evening I callor of this regular month regular meeting of the to council today is Monday February 5th 2024 and it is 7 o'clock p.m. Madam clerk would you please read the open public meetings act compliance statement the notice requirement the open the public meetings act has been satisfied with respect to this meeting of the township Council the meeting time and date were included in the public meeting notice along with the public internet link and telephone call in information said notice and meeting agenda was posted in the municipal building and sent to the official newspaper of the township the ver Z of times and the Star Ledger at least 48 Hours preceding the St time of this meeting agenda and handouts can be viewed online at www.on nj.org Council meetings the public comment period will be held in the order to listed on the meeting agenda and instructions on how to comment will be provided at the appropriate time would you please call the all H here counc McGrath here Council Roman here Deputy Mayor maoy here mayor tamboro here mayor also pres Township manager Joe de Aro Deputy Township manager Kevin O Sullivan C attorney briany myself mpal clerk Jennifer Kier cler stand of the United States the for it stands one nation under God IND and Justice strong first off is our mayor's report this evening um want to touch on a few things first is I wanted to thank the legislative district 40 members Senator Cado assembly baras assembly to Phillips and their Chiefs of Staff for joining uh us on Friday for a tour of our Public Safety infrastructure here that as we know is in need of urgent um replacement and upgrading and uh I thank councilman Roman uh our manager and Deputy manager as well as the department Chiefs to terya architect Mr MSO um and our PI um Miss northri for being there as well I didn't miss anybody just no thank you um it was really a great discussion um they were very engaged and asking phenomenal questions and I thank councilman Roman for jumping in with his wealth of uh historical knowledge as well um and I'm looking forward to the continued partnership there um next I had the the privilege of attending our Lunar New Year celebration at uh over the weekend it was really extraordin AR um it gets better every year it it's just I was great the first year I went but they just keep on doing themselves um so I wanted to thank our Mandarin teachers in the school system Mrs ho Mrs shin and Mrs Yang for their active participation as well as the MC for the evening which was our very own Miss North up RP we did a FAL job as the MC the MC the coordinator of many things and the DJ um all at the same time so she uh uh she certainly was incredibly helpful there and was a great presence um and thank you to all of the students who participated faculty um and uh thank you to the board of ed for hosting their facility this year the uh the bleacher um capacity is 450 and we were well over the bleachers so it was wonderful to see that many folks there um I attended the mayor's monthly call last week and Mr crae is not here so I will share some great news that came out of that um the county has put out to bid um upgrading Tennis Courts at the um County Park to include pickle ball that is very exciting um the one thing I did bring up was a request due to the proximity of the neighborhood for the county to consider having a um a time that pickle ball is permitted and not permitted and the county executive was amendable to that as well just because of the proximity to Mana road so that's pretty exciting uh next Monday week from today we'll be having a special meeting to discuss the budget the department heads will be coming in almost all of them be coming in to talk about their operating budgets as well as their Capital needs so it is a don't miss meeting and the rest of the budget will discuss on the 26th uh regular meeting so it should be good and finally uh February is Black History Month and we are honored tonight to be joined by Bill Brown a distinguished voner resident former chair member of the planning board um an outstanding architect as well who's come in to help and Bill is in his spare time is the second vice president of the NAACP of the oranges and Maplewood thank you mayor danber and council members for this opportunity to come before you this evening uh just want to share a couple highlights um I can said I'm the second vice president the actual chair and the political action layers on um for Ron roners in our Catman area and as a Lon would like to strengthen our relationship with you all and uh collaborate with each other on Mutual uh items of interest uh I'll periodically visit you know the council meetings uh and share with you any updates or uh initiative that we are trying to accomplish and we'll um like to do the same with you so uh I will also appreciate the opportunity that you have given us uh in celebrating the juneth uh activity so that's we continue um you like to invite you or any Resident to our freedom fund Galla which will be held on April 13th at 6: pm at the Cedar Hill uh Country Club in Livingston our keynote speaker will be uh Tatia Maz Russell Chief Financial Officer of the major league baseball players Association and I will email the flyer to miss Kier I also um as mentioned I would be speaking at the on February 17th at the brona public library so I've been invited to join Black History Month to uh participate in that so talk about my life in my career so I I really appreciate that opportunity so I just want to thank you for this time and we looking forward to partnering with you in the future any questions Mr Brown um Council thank you um Mr Brown we're so excited that you're here and thank you so much I'm really looking forward to our first for you to be our first speaker for our first Black History Month event and I really enjoyed meeting you and your peers at our juneth celebration and I did join the double uh NAACP and get your emails and really appreciate that information that put out so I look forward to that continued partnership what come to the gall is going to be exciting so um we reaching now we have 11 municipalities within our in our our Branch so uh we're reaching out um to get everyone's participation and help where we can that's wonderful well thank you so much I look forward to when you're speaking much okay thank you that concludes the mayor's report this evening Mr Deco you're up for what might be a bit of a long one tonight thank you mayor um shorton will be Mr Neil has a conf tonight so will not be addressing Us in the zoom meeting and um col L also has a conflict tonight even though it with that hearing uh ever field there was a meeting in the field with SH tree commission members and uh commission M will give a full update on that we submitted a report already um and that's item number two on my agenda friends of bar evening be here the there is continued progress with the uh agreements and discussions with fire prevention with C of Grove mayor's already addressed the public safety complex the Recreation Commission David is out sick tonight he's guess way he's not here um and they'll be focusing on the field usage report uh we did meet with the Chamber of Commerce relative to the parking uh Na that was a very successful meeting and Steve will go over the highlights of that meeting um midor elections will be discussed I'm sure during the budget process that is a topic that will need to be addressed the traffic light on pton and clar which is a private project is moving from cdbg projects are in process the new applications uh West SX managers that's a continuing effort between coordination of the Essex West Essex town managers and those will be continuing and uh I have started the reviews for your interlocal service agreements on health um and available options for us to look at uh in addition to our current vendor the contract uh for services between the township and for of bed uh it's in the hand the draft is in the hands of town attorney who is working on that draft will go to rep B we should have that before the end of the month so they can start reviewing it and we can continue with that tonight we'll be addressing the full recommendations from the recreation advisory subcommittee in commmittee and then in the township recommendations and the permits Pacman are in process with the DP and now I'll turn it over to Kevin Manan yes I will BL over the first two item items on my report the water U sewer rate study in the wastewater treatment plant will come full circle and we'll have a more thorough presentation on those shortly uh the next item on my report is regarding residential uh escro fees uh and there's been a lot of progress in the construction Department we'll have a a more thorough presentation at another another evening regarding recommendations regarding zoning fees for the construction Department regarding Lind drive and Fairview Avenue Wells uh we did have a pre-construction meeting for the Lin Drive project on January 30th additionally we're working with ibank to move forward with the short-term construction loan which should be closing in the next few weeks uh we're working through paperwork submittal with the contractor and Jacobs uh the uh construction and mobilization should be starting within the next month or so there will be uh some staging area in that parking area uh behind the Community Center Annex uh and construction is anticipated to be complete later this fall uh similarly the Fairview Avenue well project is advancing uh we are working with Boswell on advancing the diversion application for Green Acres to resolve the Green Acres encroachment matter uh that will require some uh public signage at the uh at the well and additional public hearings for that diversion process um with that moving forward uh hopefully later in February and March we'll also be hoping to get authorization to advertise for the bids in March and April and that should be uh lining up for a construction in U later this summer and it'll be a 15-month construction completing sometime mid to latter part of next year ke on tail end that mayor we also have from the njd an administrative consent order which we need to move a resolution it's off the business agenda if you would to regular agenda which keep us on a timetable uh that we be notice in the 14 day which links to the two Wells we'll do that in this thank you um moving on uh kind of wrapping up all those updates on water sewer and drinking well projects uh we will be working with our public information officer this month to get a public information piece out to the public so they can understand all the efforts and uh upgrades that are going to be going into the infrastructure sure uh we also uh kind of focusing more on the storm water element we have the storm water Control Ordinance which is scheduled for introduction this evening it was discussed at the last meeting after introduction tonight we will send it to the planning board for consistency review and look to have a second hearing and public adoption uh Public public hearing and adoption on the March 11th meeting uh that will then allow us to shift focus on the storm water side and up at some of the other planning elements that are necessary for our Municipal storm water uh permit such as updates to our pollution prevention plan and uh implementation and Adoption of a municipal storm water management plan uh we're also working with the D's blue Acres office and their office of climate resiliency we've had some information that we received from Blue Acres were were working with their office to disseminate that information to the public making everyone aware of some public information sessions that they have coming up to get information and to answer questions that residents may have regarding the program similarly the office of climate resiliency has been very uh very responsive to our office in trying to identify and highlight items of our master plan that might be uh a good partnership with the state so we're continuing those discussions uh the town manager did did mention the uh the item on the parking meter rates we followed up the uh the discussion we had at the last mayor and council meeting regarding recommendations for uh increasing parking rates and uh reinvestments in the uh infrastructure for the downtown area related to parking meter replacement and other types of projects we did follow that up with uh a meeting with the Verona Chamber of Commerce uh deputy mayor was there with us and we did have a good conversation it was very effective and and I think it was received well the chamber supported the recommendations in the report the uh the general feedback was that they understood and appreciated that there was a need to increase Revenue that so that it could be reinvested in the infrastructure needs that are uh prevalent um the additional recommendations were uh also to in uh to include collection of parking rates on Saturdays and to to more efficiently and effectively um collect the revenues instead of uh adopting a 75 cents per hour rate they were recommending 25 cents per 20 minutes to break it off in smaller increments uh we'll fold all those recommendations into a final version of the ordinance so can be introduced that uh an upcoming meeting uh we've been continuing discussions on a number of uh Energy Efficiency types of projects we're continuing to work with the BPU on an application for local government energy audit they did get back to us on our application we owe them a response at this point uh we are also continuing to work with the consultant on potential solar projects for municipal properties and Municipal uh facilities we'll continue those discussions we have an upcoming um phone call with with that consultant Thursday afternoon uh we are also working with our grant writer to submit an application for the community energy planning grant program uh they will be working on that application in the coming weeks and we are also coordinating with that uh with that applicant about the potential for a combined heat and power feasibility study that as it may relate to the wastewater treatment facility that particular program does not have a due date on their Grant applications until July so as we're discussing the rate study tonight and as we are discussing some of the long-term recommendations that will come from Boswell's wastewater treatment assessment uh that potential Grant application may fit in well with some of the recommendations that are coming from those so we're going to hold back on submitting that application for the time being and wait for those recommendations from both raid study and the wastewater treatment assessment regarding the community center playground and Ada restroom uh we we did uh receive the $200,000 reprogramming Grant and there is a second hearing and adoption for the supplemental bond for that project SCH for this evening uh this is to follow up on the grant award that was uh that was approved by the council at a prior meeting the again the bond ordinance is scheduled for later this evening and is just a further advance and to incorporate that additional grant money that was received from the county and to uh set up funding for the place structure equipment uh once we have this adopted we will also be scheduling construction meeting with that contractor later this evening uh later this month I'm sorry we have a number of road projects that we're continuing to work through there's a road assessment that Boswell is working on uh we are working with um Boswell to to begin design and planning for lenden Avenue that was the most recent Grant application uh in coordination with that upcoming Road Project there uh there is a uh recommendation from the Verona traffic and safe committee to file a Grant application for complete streets technical assistance to to study that area and determine if additional pedestrian safety plans can and should be incorporated into the repaving plans that Grant application requires a resolution of support from the a council and it will be placed on the next um the February 26 meeting there's a number of other projects regarding Douglas Place we'll be pting that one out to bid shortly balson Whitney windir uh we had a preconstruction meeting with the contractor last week uh we will be looking to firm up their construction schedule and 30 days prior to that we will be having public Outreach meetings with uh with the neighborhood and we'll be sending out letters and mailers to the residents in that neighborhood then lastly is the Derwent Avenue project the the sewer repairs that we've talked about a couple times they have been delayed um result of a lot of different weather conditions it's been bridg cold snow everything you could imagine uh we are looking to try to get the contractor in there to finish that up so we can get the paving on schedule for early spring uh the town manager also mentioned the the project at ett field we did have a successful meetings with both the shade Tre commission and environmental commission members from both uh both commissions uh there was a number of discussions about limiting the projects and addressing some of their direct concerns and comments uh it it did result in uh a much greater level of support from both of those commission committees on the direction where those that project is going we're looking to have another field meeting with bbsl in the coming weeks at which point we'll try to continue to incorporate all the comments we're receiving on that project um that project as everyone is aware we've submitted a number of different Grant applications which are still pending at this point we've submitted for cdbg for 8 components we've submitted to Green Acres for the playground and other uh related components to the playground and we will be submitting the local Recreation Improvement grant for uh for elements of that project as well so as we continue to fine-tune design we will also wait to hear back on a number of these grants and potential uh sponsorships or donations to help support that project and then we'll have to come up with a final consensus on the final scope and and uh bonding uh amount for that project there's a number of other uh grants that we've been working with our grant writer to submit uh they're listed in my report there's additional Ada components for the M from the mayak recommendations there's American Rescue fire uh American Rescue plan firefighters assistance for additional turnout gear uh there's a spot and Lantern flight treatment there's uh prior versions of the local Recreation Improvement Grant uh we're working with the efficiency achievement program for shared service implementation and a few of the other items that I discussed earlier we'll have a final 2023 end of year summary from millenum to distribute to the council so you can see the full list of all the grants they worked on with us over the past year we should be having that uh that board the next meeting thank you mran any questions for the deputy manager councilwoman um thank thank you um for the public information officer talking about the wells I mean I just want to add that I think a lot of residents feel that the water is not safe to drink I mean fundamentally it will take time to rebuild that trust and I'm really looking forward to the administration really working on that and this is just the first step of a very long road to get people back um a lot of people are drinking bottled water of course there have been recent Health reports that have come out recently that there are microplastics in bottled water so again this is an opportunity to put that Foundation of trust back on what the future is going to look like when we get these Wells back online and to reiterate the current status of the drinking water that we're getting from St Valley so just I would keep that in mind because certainly it is top of Mind especially for um parents in this town that they do not feel it their their faith and the safety of drinking water is really shattered we'll make sure to to try to incorporate all of that to Garner additional trust and support from the community I think it is important to not that every notice we've sent about the water has made it very clear it be water safe it's usually