responses may be given during the governing body's comments later in the meeting and as directed by the chair have anyone wishing to give us public comment either in our audience or on the phone second call for public comment and third call for public comment not seeing or hearing anyone uh we will close public comment and we will move into the advertised public hearing for final consideration of ordinances and I turn it over to councilwoman Judy cuser thank you very much council president this is the final ordinance number 01- 2023 be it resolved that an ordinance entitled an ordinance amending chapter 19 of the code of the burough of Ramsey Bergen County New Jersey and more specifically subsection 19- 2.1 thereof entitled fees for Waters usage having been brought up for public hearing and all persons interested having been given an opportunity to be heard pass final reading by title and that said ordinance be adopted as an ordinance of the Bureau of Ramsey and be it further resolve that the buau clerk be and she hereby is directed to cause a copy of the title of said ordinance to be published in an official newspaper of the buau in the manner provided by law together with a notice of the date of introduction and Adoption of said ordinance councilwoman do you have any comment on that ordinance I do and and thank you to um administrator Bose for his support to over the last 10 years 2014 through 2023 the Board of Public Works have has not raised Water and Sewer rates in five of those years and only increased rates since 2019 the other five years years of the last 10 the rate prees increases were under 2% for a 10-year average annual rate increase of 91% or or less than 1% a year due to inflationary operating cost increases and increased regulatory costs the Board of Public Works at their January meeting passed a resolution to adopt a 3.91% water increase water rate increase and a 3.96% sewer rate increase effective for 2024 the water rate changes are confirmed and enacted by an ordinance of the mayor and Council us while the sewer rate charges and changes are confirmed and enacted by resolution of the mayor and Council us this ordinance is on tonight's agenda and there will be a vote on adoption for the water rate increase and the seore rate increase um it's um resolution 52 on tonight's agenda thank you thank you councilwoman anyone else on the Das have a comment about this ordinance not seeing any we will all now open this up for public hearing um we will ask three times if anyone has a comment or would like to speak about this particular ordinance you are now free to do so and before anyone speaks on that would we have a second for that particular ordinance I will second that thank you councilman gut wer my apologies once again we will open it up public open it up to public hearing happens when you get older um and we'll make one more uh first call for anyone who wants to make a comment or uh voice an opinion on during this public hearing time second can call for anyone to speak during the public hearing on this particular ordinance and third time for public hearing on ordinance 01-2020 not hearing anyone we will close the public hearing and have a roll call vote please uh ready councilwoman cusk yes councilman gutwetter yes councilman kilman yes councilman Papo yes councilwoman poppy yes councilwoman Woods yes for appointments I now turn it over to Madame mayor dear thank you I hear by make the following appointments Mary and Carrie to design review board alternate 2 and Craig chiiara to the Board of Public Works and Maran after the resolutions are done please they'll ratify your appointment I'll sore you in thank you madam mayor moving on to the consent resolutions I turn it over to councilman Michael gutl uh thank you council president kilman uh be resolved that resolutions 046 2024 through and including 058 2024 having been considered by the governing body of the burough of Ramsey B and are hereby passed and approved we have some special permit requests this evening the benetti dentist group is requesting permission to hold their annual townwide garage sale on Saturday May 4th 2024 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 2: p.m. with conditions Shannon Rose is requesting permission to use the mcfarren Field parking lot for employee parking March 15th to March 18th 2024 for their annual St Patrick's Day events shanana Rose requested permission to hold a special St Patrick's Day event from March 13th to March 18th including an enclosed patio with sides and doors and a Women's Club of rams requested permission to hold their annual tomato and vegetable sale on May 18th 2024 at the Masonic Lodge parking lot and to post signs around town advertising the sale there are no block party requests this evening I would like to second that yes I do have one question about this on my agenda it says we've changed that to 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m for the manetti group is that correct yes all right mine says two to four I just want to make sure note that have an old one yeah 9 to four no it's 9 to2 with conditions 9 to2 with condition with conditions all right make sure that two okay yeah thank you with conditions with conditions thank you madam mayor um may we have a roll call vote please councilwoman cusk yes councilman gutwetter yes councilman kilman yes councilman Pao yes councilwoman poppy yes Council woman Woods yes thank you all right Mrs is Carrie the camera in the middle YouTube maran's a big star per f [Applause] [Music] app Joe has one you can use mine okay you are yes this is you yep okay thank you now we now move to committee