check check absolutely okay we have councilman Schwarz here councilman beler here councilman Goldberg here councilman Oregan here Deputy Mayor Catz Deputy Mayor G here mayor Pagan here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 14-223 sending a copy to newspapers officially designated for 2024 by way of resolution number 2223 find a copy in Township C office composing on the missile building Buon Board of the May here by Dire this statement be included in the mid the first resolution we consider this evening Council resolution number one d224 authorizing Council to enter into Clos session be resolve with Township council meeting close session discuss the following subject matters Township fields TX Swim Club Palisade AV pedestrian overpass Personnel Public Safety legal issues Andor opinions regarding any items on the Open Session agenda litigation updates and Oprah is there a First that was from mayor Pagan a first a second anybody second Schwarz thank you councilman Schwarz all in favor all right all right public yes we will be back at 8m in Council you have the zoom link for Clos we will see you there in just a minute mayor you're free to call me into order can everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and to the Republic for which it stands one nation one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr clerk we have a quorum and call this meeting to order at 8:04 p.m. please call the RO councilman Schwarz here councilman Belcher here councilman Goldberg here councilman Oregon here Deputy Mayor Katz here thatbut mayor G here mayor Pagan here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 14-223 sending a copy to the newspapers officially designated for 2023 by way of resolution number 2223 finding a copy in the township clerk's office or posting on the Miss building Bolton board the mayor here by direct so this statement be included in the minutes thank you Mr clerk good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's council meeting Township Administration president at tonight's meeting are Dean kazinski Township manager Doug russion Township Clerk Kristen denor Deputy Township Clerk Thomas row Deputy Township manager Scott salmon Township attorney and Ron Goodman volunteer cablecaster for The public's information we're currently holding a zoom format meeting duee to the state of emergency if our Wi-Fi at the municipal building has an issue where the zoom meeting drops we will aim to retrieve the connection and recontinue the meeting the next televised regular council meeting will take place on Tuesday January 23rd at 6:30 p.m. the public portion of that meeting will be at 8:00 P.M Township offices will be closed on Monday January 15th in observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day Council met in closed session earlier this evening to discuss the following Township fields the TX Swim Club the Palisade Avenue pedestrian overpass Personnel Public Safety legal issues and opinions regarding items on the Open Session agenda litigation updates and Oprah our first order of business tonight is presentations and first up is fdu training Dr Benjamin frier that will be led by you correct Mr manager yes I just a a quick um uh statement about this on on December 14th I I met with Dr frier and and he's the director of fdu school of psychology and counseling and the co-founder of the center for empathy research and training I was asked to kind of look into if there was any sort of available training uh that would um uh be constructive and productive to the tenet Community again as we navigate through some of the challenges we've seen uh since October 7th I also invited Cheryl Hall to the meeting as our new abcr chair to participate in the conversation and I asked Dr frier uh to join us this evening just to give a short presentation and summary on the description of the training uh and to answer any questions that Council may have uh maybe something we wish to take advantage of the curriculum and it may be a good program for members of the abcr um to participate in as well so Dr fer I believe has about nine slides I appreciate him joining us tonight and that being said Dr fur I will turn it over to you wonderful I I really appreciate the offer to come and join you all uh to speak about the center for empathy research and training um we operate from a position of uh creating a foundation of empathy for an organization a school district a uh community and we have seen really positive results at Fairley Dickinson University where we've rolled this out and worked with over 200 faculty staff uh president of the University as well as students and uh I again really appreciate mayor Pagan uh allowing me to be here uh meeting with Dean as well um and so what I wanted to to start us off with um and I'll just ask do you still hear me I see that I'm frozen my voice still come through I could hear you loud and clear doctor great uh so what is empathy um and really importantly what is a traditional definition of empathy uh because in C the center for empathy research and training we have work from our our own uh framework or definition of of empathy but I want to clarify where we're coming from so the the traditional definition of empathy uh from APA the American Psychological Association is understanding a person from his or her frame of reference rather than one's own or vicariously experiencing someone else's feelings perceptions and thoughts and really importantly this is a very other Centric focus it is one of the areas that many people are really uh kind of opposed or frustrated with the concept of empathy because it puts a person in the position where they have to take care of other people's needs often at the detriment of their own needs and we really think that is is concerning when when we think about how do we engage with a community with an organization and build on a framework of empathy along those lines there are two types of empathy that exist there is cognitive empathy which is the ability to identify and understand others emotions uh this is often talked about as the like intellectual um uh type of empathy and then there's affective which is emotional empathy so the sensations and feelings that we get in response to others emotions so uh really thinking about the the first part of the definition at the top understanding a person from his or frame of reference is really talking about cognitive empathy and vicariously experiencing someone else's feelings is that affective uh empathy so what are we doing that's unique uh as to the the framing of empathy well one we recognize that the state of the world has really made empathy something that's essential to navigating meaningful conversation ations and understanding that there will be conflict in our communities but that we can engage in that conflict in a meaningful constructive way rather than in a destructive uh and uh way that that withdraws us from society and our groups and so what we see over and over again is that our community members are are experiencing our world as a world that is more polarized than it ever has been or than anyone can remember it feels chaotic it is anxiety-provoking it is stressful people don't know who to talk to or how to engage with each other and this all lends itself to the real importance of how empathy can bring people together a really important element of our training is the recognition that our brain does not actually like to think uh this may be kind of counterintuitive to many of you all uh when you think about this you know we all as humans like to think often and like to engage with information uh but but what this is really meaning is that we make a lot of assumptions in our world without meaningful contemplation as to whether what we're doing is in our best interest uh is meaningfully connected to the people around us and we really want to focus our empathy training on essentially slowing ourselves down giving ourselves the opportunity to pause to to understand what another person is reflecting understand how that's impacting us and then react and respond in a meaningful more purposeful way rather than being kind of reactive and impulsive that rarely comes with positive uh outcomes we also focus our empathy on what we talk about as the binocular perspective of empathy uh you may recall that on the previous slide I talked about traditional empathy is focused on others uh we talk about as the other Centric focus of empathy and what this is actually doing is it provides a scenario where an individual can often feel like they're either empathic and doing good for others at all times or they're failing at empathy and thus are not a good person are not kind are not thoughtful and our binocular perspective of empathy is really focusing on a balance that we have to recognize that we want to understand other people but we also have to understand and protect and have self-empathy for ourselves one of the really interesting things that we've seen with research over many many years is that those people who report the highest levels of traditional empathy also have the highest rates of compassion fatigue have the highest rates of burnout highest likelihood of changing out of a career that serves people and the community and are also most likely to focus on short-term goals and outcomes and utilize their own Prejudice and biases in decisions that they make by switching empathy to focus on us balance between self and other we've seen really positive opportunities for people to protect themselves and and work against that compassion fatigue and burnout that we've often often seen in the past we also focus on empathy as a process and not a destination and not an outcome uh if we're always operating where empathy is a scorecard where we either give the other person what they want or we have failed at empathy then we're never going to be successful rather what we focus on is working through our skills of empathy which talk about on the next slide addressing roadblocks which I'll talk about on the slide after that as to how we can actually act with empathy towards others and ourselves in a meaningful way and I've already said this but I think it's really important to emphasize EMP empathy is not just being kind or good it is not following rules to demonstrate to your to the others around you that you're a good person rather it is about engaging with another person or other many other people and focusing on trying to understand their perspective and also being able to share your own perspective in a meaningful uh way to to connect and communicate with each other and then we focus on these roles of roadblocks which I'll mention in just a few slides so our five skills of empathy now one of the things that's really important about our training is that we have these five skills of empathy but it's not just developing skills of empathy we operate from a mindset and uh empirically based model that is the recognition that human beings are empathic we are born with empathy we are born to want to connect and communicate with each other and what happens is the world makes it really challenging to do that at times so our first skill of empathy is cues noticing the verbal and nonverbal information out there in our world this can be whether someone's smiling at us whether they're crossing their arms into communication uh whether they're raising their voice these are all cues to give us information about what's happening in this interaction we then have what we call pulling the curtain and this is a reference to the old Wizard of Oz movie where we're trying to understand the underlying motivations of the individual that we're interacting with we want to avoid these assumptions that we make often in our world which is that brain does not like to think and instead try to understand what this person wants out of this interaction shifting is moving away from this reactive immediate response and moving to a more intentional behavior and engagement with another person so really importantly this is the the willingness to take a pause of two to five seconds to make a decision of whether you want to say what popped in your mind first or whether you want to kind of modify that immediate response uh so that you can take the other person's thoughts and uh expression into consideration next are boundaries this is the balance of the needs of the other person as well as the needs of yourself in this interaction and finally shifting which is the feelings and recognizing the feelings of the other person as well as the feelings of yourself and making sure that both parties are protected and safe and secure in this interaction so those are our five skills of empathy we certainly go into much more detail in the training itself but this hopefully gives you a nice over review of what it is that we're aiming to accomplish and finally thinking about the roadblocks of empathy again we work from a mindset that people want to connect and they want to be a part of a community that does that and these roadblocks prevent or hinder our ability to be empathetic to each other so some of these are misperceptions that bypass the brain these can be misconceptions and misattributions we make about other people we see a person and we assume that we know what they're thinking and how they're engaging with us and our argument and and suggestion through the training is let's avoid these assumptions and really engage with each other and understand where this person is coming from we address biases and prejudices that we all carry these previous experiences that we have as well as schemas which are these assumptions that we make uh an easy way to think of a schema is if I say you know I want you to think about a house you have a schema for what a house looks like it has four walls it has a main entry typically it has Windows that's your schema for what a house is those are really effective in navigating the world the problem is when we use those schemas when we interact with human beings that are complex creatures it's really easy to make incorrect assumptions about those around us we then talk about roadblocks of environmental triggers this can be fatigue or being overwhelmed at work or in your personal life it can be being preoccupied being distracted these are all things that make it more challenging to be empathic to another human being and yourself and then finally rule-based Behavior if you're operating simply based on what the rule tells you as to how to engage with someone you're losing the opportunity for empathy and we talk about this at fdu often is that often There are rules about what we can do of you know what courses a student is required to take to get their degree and so what's important here is you can you can Implement and enforce rules but still be empathic in the engagement and in the interaction with that person right so really importantly empathy does not mean that you just give the other person exactly what they're asking for the important element is the individual understands that you heard them that you're trying to understand them and that you may or may not be able to give them what they want or find this compromise but you're willing to engage and hear in that interaction and conversation so to summarize our society and culture introduces these challenges to our ability to consistently bave with empath behave with empathy c training teaches attendees to assess their environment to identify the needs wants and feelings of others as well as oneself and to Foster meaningful interactions and relationships that engage with and resolve conflict one of our big statements that we make very often is that conflict has the opportunity to pull us further apart or to bring us closer together and through actively engaging with each other we believe that we can bring our community and each other together in a meaningful conversation so the trainings themselves we have a two-day five-hour empathy training it's really important that this not all happen on one day there's overwhelming literature out there that one- day trainings do not result in Changes in Attitude nor behavior and so we split this up intentionally it's two two and a half hour sessions uh that focus on building a consistent language and culture of empathy and then we have have a two- day six-hour empathy training so two three- hour trainings to train the trainer so individuals who go through the empathy training can become trained trainers that way a community an organization can develop a sustainable model where it's not fdu coming in and providing all the training we get your organization your community started and then you take over and deliver those trainings the way you want to finally I just I would be remiss to not mention that we also have trainings uh for schoolage children from third grade through 12th grade building on the foundation of empathy thinking about decision-making anti-bullying anti-violence training called Risky Business and then we also offer harassment trainings for organizations to to PR train professionals within our organization to identify and effectively respond to harassment and ways to mitigate the possibility for harassment to exist within an organization so I was told I had 15 minutes I think I just barely hit that number uh so I'd love to to talk about any questions or comments that anyone may have Mr Mayor thank you Dr Fe yes Mr Schwarz just a very quick two very quick questions one a are these in person thank you for the presentation are these in person and if so are they on the fdu campus they are in person and it is completely up to the organization we can come to you or we can host you on our space got it and just make sure there food that's included just got to get food there is always food included we just today had day one of a train the trainer on fd's campus uh and had some delicious spreads and chips and coffee and tea and cookies and fruit so that works works and alcohol thank you very much we're at dry campus so no alcohol thank you Mr Schwarz I think I see a hand up Deputy Mayor G uh yes thank you Mr Mayor um I was just curious could you share um what sort of measures of success have you been able to witness post post this sort of training yep yeah it's wonderful question so in the training I I could have included maybe should have included it there's a preassessment that all individuals complete uh prior to the start of day one these are five qualitative situations where an individual is given a situation for an example a person's walking down the street you're on your way to a doctor's appointment you notice a woman trip over a branch what would you do how would you feel about it and how do you feel about what you would do and we have a coding system to determine whether or not individuals are implementing the five skills of empathy and whether they're acknowledging roadblocks that they're engaged with we also utilize two standardized questionnaires the interpersonal reactivity index and the Acme the affective and cognitive measure of empathy uh which are two kind of standard top-of-the-line standardized questionnaires about empathy uh but we also have currently anecdotal evidence uh which I'm a a scientist and a researcher and so anecdotal evidences of less value to me personally but I think it's been really valuable our attendees have reported uh some really positive outcomes in the way they interact with their colleagues and the way they approach and address problems and so we've actually had a number of attendees who have come to uh more recent trainings who said I worked with this colleague that drove me crazy I did not like working with them at all all of a sudden their behavior switched they were more willing to hear and engage with me and I asked what happened because I've never had these positive interactions and the person said the empathy training has made me rethink the way I engage with and interact with my colleagues with my students with my family right we are focused on developing professional relationships with in fdu but the personal angle is enormously beneficial to those who have completed the training we're in the midst of collecting more behavioral you know standard behavioral measures to see whether we're actually seeing the those who are engaged are less likely to have uh you know conflict that goes to uh our dean of students and student affairs but that's data that's still being collected thank you Dr Fe anyone else on Council yeah Mr Mayor yes go ahead please does I guess this is a question for Scott how does opma come into play with this would if we were talking through our community's issues would the public have to be there uh as long as as long as I suppose well part depends on how many of us are there at the same time but also on whether any decisions are being made um if we're just there to to I say hear hear hear this thing out then not necessarily but I guess it would depend on the exact agenda of what what's on the on the menu you good Karen uh yeah anyone else on Council have any questions for Dr Freer Mr manager any questions no I just I also wanted to thank Anita Rivers I met with Anita first and she uh provided the opportunity for me to meet with Dr prer and you know this may be a wonderful opportunity uh where we create a sustainable model for our Advisory board on community relations as well just food for thought you know