the first or second line in our notices so far but we certainly can remind people more right yeah there's a difficulty the DP is very very specific about putting certain language that sometimes scares the general public so balancing that with this reach is is important and Mr G would you like to do the hearing on contest thank you mayor um Council Roman has offered to provide a preface for this want to and I inclin to defer to the council um so what we have before us uh we have cable television franchise agreements which are essentially an agreement between the municipality and cable television operators which are regulated Public Utilities um that are bound to operate in the public interest essentially um and these franchise agreements come up for periodic renewal and the municipality on renewal of these essentially uh reviews the cable operators compliance with the franchise agreement uh in the past uh can review certain things such as the quality level of its service that it provides whether there are citizen complaints uh outages um other you know technical failures in the cable uh system or whether customers have problems in dealing with the cable company for example if they never answer the phone or you can't get a service technician out and would receive those complaints those can be discussed during the course of this hearing there is rate regulation of these but it mostly takes place at the state level so that is not as to my understanding a significant part of the local responsibility in terms of franchise renewal um one of the other elements is the public educational and government channels which is vtv um we can talk about whether or not they meet our needs uh related to that um and then there are some general catch all uh about whether or not the cable operator is meeting the needs of the community as a whole so there is a very large guidance document to this from the New Jersey State Office of of cable television any is more curious about it but that's kind of the general out and we can take public comment essentially on the performance of the cable operator and this is only relevant to the Comcast system not Verizon files which is a separate franchise thank you Council thank you Council Madam ATT Clark yes um the Comcast representative could not be here tonight but has emailed me um some bullet points and a statement before we open the public hearing rece thank you um so the application was filed by comcan with the township on August 27 2023 on December 27 2023 um notification of the application and a public hearing uh was filed uh listing February 5th as the public hearing date um the town has 30 days from tonight which is flexible to issue consent ordinance or resolution of denial um regarding the simp simply the right of way it's not a contract that obligates the town to do anything except run the plant along the municipalities right away um and the governing body should judge the application based on the cable operator substantially comply complying with the material terms of the existent franchise agreement as the quality of the operator service including signal quality been reasonable does the operator have the financial and legal and Technical ability to provide ride Services um and there are two areas that as councilman stated that the Govern body um has little um grounds to consider what may discuss and those are the rates programming and that's said nothing public and the governing body from commenting on either but the commentary can't be factor into the municipality's final decision um the statement from the director of government and atory Affairs for Compass Freedom re region systems in northern New Jersey statement is we are in the final stages of the cable television franchise renewal process which is governed by both federal and state statutes and regulations Compass began the renewal process and about on or about August 25th 2021 by sending a letter to the buau indicating Our intention to seek renewal over a non-inclusive franchise under section 626a of the cable communic ation Policy Act of 1984 and 1996 following the state's timeline C Tom cast follow an application or renewal of Municipal consent on or about August 27th 2023 and that application has been available for public inspection in the clerk's office tonight's hearing is on that application no action of the council is required this evening however tonight's hearing is an opportunity to hear from both the governing body and the public you this time I'll open the public hearing on the contast franchise renewal M would you please read the public participation anyone from the public wishing to speak on this matter please raise your hand by pressing the raise hand button on your monitor and if you're dialing in by phone press star n if you are attending in person please raise your hand once you're recognized please clearly state only your name and counil of residents for the record you're not qualified to provide your street address however if you do please note that the meetings will be posted on the Township's YouTube channel and addresses will not be rejected for any purpose you'll have four minutes to address the council there can be no cross dialogue during these public hearings and after everyone wishing to speak has been heard the council and or Administration May address your comments and our questions thank you m comment is open on the cable television e only see no public comment I am going to close the public hearing on the C television uh franchise renewal does the council have any comments um one of the things I'll not is that it does appear that in the um first section of this application it looks like they submitted to us a copy of the city of summit's uh cable system renewal uh they updated in some areas related to the township of Verona but they did miss a number of these um just give an example on page 11 where they talk about public educational and government programming it's all relevant to the city of summit um the very first line of this is for the city of summit so I might ask that they amend their application uh before us they go through that section and uh and update it they did update a couple of things about Township of ver but it doesn't care if they missed a number of them um the other thing that we probably should talk about is um one of the opportunities we have uh in negotiating franchise agreement with the uh cable system is that for the public education and government Channel which is essentially a vtv um we do have the opportunity to request that they support our operation uh with equipment with uh other certain things we can make a lot of different arguments about our Peg operations for example we could claim that there isn't enough Channel space that you might need two vtvs just to Give an example but we could say for example if it's a standard def channel should they be offering us a highdefinition channel um should they provide equipment to us they do have the right um to recover any of these costs in the regulatory franchise fee that M's cable bills so you can't ask for the world but uh that's something that we might want to discuss uh particular with Mr lbo get an opinion uh from him whether or not that's a worthwhile Avenue for us to uh request that they essentially grant for the upgrade of the production systems here some other opportunity like that Madam can you communicate with them that they need to submiss application that is forona absolutely I'll do that thank you so much Council uh thank you um I agree with councilman Roman I went to a seminar at the league on these types of agreements and there's a lot of opportunity in here and we desperately need AB help as anyone who watches the quality of our meeting videos can attest to and also BTV was down for quite some time um also in other communities the cable operators have run you know cable to certain key sites so that live video streams can occur and we have a beautiful Square out here where we do concerts and in other communities they broadcast those on their Cable Systems um so I'm really interested in Colonel lup's comments and feedback on not just this but also when the Horizon agreement is up as well um I'm not sure what the schedule is on that but I think it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't think a little bit more broadly about brona's best interest with this renewal so thank you thank you and I agree with those comments and I look forward to caral luping us as expertise in that are all right uh Mr diarco next up would be new strategy as a point of order uh what should we do to dispose of this hearing actually should we table it at this point in time for further discuss we have to take any action tonight at all so we had the public hearing um we wouldn't we don't have a resolution before us on this so I think at this point we've directed The Township Clerk to secure a new agreement and then we are waiting on a corrected agreement okay it that way then we'll have another meeting what what's the timeline again on this that we have to said 30 days it said 30 days but um it can be flexible according to the evening okay 26 is pretty packed agenda so perhaps if we can while we're reaching out and asking for a corrected version we might ask them to give us the extension until the May sorry the March 11 meeting yes TCH c as well T edification due to our budget process keep an otherwise white agenda for but being that they sent us stock with errors in it sure they hey um you strategies manager yes thank you Mr mayor council uh my name is Eric kokia I'm a partner at New Gen strategies and solutions uh out of Annapolis Maryland uh it's my pleasure to be here with you today to talk about our water and sewer rate study that we completed for the township uh I have a brief presentation here we've also submitted to uh a detailed report U that has a lot of narrative and a lot of numbers in it uh I appreciate this opportunity to go through this this presentation and answer any of your questions tonight uh what I'll talk about through these slides is just a brief introduction of the purpose of the study uh and the process we go through when we look at on Water and Sewer rates um some of the data we relied upon and the estimations and assumptions we made to forecast the the condition of your uh your financial condition of your two utilities your water and sewer utilities we'll talk about a specific five-year cost and rate forecast based on our recommendations and of course what everybody cares about is customer bills how do our recommendations impact the bills of your typical customers we'll talk a little bit about um a recommendation related to Wastewater sear charges we might have got a little overboard with the nuclear waste sign there but we'll talk about that very briefly as an option uh based on one our recommendations and then uh of course all Havey be happy to answer any questions uh to to say specifically the the purpose of our study is to uh develop uh user rates that are um sustainable both oper operationally and financially for your two systems we want to make sure that we are um developing rates to support them now and in the future we have a couple guiding principles that that inform our decision- making throughout this process um first and foremost the the systems are financially self-supporting they do not rely on any tax revenue or any other revenue generated by the township the the user rates and the income into the fund is what supports the cost of the fund um you need to sure that you are sufficiently reinvesting into your assets you have a lot of buried assets and and and and fixed assets that you rely on to produce clean water for your citizens uh and your customers and to treat waste water uh to be you know able to be put back into the environment so we want to ensure that you're investing in those assets uh financially you need to maintain sufficient reserves so you don't cut it to the Bone every year and not invest you know we can cut your budgets and and all that but then that won't satisfy the first criteria so we uh have a recommendation here about um a minimum recommended reserve for the water and sewer fund and the last one which which seems to be in competition with these is that we want to keep your rates as low as possible over time and that means constantly reinvesting in your assets so that you don't defer maintenance so long that things start breaking that you have to make major reinvestments and your and and your rates would be even higher than they would have been we have two industry manuals that I'm showing here by IND associations that provide guidance on this process uh to summarize that we have sort of four steps to to the study the first is what we call the revenue requirements these are the costs of the system you're operating your day-to-day costs your Capital Investments both the existing debt that you're paying on investments you've made in the past and the Investments you need need to make today and in the future um for a 5 to 10 year period we combine those into what we call the revenue requirement we then look at your customer base how many customers are you serving how much water uh and Sewer Service are they using now and how is that going to change in the future we build that into a financial plan what revenues are you generating today what revenues can you be expected to generate in the future at your existing rates and what changes to those rates may need to be made in order to satisfy those criteria about financial and operational sustainability and finally we develop utility pricing those are the specific rates and fees that we are forecasting that if you apply those to your user base you will generate those our study Is Anchored In Your fiscal year 23 budget we made some uh estimations on on on future increases that budget but that is the the basis of our study we've also included a list of capital projects these are investments in your assets uh in this year in the next five to 10 years uh based on the information provided by your Consulting Engineers debt amateurz all the EX existing debt payable by the fund is included in our study um and we calculate some future debt based on uh Investments you'll make in future and again the fiscal year 23 customer base we we use that information to establish the Baseline for your users um going forward we have to make some assumptions about what future costs will be if I knew exactly what they would be I'd be in a different line of business but we have to estimate that your cost will likely increase not just uh day-to-day cost but the um cost of investing in your assets so we make those assumptions going forward to to develop a true cost of service I mentioned uh recommended minimum reserves we tie those recommendations to the day-to-day operating costs and capital cost of your system we say that at a minimum at the end of each fiscal year you should have 90 days about 25% of those cap those outlays each year in reserves at the end of each year and you'll see um some charts that reflect recation so using this process of developing the total cost of each system and the um customer base we've developed these two tables these are your Revenue requirements uh detailed by operating in capital expenses the first table on slide nine is your water system now a key component of this analysis is of course the improvements you're making on your G water supply Wells uh to treat uh P chemicals so they are currently down right now and you're purchasing all of your water at a cost greater than what it would cost you to produce it yourself you can see the decrease we've shown in operating cost in fiscal year 25 is the result of those Wells coming back online and you not having to purchase all that water anymore it's a significant decrease in cost however because of the improvements we have additional Debt Service uh to be financed to the New Jersey infrastructure bank so we've had to layer on that Debt Service payable by your water rates going forward all in all the cumulative impact over these five of all these impacts over the five years is about a 10% increase um on your total cost of service for the water system balancing the the savings from producing your own water and the and the Investments that you've had to make and in fact if you look at you know 10% over 5 years is actually very reasonable in terms of cost increases because of the savings of bringing your wells back online the next table is the same table for your sewer system you do have a combined fund but we look at the systems independently to make sure the rates are generated uh independently the sewer system includes the cost drivers on the Wastewater side or of course uh treatment plan improvements uh you have your Consulting Engineers here to talk about the the needs there uh both in the capital assets and the Staffing uh so we make some assumptions about adding additional staff uh to to appropriately account for those needs we also include um increasing in the amount of capital investment day-to-day you're making in your Wastewater collection system so the pipes underneath your ground we're increasing our Assumption of what you're going to fund to rehab and replace those pipes for the next five years so on the sewer side we're showing a a 60% increase in these these costs in total after offsetting uh you know non rate revenues uh over this fiveyear period so quite a significant increase given the assumptions of the additional investment combining those two expense forecasts uh into one chart is shown on slide 11 so the Stacked bars here again represent those components of the revenue requirement as they increasing the future that red line is the forecasted Revenue that you would generate on your under your existing rates so if you adopted no rate changes over this time period that red line is our calculation of what your revenues would be and clearly the expense bars sack up uh above the revenue line in these forecasts demonstrating a shortfall in cash flow in every year what that means in terms of fund balance is shown on the next slide on slide uh 12 that red line again these are on the same scale just to give you a sense of of your expenses versus your fund balance on the same scale the red line represents that minimum Reserve policy of 90 days of total expenses operating in capital that green bar that you see is our estimation of where your fund will end up at the end of fiscal year 23 and given the cash flow deficits that were forecasting uh at your existing rates this would be the situation if you did not change any of those rates the the the cash flow shortfalls uh surpass your your current fund balance and essentially exhaust it in this next fisal year given our discussion with staff and your Consulting Engineers and our forecast we develop the rate forecast shown on slide 13 this is our recommendation of what rates need to be within your existing structure um to account for the cost increases that we've shown so there's two components to our recommendation the first is to update your existing rates and that's shown on this slide your um rate structure includes a minimum quarterly fee if somebody doesn't use enough water there they pay a minimum every quarter but most of your water generate revenue is generated from your volumetric rate you currently have a $1 Capital search charge on that rate we're recommending you drop that search charge and we'll talk about how to collect that revenue on the next slide so ultimately our recommendation translates into about a 28% increase in your in your water rate for the next fiscal year and then 4% increases on that rate thereafter on the sewer side uh you have a fixed quarterly fee that applies per unit for all of your customers we're recommending that you increase that 6% in the next fiscal year and then about 4% thereafter it's it it's rounded to the dollar so essentially it's a 4% increase um in each of those years thereafter shown this fiveyear table the second component of our rate recommendation is a um fixed quarterly searge that would collect the Revenue that you would have to outlay for both the additional Capital uh meaning Debt Service um related to The Well improvements and the operating costs related to those improvements so so the