good evening everyone I'd like to call our meeting to order um thank you for joining us at our first meeting in March Madame clerk please read the adequate notice compliance statement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated December 18th 2023 which was properly distributed and posted per statutory requirements please be advised the 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 assistance please obtain the device at the deis and return it thereafter thank you roll call please Mr Boer here miss Hamlet here Mr migar here Mr palowski here Mr Smallwood here Mr bartan present president alen here okay chief Evers would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all on to approval of minutes um oh sorry madam clerk should we read yep Madam clerk please read the explanatory notice regarding close session and hearings and comments okay a closed session meeting as authorized by state statute was announced and held prior to the start of the this meeting and the known items for discussion were listed on the published close session agenda please be advised that 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 lect turn 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 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 at cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and permit to to permit all to be heard speakers are asked to limit their comments to approximately 3 minutes or so in length unless you're using electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or needed for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you thank you madam Clerk and just for the record I heard that Facebook and Instagram we're down today and YouTube is a little fuzzy so if anybody's out there watching YouTube and having a problem thank goodness for broadcast television httv because it has no issues so thank you httv and the recording will be posted in the morning if that's anyway thank you okay thank you okay on to approval of minutes Madam clerk do I hear a motion to approve the minutes for regular and Co close session meeting minutes of February 6 and February 20th 2024 so moved second second excellent um and all those in favor I any opposed great counc president I'll abstain from the February 6th since I was in here thank you councilman okay we're going to mix it up a little bit because we have a full room and some swearing in so we're going to skip the we're going to go back to the reports and um go ahead and do the honors of the swearing in coming out it's really good to see the support from service in one room got members from milour fire department Springfield chadam also have retired Chief Joe Hal in the room and retired Chief from Summit retired Chief mik Robert from iate you guys coming out right and also like to thank the families take a lot of lot of work and time to being promoted a lot of work with into that to thank you for the fam to supportting your loved ones with that turn up there Rosie I'm taller than this yes I'm sorry should have raed it up for you yeah come on up sorry all right is this working okay who is it on hello how's everybody doing we're gonna go this way now this is my first time with the tall mic that gets to move wait a minute I don't think this is a good position for me hang on was that better is that all right okay so this is Brian harnoy Brian started with the summit Fire Department in October 2004 as a volunteer firefighter assigned to the union Hose Company in October 2005 he was hired by The Summit fire department as a part-time dispatcher Brian became a career firefighter with the summit Fire Department in July of 2007 and was promoted to fire lieutenant in January 2015 Brian graduated from seen Hall University in May 2016 six with a bachelor's degree in addition he has completed Advanced firefighting foam school at Texas A&M he is a certified emergency medical technician fire instructor drill ground instructor fire inspector and fire investigator also he has completed Incident Management level three Fire officer 1 and incident safety officer Brian has completed command and control series at the National Fire Academy and volunteers for the national Fallen Firefighters foundation's Memorial weekends at the Academy Brian has received two Chief award Chiefs awards for life-saving efforts in 2010 and 2022 for the past two years Brian has served as the Department's training officer Brian lives in chadam with his wife Megan and there are two children Becca and Colin I'm just guessing please congratulate Brian on his promotion to Battalion Chief and I personally want to say it was a pleasure interviewing Brian um in the process this was my first my first time time um and it was really a pleasure to hear um his incredible experience but also just to learn about him a little bit personally and and to understand how important being a firefighter is to him and how important this promotion is repeat after me I Brian harnoy I Brian to solemnly swear to solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith I will bear true faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established and to the governments established in the united states in the United States and in this state and in the state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully that I will Faithfully impartially partially and justly and justly perform all the duties perform all the duties of the position of battalion chief position of battalion chief according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations should we move the microphone oh mo the microphone yeah yeah congratulations congratul I'm G to get better and better at this every time I do it or at least I'm GNA try's next thanks Chief big job for you budddy okay Brian D Davis Brian started with the summit fire department as a volunteer firefighter in the union Hose Company number one on June 6th 2012 and in January 2013 he was hired as a dispatcher telecommunicator with Summit Fire Department in January of 2015 Brian became a career firefighter with the Department he is certified in firefighter 1 and two a certified emergency technician a licensed fire inspector and a drill ground instructor Brian has received two chiefs Awards the first in 2018 for exceptional Duty and in 2022 he was the recipient of the life sa saving award also in 2017 he received a group Valor award for rescuing residents from their home on New Year's Eve he has been involved with the summit's fire department honor guard for his entire firefighting career and now he leads the Department's Honor Guard Brian currently resides in Lake katong with his wife Moren and their two sons Ronan and Declan heard please congratulate Brian Davis on his promotion to Lieutenant with the summit fire department and again and my personal two cents again it was really really a pleasure to meet Brian and get to speak with him and and again understand the history here with the summit fire department and his pride in this move so congratulations all right Ronan are you ready got this all right repeat after me I Brian Tavis do solemnly swear I Brian Davis do Solly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and I will bear true faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the same to the same and to the governments established and to the governments established in the united states in the United States and in the state and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully that I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly and justly perform all the duties perform all the duties of the position of fire Lieutenant of the position of fire Lieutenant according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations he you know what we might as don't take out my clerk minimal damage thank God is that is that a timer no this is the timer yes we are going to take a brief recess for everybody to leave the room I'm gonna call the meeting back to order Madame mayor will you just make sure the microphone is on I just want to make sure everybody can hear you I have a feeling it's that's what I thought there we go is it good maybe just pull the the other microphone to you there you go okay like I said again I'm still new at this okay and we're going to do a proclamation enough this is all right we're good yeah come on up Jackie thank this is good okay boss thanks perfect how are thank you so much for doing my pleasure so we have a proclamation tonight thank you Jackie for joining us um who are these security guards with you sorry I'm supposed to not be funny okay we're getting moving on whereas the year 2024 is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Reeves Reed arbored and whereas in March of 1974 after a fundraising campaign run by a group of local citizens including Enid Belding the city of summit and Anne and Charles Reed Jr reached an agreement to conserve approximately 12.5 Acres of open space they formed a not for-profit Arboretum at a historic property originally known as the clearing on Hobart Avenue to be owned by the city of summit but which would operate as an educational institution without city funding or services and whereas over the next 50 years the auum expanded to 13.5 Acres of historic G Gardens that now contain rolling Lawns the suie Graham Reeves Rose Garden an herb garden 6.5 Acres of Woodland Trails the Gretchen Keller aelia Garden the Wesson nature grove and the a glacial kettle ball containing more than 50,000 daffodils all are open to the public at no cost 365 days a year and whereas the Board of Trustees staff and volunteers have cared for and improved structures including the historic wistner house the visitor center and welcome walk the Louise Louise munchie REM re re munchie munchie ream Greenhouse learn something new Peters Pond and Garden the stack house children's education center and garden The Cho Amphitheater and other buildings used for all aspects of growing and maintaining the gardens and whereas the mission of Reeves re Arboretum is to engage educate and enrich visitors to become better stewards of Nature and the environment through the care and utilization of this historic estate and Gardens by offering more than 200 education programs Community festivals concerts and art programs for children adults and families each year and whereas Raves Reed Arboretum which contains the design visions of noted Landscape Architects such as Calbert V I should have read this before Vox v i don't know Vox awesome and Ellen bidle Shipman is one of only three arboretums in Union County and is a Living Museum listed on the national and state registers of historic places and where say there is no entrance fee to Reeves rear bitum making it an incl inclusive attraction open to everyone because of the support received through memberships memorials grants private donations sponsorships and in-kind services and whereas Reeves Reed Arboretum was founded as and remains a place for Environmental Education and rest fit in nature it is maintained by a small staff and many volunteers and welcomes thousands of V visitors each year now therefore I Dr Elizabeth Fagan mayor of the summit of city of summit to hereby Proclaim March 5th 2024 as Reeves Reed ARB bedom day in the city of summit and ask all citizens to join me in congratulating Reeves Reed Arboretum on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and caused the Seal of the city of summit to be affixed this fifth day of March in the year 2024 congratulations than you you so much okay moving on to reports mayor Fagan are you sick of me yet not yet hold on TI too okay I was extremely pleased to help celebrate rate Across America week the nation's largest celebration of reading with Summit Public Schools this initiative aims to motivate children and teens to read and raise awareness about the importance value and fun of reading throughout the year members of summit Police Department fellow elected officials and I visited many of the elementary schools in Summit met some wonderful young citizens and thoroughly enjoyed reading some fun books a big thank you to all the teachers who included us this year the summit free public library is developing its strategic plan as a guide for the next several years and they need your help by filling out a survey it should take about 10 or 15 minutes to complete and all answers will be completely Anonymous they thank you in advance for your time and support with this important project there have been some several power outages recently including earlier this afternoon if you have not already done so please sign up for notifications on the city website at cityofsummit.org you can choose to receive information on outages and other emergency and Non-Emergency events and initiatives like changes to trash and recycling pickup and while you're there please sign up for nixel and Smart 9 one alerts for more time sensitive news and updates thank you okay thank you mayor administrator Rogers thank you council president good evening everyone uh just a few items uh please be advised that the New Jersey American Water uh will be performing valve replacement work on pic Avenue between Constantine place and beakman Road beginning Monday March 4th yesterday and continuing through Friday March 15th weather permitting uh work will be done Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 500 p.m. p.m. and pic Avenue will be closed between Constantine place and Bakin Road during at work hours uh police will be on site to direct traffic during Project work and detours will be posted uh New Jersey American Water will deliver written notifications uh to Residents in the affected area and hopefully that happens already uh Union County's Recycling and Disposal events uh begin later this month and are open to all Union County residents residents can attend events for paper shredding hazardous household waste disposal and scrap metal recycling view more uh to view more information and the schedule events please visit ucnj.org Recycling and the final item uh is the March event dates for the summit free market are Saturday March 9th 8: a.m. to 3 p.m. and Friday March 22nd 12:00 p.m. to 2: p.m. at the transfer station uh a permit is required to enter the transfer station uh for more information uh you can visit cityofsummit.org parking and that's all I have this evening thank you counc president thank you okay the Union uh County Board of County Commissioners in collaboration with the Department of Human Services proudly announces that they are partnering with the United Way of Greater Union County to offer free income tax assistance through the volunteer income tax assistance program the program will be staffed by trained volunteers who will assist eligible residents with the preparation of their federal and state income tax returns for more information or to make an appointment please call 90835 5 37171 that's 908 353 7171 or email vaita Vita Victor Inc Tracy Alpha at unitedway g.org or or reach out to our Communications it's on our Facebook it's on our Facebook page okay I can't believe it's already tax time um March is women's History Month a celebration of women's contribution to history culture and Society tonight we actually look forward to a historical minute focused on the exact topic and for the first time the city of summit is hosting a women's month event on International women's day Friday March 8th that's this Friday from 4 to 6 at the Summit Community Center located at 100 Morris Avenue the event will feature a panel discussion on women's contributions in Summit healthy snacks activities like yoga and meditation and a woman's selfdefense presentation by The Summit police department and more the event is free and it's open to all members of the public pre-registration with the summit Department of Community programs is required and can be completed online at Summit Community programs.com I hope to see you there okay councilman palowski would you like to introduce Our Guest for the historical minute sure um first I'd like to thank councilman Boer for uh handling the historical minute the last couple of meetings but now uh now we're going to get to some fun because as intended we we we really want um our high school students to get involved with Summit and Summit history we have uh Elizabeth Aaron vice principal at Summit High School who is helping coordinate everything and tonight um we'll have Lindsay Thomas who's a senior at Summit High after a brief stint at CPC she went through uh the summit school system all my alma moders Lincoln the middle school and the high school uh she's a skilled lacrosse player and an excellent student who will pursue both of these talents at Yale next year sorry mayor Fagan um and uh she will present on women in the Progressive Era in Summit oh yeah go pull it yeah excellent just close to it maybe bring it a little closer there there you go that's perfect okay thank you Mr pki and thank you for having me I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to be here today the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century was marked by the advocation of social reforms including the Improvement of Civic institutions and calls for temperance and women's rights in honor of women's History Month in March I wanted to highlight a few of the courageous Summit women at the Forefront of the Progressive Movement the Women's Club movement swept through the United States in which women created clubs to propose solutions for societal problems in their local communities Summit women were no exception in 1893 Mary budington Wilcox founded the for nightly Club an all exclusive Women's Club that met every two weeks to exchange opinions on the Arts and ideas for Summit a number of organizations such as the thrift shop the Family Service Association and the coral Society were all created from members in the fortn nightly Club similarly the fortn nightly Club also spawned the town approvement Association of which Francis TW also known as the garbage lady was the president for the first 17 years she worked to includ improve the cleanliness and garbage disposal for Summit pioneering the eventual government involvement in public health she was also known as the mother of recreation and raised money to create the playground in the Village Green in 1909 furthermore Bridget Lane was the first woman to hold a public position in Summit as the postmaster from 1886 to 1891 and 1894 to 1898 named by President Grover Cleveland resident question her appointment due to her gender however her softspoken nature quickly won her the support and respect of the community moreover the van SC building today home to wimber's restaurant was once home to the local women's Christian Temperance Union headquarters Willard Hall is named after Francis Willard who served as the president of the wct and was one of the most celebrated women of her time she championed and fought for the temperance and women's rights movements and the last woman I want to highlight is Augusta lard the most famous female author to reside in Summit and she lived on blackb road for years and devoted her life to the fight for women 's rights she was a prolific writer for multiple newspapers such as the New York evening post and in 1870 she edited the revolution a periodical that focused on the inran of women you can draw a direct line from these great female leaders in the Progressive Movement to many women today playing leadership roles across Society I want to congratulate Dr Fagan for our election to Mayor and I've witnessed firsthand woman across Summit leading everything from charitable organizations businesses and church efforts to our sports leagues it has been fun to look back at some of the key women that have helped us get to these achievements thank you thank you so much for that that was excellent um a good kickoff for women's month so uh presentations so we have a few presentations tonight we are going to start with um Michael Sarah our the executive director of New Jersey state League of municipalities I was I was gonna have you raise your hand earlier I I was I was worried you weren't here um Michael Sarah is the um executive director of The League of of municipalities for those who are not familiar with the New Jersey League of municipalities it's a voluntary Association created to help communities self-govern govern by pulling information and resour s ources um it is volunteer right no pay you do this for free oh no no this is oh it's paid okay no this is my full-time job I was like welcome to the to the group um okay I do volunteer my communi this is the paying G this is how I pay the mortgage I was going to say you're very generous coming here doing this um on February 5th this Council took the action to introduce a resolution from the floor as a statement against the fast-tracked A4 legislation along with hundreds of other municipalities who've spoken against it in a bipartisan effort the bill is still moving forward albeit with Amendment so we thought it would be very helpful to have Mr Sarah give us an update tonight specifically highlighting concerns about the bill A4 how it impacts commun well now it's s50 actually how it impacts communities what changes have been made what we can do to potentially expect from the Senate bill and how any of our community can Advocate um for to make sure that this bill um comes out with the best amendments possible there will will be a few minutes afterwards to ask questions um I'm just going to say I'm going to keep the questions brief though because we do have our police here to give another um presentation so go ahead and um we will leave some time for questions okay sure do you see every clicker I have excellent is it on on the side is it working let's find out okay we'll we'll help you okay you just tell us all so you have to there do you want me to sit over there while you take notes do you need to take notes no okay so you yeah Rosemary clerk is GNA well first oh it's not working thank God my deputies here oh I know well while while they're doing that I'll just I'll start and and thank you uh to the council president to the mayor and to the council members for the invitation to speak today um kind of a hard act to follow with uh the the uh the promotions and and the presentation we just witnessed um it's always good to come back to UNI County just for informational