[Music] there's a name for of the township of Washington Township Council adequate notice of the meeting was given in accordance with the open public meetings act by the Township Clerk to at least two newspapers in January and this meeting has been posted on the township bulletin board electronic Message Board WCTV and on the township website please notify the municipal clerk of any disability requirements necessary for the attendance at the mayor and Council meetings the fire exits are located through double doors on your right and and through the doors on your left please silence all cell phones please rise to the salute for the flag pleasei to the flag of the United States of America the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all have a seat please okay uh right now we're going to recognize the Western High School competition cheer team Mr Mayor you have a proclamation yes thank you um good to see you all uh I thought you all here for the budget meeting tonight so you PID me out a little bit no no it's great to see you all here um and so uh let's uh get on with Proclamation you have the wirel so I can't remember the last time we've had this many people in attendance for a clamation so I hope what I'm going to say is okay but as I read your name assuming you're here I'd love for you to come up and start to line in front of the day is uh so and forgive me for any mispronunciations of any names ahead of time um so for seniors we have Madison [Applause] alesio Sienna raldi [Applause] Whitman the Juniors McKenzie AAR Ashley [Applause] aarco [Applause] gz and Jamie [Applause] Pria sophomores Kendall Dempsey Adriana noil horn May Moran [Applause] Adriana [Applause] Serra [Applause] freshman Ava Duran [Applause] jell Madison [Applause] Mahia yes that will call the coaches up also which the turn here Victoria [Applause] YY I'll read the proclamation now the certificate is proudly presented to the Westwood High School competition cheerleading team the Westwood High School competition cheerleading team team went undefeated and won first place out of 2018 teams in the big North conference this [Applause] year uh the leag title for the Patriot division on February 5th beating out Riverdale High School and Ramsey High School they competed on February 5th against the top 14 teams in the conference they played second and were one of eight teams to move on to to the semi-finals at the American dream on February 16th on February 16th the team had an outstanding performance that led them to advance to the finals that same night where they competed against the top four teams their second performance was sorry for my shaky hands their second performance was even better and they later found out that they won first place in the entire conference with a top score of 95 5.25 their highest score to [Applause] gate the coaches are undoubtedly proud of them for putting in the time and working extremely hard this season proudly presented this fourth day of March 2024 by myself mayor Peter calamary council president Mike desna who's not with us this evening Council vice president Stephen Casio C councilman Tom Sears councilman Michael Alman and councilwoman Daisy gz thank you so much couldn't be more proud of you anytime West comes in first I'm very proud I wish we had Che leaders at our wrestling match afforded that but congratulations again you should be proud this whole community's proud of you you know you really make Washington Town Chi West stand out and thank you very much and after we done the banner we're going to present it to you okay thank [Applause] you picture [Music] you [Applause] take the have a good evening take care oh I'm sorry who are you have a good okay oh just yours hello hello hello J is [Music] okay you ready here Madam clerk can you please call the RO councilman Casio here councilman Sears here councilman man here Council woman valz here counc president to Center let the record reflect also in attendance mayor Kari Township administrator the Carlo Township attorney parer and Township Clerk wowski uh resolution number 24-17 authorization uh payment of bills February 16 2024 to February 29 2024 do I have a motion so move second any discussion uh I just had uh I think it's two questions I could ask more I'll start with two um the the P 24-13 Beacon offset printing there's a charge or a payment made out of the trust for celebrations of public events as well as a reserve for the Township calendar and I was just wondering uh why we would be doing it out of the public events or celebration account if it's if it is the calendar I'm assuming it is uh you're assumed correctly um unfortunately we had to borrow money right now from public events because there wasn't enough money in the temporary budget to pay for the town calendar so once the budget's approved we'll be paying back that line so that was the most closely associated line um that I felt would you know make the most sense to borrow the money from the reserve for Township calendars um I don't know the balance off the top of my head we could check it when we open up the the budget books but I think it's pretty close to you know not not existing anymore a balance so that's why we took the remainder out of out of the trust for celebration but it'll be paid back okay is it possible um to note those unusual trans transactions or nonregular transactions like for for you guys in these reports yes I mean I could um well or put an addendum or I we could figure something out it's just you know I think you're just talking specifically like we're are borrowing you know borrowing from Peter to pay Paul essentially for a few little bit Yeah because I think like last week or last meeting I had asked a couple of questions and it was the same or similar um the other question is the uh at the top towards the top of the page 23 -01 383 Cliffside body1 you guys are looking at different pages unfortunate uh what's the P again sir the p is 23- [Music] 01383 okay yes so and I could be mistaken but I thought we paid for a snow cloud in the last budget um excuse me the last bill list so I was just wondering is this for a new or is this for this was I'm sorry to cut you off I just know I know the question I apologize it's for the the purchase of a new vehicle that was approved um by Capital by the council last year so it was the cost of a vehicle plus the cost of the outfitting and this is the outfitting costs understood but and again maybe I I could be mistaken uh I thought at the last meeting there were a number of access accories and one of them was the plow so there I remember you asking me questions like why would we use the the snow removal trust and we've been given you know essentially the okay to expend Associated costs with snow removal so we didn't buy a new plow there was probably repairs that you saw um on there that we associated with snow trust okay and the last question uh 23-2 3652 365 yes oh 2365 yes um the account is police 1033 program yes is this for the Hummer I don't know if it's specifically for the Hummer but I do know it's to make repairs um to a vehicle that was obtained through the 103 through program I just don't know if it was the Hummer okay all right thank you you're wel any other questions okay excellent uh so uh motion to pass counc um Council seers yes councilman yes Council valz yes vice president is um yeah whoever you are yes he misses a day he throws everything okay PSA for March 4th 2024 uh the Township's second annual spring Wellness 5K run walk and healthare will be taking place on Saturday April 27th please visit our website for further information and sponsor applications 2024 animal license renewals were mailed out in late December please note the $25 late fee began March 1st New Jersey counties in partner with the state uh uh Department of State Division of elections are actively seeking residents to serve as pole workers in the up upcoming primary and general election please visit our homepage to learn more the township is also seeking members for The Advisory Board of Health and a public affairs director if you are interested please contact the mayor via email at mayor atwp of washington. us um additionally Hometown Heroes veteran Banner program is now live please visit the township website for more information and the next council meeting will be held on Monday March 18th at 7 pm see what happens uh report of the administrator please yes sir thank you Council vice president uh Casio council members and Township residents this is my follow-up from meeting February 20th 2024 uh as far as resident concerns and questions there was nothing to report back on uh there were three General Council concerns or questions number one Council requests additional information regarding a possible renovation and second story for the police department in its current location the to St tall Town Hall architect Anthony oino will be working on that design Council requested that we advertise the change in time for the 20124 council meetings which was completed and Council requests the possibility of requiring a road surface rating from our Township engineer I requested and and am awaiting a proposal from Glenn beckme as far as updates um I'll throw this one out there even though all I'm doing the project tractor uh update this evening the construction of the two bot ball court has been completed councilman Town Tom Sears and I met with amaros discuss Landscaping at senior's Park we also discussed our plan with the resident whose backyard borders the park in the area of the Bachi bull courts she was appreciative of our efforts to add some privacy beautification and sound barrier to the area uh there is um from my last sentence of the paragraph pomarosa Tree Service actually completed uh the work over there which was removing some old concrete planning Green Giant orities adding top soil there'll be some seaing in the very near future and remove some evasive grass from the area right around the bot ball Courts at this time that concludes my update thank you thank you uh Mr Mayor a report please yes thank you vice president CIA uh good evening everyone Recreation news the 2023 2024 basketball season playoffs are beginning soon good luck to all the teams the 2024 lacrosse season registration has ended and their season will be beginning soon thank you to all who have volunteered your time to help out this season the fun with art program is backed for another season this spring this program has become very popular with kids in first to sixth grades the 2024 men's over 33 softball program registration is open through Friday April 12th 2024 please visit the town website for more details on all the town programs fire department news thankfully February was a quiet month for the department they answered a few alarm calls one was a report of smoke in a kitchen which turned out to be due to cooking there was a report of smoke coming from a house which was from their wood burning stove and they also assisted Montvale in a mutual Aid call for coverage DPW news damaged crosswalk signs were replaced 1100 lb of black top have been used in filling potholes they took delivery of a new Ford F350 pickup truck and plow the department responded to two snow events during the month of February the catch basins in zone 2 were inspected the next metal collection is scheduled for March 21st please call the DPW to get on the schedule if you have Medal to be picked up library the library had a great February there were several featured special programs Community drum circle a farming Garden lecture the annual kids bookmark contest a Dungeons and Dragons class and a teen cupcake program upcoming in March is the return of the Irish Step dancers a program that includes an Irish soda bread contest crafts for the kids and the amazing Ridgewood Irish Step dancers Sunday March 10th at 11:30 oh sorry that's on Sunday March 10th at 11:30 a.m. we also have New Jersey maker day on Saturday March 16 16 and a teen paint night and an eclipse program from the Pearl Observatory please see the library newsletter or website for further details Municipal Alliance News here are the programs planned thus far for 2024 Middle School Bound for greatness an assembly program that promotes self-confidence setting goals hard work leadership and respect while addressing the challenges of peer pressure and decision making presented by former profess athlete Dwayne West program to be held this month High School save your breath a program for students in grades 9 through 12 and their parents addresses the dangers of vaping vaping prevention social media use and raising resilient teens that program is also to be held this month Washington Elementary School footprints for Life a program that third a program for third graders that addresses finding their voice bullying respect peer pressure pressure and and respect looks duplicated sorry program to be held in the Spring Garden State Parkway exit 168 and Washington Avenue signalization I attended another meeting on the topic with the administrator Town engineer and members of our Police Department other attendees at the meeting were representatives from Bergen County engineering the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and their engineer for the project our concerns about the signal continue to be addressed