additional day-to-day expenses having to do with the uh the filter media that you have to run and replace every so often we' built that into this search charge as well this is averaged over five years and we've developed two um Alternatives in in terms of how to Levy the SE charge on your customers one is to apply it um the same across your customer base regardless of what's called meter size the meter size of course is the the size of the connection to your system uh some most of your customers are small but you do have some larger meter sizes connected to your water system in the first case if you apply it across the board we're recommending a $21 per quarter surcharge in the case that you Levy this fee based on meter size we recommend that you that a vast majority of your customers you can see over 95% of your connections are at that 5/8 inch level those are your most of your residents and and uh commercial customers they would pay $18 per quarter but your larger meters would increment up based on the capacity so those larger meters um Can essentially pull more water at any given moment from your system the the what we call a capacity reservation of those meters is much higher and it's common in the industry to Levy these sort of fixed fees um based on the ratio of what those meters can pull relative to a small one right so your small meters that full last and can only take a certain amount of water per minute those large meters can take a much more larger volume so these fees are um according to those ratios uh you can see some of your larger meters would pay up to you know $400 or even $900 per quarter to generate the revenue the revenue generated by both of these fees is is approximately the same it's about $380,000 a year to account for those posos um increments on your operating and capital costs next chart shown here is the same as we the one we showed previously except there's an additional line that green line shows if you were to adopt the rates and either sech charge um showed on those previous slides this is the revenue that your customers would generate you can see now there is a phase in to that Revenue line being above the expenses and remaining above those expenses for the remaining years of this forecast so again that's if you adopt that approximately 28% increase in water rates 6% sewer and then 4% therea the next slide shows the fund balance under that recommended scenario in which your fund balance um Falls slightly uh in fiscal year 24 but maintains positive and then builds up over the next three to five years to meet and exceed that minimum recommendation so under these rates you would be generating cash flow in order to meet that minimum recommended Reserve over the 3 to 5e time perod finally based on our recommendations we developed the table shown on uh slide 14 I believe I can't tell 18 18 18 is it on 18 excuse me so this is under the scenario in which you adopt that flat um P search charge the one that applies to all customers um evenly again a vast majority of your residential commercial customers have 58 C meters and they use about 9,000 gallons of water a month and their excuse me quarterly Bill shown on that Top Line it would increase about 12% each year for the first two years and then about a little less than 4% thereafter again cumula over these fiveyear forecast the larger commercial customer would again pay a larger bill and their proportionate increase would be um a little bit higher based on 40,000 gallons of usage per quarter the next slide is what call in scenario two which is if you were to adopt the meter size based search charge the impact is a slight decrease in the um Bill increase for your vast majority of your customers the smaller residential and Commercial customers however you can see the large commercial customers with that larger meter and that larger surcharge this example customer um their bill would go up 31% Which is 23% higher than their bill would go up under the flat surch charge so this this is again generating the same Revenue but shifting that cost burden towards your lar larger meters uh the ones that you know Reserve essentially more capacity in your system again each one of these rate forecasts generate that green line that that generates the cash flow to to support the systems so those are the recommendations related to uh user rates the last thing I will talk about very briefly is a a Wastewater search charge so the background on um sech charges is that your treatment plant is designed uh to treat you know various um contaminants what are called contaminants you know clean water two of the most common ones that are attract are biochemical oxygen demand and suspended solids one's a relative measures of organic matter right stuff that that that needs to be treated and the other is of course solids that need to be filtered out so we can uh use industry standard approaches to develop what does it cost you to treat these two contaminants and we can calculate that on a dollar amount per year we can also measure how much of those come into your system right so we have a cost basis and we have essentially a a quantity over which we can spread that cost and on this slide here slide 22 is some of that data so we know how much you treat on an annual basis based on FIS year 23 data we calculate how much of these contaminants you treated and what the dollar amount per unit is a unit being a dollar per pound so for uh oranic matter it's about 75 cents per pound and for the the solid matter it's about 84 cents per pound again this is based on the data that came from your treatment plan so this is your average cost for those contaminants when we talk about a surcharge it's for customers that put essentially dirtier was water into your system than a typical domestic customer right so there are concentrations of these materials that are typical for a a domestic and Commercial customer and that's about 250 milligrams per liter right so if we say that's an average typical customer if you are higher than those concentrations it's common in the industry to surcharge those customers based on the average cost of treatment that we developed before so this is a sample of a customer who uses a lot of water is very water that they put into your system right they use 50,000 gallons a quarter and their concentrations are over double what a typical domestic um you know user would put into your system so using the cost basis that we developed that excess the difference between what they send you and what a typical customer does would be surcharged based on those rates and this sample customer's bill would be about $155 and $87 for those two contaminants so you don't currently have a Wastewater surcharge um implemented um you can see if you look back I'm going to go back one the actual concentration of your Wastewater is actually at or below the domestic limit so it's um you don't currently have any industrial type users that are putting in very dirty water into your system the reason we developed this was to sort of have it on the books uh in the case that you do identify a customer that provides that very dirty influent to your system you would be able to to um apply these SE charges and generate additional Revenue because it costs you that much more to treat their influence that's that's the principle behind this so with that um I'm happy to answer any questions any questions counil it's a it's a lot a lot a lot and and the reports even more so I apologize for that the report I I would like to credit you for the very well uh very followable and detailed appreciate it this Council reads everything that has been in front of us and it was nice to report that made some sense and brought I appreciate that thank you any question have a comment I don't have a question so others questions all right um then I will start with my comments um first of all I I really do want to compliment you on comprehensive study um I've seen the work that you've done for other municipalities in the state um and you know the engagement there has has been tremendous and this is also really quality work product for the Town of Verona so I really do thank you um I do believe this is the first rate study this Township has ever had for our utility rates um it's very informative um I hope it could be B publicly available um so that residents can understand the thoughtfulness with which we were roing rate making um I also want to acknowledge the fact that these are really big numbers um there's a lot of investment going on in infrastructure I think that you said it very well at the beginning of your presentation that part of this is the cost of inaction so for many many years um Verona wasn't investing in our infrastructure in a sustainable way and things have broken um and the problem with kicking the can down the road or burying your head in the sand or choose the you know analogy that you like is that ultimately if you don't pay now you're going to pay a whole lot more later and that is the exact experience that we are living through right now is that Investments weren't made in crucial life sustaining utilities which is clean water and as a result our residents have lost some confidence in our water system and we've had to spend a tremendous amount of money to bring our wells back online so with that in mind I do think it's really helpful to have this thoughtful analysis and to actually have the projections and not even just for the five years going into the 10 years I do think it would need to be updated just as our asset management plan is updated but the key is to have that sustainable approach to ratemaking and um I again I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that you put into your report because it's not just about paying for what we've already spent it's also planning for the future because one of the things that's been very clear as we've embarked on like for the last three years looking into our infrastructure is that the township has been very reactive um and not strategic so this gives us a blueprint to being strategic moving forward so while it is a shocking rate increase that's that's recommended for year one it does create a more sustainable um model for projected rate increases going forward into the future that are much more sustainable for our residents as well um and as youve made it made the point the vast majority of these connections are residential connections um we don't have large commercial and Industrial we do have some commercial but not the large commercial industrial that you've probably seen in some of your other municipalities with regard to your recommendations for the flat fees so scenario one versus scenario two um I did just want to make the statement I think that there is value to considering scenario 2 um because it does tie into a more I guess uh more traditional approach to rate making where it's the beneficiaries paying right so in this instance we've outlaid a tremendous amount of money to remediate our wells to make sure that we have clean Wells or clean water and we are providing that clean water if these are the meters that are pulling the most and have the most capacity they have the most benefit from the investment that we've done and so therefore they would be paying the greater amount the only comment that I would have on your presentation with regard to that is that you were identif in them as commercial accounts and while that may be accurate these aren't like businesses necessarily they are like large multif family like apartment developments um so they do have residential customers and and it's not like so it's not one business paying that amount right it would be perhaps submetered or in some way distributed among various customers um and I did just want to comment a little bit about one of the image that you had as part of your report where you compared the projected Verona rates to some of our surrounding communities um I just wanted you to confirm or could you confirm that is you're what you're doing is you're showing projected increases in Verona but the comparables that you gave are actually based on historic data and they're not moving correct so the chart you're referring to is the the regional Bill comparison towards the end of our report and you're right so um that chart shows the current rates for all those other municipalities that are yes based on historical data they probably haven't been updated uh in several years um but we are showing the rates we're recommending for you so those increase first of all that large first increase and the subsequent uh second increase in fiscal 25 so that is comparing you're right future you know escalated investment on your part or is it showing historical perhaps you know um muted uh investment on their part so it is reasonable to assume that in the future particularly in two years in the future all those other municipalities are going to have to increase their rates um it's it's I do this all over the country I do not have one client in the past three to four years that I have not recommended some sort of rate increase more um it's just a reality of operating uh utility nowadays so yes well and I think what you're seeing is greater environmental impacts on these Water Systems right like there's a mendous especially in this part of the world but like nationally the pfoa standards have resulted in a tremendous amount of water infrastructure investment yes it's pfoa it's blood lines it's for dioxin which on Long Island is a huge issue a lot of on Long Island so yes it's it's all of these um contaminants that that are need to be treated and and you're right a lot of communities people are very used to Water and Sewer utility service being a very small part of their of their daily you know expense um and it's just been building up a lot over the country so so you're right well thank you for those clarifying comments and again for the thoughtfulness that you put into this report I'm gonna do a couple questions council do you want to go next I'll go after you can go after um so obviously the the 28% is a big number in one year um especially with the not a lot of time for people me rights um looking at the data presented it would be clear that there would be a significant impact fun balance I'm poting our CFO as I say that because fund balance is her favorite word or phrase and um but I I think we also have to pay attention to the rate payer as well who for some when you're living a paycheck to paycheck or something like this this could be a significant um impact on one's finances so is there any history that you have for any municip you're aware of that um came with a creative solution to not necessarily raise 28% in the first year while being able to maintain the necessary funds to pay off not only the the cost of production but also um the debt that they're incurring so um affordability is is a nationwide issue uh we hear it all the time you know du tailing into the discussion we just had these costs are increasing Place affordability is an issue we have found that although there are some ways to implement affordability considerations within your rate structure it's probably not the best way to do it strictly from a municiple rate setting perspective um certainly you should be doing all you you can with other programs reaching out to your community and find where affordability is an issue and have other programs to support you people's uh spending U ility uh spending in for the utility bill however from a rate structure perspective any sort of decrease or discount we give either on a fixed or variable basis to one class of customers raises the cost for everybody else and it's particularly difficult from a utility bills perspective to identify who those customers are and what help they need so although we have seen some programs uh from a rate structure perspective to to have sort of a customer assistance charge that applies to everybody except those who qualify in their rat a little bit lower uh administering those types of rate structures gets complicated your your costs are are generally fixed um so it's it's important that you generate enough Revenue so we would recommend that you use other existing programs that may be there to to to help um support people who have an affordability with you because you're you're right that the cost increases are certainly there and one other question when you went through and um calculated the increasing cost for running the the Wastewater utility um and the um and then suggested the rates there wasn't necessarily correlation between the increase in expense and then the rate increase that you recommended could you explain so um in our report we we distinguish between the water system and the waste waterer system right so uh historically the Wastewater rates have been more financially sufficient for the Wastewater system um what's happening is we're closing that Gap right so even with that 60% rate incre or cost increase I showed and approximately cumulative probably less than 20% rate increase what you're doing is you're bringing that cash flow closer and closer to break even under what waste water side the large increase on the water side is because water has historically been under support underfunded by the current rates so that rate recommendation um appears sort of the reverse of the balance of the cost escalation but it's because your established starting point the Wastewater Wastewater revenues are generally supporting the Wastewater system um it is interesting when you compare our sewer rates to the larger conglomerates how much higher they are it's it's actually a marked difference between like valy storage commission and Stu that uh just looking again back to your Regional Bill comparison U for people that don't have this report in front of them um where we are right now is roughly middle of the pack in surrounding municipalities maybe a little bit higher up the middle of the pack there are some utilities that have surprisingly lower average rates uh whereas Verona is currently $212 it goes you know they immediately drops below 200 and then down below 150 and there are some folks that have you know rates in the $100 $80 range those rate increases would jump us up to the top of the region um you know 238 for the first year and 262 to 269 after that so I'm kind of curious you know looking at our peer utilities how are all these other utilities operating at all at this point in time given substantially lower rates um and what does this say about us as a small utility operator our ability to actually operate at all without you know a significant financial burden on our customers uh the concept of regionalization or larger strategic moves in water and sewer rates aside from just saying okay well we need to raise the rates what else is there if we were to look at this from a different perspective how are these guys surviving as it is now are they all going to end up having to charge $270 talk a little bit more about the larger picture here please sure so um unfortunately the answer to your first question is we don't exactly know because we didn't dig in we just looked at their rates and and and developed a rate based on a typical customer that you had um however given my experience like I said several moments ago every single C municipality we've looked at for the past three to five years has needed significant rate increases I'm talking cumulatively double digits similar to you over a fiveyear period so whether or not they are not properly investing in their system uh they have economies of scale right that that that you don't necessarily have as a Sol utility um we don't exactly know and we and we didn't really do a lot of digging into that issue I will say in general the things you're talking about uh in terms of regionalization um consolidation are very hot topics in the water and wastewater utility industry um both on the east coast and the West Coast um the issues there are certainly um you can you know demonstrated by our increases yes the 28% is large but you can operate as a utility of your size uh given your customer base in a sustainable way I think we've demonstrated that um anything having to do with regionalization whether it's you know um you know uh consolidating