I'm I'm a uni County native the other side of the county but but uni County nonetheless I'm from Roselle I'm a graduate of Roso Catholic um I live in mer down in Mercer County now but uh you know this is home and I have relatives in the area I think I as I mentioned you uh earlier uh so I'm G to a little breaking news on this If U go forward great is uh just as I entered the car I was texted uh the Senate budget and Appropriations Committee has scheduled a meeting this Monday and hang out of your hats s50 and A4 on the agenda the I don't know if you saw our notice today about the transportation trust fund legislation it is on the agenda to to renew the ttf and an opal Reform Bill has been introduced and is on the agenda so uh Monday sh have to be a rather busy day but I'm I'm here to speak uh and stay tuned uh because you'll be you'll be hearing from us on on all of those tomorrow uh so if if can advance to um why there is a bill and and um it's important to to to to note that uh the the New Jersey Supreme Court and it's in the original Mount Laurel decision um interpreted the state constitution as to require a the municipalities to provide a reasonable opportunity and and and put into place the Zoning for a diverse range of of housing so that's the basis really of what we're dealing with is that we have there is a constitutional obligation and requirement for local governments the Fair Housing Act which passed in 1985 was the legislator's attempt to put in a mechanism for municipalities to meet that requirement uh you think it's working which way oh there you go okay all right and then the next one I I I'm controlling I'll do it oh you we'll do the next page you want see at home I have to give it to my kid but so so uh you that's really why one of the reasons why we here uh why now is that the third round has exp is expiring in about a year and a half and uh July 2025 to be exact and right now the only means to comply with the U affordable housing obligation is to seek a judgment of oppose from the courts COA has been defunct for a number of years the agency created by the fair housing act the council affordable housing so that was the administrative alternative for municipalities to meet their obligations it no longer functions so your only option has been go to the courts so that this is meant to be the replacement essentially for COA so the major provisions of of of this legislation uh COA is abolished uh the duties and functions of of of the agency would be split between the Department of Community Affairs and the administrative office of the courts uh the Department of Community Affairs would run the numbers using the methodology I'm going to talk about the methodology because that's the major concern I think that a lot of towns have uh but uh DCA is charged with running the methodology and the numbers and the and right now the administrative office of the courts handles any disputes uh the me the methodology is uh to to calculate the need is based on a unpublished court decision out of Mercer County by judge Jacobson uh which was the last of the uh methodology litigations in the last round and uh kind of formed the basis of there were really two competing precedence and the Jacobson methodology was viewed as being the more reasonable of of the two uh under the bill each municipality actually sets his own obligation number COA runs the you the numbers the methodology based on that but a municipality based on other factors can adjust it either up or down uh based on you know environmental concerns uh it does have to get approved through What's called the program uh the availability of bonus credits which I'll I I won't go into great length about has has been expanded on the original Bill uh with a whole host of of of uh bonus credits for municipalities however major category of bonus credits rental bonuses has been removed which is obviously a concern uh on February 8th the assembly Appropriations Committee did a number of amendments uh significant amendments and and generally positive um we a couple slides ahead I don't know if you uh the Amendments from from the committee uh B basically were in response to concerns the league the conference of Mayors and a lot of local officials are raised uh major areas in the Amendments included legal protections uh so so that a town a Town's plan of certified is is is has the presumption of validity that compliance with the act with The Fair Housing Act is deemed to be compliance with the Mount Laurel Doctrine uh age restricted housing uh the cap on it was is increased from 25% to 30% uh clearer criteria uh for for the agency and requiring the issuance of certification if the municipality essentially hits all the checks on the on the check on the checklist um new credits which I won't go into great dep with a series of of of credits and bonuses available to municipalities uh on on a wide range of issues but uh they're in they're in the PowerPoint but I I I in interest of time I won't go on about it um but essentially you know the the committee amendments uh were were a positive step but obviously everyone understood there were still remaining issues with the bill it passed the assembly a couple days later that was their plan they were going to the assembly was committed commed to to moving on the bill quickly and pushing it to the Senate to to act as I mentioned now there's a senate committee meeting on Monday that that will consider the bill we anticipate more amendments I can't tell you what those amendments are yet or not I can tell you what you know what we've told them what we think it should be and some of the areas so I'll highlight the major ongoing issues that that I've heard because I've done this a similar presentation throughout the state to County leagues to other councils and this is really kind of what we're hearing back from towns is um one is the methodology everyone wants the the methodology the determination of the number to be predictable and fair one of the issues right now that we're hearing from planners who are trying to run these numbers is that the data Avail not all the data is available the that you know census no longer publishes some of the track data that was used in the Jacobson ruling ites isn't a we don't know if the Census Bureau has it and doesn't publish it or if it isn't available yet so that H that has to be resolved one way one way or another whether through Amendment or identification identification of other data that that that could be used um but obviously not only that do do we need a way for it to be predictable and fair U we want also want to make sure the numbers are are sustainable uh I've heard uh from a number of Town's concerns about vacant land adjustments uh when you actually an a vacant land adjustment is exactly what what it sounds like is when when you get an adjustment based on on on a uh you know the availability of land uh there's language in here that would require 25% of that obligation to carry forward uh if you're landlock that might be a that could be a problem and I think a lot of times have done overlay zonings are are running running into that concern uh I there is some concern about clarifying that the responsibility for the municipality is to Zone your obligation isn't to build but it's to put the zoning in place to allow for for for the for for the construction and the development but you actually don't have a an affirmative obligation to act to to build and there's some concern about some of the language the sponsors swear that's not the legislative intent so hopefully that can be clarified um the you know attorneys if there any you know land use attorneys in the room they'll probably talk about the the the a thousand unit cap um there's language in there that um there's a cap for both your prior round and your future need can't be more than a th000 unit in total uh the language in the bill undo that uh I think there's a good good opportunity based on recent court precedence that that that you know that that may be amended uh going forward and corrected uh there are a number of environmental concerns the highlands act and how the highlands act will correspond is environmental issues municipalities with environmental constraints how do you deal with the vacant land adjustments and so forth and just the infrastructure demands of development uh funding yeah uh uh you the additional planning requirements in addition to housing on environmental constraints and storm order and so forth uh where's the funding for that you know place under these demands so generally those are the larger categories and concerns that we're hearing we brought the you know we have raised these concerns with both houses uh I know municipalities such as yourselves have raised these issues as well so I'm hopeful we'll we we'll see you know you where the Senate where the Senate goes on this um I included in the PowerPoint the timeline I I'm I'm short on time so I'll I'll leave it to that but that that's where you go you go forth um I mentioned in you know next steps the Senate budget and Appropriations Committee uh the the committee roster is there this is the committee that will be hearing uh this bill and those other bills um on on Monday um if you I would you'll be in touch with your legislators uh particularly in in the Senate uh you to ra to raise the concerns that that you have and and engage I don't know how this is going to play out because uh you know Rumblings are that maybe the assembly and the Senate are in different places on this are they going to be and I don't know if they're going to be able to reconcile this all in five days uh and then after that there's a whole other week before the the Senate would vote so there's another a week of of of you know back and forth so I'm not sure at this point how this will happen obviously there's some of the sponsors would like to put this to bed before the legislator go on on budget recess but it's important to get it right and um this has been a uh at times a a Sprint to you know since these bills were introduced in December and then reintroduced in January but um it's important you know not to get it fast but to get it right and I think you know engagement of local officials and citizens to talk to the legislators so so we're heard and I don't you know I don't know if there's such a perfect bill but obviously the objective is to to to wind up with a a better product than we have now whether it be a week and a half from now a month from now next year but obviously the objective is not to repeat the third round if if at all possible because the court process in the third round I think just about every municipality found to be rather costly inefficient and in ineffective so uh we're hope that that's not the best option going going forward these amendments and other work and time will tell so with that I this uh if if anyone has any questions or comments I'll do my best to answer if I can't answer it I will follow up with you as as well thank you that was excellent and I just want to say um so Mr Sarah is not an an affordable housing attorney he is an advocate nor did I write the bill don't shoot the messenger so I just want to make sure that when we go do our questions um that we keep that in mind I'm going to give council members an option um to ask a question now I'm asking that we keep our our questions somewhat brief if we can because I'd like to be able to get to the public also to ask some brief questions so I'm going to start at this end um should I just work my way around do councilman plasy do you have a question yeah you just mentioned um an obligation to build that there's some maybe not confusion but debate over whether this new version will have an obligation to build right the sponsors I I've I've specifically raised that issue have stated that that's not the legislative intent that the the obligation is to to Zone okay um a number of land use attorneys have felt that the language in the bill could be interpreted differently so we're hoping that cleanup language will will resign in in in the amendments to to to make you clear that you that the obligate whatever your number is your obligation is to Zone not not to build okay thank you councilman Hamlet uh Mike thank you very much for coming I appreciate it I'm just going to a couple things things I jotted down uh I would assume since you represent the league of municipalities the assumption is that you represent the city of summit correct correct correct uh I I would make to make it perfectly crystal clear that um we at least for myself personally I think this legislation is one of the worst things that's ever going to happen to New Jersey uh it's my opinion that it this legislation will devastate New Jersey one of the reasons that some of my colleagues are up here and got elected is because they spoke up against overdevelopment you mentioned that the amendments were significant and generally positive but I would argue that they certainly haven't gone far enough and and I think that's one of at least this municipality's concern concern um I'd be curious to know if the league of municipalities has identified which exact number of municipalities are inherently against this because it's easy to say we talked to some municipalities and they think this but it would be really interesting to get an actual concrete number um you know I do not think that municipalities should be compelled to Bear addition burdens if a municipality seeks to satisfy some of its fair share through traditional inclusionary housing uh with zoning 20% and developers just choose not to take advantage of that uh zoning uh what's even more concerning is how this bill would handle towns like Summit as you had mentioned with a vacant land adjustment many towns fit into this category from round three and many more will have uh in in round four because more more towns will have insufficient land to meet a higher fair share uh if the new bill is passed by the Senate and signed by the governor as you know landour municipalities will have to adopt realistic Zoning for satisfaction of at least 25% of their unmet need and I think that's probably one of the biggest concerns with this bill in my opinion um so I I thank you for coming I know it's not much of a question but I I think the my takeaway is that the league represents the city of summit and I think as a whole our Council believes this is devastating to New Jersey thank you thank you councilman miger no thank you for the update appreciate it councilman Varan uh sure um I think a lot of the concerns that you spoke about uh about the legislation itself I I think are things when taken one at a time like add up right to increasing the possibility that sumit's likely to face a builder's remedy lawsuit right so number one would be I think for the people watching you know can you just explain to folks what that is and number two what what amendments you think might be able to be made that would possibly avoid or mitigate that risk for Summit well a a builder's remedy litigation is a court created tool mechanism in which if a de if a developer for instance um can challenge your compliance a municipal municipalities compliance with The Fair Housing Act by by suing and and and you essentially proposing a change in zoning or or likely it's usually more you know uh uh density uh you know of you know High inclusionary zoning as you mentioned um to compel to to to Really drive drive obligation of you know I think the legal protection that were in the assembly amendments address this issue to some extent that that if you were deemed compliant that you you have a presumption of validity which is the same language that was uh consistent with co- substantive certification that you can always be sued and you can't it's America you can't stop someone from from suing litigation but but the but the presumption of validity car carries some weight uh I'm sorry so what was the second uh just if the Amendments or if there are other amendments that you can think of could could mitigate some its risk right like I think I think for the people watching the builders remedy lawsuit is kind of The Nightmare scenario because it cut it it takes away control from the city and I think to what extent you're confident or you feel like there are things that could be added or changed to the bill that address that issue well I think the list that I provide I think all can can mitigate like I said you can you there's always a risk and and of of of being sued or being challenged but uh one if you know if if the methodology is is grounded in in in in in reality and and is can be predicted and is fair that's one step into it the uh the concern about the the vlas the VAC land adjustments is is is is another um the claric you know the clarification that that the obligation is to Zone you could put put the zoning in place but if the market doesn't build that's not on the min municipality that's just the market dictating you know what what what people want so I think I really think it's it's a it's a combination of of of potentially a number of amendments U I don't know if there's I I I don't if if this legislation goes and again you know but you know it's anyone's guess at this point I there's no there's no 100% certainty it's just hopefully there there's there's means to comply and protections within the bill to offer some charity that that maybe you don't have now okay thank you thank you councilman Boer you know um uh the first thing I think about is numbers and I know the bill hasn't um we're not there yet right but you may have some sort of idea in terms of numbers that we that's foreseeable in the future of a town like Summit I'm hesitant to to to to guess because of there there's data not available so I don't know I don't know if if if numbers can actually be generated I you know I somebody you know somebody told me a while ago that if you because the third round was actually 26 years crammed into the 10 because of what was called The Gap period and and the fact that COA couldn't adopt regulations for over a decade uh you know one one quick way to do it is divide what your number your total number was by 26 and then multiply it by 10 you know I don't know if that's I don't know weight that carries at at you at this point um I don't know based based on the methodology that that that's in the bill I don't know right at this point we can numbers can be calc that's one of the flaws here is that you know we want it to be predictable and fair among other things it you know we don't know if it's fair because it can't be predicted so I I can't tell you I I really couldn't tell you what your your number is I know I you know some some folks have tempted in good faith to to to project what those numbers would be uh I you know but it's it's it's with that caveat that the date some of the data that's needed to make those determinations isn't available yet great thank you councilman Smallwood thank you very much for coming I'm sure your last two weeks have been very busy going from council meeting to council meeting so I appreciate you being here um I just had one question You' mentioned there is an increase in age restricted from 20 to 30% right okay right so I think that's actually a positive right um yeah it is it is there was a one bill has one house had a 25 the other house said at 33 they landed on 30 well again but that was an assembly committee Amendment one of my concerns is you know we got some positive changes we need more didn't go far enough but we also have to kind of defend a rear flank because some of some of those positive changes could you are under attack by by some of the adversaries to the bill too so you we why we why would why would we're trying to advance more reform and and get it in better better shape if it ever becomes law we also have to kind of defend the rear flank that some some some of those changes like that are you know you could be vulnerable and just to clarify that that age restrict is there a specific age is it 55 and over 60 and over over is that determined by the municipality uh I believe it's 55 and over DED restricted but I I can verify that for you okay thank you all right I am going to go to the public so I'm just going to ask that when you come up ask a question this isn't a hopefully not a three-minute speech only because I would like everybody to get as much of an opportunity to ask a question so um you stay yeah cuz um they they'll ask you the question um oh but that's probably not working so I guess if you know you stayed next to them and then the first person um if you guys could who would like with a show of hands who would like to ask a question anybody nobody oh I'm so surprised okay every want right no you were very thorough well then I'll leave you with this um first of all thank you so much for coming um I'll say that Summit um prior to this Council I've heard it for many many years that Summit has always done um their effort to be inclus inclusionary um since the 60s they've built you know um since the 60s not in the 60s but Chestnut Weaver Glennwood um they've we've partnered with Habitat toer Humanity um so I think that we as a community have really tried to do um the best the current legislation um that concerns me is that we don't have the methodology um that there's it's a little tricky with the certifications because every time you get certified there's another hurdle and every time um that you go through that hurdle it can be challenged and that's where you end up back in the court so to your point like what we've gone through this year with the courts um we can just be in the same place but and it's really important to note that anybody that talks about affordable housing you can be an house an affordable housing Advocate and an environmentalist at the same time they shouldn't be mutually exclusive we should talk about how do we take care of our environment and our people too so um being able to look at infrastructure being able to look at the schools and everything else um I think even Governor Murphy had said we're very concerned with all the flooding and um and so forth the storm water is really uh managing that is important so I want to thank you for your time what can people do as an action can they go on Monday you can go on Monday uh go to the city