##VIDEO ID:KbCIQmwoeaA## welcome everyone I would like to call our meeting to order Madame clerk please read the adequate notice compliance statement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in the preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated December 18th 2023 which was properly distributed and posted per statutory requirements please be advised that fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room the city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired if anyone needs hearing assistant please obtain it the system at the daysis and return it thereafter thank you roll call please Mr Boer here miss Hamlet here Mr vegar here Mr palowski here Mr Smallwood here Mr bartan presid President Allen here okay um Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay Madame clerk please read the explanatory notices regarding hearings comments and close session a close session meeting as authorized by state statute was announced and held prior to the start of this meeting and the known items for discussion were listed on the published close session agenda please be advised the council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channel 36 and Verizon channel 30 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on httv on Comcast 36 and Verizon 33 when invited to speak please come to the lecturn clearly state your name and address spell your last name and speak into the podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement please give or email a copy to the city clerk's office at city clerk cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or need it for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you excellent thank you okay do I have a motion to approve the minutes of Clos session and reg regular meeting minutes of July 30th 2024 so moved second second you may have it council member did you get that Ro yes okay um okay all in favor I any opposed motion approved okay I'm going to shuffle our agenda slightly tonight we're going to do the historical minute first our Proclamation and then our presentation ahead of our report so councilman palowski so uh thank you uh as everybody knows we like to get um Summit High School students in to do the historical minute we're coming off the summer we haven't been able to do that um but tonight we have a Summit High School senior at least he was in 1958 uh who's who going to give us a little history on athletic fields and Summit and that senior is Gil Lauren aha thanks I am a senior and I have notes I'm Gil Orin o WN 45 Wallace Road and I did graduate from Summit High School in 1958 in the old building had the junior high and high together and New Providence by the way half of our sports teams were New Providence in those days so we did okay it said one minute there isn't a lawyer is there right no that can say anything in one minute I'll do do my best he asked me to talk about the fields before 62 when we have t tatlock was operational and I can but it wasn't Fields it was one field one one field if you were with a friend you said I'll meet you at the field you didn't have to tell them he or she where it was it was Memorial Field it was never called soldiers Memorial Field maybe July 4th but it was the field at that field was all the high school football soccer baseball track and Tennis everything really except maybe wrestling and basketball and uh at all levels and it was when school started as it did today I guess um it was wild wild there wasn't an inch that wasn't taken up example the freshman football field was an area between the back stop for the high school baseball team and the track just that area and there was no no lines no nothing just well Mort Ashman was the one of the coaches he didn't know football too well but he knew how you had to be tough his whole practice was take a lap where coach around the perimeter of the field could back and do it again and then two lines one for blocking one for tackling and he really lost lost to game because it was more fun playing than it was practicing especially with him and the um idea of the patlock field came up because you couldn't practice and play with all those with all these teams every day uh and and games and so on and so forth uh and it with with the tatlock tatlock I did a little research on it and that whole comp area all that property was donated by William tatlock in 1914 and utilized by the Board of Ed Board of wreck and the council to create uh tatlock field uh the one of the tat loocks was the president of the board of Rec Gerard tatlock and uh he was instrumental in in getting that done just think if that hadn't been done this is before Title 9 which came in 72 I think and before lacrosse if if if that had happened and we had to have lacrosse and all the girls teams I don't have to tell you what happened so that loock was a good thing for the city of summit but I loved Memorial Field when we moved from East Orange my father and mother bought a house on Park View Terrace so my front yard was Memorial Field the field a lot of good memories and uh I'm I'm glad I didn't want to move I had friends in East Orange and my father said he was just he had spent four years in the service in World War II he said said look you're moving that was the end of it and I'm glad we did and I'm glad we had the field thank you thank you Mr Orin that was a wonderful story so okay moving on to proclamations Madame mayor please present your Proclamation Le Griffith you have is that better oh look can hear me there you go come on up hi thank you for being here you sent everybody else to work is that what happened okay all right whereas health and safety are Paramount to a sound community and whereas since July 28th 1962 the summit volunteer first aid Squad members have provided a vital public service to our community in support of health and safety and whereas the summit volunteer first aid Squad members have given an Untold number of hours of service to Summit residents and patrons of our businesses and medical institutions and whereas the summit volunteer for first aid Squad answered more than 2,300 emergency calls for help last year from Summit residents visitors and from surrounding communities in need of mutual Aid support and whereas Summit volunteer first aid Squad members have responded to emergencies of all types at all hours of the day and night and whereas in addition to 911 emergency calls Summit volunteer first aid Squad members regularly provide non-emergency coverage at many community events whereas the efforts of the summit volunteer first aid Squad members all of whom are volunteers should not go unrecognized and whereas the dedication and hard work of the summit volunteer first aid Squad members provides Quality Care at no cost to the patient or taxpayer saving the city of summit approximately $2 million per year now therefore I Elizabeth Fagan mayor of the city of summit Do hereby proclaim the month of September 2024 as Summit volunteer first aid Squad month in the city of summit in recognition of the summit volunteer first aid Squad and the importance of of all the good deeds contributed by its many volunteers for 62 years and I ask all citizens to join me in praising these volunteers and lending the squad your financial support in witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and cause the Seal of the city of summit to be affixed this third day of September in the year 2024 thank you for being here and I want to say on a personal note uh we had a little medical emergency at my house I won't give details but um these guys are incredibly professional and um made sure everything turned out okay so I and so I I want to be let everybody know how grateful I am personally I think we're really incredibly lucky to have an awesome uh first aid Squad here in Summit and they do need volunteers and they always are looking for volunteers so thank you for being here hi I'm Laura ven avento for those who don't know me I'm deputy chief mayor thank you very much for this honor and recognition so for the past 62 years Summit volunteer first aid squad has been providing Emergency Services not just to the residents of Summit but also providing assistance to our surrounding towns in their time of need we responded to more than 2,300 calls last year 247 365 days a year our Squad is staffed fully with by volunteers we have individuals actually the majority of our members um do not have Healthcare backgrounds at all we have attorneys CPAs Bankers people in the financial sector exmilitary um they all went to get their EMT certification and all of our members are volunteers and graciously offer their time and efforts with no financial compensation and so we thank the community for their financial support but it's not just the financial support that we need to keep this organization running we desperately need volunteers there are squads throughout the country many that have folded due to a lack of EMTs and yet some EMS has continued to thrive during these challenging times and so please consider being a volunteer crass um it is our privilege to serve the residents of this community and we're collaborative with our members of city council and some at fire department and some at police department so thank you again very much for this recation I'm George she the chief of Squad and it's really an honor for us to be able to serve the the people of summit and the surrounding communities it's a high honor for us and we also deeply appreciate the support that all of you have given to us over the years we really appreciate that very much thank you thank you guys for being here y thank you for all your work okay all right um okay we're going to move on to presentations with all the road work that has been done this summer we thought it would be beneficial to invite Matthew Rose from PSG to give us an update on what the work what work they're doing um what has been done what is left to do and what projects are on the horizon so I'd like to thank um Matthew for joining us tonight oh there you are I was like he is here right um thank you Matthew for coming tonight not a problem thank you to the mayor and Council for inviting us to be here um it's very important to PS CG to be good partners with the communities that we do work in um so we enjoy doing events like this where we get to come out and kind of go through some of the infrastructure upgrade programs we're doing um for those of you who I haven't had the opportunity to meet yet my name is Matt Rose I'm the regional public affairs manager at PNG who covers Union and Somerset County um I just started in this role this summer but I've been at psng for the past seven years um I've had the opportunity to meet some of you for those who I'm meeting tonight I look forward to working with you I know we've always had a very positive relationship with the city of summit and I look forward to continuing that and making sure that we're a good partner within the community um as I'm sure most of you are aware um we're in the process of doing uh some gas work um upgrading aging gas infrastructure both in the city of summit and throughout the state um our guest System modernization Program was recently given an extension and renewed um so we have some work that we're doing in the city of summit currently and some work that's planned in the upcoming fall and next year um I'm going to turn it over to our project team in a couple seconds so they could talk a little bit about that work in more detail um but since 2014 through this gas System modernization Program and through other programs that are similar we've replaced over 1800 uh miles of gas main throughout the state including in the city of summit um this has resulted in a reduction in leaks a reduction of methane emissions and enhanced safety and reliability to help us um keep up with demand and meet future needs so with that being said I'm going to turn it over to our project team to uh swea our project manager and Eric our construction supervisor to give an update on the work and then afterwards we'll give an update on some of our communication and how we keep the residents informed of the work that's going on in the area thank you thank you there's a little clicker on the podium for you to advance the slides for you I'm Eric Adams Adams senior supervisor of gas construction so we identified in 2024 13.3 mies of replacement and 600 replacement services in 2025 we identified 11.6 miles oh you to click it 11.6 miles of gas main replacement and 950 services and like Matt said the benefit of this is to reduce leaks reduce methane cost savings allowing people to upgrade their appliances uh foring you to get a generator going from low pressure to high pressure and the relocating of the meters is improve emergency access just in case if the First Responders need to respond to house it could turn the gas off from the outside so right now we have a map Su 625 and if you could turn to the street list we're currently we're not currently working in there right now because we're waiting on one Road Butler Parkway um no I don't need that Butler Parkway everything else on that map is done only thing is left is Butler Parkway so all the other streets are done and we're ready for Paving right now 702 we're in 702 we have three crews working in there I have a crew on beakman Road we also identified the school on be Road have a crew ALS working on Oakley AV Warwick Road and we also identified the school on Valley Avenue off of blackb so what we do with that we work we work with PD closely we adjust our times accordingly so if we need to let the school travel we can we start from 99 to 2: we get off the road we get back on the road um what else we got here we got three crews in here on this map and then we also identify 703 703 this map has not yet started but we're looking to do this if you can go to the street list on this map here all these streets we're looking to start sometime later this this year like October it'll take us into 2025 the next slot 716 this has also been identified for Summit and this is going to start in 2025 TI us into 2026 can you just blow those Street lists up I can't I'm just if we can just go back to 703 sorry I wasn't sure where the street list started for 703 703 yeah so that starts with Gerard okay I have it on my computer I just wasn't sure where you're at and clerk Li this will go out in the um notes for people it'll be included in the minutes yeah okay that's show okay if anybody needs I have a paper copy if anybody would like it as well you need one now thank you we can also put this on website oh yeah that would be wonderful we'll put it on the website over here all the council persons with glasses that's El I'm waiting for you 703 yes go okay make sure we're right sorry thank you go ahead yeah good that's it that's it oh all right can I ask questions oh well after they're done okay yeah no you ask a question okay sure I just I can't see the grid so is red so if we go back to the first one is blue all complete no 703 is had not yet started sorry but I'm sorry even if you go back to 625 blue 625 no so the colors to the map doesn't mean anything to you that's just letting me know what type of program or what type of and pipe we're going to be installing in that area Okay has to do with ournal so the butler Butler Parkway is the only thing left on 625 to be done got it and then we need to do the final restoration of the road Matthew do you want to come sit at the table so then you have a um yeah then you also have a microphone so pull the microphone up if you want to weigh in too um okay you sit you want you want to sit down as well that way you're not standing yeah yeah have a seat and then just pull the microphone close if you speak yeah thank you all right counc and then we could go into the Outreach piece so with the Outreach before we kick off anything we do the communications we do door knob we do door door hanging we do rolly calls we do mailers we also come with a a 1800 number on there that you can call anytime and someone will call you back within 24 hours also inside this swe you put our names right yeah at the beginning ofation also you got a number that you can call is 908279 3217 can you that's my number 908 98 279 279 3217 3217 wonderful actually you were helpful with one of our other residents um on Blackburn Road was yeah so thank you for calling her I appreciate that okay so this line is only for if you want to talk about the project if you have a gas leak or anything please do not call this line you need to call the 1800 gas leak line oh okay okay1 this is only for the project or 911 or 911 or 911 okay okay and if you flip through the Outreach piece you can show them like what they could be looking for before before we kick off the program no back that one more one more there we go these are the these are the handouts that we give before we start the program wonderful all right um well I know you guys I live um you came and knocked on my door so I knew that you guys were in the neighborhood so thank you thank you for your work and you're actually installing individual lines in some cases too yes so all I would work is between the curb and sidewalk right so we got to install the main that's usually in the roadway and then we have to go to every house to connect it to the new M okay okay can you hi I'm Greg uh coun this is councilman Varan thank you for coming um can you talk about timeline so I I think if I think I remember from when we had this conversation last year you dig the trench you do the work there you do a cold patch over that that's there for some amount of time and then paved over right so what what's the time frame from start to finish on that whole thing so start to finish so we'll start a project and usually after we're done with all the services we install the main we replace the services we retire the old main we leave the trench at least 90 days to settle settlement so once it settles then we pay okay so all our road restoration on your property could be a little bit different so if you we Disturbed your grass or something like that we can have that done a lot quicker okay okay and I'm sorry the list of oh yeah go ahead Council so in regards to the paving uh I know some of these streets may have been recently paved uh and I know marav in particular and it may not be psng it may be jcpnl one of the acronyms right um there's like a strip that is down the the roadway right so when you when you when you dig up and to put a pipe in do you pay the entire surface or is there a different grade of elevation that you leave like is it do you leave it in the same condition that is in when okay so you do the whole surface not just not all not all streets so once we're done with the project then we