Mr clerk we have a quorum and call this meeting to order at 8:09 PM can you please call the role councilman Schwarz councilman beler here councilman Goldberg here councilman Oregon here Debbie May Catz Debbie May G here may Bon here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 299 d223 sending a copy to the newspapers official designated for 2024 by way of resolution number 2224 fing a copy in the township clerk's office and posting on the municipal building bulletin board and the mayor hereby directs this statement be included in the minutes thank you Mr clerk good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's council meeting Township Administration president tonight's meeting are Dean kazinski Township manager Doug ruson Township Clerk Christen denor Deputy Township Clerk Thomas row Deputy Township manager Scott sammon Township attorney and Rod Goodman volunteer cable caster for the The public's information we are currently holding a hybrid format meeting we have people in person and on Zoom if our Wi-Fi at the municipal building has an issue where the zoom meeting drops we will aim to retrieve the connection and restart the meeting the next televised regular council meeting will take place on Thursday March 7th and 14th at 7M and they are both budget meetings our next regular council meeting will take place on March 19th Council met in Clos session earlier this evening to discuss the following items DPW update tax revaluation update fdu empathy training military banners a most referendum assault Dome legal issues and opinions regarding items on the Open Session agenda litigation updates and Oprah our next order of business is presentations and first up is a reevaluation update Mr manager can you lead us in this sir yep sure um Doug is Rob Russia uh connected on Zoom sorry one second I just got booted out of the zoom all right so just just quickly mayor I was asked to uh have uh a representative from appraisal systems who's been doing our reval as well as our tax assessor who's in the audience tonight James Ty uh to speak a little bit about the revaluation process uh how it all came about the reason for it why we had to do it the court ordered to do it where we're at today I think as everyone knows uh basically the Ral is is complete uh 100% of the exteriors are done 99% of the Interiors are done letters went out to the residents and Appraisal systems and our tax assessor will be uh meeting with residents uh from uh all of this week and all of next week at the Rota Center uh can be done in person it can be done through the phone again that's uh from the 26th of February through the 1st of March and then again uh on the 4th of March through the 8th of March and that's all all that information is contained in the letter but I wanted to have uh appraisal systems here as well as our tax assessor to explain to council again in about 10 minutes um how we got to this how it started and how we got to this point and the ending point for the reval so uh Doug I'm not sure if you okay uh Rob welcome and James you want to come up to the podium as well and Robbie you'll be addressing a council and James as well just give us a check one twoo real quick Rob I want to make sure we can hear you okay sure absolutely how's it going everyone can you hear me okay no that's that's on our end though give us one second all right I'm happy I asked count to 10 for me Rob one two three can you hear me now Mr Ty yeah Rob hang on second we're gonna let James Tai start I'm not sure if James is the most loved or hated employee I'm not sure I'm neutral I'm Switzerland [Laughter] ER can you hear me now no no please feel free Mr Ty okay uh what Rob is probably gonna just present is a general overview um basically the tax assessor's office under jurisdiction of Burton County Board of Taxation and over seen further by division of taxation the Bergen County Board of Taxation uh basically tracks our um assessment uh assessment to uh market value ratios number of other statistical uh measures that they look at every year and when it reaches a certain threshold they would start thinking about ordering a revaluation when it passes that threshold and we get the order which we did I believe believe in 2020 or 21 um so the buron County Board of Taxation would issue an order for revaluation for TK and all the other communities that uh statistical profile had deteriorated to the point where they felt that an update was needed that gets okayed by the uh director Division of Taxation then we receive a formal order uh we put it out to bid appraisal systems was the uh responsive bidder that um met all our Criterion and they started um basically laying the groundwork earlier this year now we had had uh map updates that we had to do the division of taxation overseas our tax maps as well there's certain uh formatting issues that they like to see on the maps they've also had some changes because we just did a revaluation in 2014 for 2015 I say just did that it's almost 10 years ago ago now but U seems quick seems not that long ago but anyway our map was fairly up to date however it still took three tries with our engineer making some changes uh to have the map acceptable and be uh ready for us to do the revaluation uh that added some delay to the project uh we were ready to start doing inspections in May as soon as the weather broke uh but the division uh in the past they typically allowed you to start inspecting earlier while you were simultaneously revising the map uh they've drawn a hard line against that uh in the last few years they will not let you start any phase of the inspections until the map is fully approved so that happened around July the inspectors have been out there since July uh they are as Dean indicated they have 100% uh completed the exterior inspections they're about 99% with the Interiors they still have some appointments with people and they will still do inspections up to May 1st which is the appeal deadline um and typically in the past years if people have filed appeals and did not have their property inspected and brought that fact out at the hearing appraisal systems was willing to go out and um inspect the interior to verify the conditions there and see if that would result in a change in the assessment so they'll be doing inspection from now up until May 1 by in by uh appointment or if someone needs or calls them and has a dispute they will also do them after the uh appeals process is on their way um as some of you may remember from the original presentations it was a multi-step process the first and the largest step was the INSP inspections of the property um and then issuing the um assessment notices with the with the new assessments now we're doing the review as Dean said we have two weeks reserved at the Rota Center um people are meeting I understand they have about 180 people scheduled uh over the next two weeks uh for appointments they're also doing phone appointments so you could discuss online as well or on the phone people want to copy your property record card uh you send an email to them they'll send one right back to you that be the new property record card with your new physical description of your building which everyone should do just to check it over and make sure that uh or verify that what's on there is actually what they have um that's all outlined on the letters that were sent um right now we're in the phase where appraisal systems is handling any discrepancy es uh because they will send their personnel out to to look at it again when if there is a discrepancy or if it was not inspected and after that process is over um for our appeal deadline is May 1 we have to have the new assessment certified 45 days before May 1 so whatever date that is and I don't know what in my head right now um that's when the process will stop it may stop before then if no more people are looking for meetings we may be able to certify them earlier but we'll put the certified list in we'll get a net valuation taxable that we can then use to start with the budgeting process we have an approximation of what it is it went up from about $5.5 billion rable base to about 8.4 billion it's approximately a 60% increase in rable base which means there is also with zero change in the budget to collect the same amount of money as we did in 2023 using that new higher denominator uh our tax rate is projected to be $24 rather than $33.30 that doesn't include whatever is going to go on with the budget this year you know appraisal system is not in the position to project that they have no input into that so on that letter what people were finding is a projection of what taxes would have been had the 2023 budgets been in place um of course our typical increases over the past few years have been about one and a half to two and a half percent so somewhere around there on top of 2.04 is probably were to lend up I would imagine but once again that letter the best they can do is tell you what it would have been had the budget been unchanged because people always have that question okay I see my new number what does this mean everyone's assessment went up but that doesn't necessarily mean your taxes are going to go up with the new you're going to have a higher tax assessment with a lower tax rate in many cases you'll just end up where you were last year with the same one two 3% increase there are properties where the property where their taxes are actually going to decrease as a result of this and there are properties of course that are going to be increased but the budget doesn't increase as a result of this U you know the budget process is completely separated from this this is just at the final when the budgets are finalized it's divided by the new net valuation taxable and then we get a new tax rate so that's pretty much the process in a nutshell yeah does anyone have any questions from Mr Ty Miss Goldberg I have um two questions one do we know um from the assessment company how many residents let the assessor in versus didn't I don't have that number right now okay and then just for residents knowledge what the process would be if they did want to appeal and they can't make the meeting for any reason uh well the appeals process is um outlined the contact information is always on the chapter 75 notice which is the postcard that we mail out every year and that's another thing I just want to know people are calling and looking for their postcards many people are the the point of the chapter 75 notice postcard is to to advise res or Property Owners what their assessment is for the current tax year additional information that's contained on that card is the taxes that they paid in the prior year um but the point of that card is to tell you what your assessment is in time for you to challenge it bya tax Appeal on the back of that card is information how to contact the buron County Board of Taxation uh on their website they have petitions of appeal theyve 14 sheets of instructions written in plain language how to go about this what's expected of you at a hearing um so if they look for that on the back of their chapter 75 notices after the proposed assessments are certified they'll find the contact information in a revaluation year the appeal deadline which is typically April 1st is extended to May 1st Miss organ I didn't have anything but just so we can let people know the dates and the times that they can go to the Rota Center to meet with somebody the next two weeks I believe they're there from 10 to8 um if they call appraisal systems they can make a um it has to be by appointment yes okay yeah because they want to know how many they don't want people waiting in the Halls basically they're going to put them in time slots when when they can be there but a lot of people are you know especially since covid uh appraisal syst systems a lot of the other assessors that I've been talking to uh in years past we had hundreds of people attending the in-person meetings a lot of people are now doing it on the phone or availing themselves of the online uh information they put up there and getting most of their questions answered that way but either way is fine they can Rob Rob can you hear me now yeah we can hear you loud and clear sir thank you oh perfect our fault that was our fault Rob no worries um yeah just to add on uh you know what Mr Tai was saying uh our website is updated with a lot of useful information now that a lot of the property owners could use so up on our website as we show you how the tax rate predicted tax fre came about the calculation um Mr Tai explained to you how since the net taxable value went up about 60% the tax rate would expect to drop about 60% the other thing we posted on our website is is the neighborhood map so you can see how we carved up the town into different neighborhoods we also put up a list of all the assessments the residential assessment so you could go on there and compare your assessment to your neighbor's properties and then also we put all the uh usable sales that took place within the last two years so the website's very useful and that kind of limits the number of meetings that we have with property owners because a lot of times the property owners now like to do the research themselves so for example if you got a letter that says you know your property is assessed at $500,000 you could go on our website and look at the sales that occurred in your neighborhood of similar homes and if they're selling between 475 and 525 that will give you the confidence that we place the accurate assessment on your property and then also you could compare your assessment with the other assessments um on your street so I defin recommend uh utilizing our uh website to get some good information and if you have trouble with any of that information um like Mr Ty said you could always schedule an appointment with us either in person or over the phone Miss pure I think you had a question yeah I like the fact that you exp explained the fact that um assess values can go up it doesn't necessarily mean that your taxes will uh go up but when will the actual rate be established so we will know what the actual tax rate is for our town well I I would imagine it would be when it normally is it's been Late July lately I believe um you know typically you're you're done with your end of it sooner then you have the school board you have the county and then the state aid dispersement so that's been pushing it to July August usually so that's not going to change thank you I also want to let Council know public know in our agenda under this presentation item we did put links to to where you can find updated information on our website tck nj.gov revaluation but I also put a ra uh sorry Rob I put a link to appraisal systems um and their portal site for tck that has all the updated information so you can go around the agenda and see that too thank you Mr clerk does anyone else on Council have any questions for Mr Ty Rob Dean do you have any questions no properties when will they be done uh they're done I Rob you can confirm this the letters were sent I think Friday last week for the commercial properties uh yes uh 99% of the property values have been out we did hold back some uh letters where the property owners had a scheduled appointment with us so those will be going out this week but yeah 99% of the you know letters have gone out so if you haven't received your letter letter yet you can go on our website to see uh your assessment or or call our company and we could send a new one out for you miss Goldberg did you have another question yeah I just wanted to make sure um the for veterans do their um everything stays the same for them or do they have to do any further applications or anything no veterans uh application qualified veterans uh don't have to renew every year senior disabled uh deductions they send a renewal in every year to the tax collector but Veterans as long as they own the property there's no deed transfer then it stays with them okay thank you you're welcome anybody else on Council questions no Mr Tai thank you rob thank you so very much for your presentation very help good night thank you thank you rob thank you for your patience next order are business certificates of recognition for TAC meritorious unit citations Deputy Mayor Catz can you lead us thank you very much mayor and I certainly like to recognize life member uh council member Oregon and life member who's not here council member Schwarz all right and my buddy how we doing oh you got him also we move together so call okay sounds good I'll give the certificate after you say the name you start Mr President you want me a date not you and I that's correct that's correct okay you and I also uh yeah first of all uh mayor and counsel thank you for having us uh more importantly to our residents and to Mayor and counsel and the manager thank you for entrusting the EMS responsibilities for this town to our organization tenk volunteer ambulance Corps as it as its name indicates is 100% volunteer we staff our building 247 and it is our honor to serve the community providing EMS services tonight we have the honor of recognizing a crew with a meritorious unit citation every one of our members certainly deserve an award this award is specifically for a crew showing exemplary performance of their duties specifically on November 15 15 at 10:5 p.m. Tac was dispatched to a patient having an allergic reaction sometimes allergic reactions can be very minor but at other times they could be absolutely life-threatening our crew responded immediately from the building arrived on scene to find a uh patient in severe anaphylactic distress anaphylaxis is when the whole body overreacts to an allergic reaction and uh your systems can go to the point where they actually shut down patient is many very often patients who know that they have an allergy a severe allergy will carry a life-saving device called an EpiPen in this case the patient that already administered one but the symptoms continued we arrived on scene our um our crew immediately recognized the severity of the situation we also carry an EpiPen epinephrine we administered a second dose and although Our Hope was that she would improve the patient actually got more serious most serious concern is a loss of the ability to breathe which would obviously ultimately result in death that began happening generally Tac is accompanied by what's called ALS Advanced life life Advanced Life Services Als in this case was available they don't only we don't have unique to t- neck um Advanced life support um that life support was busy somewhere else and not available and our crew was forced to render render care totally themselves they began rescue breathing the patient became unresponsive due to their quick action and getting that patient quickly to the hospital you emergency services at Holy Name we're able to revive the patient and we are fortunate that she's actually here with us today um to celebrate this wonderful wonderful job that this crew has done on their behalf um I'd ask if Min Schwab could join us for the presentation want me to call the name yeah thank you want to say something just want to say thank you so much for everything obviously you made a big difference every second matters here and so I'll appreciate it thank you so I'd like to introduce the crew if they can join us up front crew chief Ezra finlin Bob Crane James Nang Carolina Elliott and Lamar dicki closer everybody good to you thank you very much Mr Mayor Mr President thank you listen to the people at home that are watching that might have just moved in tenek has the absolute best all volunteer Ambulance Corp in the country all right and that's the reality when when many of our neighboring towns are moving away from volunteer or going to paid EK has not only gotten stronger with more ambulances and more people not one of our members get paid so when you think about writing a donation whatever your charity of choice is just know that every single dollar goes to literally saving lives and not administrative fees or fluff or whatever whatever these organizations use the money for it literally goes to save lives so thank you very much Tac for everything you do thank you Mr Mayor um so I just want to say thank you so much for you are a treasure in our town um when my son was two years old he had he had a feal seizure he turned blue he lost Consciousness I've never been more scared in my life we called 911 Tac was there in less than two minutes um amazing and we got to the hospital so quickly he's fine but um you know just I had