thank you everybody Welcome to the agenda meeting for the first regular month of the mayor and Council being held at 18 Donaldson Avenue Monday April 24th I'm sorry April 8th 2024 starting at 5:01 p.m. Missy could you read the rooll mayor nunziato I'm here council president McAn present councilman B Roberson here Council M Gman here counc Del con here counc Clon here councilman kley here if you're willing and able could you please stand for the salute to the flag thank you everyone Missy compliance with the open public meetings Law chapter 231 public laws of 1975 notice of this meeting was transmitted to the record and Herald news and file with the bur clerk on December 26 2023 and March 28 2024 and is posted on the bulletin board outside of burrow Hall thank you uh we have several uh proclamations that we're going to hold well two uh we'll move on to the budget presentation thank thank you mayor uh good evening everyone uh so tonight I'm just going to give you a uh kind of a highlight in summary of uh the 2024 burrow Municipal operating budget and the capital ordinance which will be that's on this agenda tonight for introduction um first of all I want to thank um all the the burough department heads uh my CFO Gordon stelter Stephanie and uh and Pio who helped me out Kim bosi for helping me put this presentation together tonight um challenging year uh but I want to thank the department heads for their their hard work in uh trying to come up with a uh responsible budget for the for the taxpayers of this town also want to thank uh Council presidents Stephan mwan and uh councilman Ray Guzman who are Liaisons on finance and are worked hand inand throughout this process so let me start off uh so you know a snapshot of this year's budget oh let me so people at home can see it let me uh share the screen with them is it work yeah maybe it's the eclipse affecting me of course this worked during rehearsal okay so here we go snapshot of the 2024 budget um you know the burrow land values the total ratables used in the uh calculation of the taxes uh .7 billion um overall we're down 7.3 million from last year uh the primary driver of that is the uh significant tax appeal we had with uh the 201301 uh office complex earlier this year uh the second thing was the you we had a partial assessment on the what's now the Amazon warehouse uh once the pilot kicked in uh that took it out of conventional Taxation and moved that to the pilot uh process uh you can see the tax rate projected for this year uh for municipal purposes only is uh 968 per $100 of assessed valuation uh that is up 1.89% from last year um that's includes the public library and this year the average assessed home for calculating purposes later in the in the presentation is $437,900 here in Rutherford comparing that to uh last year 2023 you can see last year's rate is slightly up um 0.18 cents um and projected on a tax for municipal taxes on a home here in Rutherford on the uh average assessment of 43720 $ 4,232 10 cents uh again that's strictly on the municipal side does not factor in the county and schools yet you know for those who are curious how your taxes are calculated uh a little tax calculation 101 for everyone at home uh you take the uh the amount of taxes that we need to raise in the budget which is 26.5 million this year and we divide that by the overall burrow assessment which is the $2.7 billion number I gave you and then you multiply that number by 100 which comes up with the the tax rate so as you can see in the example here uh home assessed of $437,900 estimated bills $423 to10 or $352 68 per month took the liberty of making some projections uh for the school and County just so everyone knows what type of tax you're potentially looking at um this compares the 2023 numbers to the 2024 numbers uh again we don't have the county and school numbers yet uh but we made an assumption that the county might go up about 4% and the Board of Education 2.5 from last year again it's an estimate but as you can see uh projected home at 437,000 projects have a tax bill of about 13,650 um and looking at how the taxes are distributed taking the numbers from that previous slide you can see where your tax dollars go uh on the municipal side you know the blue shows a 29% or 29 and a half% of your tax dollars are going to the municipality uh the libraryies get 1.44% the county open space less than a half perc the county about 10.2 and the schools would be getting 58.7% of your your tax dollars this year the Burrows budget for 2024 the overall budget is about 42 m923 94 of that we'll be collecting $26.5 million in taxes to support that budget you can see comparison to last year there's about $448,000 increase in the amount to be raised by taxation 389,000 of that is on the burrow side 59,000 of that is is what the library is asking in addition to last year in terms of our revenues there a little summary of of where the money comes from to support the annual budget uh Surplus 3.25 local revenues 1.5 state aid 1.5 uh construction officials 476,000 shared service agreements 337 grants 6.3 million now I I want to highlight that number that's much higher than years past uh what's included in that is the $5 million Grant we recently received for the Memorial Field improvements special improve special items of Revenue 2.2 million receipts with link with tets 500,000 amount to be raised by taxation is 25.3 for the burrow 1.2 million for the library and those two numbers add up to the $26 Million number I've been talking about earlier y wanted to highlight some of the uh the revenues uh not all of them are listed but these are the ones kind of driving some of the that we had some significant changes in 2024 compared to last year uh our Municipal Court Revenue was down last year so we can only anticipate what we received so you can see we're down 