sit down with the town and then we come up with the limits on what we're going to PVE so sometime the paver could be curved to center line or sometime the paver could be curved to curve okay the LI the limits vary so you sit down with our like with our city engineer and you'll decide like how the street is going to look after you're done okay all right I know some of the residents have a concern that you know these roads are listen I know you have to put the pipe in um but I know the concern is that these roads are consistently being ripped up and then they're repaved but not they're not in the same condition that they were left in um so that that's just a concern maybe something that you know you can uh can think about where redar at uh uh so that would be Mars Avenue what I want to say is that near orchard Orchard to place yeah yeah it's it's it's all over it's like different spots oh that's the county road that you're talking about right the mar yeah so we could blame it on the county is no no we work on it together I got you all right I'll take a little there's no one from the county here you can say what you want all right that's that's just a little that's just a takeaway that that I have all right no problem can I ask one more okay yeah sorry uh how do you decide I know some work goes on at night some work goes on during the day how do you decide Whi which which is which so it's usually determined by the permit okay so the permit allow us let us know what we need to do okay but we usually don't do any work at night oh that's usually the water company or somebody like that okay so to your point Greg if you got a permit to work in the summer then that would right we just got to do a summer program right you want this done you know yeah well I think that's a good question so what what councilman Varan was asking is how do you prioritize and I think I don't want to take words out of your mouth but how do you prioritize the streets and the other thing that stuck out for me tonight was you said you identified a school um we can give you all that information in fact we have a superintendent of schools who is chasing down a PSC and G truck the other day trying to figure out what was going on so I think it might be helpful if we can coord a meeting with our superintendent okay um because right now the areas that you're doing specifically on Blackburn and beakman Terrace are literally on top of schools on the first week of school so how could we have facilitated a better timeline to do this during the summer around the schools well I could have started well the project didn't start until like right before school like maybe a month ago so if we would have got in here a little bit earlier before like after June we could have been out of the area but if we said to you we really want this done by July 15th could you have done that or was that totally not even possible not possible is the reason because doing other streets in Summit or no because now you have someone home someone's on vacation so we got to work around everyone scheduled actually get the work done so I can install the main I can do all that question but I can't connect you if you're not home but if I'm not home does it matter say it again if I'm not home does it matter do you have to have all the streets connected by the time you're done no so I have to do in phases so I have to identify where can I get the pressure okay so once I get the pressure I look at it and then I can go in that direction only okay in order to connect your house for a service you need to be home okay that's helpful is division done or not done I if you don't know now but I feel like we just did that road project so I I see it on here there's no work on there's no work on division ever for the next five years no no work on that's all I want can we have that in writing that's um yeah so I was going to say there's two projects you have the main and then you have the individual homes um and Blackburn Road got torn up for the main but I noticed then you had to go back yes to a couple of the individual homes in order to open that road back up and but it was because they weren't home the you had to schedule that with the homeowners right so I can install the main no problem without the homeowners being home right it's only when I need to do the service connections everyone must be right and for for all the streets we have to go around on customer availability making sure that we schedule with the individual customers um because we are working on their property we want them to be aware of what we're doing um they need to be home to allow us access because most of the meters are inside and we're moving them from inside to outside and then afterwards we do umire the older system so people need to be on the newer system before we take the older system out of service got it okay any other council members questions no okay thank you that was easy all right all right okay thank you for your time get home safe and we're on to reports mayor questions oh um not normally um yeah you can yeah come back up come back up yeah um Don no no Don no no that's okay you think know better Don Nelson 20 plane Street I know there's some talk about some uh work being done on can Cano Brook do you guys coordinate with the city uh prior to that work being done uh is it work being done on Butler Parkway is there going to be isn't there a grant or something for Butler Parkway or Cano Brook that we can coordinate with you that the city can coordinate with you guys guys so we're not doing the work Tuesday and then you're digging it up Wednesday or we're you're working Wednesday and we're digging it up Thursday so we can coordinate that work to get that you guys work together that way yeah we do work with the city with that yeah important uh director Sher do you want to say anything about that to you council president I could just clarify the grant is for canoebrook Parkway um and then they do have a request to do something on Butler Parkway which we have not approved because it is in the moratorium but we're working with them because if there is a way to restore it to a condition we'd be happy with and to not then halt this whole project would be better so we'll be having that call shortly but otherwise yes we give them the roads that we're doing in the next few years um annually and they send us when they when they can I mean it does not always line up that the way we would like it but yes ideally we always want them in before we do our work so yeah all right thank you yep just go here yeah uh sorry hi Stacey Allen Plymouth Road um my question is really about I think it's pertaining to what councilman Boyer asked where the road has been paved recently and it's nice and clean and then it gets torn up and there's like a hump on the road so when you drive down the road your car is rattling a lot I was driving down Wang Avenue in chadam right to Summit where the um the new Ivy building is um and that road is like half the road is repaved that that road is not finished yet it's not totally done oh well it was really nice because it was smooth when you drive compared to a big bump in the middle of the road I have to say the fact that it was where your tires are both your tires are made it much smoother so I think everybody wants smooth roads yes we want everyone to have smooth roads so when we have a nicely paved Road and then you guys have to replace the pipes then there's a big hump in the road and then it's really bumpy again so I'm just asking is there another I I know nothing about roads I'm sorry to stick my nose in this but I'm asking CU you're here um it seems like maybe there's another solution so that it can be made smooth again yes so you you're talking about final restoration or before restation I don't know I don't know the hump seems to last a pretty long time I'm just going to call it the hump yeah I'm going to jump think she's refering to the trench the trench the trench but it is it a trench and then it has pavement it has Mach over it do they when you when you do a trench and you replace a main and then you cover it up is it generally it should be flat it should be flat yes so if you have a hump or something like that then you need to call that number and call me okay but you shouldn't have it should be it should be flat it's all of East Summit Morris Avenue right now I know we're working on that that's getting ready so specifically that road you're saying will be worked on still okay that's my question thank you okay any any other questions I want to give everybody the opportunity just to be clear on uh what Mrs Allen was talking about and I I think maybe we could kind of clear this up for the public right so there's I know you talked about it there's a couple of stages right so the final restoration is where the the plate will be taken out the road would be completely even so the final restoration is is one we call that is like when they come in they Mill a Row 2 Ines and replace the black top microphone yeah they mild the road and then they re repave it that's final restoration so the restoration you see now once the trench is there and the services are done that's Temp and that's 90 days and then yes minimal of 90 days minimal okay and if any residents have an issue and it's there for 180 days they should call you right and then okay the 908279 3217 ni thank you for your presentation thank you for coming here just kind of to add to the 90day thing it also depends on the time of year because obviously all pavings weather dependent so if we do finish in November we may not be able to come back and pave until the spring so just want to make sure everybody's mindful that we do have roads that sometimes can sit a little bit longer as we get them on the paving schedule because coming back in the spring we have to go through everything that was completed in the winter and get it scheduled to be paved so there are sometimes there's a little bit of a variability in those timelines so but Matt is saying November is like the threshold like when the weather stops you can't pave when it's freezing outside so if it's in November December we won't pave until the weather breaks okay I'm sorry I can't help it because I'm a runner and I like uh you know I I see this stuff all the time um what about the debris is there any way to I know it has to sit for a period of time three months um but what about the debris would it be possible to come by and remove debris that that builds up from these trenches yeah we maintain the trench so we just don't leave it like all winter okay we maintain the trench so we could we can take care of that so again if there are areas where there's a lot of debris rocks you know different things we just give you a call and okay thank you there someone out there get ready for your phone to start ringing got it and Morris Morris Avenue Center okay U Morris Avenue in front of the rec center seems unfinished for about a year now um so the rec center it's um 100 more sa 100 Morris Avenue yeah yes yeah so that that road is going to be done this month okay so that road is being half paved by the county and the other half is going to be paved by us so as soon as they do their piece then we'll do ours perfect let's just give them the money and just let them do all of it so it's nice and even yeah that that would be great could we do that and forgive me I'm not laughing at you it's that when you said the county I'm like a Jesus no it's gonna be done I spoke to him this week right Co I know him so he'll be all right I would Escape while you still can no thank you great presentation and thank you for coming and explaining I appreciate it thank you thank you so much everyone going do reports I'm going to do reports yeah actually um mayor you're the only person doing reports tonight that's a good thing because I have a lot to say I know um so today marks the first day of school for our public schools here in Summit so I'd like to use this as an opportunity to remind everyone to be extra attentive when they are walking biking or driving and don't forget to wear your bike helmets um I also want to mention the great work by girl girl scout troop 41160 last Friday I had the opportunity to help with the Girl Scouts painting crosswalk with Pat from our DPW at Lincoln hover um thank you for highlighting the importance of pedestrian safety and for identifying a way to increased visibility of a busy school crosswalk and you all should keep an eye out for the city's social media posts with some photos it was a great day and it was it's very pretty it's a rainbow if you haven't seen pictures yet or haven't been by um Department of Community programs has some upcoming events The Bike Rodeo will be held on September 10th at 4:30 p.m. at at soldiers Memorial Field Gil um children are encouraged to bring their bike and their helmet to this free event representatives from Avenues and motion will perform helmet fit checks and basic B bicycle maintenance inspections participants can ride through an obstacle course and visit stations that will highlight various bicycle skills and safety scenarios Riders May encounter on the road most importantly there will be free ice cream for participants for information about all other awesome events that the um Department of Community programs is putting on in the in the coming weeks please check out their website Summit Community programs.com regarding Anderson Fieldhouse at tatlock the city of summit uh contracted with serve pro for the cleanup of the Fieldhouse the cleanup took 3 days and has been completed a thirdparty industrial hygienist was there this morning to test air samples and swabs throughout the building we should have those results within 48 hours and probably less than that because I got that information a few hours ago uh if there's anything additional found serpro will remediate if nothing else is found we will have a clean bill of health and the building will be considered sanitary thank you to the board of ed for temporarily repairing the roof replacing the ceiling tiles and fixing the lighting um last Saturday was overdose awareness day and our agenda tonight includes accepting opioid grant money so it seems fitting to stand together as a community to remember those who we have lost to overdose and to support the families and friends affected by this tragedy grant funding allows us to enhance our efforts to combat this epidemic these resources will allow us to expand access to treatment increase educational programs and provide vital support services for those struggling with opio addiction we are committed to Breaking the stigma surrounding substance use and ensuring that those in need know they are not alone quick Bryant Pond update that I just received today from the county um very briefly unfortunately not what I wanted to hear but um the county is committed to continuing this project and is working out the pricing and Logistics at this time and I will await more information but that is all I have about Brian Pond um I will continue to poke the county as much as I can um finally my office hours have changed and they will be by appointment going forward to allow for more flexibility for residents and so that I can permit to have un undivided attention for the residents that do come to visit me um you can email me at e at cityofsummit.org or call the city clerk's office to schedule that's all I have thank you thank you mayor um okay so normally we'd go to public comment um but we had anticipated a heavy presentation schedule tonight plus some extra proclamations they fell off the schedule so we the public comments stayed where they are but we um didn't have quite the presentations tonight but a lot of them got moved to the 17th so we're going to have what before you move on can I make a comment sure yeah I just want to talk about the Phil house um for a second um you know I I really I really want the residents to know about councilman palowski and councilman Smallwood um the day that the football team had found out uh was when I received a call from councilman Smallwood and these two uh were amazing I mean I didn't I think they may have even slept at the fill one night um uh but you know they got in contact with the city employees right away and and our city employees did a great job as well um but the attention that they paid to the residents and the concerns that the residents had a for uh mold issues and B so that the seniors would be able to um enjoy their last year football having a Fieldhouse uh so they acted with an extreme sense of urgency and I just wanted to thank these two gentlemen they they did an excellent job um getting everyone together to get this done thank you yes thank you both and thank you councilman Boer that was right okay so we're going to do the business agenda first tonight then we'll get to public comments and then Council comments so we're going to do on to resolutions first um councilman plasy resolution your first one yeah this is resolution ID number 11470 um which we discussed in Clos session uh it's an uh to authorize execution of a settlement agreement for a city employee and I move to adopt this resolution I second okay Council comments public comments wait hold on hold on okay good evening everyone Andrew mccartie uh from Parkview Terrace uh my comment tonight is about this line in the agenda about uh the settlement agreement and the lack of information about it there was a similar one in the last uh council meeting so that's two meetings in a row where there's been a settlement agreement with a city employee with no information provided um in both cases uh there was no information about the position of the individual their seniority when it would take effect when they were leaving the amount of the settlement agreement there's literally zero information uh provided here uh and I do think that that's cause for a concern um given the potential Trend and given the lack of transparency um so the question is why why all the secrecy um you know these are taxpayer dollars that are being used to pay out to settle some sort of claims um and and uh taxpayers deserve to know if these decisions are being made responsibly are these oneoff situations or is there something more systemic happening uh that there needs to be all these settlement agreements with city employees who are leaving uh and then the broader point is if they are senior employees in the city uh it seems like there could be a real concern about the functioning of the town of summit um these are the people that make the town run so is there any concern like that uh and it's hard for the public to know without more information so my request is more transparency more information uh about this settlement agreement the one from