and leaz on reports finance and administration councilman Michael GW uh thank you again council president kilman I'll start off by U congratulating and thanking Maryann and Craig for their appointments uh as listed tonight and thank them for their service to the burrow um from the library board uh they met this a couple Deb nights ago Monday night the HVAC project continues and is expected to finish in mid to late March all goes well staff has worked through this construction with minimal delays or interferences Winterfest was a big success held in late January with over 600 people in attendance uh the magic of Salazar magic show for kids and parents was held at the community center and Lunar New Year will run there later this month at the community center a video tournament for teens was recently held and a preschool program for children ages 3 to six has begun in January the museum pass program has expanded with numerous Museum added to the passes the library director lean presented this 2023 annual report of Library activities at the last meeting all large scale events had an increase in attendance over the prior years there were numerous events and classes added in 2023 for adults teens and children other events such as virtual programs take-home crafts author visits and Outreach to the Ramsey schools were all quite successful summer reading programs for big increases in participation and total men is read and lastly circulation was very successful new Services added were poster printing laptop lending replacement of Internet mobile hotspots and one-on-one Tech assistance the recommission the winter sports will be wrapping up their Seasons next month and spring Sports registrations are underway as well as for adult softball check the rec website for registration details on Civic recre the Easter egg hunt with the rec Commission partnering with the Ramsey fire department will be held on Saturday March 23rd for the farmers market uh Market is open Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 1: p.m. stop by and visit the vendors the hours will expand um in the spring upcoming events February 25th is a winter celebration hosted by the Women's Club of Ramsey April 7th is the secondhand toy collection drop off that concludes my report for this evening thank you councilman um Public Safety um that's my report and I have two items this evening first I would like to congratulate Mrs Cary on her appointment to the design review board and Craig chich chicharo chicharo thank you Madame mayor to the Board of Public Works um Public Safety at our past mayor and Council meetings we provided regular updates on the progress of the new fire department rescue squad and oam station house project that will replace a 70-year-old outdated structure on South Island Road the goal of this Capital project is to build a first right Emergency Services complex that will serve Ramsey from many generations to come on February 6th at 7:30 members of the ramsy Emergency Services complex development committee the kar's engineering firm and Netta Architects presented the current development design and thinking to the Ramsey planning board it was a well-attended instructive and informative presentation and as a result the planning board offered some constructive input which will be incorporated into the development plan as it moves forward we have set up a page on the burough website for this project under the Community heading on the landing page and It's featured on the left column sidebar the folder is titled fire rescue OEM building project where anyone who is interested in can find plans and pertinent information as it becomes finalized or you may find it simply by typing in folders in the search bar and it will be listed in the future we will set a date for the same group to present the updated Emergency Services complex development plan to the mayor and Council and of course open to the public more to come on this in the weeks ahead now on deer population management I've reported on this before but a portion of that report Bears repeating on January 13th at the Bergen mayor County mayoral meeting the topic dear human conflict was discussed from Ramsey councilwoman uh it was a test uh from let me start that sentence again from Ramsay councilwoman Sarah poppy Board of Health member Dr Chris hos police chief Lyman borrow administrator Bruce fose and I joined mayor Dylan to attend the New Jersey Department of Fish and Wildlife presentation on their research which covered a 10-year period and their current thinking on deer population management it was an eye-opening presentation and I covered much of that detail our last mayor and council meeting over the past several years mayor Dylan has regularly brought this topic up at mayoral meetings in Bergen County it's a sensitive topic and today the voices of many residents have grown increasingly concerned requesting municipalities to implement an effective deer management process to protect home ornamentation gardens fear of diseases carried by ticks deer overcrowding sickness and disease and there are reports of deer unafraid of humans becoming antagonistic to people and dogs on a homeowner's property not to mention the loss in revenue and product of local commercial nurseries decimated by the hungry deer as a result mayor Dylan has asked me to assist Dr Chris hos from the Ramsey Board of Health who is spearheading this effort with the goal of developing a workable approach that could commence as early as this Autumn as you might imagine there are many moving parts to this plan it's not impossible Saddle River implemented a plan that ran three