[Music] [Music] good evening at this time I will call this meeting to order Clerk of the board please call the role commissioner Baker present commissioner bodc here commissioner delis for president commissioner granados here commissioner Kowalski here commissioner Mirabella commissioner Williams here Vice chairwoman Leon here and chairwoman palmary mudad here chair let the record reflect you have eight Commissioners present for this evening's agenda setting session thank you uh Clerk of the board please lead us in the prayer and the salute to the flag humbly we ask God The Giver of peace and the lover of Charity to give the entire family of Nations true agreement with his will and to Grant the light of his Spirit on all who work for justice and peace amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Clerk of the board please read the statement of compliance with the open public meetings act the chair wishes to announce that pursuant to the requirements of the New Jersey statutes annotated title 10 chapter 4 section 10 of the open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting of the board of County commissioners of the county of Union has been given by mailing the annual meeting schedule for the year 2024 along with periodic changes necessitated by circumstance to the newspapers circulating within the county of Union who are designated to receive such notice and by posting the annual meeting schedule for the year 2024 in the administration building and further by following the annual me the annual meeting schedule for the year 2024 with the office of the county clerk thank you good evening everyone tonight the Union County Board of County Commissioners are so proud to honor a true hero with in our community Sergeant Jorge Vasquez of the Union County Sheriff's Office we are presenting this resolution to commend Sergeant Vasquez for his extraordinary actions on May 14th 2024 in sville New Jersey on that day sergeant Vasquez demonstrated quick thinking and remarkable Courage by Saving eight children and a bus driver from a bus that had started smoking and quickly became engulfed in flames his prompt and selfless actions ensured that all passengers were safely escorted off the vehicle moments before it was completely consumed by fire Sergeant vasco's heroism on that day is a testament to his lifelong dedication to Public Service after graduating from Elizabeth High School he served honorably in the United States Navy achieving the rank of operations specialist second class petty officer and participating in operation enduring freedom since he has since continued to serve our community with distinction in various roles within the Sheriff's Office to further illustrate the impact of Sergeant vasquez's bravery we would like to share a clip of the news coverage from that day so please direct yourselves to um your attention to the screens SCH children narly Escape as their school bus goes up in Flames news2 New Jersey Naomi is in Sarahville with this story tell us more Naomi good evening rockan tonight all that's left behind from that bus fire is this soot on the ground you can see a little bit of soot out there you see a little bit of uh the debris Left Behind from that foam parents uh whose kids were getting off the bus telling us that there were about eight kids on that bus uh that they got off just moments before the bus burst into flames all of a sudden I heard a loud boom and it shook the whole house this video was sent to news12 New Jersey by 10-year-old Bryce SS just after 4:00 this afternoon of a school bus in the middle of Lewis Street fully engulfed in flames we saw smoke in air we decided to drive turds to smoke and I real then I realized there was a school bus on fire I had to make sure no one was injured but just moments before Jorge vasquez's 8-year-old son Ethan had just gotten off the bus and that's when he noticed smoke coming from the front of the vehicle I quickly noticed that the smoke gradually got worse from like white smoke to uh dark black smoke Mr Vasquez then alerted the bus driver and the bus a and they quickly evacuated the remaining kids to the vasquez's backyard I was able to create a safe distance from them um by putting them in the backyard one of my friends were so scared that they had to like were just crying and according to the superintendent of sville public schools parents were notified immediately and a replacement bus was on the scen within minutes Roan truly scary moments for those youngers now according to the fire chief this was a newer bus that likely had lithium ion batteries powering certain accessories on the bus and that's why they used that foam instead of using water to Snuff out those Flames now the cause of this fire still on Investigation however officials are leaning to some possible engine failure and this fire continues to be investigated in sville tonight Naomi news2 New Jersey rxan I'll set it back inside you Naomi young brace there providing some critical uh video uh evidence for us uh really incredible we're so glad everyone's okay thank you for that report Naomi at this time I would like to call upon uh my commissioner colleague uh commissioner Baker as well as as well as Sheriff P Corelli and under Sheriff Manata uh to please come forward to present our resolution absolutely and yes please bring the kids up with you uh I want to thank the commissioner board we don't usually get accolades but but bad news from the news so we appreciate you having our officer here uh this is what the men and women do in the sheriff's office for Union County as well as off duty so we appreciate your