purchases agreements for for chemicals or things like that amongst wastewater treatment providers or water treatment providers we have seen some of that and at the extreme end of that is is true regionalization you know the the forming of authorities and the consolidation of Municipal into into separate entities um I don't think we've contemplated any of that given that with these relatively um modest increases over the time fiveyear time period for your customers I think uh we wouldn't even see any of the options I mean is there such a thing as an economy of scale um not just on the purchasing level and Contracting level but if I'm operating utility that processes you know 10 times as many million gallons of waste water or or you know same thing for providing the amount of water how much more efficient are they than we are and then is that only if you're doing it in a single plant or can you operate you know a distributed system and still do the same things it depends on the on on the state distributed you know operations whether they have to be self-sustaining or not but you're right the economy the scale in in utility business is is is large you know a mile of pipe is a mile of pipe if you have a you know system with 10,000 miles you know and the system with you know 100 miles that is generally a fixed cost Utilities in general just on an operating basis are are fixed cost entities and the economies of scale are very large so um that is a situation we find a lot of the small Utilities in is bearing that sort of per unit cost over a much smaller base uh is is a higher G than the larger systems thank you actually to add to um to answer councilman Roman's point and and I you admitted that you didn't do the research I believe especially on sewer there's litigation between Caldwell because their plant is literally at capacity and they can't green light any more building to because the plant is really capped out and they're servicing I think West Caldwell maybe rosand and Essex FS they're all in litigation over rate increases so calwell wanted to pass rate increases and it's all stuck in litigation so when that gets undone they are all going to move up so to the grander point of where we fall in this chart once set through the litigation stage I think it's all going to unravel in fact a large Supermarket is apparently building in uh West Caldwell and in order for that project to actually happen they're pumping into another sewer system they're putting whole mile of pipe down to Fairfield basically from west clell to get into Fairfield system it's that's how maxed out the Caldwell sewer uh system is and that's my understanding from what I've read in um the um news but going back I just want to thank you so much for this report and for this presentation and for your clear explanation um this was really really excellent and I also just want to thank councilwoman Holland who who really with her expertise coming on the council we got to this point um again no other Administration or council did a rate study before even though we've been managing these utilities for years it was the voters of Verona had the great sense of um electing councilwoman Holland and I'm so glad that she ran to lend her expertise here because we are at a fantastic Point while it's hard to stomach and we do have concerns about how this will play out with our residents this is good government this is the right answer so I really appreciate this report and we happy to socialize it and I do agree for our residents who are living paycheck to paycheck this is an opportunity on communication there are several plans that assist lowincome uh residents with water and sewer utility bills there's other programs that can assist them where they could get assistance on their energy bills which helps them pay their other costs um um and so I hope the administration takes that under advisement as we move forward to again further communicate to our residents who are really facing a tough time financially that whole host of programs are available to them but I just wanted to say thank you and I really look forward to seeing um how this Council then implements uh these discussions and I look forward to our engineering conversation uh next time even though I'm sure it's going to be sobering um where we talk in detail about the super treatment plan thank you thank you Mr just questions came up r that they are I have a little bitar Bic utilities and I know there um the the great structure so the right economy of scale Boswell tonight be at the moment I can be later on the me but that's ultimately since this is kind of a discussion topic I would like to sort hear what the thoughts are let's assume that you know you wanted to make large like before we invest a lot of money into an existing wastewater treatment plant you know that's very age I'm going to want to know you know are there other options other than just doing that does it make economic sense continue to operate something like that will be part of that will be part of the RO sure thank you uh first I go my colleagues uh assessment of the report very well done very uh detailed uh my first question is you went through the different town the other towns andal rates uh I noticed that's all residential is is it do you typically find that other towns that have more commercial they push that cost to the commercial accounts and therefore lower the rates for the residential is that typical on some of the towns you had here that are in the report uh the answer in general is is sometimes we don't know specifically for those what we can do is dig into that and develop some sample bills for large commercial or or or multi multi-residential larger meter type customers to produce the same report to see if that impact is happening and you just good segue into my next uh comment uh I did agree with the uh the sech charge in your plan two where the larger meters do pay a little more however is there a way is it possible is it is it allowed to only use the larger meters for commercial clients because we if they're all residential I think all residential people should be paying the same rate so whether it's a big apartment building that has a large meter because they need a large meter because their volume has to be greater than a single family home uh is there a way to categorize them so that they stay the same rate as a single residential home whereas a a commercial building with a couple stores pays a higher um I know the reason I'm asking this is because I know like with supercharges you can't charge differently for one than other they have to all have the same right right yeah there's a Safe Drinking Water Act regulation involving that which is relative to the sech charge discussion we had um there are ways to identify customers and allocate costly you talked about we have a small section report talking about an analysis we did using some assumptions uh the data available isn't the best to do that type of analysis as far as identifying customer classes for the purposes of that search charge we wouldn't recommend doing so simply because your your system is mostly residential and the the purpose of the incremented search charge is to sort of equival you know make an equivalent assumption for those meters so the large amount of small met pays an equitable share of the small amount of larger meters and to to put any additional cost on those larger meters outside of those capacity ratios uh is just not typically done in our scen okay and uh just two more points I know like we're looking at this and we're saying oh the silver charge is say $150 that's I didn't see anything in the report maybe you can touch on this or maybe you know CFO can comment on this I know your our supercharge let's say a single family residential home is based on your water consumption so although it says $150 quarter if someone leaves their faucet on or Waters their lawn every single night and they're using an excessive amount of water they get a higher sewer charge also that's correct that was in the past or is it just for so I was just we changed the water sewer rate structure based on bedrooms um I believe it was in 2017 but I'm trying to pull it up now single family homes if they use so the breakdown basically comes out to 80,000 gallons per year per customer there's a calculation to it every single family home is charged the 150 whether you go if you have 40,000 gallons of of water use or 85 it used to be many years ago before that se ordinance if anybody can find that is it 17 17-4 14 okay um it used to be years ago that it was just the calculation so if at your if at your residence you filled up your pool three times and you emptied it during the summertime and you used 165,000 gallons you re charge two sewer units being 80 and 80 is two units but currently we changed that ordinance in 2017 but single family residents are charged 150 then it goes into bedrooms uh so then lastly I just want to touch on the report on in section three and I don't know if this would affect your numbers all that much but I just want to point it out that in the chart you have table 3-2 uh in 20 25 you have our self- supply percentage at 90% as if both our wells are back online the entire year and I know that it's possible that uh the fairv revenue well may not be online sure we're hoping sometime in the latter part of 25 but I don't know if that if you recalculate numbers if that really affects anything it affect the the nomal numbers I don't know if it'll affect the overall picture but we can we can make estimations based on the timing of rate increases coming on like that thank you thank you thank you appreciate it have anything May that is on WE new business um right at this point we're going to move on to council member reports Deputy Mayor I'm going to relinquish the chair the mayor her while I step out of the room thank you Mr Mayor uh I just want to touch on a few just minor things here be brief the I just want to remind people that the County deer management program is still going on through the month of February it Tuesdays it is out at the South Mountain reservation and Thursdays it is at Hilltop so just be aware be careful the those people are careful uh and that's a kind of a something just keep be alert uh lastly uh at the end of February the Chamber of Commerce is uh as I reported earlier brought back the uh Restaurant Week it's going to be the February 25th on Sunday through Thursday the 29th uh we had a meeting this week and very happy to say that there's about 19 or 20 restaurants that are participating some are doing uh breakfast some are doing a lunch special some are doing both and some are also doing dinner uh this is an invitation to everybody uh on Sunday the 25th from 3 to 5 o'clock we are doing a uh opening party at the new restaurant that's going to be Jimmy's Family kitchen which is swarmer Le mes everybody is invited to meet some of the local business owners we're trying to get as many people that are going to participate for the week to stop by from 3 to five uh and and join us it is February 25th it's a Sunday it's the start of restaurant at the new the new restaurant Jimmy's Family okay family kitchen the current owner of a hills and L and that is all I have for this evening I will pass it on to council thank you very muchy mayor I'll just Echo the mayor's comments to thank the ld40 represent for visiting discussing with us variety of things about uh safety facilities uh they showed a lot of exra understanding of all the issues related to them um and we're very appreciative of the service that our volunteer uh agencies provided so we got okay this this has uh become an excellent Trend their level of involvement in the Verona Community has been nothing short of outstanding so just thank you to them that's all I have for this evening thank you councilman Robin councilwoman M thank you um the Multicultural inclusion and accessibility advisory committee met since our last meeting just as a reminder nominations for the women of impact event are due by February 11th which is Sunday um we discuss plans for our Black History Month event which we're so excited to have uh Dr Brown here today that again will be on Saturday February 17th at 1 pm I also uh attended the Lunar New Year event and I want to give a huge in in conjunction with what the mayor already said the event was wonderful the students did a great job I love the collaboration between the township and the school on this event I do want to thank specifically the volunteers from the Multicultural inclusion and accessibility advisory committee who spent uh many hours prepping for the event they um including helping to make uh little um giveaways for all of the audience for nearly two hours before the event and they stayed throughout the entire event um and then give gave out those materials at the end so I want to thank the volunteers who helped um I just wanted to make a comment that I am very excited about these legislative visits um that the township is conducting um I am a little disappointed that as a council we didn't have a chance to discuss whether or not we could add flooding as a topic to these conversations um and specifically around the pecman I think there are while the public safety building is incredibly important and we definitely want to give our legislators a tour of that area we can't lose sight of our long-term goals as it relates to flooding um and so I'm a little disappointed in that in addition I think it's really important that we um all members of the council get the talking points for these meetings and get U write ups what was just detailed write ups on what was discussed um it is really important for all five of us to be involved in the content of these meetings and I do hope that we can collaborate more on these going forward it's just disappointing I know the decision was made that only two of us could go to each meeting but I know with past visits with legislators we were able to do all five regardless I do hope that we can make sure that all five of us are on the same page when it comes to the message me in and that should be sent to the council you know prior to these meetings so I would like to request that and that's the scope of my report thank you thank you councilman thank you um I too want to compliment um both the administration and the Verona Public Schools for the Lunar New Year event um I want to particularly give a shout out to the fourth graders from Forest Avenue School um who were very excited to uh be part of the celebration and um you know thank and congratulate their teacher Miss who put a lot of time into rehearsing with um some of our youngest students um that performed that evening so um congratulations to all involved um it has been an increasingly joyful event and definitely well attended um and so uh that's a compliment to to this Township and our residents um I also want to thank the administration um both both uh manager diaro as well as Deputy manager um O Sullivan for really tackling some of the hard issues um I know that you know we had our presentation on new genen um and we've had from new genen about the great study and we've had a number of challenging issues that you guys have been tackling head-on so I just want to acknowledge that um and I also want to thank you for increasing transparency and Communications to our residents um so doing that not only in terms of the rates study but also on low income assistance programs um and and any other mechanisms of communication including but not limited to every field I know that you guys have been having a lot of conversations with bbsl as well as area residents um and concerned citizens regarding that um important project as well so I want to thank you there I also really want to thank um our various committed residents um that serve on all of our different boards and committees next week we will be having having um a rescheduled Recreation advisory committee meeting on February 13th so it is not what was originally advertised the meeting has been moved to February 13th um and it has been posted it's been it's been published excellent um and so the recreation advisory committee will be meeting next week um on Valentine's Eve so you know bring your chocolate and talk about Recreation um and that concludes my report thank you public comment I did want to address something that Council McGrath brought up regarding legislative visits um as explained Council graph by email Mr T and I had conversation um about what the priorities for these visits would be and uh the safety building was at the top of that priority list um both the um uh Congressman pay and legislative district cour delegation are aware of the flooding impacts in the area um the ld40 delegation went as far as having a good portion of the mayor's breakfast that they had that deputy mayor uh M boy attended topic um I've also discussed the topic with them as well and they are aware and looking at a district response to that um as far the talking points we I developed a draft and we discussed them with with the team members on the first visit and those talking points once the rly is based on the team member feedack will be transmitted to the next group doing uh the new legislative visit which would be de mayor M boy would be leading the visit in my absence and Council mayor yes it's really important with letters and talking points that it goes to the entire Council before these things are discussed well there was already a meeting that had and that we that was had last week and again all five of us haven't seen it that's how we've always done business and again we just want to make sure that everyone is in agreement we're all equals in terms of the work product and we all want to be able to have a chance to to be able to edit and make it better um you know we all have unique perspectives um councilwoman Holland has years in government we've had two meetings one with the governor's office one with ld40 where all five of us are not arised of what is being said before these visits happen obviously we can't all be there that was a decision that was made so I'm just putting my concern on the record I would really appreciate that we all get stuff that we can all come and and you know ultimately it'll make it for a better work product thank you and that is noted um and you'll be brought with the talking points before your meeting that Deputy Mayor M Deputy Mayor maoy will be taking the lead on in my absence on the TW all right um moving on now is the time for public comment I'm going to open public comment Madam clerk would you please read the public participation statement any one from the public wishing to speak if you are attending in person please raise your hand if you're attending via Zoom raise your hand by pressing the raise hand button on your monitor if you're dialing in by phone please press star9 when you're recognized please state only your name and Township and residence for record if you rep if you provide your street address please not that these meetings will be posted on the YouTube channel and addresses will not be reacted for any purpose you'll have four minutes to address the council and administration and there'll be no cross dialogue during this time after everyone wishing to speak has been heard the council and administration May address your comments and or questions it's open thank Madam clerk first up Michelle G hi good evening um do we have to discuss water sewer or are we allowed to make a comment on you can discuss whatever you would like oh thank you so much mayor um your name and your residence please sure Michelle gray and I live in Verona I wanted to thank the Town Council for their support of the accessibility playground at the Verona Community Center and I encourage you to seek input from the disability community in Verona when creating this playground as well as the potential playground at Everett field um it's crucial to elevate the right voices when making these important decisions thank you so much anybody else Reynolds good evening this is Judy Reynolds from durwent Avenue in Verona um I want to thank the Town Council I want to um particularly thank uh Council persons McGrath and McAvoy for um taking the time to visit the