reading through a lot of in sort of general and sort of you know one size fo all for around the state and lamille of course is a very unique town the mountain on one side River on the other side the streams running through it and you should look at some other different towns in the area and some of their ordinances for instance you know Princeton has a pretty strong ordinance um they you know under ours is 3,000 square ft there is 400 square ft they're required you can do the storm water management they have a lot of different ways of doing it soulberry right across the river also has has has one of the strongest ordinances I've seen in the area um there it's at 100 square and they require people even if they're push uh had you in their backyard to do something to maintain to reduce the additional run off uh and a lot of times it's nothing it's nothing you know complicated or expensive but it would get at some of the problems that we have and in this town you know we have new development you know current ordinance would only hit a couple of major properties but what we really need to do is because retrofitting is expensive and if the people are adding on to their house or adding a patio to help manage some the storm water that would be a good way of helping to you know it's sometimes it's a it's a it's a bucket at a time but it adds up so as we try to plan the bigger issues and the bigger pling problems that we have he should also be looking at what he can do on the individual house I think a lot of people in this town would would be glad to do that because it's not it's really not like owner it's just saying when you're doing it you try to do it a certain way to try to rce anyway thank you and earthday this week too so anyone else in the room D bir 255 Brun Avenue in lville good evening uh that's a couple comments about the high school Redevelopment right first time I've seen the numbers of 200 new homes right that would be in lville 40 of which would be uh affordable housing uh question is the 200 uh property additional properties the impact on schools uh Rescue Squad cir department and any other assets of the city all right and the affordable housing of 40 units uh what does that do with our current and projected additional uh needs in the future uh one other fun thing I always like to go at power companies uh the the increase in uh the jcpnl increase for the holiday lighting uh $ 76966 38% in one jump unless we've added a lot of lights and maybe worth a check and see what they can do that seem a little um thank you there anyone online have a motion to follow comment period second second you know tonight I me I meant to say that we're gonna do roll calls tonight just because I think Council lied here and I find it a little uh less confusing if we're if we're doing a roll call when we have somebody participating so it's going to slow us down a little bit but I'm sure we'll all talk fast roll call please Council woman Min Minsky yes councilman lied yes councilman Stegman yeah council president Lambert yes mayor nowick com close just a couple of thoughts uh I agree with you uh de on this uh and we'll get back together again we'll look at this we'll continue to work this my my my plan tonight is to is to propose that we uh continue the the ordinance for the time being my only uh the only thing I just want to be mindful I am certainly personally in favor of tighter restrictions but with tighter restrictions comes uh a need for greater resources in terms of enforcement I think about Princeton and I think about that they probably have many more code officials than we do so I'm willing to C certainly consider this I think it's important I think it's Justified but you know with that decision comes the necessary uh component of offering additional resources in terms of Code Enforcement so that would be my only comment there um uh and Dave uh the uh Redevelopment of Academy H not on the agenda tonight we will be I do expect that to be on the agenda soon so we will uh will'll address that as it comes up um the jcpnl holiday lights we did in fact add lights this year I don't know how many we did but uh the council Council M commits suggestion last year we did purchase more Holiday Lights uh and they were distributed throughout the city in a number of different places so the the rise and cost is is directly proportionate to the new lights that we interfered um which made us much more PES so moving on um coms yeah of course sorry the uh the question about lowering the amount of disturbance um the cost of going through the process to enforce is usually born on the applicant not on the city so um I I think that it's I think it's important that we realize that that it's it's not a taxpayer expense it's a applicant expense to conform to whatever storm order changes we make including Steep slapes and everything so I just wanted to bring that forward I think that's a great Point uh you know we see so many concerns when people are bringing applications through the city the planning boards zoning boards about the just the cost of moving through the process um so that's definitely something to consider as well point will takeen Sor were there any comments from the council uh following public comment thanks for reminding me well and I wasn't saying it to make it easier or harder I'm just that the city the city is the process is what the process is and the results that we're looking for to control storm water runoff is just from the hills is is very important to address um and what and the number of square footage we come up with will be you know a public discussion I thank you all right appr of the minutes has everyone in the council had a chance to look at the minutes through them in mayor um council president Lambert mentioned she wasn't here