actions and uh job well done sir thank you sir thank you commissioner Baker well a lot has been said already by the chairman of the board here but I do want to thank the officer for his is Valor and quick thinking and and preventing a a tragic situation from becoming more from becoming worse so I think it's a reflection on the the the the training received by the sheriff's officers and um and his uh excuse me his colleagues and um it you know this is what you expect from the Sheriff's Office this is what we expect and I want to thank you personally uh for your action on that day thank you very much would you guys like to introduce yourselves no you looked amazing on TV you did a great job what about your name my name is Michaela Michaela so nice to meet you thank you so much for being here and again Sergeant thank you so much for what you do on a daily basis at work and as uh Sheriff Corelli said even when you're off duty so thank you so so much we have a um Fred of your resolution and I won read it out loud but again it's just thanking you and highlighting the the service that you provided to our our residents so thank actually not our residents but New Jersey residents so thank you so much all right a picture one two thank you [Applause] okay I'm going to stay over here and call my commissioner colleag Sergio gados to join me in front uh every year we like to highlight um that National Gun Violence awareness day is June 7th and gun violence awareness weekend is June 8th through 9th um and tonight we are recognizing and providing a resolution for Moms Demand Action for gun sense in America um this is the 10th Annual gun violence awareness day uh that we are highlighting and the work that this organization oh Vita how are you um the work that Mom's demand action does uh to ensure that we are doing our best to make um gun laws in our country in our state um gun their Common Sense gun laws that we are trying to roll out because the most important thing is keeping our children our colleagues our friends safe so we are so fortunate to have you here today I'm going to turn it over to commissioner granados for a minute and then we'll call you forward just want to once again thank moms of Man action I know we've worked already together alongside with our County for over five six years easily worked on different initiatives when it came to the Mayors working along outside our communities making sure they sign those proclamations making sure that we continue need to fight like the chairwoman said before for common gunsense laws we know that roughly 18,000 people die per year from gun hom homicides and it's because of the work that you guys are doing are making sure that we're lowering those numbers and also providing common gunsense laws so thank you for that oh chairwoman just uh remembered me too even our behind us we have Deputy County Manager wearing orange and uh forgot again this year two years but for National Gun Violence awareness day we're going to be having our Union County Courthouse lit Orange in recognition for Union County moms a man action so we thank you once [Applause] again would you like to say a few words before we take a picture this is our resolution of course we won't read it out loud you know but um but again it just recognized um the efforts that you make on a daily basis to keep our community safe I would love it yes great thank you very much uh to the Union County Board of Commissioners for commemorating the 10th Annual National Gun Violence awareness day and wear orange weekend which will be um June 7th through 9th wear orange started in 2015 um the commemoration has become an annual event during which communities Nationwide unate to prevent gun violence today um wear orange was started by a group of uh teenagers to honor their friend hadia Pendleton who was shot and killed shortly after she was part of President Obama's second inauguration uh parade and we know that every day Across the Nation 120 uh people Americans and over 200 are either killed and wounded each day as a result of gun violence so across Union County um municipalities and individuals are supporting this cause by wearing orange on June 7th lighting up public spaces and taking action so the most sobering statistic I can uh give you is that now in our country guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US that's not acceptable it's not a uh this is a man-made problem it's not a natural disaster and our children shouldn't be bearing the brunt of it so we want to as um commissioner said there are straightforward and Common Sense solutions that if implemented will make us safer particularly one thing we can all agree on is we want to keep our children safe and we can take simple steps to make sure that kids are don't have access to guns these actions will make our children safer each day and we owe it to our children in our community so again thank you for commemorating National Gun Violence awareness day and we're orange weekend we appreciate your support I just want to say thank you for always saying yes and it has been a long partnership and the longest probably since we started so thank you very much for everything you do [Applause] [Music] son and my son are are good friends okay we will adopt the communications during tonight's regular meeting at this time I will first call upon Union County Sheriff quelli to present his resolution office has one resolution on the agenda tonight for your consideration I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you I would now like to call Loris scari uh from the Department of administrative Services good