[Music] open the least [Music] [Music] amount start good even good evening ladies and gentlemen like to officially call this public meeting of the mayor and Council order thisone D for a moment of Silent prayer and a reflection as we think about the terrorist attack in Moscow the continued conflict in Ukraine the continued conflict in the Middle East and on a local level the family of Keith Bachman who passed a little bit more than a week ago and uh he was a state Superior Court Judge as well as a burough attorney burough judge and a former councilman please fled States please thees behind you the main parking lot and to my left your right into the main hallway [Music] New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notes of and attend any meetings of public parties at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the ACT mayor and Council of the B of Milford have caused notice of this meeting to be published by having a date time in place thereof posted in the B Hall notices have been sent to the record and R news the mission of this govering bodies provide essential services to the EST implementation of public policy that will safeguard infrastructure provide Fair honest courteous and Professional Services establish a sense of trust and accomplishment between all residents and do research improving planning seek to minimize risk while improving our services we are sensitive to the needs and satisfaction of our taxpayers while realizing that this governing body cannot do all things for old people within the revenue constraints imposed by state mandates economic conditions prevailing attitudes taxation at the time I rest the please call the RO s here councilwoman scky Hurley councilwoman ducky here Council gry here councilman C here Council President Grant here mayor Pino here okay may get a motion for resolution 2024 col 92 authorize a order of contract for Professional Services for attorney councilwoman s yes councilwoman ducky yes yes councilman gry yes councilman SE yes council president gr yes so for anyone who doesn't know has handed a resignation letter from Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly is a former councilman he has served our burrow as the municipal judge he has served our burrow as the municipal attorney and he has been selected and nominated and he will officially become a New Jersey state Superior Court judge um Kevin this is uh Bitter Sweet you made I can say that you've been the municipal attorney in my entire tenure so far as mayor and you definitely made me better at what I do and I know you definitely made our bur better from everything you've done so at this time I would like to ask for a motion to rename conference room a on the first floor of the burough Hall to The Honorable Kevin P Kelly C I'd like to make that motion I second make it a roll pleas councilwoman s yes councilwoman Duffy I will vote Yes and I'd like to make some comments please um please do kin Mr Kell you've done so much for mord from serving as a councilman to co Senor kids teams from being a municipal judge to raising an eagle scout from working as our B attorney to helping New Milford and the mayor and Council navigate to a worldwide pandemic you've done all of this for the Milford and we are so so grateful with a wise and compassionate hand your legal guidance helped us to complete projects make thoughtful decisions and keep side of our goals the Milford is better and we are better because you were here Kevin so now as you follow your new and exciting path on behalf of all of us here I wish you well I wish you much success and many many thanks love you oh yes oh yeah oh yeah Council gr of course councilman seor absolutely yes and I'd like to just add that Mr Kelly it's been an honor and privilege having you serve our Bureau as a bureau attorney and as a practicing lawyer the Judiciary just got stronger and just got better by having you join the Judiciary so I thank you for your service to new in our community but I also thank you in advance for your service to uh to the Judiciary and to our community and to litig against constituents on Council who will be coming before your thank you Council President Grant I agree with what's been said already Mr Kelly but I I remember when we were first discussing a new bur attorney after um this mayor took office and I remember hearing some amazing comments about me and I thought who is this person who is being spoken of in such superlatives and and I thought nobody could live up to all of those all of you the complimentary words I heard and then I met you and I started working with you and they were abolutely right um I not going add even more of us it's been an absolute pleasure working these last few years now bur attorney I've worked with and we've been missing a lot but I wish you well I think that the report is um perod point is better off having you there and we hope will come back to visit in the course of [Music] this I just wanted to say put my two sons in as well I've had uh the privilege of working with four attorneys burough attorneys since I've been here they've all been great uh not one can hold a candle to you you've been been really uh very helpful always responsive always supportive and I really appreciate your service and I thank you very much for all the help that you've given me to grow in my [Music] position thank you all um I'm I'm overwhelmed with his quite frankly speechless which is rare for an attorney you know it's rare for me but I appreciate it uh it's been an honor and privilege to serve the bar Milford all these years in different capacities this has been a highlight I have uh enjoyed working with each of you I enjoyed working