January 30th one's going forward uh and so the public can hold Council hold government to account uh for whether the decisions are being made appropriately thank you thank you would you like to speak on that I I can speak that first and foremost there's no systemic problem in the city uh it's actually prudent whenever you have employees that are departing um if you can come to a mutual agreement and get a settlement agreement for whatever payout uh they are they've negotiated which could include uh vacation leave Etc um the set agreement prevents the Spectre of litigation and I can tell you I've been doing it for 31 years public entities get sued more than any other entity because lawyers unfortunately I'm one of them but uh lawyers know the Deep Pockets of public entities and so if you can avoid litigation you're actually saving the taxpayers lots of money um settlement agreements the reason that they're done they're not done in secrecy uh seal agreements um are operable documents in in um New Jersey uh taxpayers do have a right to know none of these are large payouts whatsoever they're just prudent payouts to make sure that the city is not exposed to litigation I don't think it would be very prudent to pay a departing employee uh money and not get a settle agreement because very often those departing employees could turn around and sue you and you got nothing uh to protect the city um the other thing that folks should know is whenever you enter into a settlement agreement um there's a number of laws that are covered one of those laws is called the older worker benefit protection act I know you'll find this hard to believe but if you're over age 40 uh you can assert an age discrimination claim um and in order to wave an age discrimination and Employment Act claim you have to give the person 21 days to consider the agreement and then after they execute it 7 days to revoke it that's the older worker benefit protection act that covers anybody over age 40 so the reason that there's not discussions is that there are statutory periods upon which we need to wait before you say anything whatsoever but I can assure this you that the city is very well-run I mean let's not kid ourselves the person who runs the city is uh Miss Li at we all know that um uh so it's it's very well run none of these are um I think people would when they if they open them they can see uh they're just payments and it's done prudently and I practiced a lot of my area in the area of employment and labor law that's what I've done for 31 years and I can tell you that if you can avoid litigation a small payout to avoid litigation litigation can cost not tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's taxpayers paying for it so we try to avoid that to to make sure that you're spending your tax dollars on uh more prudent things that really benefit the the residents of the city thank you and not lawyers such as myself thank you okay are there any other questions okay um we're going to vote then all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay councilman palowski your second resolution uh yes this is resolution ID number 11478 to appoint a city uh to appoint interim City administrator uh as discussed in close session I move to adopt this resolution second okay Council comments public comments okay all in favor I any opposed motion carries all right councilman Smallwood your first resolution thank you council president this is ID number 114 sorry sorry my apologies I would like to um my apologies I'd like to bring up Mr Tui um who we just you didn't yeah so uh if I could introduce uh okay I'm a little rusty it's sum our inter city manager uh is Tom Tui um we brought him in as a consultant on General municipal government matters back in August he's an exper Eren ba having run uh Cedar Grove for over 30 years um when our current ba uh went on administrative leave um we had to find somebody Tom has the experience and has through his Consulting work over the last month gained a working knowledge of our city and its employees he was available and is The Logical choice to act in this uh in this interim capacity so Tom would you like to join us up here sure thank you would you like me to best seat in the house please come take your seat at the end would you like to say yes absolutely first of all my name is Tom Tucci um I'm happy to be here I want to tell you that I'm going to be working uh for the governing body look forward to working with all of you with the city of employees and for the people of the city of su Thomas Jefferson once said he's a great believer in luck well the harder you work the luckier you get that's what he said those are his words not mine and that's my intention here to work hard for the city we're going to look at everything we're going to see what we do well we're going to continue to do that well and we're going to look at things we don't do so well and we're going to do better because we can always do better as government and with that I thank you thank you okay now councilman Smallwood thank you council president and Tom welcome thank you uh council president this is ID number 11471 it's a resolution authorizing the mayor and municipal clerk of the city of summit to execute an agreement with the county of Union to modify the Cooperative agreement dated June 20 2014 as amended July 25th 2017 this is uh part of the summit dep Summit Department of Community programs requests approval to enter the shared agreement services for 50 years of the Community Development block grant the union the county of Union has approved the following grants as part of this year's program $7,500 the city of summit Youth Center $5,000 the city of summit senior connection bus $25,000 the city of summit maybe playground project $8,000 to Grace and $99,000 to warm Hearts uh the purpose of this resolution is to continue the shared services agreement to make the funds available to the city of summit this is in continuation to the existing agreement and the programs that are made available through this program aimed to provide services to individuals of low and moderate income I move to adopt this resolution a second okay thank you um Council presid may I just add to councilman Smallwood's uh description that um the list of projects also includes the housing authorities upgrade of playgrounds at their uh various locations on Weaver Street and Dennis place or Glenn Glennwood perhaps one of one of the three okay two of the three yeah it's Weaver and Glennwood and it's it's it's misnamed it's called the senior senior building playground that's not correct so okay there's clarification for that did I say senior yeah that's all council president one one question on the resolution uh the modification that's being made is that to include additional projects the projects that were included in the list okay yes thank you you're welcome okay councilwoman Hamlet a couple of questions and councilman small would I apologize I didn't ask earlier I sort of had the same question is Mr tuci a couple questions on page pack of page 28 and Matt I might have to have you look at this one go before after the meeting the prohibitions of funding where it says no Urban County funding shall be provided for activities in support of any municipality that does not affirmatively further fair housing within its own jurisdiction the does The Residency requirement right now preclude us from are we in compliance because if we're not affirmatively marketing those units I know that we've been doing this a long time but would that I I believe the fair housing is a federal law uh we talking about the the the compliance that's to meet your state affordable housing so I I do believe you're in compliance with the federal law uh you have you actually um get Federal monies for your um various things through HUD so I would I would I would venture to guess if you're getting money from HUD to to provide um your your low and moderate income in some of your senior buildings what's happening is for you guys to get credit for COA you no longer can have a residency prefer reference you have to open it up as you do the rehab so that's that's dealing with the co aspect of it but it has no impact you're in compliance with the F Housing Act okay and then secondly I can't remember those five or so projects have we identified what those projects are for so the money for warm hearts and Grace because in this that says you have to identify an actual specific project and I can't remember if we had a specific project for those they're listed yeah those the warm Hearts one and and I know the playground was listed but I didn't see the other ones on Theo you want see mind right but what is the money actually going to be used for so I understand that there's it's all the warm hearts and a couple of others are associated with the grce services that that are uh provided through the community programs okay and that's why they're listed separately they're not individually they're not getting funding directly they're going it's going through the grace services that are provided okay where warm hearts and um there's another one there they they contribute okay to the services of that's it that was my last question thank you sorry to ask you earlier and I believe they were all approved uh all the grants were specific in the uh the applications in 2023 yeah okay any other Council comments okay public comment all right we will vote all in favor I any opposed motion carries councilman Smallwood your second resolution thank you council president this is ID number 11453 app Point Parking Services Agency director pending close session discussion and I am very proud to announce that our assistant director uh Nicole si siwicki uh has been awarded the director's position of parking the parking director's position so congratulations to Nicole do we have a second oh and I oh sorry I second I was a little ahead of myself I don't want to interrupt all right wonderful okay go ahead anything else to add no I just would like to congratulate uh you know we had a couple of applications and through the application process uh we did decide that Nicole had the experience as well as the uh aptitude to work with our current employees and we ultimately decide Nicole suuki would be the the best fit for that position so congratulations to Nicole wonderful councilman Minar did you want to say anything because you were part of the the interview process is Nicole here tonight no she's not she's not the interview is fantastic Nicole has already made changes as interim director that have really benefited the city um so I think you're going to see a better Parking Services going forward so very proud of our decision and I wish her the best in her new role yeah all right congratulations Nicole okay um public comments okay all in favor hi hi hi hi any opposed motion carries councilman Smallwood we're tbling number three are we oh yes actually Madam clerk I would like to table number three yes can we do that that's fine we're just pulling it we're pulling um number three which is resolution number 11 452 okay then we're going to move on to finance councilman miger thank you council president this is number 11445 and this resolution certifies the 2023 audit review this resolution is an annual occurrence as required by the state of New Jersey that we certify to the local Finance board that members of this governing body have reviewed that audit for 2023 under CFO Tammy Baldwin we have once again achieved a solid review with only one recommendation I move to adopt this resolution I second excellent Council comments public comments yes I just had one one comment um it's okay go ahead yeah uh and in this in this uh maybe councilman minger maybe you can answer this um the liabilities for bonds and notes and loan payments have increased from 90 million in 2022 to 109 I'm just estimating in 2023 uh so this is a pretty substantial increase do you do you know the reason for that I can ask uh CFO Balman can answer that for sure it's through you council president um we have bonded more money we have done more capital projects so you'll see ba you'll see notes those are the bands and bonds for the additional Capital work that we've done you we could probably talk about this later but is there any specific work that you could point to for the 20 million or is there you're looking at there's a a bond anticipation note out we went out to bond in 2022 so the notes increase until we go out to permanently Bond so I'm not sure if you're looking just at unfunded or funded so we can review the detail behind that one report if you'd like but I don't have it in front of me okay it was just something I was looking at um and the other concern with the recommendation on the um the police off-duty billing uh has that have we came up with controls for that are we three council president yes that's the next resolution I'll describe a little bit of that good okay just just a recommendation through you council president maybe the CFO can give the governing body a copy of the debt schedule this way we're all aware what the debt schedule is and how it's going to incrementally increase or decrease over the term uh the CFO has all that information she supplied it with me did a wonderful job thank you through through you council president we get that we get that as part of the budget process right and we we get an update from you regularly quarterly I think right you send the we send around the schedule thank you yeah and I would just say Tammy thanks for all your hard work on that I know you have never really had too many recommendations from Auditors um so this will be a small one that we'll talk about the next resolution for my colleagues I would say if you haven't picked up an actual copy of the audit it's really helpful um because I read it cover to cover for a few days in a row and came in with my head spinning asking Tammy questions but as you prepare for the next budget season it's really really important that if you have specific questions that you ask Tammy what those are because they really do go hand in hand and I if you don't want to flip on your computer and but get your highlighter out I'm actually meeting with Tammy next week to go over 50 questions that I had for very little questions but it's a really important document I highly recommend you get the actual book so thank you okay public comment good evening I'm Claire to at 11 Sunset Drive and CFO Baldwin and her team should should be congratulated on this audit because Summit relies on public money our tax dollars we're subject to a set of audit rules issued by the federal government Accounting Office it's sometimes called a yellow book audit because the standards were initially Bound in yellow in addition to everything reviewed in a typical Financial audit a yellow book audit reviews performance standards to ensure ethical behavior and thus it's much more rigorous than a standard audit recently the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Institute of certified public accountants which govern Auditors and audits have issued marching orders yellow book audits are not supposed to be clean at a minimum Auditors are expected to find def to find deficiencies a deficiency itself is essentially a footfall other terms describe more serious financial problems with this background a missing rece SE or time card or two it's about as minor as you can get here it's called a recommendation not even a deficiency in a world where CFO Baldwin is not allowed to be perfect this is as close as she can get she and her team should be celebrated for this thank you thank you okay any other public comment no okay all in favor I hi any opposed motion carries councilman migar thank you council president this is number 11435 and this resolution is a corrective action plan for the one recommendation we did receive in the 2023 auto review in summary uh it was suggested that we tighten up the internal accounts payable between the police and the DCS it was recommended that the procedure for charging and billing off-duty Police Services be reviewed and this corrective action plan addresses that recommendation through simple changes that will um do exactly that uh I move to adopt this resolution a second Council comments Council what I would ask for this one um Miss baldwi is that would it be possible to have a copy of the I I know we have the basic you know we're going to fix it but can we have a copy of the actual plan um whenever you think it's you whenever you're going to solve it through you council president um the document you have for the resolution is what I'm required to send into the state what myself and the finance team is working on is backtracking to the old we believe that there are accounts receivable on a spreadsheet that were already accounted for and not deleted there's a spreadsheet we work with between police and finance and it's shared and these are items going back to 2018 2019 when there was a previous account clerk working in the position and I think that they just didn't delete so I have to go back and research and find proof that they were paid which I think I will in most cases which will bring that spreadsheet into alignment with my general ledger I think my concern is when we do you know when we do an American New Jersey American Water Project or PSG project it doesn't matter but when the capital projects involve the police that's where when we are approving an amount of a project and we're not including the police coverage it just becomes very confusing for us so I may not know that the off-duty charges are in that contract award I'd have to defer to director shreer to know whether the award whether it's a so sometimes the contractor is paying the police but when it's a city job that we could do like if it's psng or it's New Jersey American Water somebody like that they're paying the off duty and they're paying different rates when it's a city job it's more prudent and consider fiscally responsible for us to pay the off duty directly and they they the amounts that are projected when we do our Capital presentations do include enough to award the actual contract for let's say the paving job and for the amount of off duty that you expect to spend during that job that's fine I just think it'd be helpful for me as I look through all these things if it's a big project we we sort of know the number of man hours that it's going you know employee hours on their job it would take and I know like right now we have 100 I think we have 125,000 budgeted for off-duty police hours and we haven't used any of that so far correct for projects so just sort of getting an update as we go through the progress as we go go through the process would be helpful from I guess if we can I think