so that's that's something that's very very positive um and then just doing a quick a quick count with with the the numbers it looks like there's a there's a 20.12% increase in the calls in the first two months of the year so um you know we'll we'll dig into that and take a look but um you know the the important thing was the arve together for 40 hours from care one b b I got one I got one comment about the r together you know that's the that's the mental health uh yep we need that seven days a week and how do we get there that's the question for you and the chief we need to get that and if there's a number we need to figure that number out to get there because we need to make sure that we got this area buttoned up tight for all all people involved in that I think it's just so it's it's crit it's Paramount that we can you know and however we got to pay for it or whatever we we should figure out a way to to support that program and and and um get as many resources in that as we can that's just my comment okay you you ready to go on to the next one yes excuse me real quick council president yes yes point a point of order if I may for one quick second um I would like some clarity made for budgets and salaries if you go down to Mayor and Council it appears that I'm getting paid twice right I saw that I was for clarity for myself and for um my constituents and the general public I wanted it to be stated and I also wanted to be corrected right that Kevin Wilson is not getting paid twice right it's in it twice Mr Kaufman you have that right Michael Michael C Michael M yeah you saw that right no I didn't see it's in there it's it's twice okay Miss David is not and miss David is not in there okay so it's misnamed what yeah okay what yeah it was just Mis exactly it was misnamed so no I I don't need that to come from my mouth I need that to come from the CFO so there's it's on the record and there's confirmation throughout the city that I am not getting paid twice yes that should be mistake you're not saying what's the mistake I don't want to State the mistake I would like you to State the second Kevin Wilson should be Miss David councilwoman David thank you okay apologize Thank you Lisa hold on hold on councilwoman wasoski right hold on thank you yep um just where's the chief he's still there okay um um at the last council meeting I had mentioned this it would be great if we if the council could have either a memo or a presentation at the appropriate time time letting us know about the arriv together program and its impact so far in Anglewood you know even compared to other towns um so I wanted to make that comment and my second comment is um you know there's so much work in the second ward being done with the utility companies and now we're we're moving ahead with the with the Jones Road Route 4 project and we're going to have more uh detours and closure I just want to make sure because I know I know when people do work in town they're responsible to hire off-duty policemen to to help control the traffic and you know for example I may have mentioned it to you you know we we were having a problem this week last week with cars because of all the closures couldn't couldn't make a left turn coming down Maple onto broad uh or Dana place um which is called over there um and there was no policemen or to to D to help uh direct the traffic so as as we have more and more um closures in the second ward I just want to make sure that that we get the the help that we need from the companies that are coming in whether it's the New Jersey state or it's psng with directing traffic yes so we you know we always have you know pre-construction meetings with our you know with our vendors um the state's been responsive so far and I know they just put out I think tomorrow they'll they have a meeting um with some updated information on the bridge so um you know I know our Traffic Unit sergeant 's not monitors all that and you know as that gets closer obviously we we'll pay extra attention to what's going on and any extra activity in the area I mean if someone's doing work on their own they're shutting down a road without an officer there without our knowledge obviously that's a problem it's something that we're going to address but if it's a matter of if we're aware of it and we we're aware of the other closures in the area then we can nine times out of 10 we can navigate that and make it work for everybody but um it's it's not often I know it's not too often that we get someone shutting down the road on their own but obviously it's something we'll uh you know we'll keep an eye out that's uh something you're experiencing thank you very much thank let's let's uh let the chief go and any other comments we have I'm sure we can uh contact him off offline and have a conversation with him so we can get to the next uh budget budget uh topic is office of emergency management thank you Chief thank you Chief is uh okay Captain hello hello everyone how are you good how are you I'm good sir okay it's your sh let's get started all right um I just want to update everyone on uh Emergency Management uh what we did in 2023 and what we're looking to do in 2024 we we have uh an approved plan by the uh state of New Jersey and we're working on updating it it's up for approval in 2025 we're working on the right surveys for the city facilities and also Community facilities um we attend the drills of uh certain uh businesses in Anglewood that are required by law to have a drill an emergency uh plan drill city of Anglewood is conducting a two-part drill for uh First Responders and um the city's departments we had uh part one in the fall and part two will be be in the spring of 2024 um I attend the county meetings and um continuing my own education uh we've worked with the health department and the library and uh other City departments to open warming and cooling centers as needed uh we're working I'm working with the health department to reboot the cir team which really uh we lost interest during covid people were not willing to volunteer to participate and um lastly uh the 2024 I'm looking to add a deputy coordinator and to hire Precision weather which would give a weather forecast specifically for Anglewood you finish with your yes any questions for Emergency Management you know the T the tabletop exercises that we've been doing have been very eye openening and it's it's good when we're all around the table and um and working out problems together so it's uh the um what what uh Captain sanelli referred to in the fall um was uh you know was was the tabletop exercise and planning for for the spring and what what's going to be exciting about the spring is we're we're actually going to be able to bring out the equipment and just make sure that um you know every everything works as planned and um Captain sanelli has told us to be to be prepared for them not to work as planned and that's that's part of the that's part of the exercises to problem solve um you know when uh when you don't when you don't have have to solve a problem in seconds you can figure out what's the right thing to do and then make adjustments so that you know if there is an emergency we know exactly what to do so that's that's part of the beauty of OEM councilman Wilson you have your hand up yes um thank you council president uh good evening Captain sanelli thank you for the all important report um and and I can't stress this enough how important your position is in that the things that you put together because as the city manager just stated it's difficult to think of a plan when you need a plan um and so to think of plans why everyone else is is safe is very taxing at times and so my question to you is as a as a council how can we help you I mean the tabletop um examples or is off the chart and maybe later on you guys can get into what a table chart exercise consist of um and it's very accurate so besides that how as us as a counselor how can we help you help us um I I think uh the council's been very helpful but just anytime you see a need or an area where Emergency Management could approve just reach out to me uh you could text me anytime call me any time and we could sit down and meet and discuss it because there's always room for improvement and uh a collaboration of ideas would uh help me provide better um a better plan for the community thank you Captain Captain I I have a question for you yes sir um when we had Ida and even when we had um covid-19 and you were instrumental in guiding us through this and we had to find and supplies and things from all people do we have the right supplies do we have the resources that we need if we have to if we're challenged with an issue whether it be another covid outbreak or whether it be um you know a flood similar to Ida do we have the things that we needed I remember fire department didn't even have a blanket you know extra blankets and things do we have supplies I remember we didn't have masks right so did we do we did we take all that stuff into account and then we have an inventory of of those items so that at least we are not starting from zero if we were to be impacted by some type of event like this again so that that's a a very good question council president so we have for the city of Anglewood we have on hand um a limited supply of uh masks gloves and U the county is working with the municipalities and the county has a larger um stock bile that they get out to the communities the the problem with some of the stuff is it has a a a shelf life so it has to be uh replaced uh rapidly and it could be a a large expense to a community to keep um a large stockpile on on hand is there any kind of training that you could provide to employees of the city of Anglewood because they're they're a lot of those folks like yourself are Frontline folks so is there any kind of training that they need to get new things that they've learned that we can assist uh you in getting and and having training provided to the employees um any training is is good training and um I would love to have have the opportunity to discuss how we could get more training out to um not just our employees but to the community which is uh in a in an emergency that we will need Community Partners to help get through it to uh medicate and recover so uh like I would I would love the opportunity to talk about that training you know that that training when you say Community Partners I think the all the houses the various houses of Warship you should you know convene a meeting with them to say here are some of the things that we have and here's what we could do you know some key touch points that they could have at their access if something were to happen and how they can share that with the with their congregants okay we do appreciate it thank you anybody else have any questions for uh Captain sa belli Miss David Andel Council David yeah I want to say thank you for his service he's awesome um and um you're doing a wonderful job for all these years and thank you for um your support to the community Mr sanelli thank you ma'am okay anybody else have any questions for Captain sanelli thank you Joe see you on the road thank you Joe go back and go back and training now you can go back be safe 62 around Joe 62 around thank you thank you Joe thank you have a good evening thank you next we have the Department of Health all right let me get that'll be Dr Bola and team yes I have show so I don't see Dr mola do you see Lisa Smith or I have someone named administrator so I'm wondering if that's that's probably her all right that might be a Lisa Smith I don't see Dr Basta I could just quickly say about their budget anyway if you want please let's go um so from their salaries increased from last year $81,000 which is 11.4% % and that's due to two positions one is the uh half a year of arrive together position and the other one is a executive secretary SL subreg did you say together position arve together for a half a year is that the program we talked about with really yeah so it's not in his budget but it's in their budget yeah so the person resides in the health department or the police department it would be a health department person because the grant is paying for yeah I'm fine with that I mean we just it's a health department it's because the grant okay part of the grant is coming