the prior configuration of the council uh and other council members and um I look forward to the challenges ahead I know I'm leaving this position in good hands Mr shenan is going to be a fine attorney and I know that Bor Milford is in very good hands with this governing body and this B administrator and I appreciate you all thank you and once we finish with open and we're moving it to close we're going to be a little on [Music] Mr s [Music] [Music] welcome make get a motion to appoint ra to the junior firefighter OB motion second all in favor any opposed thank you very much reand for your service to our community and good luck and be safe under unfinished business may get approval of am minutes from the March 11th 2024 closed and work session Mee second all favor Clos okay Ming on to new business a couple ordinance introductions tonight the first one is 2024 col 08 and when the clerk has the opportunity I ask please read the ordinance calendar year 2024 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget Appropriations limits and to establish a c bank njsa 48 44514 and Pur of this ordinance is to voriz an increase in the annual budget that exceeds the appropriation limit and establish a c cap bank and this is uh something we do every year at budget F so I get a motion to introduce this ordinance first second councilwoman Sam H yes councilwoman du yes councilman gr yes councilman yes council president yes you're up I'm up yeah this time um and Gentlemen We Are Tonight with us is our aor you see the Lo uh we are introducing we're going to be introducing the 2024 Municipal budget and our order is to Walker good evening I'm no Kevin Kelly congratulations together we know each other a long time as well uh he was I was the ordinator when he was on the council um I was the orderer when he got brought in as a municipal attorney um we all have the same people we know best of luck in your uh I guess the promotion step let's hope so anyway so tonight you have before you the 2024 Municipal budget for introduction um after I'm not sure how many finance committee meetings you had but Chris and I had uh more than I can count emails and conversations about the budget the preliminary budget and and it was not an easy year it was not an easy year um insurances are up almost half a million doar $497,000 that's a lot of Mone salaries contractual obligations $377,000 pension $66,000 statutory payment to the library $43,000 obligation to BCA for processing sewage $46,000 so it all adds up um we're using our last piece of the federal American Rescue plan money in this budget about $295,000 um you you the council were smart you didn't use it all at once you PC mailed it over four budgets um so we were able to wean ourselves off it a little better than some other surrounding communities uh the interesting thing is that is that in this budget all the expenses you control all the Departments Recreation for health are $70,000 less than last year so again and this has been a common theme you can you continue to provide the same or better service using a little bit less money understanding that there's all these other things that not just new midford all governments all people right now are being inundated with Rising costs and this is this is not really inflation this is this is something different when insurance is liability workers comp all those things go up a lot of money half a million dollars so you know the budget the finance committee everybody did a really good job I know they they were slicing and dicing uh in order to get us within you know we did you did introduce the ordinance for the appropriation cap you're $600,000 under the appropriation cap but by doing that ordinance you get to Bank in for future years as opposed to losing it which is the right thing to do so with all that the impact of this Budget on the average residential assessment which is around $330,000 is $185 which is a little bit more than it was the last couple of years but we have a lot more expenses that we can't control than we've had the last couple years I wouldn't say that anyone's happy about that increase but I think we feel you know it's the responsible thing to do for what we facing and all those insurance that you're talking about there's a new thing we're faing it's called cyber security that has increased so much on municipalities that's another thing [Music] that it's it's it's it's going to be a chore the next few years in order to bring in a balanced budget and an incremental increase in Municipal Taxes and continue to provide all the services that people in this town have become used to receiving it's it's we also um we look unfortunately we Face the prospect of each year losing new houses new Lakers flone and that's another thing that has CAU up with us and is continuing to happen so that is another thing that we are doing with and and you don't have a lot of commercial industrial in this town it's this is your prototypical Bergen County bedroom community you've got a lot of single family houses a lot of families and unfortunately that is a negative in terms of growth in the rable base which helps all the taxpayers so I'm Debbie Downer this year so everybody tells me Debbie Downer no great news but this is I mean it's it's it's not great but it's not bad considering the specifically what you're facing in just two categories so it'll be introduced it'll be advertised in four weeks four weeks there'll be a public hearing approval from the state and uh we'll get through another year any questions I do have a question um as you're aware and most residents are this year um mil is actually undergo it evaluation time so one of the things people talk