probably collectively we could provide that for you what one question along that line council president Aaron do we include a line item for traffic control for police in the construction projects through you council president uh no we do not we actually at the start of a project we encumber the money directly to the capital account for the project and then we issue the payment but our specification does say they're responsible for the scheduling and we'll pay them unless they make an error on the scheduling and and requires charges then we will put them on a change order that they have to pay for that so okay and does that get charged to police overtime because sometimes police overtime looks inflated because of these projects and it's really no I'm okay I'm almost positive there billing my accounts pretty well yes got it very good thank you okay any other Council comments council president uh and I'm sorry I conflated the two I think I jumped a little ahead of myself um can you tell me what the underlying underlying cause of the billing discrepancies and why this came up in the audit to begin with what was the what was the issue through you council president um that was what I was just speaking to so it looks like you know every year when they do an audit they'll dive deeper into particular areas they look at everything and then they'll dive deeper into different areas so I asked the same question question why hasn't this come up before if I'm looking at some old receipts that may or they may have been paid and I have to do the research now going back to even before I was employed with the city to find out if they were paid and just not removed from this shared spreadsheet we use because that's supposed to back up my general ledger but the amounts are different my general ledger I guarantee you is right I'm trying to get that spreadsheet that police shares with us to reflect the proper balance and that's the that's the discrepancy that makes sense thank you for clarifying I wasn't sure what you were referring to before when you're talking to council person Hamlet uh last question are there any concerns of overruns now I don't have any concerns right now um if I do find that there's a bill or two going back um we do have current funds for off duty that we can charge that to and get that cleaned up I'm just more sad that I got a recommendation three years with that one but I guess it was my time thank you at least we know they're paying attention yeah okay good all right any public comments okay great all in favor I hi any opposed motion carries councilman migar last thank you council president this is number 11455 and this resolution authorizes our new Parking Services director Nicole siwicki to draw checks in the petty cash account in the parking services operating fund and is should checks to the city treasurer I move to adopt this resolution I second excellent Council comments public comments all in favor I I any opposed motion carries councilman migar thank you council president this is number 11424 and this resolution extends the original three-year contract with Primo LLC for payroll human resources and time and attendance services for one additional year in the amount in an amount not to exceed $60,000 in that year this is the first of two of two optional one-year extensions built into this contract at this time our current system meets the needs of the city staff and so it was recommended to extend the contract by a year I move to adopt this resolution I second excellent okay Council comments council president yep I just want to make sure I Timmy and I talked about this earlier but I just want to make sure this is just a one-year contract with the option for two this is this is a there's two one-year extensions that were an option of the original contract we went out we did the original three years and they provided us with the option to extend for each of one year so I would have to put another resolution on this time next year in order to extend that for an additional year if that's the way we choose to go if there's not another provider out there that you so choose to to go with correct okay good okay that's it thank you okay wonderful all right anyone else okay public comment okay all in favor I any opposed okay motion carries all right councilman Smallwood uh actually council member Hamlet and I why did I yeah going to cap okay we're going to go to cap um can I say something I from back up in finance I missed something but um in resolution I think in the in 11445 there's just a scrier error Tammy and I talked about it earlier in her summary memo it says that the 2022 2022 audit results were emailed but it would be 2023 right through you council president it's not in the resolution but in the summary memo that I provide um I inadvertently left the 2022 number instead of changing it to 2023 so it's not in the resolution but it is in the mify that in the resolution correct okay okay great thank you councilwoman Hamlet thank you uh council president Allen this is ID 11472 uh which is authorizing the emergency contract of the tatlock field clean cleanup uh the DCS director engineer has advised on August 9th 2024 the tatlock Fieldhouse experienced significant water leakage through the roof and the construction official deemed the building unsafe due to the water leaking through the light fixtures the building cannot be used until it is demonstrated that the issues have been fixed and pursuant to and corresponding rules njac 53461 the DCS director of engineer requests authorization for emergency contract award to First Night Enterprises DBA Surf Pro of central Union County in the amount of 77566 86 which is an excess of the city's $44,000 bid threshold so we are requesting for emergency purchases dated August 27th 2024 here to attached I'd like to adopt this resolution second excellent okay Council comments go ahead you could go first no you go ahead I was just GNA uh thank you council president I was just going to back us up much further uh with this project so um I think people have known for many years uh that this building was not in good shape um so this is a city-owned building but used primarily by the board of education for sports um for school sports so um this is a you know normally the Board of Ed would manage their buildings and deal with that uh normally the city would manage the city buildings and they would remain pretty separate this is a weird situation here because it's it's owned by one used by the other so several years ago the Board of Education agreed to basically take responsibility for it however ownership of the building has not been transferred so that's a little bit of background as to why basically we're the Board of Ed and the city are now both on Parallel tracks paying for separate parts of this the parts that the city is paying for is the mold remediation which is this $77,000 that will hopefully be uh through Insurance um and then the board of education is paying for the 270,000 or whatever they had on their uh agenda a couple weeks ago um and obviously my hope is you know kids are back in there for the fall Sports season and a couple weeks um but also uh that that you know we're not going to have all this work done and then all of a sudden the Board of Ed tears the whole thing down right so we want to keep track of this with with the Board of Ed and make sure that that as they're finalizing their uh plans for the building that that it you know is not we're putting all this money into it and then we flush that down the toilet right so that's that's uh my thoughts yeah thank you councilman Smallwood yes um thank you I'm gonna Echo uh councilman vartan's comments you know um I'm a little disappointed that we've actually gotten to this far um you know if for whatever reason our our GIF does not re reimburse us for the $777,000 um that's money that we did not allocate for um and so we're we're going to have to foot that bill just simply for cleaning the mold and so just it's it's safe for our kids to get back into that building um the Department of Education have had plans since I want to say mid to late November 2022 I I don't know when the actual agreement took place Place between the city of summit and the Board of Ed but I do not there was never an interlocal agreement ever made between the two parties um within the $37 million bond that the Board of Ed had last year they allocated $2.5 million to renovate this building uh this can has been kicked down the road for way too long and this is something that we need to take care of like right away so that for instance the $777,000 that we're going to have to spend hopefully we'll get reimbursed by our GIF um the $218,000 that the Board of Ed just approved a couple weeks ago for the new roof um you know it's this needs to be taken care of I've been in that building more times than I would like in the past three weeks it was absolutely disgusting um you know I have been in the building since serve pro has been in there it it's cleaner uh you don't necessarily smell the mold uh I'm looking forward to what the uh hygienist comes through with and making sure that our the duck work is clean we do get a clean bill of health from our electri for State Certified for electricity um so that at least you know the football season can get back in there for The Fall season um but I think going forward we need to really nail down with an interlocal agreement with the Board of Ed uh to have something permanently done for this building when I spoke with one of the DPW guys when the the roof started initially leaking um several weeks ago after that storm he basically said the only thing that's good about this building is other four exterior walls um and I talking to Residents that have been in town and have used that building um Mr Orin I think you were in that building years ago um um as a football coach uh can attest the fact that this is you know when you have you know two main programs our football and our lacrosse teams that are state championship caliber going into a locker room where you don't know if they're going to come out with asthma um because of the building the the condition of the building itself so this is something that really needs to be a priority and you know there is funding that was allocated for this by the Boe uh and I I'm I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get our kids in there before the first football game on Saturday and then from that point on we need to really nail down the responsibility of that building and and really make it nice um and safer for our kids thank you thank you councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president I just want to be clear uh that this leak certainly didn't start uh eight or nine weeks ago we've been raising the Bells on this since January um feel free to opr all of my emails and text messages regarding the Fieldhouse because this is something that we have been raising alarms about as far as the roof um it's been a problem it is a problem and I think that we owe answers we should be getting answers from the board of v on what is the maintenance schedule for the weekends who's replacing the toilet paper because I get way too many calls about there's no toilet paper or there's toilet paper all over the floors or the doors not open so I think as we go through this process um if you look at the bathrooms that are at next to the paddle tennis courts near Wilson not Wilson is it Wilson yes Wilson that roof right now is starting to rot there's graffiti outside um and I think at some point we have to take some personal accountability on fixing these small projects before they become much larger ones to your point Kevin so council president to you one question a red flag that uh councilman Smallwood had mentioned about interlocal agreement you have Board of Education using a city building is there a Certificate of Insurance in the event of liability because if a child gets hurt there the city's going to get sued because I'm sure this buildings on your statement of values on your insurance policy so it's very important I don't know whether there is or there isn't but we should have a Certificate of Insurance from the board of education so the city's protected in the event of an accident thank you Mr Tucci just we've just uh when we were made aware of this last week we've already drafted a shared service agreement for City's consideration then it'll go over to the board and that we do address that in that does okay thank you for that very reason thank you Council mski thank you so it's my understanding that um the board of EDS plan to um to Ren this building is really just that it's just a renovation uh they're not going to make it bigger they're not going to change the layout of it it's just going to be new stuff in that same building and I think I really think we've outgrown it um right now it's used for um for um football and Lacrosse I think track maybe cross country um tennis but I think we can do better than just renovating it uh in place um I have lots of ideas but um uh you know I think the fact that we had this emergency we've replaced the roof the building is cleaner and drier than I've ever seen it um it was not a great building in 1992 either other than Nostalgia but um you know if you go if you go out behind that building for example there's a slope that goes down to a field right which is a green space and I don't think anybody wants to get rid of green spaces I've heard people talking plow just pull your microphone closer uh I've I've heard people talking over the past um you know several weeks about this and um why don't we just build a new building on the field a bigger building on the field then we can knock down the old building and make it a parking lot right but then we lose space where little kids can go and play football and play but there's a slope that goes down from the Fieldhouse and if you go out there and take a look you could double the footprint of that building and still have a decent Siz field there and you could build a floor underneath and you could build a floor on top and really quadruple the size of it now the the the Board of Education doesn't have the money for that at least they haven't bonded for it but um I think we need to to take a step back and see especially now that we we have a roof and the and the building is going to be usable let's I don't want to wait too long but let's not immediately move forward with a plan to just renovate that one area and let's see if we can do something better now this is you know something that I've been hearing from a lot of people and um I'd also like to thank um when this happened there were a whole bunch of um Hill tooper alumni who uh volunteered who are in the trade uh who volunteered their services to come and help um Ian Paxton came out to look at the roof um I know Jimmy Fleming would have done some electrical uh Mark Sheridan kind of brought it all together so I just want to thank those guys it was really a heartwarming thing to to see them come out it's my understanding we couldn't have let them do it um because of various um prevailing wage prevailing wage uh uh laws but they were there you know Marcus mcnamer said he'd paint for us so um you know let's let this be something that brings us all together and um and we can make some big improvements for the future down there council president I'd just like to add uh John calibri to that uh to that list of names uh quick question for uh our CFO um Tammy do you know if the Board of Education already bonded money for a renovation right and we as a c decided that we we didn't we wanted to do something different it's a city-owned property right what what technically would happen to that money that was bonded would the Board of Education be able to reappropriate that money to the city I mean if it's going for the same purpose I don't know generally they cannot usually when you have bonds it's with because remember bonds you're putting it out to sale to the general public and you municipal bonds School bonds Etc and there's a purpose for them um and so you have to stay within the purpose of what the bond was done for so if it was done for renovations it's got to be for renovations now you know if the city decided to add an addition to it you they could maybe use part of that money to renovate the existing space Etc but they couldn't repurpose it to go by school buses no no that my no my question is right if this Council decided to do something different with the Phil house right repurposing that money for the same reasons say yeah I'd have to look at the the bond and it's it's somewhat complicated too because you're a board of school estimates um and so the bonding capacity is actually through the city you know your school is unique there's not too many schools that are have Boards of school estimates most school districts um when they go out to bond they go out and it's got to be voter approved so the the voters have to vote on it you guys do it through the board of school estimat so we'd have to look at the bond we'd have to talk to your financial adviser it really depends on how they were marketed to the to the general public because it could it could affect um you know the value of those bonds um but you know we can take a look at that if that's something you guys want to explore and just to follow up and if the if the money is not used right if we can't use the money what happens to the bond so through you council president so it's similar to the city if the bonds aren't used you would cancel the balance it would go to their Surplus it would offset other other revenues or or taxes that they need to raise much like we do when we have a project that comes in under the cost we'll cancel that balance if we don't we we can reappropriate it I'm not sure as Mr jacobe laid out if the school is able to reappropriate um but we can do that or we can cancel the Surplus I would imagine that they could cancel whatever they don't use and potentially reappropriate but it depends we have to look at how it was done yeah thank you okay okay um are we confident that we don't need a plan B on this building in that are you yeah good well I mean I I went to the Board of Education meeting the other night and had a conversation with some board members I don't you know I I I think we can have a conversation with them to see what the future looks like um and you know we we can take it from there I I think the the main point was to get the football team back in there so that we wouldn't have to um have trailers for them or they have to commute from the high school and our the away team would have some issues it would just create so many issues so you know I'm really appreciative of the job that they did and