a personal experience with Tac and they are truly amazing and the fact that you do this as volunteers is just unbelievable and incredible and so I just want to say thank you for your services to this town we are so grateful for all of you um it you know like Deputy Mayor cat said you are a treasure and and and the best uh best out there so thank you Miss beler and you know what makes TX such a great town is uh our volunteers and I just want to um Echo the fact that you know thank you for your service and what you do to ensure that our residents are safe and well uh well cared for so um this recognition is is definitely well warranted thank you Miss Oregan so miss Schwab it's really nice to see you here um and doing so well I wasn't going to say anything because we've had so many of these and um after a while it starts to sound a little bit like we're repeating the same same thing I joined TC I think around 1990 um became a life member became president met my husband there and my daughter just joined a few years ago and I was talking to Joe Harris before we started here and I was admiring his stor pins um and I know that you each got uh the citation pins tonight and I was never um never had the opportunity to deliver a baby in all my years there um but my daughter Jamie did and she delivered a baby um a few days is after she had a terrible terrible call during covid that kept her out of school and um really had her spiraling but a few days later she delivered a baby on Christmas day with my husband and it elevated her and so to everybody who's here um and who was on that call um I'm so glad that we get to celebrate this win with you and with Miss Schwab because these are the things that let you bounce back when things are not so great um to everybody out there TC is indeed a jewel of T neck um it is a way for your yourself or your children to make friends in the community lifelong friendships work with people um please um if you have the ability to join join it's a wonderful place if you don't like um like Deputy Mayor cat said write a check thank you Miss Goldberg thank you Mr Mayor um I also just want to Echo and say thank you to all the members of t um I personally had a experience with Tac where you guys Saved My Life um from a from a head injury so I really appreciate that um and my my stepdaughter just joined and is starting her EMT class I think tomorrow actually um so that's exciting so I just want to say thank you and if anyone ever wants to join it is truly a a microcosm of te- neck and it's such a wonderful organization and everyone should support teac you know joining with your checks what would you know food what whatever what is you guys are amazing and thank you on behalf of the 42,000 residents who call teac home thank you so so very much for everything that you do you've been saving lives for years and you save lives every single day to this very day and this most recent example is a testament to who you are and and what you bring to the township so thank you so so very much we appreciate you guys we love you guys and if you ever need anything please don't hesitate to reach out to us thank you yeah if you guys have to go it's it's okay and thank you for joining us tonight so so very much our next order of business is community begins at home and age friendly Teck Mr manager can you introduce who we'll be uh addressing us Colleen are you gonna be presenting or is that EJ okay we have EJ Buy on on Zoom just a a great bunch of of people I've been working with Colleen Jackie Kates Janice Dorman Elizabeth Davis EJ bsy and this is a new initiative that really targets teenek residents with disabilities and it's a project to that they're doing now to survey the community about challenges some of the residents may be experiencing so I wanted to give EJ bzy um a couple minutes to explain the program uh we support it and uh I I think everyone will love what she's about to to say all right Doug where' Doug go oh there he is hi EJ welcome the floor is yours ma'am hi everyone can you hear me loud and clear yes ma'am loud and clear wonderful um all right well hi again everyone and good evening thank you Township mayor and Council Township manager our amazing Tac crew um and all of you tonight for your time I'm here to talk about our project like Township manager Dean kazinski just said Community begins at home but first I'll introduce myself my name is EJ vizzy and I'm the director of senior programs with the bright side family a nonprofit with more than 30 years of experience serving Teek we provide affordable housing affordable assisted living and support services that respond to the changing needs and preferences of low and moderate income older adults and everything that we do is Guided by our belief that having a safe and comfortable home environment is a fundamental right that income should not dictate access to supportive care healthare or social services and that Community is created by honoring one another's individuality dignity privacy and autonomy and that definitely includes those who are aging with disabilities through agef friendly Teck our primary Initiative for Community Action for the past 8 years the township has shown support To Us by participating in study for age-friendly land use and walkability using Township funds to install flashing lights at highly traveled intersections hiring a full-time social worker to better serve vulnerable populations and offering support to build 40 new units of affordable senior housing on Municipal land that includes a community center at 1425 tck road which is actually taking applications right now through April 2nd um we're hosting weekly in-person meetings around town for people to receive help with that application if needed and this week's is Thursday February 29th at the Roa Center in multi-purpose room 2 A and B from 12: to 3: um but anyway I wanted to talk to you again today about our new initiative that we just launched Community begins at home it's an outgrowth of our age-friendly community project here in Tek and through this new undertaking we hope to help tenek develop a coordinated Community strategy to ensure that people who have Mobility or other challenges can safely live within their homes and remain active participants in our community tenek is a community that Prides itself on inclusivity but when it comes to understanding the needs and desires of people with disabilities we all need some Consciousness raising we're not always aware of the factors that can lead to some members of the community being excluded from everyday life according to the US Census roughly 3800 tneck residents report living with one or more disabilities and about 1,700 of them are over the age of 65 and while many older and disabled adults Express a preference for Aging in place in their longtime homes 72% of TX housing stock is detached single family homes and most were built before Universal design standards were ever created for many the barriers begin in the home a 2021 report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that four in 10 US households include a person with accessibility needs that lack accessibility features such as ramps lifts wide enough hallways or entry-level bedrooms or bathrooms a key component of our project will be training volunteers to conduct home safety assessments and also help residents navigate the various programs in Bergen County that offer financial support and other help to Residents who need those ramps bathroom remodels or other Home modifications and adaptations we're thrilled to have te Township government as an active partner in community begins at home in the past few months we've met with Township Administration and staff from TX Social Services fire police and health departments and those officials have collaborated with us on the design of our home safety assessment tools that we'll be using this collaboration will of course be ongoing and include linking Teck residents to services offered by the township such as programs about free smoke detectors and morning check-in phone calls from the fire department for those who are living alone our other project partner is heightened Independence and progress a nonprofit that offers home modifications and other Supportive Services to Bergen County individuals with disabilities and their families this initiative is being funded fed by an inclusive Healthy Communities Grant from the New Jersey Division of disability services of the Department of Human Services and we're receiving a lot of support and guidance from the leaders of this Statewide program our goal and in fact a requirement of the grant is to ensure that this project is shaped by input from individuals with lived experiences of having a disability we held focus groups in the fall and will continue to do so and the event ual goal of establishing a project Advisory Board consisting of people with disabilities family caregivers and disability Justice Advocates one motto of the disability Justice movement is nothing about us without us and so we are endeavoring to get widespread input and Empower those living in TEEG with a disability to shape and Lead this effort as part of that goal like uh Township manager Dean in I mentioned we're in the midst of conducting a CommunityWide survey in Tac and we'd appreciate if you could help us circulate that survey around town or by taking it yourself if you're disabled with vision hearing Mobility or memory challenges or if you have a chronic condition that create difficulties within living in your own home the website to take that survey is HF friendly t.org cbah survey again quickly that was H friendly tck one word.org cbah survey um if you didn't get that don't worry my colleague Colleen disin is in the council chambers with a QR code to the survey and copies of the aforementioned 1425 tneck Road housing application if you'd like the survey uh the link to the survey is also in the agenda packet um so our survey asks about barriers not just in the home but also in our community we're attempting to understand how difficult it might be for some residents to participate in community meetings and events such as this one or to get to the houses of worship or other places in town we hope this survey will help us get a picture of social isolation in tenek something that we know older and disabled adults are at greater risk of the New Jersey social isolation study released last year in 2023 by the Department of Human Services reports that up to 45% of individuals with a serious disability or chronic illness are socially isolated and I Garner that number is higher since not everyone would report feeling as such the data We Gather in our survey will be widely shared with Township leadership as part of a goal of educating all of us about the challenges of residents who may be feeling invisible or excluded in their own community and as we build this program out we also hope to develop a social work Le and volunteer supported program of Home safety assessments if this program speaks out to you and you might be interested in volunteering please seek Colleen out afterward and she can share more information about that what's different about this program is that we're not only seeking to provide Direct Services and Social Work intervention for people who may be struggling but we're also seeking to increase Community awareness of the prevalence and nature of Health inequities and inclusion barriers in the township eventually we hope tenek will establish an autonomous Advisory Board of disability Justice Advocates to help steer the policy and systems changes we need here in town this will truly be a community shaped and Community Live project that we believe we can lead to a sustainable progress and make Teck more welcoming and an inclusive commune for people of all ages and abilities please feel free to reach out to us to volunteer for copies of the survey or housing application or even just to say hello the number for age friendly tck is 201530 6756 again 201 530 6756 and our email is info AG friendly t.org you can always go to our website or Facebook page as well uh thank you so much for your time and I hope you all have a wonderful evening thank you Miss vizzy does anyone on Council have any questions from Miss vizzy Miss Goldberg I don't have any questions I just wanted to comment that I think this is really incredible um and I'm really excited about it um as someone with an invisible disability myself I really love this idea and I think it's really important that you know people are aware of what's going on so thank you anyone else on Council Miss Belcher I just want to um commend the uh the organization for what you're doing uh in terms of Housing and the intersection between housing and and disabilities I mean there's so much that needs to be done in the arena of Housing and it's really good to see that we have such a a great local organizations that's really making some tremendous strides in that area thank you thank you Miss beler anyone else on Council EJ Colleen thank you so very much for everything that you and your organization do to help our older adults and just our community as a whole and if there's ever anything we can do please don't hesitate to always reach out to us thank you thank you mayor and Council you both our next order of business is a certificate of recognition for Sebastian Rodriguez thank you uh Mr Mayor um today and many of you may already know is Dominican Republic uh Independence Day and yes uh we actually um a group of local residents um saw uh Mr Sebastian Rodriguez as he retied from his Service as president of the Board of Ed and um many of his colleagues wanted to recognize that so what better day to do that than today so at the uh tonight at the high school he's being recognized for 15 years of service and um the council just um uh put forth a a certificate of of recognition to Sebastian Rodriguez on this Dominican Republic uh Independence Day for his dedication and service to tenek the ten community and the school system for more than 15 years of service so I just just wanted to read that so the residents can understand that that he's being recognized uh he's done some tremendous things one thing I know about him that uh is having a daughter that uh left the high school during the pandemic uh she was 16 years old in uh in the in the 11th grade and never went back actually graduated because of the fact that that she was one of those classes that just U was able to graduate but wasn't uh during the pandemic um able to take classes only on Zoom so uh I appreciate um Mr Rodriguez for for navigating um through that difficult time he did an extraordinary job uh and tonight from what I understand there is lots of fun uh that's happening over there um Dr Spen uh Spencer is there um former president Ry waler is there recognizing him um there is a lot of cultural expression of they have drumers there and food and festivities and I just wanted to give a shout out to Sebastian Rodriguez for um the service that he has given to the Board of Ed and to our children thank you thank you Miss beler um so I had the pleasure of serving on the school board with Sebastian Rodriguez and I could not um affirm uh councilwoman belcher's words um anymore he was so dedicated to all of our teenx students he served for so many years I think four or four or five terms if that's right um and never faltered um he always was cool and collected no matter how intense some of our meetings might get um so I just want to say congratulations to Sebastian for his many years of service and obviously we couldn't be there to celebrate him today because we're here but we are celebrating from afar thank you Deputy Mayor I want to Echo that as well thank you for bringing that up Miss Belair and thank you to Sebastian for everything that he's done over the years for our kids in our schools in our community and he's still a very young man so he's not going anywhere he's going to stay very involved um let's see next order of businesses work session items and first up is miscellaneous does anyone have anything under miscellaneous oh go ahead Mir thank you Mr Mayor um I wanted to bring up the topic of good and Welfare um I know our ordinance right now is currently written that um the uh it's not to ever be more than one hour but we've we haven't um we haven't consistently uh enforced that uh for the last few for the for the last few years that I've been on council at least and so um I'd like to consider or have a discussion in public about um whether or not we consider changing that ordinance um I had I asked uh Scott samon to look at the ordinance in the history of the ordinance and honestly there's been so many versions of how of good and Welfare and how it's been run run um there was one iteration where the council would agree at 9:00 to stop whatever they were doing and have good in welfare so they could hear from the public um and then after all the um that all the members of the public spoke they would close off good and Welfare and then go back to business as usual and so I think it would be worthy to for us to have a discussion about how we want good and Welfare to look going forward um I think folks were very disappointed at the last meeting when we cut it off at an hour um and there were 18 people still left wanting to speak and so I thought it would be worth a discussion anyone else on Council Miss beler uh I would agree uh with deputy mayor uh G that it is um vitally important that we hear from our residents Mr Mayor uh I think on previous councils they have um many times um expressed the uh are made a motion to extend good and Welfare uh I feel as if U that's the very reason I one of of the very reasons why we're sitting here as representatives of our community is to hear our community so I think um giving three minutes to each resident that wants to speak be it by Zoom um or be it in person is is um reasonable uh I believe that it's important also uh I think which was kind of difficult at the last meeting is that uh the weather was very bad and I know that a lot of residents don't like to drive in when the weather when we have inclement weather so I I feel as if um you know extending uh good and Welfare um is is a reasonable thing to do thank you Miss beler anyone else Miss organ yeah I um I have a few problems first I don't like when we do the business of the town after 11 o'clock at night I feel like we're um limiting ourselves to what we can discuss and that's when when we pay the bills and that's when we introduce the ordinances and so the meetings where that we had that were going on and on and on where after midnight we were finally getting to the work of the town would not work for me at all I think there would need to be some um you know I I don't even know that that I'm okay with actually putting something into practice I feel like it would depend on for me the tone of the evening how they evenings going and um a lot of the meetings lately have been incredibly aggressive and I don't think that prolonging good and Welfare at those meetings um is beneficial to anybody in the town I think um it doesn't allow cooler heads to Prevail and um allows a lot of anger to to come forward so I like that we have the hour that's the the rule and we have the ability to extend it but I'm not in favor of at this point with the way things are um ex just voting to extend it um indefinitely until everybody who's ready to speak speaks anyone else on Council I'm glad you guys brought this up sometimes good and well for is an hour sometimes two sometimes three but I'm open to looking into other ways to address good over go ahead I I think there's a problem when we inconsistently enforced the 1 hour rule um it begs the question why on some days we enforce it some days we don't um especially the last council meeting when it wasn't an issue of a time constraint it was fairly early in the meeting where we decided to cut it to an hour so I think that's one problem um I think um the other issue I just want to be clear if we cut it to an hour and everyone takes their maximum of three minutes that means only 20 people get to speak and if we split that virtual and in person that means only 10 of you sitting in the room would be allowed to speak um and so I think that's um I think that's problematic I think people come out here they leave their homes they want to talk to us this is their only opportunity to be heard we should let them be heard um I I I hear you Karen it's been extremely rough these past couple of weeks and some of the things that I've