for the February 15th or March 7th okay so if we could break that out into two motions counc did you have any uh concerns or comments about the minutes uh no I did not thank you so we'll do these in two batches I would ask for a motion to approve uh the following set minutes the February 15th and the March 7th so move to second okay may I have a roll call vote please councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman lied yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert obain mayor nowick yes the second sets of minutes uh include the March 21st March uh Open Session March 21st closed session and the April 4th meeting minutes uh is there a motion so moov second okay roll call please councilwoman Kaminsky councilman Li yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor nowick yes thank you we're gonna move on to the discussion of the budget um so we introduced the budget on April 4th and uh as I've done in the last two years we scheduled additional time uh beyond the required uh introduction and second reading and public hearing to make sure that the public have the opportunity questions or input um so so been I think pretty successful and I always think it's worth the time to have some extra some extra time for the public to adjust things and to to approach the council uh with with their thoughts um so the last two years we set aside a separate budget meeting so we we ended up really discussing the budget fully giving out the public two separate opportunities to do that this year for scheduling constraints kind of put the gabos on that so uh I wanted to spend a little time this evening touching upon the budget uh and offering the public some opportunity to make any comments or ask questions um in advance of the uh second reading and public hearing of the budget on May second um so that's what we're doing for the next little while we'll see how it goes um I want to first thank the the finance team for this budget uh Su horn Michael drulis Christy Eric who is joining us uh the zoom um Cindy Iggy uh and myself we uh we have a surprisingly good time working on the budget uh we have some good laughs it's hard work uh there's a lot of revisions and uh reexaminations of our decisions uh and uh I'm always pleased to say that the final result is is is is a solid consideration of our priorities here in the city our obligations our priorities um the kind of services that we're able to offer to our residents so so uh the the budget uh for 2024 as introduced uh my budget message was released this afternoon so I sent it to a couple of residents uh who I thought might be here hope to get it out a little sooner but sometimes things don't always go exactly as you like the budget message has been posted to the city website uh it's now available document uh to all so um you know bearing that in mind uh I'll certainly give the council some opportunity to make any comments or ask any questions uh this evening and then then we'll pass it over to the uh to the public and we'll do this basically the same the the same exact process uh on May second and um uh it gives me pleasure to to introduce and to talk about this budget this year um you know when we we've had a couple of tough years with the budget uh my first two years was a lot of lot of strain on our finances for a lot of different reasons and uh you know the council First Council I worked with and and this governing B and this Council had to make a lot of difficult decisions taxes were raised substantially uh both years and uh we acknowledge that and understand that that was a difficult difficult time for the city um but as I said in my state of the city speech and uh as we've seen uh kind of recently with our recent upgrades uh to to uh Bond agencies uh we're on track we're doing a good job so I'm very pleased to announce that this year uh we will have uh a municipal tax rate lower than he had last year so I'm not sure when the last time this happened but it's been several years at least um since we've had a decrease in the municipal tax rate so this is good news uh and uh I'm very pleased to share it with everybody I'm just going to go through a couple of things here in the budget message um just a few highlights uh everybody will have a chance to look at this we'll have a chance to talk about it um more at the at the meeting in May and we'll happily answer any questions U from tonight so uh proposed uh budget for 2024 is total expenditures for municipal purposes of $8 million 8, 399,900 uh the decrease came about was really just good stewardship uh looking at looking where we could make Cuts looking where uh you know uh just making decisions uh about the budget knowing kind of where we were coming in what our position was and that kind of thing would also knowe that our assessments increased substantially this year which uh has been a great assistance uh to to the process so uh see so again once adopted uh the budget will decrease the estimated tax rate for municipal purposes uh in EXA for every $100,000 assess property value there's a decrease of5 $530 average residential assessment for 2024 has characterized as .76 per year so as we do as we've done the last couple of years uh in the budget message we've included a tax rate table um which allows Bas residents to calculate kind of their their uh their taxes and compare them to the former uh to to the previous year so you'll see that on the second page um just talk a little bit about revenues revenues are very strong we've seen this uh really recover our revenues in the last couple of years uh this is driven by uh activities including uh parking fees VES permits uh certainly the Canabis sales have had have had a significant impact on our revenue and interest on investments and I think that that's a particular note