[Music] evening ladies and gentlemen and Welcome to our meeting in compliance with our open public meeting La notification of this meeting has been sent to our official newspapers and other Publications circulated within the Burl and notice posted on the bulletin board at Burl Hall please note the fire exit which are the to the entrance to the council chamber and to the rear I have a roll call please mayor Kramer here Council BAGI here councilman Boyce here councilman caraza here Council gallager here Council Council here you all please rise and join me for the flag the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all all right the uh first item on the agenda is a uh presentation by the first state Corps ladies and [Music] gentlemen thank you Mr Mayor if I could I'd just like to make a quick statement um before they do their presentation um for some time now I've been relaying messages from the core that they're going to face some challenging times in the future so for the past year or so now been discussions with the core leadership who you see here today to come up with ways to better serve our residents ambulance services these days are struggling from a shortage of volunteers for many reasons uh it could be changing demographics it's time to train the time that it takes a train in EMT um uh is always increasing as is government control and oversight so uh while many towns were forced to shut down EMS operations and seek help from other services R fact has continued to provide high quality care for that we are eternally grateful for having so many great volunteers who dedicate so much of their time to our community we now owe to them to listen to their proposal with open open minds they are the true professionals with the most knowledge of their industry and their input should be held in the highest recard when we the mayor and Council make decisions on the best ways to uh allocate taxpayer funds thank you so without further Ado um could you guys introduce yourselves sure can we have two minutes to get this working please it's displaying the present presenter notes so I don't know if this is [Music] uh computer science we got computer science kids in the backs REM get that youth coun oh Christine's really good to okay I'm try to open the presenter you intimidated the Christin there we [Music] go yes so now we will introduce ourselves hi vioria Walker Captain Sue gallager I'm the president of the oldan for State cor Jesse Hopper the first Lieutenant Carl Wisher second [Music] Lieutenant okay good good afternoon uh or evening we want to meet with you to discuss our agency and the challenges we are facing as well as propose a more sustainable operating model for our agency why are we here our agency is having difficulties meeting the EMS needs of our residents during daytime hours which are the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 6: p.m. we want to give the buau of ultap pan the opportunity to be proactive in a solution to these difficulties instead of being reactive to them when it is too late before we begin I want to give some definitions to terms that we'll be referencing throughout our presentation if there are any terms that are confusing throughout please feel free to ask first is crew chief a crew chief is an EMT who manages a call and prepares the incident report the crew chief has a minimum of one year experience as an EMT in our agency the crew a minimum of a crew chief and a driver required to take the call if there is not a minimum of a crew chief or driver we will not take the call duty crew a crew that has committed to ride during a specific day and time slot this guarantees an ambulance will respond during that day or time General alarm A dispatch during a time when there is no Duty cre if members are available they will respond this ises not guarantee that our ambulance will leave the garage Mutual Aid members of our pasek Valley Mutual a group riverville Westwood Hillsdale Washington Township and Triboro which consists of the towns of Park Ridge monvale and wiff Lake if we are unable to respond to a call they will hopefully respond in our place before we can talk about our proposal to our situation we must discuss and understand the problem and its causes in short our agency does not have enough manpower during the daytime and we are not comfortable with the number of calls we are unable to respond to the main factors that we have been able to attribute to the decline in daytime Manpower are the following rise into income families difficulty recruiting post col members decline in number of crew chiefs and fear of disease we'll be discussing these points in the following slides starting with the rise in two income families to start this scatter plot graph shows the age distribution of our EMTs along the x-axis and the number of calls that they have responded to along the y-axis from January 1st through August 31st of this year from a glance it is very clear that our main group of responding EMS can be found between the ages of 18 to 30 years old with only three outliers being between the ages of 50 and 60 we are missing the crucial group of entes between the ages of 30 to 50 who have a stable lifestyle who most likely live in town have a family and are home often that they would be able to take these daytime calls there are simply not as many stay-at-home mom or dads available to volunteer as cost of living has risen and the need for both members of a household to hold employment has grown while we are focusing on REM recruiting members of this age group it has proven to be a difficult process we believe this is mainly due to the following three reasons first EMT school is a rigorous program PR the training requirements have drastically increased from when our agency first started which is a good thing as we are able to provide more medical assistance to patients however this has made it difficult to attract people to go to EMT school the training is approximately 190 hours of classwork which is equivalent to taking two college level courses many desirable candidates that we want to attract have been out of school for many years and do not wish to return to this rigorous school schedule the recertification is also a long and constant process to maintain your certifications as an EMT nrt which is the National Registry of emergency medical technicians requires recertification every two years which is done through taking courses taking a test or a combination of the two New Jersey EMT recertification which is done through the Department of Health is every 3 years which is done through taking approximately 48 Hours of classes CPR recertification is every two years which is an approximate 4-Hour class all these hours recertifying add up and many do not want to have to give up this much time every 2 to 3 years while they hold their certifications lastly people are working more jobs and have increased hours like mentioned in the slide before cost of living is a prevalent issue and many people would rather work and make money to support themselves than volunteer during daytime hours another problem we are seeing with having a predominantly College Aid core is that experienced crew chiefs cycle out too quickly look back at our chart from before we have now highlighted our eight active crew chiefs in red two of which are the same age and have responded to the same amount of calls which is why only seven red dots are present the majority of our EMTs are aged between 18 to 30 while a majority of our crew chiefs are aged 21 to 30 as those under the age of 18 cannot be a crew chief within those numbers four crew chiefs are taking a majority of our calls which is has the risk of leading to burnout and possibility of losing them as a member if this group of EMTs in the under 30 group continued to age with the core our agency would have the members needed to sustain us into the future unfortunately history has shown that many of them will move on after college the next slide is the common example of a high school EMT in our agency this is an example that they first start join at the age of 16 while still in high school within 12 to 24 months of that member joining they wait for their EMT classes to start hopefully get into a class which is a fight as there are not many being offered currently take the class restart if they fail pass the class schedule and take the national exam and then eventually get their New Jersey EMT certification within the next 24 to 36 months of their membership they gain experience as an EMT and hopefully after 36 months of them being a member they have risen to the rank of crew chief at this point they have graduated high school gone off the college and are only riding with us during their summer and holiday breaks once they graduate from college they are more than likely going to move away from the area due to employment or no longer able to commit to being a member and resign at that point we have gained a new high school member and the cycle repeats [Music] itself as we all know Co has changed life for many of us at its height EMS and Medical Systems Across the Nation were stretched to their breaking points due to many providers getting sick or leaving the profession out of fear of catching Co and bring it to their families unlike post 911 where more people were joining the emergency services in order to help their communities Co scared many people away and rightfully so exposing yourself to a potentially deadly disease on a regular basis takes a special kind of person to do it all for free words can't express the kind of person it takes our agency and many alike are still struggling to recruit and even in a postco world the fear of disease is always in the back of one's mind what we just covered were our reasons for a lack of membership and now we'll be looking at the time of dispatches in ultan this paragraph shows the the 2022 stats of how many calls occurred whether they were day or nighttime in the year of 2022 40% of our calls occurred in ultan at night which is hours of 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. while 60% of our calls occurred during the day 6: a.m. to 6 p.m. in addition to that our agency's response rate to Night Calls is much higher than during the day our agency's strength is its nighttime Duty crws when more members are not working and have the free time to volunteer the previous slides have identified the causes for the decrease in our daytime membership a decrease in daytime membership combined with 60% of our calls coming during the day is not a good combination so where has this EMS service been coming from when we are not available our current options of daytime EMS coverage are the following Mutual Aid which is members of our pasek Valley Mutual Aid group responding to dispatches in ultap pan Hospital Em which is provided by Anglewood Anglewood Valley hackin and holy name hospitals who serve a wide area of M municipalities in which approximate a proximity or availability of their ambulances cannot be guaranteed and County EMS who have three daytime ambulances serving approximately 70 municipalities in which proximity or availability cannot be guaranteed we'll now break each down into further detail starting with mutual Aid our neighboring towns in the pasak valley are also experiencing a lack of membership during the daytime hours and could no longer be reliable backup for agency the images on our screen is what we see as officers to see which ambulances are in service out of service General alarm or whatever else they may be this image was taken on Friday November 3rd of this year at 3:35 p.m. otac is currently General alarm Hillsdale is available but only responding to Hillsdale calls as they are staffed with per DM EMTs Monday through Friday 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. meaning they will not respond out of their Town Tri consisting of the towns of monville Park rdge and wilth Lake only respond their available first ambulance to their towns General armarm rigs from that from their agency are called upon when giving Mutual aid meaning we are not guaranteed to receive one Rivervale Emerson Township of Washington and Westwood are all out of service meaning they are not able to give an ambulance this leaves us mainly relying upon hospital and County assets during daytime hours Hospital EMS is dispatched when they requested like Mutual Aid however as mentioned before the location of where this ambulance is coming from cannot be guaranteed as some units have assigned posts in specific towns some units have assigned areas of coverage and some units are just told where to go based on the day each Hospital also varies on the amount of units available during the day which is based off of their Staffing levels that specific day contracts with specific hospitals do exist and while the research we conducted into this topic is limited we we would like to present it to you Holy Name Hospital and hackensac are the only hospitals we were able to confirm that do contract EMS in our area this has been done through looking at multiple contracts and new sources throughout the area contracts are commonly around 25,000 to 30,000 a year for their services however even with a contract it does not guarantee an ambulance will be in alapan hospital EMS ambulances are dispatched based on the closest available unit to the incident regardless of contracts that means if there is a contracted ambulance in ultap pan and a call comes for another town if the ultap pan ambulance is the closest one it's going to that other Town leaving ultan waiting for an ambulance if the burrow requires one County EMS like Hospital EMS is