and uh um to alleviate the parents concerns uh hopefully we can get a certificate that says there's no mold and maybe posted or something like that I know that that was the biggest concern from the parents they don't want their kids in that building so if we can have some documentation about that but our Construction office will not allow them to use the building unless it's been certified that all of the repairs are made I've been saying that yes yep I've been yeah um so yeah I think we we should have those those conversations with the Board of Ed um it is a city building right so I think we we need to remember that but I think we should do something for the future so thank you okay public comments go ahead good evening Don Nelson and the ls n 20 plan Street um I want to congratulate the city of summit and the board of ed for solving this problem uh what I'm really concerned about is how do we get to this point though somewhere along the line hopefully somebody complained and nothing was done accountability is a big thing uh I know this was an issue uh going back uh several years so you guys are kind of like coming into this at the tail end but why wasn't something if it's a city building a board ofed building who really cares I know it boils down to budgets and all that kind of stuff and who has the money but at the end of the day we can't use the building because it doesn't function the way it's supposed to there's molding at the whole deal so if somebody says there's a roof leaking why wasn't somebody paying attention to that I'm glad we came to a good conclusion here but now what's going to happen so if we trade if we if we swap Deeds with the with the um Board of Ed now it becomes their problem if we're talking about plans moving forward maybe we shouldn't swap the D with the Board of Ed if we want to do something different I'm just I'm just speaking out loud here but what I'm really concerned about is how do we get to this point why did nobody listen to someone who said there's a problem with that building and we just let it go to where to where we are today so I'm not asking for an answer I just want something that we need to think about moving forward we need to have accountability and I always say if you don't follow the rules you set new rules so in this case somebody complained nothing was done and here we are all right thanks hi Dory it's okay okay give me a couple extra minutes great uh Dory Gagnon 27 Bedford Road so in uh 1994 I was an athletic trainer for some of people here in this room um and that Fieldhouse was disgusting so Adam Fern he taught me a lot I rode the bus with these football players I was in that locker room um nothing had changed for years and I look at that Fieldhouse and it just sat there um Memorial Field tennis courts are horrible mentioned it at a board of ed meeting they're like rubber you can't play tennis on any real tennis player goes there and says these are garbage courts tatlock is amazing totally different material why do the tennis players have to go to Memorial to play tennis why couldn't that tatlock complex be made so we can have the athletes play there why couldn't we have more courts there why are there only limited amount of courts that are actually quality courts that these athletes can play on I asked Mark why does memorial have courts like that that these athletes are playing on good question right now bard of Ed $37 million later has only allocated so much for that that Fieldhouse to not even be fit for our new uh uh flag football athletes who are girls to be uh playing out of or are women lacrosse players or are TR track athletes you know there's so many athletes that could be using that space out of there's not enough parking on Butler Parkway our our Butler Parkway uh residents complain there's not enough parking so why can't we use that entire look at the entire space and say what can we do out of there you know going to board of aded meetings they don't answer you they look at you like thank you for your comment well guess what it's time to look at the entire space and say what can we do out of that do not give them that Fieldhouse stop right now and say okay we need to take it back let's use it for for football right now but let's use that space and think this is for our athletes I was an athlete there a lot of us were athletes there right Jam he was a football player when I was taping up his feet gross as they are let's take it back and let's make something great out of it now let's raise the money we have the money great athletes are here in some let's raise the money we can use it we don't have to just use our tax paying dollars but I guarantee we all use our heads together we can raise the money and make it great while we can do not let it go to waste I promise you we can make it great and put parking in please thank you any other public comments okay all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay councilwoman Hamlet your second resolution thank you council president this is resolution 11434 uh which will award the bid traffic signal Replacements on Springfield Avenue and Maple Street Springfield Avenue and Wood Road uh in accordance with the city treasur certification of availability of funds a copy of which is attached and made a part of this resolution and as recommended in a memo from the director of Department of Community Services bids received by the purchasing agent on Tuesday July 30th 2024 shall be awarded to the lowest responsive responsible bidder and that would be Tiffany electric at the amount of 768 22046 cents I would like to move to adopt this resolution second Council comments sorry to throw a ringer at this point in the evening but can we pull up the bids on the computer screen director Sher can you pull up the agenda on the screen sorry I just it's easier for I feel like everybody needs to see to follow like to follow along I have it here but where do I pull it how do you how do we get it up there Roos is there a way to do that got off script and I'm failing I'm sorry I don't it's in the P's it's okay if you can't it's just it's in the packet so I didn't know if we could pulp the packet on there so I guess my question is and maybe this goes to Mr giobi or um Mr Tui because I'm not the best at this but what defines mathematically unbalanced because a very Layman's view of this and I was just talking to director shreer about this earlier it seems to me that this bid is uh mathematically unbalanced and I would I'm hoping that somebody can prove to me why it's not um to give you a couple of examples in this specific bid there was three there was three bids the lowest bid if you look at specific line items number uh 11 which is Paving uh number 20 which is granite block curb uh number 42 which is the traffic signal cable 2 conductor there's a price of a cent a price of a Cent and a price of a Cent and then portable traffic signal for two items so my concern is are we going to build it in the contract that they have found a way to include those in the bid or are they going to come back and say we had the scope wrong or they going to come back and say 20% because the other two bids in those items seemed more appropriate so and I understand there's the front loading I understand unbalanced but if somebody can just and the also are you talking unbalance just with the discrepancy in the in the values of the total bids I'm looking at 768 for Tiffany 983 for JC Contracting and 1 1 Milli 58,000 for Sakara is that what you're talking about right so basically I'm saying do the dollar amounts with one cent the items that I just identified does that represent that they're not including it are they saying that we don't have the scope right because those are items that have to be included in the project no no so right right here so like Breakaway barricade drum traffic cone they're charging you $1 for them these are items that they reuse I'm not too worried about those yeah okay I'm worried about the more specific items that I know don't cost a cent which is traffic sa like you can't find that for a cent um the more important items that were appropriately uh with the other biders at 64,000 60,000 um you know again I understand that this is a this is the way this works sometimes but well no but it could be so for example let's just use the portable traffic signal you're talking about those two um these two biders here are charging 64 or 60 because they're going to rent them it could be that Tiffany owns them already because they do a lot of this work and can utilize their own without having to rent them out so I mean right here if this the bid's been reviewed um you have to go with the lowest responsible bidder and um you know I think that it's a substantial savings I mean literally it's more than $200,000 between the first and second bidder so I guess Mr Tucci through you council president if I ask you this question so when when we write the contractor we saying that this contractor has identified all of the labor equipment and materials to to accomplish this job like that would seem to be suffice and I believe there's a performance bond attached to this correct the the danger that you're run into and I'm not saying it's happening in this instance is when a contractor front loads that means he puts all the early items and charges you exorbitant amount and charges a little on the back end the danger is that if he ever walks away from the project he already has his money and he's gone and you're stuck holding the bag that's but I'm not saying that that's the case here as the solicitor said there's a $200,000 savings here so and Tiffany has been an experienced electrical contractor for many many years and you know they've done this I've seen them do it in numerous numerous towns so yeah my my but I understand your concern councilwoman it is a serious concern when you start seeing one penny uh outline items especially like on believe there's a aggregate there for one penny right right that's an item where they don't own that piece of equipment they have to go out and get it and obviously it doesn't cost one penny unless they have a Supply in their supply yard and and they they have access but I can tell you I think I think right now just looking at the the two big items um I mean just to give you an idea uh clearing site they're at 75,000 JC was at 85 zakara is at 25 so you know clearing site is is is is more work my guess is the big discrepancy The $64,000 and 60,000 the JC and Z Caro have are for the portable traffic control signals and they're charging $1 they probably own portable traffic signals and can allocate them for the site without having to go out and running them from like uned rental Council that right there would be 12 that's $128,000 or to $120,000 just Delta just on the two traffic temporary portable traffic control signals council president can I ask director Sher a question so I I think my concern here would be that they underbid and then you start seeing um change orders right and then they catch up to the other bids so they under bid to get the project right and then when they get the pro project you started seeing change orders come in now director Sher uh you keep an eye on and this stuff right so if you start seeing change orders and things of that nature that's something that's reportable correct yes through you council president and I think just to be fair or maybe unfair to contractors is whether they're overbid or under bid they're always looking to get a change order to make more money that's just how it works so obviously if if they've underbid and and what they've left money on the table as they will refer to sometimes yes it is something you should watch for which is why we will have construction over site during it but in the end they still have to provide the the product which is in provided in the spec specifications and plans that they've bid on and they're essentially legally bound to build it to that scope um to further Mr Jacob's comment which I agree with and I think is correct uh we don't know how hungry these three contractors are so Tiffany uh even if they are renting the equipment they decided to to to bid $1 and maybe they're just going to eat that cost maybe they get an incredible deal likely they own it or maybe there assuming they can get away without doing it which they can't because it's in the plans and specs so ultimately there's no change order for that they have to provide it and and the most likely answer is that they do physically own that equipment I mean they are a a traffic uh contractor so electrical contractor so that's the likely scenario and if you threw that together that brings their bid closer to the engineer's estimate and closer to the second bidder and I think then it might not look as as as funny so but it's definitely something we want to be aware of because you do have front loading and you also have in the traffic signal world right now material is taking so long to get but they have to pay up front so they are going to play some games in their bid because they have to pay up front it might be 6 12 18 months before they get the equipment so they're kind of playing a game a little bit too so but it's it's not legal to underbid and then um at the end of the project they are 200,000 they've caught up to the the highest bidder right this something that the city keeps an eye on correct well change orders can only be they can't exceed a 20% so that's the maximum under the law so 20 you know uh 20 even if you had change orders at 20% for the 768 it's still less than the second bid at 983 but you would never have change orders and again you have performance Bonds on this you know this is a a big job so you know you got there's a lot of protections and as Aaron said the change orders are generally done for um you know unanticipated things they they dig down into the dirt and they find out that there's 12T of Bedrock that they now have to Jackhammer and blast out to put in the traffic signal well then that was something that was unforeseen you'll see a lot of times when they do when they're doing building repairs they come across all the spus pipes and they have to do aestus abatement that was unforeseen it was behind walls um so but under under you know New Jersey Law you have to go with the the um least uh expensive most competitive bid from the responsible bidder and Tiffany definitely has done this work literally all over the state they're a known entity in the traffic signal control so you know we can't pick and choose say well we think they got it wrong because guess what if they get it wrong then that wasn't you know they lose money in this job and it's it's through through you council president but but yes to to your you know concerned really obviously would if they've bit a penny on wire they're going to sit there and try to use as little wire as possible but the quantity they bid on is what we feel is needed for them to build it the right way the numbers are going to go up and down just because of the way the field changes but not drastically and not for them to try to change that nor can they come and say you know we were wrong it's not a penny it's actually five they can't do it without unforeseen condition that would warrant and justify legally how they could do that so I think in the end we just want to make sure that the city has an eye on this project that's all right so yep absolutely council president I have three quick thoughts number one is we need the new signals nobody's saying we don't need the new signals so the bidder is responsible so we have to go with them and I don't think anybody's actually advocating that we spend more money so I want to change the subject which is number three all the traffic signals in the downtown except for these few are green these ones are much older and are silver and ugly uh I am publicly going out on a little bit of a limb here and saying I think we should get black ones moving forward we uh the rest of the downtown this is going to take this is going to be something that if we commit to doing is going to take many many many years uh because we're not going to need to replace the other ones for a while but when we do want to replace the other ones I think black is sharper I think it looks nicer I think it fits with the theme of our small town feel and I don't really like the color green so that's that's where I am on it uh and I think you know we're 18 12 18 months out from seeing these get installed anyway right so I think we have a long time to get people starting to think this would be a cool better sharper looking downtown thank you okay can you paint them can you paint the other ones I knew going to ruin your night with this no well there's we have a lot of traffic signals throughout town and yes they're either green if they've been replaced and they're newer or if they're older they're they're silver um in some capacity so uh could they be painted yes at a significant cost because you just can't go up there and just paint it with a brush so essentially you'd be taking the signal down I can share that possibly 10 years ago STI did visit this issue of changing all of their lighting downtown to Black and kind of Hit the same snag where it's like it's not cheaper to replace everything but you're getting close to it because really the way to do it properly is to take it off the footing uh bring it somewhere sand blast it and repaint it so there there has been let's switch to Black um you know discussions in the past um green is just the way it's always been right it's something we could we could definitely switch to if we wanted to but that would be then setting the city on the course of black fixtures and and um traffic lights moving forward um so and if you look The Village Green I believe those are black are they not so yes so Council just to just to respond though real quick um you know the color great bid Lois I get it um but we shouldn't dismiss Council women Hamet concerns and thank you for raising them right these are the questions that we should ask about the bidding process um what's fair making sure that um our our city is has their eyes on the project um and so that we are properly allocating taxpayer money so thank you for raising it thank you I'm going to go back to Mr Tucci three council president is this mathematically unbalanced if you say it's not then I'm but if you if you've looked at this and we have a memo that say this is not mathematically or material unbalanced it it is an unbalanced bid but technically it's it's allowed under the bidding law right the real concern that I have is if it's front loed or not because that puts it is that puts the city on in an awkward position and I agree with councilman for T it should be black I thank you I think