legislature's website it's um it's a 10:00 hearing okay um anyone who's coming but be prepared it's going to be full it could be a long it could it's going to be full because of there's a whole it's a long agenda it's going to be a long Committee hearing uh that committee has a habit of not starting on time you start on time but they don't don't trending time is completely different uh so be you be prepared but um I don't know if I know the assem allows you to electronically register a position I'm not sure if the Senate is does but I can check that I can let you know yeah but folks who couldn't make it but want but want um I can even leave the slide yep you will leave this side and actually I'll have um miss Karen will'll put it on the website for everybody and if anybody wants to Google New Jersey legislature um. org it's um right it's a senate budget and Appropriations Committee yeah it's meeting Monday at 10:00 a.m. excellent all right thank you so much and everybody out there um in the room and on httv we hope that you go on Monday so thank you for your time drive safe thank you okay thank you okay I'm we're gonna oh not yet we're gonna do the presentations and then we'll do public for public comment you're talking about okay we're going to do the presentations first come on up yeah all right excellent good evening thank you for having us appreciate it um so the summit Police Department is here tonight to announce to exciting programs that we stole from other police departments um to address some some of the concerns here in town borrowed um I think we do have a brief video though that's going to go over the home security Assessment program um May May answer a few questions before we dive into the presentation so we'll start with that Rie thank you in response to the recent increase in burglaries and car thefts in our community the summit Police Department is proud to introduce the home security Assessment program this free service is designed to help residents of summit improve the security of their homes and vehicles our trained officers will visit your home at a time that's convenient for you they will conduct a thorough assessment of your property and check for potential issues like weak locks poor lighting or unsecured Windows after the assessment you'll receive a report with personalized recommendations for enhancing the security of your home this may include tips on stronger locks installing motion sensor lights or setting up security cameras there is also a checklist online for people who want to improve their home security without scheduling an assessment the summit Police Department is committed to your safety and peace of mind together we can build a safer Community to schedule your free home security assessment contact the summit Police Department today or visit cityofsummit.org police so for those of you that know me that's probably the slowest I've ever spoken in my life warm water before bed balances glucose levels overnight that's are it's very important that's sound ours that was mine I snuck that in there D so we do have a quick presentation just to highlight some of the um some of the goals of the uh the assessment program uh as recently as stated in the video um this program was created to address some of the concerns from our residents um so the purpose of it is to have us go out at your request um to do an assessment of your home and and your property some of the areas you can go to the next slide please that's the last slide perfect so some of the things we'll be looking at um on the exterior of the house is whether or not you have proper lighting um some vegetation growth that can block your your the view from the windows whether or not their windows and doors have appropriate locking mechanisms uh cameras obviously in 2024 are one of the things that a lot of people have um but can be financially um INF feasible for not practical for people um but essentially it's a free service that we're providing to our residents um we put five of our officers through American Crime Prevention Institute offers an online certification process this isn't something that we just rushed into we make sure all of our officers were certified they're also certified to do home security assessments business assessments and school security assessments as well so we will be diving into those markets um as time goes on and again the purpose of it is to identify potential security weaknesses in areas of improvement and make cost-effective recommendations on ways to increase and improve security for your house next slide please um some of the things that are on the checklist like I referenced before um is the house number easily visible from the street not only is that important for when you order Uber Eats but also for when you contact the police department one of the things especially in the city of summit um we do have some bigger properties it is difficult for us to see as police officers at night um some of the the the the numbers on the houses so we always Advocate to have them closer to the curb is your driveway equipped with motion activation lighting um does your home have an alarm system does the front door belt uh do you have a camera on the front door belt do all exterior doors have deadbolt locks these are just a variety of things that we're going to be looking at uh and for those people who do not want a police officer to come out because some people don't want a police officer to come out walk through their property we do have this checklist uploaded to the city's website and they could do their own security assessment um and and give themselves a a self evaluation if you can go to the next slide Rosie um and some of the other things that we recommend is locking doors and windows and turn on exterior lights or set on a timer when you're away uh cancel all deliveries while on vacation or ask a friend or trusty neighbor to collect them regularly avoid leaving mail or packages outside for extended periods and make sure all garage doors and side gates are closed and locked one of the other things that I've done at my house is make sure that the interior uh door from the garage to the house is locked as well if we can go to the next slide um it's a simple uh registration process so uh officer is here he he mans our community uh Services Unit um it all we ask is that you just email your name address phone number and a preferred day and time with that information we can minimize the amount of back and forth that we need to communicate with you because we are anticipating this is going to be a pretty um popular program I think we went live this afternoon just after lunch and we already had 50 requests so I'm anticipating after this Stellar performance tonight we'll have quite a few more tomorrow so that's the first program um that we had brought to the city um I think we're going to address the second program as well and then maybe we'll take some questions uh the second program is going to be our um our drone unit so it's our unmanned aircraft systems unit again headed by um Sergeant button and officer kigga uh the purpose of this is a variety of things so over the course of the last few years several police departments have dove into this um unmanned aircraft systems units um if we can go to the next slide so one of the reasons we brought this is because as technology advances we I've at least firmly we as an Administration firmly believe that the summit police department needs to stay on the um the Spear of The Cutting Edge for for this technology so uh officer kga uh when when introduced to this program he went all in 110% um I've getting videos and um and and pictures from his wife of him flying the Drone around the house not this drone his own personal drone of course um but I can't can't speak highly enough of our four officers that are currently certified they did pass the FAA part 107 certification process in addition totally different COA than the housing but we did receive a certificate of authorization to fly through the FAA as well we are in Clash G A Bas which pretty much leaves us unrestricted um one of the concerns that we had was over like hospital because occasionally they do get the helicopters that come in and out but we did establish a protocol with them so if they're ever having someone coming in or we're launching our drone we will be in constant communication one of the things that officer K could we just go back one more time officer K is just going to highlight some of the features on our drone it's the DJI matrice 30t thank you Kevin Peters uh yeah I was told to keep it brief so I will I can go on for a while yeah try we play the Oscar music for me all right so this is the d uh DJI matrice 30t that T at the very end there that's very important that s for thermal uh this drone operates on a dual battery system uh it's been actually called a the perfect search of rescue drone um that's in the Drone Community uh and it's for a number of different reasons based on its power it's uh portability and it's reliability and I'm going to highlight some of um features of it so weighs about 14 lbs roughly uh has a 41 minute flight time now granted that's in optimal weather conditions which we will take into account prior to deploying the Drone uh wind is a major factor um has 33 m per hour wind resistance it can reach top speed of 51 M hour not that we ever plan on doing that um operating temperature -4 degre to 122 degrees so that's not an issue there's a laser ra uh rage finder once again infrared or thermal technology uh or Imaging I should say one of the things it has a 48 megapixel camera 4K live video feed that we can actually send out a live video link to our Command Personnel supervisors officers on the ground uh um to help you know enhance communication increases officer safety and such um one of the things it has a also 200 times um zoom capabilities well what does that mean right that basically we set this drone up Sergeant but and I in the back uh parking lot here at City Hall and we focused the camera down towards the new uh fire department so that's roughly almost about a half mile away and we're able to zoom in and clearly see Li plates that's the capabilities of this drone it's very impressive so uh next slide Rosie yeah so as I previously stated all of to mitigate liability so I'm not saying which departments but some other departments roll these out and kind of say halfhazard l who knows how to fly a drone let's get it up in the air um Summit that's not how we roll um so to mitigate any liability to make sure that we're providing the best service possible we made sure all of our officers got FAA part 107 certified that was no easy task some of the studying material I saw in there I was blown away way and again I have the knowledge to oversee the program but I have no interest in the knowledge that they have at this point um all four of our operators either leave live in town or live in one of our neighboring towns so that makes the response time when during the overnight hours uh fairly quick um as previously stated they underwent an in-depth equipment training aside from the part 107 uh certification each officer is required to put four hours of um time in flying the Drone before using it on actual operations um we're logging flight time hours and then the software that comes with this drone it pretty much logs everything so after an operation we have what the weather was the flight time the the the areas in which we're covered um officer K probably speak to more this than me but essentially anything that you would want to know from a flight is going to be recorded and memorialized in a document everything gets logged there everything gets logged and and and we already spoke with the joint Insurance Fund we're fully covered through the insurance with this thing so we're good to go we we launched this about uh about a month ago we've already had four or five successful operations um did you want to say something I saw you grab the microphone uh no well you're were talking about how uh we're working closely with the FAA too because we have to report back to them basically basically on a monthly basis uh all of our drone data so if we flew it five six seven times this month all that data needs to be reported back to FAA that's in accordance with our COA yeah and the next slide Bros so some of the reasons we might to playy this so search and rescue um as stated uh by Officer kga we deal with these calls all the time um missing juveniles U missing endangered adults uh elderly uh people we do have several um facilities in town that house elderly we have had unfortunately a few walk away U this could be a great tool for us for search and rescue as well persons on train tracks and again the ability to to scour because we can go up to a 400 feet um ceiling so we can scour and and view more terrain from that elevation than we could with couldn't a few dozen people on the ground um next next slide please suspects at large so you know this is important for law enforcement so if there's a pursuit in the area often times these Pursuits end with motor vehicle accidents and people running off in the backyards so to have this um readily available for our for our officers as a tool with the thermal imaging again brings a bird's eye view of the area and as officer kga had referenced every time this thing gets launched we have specific groups so depending on the operation they get notified the chief myself and um Captain triber get notified every time this thing goes up we get a text message and then wherever we are we can click on that link and we can view the live feed of what these these guys are doing it was a great day when they were testing this because I was getting constant text messages from the administrative staff what are these drone guys doing like I'm I'm getting text messages so we tested it everything worked out great um and again it increases officer safety and a greater likelihood for apprehension uh next slide please Rosie we've already been out on one any working fires uh to assist the fire department it has thermal imaging uh working with other police departments where we you know kind of pick their brains on why they use it uh Cranford used this actually in a a structure fire where the fire department saw smoke they were having difficulty found finding where the hot spot was and they sent the Drone drone up and were able to identify that and and subdue that fire pretty quickly so this is actually sorry to cut you off this is actually a photograph from the recent fire in Elizabeth I believe it was Trumble Street early January this one this is an actual image from there once again there Elizabeth Police Department's drone unit was out for three solid days uh working with closely with the fire department their command Personnel like ke Piers just said identifying hotspots where they can uh better deploy their personnel uh next slide please Rosie uh natural disaster response again one of the Departments that we visited was uh Cranford which unfortunately is prone to flooding and we found that because initially our thought process is you know suspects and missing persons but come to find out they assisted their city in um patrolling neighborhoods because their neighborhoods were flooded they had no way of getting down certain streets and identifying what the damage was what the needs were for the residents and maybe possibly even communicating with those those resident so this is a a tool for the entire city and and and being at the OEM uh quarterly meeting I advise that the fire department DCP DCS as long as it's within compliance of our COA we deploy for any Department in the city uh next slide please traffic incidents um obviously with route one with Route 24 and Route 78 that come through our town uh we do unfortunately do see some major traffic incidents in the area and this can just assist not only with traffic support but also the investigative purposes of that next slide please and large crowd and event monitoring so the Fourth of July is always you know it's always um difficult for us to manage uh Manpower wise you have thousands of people and a few dozen police officers to manage that so again this is just another tool in our toolbox to deploy uh National Night Out uh car shows Village Green events um so it will be able to give us kind of a better understanding of what we're dealing with uh next slide and that's pretty much much it so we're here for questions if anybody has any excellent thank you you that was fantastic okay um any council member comments questions over here if anybody sorry yeah thank you for this presentation um my quick question here I'm going back to the security assessment uh thing uh do you have any uh requirements or adaptations for residents who want this security assessment but who are renters uh not necessarily in large larger renter rental complexes but in say rented houses no I don't think we have any reservations about that one of our uh one of our requests today yeah well actually one of our requests today was uh without giving the exact address one of the apartments I have no problem going out there and taking a look at the current uh security situation apartments are just as liable to get broken into just as any home so I have no problem going out there I wouldn't I certainly wouldn't turn anybody down for that and in addition houses for rent I mean at that time at that point the tenant is is the homeowner right that's their house that's their dwelling so um and I'm assuming that if they're going to going to be making any changes they'll be Consulting with their their landlord before they start swapping out locking mechanisms and adding lighting all right thank you okay yeah anyone else yeah you know I just I just wanted to say uh you know congratulations I mean I I I think the the Drone is amazing um you know good Forward Thinking uh with the the housing assessments is great uh you know I want to thank you both I also want to thank the chief uh I know I we we've been working together and uh he's been um he's been he's been dealing with me pretty pretty well you know so uh you know but good job guys I mean I think Summit PD is the the best police department I'm I know I'm biased but the best police department in New Jersey so good job thank you appreciate thank you oh sorry actually through your council president oh I'm gonna let councilman plaski first and then back to you yeah so um how much how much do you uh do you get to play I mean have to practice well as uh as Captain Peters mentioned earlier I do own my own personal drone so I had a little bit of experience nothing major uh this puts my personal drone to shame this like I said this is a major piece of equipment is extremely impressive I don't think we begin to scratch a surface of its full capabilities um You' seen some of those images up there earlier say suspects at large that's the image that we see stands out like sore thumb you have somebody read it picks up heat signatures the thermal camera greatly assists in our ability to uh either capture a suspect or locate a missing person so how much experience do I have uh now quite a bit now quite a bit experience what's required for our Pilots it's quarterly three three flights three events per quarter yeah three events per quarter exactly that's the minimum requirement to maintain but we also set the standard of four hours of flight time which is actually a lot we're actually Way Beyond those three events per so we have two the the Drone takes two batteries at any given time and those two batteries will get you the maximum of the 41 minutes I think it was in the air but we do have additional sets of batteries so if we needed to and if the operation was still going we can then pull it down swap out the batteries and go right back up well that's the benefit of the Dual battery system that that this operates off of it can come down we can bring it down swap do they call it hot swap you swap out the batteries without having to power down a drone or let's just say if there's a failure of One battery the other battery has enough power juice to bring it back to uh safely the software inside the Drone uh knows the battery capacity and it knows where the remote control is so if it identifies that the wind is kicking up and it's not going to have enough battery to return home regardless of what pilot cigga says it's going to return home it's going to start flying its way back to the pilot to make sure that it doesn't just land somewhere it has that technology in it so correct and uh actually one of I think is a pretty impressive uh I guess uh feature on this it has a return to home function what what they call so at any point we press that that button that return to home function it takes off from this point it lands at this point how precise is it it it's amazing actually so and one other thing every time this I know we're running out of time limit um one other thing um is our our Pilots don't fly alone there's there's always a spotter next to them so that's FAA requirement where if officer kga he's piloting the Drone he's focusing on the software he's focused on the remote control there'll be a second what we call spotter next to him making sure that nothing else is is going to be interacting with our drone and keeping an eye on it so if there's anything that introduces itself into the airspace they'll know and notify officer kga that's excellent okay councilman Minar real quick uh I'll you answer the question about returning to home I was going to ask you about that but you've mentioned multiple uses already when did you buy this how how new is it so we got it in August and it took a few months for our officers again the part 107 was a little bit more difficult that we anticipated um many many study guides uh that these officers went through we gave them anywhere between and 12 weeks to study once they got their certification then we could then hang the certification on the COA application with the certificate of author authorization to fly for the FAA you need to have the part 107 in order to apply for that we then applied for that and then the turnaround with the federal government was it was actually was actually shorter than anticipated but we did launch in January and this is unfortunately our first