again I think uh the resources there the question is whether we take advantage of it or not thank you Dr f for your presentation we appreciate you sir I see Danielle Danielle you raising your hand I'm actually raising my hand Mr Mayor can you can you hear okay yeah um I just wanted to ask M uh Mr uh frier if uh is there a benefit for uh why we would not have the community involved in this train I mean so an important element the the training is is very intentionally an interactive engaging treat uh training and so we cap individuals to be in the training at 30 individuals uh there's roleplay there's interactive conversation and discussion small group discussion and so we do have a cap on how many people can be in each individual training we currently are only offering the training in person uh our our stance and I I I feel really strongly about this is that we first have to demonstrate and continue to demonstrate the efficacy of the program which we have done through fdu um before we can start scaling out to doing that training remote uh as you all likely can imagine uh a remote training faces many uphill uh challenges to having the same efficacy as an in-person training and so one of the things that Dean and I had spoken about was the possibility of senior leadership Town Council other community leaders being involved in those early empathy that early empathy training becoming trained trainers and then being able to offer it to all of the community uh with you all and the leaders and the trainers uh could be a really beautiful model that supports the whole Community Danielle is that your hand up again yeah yeah and this was more of a question and I think uh Mr Fair might just answered it my the question was for Dean in terms of was the thought I love the idea of getting abcr involved somehow uh whether we have them become trainer you know train the trainer have them go through the Train the trainer program but I also think you know this our colleagues would benefit from this as well and I just was wondering if that was going to be it was is that one of your recommendations and if so what would what was the timeline you were thinking of no sure the initial conversation I had with Dr prer was to have our uh Council uh Administration again uh there is a capacity of 30 so I think we can get some very uh key stakeholders involved in this and uh there is a cost involved with this Dr F and I spoke talk about it a little bit um obviously we'd have to budget for the training component of this but definitely doable and and something you know I would love to uh see become a sustainable model for us and and get this training done uh once the budget is passed in in April cool all right I think that's a wrap Dr fer thank you for your time and your presentation and we will be reaching out to you soon great well yeah thank you all so much for the time thank you thank you Dr Fe our next order of business is a second presentation 1425 Teck Road senior housing okay mayor that um we have Samantha Hennessy from the Alpert group uh here with us this evening and we also have executive director everyone knows her Elizabeth Davis from Bright Side family and they're going to provide us a uh a public update and to discuss the application process and timeline for the 1425 ten Road Project you know Elizabeth as we all know is very active with age friendly te uh she's a tremendous asset to to our community so I think the information everyone will find very helpful this evening so I'll turn this over to M yeah Mr Mayor can I just interrupt um please if you don't mind this was the um second meeting that we're now having with um a public rep public um update um for new developments and Senior house housing uh low-income housing and whatnot um obviously we'll have a third later in the year when the Alfred Avenue buildings come on but I just wanted to say that you know we had the huba last year and now we have this great development on C Lan so I'd like to you know as we continue to have new developments come on we'll continue to have these public updates for everyone to hear can folks hear me this is Samantha hey hi Samantha can you give us another check one two please Samantha good to hear from you hi check one two3 nice you sound good great well thank you all for having us um and I do have Elizabeth Davis here on standby um so if I miss anything or if there's any questions uh she could help me answer uh I'd like to just start off um if everybody can just see my screen um just give a a quick overview um and tell you where we are with the project um my name is Samantha Hennessy I am with the Albert group we are the co-developer of this project with Elizabeth Davis and the bright side family um I specialize my company in affordable housing development and we have worked with Elizabeth on this project and the town for a couple years so seeing it come to fruition is is is really exciting for all of us uh the Brightside family Elizabeth Davis for for those of you who don't already know her um she is a great Steward of the Tek Community providing senior housing and assisted living um and uh through her uh age friendly organization she's done a a ton throughout Tek and some of the surrounding towns um to to help seniors age in place um 1425 tck Road um as many of you know is uh a project that is um helping to meet the township of TX COA obligation which is affordable housing obligation that every municipality in New Jersey must meet um so I say uh this is such a a strong true example of how one of these projects are done from start to finish from the Township's involvement from finding sites through you know coming with partners and then getting the project to fruition there's a lot involved in that and I would say that you guys have done a perfect example of this um and we'd love to put it through um you know for awards that that will be coming up and we can talk about that offline um but this project is 40 senior housing units and we will be serving um between 30% Ami seniors to 60% Ami it's 100% affordable and this project will remain affordable in perpetuity so for the life of that site it will always be affordable housing for seniors and that's uh something I always like to to point out uh because that's not the case in a lot of these projects um and the township of tenek did a great job you know working with us to make sure that happens because it's important uh this is um as you all know what it looked like before an underutilized uh building uh that was uh I would say underutilized there was I think the town was using it from storage and things like that uh but but definitely underutilized and we a were able to get in there we had our groundbreaking in the fall of 2022 uh we started Demolition and construction um throughout the year we've made tremendous amount of progress um you could see from these photos but more than anything driving down tneck Road you could see the wonderful progress that we have made on this project we have a great uh construction team CNC uh Contracting um along with the building department uh the township of tck you know working through getting our building permits and approvals uh we are on schedule to deliver this building in April Samantha the slides are not moving forward the slides oh sorry okay thank you um so and I could provide this after just kind of reiterating what I was saying um but these are the pictures this is a before uh as you all know and this is during construction uh throughout the year um you see you know our elevator shafts our staircases and and Framing and I think something that's really notable on this project and I would say uh very proud of that what we provided to you as a rendering from day one is what we built um if you look at what is there now and what we provided as uh what the building is going to look like we delivered on that prise so uh like to point that out so let's just get to the fun stuff right let's get people in uh which is what this is all about uh my uh very strong opinion is that um you know housing is essential but it is also a human right and we're there's such a demand for housing um we we try really hard to to bring affordable housing options um in this very complex environment uh so a brief rundown of what our seniors are going to get in our building which is very exciting this is a I would say a state-of-the-art energy efficient building energy STAR certified it is an Enterprise Community Green Home certified building every applying in the units and the building are all energy efficient uh the beautifully you know beautiful modern design units luxury vinyl flooring uh there's controlled access security cameras uh Deluxe intercom system for our seniors um emergency pool cords in the bedrooms and bathrooms a beautifully appointed uh community room we're just starting to work out the selections for furniture um and get the library set up and the wellness room uh ready to go uh on-site laundry facilities um and on-site management staff and Elizabeth Davis uh through her uh great um Alp program and some of the other senior services that she provides uh in conjunction with holy name and some of your our other local uh nonprofits uh and organizations provid you know providing a slew of services for our residents which is tremendous um 24-hour emergency maintenance um like I said Aging in place Services um we are which is one of the reasons we're happy to be here this evening uh so we will be starting our fullon marketing February 1 so what that means is all the ads go out we will be be providing the pre-applications for folks that would like to enter into the lottery so we are required to do a lottery um per the color requirements so once the ad goes out February 1st people submit that pre-application and then on April 1st there is a lottery conducted um and once that Lottery is help everybody gets a number and then we will work down uh that list for the movein uh but that uh really exciting um we want to make sure that everybody who uh is interested in t neck gets an application for this lottery so Elizabeth and I um her whole team we've been working we I know there's been um some forums I think we've done four already at the library and the roota center um to to Really disseminate this information we'll have applications at the library at the township uh on site um and anywhere else you know anybody feels like you know they think application would be a good place to go um but that in a nutshell uh is where we are with 1425 one thing we I did forgot I did forget to mentioned um we are dedicating the building obviously to former mayor Lizette Parker um and we would love to work with the town to put a dedication plaque either outside the building or or inside Samantha can you put up the um the web address for our residence but there you go yeah sorry it it was scrolling on my screen and um not on yours okay what what I can do is we'll put it on our website as well right Mr manager Mr Mayor yes sir just want to clarify to the public because of the senior citizen aspect of this this will not be done through our low-income housing provider Frank Piaza patan Associates but this will be done directly through I believe through the site you're about to give which I believe is um Miss Davis's so I just want to think that's important to point out and of course Mr manager if we can disseminate this on our social media than on our own networks as well so we can get as many applicants as possible and try to keep to the best of all hours as many um current residents from remaining you know getting access to those units okay thank you Mr Schwarz and thank you Samantha does anyone on Council have any questions for Samantha Mr Mayor I don't have a question but I have a comment may I think I heard Hillary first okay sure go right ahead sorry I just have a really quick question um I know that uh it was mentioned that applications would be dropped off in various locations throughout the town but we there be um like a phone number or any resources for residents to be able to call to get assistance filling out those applications that's a great question and actually Elizabeth and I were you were just talking about that yes and we will through age friendly uh we will provide offering assistance to fill out those applications so that will be in the ads uh and in the application and and we're going to have EJ vzy from M friendly tenek at the 23rd meeting I believe we're going to have a table set up and uh there'll be staff there to assist with this application process and answer any questions about uh submitting that Miss beler I think you had a question I have my hands up uh yeah I just wanted to mention that first of all you know the fact that we're dedicating this to former mayor lazette Parker is is is excellent I mean it's it's something that I think the community is really going to be you know excited to hear about um I I just want to also mention just in terms of what was asked about you know the application assistance if there's any way in which we could um perhaps Mr uh manager place this actual presentation as well just this snippet of of the of of what uh was just going through uh reviewed with us I think that would be really helpful too to uh so that people can understand you know what the application process is and so forth because uh you know I've been contacted by a few nonprofits in town that are also interested in in in the process and so uh the the fact that we are not using PIAA and associate as as the affordable housing um you know company I think it's it's important that we do really kind of get this information out to as many people in our community as possible sure I'll have it first thing in the morning thank you thank you Miss Bel anyone else on Council have any questions for Samantha no Samantha thank you for your time thank you for your presentation we really appreciate it thanks Samantha Let's see we have a third presentation correct Mr clerk Beyond pesticides chemical management so uh mayor let me just open this up quick so uh councilwoman Goldberg uh myself uh Mike siki and the superintendent of uh Public Works along with the environmental commission especially Hildy Dylan uh we were looking at we were working to ensure the township remains in compliance with all the D pesticide regulations and we were looking to develop an organic land use management plan for pesticides um our superintendent as I mentioned he holds a commercial uh grade pesticide applicator license and oversees the management of teex parks and Fields uh where no pesticides or um or herbicides are used um the plan really uh for us I think at this point and we we get into this in a little bit uh is to have a resolution on the next uh consent agenda that confirms that the township is in compliance with all D regulations and our chemical free management of public land throughout tenek uh with the intent to really to acknowledge and sustain this Pro uh practice uh to list that resolution on the 23rd and again this will certainly help us help to elevate us I think the silver status with New Jersey sustainability I know um our co-chair of the EC Hildy Dylan has a few things to say and I don't want to steal any anyone else's Thunder but we have representatives from uh Beyond pesticides here R gopano and Jay Felman and they're going to discuss for a few minutes organic Land Management for Parks playing fields and Landscapes but I just want to give Hildy Dylan a few minutes Doug if you can let her in uh to say a few words on behalf of the EC yeah sorry Mr manager Mr Mr Mayor Mr clerk are we on YouTube and Facebook as well or no because we're on Zoom that is a Doug oh I know that count councilman Schwarz we actually unfortunately had some technical difficulties with our setup in Chambers so I don't have my usual setup with me I'm actually on my personal laptop I don't have access to all that I'm going to be getting it up on Facebook and YouTube um I'm actually just trying to figure out how to do that right now thank you sir we bringing in Hildy could you just raise your hand for me please if you're on oh don't move wait you did it sorry I have a 100 participants to sort through here leave your hand raised for me [Music] please no Hildy so far nope we got her you got her hi Hy welcome thank you everyone uh good evening Council and uh good evening to all of our residents that are on zoom and soon on YouTube and uh other channels so what I'd like to do is we're really lucky tonight fortunate uh to hear from Jay Feldman who is the founder and executive director of Beyond pesticides uh this is a National Environmental and Public Health Organization uh Jay himself has a 40-year history of working with communities Nationwide on toxic toxics and organic policies and practices addressing agricultural Lawn and Landscape management practices that maintain ecological balance and enhance biodiversity and eliminate toxic chemical use um he personally has successfully fought to remove the market ha from the market hazardous pesticides and help draft pivotal local state and federal organic law including the agricultural productivity act which established sustainable agricultural programs at the US Department of Agriculture um and also at the USDA the organic foods production act which created their organic certified food label I could go on and on as to how Jay um has been a thought leader in this field he currently serves on the Standards Board of the real organic project and the executive committee of the national organic Coalition and prior to his founding Beyond pesticides in 1981 he served as a health programs director of Rural America and advocacy group for rural areas in small towns he has a masters in urban and Regional planning with a focus on health policy from Virginia Polytech and State University and Abba from grenell college in Iowa um and I also just want to acknowledge our residents Paula Rogan and uh Sabine Maro that brought this concern about what we were using on our public lands um with pesticides had brought Beyond pesticides to our attention they've had an opportunity to present to Hill the environmental commissions liaison and um and Dean and and Mike at the DPW and uh we're really uh thrilled to have him present to council today so uh Doug J feldin should be there for you to bring on screen and he has a slide presentation to share hey Doug sorry we lost Doug for a split second good evening good evening can you all hear me welcome I'm sorry can everybody hear me yes sir loud and clear okay can you let ra um into the zoom so she can show the slides I've had a technical issue come up here unfortunately looks like we're having some slight technical difficulties here as well if you can just give us a second Jay can you please remind us who to let in just said how do you spell ra goth how do you spell her first name r i k a ra can you please raise your hand so we can let you in can't see her we're searching right now give us a second please sorry about this guys her name is RA she should be raising her hand dog there you go there she is see hi R welcome okay ra if you can hear us please unmute ra if you can hear us please unmute there you go okay can you see my screen no no not yet no okay it is showing that it's I think gives Zoom just a moment to catch up but it looks like it's working there we go okay good evening apologize for the technical difficulties on this H wet evening um as Hildy said and thank you for the kind introduction um Beyond pestz was founded back in 1981 and our goal really is to bridge interests of those working in Land Management with consumers and environmentalists so we're really pleased to be here night to talk about um playing fields and issues around public lands and and parks next slide R can you hear me next slide please okay so Rachel Carson really is a touchtone for many of those in the environmental community and the reason I put this up here you're familiar with Silent Spring 1962 this really launched public awareness about why we do why we're having this conversation ation tonight we are part of complex biological systems and chemicals are used in the context of those living communities and that's what we're going to talk about tonight uh really briefly uh at the same time that she identified hazards and impacts on living communities and that includes ecosystems by the way um she also said we should make a wider use of Alternatives we start next next slide please we start with the con the the cont of Hazard why are we talking about these things well because the chemicals that are commonly used and we've identified 40 commonly used lawn chemicals not that they're necessarily being used in Teck but this is the context in which we're having the conversation and you can see the majority of these 40 are carcinogens linked to endocrine disruption which is the message system of our body reproductive toxicant kidney uh liver damage next slide please and the same is true for environmental effects next slide and of the 40 these are groundwater contaminants toxic to bees uh you've heard about the collapse of be colonies and so forth toxic to fish next slide please there are you know when we talk about the context right we're talking about indirect effects as well so you know we think about habitats that we're adversely affecting uh that may surround our parks and the chemicals that drift and we're talking about systemic effects of