evening the Department administrative Services has four resolutions on the agenda happy to answer any questions thank you from the Department of Economic Development Amy Wagner Deputy County Manager good evening the Department of Economic Development has two resolutions for your consideration and I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you oh yes I'm sorry yes sorry commissioner Baker I'm sorry about that a little slow on the draw but okay um just uh for information would you um mind expanding on um resolution number two relative to the Consolidated action plan and what that means absolutely so we're we're required to uh develop and adopt a Consolidated action plan every year if we change any of the funding that's indicated in that plan which is what we're doing by this resolution we have to amend the plan we had a request for contingency funds to complete a project in planfield and so then we amend the plan to add those additional funds into the plan thank you thank you department of engineering Public Works and Facilities Management Joe P acting director good evening the department of engineering Public Works and Facilities has 10 resolutions be happy to try answer any questions you may have thank you from the Department of Finance director BB Taylor good evening chairwoman Paul Mary mooded and members of the board of County Commissioners the Department of Finance has 14 resolutions for your consideration this evening and I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you from the Department of Human Services director Debian Anderson good evening chairwoman and members of the board the Department of Human Services has two resolutions and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have commissioner granados thank you chair uh director for number one can you elaborate on the program please um sure through you chairwoman this program is for um a summer youth enhancement program and um so what we do with restore Ministries we help 10 youth pre summer jobs and do a lot of wraparound Services we partner with the Elizabeth Presbyterian Church where those kids are um it's one of our most vulnerable census track in um Union County so it gives the kids the stability in the summer program and then get them working and then eventually get in into training in with the American job center program thank you thank you chair thank you thank you from the Department of P of Parks and Recreation director Victoria Durban Drake good evening chair and Commissioners the department has four items on the agenda and I would be happy to attempt to answer any questions you might have sorry yeah commissioner granados just if you can elaborate on number one I know that's one of the chairs initiatives that she's been working on for the summer time if you can just elaborate on that please director yes I'd be happy to um working with the um the Gateway Family why we're working on your initiative to start swim lessons we actually piloted this last year and it was very well received um we are offering swim lessons to children ages 3 to 5 and 6 to 12 and also new this year your initiative is um senior citizens and I have to tell you we have 66 participants in this program and almost immediately when we put this out to the general public it was filled so the need is is there and the um we are eager to begin it will take place in the raway outdoor pool and it will be um seven or eight weeks depending on the the class thank you director and your team for implementation and thank you chair for coming up with this great initiative thank you very exciting thank you from the office of the County Council County Council Bruce Bergen thank you chair County Council has a single resolution I'll be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you from the office of the County Manager County Manager Ed opman thank you chair I have one item on tonight's agenda and it also happens to be one of your uh initiatives and I'll be happy to answer any questions um County manager if you can just elaborate on it please would appreciate it sure commissioner this is a tutoring program to um it's a platform that's offering tutoring to students in fifth to e8th grade to migrate the loss of Ed tion that happened during Co we found a lot of our students are behind so this is going to provide uh job opportunities for our area uh kids who are in high school and college to um help our younger kids along and catch up sounds like an amazing initiative thank you you're welcome sh thank you yes and we definitely um as we've discussed many times we know that there was a loss of of time in school for kids even if they were doing it virtually um so this does provide them with an opportunity to uh get up to speed and as the county manager said uh provide some opportunities for our youth as older youth to um to have some job opportunities so it's very exciting thank you County Manager okay there are two business resolutions from the board do any Commissioners have any questions regarding these resolutions okay all laudatory resolutions and resolutions of condolence are from the entire board are are there any comments from my colleagues okay may I have a motion to adjourn so Mo second um a motion was made by commissioner Kowalski seconded by commissioner bodak uh Clerk of the board can you please call the role commissioner Baker I commissioner bodek I I commissioner delis for I commissioner granados I commissioner Kowalski yes commissioner Williams I Vice chairwoman Leon I chairwoman pal Mar mudad I chair you have uh eight votes uh in the affirmative for the enjoyment thank you [Music] [Music]