time to get to kind of come up here and introduce it to you guys but yeah we have been out for a month thank you anyone else councilman Smallwood so thank you very much for this presentation I was actually lucky enough to uh watch you practice at uh one point and uh it it's pretty amazing to watch especially the the thermal camera because it's if there ever is a a missing child or person at uh at night it it certainly is going to be a tremendous help so um and it was pretty cool watching it because the um officer button did show me the how the the return to home feature and it was literally I I I mean to the millimeter of actually where it took off so it was it was pretty pretty amazing to watch and thank you very much for doing this and I think it's going to be a great help for for us appreciate it excellent and mayor I just want to say I'm very very pleased with both both of these initiatives and thank you guys I know this has been a lot of work um getting this got and going both of them um and so I'm really grateful to you guys and I'm grateful to the chief um for getting getting behind this um and also I just want to make sure that we're clear that we're not firing fireworks at the drone on 4th of July no that was I don't think that's in the operations plan awesome excellent did everybody get an opportunity councilman veran you're good okay great thank you um does anybody in the audience have any questions no okay you're free to go thank you appreciate that I just want to do a check if anybody needs to take a quick break are we good to continue on anybody need break wouldn't mind five minutes go ahead we'll take you know what we're going to take a 5 minute break we're going to call the meeting back to order okay so we are going to um go to public comments but before we go there um I wanted to make a statement because oh sorry um um during the last meeting uh several individuals came up to express their concern about the resident protection ordinance and I'm going to let the city solicitor address the confusion on the legality of the ordinance um but I wanted to share just some thoughts of my own so as I've said I've been on this di since 2021 and one of the first meetings that I had that I was in um was post the abduction of a young woman on Fernwood and after that happened um this room was full with concerned residents it was a missed already of High car theft there were no home breakings yet but that caused a significant amount of alarm of alarm in our community so when we sat in that meeting and we listened to the residents there was a lot of discussion around take out your car key fob make sure that your in your cars and the resident said we can do that but the concern is what happens if they come into our home and we were told that won't happen um so fast forward two years almost three years later people are coming into our homes and I was on the safety and health committee with uh councilwoman LaVine and um at the time that we worked together we had discussed a version of the ordinance that eventually came to what it what it is now which is the resident safety protection it was in a much different version at that time but in December of 2022 as head of safety councilwoman LaVine had proposed a three-part plan to deal with the car thefts and crime in town and promote safety the plan included the community pledging to bring in their key fobs and secure their key fobs additional light plate uh license plate readers at various points of Ingress and egress around Summit and an ordinance that would allow the town to find criminals who trespass on property so we didn't create this ordinance from a personal standpoint we did not create this ordinance in a vacuum it has been vetted over a long period of time it has evolved and changed significantly so I just want to put that out there that we Absolut absolutely vetted it through all the right people again I'm going to let the city solicitor answer that and give some timelines um but I think also what needs to be addressed is that I hear the concerns around what the ordinance and how the ordinance might impact certain individuals in our community and we don't want that to happen we are here to govern and make sure that everyone in our community is safe and that's what we're working towards and I felt like I really needed to establish that with everyone that we are not here just to throw something together we've been thoughtful around this and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that safety is the top priority for every single resident in the city okay so without further Ado City solicor Matt I'm a little distracted because I want to go play with the Drone but I'll do I'll do my best so I I was unfortunately not at the last meeting I probably could have uh dispelled some of the misinformation this did not come about out in short order this started in the fall of 2022 I represent hell I'm the labor attorney for hell hell was one of the first towns to pass an ordinance that dealt with resident protections around the auto thefts similar to Hell Marl bro which we my firm also does work for uh has similar ordinance you guys should know that uh chadam Township just passed a similar ordinance and we looked at this carefully I heard there's issues of preemption we thought about that you know we're fully familiar with what preemption is and what preemption is is if there's a state law that speaks to it it overrides a municipal ordinance well that's why we have a separability clause in this and it's we put the severability clause in back in the fall of 2022 when we started this knowing that somebody might attempt to argue preemption so we have vetted this I have talked to the attorneys in marlb Hell chadam other Town attorneys have contacted us for copies of this because I think what towns are looking to do and this was a bipartisan effort this was not a republican this was not a Democrat it was a bipartisan effort and a discussion how can we give the summit police department and your Municipal prosecutors additional tools to help thwart car thefts in the city of summit and this is one of the tools there's you now have home checks you have this drone you have I mean there's it's multifaceted to attack it this is just one process and I think people you know are are concerned about the the negative impact but let me tell you a positive impact that comes with this because very often when you if you do any type of criminal work if you're dealing with the the County prosecutor um and you're a first offender defense attorneys look for ways to plead things down because you know what's very bad for for a young person to get on their record a conviction filling out a job obligation have you been convicted of a crime well that's a a fairly onerous burden to overcome and it can adversely affect you the rest of your life it can preclude you from certain jobs certain employment so what this does actually is it gives the County prosecutor and your municipal prosecutor the ability to plead something down where it's a Municipal ordinance violation and I can tell you many many uh defense attorneys who represent defendants before uh courts whether it is for DWIs the whole host of things they look for municipal ordinance violations so what happens is this doesn't go first if if if as the chief said previously if somebody's actually charged with breaking and entering this is basically an add-on the whole this goes down to the county the County prosecutor deals with the issue and we only deal with it if it's remanded back to municipal court so if the county of prosecutor says we don't have enough to prosecute criminally because to criminally prosecute somebody it's a much higher burden of proof this comes back down to mpal court it gives as opposed to the leg just walk away not being prosecuted this gives the municipal prosecutor and our Police Department the ability to have a consequence this is a financial consequence but it's a consequence so it has been vetted we're very comfortable with it and the one thing I can tell you is I heard you know it's going to cost the city thousands of dollars no it's not it's not going to cost thousands of dollars all because guess what you can't file a challenge to this because courts don't give advisory opinions so the only way this is ever gets challenged is if a defendant challenges it and guess what we thought about it because it has the severability Clause where a judge could easily say well I found that one aspect could be uh touched upon in the um uh trespassing State 2C trespassing and therefore I'm going to sever it so this this does not have a lot of exposure but at the end of the day what is the purpose of this why was this passed why was it looked at in 2022 throughout 2023 and we refined it throughout 2023 we heard for example people were worried about um houses in Summit that are close to the street where people are parking on their driveway but their car is fairly close to a public sidewalk well if you look at the home de ordinance it talks about if you go near any car if you're if a car is parked on the street this is limited to private property this means somebody's got to go on your property and start trying to pull your car door they're not just walking down the street or jogging so we try to be consci of that we also try to be cognant of the fact that in in in Summit you have apartment buildings and what's behind the apartment buildings private parking lots where the residents Park their cars they're entitled to the same protection as a private homeowner just like we talked about you know would a renter be able to have uh his or her dwelling check by the police if you have a car and you're and you're a renter and you're parked behind something on Summit Avenue your car should have the same protection as somebody who lives uh in in in the Grand's house and Summit and so we try to consider all that and that's in this ordinance now guess what the reason that there's courts and there reason there's Appel divisions and Supreme Courts and is you have the ability to amend this ordinance so after um the council president meets with certain constituents if they come back and say we want to amend it we think we can make it better that's easy we'll have a first reading a second reading and amend it but the goal is and and I think that everyone should is government's first priority and really when you when you kind of distill it down to its basic form government's most important priority is Public Safety Bar None making sure the Streets Are CL plowed there's not big potholes you have police departments if there's an emergency and you have a fire fire and so this is to help arm your police department and give them another tool to help it won't prevent it but thwart it or decrease it and obviously um you know I I spoke to the municipal attorneys in both Marlboro and in Hell there's been in place for more than 18 months they haven't had anybody challenged it for preemption it's virtually almost identical they don't have the home invasion aspect of it but guess what they're interested in it because they too are having the same problem and this is not just localized here it's it's literally Statewide uh where where people are coming into uh towns um and they're getting a little bit more aggressive in terms of trying to get those key fops so we're very comfortable with this um and finally want you know that the municipal prosecutor the represent Summit thinks it's a great idea you heard the chief said this is this is he's supportive of it the police depart suppor of it your municipal prosecutor supportive of it and thinks that it will be very helpful uh when dealing with attempted uh car thefts and attempted break-ins so that's where we stand and if somebody challenges it we'll deal with it when that happens we pass laws all the time we write we take legal positions all the time we get challenged all not just here all over the place that's what lawyers do it's not too scary I'm not performing brain surgery so I can tell you it's just not that hard um so that's all I have to say thank you thank you Mr chobi okay so we are going to um I thought you say something um would you like to say something as the chair of safety councilman Boer you know I I was going to ask uh this solicitor uh you know there there is a section of it and I want to be kind of clear on this that um a part of this ordinance as a summons uh can be issued without being arrested for a criminal action that's that's absolutely correct I mean and and I'm not going to do the the police have you know if you think about a police officer they have a a fairly arduous job that's my favorite word by the way arduous um and that when they're when they're arresting somebody detaining somebody they have to remember all of their rights um and then they have to figure out what are they what are they charging the person with well if they come across somebody that's on uh private property trying to get into the door handles and they don't have enough to charge them criminally this gives them something where they can issue a ordinance violation and frankly the more deterence that you have in the city of summit or in any of these loc local municipalities around guess what maybe the the people who are deciding to steal CS will go to a different town that is not being so robust about it the one good thing I can say and I said this to the council before was there's been so much noise and talk about this if I was a criminal there's no way I'd come to Summit you guys are you guys are all you're all crazy about this so I think that that's a good thing but um you know the police you're absolutely right the police it gives the your police officers a an additional tool and frankly if you have a firsttime offender somebody Young Who some who this is their first time doing it it gives the police the opportunity to say you know what I don't want to I don't want to steer this child or this kid a lot of these are kids that are being recruited to do these these crimes um it gives them the opportunity to have kind of a a first step before you even get into the world of 2C 2C is the criminal statutes of New Jersey thank you okay thank you so can I say something since we're having a discussion now okay councilman Varan you can say so I mean so first of all like I've said before right nobody should be the victim of a crime it's absolutely the most important role and responsibility of any government to keep people safe that's number one number two is we can and we should have debate discussion disagreement up here I think the community does not want us thinking in lock step right and but however we can have those discussions and debates and disagreements if we all agree on the same set of facts and the same set of circumstances right so I just want to clear up a couple of things right so that's absolutely correct that Jamie councilwoman LaVine mentioned up here in 2022 that we should look into this right and that's what happened throughout 2023 and that's great I as council president did not want to advance that version of the ordinance number one because I didn't think it was going to be effective and number two because I did not think that we adequately understood what the potential downsides of it were so that's why we did not Advance it and consider it as a full Council last year but there were two different things that we're talking about because last year the ordinance only addressed cars the ordinance that we're talking about now addresses cars and homes right so that whole piece about homes is a new new addition this year right so there was a very very short period of time between when that part about homes was introduced Council decided to move ahead with it and pass it right and we keep talking about amendments and I think that that's great I think the council president I think the Safety Committee should discuss possible amendments to it and what those should be and outline what the timeline for that is but I just wanted to be clear about a few of these things so that people who are watching understand thank you all right I'm going to give council members um a chance councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you Mr giobi for um for all your comments there I think it's really important and I think this ordinance is is very solid um can you please opine on the process last year and going forward if something is in committee as a Dar if something is in committee my biggest argument last year was that we pulled it out of committee and we didn't bring it back here because if I think 66% of us agree that it shouldn't come out of committee or should be looked at again what's the process for that well I think that the the the agenda is the common council's agenda is controlled by the council president and the council president works with the different committees to put things on the agenda um ultimately if there's an issue that the that the majority of the council wants to raise uh they can ask at a meeting to I'd like to see this on the next Council agenda you can do that um with and I can tell you that this was discussed at length throughout 2023 um and I spoke with the we had CS with the chief with the Public Safety Committee uh research different changes I talked to different council members um I don't know why it wasn't ultimately brought but um you know I as I said it was a bipartisan effort because I was dealing with I dealt with yourself I dealt with Miss Allen I dealt with uh former councilwoman uh Fox uh doc councilwoman Dr LaVine all all those folks I talked about and it seemed that there was a lot of interest in this ordinance or a version of it um at the time so um but in terms of the DAR I think that uh you know you know the process is that basically each of the Committees then makes recommendations to the full governing body and that's your job to bring it up at a ccil meeting to make the recommendation and then it would get onto an agenda right I think that that's sort of my biggest concern with this I think Greg to your point if we would have had clear guidance from you last year on what you have identified as as issues with that ordinance then maybe we could have had some discussions last year on how we could have accomplished this ordinance in a better or more appropriate way but it seemed as though though uh the community just wasn't getting guidance on why this was coming out of committee and just being squashed so I I think that whenever we're considering policy right like every committee is going to have to go through the process of determining whether it's something that makes sense to refer to the full Council I think everybody in here is right now working on things that are not ready for prime time right and we've talked about this a lot where we can't always be saying this is something that we're considering but it's only half baked right so you know I I think I think what we were focused on last year was ways that we could arm the police department to address Crum right and to me nobody Still Still nobody has made the case that it's effective anywhere else right hell Maro these places how many times have they used it we don't we don't know that can we actually charge it can we actually charge juveniles we don't we don't really know that yet either there are a lot of questions still remaining with this ordinance right and and so that's why I think we had to take some more time and consider it before moving ahead and I think since we're meeting with Community groups and we're talking about addressing the concerns that have been brought up at the last three Council meetings those are the things that should have happened before you pass an ordinance not after that's my opinion does anyone else want to speak I everybody has to have an opportunity to speak First Once anybody okay uh councilman Smallwood yes uh councilman V I I I agree with you 100% in terms of having the you know policy discussions among Council and when you have a situation where you know and obviously was on Council of the time but when Dr LaVine uh brought this to from her committee uh you know it's not always perfect in the committee and I think that's where it should be brought to the council for an open dialogue and debate and as uh Mr jacobe mentioned that this is it's not brain surgery this is something that we can adjust we can amend as time goes along as we figure out what something might be a better solution but unfortunately you made the decision on your own as council president not to allow that debate whether you're for it or against it it is our job to make that policy decision and voice our own opinions as council members whether you're for or against it you did not allow that this and this is what we are allowing I think if you have the privilege of sitting in the center one day you'll understand there's a big difference okay councilman Varan councilman Varan councilman berer wait I I hold on one second I don't want to make a circus of this this is an incredibly important issue okay councilman Boer so let me just clear something up because you know I don't want to go back and forth like emails you know with residents on it and uh misinformation we spoke to our city solicitor we spoke to our municipal prosecutor we spoke to law enforcement this is a good ordinance it's solid what I keep hearing is that there are issues with it we need to go back we need to do this we this ordinance is solid I don't understand why the back and forth needs to happen I mean listen you can you know Wrangle in your mind oh I need data on this I need data on that the police get a call somebody's in your driveway they're pulling your car handles guess what you're going to get an ordinance you're going to get a summons all right if you're trying to break into somebody's home right you're going to get arrested for trespassing and you're going to get an ordinance right so I listen we we got to stop with the misinformation all right we did our due diligence and the fact is I am a professional I spent over 20 years in security and law enforcement and you know what and and it's and it's pretty disturbing that people come up here and they say oh you didn't do your due diligence you didn't do I do this for a living I mean so stop with the politics I'm not up here because I'm a politician