dispatched when they are requested again however as mentioned before the location of where this ambulance is coming from cannot be guaranteed currently Buren County EMS only has three ambulances available during the day as cited by councilman use discussions with them as well as County ms's social media posts on October 27th of this year which I'll par and phrase which is their post on the screen a busy day for buron County EMS at one point all three on duty EMS units transported patients to hackin hospital this shows that they are currently only have three ambulances in service during the day and they could be located anywhere in the burough all responding to multiple calls outside the town of volan County EMS also does not offer contract EMS so a contract for coverage is not possible with them while County EMS may become a resource in the future they currently cannot be reli relied upon right now they're currently covering the entire County with three ambulances which diminishes the possibility of one being available in the burrow when it was requested with these being our current options I'd like to turn the presentation over to president gallager to discuss the recommendation that we have to solve our daytime EMS issues thank you Jesse thanks Jess so Jesse presented a whole lot of information so I just wanted to summarize the facts and make sure that we're all up uh up to speed on uh what's been presented so far and the first point ultan for State Corp does not have enough experienced EMT crew EMTs which we call crew chiefs during daytime hours to meet the EMS needs of the residents of ultan fact number one fact number two the majority of ultan dispatches are during the day and fact number three when the ultan first day Corps is not able to respond to a day dispatch we rely on the service of PB mag which is pasat Valley Mutual Aid group Hospital EMS and County EMS to take the call for us and these Services cannot guarantee their availability or proximity to ult toan so we have been working as uh Jen had said we've been working for almost two years now with different agencies researching different options so what we're going to present to you today has been a lot of research and a lot of um reaching out to some experts in the field uh an EMS attorney and what we're going to present to you is what we feel is the best option for ultan so the option that we would like to present to you is the burough of ultan hiring two full-time EMTs to supplement the Manpower of the ultan first day Corp now why two full-time EMTs versus the other options and our feeling and I'm sure it's your feeling as well that the residents of ultap pan deserve exceptional EMS service and at alapan first daycor how we Define exceptional EMS service is under 15 minutes from dispatch a patient an experienced crew showing up and Compassionate Care going to go into detail on each one of those on the following slides so the first one under 15 minutes from dis dispatch to patient this is a hypothetical chart but can kind of help you to understand the distances involved with uh some of these responses so the First Column minutes to ambulance we took a address in ultan the furthest address from the ultan first day Corp now in ultan volunteer uh typically we're not staying at the building waiting to be called out we may be in our homes we may be food shopping we can be up in CVS so we need to first get back to our homes or back to the building and get into the correct uh clothing and then we get to the ambulance so we we put a hypothetical there of about 10 minutes it's probably less than that but for this situation we we put 10 minutes everybody else who was there so if there was an otac paid member they would be residing in our building and every other uh paid service there we are assuming that they're either a sitting in their ambulance or B they are sitting in an agency where their where their ambulance is close by so they all got one minutes to get to their ambulance then you have the minutes to get to the to the location and you can see for yourselves what they are U for um ult toan 3 minutes to get to this spot all of the other U ambulances and this is with the assumption that these ambulances are coming from those hospitals they really can come from anywhere but at least to give you a sense of the this is very good possibilities that this is where they can be uh coming from so then the column total minutes to patient is how long it would take from the time we were dispatched to the time that an ambulance actually showed up at the patient and you see the top three are the only three that do it in the 15 minutes or less um all of those asteris and the pasek Valley Medical I mean that's the assumption that there was actually an ambulance there uh available when we needed it and it wasn't dispatched to another uh to another town what the asteres are for by all of the uh paid ambulance services when we get dispatched if there's a call in ultap pan dispatch will first uh the best place for them to dispatch is an old depan volunteer because we can drive there in 3 minutes or less it makes more sense but they may dispatch us and they see up on their screen maybe a driver from Ulta pan cues in so dispatch says okay they're they're trying to get a crew together so they'll wait a couple of minutes they'll see that a crew chief doesn't queue in so then they will tone out again wait a couple of more minutes and then this could go three times before then they go and turn it over to somebody else so those asteris you could probably add on to those numbers time getting to Patient could be anywhere from 6 to 10 minutes even further out so you could be looking at some of these ambulances not getting to the patient for uh for 40 minutes and in certain situations is this really that big of a deal I mean we've gotten calls for stub toes before and if you get to a stub toe in 45 minutes it's probably not going to do anything other than irritate the the Community member who you have gone to their house the other thing though too is you're tying up your police for that amount of time because they're not leaving the scene until an ambulance shows up but more importantly what if this is a stroke patient what if this is a cardiac arrest what if this is an allergic reaction delayed care in these situations could have life-altering [Music] consequences the second thing that we feel the ultan first aid Corp offers is an experienced crew some of these paid agencies uh there is a big need for EMTs and there is a small pool of EMTs to draw on so a lot of these agencies are plucking kids right out of school kids young adults whatever right out of school so the experience level might not be there they may have school experience but they don't have actual experience so the way we would see this organizational structure is we still retain the ultan volunteer first aid membership we vote in our line officers and then our writing members and the burrow employed EMTs would report into those line officers for quality control so basically they would receive all of the same training we would want to be involved with the hires to make sure that we're getting good educated uh people in those positions ensuring that uh our first first aid standards of care are met the additional benefits because there is a possibility that these EMTs are sitting at our building and there's not a call that particular day well we said we'd also like to utilize them to help de develop our core during daytime hours aspiring EMTs could sit with the building with them or show up at a call and ride along with these experienced EMTs they could teach CPR classes to help keep our um EMTs certified so that they don't lose their certifications and can continue to ride they can do equipment training they can perform perform tasks like rig checks and Supply ordering all things that weigh heavily on our members to try to get all of this stuff done and finally uh the final way we offer exceptional EMS care is with our compassionate we know and we care about the people in our community uh we are teaching CPR to the Girl Scouts in town we're at the football games cheering side by side with the members of our community doing football standbys uh we're out in our community giving candy to the uh children of ult Jaan we're participating in superhero 5K uh events in the community and are ever present at the ultan uh Town day meeting and greeting our our people of our community and and there's a benefit to having this relationship with the with uh people in our community they're familiar with familiarity with repeat patience we understand the family Dynamics and patient history so typically when we show up it's it's a friendly face and it's not a stranger to us so why uh full-time EMTs versus perdum as uh Jesse said before Hillsdale has gone per DM for 5 days out of the week we feel like a full-time position would offer more stability and longevity in the position uh per Dums are not guaranteed hours and they don't receive benefits full-time EMTs may look at the position as a career instead of a temporary position how beautiful would it be for old Japan to have this dedicated EMT that maybe stays 10 years with them and you don't have to worry about this set days and hours removes a constant task of scheduling for shift so per DM's your constant leg when can you work when can you work with set days and hours that wouldn't be the case offering a position with Benefits also makes us more more competitive out there and stand out amongst our competitions like I said there's a big need for EMTs but the pool of EMTs is not there so why would you want to come work for ultan because we're also offering benefits and making it more of a job and what you see below that six of our very active crew chiefs have taken paid jobs with other organizations making them not available to us I know myself I would have much preferred that they would have been uh working for us at ultan because they're very dedicated hardworking talented uh Talent crew chiefs so what would it look like if we did have two paid EMTs they would basically work a 36-hour work week this is what we're suggesting 31 12h hour shifts and they would only respond to calls in ult toan there could always be a backup crew if if somebody who was not a paid EMT still wanted to respond they could do General alarm calls outside of the community but if there were paid EMTs they would only respond to calls in uh in ultan uh so we would have three paid day cruise Monday Tuesday Wednesday what we would do is we would figure out what uh what days had the heaviest callil volume and the least response um and if we saw a trend there those could be the days that were covered and then the ultran volunteer first a Corp would cover uh the nighttime shifts so if I was looking this I'd say well you said you're having a problem during the day you still have four General alarms what are you going to do there well we have been in contact with uh we have been in a lot of conversations with our friends in the Rivervale ambulance Corps and uh we're working on the details of sharing some of our Manpower we're going to be working together to schedule volunteer Crews to assure Rivervale and alapan coverage at night and Rivervale will be making the same request to their mayor and Council for funding of two paid EMTs and if that's was the case ultan and Rivervale would form an alliance we would only our paid EMTs would only respond to ultan and River Veil calls and that would give us six days of day coverage uh with one day a general alarm could be Sunday and that's when more people would be around and available and the same with our nighttime right now we we pretty we have pretty decent coverage at night but if we didn't Rivervale could cover our nights we could cover their nights the uh the same so like I said if both towns uh had the two paid EMTs that would be six days of that would be covered any questions on anything or should I continue continue okay so hopefully at this point we've captured your interest and you're seeing the need as we see the need and I'm sure you're all mayor and Council up there thinking well what is this going to cost so the need is relying on hospital and County EMS is a gamble it's not the same level of level of service so the cost that we have produced a ballpark estimate for $25 per hour would be a uh competitive uh rate for a paid EMT for a 36-hour work week we added 30 2% added for Ben benefits we got that number off the internet but it seemed pretty consistent so the cost for two pay paid EMTs would be 123,456 and with a little note on the bottom the cost estimate does not include per DM cost for paid time off um because what we thought also would if we could have a small pool of per Dums so that if one of these full-time people needed needed a day off uh they would get vacation time or sick time that we could have this uh pum pool to draw upon any questions on this yes soe the the 123 552 that that's including Benny's right including benefits yes yeah it was $25 per hour times a 36 hour work time that's how I read I just want to make sure .3 so is there any plan to Bill Bill uh no we did initially we went down that path but that it gets really complicated in order for us to Bill to become licensed right now we are governed by the New Jersey first aid Council New Jersey first aid if we were licensed we would have to license both Rigs and then we would be governed by the Department of Transportation Department of Transportation says if you roll that licensed ambulance you can only roll it now with two EMTs forget about going driver EMT it would be two EMTs and if we're already having