heard um you know I I I I wish we you know we could we could mute and I understand that some of it is very triggering and hurtful but we wear these hats for a reason we were elected into these seats for a reason and we have to listen if if there's any speech or anything disrespectful we cut it off um and I think we address it at the at the time but we I think we have to listen to our residents and so I I just want to say to the public I anticipate that we may not extend good and Welfare um past an hour tonight and so I I actually beg you not to take the full three minutes so we can hear from as many people as possible um so if you can keep your your your points quick and sweet tonight it'll get a lot more people to speak tonight anyone else I just want to comment on the three minutes um I've stood up on that Podium many times um three minutes is is tough and people prepared their speeches and I don't think it's fair to ask someone on the spot I know the Board of Ed did it um to cut their time when they might have prepared something I've been there myself right there and you know you time it to make sure that you're getting everything in so I don't think that's fair um thank you for that councilwoman um Goldberg would you be willing to extend the meeting past an hour tonight so that people can have their full three minutes and everyone can speak I'm not answering that right we can address that when we get to the moment Miss belshire I think I saw you pulling the microphone toward yourself uh I I think that here again um you know some residents like to send emails okay um but some residents like to be heard verbally and I think there's something to be said about um you know being here and hearing from our residents uh people want to come they want to look at you in the eyes and they want to tell you what's on their mind and um I anticipate you know I have no problem sitting here most of the time since I've been here you know meetings to midnight hasn't been problematic for me um I I feel as if if it if that's what it takes to hear from every resident that wants to speak then I'm willing to do it I think that wait just one second just one second please just one second I think that we can um hear from more residents if we have Workshop sessions also anybody else have any more comments no moving on to the next order business go ahead Deputy Mayor sorry I had a second miscellaneous item um so or making me this is old business um so leadership Teck um I know we spoke about it um I want to say about right before the end of the of 2023 we are in the middle of um firming up the dates and the speakers for leadership Teek it will be a 10 session program kicking off on April 1st it'll be Monday nights so I just wanted to U flag that to you all their 10 session I think we're skipping April 23rd I think it's a holiday and then also U Memorial Day so more to come on that but I just want you all who may be interested in participating in leadership Teck and actually I should say what it is for those of you who have not heard about it leadership Tac is a Civic uh it's almost like a Civics course about uh government and local uh the local government process here in Teek and so you hear from a lot of uh local speakers about different topics such as um uh you know the history of tenek um the different advisory boards land use boards the planning board Etc and so it's a really great opportunity for folks who have never been involved civically to learn about how government runs and maybe learn about how to get more involved so we're really excited to relaunch that program this April 1st and so if you might be interested look out for the Flyers coming out soon and it will start on April 1st thank you thank you Deputy Mayor Miss beler I just want to add to that what's notable about that is leadership EK is that and many of you may already know our Township is in the middle of a a master plan um so we're we're casting a new master plan for our our Township so now is a great time to get involved civically because you know Master plans are typically only done like once every 10 years so um it it's uh it's definitely a great time to really explore once we do um uh publish the flyer and have the list of of speakers it's an excellent time to get involved in the township because the master plan is huge for our Township thank you thank you Miss belter anyone else see no hands the next order of business is old business does anyone have anything under old business oh moving along next order of business is new business anyone have anything under new business no next on the agenda is Communications any Communications no moving right along committee reports by Council Lea zones Deputy Mayor um so the senior citizens Advisory Board met earlier this month um we had they were very grateful Dean um for the bus that will be provided for them to visit the Botanical Garden so they send their thanks and appreciate um we also had a really lengthy discussion about um The Monuments on the municipal green and I thought it was interesting hearing from a different perspective um there were there were definitely some feelings that maybe The Monuments uh don't belong in the municipal agement and maybe there's a better place for them elsewhere where we could honor many different marginalized groups not just two and so I just wanted to share that feedback I know we got a lot of feedback here on good and Welfare but I just thought it' be helpful to share that feedback from this senior citizens of Advisory Board um second the Comm uh Advisory Board and community relations we met last night and we had a wonderful discussion on so many um intense uh topics um going on in our community right now and I just wanted to shout out Cheryl Hall she did a really great job facilitating that discussion um talk you know we it's a really great group The the group is fairly new as most of them were new starting um January of this year um but they they do plan to um we just discussed the good and Welfare topic for a very long time and they do plan to give some feedback uh to to the to the council when they have some time so I just wanted to share that and look out for that thank you Miss G anyone else I just have something add not so much a a report but I just want to commend Deputy Mayor Danielle uh G on her navigating of The Advisory board on community relations um she has done a stellar job of really pulling that um um Advisory board board um back standing it back up um she really had to start at at Ground Zero and bring in and interview quite a few people and she's done an extraordinary job of making sure that we have a community relations Advisory board so thank you for that um I have a question for the liaison go ahead um I know that we heard from uh good and Welfare a few times about the empathy training did The Advisory Board of community relations vote about the empathy training um yes they are all very much in support of the EMP empathy training and I've been in uh talked to Dean about it and we're working out the details of how that can be provided to them great thank you no problem and then also um thank you so much councilman vure um really it was a group effort and you know I think all of us really did a great job of making sure that all the advisory boards were stood up so really it's all of us not just me but thank you anybody else no moving along long Council listed items proposed resolution directing a review of the internal controls process councilwoman Goldberg thank you Mr Mayor so I've been speaking with our auditor and CFO to try to understand what our current Financial processes are as a whole um so it's always considered best practice in accounting and finance to document your your processes and review them to mitigate any risk to the township um and we are stewards of the Township tax dollars so I wanted to um make a motion the the language of the resolution is is in the agenda packet um to to move this to the consent agenda and what we're asking is for the CFO to document the current processes and then work with the auditor to you know review if there's any um controls issues um I understand that we're in a really good place and we're continuing you know some a lot of our best practices now but it's this is a good general practice um you know since we're stewards of taxpayer dollars um and then also I'm asking that the uh results and changes have a high level report that get posted on the website and have a public um quick review so the public can understand that so I just make the motion to move that to the consent agenda Deputy Mayor G um so thank you for the suggestion I think it's a great idea um I think it doesn't change the fact though that last meeting we had asked for an audit of the organizations that are trying to uh build a monument on the green wait Mr Mayor there's a motion on the table can we do that first well no she's allowed to a second just just all right but please I mean continue we have a first and second but please continue thank you Mr Mayor so like I was saying love the idea but it doesn't change the fact that last meeting we had um there was a motion on the table to audit the two organizations that were planning to build monuments on the municipal green and uh this Council majority including yourself Council Goldberg voted that down no and so I'm just curious why now um we're now trying to support Audits and and you didn't support an audit of those organizations so this is not an audit this is a review of our controls processes and this was actually on the rise for tenk platform about you know good governance of our uh fiscal responsibility this is this is just something that we're doing I feel as if uh you know we have a really good um uh CFO does an extraordinary job in terms of being able to to Really support the processes I think the the really uh that are needed financially or what are accepted be best practices I I think I I would agree with depy mayor we had a recommendation for a audit of a specific project we are not talking about um auditing a process we're talking about ordering a uh auditing a project so for us to take this detour I think is problematic and I think we should just address what we were talking about in the last meeting when we talked about auditing the two entities that are requesting to place a monument on public property so again this isn't about an audit this is about best controls practices and as a finance professional um this is the best practice in both public sector and non and uh private sector this we do this every time anybody else on Council oh and no one saying anything that the CFO is doing is wrong this is just a good practice to do document what we're doing and mitigate risks anybody else on Council want to say anything Miss organ no I I just think we should vote on this motion this resolution I don't think it's a bad resolution we can argue after about um that the rest right the motion is about whether it goes on the consent agenda all right Mr clerk we have a first and a second please call the role remind me the second I apologize I think it wasir cats first from councilwoman Goldberg this would be resolution this evening this would be resolution on the consent agenda resolution number 887-2241 from councilwoman Goldberg a second from Deputy Mayor Catz councilwoman beler no i' like to get just an audit of the monument as we discussed in the last meeting councilman [Music] Goldberg yes Oregon Council one Oregon yes deput mayor cats that mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes resolution what did I say 87 87-1 24 add the consent agenda thank you Mr clerk Township manager report Mr kazinski uh thank you mayor not a very long report this council meeting but a couple important announcements I want to bring up is the senior freeze program a lot of people are not familiar with that and that's really a property tax reimbursement program that provides eligible seniors and especially disabled persons with reimbursements for property tax fee increases I put some information online some of the requirements mention must be 65 years of age as of December 31st 2022 we receiving Federal Social Security Disability that benefits by that date uh there's some other uh prerequisites with the requirement to own your home and having paid property taxes for 22 and 23 but it's a very very good program and I don't think enough people take advantage of it so we do have information online and we also sent that information on our website and through blast email another important um uh announcement to make is we're seeking volunteers for our transitional shelter training uh this is going to take place uh with the Red Cross and our OEM Personnel on April 25th and this will be at the Rota center from 6:00 to 8:30 uh p.m. uh I put out some flyers on that the front table if anyone is interested and again we're looking for volunteers that will help us set up a transitional shelter in a in a case of any uh emergencies could be storm related could be floods fires power outages things like that uh one uh that recently came to mind was a recent power outage that required us to uh temporarily relocate some families in town to a warmer shelter so we had this program in place uh some years back uh we've lost uh some volunteers so now we're trying to do a recruitment and to get some volunteers back again this will all be done by the Red Cross and TX OEM staff you'll get a certificate at the end and it's a very worthwhile program uh so any uh further information that you may need is on the table there and we'll be sending out some more information as we get closer to that date um any questions you can certainly call my office and we also have a an email set up at OEM atth nj.gov um for those the United States Postal Service reached out to me and they're having a job fair on tenek on March 14th at their facility at 751 Palisade Avenue from 11 a. to 2 p.m uh so if anyone is interested in employment with the United States Postal Service you can attend their job fair on March 14th uh today I also attended the random selection for affordable housing units and this is for a park parks Side Lane and that was hosted by our affordable housing administrator Frank Piaza and the developer Paul schne uh there were 5,000 uh a little north of 5,000 initial applications uh there are 78 units there however 16 are integrated affordable units um and uh occupancy will be between now and the end of the year um and those people that are involved and submitted applications uh through social security number you can go to the Piaza website and find out uh if you were selected for affordable house housing there some of the project updates just one change to a herck park um there was some concern about where the basketball court was going to be located we had plan to to redo the basketball court with new lights and that's very close to Parkside uh Lane uh where the new town homes are so we made a minor modification uh the baseball field will now be the southern end of her park and the basketball court will be further north so the lights at night do not uh create a nuisance for the for the homeowners there the horon field update um the contractor completed the final grade enrolled uh this will allow the tinac high school baseball team to have two facilities to utilize this season one being at foron Park and one being at laner field which we also uh completed earlier this year happy to finally report we did a nice groundbreaking ceremony yesterday at PX Southern Little League you know unfortunately um the the half hour hour we were there it rained uh they say I guess rain on on a wedding day is good luck hopefully it means the same thing for for new baseball field so came out an hour then the sun came out an hour later so we have a picture of the groundbreaking ceremony that's actually on on the TX Southern field we have representatives from Council myself someone from OA Marini from athletic fields of America and Mark Dennis from TX Southern little league so again this field is going to have a nice New Synthetic Turf new fencing back stop a nice LED digital scoreboard with a playback feature uh new dugouts new seating areas The Outfield fence is actually going to be pushed back uh by 25 ft so now instead of 200 feet it'll be 225 and that will allow tournament play uh for the TX Southern little league and give them an opportunity to raise some money as well um we also submitted a draft narrative to the New Jersey DCA local Recreation uh for an improvement Grant the Gul is to get about 100,000 from them from them and we're looking to purchase new exercise equipment at the Bernard Brooks Park and also at Phelps Park and uh met with TX own Howard Rose uh last week and at his bookstore in cedal lane and he pointed out some areas of concern that he feels the DPW needs to address we had a good conversation and I believe they stopped at your store Howard uh to review some of those items uh as far as appointments I'm going to be um providing the oath of office to a fellow named Tyler seirus on Friday he's an alternate route candidate and graduates from the B County Police Academy uh very soon so once he does graduate we'll get him through field training and on the road very quickly and we we're looking to hire two additional police officers with the police training commission certification already and they happen to be former te police officers that want to come back um so that will um uh that will in addition to hiring two to three additional officers in July bring our authorized strength uh to 97 and that's a long time since we've been at at that number uh we also received a new firefighter list from Civil Service the police department is going to conduct those background investigations over the next several months and then we will fill any remaining opening firefighter positions uh for the Academy class that takes place this summer that's it thank you Mr manager M manager I just have one question I know you didn't fully touch on this but since you mention mentioned office of emergency management yes I know I had asked you this before and it was in a PowerPoint a few months ago but just to reiterate for the public the ask rail app from um the rail Association um can you just touch on like who has access to it and so we we know so residents are aware regarding the CSX trains sure the ask rail application generally is accessible through a smartphone and allows or emergency services to Det determine what is in a uh in a train car so our fire department has access to it our police dispatch has access to it and the the te volunteer Amal score has access to it so it's a it's an excellent tool in the event it's needed for any sort of rail mishap thank you so much thank you Mr manager next order of business is Township attorneys report Mr sammon yes Mr Mayor just uh two things I want to mention the uh ordinances that are going to be introduced uh tonight or they scheduled for introduction the first one is a an ordinance that uh more clearly defines our escro policies for uh uh applicants before the Planning and Zoning on boards uh as well as for developers they're looking to do work with the with the township um this is it is just mostly clarifying our procedures adding more detail to it uh most importantly it is making clarifying and ensuring that uh for any any type of development that that may be done uh in the future by the done by the township that uh the Township's legal fees will be paid for by the developer it's a standard uh standard provision that is in most municipalities um I'm not sure why why tck has not had this policy in the past but it's going to uh save the the township money by having developers pay for the work that we are doing really on their behalf such as like looking over um developers agreements or other other documents like that so it's things that we were doing really for there for their benefit um and there therefore the developer should be paying for it um and so that's uh that's schedule for introduction and that will need to go before the planning board since it's a it is a development regulation um the second ordinance is one that is required by the state uh this is to authorize and encourage electric vehicle parking uh at De developmental properties again just you uh in the in the future if there is any development done within the uh within the township there uh developers will be required to uh include a certain number of uh electric vehicle uh charging stations in their parking um just based on a percentage of the number total number of parking spots it's a state