that's my my concern is that it is front-loaded it is front loed and again I know they're the lowest they're probably great but but unbalanced and it's front loaded Tiffany is a very reputable firm can I through you council president can I ask what we're actually advocating are you actually advocating that we that we reject it and then pay more no I want to know I want to know for the taxpayers is this mathematically unbalanced just if someone gives me an answer and then when they come back and they say hey we spent $85,000 on mobilization costs and then they start kicking the can down the road and they get this windfall of other things that they found that might be more I guarantee you if we hadn't brought this up their number probably was going to be just just about as close to that second bid look at the change orders tonight for the firehouse the can only be up to 20% so miss you're missing the point it's not the point but I I guess my question is are you are you suggesting we should vote against it I think that we need our professionals to tell us whether it's unbalanced and front loaded and then we can make a decision and I know you just got here so I'm sorry I can't I can't say it's it's front loaded is it unbalanced yes front loaded I'd have to look at it a lot closer depending upon what the sequence of the operation is unbalanced is that it's the way that monies were allocated within the bid um you know their mobilization is higher than the other two um they're clearing the sights higher but then other things I mean I think at the end of the day what you have to do with a bid is you award the bid to the lowest responsible bidder and then you hold them accountable and you make sure that Aaron and his team goes over any change ORD so for example if they say oh um you know the Seto the set manhole castings uh we bid it at $500 but it really should be a th000 too bad that's not a change order you're not entitled to do it so we have we have a lot of control getting a change order is basically asking permission from Aaron to agree to it and if Aaron says no that was part of the original bid you you priced it out we're not doing it that too bad so sad they lose all right so I would ask I'm sorry councilman plasy hold on one second so change orders do have to go through a process absolutely they can't do a change order right Mr Sher and his team have to approve a change order and generally so give you an example the firehouse just give you one example they did the whole thing they did the change order that you that is one of the change orders was New Jersey Transit said you need to pay one of our engineer an engineer out there with red signals if you get close to the wires that was unforeseen no one knew that you needed to have a New Jersey Transit signal man out on the train tracks with a red flag right that was a change order right um but that has to be approved we had to approve that to get the job done Etc and we'll deal with who's responsible for paying that here you know putting in the traffic signals we know how many uh posts they need we know how many lights they need we need another conduit that's not where they're going to have the change orders usually change orders are are something that's unforeseen right so in this instance they're going to have a hard time getting change orders because the the the the specs that went with this are fairly detailed about where they're going the size the location the height what's required I I think that um uh you know a lot of this is also equipment if you look at the the different things that that are being set forth here Jun junction boxes um I mean I don't know I don't know anything about electricity but I can just tell you looking at this looks like a lot of it a lot of the big expenses are the actual um manufactured lighting and poles and equipment and if you look they're pretty they're pretty close all the way through all of them so you know my feel my recommendation would be I would award it cuz I think if you reject this and go back out you're going to spend more money I think you're in better you're in a stronger position to award it because even if they got 20% change orders which they're not going to get 20% change orders but even if they did that would be about $160,000 768 plus 160 is still less than the next bid at 983 so even if you did all 20% change orders this is still cheaper okay um but I just wanted to recognize that the change orders do happen I mean we look for $60,000 so I don't know when you compare the different projects what gets what is front loaded on any project so I guess that would be my question so change orders happen they have to go through a process but they do occur so I don't my question to you is what is um the concern for this particular project versus any project that we bid out because they all go out to bid for for me it's the mobile it's the equipment's not in included and the mobilization is high at the front end and then again do they have the time labor and material all included because they're missing the big pieces so they could walk away after that 80 grand with no equipment no traffic signals I mean and you have and you have a performance bond you call in the bonding company and they finish the job for free for the for the contract got it okay that's for not extra is what I'm saying and I just sort of looked at all this in last I'm going to go to councilman kski first cuz he raised his hand and then I'll come back to you um so um first of all there's no better color than green Greg so um I like um I don't doubt that we need new traffic lights but those lights seem to work why do we need new traffic lights for you council president so those are the uh third and fourth oldest traffic signal that we do have have in town so right now we don't have the ability to um they don't have they're not pedestrian activated uh they don't they have the countdown heads but they don't meet any current standards as we go to replace them it's getting harder and harder to find parts um we'd like to make them smart signals so they talk to each other so even if you could overhaul everything you get to the point where it's just not cheaper to do that as opposed to replacing them though this is by no means a bargain to replace them but um you know in terms of making them generator ready having a better backup system it's it's just time to to bring them they're they're 30 plus years old so yeah okay could we hook one of those up in my basement the signal itself or the old ones oh the old ones yeah you could bid for them on govdeals.com and we auction them off somebody wants to buy them okay yes good enough yeah councilman Smallwood uh thank you council president I'm going to take uh little thing from from Greg and I I have three things um one I'm in the wrong business cuz if I could charge $700,000 for lights I would do it two I I don't really care what colors what color they are like as long as the yellow green and red lights work I know that in this intersection Maple Street and Springfield as well as Beachwood and Springfield at 11:00 those lights go yellow on on Springfield they're flashing yellow on Maple it's flashing red on Beachwood they're flashing red currently right now and I'm I'm assuming this is one of the reasons why we need to replace the one at Maple Street in Springfield is because I actually recorded it it's a red with a flashing yellow light so I I wasn't quite sure if I needed to stop or if I should just go with caution I decided to stop um it's use your discretion but yeah I mean are we just replacing the traffic signal or are we also replacing the crosswalk signals as well through your council president so it would be every component of the traffic signal system so yes it would be the the buttons you hit it would be the countdown timers it would be the physical posts the Mast arms the signal heads the controller boxes which um I think they're both on the Southeast corner of the intersections but yes every part of it would be um essentially removed and replaced so you could really compare it to the signals on the forest which are probably getting close to eight or nine years right now those were replaced by the city and if you saw what those were prior they look similar to what is currently downtown so okay yeah thank you sorry all right my last comment is just on the finances of this uh in the memo it says NJ doot will reimburse the city 75% of the cost the the true number for this project correct director Sher is about a million dollars and then the remaining it says here the remaining 25% will be reimbursed at the conclusion of the project so NJ do is 484 city of summit is on the hook for the remainder correct yes right so through our capital budget so I believe the bond number was a little bit off I spoke with um the CFO this morning about it but just so you understand that the again the police costs aren't included in that the the design costs were included in that so it's it's larger than 778 it's almost a million doll project at what point do we get that information that's Miss so I I could take that for you council president well you are council president so just to you um there is a lot of of soft cost in all these projects so when we present a capital budget to the governing body that includes that so we're taking construction cost design costs inspection costs uh and yes some of those we do inhouse at times when we have uh staff availability um and and the capability to do so too save some money uh and but police as well so uh and then what we produce we just did one recently and we're working to get them out is at the conclusion of a project you could actually see you know what was budgeted what was cost cost including the um uh soft cost you can see the project total so and that includes section 20 yes so so what is what we request in the capital budget is to cover everything MH um and then what there could be 20 to even 30 40% more based on soft cost depending on on what police coverage you need or or what design work is needed or if there's permitting um but here it would probably be close to you know 900,000 total when we're done yeah okay but we're getting a$ 84,000 grant for this correct that is correct yes okay and that won't reach the highest bidder that that final total when you just said around 900,000 no so well that's including the soft cost so construction cost you know likely will go up or down somewhat I mean we're not going to be per with the exact distance or length of wire that we specified but um yes construction should stay somewhere in there or could go as high as 20% higher um we hope not we don't think so and then this is an addition to it so so that those soft cost would be whether we award the highest bid or the lowest bitter the soft costs are going to be added to that cost yeah okay okay all right councilman Hamlet councilwoman El to say about all right any other comments okay uh public comments say community comments all right I'm going to take a vote all in favor I I I any opposed motion carries okay um we are going to table no we're on number number three three yep aren't we tbling that one I written down number three excavator okay sorry number three thank you this is resolution 11402 whereas under the authority of njsa 5234 6.2 the city of summit is permitted to join National Cooperative purchasing agreements the superintendent of Public Works requests approval for the purchase of one new 2024 e35 24hp R2 series Bobcat mini excavator as a multi-use machine for the DPW equipment inventory uh the amount of this bobcat is52 8136 which will be purchased through sourcewell contract I would like to adopt this resolution second okay Council comments public comments all in favor I I any opposed motion carries councilwoman Hamlet sorry I'm just moving through here I apologize s oh right sorry find it okay uh this resolution number 11426 as discussed in closed session sorry uh will be to appoint Stephanie sulos as the municipal housing Le on officer effective August 9th I would like to move this resolution for adoption I did that without anything in front of me it's amazing okay Council comments public comments All in favor I any opposed motion carries coun Hamlet uh thank you this is resolution id1440 as discussed in close session this will declare a vacancy in the division of Public Works in the recreation parks and Shad unit I would like to as a for maintenance worker I would like to adopt this resolution second okay Council comments public comments all in favor I any opposed motion carries we just want to announce that we didn't skip this over we're just tbling it yes just number five so the resolution number five I'm don't have 1433 okay 114 okay there we go 11433 is going to be tabled and councilwoman Hamlet I think she's done she's done wait why do I have a mixed up we're on safety okay safety councilman Boer thank you council president this is ID number 11 1431 authorizing the purchase of 2024 Chevy Tahoe I move to adopt this resolution Second Great Council comments public comments all in favor I hi any opposed motion carries okay at this time we're going to vote on the consent agenda does anyone have any resolutions they' like to pull out I have one okay actually I guess I have two do you want oh uh one one I well let me um do I have a motion to approve the consented well no you can second and and then we can talk about it all right do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved okay do I have a second second okay go ahead uh I just want to pull out 11 1436 11428 and 11384 11436 mhm all three number two three and four and cap okay uh and 11450 sorry annoying okay can you tell us why I can can you repeat the last one please uh so it's 11450 11436 11428 and 11384 okay my apology apologies if we can start with uh three council president 11436 yep so this is the odor delivery of odor chemicals so I guess director Sher you can give a better dis discussion you explain this to the public my concern with this and I know I know the patent expired on bioxide but we have an issue on Park Avenue where the sewer smell is coming into a certain community and it's the entire neighborhood smells like sewage and we recently found out that there's a vent down there that vents out the sewage smell that was broken but my I guess my question director shager is how do we fix this problem down on Park Avenue what what do you recommend yes through you council president so the odor has been you know intermittently um noticeable there for for literally decades and it's something that um we feel has vastly improved since we have switched to a better odor treatment um process which is currently this is a chemical called bioxide uh which in itself is pretty benign but it does uh effectively treat sewage your sewage odors that are created uh generally a result of of two things heat uh a high temperature within the the sewage itself or you know the the formation of sludge if you're holding sewage um which the city uh and its Partners do do not currently so so it's likely just a result of of the heat in a system that is um older so you do have some buildup along the sewer lines so uh previously we had just used a sodium hypochloride just a drip system it was very just um outdated Antiquated system where it just literally just dripped continuously so we have over the last few years switched to this this system which is a monitored um you know introduction of bioxide into the line at our pump stations um to to combat the odor itself so we've had a lot of success where we do get caught off guard sometimes is just when you have the high temperatures like this summer when we had heat for quite a while Without Rain where the rain will assist in kind of flushing the lines um it it did creep up on us a little bit so we've put a process in place to just know where we could just increase the dosage more rapidly for that but we also based off of this summer we'll be like doubling our tripling just the hot months just to start with um regardless uh and then as it goes into the colder months we do tapered down quite a bit you're trying to use as much as possible to treat it but not so much that we're just you know blowing through a budget cuz it's not a free chemical by any means so um we had a contract for two years which we then renewed it had a two-year renewal so we're entering year four of this product so um we were going back we're requesting to go back out to bid to get the purchase and delivery of this product uh once again it is a specified product which is called bi oxide which may have lost its patent so we might get other options which could you know the the good side is that that might result in the cost savings um but it could result in a product we're not familiar with but uh we hope our specs are tight enough to get us something that's at least approved equal to what we're currently using so so yes this should help uh Council M Hamlin had referred to that we do have a sewer vent that was uh damaged since it does just look like a white 4-in PVC pipe likely it was never reported I can't say when it was knocked down we're working to get that restored but that will help with some of the odor when it does release because it has a filter on have to treat the odor so okay question y through you is there a permanent solution rather than treating like to change if you change the line it made the line bigger or a newer line rather than through an older line rather than continuing to treat it with chemicals a onetime solution to solve the issue it is that a possibility and I know it probably would cost a lot but just want to throw that out there right now for you council president that's a good question so I I could share we are we do have some users and I don't want to publicly call them out that we are investigating that have some systems in place that we're not fully sure of nor are they actually so that we are poking around with them I know I can say we observed a few months back at 3: in the morning there was a manhole uh in a location that'll remain anonymous that did have high flows and a hot flow um which definitely would contribute to it so we've been meeting with those um users to try to see if if that's that's that would be something more permanent that's not to say in a brand new line if it's hot like that you you likely it's a natural byproduct of the sewage conveyance and and treatment um process so um but yeah we will be looking at more more permanent things that could help reduce the frequency uh it'll never be zero but but we will be looking at that as well yeah look forward to having a discussion with you on that yes thank you you okay councilwoman Hamlet that was that was it that's it I have other just on that one just on that way yeah council