from the health department so it's being paid out of the health department also okay uh and there other expenses went down uh $8,700 88.7% okay Mr Mr hofman Yancy did you find Dr B we have everybody so we have H Dr Basta uh the um director we have Alisa Smith who I believe is the office manager and we have two members of the Board of Health uh president Marina Vargas and member Joshua tenser okay they have the floor welcome yes uh thank you very much uh uh Mr President uh uh as I am uh presenting you today the budget uh of Health Department um I am celebrating my second work anniversary and I just want to thank you all uh for supporting me uh I thank want to thank you thank Board of Health also and of course my staff for supporting me and making these two years successful and I look forward to uh many more years uh um ahead thank you very much uh that said uh we are public health department and we provide the services needed to protect and promote Health that cannot be readily performed in the private sector or by Health Care Providers pursuant to New Jersey administrative Court chapter 52 uh it is also called new JY Department of Health Public Health practice standards we play an important role in enforcing State statutes and local ordinances to safeguard health and wellness of City residents our department consists of environmental health health education Public Health nursing Vital Statistics and Licensing divisions we are currently a staff of 13 full-time employees the health department conducts inspections of restaurants and pools to ensure proper environmental sanitation and it investigates Public Health complaints of various nature it investigates communicable diseases and outbreaks and provides immunizations to community residents Health Department also provides health clinics for children and health education programs for all ages IT issues birth death and marriage certificates marriage licenses pet and Retail food licenses I will now briefly speak about the highlights of 2023 accomplishments we participated in multiple trainings including CPR Naran training New Jersey Division on civil rights discrimination and Mental Health First a training for adults and youth stigma free Town Hall was organized at Community Baptist Church on October 14th 2023 under the slogan Community First stop the overdose it was part of a town hall series providing information and resources regarding addiction and op opu crisis assistant pastor of Community Baptist Church the center for drug and alcohol resources and their peer recovery workers the Burgen County Prosecutors office and defining moments partnered with the municipal Alliance for this event the health education division successfully implemented the annual spring Wellness challenge which was repeated during the summer with Summer stus the weekly walking yoga programs were well attended and good number of local organizations contributed to their service free of charge to further the Outreach programs our department attended many community events and itself organized recurring monthly Outreach events at five permanent locations namely office of concern the woman's right information center Bergen Family Center Center for food action Anglewood Public Library we offered vaccine clinics to the community and distributed thousands of covid-19 test kits hand sanitizers and educational materials two Health faes were also held in 2023 one during the Spring and another in the fall honoring Latino heritage month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month Bal statistics staff have maintained their certified Municipal registar certifications Bal statistics is issued 14,575 birth marriage and death certificates and burial permits in 2023 above 60,000 phone inquiries were received and there have been more than six th000 front desk encounters B statistics plays a crucial role in Revenue generation for our department in the year 2023 it generated a revenue of approximately $242,000 the public health nursing division followed up on approximately 2500 communicable disease cases 13 disease outbreaks it offered 282 flu vaccines and 58 adult vaccines there were 21 child health clinics held uh and 148 children examined in those clinics I will also briefly talk about budget variances u u in 2023 the office supplies account line was increased to include a 12 month supply of safety paper with the new state registr signature an additional 10% was added to account for any potential increases um and to ensure that the supply carries over until next year's budget reopens safety paper is designated to each local health department and is uh and the supply is not transferable in case in case of emergency additional paper can only be picked up from tenton the amount of safety paper ordered in 2025 will with all likelihood be lowered uh programming supplies was added to the other materials SL supplies budget line item when possible the health department rely on Grant fund to to cover educational materials giveaways for program participants costs for health faes and other public health events however there is a need for more hunding to be available to provide the level of of programming requested and expected by the Anglewood residents therefore additional $6,000 was requested to purchase items for educational programming and extended community outreach including chronic disease education programs breast cancer and testicular cancer awareness months observance ultraviolet sun safety Awareness Month Summer Sun safties months observance flu clinics and child health clinics I will talk briefly about the budget and plans for 2024 now the total budget requested for the year 2024 is $897,500 consisting of 91,8 32 for operating expenses $113,000 for overtime expenses and $793,000 for salary and wages this also includes an additional $26,000 added to cover the salary and wages for the first time uh for the part-time executive secretary and sub regist this employee will provide much needed uh support to the vital statistics division with addressing the high level of phone calls and vital check record requests the updated salary and wages roster uh roster also includes 1.5% 2.5% and 3.5% increase for employees based based on their current salary it considers the high cost of living in Anglewood Bergen County inflation and competitive salaries in the area this recommendation culminated from the public health salary assessment we did from the health department on the request from Board of Health we have currently uh two registered environmental health health position in the environmental health division one registered environmental health special specialist resigned as of November 2023 after accepting a position with better benefits hiring process for this vacant rhs position is in effect Health Department currently has only one health inspector that can perform food inspections however two former employees have agreed to help on an independent contractor capacity to fill in as needed until the new rehs is hired future programming for the mun IAL Alliance and stigma free Anglewood will in include continuation of a stigma free Town Hall program in the fall to create Awareness on op epidemic health department will also table at this event and offer Nan trainings for the public and staff strengthening local public Public Health capacity grants since 2022 has funded two important Public Health positions of a of local Health Outreach coordinator and infectious disease prepar generalist this grant is ending in June 2024 however a budget modification for the for the public health infrastructure Grant received from New Jersey Association of city and county health officers has been drafted to include the salary and Fe for these two positions for continued employment the strengthening local public health capacity Grant will continue covering these salaries Fringe and other accessories such as phone and iPad until June 2 24 the New Jersey Association of County and City Health officers Grant will then fund them until 20 June 2025 discussion have begun with the city Administration about the possibility of making these positions permanent in the future as the current LH and the idg as these positions are acronymed have contributed significantly to the Department's efficiency and increased Community presence they have Prov proven themselves to be important human resource asset for the health department now I will talk a little bit about furniture request that we have made the department Clinic area underwent renovation in 2023 and will require new furniture for the space we are requesting $20,000 towards a conference room table and chairs waiting room chairs a child size table and chairs for the clinic waiting room that will allow iPads to be mounted for use during CSC clinic and for the four desks with dividers to better fit the renovated workspace for their use by the by the staff and briefly I will I will talk about grants uh the grants that we have in in we have been awarded so far there are four grants that we have now number one is strengthening local public health capacity Grant worth 47,000 approximately dollars that ends June 20 24 as I described there is another Grant which is vaccine supplemental funding Grant worth $100,000 which ends January June 2024 and we have public health infrastructure Grant worth $459,000 that extend that has been extended up to 2025 and then there is another M Municipal Alliance Grant worth $111,000 so these these grants have been utilized to hire new staff and provide logistics for community outreach events and Clinics these grants I should emphasize assist in effective implementation of public health programs by complimenting to the uh to the uh to the human resource capacity uh and logistic needs of the department as we move now to the 2024 uh we focus on mental health challenges we will continue to address social determinance of Health and will uh gear our efforts towards Health Equity and elimination of Health disparities we will work as public health strategist and will tailor our interventions based on the needs of WS and its unique social demographic characteristics so that is all I had to say in brief um and I just uh want to I somehow do not want to miss this I just want to emphasize on the fact that we have one important division which is environmental health Division and the scope of work they do so I just want to say that in the year 2023 they have 312 health inspection completed 72 temporary food events uh inspections done and there were 87 various Public Health complaints investigated by them and our health education unit uh had a tremendous scope of work completed in 2023 I just want to mention that there were 108 Outreach events completed and there were 13 100 more than 1300 residents that were raed out with the public health events that we carried out and different meetings that we carried out thank you very much thank you do anybody have any questions for Dr basto I I I have a few for them since nobody else has them Dr you know um one of the things I noticed here and you you mentioned it about the grants that are paying for salaries of I guess two employees yes sir I think it's very important that you and Mr Hoffman get together and see how we can retain these employees Beyond these grants because of the work that they've delivered and they've become a critical part of of the staff number one and then as I look at the salaries I think that we need to have a conversation around how do we compensate these people for doing such a good job representing the city but more importantly the the critical services that they provide and and I think you missed an opportunity to talk about some of the immigrants that have come in to town that have used your services you know and and we had to get additional space in City Hall so we can service those people as well right so we just need to and and my last thing for you is just is like when you have some things that are important make just make sure we know even if you got to say listen can I get on the agenda to speak to the to you guys to say hey this is what we got going on so we can support these efforts and and understand these efforts and so if we know then if somebody approaches us with that we can share that information with them as well so so that we can get the word out we can help