about is the tax rate and the budget and how this is going to impact everything how does us having evaluation affect our budget in 2024 it has no impact moving forward again You' got order to do a revaluation because your ratios in the 60 60% area that's again go back to what I said 3 minutes ago you're a residential Community a bedroom community the ratio is based on house sales and the housing market ever since the beginning of the pandemic residential prices have just gone through the roof while commercial and Industrial are pretty much flat so you have a house assess that say $250,000 that sold for $550,000 that those sales just drive the ra show to True Value uh right right down so and so the rule of a reval is a third a third a third a third go up a third stay the same a third go down so you won't know till they do do their their work and you see the preliminary results but it shouldn't be causing Mass hysteria to the general public because as the as the rable base increases the tax rate goes down so the average house now is you know $330,000 that average house probably will end up somewhere in the $500,000 range but the rate will go down commes it with the increase in the rable base what happens is again this is I'm not a I'm not assessor I'm not P you only play one on TV right right right right right um but some of the older construction may take a little bit of a hit because it was valued so long ago and some of the newer construction may see a benefit from having the read out so again it's it's going to depend how it all shakes out but again the rule of thumb is a third a third to third so again the public should not get you know all hysterical that your taxes are going to double or or something like that cuz that that just doesn't happen thank sure any else thank you for your expertise through the process thank you the thir is going to be actually on the 13th of May only have one meeting at all right pass yeah so we only have one meeting in April we don't have enough time between introduction and that meeting to do the public hearing so having on May 13th I'm Miss spoken of course Chris correct I feel like I'm home than thank you very much a great night John good luck thank you sir I have few M shoes to fill tell you really thank Youk okay 2024 93 may get a motion to introduce the 2024 Municipal budget motion second roll please yes councilwoman sand yes councilman D yes councilman gry yes councilman SE yes Council President Grant yes okay 20124 col M4 cancel appropriated reserves of 2759 9 9961 from the American Rescue plan unappropriate reserves for utilization in the 2024al budget get a motion motion second Council s yes Council duy yes Council msky yes councilman SE yes Council President Grant yes moving on introduce orance 2024 09 the has the opportunity at ask Bond ordinance to authorize the Improvement of Boulevard from MTH Avenue North approximately 21 21150 ft in Bine for the B Milford in the county of Bergen state of New Jersey to appropriate the sum of $264,000 to pay the cost thereof to authorize the issuance of bonds to finance such appropriation and to provide for the issuance of bond anticipation notes in anticipation of the instuments of such bonds um this ordinance is to authorize the appropriation and issuance of the bond to finance the balance beyond the grants I get a motion to this ordinance on motion second councilwoman s yes councilwoman yes councilman gry yes councilman yes Council President Grant yes the public hearing on this will be at April 15th okay ordinance 2024 when the cour has the opportunity an ordinance to amend chapter 19 of the revised General ordinances of the B Milford entitled Parks and Recreation section 19-3 e purpose of ordinance is to modify feeds for certain recreational programs it's like soccer travel soccer few items um there's been an imbalance all these fees are basically break even for recreation do not you know try to hmer the residents oriz them we want everyone to be able to participate a motion to introduce this on first reading motion second pleas yes councilwoman San yes councilwoman duck yes councilman gry yes councilman yes council president gr yes the public hearing on this audience willum 15th meeting excellent okay 2024 col 11 when the clerk has the opportunity as pleas an ordinance to Men chapter 2 of the revised General ordinances of the B of New Milford entitled Administration thereby ending subsection 2-20 in t fire department ordinance is to amend second sections of ordinance 2-20 to conform with the do adopt fire rules and regulations of the fire department motion May second okay yes councilman San yes councilman Dy yes councilman gry yes Council yes Council President Grant yes public hearing this ordinance we had our okay moving on item number one is bur County open State's project application administrator yes thank you mayor uh we had some discussion on a few of our meetings about this application uh I believe councilwoman Duffy and councilman RI spoke with our DPW director Vince kill there was some talk about using uh this application towards uh some Landscaping plans for than field as it turns out uh I think Vince was uh sure that the money that we have reserved for this purpose will be enough to cover it and so we took a pivot and we're now um looking to do an application for Hard Castle Pond to redo the path and to add uh new benches and trash receptacles so as long as there's no objection uh I'm going to have the grants writer prepare the letter of interest for bur County open space which is due a I think it's a great the much needed um some of the cement is you know the roots all Bend up they're going to repave all the way around and