president I just I just had one thing that was in the uh um in the budget packet and it was for a uh 2024 Ford Bronco and it looks like this is this say Works uh director Sher do you know what the purpose of this vehicle is is for other than driving it yes for council president that is a replacement vehicle for what is um identified is DCs 210 which is a believe a 2001 Ford Explorer uh so it's just a replacement in the fleet uh why are Bronco versus other vehicles um quite simply we use the Morris County Co-op and whatever SUV they have um is generally what we we purchase some years it's an Escape some years it's an Explorer this happened to be a Bronco year so um that was the purchase that was made so yeah so it's a replacement for the DCS engineering department just a question um have we ever looked at like purchasing vehicles from let's say uh one of the rental car dealerships like budget or something like that I mean I know they have cars that they sell after people are done with them or whatever they're 15 you know $16,000 as opposed to Brian new there may be some benefit to buying a a $40,000 car keeping it for a long time I don't know but I'm just thinking about costs um yes for you council president so the city has um especially with some specialized equipment in the past I can't say for certain if they actually did uh I just know in the current economy where you you have used vehicles are almost as not as expensive but are are not a bargain anymore that this this is generally what happens uh and plus you know especially when you get to Public Works the the abuse that the vehicles take just through the natural occurrence that to start kind of halfway through a vehicle's life um will just add to the repair cost and the maintenance of it so like for example pickup tricks which are not cheap on the used market right now uh when you start plowing snow on them that that vehicle life is going to just you know go down rapidly um which is unfortunate part of living in the Northeast but so so yes we have but not in this instance no so yeah councilman Boyer is there a resolution on here for that that you were just inquiring about it's a it's a bill yeah it's a bill it's it's a on the bill it's in the bill list um because I'm familiar with the the four br Broncos and they don't have a lot of space in them so I don't know what you'd be able to put in it from a um like how usable is it you know I yes no through council president so for the DCS engineering and and generally DCS since they are out uh in the they're not hauling a lot of materials you know they're able to take especially like if it's engineering that uses it it's it's really just shovels and and pickaxe and some cone in the back um and if anything the the seats are needed more for transportation of of people than actually Goods um but it's comparable to an escape which is generally what the fleet's kind of move to um over the last few years um but if it was for something for like public works then then yes they might want something larger or more like a pickup truck which has less um capability to transport bodies as but more space to just haul materials and goods so okay but but I agree it's not the largest SUV and if you look at Morris County Co-op that we purchased it from I believe they're called midsize or small size SUV so and these vehicles are stored on the lot there are they are they driven home or no they're stored um DC DCS vehicles are in the back lot or up front so um and then obviously got a lot of use just during the their natural life but yes thank you director perfect okay did you have any other you had the other three three others okay so this is uh ID 11428 the Hobart Avenue sidewalk project um director Sher I didn't get to look at this one so I guess for for those of you here up on the the de and those in the audience it looks like a change order of about $2,400 but today rap for the meeting as I was looking at this as I should have probably asked him last week um a couple questions that I had on this one are we in initially there was a fire hydrant there I'm assuming we decided we did not have to relocate that is that correct that is so we got a credit for 7500 but my questions are why did we go from 4 in sidewalk to 6 in and then did we have to put that Belgian block apron in there because at 300 uh 300 is that I'm not sure it doesn't say if that's what type that is if I I forget in the initial bit if it was square yard or linear but we added $5,600 worth of concrete $1,000 of hot mix asphalt 6 in concrete for sidewalk and 6,500 a Belgian block but then we removed the fire hydrant and I'm just trying to understand what happened so through the absent council president um there's I this just kind of highlights how projects go where in this case you know changes that were made to not have to relocate the fire hyren resulted in additional sidewalk I know during this project as well there was also uh some extension of the sidewalk towards uh the arbor that wasn't in the plans so obviously while we're there if we had money in the capital account to go up a few dollars was was worth it and I think that went through a prior caps Committee just that was going to happen but um but but in general just you know going up 2% is is kind of to be expected at a time um when there's there's generally always something unforeseen but we try to reduce it so so we basically added more sidewalk that initially planned and then that's why the the concrete the sidewalk number was more in the Belgium Block yes okay correct thank you fair enough and then the last one was 11384 uh my concerns with this change order um was the soil contamination on that project and I was I did receive some things from you like right as I was sitting down um but has Boswell sent us the final inspection report was it Boswell or kers I can't remember Boswell oversaw it well through the empty chair um Boswell did provide the construction oversight during that um so yes so we we do have their inspection reports for dayto day um that that highlight some of what's happened here so is there a reason that they haven't sent us the final report no if we and maybe I misunderstood I apologize but I I had sent you just the soil report I didn't their inspection reports I I didn't send but I could have my you could do that after the meeting that would be great um I'm not 100% comfortable without getting the buzwell report but I trust that we have it and it will you know obviously I just think it's important to have the entire report we pay them a lot of money to do the the survey scope and things like that um y all set I am I had one final question to Chief ever on your change order I figured me a second sorry I without looking at it um through you council president my question Chief is there was five or so smaller change orders that had the um the RFI request in them are we billing any of that back to they were they were pretty clear right there was there was pretty clear things that were missing that seem to have not been identified in the scope so are we getting a credit back for those items yeah president um there is one credit back so there's um change order 12 through 16 the first one the hydrant hydrant credit that's credit back to us the rest of these are all this um parts of the building that we had to add or modify thre to work of a building the rest of these are not credits backs there are some previous change orders in the project that we are getting credit back for the end of the project some of the things that could be negotiated but this this change order tonight resolution is only one credit back at number 12 okay right and while you're standing here Chief can I add on to that um just we're we're all these change orders we still very much within the budget contingency right now like I said in the past a typical contingency but percentage budget for this project is 5 to 10% that's about $ 750 to $1.5 million right now we are less than 1% of construction change orders so far so thank you okay thank thank you great thank you sorry sorry we're within budget for the firehouse within that we're within the budget for the firehouse I'm sorry Jude through you council president yes right now we are currently in budget yes y okay and there are the the only one outl right there is New Jersey Transit that was not budgeted for right but we agreed that we sent a called CCD constructive chain directive at beginning of the project that end of the project that's going to come back up that we feel the contract liable for that so we did so that's something that but take that out of the equation we are within a budget currently great I've been close but we are within a budget and we all the credits back end of the day we should be we should be fine so I've been hearing the opposite so that's good to hear y thank you great thank you well I think uh through your C president may I think I just want to be clear that unless that one piece is solved correct unless the New Jersey Transit we have to settle that piece we have a decent amount of litigation with them correct yeah there there is retainage so every time we make a payment to the contractor the retainage held back plus the final payment there are quite a few items that we're going to have to negotiate at the end of the project that we feel the contractor to give us credit it's quite a big number we're still going over the number but end of the project we'll have to sit down with the attorney and their attorney and go over all the little you know negotiation back and forth but our hope at that end of the day we're have a lot of a lot of money will be come back to us for credit thank you are we good any other Council comments good okay public comments okay all in favor hi hi any opposed motion carries okay so um before we go to public comments I am going to make a personal statement um thank you so I've lived in sum with my family for over 15 years um over those years Summit has taught me that volunteering is a way of life participating in that lifestyle of giving back has led me to serve on Council the last three and a half years and this past year as your council president being on Council comes with challenges but so so does any leadership position serving the public to me is incredibly rewarding and being up here has given me a chance to learn grow and truly appreciate the intricacies of local government and the dedication of everyone involved I am continually impressed by the city's remarkable staff and while recent changes have been have uh presented have been unexpected challenges I am certainly confident that Summit is on a strong path forward our city remains vibrant welcoming and a true wonderful place that we call home so with this in mind it is with a heavy heart tonight um that for some personal reasons um I'm going to be stepping away from my position on common Council and clerk Li gave me pineapple pizza to remind myself not to cry so tonight's going to be my final meeting and while I am tendering my resignation for personal reasons my family and I are going to continue to live in be involved in town in the town that we love that we cherish and that we live in and I'm going to start by um cheering on the football team at their home game on Saturday so as elected officials we are all civic-minded volunteers driven by passion and desire to make our town better each of us here and every one of us who has served before us has made some kind of beneficial contribution to our community it's and it's important to honor that Legacy as a body we are currently addressing the issues that matter most to all of our residents and fulfilling our commitments we're keeping our community safe we're standing against overdevelopment and more importantly we're ensuring residents feel comfortable and empowered to engage productively with Council whether it's in the community or at these meetings while disagreement is a natural part of politics I've always strived to keep these differences from becoming personal and instead focus on policies that serve the best interests of you our residents I want to extend my deepest appreciation to all the city staff who's helped me grow as a council woman and council president most of you know who you are if you're watching um and I can't name everyone here but I will reach out individually to express my gratitude in the room Rosemary Tammy and Matt your support has been incredibly invaluable especially this past year thank you all for your guidance and your mentorship mayor Fagan I'd like to thank you for leading our town with such Grace and vision it has been an honor to work alongside you I truly believe you are the Right leader K you for summit's continued growth and well-being during these times to my Council colleagues I believe that the together for Summit team has been a wonderful addition to council this year your genuine desire to put residents first to engage them in the neighborhoods and help address the issues they care about is unparalleled fixing aging infrastructure addressing excessive flooding repairing Bridges and Roads and pedestrian safety are all the core responsibilities of local government and your commitment to these causes have been unwavering each of you brings a unique perspective that enriches policymaking Greg and Andy we've worked together for over three years and I know you both care about serving our residents importantly I believe we have more in common than not and I hope that our shared goals like expanding sidewalks and improving parks and fixing our facilities will continue to guide that work I could go on and on about my colleagues but I'm going to keep it short because it's getting late um lastly I want to express my deepest gratitude to the residents of summit who have supported me over the last several years especially during the challenging Broad Street West deliberations together we stood up for Summit we fought against overdevelopment and we won your incredible encouragement and your Unity your Unity across the political Spectrum to preserve summit's charm gave me hope and it kept me going embracing both the ups and downs over the last three and a half years I am so proud to have served Summit alongside such dedicated colleagues sorry okay my hope is that I have contributed toward making Summit a little bit better than when I started didn't think it was being start got it and that my legacy will be one of a focusing do we have tissue can I have a tissue that'll stop me for a second I apologize everybody Robin Williams just walked in okay so my hope is that I've have contributed towards making Summit a little bit better than when I started and that my legacy will be one that's focused on what needs to get done listening with an open heart and showing empathy for all residents regardless of their backgrounds their economic status and their ideological beliefs again a heartfelt thank you to everybody to all of you for the opportunity and privilege of serving our special city of summit I look forward to continuing to see you around town not as your elected official but as your neighbor and your friend so thank you okay um okay Council comments yeah you can go I have a break yeah yeah you know we'll take a um does anyone else need to use the restroom really quickly yeah we'll take a five minute break just five minute break want to call it back to um call the meeting back to order I am going going to open it up to public comments um at this point in the meeting Council welcomes comments from any member of the public about issues that are not uh topics on tonight's business agenda whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement or has a question please provide a copy to the city clerk at cityclerk cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers please say your name your home address and please limit your comments to 3 minutes if you come up and you are also representing an organization please indicate which organization you are speaking for please come up okay hold on one second wait wait wait wait wait wait okay one more hold ready no are you gonna who's going to take over the timer uh Dory Gagnon 27 bed for first that was like a real shocker so um obviously I have nothing prepared and I usually don't because I usually have my arms in the air and you're going to miss the arms but I want to say that I appreciate you I didn't I didn't know you I knew you as a councilwoman 3 years ago with Broad Street West and you were the only one up here who listened to me you were the only one who fought for this town and stood up alongside us for residents for Summit and I want to thank you for having a voice with me and fighting back because if it weren't for you Broad Street West would have been built and I know you've had three years of a lot but I want you to know but because of you that building is not here today so you came as a councilwoman but you're leaving as my friend So Lisa alen I appreciate you thank you thank you good evening yeah you won't even need that um I'm Claire to at 11 Sunset Drive um at its July 30th meeting Council passed a new ordinance governing storm water management I was not able to attend that meeting um though I watched it director shreer also was not there so the ordinance adopted on June 30th didn't have a written explanation to accompany it um and council member Hamlet who put it Forward didn't give an oral overview there was no comment at the public hearing either from Council Members or from the the community storm order Management's becoming critical witness the damage caused on August 18th when we received 5 inches of rain in 2 hours Rivers CED through our streets and jumped the curbs yards eroded houses that have never had water problems flooded last year a storm on July 4th caused similar damage and Summit has no city-wide plan to deal with this so I'd appreciate an explanation in Lay person's terms of what this new or does what it changes and why it's an improvement over what we had had thank you do we order yeah I'll let others come up and then we'll get to that okay there are there any other public comments okay good evening everybody uh mark FBR Court um I'm here to discuss um with the changing of weather and the beautiful day today and and some beautiful autumnal weather uh you know coming our way I I did want to just briefly discuss um outdoor dining in Summit um and specifically the possibility of closing uh Maple Street to create a dedicated outdoor dining space and I know this has been spoken about um uh you know from very various perspectives over the last uh you several months um and import importantly but I wanted to just say I think we need to strike a balance between uh ensuring safety and and traffic flow on the one hand uh and promoting the vibrancy of outdoor dining