we now have enough money in the current fund where we can put that aside and uh and use use it to earn interest on on that on those funds um a bit about Appropriations uh Appropriations are have increased by 8,935 this year uh we see that our regular operational expenses and salary and wages are keeping Pace with inflationary Trends inflation uh down uh from where it was a couple of years ago it's expected to somewhere be in the two to 3% range the next year or so so our salary uh any wages kind of reflect the the pace of those inflation all obligations to collect bargaining units and contract are fully funded there's also been funding for an additional police officer to restore one of two previously eliminated positions and to provide coverage uh and expanded Public Safety Services um in terms of Appropriations we uh you'll note that uh uh in the table the city Administration sought to uh sought out budget cuts offset increasing operational budget lines with approximately $75,000 in reductions to improve the processes through the use of Technology grants to sub pre subsidize previously uh Lambertville taxpayer funded items so you'll see that table on page seven that's a really I think a really interesting table and it really encapsulates uh and distills kind of our work in the budget and highlights kind of the differences between our Appropriations from a year to year in in the various line items uh I do need to note that uh the general Administration costs inreased this year uh due to professional Services associated with storm water management uh the update of the city the small City's manual Bond sale and additional matters related to the affordable house clients so that uh that line increased by 66% um and that those those items have all been discussed and resolutions have all been adopted by the council in support of all those activities and uh last I'll just make a note about the the balance sheet and the debt The Debt Service remains a significant factor in the levy increase this budget year contains a projected increase for Debt Service of6 $164,950 driven in part by Rising interest rates on notes that will need to be paid for 2024 for the previous 12 months due to our prudent fiscal practices and restoration of critical reserves uh we've been looked on positively by the rating agencies as as a result received a very favorable interest rate in April 2024 Bond anticipation no sale who 15E refinance off stable lower rates so there's also a couple of notes about the Improvement projections here uh I'm not going to go through that about them uh finding again um but certainly if anybody has anys about them uh it should feel pre feels pretty F so I think all in all this is a good year I'm I'm very pleased with this uh I think this also s us well for for next year um but uh I'm just want to sit quietly and enjoy the moment for a second all right moving council members do you have uh questions or comments for myself or Michael or the state I think to express it probably even clearer to people would be uh a my Coles will put it to us for what it means for the average homeor to be clear what just to be able to you know enumerate that the that there's no tax you know the tax yes I'm happy to do that you will not pay any more in taxes this year than you did last that's the bottom however is it not also the case that that people maybe because their value of their properties increase no no no yes no no you'll have to you have to look at the you'll have to look at the tax rate uh sheet that we've provided uh I think what um if I may please go ahead um so I I think the best way to characterize it would be if your home was value the same amount this year as it was last year you will see reduction in your taxes um if your home value were to have increased by assessment um the tax rate the percentage of the tax rate is going down and so that impact of any Improvement would be less but you could still be paying more because of the increase of your properties assessment could be yes that was what I was trying to say because I think it it's important for people to hear on the one hand your taxes went down but wait I'm paying more because they get their bills and they see that a Shear is more you know they see the the increase and it's important and and I don't think that's across the board I think it all depends on what's happened in your house there will be people that will see reduction right and there will be people that won't and they'll say hey what happened right right okay thank you for clarifying that are there other questions councilman L do you have any questions uh no I don't thank you mayor be good all right uh so we're going to take a little bit of time uh to open this for public comment uh or questions uh same willly three minutes please step to the podium s name addess and Pa stens 39 Cory I'll go ahead and get started on this uh start with the appropriation as you pointed out Mary they're up slightly 1.4% above where they were before but if you go and look in detail there a lot there's a lot of moving parts to that and some of them might have comments and questions about so um if you strip out the budgeted grants in the library uh from the budget the general operation go up like 1.2 million that's up 18% over last year um most of the fixed cost of salaries wages uh pension insurance that sort of thing all that stuff makes up about 21% of that difference um but what's interesting me that I'd like to have some explanation of when I'm done is there's something called deferred charge to Future taxation unfunded and that's four times what it's been historically uh and it accounts for 60% of that 1.2 million it's $833,000 um I have no idea what that means but it never USS to be up that High um then Debt Service account for 14% of