117,000 uh parking meters are up you know that's uh you know we raised our rates a little bit last year we've been a little bit more you know our meters have helped out with that uh we did very well on interest in our investments uh parking permits are down we've had some uh you know years past our permits at some of the areas where 100% or even their waiting list uh some of those waiting lists have gone by the wayside and there's a few spaces that are now open some of the uh special items of Revenue you can see our cable TV franchise fees down now uh I attribute to that more to people doing streaming services Netflix Hulu they're going away from the traditional cable providers uh the Big Driver payment Lum taxes we have a big increase this year because you'll have uh the Parker two full 12 months you'll have the uh the Amazon warehouse for a full year now so we're up significantly there uh Hotel occupancy was another big difference from last year that's going up this year 40,000 and uh you know we are projected in this budget to sell one liquor license uh I'm going to be recommending that we do it as a minimum $250,000 in the bid that's why we only anticipated that number again looking at a nice the pie picture you can see you know where the revenue comes from to support the budget and again it's no surprise to anyone it's taxation that is the driving force behind it but you can see represents about 59% of uh the dollars to support this year's budget um the grants you know 14.8 again that's a little an anomaly this year because of a 5 million but everything else is pretty much in line with years past um yeah percentage of uh Surplus used to support this budget and you can see prior years always in that 8.3 to 8.9 number range and this year it's 7.6 again that's a little bit of anomal equals to $5 million kind of you know you know reflects uh additional Revenue when in reality that 7.6 number probably more closer to the 8.8 uh that we're at now so really right pretty consistent with our percentage of the budget and surplus on the spending side you know you can see where the bural dollars go is primarily in your salary and wages uh you have the library General expenses uh which I'll get into a little bit more um but you can see the salary wages is pretty impressive I think that you know with contractual increases we're we're the change is only less than 1% General expenses is where the big increas is this year and that's really you know a lot of times stuff we don't control and we talk about pension we talk about health benefits we talk about you know other insurance uh premiums um as you go down again the the big number that really jumps out at you today is the grant number up 274 per. again that's an anomaly because of the the $5 million number uh but everything else is pretty routine pretty pretty pretty reasonable pretty and down in a lot of cases so again very responsible budget we're promoting here today uh I went I go too far sorry summary of the uh some of the general expenses I want to highlight that since that was the big increase um you can see really the second one with the insurance is driving the the increase inre um general liability workers comp health benefits uh those premiums all went up and really some of the driving forces behind that is a lot of the storm damages that we've this region has received in the last few years has driven up the the premiums to cover those um the changes in the pension laws that now require workers comp claims that that go out on disabilities now are charged to the pensions I'm sorry to the workers this comp system as opposed to getting disability retirements uh cyber security premiums uh health benefit premiums are going up so that's really the driving force behind that that significant increase this year um numbers that are down there and it's a one-year you know thing is the pension you can see we normally talk about pensions going up uh but in 2023 uh we had paid a uh you know one-time amount due to the Union contracts we had them all settle at once and most of them were out for two or three years so it was a significant uh retro payment that was made to the employees therefore a retro payment to the pension system so we we footed that bill last year uh that's obviously gone away this year um without that retro you still would have saw a minor increase in in the pension system but you know it's it's reflected this year as a decrease which is good for us but next year don't expect that again looking at the pie chart you can see where your your tax dollars have going to support our spending you know the big two numbers are your general expenses which I just went through and your salary and wages everything else is pretty uh minor there's really not a lot of discretionary spending that municipalities have in their budgets uh we control the best we can you always like to highlight The Debt Service um you can see we've been pretty pretty good in managing that and I give credit to our CFO on that has done a very good job and you kind of riging that in over the years um especially with uh you know the new building that that we're in today uh there was a lot of rumors in innuendo that our debt was going through the roof well as you can see from this slide we're pretty you know pretty stable right now we hope to stay that way this next slide really wants is addressing the uh the Capital Improvements that are on tonight's agenda there are two ordinances uh for consideration for introduction uh two of them will total $230,000 um we have our annual Road program and we're we're targeting silvin carer Franklin Insley Clark and Beach um vehicle acquisition you know DPW is need another dump truck sanitation truck uh police SUV is needed uh we're starting to fund a uh purchase of a new fire rescue 20 seater bus and a need for a property