commuter lot at the new Emergency Services building now that the weather has started to moderate construction on the lot has restarted we look forward to its completion so an open house of the facility can take place that concludes my report thank you Council vice president thank you Peter uh Mr thank you okay so first of all I want to congratulate the Westwood High School competition cheerleading team on a fantastic win as councilman SE says you make us very proud we've had a fantastic year in our programs over at the high school so congratulations to all the ladies it's it's quite a challenge to be able to make it all the way to the top and then come out the winner so once again congratulations um and then I guess councilman Sears and I you know this report is kind of dual um as some of you already know the veteran Banner project is underway it went live on Friday March 1st um thank you a big thank you to Heather Henry for helping us with this project she's taking her technology skills to a new level and we really appreciate that um it's only been live three or four days now and we have a little over half a dozen submissions for information on the banner program you can look on our website everything is digital but if that is um if that causes a little difficulty you can have it printed out and bring a check to town Paul um I'm really excited to be working alongside councilman sear on this project um not only to recognize our Hometown Heroes but also I'm excited to bring a little life to pasc Road um our main road I know we don't have a downtown but this is this is just a a great combination of of two efforts thank you to the mayor and administrator for your continuous support on this uh I know there's a lot of moving parts that we've been working with uh to make this project come to for so thank you very much on that I don't know if councilman you wanted to add to that piece excuse me council is your microphone on or off there it is sorry thank you everybody's got to speak into the microphone a couple people called this past week saying that they can't hear everybody projecting so okay thank you no problem um the 5K as it was mentioned in the PSA the 5K run walk family run walk and health fair is taking place on Saturday April 27th at 9:00 a.m. at Bethany that's when the race kicks off the health fair will start at 8:00 a.m. so come on down nice and early meet a whole bunch of vendors and I'm sure councilman Sears will go into a little more detail he's doing a great job of putting a nice list of Health vendors there is still an opportunity to be a sponsor for both the 5K and the health fair um and to join us at the healthare portion of it registration is live again everything is available on the website um you just log in and you've got to see the T-shirt t-shirt looks great um I got a peek at it the T-shirt will be guaranteed until April 6 so if you want access to one of the hottest t-shirts in Township um make sure you register for the 5K before April 6th um grab your neighbors grab your friends family and this is just a nice way to spend a Saturday morning doing something healthy with your loved ones um to be clear this is a cashless event so all payments are being accepted accepted online no cash will be accepted at the event again everything is streamline there are QR codes available online and soon you will see all the the sign AG for it around town um everything could just be done right online to make it easier for everybody and then last but not least uh last month I made mention to the council as well as the residents that I was working alongside U Mr Glenn beckme our Township engineer to review some elements within the building department that we felt could use some modernization um and also to streamline the process for some of our res residents as I reported last time some of our residents had come up to me for you know a couple years now you know how how can we make this uh more streamlined um more effective into you know wanting to encourage people to improve them their homes so I'm happy to report that there have been some successful meetings taking place and the process will continue to move forward and I will update the council as well as our residents as we make progress to this so thank you very much and that's my report Council sers thank you council president uh I am going to start off tonight with um veterans uh news um the uh VF post 6192 is going to start up a Guitar program for uh veterans within the community um I have a location where we could um uh be trained uh I'm asking if anybody has any used guars or if you would like to donate uh some money for books for the veterans uh music is the best thing for for the veterans that are homebound or we need to get them out into the community so um please reach out if you have an old guitar or you would like to donate some money for the books uh we will be meeting down at the beffy community center for the training um the second thing is we received a a very nice donation from a family member of Heather Casanova uh it's been almost a year since a passing so um this is in memory of Heather okay the Green Team uh the Green Team events for 2024 are posted um you can go on the web and look at all our upcoming events um I have picked up up a couple of more volunteers and as of today I I received another two volunteers that are willing to work on the projects so all the projects are posted and I hope to see as many people out um for 2024 as we had in 2023 um the overnight parking for First Responders uh Council vice president I will have a full report at the next council meeting for that for the uh the council um uh we'll also have a full report on the uh ambulance core lowp uh change in their um requirement and uh going back to the veterans banner and the health day uh um councilwoman valz um and myself did do a lot of work into this it's it's not just reaching out and having somebody put a banner up it has to do with brackets uh Public Service Gas and Electric um uh Heather uh uh Henry U did a great job of working on the uh uh the forms for us um I'm glad to hear that a veterans are taking it up um my only uh uh uh commented that is make sure that you supply your DD214 with any request to have a um a banner put up that's the only verification that you know we're going to make sure that you're obligated there our set of rules and regulations posted for you to uh have your banner put up it's all on the form and on the web page uh second thing is I had my second meeting with uh Montclair State technical group on the storm water project uh we will be coming up um in another two weeks establishing a time frame and um they feel that there is a grant out that we could uh apply uh towards the five students and the one professor professor that will be looking at our whole Water Project within the community uh that's what I have tonight thank you Council vice president thank you Mr seers Mr rman uh nothing to report okay and my report's going to be short um because it was all covered before um I just want to say congratulations to uh Gavin sailor and Adam Dugan uh they're wrestlers for Westwood High School and they both Advanced to the uh New Jersey state championship Gavin won his region one final he was named most outstanding wrestler which is impressive he beat the top seated uh wrestler from Don bosow and Aiden duok made it to the finals at 190 unfortunately he did not win he placed second which is a great accomplishment so congratulations boys and we'll move on from there that concludes my report okay uh approval minutes none tonight and then we have a presentation for the master plan for Mr Burgess he's our town planner and Leonardo know good evening everyone good evening welcome Council vice president to the Sue can you hear me I think so yeah we're good L I think can you hear me we have trouble hearing you l we know that so Council vice president Town Administration thank you for providing us the opportunity to speak to you this evening about the uh the town master plan but specifically speaking tonight about the proposal which has been put forth by uh Mr Burgess and his firm to the to the planning board Council vice president if it's okay what I would like to do is spend the first five minutes giving the council member some context and sure take as much time as you need whatever format you need okay great because I want to provide some context and background as to how we got to this point because it's been over a year but I'm glad we are at this point so uh a little bit of background on myself I've been on the planning board now for almost 14 years and I took over as the chairman of the planning board back in in January of 2023 as I was new to the position I also wanted to uh gain some insights as to how the zoning board operates to ensure that uh that I lead the planning board with the same respect and and and protocols uh that I would uh that the zoning board employees as part of their meetings so as part of the meeting F first couple months of 2023 I attended the zoning board meetings and I was during one of the meetings and again I will not discuss the application uh at this point because we all know the situ situation I was doing one of those meetings that after based on comments of the applicant attorney I saw uh Mr Burgess and uh Paul aelina who is the engineer and I asked some questions around our master plan and the 2019 reexamination report based on the conversations after that meeting I said to Mr U Mr Burgess I think you know I I think you need to appear before planning board mhm because we were all under the impression all the members of the planning board were under the impression that the 2019 the examination report was the master plan again I am not a master planner and I'm not well versed in U Municipal land use law if you want to know how to operate an M1 A1 tank and shoot 120 M rounds down down range I can do that right but I cannot discuss me man use which is why I reached out to Mr Burgess to come before the planning board Mr Burgess came before the planning board and he indeed mentioned that that the town was in accordance uh with the state law with respect to reviewing the master plan every 10 years where we fell short was taking the 2019 reexamination report and incorporating it into the town's master plan plan and to give you some perspective the last town the last time the town's master plan was updated was 1974 and uh Mr Mayor if you recall in Council M Sears uh when we tried to find the master plan we had a little bit of a challenge because no one can actually locate it it was not on our website but luckily I think Mr aelina was able to find the master plan in his files I had Mr Burgess here before the May 24th 2023 planning board and it was at that time that Mr Burgess uh indicated that the best approach to take was one take a look at the 20 2019 uh reexamination report look at the recommendations that came out of the review and that that review was not done by Mr Burgess it was done by tnm Associates and let's understand better what recommendation ations that were put forth in the examination report were actually implemented implemented versus what what the planning board still needed to act on so we went through that exercise in in September of 2023 where myself including Council Miss Sears and several members of the planning board met with Mr burges and we went into detail the 2019 re examination report based on the committee sub committee's review and conversations with Mr Burgess Joe come on I'm sorry it's Joe Jo uh So based on uh that that subcommittee meeting what we learned was that while there were certain recommendations that would brought forth to the mayor and Council for which resulted in ordinances there were four recommendations that we did not act on and if I can let me just spend a minute on on what those four applications please four recommendations were the first one was the first one was the single family residential lots and there Joe would review the the area and bulk standards applicable to existing single family residential zones for the purpose of properly restricting development in accordance with the intent expressed in the 2019 master plan reexamination report the second uh recommendation that came out of 2019 review was commercial uh vehicles on Residential Properties the third recommendation was to review the town's imperious surface coverage and the last one was and again I will not go into detail but it it was with respect to the northwest corner of pasak Road and Washington Avenue and I will leave that leave that because again uh we all know the situation it was at the uh at the September meeting based on the conversations with Joe that we had asked Joe to go back and provide us with a proposal to specifically address those four recommendations because again based on Joe's recommendation let's get those let's address those four recommendations first before we begin the uh the Journey of updating our master plan they provided a a proposal for about to not exceed $6,000 and we were able working with with Mark and the mayor we were able to find the six grand because of the lack I don't say lack of meetings planning board meetings but we had a budget for the planning board but because of there were a number of meetings we did did not occur we had the money