that $1.2 million um if you go and look at The Debt Service in particular uh and the details of it what's really popped out to me is that the bond note interest is up by over 80% from where it was last year and that was up uh you okay um and it account for 25 just the interest on the bond notes not on the actual Bond uh the U the note interest accounts now for 25% of The Debt Service you most okay all of them now are at 5% we have on notes that go back to the 16 p in 16 some I think it was 18 2018 was when they were issued so on and so forth um but and at that time it was 375% and some of them jumped up to 1.75 and some of them are 3.5 and now all of them are at 5% but a lot of them apparently haven't been used to go to bonding yet um another thing that was interesting was in the 2013 uh uh financial statement it said that for 2024 we needed to have 174k in for Bond No principal and there's zero there now so once again I don't I don't understand how we're doing our bonding in detail but these are some of the things that popped up to me now moving on to the revenue total revenue is down like said uh 3% but a lot of this has to do with big swings in the budgeted grants from year to year and so if you strip out the budgeted grants in the library the total revenue is up 11% tax revenue is up 3.6% and that's primarily due to the the second like you say it's down ever so slightly if you just look at the rate but doesn't matter to me if it's the assessment or the rate I'm paying more money this year okay or will pay more money this year uh now the other thing is uh Mis laneous revenues uh tended to be um down a I'm gonna have to WP up I'm sorry mayor there's a lot to digest and I didn't see your note today all right uh I'd really like I'm going to continue on I'm I'm going to give you two more minutes I mean we the Surplus is doubled okay are we beginning to spend down on on reserves again uh maybe not I'm not sure because I can't find out where all this cannabis revenue is there's not a line item in there for cannabis revenue and I think there really should be okay people need to know what they're getting back from having uh Cannabis shops in town the other thing is the Homestead lease uh uh income is not in there anywhere as far as I can tell all right so and then where did we get all this money for the debt service because at year end 22 there was $127,000 in The Debt Service reserve and now we're going to be paying one point uh well we paid over 1 million last year we're paying 1 point something this year so there's money that's come in somewhere and I just don't know where some of it might be fishing game stuff um specific things like that there's one that's called paon sight uh DPW building repairs anyway so and then my last comment would be I feel like we need to be careful about relying on valuations that we uh there was a rapid rise in the cost of living in this town due to the housing market this budget is benefiting that from that and that the rate is actually actually down slightly but we can't rely on that necessarily for the future to see the the pric is going up high it's just not sustainable unless we're going to turn in new thank you usually we wait till the end of public comment I'm going to see if Michael can feel some of that sure what what you can yeah of course thank you Mr Stevens this is my annual grad school defense of the the so I appreciate it thank you um and Christie I just want to make sure you can still hear and respond as well I can if you need my help answering any questions just let me know if you want me to if you want me to explain the defer charge un fund it you want me to do that or yeah yeah we yeah let's uh let's start right with that one because that's a big swing on the page and that took a that that is a number that pops off and I'm glad that we have Christy here to explain it because it is a um it's not an annual thing it's something we're seeing significantly this year so please Christie sure so this year in January we received a big FEMA payment for Hurricane Ida so in the in the budget you'll see a revenue and it's called The Reserve for debt payment so that revenue is actually offsetting the Deferred charges unfunded so what we did is that we borrowed money through our debt service payments to make improvements because of what happened with hurricane Ida and we had to do a borrowing through our Capital program so instead of borrowing that money we used the FEMA money that was received in January to pay down the um all the work that was done that was done through a capital ordinance so that's why so yes you have a big appropriation but it's being offset it by the revenue that's in the budget so it is a zero tax effect um question for you to to keep the conversation going um so that payment H how come that payment wasn't made out of capital why was it in the current fund that created That Swing any payments that are um any payments of Debt Service have to run through the current fund so you have to realize it as a revenue and then you have to payment make a payment through through so everything run runs through the current fund everything has to run through the budget so the expenses and the transactions were occurred in the capital fund over the last few years and now uh how does this relate to the the council's recent decision um to to borrow less money when we went to bond I think we made some we made a payment didn't we on some of the notes yes yes that was the payment that we made so um that actually goes into some of the other comments that you had made about the in um why there was no principal payment on the notes in the budget you said you saw in the annual financial statements that there was a principal payment but there was nothing in the budget so the reason for that was