maintenance vehicle a lot of the fleet here in the Barrow is quite uh old and we're trying to address it before uh it gets too bed um setting some money aside for some burrow improvements uh DP PW roof needs some TLC Firehouse Doors need to be replaced they were recently written up by uh you know our our joint Insurance Fund staff uh and then there bur hole improvements uh Roofing needs needs some TLC as well uh equipment you know as we always do we F fund our fire our volunteer fire department uh for Life Safety Equipment uh parking meters that was a uh you know a lease to purchase so we allocate money each year for that that purchase over five years and then some camera equipment and uh and computer equipment throughout the burrow and last but not least some funding put aside for some Park improvements Down Memorial Field for some of the you know stuff that we've been talking about uh as well as some some lighting improvements at Tri on field so that's the the capital Improvement proposal tonight um yeah as we finish up the the the budget calendar process uh you know we introduced our regular budget last meeting tonight we will be did the presentation and we'll be introducing our Capital ordinance uh our next meeting is April 22nd at which point we will ask uh we'll have a public hearing on both budgets and we'll ask uh for a vote for adoption on both so hopefully uh you know everything goes well I thank you for your time hope I didn't talk too long and hopefully uh you know we get this thing moving in the right direction this year thank you thank you Bob great presentation and I do want to thank again council president and Council M for great work on this with Gordon who loves being at these meetings um as you addressed I just want to make this clear the Bure of Rutherford uh is not allowed to go over to % cap by law without a referendum the school board we have no control over they can just call the state and if the state grants it they can go over the 2% so these are two separate entities and we have no control over their budgets thank you any any uh questions or comments from the council council president thank you mayor um I too would like to thank um our burough administrator Bob keski our CFO Gordon stutler stelter I practiced literally for 10 minutes before I said it and still it's just a thing I think it's something special between us Gordon um all joking aside I I want to acknowledge the thoroughness of the presentation that was given tonight um this was something in response uh something that I know that the council councilman Guzman and I I don't know what's wrong with me tonight councilman Guzman and I had talked a lot about and I really appreciate how receptive both Bob and Gordon were um to that request uh for two reasons one I think that it's very easy for people to try to manipulate what they hear um and and give their own uh Cadence to it I think there's something to be said when there's an actual presentation that's done that is thorough that really walk talks uh someone who may not be familiar with Municipal budgets um and and the complexity of those budgets and so thank you thank you for taking the time um to really walk everyone through this um I have to be honest I'm I'm very proud of how responsible we continue to be um I am very appreciative of our continued effort about Debt Service um and most importantly I'm I'm actually very very proud that we are continuing to be responsive to the needs of the residents to provide a very strong quality of life so mayor um uh thank you for your kind words but they really are deserving to both Bob and Gordon okay I take them back no no feel free to leave them on the record thank you uh anybody else counc me thank you mayor um I also want to Echo my colleagues uh comments it's no uh easy task trying to um control and manage the wants of all the Departments uh and balance that with the actual Necessities that we need to really put forth and fund um numbers when you first start out really look crazy and at the end of the day we look to our CFO and our bural administrator for their professional guidance and bringing this to a number that we can bring put forth to the public that is a responsible number so at the end of the day I cannot thank our Burl administrator and our CFO for their due diligence and their hard work and I'd also like to thank my Council colleagues colleague M Stephanie mwan it's it's it's spreading down here um for your due diligence as well thank you all thank you anybody else Maria yes I just want to thank our B administrator and Gordon for your shrewdness with our budget and for managing our debt that's a big budget and I just appreciate the way you manage it with thoughtfulness and thank you for an interesting presentation it's hard to make numbers interesting but you made them interesting and accessible so thank you so much and thank you to our council president for your participation in this and that's it for me thank you thank you anybody else everybody good okay we're going to move on now uh changes hi I have none anybody else have any changes to the agenda seeing none Brian Veterans Boulevard the drainage Improvement started today with test fits to see where you can put the raised drainage system in uh and we're working through pipe sizes and uh backflow preventers so close and then uh we submitted the for Jackson and Avenue and Erie uh the exhibit that the county wanted and we've been um dogging them for the uh uh next steps and uh we'll report back on what they need to say or get back to us this week hopefully uh we submitted on March 6th and we did follow-ups you know all throughout including on Friday uh the uh this last year's Road program is now currently active and concrete work being done on Prospect and as well as some work done uh for behind the little leag where we had the chronic