requirement uh that was actually put into effect about two almost three two and a half years ago or so say um and and so the township is just required required by law to do this um and so just any future future developer is just going to have to comply with that and uh that's all I have thank you Mr sammon our next order of business is good good and Welfare including input on a 2024 proposed Municipal budget and any member of the public wishing to be heard at this time can please come forward and state their names for the record comments shall be limited to three minutes per person and if you are on Zoom we ask that you please list your first name and your last name and that you turn on your camera when speaking if possible and please address the council as a whole and not individual council members if possible as well thank you Mr vaty I'll try to be brief but I know you'll force me to sit down when my time is up which is fine okay uh first thing when they called out the name Schwarz I didn't think of Mark Schwarz I thought of L Schwarz L Schwarz was a council member I don't know if he was mayor but I remember him well for the people who think about not extending good and Welfare there's a painting by Norman Rockwell showing good and Welfare in know it's a famous painting and it's part of our patriotism so I would hope not by extending good and Welfare indefinitely we at the TAC Democrats we extend it like a half hour at a time to encourage people to hurry up all right uh I have some uh handicap problems and I've been uh concerned about some of the policies or indifference that we've had about trip hazards in public places I have photographs we put in new sidewalk that is officially trip hazards and people will trip and people will sue and tinic will pay and it's a come on it's not good management get rid don't allow I'm sorry Dean I got don't allow people who put an oversized uh sidewalk to get away with it let them correct it comply with the ADA rules for trip hazards I trip when I walk I walk with these gloves so I and with knee sis protection so when I fall I have some protection when I fall and I fall in te- neck so please improve that uh big issue I understand there's a bill that the CSX mail to tck a fee that we were supposed to pay I'm trying to figure out what service they provided that we have to pay them for we provide a lot more services to them than they do to us they should pay us so I'm going to advise in public don't pay that tax don't pay that bill what are they going to do close the rail line so let it see let's see where it goes with this maybe other towns will pick that up CSX has got a a great opportunity wait they've been milking us for a long time milking all towns it's a nationwide problem let's let it stop here don't pay it am I still have time you have 14 seconds seconds okay yeah it's a question of our safety versus CSX money I don't want to make pay them any more money until they provide safer rail service here in tck and along the Route thank you Mr vasy thank you Doug someone on Zoom I have Muhammad please state your name for the record feel free to unmute hi mham this is Muhammad how are you hope everybody's good can you guys hear me yes excellent uh my my name is Muhammad I live in tinac for more than 17 years now uh I have noticed certain things on my street especially uh because the hoton is next to us and today while I was going out I have to drive my car till the middle of the road just to see if anybody's coming on from other side there's a parking issues always whenever there's a time off from the school or time on from the school uh people don't care there's no police officer available to manage the traffic and kids are passing their roads without looking anywhere while the guards are there on the corners only but you can see the parents are crossing from middle of the road to towards their car and while the cars are zooming away second thing is TE Township I don't know what's the rule of it if there is a construction they should email ahead of time a one day prior just recently there was a work done on the Glenwood Avenue and guess how I come to know while the cars were zooming in front of my house and I'm like why these cars are going around and after half an hour I got an email from ttin Township saying oh there's a work done so can we do something ahead of time a one day prior something just to let the people know or they will be a construction work so people can be aware and make arrangements uh uh again uh I would appreciate uh what was said the good and Welfare should be for Te Township members for the public so we you guys can hear us the council people can hear us again if we are shortening it is because something is going on in your town that's not the resolution right you guys are paid you guys took out to hear us to hear your own t down people that's it sir thank you thank you sir Miss Schwarz so The Monuments were mentioned and I'm here tonight on behalf of the Coalition of neighborhood associations regarding the history of the proposed monuments on our township Green so almost 10 years ago two groups of Teck residents decided with the agreement of the Township to raise money to build two monuments to remember the in perpetuity the atrocities committed against two groups of people The Monuments would serve the purpose of educating the public about how such atrocities came about in hopes of preventing such evil in the future the two committees formed were the Holocaust Memorial committee a subdivision of the Jewish Community Council of Greater tenek and the enslaved African Memorial committee eamc each committee engaged prominent Architects to design their respective Memorial monuments the monument projects quickly grew in expected costs to millions of dollars as the concept developed the tenek library became a third partner in this effort the library's role was twofold to provide the expanded educational materials to support the two monuments and to provide the financial oversight and management for the projects for the purposes of marketing and fundraising this tripart entity was named the Garden to nurture human understanding this merger changed the two small community volunteer projects into a massive public Venture whose leaders hope to raise the millions of dollars from public and private grants private donations and committee membership funds during the course of meeting and planning the leadership and membership of all three Partners changed the library charged with providing Financial oversight for the entire project has had three different directors since 2018 also the library had major Municipal responsibilities during the covid pandemic consequently the management and financial oversight of what is now a multi-million doll Enterprise has out of necessity been more or less left to languish the two committee entities the Jewish Community Council of Greater tinck of which the Holocaust Memorial committee is a subcommittee and the eamc or 5013c nonprofit corporations and each has raised some funds the largest Grant provided by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs is believed to be between $300 and $400,000 and is believed to be issued to the broader Enterprise the garden I ask the council to please keep this background in mind because a subsequent speaker from the Coalition hopefully will be heard tonight will further demonstrate why we feel there is a need for an independent audit of the monument initiative M SCH someone on Zoom Mr clerk I have Senator Loretta Weinberg up please feel free to unmute you are thank you no problem thank you and good evening uh I would like to join the prior speaker and the Coalition of uh neighborhoods along with uh count a former council member Henry puit in urging the council to do an independent audit as the person who might have been the most responsible for getting State funds for what we thought were going was going to be to kind of small neighborhood uh monuments and uh after looking at what's happened over the last three or four years where something over $350,000 has been given to these two organizations I believe the council should do an independent audit I think the state gives money through the municipality rather than directly to the organizations so that there is some public transparency and accountability so I urge you to please vote and authorize the independent audit so that the T neck taxpayers T neck residents can see exactly how past funds have been spent and what the future of these two monuments might be now though they are planning to try to be funded through contributions uh we are talking about public property about maintenance about security about lighting about a number of other things that will be an ongoing cost to te residents so again I urge you to please vote and authorized the independent audit secondly having sat on this Council for four years having sat on the council during the time of heightened public participation soon after the panel shooting in tenek I urge you not to limit good and Welfare to one hour you only have one public meeting a month sometimes two the only time the public can be heard before the full Council and before whatever audience of ten residents watch these Council meetings so having sat there having sat there and listened to public sometimes well into the night it comes with the territory it's part of the job too much manipulation can take place by limiting good and Welfare to one hour thank you very much and thank you for listening thank you Senator thank you Senator Mr Rose thank you Howard Rose ten resident I was at the uh meeting at the high school for Sebastian Rodriguez there were about 200 people and when he spoke he gave one of the most droll funny remarks I've heard from him and I've known him for years nine years together on the planning board and before that as well he looked at the people there were about 200 people there and said now I know what it's going to look like at my funeral uh there was a lot of people there with a lot of insight into what he's done for this community and I congratulate him and I congratulate the people who worked with him to uh help better tck uh regarding our Ambulance Corp I I want M Oregon you may have statistics how many households in the last 10 years have received their services I bet it's an astronomical number good and Welfare uh used to be five minutes was reduced to three minutes President Abraham Lincoln did his Gettysburg address in less than three minutes I wish we were or as good as him but we're not you have to understand that when people speak at good and Welfare many of them are a little intimidated they're not used to public speaking they they they literally have difficulty in getting their thoughts condensed into a short period of time let them speak I hear the complaint that it's repetitive well may sound repetitive to a certain degree but it's each person speaking perhaps on the same topic but with a different perspective and when you hear a lot of people speaking about the same topic it really tells you something regarding the magnitude and level of their concerns let them speak what I don't want to see is good and Welfare become good for nothing doesn't make sense let them speak you need to know and they need to know that you know what's going on thank you thank you Mr Rose I I have Debbie rutz who are free to one mute hi I'm Debbie rutz I'm Debbie seagull rutz Rabbi LS J seagull was my dad and I'm here to support the resolution to rename Windsor Road to Rabbi Lewis J seagull he was the spiritual leader of Temple emth on Windsor Road for more than four decades we moved to tenek in 1960 from molden Massachusetts where my dad's first congregation was I was about 18 months old when we moved to Tina today I'm almost 65 years old here was my dad a young Rabbi with his young family entering into a te- neck that was bubbling with choices and challenges what was my dad to do in 1965 my dad was a young man of great integrity and principle a tireless advocate for justice and equality it was these qualities that motivated him to raise his voice for righteousness by speaking up at a Tek board ofed meeting and stating that we have a responsibility ility to each other we cannot look away you know what happens as he is quoted in the book Triumph in a white suburb the resolution was passed and we became the first town in the United States to integrate our Public Schools I attended our Public Schools interestingly I married my husband a Roman Catholic boy although my dad adored my husband Ken rutz I knew my dad would not officiate at our wedding I treasured that he was able to love deeply and yet remained grounded to the principles that made him a great Rabbi my dad a reformed Rabbi recognized the importance of a Mikvah which is used primarily by our Orthodox community and supported building one on the edge of Temple Emo's property 18 years after we were married Ken decided to convert Lou was enthusiastically able to perform this conversion in that very Mikvah I grew up in the house right next door on Windsor Road to Temple emth this is where I rode my bik and played as a child for over four decades Rabbi Lewis J seagull walked this road to Temple emth Daily where he provided spiritual leadership guidance support to his congregation and influenced generations of children renaming this street in honor of my dad is a tangible reminder of the values he embodied and the principles for which he fought it also is a tesate to our Town's commitment to inclusivity diversity and progress I'm so proud to support this wonderful resolution that would have pleased and honored but humbled my dad at the same time thank you thank you Miss maam hello Lisa bylander gray um in August 2023 the Coalition of neighborhood associations for a better Teck was formed it's dedicated to improving the quality of life for all tenek residents we are the East vot neighborhood association Northeast Teck block presidents Association Northwest of Cedar Lane neighborhood association and the Southwest Teek neighborhood association I am a member of the northwest of Cedar Lane neighborhood association we are proud to live in a diverse teet Community where so many different religious racial and ethnic groups live and work together we believe that decisions concerning the town sponsored Holocaust Memorial and the enslaved African Memorial should be guided by two Essential Elements first the plan should enhance education and deepen understanding of these atrocities especially by telling stories from the perspectives of the victims and their descendants second the process leading to the development of the plan and the ultimate product should have unifying TX diverse residents as its main goal we believe the best way to honor the different religious racial and ethnic groups that comprise our diverse Community would be to Institute a more indepth ongoing plan to educate all of us regarding the history and struggles of our ancestors and the people who make up the town of tinck the two brick and mner monuments that were proposed and voted on by the council to erect will only serve We Believe to cause Division and animosity among the various subcommunities in the township of people who belong to religious racial and ethnic groups have been subjected to atrocities and horrific occurrences throughout history I am the daughter of a holocaust Survivor while we strive to remember honor and respect the trials and tribulations that our subcommunities have experienced we must also concentrate our efforts and take action to improve our relations with each other by acquiring knowledge of our histories understanding our commonalities and respecting our differences we need to accept that above all as a people we should accept each other um another member of our Coalition can outline a much more specific plan that we propos Lori Wilson I hope you call on her thank you thank you ma'am someone on Zoom I have baroo here please state your name for the record feel free to unmute you're welcome to start your camera my wife is say with me she's not wearing a head covering right now so yes please state your name for the record my name is omir Faruk cool you have three minutes sir good evening council members and fellow tinic residents we started this meeting with the pledge of of Allegiance in it the ideals of Freedom liberty and justice are appealing to all if not upheld by those in the in position of power these same ideals become as useful as a screen door on a submarine the law of our land as written in the constitution is currently under attack the First Amendment rights are being sold to the highest spirit that being the lobby group APAC in order to Shield the state from criticism they're trying to pass laws to limit our rights under disguise of hate speech I tell you this is a slippery slope based on Emanuel Khan's Theory by doing so such actions one day your speech could become limited and labeled as hate speech these moves are meant to silence people by bullying and blacklisting those that speak up against Injustice by proposing that anything said against a state is equivalent to anti-Semitism and against the Jewish faith what we have here is the weaponization of the term anti-Semitism which actually detracts from his true meaning and DEP when everything is labeled as anti-Semitism then this obscures and casts doubt upon actual anti-Semitism which is horrific it is unjust to those of of the Jewish faith that do not support the actions of the aparti state the spreading of propaganda which contains a blatant and clear use of a strongman fallacy and expecting people to to accept it the thing about false narrative and propaganda is that they fall flat when confronted with reasoning and logic spreaders of propaganda forget that we the people are intelligent human beings capable of critical thinking and can draw our own conclusions As Americans we have the god-given right to criticize any country's action which we disagree with be it some Ally China Russia Iran Iran Saudi Arabia and so on currently under attack in this town is the right to assemble peacefully intimidating Brave youth that are courageous enough to stand against a biased Administration and smear campaigns the unethical action of portraying peaceful protest boycotting other nonviolent actions as being equivalent to terrorist acts and anti-Semitism it was through these peaceful acts that brought on the Civil Rights Movement ending cration and Jim CR law these same practices propelled this country in the right direction and made us proud to be Americans it is through the actions by past youth that now we are able to celebrate Black History Month it was brother Malcolm X that said if we are not careful the media will have us loving the oppressor and hating the oppressed by attacking youths that exercise their god-given rights we are doing harm to the nation and sending message to Future Generations that they do not have a voice and there's no acceptable way for them to express their disatisfaction dissatisfaction with policy lowering the morale of the nation ultimately democracy will be viewed as hypocrisy thank you ma'am in the front yes yes yeah just so everyone is aware I usually go side to side but we always see we always do someone in Chambers and someone on Zoom but side to side hello my name is Wanita Brown and I am here to read a statement supporting an audit of the structure and finances of the quote the garden to nurture human understanding part two on behalf of the Coalition of the neighborhood associations I will represent further evidence for the need of an independent audit of the monument initiative the Coalition of neighborhood association for a better tck has sought basic information about the public about the amount of public funds raised and how they were used we and other community organizations to whom we have spoken have not been able to determine that which is why we are asking for an independent audit one the exact amount granted by the Department of Community Affairs two exactly to whom it was granted quote the garden the township of tck three the amounts received by each committee and the library the Jewish Community Council form 1990 submitted to the IRS does not separate out amounts received used for the individual products projects excuse me so we don't know what money went where into to whom form 1990s for the enslaved African Memorial committee do not appear appear on any of the recognized Charities websites maybe they weren't submitted but they're not there nevertheless there is no readily available public financial