a problem having EMTs you're it's going to create a nighttime issue for you then because we have a lot of night Crews that go out with just a crew chief and an EMT so that's one of one of the uh many reasons the other thing is we would lose our nonprofit status we would lose access to the training fund right now when our EMS go to school that is covered by the training fund we would have to take on the expense of of all of the training ourselves uh no more um no more donations uh taxfree donations for our community because we look would lose our uh our nonprofit spending we thought that because we didn't want to leave money on the table but then when we really Dove deep into it we said this does this isn't going to work for us in addition to all of the administrative work you know who's going to take on the role of filing to you know insurance claims and who's going to file balance Bill to the Community member and you know we always have that sign out there we never build for our well now we're you know would be billing for our service so it it got more and more complicated the deeper and deeper that we dug into it so uh yeah we did not feel that for the stability of the core that that was something um that would some I don't believe the core could survive that because of having to have the additional two EMTs on all of the uh all of the calls so is there a close town that does it at bills I mean I know there's Towns at Bill like you know Fort Lee or pick a bigger town but is there anything around here the closest town is to the cill fire department as their Ambulance Corp is under their fire department they are a fully 24-hour 365 agency though up paid they do not have volunteers riding on their ambulances anymore CU they lost their nights cuz volunteers they weren't able to keep up having two EMS on okay because I know like Pearl River I think is bills um I I'm not sure what the New York State well I know they do because I pick up my mother-in-law every once a month and uh she's build and uh yeah it's a lot of money it could be to Grand it could be depending on what they use no it's actually uh that's one of the things too is there's not you can't make money in mems doing transports we really can't charge over what the what is set for us and it's like 30 $150 oh uh it's a different rate for Medicaid it's a different rate for General uh insurance but it it's it basically averages out at about $350 so thought that would have been my phone D yeah any other questions I think I may comment um so this comes from the volunteer standpoint right so more involved in more involved in Recreation right and trying to get volunteers volunteer coaches it's been very difficult and it's been volunteerism has been in Decline for a while in fact the story I tell is at T neck they charge $200 for soccer if a parent volunteers once you get $100 back they raised so much money because no one really cared no one wanted to volunteer money didn't matter to that right so volunteerism is down so you're fighting two things one is volunteerism down but our population is going to increase as we know right by the new homes Etc so you're going to be chasing right to have to serve more citizens but the one thing that we haven't considered is actually what Co has done to the work structure meaning more people are working from home right so people are working 3 days a week instead of five where's their home it's in old Japan so you have more residents here during the day yes they're working but anything can happen to them right they're not in their office so for example if I mow you know I'm home on Fridays I'm mowing my lawn I have an accident right I'm here I need service here not where I work so there are two things that you're fighting it's number of people in the town that are increasing and number of hours that people spend in ultan where there could be something where they would need your help so those two things and that's what makes me more confident that this is the solution as opposed to trying to get more volunteers and chasing more hours than you I'll also make a comment that you know in Old capan here we're we're used to phenomenal Services you die on 911 you get a police officer when you call for police you di on 911 you have a a fire incident in your house you're going to get a fire truck there right away we're used to our residents are used to um dialing 911 and getting Medical Care Emergency Medical Care within that 10 15 minute window that that you discussed and I think our residents deserve that uh I think they're used to that and I think as newer people move into our town as our town gets bigger um you know we have to take a serious look at this and and and see what what can work uh I think our our residents expect exceptional care as or compassion of care as you as you Illustrated there I think you have a a little bit more to present and then maybe you could answer some questions that we have just this picture yeah the final slide which is ultan for SE cor's commitment to exceptional EMS service to the residence of ultan has been unwavering since 1939 and we want to thank you all for taking the time for considering our proposal that will help continue the legacy of ultan Ems for years to come now I'll open it up the questions thank you guys that was very well presented much I just like one comment is so we're we're meeting uh uh you know really for the council we're meeting with our auditor next week or next month middle of December so obviously this this type of proposal is is is a 2024 idea and Beyond uh and I think one of the things that we should be talking to Jeff about is how can we make this work if if the council says hey this this idea has some uh some viability to it so uh and it works some numbers see if we can we can make this work without putting a huge you know Financial strain on our on our residents so I think that's the next step for us and to really make it work we need to get in touch with the uh Rivervale mayor and counsel to talk uh see if this is a viable possibility to have this joint joint uh core so I guess one of us will try to get in I'll get in touch with the uh um riverville ambulance liaison see if we could uh have some discussions formal discussions yeah and we were going to meet with their leadership they knew we were presenting this today they've already seen thee presentation and we said once we presented it then we're just going to tweak it and they were going to use the same presentation to go to their mayor and Council okay I I see the need for this uh uh many of us had have uh observed from the outside and and many of us have had the need to Avail ourselves of your services uh and uh I can tell you there's nothing uh nothing more stressful than to be waiting for an ambulance have ambulance Personnel on unseen but no rig available because they didn't have the qualified people to to come to your home so uh experiences that that I've had uh personally uh it's been a half an hour waiting for a rig to come and uh when uh someone's having a problem serious problem uh minutes mean mean everything so as Tom indicated this is uh um we all see the need for it sounds like a great idea and if we can work the U next year's Council can work out the the financial details of it I I think it would be a great start for a great Improvement thank you does anyone have any just one of the questions I just what what you guys do I'm I'm so impressed with what you all do I mean there's three firemen up here I'm I'm one of them and you know a lot of our calls are false alarms a lot of our calls are Co alarms or whatever not not I'm not belittling what we do but when you guys are called when someone calls first aid somebody's bleeding you know there's a problem somewhere all the time so all your calls are high intensity and important and you know my dad's a life member he was a life member in your in your core and he he predicted this day was coming because uh he had to get out probably in the early 80s he served from the 50s up to the early 80s and he couldn't because of his work schedule he just couldn't do the the defensive driving course and this course and he said I just can't anymore and he said down the road he goes I'm telling you you're going to see combinations of towns together and you're going to see paid people and and this this a milestone here when we me I see this happening so it's going to be a milestone for you guys but anyway the service that you guys provide at least the very long time I've been on this Council has been exemplary and I appreciate we all appreciate it thank you anyone else okay thank you very much for and professional presentation thank you guys thank you [Music] okay before we move on to our um next item in our agenda I have before me a uh a plaque that was sent to us by the ANC local environmental matters uh Congress and it's um they didn't have anyone available to come up this even and make this presentation but it's a presentation for councilman Boyce councilman Boyce was presented this prestigious anj environmental leadership award at the nonprofit association's 50th annual environmental Congress on Friday October 13th at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor bill was one of five Municipal officials to be recognized for initiating Andor supporting outstanding environmental achievements in their Town congratulations [Applause] Bill thank you very much Mr Mayor um I look forward to getting that tree ordinance passed as soon as possible me too and uh I'll be talking about that in my Council committee report thank you thank you okay let's move on to an appointment that's for councilman carnaza thank you Mr Mayor uh this is appointment it's a class three special law enforcement officer uh Michael [Music] maio second left a discussion is it which school is that for is that for the that's for our local any further discussion roll call please councilman BAGI yes counc counc Boyce yes councilman caraza yes councilman Gallagher yes councilman Juan yes councilman you yes okay let's move on now to the uh public hearings and that's for councilman Caza okay this is uh the first reading uh on an adoption um ordinance number 1243 d23 amending the parking ordinance and at this time I'd like to open it to the public friend discussion second second reading second reading we can't have them all talk about it now sry guys whereas an ordinance entitled an ordinance amending chapter 242 of the code of the Bureau of alapan titled vehicles and traffic by amending section 24211 thereof was introduced at a meeting of the mayor and Council held on October 16th 2023 now therefore be resolved by the mayor council B wapan County of Bergen state state of New Jersey that set an ordinance 1243 d23 being same and hereby adopted on second and final reading and be it final resolved that the bur clerk is hereby authorized and directed to publish the notice of adoption as required by law okay before we uh have a second on that I'd like to entertain a motion to open the meeting to the public for discuss second all in favor I I would anyone from the public here to make comment or ask questions with regard to this matter yes ma'am please come forward and state your name please I'm Michelle bani I'm on and Charles have two questions um can you your name sorry Michelle volani and your address 103 fillers drive thank any reason why the cars cannot park in the school parking lot when there's games going on on and the second question is any reason why the gate to the um track is now locked in the morning for me to go walk in uh I I can answer that okay um since I'm the police commissioner this year we've had three meetings with the school but I've been here for 24 years and bag's been here for 25 we've always told them and we have it on record that we want the gate closed at all times and the reason is safety now the parking just recently and this is just we had a meeting two months ago about this we met with James Santana the new uh principal and Lorenzo who's the athletic director and we talked about we put up signs that say no parking and usually the custodians would come over to the police department pick up the signs go to Howard put them all up and down the street and leave him there till Saturday and then they would take him back down and bring him to us okay the board of education has decided to release two custodians because they're worried about their budget they fired these two guys and they had five custodians now they only have three they don't have somebody to come and pick up the signs now in the last 20 some OD years we're worried about safety in the morning people from other towns are coming here parking on Howard dropping their children off they go through the gate and they go up to the school and they go through the school they don't want to sit on Central Avenue on with all the parking on Central Avenue at 8 o'clock in the morning all right all the traffic so we met with them three times this year and discussed this and just recently uh there was a Saturday afternoon um I think it was a soccer game and Joe just told me this Joe is the police chief he told me this this afternoon in my report tonight I was going to make this we had put up the signs for no parking we also put up DPW cones blocking Howard so they couldn't go down there right the problem with Howard is we have tour buses that come from games they Park on Howard drop off the people they go through the gate into the game and then they come back out go back into the bus and leave we want to stop that from happening okay every coach on every single athletic team that they have has a key to that game every police officer in in