flooding and I I think we solved it for now because we had a couple test storms and it didn't ref flood so I I haven't heard back from them since then but we also looked at it when it rained so it looks okay uh for cdbg money that you you have um a grant for that tree project is done on Darwin Avenue and we're going for the reimbursables now back from the county and we are in the middle of design for the 2024 Road program and that should be ready as the budget here is finalized we're going to be on the same track for that for the um to get that out the bid sooner rather than later in the summer um we're looking through Memorial Field options I believe that you have uh a tennis court Co-op vendor that's been approved and I think that's moving forward uh through the borrow approval process uh with a an excellent um uh um contractor we've worked in the past with uh we're working through vanwinkle Park Renovations we wanted to put a new fence along the um Riverside uh the DP has taken issue with that so we're coming up with a fence design that has more open cell so then uh it's not a a flood way impediment so we're working through that Sunset Park irrigation is done it's been installed the next step is to have a a plumber install the meter and the backflow preventer and I'll work with the administrator to see what options we have for a qualified plumber to get that work done we did a sketch plan for uh Union Avenue uh and it's being reviewed by the uh the council uh now and we can get some feedback on that and we're closing out the T the 2022 row program uh there's money on the table that we have to get back from the dot uh and we're working on that as well and we put the uh Grant in for burken County open space we're getting the last 25% back from Claris tunnel and we're looking to see what is the best approach to install new drainage on the back side of the library because they're getting uh infiltration uh from the roof drains that basically are routing themselves into the basement lower level so those are the projects we've been working on if you have any questions let me know thank you Brian anybody from the council have any questions council president thank you mayor um Brian under number five letter B can you just finish that statement for me because I think there's some words missing oh so it literally is just project is in design yeah it's in anybody else from the council sure you can do whatever you want Brian can you just give a quick update on uh the process with d and the uh softball structures were're proposing down at Diamond four uh because that particular area is um within the floodway it's uh we have to come up with a plan that doesn't violate the conditions of the floodway that means that if um if you were to do a um like a coach's Booth above it would have to be on columns because like uh we have to stay above it like when you do a house elevation similar design principle or uh so we're working through that uh my staff is putting together a a pre-application meeting with NJ DP so we can understand what will be allowed and what won't be allowed and then we'll confer with the architect to see what we can do for the snack stand and the coach's booth and and things of that nature but that takes a while so that's uh but we are working towards that uh the only thing I would like to add is the um my qu I more of a question um I'd like to know with the uh $750,000 we received from um Congressman pasel since it looks like since we we we've had some serious storms and carneer has not been an issue I would like to ask that you work with the bur administrator to find other problem areas that may need to be addressed since it seems that we've solved that problem with the work you guys have done up above on Santiago and whatnot okay than you all right you're free to go you you can go too Gordon you know that right you gonna you want to stay here you want to stay here until Stephanie get your name right what do we got going on um before we move on to the hearing know citizens Gordon is there anything you want to say or you good okay okay we're going to move on hearing of citizens uh anybody from the public wishing to speak St your name and address and keep your comments at five minutes or less I'm Pam Williams I live at 150 Mountain Way and um hello mayor and Council this is hi I'm Jessica gunzel I live at 28 Washington Avenue technically now you have 10 minutes thank you um the reason we're here today we both have dog walking businesses in town and uh we just wanted to bring up a concern with the town what we're seeing out there and the amount of dog waste not being picked up is unacceptable um we have a beautiful little town here and we're seeing this more and more I don't know if it has to do with some of the influx of the apartment buildings in town so we just wanted to bring it up um like how could we go about without even the town incurring the cost of putting in um you'll see in lots of parks there's these dogway stations even what's the name of the building on the other side of the tracks uh East Rutherford has it they have two doggy way stations on the side of the building so the Parker has Parker has it as well Parker has it as well Parker um but there's a lot of the buildings the apartment building down by the river there's a lot of smaller apartment buildings multif family dwellings all dog friendly which is great we love it it's great for our business but we're thinking that that might be where a lot of the problem lies these people in the apartment buildings have do not have these waste stations they take their dogs out for walks they have nowhere to put it they don't want to bring it back into their apartment which I cannot blame them so they're either just not picking it up or they're putting it in bags and just dropping it there's not a ton of garbage cans