I'm up here because I care about the people in Summit I'm not up here to get it reelected I wouldn't run for office anywhere else I grew up in this town why would I ever do anything to put anybody in Jeopardy in this town and the whole racial tension about people you know you can't put this out because in in black history month because black people have been lynched I mean give me a break the fact is people come up here and they act and they say things like oh you didn't V this out with the community what I'm not black we had people from the anti-racism committee sit over here and and and say jokingly that I'm not a black man and we sit around because another black person said it to me nobody's going to question that right had it been the other way around and a white man said that to somebody that was black everybody would be up in arms but because it's me nobody says anything now I love this town and I want to be respected here on the Das like everybody else now all this back and forth I mean I mean how many times can we say it and I'm sorry I'm getting emotional but hey when I'm sitting up here and people are referring to my race I take it highly offensive three council president councilman migar another word for back and forth is debate and that's completely normal Mr geob I have a question for you do you know that the Westfield ordinance had did not have a sorry um did not have a severability clause I I have no idea what Westfield I talked I talked to homeow I mean the one that the one that was talked about at the last meeting did that have a severability clause in it I mean just out of curiosity I I I have no I didn't check that ordinance are you talking so the case it was talked about and the case it was relied upon that was a loitering case that very different than this I think that this when you look at it these are the the language that was used and I can tell you I I refin the language based on what was initially requested because of preemption but again the severability Clause um remember you've got multiple parts to this ordinance and so I'm confident that this ordinance will survive in total but even if a little spark get struck the majority of it will survive and you know what what's the worst thing that happens the worst thing and I learned this a long time ago I remember one of the first cases I lost I was distraught I couldn't believe I lost a case and a senior partner calls me into the law library we used to have law libraries with lots of books he goes kid look at those books what are in there I said decisions he goes yeah and every one of those decisions somebody won and somebody lost get over it well you know what if a judge says I don't think this is right well refine it there's nothing wrong with Trump because you can do the old paralysis by analysis and you do nothing and so doing something and I think that this has been vetted carefully uh and looked at case law Etc and I looked at all the different cases I think the language here it does not um infringe on or uh mimic exact the the criminal statutes this is a step before this is um uh an ancillary to the criminal statutes but again the severability Clause is in there for just that reason so that you don't obviate the entire ordinance should a judge say it's severed and guess what the trial judge might say it's severed and then the Appel division might say no it's not and then you go to the Supreme Court I mean I've been up through the the system many many times in many cases um and I think that you know the way these ordinance work and I can tell you that both hell and Marlboro there hasn't been a challenge so that's been 18 months with no legal challenge so what I'm hopeful for is this is here we have uh an ordinance in place and if folks when you guys meet with your constituents and the different groups if they come back with better ideas and ways to refine it we refine it and and we make it better that's there's no there's no harm in doing that I mean there are people out there lots of very brilliant people that live in your town and and are lawyers uh you have lawyers on the the D you had frankly uh lawyers last year that margorie fox was an attorney I mean we worked with a number of lawyers throughout this process um so I think we've taken the due diligence and that's one of the reasons why it's severability clause in there but Westfield I couldn't tell you okay um councilman Minar I just want to say um I feel like councilman boer's message was lost on you that debate is very different than disrespect and how he was treated and what said to him is not acceptable we all deserve respect up here as we should respect you guys so I'm going to close that out okay and I'm going to open up to public comment and um Council welcomes comments from every every member of the uh public about topics that are not on tonight's agenda if you read from a prepared statement please provide a copy to the city clerk via email at clerk cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to per MIT all to be heard speakers are limited to come up to um only once and I'm asking you for 3 minutes um at 3 minutes I will ask you to wrap it up uh and oh yeah the mayor the mayor's in town um of course it's respectful to us to do the three minutes but it's also respectful to everybody in the room and watching so with that I open up public comment hello uh my name is Mary cumins and I live at 27 High Street and I would like to say a few words about the the summit affordable housing corporation's proposal for that 42 unit affordable building on the site of the current fire station uh so I own a restaurant in town and because of that I spent a lot of my time with the very people who who might likely benefit from that type of housing additionally I have five kids all of whom went to the public schools and were taught and coached by Wonderful by wonderful teachers and and coaches whom I suspect would also benefit from this housing project likewise when I shop in town or I go to a doctor's office and I and I talk with the office staff or a physician's assistant or when I work out at the Y or I'm helped in some way by a young police officer I am certain that many of the people whom I encounter daily would surely benefit from this type of housing proposal my husband is a school teacher in chattam and very few of the young teachers can live anywhere near there they always are complaining to him um and there are people like the ones that I just mentioned in all towns around here who simply cannot afford to live in Summit or any of the surrounding towns and I think that's really unfortunate not just for them but for all of us um happily I think the current housing proposal while not a cure all certainly could at least give 42 individuals or families the opportunity to live right here in Summit in a clean safe well situated home you know I I have to say I love living in Summit I've lived here for a long time it's an amazing town that we have here and I am not surprised that that hardworking people who work in this area want to live here too it's a great place to live to work to raise a family so rather than seeing this housing proposal as an imposition or a burden to Summit residents maybe we could uh view it as a unique opportunity to enrich our Community by enabling some hardworking families to live in Summit what a great legacy to leave behind thanks for listening thank you statement Mary may I have your statement or do you want to email it yeah okay does it have food on it thank you very much uh my name is Joselyn mat I'm a council member over in chattan burough um so we are we're neighbors and I came here just just to kind of update people on my perspective on what's been going on with this affordable housing law because I knew that you were you were going to be hearing about it tonight um I feel like I've been on our Council for six years and um it takes about six years to get your brain around how affordable housing works and doesn't work in this state uh with an emphasis on the doesn't work uh they tried to kind of cram this affordable housing uh through during the lame Ducks season and we're surp and and it it was pulled um I think that they were surprised at the resistance but then immediately put it back on the agenda for January and you know most of us were going through reorganization meetings we were we just swore in three new council members who who have not had time to learn about this uh so I've been down to Trenton and testified three times against this and I've testified as a Democrat but as somebody and somebody who believes in affordable housing and believes in economic diversity um but who also believes in really in good public policy which is my which is my background so um I think that it's important to understand this is moving really really quickly municipalities were not at the table developing this and we need to insist on a seat at the table in in this uh in this law um as a clarification it's it it's not uh it's not this law is is is the alternative to this law is the status quo in the courts which is a nightmare it's been a nightmare for us uh it's been a nightmare for Madison it's been a nightmare for a lot of other communities that have complied in good faith with our affordable housing requirements and still been uh sued or threatened with lawsuits and forced to reopen it so the status quo is is terrible um this is not an improvement um but just stopping this is not going to be uh is not going to be adequate nor is any municipality trying to say that they don't have this affordable housing obligation because that the courts have have said that so I really urge everyone especially to reach out to their Senators I know Senator mcken has been working very very hard on trying to get some amendments into this um fellow elected officials Morris County has been very organized around this uh but if uh if you can if you can get other elected officials in other counties to realize this is happening really really fast and it may be signed before we know it um you can reach out to the governor's office uh I sent the council president a four-page letter that we sent the to the governor I think he was a little taken aback um about about this um and in terms of of asks number one I would absolutely agree that the um that the Amendments that that we did get through that provided more legal protections for municipalities so that once you have an approved plan someone can't get just come in and say hey Drew Forest looks like you could have included that in your plan and you didn't so we want you to let us put affordable housing there which is what happened in Madison so uh or with in our case all along Main Street they wanted high density affordable housing there so um so making sure that those legal protections are adequate and I'm not an attorney uh and stay in there I think is the number one thing um that the the other thing that I I think is very important is in New Jersey we're not allowed to require a developer to to pay for many of the infrastructure costs associated with their development it's not legal in this state I do work all around the country and in other states you can charge School impact fees transport ation impact fees Park impact fees Etc so you know that I I think we need to start having this conversation about it we're being we're bearing all of the in infrastructure costs associated with five times the number of units as you need for affordable and at some point uh trying to reconcile that and a 2% tax cap is unmanageable so I'm just asking everybody to get as active as possible on this as quickly as possible and I'm sure I'm over three minutes but thank you very much thank you so much for coming tonight and thanks for waiting oh councilwoman Hamlet goe uh councilwoman thank you so much for coming I've been actually thinking about you a lot and I was actually on your website today I was looking at how hard mendum is advocating for all of the infrastructure uh costs as well and that's really why I don't know Mike is still here but that's really why I wanted to uh tell Mike today that I think it would be really powerful to look at how many municipalities are having um distinctly different problems with this uh with the language and the Amendments that have been made um because when you speak with uh our attorney Jeff seran uh Nancy Holmes you know they're really smart folks in the room uh we will 100% be there on Monday it's going to be a long day but uh we're really encouraging all of the residents to uh to contact uh your your legislatures and and really make a push for for this to be stopped and and properly amended yeah thanks for coming I appreciate it come on who's next hi uh Carol pek Tang 234 Summit Avenue the spelling I don't think I said before p a k hyen t n g um just a just randomly of note I don't know there's not really I know that for the TVs this is the spot but um I now have long covid and it's quite hard to just like stand up here and also the waiting process oh yeah you have to speak in the The Waiting process anyhow just something of note um it's not so easy for me these days to stand up here um so first of all councilman Boyer I'm sorry that you were clearly hurt by the comments um four weeks ago and that was inappropriate and so I just wanted to say person to person um the um okay so uh I I don't think most people who have I've spoke I heard spoke four weeks ago or two weeks ago have been been against the intent of the ordinance we all want to be safer um but the problem most people have raised concerns about is the language the Act exact wording and the larger effects on the community um things that were brought up four weeks ago were was the word privilege which is a very loaded word particularly for people of color these days um that's a that's we can choose a we can amend a better word it's not that hard um you know I know that um council president uh sorry it's late in the day and I can't really speak that fast um from the long covid but um council president you said that you know it wasn't that something that we're we're not trying to throw something together um but you did pass this four weeks ago with many concerns from the community you promised me personally four weeks ago and two weeks ago that you would reach out to me um to speak to me and other constituents in town and I haven't heard from you um nor have I heard from you councilman Boer as president of the safy committee and I I don't I can't speak for other folks mayor Fagan emailed me last night um setting something up and we I'm s um I wanted to see what was said here tonight before we move forward and I'm happy for you to invite uh council president Alan um the you know and and Mr giov also said yes that the job of council president is to reach out to the constituents to hear our concerns and to possibly amend this and look at it councilman minegar four weeks ago proposed that you got propose on the day that you could hold off on passing the amendment and take the time to rework it council president is at 3 minutes okay you have to wrap up okay sorry about that okay um but you know I would highly argue that this is not solid the community has come out and spoke against this um in particular the the community leaders of color and um I look forward to having meeting with you I just have a quick question are you coming up here as an individual or with the group uh I'm coming up as an individual I'm also the co-founder of Sumit AI in town but I'm speaking for myself okay and the only reason why is cu we're meeting with the anti-racism committee so I just want to be on the committee so okay so I don't remember speak with them saying specifically to you but I'm happy to meet for sure like I didn't you said you were going away next week because you're you were had something with your sonor minutes all right all right next up Teresa Solano 38 Lewis Avenue I'm going to switch gears here a little bit in regards to the proposed Stadium lighting at tatlock who are the key stakeholders is it our house in my family's 90-year history on Louis AV 60 years on Woodland AV with my mom's family of 10 who grew up on beakman is it the Washington School neighborhood who will be most directly negatively impacted but then will be engaged with to help raise 7 to $800,000 playground shortfall is it the club sports teams that knew about this before the residents is it the taxpayers who will be burdened with the electricity and soft cost every year is it the Board of Ed armed with information we make better choices although Council states that this is in the very early stages it feels like this project is full steam ahead as I found myself involved with its public unfolding after a handful of residents proactively reached out about this proposal if you build it they will come who is they we're not sure I've asked in the spirit of everybody's favorite words transparency and due diligence to illustrate not just for me but for the city who and when will be using the field if permanent St if permanent Stadium lighting is installed if the city knows what the master schedule is this year and has years of historical D data and is telling constituents this could be this could be coming in 2025 play around with it and show the residents how this can positively impact the community and what sports groups potentially will be practicing on the two field spaces Under The Lights that's common sense planning to justify this need and proposal I don't know if anybody on here is an urban planner and capable of making a sound decision without publicized traffic studies or environmental Environmental Studies at bare minimum the comparable field that was provided is in Bucks County Pennsylvania with not a house in sight this serves as a Regional High School with almost 3,000 students more than double the size of Summit High School it looks like a beautiful facility that works given their topography it's infuriating that there has been an official subcommittee on this since 2018 yet no one with any real skin in the game that lives here was considered to be part of of it there was a tatlock Commons advisory committee in 2006 that included three Washington School members including the PTA president teacher as well as uh resident as well as Bob wack representing the police department in traffic I ask Will some neighborhood residents be placed on the current tatlock subcommittee tatlock lights subcommittee will Lieutenant Dy Summit PD Traffic Division be placed on the subcommittee why are we putting lights on tatlock and not the tennis courts and baseball softball fields at Memorial lower high school or Middle School fields are also other consider considerations can we please slow down this Runway train and do traffic and Environmental Studies first and then publish them furthermore as this proposal is gaining more attention conveniently ancillary nighttime items from a September 22nd 2022 meeting were left off the DC P the Department of Community programs page these included parking noise trash lighting curent we're three minutes okay vandalism Please wrap up teen issues and drinking I've had Communications with the city over the last few years about the trash at the field and Mark has said tatlock is a never-ending battle it's a battle worth fighting to preserve the serenity of this special part of town filled with many young families and the Old Guard who stood up 20 years ago when toxis turf was proposed right before the elementary school thank you we have to end I'm sorry thank you I have her statement oh yeah do you want to yeah perfect did you already email it did you email that or didn't she take it oh okay thank you council president quick I'm going to let hold that thought sorry good evening Council my name is Reverend Dr Robin Tanner for Waldren AV I'm the minister at the Beacon unarian Universalist Congregation and the president of the summit Interfaith Council it is good to see you all this evening um I'm not here to speak on the safety ordinance um but I did want to say um council member Boer I'm so sorry for the emotional distress um that you've endured and I certainly look forward to working with you um as we go forward next week recently the summit Interfaith Council held a retreat where we've recommitted to Interfaith Partnerships our mission of seeking the welfare of the city fostering relationship building throughout the city and supporting affordable housing which we have a long history of Engagement with I'm here this evening to urge you to consider the project at The Old Firehouse site and seven seedar Street this project is in keeping with summit's history on affordable housing it will strengthen our community by ensuring that community members who work here are able to live here and while no project can solve all of our housing needs this would be an incredibly important step forward in the right direction I'm sure you know the legal imperatives better than I do and I certainly don't want to get into those this evening but it is the moral imperative for affordable housing which guides me this night I'm also here as a minister whose Faith teaches that housing having a home is a core human right and necessity nearly every religion teaches about the need to provide shelter and Community for those who are otherwise shut out for you clothed me and gave me shelter grant sufficient for what a person lacks according to what is lacking to him I could go on on a personal and somewhat vulnerable note when my family moved to New Jersey nearly 8 years ago we hoped to be able to live where I was ministering but suit was simply out of the price range for us I know this is true for other community leaders and members who contribute to this community who pour our hearts and every effort into this community and would love to truly be a part of it but for whom Summit is not accessible there are folks here who see this as their true home but cannot call so on their address I encourage the council to continue summit's history from 1938 to the 1950s and 1960s as our council president has reminded us including the housing created in 1972 1979 1986 2012 and just recently in 2023 continue the character of a welcoming and inclusive and thriving Summit that meets not only Court mandate but calls us to the best of our values together the summit Interfaith Council gladly