so so we did not have to ask the Council of any additional funds but I believe Mark correct me if I'm wrong I think it came out of one fund we did a transfer did a transfer which the council approved so so Joe uh we issued Town issued the purchase order in December and Joe provided us with uh his draft report last last Wednesday at the planning at the planning board meeting so the next step on his draft report is planning board members to review report and have Jo appear before the planning board to review his recommendations and that will complete the first step uh one step I did leave out was once the board reviews those recommendations and agrees those recommendations then we will submit the recommendations to the mayor of council uh for review of potential new ordinances so that so that was phase one so probably with the next month or so uh we will we completed with phase phase one the second phase of the update of the master plan and I'll turn over to Joe here in a minute was a comprehensive review of the town's master plan and as I mentioned earlier the last time we updated the master plan was 1974 and considering that the requirements back in 1974 are very different and than what they are in 2024 and and addition to the depending uh fair housing which will probably come out in 2025 the planning board felt it was prudent to to uh start that process uh sooner than later again in order to minimize any potential risks uh to the town uh considering uh the uh affordable housing that should be will be coming out in in 2025 so we asked Joe for a proposal at this point after my 15minute pontification here I'll pass over to Joe to work through his proposal to answer any questions that you might have and then I'll conclude at the end of Joe's uh presentation thank you is this one it's working yes okay um I want to congratulate you first of all um I started my firm in 1988 been in planning consultant since that time we've grown to I think right now we're representing 47 or 48 municipalities throughout the state and in my 40 years of practice I've probably looked at three or 400 Master plans you have the single oldest master plan that's still current in the state of New Jersey um your master plan predates the original 1975 um Mount Laurel litigation your master plan predates the comprehensive 1976 massive Municipal land use law rewrite um and there's been I think back then there were three elements identified in the precursor to the municipal land use law and today there's about 15 so you can see there's been some change um you have fortunately regularly prepared the reexamination report that you're obligated to it used to be every six years you were doing that then it became 10 years and you you followed through with that so consequently at least you're legal um but with all the changes that have taken place and how we become such a litigious Society it's in your best interest to give consideration to a new comprehensive document um we have prepared one with the help of the planning board where they gave indications to what certain elements were you know obligatory and others which the planning withf was just important enough to include in The Proposal of the I will say up front the only obligatory component of the uh Municipal land use law or that you have a land use plan element you have what has been now called it's a very recent update what called a vulnerability assessment that was included as part of a land use plan element um the other items uh the other two items contained in our proposal is a community facilities element which the planning board was very much interested in and the sustainability element which really Dove tails with the vulnerability assessment so it's good to to do both in tandem um the way this is structured um we figure it'll be about nine months to complete the land use element and the vulnerability assessment and the sustainability element and then the community facil and that would take us through to the end of the year and then the following couple months into 2025 would be the community facilities element work um it's important to highlight that structure because as I'm sure everybody's aware the housing element in Fair Share Plan is coming down the pike and just quick background on that uh say legislature is already prepared new legislation to a aband eliminate the Council on affordable housing create a new program uh that the state legislature will be identifying half now three um retired judges to oversee the program rather than have the former Co staff oversee it and then the concept of special Masters and support staff for the judges uh will also be in place critically the regulations are much more are much more difficult and a heck of a lot more onerous to municipalities than previous um I don't know if you've been following that in the newspapers or not um municipalities will still be entitled to what's called a vacant land adjustment from their determined housing need number but irrespective of that the second draft still says that irrespective of being entitled to a vacant land adjustment because you just don't have enough land to develop the sufficient housing stock for to address your obligation you will still be required to prepare a plan that addresses 25% of that unmet need so it's pretty wild on its face if if they determine that they don't have enough land to address the entire obligation why should we then be required to address a portion of that additional unmit need um there are a number of very specific time frames that are spelled out that if you miss any single one time frame you would automatically lose um your protection from any affordable housing lawsuits I say all that as background to this proposal because within the context of the preparation of a lot of this information we will be able to use that when we get to the point of having to prepare this housing plan you know sometime in late 24 early 25 um the way the second the second draft reads sometime in mid to late 25 you're going to have to determine what your housing obligation is and the plan components that will address that obligation so in this fashion we'll have a lot of that information already prepared about the background database to help the planning where just focus entirely not on how we are going to address a number whatever it will be as I said there's um four different components to this plan I'm I assume you all have a copy of the contract in front of you right no yes okay thank you um so you can see the pricing of the individual elements and as you can see from the text there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into it I have suggested to the planning board that there's two ways to go about this process either I would work with the full planning board or alternatively they could create a subcommittee of a few planning board members a member of the council a member of the zoning board and in that way with a smaller group it would be more expeditious in terms of being able to meet we could pick any night of the week we don't have to wait for a planning board meeting or alternatively if people are available it could be during the week or even on a Saturday morning and I always make myself available um but those are the two options that the planning board will figure out when they get started on this this work product um in terms of the work product itself the land use plan obviously is the first step uh we do a very detailed analysis of how every single piece of property in the municipality is developed we map all that information we then take all the environmental constraints data that we have online and identify where flood planes are wetlands are um see1 stream buffers are we map all that and then we look at what's not in those categories and with that I also include all the Wetland and Wetland buffers and C1 stream buffers and the like and then we look at the remaining land that would that the fair share housing center would consider as developable and we start to figure out okay how are we going to address various land use issues whether it's residential commercial industrial what have you uh at the same time our staff does uh very deep analysis and assessment of a lot of demographic data for the municipality and the reason we do that is as we all know over time your population changes in terms of age characteristics in terms of families of child we engaged and what the implications of those would be and if you're an aging population for example then you would start thinking about do we need more housing for the elderly if you have a population filled with younger families you have to start looking at whether or not we have enough Recreation space do we have enough uh development on our school in our school system to accommodate whatever that future demand may be and we plan accordingly and so on the end line we look at this information to assess a whole host of community facilities and whether or not the existing infrastructure is there to accommodate whatever growth potential we determine you know through the planning um and that's basically the land use plan section in one regard the other regard is that we then want to identify very specifically what our land use goals and objectives are and what we do is in addition to goals and objectives we have an Associated policy statement with each and every goal that we offer and the reason we do that is we understand working with all the municipalities that we do and also doing a lot of private development work that it's not the planning board that ends up working with the master plan most it's the Zoning Board of adjustment because with every single use variance they have to look at that master plan and really figure out well is there a substantial impairment to the intent of the plan or not so we want to be as explicit as we can in terms of how we structure our goal gos and objectives and identify why we're saying this is an important goal or objective as we possibly can be to make sure that the zoning board doesn't misinterpret what the planning board had in their mind um that takes a lot of background information in the office for us it also takes a lot of time with our subcommittee or the full board to make sure everybody's comfortable enough with what we've prepared to want to see it get adopted and if we have to change it three or four times we change it three or four times the figures that you see in this proposal don't change then you know we're locked into what this is um we also have built in a number of meetings with the the subcommittee of the planning board um that's the one open could become an open-ended thing if we end up meeting once a week for 52 weeks then we have to reassess that one is so um but that's the initial step now the same step holds true for that vulnerability assessment and the other two elements that I mentioned earlier so I know I'm sure there's lot of questions about what this proposal is I know it's not a small amount um so i' be happy to answer questions that you might have Council vice president please any questions go right ask um 2019 we spent a lot of money to do a reval or an update how much of that data are you going to use to move forward with the new master plan A B why is it taking so long to complete the uh master plan C uh article let me see uh item number two article two uh consistent with recent vulnerability assessments uh you have one through five it looks like it's almost redundant and item number four can you shorten the time frame well um we we haven't gotten to course yet but um let's take each one in turn let's start with the vulnerability assessment the vulnerability assessment those five items are statutory they are spelled out in the municipal land use La was an amendment about a year and a half or so ago so we have to address each of these points separately and specifically in any Master Plan update or even an amendment to a master plan that you do the statute says you have to address these five for Point items so you are you correct that there's some redundancy there may be um but it is a little different than what's required of the land use plan element um well I forget the first point already I'm sorry um why uh 2019 2019 oh yes we did invest a lot of money in doing that um why are you going to be using any of that data for the new plant and if you are should that be able to shorten your time frame and giving us to do Master Plan uh we will be able to use uh a significant portion of the demographic data is presented in that document however that document predated the publication of the 2020 um demographic information so we have to go and really do a deep dive into the 2020 data as well as some updates that uh the government periodically uh presents going through I guess 2023 I'm not sure if we'll have 20 24 data by the time we're we may have some of the 2024 data by the time we finish this document um so there's that additional information that we will be looking at you should be able to get that information from the sensors report correct yes yeah but not the evaluation of that's what we do yes uh in terms of the time frame we're saying uh up to nine months you know we we don't certainly don't anticipate it going beyond that and it may be uh a little shorter could be seven months I doubt very much it would be anything