chemicals so this bee is feeding on a flow that has absorbed chemicals through the the system of the flower and it's expressed through the vascular system is expressed through pollen and Nector gation droplets so that's indiscriminate poisoning next slide please so that's obviously we could spend all night talking about hazards but the the key here is that we have an alternative that can be embraced readily available cost effective Etc and it eliminates these synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and the beauty of this conversation that we're having that is that it intersects with other conversations that you've had probably as a city council issues around your ecosystem issues around the health of people in the community and issues around biodiversity that those are the bees the wildlife the the environment in which we live so we're trying through this program and I think successfully so to sort of in recognize the intersection of these issues and the facts that fact that the parks department can really serve as a vehicle for education in the community next slide now one might say well what about the regulatory agencies that should be regulating these toxic chemicals and when you look pretty when you look closely but you you don't even have to go too deep you find very quickly that the Regulatory Agencies and this is EPA for the most part but it's also the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection uh is not looking at chemical mixtures it's not looking at a range of issues like contaminants it's not looking at the range of exposures we learned through covid that some people are more vulnerable given their compromised immune system or or neurological system next slide and so we have a lot of unanswer answered questions at the same time we're really here to discuss well what should we be doing or what what do we want to do as a community uh organic Land Management is an ecological management system that addresses these problems IT addresses the biodiversity it enhances ecological Harmony and it our goal tonight really leading into future discussions by the board is to transition public spaces to organic Land Management next slide so what we're doing here is we're working with nature uh there's a book at it's pretty clever it's called teaming with microbes and the microbes are really the biological life in the soil when you hear people talk about soil Health they're talking about biological activity in the soil and that's what we're doing with a an organic system we're building what's called a soil food web the organisms in the soil that break down organic matter and literally create nutrients for the plants naturally sort of what goes on in a forest environment right next slide so this is the this is the approach that's been adopted by New York City uh with one of your community members leading the charge uh from a public school in New York City um Paula Roven who was very effective in bringing her students to this issue and then engaging uh local politicians made the New York York Times here's an article should check it out next slide um and then it led to the adoption of this this law which really is something I think that can serve as the foundation of a discussion uh in EG uh next slide please and the key here in the law is that no City agency contractor or any person acting under the direction of the city uh shall be able to apply in a park or play around um anything other than what they what is identified as biological pesticides so those are the natural materials but it goes further than that and we'll talk about that a little later next slide um we're not we're not Reinventing the wheel here um Hildy mentioned that I served on the national organic Standards Board um we helped to create this law which you're familiar with because you see in the grocery store that USDA organic symbol on the food well it it really originates from this statute it's called the organic foods production act and it creates the review process that New York City is relying on as our other communities to determine acceptable materials in organic systems so a municipality like tenek doesn't have to do anything in terms of scientific research it can rely on this list of what's called compatible compatible materials with Organic systems next slide so this is this is in the New York City law but it really goes to the Crux of what we're talking about here that when we create a system and a system is just not inputs we're not talking about product substitution here this is a system that relies on cultural practices how do we mow how do we aate how do we overseed it might sound a little wonky but it really comes down to well what materials can you also use next slide and the concept is and this is why it's called a systems approach we're not attacking pests we're not saying what chemical can we use to attack this weed or to attack this grub or this insect we're seeing we're asking ourselves how can we support nature and the ecosystem uh through an organic plan which was done under this organic foods production act you have to have a system in place an approved plan and system um and we're borrowing from that uh we're asking what can we do to improve the physical chemical and biological conditions excuse me of the soil next slide so this is an organic field um that's fine that's fine an organic field just to just to sort of break this up a little bit um the point here being that we can meet not even not only a high degree of playability this is a field hockey and softball field in Marblehead Massachusetts but but we can have an aesthetically pleasing environment we have a more resilient Turf system we retain water better than you do in a chemical intensive system next slide we start with a soil test we literally look at what's going on in the soil next slide and then from that information we identify what's what is the organic matter content um how do we make sure that we have active soil microbes uh which is at the heart of the manag strategy next slide and these are the cultural practices I was talking about earlier the irration the irrigation the cultivation over seating mowing uh compatible materials next slide now this it's interesting because you know years ago when we first started working on this there wasn't much of a market for the materials that I mentioned or had referen today in this this presentation next slide but what we're doing at our organization is we're tracking as is an organization called the organic materials review Institute tracking all the materials that are deemed compatible with Organic systems whether we're talking about a playing field or an organic field organic um agricultural field and you can see this is only a portion of the list of materials so there are materials out there that we can use we're not taking uh uh tools away from Land managers next next slide to to implement this process we've put together a a program called parks with sustainable future and through uh the supporters of our organization we're able to offer Horticultural services to communities at no charge to come into the community and go through this planning process to identify what's going on now in a community like tenek where you're not using a lot of materials to begin with lot of toxic materials to begin with the question is how can we eliminate all of these materials and how can we work with nature to elevate and you know the the benefits of nature so if we have a weed problem or you know if we have an insect problem putting this system together um will enable us will enable the community to manage the system and we we have seen to a higher degree than managing a system without doing anything or even systems that are reliant on on toxic chemicals it's it's a fascinating process and it it really speaks to issues of resiliency it speaks to issues of water use as I mentioned it ultimately reduces cost espe in those communities where synthetic fertilizers are being used because these systems cycle nutrients naturally that's what organic farm farmers are doing they're reducing the the need for outside inputs um so you know the question is uh through this a program like this can we set up a couple of sites uh demonstration sites in which we have an opportunity to utilize these practices see the results see the Improvement see the return we get on investment and then you know what at the same time teach the community what this what the what the township is doing when it comes to Land Management because a lot of our problems are on private land in a community where gardeners you know are going out they're you know they're using their best effort to go out and buy product at the the local store or the nearest hardware store and they're putting down toxic chemicals and those chemicals are moving off their property they're running off into Waterway and into the ecosystem and so we have an opportunity here when we set up these demonstration sites to really educate the community more broadly on how we as a community can have these multi-dimensional effects that intersect with health biodiversity and climate next slide please just to give you an example of that kind of information this is a project that we did in Portsmith New Hampshire and on the field where they implemented this project they explain the steps to organic how it works uh what we do and that becomes an educational vehicle Um this can be branded by the parks department as it was in Portsmith and any sponsors that might be interested in the community and supporting this effort it's a great public relations uh opportunity for you know various businesses in town as well next slide so this is this is how we feel you know I've studied this for 40 years now I've I've tracked the regulatory process we review The Independent peer-reviewed scientific literature every day on our website through our daily news we have numerous databases in which we track the scientific literature and we believe that we will see this transition to organic um you know as the norm uh into the very near future and we have an opportunity to start right here in tenek um with our public lands with land in the community so with that I thank you I think there was one more slide with our our information on it um and that tells you uh what our contacts are and thank thank you again for for having us and for considering these issues uh you know as a deliberative body thank you very much thank you Jay does anyone on Council have any questions for Mr Bellin anyone on Council Mr Mayor I just have one question um you mentioned some sponsorships and I know um we've spoken about this in the past can you just um elaborate on a little bit of that what sponsorships you've worked on and what that's covered and how that's worked yeah yeah thank you for that question um you know I mentioned we will underwrite Horticultural services and that is is the whole process of putting these plans together and and we have gotten underwriting to do that um we have teamed up with um companies like Stonyfield organic uh we teamed up with a retail uh Grocer in the in the west they don't happen to be in the Northeast but in the west um in New York City Stop and Shop uh joined the New York City effort um this is a real you know sort of Feelgood opportunity to where you can show results and you can educate at the same time so you know we bring what we bring to the table of the resources to bring in chip Osborne we we're working with right now who is a horticulturalist and he um does the analysis he meets with the parks folks who are great great people we've already met with them previous to this meeting um he gives them pointers he you know he Taps into their expertise and they have significant expertise already and puts these the systems planed together and that's what we underwrite uh to the extent that there are some materials needed after the analysis is done um mostly it would be soil supplements to build the microbial life in the soil um they don't tend to be that expensive they've gotten cheaper and cheaper over time that's where we would probably require um some commitment by the township to support the demonstration sites thank you Jay anyone else on Council have any questions for Jay Hildy I think I see your hand rised yeah I was just going to say very quickly first of all thank you to Beyond pesticides um and to Dean and to Mike um for uh hearing the mouth previously um The Next Step uh would be for uh Mike and his team to fill out a form that uh would give um Jay and his team a more detailed review of what we're doing now and then if we wanted to proceed we could think about sites for the demonstration projects um and then uh look for funding uh some possibly within our own budget here in tenek and also look for outside funding sources um so that's where we are there is a budget also that goes along with this but until we Mike fills out the questionnaire that would really establish what we specifically need and would help to inform the budget anybody else on Council have any questions or comments no thank you Jay thank you Hildy thank you ra thank you everyone for this presentation thank you so much I think our next order of business is a certific ific ate of recognition for mortgage apple cakes which we all know and love councilwoman beler is this you ma'am yes it is it it is Mr Mayor um I just wanted to say that this was um hopefully going to be a certificate of just recognition that we wanted to give one of our local businesses we're we're all familiar with we're all very thankful for um um specifically Angela Logan of of tenek um we she has a very inspiring story that many of us know uh where during the uh mortgage crisis she she uh encountered um starting a business which is you know often times the necess necessity is the mother of invention in which she uh baked cakes in order to save her home from from foreclosure a movie was made um from her uh her story and today U mortgage apple cakes is a is a successful um te- neck business delivering cakes and smiles and uh even even a movie to boot so uh we just uh I thought was a it was uh timely because during the holiday season she received a recognition um and this certificate of recognition is given to Angela Logan of mortgage apple cakes as a teenek business that's known for her baked goods but during this holiday season this past season um she received the coveted recognition of being listed on Oprah's Favorite Things for 2023 uh many of us have consumed her tasty treats as at the local farmers market Market um or at her Bakery right off of Cedar Lane um and we I felt it was timely and important for the Town Council to acknowledge um this business Milestone um because not everyone makes uh Oprah's um favorite things so for her to do that we say kudos to your business uh and this accomplishment and uh you are truly an encouragement to our business community on on how you were able to turn lemons into lemon need and um you know we as as a council member and I'm sure my colleagues would agree that we applaud you for this wonderful business recognition so uh we do um couldn't be in Chambers tonight as you can see we're all kind of trying to to you know uh be um safe so we will make sure um Miss Logan that we get the certificate to you um and uh that's what Doug has promised thank you Miss beler and thank you Angela Logan we love your bakery mayor yes Mr C I just would like to Echo what council member beler just mentioned I've gone in many times over the years I've given gifts from the place uh and uh she always welcomes everybody with a great smile a nice treat and for her to make tck Look So Good by having this recognition with Oprah's Favorite Things is just an added bonus and uh I want to say I'm very appreciative as well thank you Mr cats anybody else on Council no moving on to the next order of business work session items miscellaneous does anyone have anything for miscellaneous is that Deputy Mayor G your hand is up yes ma'am yes um I wanted to uh nominate three individuals to advisory boards um Mr Clark should I read the names out yes please Deputy Mayor okay okay uh first um would like to nominate to the Social Services Advisory board our our Township social worker Alex rebone um for the Social Services um member role uh with an expiration uh date of 1231 2024 second I'd like to nominate to the social uh to the senior citizens Advisory Board leavon Turner um with an expiration a term expiration date of 12 3125 and then third I'd like to nominate to the youth Advisory Board shy am con as a adult advisor with a term expiring on 1231 2025 I'll second that Schwarz all right awesome just give me one second let me run down the rooll here here councilman Schwarz yes councilman beler yes councilman Goldberg yes councilwoman organ yes Deputy Mayor Katz yes Deputy Mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes we will see resos at next meeting thank you anybody have anything else under miscellaneous no moving on next order of business is old business does anyone have anything under old business seeing no hands moving on new business does anyone on Council have anything under new business no hands does anyone have anything under Communications still seeing no hands moving on to the next order of business committee reports by Council aison Mr Mayor yes Mr schz sorry just just two quick updates on my end first of all cine Management Group will have our meeting tomorrow and anyone anyone would like to join us start 6:30 on Cedar Lan dinner will be served and secondly the DAR zoning subcommittee will be held this Friday thank you Mr Schwarz um let's see committee reports by couny lons Hackensack River Greenway Advisory Board 2023 annual report I am the liais on to that the report is in the agenda it's pretty self-explanatory and it's a wonderful group of volunteers next up we have senior citizens Advisory board annual report 2023 Deputy Mayor G did you want to say anything about that or are you good I'm good it's in the agenda also self-explanatory um so I'll leave it there thank you Deputy Mayor G does anyone else on Council have anything under the committee reports I just want to mention one thing that that is uh we just to let uh everyone know we are starting up the uh subcommittee for affordable housing we have had some preliminary meetings in which uh we're uh in our upcoming meeting we're at um having our attorney kind of report on a few things there have been a lot of things happening in the affordable housing arena in our state so we're really trying to really keep an eye on that and be very proactive in uh in terms of um affordable housing legislation so I just want to mention that thank you Miss beler anybody else on Council no moving along next order business is Council listed items Street renaming subcommittee councilwoman organ the floor is yours ma'am thank you so this month we received a letter from by siru from Temple emth asking us to rename a portion of Windsor Road after the founding Rabbi of Temple emth um and I went back to check the subcommittee that was put in charge of Street naming and we had introduced it but we never brought it forward as a formal resolution I believe it was um council member beler council member Schwarz and myself um though we can Revisited but we should form a street renaming subcommittee and and get to work on that so so I'm bringing it up like the idea thank you anybody else any comments on Mr Schwarz yeah I like to formalize it so is that is that is that considered formal is that was that was that a motion councilwoman Oregan I'll second and then a second from Deputy Mayor catson just to Define exactly what they were motioning and seconding is to um consider a resolution establishing the street renaming subcommittee I just have a question Mr Mayor go ahead uh and and this maybe uh just so that I understand are we going to meet like on a regular basis this this subcommittee meet or is it just like we respond to requests for um Street naming I'm just trying to get an understanding yeah I I believe the conversation that took place a mon several months ago was the the meeting was called or the committee was called to set the guidelines policies and procedures um about future streen naming so and I guess that would also answer answer your question but that's what the meeting was for to answer that question thank you Mr Schwarz anybody else thank you Karen moving on to the next order of business Township manager's report oh we have to do a roll call I'm sorry Dean so we have to do a roll call vote Doug yeah I just I just want to be sure councilwoman Oregon you did have a motion on the floor correct correct yeah and I think Ellie seconded it yeah and that was a second from Deputy Mayor cats and again this is to consider resolution would you like to uh walk it in this evening councilwoman Oregon that's a pretty Pro for of resolution just to amend our subcommittee list to include the street renaming subcommittee to include um I believe you said beler Schwarz Oregon yeah if it's okay with my colleagues and that was seconded by Deputy Mayor Katz I will go down the role councilman Schwarz yes uh councilman beler yes councilwoman Goldberg yes councilman Oregon yes deput mayor cats yes Deputy Mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes all right cool that will be on tonight's consent agenda as resolution number 41- 2024 thank you Doug and thank you