alapan has a key to that gate and we keep on telling them if you're going to open it they want to open it for handicap or parents that can't get to the open it up let them get into the game but close the gate because and I want to have it on record it's on emails it's in our meetings it's in the minutes because I want to make sure it's there just God forbid something happens and somebody goes through that gate and does something to the children children in the school they want to keep the gate open during games we want it closed during the game open it at the end of the game so people can leave but then close it but just to answer your question you had two it's their gate we have no say that's the answer to your question you had two question yeah no right the first for the first question is yes they should be parking in the parking lot but very large parking lot talking about join games right I'm you know I said right in the corner I have no issues with anybody parking there but God forbid there is a fire or anything car a truck cannot get no yep that's exactly why we started this conversation I understand that and that is absolutely agree with that but my question is why are these people parking in the park school parking lot for the game and not on the street that's something to ask far walk for really to far a walk for them that's what they will tell you that that's a bit ridiculous that's what they would say they're ridiculous that okay so that was question number one okay so now I understand that on the west side is where cars are going to be not able to park so I'm on the east side of course on on Phils but back to the to the gate though it had been open I've been here for 5 years and up until about 6 months ago it was always open I go there running or walking every morning and all of a sudden it's now closed so I can still get on the on the field there to walk but I now have to go all the way around which is not terrible except that I lived like half a block away from there so to me it was just really convenient to go around the track five six times and go back home so during the day can it be open during the day so what we have heard is they're going back to the open zigzag gates to walk to the track so that is the last that we have heard if there's no parking the gate will be open it it's it's a compromise to see how we can fix the parking problem so if you fix the parking problem hopefully the gate will go back to be open because then we don't have people parking where they're not supposed to be and there won't be that traffic um issue okay sadly we have no control over the lock on the track itself it's their it's on property yeah okay well hopefully I will we open thank you thank you thanks for coming in who else would like to be heard yes please come forward hi everybody if you don't know me I'm Wendy galfund and I live at 101 Howard which is I'm literally next to the gate so I'm talking about the gate issue just so so it's very confusing because the school blames you guys they do you guys blame the school I live right there I don't see any buses ever Tor buses dropping off people to go play they that is not the case really the problem wait wait wait wait wait I don't see it this is the police chief and two police officers buses go bus so you're saying they're there I don't see that I'm home a lot but okay if that's the issue you're talking about security for the school every other opening is open to the school so by blocking the back gate if someone's going to get in there they're going around the school so what I saw last week and I did write this in an email is that I was walking my dogs and I saw a bunch of young boys I think they were fifth grade I'm not sure being dropped off they couldn't the parents couldn't see that the gate was locked because of the barrels and I said oh my God they're standing there these kids one after another so I because I'm a mother started to walk towards them to help them figure it out but one by one they were hopping the gate and jumping it that's dangerous too I mean I understand and the parking situation whatever you need to do to make that work I think that most of our the neighbors would agree that it is a safety issue and we said I've lived in the town 25 years you know mayor Kramer like Tommy Jack they all went to the back gate it's it's a nuisance for a lot of reasons and for us as residents who live right there I'm right there so whatever we can do to make it work I would like to see that done because I think there's more things involved with locking it that could be damaging like I saw myself that day and you know we're just going to support whatever we can to make that work we can only recommend them to lock the gate it's their gate right we can't make it all right but the parking you have no objection to one side to park I don't there are other people that may I don't um you know the only time I and the other thing I wanted to bring up too which was one other issue on Howard Drive was that I think a bigger issue is the Speeders that are going like speeding that's going on I don't have young children anymore out there but I am out there and I see them and I'm yelling at everybody every day there was for a little while a speed sign across the street from me on another property I saw it there I know I'm not making it up but I saw it and then it was gone and I think something like that to tell people to slow down is going to be your most important thing to do in safety on that street you saw a no speeding sign I see speeding I didn't see no speeding it was a sign telling you how fast you were going electronic sign electronic sign they and it was fabulous because I saw people actually see it and slow down I'm outside I'm very active in my neighborhood I'm outside a lot I talk to the world I'm out there I see things and I thought that was great that's gone but that's something that would help to and that's it Wendy let me ask you a question sure um back in I guess it was early 2000 maybe 2002 well you didn't live on that street at the time but we were having a parking problem down there with the students parking and they parked throughout that entire area and at that time thre McDonald's rappers all over the place you know it was it was a real problem for us so so we enacted an ordinance that Pro uh limited parking to one hour parking During certain hours correct that time how would you feel if if we enacted an ordinance we have we had an ordinance pending tonight that permits parking on one side of the street how would you feel if we enacted an ordinance that restricted parking 24 hours a day seven days a week to one hour a day now all of the years that that I've I haven't seen any summonses issued with regard to that one hour parking yeah uh by residents most people Park their cars in a driveway yeah if we if we enacted an ordinance that limited parking to one hour just to one hour a whole day that you can park your car whole day that would eliminate all of the parking from from the games right all of all of the games how would you feel about that I I I wouldn't like that okay are you talking both sides oh we go no parking zero because I think a lot of people would not know what to do and we to not me I walk there and I let people use my driveway I think people will be very upset if there's zero parking one side I think would' be okay yeah when you say people you tooken residents we talking I'm talking residents of our town who go that way who are you know like you said some elderly some other people that want the ease of going in the back gate okay yes not me I'm easy I'm right there but yes for other people I got you understood thank you okay you're welcome thank you thanks Wendy thank you thank you who else would like to be heard yes sir good evening everybody my name is Michael kjo I live in 97 Howard Drive on the other side of Miss galan's property by the opening so uh I have two young kids under the age of three so I Echo what Michelle said Miss Gan said we should leave the gates open we're okay with the parking during the games and again keep the gates open but I want to emphasize I have two kids under the age of three and when I bring them home from school and their front Lain there's excessive speeding all the time and aggressive parking I also want to say that it's not just the youngsters out there driving fast it's also a lot of the parents dropping the kids off for these practices and games and it's not even the varsity football games it's a middle school games the freshman football girls soccer girls lacrosse I also want to Echo with you sir um Mr councilman Ronald that I've seen the tour buses back up because my daughter would say look large bus coming through large bus coming through so I see the other the schools Dro their kids off with that all being said I just think the aggressive parking and the speeding uh about six months ago there was a digital uh sign place on my property I was not giv any heads up about it but I was okay with it because I thought that's great for obviously our street and our community with that being said the police approached me and said it's it's only temporary and it could be removed because it was actually donated and allocated to our town to be removed somewhere else within town if that's true that what I was told I was also thinking why pick my corner across the street across the street cars are speeding from both directions so I was just wondering what that's the case but I want to emphasize the speeding and aggressive parking from everybody what do you mean by aggressive parking what I mean by that is that they're driving really fast they're parking on top of each other maybe even closer to my driver which I'm still fine with as long as I could pull out the car my SUV with the girls but I'm just saying just maybe even double parking by the con to drop off the kids just just being cautious because again kids could run on the street I grew up in the ' 80s and 90s I'm sure like most of you have going to the playgrounds I never worry about like cars or stuff like that nowadays with the streets kids are on motorized scooters bicycles mopeds it's a little different out there got to be very careful but I think more speeding but I think it comes across the parking as well but uh I just want to emphasize the speeding and the safety of the kids but we're all for having the gates open for the games and 247 for like Michelle like clockwork she's there at 7:30 in the morning walking around every block every day so I'm all for that so I just want to keep that in mind did you notice a decline in speeding when the sign was up yes and no at first yes the great question councilman bill I agree I did but again it was just on my corner facing that One Direction I come from Manhattan speeding 247 with Ubers and taxi right and lifts so I just didn't know why that specific Corner only from that One Direction because I think they're speeding from all directions again I I I've only been here for over a year we love old Japan we love the community aspect of it we're very happy but again just we young kids in general and I don't think we're the only family on the block with young children we made a lot of friends with other young families also have the same concern just to clarify are you for the no parking or not for the D Park if it's going to obviously if it's going to R all our residents on Howard Drive I feel like we should keep the parking as is keep the gates open if you can 247 obviously for the games are already open anyway so the parking speeding still exist in my opinion so I just want to do something about the speeding and the safety of the young children in the neighborhood but I'm sorry but gate open and parking on both sides leads to no fire trucks and no ambulances fire trucks can't speed down there anyway I agree with signs in your example uh councilman uh guy you mentioned how 25 years ago now I see the police officers putting out the sence so so so I I so I agree with that no due to no parking on one side of the street that makes sense for emergency vehicles I agree with that what I mean don't don't eliminate all no parking for both sides and obviously keep the gate open so you're for the one side but not for both sides for emergency vehicles all the good work that everyone does speaking of which would you enjoy uh joining the first aid Court yes we have an there's an application right a little extra time I wasn't e Scout so and my wife's a teacher so we're all about helping others and they were out there trick- or-treating with the kids giving out candies same thing with the local police and we appreciate all they do was a great presentation by the way I wanted to Applause you guys was a great presentation definitely that's all I have anything thank you very much coming in I appreciate you guys thank you application at the door sure thank you all right who's next sure is is there any one other than nobody besides him it'll be nice and quiet uh Bob Kramer for Charlotte place so I have a problem with the whole parking situation because you're going to tell me that I can park on a North Side Southside whichever side this time of year we have leaves so now where are you going to park any anwers not I'm sorry the issue the mayor your driveway yes exactly you know well if if you have um the parking just the way it is right now today and you have leaves can't park anyway but you have more cars available in between those piles of leaves do I agree that they can't park on both sides of of the road absolutely right so if you're if you park on top of leaves and your catalytic inverter sets those leaves on fire the fire truck may not