less than seven months um but I'd rather say nine and meet that goal rather than saying saying seven and then after seven months tell you that I've got to ask for another two months to complete thank you council president da any questions um I guess a question and a comment you spoke about the town still being required to prepare a plan to meet that 25% obligation so this master plan this updated master plan will basically put us up in front of the aall we'll make sure that we are prepared for it when the time comes and they've officially made it at 25% correct yeah yes and no okay because this proposal does not include a housing element in fair share plan that's going to be due in late 2025 uh the regulations haven't been prepared yet there's been two drafts of legislation involved and both of those drafts had that 25% Factor I've been working with the league uh the the M the mayor's conference when trying to encourage the go the state legislature to delete that provision from the regulations because it is for lack of a technical planning term ridiculous on its face three towing towns we understand that you don't have sufficient land to address your oblig that entire obligation so you're entitled to what's called a vacant land adjustment and a determination of what they call a realistic development potential number but then to turn around and say irrespective of that we want you to address 25% of what we've already acknowledged you cannot meet so this doesn't make any sense so we're trying to encourage them with their third draft not to include that and we're not the only ones doing that the league of municipalities is also behind that um Jeff cenan's Law Firm who is very active in addressing affordable housing issues in front of the state legislature and the governor is also fighting this fight so hopefully that provision will get eliminated there's a number of other Provisions that are also very odorous for municipalities to meet mainly the time frames because every step of the way if you don't meet a time frame for example it says once your number is determined you have 48 hours once you adopt it to put it on your website if you don't you're subject to exclusionary zoning suits Cil president another question yeah any questions you want to ask don't have to ask me go ahead and ask uh as you aware our last evaluation we have zero property uh for building and thanks Ken for working on that for all these years um but then they did come back and they gave us two imaginary properties that's one down by Bethany one at Stone Mill and this is your imaginary property that you have to build are they going to have us continue with that or will that be eliminated I would be surpris I'd be surprised if it were to be eliminated because that would then become with the fourth round what's known as your prior round obligation and the way you're trying to achieve that prior round obligation so they in all likelihood would fight and when we say we they would argue that we're talking with the fair share housing center um they would undoubtedly fight to keep it in and um it would be up to us to prove why it may not make sense any longer okay thank you council president on that point if your obligation was determined to be zero and I forget what your prior round number was was couple hundred the origin one was 484 four 400 or so so that means under that second draft youd still have to come up with a plan for 100 units of affordable housing well that that's was kind of my followup if if we do this master plan um update then if we've already met the zero are we going to be magically prepared for this 2% I would say the homes along vanberg would be the somebody will do it I I can only say that um we have fought the good fight in other municipalities to dramatically reduce affordable housing need numbers um we do recognize that there's an affordable housing obligation you are one of the rare ones that got your number down to zero quite frankly um and I guess Ken deserves all the pass on the back for that um the rules have are changing in terms of how you determined that reduction and they're not in the favor of municipality so we're first starting to fight down in treton to get some of those old roles back uh into the the new regulations um the benefit of doing this master plan now is that you're going to have a lot of the background data that the housing element requires already done so the moment we find out what our new numers going to be uh we'll have all the information in place to actually analyze how we go to fight that number or or how we're going to address at least a portion of it so you won't be wasting another couple months preparing the background datab base it will basically already be done okay and and then just one more question because this was before my time so members of council please um the last time this was done was in 2019 so should we if we're doing it every 10 years should we wait till we pass the next census opportunity before we take a look at this and invest that kind of money moving forward I I just want to you said we did in 2019 we reexamination reexamination in 201 plan 1974 yeah 1974 I just want you had councilman se you had made mention that in 2019 we spent a nice chunk of money chunk of money to use the data but then when the 2020 census came along that's going to alter that data so should we be waiting to the end of the cycle before we jump on doing a reexamination one of the reasons why we had this discussion at the planning board and one of the reasons why I was suggesting you know complete the um implementation of those three or four recommendations that the planwood hadn't done from 2019 but if you were to get involved in any litigation um in the next couple years over affordable housing you want to be in the strongest position possible and I can't imagine what it would be like to stand up in front of a judge to say well your honor we have this 1974 plan and I know you weren't born yet your honor but it's still valid and you know what he or she would say yeah good try yeah I took I took a peek at that when I saw the year don't know if youve read the paper lately but paramis is also going through same exercise that we're asking the council to go through asking the council for for funds is their master ble river is about to under take a new re master plan as well and a lot of towns are gearing up for what's coming down the pike with the housing yeah issue okay so my um just to be clear and I think uh you know I I felt I was clear on our um from our meeting uh last week the community facilities elements uh which is about about 175$ 17,500 is the only element that is not required so uh if we wanted to only meet the bare minimum uh we could remove that without uh penalty for lack corre term okay and you you mentioned something in the update uh in your update and I just want to uh get some clarity uh at the meeting I had inquired about the source of the community facilities element and with the Genesis of you know that in terms of one of 15 elements that could be included uh as an optional element and you weren't sure at the time and I guess in your update you said that it came from the planning board so you know I'm I'm a new member but did we request that did the planning board request that uh update it I don't know it was a full planning board or when I met with you in the subcommittee I think it was in the subcommittee okay if I if I recall correctly okay so I mean if we wanted to move forward with this uh as Mr Burgess suggested we could defer the community facilities and still meet the uh reexamination yes it not an obligatory item okay anything else Mike councilman I think we had He was discussing the planning board that we felt the the synergies will do all together uh made a lot of sense certainly Pete do you have any questions no I do not but thank you Mark any questions El in in terms of funding for the study um I know that we made arrangements for the uh we encumbered the uh $6,000 for the uh reexamination in terms of this e for was any any monies encumbered no I have one question so right now with our reexamination we are current that's correct okay that's my only question well we're current but we haven't implemented correct you've implemented some of its recommendations there are four that you did not and three of those were detailed in our report that I presented last week this your proposal those ones or that only at the planning Bo the ones that were not inl I'm sorry the recommendations that were I guess the planning board got do we have that in your your you don't have you don't have the draft report okay that Joe issued to the planning board because the planning board has not had the opportunity to read to his report and digest what he had written but I'm assuming over the next month we'll get to Joe's uh report okay and provide recommendations to the mayor of council okay I'd like to see those recomendations I will say that just so you understand those were not master plan issues they were to amend the zoning ordinance of the municipality understand and we did receive I believe um Sue circulated the letter uh on the land use ordinance update that's that's the outcome of the reexamination uh that memo was included uh not as part of this meeting's packet but previously right okay thank you any other questions just one I'm sorry sure it just popped in my head um climate change that actually came out right after the 29 assessment so that's something new that has to be added that is that is a new element that's a new element and there's another new element I I forgot what it was okay thank you that everyone good y yeah I just had one quick question um we have these development fee uh the fees that are in the town is there any element of the master plan work or examination or elements that could be used any money from there to partially fund a little of it are you talking about the affordable housing trost fund you cannot okay it's just curious um at present under the current rules um you could use some of that money um to help def further cost of the housing element in fair share plan that I know that yeah but in the second draft they've deleted that okay they went all the money to be used for affordable housing not Administration the money is there an anticipated date that's been circulate circulating as to when it'll the drafts will be done um the initial one the first draft said by June 30th of 2025 the second draft I believe has moved that back a couple months okay um but you're you're still going to have to at least um be given your number before June 30th and the reason for that is under the of 2025 yes okay because under the current third round rules they end June 30th of 2025 but they're giving it the municipality is a little leeway once you have your number then you have a few months okay but again these are drafts there could be another round council president there's no more questions uh council president again my ask and and ask of the planning board is to include uh Joe K in the full amount in your 2024 budget review and I provided a copy and gra has provided a copy Tom more so it should be in your budget and the ask from the planning board is that consider approving the full 85,000 all the reasons Joe mentioned tonight that we just need to get ahead curve understood going to see it in the budget and we can't tell you what we're going to do but we'll see what happens come budget we'll definitely will consider it obviously okay but thank you very much if we get as long of it as we did to 1 in 74 I think we can advertise it over a long time maybe we'll buy a bner is there the opportunity uh and I could be completely off but uh uh when we do the tax revaluation I understand that completely separate but the uh tax revaluation is there special uh funding allowances can you bond that for a certain period of time and if you can if if that recollection is somewhat accurate do we have the ability to do anything similar with this or is this going to be a operating expense a current expense um let me say I think I recall what you're talking about because I think the last time we did it we were able to somehow amortise it over a few years I don't know if that's still the case um so I don't know if you know anything different Mark oh okay then I'll defer to you if if it was a reevaluation we could do over the course of five years this would be a reassessment so we have to raise the funds to the current budget uh that answer that question but in terms of and again uh I'm giving an example of the tax but this 85,000 it has to come out of current we we don't have the ability to capitalize this oh I'm sorry I was answering your other yeah no no yes I appreciate so um I don't see why you couldn't yeah so I mean you know the answer I gave you was specific guidance I received on tax so I don't see why this couldn't be a capital expense I mean it is going to it's going to last more than the threee expectation that's required for capital um you know I can certainly find out years for sure but I don't yeah I don't see why I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be I mean it's just something to consider um especially if uh the community element if that's pushed back and added to the end uh it certainly becomes a two-year or it crosses two