Karen Mr manager Township manager report sir uh thank you my some announcements to make first and I'll get into some project updates and some other uh some other matters so recycling in uh Zone 7 is still scheduled to take place tomorrow uh however I I do ask the residents in zone 7 not the place to recyclables to the curb uh this evening while the storm is taking place the wind is whipping outside pretty good right now uh rain is supposed to subside around 2 or 3:00 so if there's any way possible uh not the place or recyclables out until the curve until earlier uh this morning or tomorrow morning that would be very helpful the last storm we had with recyclables uh were put out at the curb uh they were all over the street and went into our uh sewer system as well so uh if for some reason uh we miss it or you can't get it out in time before the truck is there uh you can email me or P DPW we will stop back uh to your address and pick up what was left outside um the T neck times uh was was recently mailed out to uh all the residents and hopefully uh there it is uh that's um the cover of the tck times our motto this year is have a successful day so that went out to all the residents um if anyone did not receive it we have plenty of copies here at the municipal building or you can call the clerk's office and they will uh send a copy out to you as well um we added an additional confidential paper shredding date normally we do four days every year uh we added a fifth date which is June 16th it's not in the recycling calendar uh again that's from 9 to1 June 16th 9 to1 I'll put out information as we get a little bit closer um for the four hours or until the truck is filled and that takes place in the municipal parking lot uh again this is in addition to April 20th and 21st and September 14th and September 15th conf finial paper shredding dates uh next I I I just want to thank our director of Public Works Travon Romeo and members of our EC uh especially Hildy Dylan and yoseph gillers for their efforts in organizing the townwide cleanup that took place on December 17th I know it was rescheduled several times uh Mother Nature was not very Cooperative with us even on the day of the 17th but they got the job done so thank you very much and we have two townwide cleanup scheduled to take place in 20 24 one is on April 14th and the other is on October 6th and those dates are in the recycling calendar again please check that calendar for other important dates events and general information uh there's a lot of helpful information on there uh reminder to the residents we're now in the winter season please review the township snow parking and removal regulations again they can be found in our website and also in the tck times information uh guide um as a reminder parking any uh portion of public street is prohibited whenever snow is falling any accumulation is such that it covers the public streets in the township and pl plowing is required we do have some exceptions to designated areas and we do relax the restrict in the municipal Lots uh some other important dates for 20 the 2024 budget and I will put this up for the public to to see as well and I shared with Council uh earlier and bear with me one second all right it's not uh not showing up but this has to do with the uh with this year's 2024 Municipal budget uh so that the count so that the council and the public is aware uh the annual financial statement which is a key document that must be submitted by March 88th uh the introduction of the 2024 min budget uh must be done by March 29th of the next regularly scheduled council meeting which takes place on April 2nd uh the adoption of the 2024 Municipal budget must take place on April 30th or the next regularly scheduled council meeting which is May 2nd um because the annual financial statement is so important to our budget process again that is due by March 8th uh my presentation to council uh with the budget uh will take place that 2 Thursday in in March uh also important for the residents to know I sent notice to the United States Post Office demanding postage reimbursement in the amount of $727 and that's for the fourth quarter tax bills that went missing that I previously reported um the post office reached out to my office and said the matter is under investigation and they would provide me with a disposition soon uh so hopefully we get reimbursed by the federal government for $ 7,278 uh last meeting uh I was asked about taxes and a new affordable townhouse units on Parkside Lane uh after speaking to our assessor uh so that it's clear the sale price of affordable housing units is set by the Council on affordable housing and as we mentioned is permanently deed restricted uh to keep them affordable the resale uh prices are limited to the CPI based increases over the base sale price uh Bergen County community housing and partnership generally calculates the allowable resale price and oversees the eligibility of of the buyers uh they can only be sold to those meeting the criteria for low moderate income buyers and the deed restricted price which is significantly discount that must be reflected in the assessed value of the individual unit uh an update on the Township's reevaluation status currently uh we're Fielding 15 inspectors uh residential inspections are approximately 60% complete as of today according to our assessor uh all initial inspection should be completed by the end of January or the beginning of February and what happens after that uh valuation letters are projected to be mailed out approximately the third week in February and after these letters are mailed out residents are going to be able to set up individual meetings uh to discuss their valuation we're going to reserve a room at the Rota center for the last week in February the first week in March for in-person meetings uh meeting slots are going to be available between 9:00 a.m. and 7 p uh and 9900 p.m so 9:00 a. to 9:00 P p.m 7 days a week as needed uh we will do Zoom as well and phone meetings to accommodate all of our residents and these really are proven to be the most popular option over the past uh few years so I'll provide more information as we get closer to the latter end of January um despite the delayed start time with the valuation process we're on track to complete the project on time uh also to that our residents now you may see if you've been on the website under the tab alerts you're going to see a tab of Code Red um so previous users were enrolled in everbridge and Rave we called it and all that information inform was migrated over to Cod red uh which is a better system and has more options so the sign up page for code red for those not in it is on our website and just go to the alert Tab and you'll find the information there you need your email address uh to verify as a registered unit uh uh user we've set up various weather alerts and residents can actually um customize for notification purposes uh which is very helpful um some of the things that that are covered on that is you know air quality I don't want to go through all of them but there's quite a few flash flood warning advisories uh there's a there's a slew of them and I think the residents will find it uh very very helpful uh getting out to some of the project updates that we have going on in town um let me just go to the share screen again because this one is heric Park deals with heric Park so this is the conceptual uh plan to herck park uh as you can see um we're going to be reconstructing the basketball court and the light fixtures uh reconstructing the baseball field that includes uh excavation grading drainage uh dugouts and the sprinkler system we're going to be adding a new children's playground and safety service adding a 1,000 square foot splash pad with a 10ft wide concrete deck and various amenities additional site improvements um include walkways Landscaping asphalt surfacing site restoration improved drainage and what's not seen on this plan the prefab black bathrooms uh which I believe are going to be located on the east side of the park opposite the playground we have to see where the uh connect the best place for the connections would be for that the engineering Professional Services contract is going to be awarded tonight and we're going to be going out to bid for the construction very soon um Monies to cover the costs are coming from Green Acres that was about 750,000 uh from the park uh Side Lane developer and the money's approved in the 2023 uh capital budget let me go back to stop sharing the screen engineering is also working on uh the EPA Grant Pell Avenue and that's for the detention tank as well as the BIOS swell Grant award there's a lot of paperwork associated with that uh they're working diligently on that uh DPW also completed their Sixth and final pass of leaf pickup in late December the director asked me to remind residents um that leaf SE the leas season is over and do not rake any leaves to the curb at this point um the power washing that I had mentioned we were going to do sometime in December unfortunately we could not get to that uh so the sidewalks will be done once the weather breaks probably in March or early April uh the field updates uh so that the public knows the V Park 90 foot field is complete again new side play cutouts pitcher mound batters box uh and that was all finished in late December uh the field has complete irrigation we made some modifications to the fencing at vot this is permit only uh use uh the horor 90 foot field is not complete uh some additional work needs to be done including the further rolling of the new clay that was put down uh weather permitting work in the field the will be completed sometime in January uh the TX Southern Little League field uh there was a slight delay with that um they did some uh changes to the design they also had to apply for some permits as well so we're looking actually now to break ground sometime the beginning of February but the turf was ordered um and uh they'll move very quickly once they break ground um we will be awarding the vote Park Tennis Court lighting and the bathroom project at the January 23rd meeting uh we also have a pre uh con meeting uh for the shade and shelter project scheduled for this month and that's going to be next to the splash pad just north of the splash pad uh we're completing the electronic filing of our storm waterer mapping and recently uh this is sort of interesting we coordinated Resources with the sheriff's department to use the inmate labor program to clean up accumulated debris at the channel by Newbridge Road they worked there for several days the area was cleaned up nicely saved us a lot of time and money and we're going to continue using the supervised program to cover some problem areas such as Alfred Avenue again it was no cost to the town other than providing uh the inmates lunch uh for the couple days that we hear and uh it's also very important for me to recognize staff who've worked very hard for the town and who Advance themselves amongst the ranks in the many different departments in town and since our last council meeting uh from the police department and again it's important to them it's important to me that I I do recognize them so from the police department uh Seth kgal was promoted to Deputy police chief and Kevin Brennan to police Lieutenant uh I appointed Gage distasio and Nicole galanis as police officers they began uh training at the Essex County Police Academy last Friday that puts our authorized strength at currently at 92 we're going to look to hire uh three Al route candidates in March and add another uh two recruits in July which will bring us to our authorized strength of 97 a number we haven't seen in quite a a few years due to uh various reasons and retirement uh also promoted Karen Guerrero at the police department to senior clerk from the fire department uh promoted Richard Bell to Deputy fire chief Paul o Conor to battalion chief Kyle Kovac the fire captain and Mark dep pomio to fire lieutenant and these these promotions were due to the retirement of Joseph Ziri who retired as a deputy fire chief after 30 years of service out from Public Works um we made quite a few changes there as well welld deserved changes Glenn Josephson was promoted to Supervisor Justin David to assistant supervisor Robert Willis Daniel Fest Lester orry to truck driver heavy Road repairer uh Steve stto Pat McLaren Russell Hodge John Dixon Jose Alvarez to compact a truck driver uh Marlon Smiley Kevin Coons Curtis Jackson and Kyle Blake to laborer to duncle Muhammad to senior maintenance repairer and Joseph kabisa to mechanic from the health department uh Nelson Wong was promoted to Chief registered Environmental Specialist uh from the recreation department Marvin Williams was promoted to senior account clerk Emanuel uty to keyboarding clerk one Virginia Dundon to Recreation leader and Zana Jones is going to be elevated to the position of senior citizens Recreation program administrator on February 1st due to the planned retirement of Mary Beth hubber who's been with us some time and has done an excellent job with the senior programs there so to all of them I I congratulate you uh the title changes are are well deserved uh getting to some grants in 2023 uh the township uh received 2.2 million in awarded Grant funds and is currently about 3.2 million in pending applications um what else do we have Doug covered the website design we're going to be working with ghd digital uh to move that website design program forward uh program manager is going to be assigned to the township shortly and once it's assigned and they work with us we we have about a three to four month window and getting getting it done so that's uh that's my report mayor thank you Mr manager and congratulations again to all our police officers firefighters DPW workers and everybody else who works for the Township who was recently promoted uh next order of business is our Township attorney's report Mr salmon do you have anything sir I I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to follow that up uh from from our manager um for have two two things I want to mention um for several years now the township has been seeking a diversion from uh the D and Green Acres relate to um just over 3/4 of an acre of Parkland uh we're getting extremely close to finishing that with with DP we just received what will hopefully be our final necessary extension from them of the time that we have to complete the project uh I think at this point we have done the township has done everything that it needs to do we're just really waiting on the uh on DP to give us the final approvals um or there may be some final comments uh that that they have for us but I think we're we are essentially done with what we're going to need to do um Dean can correct me if I'm wrong on the exact amount but I believe that once it's complete that will release about $2 million from psng to the township as a result of that so I'm hoping that we um we should have that done within all it depends on it really depends on when DP gets back to us on the final the final approvals but sometime within within the next few months that should be done we're just we're just really waiting on them at this point um second thing is in a little bit the council will be voting on granting tenure to our clerk Doug and I just want to say how welld deserved I think that is um in the last few months Doug has become somewhat of I would say as a a little brother to me uh I talked to him more than I think anybody except for except for my wife um I've seen how hard he works and how dedicated he's been to the township I think it's he's incredibly impressive uh and I just want to say how pleased I was to draft that resolution uh in anticipation of tonight's meeting so that's my report May thank you Mr Simon and here here thank you Scott Doug we love you we appreciate you thank you our next order of business is our public hearing and Adoption of ordinances Mr clerk can you please read the title of the ordinances into the record absolutely mayor we have just a couple resolutions this evening the first meeting of the Year sorry first up we have have resolution number 43223 amending the Township Code of the township of EK to increase membership on the senior citizens Advisory Board and we also have ordinance number 47223 amending section 36- 111.2 of chapter 36 the township code for Township at tenek adding restricted on street parking spaces for the handicap at 999 Bell place thank you Mr clerk the public hearing on these ordinances and these two ordinances only are now open any member of the public wishing to be heard please raise your hand and state your name for the record comments or questions shall be limited to 3 minutes per person and again just on these two ordinances all right yes may with that I have a hand up I am bringing in Avy Berliner in and again just reminding you Mr Berliner it's just about ordinance 43 and 47 please let us know whenever you are ready to start the clock hello hi Mr Berliner we can hear you sir hey good evening I urge you to vote no on ordinance 43 2023 seeking to increase membership on the senior citizens Advisory Board I fully support Civic engagement I am engaged everyone on zoom and who would have been in Chambers is engaged and participating some are even providing feedback without being a council member how amazing the urging of no isn't for the senior citizens Advisory Board though rather I'm requesting a review standardization and normalization of the of all of The Advisory boards in the vision and spirit of ordinances 15 2020 and 6 2023 how many chairs one or two 5 7 9 12 or some other number of members meet in person no video record over Zoomer hybrid some notes no notes extensive meeting notes I suggest a goal of same structure same size same expectations implementing this ordinance will add to the inconsistent execution of our advisory boards some thoughts for your consideration a standard size for the boards Council reopened Advisory board meetings and many to their credit continueed to meet on Zoom providing the potential for wider Community participation other than participating in non-binding votes or being required for attendance to meet Quorum a challenge for some boards what practical value does this uh this particular exp expansion provide with the required support of council many boards hold events or forms to solicit resident and stakeholder feedback for those unable to attend the clerk makes available email and contact info to share ideas and attend meetings co-chairs should be avoided have a chair and if additional coverage or support is required a CO a co-chair it's not even clear if a co-chair is legal as the current published ordinance refers to a singular chair unless a board is brand new a chair should be required to have served and completed at least one complete term as board member of that board that term should also be continuous with the current term in other words if a long-standing board member resigns or is not reappointed they should not be appointed at the next opportunity is chair there's context process and communication that is required to be successful and best advised counsel to prevent an actual or perceived conflict of interest the member of a household or immediate family member of a serving council person should not be eligible to be a member of an Advisory Board council members who serve as a liaison should regularly present at Council meetings approved meeting approved meeting minutes should be presented by the council liaison to be included in the addendum section at the first council meeting following the approval of the minutes Council should pre-approve questions for member interviews to prevent inappropriate or relevant questions this ensures similar and consistent questions for comparison to select the best candidates during candidate interviews encourage and facilitate communication between boards to advise Council perhaps a periodic Workshop mandatory for chairs and open to all members to share information and align ideas recommendations projects and programs before modifying what was set by ordinance 15 2020 and 6223 early earlier this year councils should be ensuring compliance for attendance minutes annual reports Etc the boards are for citizens to advise Council are not Social Clubs an opportunity push agendas function as a primary source of information for the public or source of honorary titles I urge you to vote no on 43 2023 thank you Mr Berliner anybody else Doug I see no hands mayor all right this public hearing is closed on these two ordinances is anyone on Council have any comments I think I see Karen Miss Oregan yeah um I told Deputy Mayor g u my feelings on this I don't think the senior citizen Advisory Board needs any more members than any other Advisory Board I don't understand the argument for that um people can attend meetings and I know they meet in person and anybody who wants to come out can come out um but there it's it's not like there's significantly more work on that Advisory Board than there is on any other and I feel like it dilutes the people that are there and their voices by bringing more people in so from the start when this was introduced I I'm an know on this um this ordinance um there were some other points actually that Mr Berliner made that I agree with the Conformity is important