statement from the library so no one knows anything as well there appears to be no formal records of private funds received by The Garden or the separate entities so those who did donate where is it however there is documentation that shows some paid invoices and list of the expenditures by each of the Committees these can be found on tinck voices.com website at the February 13th council meeting council members debated the merits of expending public funds to hire an external form firm to conduct an audit of the structure and financing of the Garden to nurture human understanding no conclusions were reached however the Coalition of neighborhood association believes an independent external audit is imperative why is this external audit necessary there are absent records we have no idea as I said before who got what when and how much there is confusing information on the documents no clarity there has been changing leaderships and memberships within each of the three Partners it is imperative thank you that you support an independent audit thank you Miss Brown and please don't pay that Fe to John mosow please unmute state your name for the record feel free to open camera all right my name is uh John Moscow I'm a longtime Teck resident uh first I want to join in thanking and congratulating Tac and age of friend and age friendly tck um I am a Jew and I am a member of Northern New Jersey Jo Jewish voice for peace but I'm speaking for myself tonight I want to address several comments that council member Goldberg has made in Council meetings Mr Mayor I think he has to address the whole Council Mr MOS Mr MOS we're gonna pause your time please just for a second if you can address the council through me instead of individual members if possible yes your time is back on sir I'm addressing uh the council as a whole but I'm addressing comments that were made at a council meeting um and uh were endorsed essentially in many ways by the council uh the horrendous Council vote uh that endorsed uh Israel and the Israeli government without concern for uh Palestinian live thoughts or feelings so in a sense this is addressed to the entire Council um I am very upset at the idea that some members of the council are telling students that they are anti-semitic because they use the phrase from The River To The Sea Palestine will be free even and accuse them of being anti-semitic even when the students make it very clear that they are not saying it with anti-semitic meaning and if one actually looks at the history of this phrase um it overwhelmingly has not been ass associated with anti-Semitism as I understand it a council member claimed that only Jews uh can say what is anti-Semitic I'm sure the Jean Paul sart who wrote a book called anti-semite and Jew would be startled to hear that as with many other people but we don't have to go to non-jews there are at least three major definitions of anti-Semitism the IRA definition the Jerusalem definition and the Nexus definition uh none are perfect but Ira is the worst because it conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and I'll return to that shortly uh Jewish currents and the forward both of which are Jewish um have said that they don't consider from The River To The Sea uh to be anti-semitic so nobody has the right to tell students that they're being anti-semitic for stating that they want Palestine to be free from genocide and apartheid what they can say so we can hear him please I'm sorry go ahead Mr Moscow sorry okay okay what they can say is that makes them feel uncomfortable which is fine and I hope they're also uncomfortable with genocide with the death of thousands of Palestinians with goons running wild on the West Bank with the support of the military um and the fact that lud in its founding documents calls for Jewish Supremacy from The River To The Sea since I'm running out of time I just want to say that the IRA definition is up for a vote by the uh legislature I hope that the tenek Town Council will urge uh denial that it not be passed because it conflates Zionism anti-zionism with anti-Semitism I also hope that the council will repudiate the planned uh sale of land on March 10th in October in um occupied territory thank you sir thank you sir front hi my name is Leila laic president um I've been coming to these meetings for the past almost 6 months and I am exhausted and so today I am just going to read some names of 10-year-olds who have been martyred since October because my youngest son is 10 Abdul Hadi 10 years old ABD rman alha 10 years old Abdullah shaheim 10 years old Abdullah 10 years old Abdullah habub 10 years old Abdullah suan 10 years old Adam aad 10 years old Adam Eli 10 years old Adam Al Fuji 10 years old Ahmed Al arja 10 years old Ahmed AB 10 years old Ahmed 10 years old Ahmed 10 years old Ahmed mahm 10 years old Ahmed aliun 10 years old Ahmed Mansour 10 years old Ahmed Zak 10 years old Ahmed Abu 10 years old Ahmed Abu 10 years old Ahmed Abu fayad 10 years old Ahmed Ali 10 years old Ahmed Al MAA 10 years old akam Al 10 years old Al 10 years old Arif 10 years old am halul 10 years old am akar 10 years old Amir shal 10 years old andalus D 10 years old AR halawa 10 years old ARA Maru 10 years old a Abu 10 years old ail abua 10 years old 10 years old 10 years oldak 10 years old bassim KH bassim 10 years old Bayan hamdan 10 years old bil Sal 10 years old ibraim Abu singer 10 years old ibraim khid Abu jazar 10 years old ibraim habush 10 years old ibraim Aziz 10 years old Islam Abdullah darsh 10 years old is El 10 years old thank you man someone on Zoom Doug I have Michael Rocklin please unmute St your name for the record hi all uh Michael Rocklin cic resident apologies in advance if you hear a baby crying we have a newborn at home um I'm calling in tonight um because I've noticed something um that I've been noticing for a long time ever since I moved back to EK uh during the pandemic and that is that our streets are not nearly as safe as I remember them being um when I was growing up here routinely we see and hear about cars that are speeding routinely and even personally in my family we hear about people who are hit by cars in the past week um I heard about somebody who was hit Crossing Cedar Lane and these incidents are increasing not only right here in tenek but are increasing nationally um but we're also Lucky in that cities and towns Across the Nation are realizing that there's something we can do about it and that is being proactive in designing our streets to be safe we heard about this earlier and I don't know if he intended it from art we heard about this earlier uh from the gentleman I believe his name was Muhammad um about people and sidewalks and crossings that are not safe that prioritize the ability of cards to speed to go fast um at the expense of people who are trying to cross the street at the expense of people who are trying to get to schools we are trying to go to our local businesses to our parks to all the wonderful things that t has and so I along with a number of people who have started together on social media um just wanted to say to the council and to the teac government that this is something that Tac really can make a difference in our lives we really can take small steps to improve the safety of our streets whether that's by using paint to narrow Lanes by exploring how we can improve sidewalks improve crosswalks I noticed this week that at the corner of queenanne and State Street right near where I live we put up a new no turn on red sign so that people could see uh more clearly because the sign has very small letters we can do that all over town we can explore whether or not it makes sense to make it so that there's no turn on red in many of our intersections not just Monday to Friday from 7 to 4 but actually all day every day so that kids who are crossing the street can cross the street safely no matter what time of day it is so that elderly people who may not be able to run as fast can cross the street safely and I hope that as we build a better te- neck we make our street safer thank you thank you Mr rothlin Sir and the black shirt hi uh my name is Rich seagull um I'm a 25-year homeowner here in EK I'm Jewish the reason that I'm telling you that I'm Jewish is because I have a concern about something that's going on in the Jewish community on March 10th there is scheduled to be an Israeli real estate Sales Event at the CER B synagogue that event violates both domestic law and international law violates domestic law because we had a civil rights act in 1965 and a fair housing act in 1968 we don't allow real estate events to be for whites only for Jews only for any body only now as Jews we don't get to fly under the radar and break the law and hide it in a synagog it violates international law because uh West Bank settlement homes are going to be available for sale at this real estate event on the website it lists three different West Bank settlements those settlements are in and of themselves illegal by international law if we allow this sale to go through we are enabling a local synagogue to violate both domestic anti-discrimination laws and international law now there's other reasons we shouldn't allow it okay there's a genocide going on right now I don't care who that offends more than 35,000 people have been killed more than 13,000 children have been killed people in this community are in deep mourning people in this community are angry I'm angry what this real estate event is going to do is it's going to Fan the Flames if it goes forward there will be a demonstration I know there's going to be a demonstration because I'm going to organize it it will be very well attended what I'm saying needs to be done is I don't know how much power this mayor and this Council have to actually shut down the event but I know you have the power to recommend that it be shut down and I'm asking you to please do it we don't need to have more divisiveness in this community okay we don't need to have Jewish privilege Rule the Day by saying we're entitled to break the law and have this real estate event and not about how so many people in this community feel about it thank you for letting me speak someone on Zoom Doug I have sharuk please feel free to unmute state your name for the record hi good evening I wanted to express my disappointment at the lack of Care exhibited by some of the council members it's disheartening that the good and Welfare portion has been capped to 1 hour especially when many residents are waiting on Zoom to speak these self conversations are crucial and it's important for you to listen to each constituent you represent turning on camera seemed like a motive to intimidate speakers and the Cena Community as a whole has had enough of this type of hate I'm also concerned about council members resisting a complete audit of organizations requesting to build monuments on the greens there are red flags and the lack of transparency raises concerns I don't believe it's appropriate or inclusive of the Tina Community especially considering the ongoing genocide currently in Gazza will there be a consideration for a monument honoring the innocent Palestinian lives lost there are these are some of the names of the children who didn't make it to their first birthday that would be included on the monument Abdul jaaz mizar zero years old Abdul khik Z years old ABD Rim Ahmed Z years old ABD rman Ahmed 0 years old ABD Rahman Sam 0 years old ABD raouf ibraim 0 years old Abdul Karim Abdullah zero years old Abdul Kim camel Zer years old Abdul Ahmed Khal zero years old ABD Abdullah Zer years old Abdullah Muhammad Abdul Hamed Z years old Adam Maji jabber 0 years old Adam Muhammad fuad 0 years old Adam Muhammad Sam 0 years old Ahmed M Ahmed 0 years old Ahmed Muhammad am0 years old Ahmed Muhammad yass Zer years old Ahmed S Ahmed Zer years old Ahmed Shadi tal 0 years old Ahmed Ali Z years old Jad Jalal Z years oldia Abdul Sami zero years old Elma Adnan Jamal zero years old Elma mmin Muhammad zero years old Elma Abdul Karim zero years old Alan abdurahman zero years old Amal Mahmud Muhammad zero years old Amal Muhammad Ahmed Zer years old Amir mahm zi zero years old anas Abdullah aiz zero years old anas Abdullah bah zero years old Anna Muhammad zero years old Ana Mahmud Ahmed 0 years old Anar Muhammad Ahmed 0 years old Aid Hussein Muhammad 0 years old a Amir Ali zero years old ail Muhammad J Zer years old as you can see like the list goes on and on so if we decide to approve monuments when does it end thank you for the opportunity to speak Miss Wilson good evening my name is Gloria Wilson I'm a 36e resident of EK I'm also a member and the president of the Northeast EK Block Association and I appreciate us getting the time to speak the previous speaker before me on the Coalition described why we believe that we need to seek a process that will continue to everyone's understanding and a process that will help UNIF by teenx residents the impetus for this is not coming from erecting honoring or only two subcommittees it will be from making the EK Public Library a center of human understanding the library should contain resources that represent all communities in the township the mission is clear the focal point of human understanding is through information not by erecting monuments as a plan number one one we should provide resources for learning not only about the Holocaust and enslaved Africans but also about histories of other groups representing in our diverse Township these resources would be available at the ten public library virtually and other St spaces which would be accessible to the public develop and publicize ongoing educational forums about these many histories and last develop fundraising direct toward procuring resources exhibits and programs that would further the education and understanding of teenx residents I also want to speak a few minutes on good and Welfare if good and Welfare could start at 8:00 like it should be we'd have enough people being able to speak if good and Ware and the council members would understand that when you were elected you are elected because of giving Promises to the community that you would listen and understand what each person had to say we cannot come up here with our personal vendors and speak to you and you should not be allowed to sit up on the Das with your personal vendes against people that want to speak I also hope that people listen to seren S Senator Loretta Weinberg including myself and go along with the audit give respect you will get respect and you'll also get the need of the people in the community thank you thank you M Wilson dou someone on Zoom yes bringing in shandre young sandre young please unmute state your name for the record you have three minutes hi sandre young I just want to say I'm glad that leadership teet is being put forth I was a graduate of that uh course in uh 2012 um I also want to say that um I agree with the sentiments of uh Miss Gloria Wilson that if we start good and Welfare earlier we could get everyone in um in order to do that we need to do workshops um and I haven't seen that put forth also I want to talk about Bill s50 just wondering if the affordable housing subcommittee has uh looked at this bill it's been referred to the Senate and the bill says it reforms the municipal responsibilities concerning provisions of affordable housing it abolishes COA and it appropriates $16 million just want to know if you've reached out to legislation has the attorney reviewed this um because this is important um for us to stay on top of it also Bill s 2347 um that bill uh concerns the development of Abus and how the municipal will be responsible for it and it seems like New Jersey is making this a mandate if you can just let us know how that's going to affect us as well and um I believe that's it and also put that website survey it was a great survey hopefully I put a lot of detail in that and hopefully um you know you take that into consideration and also want to thank the daughter of Rabbi seagull for giving us that Vivid and detailed information about um her father that was really good and um oh I got a minute and I believe that's it don't want to take up any more of your time but if you can just look into those two bills and just let us know have you done anything um proactive to address that for the for the residents thank you Miss Young Mr Berliner AI Berliner Teck resident thank you to the expertise and efforts of Township manager Dean kazinski superintendent of recreation Glenn Crockett Department of DPW director cron Romeo Council prior pprb and current most chair Ken Hoffman past and current pprb and most members who volunteer time expertise and efforts to better the community for all and the residents who engage and provide feedback to effectively advise Council as they direct funding projects and programs to support for parks and and related infrastructure while TX struggled with others for funding and resources during the covid pandemic the township its leadership and volunteers continue to invest in the community there is so much more we will accomplish working together but contrary to the narrative here are some of the highlights since 2020 what follows is a partial list with many more considered advised completed and planned that can be mentioned the 3 minutes allotted give me five to start the township provides a $2,500 Grant to local Youth Sports organizations new playgrounds and swings and T Hune coolage hard and r and v new walking paths and Phelps and parks in hawthor in 22 we resurfaced the facility and installed new hybrid tennis and pickleball courts 2023 we completed renovations to the 90 foot baseball field including repairs to irrigation fencing the bullpen and the batting cage and the 24 is the manager introduced we broke ground of the new TX Southern major baseball field in Phelps there were repairs to the dog park surface as well as installing new bathrooms and purchasing new grills and picnic tables in Brooks and 23 we purchased new benches 15 in total which are actually being installed across various parks in herck there's PL in 2024 there's planed to start work on a $1.7 million Park renovation including new lighted basketball courts baseball field playground bathroom Splash Pad walking path and benches in Sagamore park there was purchase of new soccer goals as well as in 24 it plans for conceptual plan and design and process for renovations to the park a $1.8 million project to include renovations to the baseball field three new playgrounds a splash pad bathroom and new Walking pathway and am there were new uh tennis courts that were striped for uh hybrid pickle ball use and the 2024 there's going to be resurfacing at argon tennis court and Andreas to include four new pickle ball courts some miscellaneous items partnering with the historical commission to support the procurement and installation of historical markers around town working with stab for review the health and of planted trees and renewal of the Phelps arum and 2024 installing 10 new park signs 14 new water fountains of Van replacement and Contracting for field maintenance some items around V Park in the rotus center new inclusive playground service and outdoor exercise fitness stations installed we all know about the new Fieldhouse new band shell and installation of new outdoor game tables and chairs renovations to the Roa Center completed including gym lights new tarps purchased for both TBO and Southern as well as new basketball court installed last year with lockers and improvements to the V swimming pool complete Renovations Lancers field including new aration and fencing also upgraded electronic doors at Roa 2024 new tennis courts Shaden shelter and gym fans will be installed thank you for your support thank you sir someone on Zoom Doug sorry Shane of brander please state your name for the record feel free to unmute hello um and thank you for this um time it was very encouraging to hear about the council's serious attention to the traffic safety concerns raised on last month's meeting regarding Palmer Avenue I would like to join my neighbors from last month and from tonight in highlighting another area which should be looked at I live in the country club neighborhood specifically on country Club Drive it was designed as a small quiet treelined residential street but together with Redmond Street and East Lawn Drive has turned into a full-fledged thoroughfare for anyone looking to bypass tck road between Route 4 and the New Jersey Turnpike during rush hours there is a steady stream of commuter traffic whizzing past children