years which made a measurable difference in reducing the deer population mayor Dyan continues to meet with Bergen County Mayors to encourage neighboring municipalities to join us in this effort the fact is the those Mayors are also hearing from their residents about the need to implement a workable solution to the growing deer population and there will be more to come on this topic in future meetings that is my report and now moving on to building Planning and Zoning councilwoman Jane Woods thank you council president um happy Valentine's Day everyone congratulations to Maryann KY and Craig chakari on their appointment to the design review board and Board of Public Works respectively we appreciate your service congratulations to Sean till on securing a full-time position with the Ramsey DPW and congratulations to Kelly Sylvester on her appointment as the Board of Health secretary the design review board the design review board will meet next Tuesday February 27th there have not been any applications for the last two months uh the senior trustees board the Ramsey seniors trustee meeting was held February 8th they continue to run a full schedule of activities please visit the senior center section of the bur's website at Ramsey nj.com for complete list and how to connect there is a trip to the Ridgewood Symphony for a concert on February 28th they provided lunch to the DPW on February 2nd as a thank you for all that they do for them most recently they added a coat rack and utility rack in the storage closet at the community center uh bagio was selected as the venue for the senior holiday lunch which is scheduled for for December 3rd 2024 um there is a book event with a baseball author schedule for April 5th from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. they plan on having a hot dog truck and Cracker Jack uh art classes have been added to the schedule and are very well attended they're also adding line dancing um you guys just mentioned the burough Easter egg hunt is scheduled for March 23rd the seniors will do the egg filling again this year um they are planning to do a memory plaque and memory uh for r keys in memory of Rd Keys uh with new when the new trees are planted at the center and uh lastly the Girl Scouts were planning to send Valentine's Day cards to the senior center members so sweet um they had heart health talk schedule for yesterday Hands-On CPR class schedule for March 12th and an art of tea class scheduled for March 27th they are also scheduling fire drill active shooter drill first aid measures and security camera installation in the coming months the next meeting will be March 14th 202 four The Zone Zoning Board of adjustment the Zoning Board of adjustment will meet Wednesday February 21st and that is all I have thank you councilwoman utilities buildings and grounds councilwoman Judy cusk thank you council president Hilman happy thank Happy Thanksgiving right happy Valentine's Day everyone um just a quick a quick fun fact Wester Massachusetts resident Esther Howland received an English Valentine which inspired her to design her own so Valentine's are are originally from my hometown of Worcester Massachusetts true dad um congratulations to Maryann Cary design review board alt to and Craig chachari chakari chakari Board of Public Works he'd be so mad at me if he heard me say that so Craig chakari um the report tonight planning board shade tree commission and Board of Public Works planning board will not meet on the 20th of February the meeting was just cancelled um a few hours ago on the meeting on the 6th the reorganization was conducted and there were two waiver applications both approved and for new business as council president kilman highlighted there was a presentation regarding the fire Ramsey rescue fire rescue OEM complex I want to congratulate Mike Palumbo Roger aario Steve strollo Brian garz and Christian gron for their appointments and their commitment to serve our shade tree commission last met on the 18th of January 2024 the next meeting is tomorrow on the 15th there's information on our bureau's website regarding our Shade Tree on February 1st I participated in training with four of our newly appointed Commissioners Melissa cost Jim Lewis Brian Dylan and James Kennedy along with our arborist and Jim truth our shade tree coordinator for the Ramsey Board of Public Works at last met on the 22nd January the next meeting is February 26th I welcome Sean till as a full-time employee for the DPW I will again touch on the lead service line replacement project the Board of Public Works continues planning regarding nj's lead service line replacement legislation the project requires that all lead service lines served by the water system be replaced by the year 2031 the ls LSL replacement program Phase 2 h2m our consultant and contractor is working with Ramsey for the next phase of the replacement program which will include test pit excavation and replacement of discovered Le service lines to be performed in the spring and summer of 2024 um and also I would just want to thank our road department with the snow removal efforts during our I think it was our first official snowstorm of 2024 wasn't it so thank you very much council president and the roads were in great shape thank you very much councilwoman we move on now to public and governmental relations councilman Sarah poppy thank you Council um first I'd like to congratulate Maryann KY on her appointment to the design review board and Che and Craig chakari to the Board of Public Works um thank you for stepping up to serve our wonderful Community um for my report tonight I have a list of important