fiscal years uh don't know if it uh you know hopefully it's not a two-year exercise but I think it would if we did the community facilities on the back end it might push into 2025 yes and technically you could do the same thing with the sustainability El because it's a new element in the municipal land use slow okay thank you [Music] questions thank you thank you thank you for your time and nice to meet thank you at this time i' like to make a motion to go into public comment so move second a all in favor I I I since all anyone on Zoom the hand uh seeing no uh no takers I'll make a motion to close so moved second all in favor I I okay uh let's see ordinances adoption second reading ordinance number 24-02 an ordinance providing providing for the Improvement of Street in and by the township of Washington in the county of berg and New Jersey and appropriating 166,167 therefore constituting proceeds from a grant of a grant from the New Jersey Department of Transportation uh resolution 24- 176 authorizing second reading and opening of public hearing on ordinance 242 motion some move second roll call please can I just ask a question sure is this a matching Grant or is this a uh what's the structure of the Grant I guess it is not a matching 166 just have to put it and we have to uh do we have a plan is is this number based on a plan that we've received yes okay thank you call councilman Casio yes councilman Sears yes councilman Alman yes Council valz yes thank you very much out there to talk about okay uh motion to close public hearing out ordinance 24-2 move second call please counc Casio yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes Council woman valz yes okay motion to adopt ordinance number 24-2 by second reading by title motion please so move second oh I think that was Daisy roll call please cman C yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes Council yes introduction first readings none uh resolutions and consent agenda the following items have been determined to have the unanimous consent of the council and will be enacted in one motion should any item require independent consideration any council member may have such item removed from the consent agenda um does anyone wish to have anything removed yes um 24-15 for a separate vote 185 separate M BL no Mr R uh 186 and discussion or separate vote uh discussion and there was a I'm sorry there was the solid waste and then there was um the vegetative waste 187 187 that one removed for discussion yes please okay okay so we're going to do the following uh resolution number 24- 177 resolution number 24- 178 resolution number 24179 resolution number-2 24-180 resolution number 24-1 181 resolution number 24-1 182 resolution number- 24183 and resolution number D uh number 24- 184 one one minut motion so move second roll call Council Casio yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes Council valz yes okay okay uh let's see what the motion so let's discuss um 185 185 make a motion for resolution number 24185 so moved second second y roll call please C Casio yes councilman seers exuse myself for voting I'm an active member of the fire department Council om man yes Council woman bz yes thank you um can I just ask is it possible to obtain um the support for 184 and 185 the uh ambulance and the fire department thank you okay so um motion for resolution 24-1 186 for discussion so move second um discuss so I guess um what was the think they there were three or two responsible biders or two biders for this think was two for recycling there was two and um we're awarding 493 480 what was the uh what was bulldo top my head yeah I know yeah if you look at the resolution the numers off so I'm I'm assuming it's 487 not 49 3,000 Z all right it should be 49 3 4 it's a lot of money yeah I well that's why I read the resolution so you okay with 49,000 I'm assuming it's 43,000 9348 it so our qpa put together Exel spreadsheet just outl the two proposals so the companies were able to get as one years a two years in three years so the bid for three year was excuse me was financially benef beneficial to the township so the price for the three year is 43,48 in comparison 57,7 and I'm assuming they're like bids they in terms of the requirements they both yes the okay all right and just is it possible when we're um uh awarding these types of contracts and there's there's been a bid if we could be given the results of the bid with the uh resolution yeah Paul is there a problem with that what giving what result with their packets more backup okay I think so you want that to start retroactively or yeah I mean I can send it I'll take a look at this one that'd be great careful let's get a Time mark on that one uh okay thank you that was my only question okay and that is that payable all one lump sump for every thirds I'm assuming right okay go ahead are we going to continue was the bid request uh basically mirroring our current service of every other week or did we do something different the answer right this second is it's everything is the same there's a topic agenda for conference the contractor just proposed a different day pick up that okay thank you so um make a motion no roll call councilman Cassio yes councilman Sears yes councilman Alman yes Council woman bz yes okay thank you and uh resolution 24187 for discussion motion make a motion done this in such so move second Mike you want to discuss this yeah I just um I believe it said there was no other that's correct and is I don't know if you've had any discussions with your peers and some of the other towns but is that consistent is there only one vendor for this or believe the area is honest haven't spoken to any any other um of my colleagues and and asking that but we do enjoy currently a very professional working relationship with them so I was satisfied with with getting um you know their bit I wasn't you know when I saw it was only them I wasn't concerned at all and what is the there's no uh dollar amount on this so it's by weight oh and it's it's for our leaves and our brush and we it's just for drop off so our DPW at the moment they drive out to Total somewhere maybe and they dump and we assess the feeld yes that point that's correct is the fee locked in or just that they'll take it the fee is locked in I'm looking at it now again I don't know I imagine it's probably per ton um did that go up that all well we're currently paying $13 for leaves and the first year proposal was $12.84 for mixed uh mixed and brush went up a little bit so the leaves went down a few cents and the mix and brush went up from $20.80 to $21.75 so at the rate we're cutting down trees in the township we should have no leaves in about five years save a lot of money we lost about 50% of our canopy so far yeah I like to breathe is is there well just and you don't have to answer it now but is there an opportunity for the way we either collect or present them for dumping to save money uh if we compress them or shred them or do anything if um actually when you get when you look at your um when you start to look at your budget books and when you look at that budget line you're going to see it consistently decreasing over the last couple years and you know it specifically caught my attention it's a little hard to understand only because we've been offsetting it with the grants so you'll see that my ask is less than what we actually need but overall you'll see it tremendously so I when I saw it this year and for Preparation I asked that specific question is there something wrong or we doing something better and and talking to our superintendent of DPW it is from the ression of the garbage trucks cuz they're put right in the garbage trucks and driven right down there and we're also saving money from doing that rather than bringing them to Sher field where we dumped them out reloading them onto a roll off bringing it to you know God knows where so we are saving money because of all those M okay thank you I don't have anything else okay uh roll call coun M cassum yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes counc valz yes okay read this you could you can read it now you want all right next meeting of the township Council will be held on Monday March 18th 2024 being at 7 p.m. yes we're going to adjourn to a conference agenda um you guys want to take a break break we just want to through it anyone need a break need a break okay we're going to take a little break 5 minutes second thank you favor hi Mr Mayor Mr yeah thank you um yeah DP I assume DPW yeah um this one will go very quickly uh the architect is still working on the request of the last meeting to see about the feasibility of going up a level on the existing space so we expect to have that for the uh next meeting thank you yes sir y uh 2024 Road program yes sir just wanted to keep the council informed where we're at with this obviously you know we're well under your way uh with getting the head start on the New Jersey DOT Grant Ro Street which was Calvin Street as you'll see as you go go through the budget books that were just handed out um we uh recommended four roads for the 2024 Road program as we go through it in a few minutes we did identify um some other roads that um may need to be done in the future if you want to you know put extra money towards it um and then there is the PS G roads from the work last year so there was a meeting today we were represented very well uh by Beck Meer engineering unfortunately I double booked myself and attended the meeting with uh with gay and Gan uh today so psng is more than willing to work with us in a progressive way to get our roads done um again I don't like the throwout numbers but I think there was roughly 18 roads that were worked on by PS one way or another uh two of the 18 streets have to be paved resurfaced bottom line curb to curb because of the memorator the the other ones I use the term the horse trading so we're looking to get the entire widths of Street paved and that comes by the recommendation over engineering we're just concerned about the Integrity of only doing half the road right and you know some of the roads weren't brand new anyway so we'd have a brand new site and a not so brand new site so that will leave us um with a couple roads and again as I bring you through uh the budget in a few minutes um I'll point that out to you other thing that was brought up um by be by Mr Beck Meer was um well before I go into that is when we do the New Jersey DOT Grant the grant allows to do the sidewalks 88 ramps and such when we were doing the resurfacing of the other roads in the road program we were not necessarily addressing the sidewalks or the intersection sidewalks it's Mr Beck me's interpretation of of the law and the requirements that anytime you do a road program a resurface a road the sidewalks should be addressed now he puts the the onus of responsibility of the 88 intersections on the town that being a financial uh Township responsibility what is not required by the law is who funds that repair to the sidewalk so it's supposed to be anything with a you know upheaval of more than a quarter of an inch so as we go through the capital budget and we discuss more at that appropriate time about the roads we'll ask for the council's um input and decision on whether we as the township fund that the cost for repairing the um sidewalks or putting in on the resident which technically own own the sidewalks so that's just a little insight as to you know the further conversation that we would like to have uh when we get into the actual Road program Capital thing so something just to chew on uh in the meantime until we get there and uh thank you unless you have any questions that's my update on the road program M any questions no no just uh so I understand your update for the 2024 uh will you be addressing the 2023 in the tracker yes but nothing Chang the last we heard from the contractors I had a promise that we will be first in the queue with him when this season's appropriate for Paving which we're getting very close I can matter of fact I can even touch base with him again but you know we had a personto person conversation he knew um I was looky to be first in the queue and he assured me that we would it and you know that's the two streets Sunset and Clark item C or yes thank you um yes uh Mark and I are pleased to uh present the budget um I have a two-page uh budget statement that I'd like to read and then Mark also has an accompanying one so I ask that you indul just based on all the time uh we put in on the budget to just hear us out and I ask WCTV to uh post what I'm about to read for those at home who uh that way if they prefer to read it as opposed to listen to it it's a copy of my letter no problem thank you I am pleased to present the Washington Township 2024 budget to the council for their review and approval I want to commend all the Departments for keeping their requests well in line with expectations the proposed Municipal budget increase on the average property value is $160 and an additional $14 for the library fewer than 10 items account for $697,000 of the 74,000 increase in no particular order they are liability insurance for for 34,000 workers comp insurance 33,000 non-union salary increases 44,000 creation of a new master plan 85,000 property value reassessment 230,000 increase