I did have a conversation uh with Mr Kill and he assured me we had a very long conversation about our project and we should be really okay with the money that we have so outside of the gra and it's going to be in conjunction with the uh Paving of Robert Chester way from the El Club towards pond with the new space included with The Pedestrian walkway so it's it's all going to fit nicely just for a little history on this Michael Galetta counsilman um brought this forward how many years ago so it's pretty interesting is happening now that's got to be at least 10 years ago so it was always a good idea anyway all right my two item number two is schedule updates Saturday April 13th is the annual softball newweek opening day parade sponsored by mil Recreation and mil it will start at 9:15 a.m. at thean school and the parade will commence to K field for more information will be on the website as long as as well as the leag website and Facebook pages Monday May 27th is our annual Memorial Day Parade sponsored by the new public events committee it will start at 9:00 a.m. it will be from the senior center and the C will commence to Bar front one we will start having information on that on REM website and Facebook page Friday June 7th is the call them year by the new historic presentation commission I don't have an exact time yet but it will be at the newf Athletic Club information will be on the bur's website Facebook page hisor preservations Facebook page and um tickets will go on sale in April so they're not on sale yet go on sale in April right now if you go to their Facebook page there's a public nominations for um whole thing IND duties I believe that closes on March 31st so take a look at your Facebook page and you can pick people from each of categories and you can read biographies on them which they Friday June don't know if it offici also a different location at one be I don't want to confuse we also have the information PO on is there anything else going to June 7th that I missed not after June 7th yes May 4th Library will be sponsoring an antique appraisal uh similar to the one we had last year uh it will be from I believe 10:30 to 1:30 it's a Saturday be at the library information will be available on Facebook and at the library CL there was a huge turnout for that last year huge turnout last year I expect a huge turnout this year as well always fun event and and I learned a lot when I go because the the uh appraiser is very knowledgeable and he will discuss the items particularly more valuable ones last year he was actually an it that he appraised at between 20 and $30,000 yeah um which I surpris all of us including the the person who brought the item so it's always very exciting I have an addition so June 5th the buron county Aon Society will be uh having a in 10: a.m. last year's event was awesome very yes thank you mayor a short report tonight um just wanted to let everybody know that uh we met last week with representatives from violia to discuss their ongoing program to replace lead pipes folio will cover the cost for both the PIP in the street and on private property connecting to Residents homes residents will have to opt in and allow access to inspect the water meter to determine if the home is served by a lead service line they will be leaving door hangers for residents to contact them if they are interested in scheduling an inspection we will have more detailed information in the future and we will post it all our website um I'm continuing with my announcement about the polling place for district 8 and N which has been at the library but will be moving to the Berkeley Street school gymnasium SL multi-purpose room beginning with the June primary election the meeting room at the library is too small to properly accommodate the new voting machines and we're planning to change we're planning to notice this change frequently and through multiple mediums from now through election day so please pass the information along and will also be uh printed on the sample ballots that will be mailed in advance of the election uh and then the only other thing is we have one meeting in April and it is scheduled for Monday April 15th that's a me thank you any questions for the administrator has everyone had a chance to look at the resolutions are there any for further discussion and [Music] V Council committee reports get a motion to file committe reports with the B motion second all in favor any while we go around real quick just give you one or two highlights we're going to start with counc President I'm trying to think some I did my councel report which was rather lengthy and I can't quite recall any of the specifics except for the fact that tomorrow night uh the the plan Bo meeting we will be reviewing a hopefully final draft of the master plan for public is welome comments or welcome so um last at our last meeting we had discussed dra and so I think with the comments that we've received since then the um proposal tomorrow night will be acceptable Poss Chang to approve it next month excellent thank you coun thank you mayor uh our flood mitigation advisory committee met last week and is continuing to work hard to come up with new ideas and suggestions for this year uh and to continue to improve communication with people throughout our community to see what other suggestions people may have our Municipal our Municipal Alli also met they're eagly of course waiting the exion of our budget and they've already started to brainstorm this year even though it does seem far away Adam event and other events that will be coming up and may I just wanted to mention that it's an honor and a privilege I was asked by Rao college to be a guest