waiting for their school buses on the side of the road trucks and motorcycles Drive pass at all hours on Saturdays neighborhood families walking to the local synagogue need to remain on high as cars swerve around their baby strollers and elderly there aren't any speed impediments or sidewalks on this block this poses a major risk to the residents on these blocks and their neighbors as the mother of a young child I worry for the safety of my son as he grows older and wants to do everyday activities like ride his bike walk to a nearby friend or pull our car out of the driveway when he learns to drive with the recent focus on traffic safety and EK I'm confident that a solution can be found to mitigate this issue living in the area and witnessing the daily traffic flow I have a few ideas that might help which I would be happy to share with the committee I'm grateful to everyone here and the council for the opportunity to raise this issue and for all their effort to make EK a safer Community for all thank you thank you ma'am good evening everyone my name is Alice Garcia and I live at 1295 Alicia Avenue I've been living here and I raised my kids here I've been here for 42 years I am a member of the East VY neighborhood association which is part of the Coalition of neighborhood associations for a better tenic on behalf of this Co Coalition I would like to read the following statement the call Coalition of neighborhood associations for a better teenek strongly opposes the action of the Town Council that cut off public input put after one hour during good and Welfare of the February 13 2024 meeting there were 19 people waiting to speak when discussion was suddenly curtailed this action is in direct contradiction to the Democratic principles of openness inclusion and public participation many if not all council members ran for office on these principles hearing directly from residents and certainly not silencing them is essential to good government we strongly urge the council to adopt the procedure whereby the good and Welfare segment of Town Council meetings remains open such that each resident who wishes to speak will be given that opportunity and I have to say I I listen to all the glowing reports about T neck and yes there's certain things that I do like but I've also noticed the the hostility at times of it's it's very different and I'm going to tell you when you start dividing you can't get it back together it's very hard I was in Mississippi in the Civil Rights and I know what I'm talking about I saw it I felt fear I was frightened there was the hostility and I hope this doesn't happen in Tina I mean I don't think it's quite that bad I know is twox planner looks like but um I would just like to say that we better get it together people and stop dividing we have many many differences in this town not even the mention the things that were mentioned today there are so many others that need to be looked at and we have to be honest honesty is not happening here just from what I've seen and heard I've gone to meetings where the council with not these people necessarily sat on that stage and talk down to people I'll never forget that that and I didn't come back for a while but I want to be part of this town trying in my small way to make it a better place thank you Miss Garcia Rachel please state your name for the record yes hi this is Rachel Kaplan um tck resident and I just want to thank everybody for um being here council members and uh um the attendees um so I just want to sincerely thank the Emergency Services of EG um because what they do is very very important and I'm truly grateful that they are safe and able to do what they do because um that is not the case for all EMTs for example the red crescent in Gaza had to be suspended since yesterday because uh safety concerns for their staff because Israeli bombs will not stop falling down upon them um this has of course been going on since October and um many of whom have been killed 630 um medical staff doctors nurses EMTs have been killed since um and when I say killed I mean murdered they didn't just die of natural causes um there have been 30,000 people killed in very few months which obviously that falls under genocide and I'm still appalled to the fact that I live in a town whose council members have decided to vote and pass a resolution that enables this it's absolutely revolting to even think about it um and the saddest part of it all is 13,000 children children have been murdered since October and I would like to read names of children that have not even been able to see their first year they were born during this genocide and unfortunately were not able to survive it ryad zero years old isad Sak Allah zero years old fedel Abu zero years old F Al Zer years old Farah Yousef Bahar zero years old Farah Karim hanon infant Farah Abu shahab an infant Fatima Al sulan an infant fuz Sala an infant FZ tamas an infant George eluri an infant Hal eloir an infant hamsa asur an infant L MC an infant the list goes on we would be here taking up hours upon hours upon hours if we were to name every single one of them so please remember that this town does not stand for genocide does not stand by Israel's acts free Palestine as always hello Yousef a resident I wanted to make a statement to the community Ramadan is around the corner and we must not forget how the Muslim Community was marginalized the last couple months in this town I'm not sure if there's a Cresent Lighting in the works to kick off the holiest month of Ramadan in tck if one was planned I would like to suggest that we cancel it we don't want it meaningless gestur won't undo the damage that has been done by about his council with over 30,000 Palestinians dead how can we even celebrate anything why would we give this Council yet another photo op it's been made abundantly clear that most of this Town Council is unable to serve all residents of the township of Tink we have all witnessed the lies spewed by a council woman we have heard her double Dawn on the same lies at every council meeting fabricated narratives made by another councilwoman only to have her deflect a request for an apology at the very next meeting she went on to give examples of what intimidation is without any acknowledgement of her own slanderous words we have all witnessed temper tantrums from councilmen when he is presented with any opposing views you are not sitting there to attain your own personal agendas you are sitting in front of me to fulfill public trust your blatant disregard for my community would no longer be tolerated you're clearly unable to serve the needs of tinck your words have endangered the safety of those in my community and of those who are on the side of humanity the council has prioritized foreign interest over the needs of the very Community swore to serve thus jeopardizing the safety and peace of this town there is no shame in admitting that you cannot fulfill your oath of office step down now resign immediately this will be your best contribution to the township of T thus far finally I wanted to address the length of these meetings I do agree with you minight is way too late for Town council meeting however when this Council continuously makes FSE statements and attributes them to individuals by name we will address it stop making false statements and maybe these meetings will be wrapped up much quicker if you don't want to be called out my name then keep our names out of your mouth thank you someone on Zoom we have Steve Fox please unmute state your name for the record feel free to show your camera Steve Fox TX resident uh president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater tck I want to Simply say for those of you who want to um change The Narrative of the memorials and want to create something for all oppressed people let me just simply say that the original plan for the garden was to have space for more than one Memorial actually for four so if anybody here would like to raise funds and create something for a broader group you're more than welcome to do that similarly I want to point out that this The Joint memorials were both agreed upon by both by Council twice at the helm ship of um Senator Loretta Weinberg and the late lazette mayor lazette Parker this was their vision the vision hasn't changed the plans have not changed um we have been approved by the council multiple times so there's no point really to keep going on and on and on and try to change it but as I said we welcome any other group that wants to create a memorial as they said there's spot for four memorials and having something in the library is very nice it's not something that will attract anybody because you can go to any library and learn as much as you want about everything our plan for the Holocaust Memorial and that is an educational one as well we plan to have interactive educational panels to learn about the lessons the history and the philos and the importance of what happened at during the Holocaust should not happen again so we welcome everybody to plan something else in addition to what we're doing there's no place in the world that has a a memorial to the Holocaust as well as a memorial to enslaved Africans so the Synergy should both memorials be successful God willing the Synergy would be to have people who would go or who would ordinarily only go to one go to both and that's still the philosophy so we again welcome anybody who wants to do something in addition to what we're doing you're welcome to do it you're welcome to have a um something in the library you're welcome to have another outdoor exhibit but please there's no point on going over and over and over again when we have been um agreed upon by resolution multiple times by the council thank you for your time thank you Mr Fox Mr Goen evening Paula Roven it's time for real audit by real auditor of the spending of of state and private funds for the two monuments it's also time to say no to monuments in TX Township Public Green Space it's time instead to say yes to fund for educational materials documents books videos films as well as ongoing educational forums about the Holocaust about enslaved Africans and other tragedies yes it is critically important for EK residents of all ages to learn from these and other tragic histories not just to memorize facts but to empower us to make sure we do not repeat the crimes and tragedies of the past on October 17th the tenek Town Council voted to support the Israeli government in its response to the tragic and horrendous attack on October 7th since that vote on October 17 nearly 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed the majority of whom are women and children more than 13,000 children have been killed more than 70,000 people people human beings human lives people have been injured countless people have been buried under the rubble of bombed homes schools mosques hospitals and other facilities the delivery of medical supplies and food have been blocked by the Israeli government there is mass starvation in Gaza countries around the world call this genocide I believe it is genocide if the Tina Council insists on going ahead with these two monuments I request a monument about the slaughter of Palestinians since October 7th and prior to October 7th I request another Monument to the many millions and of Native Americans slaughtered and the US service members injured and killed in the Vietnam War and the Iraq and Afghan Wars as well of those who have died by Suicide you can see the flaw in erecting monuments can you see that flaw in erecting monuments an TX Town green education is the answer providing resources for teaching and learning about these tragedies is the answer Min mins will crowd out the green space in front of the municipal complex but they will not enable the kind of teaching and learning that is so critically important to prevent the tragedies of the past say no to monuments say yes to education thank you m Goen someone on Zoom Doug Ron Schwarz please unmute state your name for the record Ron Schwarz 698 Larch Avenue tck New Jersey good evening members of the council I speak tonight on behalf of one town one vote the Grassroots organization that stands for transparency and openness in municipal government one time when when V was very very disappointed at the last council meeting when the council turned down the independent audit that was requested by Council persons um Daniel J Daniel G and Denise beler um of the two groups that were planning on doing the monuments on Town property more than $350,000 has been uh expended appropriated and transferred to these groups by the state of New Jersey are tax money and we don't know what has happened to those funds uh before the last meeting on January 30th I was contacted by a gentleman by the name of Gerald Riner who apparently was responding to one toown one vot's earlier requests for uh independent audits to be done and relating to these monies he indicated to me that he is a member of the Teen Library board and was conducting uh on behalf of the town or for the town an audit on the uh monies that were expended um by the tenek library he indicated that that audit and review of the vouchers that the library spent as part of this um effort uh would be available uh by the following Monday which would have been February 4th 2024 it's now February uh he also indicated he would send that uh review that audit to me that he was conducting which I felt was kind of strange that a member of the library board was conducting an audit of his own expense expenses um indicated me it would be available and he would send it to me by February 4th now February 27th and have not received any further word from Mr Riner more importantly Mr Riner indicated to me that there was no need for an independent audit because the town had already conducted uh an audit or audit of the these monies that were expended by the uh Monument groups and by theic Library so I'm asking tonight where are those audits how can we get a hold of them and why have they not been made public if they exist as Mr Ryder indicated they should be made public immediately please respond tonight where these audits are and why they have not been made public thank you very much thank you Mr Schwarz Mr Kaplan Keith Kaplan ten hypocrisy thy name is EK if you watch these meetings for a little while and sorry Mr K I left the day as I was going to mention him you'll have a l please address the counil yeah you'll have a line of people coming whenever something mentions rental properties in town they're going to mention how a council member has properties in town when the case came up for an audit last meeting a council member said one of the council members owns part of a newspaper there's a conflict not just enough to mention it but to invoke the rules to require recusal I don't think I've ever seen that one what gets a pass on hypocrisy though well for 10 years years we've had resolutions us ordinances conversations every conversation you can imagine about monuments but they were linked the Holocaust and the slavery Memorial were linked all of a sudden they weren't linked now we got problems we need an audit well it's state money and people are accusing the town of Nefarious actions why aren't you calling for the state to audit it yeah other hypocrisy the Boe goes and kicks out a long-standing principle at an all Zoom meeting they have two minutes per person even though they're normally three minutes they lower it to an hour everyone on Zoom 10 times the amount of people waiting as a council meeting they had over 200 people waiting on Zoom that they didn't let speak these associations never showed up never said anything I emailed them didn't even get a response nothing why why is your meeting of an hour so offensive but other meetings are not we'll put a pin in that one when you have a member of the Town Council who is a real estate agent who goes and votes on ordinances for properties that she sells who speaks out against a property because of its zoning and then becomes the real estate agent for the property making a whole lot more than you do on an ad to a newspaper nothing when you shepher the ordinances through the planning board as the representative there nothing even though you make money on when you create and Shepherd the master plan itself nothing no no one has a problem that's not hypocrisy good thing you don't have any rentals on West angle would have someone on Zoom Doug Cheryl Hall please you say your name for the record good evening uh my name is Cheryl Hall I am a more than 50-year resident here in the township of tinac I want to thank the esteemed members of the council for their calm demeanor tonight and their transparency and having an open discussion which clearly I know everyone had varying uh disagreements on but I really appreciate bringing that to the Forefront thank you Deputy Mayor Danielle G for uh you know bringing up the issues um and I really do appreciate working with you um and your leadership in The Advisory Board of community relations as well um last night we had a lively discussion including giving Dr puit uh 30 minutes um you know of our time to really hear some of the issues on behalf of the Advisory Board um I will say that we are also concerned at the limiting of good and Welfare to one hour and we encourage the council to make every effort possible to come to some type of consensus um you know we do understand when things get out of control with name crawling um that it can be very difficult uh but all residents need to be heard um and with that I'd also like to advocate for the street renaming for Rabbi seagull and I want to remind everyone that most people in this world just want to be heard listening is sometimes the most healing thing that we can do for everyone I can hear a lot of pain I have no suggestions on how to heal it because unfortunately what we do and St in this town will not have an impact on what's Happening overseas but maybe listening will be a comfort to the people I know islamophobia exists I've heard it in that chamber room I know black racial hatred exists I heard it in that chamber room I know anti-Semitism exists I've heard it in that chamber room I will not blame a whole race of people for the bad acts of individuals that is very important that was done done to black people throughout history labeling us all the same I will not label all Jews I will not label all Muslims I will not label people I will look at everyone as an individual I will have my hand open in understanding and listening and I advocate also for empathy training we really need it in this town thank you Cheryl thank you Miss hi I am JB Shake tinic resident of three years nearly all Palestinians in Gaza are refugees and descendants of refugees who have been violently expelled from their ancestor homelands during the nakba of 1948 these are the people who managed to survive the masers carried out by Zionist militia like the one in Daria they were ethnically cleansed from their lands that are still illegally occupied today and the same lands which I just learned tonight are being illegally marketed to Americans here in tinac New Jersey so if this is something that tinac Council and residents support they should at least be open to hearing the names of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the first nubus survivors the one whose lands have been stolen by this usback settler colonial state the same state that this Council vows to support as it carries out a second NBA and genocide Ahmed s Muhammad 3 years old Aisha Omar Mustafa 3 years old Abal 3 years old three years old Ali Ali Zak three years old Ali is mahm Ali three years old Al Al three years old am Muhammed abim almun 3 years old am Muhammad am matar 3 years old Amir Muhammad J three years old Amir Muhammad 3 years old AMJ khed Kamal rashwan three years old anas muham muhamad Sami Asim 3 years old ail Muhammad Mazin sheldan three years old Asim Maj Mustafa Ali three years old Iman Mahmood ala 3 years old a Muhammad almari 3 years old Bad Gal Nas 3 years old Basim Sam Muhammad Eleni 3 years old Mish three years old B mdat 3 years olded Z three years old B Muhammed samas 3 years old ma AB 3 years old Di and anur 3 years old Dima Jihad Abu a 3 years old elain AMA Muhammad 3 years old a three years old F KH Muhammad Al three years old sah ABD muh 3 years old faim H Abu three years old f m mm F three years old Hab Alman Bim Al 3 years old Hal Muhammad Miss 3 years old free Palestine someone on zoomg Maxine Angel feel free to unmute welcome to show your camera hi good