of Debt Service payments 92,000 and Zoning Board litigation of decisions 30,000 and then the state formula for the contribution to the library uh 44,000 and an additional fully fully outfitted police vehicle that was deferred from 2023 for 105,000 the administration is also always looking for sensible ways to cut spending the largest decrease this year is in the health benefits line item instead of having to increase the 2023 amount by 8% to just under 1.2 million we were able to reduce last year's amount by 8% to 1 million a net Savings of 200,000 and should be able to reduce it further next year when we are on the new plan for a full year I would like to speak about salaries for just a moment we are pleased to report that all proposed salary increases for the non-union employees are a modest 44,000 or 0.27% of the total budget this amount includes bringing three employees up to Market values for their positions we we can all agree that our employees are our most valuable asset and deserve to be treated as such most of the salary increases are reasonable 2% considering that the Consumer Price Index for 2023 came in at 3.4% some of this year's capital projects include a net amount of 641000 for the 2024 Road program as the administrator just said should the council decide to spend additional money on the program than the amount proposed we've looked ahead and listed the rows roads we will submit for consideration in 2025 125,000 for stationary automatic license plate readers for some of the key intersections in town this long-term investment will assist law enforcement at all levels and solving crimes not just in Washington Township but in our surrounding towns that already have the readers in use $30,000 to replace two dump truck bodies to extend the life expectancy of those vehicles 146,000 to re rehabilitate Seven Fields at four locations 60,000 for batting cages at Clark and Cherry fields and 72,000 to replace the balance of the playground equipment at Gardner field that was started last year I did a four-year look back at our annual budget increases and decreases all the following amounts are based on the average property value in town in 2020 there was an increase of $79 in 2021 there was a decrease of 14 in 2022 there was an increase of 135 in 2023 there was an increase of 246 in 2024 the proposed increase including the library is $174 the average annual increase during those four years and the proposed 2024 budget is a very reasonable $124 many of the increases during the later years are due to necessary spending re the recently elected council members voted in favor of please examine your tax bill to see the different agencies that your tax dollars support and that the town collects on their behalf I equate the town spending to managing a business or household budget some years you must spend more on improvements that can no longer be postponed and some years you might not have to spend as much that is why looking at the increase or decrease of one year is not a true measure of how much money it takes takes to operate and make improvements to the town facilities if at the end of the year the budget has unspent money in it after waiting a small time period we can and do use that amount to offset future tax increases just like if you set money aside for a home project and are fortunate the project is not I'm sorry are fortunate the project is completed for less than what you budgeted you would use that money for something in the future it is not lost or double taxed money the costs for these projects represent investments in our town and its future continued and ongoing Investments ensure that we meet and hopefully exceed the expectations of our residents and that our facilities and services continue to improve it reflects the pride we all take in this unique special and increasingly desirable place to live and raise our families we look forward to collaborating with the council to answer their questions and work toward budget approval respectfully mayor Peter Camary thank you thank you Peter anything else on that topic uh mark would like to read his statement okay no problem yeah Council vice president stepen CIO and fellow council members this evening mayor calamari has presented to you the proposed 2024 mayor's yearly budget at the beginning of the budget process mayor Camary CED me with creating a fiscally responsible budget that allows the township of Washington to conduct our business in an effective and efficient manner I am pleased to inform the council that the proposed budget meets the criteria established for me by mayor T the process of preparing the 2024 yearly budget began in October of 2023 when department heads were requested to submit the proposals for the account lines they manag from that point several reviews are conducted to assure the funds requests in align with previous expenses take into account anticipated price increases are consistent with current proposals quotes contracts Etc in addition to these reviews the mayor finan department and I need to come as close to certainty that we can that we have budgeted correctly in 2023 the council and administration worked diligently together towards the approvement of an appropriate budget that allowed for the professional operation of the township excuse me is your microphone off no okay not now not now thank you an example of this is evident by the comparison of account line transfers from 202 2 to 2023 in 2022 it was necessary to conduct five separate transfer resolutions beginning in November of 2022 concluding in March of 2023 these five separate transfers comprise of 83 budget lines for a total of 2 66,9 72 in 2023 two separate transfer resolutions were conducted comprising of eight budget lines for a total of 53,9 an incredible and noteworthy Improvement and achievement by by all I hope to enjoy the same noteworthy collaboration with this Council as we work towards a 2024 introduced budget if I may take a moment to discuss employee motivation and morale in my 30 years of government employment experience I learned never to rely on someone telling me if morale is good or bad rather I learned to look at indicator indicators such as sick time use productivity need for discipline complaints from the public Etc I am proud to convey that the data indicates that our employees are productive use little to no sick time and receive positive accolades from the residents of course there is more to the equation on the topic of motivation and morale however for brevity sake I simplified my description I have also learned that there are true motivators for employees such as providing accolades and recognition providing Independence and Trust in them to perform their job tasks and soliciting employees for ideas to improve the organization perhaps the most motivating factor the township can provide their employees is a safe and secure secure work environment full of professional development is my professional opinion that reducing funds and account lines that provide training equipment and material to perform their job tests and does conferences and meetings will lead to a loss of morale and motivation and I respectfully request the council's consideration in those areas when working through the budget salary raises on the other hand has been proven not to be a true motivator of employees rather a necessity to sustain life and keep up with inflation in this year's budget proposal the mayor and I have requested a 2% raise for those employees that are considered non-union employees the non-union employees account for approximately half of the 61 employees on a twice a month payroll schedule again is my professional opinion that a 2% requested raise for these employees is more than reasonable accompanying this year's proposed budget are job classifications of town hall employees part-time and full-time positions job classifications were also sent to council approximately two weeks ago for your review I've also informed the council that 30 employee evaluations were conducted on town hall and DPW staff members the police department completes their own evaluations the evaluations have three rating categories they identified as below job standards meets job standards and exceed job standards there are nine criteria and categories and they identified as appearance job performance interpersonal skills written Communications responsibility decision-making professional development administrative duties and conduct I also included a blank evaluation form in the job classification section of this binder for your review of the 30 evaluated employees none of them received the rating of below job standards in any of the nine categories rather they all received the combination of meets and exceeds job standards in the reference categories throughout the rating period of 2023 there has been no formal discipline of these employees no substantiated resident complaints and most importantly I have not been informed of any job performance related issues of employees by council members I presented the aforementioned information in order respectfully professionally and strongly urge the council not to Rice notice any employee for the purpose of discussing their job performance Andor consideration of the salary raise recommended by the administration and Township of Washington I can openly proudly and confidently advise Council this evening that I all employees perform their job well and far exceed what is expected of them I'm concerned that Rice noticing our employees will lead to undue stress anxiety and uncertainty which will directly affect motivation morale and the work product only to come to the ultimate conclusion that we have terrific employees that deserve their raises I thank the council for the opportunity to address them this evening and I look forward to working with you in 2024 thank you councel president no problem um if you don't mind I just want to also just take two minutes to quickly go through this it's pretty self-explanatory um but it's for the sake of doing it to tax impact again relatively understandable the revenue section you then have the current fund budget again self-explanatory the capital budget you'll see the Excel spreadsheet with this year's requests the projected requests for 2025 and 26 and then you have colorcoded tabs behind it that follows the same order of the projects on the Excel spreadsheet with any supporting document whether it's a a written paragraph to explain the need or the request and any your supporting documentation for it such as a quote you'll then go to the 2324 employee salary comparison there's two versions of the same chart the first two pages show uh the total difference of 43,124 that includes the five highlight the six highlighted positions that are not the 2% if if that makes sense so you can see the first one we're we're asking for a dollar raise per hour it's a part-time employee okay the second chart takes out those six individuals and only includes the employees that were asking for a 2% raise which the 2% raise employees only account for an increase of 2,757 the next tab will then be the audit Trail the most significant um thing to tell you about the um the report is if you look up in the upper left hand corner it'll tell you when I printed it out so for example if you're going through you'll see that we still have a balance of low stab because we haven't paid that out yet so I printed this out February 5th so some things may have changed that was the audit Trail okay the next tab um is a new tab I think last year we may have given you the trust we've given you all the account balances on all the aligns I'm sorry all the fund lines money lines that we have so the first the first report if you look up on the top left it says account range g g is for Grant there's a two-page report for Grant again please take into account this was printed out on February 20th uh some of these balances not many maybe one or two have changed because we we paid something paid a bill with it and then the next is account range T those are our trust account lines that is a one-page report and then the last report up in the left count left corner account range c those are our current capital lines that have balances as you see we had some brief discussions on Old account lines with that first countline you know as an example ordinance number 1306 having have it a balance um so that gives you a uh complete and transparent insight as to the funds um that are available and again as of the printed date of February 20th and then the new other new section of job classifications again just so you have it writing and then that last orange tab is just a uh incomplete evaluation form just so you can once again see what the criteria was and thank you for letting me take you through that if you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer them for you the um iik any questions just the uh the grants trust and capital yes paid or charged year to date would that be 23 or 24 it would be actually to the date that I printed it out so it was uh the grant report was printed out as of 220 I think they were all printed out as of 220 all of them were printed out as a 220 so those were up to-date information as of February 20 okay Daisy do you have any question looking over the um the job classification because