you get the word out to the programs that yes you offering because you have a lot of offerings there so I think it's a important at just keeping us informed about some of the issues that are going on some of the things that you're you're addressing I think that that would be important and very helpful and very meaningful to us thank you very much I I'm very respectful to the Views that you just presented I uh if I may I just want to add into it uh as to what I am planning to do going forward now it took a while for me to get adjusted to the community get oriented uh to the stakeholders and all of them now I uh personally want to take initiative on uh organizing organizing a so-called Public Health Forum uh whereby I would invite the community leaders um faith-based organizations uh you know leaders and other social activist and other business Community leaders uh to listen to us for most for about one and one hour or two hours as to what we do and how can we collaborate further to uh better improve you know so that is uh that is another thing that I plan on doing as a u annual uh permanent activity on behalf of the health department thank you uh councilwoman wasoski thank you and thank you for that presentation um so I just want to make a couple comments on on on the website on the health department will you do the um inspections for 2023 I know you mentioned that you that a lot of inspections were done but unless I'm using the website wrong the only inspection I I saw was one one school yiva orat tamid March 15 2023 and I didn't see any restaurants up there any I mean nothing else in any of the other categories oh that that is in our laser record and that that is something we have in in record uh for 2023 uh Dr wski as I said uh we have uh we have uh just make sure I don't say the wrong number uh we have about uh 300 uh 312 health inspection um performed and there was 72 temporary food events inspected uh that is in record and uh uh and then 87 Public Health complaints investigations that we performed in the year 2023 so so would those food inspections be uploaded onto the website or only just the yiva was uploaded yeah I I I will I will look into that and I will make sure so you saying that those numbers um uh preferably be posted in the website somewhere the city website that's where your suggest to update the website and make sure that it's updated regularly yep okay um in terms of the municipal Alliance I know that um the health department does a lot of work with the municipal Alliance and so um in 2023 the council did have discussion because the municipal Alliance is out of compliance with what um with the ordinance and the ordinance needed to be updated and we're still waiting unless unless um yansy have you gotten an updated roster from the municipal Alliance that would be compliant no I haven't received anything since our last discussions ran I think the last discussion was that we would make sure this would be done in the beginning of 24 so and that was back in December so so before we we were able to accept that Grant this year I think it's important that the municipal lines be in compliance um in terms of the Public Health infrastructure Grant can you tell me a little bit what that's that's being used for um that that is a grant uh that has been uh you know proposed to be used for uh uh different things based on our needs like Logistics trainings and workshops and seminars for the staff and then we proposed one time um a a social service support uh with that with that fund uh and then uh also uh a surveillance assistant so those positions we proposed uh but now uh things have changed a little bit so the need has changed now now we have to make sure that the two uh Grant funded employees that we have in place they be continued because they are our priority now and they have been uh they have been very instrumental in uh taking taking our Public Health outreach program to the community and another person who is a infectious disease preparedness generalist who has been very very instrumental in investigating infectious diseases inclusive of covid-19 and doing outbreak investigations and helping the nurse in different other activities as a support for her so the point is that we want to use that fund now going forward from 24 to 25 uh you know and then their salary and wages are little in a higher range based on the recommendation from the state so that will capture that money you know in total so that's what that money is all about now we have to use that money for the continuity of those staff you know uh because there is a consensus uh that these staff these employees are uh pretty instrumental in continuing our uh you know good works that we do in the health department right and and I remember last year we had a meeting and and you said that you were going to use some of this grant money toward um social work um so have you used some of the money towards uh a social worker no we uh Dr Dr wasi thank you for asking that question we started the process and I started having conversation with the city but in the meantime what has happened is that unfortunately uh starting June 2024 the strengthening of local public health capacity Grant will stop so we have to transfer this money for those positions those two critical positions so we probably will not be able to um hire a social worker I am reviewing the entire budget right now and I will see if there is any leftover money after utilizing the total fund for those two positions for them to continue I will then definitely continue uh to pursue that social worker uh you know uh hiring and uh you know uh all of that and and if you don't mind those two positions that you hired through the grant if you don't mind sending me um and the council information on those positions I'd appreciate that sure sure um the overtime pay of 13,000 which what what is that for please oh our our staff as I said you uh we have lots of uh uh you know Outreach events that occur and we are uh currently based on the uh you know uh need of the or based on the expectation from the residents and the communities that we do more Health faires uh so we our staff are out in the field uh you know off hours sometimes uh for those public health events so uh we uh we require some extra money for that so last year it was I believe uh 10,000 so we requested another 3,000 Regal money for that for the over time right no I was yeah yeah I see 20 21 it was and I should tell you sorry I should tell you that we had already uh that's a pretty good number of uh Public Health that we did last year 2023 which is 108 so um what does Health contractual services 16,700 mean uh this is uh 16,000 which which item okay Health contractual service was 90500 in 2020 that's what um services like shredding our um retail licensing program um our EMR software for uh medical records and charts um yeah and um we also have a little bit of money uh put aside for um RS um services for um in the meantime while we're hiring okay thank you um the health Food and Drug 20 29950 I'm just picking up the ones that increased a lot from the year before that's okay uh let me which one uh Dr Health Food and Drugs 2950 maybe you're buying more medication or something or flu shots it's for the increased demand in flu shots um from last year okay yeah um and you talked about the child health clinic thank you uh tell me tell me about um what's going on with the TAS Program can you give me an update what you've done in3 and what you found yeah well unfortunately uh we we were almost in The Verge to find a mystery shoer for us uh but what happened is that uh you know the the person had uh overage you know by the time we decided uh to have her um on board and it is really challenging and dating task to find a a person for um going to the you know uh uh the to stores you know or retail stores you know to to uh to do the job for us uh so we are we continue however we continue this program and what we are doing also is that uh you remember there was a litigation there was a lawsuit U there and then uh we kind of lost that lawsuit and what happened is that uh the judge wanted us to have a a place where the specimens that was confiscate confiscated as being sold to the minor can be tested for the presence of tobacco in it so we are working on finding a you know lab which could test that for us so we are we are so the point is that we keep that money for for us the taste program continue that is a priority for us the only challenge that we are facing is recruiting the uh you know recruiting the mystery shoer for us the uh the minor who would go and you know purchase uh to tobacco and would not be eventually asked at the ID you know so well how old of a how old of a minor are you are you looking for 21 and below so that's that's a that's a challenge I mean because um you know um uh there could be um there could be U hesitance on their side for the matter of the fact that uh they might have to come to you know um a court if there is that that be a case you know so uh that's a challenge there but we I personally think that the T program is a very important program and I am uh uh you know having conversation with environmental health uh supervisor priscila to see how we can you know better perform on that to find at least you know a couple of uh you know uh um students for us you know to go and do that job for us you know okay thank you so much I appreciate it you're very welcome you muted but maybe you called on me yeah I did yep um thank you Dr Bola for that presentation you're welcome just just with the uh increased outrate Outreach what's the measurable from that because Outreach by itself you know isn't the goal it's there there's something you're hoping from that so do you have a measurable that you're seeing to make sure is successful that that's a great question I I I will tell you um from my assessment and from the facts that we have in place uh the uh the chronic disease uh you know is is our um primary problem here you know so um what what we do with those uh you know Outreach events and the sessions that we carry out you know now recently we have emphasized on the evaluation program so what we are going to do is to see how that impacts uh the public in terms of what change does occur in terms of knowledge okay but the ultimate goal again is to make sure that there is a lower disease burden in the community with regard to these chronic diseases such as hypertension diabetes neurological diseases or other psychiatric elements and all of that so uh what we trying to achieve is to see how people perceive about it because our our Public Health measures are very uh difficult to kind of have it right away in one year or two year right away you so it's a longitudinal kind of impact that happens later on five 10 years or so so uh I'm not sure whether we are uh able to assess that right away uh but of course we have in implemented the evaluation program we want to know from the public how good they feel about it and uh how um have they increase their knowledge are they are do they like these events you know do they like these programs as for example as I said you um chronic disease awareness program right so that kind of measure we will do but in terms of assessing the burden of the disease in terms of morbidity and mortality uh that we probably will not be able to really say going down the road you know we have to well C well certainly the um the number of people and the time you'd need to assess a mortality benefit from an outreach program is you know probably in the hundreds of thousands or or Millions but I think some metrics you might be able to look at our our more PE you mentioned hypertension are more people being treated for hypertension now now you know they might not you know you might not detect a survival difference but if we know that previously 58% were being treated and now it's you know 69% well that's probably a good thing or or Miss Smith had mentioned the increase vaccinations that's obviously pretty immediate metric because it's it's seasonal or or flu raid or things like that so I would I would strongly encourage you to have some some metrics to present to us because you know Outreach is great but yeah we want a we want a final product of a healthier City yeah we we'll do and and and and the focus again