dates the Ramsay Journal yes we are accepting submissions again through March 8th the journal is expected to be in mailboxes the week of April 8th um so all organizations have been notified so that they can submit um their articles for this spring edition the ramsy Chamber of Commerce is holding a networking event at holah hands on the 28th at 5:30 go to the the Chamber of Commerce Facebook page or their website to find out information on how to purchase tickets they had a board meeting last week and they talked about all the exciting events that they're they're talking about planning for the spring uh the Ramsey Municipal Alliance will hold their next meeting on the 26th of February at 7:30 p.m. the location is to be determined but most likely the senior center so you can watch their website for that information or the burrow calendar the pool commission will hold their meeting to vote on the member rates that will be the 21st of February at 7:30 p.m. here at Burrow Hall and the Board of Health did a great job on the 12th of February and their Wellness speaker series they did a presentation on diet nutrition weight loss drugs um it was very well attended actually there are probably at least 30 people who came to the event at the senior center um so they're doing a great job with their um with their speakers in March they'll have Dr Al tartini will come in to do um his presentation on tickborne illnesses and that concludes my report thank you councilwoman we move now to health education and Social Services councilman Glenn Papo thank you council president kilman um report uh tonight uh for R we'll start off with um their Valentine's Day Dan is on 216 which is tomorrow at 700 p.m. at the Nights of Columbus uh basketball is going well at Dater uh with the times of 1:30 to 3 and that'll go on through March and they have uh come up with a uh event for March March 13th will be their art night which will be held in the Ramsey Community Center uh Board of Ed will be meeting tomorrow for our first meeting so I'll comment on that next at the end of the month and for environmental commission I'm happy to to say the food scrap pilot and compost program uh is underway and uh moving nicely neighborhood compost is the vendor we have been using uh we've ordered the the shed and um in talking to the DPW will house it in the DPW small enough to be put there uh with two toter we have 30 to 35 families that are going to be in the pilot program um which the minimum is about a 100 families to have and this compost neighborhood compost group has been uh dealing with burrow of tenly and Rich field already so we have a lot of learnings from them um we'll probably do something in March when we get situated with it it to have some type of kickoff event or acknowledge around or what's going to happen for this program um so just moving along which is good that's all I have for there thank you councilman Papo um let me uh correct me if I'm wrong the Valentine's R dance is Friday the 16th correct Friday right not tomorrow I'm sorry they said Friday want to make sure thank you very much and now our mayor dear Dyan thank you council president Peter kilman all right congratulations and thank you to Mary and Carrie for being appointed to the design review board and Craig CH Cari for the Board of Public Works he's very excited about it and Craig is an engineer by profession so I know he'll bring a wealth of knowledge to the Board of Public Works and thank you to the planning board for approving the proposed fire rescue and OEM complex last week I thought the presentation went very well and it as it was mentioned earlier was well attended so hopefully people learned a lot thank you for the DPW for doing a great job on the snow removal yesterday thank you to councilwoman cusk and Mr Tru for organizing the learning session for the new members of the shade tree commission and tomorrow night is their first meeting so I wish them all the best and I do want to draw attention to resolution 057 2024 um burough administrator will probably talk about this as well but this is opposing the proposed overhaul of the fair housing act and it they're trying to just jam it through the legislation without public comment without a lot of consideration many towns are opposed to it um because it really is unfair to towns like Ramsey that we have consistently fulfilled our affordable housing requirements or obligations and we have limited locations for new housing in just in addition the New Jersey Administrative Office of the courts opposes this because they simply do not have the bandow or bandwidth to H handle all these hearings for if there's litigation so I just want to let everybody know that we're doing this resolution it was requested by the New Jersey Le municipalities I believe so we're doing it or we've done it thank you and that's all I have thank you thank you madam mayor burough administrator Mr Bruce vet please uh thank you council president um just to comment on a few of the resolutions that are on the agenda and a couple other topics uh resolution 51 uh was the authorization of the driveway permit for 189 South Central Avenue at the last uh mayor and council meeting on January 24th the hearing was held on the driveway application regarding 189 South Central it had been recommended to the governing body from the board of adjustment at that meeting after the testimony of the applicant and governing B's questions and comments the application was approved this resolution number 51 affirms the vote in the approval from that January 24th meeting resolution 52 uh authorizes the new sewer rates for 2024 as mentioned