on Orient and everything and even the side streets like I'm right off of Orient on mountain and we've been finding a lot of waste like on my street as well um so we're just wondering if there's a way to partner with these multif family dwellings and have them install these waste stations whether you know I mean we were looking online they're really not that expensive somewh around $200 and you know they maintain it or somehow the burrow Buy stations for some of these buildings and then it's up to their maintenance to maintain it and the cost and everything just trying to find some way to clean up the streets here in town because it's it's getting worse from what we see yeah I think um like a general kind of consensus is that a lot of people have dogs in town and this is like kind of a dog friendly town yet we're not allowed to go in any parks not allowed to go into any par not a single park with dogs I've been kicked out of all of them with dogs um and so people are forced to walk on the street but then there's nowhere to dump garbage and if you go if you're on the Rutherford Pages like on Facebook like 07070 it takes a Village People are constantly complaining about people putting poop bags in their garbage cans and it's like there is nowhere else to put them and if you're going to take your dog for a half hour walk and he goes to the bathroom 10 minutes into the walk you're carrying around one or two or three sometimes I'm carrying lots of bags at once I always obviously this is my business like I carry them I have a on my bag that holds them um so I will put them on my windshield and bring them home and dump them in my own car if I have to but regular citizens are not doing that and there are places like rric Terrace where there are a ton of dogs there I don't have any clients there now but I used to and one of like the biggest problems with that building is that I would pick up the poop and I would have nowhere to put it so I'd bring the dogs in I'd have to drop it by the door because I have to bring dogs in and I can't go like look for a garbage can so I drop it by the door I bring the dogs in I'd forget on the way out and I'd get in trouble obviously I should because I forgot the poop bag by the front door but there's like not even a garbage can at the door so people are just not picking it up so a lot of that like hostility comes towards us CU people the dog they in town us so we just like I know maybe I don't know the other dog walkers in town but I know for myself in heart it's not us um that's for sure I probably walk for some so I know it's not us I don't know about the other dog walkers in town but I do feel like if all of these buildings were required to have was stations we would cut down on a lot of the problem yeah I talked to um and it does carry disease like people don't understand dog waste does not break down they don't eat grass and doesn't break down and disease and you don't know who's vaccinated their dogs and people don't want to walk in it you're walking across the sidewalk and all of a sudden you step on the grass and you're stepping in dog just we don't need it here I talked to the guy who I don't know like what his position is but he kind of managed all the Parker construction crew and stuff and he does all of the of whatever improvements inside the building um over there now and he said that they bought the one that they have that's on Chestnut like behind the building and it was $250 and they installed it themselves but they only have the one but it would be like great if exra ter had it or 95 um orent way or you know we have like a lot of buildings going up and that's bring a lot people that have dogs that's our than thank you um but I I'm going to go first um maybe we should have you set up a meeting with our bur administrator and then some of our Council uh council members can maybe maybe we put an ordinance in requiring the buildings to have them um but I think your best bet would just start with our our our administrator even um that definitely will not be this week um but I think that that would be a great um your DPW liaison might be your best um conduit for that so um and I you're right 100% so if anybody else for counsel would like to speak please feel free so I do I do just love that you said we're a dog friendly Town my husband has been kicked out of the parks with our walking through them so it's I can appreciate your frustration the interesting about the parks as well walking the dogs is most of those trash bins are filled with dog waste so I do think we could probably benefit from from more I am your DPW Lee is on Pam walks Boomer so I see her a lot um so we can definitely talk about it yeah yeah brought up a great point no one up here is going to and you're right about the dise the disease issue I think is what most residents a lot of them are concerned about too when they see it um on the ground so yeah [Music] yeah we'll talk get touch yeah we'll we'll schedule that all right thank you for your time thank you for coming in council president we moving on to the uh consent agenda okay thank you um all items authorized to be consent by the council will be enacted by one motion these items are routine in nature motion I have a motion by the council president may have a second second second by councilman quatron any questions or comments by the council none mayor roll call council president McAn yes B Roberson yes councilman Guzman yes to I'll except for the open and close uh regular minute meetings of March 25th of which I abstain counc Del con yes counc Clon yes counc Copley yes counc president thank you next is resolution number 95 authorizing the transfer of Rutherford's public assistance program to Bergen County Board of Social Services effective May 31 2024 motion I have a motion by the council president may have a second