with these outre is in my understanding that we want to uh kind of impact people's as I said knowledge you know base and their skill set uh you know some kind of behavior well then then that's metric too and we' need surveys and such to see yes uh but you know so that that could be a metric too but but we' need to we need to measure it it just can't be a feel good thing thank you for suggestions thank you appreciate it anybody else have any questions for Dr Pista if not then we're gonna Mr yes Wilson has councilman Wilson thank you council president uh doctor great presentation thank thank you very much for thank you um you and your staff for what you do and how you service our city um thank you I also think that your services sometimes are underrated um especially for newcomers in our city so thank you guys for what you do I know it's not always easy and it's not just forms that people have to pill out you have to follow through so thank you for the um I noticed that on your organizational chart that there's a couple vacancy and one of the ones that is near and dear to my heart is of course the youth Health educator so is this organization chart up to date as of now we have a vacancy for that is that correct yeah we we we have a uh I think there is a litigation on that position that position is partially funded from I understand uh by the health uh the Englewood health so uh for now that position is still there um that vacancy has not been announced uh but what we are trying to do is to uh you know uh going forward in 2025 I have projected that in my organization chart for 2025 we are reorganizing we are planning on reorganizing the health education department itself so yeah so I apologize so this chart's not accurate this is supposed to be for 2025 yes it's as as a perspective in 2025 I have I am proposing that we reorganize the health education department oversight from the senior health educator and there would be two other health Educators and two two Health Educators would take part uh in outreaching um two separate ws and then Al also look into the youth health education responsibilities so um so the point I'm trying to make is that I'm I'm I'm going to make a this a systematic kind of approach you know to make sure that okay in our structure there is a full-time uh person who is taking care of the youth Health Youth and Adolescence uh health education component yeah so so you're teasing me right now I would like to see that you would um try to pursue this as quickly as possible because now that I've seen it and I know that there's definitely a need for it um and there there's so many kids out here at this particular juncture that need that outreach program and I I I just don't want anyone to fall through the cracks of whether your department or any other department here because the youth is our future and I think we need to put our best foot forward to make sure that your program um is accelerated for 2025 and that we make space for that because I don't think that anyone would disagree to have services for our youth yes we we'll take care of that we'll do okay and I've got a [Music] question on page number 77 second from the last one down number 244 Health membership um 244 on page 77 second from the bottom got yes sir yeah Health memberships yeah we have a um we have some uh we are member of some organizations uh as I mentioned you in my description in my uh presentation also there is organization called um New Jersey Association of County and City Health officers uh we work with them very closely um similar organizations like it's is for the health Educators so they can be member of that so this money is spared for those purposes also and we have that money in the other other item also so we need those that money for the membership of organizations professional organizations uh as for example for me American Public Health Association so we be the member of that and National Association of County and City Health offices I be the part of that so we need some money for that for membership okay so and thank you for that quick explanation so we have on the website on how people can become members is that correct say it again sir do you have on your website how members how people can become members oh yes okay um thank you for that and and lastly um 312 Health inspections um that's a lot of work so um I'm just highlighting that thank you guys for which you to 87 public health and investigations 72 temporary health complains investigations yeah I listen as as doing things in a city I know that's not easy so once again thank you guys for what you do and for those that may not know could you point out how I think and I could be wrong that you guys have recently in the last couple years um taking on new complaints and a new task as far as um noise complaints our noise complaints have now become a health issue yeah yeah we uh we we don't have uh noise noise complaints investigator with us in the health department uh but we U take help of the count on that you know so uh yes uh um uh we we take uh we take help from the county we take from help from the state as needed we don't get these complaints too often um we but do encounter some smell complaints and noise complaints occasionally uh we do yeah yeah and I just wanted that to be stated for the record because often times us as council members get complaints about noises whether it's music cars whatever it may be now that information is directed to your department so thanks thanks for taking up on a little bit more yeah I I think we yeah we we we we do our best as much as we can our uh registered environmental health specialist and public health investigator are very uh you know uh uh very um Cooperative you know with other departments such as police department you know because the complaints like noise complaints they uh somehow some way get connected with the police department in the first place and then we kind of convene together to see how we can effectively work together you know to resolve that issue and uh and help the residents as they as they need the help well well I for one thank you and yourself for what you do and have a great night thank you thank you very much you too thank you sir anybody else have any questions for Dr Basta um thank you for the great presentation thank you okay so then we'll we'll move on thank you Dr TOA thank you sir all right have a good evening so next we move on to the recreation department thank you very much Michael you want to give us uh the intro sure the uh Recreation Department their salaries went up 3% uh $28,000 uh their other expenses went down $72,000 which is minus 8.3% that has to do with the we don't have the after school program anymore so we took out the expenses for that and the salaries reason why went up $28,000 even with us getting rid of the after schools we have a assistant ice manager ice skating manager in the budget for this year as a succession plan for the current ice skating manager who plans on retiring sometime in the future that's a full-time job that's a full-time job really that person's going to be working Monday through Friday or whatever it is it well it's more than a full-time job during the season they're they're there um you know on on weekends they're there they're there uh late late in the afternoons they're there for special occasions so what does this person do when The Season's out when it's out of season uh they're they're not they're they're off their their their specialty is is the me so if they're off that means they're not collecting a salary right that's what you're telling me or how does that work um are they are they on a on a 12 months count calendar Michael for for that or are they on the they on a six month I just don't remember at the moment well they get paid throughout the year yeah okay so there's so um so I part I part misspoke because there's the there's the maintenance and there's the planning for the uh you know for repairs for the rink and things of that nature um that they you know that they work on I think I think they used they used they were using the rink um is in 2022 they were using the rink in in August you know in summer yeah they used it throughout the year councilman Wilson thank you council president um just for point of clarity that increase in the budget is because we hired someone new yep because someone may be retiring in the near future did I hear that right no we didn't we didn't hire anyone yet it's it's it it's ice skating part of it yeah right so it's in the budget so you're saying that person possibly won't be hired until that actual person retires is that correct two different things no two different we're we're trying to implement a succession plan for the for the for the ice for the ice excuse me excuse me for the ice skating ring yes yeah I'm aware of that it's two different things what what are the two maybe I misheard that's why I'm asking for clarity I'm sorry the ice ging rink Sal the salaries for the ice ging rink are in this Recreation salary So within that number is the assistant ice skating manager we've we we're trying to we're trying to perform sucession planning we've been informed that sometime in the future the our our our current rink manager um wants to wants to retire isn't that what I what isn't that what I just said that that we have somebody that wants to re retire you you you want to implement something so we don't have a gap is that correct that that is correct yes so so normally isn't it how it works is that person when they retire we we replace that number with the new person why are we adding additional salary unless we're going to have two positions are we looking for two positions you're saying a succession plan so so are are the person that we have now their their salary will be eliminated is that correct when they retire not not in 2024 but when they retire right when they retire yeah whenever that is yeah so what we want to do is we want to be able to hire somebody that can work with with our rank manager right now and as a training process as as a as a yes training and and transition so that we're we're seamless going forward with our operations don't we usually we're we're adding the head count excuse me we're adding the head count that's what that is yeah I I I get it but we're paying somebody pretty healthy to be training so should not I asked that question that yep shouldn't we be looking for somebody that already has that training so we don't have to duplicate Services we could hire somebody for that yep well we're look we're we're looking to uh um hopefully promote from within but um we you know we need we need a certain skill set all right hold on ke hold on and Angela I'm good thank you yeah Angela yes I'm a little confused here looking at this entire budget [Music] um I I know I came from like three terms elected On The Board of Ed and I'm a seasoned teacher teaching special ed and I have a master of science in special ed and I hope that I don't retire in 15 years they're gonna have me someone Shadow me to get my job so I'm looking at this like so you want someone to Shadow someone I'm I'm calling it Shadow and that's what we use in education Shadow to follow that person to know the job to learn the job uh and pay them a salary to me it doesn't make any sense that's confusing to me um I never seen anything like this before and I'm looking at other budgets I read from school budgets and everything down to a lot of budgets but shadowing a I mean you to hire someone to be a teacher what I'm I'm have a an assistant ta to be take a job as a teacher and she'll Shatter Me for like five years and and wait for me to retire this is confusing I just need more like um more projection on this whole ice skating rink situation and if the ice skating rink is not seasonal you don't convert it over to like skate you know like to something else um to rented out for events or even roller skating maybe or something that we useful throughout the seasons All Seasons I'm confused with this whole thing and I'm new I'm just I'm not being a devil's it's not a devil's advocate situation is I want to explain that a seasonal job that you have to Shadow someone to get the job of someone who didn't retire so that means that a police officer who's retiring in two years to have a police whatever a