in councilwoman q6 comments regarding Ordinance one uh on the approval of water rates the sewer rates have averaged less than a 1% increase increase over the last 10 years similarly to the water the B of Public Works has approved a 3.96 increase for 2024 uh and this is the resolution confirming that Board of Public Works action resolution 53 confirms the appointment of Sean till as a full-time DPW employee one of our full-time DPW workers had resigned late last year the DPW conducted a hiring process to fill the open spot Shan has been a part-time employee with the burrow for over two years and was ref recommended to fill the full-time spot spot and this resolution confirms his appointment effective February 17th resolution 54 authorizes the emergency repair work for Board of Public Works to Mike's mobile maintenance for Arrow Road air stripper facility booster pump the Board of Public Works had gotten the requisite quote for work on the Arrow Road air stripper facility booster pump as these repairs were ongoing it was discovered that the repairs and work needed on the facility were more extensive than previously known given the CR critical nature of the facility to the board's water supply system the contract was authorized to complete repairs to return the asset to service and preserve the system's operational Integrity this resolution confirms the award of that work um to Mike's mobile maintenance resolution 55 Awards professional service contract to Boswell engineering for design and construction Document Services for Grove Street and East and West Oak Street stre Municipal Aid projects the buau had saw proposals from Engineers for the design and construction documents for two projects the buau had successfully applied for and received Municipal Aid grants from the state these grants collectively were for over 371,000 to offset the taxpayer impact for these improvements this contract is for the design and construction document process for the public bid upon completion of a successful bid process the burough would then enter into a Professional Services agreement with Boswell for construction inspection and contract Administration services at that time resolution 56 was confirming the Board of Health appointment of Kelly Sylvester as Secretary of the Board of Health the Board of Health in January had appointed Kelly as its secretary for the purpose of attending meetings preparation of meeting minutes and related tasks for their monthly meetings this resolution confirms that Board of Health appointment resolution 57 as the mayor just talked about is opposing the assembly bill number forign Senate bill number 50 proposing to overhaul the fair housing act in a way that imposes unrealistic obligations with unrealistic deadlines based upon owner standards the state legislature is attempting to push through an overhaul of the a FHA the Fair Housing Act without taking time for input and considered evaluation of its potential devastating impact to municipalities both financially and through overdevelopment this resolution from the bureau's affordable housing attorney that also represents any municipalities across the state opposes the proposed legislation to allow for discussion debate and reasoned legislation this legislation would then be based on the actuality and completion of round three obligations for affordable housing seeing the round three impact rather than just the theorizing from a oneperson arbitrator on what round four Municipal obligation should be without knowing the impact of these prior 345 Municipal settlements that have not been taken into account yet um there are a couple other items I would just comment on um first off the 2024 Municipal budget we have a plan schedule for that in that uh we would look to on the next meeting at February 28th uh do the budget presentation and the introduction of the 24 Municipal budget and then on March 27th would be the public hearing and vote on adoption of that Municipal budget after being advertised uh Bur property tax revaluation the Bergen County Board of Taxation has issued an order at their February meeting for Ramsey to perform a burrow Wide Property revaluation this is done when a municipality's townwide valuation drops below an 85% threshold to current market where your Equalization rate is below 8 given the Market's upward movement in many of the property segments in the burrow and across the county almost half of the 70 Bergen County towns have received the same order from the county to be implemented honor before October 1st of 2025 for tax year 2026 the burough has met with appraisal systems who's one of the leading companies in this field and performed the last revaluation for Ramsay that started in two 2014 was implemented in 2016 given that almost half of the county needs to perform this same work and there are limited firms at the experience available to do this the burough is looking to move forward quickly with starting this mandated process we will look to introduce an ordinance at the next meeting to authorize the framework with which to fund the cost of the burrow wide revaluation over five-year budget period as the state allows I'll discuss this process and the proposal further at that uh February 28th meeting and that's all I have thank you thank you Mr Bose uh counselor any comments no report sir thank you and bur clerk M bendan Thank you very we have no introduction of new ordinances we have any unfinished business any finish business any new business not seeing any may we have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second all in favor I I Happy Valentine's Day have a great night