that's a new tab and that's very helpful so I appreciate that MRC no I mean lot to sugest so I'll be calling you may may I ask um on the employee salary comparison yes um if you could flag or just show who is who qualifies for um medical um so it would be anyone that is a 35-hour employee so there should be 31 of them are you well this if you remember this doesn't include police officers or DPW or DPW other than than than the um what do I want to say here the non-union so so our superintendent DPW is on this list maybe so this would be everybody that is not part of a collective Collective negotiation agreement or a collective bargaining agreement so perhaps I could ask the question another way is it possible to get a list of the individuals who are covered by um medical can I defer to Mr paer for that I mean I don't see why not I don't no reason why not okay so you want to know the name of the employee and if they receive yes when we had the presentation and I could be I thought it was there were 31 at the time 31 individuals who were covered under the uh difference card so just trying to I think it I again I always hate numbers but I think it was 35 30 direct 10 and five direct 15 we'll get you the information okay yeah anything else on this topic no you're good okay um you want to uh Rec recycling uh number letter D oh uh Mark I you my apologies problem when I spoke uh to Mr Michael Pines the owner of U it's G but one of his child companies is getan so gan's actually the company name that um the bid was awarded to he had simply asked um if we would consider as a town going to Friday recycling pickups as of uh as opposed to Wednesday my immediate question is would there be a financial benefit to the residents to the town uh and unfortunately the answer was no um essentially the motivation would be uh shorter I guess a lot of towns follow suit with Wednesdays and Friday is not a very busy day at the recycling center where Wednesday is so in all transparency there would be no finan benefit um to the township and going to but we certainly told him we would bring that question to the council to see if the council was interested if you were interested in it we wouldn't be looking to implement that until most likely the new year I mean we've put out the calendar the residents are well informed well trained and you know for a lack of a better term um that it's Wednesdays I'm one of them in my town I know what is so again maybe not something you want to you know decide tonight but you know something to bring forward to you as consideration I have a question that um if there were inclement weather because that's happened from Wednesday it'll get moved to Thursday but if it's Friday and there's inclement weather now does everybody have their recyclables Saturday Sunday Monday so we had a meeting today with everybody and that was the only question we didn't have an immediate answer for so I'm going to have to get back to that as to you know we'd have to see what B was doing the previous the previous Haller but that question did come up today and we also came up with you know if a holiday is on on a Wednesday there's not too many you know maybe Fourth of July might be the only one so that's the only thing that's up in the a right now I will that would be a problem on the weekend you plow let's stuff would deal all over right yeah so I I'll get an answer for councel and I'll I'll let you guys know the only issue I see with it um pH the Friday and not just thinking it's selfishly you know a lot of people go away for the weekend so you leave your cans out yes they're not coming back until Sunday night Monday you know that might be that might be an issue so let's talk about it and I think you know if we can solve some of those issues I don't see why we can't do it if we can provider out okay and uh Mark I guess you can do tractor yes okay let's see where do we want to go um I'm looking at the the sheet that starts with the difference card um you guys know where we are with that thank you the resolution was passed we also have um a signed agreement uh signed mou uh with the police department we're looking to um complete one with DPW once that is completed we'll be sending it down to the state health benefits plan um for you know ultimate moving forward with an effective date hopefully of May 1st EPA yes when we initially saw the presentation was it for 331 it was for 31 but you know all the red tape kind of associated with getting this done we had to move the effective date to May 1st it takes 60 days to implement it uh EPA audit has been completed the Garden State uh Parkway intersection at Washington a the mayor fil filled UNR where we are with that Memorial Field that drainage project is underway if you've driven by there you could tell um ms4 storm water mapping is hopefully going to be completed by the middle of March that's really good do we have to get that down to d uh Northgate homeowners association I drove by they are actively working on it today senior's Park I told you guys that the botche ball is completed and they did the beautification uh we once we get that invoice and purchase order wrapped up we'll be submitting uh to the county for our reimbursement of the grant storm water pollution plan uh has been updated um we've seen the the uh rough draft of it we're just waiting for that privately owned salt storage to complete it and that will be updated that's a that's a big uh progress there Swim Club Recreation um plans kind of you know where it is right now I don't if you want to comment on that um just a quick comment uh I will probably have toh give that to the new town engineer to take over 2023 Road okay now I'm on the capital projects with the first one being 23 Road program which excuse me Mark can we just back up to that so which one the Swim Club so what is that what exactly does that mean so the did Boswell complete their analysis yes so they started off with a topographical and Boundary survey which then led to several design options we're up to I think what we call conceptual design e now at this point um which the mayor is you know looking to bring to his Recreation committee and then ultimately the council for approval about to speak for the mayor but hopefully that that was accurate yeah you're on talk the only thing you didn't mention was uh we had to have the survey done of the property also for them to move forward with the latest option um but uh again I feel the need at this point to uh to move that project over to the new town engineer so is it possible to get option e just to see it um what's being contemplated as as long as you understand that it is a work in progress that is nowhere near final or anything like that you put draft on it okay that would be sufficient in my house okay okay so the next one would be capital projects 2023 Road pray we talked about the contractor assures me will be first in line come the spring the commuter lot looks great if you if you have or have not driven past that Mark yeah if I make 2023 Road program yeah it's Beach Street be C okay thank you I don't want them to pave Street like if they want to pave down by me I must have been I wrote it they may bring sand in Tom Beach thatment thank you and Clark is part of that Clark I've never heard of that Rogue yes it's part of it and it's with the engineers about the water um protruding to the top again to the surface at the lower trench thank you so we're waiting to work on that Mark one quick question with uh Cypress Street what's I'm unsure what the groundwater issue is um cypess ground address I there I didn't know there was a problem so so on Cyprus so we were when some of the residents heard kind of like late spring when you guys approved the the capital project they started reaching out to us uh regarding kind of in the middle of the block I don't remember the address um but on both sides of the road that water groundwater was surfacing and eroding the the uh pavement there okay so their concern was that we would just come in do the regular 2inch stripping of of the the pavement and then put the two inches back without addressing it we assured them that we would have it addressed and that's what we certainly did um we put some Underground ground piping there bring the water to the appropriate place where it should be and then they they dug extra deep in that area put in more um compacted you know material and then thicker uh pavement there we met with the uh the homeowner several times and they were very very happy with our result so hopefully it's going to work and that's what it was okay thank you on on the downhill side obviously uh the commuter lot um as I was saying it looks great it's ready for pavement and Landscaping and fencing I don't know am I supposed to pause when I see that I'm no I was just going to ask a question um you sorry yes um before they pave uh have we given any consideration to a charging station and uh you know whether we like electric or not I think they're here to stay for the short term intermediate and there's no charging station and I was just wondering was it contemplated is it pre-wired or pre plumbed to add a charging station or it's not contemplated at all and we moving forward do you before I answer do you have any I do not I don't remember ever being spoken about I'm sorry go ahead no please when I was looking into charging stations one out here for the parking lot out here and then one down below uh we would have to run all new cables we can't use existing cables they have to be on their own uh Breakers so that means we would have to dig up the lot again but I mean I like the idea to have a charging station but uh just for the won by the lamp post in the parking lot the cost was $70,000 well so that was my question but did we contemplate it is that contemplate contemplate it and since we haven't paved it yet is it too late to address it they would have to go from the communal lot to the fire straight across the fire L again yeah okay thank you but but to specifically answer your question you know none of the none of the plans that I was ever involved in did talks about that uh DPW facility no update at the time uh DPW I think I had already told you that they had received one other vehicles Gardener field uh it's the same contractor that's working on Memorial so hopefully that will start um soon after Memorial is done PD Renovations coincides with the DPW facility and the town hall elevator as well underway um the next is mcop Brook um we are we have some good progress with this so the the engineering design is completed the next step is to wait and receive a cost estimate from Bosell engineering which they're working on hopefully we'll have uh within the next couple weeks and the next set of pages you have are the list of obstructions we'll call them in the map syn Brook that were identified by the Drone report that baso engineering did so you have shes and then you have fallen trees um DPW superintendent about two weeks ago uh now that it was you know all the foliage is off and you can get back in the next to the the brook better than when it's summertime was able to come up a list of what is still existing and who potential respons possibility is meaning like it's you know school property it's a private residence property or if it was Township property so the update on these sheets they were able to remove some trees that they're capable of some some are large uh trees that even though they're on to of property we haven't been able to remove um the other good news I I guess to say is in the engineering plan it affects section four and section seven of the Drone report you remember the critical sanitary issues were identified 7-1 7-2 those are both uh exposed manholes section four is where there's some shs that they want to take out of the brook and use it to stabilize the bank in section seven so part of The Proposal will be to remove the obstructions in section 7 and section 4 those obstructions include the down trees and the shes so it will you know in alleviating one problem of a sh we're going to then use that to fortify the bank and then the trees will come out as well so we're going to you know stabilizing that bank we're we're addressing multiple issues that span uh multiple multiple zones or sections within within the brook and Council that completes my project tracker update thank you Mark appreciate it on to uh two Council ordinance legislation uh P put on summer wck fees address that yes thank you again uh I believe in your packet um you should have received the uh budget for the summer rec program um kind of self-explanatory but if you want me to go through it I'm happy to um however you know this goes back to uh previous meetings where we said uh we would be asking for since now the ordinance is worded a maximum fee that we would ask for 500 but uh as as you can see on this uh this Year's requested base rate will be $475 per participant okay any questions or comments um just a comment regarding I don't know if you saw we received an email we just this afternoon regarding the summer fund program um and I'm pretty sure I don't know if you saw it but the question was does Township residents get first so I'm pretty sure we do just like all our other programs I would I would assume I'm not sure is okay to discuss please