second second by councilwoman Del re con any questions or comments by the council see I'm every roll call council president mcowan yes counc B Roberson yes coun Gman yes counc Del con yes coun Clon yes counil kley yes thank you we're g to move on now to uh new business nothing um council members um council president thank you mayor um this evening I just want to address a few things first I'd like to extend my appreciation uh to the hard work of our department heads um particularly as we went through this budget cycle um there was a a great deal of restraint in negotiation um and we appreciate everyone's diligence uh I I do want to put on the record that uh all the years I've done this we've never had a department head walk in with unrealistic expectations um they are such good stewards of of their own budget but also of the budget in its totality um and so they often make this process much easier on us because they really do the heavy lift so thank you to the department heads I also want to thank my Council colleagues um I and anybody who knows uh the group that's sitting at the stas knows that uh these are passionate people with lots of ideas um and excitement um and as uh any reasonable person would know it cost money to do ideas and have excitement and so uh we often tease although it's probably um an incredibly stressful job for Bob uh to uh maintain such good decorum with all of us as we come to him each of us with a Litany of ideas um and and trying to parse through what they look like and be fair with the budget so um I I really actually want to thank my colleagues for um using that enthusiasm but also understanding and negotiating among themselves about the priority of projects and spending um everybody wants their idea to be the most important one that gets moved um and um it speaks volumes about each of you and your your willingness to represent the bur so thank you to all of you for your responsibility and your advocacy for your areas of liaison ship um this weekend we had the opportunity to um uh witness the annual kickoff for uh little league softball and baseball um it was awesome we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of uh Tom Melody field uh it was a beautiful dedication shout out to Brian Readington and that whole team team and and uh uh Jen Joya uh as president and all the work that they all do to make that happen um I I bring it up for two reasons um it was awesome to see the excitement back you could tell Springs in the air uh to see so many folks down uh Memorial Field on such an early occasion um uh top dogs kicked off again um talk about a beautiful uh example of inclusion um how communities build inclusive opportunities for all abled individuals top dogs over and over so to the coordinators and and the volunteers our high school students and our college kids who come back who serve as mentors uh Bravo shout out to the Elks that buy the the soccer balls for the kids so that they they get excited that they have their own soccer ball it is it's good it's just good and if you haven't in there you need to get up early they'll even give you a cup of coffee show up and and just show out for these kids they're extraordinary um and um last but not least I just want to uh take a moment of personal privilege to acknowledge a fellow class of 1990 graduate of mine Bobby Jones uh Bobby showed up um Saturday morning uh was one of the two former professional baseball uh members who are graduates and part of you know graduates of our community uh Bobby and I graduated Rutherford high school together many moons ago it feels like now um it was not just special to see them show up and throw out the first pitch um on such a ceremonial day but I I couldn't I got a little emotional you know we always use the tagline in this town once a bulldog always a bulldog and uh it's been a hot minute since we graduated and um and there he was signing stuff for the kids and talking to them and being an example um that that you know today it's a little league tomorrow could be the big leagues so thanks to them I'm going to have to excuse myself I have a family situation to deal with council president certainly thank you mayor okay next up council member liaison report councilwoman beg Roberson who is now the acting council president thank you thank you so much okay so speaking of a Litany of ideas poor Bob had to get a call from me the other day about having an eclipse watch party and you know he just had to help me figure it out and thank you so much to him and the mayor and and to Kim and to Pat for figuring it out you know as Council people we wake up and we have an idea and we're like let's figure it out and I just really appreciate you all um because you do love the town and you did not give me any push back because you knew that the town would benefit from having this lovely watch party and a lot of people came out so thank you to Kim thank you to Bob thank you to Pat and it was a really lovely event thank you acting council president uh next councilman Guzman thank you very much I have nothing new to report on my Lea's on assignments thank you thank you councilman councilwoman Christy Del con thank you um I just wanted to acknowledge the uh Civil Rights Commission as you may have seen they did a really nice um expose on various women in town uh in honor of women's History Month including uh my Council colleague uh councilwoman B Roberson they really spent time um asking these questions of our community members that really contribute in a big way to what makes our town as wonderful as it is so I just wanted to thank the commission for that um I wanted to remind everyone that the um Arbor Day festivities are on April 20th in Lincoln Park the day begins with a town Cleanup in the morning we typically meet outside of um burough Hall and that's coordinated by the green