pledges our partnership our time and our support in that endeavor worth three minutes thank you good evening my name is Eric so Berg I have lived at 46 Laural Avenue for the past 30 years and raised my three children who came through Summit schools Brighton Middle High School of course and uh I'm currently uh retired from a career working as a New Jersey school principal uh for the past couple decades I volunteer my time at Summit warm Hearts which you're familiar with it's a day program for the homeless sponsored by The Summit Interfaith Council that you just heard about from our Minister Robin um I'm proud to be a member of at home and Summit advocating for the affordable housing here the lack of affordable housing in in our state and our city concerns me greatly Rising rents have pushed hardworking families out of our their their Apartments my personal story is I grew up in the 1950s in a lower middle- class neighborhood in Brooklyn although my father was a recent immigrant his income allowed my mother to stay home and rais my three brothers and me over time we were able to buy an older house fix it up and build a back Equity I had access to good local public schools and was able to be successful in my career nowadays low-income Working Families pay over half of their income for rent often so such such families need two jobs to survive and they may not be one and they may be one payrick away from being evicted hardworking households people dedicated to the area dedicated to Summit uh have a can have a very difficult time to improve their financial situation under these situations I endorse the current plan of the construction of 42 units of affordable housing on the former fire demand property the firehouse site is an ideal place for this proposal in many ways in addition to nearby bus and train service it's an easy walking distance to schools downtown shopping such a project as you've heard before would be life-changing for these 42 families they could get a leg up financially and have less stress in their lives to raise their families I ask our mayor city council to move forward this this and make this project reality and I know you guys are busy and you got a long meeting ahead and I'm ending my comments thank you can we have your statement no notes to give that's okay my wife my name is John waret I'm at 44 Lewis Avenue sorry it's been a long wait no and uh my wife just informed me that I've been a summit resident for 50 years half a century got to wrap my head around that I knew people that they were that old I'm a retired teacher I have uh I have graduate credits in outdo facilities planning I have graduate credits in educational facilities and in the words of Yogi Barra it's deja vu all over again with the lighting and you have to ask yourselves as a common Council why don't we have them some it's a first class Town 20 years later why don't we have them because of the negative impact on the tiny neighborhood which I like to call Martins Brook Park you know it really is a jewel it's an outdoor teaching site rip for development to have an Environmental Education Center there I developed one in Mount Arlington New Jersey called uh Centennial Oaks and it's primed the school buses go over there from all from all over the town we have water we have Century old trees we even have Bank swallows you know what a bank swallow is these are birds that live in the the bank of a stream my my kids have caught trout back there and to put these light towers up if you've ever been to a correctional institution with the barb wire and the 75 foot Towers that's what we're getting and the difference is here you can show pictures my backyard is the football field and there are plenty of houses that my back fence is there and you're going to put these towers up for a million six it's out of line but Friday Night Football under the lights is a special thing I was also a senior class advisor over in West Orange High School 550 kids senior prom not a kid got thrown out drugs of drinking because we had rules and I said the money you're spending you don't want to get kicked out this is a wedding without the ceremony but the sad part of it is a million six to to bring down property values it's a negative impact it's common sense that's why we don't have the lights it's Common Sense kids are going to be up until 10 at night practicing three minutes as an educator it's senseless thank you doesn't make sense wait a minute they all got a long time to talk and this is important you'll have to wrap up 30 second this is really important and I would like to ask the whole common Council ask why there are no lights is because the common Council knew the negative impacts thank you thank you okay hi Rosemary Grace 12 Chestnut Avenue thank you for this opportunity to share my comments as a member a proud member of at home and Summit located at the website atome andumm it.org which I hope and invite people to visit in the issue of that favorite word transparency so as you know you were presented at the previous meeting with a proposal by The Summit affordable housing Corporation for the 42 unit affordable housing project on the firehouse site I wholehearted ly support this proposal and I hope you will as well after you complete your due diligence I have a personal relationship to the location of this proposal because I live across the street and I have some benefits that I'd like to share with you about the proposal from my perspective as a resident who walks in that area all the time I particularly like that the orientation of the building the proposal is going to be on Cedar Street and that the footprint is really very modest and that in terms of its relationship to the senior building across the street um it's only going to come uh face the Broad Street side up to the actual beginning of the senior building of the Gallow building and the benefit of that is that the Vista across the street is not it's going to be clear it's not going to be blocking um the historic St Teresa's Memorial Hall not like you know the previous proposal that was very unpopular uh that Vista is really important because it also allows folks to walk across and get direct access um and which a lot of the seniors like to do they like to go across and walk over to the services there um we're at three minutes council president okay so anyway to wrap up thank you I hope that you will support this and that you won't leave all the millions of dollars on the table that are down in Trenton waiting for proposals like this thank you because you've got to be in it to win it thank you thank thank you for your consideration you yeah Miss Grace Rosemary do you mind giving email okay thank you okay should we go I'm Henry Bassman I live at 18 Harley Road during the last council meeting Mr Smallwood made three statements about tlock field that relate to process I'm a process guy on two occasions he said quote we will continue to hold small community meetings unquote and quote I will continue to hold meetings over the next several weeks the public should see a copy of the plan for those meetings how many meetings will be held where who will be invited how will they be invited how will the discussions be memorialized and made available to the entire community ultimately he said it would be my committee to bring the council for a vote quote I promised them I would not bring this to council for a vote until we got community consensus on something we could all accept pardon me I have a sore throat consensus is an interesting word the American Heritage dictionary of the English language defines consensus as one an opinion or position reached by a group as a whole to General agreement so this raises several questions that should be answered before consensus building begins who are the people who will be the consensus Builders how will they be selected how many times will discussions take place before reaching a consensus who will be the impartial moderator to ensure that the consensus reported accurately reflects the position reached by the group as a whole finally Mr Smallwood said both groups are going to have to agree on something right and whether we approve it or not we're trying to engage the community at a smaller level and get that input and then bring it to a larger Community who is the smaller Community most often we hear references to the people who live on Butler Parkway but that's only a fraction of the people who would be affected by the lights a significant portion of w one districts 8 9 10 and 11 would be affected there's also some disinformation needs to be clarified some people suggest that field lights 7 days a week until 10 p.m. has not been considered there is a written summary of discussion by the field lights working group of the community programs Advisory Board from January 25th 23 it says quote when would lights be on we discussed from the first week in March until mid December as needed but potential for 7 days a week turn turned off at 10 p.m. that's on the record the same document under reviews and Communications sequencing says do we go to council or have listening sessions with the neighbors first no talk of a four-stage plan or of the need to reach consensus so when did the four-stage plan come into be was the plan and the requirement of consensus only reached after proposing the project be funded Mr my last sentence it's 3:00 okay 3:00 for these and other reasons I'm May enumerate at the next council meeting I strongly urge you to remove consideration of Lights at tatlock field from the capital budget because what you have now is a halfhazard and incomplete plan that is barely transparent and could have disastrous effects on people's quality of life and the Suburban environment of our city thank you thank you y okay are there any other comments Peter lejoy 124 can Brook Parkway Summit New Jersey I have a couple of short comments first of all I'd like to comment on the safety ordinance um I think the city solicitor hit a very good point about adopting the ordinance as a step or step down uh this summit's Council a number of years ago did the very same thing with the alcohol ordinance so we adopted an alcohol ordinance so police could charge miners or underage drinkers with an ordinance rather than sending them down to the county and I think that's probably what the intent of this is I would say to all of the people that came here uh in the last couple of months and had a lot of loud words for this County that maybe they should go down and work on the organized criminals and the mobs that are recruiting young people who don't live in Summit and sending them through to various communities not just Summit to engage in Theft because they're underage and they can't be charged as adults and I mean I you know I think the folks I think a lot by the way was left on the floor by the last Council and never addressed these lights were before this Council and Henry even said it in January 2023 what did the council do as far as organizing a public for or Comm communicating with the community or even communicating amongst itself because I sat in these meetings and there was no discussion among council members about anything other than to vote the um but I would really I'd like to go back to the safety ordinance because and then I'll be finish up this week my neighbor had somebody banging on her window trying to break into her car at 8:30 in daylight in the morning she called the police uh the summit police responded quickly rapidly there were three or four officers there and both my wife and I were very pleased to see the work of our community policeman um unfortunately I don't know whether the person was caught or not but I can tell you both that neighbor and another neighbor are both of them are women and they live alone in in single family homes and I they were scared to hell so I think this is another issue that was before a prior Council and they left it on the floor they didn't do anything with it other than to push it around we had an we had a public I mean we had a development project that suddenly died it suddenly died the council just ended it in November Nobody Knows Why council president we're three minutes thank you thank you um thank you very much right thank you is there any other comments Joselyn Modesto 61 Butler Parkway um I just want to take a moment to highlight one of the many issues with the proposed Stadium lighting at tatlock in 2004 there was a commitment made by the city to the tatlock community when both the upper and lower Fields were being turfed and that agreement was not to add lights to the fields because of the burden the town new turfing would have on the surrounding Community this agreement was well documented in newspaper articles at the time and neighbors who lived here 20 years ago remember it well a small group of neighbors met recently with councilman palowski who pretty much told us that we cannot trust in that agreement with the prior Council but his next sentence was that this Council would like to make an agreement with us now you understand our trepidation to make a deal with this Council when they will not honor prior agreements made with the neighborhood then in the next breath councilman Bowski tells us that of course the agreement agreement can always change it could change by a proposed ordinance modification and the tatlock community would have to be on its guard watching every council meeting and scouring the agendas for the topic to come up there would be no notice to the neighborhood other than what we investigate and research sort of like how this original proposal is playing out no one wants to live like that not being able to trust in the word of their elected officials and worrying that every deal you strike can be changed this council's view seems to be we're not going to honor that old agreement but we'll make the tatlock community a new one oh but by the way it's subject to change once the genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back in there seems to be an overarching lack of respect for the tatlock community as the plans for the fields continuously change additionally we were told that only Summit teams would be using the field at night however there's no way to ensure this is enforced in just the hour we were meeting with councilman palowski at the track there was a seat in Hall Prep Lacrosse team practicing at the field an unsupervised kid running his e scooter all over the turf and an out of town coach time trialing Runners there are many weekends where full 11 on 11 men's SI soccer games occur with residents from Madison and planfield there's personal trainers from out of town that meet their clients at the field for sessions and the tatlock neighborhood deals with all that hustle and bustle in addition to back-to-back team practices and games during the daylight hours but the overburdened tatlock community should not have to see it hear it and be inconvenienced by it after dark as well our quality of life and enjoyment of our properties after dark is entitled to difference and respect the tatlock community already shoulders way more than its fair share of Burden for the sports community and then um the one thing I just wanted to add to the statement was um councilman Hamlet everything that you said when it came to the affordable housing legislation and why it's detrimental to Summit can totally be applied to our community of tatlock on a micro level it would be one of the worst things that could happen it would be devastating we'd be forced to shoulder an additional burden it's all applicable to our little community by tatlock thank you for your time thank you Michelle cson 67 Butler Parkway um I have more questions than a statement Council has made statements that they will need to change city ordinances to accommodate installing 70ft Stadium light poles in tatlock a residential area should these ordinances change will the city be able to stop oratory prep Kent Place or Oak null from installing their own stadium lighting should should they choose to would the city be able to control how many games these schools host or what other events they wish to schedule thank you thanks anybody else hello how are you Eric klaski 169 Broad Street uh Jamal I would say sorry but um for for me sorry is one of those words that's super super cliche and doesn't do anything Justice I was incredibly incredibly moved by your words I think everybody in the room tonight and those watching as well those that are coming to Future meetings should really internalize that and think about that there are a lot of people who come up here talking about community as I stand here or I watch meetings there are a lot of people have a sense of entitlement this group up here is responsible for 22,000 people 22,000 people Jamal and I I don't know if we agree all the time we're probably not going to agree all the time from a political standpoint but you will always have my support and I promise you that I think when we think about people who come up here again talking about community and representation one of the absolute beautiful things that's come together over the last 2 years there probably six people sitting up here if my math is Right 1 two three four five six no six there's six people up here maybe it's no I think it's six six people who shouldn't necessarily be sitting up here I'm not a scientist I'm not a mathematician but the math doesn't work this isn't about politics it's not about Democrats it's not about Republicans people voted for six people up here because they wanted to be heard and they wanted to be represented and I think that's something really important I've stood up here before I've been laughed at I've been told the reason I won't get answers is because somebody is a council president I've been dismissed I've sent emails and so when people walk up here with the expectation that somebody up here is reaching out that has not been the standard nor has that ever been the standard and so I think everybody needs to think about that I am super super supportive of the community coming together there should be engagement there should be dialogue everybody should feel represented there is no obligation to answer to any one resident thank you very much thank you hello good evening everyone um my name is Carlos Hernandez I'm a resident of Butler parkway at 85 Butler Parkway um I I not I already submitted an email and thank you um mayor Fagan for uh responding acknowledging the the receipt and adding that to the collection so I'm going to be very brief I just recently became aware of this uh light Fields issue um that it's alarming the the lack of transparency that that appears to exist I read your Facebook post yesterday um you know a lot of the neighbors here have contradicted your statements about some of the things that you said that haven't been agreed or been discussed look forward to you coming to the community talking as well as all of you I think it's important to understand and you should have skin in the game if you live in that Community about what this would mean we're already have a lot of traffic as it is we already have a lot of noise that I enjoy personally seeing the games and the graduations and everything else that goes with it I moved to this community about six years ago have enjoyed where we are we love the community we love our neighbors but the impact that you're impos that would be imposed by these lights would be really unacceptable and I hope you really deliberate these very carefully before moving forward thank you thank you anyone else okay I'm going to close public hearing um public comment um but what I'd like to do is councilwoman Hamlet did you want to do okay uh yes thank you council president I'm going to say something similar to what I said last time which is that there's only three people up here that can be blamed for lack of transparency or starting tatlock lights or having any discussions around tatlock lights that's me councilman minegar and councilman Varan the facts are that there was a meeting in 20 18 on October 2nd and if you Google Summit City Council October 2nd 2018 around minute 11 you're going to see Elaine Anderson who was the chair of I think the community program lighting project you're going to see her give a presentation and at the time McAn Ogden Beth little NAU Bowman and gold I think we're on Council correct me if I'm wrong I may have missed one I think Matt when did you get to the city when were I think I was there I think you were sitting right there I was right and at the end of the meeting it's really interesting because uh council president David Nao at the time he says thank you so much they give her an award because she was leaving I think she had just sold her house I've watched it now five times and he says are there any are there any Resident comments well there weren't any Resident comments in fact there's only a few residents here there's only a few and so we're happy to engage on these discussions with tatlock but this is nothing this is not something that is new this started from what I can see as a president ation to the community on October 2nd 2018 the second presentation was the capital budget request which was held on 12821 and so council president what I could ask if you could have our city Communications off officer post these meetings so that the residents can see some of the history behind this because the only people who are responsible for any of this up here right now at least from the past would be Greg Andy and myself the only time I talked about tatlock lights was I think one time in January of 2023 and that's I said where's the let me look at the study and I don't even think we talked about 23 so we're open to Residents we're happy to engage the in the process and be transparent but let's be very clear these meetings watch them on TV started in 2018 but it wasn't with this Council we are just now beginning to talk about this process and engage all of you I think that's all I have I think that's all I had thank you um I would like to um okay I would like to say two things one I hear you I I understand your concern and you want it you are you want Community engagement and I sat up here for two years listening to another a previous Council on gas Leaf flowers getting pushed through Broad Street West getting pushed