um but I I haven't heard a reason yet why this board should have 12 me 12 members and not PPR when there are more people applying for that one it doesn't make sense to me I'm a no thank you Miss Oregon Miss G I think I see your hand up uh thank you Mr Mayor I just wanted to clarify that uh the senior citizens Advisory Board is not unique in terms of having a different number of um members um some some of the advisory boards for exam example have no limit they can have a 100 members if they so chose um there's a wide variety um in the ordinances for each of the advisory boards and so um this concept of Conformity just isn't uh doesn't make S doesn't make sense especially for some of these statutory boards where there are um regulations outside of our control um the senior citizens Advisory Board they were looking for specific skill sets I think this Advisory Board is unique in that they have members who um you know for what for some you know occasionally they can't come and so it is helpful to have a larger membership um you know I encourage um more volunteers uh these are folks who are really dedicated to this town um as the liaison to the senior citizens Advisory Board I don't think uh moving from 11 to 12 members is going to have a massive impact or dilute anyone's role um so I would encourage folks to revisit you know this is this isn't a unique situation revisit all the basy boards there are you there are a range of um how they're organized it's it's they don't all conform to one way and I don't think they should I think they're all different and unique and and they're it's okay for them to be um organized in a different way so that that's my pitch I hope you will support this ordinance thank you m May oh I think I saw miss belcher's hand up Mr Schwarz yeah I just want to chime in for a minute um I I I see the value of increasing the the uh number of the senior citizens Advisory Board simply because our population is aging we have more uh seniors that are wanting to um stay in town uh looking for opportunities not only to to for housing or to to to continue to live in our town but also in terms of programming and so forth so I think that one can make an argument um to increase the size of the senior citizen Advisory Board simply because if you if you look at the National Association of Realtors they talk about um townships where the the the largest population that's growing is uh is the senior uh senior population so I would be in favor of it thank you Miss belter Mr Schwarz yeah um I'm actually not really sure what the senior citizen's advis is on I've actually never seen any advice given to me from that board I'm not sure if if there's a secretary that's on that board but I believe they should be you know setting US Reports I I served on many boards over my time you know I always send my some sub zoning committee reports and my S Le I always speak about I'd like going forward if we can please start having those reports on um on these type of boards um and that was my two cents so thank you thank you Mr Schwarz anyone else on Council may I respond to councilman Schwarz of course please feel free so there was an annual report list in the agenda for this Advisory Board feel free to look at that um we can you know I'm happy as it lays on to provide more consistent written reports I usually give my um reports verbally but happy to provide written if that's helpful in the future and also oh and to answer your question they provide a lot of guidance to the rec department um an unbelievable amount of feedback um for example we needed holds in the bathroom stalls and that was a recommendation directly from that group and um thankfully Dean was able to get that um added to the bathrooms on the second floor really quickly and that was really helpful to them so there's loads of advice that they provide to the Roa Center on a regular basis thank you anybody else on Council in that case does someone want to make a motion I'll make a motion to V vote on 43 and 47 2023 second second that was a main motion by Mr Schwarz seconded by I think G or Bel councilman Schwarz I'm going to obstain on 43 through for this year and yes on 47 and councilwoman belshire yes on both councilwoman Goldberg yes on both councilwoman Oregon no on 43 yes on 47 Deputy Mayor Catz yes I'm both Deputy Mayor G yes on both may Pagan yes to both sir you got it adopted all right they pass our next order of business is good and Welfare any member of the public wishing to be heard at this time then please come forward and state their names for the record comments shall be limited to 3 minutes per person and good and Welfare will only last 60 Minutes tonight due to the state of emergency so that staff at Town Hall can get home safely tonight Doug I am bringing in Lilian Lewis hi lilan can you hear me yes ma'am loud and clear okay thank you good evening lillan Lewis now a 41-year resident happy and healthy New Year to all of you I'm calling to commend director Travon Romeo of DPW and his DPW team on the excellent work especially during the leaves pickup this is just another reason why I love my town the township tinck we have such excellent employees and I know that's because it trickers down from our great town manager manager Dean I also want to um uh make a comment on the increase of the members for the senior citizens board Advisory Board One young lady or well I call her young because I'm myself uh she's a senior citizen also she's been waiting for three years to be added to the senior citizen Advisory Board always was told that they could not they couldn't add her on because of the limitation so thank the Lord you have increased it she has been nominated and hopefully she'll be now happy and be part of our Advisory board so thank all of you and have a great night thank you Miss Lewis I am bringing in Jesse Leon Mr Leon are you there sir I am here can you hear me yes sir loud and clear um I first wanted to extend my thank you to uh the manager daninsky and and DPW for the cleanup event my son and I attended we both had a lot of fun it was a great crowd great turnout and it was nice to give back to the town in that way and I especially want to commend uh our great clerk Doug and congratulate him on a forthcoming resolution he's the best I've been watching these meetings now the second from Alisa U I've been watching these meetings now for three years and more and Doug is a constant cool Presence at these meetings um I think that if there's one thing that everyone in Tina can agree on it's that Doug is National Treasure um and we should recognize him as such and and I fully support all of you voting to give him tenure tonight thank you very much thank you Mr Leon thank you Jesse I'm bringing in Paula Rogan uh yeah um I'd like to thank the environmental commission for um hearing us out hearing uh Beyond pesticides and Sabine Morrow and myself on the issue of um um ending or not using pesticides in our public spaces it's very it was very exciting to find out that we the DPW does not use any P toxic pesticides that's really really important so the resolution that will be coming up at at the next meeting is really just to make that a permanent practice of not using pesticides what you know I didn't know too a real lot about pesticides until my kindergarten class studied about them in 2013 2014 and when I realized when I learned from um Educators at Mount Si who said they would be very happy to work with us in town to do some educational work among residents I didn't realize how dangerous the uh things like um Roundup uh with uh that has glyphosate how dangerous it is to children and if we were to use pesticides say in our in our ball fields um you know where kid and playgrounds where kids are rolling around and falling on the dirt and sliding in the dirt it's seriously dangerous I mean because those things cause all different kinds of cancers and um other diseases um so I'm so glad that we got that law passed in New York City that bans pesticides in all the parks playgrounds and public spaces and and in te- neck it will just the resolution will just make sure that we we never use um toxic pesticides um I'm excited about the idea of having two uh selecting two areas two parks perhaps that uh would be demonstration projects and it'd be great I know that in New York City we have uh five no we have eight demonstration projects around the city and the one in Staten Island is sponsored by uh stop their stock Stop and Shop and the one in Manhattan was uh sponsored by Stonyfield um so I'm thinking perhaps we could approach Stop and Shop in Cedar Market to uh sponsor um the demonstration projects here with a very small amount coming from the town itself um I'm I'm hoping and I know that the environmental commission is interested uh having an educational forum for for residents um because I think a lot of people don't realize how toxic how dangerous some of the products that that they use I mean I used to use Roundup because I didn't know any better how dangerous it is so I think it would be really important to set up some uh educational forums uh we have re wonderful resources medical people uh who will work with us as well as um Jay from Jay Feldman from Beyond pesticides um I you know person you Paula Paul I'm sorry three minutes thank you Paula I have Lisa Schwarz please unmute thanks Doug it's actually Ron Schwarz hi Ron welcome okay thank you Mr Mayor uh I'm speaking tonight on behalf of citizens group one toown one vote uh that uh stands for openness and transparency in count government last month the uh the council separated the two committees that are were at previously jointly planning uh to put up uh monuments on the town green however the the council did not not uh was not sufficiently explained what happened to the $350,000 that was donated by the state to these two groups um over the last couple of years we are requesting that the Town Council for the sake of openness and understanding request an accounting of all these monies again $350,000 supplied by the state to both of these committees planning monuments on the te Teck Municipal green we also would like to name of the people on these committees and whether they are tenic residents $350,000 was spent and not uh a a bit of uh construction has started on either one of these monuments secondly we' like to uh comment on ordinance 44- 2023 which is being I believe is being introduced tonight uh part of this uh large ordinance deals with um uh interviews of applicants to ad advisory boards and whether they should be public or not while we feel that this proposal is well-meaning it does not go far enough to bring true transparency uh to tet government what really is needed to be done is to make all of the subcommittees not just the Personnel subcommittee open to public view or return the council to the process of conducting all business at public Council workshops um there is just too much business being done by subcommittees and for the people listening to this uh meeting tonight when you have a subcommittee of only three council members you are not required under the open public meetings act to make those meetings public however in the sake of transparency and because so much of the Town business is now being conducted in subcommittees we demand uh as we have demand Ed in the past uh that all subcommittees not just the Personnel subcommittee be made public so that Township can see what is going on and I speak personally of great concern about the zoning subcommittee um which uh I know there are minutes now from that that subcommittee but I don't think they go far enough to explain to people what is going on with Redevelopment of this town in that subcommittee thank you very much and happy New Year everybody thank you Mr Schwarz Happy New Year we have Cheryl Hall here can you hear me loud and clear wonderful um happy New Year to everyone and um you know congratulations Doug you do a a wonderful job there are a lot of congratulations tonight to so many of our uh public servants um and I am calling in in support of the wonderful um presentation that was done tonight uh by Fairley Dickinson University uh Dr uh fi and uh for the CT training program um I think Deputy Mayor G kind of uh read my mind uh in saying that uh not only can the community benefit but also maybe Town Council can benefit um the truth is is that we have been living uh at the boiling point for some time long before October 2023 um I don't know that the community ever healed from the Philip panel um death um back when I was a teenager um I have been kind of a little bit of a thorn in the side of different people on Council and also Dean saying that we need trained professionals phds someone that can come in and give us the tools that we need to better support this community if not now I don't know whenever that you would do something like this um I loved what was said about the fact that conflict can tear us apart or conflict can bring us together and I really ask I I will do whatever is in my power to support this program um to motivate and work with everyone on community relations um and uh support uh Deputy Mayor G and the rest of the council in this effort you know I'm really willing to help drive and learn um this is a very valuable effort and believe it or not not the community relations board uh has been asking for uh something along these lines for several years I would say since uh the George Floyd um uh uh death um we have been asking for some type of program so here it is and most of all it has been vetted by our town manager uh Dean so that in and of sell kind of sells the point to me uh he certainly knows this town for many many years of service so I believe it's something that will help thank you thank you Cheryl bringing in Phil yuck and start my video we can hear you Phil okay so um a little dark here um uh first of all yeah congratulations Doug I I support you being getting tenure you've done been doing a terrific job uh I want to specifically thank uh our Township manager for looking out for Bella Avenue I can tell you that I already have a a bit of a lake in my backyard I've been checking the street I know the people who live in this area are all very nervous tonight with this storm um uh so far the street has not flooded as far as I can tell um but uh but we'll have to see how things go I'm concerned about the house that borders Sagamore Park that lone house on on beus Street um those poor people people moved from a house that flooded into a house that flooded where the one thing they wanted was a house that didn't flood and I know if I have a a bit of a lake in my backyard they have an ocean next to their house uh if anybody drives by tomorrow you will see that there will be several inches of water pulled a large lake like or pond-like area next to their home and it goes into their basement every single time get a rain like this the other thing I want to uh but I want to thank you again Dean for reaching out to me today uh the other thing I want to talk about is resolution 39 uh 2024 authorizing Philips pre priestle you uhany and Hughes LLC to undertake planning Consulting Services um I'm concerned about the the contract from what I understand that's the just a copy of last year's contract the dates by the way are incorrect you should take a look at that it says from December 2023 to December 2023 that would give them that would mean there would be no contract so you need to fix that um but I think you need to strike the the piece that talks about Redevelopment we and creating Redevelopment plans um and areas in need of Redevelopment uh we the council has talked about waiting for the master plan to come out before any Redevelopment plans are created um concerned about having that in their current contract I think you can always append the contract with that kind of statement if in fact there is a move to create a inrs or Redevelopment plans in the future but for now and the letter that they sent I saw the letter that they sent there was an open request for that today an emergency request and the letter that they the contract that they asked for does not speak to Redevelopment or Redevelopment plans so please take a look look at that and I would encourage you to table that resolution or or strike that piece and fix the dates thank you thank you Phil I have shenaz here hi shenaz tonight I speak to you on behalf of the tink Democratic Municipal Committee in February 2023 a Norfolk s southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine Ohio some 1500 residents were told to evacuate fearing fearing an explosion officials decided to vent and burn five tank cars releasing 116,000 gallons of the carcinogen Vinyl chloride into the air 3 days after the incident the EPA gave the all clear for residents to return in March an independent testing expert confirmed residents fears that carcinogens were in the water that the Ohio EP was not finding more tests revealed dioxins in the soil water and people's air filters on May 15 2023 tdmc passed a rail safety resolution requesting Township Council of tenek contact the Bergen County Executive and County Commissioners and the governing bodies of the other track side along the CSX freight Lane line to call attention to this ongoing significant public safety issue and organized to achieve greater safety for residents in businesses located near the CSX rail line the county map with the 2500 feat evacuation Zone shows 18 municipalities at risk until the communities become organized it was requested that Tina Township Council Advocate at local state and National levels on behalf of its residents to ensure that residents of the township are properly protected from derailments of any rail cars which can cause damage to adjacent property including the risks of explosion and exposure to toxic chemicals and potential injury and loss of life the July 10 2023 meeting organized by Township manager kazinski with cxx was promising but we haven't heard of any progress since then we are concerned about two aspects of rail Safety First prevention which is Staffing training proper maintenance of tracks and trains second is the emergency response by municipalities tinck is triple track three Trail Rail lines all in service running north south between wisor Road and Palisade Avenue on December 30th approximately 400 p.m. near Stop and Shop art batky tdmc member W witnessed a Northbound CSX train operating at a normal speed it was about 100 oil tanker cars long a train of 100 TR cars is hauling about 3 million gallons quietly riding close by our homes and businesses tdmc would like to hear of any progress made on the resolution we sent in May to assure safety of all residents on another matter on personal I would like to thank over a thousand people who came to celebrate Muslim Heritage Month cultural Expo on Sunday January 7th at the tck Maria thank you and I thank all the community support organizations who participate in the event thank you all thank you shanaz I have Natalie Addison queued up feel free to one mute Natalie okay good evening to all happy New Year and to all hopefully you'll be a healthy and prosperous new year uh I would uh oh Natalie Addison a resident of tck for 38 years I first want to congratulate Doug on his tenure he It is Well deserve he does he's a hardworking man uh employee for teenx so thank you for voting and giving Doug his uh tenure and I would also like to thank Dean and the public service for all the work they do for the teate township and also I thank the council for uh passing the ordinance I think it is for the increase of the members for the senior Advisory Board I am a member and uh I think an additional to that board would help the seniors of tck so thank thank you very much and have a good evening thank you Miss Addison thank you Natalie I have art vaty queued up hello can you hear me yes sir okay yes I'm here tonight uh art VY a former P performer professional engineer former College instructor professor and uh C coom uh and I'm I'm calling about the CSX line we are naive we are exposed and everybody is willing to let us get away with becoming a new East Palestine Ohio we are we could be measure the distance we have from the very busy CSX tracks uh for more than 10,000 people on both sides of the tracks east and west and I'm afraid that even though we sent in a resolution in as sh says is in may we have yet to receive a response more importantly the township has to act I'm sorry you're in the hot seat right now because there are 25 million people in this country in same risk that we have in t neck and it's quiet nobody is willing to stir the pot the Congress isn't willing the CSX and the other railroads are not willing and you know uh I believe there's going to be another derailing I can't say where it's going to be but neither can you it could be here I don't want it here and I I stand by the rail rails uh daily weekly now and there's a lot of trans gone by long trains three locomotives pulling long trains and uh what we have to do we have to do what East Palestine has not been able to do where it risk we need to start the process uh I'm sorry no one else is willing to Jo join it with us but that's no reason not to do it the I would say that well I saw the movie oh I'm going to have time I saw the movie Unstoppable which is about a train that ran away in like Pennsylvania and was at risk of destroying a town