evening can you hear me okay yes ma'am loud and clear hi good evening thank you everybody I um hi Maxine angel I live in tinok and I I want to to give a few thank yous um thank you AI Berliner for that incredible presentation on the on the great work of the Parks and Recreation board so many wonderful things going on in Tek um it is it's great to hear you list them and we're looking forward to a spring when we can enjoy um our beautiful Parks throughout Town um in terms of traffic safety there's so many people who spoke so thoughtfully about that it's a it's a major issue um I live on Queen Anne and Johnson um south of Cedar and it's come up a few times of just the the difficulty Crossing Queen an um that a number of things play into this one of them is that the the speed limit on Queen an is 35 miles per hour not 25 like um other parts of town and there is um the only traffic lights are at degra and again at Cedar so it's a pretty long stretch and uh not enough people follow the speed limit so people are definitely flying way past 35 miles an hour um it's very hard to cross people don't stop so often at the crosswalk and it's hard for um people getting to work it's hard for um people trying just to cross the street for any number of reasons so please look into that and um I want to I want to just say that that EK um is home to over 41,000 people it's a great place to call home and um I'm I'm really sorry to see that there's so many cynical elements of the town that um work tirelessly to pit so many different communities of tck against each other uh we really need to double down on um on treating each other with dignity with respect um understanding that we um have all uh different backgrounds and that we're we're all wanting to live here um in a safe and thriving community that has many wonderful things like Mr Berliner presented many wonderful things that are are that we Pro that we pay for with our taxes and um and thank you again it's pretty late so thank you so much to the Town Council for your time this evening and to so many of my neighbors for coming out tonight as well it's good to hear from you and um have a good night thank you Miss Angel ma'am good evening Council my name is Hildy Dyan I am a 38e resident here in tinck and I'm also a vice chair of our environmental commission I wanted you to know that uh at the environmental commission uh February 21st meeting we had a discussion with Michael suran uh who's superintendent of the DPW uh and we offered comments on the green grounds and maintenance policy which is in your packet it's resolution number 54 2024 um after some minor revisions that were suggested by the EC that emphasized heex practice of preference to not use synthetic and chemical pesticides uh whenever Poss that is the preference um only turning uh to the use of those uh those agents when we have an invasive species like uh similar to Lantern fly or some of the insects that are that are attacking ash trees um also uh the uh so I really I I ask you to support that resolution also the environmental Commission and the DPW will Co coordinate our first town cleanup uh of 2024 on Sunday April 14th so I want everybody to mark their calendars uh and registration for the cleanup will be announced in early March uh also on behalf of one toown one vote um which uh is a group of residents in support of democratic and transparent governance in tinck uh we request the council to not stop good and Welfare before every person uh waiting in person or in Zoom has a chance to speak um it it is really your responsibility to hear from the residents willing to spend their time bringing their concerns to you whether it's hard to hear what certain people have to say when you get elected to sit where you are sometimes you're hearing things that are hard to hear and sometimes you hear a lot of compliments too um the uh gentleman who talked about the improvements of our in our Parks I agree but personally I live near almond Park um which is at the the crossroads of Fort Le Road and gford place we've had a lot of vandalism in the park over the years I've lived there for a long time and it's happening again we had a little Library box in the park that was repeatedly vandalized and now it is gone um there was a pisan there because there's no it is a very actively used Park the tennis the tennis courts are busy all seasons um the basketball court is is All Season lots of kids in the playground um but the uh the pan that was there was vandalized several times it was turned on its side and now it's gone so we need better surveillance in the park and uh better maintenance thank you m Dy thank you Miss Dylan want on Zoom I have an RK please state your name for the record hi everyone this is RMA Khan um uh Doug I think next time I get picked I want you to play some music I feel like I'm in a lottery that this time I've been picked I was one of the 18 people on Zoom last time who did not get a chance to speak uh I wanted to address the uh tin council members and uh share that sometimes some of your efforts at uh the you know the Optics of promoting unity and diversity uh they are getting lost when we actually see the real way in which they translated in action uh we have a speed friending event to promote unity in the community very commendable that is fantastic that you are running that uh along with Town manager as well as the chair of the Interfaith group however if you want unity in the community and you're really thinking about the Optics you should start by allowing all residents to speak openly in full transparency insisting on a video uh to be turned on um it definitely intimidates those who are not techsavvy or who may not have a camera on also asking that uh speakers uh only the first 20 speakers be picked in order to allow for just one hour of speech to keep out some bad apples is a terrible strategy if you are in fact looking to promote unity in the community um passing resolu Solutions again the Optics of it um it seems seemingly you are working uh through just promoting personal agendas when it comes to resolutions you completely turn a deaf ear to any other constituents to that come out and speak um almost saying openly that good and Welfare does not hold any value when you know what the speech of uh you know what the thoughts of every other resident out there is um when it comes it's the same thing when it comes to Monument ments and memorials we should be doing more to show the Optics of unity and diversity rather than um you know promoting uh one Community I also want to mention that we had a fantastic event over at hackin Sachs Wilson Auditorium honoring a living legend from Ek Miss Theodora Lai for her lifetime achievement of community service uh the usual council members who attend those events um were there so thank you for being there I want to thank councilwoman Belcher for initiating a special Commendation for Mr Sebastian Rodriguez who retired recently after giving more than 15 years of his um time and service on the school board um overall as a town as your town residents uh we feel that you are not really living up to the oath that you had taken when you were swor in in reposing the trust that we have in you so uh kindly consider the Optics of what you are actually uh showing us through your actions thanks Doug thank you Miss Khan ma'am hello um my name is Amanda and I wanted to say that I was able to listen at the beginning of this zoom and I wanted to Second the congratulations the applaud rather to the volunteer course um I obviously our healthcare for responders are the ones who see us in our most painful moments um but as we were kind of uh celebrating these uh these healthcare workers I'm also thinking about the responders the emt2 responded to six-year-old hen RAB who works to comfort this six-year-old six yes six years six years old um in her last moments before she was murdered by the Israeli soldiers I think about her screams that they had to listen to her over the phone as she saw her Killers approach the car she was trapped in and I cannot even imagine what it must be like to work as a healthcare worker right now as horror stories from doctors from nurses from EMTs about surgeries with anesthetics about births without any kind of support with and having to immediately evacuate hospitals I can't sorry I had to just take a moment to like really take in the fact that we do a we do a lot in like coming up here and talking and half the time I watch these council members and y'all don't even listen and it's kind of wild because the part of it is that you don't agree you don't want to listen to the the numbers the the statistics and then the names you don't want to listen to any of that but because the fact of the matter is that Tink is responsible tin is not like it is in the US as a profiter of this genocide but it is also a key participant and we see that when one of our council members was just at an event today that was selling or rather supporting the this uh this Winery company that stole land from one of my friends families in Palestine and so you know in the past we've heard a lot of residents talk about how oh Palestine Pina doesn't have anything to do with Palestine that is unfortunately incredibly false when we see that our name is enshrouded in the blood of pales Ians not just in the past few months although that is certainly true but since the conception of Israel itself so I truly recommend that the council members need to clean up their act and start listening to their constituents someone on Zoom Doug I have Adam Weissman please un mute thank you um yeah so I want to uh respectfully uh disagree with Cheryl Hall what we do in this town can and does have an impact a world away the message that we send as a community uh in as that this Council sends uh said is a statement on this where this community stands and that ultimately influences the positions of our Senators our representative and in aggregate with other communities our president who do make life and death decisions so when our community is on record supporting a genocide uh that does send a message as to where we stand and how our elected officials should vote uh versus when we take a different position um I agree with Mr Fox that the critical impact that the critical point of having a Holocaust Memorial is to make a statement that uh such Horrors should never happen again so frankly for our town to move ahead with a Holocaust Memorial while we are are are on record supporting a genocide is to make a mockery of the victims of the Holocaust like my great-grandmother Anna kushka we honor those we honor the victims of the Holocaust best by showing that we are committed to saying never again and by NE and by Never Again by never again supporting a genocide by not supporting a genocide in progress um it's laughable I think that we have I I I I you know as for our Council Miss Oregon and Miss Goldberg uh couldn't be more transparent sorry go ahead did I miss something Scott did what oh the names yeah if you can please address Council through me and don't call any council members out individually if you can please uh your time was suspended but we're we're putting it back you have a minute and 21 seconds so okay uh when members members of this Council are trans are being are utterly transparent that uh the the in not being able to commit to whether good and Welfare will continue or not uh before seeing how it goes the issue isn't hostility the issue is that there's a faction at this Council that is committed to suppressing Free Speech whenever support for Palestine and concerns about the atrocities being committed by Israel comes up this is a violation of free speech it is the council uh deciding what issue what issues and positions it is open to hearing making a decision for the community about about what issues uh it deems the community is willing to talk about but really the council but really one and we're not won use but one of our c as just reference one of our council members is making the strongest statement of all by not being here tonight in favor of being at a wine tasting event where Pro where properties are being sold uh sorry where uh wine is being sold that is being that is produced on an illegal settlement in violation of article 49 of the convention uh that council member slandered protesters as anti-semites uh and insisted that this was not uh is not an illegal uh sale he should really look at Anthony blinkin statement from Friday where it was reaffirmed that the West that the US position is that uh West Bank settlements are illegal and we should not have council members who are promoting criminal activ thank you sir your three minutes are up thank you sir someone in Chambers how many people Mr Mayor how many people are on Zoom it's 11 think two three wait can we make the motion to extend the meeting by 15 minutes all in favor please say I the eyes have it sir good evening Dwayne Harley T resident bogus Street um I just want to make a um a statement that I support the extension of good and Welfare um I do not think it should be um Extended based on discretion only because we need fairness um because just tonight some people were corrected by directing their comments to particular council members others that was in this chamber just now clearly was talking to a council member directly didn't say names but we all knew who he was talking about and nothing was said so I do support the extension of good and Welfare we always T always brags about um integrating and we all together but then we mute M those voices we're integrating so you want you guys want to be those people that mute the voices of the people we trying to integrate let the community speak we're here you guys we're here we trying to work together it was a statement earlier that one of the council members made that um you want to cut short the meeting so you can get back to the business of the township well listening to the constituents is the business of the township thank you someone on Zoom Doug sherion please unmute state your name for the record yes my name is Sheran Eid life longm Town resident um I wasn't going to speak initially um however after hearing multiple residents say that people were using this time in good and Welfare to be divisive I just need to find out what that is exactly what do you consider as being divisive is it pointing out that violence needs to end is that divisive is pointing out that certain people have interest interests outside of this town divisive is so what exactly is divisive what is divisive about calling our attention to the suffering to the killing of babies to the suffering of mothers what is divisive about that I just need to know also I want to thank the members of the council who are always supportive of the residents um in terms of letting us speak allowing us to be heard because again as the previous speaker said the business of the town is the residents um our voices do need to be heard because we email we don't always hear back so when we say these things on record it means a lot and it feels like it means a lot um I also would like to know a little bit more about the leadership uh workshops that um mayor G was talking about um if that could be more uh broadly spoken about I would appreciate it because clearly you have a hunger and a thirst in this town for people to be involved because we keep coming out to be heard and to speak to you um also I just want to say again I don't understand how pointing out that we want the indiscriminate of Palestinians to end can be divisive thank you anyone in Chambers no we got every ug someone on Zoom bringing in Deborah please state your name for the record please unmute state your name for the record hi good evening Deborah blabber can you hear me yes ma'am okay I just want to correct some um false narratives that have been put there was not a single council member at the wine event tonight I was at the wine event tonight definitely no council members there so uh I just want to correct that little fact and I also want to point out that we are a very uh diverse town and it is very important that we don't Gaslight each other so therefore it is very important I would never dream of telling somebody who is not of my ethnicity what it was like to be discriminated or downtrodden I would never expect anybody who is not Jewish to tell a Jew what anti-Semitism is whether something is anti-Semitic or not and a while ago a council member did that and it really irked me and I feel that it has allowed people to tell people no that's not anti-semitic that's not anti-jewish that's not Jew hate but unfortunately it is and you may not think it but again I would never tell you what discrimination is for you don't tell me what discrimination is for me and again there were no council members at the wine event tonight however the Shiloh wine was delicious so thank you very much and thank you for the leaf collection thank thank you for the snow collection um Miracle Town Council is doing great love my new assessment um and just thank you to Doug and um my brain just went dead thank you to the Town Council for doing what you do and just to remind you don't tell minorities how it feels to be discriminated against it's not a good look thank you someone else on Zoom Doug Jesse Leon good evening or night or whatever we're at at this point um Jesse Leon tck resident uh I have two local issues that I wanted to raise um I noticed this week that there was a lot of um speed enforcement on Palisades Avenue which is great we should absolutely be enforcing the new speed limit there um the people of the town and and people who drive through the town need to learn that the right speed is the right speed I got a ticket on Palisade Avenue a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago so you know I I I increased the town budget by a couple hundred dollars as a result and uh I regret it but I I am much more careful driving on Palisades I do caution though that enforcement is not the only way to solve this problem um Palisades from root four North is a Speedway it's designed as a Speedway it's wide it's flat there are very few cross intersections there's really no reason to slow down and it's really easy for people to just hit the gas um so I would recommend that in addition to enforcement or you know and and to hopefully eventually to phase out the need for enforcement to as not create an extra Revenue generation on the backs of the township residents um redesign Palisades Avenue North of rout four in order to um ease the traffic there or slow the traffic there I should say the other thing I wanted to bring up was I noticed um one of the council members uh talking about all of the um houses that were that were um uh that are being foreclosed or or imminent domained or or something as a nuisance um I just want to caution as a a law student interested in property rights um last year the Supreme Court ruled in Tyler versus henip and County that any additional equity in the house Beyond whatever is owed to the town and taxes belongs to the homeowner um I know New Jersey hasn't had the practice of actually returning that Equity to homeowners I would caution that if if there is any remaining equity in these in these homes that are being foreclosed on by the town that we treat that very carefully so is not to run a foul of um relatively newly affirmed constitutional law so uh just please make sure that that money goes to the the right people it goes to and and we're not involving ourselves in future litigation and otherwise thank you very much and I hope that that that we all get to go home and go to sleep good night thank you Mr Leon next Doug all right good and Welfare is closed Miss Belcher would you like to start us off certainly first off I like to start by saying uh thank you to Senator Weinberg for calling in um it's always great to hear um your wisdom and knowledge and insight um I I here again um repeat that I believe an independent audit also is imperative um just as was spoken by Lisa gray W de brown Mrs Wilson uh Alice Garcia and Paula rugan uh I believe accountabil accountability and financial responsibility is um is our responsibility as Leaders um I also believe what Miss Wilson said about education uh is the answer to problems not Stone monuments uh I believe that uh as I said on October 17th that let us not Retreat back into our silos that will only serve to continue to keep our community separate and divided uh and that is what I believe these monuments will do uh I will always believe in hearing all residents and I