properties on Derwent Avenue that are repeatedly in impacted by uh recent storms and the the uh sewer uh situation that we currently have with a manhole that is in our yard very close to our homes that has repeatedly um caused uh just debris of All Sorts to be strewn about our our yards and gone several houses down um where children are not able to play in The Yards because there's debris you know stuck to the grass uh the smell um is increasingly problematic and I know we are really focusing on long-term Solutions but I know you've heard from several of the Neighbors about you know what the short-term Solutions are going to be and I I you know cannot convey uh enough the the critical importance of handling the situation um as you know our frustration and Our concern also about the health implications um are growing so thank you to those who have been diligent in really hearing us uh taking the time to come and visit getting a better sense of what the problem is and you know we really hope that you will continue to to work with us uh and and you know really for the betterment of our town we know that there have been steps taken to uh alleviate some of the problems but as you are aware it is it is ongoing and we hope that we can come to you know some timely resolution thank you else okay this time I'm going to close to comment we'll be moving on to hearing adoption or amendment of ordinances the next item on the agenda is an ordinance on second reading ordinance number 2024 -01 Madam cler could you please read the title of this ordinance in bond ordinance providing a supplemental appropriation of $510,000 for the accessible sensory playground an adult exercise area project at the community center in by the township of Verona in the county of Essex New Jersey including $200,000 Community Development block rant expected to be received and authorizing the issuance of $510,000 bond notes of the township to finance the cost thereof thank you was our motion on the ordinance so moved motion is made by councilman mcrath is there a second second second by councilman Holland now it's time for public hearing on ordinance 202 24-1 uh we have read the public participation saving just note that participation will only be on this ordinance I say no public comment I'm going to close public comment is there any Council discussion uh I just want to clarify these numbers this this additional 510,000 is on top of 550 that we already fonded for approved uh does this number include on top of that we have $200,000 Grant did we get another grant for this also your original your original application you did have a grant on this project I'm not sure where year another 150,000 yeah there is an it and there was U donated uh exercise equipment is part of this project from a community organization and just for clarification that organization is called partners for health and Bas Monclair appreciate I just wanted to comment in support of this playground um first of all I I think it's tremendously helpful there's been a lot of community feedback about it it went through the rec committee more than once um as it was redesigned I know that that there's a lot of enjoyment of the playground or there was a lot of enjoyment before we had to take it down because it was in a state of disrepair that made it no longer safe for children so actually reinvesting in this um playground is going to be like a very um important aspect of that play Space um and definitely supplementing for parents that that have children playing on the fields um it did always have a lot of use um the fact that it's also inclusive is really great because that is really one of the first if not the first inclusive playground that we have um on Township of Verona property um and I also just want to acknowledge the Grant from Partners in Health I know it's been a long time coming to um actually um construct the equipment and and really build that facility with the adult exercise equipment so that all ages can kind of include the um enjoy the space so um I'm grateful that we're kind of doing our last eye dotting and tea Crossing to move this project along um and I look forward to seeing it complete thank you uh I I to want to uh Echo some of those comments uh this was a very active playground I played softball up at Lind drive a lot of a lot of kids use this playground it's in a perfect location I know even when there's events in the community center uh parents can walk a kid out and they were using this playground I actually I'm going to date myself uh when this field first opened I was the first scorekeeper for men's softball up there at a whe young age uh I had control of the lights at night it was great but uh over the years I know that playground was very very well used uh I also like the idea of putting restroom facilities there uh they will also help for the other fields in the area so uh I look forward to getting this project moving forward because it's been quite a long time in the than thank you Deputy Mayor councilman mcgr uh thank you um I do uh this I want to Echo the uh councilman M boy comments this has been a long time coming this project started with a previous administration and previous engineers and it had let's just say some bumps along the way I want to thank Our Town manager Mr diarco for bringing in the right experts to get this done and to have the foresight to go through the process with Essex County to get additional funding for shovel ready project so that we can put the bathroom back on site which was always there and was torn down you know again because of disrepair and lack of Maintenance we have a lot of recreation assets that we need to bring up to speed and make safe for children so this is an important step and of course with all of the housing that's going right next to this location this is obviously going to be a very heavily Li use site and to further um the comment from Miss gu uh the this the child um the group child did come in heavily on this site and was part of um a lot of feedback sessions on the this version of the playground and I want to thank again the administration for working with groups like child to make sure that the voices of uh disabled children and adults are held are held in high esteem in this process so I'm very excited to support this and I look forward to its grand opening May um I'm just GNA ask the one question that nobody's want to put the answer on the record but uh what would be our estimate for completion date of project we have the Reconstruction meeting we'll H out we're talking three months six months nine months one year I think that's probably I I just want to um I will extend your comments to this sta teams that worked on this with me you've got some great teams here thank you um please call the all holl yes councilwoman McGrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes may ordinance 2024 is 5 it will be published according to law thank you the next item on the agenda is ordinance number 20242 on second reading FL please read the title of this ordinance Bond ordinance providing for the acquisition and installation of communications equipment for police vehicles in and by the township of Verona and the county of Essex New Jersey appropriating 125,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $119,000 bonds or notes to the township to finance part of the cost thereof I'll move the ordinance with second second second by Deputy Mayor maoy now is the time for public hearing on ordinance number 202 [Music] 402 same public comment statement applies limited to this so you know public participation I will close public comment any Council discussion on this I'm just going to note that this is a compliance necessity at this point um we to had some of the original body War cameras New Jersey before there legal requirement now there are a legal requirement and um we need to upgrade them as most electronic see no further Council comment mad clerk please call councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman McGrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor makoy yes mayor Toro yes mayor uh ordinance 202 24-02 passes 5 will be uh published according to law thank you madam Clark the next item on the agenda is ordinance number 20243 on second reading Madam cler please the title of this ordinance and many the code of the township of Verona chapter 390 Property Maintenance by the creation of Article 2 entitled lead based paint Hazard inspection requirements for rental loads thank you madam clerk is there a motion on the ordinance the motion is made by councilman Roman is there a second second it seconded by the deputy mayor now it's time for and on ordinance number 20243 same public comment statement applies no public comment um I'm going to close public comment at this time is there any Council discussion councilman Roman uh just one little thing in here can we put a definition or there's no definition for xrf Le inspection here just appears in the fee schedule without any you know $150 per unit per lead free without any real explanation of what that is xrf is yes please xrf is device they use to determine how many how much lead is in the layers behind it could be like wood but the first layer could be latex paint this will determine uh how many layers of it it's a very expensive piece of equipment okay it's if you want it's used when you want a if you want to get the lead lead free certification so that you can go around test the whole building or the whole room and clear it okay so that's a well- defined industry term all right uh and then also uh section G1 if still says performed by LW Environmental Services in here I thought we struck that any other comments good catch see no further comment Madam clerk would you please all the roll on the says revise from this eroll yes councilwoman MC yes councilman R yesy mayor maoy yes mayor Tim B yes mayor ordinance 20243 passes 5 and will be published according to LA and is amended as CL thank you deputy mayor for your surrounded by yes just a uh for the record just a point of clarification on the ordinance that we passed on the police equipment um you had stated that it was for body cams I believe it was actually for dash cams as stated in section three for the police vehicles I just want to make sure that's clear for the public who may be looking that it's for the police cards question but I'm sure we'll be funding upgrades the next item on the agenda is an ordinance on first reading you please read the title of the ordinance and the record this is repealing chapter 455 storm water management of the code of the toship in its entirety and replacing with a new article 20 article xxd stor Water Management controls and requirements Within Chapter of the zoning code of the toship Mad Clark is there a motion on the ordinance motions made by Council Roman is there a second second second is made by Deputy I'm sorry councilwoman WTH is there any Council discussion aing none Madam CL please call the councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman mcgr yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor makoy yes mayor tamboro yes mayor um H1 will be number 20244 it will be published according to Law Public hearing will be held on February 26 all right thank you madam clerk the next um part of the agenda is our consent agenda we have one set of minutes from January 8th we have six resolutions I'm sorry um I had a second revision to the did everybody get the remaining H1 H2 H3 on the agenda on the agenda that I it's not on the agenda on our desk the one that you sent us I didn't know because I was t for time this afternoon I'm sorry I gra the wrong agenda to C so these two are still up in we're not punish did you receive them in the electronic packet yeah okay yeah and the hard copy the agenda whatever reason agenda was okay uh the next item on the agenda is ordinance H2 Madame Clark please read the title of this ordinance on first reading we're just repealing chapter 455 so I'm going Management in the code of the township to create an Article 1 chapter 455 storm water quality the code of Township Mo on the ordinance so move motions made by the deputy mayor is there second second second made by councilman Holland Council discussion hearing none Madam clerk councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman McGrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes H2 will be number 20245 will be published according to Law Public hearing will be held on February 26 thank you M Clark the next item on the agenda is ordinance Mark H3 on first reading Madam clerk please the title of this ordinance and the ordinance to amend chap a 5651 schedule fees of the township OFA to include storm water permit fees Clark is there a motion so moved a second second the motion is paid by Council McGrath the second is made by councilman Holland forward on this just want to since it is a fee structure uh I noticed that in H1 we had uh a fee for a storm water maintenance permit I was wondering if it should have been added to this uh fee schedule we have a a storm water perment application fee for $150 but in H1 if you have a system in you're supposed to uh provide a storm M maintenance plan for the township and uh at 150- 2512 uh letter C we have an annual fee for storm water maintenance determent shall be listed in the Verona fee ordinance but we don't have it listed on this new one do we have a number for that fee can we add it before we move this forward oh the we were intending to do is discuss minimum reporting requirements for the um we need to work with Boswell to come up with some templates on what and and minimum requirement so just have one question for the administration how did we arrive at these fees just 150 750 1500 what was the the basis of this Fe structure the Fe so thank you I just need a clarification of these would the origal eses and not done in totality I'm G to ask Mr R Sullivan to put a different hat on here but uh do you think that the $1,500 is enough for a major development the ma there's there's going to be additional uh for profession St Water Management so so will likely at some point through the review process thank you any other questions comments caring on M councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman mcrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor tamboro yes here H3 will be numbered 2020 sorry 2024 D6 it will be published according to Law Public hearing public hearing sorry um the public hearings for Yeah March 11 and I'm sorry I'd like to correct my statements for the previous ordinances I forgot that they need to go to the um planning board our expected um public hearing date for all three ordinances March 11th okay moving on to the consent agenda uh there is one minutes January 8 there are six resolutions and one transfer to actually enlarge a the bread of a liquid license um I'm sorry may we could remove that the ABC um as one more item hopefully that um I'm going to pull P2 from the consent agenda they like to move the attend agenda day one K1 A3 so motion made by the deputy mayor is there a second second seconds made by councilman Roman this time I'm going to open for public comment on consent agenda items only same public comment statement appli here on I'm going to close public comments um any Council comments on the consent agenda just been Cas for the sludge disposal um are we changing our destination for where sludge this is a renewal these I remember a different name I thought that was our might have our SL I was thinking that's correct Madam clerk would you please call it all Council Holland yes counc McGrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor tamboro yes mayor K1 k34 five and six will be number 37 through and including 41 thank you um I ask K2 to be pulled off because I have some comments but I will move it for the sake of discussion sorry second second by we hear a public comment on resolution K2 say public comment sa and applies very none I'm going to close public comment on resolution K2 open Council discussion um this is a resolution to recognize the manager's appointments for for some professional purposes um I brought up some concerns last year with this process and I want to reiterate those um the way that effectively that we're doing this we're putting out an RFP and on some of these not all of them but on some of them um almost everybody putting RFP was listed so we have like four options for paper Council we have um four options for X Y and Z but only one option for others my concern is um there there I have some substantive concerns on some of the professionals that being put on our list um and about their um their competence in being able to handle our business um so that's issue number one and I'm not going to air that necessarily in in public um but the the second piece of this is is that when we do these appointments whether we use somebody on the list or not they can represent themselves as a labor Council for Verona they can put it on their bid that they move on to the you know send into another town um and I think that's problematic when we have multiple um different individuals who we may never use I was also a little taken aback by having four different planners when we had a very long substantive discussion on picking a planner not too long ago um and I had been uncomfortable with having different planners dealing with different items um so I would like to table this until we can have a more sub discussion individually I had we have pages and pages of documents from submissions and things like that um and I have some concerns I would like to address uh directly with Mr dico about some of these but also I wanted to put out there that I think with the planner especially we should have one planner um for several of the other items or you know the tach of engineer we should have Boswell we should you know so on we should have one designated I understand the point of having additional options if we need them but I would feel better if we limited having multiple professionals to a situation where there's a conflict or an area of expertise that we would require that for um but you know we have four Redevelopment attorneys listed we have um we have one Bond counsel but multiple people put in to be Bond counsel so I just need to understand I thinkon Council does a great job but I think we need to understand maybe a little bit more about the process um Mr diarco and then have an opportunity I don't know if that's a if that's a close session item uh not um but it might be an off outside of the public venue item because frankly I'm not going to share my opinions on the conduct of law firms in public um because they're lawyers and they don't like that um but at the same time um they got capture kind of your methodology if there's anything to want to throw in there Mr um yes thank you mayor um it's basically the process I introduced when I first down here um more or less to give us a uh give me uh a variety of professionals that we can look to I normally don't put all the eggs in one basket you can see that with some of our engineering projects some of them are so large and complex I'm not putting them all in one engineer per se so that I can finish projects in a timely manner which there is Tim taes on almost everything we do um the town attorney is the mayor and council's planning board attorneys of the planning board and the zoning board is theirs all the other professionals it's a go go to if we we if I need another professional that does come I'll recommend a professional for a specific project and it goes to the council because it has to be funded it just gives us an array of professionals that I can choose from I have no specific predisposition to any of them they can list uh we can list them and then it gives me that ability not to advertise again if I have a project that comes up you have a project that comes up that's a task that's given to me and I have to find the professionals which means I have to advertise again I have to go through the process again I have to get on the council it slows your timetable down towns that professionals that list us hypothetically that I haven't used um 99.9% of the time the town administrators or managers call and and look into is exactly