team so I encourage you to come out um children of all ages participate in the town cleanup it's really a wonderful event um speaking of the Green Team I'd like to thank them for again um organizing a styrofoam Drive yes not yesterday was it yesterday Saturday um um at DPW that's a really important program for the green team as you know styrofoam does not break down in the way that we would hope it would um to uh serve our environment and keep our earth safe so they um take the effort to gather it from our community members who hold on to it waiting for those drives so that it's properly disposed of um and finally as um our council president I guess acting mayor currently um mentions um the little league and softball league open this weekend and I just like to take this time to remind everyone to really think about um coming out and supporting our Sports programs especially the programs for our girls um it really is a fun way to spend an afternoon if you have nothing to do um or even if you have something to do and just swing by for a little bit um we are uh proceeding in Gusto with lacrosse and soccer and baseball and softball and all of our spring Sports um and it's really important for the players to see um some Community Support I believe that most of our programs post their schedules um on social media I know that you can access our high school schedules on the high school website so uh really think about spending some time um supporting your fellow Bulldogs thank you thank you uh next councilwoman Susan quatron thank you C councilwoman um I also want to reiterate my congratulations to Little League baseball and softball on their opening day this weekend it was a fantastic ceremony and it it honored as as my Council colleague mentioned they honored and rededicated the field to Tom Melody who is the grandfather of a friend of ours a friend of mine Carrie Smith and he I have heard many stories about him what a dedicated volunteer and Resident he was to this town and how much he went through you know raising money garnering support for the little league and to establish the stadium and to just help lead to the them to be like the PowerHouse that they are in town so what a what a great tribute to him and congratulations to the family um I just want to also make a personal note that after the parade I attended my daughter's first softball game ever um and it was on softball Diamond 4 and she is a member of the Jeff Jordan Architects shout out to Kim bezian and Ed buy for being great coaches and you know the field has not been renovated yet so we were all standing there freezing it was it was the conditions were a little rough I have to say um it was a little hard to watch my you know hear my daughter sort of ask you know why is it so windy here um why are the bleachers so rickety like why where where's the place for our equipment especially when they're standing in the shadow of this Grand Little League Stadium so that was a little a little bit tough but you know when I think about it we even with the wind and the rickety bleachers and the in you know in suboptimal conditions we had had a great time and they had a fantastic time you know trying to field trying to hit um just doing their thing experiencing the challenge of of competition at such a young age and the joy of collaboration it it's the beauty of sports it's life lessons you learn from Sports so it was just a wonderful time no matter what and you know we the we the mayor and Council announced this weekend that we are renovating the softball the softball field to be a dedicated softball stadium for the girl softball I couldn't be more thrilled about this they will get amenities that they do not have now um they will get fencing I'm hoping they will get all this we don't know for sure yet but it's hard you know it's bad to make too many promises but I'm hoping they will get fencing lighting um dugouts just everything that they deserve and I really look forward to them making memory memories in this new home of their so so thanks for everybody who was involved in making this happen thank you councilwoman councilman Matt kley thank you mayor um just as a FYI the youth art banners have been installed along Park Avenue many thanks to the burough administrator and Chris Syer the director of DPW uh again many thanks to Kim bagoan and ktie Pippen for their assistance and developing that program I believe this is our third year running um so cast an eye there's about 62 banners in total uh along the stretch of Park Avenue so as you're walking and driving by uh by all means just cast your eye Skyward and take in the art artists that are um racing our school systems uh I want to uh Echo the sentiments about uh Diamond 4 and uh girl softball I have two little ladies myself in the program uh it was a wonderful Parade morning absolutely spectacular um I do not want to waver on any of those promises whatsoever um it's wonderful that lighting is there but these this work needs to be done my my daughter has been asking my eldest daughter has been asking for years now why can't I play on this field blah blah blah it is heart-wrenching to have to answer her and say it's coming it's coming it's coming we cannot let them down you watch what happened Friday night with the es um on ESPN with LSU or excuse me U Yukon versus Iowa the most watched women's game 14.3 million viewers everyone watches women's sports we are going to get this done thank you thank you thank you councilman and um uh I just wanted to add two thoughts I'm so glad you brought that up about the basketball game because that's what was ringing in my ears um when you were speaking councilwoman about um the prominence of women's sports and so um you know the the time has come and I'm glad that we are we're we're not just saying it we're doing something about it and um and