like East Palestine well that could be us so it's disastrous it's you should see the movie which is uh has a um a free on YouTube which has a three minute what is it 3 minute uh three minutes watch it it's free we don't focus on how important train safety is for towns like tck thank you Mr VY thank you sir I have Howard Rose in the queue when whenever you're ready Howard are we good yes you look and sound great thank you Howard Rose Teck resident here at Brier Rose Bramble uh we had really three informats of presentations this evening two of which were exceptional uh I'd like to speak about two of them that the toxic one uh you know I'm wondering what the ratio is of public grassy lands compared to private grasslands we have a lot of homes that have front and back yards I wonder what the land ratio is and whether there's going to be a program for private property owners uh that would be informative I also wonder whether or not they have a program a curriculum that could be utilized at the schools for various grades regarding the conflict same question is there a curriculum that can be used at various grades boy getting them at a young age hopefully will make them better residents at an older age we also had what I would consider almost the fourth presentation by our town manager had a lot to say a lots going on good things a lot of progress being made Doug my congratulations you're always loud and clear and informative when you talk tenure is a good thing that means we'll be keeping for a while thank you for being here Paula congratulations on recognition you put so much time and energy into so many different facets of what's helpful towards the town I'm glad it's recognized railroads CSX art the word you were looking for is a three minute preview of that movie Dr friia was just terrific uh I don't know how how else to say it I started using the closed captions and for a moment said my goodness this guy is a touch typist is terrific but I'm realizing it's it's AI or something or whether that provides the captions public meetings committees I'd like it to be more open I I think that uh Karen had some good points made but I think that AI Berlin had a wonderful three minute presentation of his thoughts and they should be really strongly considered uh I'd like more open meetings I'd like notes I'd like timely things done I'd like the public to be informed as to what's going on it's necessary an informed public can be a reactive public and add more to it uh you know we have so many people who start talking and don't know what they're talking about it's good to have informed people discussing these situations we'll see what happens in the near future I hope thank you for the time have a good evening thank you Mr Rose we have Hildy Dylan here thank you everyone it's me again so I just wanted to first of all fully support the um the Doug tenure resolution um I it's a Doug Love Fest tonight but uh I also wanted to commend doug because I didn't get a chance to say this at our uh December meeting but um I wanted to thank him for working with the ber with Bergen County uh elections board to train the first high school students in Bergen County possibly throughout the state to uh be poll workers in our November 2023 election I had three of those uh High School uh students at my poll that I was supervisor of at Hawthorne School and they were phenomenal and really it's to Doug's credit for working with the county to have a training for these these uh children that were uh very well trained took their job very seriously and are really they were all 17 very excited about voting being able to New Jersey pass the state law and they can vote in our Primary in June so they will now be part of our election process and uh kudos to Doug for that I also want to thank Dean and the DPW Hillary the environmental commission liaison my environmental Comm commission colleagues and most of all the nearly 40 residents of all ages that came out in miserable weather on December 17th to clean up the garbage um along several streets in our town they did a fabulous job uh and we look forward to seeing everyone for the next cleanups on April 14th and October 6 so so look for opportunities to sign up for those programs probably in March for for the April program um and I this was a great example of a community activity that brings unity and pride to our town so we need to be doing more of these things where we work together to uh beautify T neck uh also um I'm in full support of uh the empathy training program that was a fabulous presentation I hope the council will take advantage of this by setting a leadership example and I and The Advisory board for community relations I think that's a great opportunity for them to be part of this train the trainer program and help uh residents as well uh this is a tough time for all of us um and uh that's what I have to say tonight positive things uh we can get back on track of of um being being good to one another and being good to our town thank you Miss Dylan we have Michael Katy lined up hey good evening Council thank you uh thank you for having me I first like to uh wish Doug congratulations on being made a permanent member of the town's uh you know that's the town clerk I think that's fantastic congratulations um but tonight I'd like to ask the council uh if we can weigh in about a an issue that I think is is really important something that we haven't it hasn't really been on the radar much lately and that is the issue of being able to walk safely so over the past 10 12 years I've walked around T neck uh many many times in the past I would encounter Vehicles some vehicles that would just be like outright rude you know they look me in the eye continue on their way as I'm waiting by a crosswalk even with a small child you know and people be rude that's okay right you know we can't really change rude behavior um you know we can punish them but we can't really do anything about that uh other than just like hope it doesn't happen again but what I started seeing myself over the past year or so is a new phenomenon which is that people they'll go through red lights as they change to red they'll go right through crosswalks where there's eight-year-olds waiting to cross even clusters of five or six of them wearing bright clothes and I started noticing they're all everyone's on their phones this we live in a country with automatic transmission Vehicles so you don't really need do much to drive your car other than you know use your knee to hold your steering wheel uh you can hold one phone one hand your iPad Mini in the other hand and your car kind of drives itself these days with all the features they have with these new cars and what's and what's happening I'm witnessing this myself and many other people I know in town have witness the same thing is that cars just they don't stop for people not because they're trying to be rude because they don't they're not even aware that they're there because they're not looking up I don't know what we can do about about this I do know that uh it seems that every other vehicle I see has a phone in their hand even if they have it connected to their carplay or Android auto they're still manipulating the phone I don't know why maybe it's because the limitations of Android auto or carplay lets you do with your car while it's in motion but there seems to be uh an area where enforcement can really play a key role here I know that when I first started driving years ago there were a lot of uh you know put your phone down campaigns and when I was driving in Brooklyn when I was like you know 17 18 years old with a junior license you knew that if you held the phone in your hand you were going to get pulled over on most Avenues it seems to be not just Teck but we as a society we've kind of moved away from that and I think maybe we should move back to that I think that most people should have the idea in their head that if you're holding a phone on Cedar Lane you're holding a phone on Queen Anne Road nine out of 10 times you are you are getting a ticket you're GNA have a mandatory court appearance you're GNA have a bad day and then it'll stop I I hope this is Meaningful to all of you and I hope we can take action thanks so much for everyone have a great night stay safe tonight thank you Mr Katy I have wiita brown trying to connect you just need to unmute give us a check Wanita yes I am I being heard yes you have three minutes thank you so much finally I don't know what's going on with my iPad it's being really funky but um I I used to use I like to speak about the pesticides I used to use Roundup as well and once I found out that this thing was so poisonous and so uh carcinogenic I I threw every bit of it that I had away and the presentation that was uh brought up tonight it's a wonderful thing and letting uh the residents know you know what's poisonous to us because a lot of times we we do do because we don't know or we use because we don't know secondly uh in terms of the senior Advisory Board we do give recommendations a lot of the improvements in the parks that have been made as of recent came from the senior Advisory Board we have a person who is uh steadfast about the parks Improvement and the bathrooms I think we got the the chess boards etc etc and Doug congratulations congratulations you so deserve it I am so happy to be working with you with the with the uh elections the getting the high school students who were just fabulous congratulations to you dog um and the presentation that was made by the for the C program CT program that would be so valuable to the residents the council the township as a whole we would would all benefit from uh the Train the trainer um activities that that the sech program could present to us and uh I think that's all that no the other thing is about the C CSX train I am so fearful that one day one of these 100 train or 100 car uh trains is going to derail and it's going to be right next near my house if I can see the railroad and the train as they pass that means whatever comes out from them will affect me and this is an issue which we it's of super importance and we need to get to work on this thing ASAP because we're trying to solve world problems we need to fix home and this is something that needs to be fixed right now thank you very much and have a good night hope hope you all had a great holiday season I did thank you Miss Brown we have uh Ray Addison on good evening Council Ray Addison resident of Teck for 38 years happy holidays to each and every one of you I just want to congratulate Doug uh kudos to you you well deserve the tenure that you that you received we are so proud to have you as our Township Clerk uh thank you manager Dean zinski for you do a great job as a manager I don't know where how you find the time to do all you do but anyway they need to clone you thank you for so much you that you do and I'd like to thank the council for doing a wonderful job in passing the ordinances tonight um especially I like the one for the compliance officer that I've been trying to uh get attention on for the last five years thank you um the the presentations tonight were excellent um everyone did a great job it was very uh friendly we could understand where they were going what they were saying and how important it is for all that was said I also like to concur with Mr vasky on the importance of the train situation we definitely do not need uh East palestin in Ohio situation in tck I guess what we are not realizing that this if something happens in tck it's a generational thing uh tck is is gone it's off the map we can revert back to years ago when they had Love Canal where all of the properties in that town was considered useless uh owning a home is one of the most um important and large investment that we make um and if we can't live a place where our homes and our values will not be worth anything because we're not picking up the attention to take care of uh contacting the right authorities for CCX C cxx then where are we we need to uh pay strict attention to this because we don't want to wake up one day and said say what if we want to do it now while we have the opportunity to try to make a change otherwise we will all be in a situation where we'll have some no place to live and no way nowh to go thank you very much and have a good evening thank you Mr Addison thank you Mr Addison we have Zach Rodman CED up hey good evening everybody I just want to say congrats to Doug also on clerkship um my name is Zach rotman been a resident for about eight years now I just wanted to propose an event um for whoever can take the initiative on this and potentially like a was thinking we should do like an art festival um you know just have an in inclusive community event to celebrate creativity and bring together local artists musicians performers Maybe have a uh art exhibition um uh live performances food uh Children's Corner and then possibly we can have you know like a big projector to just show all the atrocities of children being murdered in Gaza since uh you know the town tends to support the occupation I think it's important everybody can see that you're supporting a genocide and you're going to be on the wrong side of history and your grandchildren are going to cry about it and they're going to regret it you know so it'd be nice to look at the casualties and just watch the thousands of children murdered by war planes supported by your government uh the number is at 10,000 now so I think that'll be an important thing for you all to see thank you for listening who do we have next Doug I am br in Leila Graham please unmute hello hi you have three minutes um yes hello um I like to address mayor Pagan um we had a car rally go through Teck recently and um it was in support of Palestine and to bring awareness about the atrocities happening there and I've heard a few Tina residents talk about how we don't want a repeat of what's happening in East what happened in East Palestine Ohio to happen here in tck New Jersey and I find it so interesting how um you know we can see how an environmental disaster like what happened in East Palestine would create such problems for our our T residents here however um it it totally goes over everybody's heads how the the the things that are happening in Gazza right now are affecting everybody in this country as well I mean there there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about the children who are orphaned the mothers and fathers who have lost their children the hospitals churches schools mosques that have been bombed and all endorsed by this Township's Council right and so mayor Pagan to see you make a statement which honestly like it read as kind of kind of like you were I don't know how to say this but like it sounded like it was threatening to those who were just peacefully rallying for a cause they believe in and you know as someone who has been threatened by fanatical fascists in this town that that didn't sit right with me as someone who has actually been threatened been docked been attacked on my own Pro property while in town trying to just run errands that didn't s that didn't sit right with me mayor Pagan and honestly I had a lot of hopes for you as the first Latino mayor of this town but clearly those hopes were extremely misplaced and I'm I'm sorry to even have to like address this for the entire town here but um that was just it was it was uncalled for it was uncalled for and to think that a car rally would to to to name a car rally as harassment is is act like it's it's just bewildering to me it's truly bewildering when actual um harassment and threats have been made nothing was done by this town i' I've had arson happen on my property just for making a statement about Palestine just just just for having a a flag of the of Palestine thank you I have Adam Weissman please unmute Adam sorry about that yeah I also wanted to comment on mayor Pagan's statement I read that statement in the paper and was shocked and disgusted um it sounded like the mayor was channeling George Wallace with outside agitators rhetoric and I just I'm just shocked that we had teenagers in this town receive Anonymous death threats and that was apparently less of an issue Than People engaged in an active peaceful protest this town made a choice to engage in this debate to engage in international politics by making a statement of support an unequivocal statement of support for Israel that statement has not been reversed there has not been a statement of support of ceasefire that means that this town now stands behind the over 20,000 people who have been murdered in Gaza so while this statement's official position is one of support for Israel this statement can be held can and this town can and should be held accountable for those positions through acts of public protest that's not harassment that's not anti-Semitism frankly if Jewish children in this town were threatened anonymously and people paraded around town with Israeli flags that would be seen as a statement against anti-Semitism not as a statement of harassment that would be seen as a statement of Community Pride but members of the Muslim Community and and Palestinians and Arabs choose to stand up against harassment and against intimidation and say that they also have a right to peaceful protest because of the islamophobia of our mayor and this Council that is interpreted as harassment as bullying there were not people driving around with swastikas there were not people driving around shouting kill the Jews there were people driving with Palestinian Flags making a statement of political protest in what is internationally recognized as a genocide United Nations General Assembly has voted in support of a ceasefire Israel is now going to the international court of justice in a resolution introduced by South Africa meanwhile this town has not wavered in its support for this ongoing genocide so yes it is entirely appropriate for people to stand up in protest and the fact that this mayor chooses to be a lap dog to the powerful Zionist Lobby rather than standing up for human rights is shameful and an embarrassment to this town so I would ask that this town uh try to reverse its place in history to not embarrass Itself by joining the International Community in in supporting a resolution in support of ceasefire in a resolution in support of Peace so that we can so that as as one of the speaker stated before that our our children and grandchild will not look back on us in embarrassment that we can be a community that supported peace and not a community that chooses to celebrate an ongoing genocide in Gaza thank you I have David buner please unmute okay can you hear me loud and clear very good good evening mayor council members as you said my name is David bildner I am a longtime teic president there are three generations of my family living in town I have a stake in this town so anyone who attended tonight's meeting can see the town has a lot of challeng Alles which require huge investment time and effort to run properly that's why I'm concerned about efforts to hijack the agenda of this meeting and the town in general to focus on the Med's conflict right wrong or indiffer people's position on those political religious issues do not belong to tonight's Forum unfortunately we will not solve those issues tonight this is the T Town Council not a debate club or the UN this meeting has a 3099 page agenda packet that does not include international relations we need to deal with maintenance of the towns infrastructure public safety quality of life zoning Recreation and a thousand other things there's nothing productive to be accomplished by trying to force us to divert our time and attention away from our responsibilities and our personal priorities to a conflict taking place thousands of miles away many of us have strong feelings about those issues I know I do but that has nothing to do with tonight's council meeting called to help run our town I'm also concerned about those who seek to impose their opinions on others sometimes with the aid of outside agitators as thebody mentioned earlier by the use of intim ation threats and interfering with our right to live peacefully in our town this includes things like disrupting our children's school day crashing public events blocking traffic on the roads as we and our family seek to go about our day there's always room for civil discourse between people of Goodwill the test of people's motives is whether they're willing to discuss their concerns in a civilized time place and manner in the words of Dr fer from earlier this meeting have they have empathy for others or they use their anger and hatred in their attempt to bully everyone else into silence so only they are heard as you listen to tonight's speakers and as events in town continue to unfold I ask that you I ask that you ask yourself whether the participants in those events pass this test thank you and good night we have Deborah bayberg queued up hi good evening can you hear me loud and clear three minutes hi good evening Deborah blug first of all I just want to wish a huge mule 12 to dog on his tenure he is just epically wonderful I come in to listen to these meetings just to sometimes hear him read off his ordinances because unfortunately that's what I enjoy doing sorry Doug but just had to let you know that I just I want to thank the council