what I did hypothetically with new Jen uh I researched the firms that we had and that was the recommendation we made it's the same concept it just accelerates our process of all the professionals that we have the ability to use the ones that are in your purview are in your purview and and the town attorney and I discussed which ones are the mayor and Council per view of the planning board and the zoning board and which ones are our obviously we have multiple firms and obviously we have firms that are continued because they're on projects that are in motion and I wouldn't recommend any change in those projects I don't see it as Hazard as as U you feel not sure the reasons that you may have but none of the firms or any of on any of the state department lists so for me listing them doesn't mean I'm going to recommend Firs to you but if we need them I can have go that's kind of the essence of that okay um I I appreciate your comment but at the same time I feel like we list these individuals and we haven't been able to have a subse conversation we we got thousands of pages of of RFP documents on I think Wednesday um and you know some of these places I'm more firms I'm more familiar with than others um frankly I didn't you know it's just it's unreasonable amount of time to actually look through all of those things um I don't think we were really giv heads up that this was coming either so my concern is is that if we have this listing out and one of these firms listed like a labor Council um we don't want any of them you know you put forth for the council to to go ahead and spend money for this firm with like it does that cause us a legal issue if we don't choose one of the firms that we're now recognizing as part of the RFB where can we go to any firm if we don't like whoever's on this list you can go to any firm excuse me this is just for lack of better word a pre-qualified list so if you want to use the expertise of any of the firms here listed it allows you to do so without bidding because they already bid they responded you have their qualifications you've affirmed their qualifications um so as the manager said your control normally comes to budgeting process with regard to attorneys themselves I can tell you that this is not an uncommon way that it happens um all the counties um that I know of do this where you apply and they just go down the checklist if you put all the documents in and you're qualified you're not disbarred and all that other stuff you have insurance um you'll be qualified more likely than not you know a lot of firms don't get any work but there's not enough work to give all the firms and there are you know firms that do lots of work the way it is but I certainly understand as the manager does your concerns if you if you want to review it there's no rush to get this done tonight if the council's not comfortable we can do it you know next week or might say next week you know the next radio council meeting which is two weeks next week's especially we definitely like a little more sit down with st some of these items there was one with the um one area that I think even one of uh professionals we use never made the bid and I that could create problem so um I would just like more time if uh I'll either make the motion to table the discussion on this or Mr T would like to give us a little more time that would be fun with me either way I'm fine every everyone I'm using is a is a carry there's no issues with the ones that already have PES you're okay yeah well be more than happy to have a discussion thank you um so we'll consider the resolution pulled by the manager and we'll put it up for another discussion all right we are moving on to new and unfinished business I'm going to move up there was a walk-on resolution um that we need to add due to a time constraint like get this out of the the way first um solivan sure um there was a an administrative consent or that was uh drafted by the D it was updated by the D to reflect our current project schedule uh it builds into uh anticipation the schedule that we're expecting for Fairview Avenue well as well and it allows us some contingencies if there are any potential delays on the project that uh that ACO from the DP was circulated uh it was received late uh late Friday afternoon uh evening and it is uh there's a 15 day turnaround window where the DP is requiring execution of that uh it's it's an order of housekeeping that the DP is uh going through all of their towns with drinking water wells and filing acos to confirm that the fos contaminantes are being managed uh in accordance with with the requirements and obligations of each of those utilities this ACO just accomplishes the same thing and really effectively um substantiates all the projects that we already have underway there's an un accompanying resolution the authorization to execute that thank you anybody from the council like can move this motions made by councilman Roman second second by the deputy mayor this time I'll open for public comment on the blon resolution comment statement applies no public comments I'm going to close public participation any Council discussion seeing none please call the yes mcant yes C roling yes mayor M yes mayor T yes mayor sorry resolution um walk resolution um passes be number resolution 2024 D yes thank you next on our new one on business agenda is discussed on 2024 pool fees for the purposes for the public and for the council we are bifurcating this discussion into two pieces the first piece will be all of the pool fees with the exception of the fees related to volunteer fire and EMS in Barona uh and in the second part of discussion I will recuse myself relinquish the chair remain file or the deputy mayor runs that meeting as I am a member of the FR aresty Squad while they do not take a free membership from the township or uh for the purposes to avoid any conflict steing down uh but in the same vein if any council members do take a pool membership um on the standard membership I'm not suggesting that they have a conflict but I think it' be helpful for the public to know out of transparency uh who takes a full membership and what classification of membership they take uh s my CFO was here David would have been here but he's six um he called that said he's out some of our staff is out um there there was a a report circulated from the subcommittee of Advisory Group to the recreation advisory body that came up to the counil the fees that are listed or recommended or you come out of a combination of their recommendations and administration recommendations from the PO obviously the poll is again a self- liquidating utility um our efforts are towards having a balance so that you see expenses and that's the bottom line hello again um as you may recall October 16th we talked about audit and we started talking about the pool um so after that discussion um the pool Recreation uh Recreation pool subcommittee committee um got the task of looking over our Revenue our expenses and um what they feel could be recommended for us to do better uh moving forward in 2024 through 2028 okay you you can go I'll just bring it up um so first slide is um the summary of our operations from 2023 uh in 2023 the pool generated $ 76,7 361 this was $95,000 7 95 or what was anticipated for 2023 from ARP funds and 100 uh pool fund balance were 781 9% of the total budgeted amount um as I've told you we need to use less fund balance moving forward um in same thing like the water rates it's the same idea we need to use less fund balance every year and still stay self- liquidating um and keep moving forward that way we don't have issues moving forward um a reminder 2024 it's the last year to use ARP funds as loss Revenue in the 2023 budget um as you could see the pool was very tight um being at 96% these are the items that were covered in other budgets that were not covered in the poll but should have been you will see it's about 30 4,000 not included on this list but something we could discuss because I know that we've talked about um how to be more transparent and also how to have the utilities cover what their actual purchases are um including when Recreation does badge pickups that is not being charged to the pool DPW currently um there was a change in 2023 we had an outside company who did landscaping DPW now is doing landscaping because we were so tight in 2023 for funds um they are now covering that so that again is not being charged to the pool but definitely should be and could be uh building and grounds when they open for preseason they're there from as soon as it's nice out uh April May as soon as it's nice they're there and they are working to make sure that the grounds and every the pumps are working and everything is working that is currently not being charged to the uh we've talked about uh the water usage the water is currently not being charged to the pool so Water and Sewer are all of every resident in Verona is basically paying for the burden of the pool and all the water circulating through it um so those are just some of the ideas um that we've talked about and how to how do we get it from being paid out of other budgets and into the pool but just something to keep in mind the past few years you can see that our chemicals per gallon have gone up from a126 per gallon uh last year was $324 uh cents per gallon I asked um building and grounds to get me an updated rate for 2024 he believes it will be around the $324 Mark our Debt Service uh as you can see that has increased as well our covid emergency will come off in 2026 well in 2027 2026 is our last year for the co emergency um also um some of our larger debt from previous Bond ordinances roll off but uh we have not permanently financed the splash pad uh there are in the pool um the Rex pool subcommittee's recommendations as far as Mar citing the large pool some furniture upgrades um they mentioned the sandbox which I think is the uh volleyball area uh we've talked about the basketball and the uh tennis courts so there are definitely going to be more expensives but this is a projection obviously I don't know what uh note rates are going to be um moving forward so 2025 through 2028 are just estimates minimum wage for seasonal employees has increased as well um it was $885 in 2019 um it will max out in 2026 at $15 an hour but that after that is to be determined on what they decide moving forward from that I think it was important for you to see what other municipalities around us are charging for um their pool rates as you could see a comparison um West colell which um is currently hosting quite a bit of municipalities so West cwell has their own rates specifically for West cell residents they have a specific rate for cwell rosand Fairfield and Essex spells residents and then they have a separate um rate for Montville toaca Little Falls Pinebrook Cedar growth North cwell residents um so I think it's important for you to see all of those as well as Cedar Grove and what they are charging this these are 2023 rates these are not 204 rates 24 I haven't seen anything on rates yet for any of these but I think it's important um as you make decisions moving forward um to have this as a comparison as well on the left you'll see the average swimming pool membership cost per the other towns family membership is 605 couple membership is 5975 a single membership is 37825 a senior membership is 23250 a parent child uh is 5975 and the babysitter um flat fee average is 20875 the recck uh pool subcommittees uh rates for 2024 were a family membership of 575 a couple membership of 500 a single membership of 365 a senior membership of 175 there was no um increase for seniors in that I could find in any of their documents parent child was 475 and a babysitter is what I'm calling 55 and that comes from the recommendation with family with a babysitter is $630 the difference between a family with a babysitter of 630 minus their recommendation of a family membership of 575 is the difference of $55 the other municipalities are charging a flat fee for an added person we've been calling it a babysitter we can discuss language further on that but an added person of an average of 20875 in addition to some of their memberships so that's why that babysitter fee difference is $55 the chart at the bottom so it's important um to reference that the pool subcommittee did have a lot of new Revenue um items that they had suggested and I thought they were great suggestions however I can't anticipate that in 2024 as Revenue since we don't have any proven facts of what that will be so the scale may seem a little skewed um to some but on the right there is a scale that has all of our revenues all of our memberships um based on the rec subcommittee's um recommendations the yellow line is where the increase of Appropriations has been across the board um we haven't fully talked about pool yet um but our budget for 2023 was 81,000 um based on all of what we've seen in the past um year with not being able to cover all of the items in the budgets I would recommend it being closer to 950 um which is a large jump it also covers our debt um our note interest has increased in comparison to 2022 we will get that to that um in the next meeting but that's why you see it consistently kind of go up a little bit um administration's rate recommendations so we look looked at what the subcommittee had provided to us uh we also looked at the average in comparison to the other municipalities for 2023 uh and we came up with the following rates a family membership of 605 a couple membership of 547 a single membership of 397 a senior at 202 a guardian child which we've updated from parent child um at 518 an indivi individual highlight at 236 the babysitter flat fee which is new for this year in comparison to last year where we had it combined with family memberships um of $150 we are also suggesting um a non-resident family fee of $1,000 per family and a non-resident individual fee of 750 and a non-resident senior of 550 which also correlates to Cedar grve is the only only one that charges non-residents uh their family fee was 1,500 for non-residents uh go back to slides sorry uh 800 for an individual and 550 for a senior in the chart um again it shows the same increase in appropriations of the L line um it shows what we've brought in in revenue for 209 through 2023 um so those numbers are exactly the same the only difference here is adding in the non-resident um I'm looking I'd like to get maybe a little more understanding of the methodology for the fees themselves so when so the recommend made there or the committee made their um recommendation and the administration made their recommendation um what were the underlying assumptions Behind These recommendations were we assuming a a flat uh number of memberships and we increased it to meet a certain goal um sorry go ahead I whatever you um I used what memberships were from last year to use both both assists so was there any was there any um discussion of losing memberships because of rate increases so when we're anything that we do economically right we have to determine if we're going to have an opportunity cost of increasing our rate our Revenue actually declin because fewer people will come to the pool was that discussed was there any discussion on on that based on um Community feedback so I'm looking at like the family membership going up $85 which could is significant for some of our families um was there any discussion on the fact that we could lose memberships and these assumptions could it actually cause us to be below the revenue Target that we identified yes um loss Revenue obviously is always a a concern of hours when we increase fees especially the amount of money that we're trying to increase fees um most of our consideration was the comparison of the surrounding pools our pool is Superior in general to all of the surrounding pools we are with the subcommittee's recommendations we were still in comparison lower to their 2023 rates for having a superior pool that was one of the biggest factors that I could say drove the numbers up we took the average of What the other municipalities were charging um and and basically assumed that for 2024 when that's their 2023 rate assuming that their 2023 rate is probably 2024 rate will probably go up and we will still be not in the average so it it begs an interesting question right in that if our methodology was to try and match other pools we really don't have our residents shopping for other pools because if you look at the out of town memberships for Cedar Grove it would be prohibitively expensive for one of our residents probably to go there and they're not going to go there to offset this cost right so it's probably for them either they're coming here they're not going anywhere right so I don't know if that satisfies the that kind of um quty demanded curve in order to figure out uh what exactly that number should be based on the price um I would assume I mean basic economics is that there would be the potential for a decrease it's not necessarily always the case right um but there could be a decrease in in that um so I'm just a little nervous about I understand the need to raise rates $85 you know it's 16.3% um has has been noted but at the same point it's that's a that's a significant increase now we are offering more as far as the splash pad is done and things like that but not all of your families are using the splash drinks they're not using the Dy pool they might be using other things um so I think that would be my first areas is that I'm trying to think of if there would be if there would be a way that we could make some economic forecast um based on the potential what we think loss versus gain memberships might be and then the revenue um associated with that in order to support this um I think that's that's probably issue number one that stands out um I think whenever we look at anything we see you know 15% increases it does beg the question from from us in that are we going to be able to have a viable utility um if we don't do this but are we going to be able to have a viable utility if we do in fact raise these rates in such um so that would be one thing the other piece I was looking at is the the non-resident family I know one of the um the things that came out of the survey was that the members were a little less enthusiastic about having non-residents um participate but looking at the 1200 I wonder if that's there would we expect any revenue from this I it would seem like we would need to have a substantive conversation on whether 1,00 is a number to stop out of town residents from joining or whether it's to entice people I mean very simply if we don't out of town residents my recommendation would be that we don't have a fee don't let out of town residents in but if we're going to have a $1,200 fee it just seems like we might be able to get higher Revenue maybe at a not exactly same rate our residents were paying but maybe a little less than $1,200 and that we could more substantially compete with the likes of our neighboring towns um and the same thing for the individual and and Senior I I have a wondering about that uh I know another thing that came out that I was contacted about a lot last year was the guest pass rate for adults um and at the $45 now I know we have the guest book available um but I'm also looking at the guest book prior to uh Memorial Day weekend is $100 so you're getting effectively each pass for around $617 right um and then after moral Day weekend you're getting passes for $20 so even at the at the 45 it just seems like it's a little out of whack when we're charging less than half of that on the book rate now ideally of course to meet your Revenue projections people would um would use that you know would not use all their passes right I want everybody to use their passes if they bought them but people may not do that so my thought is is that if we examine actually lower the gas pass rate now this isn't a day pass not like people going to show up they have to be brought in by a member of the pool uh um who and that member may not want to buy Six passes if somebody's visiting from out of town or whatever U maybe they just want to buy one but $45 is like $45 you could do a lot of other recreation