thank you Kim for getting that notice out on behalf of the burough administrator uh last last week because it's important it's great we know it we want everybody to know what's happening so it's a good way to hold us accountable and to make sure that we move things to action and um I also although we didn't start the meeting this way uh just as a point of clarification and reference uh for particularly the people watching this right now the reason that we started our meeting at 5:00 p.m tonight is um the mayor and Council will be supporting uh the Women's Club of Rutherford uh tonight they are celebrating their 135th anniversary um and so uh it begins shortly and so in honor of them we move this up so it just seems to be a really great theme and I'm I'm never going to take advantage uh or miss an opportunity to take advantage of that um next on the agenda uh if we have nothing left for the members we're good okay um under under the mayor's report and appointments uh can I please have a motion to move the 2024 summer camp seasonal staff memo which was attached motion thank you motion by councilwoman Del con do we have a second second second by councilman Guzman questions seeing none roll call please council president mwan yes counc B Roberson yes counc kman yes counc D yes Council clro yes coun C yes thank you um also we did receive a correspondence this week from uh Mr cizo dated March 22nd 2024 which was distributed to the mayor and Council I'm just putting that on the record um and uh without further Ado I believe we are moving to ordinances under first reading tonight Bond ordinance for various Capital Improvements Missy can you please read the ordinance by title only a bond ORS authorizing various Capital Improvements in and for the B of Rutherford in the county of Bergen New Jersey appropriating 1,800,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $1,710 th000 bonds or notes to finance part of the cost thereof thank you I'd like to make a motion to move that the ordinance be passed on first reading and advertised according to law do I have a second second seconded by councilman Guzman open for discussion seeing none roll call please council president mcowan yes Council B Roberson yes councilman Gman yes Council Del con yes councilman KRON yes councilman kley yes thank you next is the Capital Improvements funding ordinance Missy can you please read the ordinance by title only an ordinance providing fun for various Capital purposes for the bur of Rutherford and appropriating 230,000 for such purpose thank you I'd like to make a motion to move that the ordinance be passed on first reading and advertised according to law can we have a second please second seconded by councilwoman uh begar Roberson this is now open for discussion seeing none roll call council president mcowan yes counil MC Roberson yes coun McMan yes councilman de con yes councilman KRON yes councilman kley yes thank you we now move on to ordinances on second reading where are we okay this is the ordinance to exceed the municipal budget and establish a cap Bank uh for the year 2024 Missy can you please read the ordinance by title only calendar year 2024 ordin to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap Bank thank you I'd like to make a motion and move that the ordinance be passed on second reading and adverti according to law do we have a second second second by councilman Guzman at this time I'd like to open this um I'd like to open this to a public hearing on this ordinance and this ordinance only seeing none I'd like to open this up uh close the public hearing and like to open this up to my Council colleagues uh before going on I just want to State um just a little clarity about this particularly again for those who are listening and learning about cat Banks um I I've heard from a few members of the public a little confusion about this uh cap back uh cap Bank ordinance uh which is known as the Appropriations cap is a budget tool it's a method to control total budget Appropriations each year this is um exercised by all municipalities this is not unique to Rutherford um there in 2010 um there was movement for the property tax levy cap and it remains at 2% um and so this is a more restrictive of the two caps um without getting too complicated and I see that I'm going to start getting incredibly complicated um I just want uh members of the public to not be suspicious of this this is an annual process that takes place during the budgeting season um and to feel assured that what you saw tonight in tonight's budget um presentation is in fact what we are moving forward with roll call council president mcowan yes councilman BG Roberson yes councilman Gman yes Council Del con yes counc yes councilman cley yes thank you next public works woman dely con thank you I'd like to uh introduce for second reading an ordinance regarding stormw management Sal storage pursuant to chapter 107e Missy can you please read the ordinance by title only an ordinance to amend chapter 107 of the burough code to add section 107e regulating the privately owned salt storage in the bur of Rutherford thank you I'd like to make a motion to move that the ordinance be passed on second reading and advertised according to law thank you we have a motion by councilwoman Del re con do we have a second second second by councilwoman quatron um at this time I would like to open uh I'd like to open this as a public hearing on the ordinance and this ordinance only seeing none I'd like to open this to my Council colleagues for any discussion seeing none roll call council president mwan yes coun B Roberson yes coun MC Gman yes C Del con yes counil Clon yes counil M cley yes thank you all at this time I'd like to uh entertain a motion for adjournment motion motion by councilwoman Del Reay con all in favor I thank you have a great night