be able to get to you yeah when you look at some of these sporting events growing up around here and I don't know if anyone played football and you went to Wayne Hills I went to Wayne Hills I went to Wayne Hills how far was that parking oh forget it hike it's like a half a mile right what did they suppli The Bu mhm so they bust you down to the field M make the school do that it's not that far okay but still they're going to say that it's far even from the tennis courts to the field but there's a to bring up a school board meeting we can't make them anybody but don't put it on us don't put it on me can I ask do you uh how many residents park on the street there normally on a weekly basis on a daily basis daily basis nobody right nobody except landscapers yeah if I go out there wash my car my boat whatever I want yeah so does this really inconvenience inconvenience you what's going to happen during the holidays I have 50 people of my house for Easter we were talking about having holiday uh you know um invite them don't invite them no you can call we can you can call the borrow right and then the borrow gives you that exception for that holiday for whatever time you need for holidays on the on the morning because you're not going to have a game on the holiday you may you have a Thanksgiving Day game if they bring that back if they bring that back yeah you could call headquarters and work something out I'm sure am I am I not right Mr commissioner absolutely thank you so let me get this straight you're in favor of no parking on one side and parking on the other correct I would be in favor of that if they didn't bust our chops if we were parking on our side okay for a couple hours and what about I was having a party and the gate stop 247 leave it open that I really don't have an issue with okay open or close okay that's all I have to not to make it more complicated but could we not have like parking passes for residents thanks put them in their car like a resident parking pass or multiples of them so they could give it to family members they could park on the road make just to make it even more complicated there'll be resell [Music] hi good evening everyone my name is Dominic mtio and I live at 126 par Court my wife and I have been residents for all Jaan roughly 30 years and uh we OB to the No Parking On The ultan Pearl court side where we live from Howard to Phyllis we're the only home on that block there's no other home on that uh stretch of street so uh we've never had a problem with parking we're pretty fur we're pretty far removed from the game at least from a parking perspective where we don't get inundated with cars parking in front of our house understanding they do put the signs up but very rarely do anything exceed those signs so we object to the pro Court uh parking no parking from the corner of Howard to Phil okay okay so if we if we pass this ordinance so they're going to end up parking in your block cuz that's the only open parking is it farther than the parking lot no it's only one house on the north side between Howard and Phyllis and that's theirs and Carl's house yeah car's is no but past Howard to right yes think got one in the woods right they the I know where y got to be on on tape us again sorry Shani 103 phers why not force them to park in the parking lot oh well that's what's going to happen because half of the cars are going to have to go somewhere else yeah so they're going to be in the parking lot but the parking lot is big enough to hold all of the cars that are now parked in who and I know that we've been arguing that yeah we we have no power you mean we have no power to make people Park in a in a particular location the only thing we can do is prohibit them from parking in certain areas we can't make them Park say in the B State we can't tell you can't park here you have to go to the B State you have have we don't have that power just borrow property we can regulation burrow streets we can we can control the parking on burrow streets yeah and if we if we eliminate no parking at all then then it would have to go there yes makes more sense large [Music] Park Christine masaro 19 Herring Drive uh as a resident of the town for 39 years a teacher in the nvot district for 18 a coach for 20 uh I can tell you without a doubt Friday night's football game is a championship game there is not enough parking for Westmore Central and the four towns of ultan that to go to nvot I know that it's different because nvot is in ultan so it's a burrow issue for sending towns we have four technically five towns that come to our school it is not just high school students it is residents it is their children it is their cheerleading we had the northern Valley Eagles come with their families to run onto the field we had the what's it Norwood Raiders come out run on the field we have our wonderful Ambulance Corp at every game um and they rotate with the other towns so just to to speak from experience there's not enough parking when you have West Mar Central fans coming Friday night I would invite any of you who are around Friday night to come to the game and see thousands of people who come to the game and the same convenience that the residents nearby want of oh keep the gate open so I can go for a walk well that's the same thing as a resident and the announcer of the game Friday night that I would like to pull up park by Wendy's house I have to get there at 4:30 for six o'cl game there's not enough parking in the in the top they'd have to park and I know everyone said oh it's not that far by the tennis courts that's a pretty far walk on that campus and I know that that's a nvot issue and I've talked to our athletic director about that and the football coaches and all that they'd like the convenience of [Music] [Music] having [Music] oh is this on you can hear me okay y good just in conclusion I I would be in support of the the safety of it I would fully be in support as a resident and also as someone who's part of the athletic program there I'd be in support of having one side blocked off so we could get a fire truck down the street if need be the ambulance if they had to take a kid who got injured you want them to be able to get out quickly so I agree with that the safety aspect of it um I don't know if that works like we're saying if we pass the ordinance then the gate would be open but the school could now come and say okay but we're not so we could pass this and then they could say well we're still keeping it closed so I don't know if they necessarily go a separate meeting yes that's not they don't want they want it that's good I want it to be safe and fun for everyone that's I think that's a common goal so if the the town feels that it's safe to have no parking I thought they did a great job by the way Friday and Saturday they had football but then also a state championship soccer game and they had the signs by I don't know what we would call it like the by the mouth of it both sides were and I thought that was smart because now you can get in and out but then it wasn't the whole street it was just by the mouth of it so it again I was I was announcing that game so I was able to go an hour early get a spot back there you know walk over and I know that that's something that a lot of families in town like to do even if they don't have a kid on the team they want to come see the marching men there's parents of marching men members it's not just about football we have soccer games there we we host the county tournament in in reference to the tour buses that would be once in a blue moon when they have the um County tournaments there Iha buses on a coach bus um and I know pass Valley sometimes does so that does happen but that's once in a blue moon but I could understand as a resident not wanting constant buses dropping off and I know that Moreno the athletic director has addressed that for the county meets uh on how to handle that so um I just think like I said in conclusion I think safety is number one definitely if there's a speeding issue Joe Tracy was amazing about that in our neighborhood as well on Herring drive and I do know he he didn't take it away they just rotated so for any the resid who are wondering that it's it's money that they got donated to move that sign and it's very effective so safety of the kids number one and the enjoyment of the town to come out and be able to support and you know not have to walk from the tennis court the or by state to get down to the game when there could be parking there thank you thank you thank you Mr Mayor if I could just um interject um speak out what M Mr Mata said um about his house and and I agree um speaking of someone who I drive a large truck and I go through that neighborhood very slowly by the way um but when you're coming off of uh Blanch Avenue in Harrington Park you're going 3540 and then you make a right and you're going to go through that neighborhood past your home and if you're going too fast I haven't been but if you are you're better off having them Park on your side park parking on your side not no parking on your side yeah you don't want Runway right but I'm just saying cuz you're you're making a right and if you're going a little too fast the car is on the right you might hit them but the cars on your side you will not so I would not have a problem leaving the parking where by you on your side and taking it away from the other side I would suggest that corner that corner is a bad it is it's bad if you square that corner off you probably have to come to more of a stop before making the right right fix that problem easily okay good point maybe we should look at that I mean I make I'm I'm there all the time and we had children yes a little too quickly Poli do a great job you get slow it down for a time can't do all time Jean Mio 12 six Pro Court I don't want to make it seem that we actually like the way it works when the the signs the emergency signs are put out there for the games whatever it is five 10 10 times a year graduations whatever it is it seems to work and we have no issue with it my issue is that I don't feel that parking should be restricted for the the rest of our lives living there because we've never had really parking restrictions at all and we have frequent company and it's inconvenient to try to find parking I mean you can only put so many cars in your driveway and then your guests are now parking around the block so I just wanted to clarify that and again we don't really have an issue with the the lock either it's locked or it's not locked I can say if my kids were still in school I would want it open because the kids can just cut through the back but you know and that's what draws us to the area because you live in an area where your kids can walk to school if they want to and that is a convenient cut through but now I feel for all the people that when the kids do walk they have to walk all the way around if it's not open but again feel for the residents you know it's a two-way street so just want to add that thank you sir hello my name is Blair Harvey can you say that again oh sure hi my name is Blair Harvey 113 Howard Drive so we've lived there since 1997 a lot of things have changed as you know and um I think underlying my concerns or interests or whatever comments is that when we moved here you know there was no lights on the field and we now we have the lights and other organizations now use the facility because it's like MetLife Stadium in Old Japan so I understand that but I think I'd have to Echo uh Jean's comments that I like the way it is right now I don't like the lock down on the parking although the current situation works and that's really the goal right for fire trucks and for safety and all that so I like the way it is the back gate it's for me it's a coin toss it's convenient but then again if I'm taking a walk I could walk through the other back gate a little bit uh towards by state um but I think the safety is an issue of concern and uh I think there's things we could look at also you know maybe so Howard Drive at 730 to 8:00 every Monday through Friday is non-stop cars and when there's a break in the traffic due to traffic lights maybe in Harrington Park the cars are flying that down Howard Drive okay at when school lets out the uh $50,000 Mustangs are flying down power drive and um if this is kind of like a residential school safety area that's has this focused events attracting thousands of people um I think it's a little bit maybe bigger issue maybe we should look at speed limit maybe we should look at a crosswalk you know kind of like over there by the back gate so that people do have to stop if somebody's in the crosswalk um I don't want to get too crazy with it but I think there are other things we could do like you talk about rounding off that as you're traveling towards Harrington Park on Howard Drive you have that curve which is it never there never was a stop sign there and that was used to slow down traffic so squaring it off things like that but um I think I'd have to agree with uh my friends the Matos and object to the 24/7 lockdown and parking it could be an alternative to that but in my part I like the way like it the way it is thank you thank you thank you others anyone else this man see more of them here hi everyone Cindy petracelli I live at three Charlotte place um I really want to Echo I guess what Blair has just said we've lived in the same house my husband and I for 28 years and um we put five kids through the school system we were very active in the high school when we moved into the neighborhood we knew what we were getting into as far as noise hearing the marching band hearing graduations