in April we did um we did a bond sale and we permanently financed so we didn't have to make that no payment this year and um so we we permanently finance and instead of permanently financing the hurricane item money we use the FEMA money that the that the city received to lower the amount that we borrowed so in essence we used cash on hand that was reimbursable from FEMA to make those payments and we then we didn't have to pay interest and borrow and long-term financing so Mr Stevens probably won't see all of these transactions reported until we close out our 2024 um annual debt statement you you'll see it all there um you'll see in their annual financial statement when that closes out in the end of 2024 as well um and uh Christie can I go on or is there anything else you wanted to add to that um that's all I have to add for that okay so as a relates to the the increase on the notes we talked a little you were talking a little about the history um the there were the city felt the changing in the market and the increase in the mark in the interest rates uh and the notes that we were carrying that we decided to ref to do refunding bond in April as Christie had noted um those we saw an increase in that debt service now we have to pay for the last 12 months in this year's budget and that will not be present next year because all of the notes have been put into bonds anything to add to that on that Christie um no that that's correct so as Michael said next year you will not see a interest on notes in the the budget so this was our last payment and you are correct and that was one of the reasons why we did long-term financing was because of the market right now um yes few years ago we were at 1.75% for notes 3% um and unfortunately the market is just very high right now for short ter short ter shortterm financing and our notes and our um Bond sale is competitive we do go out to the market to get the lowest interest rate and unfortunately the lowest interest rate at the time was 5% that's what it was and that was one of the reasons why the city you know because notes were very expensive in the interest rate and we got a better rate going for a bond sale so that was a 3% as opposed to 5 perc so the city is seeing a savings there also right and we we ended up opting for the 15-year Bond um to get the better rate uh so there there's also a question regard regarding um the use of some of the reserves staying with the bonds um with the sale of the notes and and I'm sorry with the refinancing the notes we received um premium and that premium refreshed our reserve for Debt Service in the capital fund um you'll see that again at the end of the close out of the year so as as is a policy here in lamberville we don't take more than we know can refresh and and refund and we did that so that would that would give you the the debit to that credit as it relates to the use of surplus um so chrisy puts us through the best practice every CFO does and and she projects the use of our revenues conservative uh based on what we came in we know can replenish um we have uh based on our calculations we we're not taking the full amount of Revenue on every Revenue line that was available from last year and that is because we do need to leave a balance to regenerate Surplus um based on the performance of our Revenue lines we expect to be able to replenish the 523,000 use of surplus next year that is the new I would say Benchmark for Lambertville use of surplus um that gives us a little room that if we it still regenerates more we still be able to regenerate more than we're using um and all this provided that there's no material changes and we don't do any significant borrowing or we have any significant onetime expens enses um but if we do we have enough money in Surplus um to be resilient so much so that the bond rating agencies moved our Outlook um in terms of our financial Outlook to that of stable as we went into this last pass uh for borrowing and that's not something they give out too easily easily or generously so the outside markets see what we're doing they scrutinize there's only probably one person who scrutinizes our funds more than you it's them and uh they very difficult on us in the past and we see that they're changing their their T to positive outlook at soon to come and they assure us they say if you keep doing what you're doing we want to continue to look to increase your your rating um and that's what's in those funds so we talked about Reser for Debt Service the Surplus um I believe that covered May or all the questions if I missed anything I'm glad to jump in cannabis l so the the the revenues that are brought into the budget are direct revenues cannabis is um no different than a miscellaneous Revenue as other revenues are now I understand why you would feel it something because it's new and it's intended to be significant it should be tracked separately um I'm gonna give I'm GL chrisy respond to why we how we list things on a state document the last thing I'll add to that is um we've not had a full 12 months of cannabis Revenue yet and I think that as we come out this budget it'll become a more stable Revenue line we can look to so Christy do you want to address why we do not list it as a separate Revenue item in state document sure so they lump everything together if you look at the state budget document there's fees and permits and um there's licensing those are most of your miscellaneous Revenue the Cannabis is in the fees and permits line item of the budget so if you notice that amount went up a little bit more than it was in the prior year so the Cannabis revenue is in that line item Christie for the for the benefit of of the public what was what are we anticipating in cannabis Revenue this year please I'm I'm I threw it to you because