let's discuss so when I received that I was a little unsure myself because like you said we have multiple programs um but I was reminded um by our summer camp director that we do not give Township residents um preference but that there was also never in need for it he said that it did it we did it once and he said in his opinion it did not fare well um but he said we've never had a problem with getting the township residents in so we haven't done it it's his recommendation not to do it because he didn't feel it was beneficial and it wasn't needed and to piggy back off that uh if you see in this budget now uh the maximum number of participants is up to 600 because the program is so successful um so again that's the max number so we feel that that's comfortable to accommodate both in town and out of town participants do do you know off the top of your head what the number was roughy last year for the number of participants 500 it was no I believe she means how many out of town participants no I mean how many total like did we come close to hitting our Max oh um we we did uh I think we hit the Max and that's why it's going up again uh the uh the coordinator of the program is comfortable that uh he can get enough people counselors to support this number and uh we checked with Bethany where we hold it and they are comfortable also at this new level okay because you know just speaking out loud you know thinking out loud I would hate for our residents to be even though we extended it to 600 for our residents to be weight listed so that that like Mark said that hasn't happened in years now uh we've had enough to accommodate both in town and out of town and again with increasing it to 600 we believe that's comfortable okay and just just to add some more clarifying information he stated that registration last year opened on April 3D and we hit 500 on May 5th reopened on May 19th and 50 more signed up five weeks and additional 50 and Township residents um did not miss out so and he also said that registration generally stays open for six to seven weeks okay well if we can you know I just ask if we could keep a close eye on that because I would not I would not like to see one of our own children be left out absolutely thank you yeah and uh I I believe that there's a resolution uh if you are all okay with that because they do want an open registration for April 1st uh to do a uh a first reading of the uh ordinance uh that way the second reading can happen at our next meeting and that way there's enough time to open registration for April 1st at 24190 that's true can can I ask the salary number do we have um what uh the salary plan is what do you mean m a salary plan I'm sorry so how many counselors what their rate is uh I guess some of them uh are going to be in before and after care I don't know if they all are no they are they are not it's it's staggered so you know um yeah we can certainly get you that that number as to how many people fall into each category okay and just the on the income side you know we have the explanation of uh the 285 is the base rate times number of participants correct can we get that for these other lines uh the the other lines are mostly just estimates um but yes if if you want them we can certainly get the estimated number okay may ask one more question yeah sure your the base rate 475 then on the ordinance it reads 500 500 maximum again that's for maximum um like I had said uh we kept it at 475 but we'd like 500 um to allow for future Years also without having to come back to the council uh however if you want us to you know it's not no that's fine even if it's in the ordinance at 500 look two different we we we'll come to you with the budget because this is the biggest program that the rec department supports so we'll come back to you but 500 just saves us from going through a new ordinance every year understood so right now we have on the table for this one um if you want to just introduce it we can do that so let me read it this is uh ordinance 24-6 an ordinance amending the feast schedule for the recreational activities admin administered through the office of recreation and that's the Cil Recreation program so I need a motion to introduce and passest ordinance number 24-6 at first reading by title so move second uh let's see roll call please councilman CIO yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes Council bz yes Okay resolution 24-19 authorization uh author authorizing publication of ordinance number 24-6 and scheduling public hearing any motion so move second roll call please councilman CIO yes councilman Sears yes Council Omen yes Council bz yes thank you uh the next one intro to cheer uh Peter yes um kind of the same thing on a much smaller scale though um in reviewing the fees for the intro to cheerlead leading program for this year um we saw that it it's at $50 right now uh the anticipated increase for this this year sorry did I last year it was at $50 this year the anticipated increase needs to go to $55 again we're asking for 60 since this is a Max just to not have to come back to the council every year should it need another $5 increase in another year or two any questions is this self-funded all these programs are self- funded yes only one that is not is the teen program at Westwood Daisy any questions no sir Michael you're good okay so um I think we should go along with this one as well so ordinance number uh 24-5 an ordinance amending the fee schedule for recreational activities administered through the office of recreation intro to cheerleading motion to introduce and pass ordinance number 245 at first reading by title so move second uh Ro please councilman Casio yes councilman seers yes councilman Omen yes Council woman valz yes resolution number 24-1 189 authorizing publication of ordinance number 24-5 and scheduling a public hearing I need a motion so move I'll second it roll call please Council Casio yes councilman Sears yes councilman Omen yes Council bz yes thank you uh financials we have nothing uh miscellaneous uh this is a budget meeting dates so you had a list from or dates uh regarding the people could meet for this well tentative yeah I reached out to everybody and everybody was pretty much flexible to the point of saying we need dates you know okay make themselves available so um right now it looks like we have the following dates and just let me know if you guys are amendable to it looks like look we have our first date Monday 31124 at 7 p.m any problem with that date I'm sorry save one more time uh 31124 Monday next Monday so it's basically next Monday next Tuesday which would be 3:12 at 7 then the following Monday um uh for uh a regular meeting which is 3:18 we'll put that on the conference agenda try and knock it off there then um Wednesday of that week which is 3:20 at 7 then the following Monday which is 3:25 at 7:00 and then Tuesday 3:26 at 7:00 p.m. any issues or concerns questions the Tuesdays are the only ones I'm unable to attend Tuesdays are are bad for you okay is it is it a Time issue or is it just got other I'm not I'm unavailable unavailable okay would would you be okay if we go along and schedule them anyway without you or I ideally I'd like to be around what you're going to do 7 o'cl you said we could push it back a little later if you need the time we don't mind I mean I don't mind it's I me that's 3 312 and 326 312 and 326 when you say push it back like you want to go to 8 you want to go to 7:30 eight would be more feasible I know that's late for everybody I hav't saw me it doesn't matter to me do whatever you want we good don't do nothing yeah I'd like to get you know something so I can I'm okay with eight if Tom's okay and Mike's okay for the for the 12th 26 for the two Tuesdays the 12th and 26 that's fine with me okay Tom you're good with it um I'm fine okay fantastic go 800 pm on Tuesday the 12th and 8:00 P.M on Tuesday the 26th okay thank you because I will advertise these have them in the paper on Friday so we can meet on Monday but no problem if we have to cancel we have to add then we just yeah let's just get these in and then you know hopefully we don't have to add many or any so 11 18 all of them except 12 and 26 are 7 correct correct okay I can send something out tomorrow if you'd like just to confirm see have you work in any calendars yeah no I'm looking at my calendar right now okay okay wonderful excellent beautiful okay see may ask a question yeah go right ahead um as far as the Departments that come in uh the bigger departments to review their budget um can I give them these listed dates and see which ones are good with them or do you have a preference um no you you sure can I don't know if we're going to be calling departments to be honest with you okay so um if we do I can give can give them the list okay and see if it's okay with them okay I mean I think their expectation is to come the bigger ones since they've come in Prior years they would like to explain their line items so if you would give them that courtesy I'm sure they'd appreciate it again I I don't know what we're going to do to be honest with you I want to be open and and fair I mean we've done it in the past as you know and there's other years we haven't done it you know when when uh we had uh Madam uh squits as mayor so you we have to decide as the C what we want to yes okay okay wonderful but I will as long as the council knows they're ready willing and able to come if needed wonderful yeah thank you okay uh where was I so uh the next one was mine so um had a resident at 604 Washington there are um some sink holes I guess you had trees removed when the county went by and paved uh Ridgewood Road those trees were removed and now I guess the um Roots have rotted and there's uh sink holes not on the street itself but between the sidewalk and the uh street so she asked me to talk to the council and the administration and see if there's a something we can do about that so I don't know it this is um between you know when you exit president Road okay oh it's on Ridgewood Road it's on Ridgewood Road we wereing it says Washington AV oh I had DP couldn't find your I'm sorry I'm sorry you're correct we go that's even I know I know you were looking for the guys are telling us we can't find 604 well it's not there it's not there so anyway it's it's the it's the um area if you go out president Road you know that very well all too right across Rose roses oh okay okay so she she there was two trees that were moved when they repaved it and now all I guess those roots are sinking it's starting to not only sink in her road but the roadway itself is starting to um collapse in there so we can have someone take a look at it um from what I understand she's called the she's called the burrow Hall they said it's a county problem she calls the County it's the town problem so it's someone's problem so let's see if we can get that resolved somehow sure um and just to clarify never heard of this problem certainly not calling made it way to Administration maybe I haven't done it either okay well this is what so if you can look at it that would be fantastic and this way at least we know we addressed it for the resident yeah so um anything any other comments or something while we're talking no we're good I know it's not on the agenda but I'm willing to suspend for any reason you need to I would just if we could uh I don't think it's a reason to suspend but um for the next update from the administrator uh Washington repaving and Van emberg repaving if there's any updates on those so we received um we yes so I will send out the letter that I received from the county but they provided us with a letter last year about this time telling us that they anticipated to do vanberg at woodwood Road in 2425 they just basically resent the SN letter and added Washington app to it when we had our preconstruction meeting for pasak Road I specifically asked about Washington app and they said they're only waiting for the New Jersey DOT grant money to come across and then they're going to get it done so but I I re will resurface that that most recent matter for the council are we talking about the whole length of Washington or just between pasak and vanberg I don't remember off the top of my head but I I I want to say it was the whole length of from Westwood H hocus and Mark we can add this to the project tracker just to keep it active I think Washington is not so bad between Westwood and the intersection of pasak right but the Hill off of Jackson the hill going down is pretty pretty pretty pretty bad counio so this is the email morning regarding my email s on 31523 on upcoming roads to be resurfaced in 2425 County of Bergen also added Washington and from pasac road to the Hocus line okay just send wonderful thank you Mark appreciate it excellent so uh looks like we're done with current business uh so I'd like to make a motion to close the current business and then move into close session Su Mo second okay are we coming back uh well motion to go into that was the close current so motion to go into closed okay and then we'll talk about we're not we're not com okay so uh resolu ution number 24-1 188 update on negotiations of 450 pasac road so motion to enter in the Clos session move second okay all in favor I okay the council will not be reconvening to the public