activities now the thron of pool offers a lot but you could go to many other things for $45 um so my thought is maybe lower that significantly um in order to maybe entice people to buy the the one pass as well um if we're trying to look at earning Revenue sometimes having higher prices does not equal higher profit revenue and profit are very different right and revenue is whatever money we're bringing in but profit is at the end are we ideally we're breaking even with a little extra for fund balance right but are we in fact doing that so I think these are some questions we have to ask and um you know looking at some long range information was would uh be helpful on that um and you know some of the other things that's just the I had some comments on the other items per viiew so I'll open it up to the other counil I'm happy to comment um can you think about the concept of the permanent babysitter um charge and how it's distinct from what is currently in the pool R um and how that would maybe relate to the guest pass concerns that the mayor was just speaking um so the babysitter fee um how it has been done in the past has been a um family membership and then adding on the additional babysitter um badge added onto the um package basically so this would be taking it out of a family membership with babysitter package and you would be allowed to depending on what um the council decides which membership you would allow to add the alart uh additional badge too um currently it's not offered for any other um memberships how it's been done in the past um so maybe a parent child will add an add um an additional caregiver to help out I am a single parent um so maybe a divorce out there will want this um for a caregiver I have two children I also have a bull membership that I pay for so um so you know this may be one of those items um an Al ofart item that okay I can bring my mother with me and you know she can assist with that this is effectively though giving you a permanent guest pass for the entire season instead of having to purchase individual guest passes for the remainder of the Season correct yes but you would have to have it yes it have to be ACC companied assigned to one person there's one babysitter you can't bring but it's no different than how it currently is being done it's just it's just charging a separate fee for it so to be clear it's not in our ordinance that it's one person per the children it is only in the ordinance that it is a babysitter and that that person has to accompany the children it has not been exercised at the pool and this is a point that's been discussed with the administration that it has been designated to one entity it has been used as a permanent guest pass so long as that person is ACC they are using the bit Tab and they are accompanying the child but there is not like a photo registration associated with that babysitter membership is my understanding from communication with the rec committee and uh the acting director of recreation so I I don't have an answer because that would be a question for him yeah that is how it's been explained and it's it doesn't say anything in the ordinance that specifically tied it that was part of my understanding of having this separate babysitter membership now that that Administration is recommending so can could could perhaps either you speak to that or is this accurate that that's accurate okay thank you and discussions were also on the term uh caregiver yes whether it's appropriate to use the term bitter the other municipalities used seasonal resident sitter membership and made a clause in there must be purchased by resident in addition to a single senior couple or family membership as part of their I I do find that a little problematic though when it's not being assigned to one individual and effectively becomes that that pass because the idea of the babysitter membership is really to allow residents to use the the pool when the parents AR available but the way this would seem to me is that anybody can come in it doesn't matter if the parents are there or not is somebody I guess there's nobody checking to be like parent there and bringing a babysitter with them because that would seem like it's kind of gaming the system I would like to potentially write something the ordinance that you could only use the babysitter membership when the parents not there to accompany the children well that would seem that would seem fair otherwise you're drastically undercharging for guest F if I may like the Counterpoint to that is sometimes people do need an additional caregiver if they have a special aged child or underage children at you know what is effectively a very large aquatic Center so two young kids exactly so to have a caregiver go along with you you are paying that additional premium membership to have that additional caregiver with you and you know I actually thought it was a reasonable way of accommodating some of the concerns that the citizens re has you know voiced about the guest passes right um there was increased money gained from the guest passes because they were dramatically increased in price however we sold fewer guest passes last year than we had in Prior years several prior years so even though the amount of money went up it was only because the fees went up and so you know this might be a way of bringing back some of that additional Revenue um and balancing some of the concerns that were voiced by the community um at large about the guest fees but um continuing on with my comments I did just also want to say that this is the third time I have gone through wol Fe setting um out of I have a four-year term so this is my third time doing it and I will say that it has been a struggle every time um we continue to struggle with you know matching revenues um with the fee structure and tonight presents a really interesting ju toos because we started the meeting with a very comprehensive rate study that went through an exhaust analys of our Capital needs and our Capital Improvement projects and recommended a way of a sustainable fee structure that also accounted for you know like having that additional cushion so that when unexpected projects came up we had the the funds available and needed improvements and as you noted we are going to need to re remarcite the pool and we did have to redo the SLS the other year and basketball and pickle ball courts and other things need to be done and costs aren't being accounted for and there's subsidizing in some areas and there's lost revenues in other areas and it is problematic so I do want to just recommend to the administration that maybe there'd be some level of consideration I know that we're too tight on time for 2024 to do it but um you know it it's very unsettling about how challenging this has been and how it does seem a little um a little arbitrary a little um just less precise than what we saw um in the presentation earlier this evening so I I would really like to recommend kind of considering a more thoughtful and detailed analysis to get there I do just want to thank you though for the effort that you've put into it and really thank the residents um and the committee members that put a lot of time into it and I know that it's not captured here and it's not really part of your recommendations but I don't want it to be lost on the administration that there were a lot of other Revenue generating recommendations made by that committee you know not limited to advertising revenue and party revenue and other things that that the facility could be used for that could be Revenue generating outside of just Fe increases that concludes my L I'm just going to follow up on the conversation on the the baby membership if we're having this conversation now an open session that this is kind of basically for anybody is a permanent guest pass and we should be calling it a permanent guest pass membership rather than membership so I think what we're doing is you're then effectively this could this could apply to a grandparent or something like that right and I think we need to be very clear about who is eligible um because I think that some of our residents miss out on this but there's also the potential that that could actually cost us a bit of money if you have a family that lives in town and a um you know somebody had a single membership in order to go with a family family it's going to cut out about $150 in Revenue but I think we need to call things what they are and get rid of the babysit tman have a permanent guest pass or in advance and then frankly based on the what your the the charge would be you're talking about that's four and a half guest passes to have this kind of permanent membership so I think the economics of that are a little concerning as far as either the guest pass fee is too high or this is too low right councilman um thank you mayor um I think there may be a little bit of confusion with the adult day pass and the child day pass which was something new the administration put in last year but did not really get utilized a lot I think that's for Verona residents to come in not as a guest but just to buy for the day correct yes and the true guest rate for adults is actually $20 so at a at a $28 price for this uh and I I'll talk about why I think we should call a caregiver in the future that's actually 10 gas gas passes so but I don't disagree mayor with what you're saying I mean it is the Natural Evolution if we go and I and I do want to recommend we call a caregiver because I want to recognize for a second that there are senior citizens who may want to bring in Aid that there are adults that may need a caregiver and I think to open up this ability to add on to bring an A person who helps to assist is really us being truly inclusive and to move Beyond this babysitter name now to take that step forward and to call and to say well you really can bring in anybody they don't have to watch your kids I don't know if we're ready to do that yet but it all and UNT fortunately mram couldn't be here it's all about how it's administered by the staff okay which let's recognize are mostly young adults so that's something I think that's something I would like the administration to really think through um you know as one piece secondly um I want to thank you for finally articulating a question that we've been having for a long time which is are we subsidizing the pool out of General funds and how is it being so I think we're moving a great step there I think you know the slide with the chemical rates and the minimum wage increases was also very powerful and while I agree I do and I'm proud to say that I'm a pool member for 12 years and I do have a family membership while it will be difficult to pay a 15% increase on that let's also recognize that spread across the summer that $85 kind of for many families will wash out not every family but for many families will wash out and I think given the fact that we have to pay the staff more to keep the pool clean and cleanly we have to pay more it's unfortunately just another case of inflation that we have to pass on I'm a little confused with what was left at the day and what we got late this afternoon so we got a different sheet with different numbers than what we got on the second and so and on the second we there was more detail about the pool part is but what was being proposed was 605 and now what's being proposed and the babysitter rate was 150 and then this sheet that was at the day is 208 yeah I I'm sorry again wasn't in today and when I did come in I was rushed to do this and I apologized the correct all I did was try to remove for the discussion um to make it two parts so that may could be recused and I did pull up an old document to do that okay so so an inter Office document was accidentally given to you okay with the redaction of the one type of membership sorry okay so so the recommendation is what's in in the slides um okay we will we will get you an updated yeah thank you so I just want to say that I understand that we are grasping at a lot of different ways to raise revenue I given the results of the pool survey and the lateness for which we again are doing this process I'm trying I know I know I am not ready to Green Light allowing non-residents into the pool however I agree very hardly with councilwoman Holland if we could do a real rate study like we just saw in water and sewer and do it for the pool and do it early I think it will then allow us enough time to socialize that idea with the residents but they are very much opposed as is evident in the survey to letting non-residents in but I appreciate that the your job as the administration is to keep putting these decisions before us and if it turns out the majority of the council does not want to do it then we're making that decision knowing that we're leaving some revenue on the table but um I want to be clear that that's not where I'm uh comfortable um at this moment um but I could get there if we did a true rate study and we really understood uh the big picture I do think that there's a lot of investment that needs to happen in this facility there are major cracks in the basketball court pool lining absolutely needs to be reigned that also comes out in the survey I've express my concerns about um service issues with cleanliness of the bathrooms I absolutely think we're raising rates this much the expectation will be even higher we have to have a cleaner facility for the members that comes out every year and we have not done enough that's really for Mr roboam like to really run this utility better in terms of cleanliness but I do thank all the effort of the uh Recreation committee this was their first major report I thought they had a lot of intriguing ideas I appreciate the work that you've put in and thank you very much yeah uh Jen thank you I know you're the you're the messenger here with all these high numbers and I I to council Man Holland Point we've done this quite a few times over the last couple years and I know this question came up when we were talking about improvements to the pool last year and what gets me is people are here talking about we have to do the pool lining next year we have all these other issues grounding our pool yet we came up with $1.8 million to do some new things there over in the last year and that's what's driving these costs out that that's that's the bottom line what really upsets me is I know this came up in conversation back then is this should be paid for by the people who use the pool it's a separate facility and we were guaranteed that that's what it was yet tonight we found out that we're Township of Verona all the residents are paying the water we pay for DPW we pay for building and grounds uh that's not fair to all the residents of Verona because a very small portion of residents use this facility uh it's just not right especially the water bill and it came up at the time none of that water for that Splash bad is recycled it all just flows off and that that is a huge I would love to see that number from pre- last year to last year when that Splash p uh was active not that it's a bad thing it's a great piece of of and a great draw for the facility but we went out and bought the Cadillac when we didn't have the money to buy the Cadillac it's like you know you're you're putting an addition on your home when all the other bedrooms and the bathrooms need to be renovated uh and people up here just gave a list of things that we need to do and unless we if we don't raise these rates we're that's off the quiet yeah I mean this is a math problem like so many things in life I mean I'm looking at the Appropriations chart more than anything else I'm looking at the minimum wage increase I'm looking at The Debt Service increase we don't really have much of a choice other than to pay those things um I am worried about my favorite phrase price elasticity of demand um you know that we do run the risk of losing Revenue by raising rates um I don't know how acute that risk is the first year um given that the improvements are very fresh um I worry about it more in the long term particular as we we stack more sort of Maintenance Capital onto it is my worry um I don't think we have a lot of choices here and because we have to make the stay solvent um I will go with the public opinion against um offering out of town memberships of the pool it seems like there is a very strongly expressed public opinion that people are just not looking for us to do that I mean even if we said they're paying twice the rate that you are um you know we've heard people complaining about capacity basically that the pool just gets get very busy very full and that they really don't think that that's the route to go um as far as the actual rate structure itself um you know as to what to do with a with a caregiver membership which I'm fine with that term caregiver I question sort of the enforceability of that unless you make it an individual person you know how do we how do we Define what is a a familial unit and you know with people having different surnames in a family and so on you know I look at this and I go the cost of a you brought up the cost of a parent child membership plus a caregiver well you know what if someone just gets a family membership Which is less of a bump and just you know how we've got to be kind of cautious about over ating this you know I I do think that we can probably get away with putting a caregiver dollar number in there and probably just be spokes about it and and do it um you know short answer is I'm kind of inclined to go with the recommendations less offering the out of town guest memberships um and just kind of see how we do in 2024 I mean the problem is we're having s transitional year after transitional year here um I do like the idea of having a little bit more science to rate making but until we have an actual like Capital plan truly longterm and knowing everything else that goes into it I don't know you know I don't know how well we would do the first year you know I I I understand the concerns that this you know that we seem to be very reactive in the rate making here but you know the difference between this and the water and sewer utility is that people don't have a choice not to use the water and sewer utility they do have a choice not to use this I think that we kind of do have to look at last year's operating results and adjust strategy based on that so sure as far as what we do here I mean I'm you know I'm inclined to go with the administration results not inclined to um permit out of town memberships um and you know I do appreciate all of the work that's gone into this I know it's you know there's a lot of factors that go into this making work and it's more than just science here's a little bit of you know trying to make sure I always said that the the best result for us at the pool is simply measured by total number of users of you know think that that's we're trying to figure out some way to keep to make it so that everyone R who wants to go to the pool go to the pool now that's the end of the day what I want so I mean I'm in find to get some trust here in terms what's been recommended I think one of the things and I agree with you and I think you EO from the statements I said before but um I think one of the the things that the big question is based on the administration's the structure and the assumption that it would stay basically the same number of people but that me the financial targets that you have set or are we still in a position where we're not there yet you're still in a position where you're not there yet so in 2024 you will see a uh budget proposed before you of $950,000 which will hopefully cover the costs um that the other budgets were covering in previous years um with that um we would need to use about $200,000 over ARP funds and that's not using Surplus for Capital because we don't have any more full Capital Surplus um and not using our um full fund balance so so reasonably there is a and once the once 2024 is done and our funding structure changes there is a reasonable expectation of similarly High increases 2025 correct another $80 to $100 for membership and I think that's what we have to recognize is that this is one step in a drastically larger increase in the