I don't have the worksheet in front of me and I figured you're gonna do the same thing but so $160,000 I think it's what we budgeted so but that's a conservative estimate based on the projections of the two cannabis businesses part city thank you mayor and just on the Cannabis I would also note that I think uh at not at every meeting but we can certainly do this uh we've been tell we've been reporting the Cannabis Revenue per month uh I I was I can't report it this evening because the checks are due tomorrow so the 20th uh is the day of the month when the Canabis business required to submit uh the their their their monthly checks so we have tracked it uh anybody's interested in that number we can pull it out like that uh at the municipal level so that's easily available as a total uh as a month to month so that's no problem for us to supply that to anybody who wants it in fact I probably have pictures of every check that we've received on my telephone um so if you look at my telephone the pictures every month around the 19th you'll see a picture of Union chill of what their uh what their last month's cannabis uh transfer PS I believe there was one more question if I'm not mistaken I had written down um you had asked where the homestead rebate money was so that Revenue that we receive from the state is offsets taxes so that money goes in on the AFS and I don't have the document in front of me but I'm pretty sure it's on sheet 20 with your current taxes chrisy yes home said we're talking about the homes the the rental uh of the of oh I'm sorry I thought you were talking about the homestead rebate from the um that um that offsets the revenues the $122,000 annual rental fee for uh the Homestead market is in what line would we do we know that what Revenue line would that now look we're looking at Sue miscellaneous Revenue it goes into miscellaneous Revenue rental for acne screen thank you same for Acme screen okay thank you all right moving on to anyone else in the room do we have anybody online who wishes to ask a question or make a comment about the budget how many people do we have online please we had nine earlier we're we're down to five I have a motion to close this public comment period please moves second right roll call please councilwoman Kaminsky yeah councilman lied yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor no yes thank you moving on to the approval of the administrative reports things I want to to um highlight here um noted that t check tomorrow so I can't report on that uh hotel's uh Revenue tax brought in $113,000 last month um BW has a bit busy lines parking lines in the CBD working at the library for tri prevention replacing old signs replacing the Seesaw at Park um who through the certified public works manager classes is doing very well in those classes uh you know one of my one of my priorities for the budget is uh is professional development I'm always happy to see people in our city staff show initiative uh think professional development and is key to the success of not just the individual but the but the municipal uh government so good on Britney uh Lester also notes that trash truck should appear in mid July so keep getting pushed back a little bit um and I wanted to just take a minute here as well to um ask Cindy to talk a little bit about landlord registration you know the clerk's office has many functions and over the course of the winter and the spring a lot is happening and um you know we we we've we've done give kudos to Lindsay for rolling out the short-term rental um registration which is more comprehensive in a lot of ways than the than the landlord the long-term landlord registration but it's going well and I thank you for for your efforts on that but I think I wanted to let Cindy talk for just a couple of minutes about uh her efforts this year with registration because she's doing some wonderful things well it's it's really been a team effort so it's not just me it's Lindsay and I but um you know uh we started with sdl a couple of years ago and sdl is what we use it's our Virtual City Hall for anybody to who's um you know making an application so uh what we did um is we took a look back to 2019 to the Past to see how many people actually registered then and we had 255 people at that time um and so we compared that to what we have today and today we have 85 registered uh we have about 165 that are late and because we've had such a turnover of properties we have 28 that are currently in question as to whether they're renting or whether they're owner occupied um and of the 255 11 of them converted to short-term rentals so our short-term rental applications we have 31 completed applications two pending five that are late and one is in a do not issue status reminder letters have all been mailed every Monday we we check in um so so that's our our system is Monday morning we check in where are we what do we have to do this week and then we take Tuesday and Wednesday to try and you know to pound the the surface um but um of the short-term rentals also four of the properties who previously rented decided not to continue with the shortterm with the short-term rental applications so that's kind of where we're at we'll continue to um the plan is to reach out to everybody who is late and to send them something on a bright piece of paper in the mail since email you're not really getting a great response and and then we're going to reach out to the people who are in question the 28 and say are you renting or aren't you and asking them to reach out to us either via email or phone and let us know what their status is and if they are renting to inform them of the process so that's it it takes a lot of initiative uh and it's a lot of light work a lot of comparing of spreadsheets and following up