through through and I understand the frustration when you feel like there's something that is important to you and nobody is listening so I just want to make sure you feel heard and that I am a huge proponent of transparency and listening um as a matter of fact in a in a short order with um David Guida we were working I mean I was not working on maybe playground everybody else was um but one of the steps that I was concerned about was that there were a group of moms who wanted a music um instruments to be incorporated and there were the neighbors who backed up to maybe who were like listen we don't want the music you know and everybody's like well you you move next to a park and they're like yeah we move next to a park but not music instruments so David did a great job I called him and I said listen we need to get these people together the two groups have to talk because as much work that has been done over the last two years or however long it was it's really important that two groups that are clashing have to understand each other um and so David did a great job he organized a whole uh field trip we went to New Pro we went to maybe and then we went to um New Providence and I felt like we got we were in a really good place um Everybody actually that's how we got the maybe Playground Music is because we're going to make alterations and we're going to make sure that everybody and I would actually say it's not consensus it's compromise you get to consensus through compromise and that's what it means to be an elected official of 22,000 people so I am not going to I don't think anyone up here is going to dismiss you but I'm just going to say personally I'm not dismissing the idea of being heard because I witness what it does to a community and it tore us apart for two years and it's not the community that I feel that I came and moved to so I know that everybody's committed to this I'll say that they're all committed to it um I did a little homework um which is a separate issue around listening and engagement so um on the website David Gua um had kind of sent me to their um Community programs website um there's a list of Liaisons that have been on this since 2018 up to 2024 2018 was Mary Ogden 2019 was Matt G uh 20120 and 2021 was Dani O Sullivan 22 uh was Andy minegar 23 dilia and now it's Kevin Smallwood um and I I went through and there's something called the management project um these are reports that get printed every year that we can um that are on the website but when you go and look at it um in give me one second I just want to give me one second uh 2021 as of most recent um the on this on this report the community programs Advisory Board formed a subcommittee to explore lighting options in investors field and the upper tatlock field this work has been proposed at the tatlock Redevelopment plan so you can find this similar statement in all of these different management plans and I'm not surprised because I've heard people come and say over 50 years this has been an ongoing conversation um we will have Community engagement we have we um I'll let you talk because I also I'm going to let the mayor say something because I do want David guita to come up and say a few words um because I would say that him and Mark oosi are truly interested in making sure that this community draws people together and sports has happened to be one of the most um it has anchored our community for probably since its existence so I don't want anything to do with sports to tear our community apart so we will listen and I would like to give the mayor um an opportunity to speak very quickly I mentioned at the last meeting that um one of my interests is to do community forums um we are working on a date uh sometime either the first or second week of April hopefully if we can get the um the community heads department heads and and uh relevant Council people to be able to be available and we will do um Community Forum Q&A openhouse so it'll kind of be a um Department of Community programs you know education experience um and at that you certainly are welcome to come and speak ask questions listen um and engage about you know playgrounds and all of the recreation outdoor recreational facilities and actually potentially some of the indoor ones I don't know um but yeah anything that the Department of Community programs is in charge of is fair game will be fair game at that and I believe there's a meeting this week where we hopefully will find a we'll settle on a date and that will will be announced as soon as possible thanks great thank you um I'm going to call David Guida up but Amy did you want to say something I wanted okay okay all right thanks well council president thank you for the opportunity to talk about this project again I think it's um definitely worth mentioning that going back through the management reports which are publicly available in the budget document that is published each and every single year um this goes back to the 2019 budget report um in 2019 as part of the capital budget presentation the full light project was actually included at the time in 20 in 2019 going into 2020 the uh common council at the time made the decision to approve the study the study went pretty slowly admittedly um covid had a big factor in that and um in 2022 that's when the pro when the study was finally completed um once the study was completed we um it went out for bid in 2022 in 2023 we received the results of that study and in 2023 we had um maybe playground was a larger priority kind of took the background but if you go back through all of our capital budget requests and capital budget presentations going back to 2019 this has been in there each and every single year it's been um number one in the capital budget that we provide to the CFO and city of administrator um in the year leading up to the capital budget and then it's been included in 2020 not in 2021 but in 2022 and 2023 in the capital budget presentations so those have always been opportunities available to discuss this um admittedly something that I like to say all the time is if we don't have a project and know what something is going to look like we don't know how to discuss it so to be able to get the plan from the engineers and from musco that's our starting point so on behalf of Mark and myself we do apologize to the neighbors for not bringing a plan earlier but there simply was nothing to discuss prior to having a plan this plan is our starting point now is the time where working with um councilman Smallwood and councilman migar um on our committee we're really going to take the Deep dive of dis discussing everything with the residents I might be speaking out of turn but I really think we are going to go down the route of doing an Eis doing a traffic study doing a parking study so over the next couple weeks people are saying what are we engaging with at this point it's all over social media it's all over um the chatter on the playground all over the neighborhood we're listening to everything and speaking for Kevin or councilman uh Smallwood councilman migar myself and um Mark aeroski our emails our phones are always open we are hearing the concerns at this point I think we are in a bit of a cycle of just hearing all the concerns and it's time to come up with a plan of what we're going to do with the community engagement that we've received so we are put working on putting together a community engagement plan putting together a plan of how we're going to move going forward which will probably include the studies and really once we got the results of the studies and once we kind of are able to sit down and do this hypothetical forecasting with the field schedule then we'll be able to have more meaningful meetings to Hash it out and come to that hopefully compromise on all of these issues so that's really the goal um and hopefully we can gain the trust of the tatlock neighborhood and the larger Community to um show that we are listening to everybody and concerns are being heard and we we are developing an action plan but to develop an action plan going forward it takes time to hear everybody thank you thank you David well to Amy's Point all of the um the PowerPoint presentations the meetings aren't recorded but all of the um capital budget presentations are available on the budget site and um all of the management reports are also available what I'll go back and do is um hyperlink on our FAQs on the website and um that way you can be brought directly to them um instead of searching for them on all the different pages thank you okay okay can we just hyperlink the two meetings that I had mentioned they're on YouTube yeah one is the budget request and then one is that council meeting absolutely are you talking about uh councilwoman ham 2022 capital budget Workshop uh it's the meeting from 12821 which was the 2022 capital budget workshop and then it is the meeting uh the council meeting on October 2nd 2018 okay AB important okay thank you councilman um migar did you want to say something for you council president um I just wanted to make a comment on the maybe playground lights excuse me the maybe playground maybe playground instruments playground lights maybe playground instruments um there there was just a little bit of info that you mentioned and I want to clear it up here I sat through a zoom meeting with you um where the musical instruments were taken off the table entirely at the end um and I don't believe you said anything at that time um it was me I reached out to David Guida I reached out to parents who were concerned and that's the reason those lights are those those instruments are even there the reason those instruments are even there is for the for the work from those amazing parents concerned brilliant teachers and David Guido so that's that's what I wanted to clear up what I would actually like to clear up is this is um we were getting a ton of emails we were going to do the Grant I think it was um and we were getting a ton of emails so the moms were upset not upset but they were advocating rather they were advocating for the music and then we had a second set of email which usually usually happens we have these um competing emails and the other emails were from the individ the residents from that backed up to maybe so I called David and I said listen this is not going anywhere good I like we just need to get everybody together and that's what I'm talking about you guys worked on the the project I did I do not take any credit for that all I'm saying is I stepped in at the very last minute just to say hey what can we do and then David did an amazing job who orchestrated a field trip so I am not taking credit for maybe at all I just wanted to go ahead David one last thing and I think it's important just for the record cuz lights are a Hot Topic there are lights as part of the site plan at maybe just along the pathways along the whole Village Green I just don't want there to be any surprises yeah okay so I just want to make sure that that's clear councilman migar thank you okay well I think you know for for the public to understand I was listening to most of the residents that lived in the condos that didn't want the musical instruments Andy was was dealing with the musical instrument so we at the end of the day got everybody together and we figured it out that's what council people should do that that was a perfect example sorry than you council president I want to re reiterate that the lights were excuse me the the instruments were absolutely removed at the end of a meeting and so I push to make sure that they put they came back on that's the reason that they're there the parents the amazing concerned teachers David Guida and my efforts can I say something first of all can I just say something first of all we didn't even we don't even know if we had money for the lights for the for the musical instruments so my my issue is we just don't have the money for half of this that we're even talking about so in reality we didn't even have money for the musical instruments so my argument was why are we talking about the musical instruments and why are we talking about maybe playground because right now we are ripping up the entire Village Green for a pedestrian Village Transit Grant so I mean that's it okay council president can I just be very clear we're not talking about lights we clear that we are not talking about lights all right I would like to give anybody else an opportunity to speak before we move are we good all right no is is this for open well no no no no we're just we're gonna move no uh oh well I close public comment okay and I was just saying if you just wanted to add anything from what everybody talked about in um public comment in public comment right yeah yeah so I'll be brief in in 2023 uh the summit PD handled over 50,000 calls for service almost a 50% increase over the past 3 to four years specifically motor vehicle thefts up 117% residential burglaries up 126% how many police brutality incidents zero how many false arrests reported in Summit last year zero the word privilege is actually in the 2C criminal code the thing about it is I sat here for two separate Council meetings and I heard people talk about Mass men jumping out of cars with their kids in the driveway one having a confrontation um people with crowbars going into people's homes listen we gotta we got to stop the politics yes when I took office I said I'm going to do whatever I can do to help the police department and the police chief change the dynamic in this town because this is like a real thing thing right and I used the EXC I you know I went through the example of growing up here I grew up here so people are coming in you know week after week talking about you know racism and how racist this town is and this and that and like I'm I grew up here like don't be scared to go knock on somebody's door you know and Carol uh I will call you AB absolutely you know and we can talk because I don't want your children being scared you shouldn't be scared of police like or you shouldn't be scared of anybody in this town this is not Chicago this is not New York City it's not Atlanta you know and I get it like they they may have some issues or whatever but the police department do a good job you know they they they talk to the anti-racism committee they they have you know all these different um uh they go through these different trainings and everything we we just don't have those issues but what we have an issue with is safety and it's our job to keep people safe and pass laws to keep people safe thank you coun uh thank you councilman okay um we're going to close that and we are going to move on to ordinances for hearing Madame clerk please read the first ordinance ordinance number 24- 3307 an ordinance amending chapter 2 Administration section 2-15 Department of police of the code of the city of summit to add a new section 2-1 15.15 entitled custodian of Records thank you councilman palowski this is ordinance number 24-33 07 uh an ordinance amending chapter 2 Administration section 2115 Department of police of the code of the city is Summit to add a new section entitled custodian of Records although the city clerk is designated as the records custodian under the New Jersey open public records act this body May appoint additional records custodians many of the records sought under Oprah requests are police records the SPD maintains its own records and is in the best position to review redact and prepare these records for production under Oprah Council seeks through this ordinance to allow the police to comply with Oprah requests I recommend that we adopt this ordinance okay hearing is open Council comments did you get a second for the hearing oh sorry second thank you thank you um Council comments public comments okay we will close the hearing on to the second one Madam clerk ordinance number 24- 3308 an ordinance amending the code chapter 2 Administration section 2-43 rent commission subsection 2- 43.3 appointment of members and term councilman plasi yes this is ordinance 24- 3308 the rent commission exists to educate landlords and tenants about their rights and obligations under the New Jersey landlord tenant law uh in association with disputes between them the rent commission also works to assist landlords and tenants in mediating and settling disputes between them prior to resorting to land La tenant court the current makeup has has of the rent commission has five members and has proven in recent times to experience challenges reaching a quorum on a regular basis without a quorum the rent commission cannot hear disputes and provide the valuable service for which it exists this ordinance proposes adding two alternate members to maximize a consistent and month-to-month Quorum I recommend we adopt this ordinance and opening the hearing you're making a motion to open the hearing correct yes okay okay hearing is open Council comments public comments okay we will close the hearing ordinance uh ordinances for final consideration uh Madam clerk please start with the first ordinance ordinance 24- 3307 and ordinance amending chapter 2 Administration section 2-15 Department of police of the code of the city of summit to add a new section 2-1 15.15 entitled custodian of Records great thank you this is ID number 24- 3307 having just completed the hearing about this ordinance I move this ordinance for final adoption second okay roll call vote Please Mr Boer yes Miss Hamlet yes Mr minegar hi Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I Mr Varan I president Allen I okay uh on to the next one Madam clerk ordinance 24- 3308 an ordinance amending the code chapter 2 Administration section 2-43 rent commission subsection 2- 43.3 appointment of members and term councilman palowski thank you council president this is ID number 2 43308 having just completed the hearing about this ordinance I move this ordinance for final adoption second okay roll call vote Please Mr Boer yes Miss Hamlet I Mr miger I Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I Mr Varan I president Allen I motion carries okay one ordinance for introduction Madam clerk please read the the ordinance ID number 1194 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap Bank councilman migar thank you council president this is an ordinance to allow the city to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and establish a cap Bank State Law establishes two limits to what a city can increase increase in their budget two caps on the revenue side of the budget property tax increases are limited to 2% over the prior year's tax levy and on the expenses side of the budget Appropriations increases are limited to 3.5% over the prior years's Appropriations this ordinance deals with that Appropriations limit it allows for an increase of Appropriations up to that limit and then any difference between the actual final Appropriations amount and that 3.5% increase amount we will still be able to utilize in the event of unforeseen circumstances because we have banked that difference no actual money is sitting in a bank but we are reserving that leftover Appropriations increase amount for an unexpected future need up to two budget years we are not planning to exceed this cap this is an important step the city takes every year giving us that extra Appropriations wiggle room should we ever need it I move to introduce this ordinance a second okay Council comments all right hearing none roll call vote please Mr Boer yes Miss Hamlet I Mr migar hi Mr palaski I Mr Smallwood I Mr Varan I president Allen I okay the hearing will be on March 19th on to resolutions president you probably I just think we should have congratulated the chief on his designation as the custodian of Records it's a great honor and H Rosie is very I want a personally thank the chief wow actually I was going to say you were probably pretty excited to hear about opr form earlier by Sarah yeah yes okay on to resolutions um councilman migar thank you council president this is number 1 excuse me 1199 and this resolution authorizes emergency temporary Appropriations for the municipal operating budget the statutory language required in a resolution like this uses the word emergency but this is a regular occurrence not an emergency these temporary Appropriations are to help the city fund operating expenses and payroll expenses until we have an adopted excuse me until we have adopted our 2024 budget later this spring I move to adopt this resolution a second great Council comments public comments okay roll call Madam Mr Boer yes Miss Hamlet hi Mr migar hi Mr palowski hi Mr Smallwood hi Mr vtin hi president Allen I motion carries okay councilman migar thank you council president this is number 11098 and this resolution sets up a dedicated trust for the fees collected for lead-based paint inspections in rental dwellings and allows us uh allows for the expenses related to those inspections to be paid out paid for out of this dedicated trust I move to adopt this resolution second okay Council comments public comments hearing none all in favor I I any opposed motion carries okay on to safety and health councilman Boer this is id1050 uh authorizing a Grant application for FEMA assistance to Firefighters uh this is for two-way radios um the Fire Department chief is hereby authorized to submit an application of FEMA uh for firefighters grant program to provide funding assistance for the fire department an amount not to exceed $247,200 and that the city of summit is committed to providing a 10% Cash Cash match for the project and that the fire department is hereby authorized to sign the grant agreement on behalf of the city subject to review and approval of the city solicitor that the fire department's Chief signature constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions of the grant agreement and approves the execution of the grant agreement I move this to a hearing second you adopt you asked to move the resolution but that's okay Council comments public comments okay hearing none all in favor hi hi any opposed okay motion carries um councilman Boer your second one yes this is ID number 11057 authorizing the Grant application submission for the New Jersey Division of highway traffic safety uh distracted driving Statewide Crackdown grant program and execute agreement