speaker at their Sexual Assault Awareness Month program which will be on April 3rd in the afternoon if anybody wants more information they can email me at my bur email uh and more specifically I'm going to be speaking about the intersection of domestic violence and and sexual violence so it's really an not it's it's a it's derivative of our spring domestic violence Symposium which we have run at Rao college for the last two years in a row and this year's program is being spearheaded by the office of violence prevention at College thank you may thank you mayor excuse me on um March 14th Chief Clancy and Captain van sers attended accreditation hearing and there were 12 Commissioners on the day so went over the New Milford Police Department report created by two accreditation inspectors who did site visit to uh nmpd on January 16th after answering all of their questions uh we were approved our Police Department was approved for another 3 years uh and I would like to congratulate you clany all the officers and all the members of the police department for being so professional and uh getting this accreditation uh my understanding is that less than half of the uh municipalities in Bergen County has achieved this accreditation so kudos to our Police Department thank you Council thank you mayor um let's see as a member of the budget committee I attended meetings with the Milford Fire Department the public library DBW and M MPD discussions included Staffing operating expenses Capital purchases and grant opportunities as the beautification on I've been working closely with our DBW superintendent Vince K to create a plan for tree and shrub plantings at night field the planting will begin this spring as uh many of the tree um many of the trees have already been purchased uh the fire department continues to do a great job in keeping our residents safe whenever there is an emergency they have reported that we have been awarded a $73,000 ARP firefighter 2024 Grant this will go directly to turn out here and much needed equipment counc I have nothing to report except to say thank you to um B department for your assistance in the sustainable Jersey certification program so green team that's our big highlight this spring is a certification uh it's rolling on so working hard yes yeah it's a big project and it's a big team project so we really appreciate green on behalf of Green Team Express a gratitude for everyone's participation and cooperation the other thing I'll add is um you know although you know we we were fortunate and we did not get major flooding this past weekend but the threat of it causes us to be on foot watch so I want to thank again we know the Police Department fire department ebw at OEM um constantly updates watching what was going on ready with the barricades we had a shut down New Bridge Road a couple times but there was no major damage and no other shutdowns but everyone was on call and ready so I just want to thank them for being ready in case something Happ okay at to start I'd like to make a motion to open to the public for public second all favor hi any post ladies and gentlemen in the public anyone to talk about anything regard related to the goodare of come on up and now your opportunity just give us your name you don't have to give us your address sure so that's ay Cohen um so first not why I'm here but just want to thank everyone here and of course the police department um as I guess I'm sure most of you were aware two weeks ago there was a big event made a lot of things streets that were shut down the police were uh excellent protecting the community as a whole especially the Jewish community and I know we're all very appreciative of that um but I am here for again I'm not sure you are the right people I believe you are as I want to propose the idea of uh Mr Kill to he does not attend these the variance meetings um I would like to propose that he should attend those meetings again I don't know if I should propose that to to you zoning board sorry yeah for the variance meeting sorry Vari yeah zoning board sorry um like I myself just had a meeting to get a variance approved and we had one thing spoken about at the variance meeting and then afterwards he sent us an email which you know uh was a little bit different from what we were expecting based on the outcome of the meeting and we have going back and forth I also know at my meeting the first uh people that were presenting he actually was here because they presented at a prior meeting and there was a disagreement and then it was decided that Mr K should come to that meeting to work something out so I just to me it just seemed seems logical that for the community and for anyone presenting to the variance board in the zoning committee that he would be here to help if there were any questions they could just go straight to Vince as opposed to walk talk to Vince may you have to come back in a month and everything like that I just think everything would run smooth I understand obviously he may not want to come to another thing every month or there may be logic as to why he's not there but I just wanted to uh present that from my perspective maybe other people are thank you thank you thank you seeing that there is no other members of the public that wishes to speak I to public all in favor iOS okay may get a motion to approve resolution 2024 col 95 2024 call 106 second all favor I any oppos ladies and gentlemen I'm going to be making a motion to go into close session when we come out of close session no action will be taken and we will immediately adjourn the meeting so at this time I would ask for motion to go into close session someone all favor [Music] anyos yeah