with people on the phone via email this is a lot of work and I just wanted to say thank you for uh and with the transition you we've had so many properties change hands in the last few years this is this is really like trying to pick bees out of the wind this AA right so yeah it was comparing it back to the tax records to see who owned what changed it was comparing it to 20122 um to the landlord registrations for 2022 and 2023 who did we miss where are they now and uh then pulling out the short-term rentals so we're we're almost there um it has been hours of work on Lindsay's part hours of work on my part um but we'll get where we need to be good thank you sure uh and with that I would like ask someone to make a motion to approve the administrative reports someone second all right send call please councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman live yes councilman segman yeah council president Lambert yes mayor nck yes all right proclamations AR memorized by now but it's not in my copy so we're just going to skip right to you may want to say it's April 26 we love all right I think that I shall never Soviet proclaimed so we have motion in0 seconds so move for the April 26 2024 Arbor Day all right I have a roll call on this please councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman Li yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor Nock yes right moving on to the consent agenda uh the following resolutions on the consent agenda are considered routine and shall be enacted by one motion should any member of Council SE separate discussion of any item that item shall be removed and discussed separately uh were there any questions from the Council on any of these no no okay uh no questions I would ask for a motion to adopt the consent agenda so move may have a second second please councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman Li yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor no yes you uh bills list has been committed uh all wait so I'm sorry uh February 15th meeting agenda did not have a bills uh list listed for approval so I would ask for a motion to approve the February 13th bills list and the April 18th bills list so Mo second councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman live yes councilman segman yes council president Lambert yes mayor no yes have no ordinances on first reading uh ordinance on second reading ordinance number 05-22 an ordinance to amend salary range for officials employees of the city of Lambertville County of H in state of New Jersey so this is as I just said uh established salary ranges for employees who are near the maximum annual salary and often times the the 2% raise that we've uh that we've considered in budget uh will bump someone up into uh something that is needs to be amended here um so we introduce this on March 21st and uh I'd like to open up the public hearing for ordinance number 05 2024 uh that's rep public hment anybody who wishes to speak to this ordinance anyone online all right I have a motion to close in public comment please so Mo second let's have a roll call councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman live yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes may no yes all right unless there are any comments from the council I asked for motion to adopt ordinance number 05 2024 on second reading granting final approval so move second okay roll councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman lied yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor no yes GL we don't do this every meeting ordinance number 06 2024 an ordinance to the storm water Control Ordinance uh uh I'm grateful for the time of uh that we spent gosh it was almost two weeks ago now with councilman um Kaminsky Jeff tile uh the city engineer and was there oh oh Paul cool that's right thank you Paul um for for your participation in that uh I'm going to ask that um that we continue is that the right word carry to carry uh this uh this ordinance um we will meet again uh we're gonna we're going to carry it to continue it to the public for the public hearing for or 06 2024 to the May 16 2024 session if we're not ready then we just continue yeah correct okay so have a motion please so move second roll please councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman live yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes mayor no yes right moving on to correspondence duly noted here in the agenda Town Gas Company knows public hearing for the infrastructure investment program and Associated recovery mechanism pursuing y y y um if anybody wants information about that we can do it here um while we have um passive resolution uh reinstating the Green Team I do not yet have nominees for this so we're going to be talking up this on a and then just a couple of updates find notes here so uh one thing I just want to touch face with uh and advise everybody you know we're still uh relayed with Green Acres and um the hul um property that is due as I said at the last meeting to uh a communication issue between borne and borne who are the surveyors and the New Jersey Department of Transportation uh the notice that Bor borne got back uh in March was that they have a tremendous backlog because under staff because retirements Etc so we will keep uh the public and the council inform the uh uh updates as they happen right not been report on the Green Acres cou of other things uh we Chang platforms for land ver matters some of you may have found it in your junk mail um so just let public know that Lambertville matters if you didn't get it in your inbox please check your junk mail um we have a new a new platform for that you want to add anything to that VY okay thanks well I think it's important tell everybody why we changed