I want to thank chief M girl just everybody for just being them I know I'm being too nice it's scary isn't it and it's G to keep going sorry um also I actually wanted to reiterate someone further uh before with regards to the leaf collection you know that I continuously go on about the leaves year after year so I just want to say thank you truly from the bottom of my heart this year's leave collection was probably one of the smoothest I've seen I haven't seen huge piles we didn't have rain I one time but we didn't have rain moving huge piles and it really does make a difference because you know we have these huge rains right now you've got to make sure your drains are clean people because it it helps with the rain flow so I really truly appreciate that because I know I and the reason I'm going on is because I have gone on and on for years about the leaves I think there's videos out there with me complaining about them so thank you very much and then the next thing I'm going to say which might have people almost on the floor I actually agree with a tdmc uh resolution with regards to the CSX trains because um it is a concern I mean we've seen what can happen and I do think there needs to be some kind of conversation or something to be done about it and it has always been kind of this quiet thing they honk the horns and nobody really says anything like we live with it but after what happens in East Palestine in Ohio I think we do have to kind of look within ourselves and say maybe we do need to speak up and maybe if tck speaks up the other towns will speak up and maybe it will create some kind of safety regulations or something but I think we as a community it's can all behind that and work on that because I think that's actually a one I'm actually really pleased that they highlighted that so I do appreciate that and I also want to always give a congratulations to Sher hall because Sher Hall is awesome and D is awesome and thank you and good evening and uh thank you so have a good one thank you Miss playberg we have an R queued up please state your name for the record address feel free to unmute whenever you ready yes hello my name is uh Rachel Captain um I've actually just recently moved to T from the UK and um I just wanted to bring up some things I've noticed about the town and uh hopefully can you know contribute to this conversation um there are various points that have been raised already uh throughout this uh meeting and I just wanted to Echo those as well um one of which is um the gentleman with the with the beard that was on spoke about security which I think is a very important Point um because uh I actually quite fascinated how segregated it is over here I didn't realize it would be like this U where I come from in London is very very different um it definitely feels um it is ped to a certain demographic and community and um excluding all others and um it does not feel safe at all in that manner um I think it should be more inclusive and um I think they should represent the general population of the United States of America and um when it regards to businesses in regards to even the library not having anything for um the month heritages that are going on monthly e for example this month is a the Muslim heritage month and I don't see any books in the library in that regard um and many other things but I would like also to um state that it'll be great to have the festival the Art Festival uh to just to bring more uh color and diversity into the community because it is very Su at the moment and um just to bring awareness of what is going on around uh because we are not living in a bubble so um is very important for everyone to be witnessed to what is happening and what our tax dollars are contributing towards um so I don't think we should Stand By and Watch a genocide and think it's okay I also want to mention the students that were almost run over that is a huge safety concern yet nothing has been done also um I was there watching the beautiful car rally there was no violence but unfortunately I saw violence from the stand Byers on the side spitting at cars insulting them and honestly that was very frightening to see in a town like this so I'm not quite sure um what direction this town is going towards but it does not feel like the United States of America more like the United States of Israel so um yeah I'm just very fascinated at this town and and I'm very glad to be able to join on my first discussion of the group and of course free Palestine because at the end of the day um you know nobody is truly free if uh people are undergoing a genocide your time is up your time is up um Mr Mayor I believe we're at the hour mark if I can make a motion that we um you entertain in a motion to end Gooden welfare actually I think you just gun Doug where there are no more hands up so good and Welfare is included even without your motion but thank you Mr Schwarz would you like to start us off sir yeah if I can just ask Mr um um Mr cler what was the name of the last person that clearly sound like um I don't think that was her name but could what name did she give if you don't mind Rachel something that was Miss Rachel Kaplan yeah I don't think so um okay yes uh thank you very much Mr manager and for the staff that are going home tonight I appreciate it um that I'm staying and hope everyone gets home safely um it was a very productive meeting have a lot of great minutes I am a little disappointed with um some of the last few speakers that decided um to start ranting uh against making false claims if you anyone listening just takes a look at their social where they um I think I just got this connected um their social media platforms and how they deny the attacks that occur to women how they constantly constantly make false accusations but I did want to thank the police department for keeping this town safe um and I thank everyone for coming out tonight or at least logging in tonight thank you thank you Mr Schwarz Miss Belcher yeah so um yeah I just want to um also I concur uh with um those that spoke tonight thank you for sharing your ideas and uh your thoughts and things that were important to you and heavy on on on your heart uh I think it's important to speak up it's important to let um us know what's uh what's important to you because as I personally feel what's important to you is important to me um I also would like to say that um couple points um I think the art uh Festival idea is is an excellent idea uh I don't know for uh if if uh residents understand that there is an arts and culture component in in our master plan um so definitely uh if you have some ideas about that I would encourage you to come out and and definitely um you know let's let's see what we can do I mean we have a great film festival in town but I think an Arts Festival would be an excellent idea um just on a couple of points uh I hesitated back in October to wait in the the uh water of international Affairs um but um was an author or Co authored with my colleague the peace and unity resolution um I will always stand on the side of uh peace and Justice uh I will always um stand on the side of children and those that are innocent bystanders and I if that makes uh me Pro ceasefire then I am absolutely that uh I want to just say that in celebration of this weekend we're going into um celebrating a a national icon and that is our Reverend Dr Mark Luther King and as we reflect on his life and the commitment that he's he gave to this nation that of peace and Justice um I would just say that to quote him Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere so uh thank you for your comments tonight miss Oregon thank you um I'm sitting in my basement tonight um reminding me of the two years that I spent down here during covid and listening to this meeting and what we were getting done and the first 13 speakers it actually felt like every other meeting before things started to blow up it was our our top 10 list um Mr Dr Yu was you know on point to be called on tonight with the storm raging outside and Paula was talking about uh her chemicals and lilan Lewis and Natalie Addison and Wanita Brown on the senior citizen an Advisory Board and um while we're not in a great place now it actually felt like like things were going back to agreeing to disagree and being civil and harmonious um until U the next few speakers that um just make everything bad and um I'm trying so hard to be grateful and I'm trying not to let external agitators um disrupt myself personally in the town I'm trying to gain strength um from what people are doing um there was nothing harmonious and peaceful about the car rally that came to town um it was meant to make a point uh today is National Law Enforcement appreciation day we've missed mentioning that I usually bring a resolution but I'd like to say to our law enforcement that I'm grateful for you for protecting us I'm grateful to all of you who came in on New Year's Eve a strategically planned day when I'm sure you wanted to spend time not at work keeping us safe but thank you thank you for everything that you do for us um I'm I'm grateful for our town and for so much in it and I do feel like we are trying in our own ways to to work things out and to come back together and um I hope that that's something we're able to do I'm grateful to Doug um for all that he's done for us and for me personally but more than that I'm grateful to everyone in town who recognized him tonight and recognizes everything that he does for us um I'm grateful always for everyone who spoke out and speaks out about Dean and the manager and what he does for us I am grateful to Mr usmani who reached out and invited us uh to the neighborhood Feast on Saturday for Muslim heritage month and I look forward to walking over there to be with you um and I'm grateful that our MLK uh celebration is held at Temple emth and how nice is that that that is really what Teek is I'm grateful that we gave certificate tonight to mortgage apple cakes and that they go through the trouble of maintaining kosher certification so that we can eat there and that we have a new cheesecake and gelato store coming that to town that will be kosher I'm grateful um to Hildy Dylan for her her cleanups in town and I hope that the one in the spring the first one will not be on a day that I have to go to work I'm grateful for every Sunday off I'm grateful that it's Girl Scout cookie season and that we all Buy from our neighbors and they delivered to us and what a wonderful thing um I'm grateful to all of the people that were promoted by the manager it looks sounds like the entire DPW was promoted um we have a wonderful new Deputy uh police chief and fire chief uh thank you so much to Mary Beth hubard for everything that you've done for the seniors at the Roa Center and Zan you're going to Rocket you are uh wonderful so thank you for all that you do um and mostly tonight I'm grateful for uh Dean and Doug and Ron who are sitting in the building um so that we can be in our basements and um or at our desks at home and be safe and I hope that you get home safe thank you Miss Goldberg thank you Mr Mayor um first and foremost I just want to say thank you um congratulations to Doug on his earning tenure tonight and for showing his dedication by showing up tonight in person and I wish him the best in his years ahead and a safe drive home tonight I also wanted to commend Dean and our DPW for the leaf cleanup this year there were some recommendations made by councilwoman Oregon that were very very effective from what I saw this year and I hope that we can do the same next year and maybe even better Justice brandise famously said that Sunshine is the best disinfectant that quote is at the top of every single issue of my newsletter people use the word transparency a lot and is something that I fundamentally believe in something that I campaigned on and will continue to advocate for every single day we should all be taking steps in that direction wherever we can whenever we can even if it isn't everything everyone wants all at once transparency is never easy it is never burdensome and as Leaders as council members we should always strive for transparency and openness in 2023 this Council unanimously reopened The Advisory boards to the public ensured that detailed subcommittee meetings minutes are in agenda packets for both the zoning subcommittee and cannabis subcommittee and I would like to make a formal request to the chairs that the detailed minutes from the other subcommittees if they met in 2023 be distributed to council sent to the clerk to put on the website and placed in the agenda packet for the January 23rd meeting and going forward we also held the first open public subcommittee meeting in tenek ever where residents could see the workings of the Cannabis subcommittee these are Big steps and we should all be proud of them we passed an ordinance tonight to expand the social services Advisory Board and we are introducing ordinance 44-22 3 which will expand the opportunity for residents to have a chance to serve on all of our advisory boards and statutory boards this past year people were appointed who many on this Council had never heard of they applied and interviewed because they are engaged residents and care care about Teek who simply wanted to volunteer their time for the town this ordinance is not perfect and it took compromise from every member of this Council and no one got everything they wanted myself included we have made so many positive steps in expanding transparency and I hope that we can all work together in 2024 to expand the opportunities for all residents to participate just as we did tonight thank you thank you Miss Goldberg Mr clerk I make a motion to extend the meeting to 11:30 I second all those in favor please say I I I I Mr Catz sir yeah first um I want to thank the uh employees for being in the building tonight and taking setting up this meeting and I wish you a safe bright home um and I don't I don't know who's there but I obviously I see Dean and I see Doug um I think mayor you're there as well right um second is uh I'd like to Echo what council member Oregan mentioned regarding our law enforcement we have most exceptional law enforcement uh in probably in the country and uh very proud and uh want to recognize them certainly today but every day um and third is I want to take this time to highlight what was mentioned by several different residents about our Clerk and uh getting tenure um he's really managed this position and continues to grow in this position in such an exceptional way in such a caring way uh and such a uh responsible way as a custodian of Records uh as as the front person for the town uh to many residents and uh I'm really proud to be supporting him tonight for a tenure and congratulations thank you Mr Catz Miss G um so first of all just want to say congratulations Doug I have not I can't remember meeting where the feedback has been so unanimous you are a shining star here we are so grateful to have you um I'm just so unbelievably proud of you I'm so happy that all the residents called in um to also voice their support so I just want to say congratulations you deserve it you've earned it and and so excited for what's to come with you going forward um one quick announcement um the tenek public library in celebration of Muslim Heritage Month will'll be hosting two events on Thursday January 11th at 6:30 p.m There's an opportunity to learn more about famous Islamic inventions so I encourage all to uh go to that event if you're available at the library um the second event will be on Thursday January 18th at 6:30 p.m. where there's going to be a sip and learn to paint and apply henna so two really exciting events in celebration of Muslim Heritage um month and I hope folks will go out to the Tena public library and participate in those events um also want to just thank all the residents who came out and spoke um I know uh there were you know opinions that people didn't all agree with um but you know it's it's the the the the good thing about good and Welfare is anyone can come and share their opinions I think folks were respectful um and so while it might not be comfortable for all of us I think we have to allow people to take their three minutes and share in a respectful way um I I think it also shows that we are there is no Utopia here in tck um there is no waiting and thinking it's we're going to press a magic button and everything's going to go back to normal it's going to be perfect like there is some real healing that's needed in this town and I'm so excited about the fact that we had um Professor frer come and share about that zert program it's clear that we need it um amongst ourselves amongst the community members and so I'm hopeful that we can try to do that work um there's no magic button um but I love Tac I know all of you do and I'm hopeful that we can work towards bringing some Community healing um going forward thank you Mr Mayor thank you Miss G since October this town and our community has been at war with itself and while I was hoping that things would settle down by now in some cases they have only gotten worse and so I want to say a couple of things everyone on Council understands the pain and frustration that our residents are going through You Are Not Alone we are all being torn apart by what we are seeing and what we are experiencing and what our friends and families and neighbors are seeing and experiencing I am your mayor and we are your Council for the township of EK in the county of ber in the state of New Jersey in the United States of America and while that may be obvious it is worth remembering because I think it is sometimes forgotten during our our meetings and we as your locally elected representatives in Teek are unfortunately unable to stop any wars overseas but what we can do is help bring more compassion and more understanding to our friends and neighbors right here in teac who are hurting and that is what we try to focus on I want you to all know that you are indeed being heard that we will sit here and listen to all of you as long as necessary because we are here to help you any way that we can and at the end of the day we also have a government to run we operate $78 million budget and you all elected us to run this town to the best of our ability and we have accomplished a lot in the past year since I became mayor including bringing my more diversity to our boards and commissions buying more life-saving equipment for our fire department creating the poet Laurette position and resolving a massive lawsuit with Holy Name Hospital that allows them to expand their Services while also protecting the rights of their neighbors and we have a lot more in store for the coming year including changing our Township Charter to allow for more transparency and public participation expanding our age friendly and Veteran friendly initiatives and adopting a new master plan to govern future Redevelopment but you also elected us to help lead this community which is something that I want to acknowledge we're going to continue to sponsor events that will help bring our community together and shine a light on the things that we have in common rather than the things that tear us apart we're working on fixing and improving our Sports Fields so that our children can play on new and improved fields that will last for generations to come we're working on improvements to the Rota Center where our older adults can meet for activities and we are listening to you to hear your pain and give you a shoulder to lean on during this difficult time and to help you any way that we can that's what it means means to be a community a teenic community and nothing that happens in the Middle East can take that away from us and I hope that you all realize as I do every single day what a blessing it is to live in such a wonderful place as EK and I ask that you all please join me in remembering what makes Teek such a great place to live work and raise a family which is each other so that said thank you I thank you all tonight for coming out and for participating and Mr manager is there anything you would like to say or address from good and Welfare tonight sir uh sure just uh quickly uh you know we do have DPW crews out tonight they'll be out working uh until the storm is over there is only one power outage uh that I can see on a pscg map that's on bont about five um households there uh no I've been in touch with the DPW director this evening uh fortunately no uh no large trees down no damage right now and and just to reiterate what a lot of people have said tonight um with Doug I'm so happy that he's being supported for tenure he's an incredible colleague of mine uh who certainly helps to make my job easier just you know his energy as we know and the enthusiasm is incredible so he he's a tremendous asset to our organization and I just wanted to thank him for all of his all of his hard work thank you Mr manager and as always thank you Doug our next order of business is the consent agenda and all matters listed on the consent agenda are considered to be routine in nature by Council and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items if any discussion is desired by Council that particular item will be removed from the consent agenda and will be considered separately Mr clerk can you please read the amount of the bill