the parking in front of the house and so forth it's never been an issue for us we expected it we we bought a home half a block away from a a high school football field so we knew we knew what was coming I guess if I had a question it would be to ask why um why the change because we really like it the way it is it seems to be working the bottom line for everyone here is of course safety everyone wants to be safe and everyone wants our kids to be safe and the residents and so forth so um what's there in place now with using the temporary signs really seems to work well so I'm wondering what spurred um the the motion to make this a permanent thing I can answer that what happened again the Board of Education let go two custodians the custodian used to come to the police department pick up the signs Friday night and Saturday even now on Sunday they picked the signs up brought it back to the police department now now our police officers have to go put the signs up and on Saturday Joe Tracy the chief of police and Bobby watt the captain had to go there and put the signs up because the school didn't have a custodian to do that he's been doing this for the last six to seven months Joe Tracy who was the chief of police brought this up brought it to the mayor and Council and we started discussing this that's why we open it to the public because we want everybody's opinion the people that we can't lock the gate we can't do anything about the gates on their property we can't even put up a pole and a light because it's on their property I wanted to put up a camera and I want to put a light there because at night it's very dark at that gate again that's what brought this up the school decided in their budget to discontinue two salaried employees who custodians they put the signs up they took the signs down now Saturday afternoon this afternoon Joe Tracy called me to tell me that we had put up DPW put up cones blocking that one street so nobody somebody took all the cones pushed them aside they all went down there and they Park and Chris Riley who's our police officer he reported back to Joe Tracy this is what happened that's what started all this the Board of Education decided the custodians used to put up the signs and take the signs down now our police department has to do that and I don't want to pay overtime to my police officers to put up the signs that they that well well to add on to your point there were time there are times when the school notifies the police department that hey there's going to be event on the field so that's when the the police are able to set up the cones but they hold events there I think they rent out the field or lease out the field to other groups where they are even they don't have an idea when they're going to be there and they use a field they don't they don't notify our police department and the police aren't able to put out the cones to restrict parking on one side that's what's changed s you ask what's changed that's what's changed but it seems to me that the parking is only an issue I'm sorry for interrupting it seems to me that the parking is only an issue when it's major events because really in in my experience living there that's the only time we know when there's a big game coming and that's when it happens there are events that go on that field at other times when no one parks on our street no one parks on Howard I mean but there's something going on on the field so I don't think you sometimes there's a a difference between a high school event in which the high school right yes their custodians would coordinate with the town but they also as councilman carnosa said they issue permits to private clubs so peeee football for example right um right football club soccer these are private entities that lease the field from the school yes they do not coordinate they don't the custodians have nothing to do with that and these gam are getting more and more popular so when you hear a lot of noise on a Saturday night that's not necessarily high school games those are the small people right and so again then it's on us right not the school to maintain the parking Etc so the fields have gotten more popular over time right um and that's what's been causing part of the issue here is that that the traffic versus 15 years ago is a lot more games a lot more use of the fields and a lot more issues about parking so the high school is not aware when peeee is going to use the FI they are but the C but they don't notify the police yeah they don't have to because it's not theiry anybody it's not their game it's not their coaches right the key to the gates nothing to do with them all they do is issue a permit and they get paid by the private uh entities and then they allow that private entity to use the field um at those times is there a way to you know make the communication between the high School tried and and the police department better me right you're read you're reading my notes and so then if so then there's then if they did even if they did communicate you're saying there's no one to put the signs up and take them down well I think that you know whether it's the school that puts them up or the police department that puts them up somebody has to is required to put them up ultimately it's a uh safety issue and and we we would have to see the police department would necessarily have to see that the signs are put in place the problem is the notification that we're not being notified as as has just been explained you know the the football the regular regular regularly scheduled events the high school notifies us but these other ones that that come in at on a Sunday morning and the police know nothing about it and by the time they they find out about it streets already uh loaded with cars I feel like someone must know that they're coming though and whoever that someone is I think needs to send that information we agree but it doesn't happen yeah we agree also I feel um another reason why I'm opposed to this new ordinance is um I think it for me anyway I don't know how other people feel but for me it Chang changes um I don't know what the word is the atmosphere of the town I the thought of me living on a No Parking Street in my mind makes it very different makes the place where I live very different it's not the old toan that we moved to and I understand that changes are going to happen I mean there was only one traffic light in town when we moved here you know and so I I get it things things progress and that's a good thing but I think it's just one more step in um letting things get overrun inch by inch and I really think it's it's going to change the atmosphere around that neighborhood and you know another thing too is resale of your home I have no plans to sell or go anywhere but if I did you know I'm sure it would come up oh there's no parking on on this street though you know um so if I had to vote Yes or no I'd say I I think the way it is is fine maybe there's a way to make it work a little better um and I would say no to the ordinance thank you thank you yes sir round two two name and address Clair Harvey 113 Howard Drive so our house is between the U snack not the snack bar the um place where they do the announcements 50 yard line and the East um Endzone so on Saturday around 4 o' the U Northern Valley Eagles play two games typically on Saturday night the little guys and then probably the seventh and eighth graders so I believe that's old to pay in Recreation or associated with old Recreation it's not it's the Northvale pal it's north pale Northvale P so there could be some better coordination with you know kind of a local Northvale in other words they're not like coming from you know I don't know hackin to play in Al ofan they're North Vale and Al ofan and uh I'm just highlighting that point that they could be better coordination because probably the second most noisy and the second most popular consistent event is Saturday Night Football under the lights for the kids in town and um it's predictable I can tell you they're going to be there just know they're going to be there and I think the police do leave the signs out for them because kind of rolls over from Friday night to Saturday and it's kind of a normal flow but maybe there is a day that they're they're not there but then practices of course they usually don't um put the signs out because that's hit or miss so I just wanted to make that point and Sundays we find that there's a group of guys that play soccer out there and uh I've taken walks in the morning and a lot of New York plates up in the parking lot nobody's parked on Howard Drive Sunday morning but they're all out there having fun playing soccer but good guys having fun so that's my observation for a bunch of years that's me you're up there too good for you not with a New York Plate though anyone else I just have one other quick question sorry um for I have a friend that oh sorry thought you guys are remember me already wenty galin 101 Howard so I have a friend that lives at at the other end of my street I think it's like 98 Charles she was she was just asking because she they couldn't come to the meeting tonight if we do the one-sided thing we that'll End by their house so so it'll be they won they will have parking on both sides Allowed by their house she was just you know wondering if they were going to do the one-sided all around the neighborhood or where would that be where they get all the Overflow by her where dides she live 98 Charles Charles I just this out from the corner of Howard to Phyllis Charles South that's what the ordinance says yeah so she's probably okay okay so they won't they'll have where does she live now it's in that corner it's that corner on Charles across from you right across from you no at that Clark Sheamus Sheamus you know Sheamus yeah so I'm friends with Christine and she was like hey just could you just ask if they couldn't be here would they get total overflow both sides would they be a single side too this is basically if you follow where the police put the signs okay that's where it's going to be okay okay so there on't signs down there then yes okay says here from the corner of how we def fill okay okay right so so phis naturally they are going to get more yeah they are they going to get overflow yeah it's not going to be single sided down there okay or they might just park in the parking lot like they should have they're they're not okay thank you yes ma'am yes [Music] ma'am name and address question 10 pH just want to make sure I understand this correctly will this ordinance be in effect all the time or is it just for the games all the time all the time so it's whichever whatever Street in my case would be Easter Sunday for Bob Christmas Eve my side they'll be able to park not the okay is there anyone else one more uh San Petrelli 6 Charlotte place I grew up on Charlotte Place uh having the back gate open uh or the gate to the field open has always been a really nice perk of the neighborhood walking over to go to marching band events or sporting events uh has always been a really nice thing my wife likes to use the track and I know a lot of Neighbors in the in the area they use they like to use the track to I think the you know I understand uh councilman carnaza the point of safety but uh I think where there's a will there's a way and if somebody wants to get into that school to do something bad they're going to get in and and then the idea of let people into the field during a during an event lock the gate and then reopen it at the end well now you've just you know penned everybody in you know to the field where say there is something that goes on and everybody needs to quickly exit kind of introduce the problem there so I don't really everybody's not going to exit to that game yeah so um but for the signs uh I kind of like up until I guess tonight thought that uh you know the current situation where you've got a whole bunch of teachers coaches everyone with keys who knows who's got them uh you know we open up the the gate in the morning close the gate open it up at the end of the day you've got signs that go into the Lawns signs that come out of the Lawns it's literally the solution with the most number of moving parts and it there's no surprise there to why it has so many errors um so I'm kind of a fan of removing moving parts and I thought that putting the permanent signs in that say no parking on one side of the road is a you know a moving partree solution but I think some people have problems with that and I just was thinking of like possible alternative solution um signs that say no parking during school events uh and that sort of opens up kind of a an obscure well is there a school event going on I think for residents that live in the area they're going to know whether or not an event is going on and whether or not they need to remove their car from the street besides the fact that nobody in the neighborhood really even parks in the street uh and then anybody that's coming to an event is going to be a non-resident and they already know that they're coming to an event so sign that reads no parking during events is an obvious thing for them uh so that kind of latees the calls to the police department uh for hey I have a party you know uh can I park for 50 people on Easter um and you know just any residents I want to park there and uh yeah just a idea for an alternative solutiona thanks thank you Sam Sam one more just kid D somebody harass Kyle Guan eat no Cris court so I just want to provide like a perspective as a high school athlete as well as a student um so obviously high schoolers do reckless things like jumping the fence and so I