pool and so the question that I I have to put before us and my Council colleagues know that I don't love making people pay things um but in the circumstance it is it is a significant benefit asset that we're planing from found but the question I have is are we going to be putting ourselves in a worse position by not having a higher rate this year okay and you know this is a step in and it's a big step but at the same point you we looked at we just had the rate study for the for the water which suggested a 28% increase because that's the only way that our funding works by providing that and it's it's terrible but that is so same point are we actually doing ourselves a disservice but not really facing the hard question of what do these rates actually need to be and forget the economic analysis part of it I'm I'm in favor of doing this however with what we paid for new genen for the rate study paying a consultant to do this would actually be a significant part of the pool's budget in order to do this so it actually corre would require us to raise fees additionally to have a study about fees which is a problem I think we actually have some some other talent that we can use in town to help us with this um but at the at the same point um I we have to really answer the question is is this enough because it just seems to me that and I've objected every year now last year I didn't I didn't participate in the conversation but you know the fire was inside of me and it's a shame that I wasn't able to participate in the conversation because I was going to ask the same question last year right and uh this is why I I asked for these things to be liated so I could participate in the conversation because it seems like we're we're missing this step in really where do we need to be so I would like to actually get numbers from the administration on what we actually need to char so you have about 1250 to a little less than 1300 resident uh 1300 memberships if you divide that out it's about $150 increase for each membership to cover the cost that would bring your up your $200,000 deficit but that's a significant increase in comparison to where we're already at but I think now is the time where we start maybe looking at numbers like and do these internal say okay this is where we are now and then this is a phased in to where we need to be and you know this is one of these issues is that after 2024 Paul sitting the back the whole ball game changes right yes and that we don't have the same funding sources as a result of the changes in funding and I think with these increases municipality just know that they're going to be higher um but what what happens is when I look at things like this I think there's no Rhyme or Reason to these numbers right and I I appreciate that they're where they are but I'm a hard data guy I want calculations I want those reports and you know I think we need to look at that um and then really have a serious conversation about what our fees can be without losing that profit side without seeing membership decrease and had some really kind of easy data Gathering that we can do um by talking to people and you know having those conversations and sampling people at the one having those conversations this Sumer um but in the meantime [Music] I in a position where I don't necessarily take stock in any number because it's kind of a it's kind of guess just Jo kind of a follow up on your comments here just looking out at Future years in the in the rate recommendations here you know you see a big factor that looks like it's nonre non-resident memberships you know it looks to me like that's about $150,000 size ball you know essentially you know financing the pool with the hope of generating that that to me seems like a really big lift to assume that we'd have 150 families or 300 seniors or some combination in between their you know joining the Jo the pool with non-residents I'm kind of curious as to the thought process behind that forecasting I mean is that do we think that there's that much demand for out of town members to join this pool at these rates so um in looking at Cedar Grove's rates since Cedar Grove is the only one that offers the out of town rate wanted to um be a little less than what there was to have competition there so that uh we are the Superior Pool that Cedar Grove is offering the simil IL rate for an out of town resident which one would you choose one has any out of town residents out of town memberships Dave supposed to follow up on that that's important number yeah you know gonna chase it if they they have five yeah um Dave is supposed to follow up on that um with um Cedar grow um so the thought process is to be marketable in comparison um I don't think that you're going to want to charge uh an addition $150 to $160 per membership um other than allowing outside residents I I don't know how we're going to proceed moving forward um you're going to be in the same position next year because this year um if we don't make um the revenue recommendations or allow for the revenue recommendations to be present whether in a small scale or any scale um I can't anticipate that for 2025 so if we have if we allow 10 people from outside it's more it's easier for me to justify it next year because I can't just say well we'll come up with another $200,000 to the state of New Jersey they're going to say no you're not because I can't have I don't have proof of that so if the uh Recreation Department is pushing the recommendation from the pool subcommittee like the advertising there and the the corporation rentals and all of that that will add into and will hopefully change my 2025 projections and hopefully that additional Revenue will make a difference and we won't need 300 seniors from out of town to to join um but without making some sort of move 2025 we're going to be stuck basically I mean it's just the mayor just brought up a very good point that we look out a couple of years here and this is you just confirmed it basically that 2024 is going to be the easier year for the time being and 2025 is really where we're going to have some hardship to deal with here unless we come up you know that's we need to start planning after my um my question about the the out of town memberships is when the survey data suggested that people were opposed out of town memberships because the pool was at high capacity um we have like Twilight memberships with the p system that people use to get in the pool okay we can actually track how many people are in a pool at a given time was any thought put into allowing an outof Town membership for the times when the pool is at a lower capacity so that way we're being sensitive of the members thoughts about having not too many people but at the same point being able to raise that Revenue you might get out of town people who might want to swim on their way home from work when the pool is a little less populated that might actually be and we could charge a reasonable rate for that at that point the Staffing still the same it doesn't cost us any more to add a couple more people uh to to swim or whatever in one of those things um but I'm wondering if perhaps we can have the administration look into that with the data find out if there was be a time that we could actually offer that I'm sorry thank you may um no just to answer councilman mom's question about just St in the dark it wasn't we're looking at the shortfall how much do I need to make up and it was simple math um out of the meetings of and I know the council is not in favor of out of town residence but we need to think about that the challenge of what you're going to face in the next couple of years one of the things I discussed with the staff and mostly our public information officer my question I had was what kind of marketing have we done in the community to entice residents the new residents may not know that much Val your pool residents may not know the the extent of the service at the pool and have they done a marketing campaign to bring new cut back new customer into the pool and that's on the drawing board now those discussions we'll be putting that together for the townwide to generate a market if we can bring more residents into the pool you won't have to address that question of what the public doesn't want your capacity at the pool is is based on the State Department of Health regulations you're not even close to the capacity or your pool based on the pool size and Ben at the pool so you're not even close on that question um we haven't address varied hours which is an interesting interesting item and we'll send that back to Dave to discuss with the subcommittee on the poll but one of the things that is going in place is a marketing campaign and a survey for the community at large which we're putting together with the new survey company we have but this all of this is based on just pure income and expense that was the bottom line what we did I will look into without spending what we spent on New Gen we have not had a rate study by any independent individual I'll look into that if it even exists if exist ones out there that's reasonable that we can we can do St of analysis and forecast there's someone that'll do it sure question Mr Mayor uh this came up to a couple people and maybe Council Holland know the answer in the meetings what about uh offering memberships to Township workers that do not live in town I mean even if there's 10 families it's another could be six gr yeah your your Township employees that live in town I've already asked how many employees do we have that are nonresidents I asked payroll to let me know that so we can answer that question um yes I mean a majority my my office is five people four of us live in Cham um a majority do live in Cham um but we have discussed that certainly and we did get a comment last year about that and I think at this point um we we've had a lot out there um and we' given the administration some other things to to investigate um but in order for us to actually start charging people um and having memberships we need to have an ordinance on for the 26th of this month so I would kind of like to have have a straw um from the Council on whether you want to proceed with the administration writing an ordinance for these rates plus whatever other items that we we looked at um try to take all of our feedback and and find a common ground for us to to talk on first reading is that acceptable with everybody for now as far as with the rates provided by the administration or are we going to need to schedule another meeting to hear some responses discuss this again we GNA have to have a special meeting on poll at this point I'm just going to take this draw poll as everybody just raise your hand it's on official vote but if you're in favor of the um Administration writing an ordinance that reflects the numbers in the in the chart that we provided exclusive exclusive not but I think that the potential off time thing would be nice to see so we have a we have a majority that has suggested that we move forward and I think the Administration has their um the March something uh is there any other items of new business to come before the council oh thank a second oh sorry I just had that in my head and I actually wrote it down um but we left in such a nice place at this point um I'm going to turn the chair over to the deputy mayor and while I'll be at the day remain silence thank you Mr M uh so the second half of this discussion is for the fire department and rescue members only uh we we received this today or do you want to is is just just point a clarification to protect the mayor I think you have to step up to dance but I no public session with Clos session I'd make them leave the room but because it's public session so the record is clear the Americans stay here I don't see a difference between him sitting 5et over there versus where he's sitting now and he'll remain silent and so the council's clear um we're going to split this up in the ordinance results split up in the conversation so it's before you now is what I'll call the um current ordinance the current ordinance has fire and rescue but you have two conversations maybe three conversation one is should anyone be exempt what groups should be exempt and then whether you're going to charge the exempt group I guess this year there's a in charging them there's a registration fee but our Administration will revie that recommendation um our Administration is recommendation is not the recommendation of the subcommittee who recommended a a higher fee um last year I discussed with the two chiefs of police and fire and rescue a registration Fe you have 159 members last year I asked that the all to register in actually at the full firefighters and EMS and there's 159 actually register to go to the PO uh it's split almost evenly between uh fire and rescue and um I recommended last year a $25 registration fee I know it's a small amount but every every little bit house last year fire was and resc you were had no problem with the $25 registration fee and there was discussions relative to the sub the recreation commissions spe that uh set it off and it went to no charge at all um I did chat with two chiefs the fire chief I had no problem with it again the rescue Chief expressed an issue with the $25 registration Fe I'm still recommending that you you have a $25 registration fee for both buyer and okay a family charge when you tell us is is 15 4 memberships 159 that's what we got on okay said 154 here uh now you're saying 154 memberships but that's how many of those are family membership it's not 154 individual memberships it was4 total I thought it was 159 it was 150 if it's 54 the firefighter whether or EMS whether it's the family or whatever was the firefighter who's qualified or the EMS person who's qualified it's a so family that is the so that's A2 is for the family it can't be 154 because there's 125 Rescue Squad members and I think 40 or 50 buyer the way it was represented was that it's individuals so it was 159 so like you weren't counting as families which is actually one of my questions about your per household feed it was that they in they individually registered each of them they were all free but they were individually represent um registered that's how it was represented to the CL committee but I think that's a point of clarification for the administration so it would be nice to have the breakdown of this how many of these are families because you could have a family of four a family of six and you're counting that as six or four individuals so it's kind of a little a little number being 154 to meet a little higher than what you have that number I I may well you that's that was my question but I I I'm going to defer this Oh I thought I saw somewhere that the loss Revenue not charging or the amount of the subsidy was around 17,000 did I just imagine that number it's not on this chart the amount of the loss revenue for not charging so assuming all these individuals were paying the full rate that the differential but I I don't want to Mis umate question did you calculate I don't know if that was calculated oh okay St that because I obviously it may have been but I I don't recall now I know that some members of the rescue squad in particular don't actually they're from other towns do we limit this just a Verona resident or are there individuals who are volunteering with the rescue squad who are then also utilizing this benefit that are from out of down that is correct there are um so each each organization has um basically um a level that they have to reach between calls um drills that they go on um each one has its own um kind of levels and you have to meet certain recommendations you would know so much more that about this than I would in good standing a member in good standing yes thank you um but yes yes both both and they both have their own list uh but rescue squad has members that are out of town members that are in good standing and can join the pool okay and have join the pool and I would assume so that would be a question for Dave but okay thank you you're welcome see I can what's up quickly if that 177,000 is the number being figure out how we arrived again yeah I don't want to repeat remember us discussing a number I thought it was like maybe we had a differential rate or something like that but we did kind of figure out what it was costing us I just don't recall the number yeah I I I would like clarification on the per household $25 registration fee and whether it's it's tied to any actual administrative like cost associated with doing this and if so is it appropriate to be per household or per individual registered um so I I would like to get some clarification on that I I do think it's a very nominal charge so if it were per individual I that would objectionable and I manager Dave responds on next question he asked is eligible he said the list provided has more eligible members the number provided of the members who actually registered for a membership so I'm assuming and I'll ask ask them to clarify that but it's the members that's what he's saying of fire and rescue I don't have 2023 is numbers but uh fire and rescue in 2022 was 149 seven were individuals 10 were couples 22 were family memberships five were family memberships with babysitter one was a parent child and three were seniors that was 22s oh so when we have a number like 145 it is memberships but it can actually be well over 149 people correct so it's from my understanding it's the firefighter or Rescue Squad person is registering but that doesn't include all of the family members or for people that are involved that's just the registr okay but I don't have 20 23's numbers but it did go up from 149 to 159 that you have on your list I don't know 154 154 okay so it did memberships I just don't know if that what memberships types that was I think it was actually as a result of our discussion people didn't realize they had the benefit to it start using it so I'm sorry can you just repeat how manys were um 22 family memberships five with family with babysitter and how many seniors that's okay three three seniors one parent 10 couples and seven individuals they all get badges I would I would love if Dave could really give us an idea of how many people actually used it that's the number there it seems like a lot of people signed up but how many people actually use it okay being a big one any other comments I me I want to have conversation with the leaders I appreciate the feedback that you know one is okay one is n so want to collect some more data me to me personally uh for what what the firefighters and our volunteer rescue squad people give this town and what they save this town that's not even go into full-time here and there uh I think this is such a a minimal give back I I don't think even $25 for household is even worth it I just I can't see charging them $25 for something that that that they they really deserve I mean the amount of time they volunteer time they put into this town and what they give and how much and the lives that they save I think this is such a minimal give back I think it's just something that we should shouldn't even consider charging so that's just my opinion yeah I mean it was it was kind of it I don't like the message it sends ultimately I mean over it's you know $4,000 we we need to have the larger discussion about the cost of the pools and the structure and finding anory Revenue sources I just don't know if this is you know one of them um I've got some other ideas I'm to close but I'm not crazy about this anyone else no one thank you than to you Mr thank you all right this time heing no further new business I'm for public comment on any same time same applies heing no public comment to public comment we did have a resolution in the exam agenda to go into executive session will any official action be taken now okay session I okay we have a resolution for it um so we'll have no executive session which is even more exciting do I have any motion before the council oh move to adjourn the council enrollment has moved to adjourn and councilman m seconded a motion all those in favor I I all those opposed can stay here for as long as they wish yes good evening everybody remember our meeting