list into the record sir absolutely mayor and just as a reminder to councel that's one raffle we have five sets of minutes and we have resolutions 2 through 41 1- 2024 including the walkin that Council agreed to earlier on this evening and of course last but not least we have the bill list in the amount of 2, 256,257,258,259,262,274,277,284,530,531,282,283,296,301,318,319,529,532,306,270,271,272,305,315,33432 for 2024 34 is authorizing yearly maintenance and support services for spatial data logic that 34 is sdl that's the online management software that we've been using oper requests building permits um things like that did you want to pull that Mr Catz no no it's just I don't yeah we typically call it sdl not spatial data logic I guess get it I just want to make sure Deputy Mayor C I pulled 35 2024 not 34 just no no I I understand I'm I'm off the hard copy agenda which doesn't have the add-on ones yet got it sorry I wasn't in the building tonight all right if nobody's going to pull anything else I make a motion to approve the content agenda second seconding by councilwoman Oregon councilman um yes um sorry I apologize I'm having a problem with my agenda so I'm going to pass on the bill list because I have not able to pull it up past page 269 so I'm going to obstain on the bill list in case there's anything there that there's a conflict um and I believe there was a newspaper and I apologize I didn't it was so good and I'm going to um recuse uh not 19 but um resolution 22024 designating the official newspapers yes thank you very much I'm going to recuse on Two And obstain The build this please thank you every guess for everything else you got it thank you councilman Schwarz councilwoman beler you're muted councilwoman sorry still muted maybe give us a thumbs up or thumbs down I can do this um so I one of the things I had asked in uh was uh further information about 21 uh 2024 and that is the mutual Aid agreement and I think our manager was going to do a little bit more research on that in terms of the language so I would uh you know I would like to respectfully um pull that until we get further information um on it so can it might be too late it might be too late to pull it Mr Clerk or Mr attorney can you chime in because we already have a motion and a second on the entire consent agenda okay I know I I brought up um you know Mr Mayor in close session about further details on the language if you remember yeah I remember but I think Dean said he was going to do some research into that and get back to you right and that that's why I'm asking to poll 21224 until that such time Doug is it too late to pull something since there's already a motion in a second motion second we have have we have to vote on it I'm sorry I couldn't hear you Scott what' you say I'm sorry yeah no once once there's a motion in a second you have to you have to vote on vote on that first yeah I'm Sorry Miss Belcher uh you so I'm going to say no to that one that particular one because of the language is is um is uh leaves a lot to to understand in terms of the mutual Aid agreement um but uh I would move forward on the other so I would say no to 20 uh 21 2024 councilwoman Goldberg um yes to all but on the bills list I'm recusing on the jarom Meisner invoice 38149 for Wayne's puppies Jam Wayne's invoice recused you say yes got a councilwoman councilwoman Oregon yes to all debie M Catz uh obstain on the bill list and abstain on 28 2024 and 29 2024 and yes to restain you got it Deputy Mayor Deputy Mayor G yes all and may Pagan yes all right everything adopted Miss Goldberg I think you pulled 35 yeah so this was the resolution on the the bond um authorization so I have two questions one I'm GNA start with for the attorney it's just a general process can going forward when we're doing a resolution like this and we're referencing another ordinance can we attach the that ordinance in the packet for the benefit of council and the public because I literally like went through it and and you know I'm sure other people wanted to pull up too so can we just do that going forward um is that okay yeah I there I guess there there could be some times where it could get confusing as to what we're voting on but assuming that's you know I guess I guess the answer is it depend it depends as long as it's done a way that's not confusing to people but there's nothing we can do that generally yeah and then on um just the weas Clause like I I um I had to ask a bunch of questions about it and I think I think just the public has a right to know about what's going on with the ordinances so we could just do that um and then Dean I know what I I had asked this but um I don't know if you had heard anything so I went back and I saw that the original ordinance that it references from 2018 was for a little over $8 million um and it had it a specific list of spending then we have $4 million open on the bond which is what the resolution is is authorizing so I'm was just trying to wrap my head around what did we not complete projects did we not pay for that like do we use additional funds for them I'm just trying to understand what happened to that authorization money from 2018 and as far as the projects I don't know if Isa got back to you or not right yeah I I did ask Isa to connect tonight you know I had sent Council the other day um just an email sort of explaining uh why we're doing what we're doing with this and Doug if you just bring a in as a panelist you can explain in a little greater detail the financial end of it and why we did what we did right now thank you good evening test can you hear me Sir Mr hi good evening so first as a point of privilege I want to congratulate Doug on his tenure this evening it's always an honor like the book good to Great says when your successor does a lot better than you did and outperforms you so kudos to you Doug for uh having the DJ element that I did not have and for getting projects that I did not get to for various reasons including the code book uh welld deserved tonight Doug and uh I'll give you your uh bro high five tomorrow but to answer counil M Goldberg's question um it's not really how it seems where we so let me rephrase this the the correct answer to your question is it's not that we didn't spend the money on the ordinance the way we have it set up in Tek is that we borrow on older ordinances first and actually that's more attractive to both our bond Council and our investors that you know as soon as the governing body adopts an ordinance it gives us the authorization to borrow but we don't necessarily go borrow on that particular ordinance we finish the older ordinances first and borrowing on them and then we move our way up so this ordinance is referencing 2018 because that's the oldest ordinance that we have not fully borrowed on and that's the amount left to borrow on it got that I'm still confused a little bit okay so just let me should offline yeah we can we can Circle back so the general concept though is that because all of our funds right run through really one main bank account the current fund an interfund occurs when one fund owes the other in this in this case you know we funded the capital fund money and this is really like an end of the year cleanup and we're just putting that money back for 45 days because the waters were not calm for the short-term bond market in December rates were spiking you know we did um a smaller note for over 5% and now that the rates have come down with the New Year we're basically just lending ourselves the money and then we're going to put it back once you go to the market in February for a larger note in in essence though you always borrow on your older notes first to take care of them and retire them before you go out and permanently Finance them that way you're not jumping around we're basically going it's almost like the accounting example of first in first out fifo right so that's kind of what we're doing here it's just first in first out mute sorry um all right um so we're B so we're going to borrow the money in a few weeks to get a lower rate and then we'll use this all and let us use all of our wait wait okay wait so we're going to borrow the money in a few weeks to get a lower and get a lower rate and this let us use all of our Surplus in 24 budget this is basic this is basically going to clear up the inter fund if you if we don't clear up the inter fund it has a negative impact on your Surplus so this is one of those accounting cleanup things at the end of the year you want to take care of so that it doesn't hurt us in the 24 budget for our Surplus number our cash Surplus okay all right I I think it makes enough sense and we can review it further with the audit at our next um you know finance committee meeting okay thank you you're welcome does anyone on make a particular motion about this measure I'll make a motion to approve 35 of 24 second councilman Schwarz yes councilman yes councilman Goldberg yes councilman Oran yes de Mar cats de Mar cats de Mar yes oh that was a yes yes to yes yes to yes de merie yes May Pagan yes yes by all all right our next order of business is our introduction of ordinances Mr clerk can you please read the title of the ordinances into the record absolutely Council introducing ordinances for the first time in 2024 we are seeing again reintroduced ordinance number 44-22 3 amending the township code for the township at T to modernize and clarify the township Charter administrative code again Council we are reintroducing ordinance number 462023 amending the township code for the township a act to remove time limitations on pouring concrete the first ordinance of 2024 1 d224 Council establishing salary ranges and classification of positions for Municipal Employees in the township of tinac and we also have ordinance number 2-22 24 Council amending the township code for township atin act to revise membership on the social services Advisory Board make a motion to approve all second yes oh you heard me there you go councilman belshire wait when do we get to PLL for discussion any of these well I'm sorry Mr clerk would you like to this is really just for introduction the discussion typically usually usually takes place later on second reading second reading but um if you would like to discuss further I mean can we discuss now Mr salmon or does that need to wait I don't see any reason why not yeah we can discuss it if if if the council wants to yeah all right but we already have a first and a second though so do we have to M can can I say something I I think that there's a point of order here I think that I would like to request that the attorney review uh with the the council Robert's rules in terms of how we're conducting things because I think there's a few things that we're missing when it comes to things like discussion uh when you guys are throwing out um you know uh making you know you're you're basically not giving us an opportunity to discuss key points and that's that's a key component of of of really you know running our meetings in an orderly fashion so I would just suggest that perhaps you know we could look at that um Mr salmon in terms of uh going over a review of how we're conducting our meetings and specifically I had made edits to the language in that ordinance and I I wasn't sure what the process was for a discussion whether or not we can talk about those edits and that's what I wanted to talk about before we voted on it well if I'm not mistaken according to Robert's Rules the first introduction you don't really talk about it but I mean if you guys want to talk about we can always talk about anything and everything and I like Miss belch's idea about Robert rules it's important to revisit them regular and I encourage every council member to do so um Scott because there is a first and second do we have to vote on it or do we backtrack and pull one I I so I miss was the was it for the first and second for for was it for all of them or just for this one for all of them yeah for all the for all the ordinances that we're introducing we we had a first and a second so we could there was never even an opportunity to pull like we jumped right into it so there was I didn't really jump right into it I waited five seconds I counted to five but I mean if you want we can talk about it now or you can pull it at the next meeting and we can discuss I would I would like to pull uh what is it 4423 so Scott do should I make an amendment to my motion if if you'd like to make an amendment I would like to make an amendment to my motion to appease the council member that is trying to make it full so that she can make some edits or make some comments so I make a motion to approve all the ones except the one that Danielle G would like to talk about second Mr cler so um that would be I believe deuty mayor G is trying to have some discuss s around 44 so that means we're just considering 46- 2023 1 d224 and 22024 correct sir so that was a first from mayor Pagan and a second from Deputy M cats again this is just for 46 the time limitations on pouring concrete ordinance 1 2024 salary ranges for Municipal Employees ordinance 2 um Social Services advis Advisory Board code Amendment um councilman Schwarz no because we don't it says right there we don't have the conversation on this but that's my this this was a role for approving these ordinances on first no my votes know on how this paragraph D introduction of ordinances has now been changed so I'm I'm out I think that the I think that you have to restate this I think we have to restate you know we're voting on The the measures that are not including the charter code so we're voting on The if you look at the agenda if you look at what is scheduled for introduction we're voting on those items except for the charter code because Danielle wants to pull the charter code okay so we're we're out of the four we're only voting on three and uh 4423 is being removed so that's what we're voting on right now right Mr Mayor correct so is it my turn yes ma'am I vote yes thank you councilwoman beler councilwoman Goldberg so Sil clear we're voting to introduce 462023 ordinance 1 d224 ordinance 2-22 24 yes thank you councilman Goldberg councilman Oregan yes to all thank you councilwoman Deputy May cats the just that we're no I'm just kidding yes to thank you Deputy Mayor G yes sir thank you mayor Pagan yes all right so all those are introduced so um there's ordance for yours yes so a couple of things in the chart ordinance well first of all it's my opinion that it's very prescriptive and it's pres prescriptives in some way ways and not others there's so many gaps and I really think this ordinance needs more time where maybe a subcommittee or task force can sit down and like work through all the nits um as the person who's been managing all of the Personnel Logistics um half of the issues aren't even covered in this ordinance and if we're going to get pres prescriptive I think it should be more thoughtful than one or two people authoring this um that was my first point the second point I'm confused as to why Personnel committee is not identified in this order orance it just says a subcommittee of three council members when Personnel committee has traditionally um done the entire interview process for Advisory board so my suggestion is that we we put in Personnel subcommittee rather than subcommittee of three council members just to be more specific um and then I also think that I know this is I I don't have the support on this but I also think it's silly to um bind this Council and all future councils to interview as many applications that come in if we get 5,000 application applications and request for interviews it's not going to be feasible to do that and so I had recommended that we impose some limitation or where the Personnel committee could decide if you know we receive more than x number of interviews then we can use we can post the résumés and use the resumés through some process to filter the interviews so that this Council which has tons of work to be doing is not spending all their time condu thing interviews if there are too many interviews that come in those were my suggestions Mr Mayor yes sir can you imagine a town of 41,000 where 5,000 people apply to help out and we say nah we're going to pass guys you're going to pass we don't want to interview you send me a few blurs we'll get back to you I I I I I I understand we're all busy but I mean that would be an amazing town to be part of the government if that's the case so I wholeheart L disagree in that and um I I stepped up I'm not on the Personnel subcommittee I've stepped up twice now in the last six weeks and a 5,000 or 41,000 people who I always say are the people in the room I look forward to speaking with them anyone else I think I see Karen's hand yeah I I wouldn't have a problem if if we amended it to say the Personnel subcommittee or their design needes that that would be fine because I don't think anybody should be expected to to have these full days at the same time if people don't want to serve on the personnel subcommittee and now they'll know what what the work entails because this is what they're volunteering for um then you know now they'll have the option they'll understand that it it is time consuming and you may need a full day or it may have to switch to Sunday depending on availability but I have no problem with that change in language I think I saw Miss beler was that you waving your hand yes that's me uh so I I I don't s serve on the uh Personnel subcommittee either but uh I I I think there's a certain level of trust and confidence that I have in their ability to to Really parse through the process so uh I I don't have a problem either with them making a determination based upon what criteria they feel you know that that that's necessary to get through uh interviews I don't think it's it's you know I mean having 5,000 interviews I don't think that's that's something that's going to happen but I I have enough trust and confidence in their ability to work through the process so um you know I I don't think that we should limit ourselves or bind ourselves to say that you know they you know we ha it has to be a you know you have to interview everyone so I would leave that up to to them for their discretion Miss Goldberg so we've been working discussing uh on this for more than six months I think we've had length the discussions about many of the details and I think we've made many compromises and many changes which I hope that we have addressed this ordinance makes so many positive changes and I hope that we can give all the residents the greatest opportunity to serve so let's introduce this ordinance and pass it at the next meeting and revisit if there's any future issues and if 5,000 people apply that would be the greatest thing to happen in t history so let's just hope that that's a problem that we need to deal with and if everyone's okay I would like to make a motion to introduce 44- 2023 second um before we can make that motion I want to make a motion to amend the language to the to add the Personnel subcommittee okay so or I just yes or they designate yeah I have a question too for um attorney salmon and that is uh I noticed that in reviewing it um it you don't reference the uh subcommittee for affordable housing any reason why I'm I'm sorry that it's not referenced anywhere in there no so standing uh my recollection is that t doesn't have standing committees and so those are uh created by the council each each Council and so I think that's that's why there's no reference in there but I I let me go back and double check I'm not sure I'm not 100% sure okay I would like to know yeah the subcommittees are not the same as the advisory boards and there's no Advisory board on affordable housing there's a subcommittee that was created in January of 2023 yeah but I iied and guys if I can interrupt really quickly I make a motion to extend the meeting for another 10 minutes second all those in favor please say I I I please continue the conversation no so I think there's a motion so I'll amend my motion to modify just to include personnel subcommittees or their design that's fine okay right second okay so are we moving for an amendment upon this introduced ordinance I just want to be clear and that amendment is this language about the Personnel subcommittee yes okay sweet I will connect with you Deputy Mayor about that precise wording I think I think Scott understands right yeah I do so so that I understand are we in agreement on the language at this point oh by adding a personal subcommittee or it's doign need is sufficient to I mean I'm asking this of deputy mayor of G is this sufficient to it was one of my three asks yes I'm happy with that one the other two I think there is not support for and who is uh giving us that motion to include this upon introduction the the wording I just did I just didn't made the motion to amend I seconded thank you councilman Schwarz yes to instruction and councilman beler yes councilman Goldberg yes councilman Oregan yes Deputy Mayor Katz yes T Deputy Mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes yes on that amended introduction we will see at next meeting I'll make a motion to adjourn second all those in favor please say I all hi thank you everyone get home safe congrats home safe TR thank you all everybody please get home safe stay dry stay warm pray for snow 2024