platforms so our our previous platform we were getting a lot of bounce rates and they weren't very responsive when entire providers were not receiving the the email newsletter for there for a couple weeks there was just Yahoo was not receiving their emails and those are those are large email clients and the the provider that we've been using just hasn't been very responsive so we're investigating other options to possibly get a better um delivery rate for everybody uh and uh we do that we will let you know in advance to look out um just a couple notes from the dispatch uh this week uh hoping that we're going to have a huge turnout for the storm water utility and meeting on this coming Tuesday April 23rd that'll be 7 o' here uh there will be a an online component um but uh hoping that we have a big turnout for that so if you have any questions about that event please uh see me um we will send another notice out on Monday through the list serve um of that meeting uh couple of other things uh on Monday uh this week parking Meers will be removed from Wells Fargo property um I don't know what Arrangements if any uh Property Owners will take to restrict parking but it's important for everyone to understand that as of Monday uh city is no longer uh going to be trolling or having anything to do with the so uh it will no longer be under our purview and we will not be uh we will not be overseeing any parking or non parking there um we will be bagging The Meters May 3rd through May 5th to and thank our visitors who come to shop and D at Lambertville um we do need some volunteers to help us put labels on the bags turns out that uh the labels are very pretty and the bags are wonderful but it's uh takes it so you know somebody that stickers on bags it would be appreciated because we're not going to be able to get all of them the staff um I did note that we had a preconstruction meeting for the the road jobs on stford Swan Franklin and Corel Road um we had that meeting yesterday uh I don't have Hard dates on the construction uh start date uh we're looking at doing some of the work kind of in uh late May most of the most of the big the paving Milling be done early June so I make sure we stand on top of those announcements obviously that's major road work we're talking about all of our Frank Street we're talking about a substantial uh distance of stford Street and Swan Street um and uh adding curbing on stford streets these are big jobs and um they're going to feel like an inition for the the six days that uh we're undergoing the most intense uh milling and Paving and part of that so we'll keep everybody up to date on that um we have a preconstruction meeting for the expansion of the DPW garage next week um so look getting that underway um Princeton Hydro as approved tonight will begin to uh formulate their plans for the storm water management project behind the fire department um and uh guess that's it anything else so that's it for announcements um the convenience center hours Convenience Center is located at the Department of Public Works facility with is the Cory Cory Street 122 Cory 120 122 120 it's the place with the Pence yes um their hours uh are going to be Saturday May 4th and May 18th 9 noon and Wednesday May 15th from 3 we are instituting a new uh program over there so it's part of the ms4 TR permit requirements we will now have a dumpster where all yard waste will be um uh put put into and when the dumpster is full I get hauled away so we've had uh you know for the last prob five years maybe just a pile of yard waste and and we're getting that cleared out now so that's good news uh we've got a lot of good things happening at the yard this year um including a regular procedure which is required by the permit um to to remove yard waste in a timely and appropriate now I would open up the meeting for public participation then we'll apply any address yeah PA students 3940 uh just real quick I won't take the three minutes this time um back to Mr bir's thing about the utilities you commented that there were new lights were bought but I'm assum well weren't they uh high efficiency lights uh they were probably replacing in Des a old lights so you know shouldn't be using as much electricity in principle if that's what happened anyway and then I had a question is laville matters archived on the website so you can go back and look at old issues or anything like that there are really old oh that's okay oh sorry yeah not a problem go ahead sorry there are really old issues on there but the most recent ones are not I can always email you one oh interesting I can answer the utility one please so the UT the way that the the jcpnl charges us it's $3 per light per day so by expanding and adding more lights we added more and so that's how we got up to that that fee it's not high efficiency they don't go by that it's $3 per light per day it's their ring did add more lights yeah like more lights I just thought it was more I mean electrical charge and I mean all right you should get a credit for being more efficient so that that come separate all right we're gonna continue with public comment then we'll have the council respond is there anyone else in the room who wishes to make a comment is there anyone online who wishes to make a comment okay let's start by closing the public comment period for the motion so second call please councilwoman Kaminsky councilman live yes councilman Stegman councilman Stegman what do we do yes course council president Lambert yes may no all right all right um so that's I would ask for motion to close the public uh to adour the meeting at uh 802 second uh let's just do a voice on this one we'll take a please say I hi thanks for coming everybody thanks for being here councilman Li good night thank you thank you mayor all right