is that my mic that was me that was weird by yes so the summit Police Department is eligible to apply for $7,000 in funding through this year's New Jersey dhts distracted driving Statewide Crackdown grant program uh with this funding the department will be able to conduct additional overtime traffic enforcement and curb accidents resulting from distraction to drivers as such the police department intends to apply for the full amount of 7,000 to conduct overtime enforcement details during the designated project period the Grant application deadline is March 88th 2024 I move this resolution to a hearing no no hearing yeah you just move the resolution yeah adoption for adoption okay uh it's okay uh counc that too Council comments public comments okay hearing none all in favor I I I any opposed motion carries okay on to capital projects and Community Services councilwoman Hamlet yes this is ID thank you council president ID number 11060 this resolution sorry can't see this resolution will appoint Jacqueline gray to the Union County Community Development Revenue sharing committee she will be she will be replacing Keith Canard who recently left the Summit Housing Authority as the Director I would like to move this resolution I'd like to move this resolution for introduction it's getting it's getting late I know I know uh I second thank you all right Council comments public comments okay hearing none all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay um moving on to the consent agenda at this agenda at this time we're going to vote on the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve it so moved do I have a second second second okay um does anybody want to discuss any resolutions before we move on okay um hearing none anything from the public all right hearing none all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay on to items for discussion action and referral um uh Maple Street councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president over the last couple of weeks since we had a Dar from a resident regarding Maple Street and I know there's obviously other residents who would like Maple Street open for outdoor dining uh we I've been working with council president Vartan and committee uh on several several items regarding Maple Street but I thought it would be appropriate for uh director Sher to talk about the things that we've worked on so far thank you through you council president uh yes at caps committee we have discussed in pretty big detail that there is a desire from the public we've had some feedback to pursue uh all alternative or additional outdoor dining options outside of the standard Sidewalk Cafe obviously one that comes up quite a bit is Maple street closure and how we could proceed with doing that if we were to proceed with doing that uh so I guess the the first question to kind of answer the two-year question really is is it legal to close uh Maple Street for in excess of 48 hours for the purpose in this case would be outdoor dining and the short of it is that was detailed in a memo by our attorney last February uh there is two process C es in place that that we could follow uh to uh to obtain the approval in accordance with New Jersey laws uh first would just be a straight closure in excess of 48 hours which is detailed the other would be by deeming it or actually by ordinance declaring it a pedestrian Mall uh either indefinitely permanently or as a a sunset which was done uh previously in 2022 uh that is the processes that would have to be followed can we do it at this time and short of it is it requires a significant amount of work and planning to go into it before we could follow what is required in the first method which is to do a straight closure in excess of 48 Hours uh some of the requirements in here do require an engineer certification which at this time do require quite a bit of work if it even can be done but in particular it does declare or actually state that what's required is that the closur is and the interest and the safety of the EXP addition of traffic on the public highways which in itself is almost a conflict within the intent that might be trying to be achieved uh so that would obviously take quite a bit of studies and or detour planning or other means to even uh arrive at a point where that could be something that could be successfully implemented uh that said from the beginning the first requirement that you have to submit to the state does just clearly state that you need to know the duration and hours of the of the closure which at this time is is not yet known and I think there's a lot of information out there that still needs to be uh obtained and considered in trying to find Solutions if there are any in in a way to create additional outdoor dining within the street uh I can just share that within the engineering division we are looking at other ways in terms of either shrinking the road or less than 48 hour closures or temporary closures we just have not had the time and ability to get to that as quickly as we would have liked which does highlight the other you know main factor of trying to uh obtain a closure this season is that some dates have been kicked around Memorial Day I don't know if that's the date there's been nothing directed or actually stated that's what we want to uh hope to achieve and if that is the date though it is two months away two months in government time is really like two days so in order to meet just the requirement of all the ordinances that would need to be in place just from this point of view to proceed to do and giving them a twoe timeline to approve it which in dot time is really that's like a minute so there's no guarantee that it would come back that quickly we basically have eight or nine days before the window would close for us to to put something together uh additionally what that doesn't factor in and the governing body has been pretty I believe in consensus about the the notion of charging fees to to set up in the street uh that's a whole separate ordinance process that would have to take place um I'm not famili and I don't know if those fees might then make it prohibitive for the restaurants to pursue so what it really highlights is just there's a lot of information that's still needed for us to come up with with a potential proposal or concepts that might be considered moving forward we also have our planner has apped with a memo that basically says in reviewing the previous Master plans yes there is some intent to increase public space uh specifically Maple Street is not mentioned but it does mention Beachwood but he does point out that um Suddenly It's 2024 and our master plan reexamination is doing 2026 so really that's going to start within a year or so so that is a time to really focus on it if we want to have something that doesn't require an annual discussion or consideration that is a good time to focus on it but even anything in a more short term before we proceed with the re-examination would just be there's a lot of information we still need and and a lot of um Concepts we have to work out before we could proceed with something okay thank you are there any comments actually yeah sure I you know we have a lot of there a lot of conversation and Council meetings about how we don't deliberate enough up here right so I'll just I'll just say my opinion of it which is that uh I think people know I love the way that this happened the several years that we did it in Summit other municipalities do it well they figure out a way to make it work for their Community uh they get whatever they need to get down to Dot and it works and it's a destination and I think it adds a tremendous tremendous amount to the community Vibe and the whole General downtown feel my suggestion because we're this is a Dar right we're talking about ideas my suggestion would be Memorial Day to Labor Day I think if we as a council were to get some consensus on that we could very easily have a meeting with the downtown business owners and talk about that as a concept uh we could use it as the basis for sending a letter perhaps to do to say something to the effect of we're thinking about doing this and I think if we wanted to as a council we could be very upfront and say we want to get this done let's direct City staff to do everything within their power to help us get it done and I think that's my position on it so thank you okay presid um you know what let me go to councilman Bo only because you spoke once before and or did you did you speak yeah I'm it's just late and I kind of got lost in the sauce um what so in plain English like uh can this be done or like can you sign off on it like this summer or is this like a non-starter in general because I don't I'm I kind of guy yes three council president for 2024 no there's there's not the there's not the time or do we have the clear directive and plan of what we're hoping to achieve to get something accomplished within a reasonable time okay councilwoman Hamet uh yes so I'm going to ask the question in a different way not to put you on the spot director Sher I think what we're all struggling here with the very specific language and Mr giobi you can opine here as well but the very specific language is very clearly laid out in njac 16 colon 27- 4.1 and then it's B4 so in there there are there are three items that need to be done and then there's 1 two 3 four subsections and then within all of these subsections there's a huge glossery of what all of these words mean so public Highway non-public Highway public road so it's really important and in fact maybe we can get the city Communications officer to post this tomorrow it's really important to go through this and understand this piece of Doc this document So Not only would Aaron have to give a written description of the reason for the non-highway non-state highway closure the anticipated duration of the non-state highway closure and a description of the non-state highway and state highways that are proposed to serve as a detour route he would have to give the plans depicting the non-state highway being closed and the non-state highway or state highways that are proposed to serve as a detour route I think we could do that a recommendation regarding the non-state high closure in the form of a certification by the engineer bearing the engineers New Jersey Professional engineer seal that you've conducted an analysis of the data submitted pursuant to this subsection secondly the engineer has conducted an investigation of traffic movements and conditions on the non-state highway being closed and those non-state highway or state highways that are proposed to serve a detour route third the engineer's recommendation is based on the analysis and investigation and fourth fourth the engineer's recommendation regarding the non-state highway closure is in the best interest of safety and the expedition of traffic on the public highways can you sign that or not no no the answer is no he cannot sign that but what I will say is I think there are alternatives I think we can certainly have the planner look at you know potentially closing something or a street for X I think we're all amendable to that we all want outdoor dining um we've asked Aaron to look into the Ballard that are that you can take out so that we're not using the orange um Ballard I think there's some things that our planner and and Michael you might be able to to discuss that that we can think outside of the box if it's less than 48 hours I think that you know I've reached out to um Wells Fargo because I was wondering if we could even use their their parking lot or maybe we can get a storage container for the tables um from the restaurants that so I don't think we're not done with these conversations we're still exploring them but you know when I specifically ask director shreer if he can sign this with his professional seal and he says no Then I I struggle with that so council president I'm so sorry I just wanted to be clear that I I didn't disagree with Greg I I like outdoor dining you know like during Co it was maybe even like save you know you know um so but I just wanted to know that if it was feasible doing it or not right and in plain English and thank you Arin I mean I absolutely love um Maple Street dining and just for the historical um perspective 2020 2021 um and even early 2022 until it did not exist we had the executive order So for anybody that's just sort of T tuning in um it made it much easier to do that and so I just I know we had an issue with the permitting and so forth so I just want to make sure that we are not putting our engineer in any precarious position that something proper doesn't get signed because it is is um I love it and if we could make it happen it would be great but our engineer has to be able to sign off on that um and do the proper paperwork um administrator Rogers did you oh you know can I just have administrator Rogers oh councilman flas you can go I hardly said anything to I'll let him speak oh my goodness I'll let him speak Bob you first and then soy most people know I could take her leave outdoor dining that's just on Maple Street but anywhere um but I have said uh repeatedly that if I thought that um most people wanted it and it was safe and it was legal that not withstanding the fact that I'd rather drive on Maple Street than eat on it I would vote to have outdoor dining on Maple Street um so while we're talking about things people would like to see to come to an informed decision about it I'd like to know what all the all all the building owners on Maple Street think about this all of them okay I'd like to know what all the businesses that are operating on Maple Street think about this all of them and I'd like to know what the people who live on Maple Street it might only be one or two people but I'd like to know what they think um uh before um you know we would decide anything um are we going to close was it 7 days a week for the whole time is it going to be during a certain set period of time um you know is it safe right the the buildings on that block of maple on the block of Maple Street between um Beachwood Union Place and Springfield Aven Maple are old um there was a electrical fire at the Elks that I I don't know was a five 6 78 alarm fire which I learned means that you bring in fire trucks from that many towns because they were scared to death that the entire block was going to go up so there's a lot that has to be looked at here and with regards to legality I I still need somebody to explain to me how closing Maple Street is ever going to be um in the interest of safety and the expedition of traffic on the public highways I just I don't see it I'm open to to somebody explaining that to me um I just don't see how we do it um but those are the kinds of things that I would want to see before I could in good faith vote uh to support uh future closure of Maple Street so I don't know who's responsible for pulling all that together um but that's what I'd like to see so thank you count councilman if I if I may I had said it a couple years ago that it's it's an arduous process and it is an arduous process to do it you just heard councilwoman H go through the statute there's a lot of different components to it the other thing I'll tell you is is that the tenor uh of the NJ do has changed a lot when we were going through covid 2021 and even kind of beginning of 22 th th things were a lot more laxed my my guesstimate is that hey your engineer won't sign it because he's not comfortable they won't approve it because it is a major thoroughfare so um you know I think people should just know that it's a very it is a difficult process and they are looking at things a lot differently than they did you know two years ago when we're in the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic people have almost kind of forgotten that there was a pandemic to be quite honest with you yeah administrator Rogers would you like to speak um so I have a lot of thoughts about Maple Street it it sort of brings me back to when I started in Summit and the process we went through in 2016 which was a very different um planning process that we engage the community on and um part of what we discussed was about looking at public amenity space looking at plac making we didn't fully develop it there was reference to Beachwood um we created a parklet and people lost their mine over two parking spaces lost and and so it's a very um sensitive uh topic about taking public space for one use and and changing it to another uh I think people understood what we did on Maple Street accommodated something that was lost for those restaurants which was the use of their restaurants so it was a very different purpose um that this that the council at the time and we agreed was the necessary step to do that uh it continued into 2022 I don't want to rehash what we did or didn't do uh properly but this requires a much more robust planning process to decide whether we're going to close a street if that's even a possibility in this downtown um I would argue uh circulation is a big part and I'll I'll give credit to Mr Orin back here who brought up this issue uh a couple meetings ago which um required us to go back and really look at the master plan because because I think it is a relevant it it is incredibly relevant to what we're trying to decide and trying to decide this in two or three months is absolutely absurd and we shouldn't be doing that we should we should absolutely go through this process next year when we think about how we're going to go about the re-exam process in 2026 so honestly from our standpoint internally I don't want to waste any more time cons considering whether we're going to close Maple Street I want to make it very clear I do not support it I would not recommend this Council even consider it we have to go through a different process and it will require a much more U uh robust discussion with this community what they want to do for placemaking because it is it it it's a it's a it's a very unique process you have to go through and you can bring in incredible planners we we started that process we never really finished it during that re-exam process and then we went down a different path with Redevelopment but I think this community wants public gathering spaces I think I've heard that I've sat through three years of of of proponents and opponents on this issue it to close a street and to continue to close the street when there is hasn't been um a an honest like planning process involved I think it is it's not right it's not the right way to govern it's not the right way to do these uh to to to conduct ourselves here um I love it it's not about outdoor dining it's about public gathering and and to make Summit an interesting place to come visit and that's what it was about when I started and I think we need to get back to that and figure out where it makes sense because after observing this and seeing how the what the impacts were on that street plenty of people come up here and have explained what the negative consequences were as they observed it in front of them their businesses their retailers the property owners some of the property owners came up and expressed that they don't support this it it's the same issue we're hearing over in tatlock you know the property owners are making that argument we have to listen to this we have to go through this this process and it's going to take time it is definitely not going to be accomplished and I don't want to uh burden our Engineers any more than they are with trying to figure this out again in a couple of months we have to we have to put an end to this so um I recommend that we we just stop talking about Maple Street and whether it's a possibility this year because it's not and and so let's try to go about this in the right way and uh it should be a dead designated committee about placemaking next year when we start to consider uh our re-exam process in 2026 okay all right thank you I will say I was one of those individuals that did not like the parklet when it first came out yeah and it would agitate me but I will say I did fall in love you know Co allowed for us to see public spaces in a different way and I did fall in love with being outdoors and there was um the vibe and and seeing our friends so um I definitely am I agree that the master plan um we're going to be working on that and doing some placemaking okay so Council Hamlet is there any additional all right thank you director Sher okay um do public comment for DS or just it's Council nope okay just want to make sure um okay gotcha okay um council member comments and new business I'll start at this end since I've been starting at this oh wait I'll start at this end he's on um Bob councilman plasy do you have any comments Council comments no thank no council comments okay Council comments I'd like to thank uh officer cigga for going to the uh the housing authority and um uh doing scam prevention with our seniors um good job on that uh the elevators that are in VA gala are being replaced and the community center on Glennwood is being renovated I think there are some asbest issues um but they're getting through that so last thing is uh engineer shreer and the chief we we have conversations about um our down town and parking and people double parking and and crosswalks so that is a conversation every safety meeting and so um there will be some things happening in that in that space um the other thing is uh habitual violators of of of illegal parking um the idea was you would get a sticker on the side of your your your window nice big orange sticker that says uh you'll be towed next time and they are a pain to get off uh the idea is that we got to do something about illegal parking you know I mean you can't just park wherever you want Park you know we spend tens of thousands of dollars for signs and people are still parking overnight parking so you know I'm heavily um concerned about that and uh we're looking into that so that's it said enough thank you councilman Smallwood yes I'd like to make a motion to adjourn oh my God you're killing me I I didn't I didn't pay for do I have a motion to adjourn second do I have motion right do I have a second second okay all in favor hi all opposed motion carries have a good night everybody