trainee follow him for two years or a fire traine or a mayor traine clerk trainee judge traine I'm confused this is all too new to me and I need this to explained to me please I need Clarity on this I'm not used to looking at these some budgets and that they streamlined the correct way um if anyone can help me Charles Anybody Kevin or Bob this doesn't make sense to me and I can't I just can't vote on something like this because this is confusing I've come from a strict background and this is just not strict to me is not adherent to policy to me go ahead sorry I'll mute myself go ahead um sure there's and what we'll do is we we will um we'll we'll send out some additional information but uh you know a few months ago uh HR and I met with uh with the the rec Recreation director and the uh and the rank manager and the um you know to talk about to talk about the future to talk about the succession plan the excuse me Bob yeah do we have a new director or we talking about the the in the assistant no we were we were talking talking about last last fall and summer so we we we we were we were talking about with the rec director you know looking forward and the position of rank manager is um you know it's both it's both somebody that schedules but they have to they have to master the um the the um the way the ice is made there's there's things that have to be monitored there's the chillers there's there are several uh there are several layers of technology that are involved and um just the the Gen the general maintenance you've you've seen the punch list that that's put together by by the current rank manager and um there's the uh there's the planning for the future when you have when you have water and metal there there's uh there's things that have to be replaced and um that's that's part of the part of the job of the rink manager so this is this is to provide an opportunity to transfer knowledge so that things don't break and we can continue to have smooth operation so um you know that's no thank you Bob yeah I appreciate that but is that taxpayers expenses and I'm looking at it a different as a taxpayer no I'm not attacking or anything I'm just saying that um I'm just I don't agree with this new way of thinking that we're going to hire someone and you train them until you retire um I don't know uh I never seen this in my life and even on the board of education in three terms I was elected that we don't say the the principal's retiring or superintendent retiring and we're going to have a trainee shadow that person for three years and say oh I hope you learned the job but there are people who are out here in this world even Engineers who know their jobs and they looking for jobs like this I'm just looking at it like why we paying extra that's my only ask why are we paying extra um and whatever you guys then fine but I'm just looking at it a different perspective that's all you know I'm I'm new to you guys but my perspective but a educational background and policymaking and everything is just different than um a a seasonal ice skating rank when the Board of Ed had one of the biggest budgets also and this budget here is set up that I can't even read it um okay I'm sorry I'll just mute myself now this you know your your point your point your points are valid that uh you know we we our our goal is to answer all of your all of your questions and the um you know it's of this this this position is not not to train for three years this is for a this is for a limited period of time but um also it's just you know the rink the rink right now um you know it's it's a s day a week oper operation and there are there are different things that happen on on the different on the different days of the of the week but um you know it's we we we know that we have a very successful rink and we have a very um accomplished and well-respected rank manager and um he you know he is um he he wants to be able to um know that the rink will continue to operate when when he when when he uh when he leaves and that's why we're that's why we're trying to do this we're trying to plan this um no thank you and I do agree with that but my question my ask also is that he's well accomplished in this but now I'm looking at it like cost effective I need to know now like what is it what the money is bringing in what is coming out so they may need some type of evaluation on some analysis like is it worth hiring someone to come in so I'm looking at the due diligence on this you understand you say accomplished in his word because his legacy his legacy well and I'm looking at the word accomplished that way but I'm just looking at the whole overall like what you know the the monies are bringing in and the the salaries going out and everything so I need I need an abstract on that I'm I say one thing oh yeah M Michael just by by all means after I do you know Michael you need this yeah the the the rink the rink is the largest revenue generator in in in the recreation department it brings in it it brings in 59.1 two% of the revenue for in 2023 um so uh it's um you know it's it's very significant it's it it was four over $491,000 that uh that the rink generated in revenue from uh from uh from rentals for different hockey uh you know hockey leagues and and teams that needed need to practice high school teams use it um you know that things of that nature but Michael go ahead I'm sorry um I just want in front right in front of the recreation part of the recreation budget I did a uh spreadsheet of the recreation operations for for last year and what we're budgeting for this year and for the ice gain portion with the salary of this extra person there's still our budget is still estimating will be I mean for what we're estimating for revenue and Appropriations it's it's a revenue generator of 11,841 that's 100 111,000 positive when as a whole Recreation for the year of 2024 we're anticipating a loss of 1.1 million so the ice skating rank is is really yeah um stick a pin in it 111 what you said thousand Revenue yeah okay okay when I say sck Ain in it with that being said that did you do an analysis to see what else it can be used for like outside for convert it into something else I'm just asking I'm new I am new I'm doing innocent I'm new like a lot of people I know who ask for like they want to go skating they want to do things like that maybe can generate a bigger re Revenue because the demographics are changing in Englewood or changed in Englewood I'm just asking and I want you to educate me you know that's why I'm asking these questions not to be you know yeah one of the things I think I don't want to talk for uh Bob but we're thinking you know one of the things we could look at is to that he wants to look at is make it into a 12 month operation and that's you know I know there's Green Acre funding stuff like that you know Bob wants to talk about that but so there are ways to even you know use the ice G rink more than we're using it now since it's making the city money yeah you know one one of the I can make a comment if if um if I'm recognize Charles yes I just finished Lisa I just finished Lisa so you can make a comment so so Angela have you had a chance to look at the recreation operation spreadsheet that Mr Cal yes I have good yes so I can't wait to hear your comments on that um Let me let me just uh just just tell you that the way the ice the ice is made and Bob you can correct me if I'm wrong is but there are coils on the ground and um it's it's like they they lay out a mat and and it and the coils and it makes ice and so the reason why they can't have activities there in the summer is because it would ruin the ice making mechanism is that correct Bob it it isn't it's my understanding when they put the new floor in the new floor is um is thinner so you could you can't do rollerblading or anything else else on it because it would it would affect the coils and the ability to to for the ice to freeze so yes right and and and Angela I'm glad I'm glad though so you so you can't do that without ruining the mechanism of making ice so so I like the idea of the of making it an ice skating rink 12 months of the year not only because it's probably the only thing that actually makes money in the recreation department but but really because like you mentioned about the demographics and I'm glad you mentioned it Angela ice ice hockey has become much more popular and um and we have a hockey in New Jersey program in the city of Anglewood do you know anything about that um Angela you know I've been living here I think longer than you but I know a lot about about it okay great also do part there yeah right so so with the hockey in New Jersey I'm glad you know about it so with a hockey in New Jersey program and with um and and um a lot of the ice skating that's going on and you know and if you're projecting Mr Hoffman that that this could be successful 12 months of a year and I that was in the budget that that you provided with us then I certainly would be interested in exploring it yeah um if if I if I may um you know the we're not projecting 12 months a year right right now there are certain things that has have to be done but what I um what I neglected to point out to the council is that um for for the past several years the uh USA Hockey has provi has provided um you know free free hockey equipment free lessons and um equipment for for the residents of ingt are are children so um you know that's that's one of the that's one of the Ben one of the benefits of having this having this rink there's there's programs that you know that are that are brought in so that you know all of our Generations can learn how to skate sorry go ahead um Lisa Lisa you have something to say I mean I'm just asking for my constituents who want roller skating and I know that there's ways to get it done but 12 months in a year I don't think that was a conversation we were speaking about we were talking about the budget and I didn't see 12 months in a year in a budget what line item is that no it's it's not it's it's not in the budget for calendar year 202 brought it up and I thought it was in a budget because he mentioned it so I assumed it's in one it's in one of the narratives in the budget book yeah it's it's it's the narrative but not the budget okay yeah it's for fut planning yep I didn't see that okay thank you no more comments okay okay okay thank you yes I'm looking at the recreation operations spreadsheet I'm just trying to get a hand on some of these numbers um to make sure I'm understanding them correctly so as you just mentioned ice skating as of in 2023 generated $170,000 okay okay so that that's good and I think it's smart to uh make sure we're keeping up good ice there because you don't have ice you're not going to generate that money I'm just trying to get a handle on some of these law loses here so the pool badges that's a loss of over a quarter of a million dollars I see um in the column there negative $264,000 so I'm reading that correctly Michael was he looking at that yes yep you're saying we lost you're saying we lost that much that that many that much that much money yeah so we we brought in $35,000 of Revenue and lost and and spent $300,000 to bring in that $35,000 of Revenue yes we spent uh $142,000 in actual expenses in other expenses and $157,000 in salaries and benefits that that that's that's simply astonishing that we're losing such a high percentage and then looking at Sun sunf fund so that looks like that brought in $200,000 of Revenue but cost about $500,000 or half a million dollars and I think the camp only has what 45 to 50 kids in it so we're losing about almost $300,000 on sunf fund the sunf fund Camp lost around $83,000 and the after school lost $200,000 okay so these aren't even close to being Revenue neutral these are huge sink holes so you know during 2023 and part of of this year I've been talking about thirdparty vendors quite a bit so when I see stuff like the mad scientist program which we spent tens of thousands of dollars on last year um that that's in the that's probably in the um the actual UND Sun fund like the $300,000 there yes and that's where bouncy houses are and and trips to Great Adventure and um the dinner theater that we paid for so all that would be in that in that um actual there on sunf fund sunf fund yeah and that's where