support hearing all residents during good and Welfare okay this just full stop for me um I want to speak to a couple of other uh people that spoke uh Mr seagull Rich seagull and John ma Moscow uh it's very surprising uh about this private real EST State event that's happening on March 10th as you've indicated it's very concerning um I would I'm very concerned if any of our uh citizens of tck cannot of any uh cannot walk into any event uh based upon their race religion nationality or anything everyone should be able to participate okay there should not be any discrimination in any real estate sale uh not only uh Mr seagull does it uh is it a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 196 4 in 1968 but it also is a violation of the New Jersey law against discrimination there's a division within the Real Estate Commission which is known as the Bureau of subdivided land sales control that mandates that uh uh developers must register their development they must register it why because of un potential unscrupulous developers so that people are not being marketed to in any adverse way so I believe that if there's any type of discrimination that's happening in our Township I would ask our attorney um attorney Scott to look into this because I I I'm certain we don't want to have any event held in our Township that has the markings of any discrimination which is extremely surprising uh to me so I would ask Mr uh Salon if you would look into that because we don't want to be on the wrong side of History uh by having an event held in team act that discriminates or violates any local any state any federal or even any international law and lastly I would just like to say to the young lady Leila and uh a few of the other uh women that spoke I I I feel your pain um I I can't words alone cannot express um the pain that that you are feeling as you read the names but as you you were reading the names I was reminded of black lives matter one of the key principles was say their name there's a reason why people say the name they say the name because black women who were held victims of violence they were uh the basically were a it was necessary to to say their names because people only then will people ask the necessary questions about the causes and the circumstances of violence so I just end by saying by saying their names you make people ask necessary questions then I would encourage you keep saying their name thank you Miss beler Mr clerk I make a motion to extend the meeting until 11:30 second all those in favor please say I organ um so councilman schwarz's daughter uh son got engaged to a very lovely woman from California he's there meeting with her family right now and celebrating he was not at a wine tasting tonight and I don't believe he's missed a meeting in the last few years so I I hope everybody um wishes him well and congratulations on the engagement of his son um just to clear up a few other things to ter rhma Khan um councilman Schwarz was at the event for Miss Lacy on Saturday I tried to go also um but it was Saturday and we had plans it's our Sabbath I have walked to the Rota Center um he and I have walked to flag raisings uh for juneth and for Pride we walked early on a Saturday morning uh to fdu and did the silent March to the burial ground even though it was on a Saturday so we do our best to get there to events that are on Saturdays when it's when it's um with within our ability to do we do it um but just keep in mind that he was there it's not just the usual Council people Saturdays are difficult for us but we try um I wish to thank Mr Berliner I uh turned to Dean after your speech and said wow you've done a lot um so um thank you for pointing that out and thank you to Dean for everything that we do up until this last week's groundbreaking for TX Southern which I'm so happy that we've gotten to um I know Miss Dylan left but I'm I'm wishing you dry weather on April 14th um and I hope to attend the cleanup uh to Shaya brander we don't have your contact information but if you'd like to reach out by email um we can come down and and take a look at the area that you're referring to um to Debbie rutz I know what it's like to have a father pass and I'm so glad that we can do this for you I hope that it gets passed tonight and to Cheryl Hall um well to RMA really for point in out the the speed friending event Thursday night but to Cheryl for pointing out that people want to be heard and listen to I hope that everybody here who has waited up to speak um will sign up and attend it's on the the township website Thursday night 7:30 to9 at the Rota Center come out spend three minutes with a friend a bell will ring you'll move on to the next friend and and meet somebody new meet a new person or two or I guess if we count three minutes it within an hour it'll be 20 people and we'll have Refreshments thank you thank you Miss Oregan Miss Goldberg thank you Mr Mayor one second yeah I hear you tenk transparency doesn't mean you agree with me it means you know it's going on these packets that I've just given out to one for each counil council member and the public you may take are the 2018 2019 2020 2021 1 and 22 audits that were already conducted by the library CPA Weinstein and Weinstein as well as the grant guidelines regarding the rules how these money could be spent the bylaws of the garden to nurture and human understanding committees and as we know bylaws are very important the Grant application the 2017 Grant proposal by the Committees the publicly available IRS documents from the IRS website for both committees and a letter from Dr puit to the eamc on April 13 2018 about his resignation if anyone doesn't have enough please feel free to email me at H Goldberg at tnj.gov and I'll happy to send it out January 30th 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed as chancellor of Germany that was less than a century ago shortly thereafter the greatest propaganda campaign until October 7th 2023 began the anti semetic tropes from the Elders of Zion that was used as a pogram and Russia began Jews were blamed for the economy for Germany losing World War I they taking over neighbors turned on neighbor the nurmberg laws were implemented Jewels were burned toras were burned the swatsa was painted on the doors of homes and shops and Jews were forced to wear a yellow star all of these things were allowed to happen because anti-Semitism was normalized then became the gas Chambers over 12 million people were systematically murdered by the Nazis and half of them Jews through the final solution in 1933 Jews were 60% of the worldwide population today they're 02 we are now three to four generations past the Holocaust and the last of the survivors won't be able to tell their story anymore while hearing survivors was part of my education both in private school and at tinac High School it scares me how many people now believe that is fake or exaggerated the Holocaust Monument Monument that was approved 11 years ago will not just be a brick and mortar Monument but an educational and interactive Monument people will be able to scan the names of the victims or the camps and hear their stories on their phone something no other Holocaust Memorial in the country has the story of the enslaved Africans as they were forcibly and criminally brought to this country and endured horrific conditions in the ships and for centuries after tin had slaves that was not taught to me in tin high school I want to see both monuments built because we have to learn from each other we have to hear and learn about our individual stories and if we don't if we lump all of our stories together as a tragedy of the acts of man how can we recognize what is happening around us to make sure that it doesn't happen again I need to learn the history of the enslaved Africans in Teck and America and I look forward to both being built I was at an event at The JCC at the Palisades earlier this week where an Interfaith discussion took place with three speakers from the Hartman Institute and one said we have a problem in the United States of not acknowledging anti-Semitism we dismiss it as not real I myself has have experienced anti-Semitism by people I once called friends by people in this room I experienced anti-Semitism tonight and my hands have not stopped shaking since I have been called Brave and courageous since October 17th condemning Hamas should not be brave condemning a terrorist organization as recognized by the United States and European Union should not be brave I didn't get elected and decide to run because I served on the Board of Ed or the planning board or on any committee I spent thousands of hours in that seat where Mr Harley sits right now fighting for thousands of residents in this town no matter the issue matter the people because it was the right thing to do but when asked recently what exactly I did to betray the people who voted for me despite everything that I have done the answer was you're a Zionist normalizing anti-Semitism is not acceptable not in Tac and not anywhere never am I 40 Years of teac did I ever think that for such a time as this this was the moment that I was called for I will always serve all 41,000 residents thank you Miss Goldberg Mr Catz all right um I don't know if I can go after that one but uh I was actually just going to talk about the speeding going on in the country club area and maybe ask if we can uh um ask I think what's happening Mr manager obviously that it's it's become a cut through from Route 80 to four and uh maybe we can possibly uh request from ways that they can keep it keep the traffic on um digra and tck Road um I know that other towns have done that if that's okay with the council we can you know this way listen the people that know no but the ones that are just following the the ways leader you know we hopefully steer more towards EK Road and and de Miss G thank you Mr Mayor I'm going to try to address all the comments um so Mr basy thank you for alerting us to the trip hazards I'm sure if you flag them to um Mr kazinski he'll look into it he is very good about getting back to folks um Muhammad uh same thing with the traffic issues near Hawthorne I'm sure that Dean will look into that um for all the folks who talked about good and Welfare well first of all I want to thank my Council colleagues for not cutting good and Welfare off tonight they stayed and heard everybody even though a lot of what was said was really hurtful and triggering so I just want to thank my Council colleagues for doing that um I also want to thank all of you for I didn't hear one person in the who spoke specifically say that they wanted good and Welfare to be cut after an hour so thank you all for coming out and sharing how you felt about good and w Fair um The Monuments thank you for everyone who shared about um their feelings on The Monuments I personally love the idea of educating residents about the Holocaust love the idea of educating educating residents about enslaved Africans I just don't believe memorials belong on the municipal green um I love the idea of doing something in the library having it focused on education one of the things we heard um in speaking to the leaders of the two organizations was that it was very easy to get not easy but it was much easier to get funding for educational program it was very hard to get funding to construct brick-and morar buildings so I think we should really take a step back and think about what makes sense for this town what makes sense for what Ed would be really efficient in terms of educating our folks about these issues and I I think we really need to relook at it thank you Senator Loretta Weinberg for calling in I mean if the person who was responsible for getting us so much State funding is saying we need an independent audit that I think we should do that um Dr Henry puit if the one of the the person who suggested that we first do these monuments on the municipal green if he's saying I think I was wrong we need to reconsider I think we need to take a step back and reconsider thank you Howard Rose for speaking on good and Welfare um shout out to Debbie rutz I'm so excited to support the renaming of the of wer Road on in honor of Rabbi LS Joel seagull so thank you for calling in and sharing um thank you to all those who read the names I you know when you see the number 30,000 it's not the same as hearing the names um I was very emotional when you heard when when I heard you say those names so thank you for taking that time to share it um similarly I you know Denise mentioned that you know you hear that in the black lives matter movement you heard it when we people talk about the hostages that are still being kept captive the Israeli hostages so same thing like we need to remember that these are real people and that we all want to see them safe we don't want to see anyone killed or harmed um trying to go through all this there a lot um so yeah thank you everyone who called in I think I I covered most of it um oh thank you AI Berliner for listing the pprb accomplishments I think we forget how much gets done over the years but it it was really nice to hear you list off all of those the traffic concerns um we you know discussed a lot of these issues Dean is on it he's thinking about really creative ways to address the traffic concerns rumble strips speed bumps we appropriate doing the appropriate traffic um assessments to see if they're you know potentially look into four-way stops Etc so yeah I think that's it thank you everyone um have a great have a great rest of the night thank you Miss G first and foremost thank you to all of our residents for joining us tonight and participating we appreciate you being here with us tonight on this rainy evening Mr vasy Thank You For Fighting CSX because we are doing the same and we are brainstorming some new ways to help keep them accountable Mr Rockin congratulations on becoming a father and thank you for pointing that out about our streets and safety we will ask our manager to look into that and into the other streets that were mentioned tonight by other residents Mr Berliner thank you for your service on that board and having worked so hard these past few years to help improve our parks and playgrounds because it is noticed and it is appreciated uh Miss Dylan thank you for letting us know about that vandalism we will get on that ASAP and it is getting late so I will stop there Mr manager is there anything you would like to add before we continue on uh just quickly uh it's in a budget going to be in a budget for this year where we're putting in park ranges which are s1s there will be three part-timers they're going to concentrate on our Parks hopefully to minimize vandalism damage to our bathrooms that sort of thing um pedestrian accident was on January 28th CED Lane and Elm driver failed to yield to The Pedestrian was also unregistered uninsured car went pounded summons is issued regarding affordable housing I sent emails to Council in January and I believe you sent something to everyone on February 6th I know Senator Johnson does not support and is not in favor of of of the bills out there so we we're keeping a close uh check on this and I already sent the information to the police chief on the traffic concerns that were brought up tonight thank you Mr manager Mr clerk I make a motion to extend the meeting another 15 minutes to 11:45 p.m. second all those in favor please say I our next order of business is our consent agend 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 yes sir mayor like you mentioned we have our consent agenda which is consisting of two sets of minutes resolution 54-22 880-22 4 through 87- 224 that is including the resolution from um that we walked in this evening from coun Goldberg Mr Mayor can I pull the bills list and the bills list in the amount of I'm sorry H6 million $768,000 76 m768 541 34 cents I apologize thank you Mr clerk anybody else wait I want to pull 81 2024 on the bill list please 2024 you said okay and the whole bills list yes in that case seeing no other hands I make a motion to approve the consent agenda second councilwoman beler yes councilwoman Goldberg yes councilman organ yes Debbie mcats yes with an exstension on the bills list it's old we're actually not even considering it right now oh even better can you say that once more Deputy Mayor yes and Deputy Mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes all adopted so we have resolution 81 pulled by councilman Goldberg and the bills list yes so for 81 I just wanted to answer um Mr vaty um so I know you mentioned the CSX uh payment on there so we we looked into that and that's as a result of a contract from 1923 so we're going into that to see why but I just wanted to answer that for you first and then on the bills list um I was looking at the invoices for the wiener firm and um there was a uh entry on there from 13124 or 2.2 hours for $385 that said Zoom meeting with client REM miscellaneous matters case strategy conference with uh SJ reorder to show cause research open notices of archival BOE meetings receive analyze and respond to numerous emails Rec do we know why the wiener group is billing the council for Board of Ed Scott or Dean no I'm gonna have to reach out to um Mr tobac in tomorrow to see why there's a mention of a potential board ofed bill on the Township's legal bill do we know if any other Boe stuff might have gotten on by accident I'm not aware of any but we will certainly go back and double check the general so it's invoice 309 272 was that the bill number you just that's the bill number can you say that one more time 309 272 um I would like to um let see if we can have all of the bills on this bills list taken just making sure that there's nothing else for the Boe on here do anyone what what was that councilwoman want to see if Dean and and Scott can make sure that there's no other Boe items on the bills oh that particular Bill and that was Bill 309 272 yeah from weer law did I miss something yeah we don't have to vote on anything do we you did we vote on resolution 81 no or the bills list uh I can move 81 unless anyone has any questions and then I can move the bills list also did we address everything you wanted to address for me I don't know if anyone else had any other questions did we do something specific speically with weer laws bill I I well the manager said he was going to reach out to him but I don't think there was yeah there was no other that's it discussion okay cool sorry so you made a motion to approve the two things that you pulled a motion to move the bills list and 81 all right I'll second okay councilwoman beler uh yes Council Goldberg yes on 81 yes yes on the bills list except no on 309 272 and abstain on all the rest of the weener law invoices was that a no on 309 no on 39272 and abstain on the rest pending review okay and Council Oregon so I'll do the same so yes on 81 yes on the bills list except for the wiener I'll abstain on wiener cool and Deputy mcats I'm going to stay on the bills list what about resolution 81- tr24 uh I'm GNA stain on that as well okay debie mayor G yes mayor pan all right all right next order of business is our introduction of ordinances Mr clerk can you please a quick question did the did that pass no I'm confused the invoice it didn't pass right no I don't think it did okay the bill for just weener law was I I I think yeah that bill particularly I'm trying to do the math in my head I'm sorry um that yeah I think it means CSX yeah yeah but everything else passes all right that that was rude no I said it was sing can we move on to the next order of business am I missing something uh introduction of ordinances we have two this evening ordinance number 42024 amending Section 8 of chapter 33 entitled Fe schedule and escro Trust deposits of the township code for the township act by detailing the fee schedule and payment Provisions applicable to applications for development we have ordinance number 5 d224 authorizing and encouraging electric vehicle Supply and service equipment and make ready parking spaces I make a motion to approve second coun yes boun yes yes yes yes yes we'll see to adjourn oh wait Scott did you say something Doug the uh the first one is going to need to go to the planning board first before we get it back just because it's developmental regulation but then the other one yes right yeah well well I guess maybe depending on what the planning board does so one more time I move to adjourn all those in favor please say I hi thank you everyone for joining us tonight in person and on Zoom we hope you have a