think that even if parking were disallowed on both sides and the gate were to remain closed you'd still have students and parents who would drop off kids in the back to hop the fence to get to the turf field and so I think that that as these discussions continue to indicate a correlation between having parking on one side and having the gate open continuously I think that that's the best solution for the safety of students and athletes who either they need to get to school they need to get to the field and they will continue to do these things I can say from a high school student perspective um but yes thank you thank you thank you anyone else motion to close second all in favor all award okay uh resolution has been read do we have a second on it [Music] see I hear no second I I second it uh further discussion yes I have a a question for our for Brian that what Sam petrielli just said we do that it would be unenforceable because that sounds like a home run to me what he just said but it's it's not enforceable because you can't you can't say event is it's too amorphous a concept you'd have to put certain days certain times it would have to be specific enough that anyone would know because it might not be people coming to events it could be you know could be anybody so in my opinion and I was a prosecutor for 30 years that would not be an enforceable but is there another way similar to that that we could do that I don't know I don't know when he said it I said ah that'll work you could do hours you could do hours and you could do days yeah I I don't know how you would pick that because I guess Friday and Saturday and then Sunday morning are the heaviest like like well Mr Mayor why couldn't we make no parking Friday night from 6:00 to 10: parking and Saturday night 6:00 to 10 well I think we start there we possibly could because we've already taken that first step uh 22 years ago when we we put into effect right one hour parking right school days between the hours of 8:00 a.m. 400 p.m. two whatever whatever the hours are so there is a there's a first step into that should we decide to expand and name specific days and hours Sundays including Sundays Saturdays and Sundays Friday Saturday Sunday I don't know I'm just trying to figure out Mr Mayor at this time uh I would like to suggest that maybe we take this under consideration and we pause this ordinance for the police committee to get together and the mayor and counsel and I am going to say it again to involve the people at the school which I will put up another meeting with them to go over this and come out with a different ordinance because if I take the toll of everybody's comments tonight um I have a lot of NOS written down yeah I I I think that the general consensus that I I find tonight is that everyone wants the gate to be remain remain open well again we're not they want to leave the gate open all the time we don't have anything all we can do is get put on the record that we believe the gate should be closed for liability purposes but their gate they're going to do what they want the only thing we can control is the parking on our streets yeah I don't think the actions of the gate versus the parking ordinance yes they're tied together but they're kind of not I mean what the school decides to do with the gate is is their privy uh I think we have an ordinance in front of us tonight that has been discussed at length um I'd like to see move forward is is one possible solution so it obviously the school doesn't have the Manpower the person power to put out the signs right residents here want status quo right temporary signs Etc if the school can't do it and we don't have the resources or we don't have the we don't want to pay overtime for it is there a way to form a community group I don't I'm sorry for interrupting finish I'm sorry is there a way to form a community group that maybe someone a representative can come pick up the signs put them out in the neighborhood pick them up and return it to our police station is that a an option I I don't see that as an option because it's a it's a public safety issue it's one that we are responsible for we have a police department uh that uh is responsible for for the safety providing the safety to the community and ultimately if the school doesn't put them up it's my opinion that we we have to put them we would have liability okay you know to get us group in my my mind is uh is Not Practical do you have a comment on that no I I think you're right mayor it's it's really delegating a governmental function to a private group is generally not permitted mayor it doesn't have to be your your round though because school is only open from September through June and what if it was just for those months well that's what I think that um what Ron had said before about expanding it to weekends and it could be limited to certain months of the year so if if guy suggestion is uh offered to to table this motion if that's appropriate I'd be in favor of that I'd second that I you have a motion in a second on the floor well that's but a motion to table is a privileged motion it actually has to be voted on before the preceding motion under the rules so if there is a motion and a second to table a motion voted on First and I'd like to make a motion to table it for now to meet with this police committee and the May and Council and the people at the school just to discuss it a little more maybe we put in the times and the weekends or we come up with something else and then we give it to the public second further discussion roll call please councilman yes councilman Boyce yes for a table councilman Kaza yes councilman Gallagher no councilman Guan yes to table councilman you [Music] no the count 42 two so it's okay for it's table okay so we're we're going to uh not proceed the but it will be on unless um it's further tabled it will be on the very next meeting of the mayor and councel without any further advertisement first Monday time uh yes 7:30 third Monday first Monday I'm sorry third Monday or first Monday today's the first Monday so right yeah sorry I'm sorry third Monday my days third Monday in November okay so let's move on to uh our next ordinance and that's ordinance 12 4423 an amendment to the LF ordinance and that's for Council menu thank you Mr Mayor this is the second reading for ordinance number 1244 d23 amend loap ordinance first a core this time I'd like to open up to the public for discussion second all in favor I would anyone care to make a comment on this ordinance motion to close second all in favor I councilman thank you resolution whereas in Orin entitled an ordinance amending schedule B of the provisions of ordinance number 681-9992 3 now therefore be it resolved by the mayor and Council of the burough of alapan County of Bergen state of New Jersey that said ordinance number 1244 d23 B and the same is hereby adopted on second and final reading and be it finally resolve that the burough clerk is hereby authorized and directed to publish the notice of adoption as required by law the resolution was duly adopted by the mayor and count that second second I was waiting for the second discussion roll call please councilman BAGI yes councilman Boyce yes councilman caraza yes councilman Gallagher yes councilman Guan yes councilman you yes okay um second is similar to that and that is for castman voice thank you Mr Mayor this is from the burough clerk's office ordinance number 1245 d23 is a second and final reading upon adoption for adoption to commend the lowp ordinance for the fire department and at this time I'd like to open it to the public second all in favor I anyone from the public care to be heard on this matter seeing none motion close all in favor whereas an ordinance entitled an ordinance amending the code of the burough Vol depan County of Bergen state of New Jersey titled an ordinance amending the loap point system for the fire department originally created by ordinance number 68199 as a Ed by the ordinance number 8 8554 and ordinance number um 104-110 was introduced at a meeting of Mayor and Council held on the 16th day of October 2023 now therefore be it resolved by the mayor and Council the bur uh mayor and Council of burough of Old depan County of Bergen state of New Jersey that set ordinance number 1245 d23 B and this same is hereby adopted on second and final reading and be it finally resolved that the burrow clerk is hereby authorized and directed to publish the notice of adoption as required by law second discussion hearing none roll call please counc yes Council yes councilman paraz yes councilman gager no abstain councilman yes councilman you yes okay let's move on to our consent resolution that's for our council president thank you Mr Mayor uh it resolved that the following resolutions placed on the agenda by consent require no discussion and the same having been previously reviewed by each council person being are hereby adopted in their entirety by the mayor and Council of The Bu of alapan claims and payroll release cash bonds and escrow refund Recreation security deposit refund 2023 property tax over payments special it item of Revenue C3 ultan Board of Education transfer 2023 budget Appropriations reject bids golf Force Pump Station upgrades inter local service agreement mechanic d the Valley Regional High School school district inter local service agreement mechanic Park Ridge School District amend Personnel policies and procedures manual and employee handbook confirm class 3 special law enforcement officer slo3 appointment sor discussion roll call Council yes councilman Boy Yes Council yes councilman gallager yes councilman Guan yes councilman you yes okay under new business councilman Galer thank you Mr Mayor um kind of proud this is low kind of um proud to announce that uh the burough of vol depan did very well on our uh 2003 best practice in inventory assessment um let me explain what this what this is all about 2023 best practice inventory assesses each municipality is compliance with various laws and evaluates implementation of fiscal and operation best practices inventory answers provide taxpayers an additional means of evaluating their Municipal performance municipalities performance the inventory also identifies areas where municipalities may require further technical assistance furthering this objective the best practice inventory contains an underscore survey section soliciting information on a variety of topics uh some of the uh topics that they ask about are are ethics Personnel cyber security LED remediation budget shared service Financial Administration capital projects transparency environment procurement recycling Solid Waste utility ities and special improvement district so the maximum score that you can get is a 42 and ultan uh scored a 39 and my quick math is I would be proud of this grade while I was in high school and college is a 93 so I'm very proud of uh uh all of the uh burough folks that uh put this together so where do we lose a couple of points um utility reporting to the BPU lost a point um uh monthly letter regarding payment assistance on utility bills because we have a a sewer assessment a sewer tax um we are to be sending our residents a monthly letter telling them if they have a tough time paying that bill that there's assistance out there um also a public util a public electric vehicle charging station and formal policy to purchase hybrid or fuel alternative Vehicles so we don't have a fuel alter turn out a vehicle and we don't have any electric charging stations on Municipal property so they dinged us for a point half a point for each of those so 39 out of 42 for 93% and I think that's a fabulous grade so Jesse and everyone else on your team that worked on this thank you and that is my all my comments on that thank you very much do we get anything if we got 100 you get a data boy okay now for our uh award-winning uh andj local environment before you go new business I just have one quick thing go ahead uh somebody alerted me that the uh onr easement is now void of devoid of wires the the towers that go all around town M actually they're over on hering doori and they go they took the wires down are they now taking down they are going to take down the stanions now from what I know does that property revert back or does it remain an easement they have not said anything yet they don't know use it for parking for the high school there you go yeah it's just frustrating that I had we had how many meetings with the sheridans about taking down a tree and no know had to take down their tree because they needed it for the wires two years ago and now they took the wires down some of the property is not just even some of them they own they own them or not they took them down because of the wires and they knew they were taking the wires down did they damage the fence have another fence discussion Ron you bring up a good point of course I do I wonder if we can uh I mean persuade them to revegetate that s through the old toan with Native vegetation all they have to do is not cut it anymore it'll grow back agenda for next year it'll grow back on own I know well but with what mug mug workart Ragweed native it won't grow all by may maybe that could be part of your tree ordinance that you're going to work all right anyway great idea be a deer habitat we don't have enough of those um okay um the old business tree ordinance all right so uh I spoke to Bob rash our code enforcement uh our building department sorry our um building inspector zoning insector zoning zoning and Zoning he wanted to take a look at it before we before we read it into the record so he's got it now and he's going to read it