all the third party vendor work is as far as you can tell there might have been some in special events 16 thou I mean that's $16,000 well I doubt we spent 20 yeah a $20,000 bouncy house on $16,000 of expenses so yeah most of it yeah it's most here are there any third party vendors with the pool like any of the bouncy houses in there or is it all just the fact that one the Tron pool is an ecological disaster spilling thousands or tens of thousands of gallons of toxic water into the third and fourth ward every day is is that where that expense is or is there other expenses into that a lot of the we had a lot of expense uh our Deputy city manager did an analysis for uh the pools and a lot of the second the the pool was was like most of the water expense was Troon Avenue most of uh chemicals was trying up because it's just the pipes and everything and you know about it you know about it yeah um so you know again I'm uh maybe a bit zealous about the third party event ERS you know I kind of see Camp as a you know you know my my kids are a bit older now but it wasn't that long ago they were in Camp and they were Camp counselors you do activities arts and crafts you play games you pick up game of of basketball or baseball um not not not not a luxury trip every day um or or super expensive actors coming in to do a the dinner theater um how can we get a you know and and when I was objecting to it in bills and claims I was told that you know I'm kind of late to it because the money's been you know expended already and and you know that's not the appropriate time so it seems to me that the budget would be the appropriate time to try to get a handle on this H how can we get a handle on these thirdparty vendors that you know our taxpayers in Englewood aren't paying you know literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for you know mad scientists and um um you know you know $10 a pop caramel apples and you know if you I you getet some of the other programs there the the Mystery Dinner Theater H how does this Council get a handle on that because once it's in the budget it seems like it's it's then it's appropriated and then we just kind of have to rubber stamp it a couple of months down the road all right well um you know a a couple a couple of things to to um to point out or to reemphasize you know one of one of them is that the um is that the sun after school program of is um no no longer in operation so in 2024 we won't we won't have that we won't have that expense so as Michael said that's a that's that's a proximately $200,000 but right now we have we're we're we're preparing for for summer camps we're we're putting together programs and we're doing uh we're doing additional uh you know we're we're making plans for for the camps for for the summer for spring camps um and and you know and other things so um you know we're um of we're looking to make sure that the activities that are being provided are are going to be um uh fun they're going to be worthy and um that they they make use of as many of the resources that we have in the city as possible but there's there's also a component for um for for you know Camp travel um so you know that part part part of that is is going to be a a you know um a policy decision of the of the council but even you know all all summer camp involves a bit of you know some some kind of some kind of travel but we're you know we're looking to see what we can do within our city limits great Angelo Angel you got your hand raised yeah yeah know and while while councilwoman David's becoming you know uh you know getting ready to ask questions you know the the philosophy that we're using in 2024 is that you know we're we're looking to provide programs that are you know that that are educational um you know for for our our residents and that they it gives them an opportunity to have access to something that they wouldn't normally have access to so it's uh you know just it it's it's Recreation and educational opportunities for for the summer those are those are part of the plans that's what we we're trying to Pivot to okay could you hear me now yep yeah um councilman Rosen swag I agree with you um and I was one of the the the the council persons that said you were late to the party because I came in and um if Services were rendered then you have to pay correct so I did say that and I and I agree I mean I understand that um money was over spent or whatever people think but um we have a good we have a few good people there at the rec and one is Molly Molly Craig Berry I think she's exceptional she was on a board of education um and sometime with the leadership sometime you just do what you're told but um you know we just have to give another try um and I think Molly uh Craig Barry is an awesome person but um I'm just saying that it was a third party vendors that bothered me and I was guilty of saying that we have to pay them but not guilty and not sorry because they had to be paid because I just got here if they did a service you had to pay them okay so that's my thought about it okay thank you Lisa hi um Michael I have a question for you um when I look at the expenses that we that that we had in 20 23 the actual expenses and then I look earlier in the book where you where what was approved in the budget it seems that we spent significantly more this than was approved in the 2023 budget yeah if you look at in the beginning of the book you have all the Departments and what was approved right you have salaries Recreation Recreation we approved 871 350 in other in um other expenses right what what what was the total that we approved 871 350 and we spent 795 464 not sure what you're looking at in the right I'll find it I'll find it um later but um in the summary here let me go I'm almost there so maybe you looked at the 2024 introduced budget because the 2024 introduced budget $799 the 2023 adopted budget was 871 and we spent $792 so the 20 2023 adopted budget total was one 756 350 you see yeah but on the operation spreadsh sheet the total was 1.88 oh I'll tell you why because the fringe benefits are not included in the recreation salary health insurance has its own line social security has its own line pension has its own line so th those fringe benefits were added to the spreadsheet okay um what so I Echo councilman Rosen swag sentiments on the situation with the pools um you know what are we doing to get a handle on this I I ALS what was the usage like on what Mr Hoffman what was the usage like on the Tryon pool can you give me an idea of how many people were using that pool um yeah over the over the course of last year I think we had um 933 and I I I can I can I will look and and and find find the uh find that number um part of it part of it was yes it was it was we had 933 users and the the council should should also um recall that um last year we had we had a significant amount of rain on we on weekends so the pool the pool was really only open 57 days last year for the last season it's usually open in the 70s but it was it was open uh um for you know 5 57 days but there was we had we had 933 um users at at the Tron pool so that a bob I'm sorry to interrupt to clarify that is that 933 unique users or total uses of the pool you know I'm I'm not sure I'm not sure you know John John might would would have the answer I you know if I don't know if that's repeats or or not so it's um M John John's raising his hand un mute yes it's not that it's uh unique users it's total users throughout the course of the season um so so you have three if you have three people who are swimming for exercise and come 50 times a year that's 150 of the that's it that's a check-in it's based on check-ins when the pool staff uh when someone visits the pool to uh to go for a swim or to enjoy a day uh lounging at the pool they check in in uh so they have to they have to come in they have a wristband they check their name they're registered um they check in so they you know the Tron pool was open for 54 days um there was an additional closure due to uh an incident of uh some FAL contamination that the the pool had to be sanitized um but uh it's it you know again there were I guess it averaged out to about 17 users a day uh at try on an average of 31 a day at the uh at McKay McKay was open 57 days a year but that doesn't include uh the camp usage so uh our our uh our kids utilize the pools uh pretty extensively uh from uh in the morning hours um so I mean that's you know that's the that's the utilization the numbers are the numbers that's what they are so so when you when you look at at this this kind of spreadsheet and you see this this uh this this two this um revenue of $35,840 and this expenses of what is it almost $300,000 I mean I don't know what do you what do you think of that is is is the one is one is one pool let me ask you this is one pool able to accommodate the 37 plus the 17 well that's you know the the theoretical answer is yes but then there's there's the there's the policy decisions the pools the pools were set up for for different types of programs so you've got um you know you've got uh train training in the in the in the morning but you also have you also have camps and you know at at both locations so the camps are using the uh are using the pools um so you've got uh you've got the aqua Racers that are you know that are that are using the the tri the Tron pool U before it before it opens to the public um so so so you're saying so what so what I'm asking you is could the because because we do you know like demographics do change so the reason the demographics I don't know when was the TR and pool um put in do we know we could it's approximately 60 years old yeah 60 years oldo that so that was in the 1960s 1969 yeah so okay thank you Charles so so demographics do change and people usage of pools change so what I'm what I'm asking looking at these numbers which are really devastating is can one pool accommodate all the usages that that's the question the question is will the people what will the people accept that and huh well I don't I'm not sure I mean do you think well I can I can defensely I can definitively answer that no I'm gonna tell you because if you remember last year we had this conversation so maybe that's a question to put on the ballot then yeah yeah I it won't fail I could tell you that okay that's something to people yeah we can put on let me ask question 17 people will vote yeah let me let me my question I'm sure we could have this and I'll put it on the the agenda for the next council meeting at the workshop but but but that wasn't my question though my question you know wasn't I mean I mean whether you know we we could put it on the ballot but that's not my question though my question is before we even get to that point where we're going to put that for a vote of the population is is can we accommodate can one pool and it doesn't mean CH you know Mr Charles it doesn't mean that you don't have two pools but there's also a lot of problems already with Tryon with the leakage and all the other problems so if you need a second pull for our usage it may not be at that location given all the all the problems that you have there but but the first question is can one pool accommodate all the usages so so the the question is the for the for the uh for the for the camps as as well as the um you know as well as the people that are have purchased the badges to use and then um whatever whatever the groups the groups are that come in and teach swimming so that's that's the question can one pull accommodate accommodate with right and maybe we'll need a little bit of a modification but is that a potential is that is that is that is there a potential for that I don't yeah is one is one p is one pull Molly here is one pool deeper than the other so that um yeah yeah the capacity for tri is 120 um people um so and the uh depth of the trium pool is I believe it goes up to six feet right 12 the the other one is m is six feet yeah so I'm I'm sorry so so Tri and pool has a maximum depth of M has a McKay has a capacity of 120 so if you're talking about taking try on you know off then you just have a capacity of 120 and we do have our camp um there 5 days a week during the summer and how many children don't go on trips we only go on trips twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursday the camp is there in the morning they have swimming lessons and boating lessons so that's why the pool opens at 1 because we have lessons um for boating and swimming uh in the morning and then in the afternoon from 1 to 6 it's open from Sunday to Thursday and the public um comes in at that time but we still have some of the um a rotation of our camp utilizing the pool at the same time Mr Hoffman with the modifications that you were recommending for the for the pool for McKay would that change the depth of the pool would that change we because we talked about changing the size of the pool well um yeah the the an the answer is yes we were looking we were we were looking to make sure that the pool the pool would have have swimming Lanes it would be it would be a larger it would be a larger pool you know theoretically an olympic size pool so that it could be um so it would be deeper and it would accommodate would be larger would accommodate more people I'm not sure what I'm not sure how How Deep The you know uh that kind of you know that kind of pool would be so I don't want to I don't want to misspeak um but yeah that that's what it was and then it would be open to um uh you know to different to high school so that there could be swim swim teams and competitions and all but you know that was the the you know that the the uh the initial thing we have to do is like TR like Tron we there there are um there are um pipes that that have to be replaced at McKay it's not the those those pipes are not are not not um in as bad a shape as the ones at trium but um you know that's yeah we get grant for that we've yes we've we applied for a grant and I believe that it came in yes it came in already I spent it for downtown yep can I answer Jack guys um real quick um hello you hear me yep all right downtown there's a lot of developments within with pools there I've swiming some of them I have friends who live there um I'm looking at the whole thing like you talking about pools pools pools like people don't have pools in their backyard or anything but the Third Ward over here where uh we a lot of people do not have polls they you they they rely on the pool over here um and I think we need to fix the pool um that's my opinion and opinion of a lot of folks that live in a third ward they will not come downtown with maybe transportation we don't have a trial anything anymore so we need the whole Logistics done about like who can commute where um the new buildings new developments they're all building their own community centers in there so we have to do a lot of thinking and um that's all I have to say yeah yeah um so just we're projecting 130 campers for the summer are um or or more than that is is that where we're projecting Molly 130 campers yes yeah Bob but I think that's wrong because it's it's 130 campers per week right not corre we so so that number changes it's not 130 campers it's how many weeks times 130 that's what you're projected well and but what I was there what I was looking at is the Capa there was a question before about the capacity of a pool so I had written down that M that McKay McKay has a capacity of 120 people at A T at a time so um if if that's if that's the case and we have and we have 130 campers um they don't all go at the same time yeah like most most camps they divide them by age yeah so so so on the on the pool you know um on on the pool thing what what what are are we doing about these what are we doing about this for 2024 what's the plan the um well the F the fir the first plan is that uh the uh there's going to be a discussion with the with the board with the board of eded because there is um U there was a we need to have a you know we we we need to review the lease and um you know there was there was a there was a consensus on both sides that um you know the there's there was a lease the lease can be updated and then then you would go from there but you know then the question is what's what what is the next steps right all right and then you know that's what I was saying if we need two pools is that is that do we want Shrine on pool to be that second pool given the environmental issues and the condition of the pool you know yeah well the the the other question is is you know is there is there another location that that may be suitable and the answer is that that hasn't been investigated right right okay um now in terms of the sunf fun camp so again I I I agree about you know these third-party vendors um we we did what what is going to be done differently this summer with sunf fun camp as opposed to last summer so that that we um don't take quite a loss like we did last summer how are we going to do it different this summer well we're still we're still planning the camp activities um and that's that that that'll be rolled out soon but as you as you heard um you know the the C the camp um the camp activities are are in the city three days a week um and they they were they were looking at at two trips a week but we're just we're reviewing everything there's a you know there's there's plans that um you know haven't haven't been finalized yet and we're going to have some conversations with the school with the school district because um they they are they are going to be doing some some things after school and we want to make sure that our programs are complimentary to theirs but all right I just I'm just G I'm almost done I'm just gonna make two two comments um during the year you know with the bills and claims I was pretty much told you know because I would always always ask is this neutral you know is this Revenue neutral or or or where are we and I was told that a lot of these programs were Revenue neutral so when I saw these numbers of these programs I I have to tell you I was quite surprised because that's not what I was told during year when I asked about the programs um I think we also have to look at at what we charge uh participants from out of Anglewood because we should not be losing money on people who are nonresidents here and my last comment is um I don't I saw and maybe maybe Michael I read this wrong but I saw that we only have two Park Rangers and I I don't think that's enough we have more than two Park yeah on the budget I thought I thought I saw two Park Rangers can you tell did you can you tell me that I'm wrong Michael yeah yeah one second why Michael's looking at up Lisa can I say something sure I'm pling Devil's Advocate me being the board um elected three terms right and I remember that this park the one you keep saying basically you didn't use the word deplorable but the way it's coming out is like almost deplorable like it's leakage Etc and I get it but be mindful now I was on that committee when um you that our pool over here was used for grant money that was G given to the fourth board pool to build that pool so you use our pool but then not put the money back into the pool and that right there is factual and I have documents that Grant was received to fix the pool and never used for that pool so I'm just trying to I'm I'm just telling you guys to be cautious because you can't be saying oh you know it's leakage is this and this no the money was given to Englewood the city of would to fix this pool and never fix the pool over here in the third board and I can back it up with documents I think and that's all I have to say thank you because that that I don't I don't know about that Grant it must have been before I was on the council I know about that Grant I got a copy of it I think I think the question was you know whether and this is a question that came up on the council last year was um was do you is do you spend the money you know it's the question do you spend if you need two pools do you spend the money to fix up this pool this pool is on on the it's not on city property it's on the property of the board money was given so no but the money was given to the Third Ward to fix the pool and it was never fixed it was used to go downtown to get like to expand that pool for whatever reason but the money was spent for the Third Ward and I'm going to argue back and forth with this real AR if I hey wait a minute wait a minute one at a time one at a time one at a time um We're Not Gonna now yes one at a time listen one at a time coun councilman Wilson wants to speak counil Wilson waiting for an answer from uh Mr calman I know yeah councilman um Wilson um um I can answer the Rangers question if you need thank you we have we have two Park Rangers that are on staff now we have a facility manager who works with the park and we have one vacant position for a park ranger that we were hoping to fill for the summer because that's when we normally use them our Parks uh and Fields open on April 1st so that's when they really in March is when they really start preparing um all of the parks for so Ma so Maui you're saying so you're saying there the three Park Rangers yeah plotted for three Park Rangers there's two that's um on staff now with a facility manager right and and and and last summer I think there were four we were budgeted for so I'm wondering because I think we need the park rangers yeah we also get um hire a lot of um maintenance during the summer um we do a lot of the youth employment where we would have maintenance um U people working with the park rangers and they you know just assist them and um and the park rangers supervise them and what they have to right and I just I just wanted to clarify something Angela I just want to make sure you understand I just want to be clear I'm not saying that the Third Ward there should be no pool what I'm saying is we have to do an analysis whether it's better to fix the pool if we need two pools if that's a determination are we better with fixing it or putting in something new okay so what I'm saying no but what I am saying is that money was given to fix that pool it was never used to fix that pool for some odd reason and that's what I'm saying that make sense if I may I can I can clarify that council president president yeah you can but councilman Wilson sorry go ahead Council Wilson and then Bob can clarify the pool because we know about the Grand and France V is on if we gotta really clarify um thank you council president and you're doing a great job and just a point of clarity Robert's Rule if we may if we could just keep the same decorum that we were doing earlier and hear the presentation from the director and then we can have all the questions but I haven't heard the report I I read numbers and we haven't given her opportunity to give her report before we we're going in so I I for one would surely like to hear um what Molly has to say please council president sure Molly you can finish giving what you've uh started to do in terms of the camp and how many people used the the pool um I think to give some perspective to this this conversation okay um I thank thank thank you council president I appreciate it y thanks thank you for the opportunity to speak um I am not the director I'm the program supervisor I've been um trying to uh Ure that our department U move forward um in this difficult time thank you all uh for your support the city manager Deputy city manager um has been like handson with us um we are we actually concluded all of our 2023 program as was planned um and we're starting to plan for our spring programs uh our baseball program are actually up and ready for registration we have um soccer programs coming up um but we had to pause and uh restructure um all of our programs the um I've worked closely with our Deputy uh city manager uh Mr burner to actually um revamp the process of vetting our coaches our um summer employment staff our um vendors um and we are making progress the process is online we're trying to do all of the training we are ensuring that any of our vendors employees or um volunteer coaches um have the same training and um go through the same process um especially if they're um directly uh in touch with children or you know instruction um of our children I'm sorry I did not prepare a whole um presentation uh this presented um and submitted before um so I've just come into understanding the budget and um looking at everything that we're doing we are trying to um keep a sense of um our programs structure for to be a little familiar to our families and keeping in mind that