on the other uh I think sort of currently we seem to be stuck in an All or Nothing approach which is you know either a permanent closure for half the year or no closure at all um and this has created an impass and I I do believe that there are alternative solutions that are worth exploring that address both safety and traffic concerns while still supporting outdoor dining um on Maple Street so from what I understand uh permanently closing a street is an arduous process it's something we need to be able to demonstrate to the New Jersey Department of Transportation uh that such closure would uh increase safety and improve traffic flow this is difficult with Maple Street given that it's one of two fully North South Streets as everybody knows um you know downtown along with with along with smm Avenue uh but my understanding is that the Department of Transportation approval is not required for a closure of 48 hours or less and I would propose that Council consider closing Maple Street for 48 hours each weekend during the next couple of months of of beautiful Autumn weather as I mentioned at the beginning and I think specifically we could look at closing the street from Friday at 4 p.m. to Sunday at 4 p.m. um in past Council meetings you know people have pointed out significant barrier to expanding outdoor dining has been uh the cost and Logistics associated with setting up and maintaining outdoor furniture uh my understanding is that historically though there have been grants to enable outdoor dining uh there are Furniture uh furniture rental companies that might be able to uh we could engage with and I think there are creative ways to just make this financially viable for restaurants that participate um this 48 hour alternative might not be as ideal for restaurants as a permanent closure but it's at least a middle ground to get started with um we can evaluate it success we can you know then we can either scrap it we can modify it uh based on what we learn but overall I think if it works we could think aspirationally and expand the concept to other streets in Summit or even on a rotational basis so I'd say just in closing as a member of summit's Economic Development advisory committee uh where we look to support all of our Town's businesses and drive visitors to our commercial districts um I believe this initiative could benefit our community and I encourage the council to work with some at downtown Inc and other local resources um to explore this alternative further thank you thank you you email okay Don Nelson 20 plan street I'm shocked you're leaving us thank you for your guidance over the last few months thank you for all your got for all you've done for the for Summit over the last few years uh we're going to miss you and I was really shocked tonight so enjoy your time now and we're going to miss you thanks thanks don't you make me cry Deb Deb mccan for cult road so I'm not going to look at her because I'm G to cry um so as someone who you know Dory saying she just made friends with her I've been friends with Lisa uh say your name and address Oh I thought I did oh you did I did oh but I'll say it again okay Deb mccan for cult Road sorry about that so I've known Lisa since we started at um in monore our kids were in monasi so like preschool so I've known Lisa for a very long time and now we have kids in college so um the thing I can just say about her is what you see up here is is is her you know so is you haven't changed in the the um how long 20 years I've known you um and and so you know I just want to say thank you um when I say you haven't changed I I mean that in your heart and that all you ever were focused on was what's best for Summit that's never Chang from the days where we started saying should we start getting involved in this town um and I went Board of Ed path she went the council path but always everything was 100% what's best for Summit um so that has not changed what has changed is is um just you know the um it really hasn't changed but just the the honesty The Bravery you know what I've witnessed over the years is just amazing so thank you for everything you have definitely left to mark on this city thank you okay are there any other Council comments I mean I'm sorry public comments sorry okay I'm going to close public comment and I'm going to kick it off to my Council colleagues are there any Council comments yes uh thank you Council res let me just grab one of these just in case um wow I wasn't uh planning on that but uh let me just get to what I actually wrote um so I want to give an update on the Department of Community programs for this past summer uh this year the Department of Community programs hosted the largest Recreation summer camp in our history some of the highlights we welcome the new director Maddie as AER Mei Ezra meny thank you uh who did a fantastic job running the day-to-day operations we're increased Camp capacity by 60 to a total of 450 campers we continued the trian inclusion program to allow for camp campers with special needs a unique and supportive environment strategically we implemented uh the use of corn hog Fieldhouse to a secondary so that a secondary Camp uh was allowed and the location that allowed this for the The increased campers for the first time ever we transported our campers to and from swim lessons and swim and allowed the swim team for maximum program UTI utilization all of these new additions were intertwined with everyone's favorite camp activities our campers enjoyed their trips to Six Flags Asbury Park tubing and more we fostered volunteer fostering volunteerism remained an important experience by our older campers by having them work with grace and the tiny Forest every week the fire department made weekly visits the summit free market the summit free public library held Story Time with their young younger campers each week and mayor Fagan even had donuts with the mayor uh day to celebrate the last week of camp it was a wonderful summer and we know that everyone enjoyed it we we're already looking forward to next summer and even bigger and better the summer on the Village Green remained a popular as ever five mon five movies five concerts and National Night Out were all huge successes it is these events that really help to bring our city together and celebrate what is important our sense of community the events wrapped up with the Brian Kirk and the jerks at the rained out National National Night Out in I've never seen the Village Green so packed yesterday was the conclusion of another banner year at the summit summit family Aquatic Center there were 42,1 39 visits by members and 7,272 guests uh members visited our pool we kicked off the summer with a hot summer M Memorial Day weekend and ended with another packed Labor Day there were over 50 kids involved in our swimming lessons for for each of the six weeks that the lessons were held our Summit shark shark swim team went six and2 for another amazing season daily senior Aquatics kept our seniors fit in the water with up to 50 par participants on any given day Wednesdays remained everyone's favorite float night this summer we had our newest addition to the special events programming with a brand new water polo class complimenting the already existing paddle board and kaying classes so who needs to go away when we have our own Summit Resort so I want to thank give a special thanks to Mark ozoroski and uh David Guida and their team as well as the pool managers for all of their hard work this summer they did a great job we did have a couple of hiccups with the pump on one uh of the hottest Sundays uh so we actually had to close the pool down for that but they were they did such a great job and getting that back up and running within 24 hours so um again a special thanks to Mark oosi and uh M uh Mark ozoroski and David Guida for their hard work over the summer now everybody baseball every baseball all right pineapple pizza I'm not even following Jamal this time uh everybody knows that you know I'm the emotional one here so uh Lisa I I've known you for many years and uh I all I can say is it has been a a privilege working with you for the past eight months on this de um hopefully I W obviously gonna know you for much longer um but thank you for all your hard work you endured some unfortunate incidents where it was extremely disparaging and very disappointing on um some Council meetings where you were not treated as nicely as the person that you are and if people knew you they would have never said those things about you I don't know what your personal reasons are for leaving but I can only imagine so if that's one of the reasons I am truly sorry that you had to endure those evenings and you will be Sly missed so thank you for your service okay other Council comments are we going down the road oh sure yeah yeah I always feel like my mic isn't working for some reason I don't know um So Lisa uh when I met you over a year ago uh I feel like I've known you for like ever right um you went out of your way to walk and door knock you know we've had moments together before uh coming up to the deis and you were a part of um a piece of showing me the the beauty in this whole process the beauty in relating to Residence the beauty in um being yourself the beauty in being kind there are leaders that have many different types types of tempers and at the end of the day uh some of those leaders are effective and some are not but the question becomes did you have Vision did you do what you said you were going to do and do the people trust you mission accomplished I think you hit all three of those points actually I know you did this journey this last 8 months I'm sure has shown yourself a side of you that probably didn't even know was there you were a remarkable leader and thank you for standing up for me personally I appreciate you thank you for taking the time with me and walking me through this process process thank you for having my back I'm going to miss you and I have to say um Pat and to my wife no disrespect but me and Lisa have never taken a bad picture I've I've looked through 80 of them and I tried to find one and it's it's unbelievable I couldn't find one bad picture how's that possible I can't get through a summer without having a bad picture just of myself but um but thank you for your service really this you did a fantastic job thank you thank you Lisa you don't have to say anything I was I was gonna I was gonna I would love you to say something um well you know I like to prepare I have um three things so the city has 22,000 people in it very very few get the privilege of serving here even fewer get to be council president and it's a totally different scene over there uh for those watching uh there's a button underneath there you hit it with your knee sometimes the police come in it's a whole thing um there there's it's hotter under there there's lights there's more lights and there's the adrenaline of of the whole thing um and I found it to be less fun than expected and I don't know I don't know if that's fair to say for other people but that's what I felt um and you and I have and continue to disagree fiercely on certain things uh however uh anybody willing to serve in in this capacity and especially as council president uh first of all deserves to be thanks thanked so thank you and and secondly I will say I have enjoyed our work together I have enjoyed our work together uh when we disagree and when we haven't so thank you again yeah unexpected so I'm going to read something because I will not be able to think about pineapple pizza and baseball without you know so um I might not even be able to read it I want to thank you council president Allan for your incredible work over the past three and a half years it has been a privilege to serve beside you and learned from you since January you uh I'm incredibly grateful for your knowledge and your experience and your ability to show me the way you have accomplished a great deal as council president and as a councilwoman um so don't worry you have left your mark on Summit in a really beautiful way um so I'm sad to see you go but I'm also know that our council president protom Hamlet is well equipped to continue some of the great things that you've begun so I cherish you as a friend I cherish you as a role model and I think that I don't know anybody that is more pure of heart and kind than you Lisa Alan so thank you okay I don't know do you want to say I feel a little awkward asking would you talk about you to say something nice about her the council president you have to tell us when to um I I am sometimes a man of a few words and so I'm GNA use that this evening as my excuse but um they've said some very true things about you I think you're um you've been very kind open minded to people with different ideas um and I appreciate that honestly thank you well I'm going to talk about you but I I first would like to address the resident who talked about the storm water uh management thank you for thank you for bring no problem um so I I've known uh Claire for geez we we've been playing golf for a long time there and bad golf um what I will tell you and since you know me and know that I'm diligent I think you would agree um drainage is all about all I do right now in fact I bought a pair of um work boots the other day because I was ruining my shoes so much going in people's backyards and couldn't even believe I did it but I did it um there's been so many things we're doing to tackle the storm water management plan um just this past week I emailed director shreer and I said you know our drainage plan is from 2020 can we get you I know he's short staffed can we get you help in order to update this can we Outsource this I've reached out to Millennium several several times this week with different asks for Grant approvals for various different improvements for saltbrook we've put rfps out for stream for uh streamwater stabilization um can't read my writing and I I would put this on Mr Tucci I'm going to give you a few projects to take on which include 722 Springfield which is the saltbrook 15 West End spent some time there last week 36 Penbrook called me this week Oakley Avenue was there for several hours the other week six Dogwood we're looking at that resolution in the zoning board three Hobart covert montros we've engaged D FEMA Army Corps of Engineers and various other agencies it's exhausting I would say that a lot of these issues are caused by um projects or or houses that aren't through the zoning uh they don't have their Co so it's the gray area what we have done in our committee just as of this year as we have um established a post board approval protocol what used to happen was that a lot of times people would call and they would say my house is flooded and we would say well we can't help you because it's not they're not violating anything and director shreer I would drive director shreer crazy so we finally came up with a formalized process which put residents in a queue that we were going to answer there was no more we don't have an answer we're going to put them in the process we're going to see if they can appeal to the zoning board pre or post we're truly trying to problem solve so I don't know why my colleagues didn't ask about the storm water management plan I will tell you uh it took director Sher a long time it was the last day of approval I think we were even late on that um I think we have the full faith and confidence in him that it was done correctly and um you know I had no questions we spent a lot of time so to say that we're not focusing on drainage couldn't be further from the truth so thank you for all your hard work but Mr Tucci I've got some jobs for you I'm here um Lisa I um it's with a heavy heart that you're leaving and uh I don't think when I'm up there and I leave there's not going to be this many tears because I think people will probably cheer when I leave so if it's any consolation this might be the last crying bout um so you know keep your tissues and you don't bring them with you at the next meeting um but what what I will say and what what Lisa is so good about is is caring for people the amount of basements that she was in she couldn't stop talking about it to the point where I'm on to the next house and she's still talking about the old house and um you know and then she's still dealing with the this whole council president role so she'd go back to Rosie for a different issue then she'd follow up with me and and all the time while she was doing that you know what she's concerned about including Andy and Greg which is great but she always wanted to make sure that we were including them and it's not that I didn't want to but sometimes I just didn't have the time I mean I didn't have the time to talk to you about your question that I had today um but it was really important for her to create a team this year and I think she genuinely felt and I think we all do I think we we all want to work together these are all issues that aren't about politics it's about ing storm water management or houses and and she made that her Mission this year and I'm proud of her for that in every conversation we had did you talk to Greg did you talk to Greg did you include Greg did you talk to Andy I don't have to we don't have that many committees this year but you know it was her sincere and genuine effort at keeping this team together um the city of summit is is certainly much better off with you um but I hope you find some peace and quiet and enjoying your sons last year so thank you so Lisa thank you for your service we'll miss you and your level-headed approach to governance and campaigning um if any of y'all out there ever thinking about doing something crazy run it by Lisa she'll she'll pull you back you know if you're a little too aggressive um I know it hasn't always been uh been easy and I it's cliche but nothing worth doing ever is and um you've handled those those rough times with good humor and perseverance and I just want to say I appreciate you and I'm proud to call you my friend thanks do you have any updates on anything else no I'm not a council person or lot official but I do have something to say So Lisa I've worked with a lot of council presidents and everyone has their own style but you you do it with style you do Grace and above all you do it with kindness and consideration for everyone here they may not have appreciated it at at times but I think all in all they knew who you are you were trying to be fair to everyone and for that I appreciate you you were fantastic and I'm going to miss you thank you everybody well said Rosie all right um with that I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn do I have a second second all right all in favor I any opposed motion carries