because he's going to be ultimately enforcing it okay can I make a suggestion yeah or request if I may so the next environmental commission meeting is on Tuesday the 21st I would like to put all interested parties our engineer our bur attorney yourself I'd like to not be in the room but myself uh Bob rush and Dave Keel are uh our chair I'm suggesting a meeting on before our next meeting maybe we could meet 6ish 6:30ish before uh two weeks from tonight is our next mayor and council meeting maybe we can meet prior to that we can Hammer this thing home Dave Keel can uh bring a back to the next which is their last meeting of 2023 the environmental commission and we can hopefully button this thing up can that work I'm available works for me you sure okay all right I already spoke to Dave key said it should work for him so I will six Council six how much do you want to talk about what about Rush yeah I I'm I this first I knew he was come you know somewhat involved but I'll invite him I can send a calendar invite to everybody and we can meet here 6:30 enough time to let's say six in case we have some closed stuff prior that work for everyone so you're talking six on the day of the meeting yes okay I'll send an invite and hopefully we can tie this thing together it's really been dragging on a long time so okay okay I just got a text from Matel Bandy and he wants to come to that meeting yeah I'm sure guess it's an open meeting I guess he can okay I'll entertain a motion to open a meeting to the public so move would any from the public care to be heard this evening s P six Charlotte Place uh I just wanted to bring up something that a few other people did uh but I didn't want to hijack the other conversation um the the speeding in around Charlotte and Howard uh is actually really bad it's not they're not exaggerating um I work from home most days of the week and I can say that I hear I hear the muscle cars I hear the sports cars like really tearing it up Howard and even on Charlotte uh they will come from from uh Howard down down Charlotte and many times you uh I would say almost every time I'm out there doing yard work somebody goes flying down that road and my young daughters out there are my nieces and nephews and uh and I I feel like I want to chase after him with a rake um and uh yeah so I don't know what could be done there but um yeah it's it feels like it's getting out of hand uh it feels like a safety issue I've seen them around we mention it to the police chief yeah thank you sure thank you anyone else motion to close close second all in favor all right all right I motion to aurn so move second so okay let's move right on into the uh executive meeting and uh can I have a roll call please here counc here councilman boy here councilman corazza yes councilman Gallagher here councilman Guan here Council here thank you very much uh first item is our engineer Tom come on up thank you mayor good evening everybody just have one item to go over and I believe Diane the planning board secretary sent everybody a copy of a plan that was approved by the planning board at their last meeting uh it's ampler way 11 ampler way um they got a variance for a covered patio um but part of the application was also to reduce the drainage easement that runs behind the those lots when amp the way was created there was a a 40ft wide drainage eement running along the back of the the Lots on the southern end of the Lots um it was never necessary to be 40 ft wide um I believe at the time the position of the board was if they're offering us a wider reement why not take it um so that's how it was created and that's how the map was filed I know one of the Lots adjacent to this um made the same request that this owner is making to reduce the easement to 25t wide um and that was approved many years ago um I have no objection to it the drainage structures all fit well within the 25 foot wide easement the burrow would have no problem maintaining any of the structures within a 25t wide easement um but technically the mayor council would need to approve of that um I don't know if you need a resolution but at some point a deed would have to be signed um probably by the mayor I assume yeah have to vacate the existing Easten and reduce it in size and put a different hement on and the way the board approved it all of that work would be done by the applicant um but the burrow would just have to be on board with it and and sign whatever documents were eventually presented to you I'm does this eement stretch through many properties and how would you foresee it moving forward with on an individual basis I think it's an individual decision on each lot um because it all comes down to where the drainage structures are physically within the easement on this particular lot it's not an issue on the one we we vacated previously it wasn't an issue right could it potentially be on another one yeah so you have to look at it on a Case by casee basis is okay this this doesn't really change their property size or anything like that no no no they they're trying to put up a covered patio the covered patio got a variance for rear yard setback it's supposed to be 40t I believe supposed to be 40 they got a variance for 26 the easement was 40 ft so the patio would have been be would have been built within the easement would not allow them to do but we can reduce the size of it because it doesn't have any practical implications for us and then they would be able to build what they're trying to build okay so is there a consensus to agree to this on the council is there I I I would agree is there a cost are we going to spend money doing this no they're going to do their attorney will prepare it be it'll be on there there cost okay that's fine now I think it's fine anyone oppose to it okay we'll move forward on it okay that's all I had mayor if you have any questions on anything else about the foot bridge at the end of hering now where are we at everything is done uh with the exception of some additional Paving um just got a quote today from mashion who would do it and it's actually less than we had previously approved for kti so I'm assuming I'll authorize them tomorrow morning and get a date from them um can they do it next week uh getting cold yeah I'll talk to I think this is the smaller mashion Paving Company not the big one that we've used so I think they're more likely to be able to do something like that 15 okay and again I think the bridge all the contract work for the bridge itself is done um this is additional work is it walkable right now can you it the residents use it the areas that aren't paved are 4 in yesterday right so you so there's a patch in Haring Drive there's in in the street there's a patch and then there's probably 40 50 ft of path that is 4 Ines low but kids can walk to school right now absolutely okay that's all yeah yeah okay on another uh note the U the wolfroad drainage is that scheduled for yeah yeah we were um we'll do the drainage work probably right after um you know like the Thanksgiving season yeah let that sit over the winter and then we'll figure out a schedule for the paving work for next spr okay and I understand we got a grant for $186,900 decide what we're going to do with that cuz there's um you know I think that's half of what we asked for again it is it's less I think we asked for 300 and something they gave us 189 so there's the there's an easement on I guess you call that is that the south side of number four there's an easement there with no pipe in it so between the houses that front on White Avenue and Perry there's an easement there that certainly work needs to be done um we might be able to do that for this amount but we're not going to be able to do what didn't get done last time plus that so we've got to decide what the priori is okay anything further for Tom thanks Tom thank you thank you Tom okay let's move on to council committee reports beginning with councilman B thank you Mr Mayor um the only question I had tonight was the easement from onr and that's all I have I don't have a report okay councilman Juan thank you Mr Mayor a couple things um from Recreation well Recreation and Library meetings are this week so I'll have a better update uh at the end of the week quick thing about Recreation as you know we had Town day uh on a on a great day uh from 1 to 5 was it two weeks ago or one week ago on Saturday uh I heard it went well unfortunately I had to attend the soccer game at the high school at the time uh pickle ball court number three we spoke about before going to be repainted in the spring temporarily they put down white tape it's usable I've been using it um I'm sure if you've driven by Stone Point there are a lot of players that have been using all three courts so the pick a ball courts um uh have are are doing well uh and being used uh let's see schools so normally I don't have a school report this time I have a fuller one uh very quickly nvd uh AP Platinum level nvot AP gold level there were 61 National Merit award winners um they also received some funding to reinstate some of the clubs that were cut um over the past couple of years uh average SAT at nvd was 12 1284 average SAT nvot 1203 both much better than the New Jersey median of 1066 uh the marching band won the US lewig national championship not sure if we want to invite them uh here uh and then yes yes yeah and then uh repairs to be done uh the track tennis courts locker rooms and the back parking lot and uh that's the end of my report thank you very much C you thank you Mr Mayor report of the seniors I'd like to thank the members of Social Services Department for hosting their annual senior International lunch and learn I'd also like to thank the members of the police department for coming in to inform our seniors about the fraud schemes that they may encounter these days the thieves are coming up with new ways all the time to part people with their hard earned money so it's great that our law enforcement officers are able to remind our residents once in a while to stay vigilant our DPW is hard at work picking up leaves from our streets in our public uh areas uh and tonight you saw we resolved to enter into two more inter interlocal agreements for mechanical services for Park Ridge high schools and the northern Valley Regional High School uh districts uh thank Andy and everyone else involved for help helping get this done report of the first aid core thank thank you to the members who showed up tonight to present the solution to the ongoing shortage of ambulance services to our residents I look forward to more spirited conversations in the future uh particularly during budget season to find better ways to serve our residents with EMS services and just on a side note Town day went uh spectacular mayor was there I want to thank the members of the OTF and fire department for cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for our residents all led by their crew chief uh council president Gallagher and on the plus side I heard nobody got sick that day it's the next kudos to uh Tom Gallagher thank you that concludes my report that's I think he gets sick on the next day it's not uh Mr Mayor um I don't have a police report or Board of Health cuz I was away in Italy but uh Joe Tracy just told me today that he'll make sure for my next meeting he's gonna have a lengthy report at this time I'm going to try to beat Mr Gallagher's record okay but you will uh you will speak with the chief with regard to the spe Absolutely sitation I'll put it together with the school okay councilman Boyce thank you Mr Mayor there's no way I can compete with that but I'll try so uh the planning board is meeting on November 8th the applicant is 41 Birchwood the Glazer application the veterans had their first uh committee meeting about a month ago and we have our second one this Thursday at 4M in council chambers we're all very excited to do that Anna is going to put the message on the message board to invite all the veterans it's already there and also send out an email to some and if anybody knows any everybody's welcome because we're trying to pick our committee and the chairman as well um as I stated earlier the tree ordinance uh we're making a you know Mad Dash to get that approved by the end of the year and last but not least Christine masaro invited me to the Veterans Day ceremony at the high school 11 and I'm very much looking forward to that I'm encourage some of the veterans to attend as well so that concludes my report thank you very much council president thank you Mr Mayor very brief report tonight um so I got a report uh from January through October from Bob Rush our construction official uh I found a couple of interesting stats here just to share uh between uh uh new homes additions alterations and demo permits uh 32 new homes 14 additions uh 480 alterations and nine demolition permits for 535 uh permits and the value of that work that's being done is um over 20,200 so over $20 million of uh new and alterations and additions going on in town uh this year uh also in regards to uh Bob's staff on inspections between building Plumbing electrical fire elevator and mechanical they've performed 3318 inspections um January through October which they are a busy busy group um councilman Kaz and myself are meeting with Bob on Wednesday uh kind of pre-budget he asked to kind of uh meet with us so U um we're going to chat and see what he's all about and we'll bring it back at the next uh next meeting or during budget session I'm guessing and that is uh that's all I have okay a motion to adjourn don't move second got a bad election day vote get out there and vote hey Chris record now 9 and