you know we have to be sensitive to um everyone we have all hands on deck but um we are planning on continuing or are actually um running our summer program the sunf fun day camp we have um actually um offer uh are in the process of getting our director in place and um we have already um structure our spring camp the one thing I can um actually offered the council is the cost for any trips that we have that it would come um beforehand um we for the spring camp which is from April 1st to the 5th we have already um all of the trip plan I've submitted um the invoices for them we've used credits um for places or trips that we have had our spring camp actually has five trips for that week because it's it's a mini camp there's ice skating in the morning and then after the ice skating there isn't anything that we can do at McKay Park so we take them on a trip to prepare them for what would come for our summer program so um we thank you for your patience and understanding as we try to get um all of our programs back um up and running but we're trying to make sure that we take our time uh to restructure revamp and um pay attention to um the details of what we have planned Council M wlson I just want to cut in real quick can I I want to just count cut in real quick m Molly you know what I think what would be helpful is you invite everybody to a road trip down to the camp and visit the camp you know and and see what see what's going on at the camp what's going on at the rec because you you've been intimately involved and and you've been gracious and and not even mentioning half the stuff that you've done when you were having the feeding program and all those things that we've offered for people and families down there I mean so you know they need to understand what the lift is so you know I I think everybody could take a we're so concerned about what's going on we should go down there and visit and actually see the operations ourselves you know stop prejudging and we need to go to the pools and look at the pools for us that have been at the pools and see what's going on and and have the and have a fair and informed uh conversation about it so that's where we can come and then we can make some make some decisions and and and and but but the pool's decision whatever it's got to be France VY has to be a part of that because he's engineer and then we bring people in and we we talk about it but be informed I think that you know I I have some questions the way the budget is laid out with with the rec too you know actual versus what what you know what what was appropriated and doing the math with that with Mr cman but I'll take that offline and and that's okay but I think that uh you know some fun you you didn't you failed to say that it's sold out every week Yes sold out a way I I was I I was a little um uh shocked to see the loss with the sun fund Day Camp because we last year 150 kids um every week so every week every week at $170 a participant I just the math does you know something you know but that that's neither here nor there but it's always sold out I think that that's the important thing people are always on the waiting list so we have to do the metrics a little differently when we track it so make sure we have that so that that will be the conversation you know we can monitor that on a weekly basis here's the numbers for the camp for the week yeah I can offer that expense you know I would like to welcome you all to come and visit our programs um we do work with a lot of our local um we partner with a lot of our local business businesses Church um house of worship and uh we try to utilize as much as we can um locally um and also giving our our campers uh a unique um experience that they don't um normally have we actually do boating we go to the overpack every Friday so we actually would take a bus so some of our caes are like actually traveling where we would have to do the um bus component of it and our busing costs you know if you actually strip the cost maybe that's where it has come our bus costs went up from like around $400 last year and like right after covid to like about ,000 for each bus and we have in each group we had about 40 kids or to 50 kids in each group so each group had to have their own bus and most of them um we go they're Group by age we have four groups um ages six 67 89 10 11 and 124 so and each of those groups have to have um trips that's um geared towards their age uh we are in terms of the pools um you know I I I feel a little disheartened um in here in the comments about the trium pool we worked um 247 to literally sure that that pool um and all all both of our pools are safe and they are um we had um we had to employ um a lot of people to make sure that the levels of the chemicals are always um on point um our director was there we we're handson and our director work last year um and I I don't even know how we did it it's just kind of like we just kept going from like 700 in the morning to 9: at night every day 7 days a week for 10 weeks the pool is open the day after school ends and it closes on Labor Day we and there was um there wasn't any you know there maybe was like one incident of like where someone actually um you know there was an incident of where we had to empty the pool and close the pool for one person you know accidentally revealing the stuff so it was like the three-day thing where we took them out and make sure it was sanitized we call the proper things so we do we did work to make sure that our our um pools were safe um and it did take a lot more resources for trying to um stay at the standard that it should be um but it was we worked with the health department to make sure and ensure that everything was on par um what else we we have we would like um another Ranger um because the fields yes we're working on cleaning um our Fieldhouse um we're we're just preparing for the spring um and the summer and it's a lot of hands on pull your sleeve up and work you know um and I thank you guys for your support I do invite you to come and see what we do um April 1st to the 5th we have spring camp it will be at McKay um ice arena actually John White um ice arena where we would be ice ska and doing bumper cars we welcome you to come and join us and we have the trips in the afternoon I will give you um a a list of um or actually I will send a flyer to the council and and um I'm sorry this I'm new at this this is a different uh forum okay take your time take your time get it right okay um but uh what else can I say what about how many people you teach how to swim every year in some oh okay that's that's um our camp uh and I've just joined the camp about five years uh I think solid years of really understanding everything that goes on um in the summer camp I joined the Recreation Department because um in that in all of our programs it um it allows our students our um in our community the opportunity to do things that they normally don't get to do um when it comes to swimming uh they are intensely they they learn to swim they have swim lessons every day um except when it rains um and we are proud to say like last year was the first year that we were able to actually um have our staff um from and majority of them actually about 90% of the staff of um lifeguards that we had um trained were from our camp so they grew up um getting swim lesson in our camp and a lot of them um that were life bars and that are life bars and will be returning um came through our camp so it was our kids our um our campers are familiar with the um the staff that we have we are asking um our lifeguards we're um we're sending out you know um what do you call um offer letters to for returning staff now um we're getting ready to do that by the end of this week but um most of our our um most of our staff came through our camp so they know what it it's about they know um they're familiar with um the children in the community and they're from here and they they it works it it works well we do have it is diverse we do have other people um you know other staff members um that come from you know if you come and look at our camp I swear you would see the diversity that you see in our community it's there um the kids play together they they their work together it's like teamwork but we do have a very diverse um group of kids that we serve thank you Molly you're welcome anybody have any questions comments um thank you Molly for your years of service to the community and um you're well respected and thank you my kids look up to you as well if not we we we're going to close this public session of I just I just want to say I mean we're gonna go to say Molly's doing a uh it's on my place but I'm gonna say it anyway she's doing a great job especially filling in and she's uh she's awesome we're gonna we're gonna open up this portion of the meeting y you ready for the public May address three minutes we got any got any hands raise your hand at the Bott of your uh laptop on your computer all right one person oh two people have their hand raised uh first one Diane Jansen uh three minutes correct three minutes yes okay all right um go ahead unmute please how many minutes three Oh I thought you said two okay can we start now since I thank you very start now yes you know a prominent resident wrote back wrote to me in July of 2023 someone with a PhD um who counted uh based on their Google count there were 535 pools in the first and second ward which is approximately one pool for every 35 resident there were about nine pools in the third and fourth ward or one pool for every 1500 residents now they didn't include the 50 or so above ground pools because they are small don't last long and are very dangerous you know what does this sound like this sounds like A Tale of Two Cities that whole conversation was callus and Cavalier and talk about separating the city we are a 70 % minority Community when I say minority I mean only 30% of the population is white non-h hispanic we have 70% of our children on free or reduced lunches we also have to realize that when we look at the ice skating rank it's part of overall Recreation number one number two we spent a lot of money on that rink is that depreciation expense counted in the budget are we funding our our Capital fund every year for that there's a lot of things that go into this not to mention that we have a small group of people that were self appointed basically um that are doing Recreation strategic planning which should be part of an overall City master plan which should be part involve total public input I could say a lot of other things I could say you know if we don't take care of our youth if we don't allow seniors to come to the pool all day and just sit in the sun under umbrellas and talk and socialize you know what you're not going to get people to buy passes like other towns do there's a lot that can be done and if we don't take care of our people and they have nowhere to go we're going to have to hire a lot more than 80 police and I'll leave it at that thank you next thank you three minutes on the dot thank you yep okay oh here we go okay uh next is joelan bosuk please unmute good evening thank you for giving me this opportunity I'm a member of the Board of Health here in Englewood and i' like to say thank you for for the uh presentation that Dr Basta was able to deliver this evening looking at the personnel that's been there for so many years that continues to keep the health department rolling as you review the budget this time I would like for you to take a close look at the compensation that the individuals that's been there for quite some time and think how desperately it's needed to keep the health department functional and that each member that's there is compensated appropriately not just the new that comes in but those that have also been there and given up their time but have not been compensated thank you again and have a good evening thank you Joan thank you thank you answer nobody else has their hand raised okay we're going to close the public session and we're going to move to adjourn this meeting I need a motion in a second we can adjourn this meeting I make a motion council president that we adjourn this meeting I I'll second it all in favor I meetings adjourn at 10:47 p.m thank you everyone have a good night see you Thursday good night night