[Music] oh e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e to the regularly scheduled public meeting of June 5th 2024 of the township of Washington Township Council adquate notice 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 Kirk for any disability requirements necessary for attendance at mayor and Council meetings the fire exits are located through the double doors to your right and through the door on your left please silence all cell phones could everyone please stand for a salute to the flag I to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you councilman Casio here councilman Sears here councilman man not yet he's still not on Council willz here council president to Here let the record reflect also in attendance mayor Peter Camari T administrator Mark to Carlo Township attorney Kenneth poer John Corrin cmfo and Township clerk Susan wowski also an attendance Gary Vincy from lch Vincy and Bliss and Glenn is not here and Mr Steven Liden from Virg Associates payment of bills resolution number 24257 authorized payment of bills May 17 2024 to May 24th 2024 do I have a motion so move second roll call any discussion nothing from me no no no Mr that on no R councilman yes councilman Sears yes Council valz yes council president TOA yes PSA for June 5th 2024 psng is replacing existing electrical and gas meters with new smart meters throughout the town as required by the BPU please be sure to respond to any letters requesting meter replacement if you do not reply your service is in of being shut off please visit our website for further information this Saturday June 8th at 9:00 a.m. at the rear of the Bethany Church of Bethany Community Center easy ride will be holding a bicycle safety course please visit our website for further information the next council meeting will be held on Monday June 17th thank you everyone report of the administrator thank you sir good evening uh council president to Sena mayor council members and everyone uh this is my followup from our last meeting there was nothing formal to report from any of the residents that requested information the uh council did have a couple of informal things just for me to look into one of which was the auction of the Scott packs we were able to determine that we could list some type of disclaimer on the auction site uh however it was chose we chose not to even put them up if we sold them in New Jersey they would not be usable if we sold them at of State they would be we just figured it's not worth the risk so we're just going to um put them in for scrap uh you guys had elected to do away with the uh Recreation refund resolutions we exended that policy to everyone uh so they know that that will no longer be needed however we are keeping track of the refunds if anyone should want to see an Excel spreadsheet U Mr scooty there okay I agreed to not agreed I offered to update the ecology permit I'm hoping to have something to the council and the mayor for our next meeting uh the community lot is working uh progressively we ordered the uh stencils for the lettering and we're getting the wording uh together for the signs I completed my mandatory Municipal storm water coordinator training today yesterday I participated in the Bergen County Utility feasibility study information session uh with more information to come by our next council meeting and then today was our first training session for uh employees that are moving to the difference card I do have two handouts for the council and the mayor just to keep yourselves familiar with it and uh that concludes my report thank you thank you Mr car report of the mayor thank you good evening council members members of the public um unfortunately our Memorial Day Parade had to be cancelled due to the weather but I was pleased that so many people turned out for the ceremony to honor our fallen veterans and their families I was happy to participate in the rebuilding of the vandalized area near the bridge on the Walking path between Cleveland a and Woodfield Road Police Department news Chief calamary participated in several school safety meetings with the school district the department assisted in the planning and participated in the town's Memorial Day ceremony slo2 ryell and uh police officer hilarus both graduated from the Mars County Police Academy the reason for that is the Bergen County Police Academy was closed earlier this year Recreation news it's 2024 summer camp Recreation I'm sorry summer Recreation camp registration period ended on Saturday June 1st the program hit its maximum number of 600 registrants I wish them all a fun experience we are offering a new art program fun with cartooning in this step-by-step class children will learn how to draw a favorite cartoon character in each class Young Artists will create masterpieces using watercolor markers and pencils registration for this new program will open during the last latter part of August please follow the TWP of Washington New Jersey 07676 recreation parks and public affairs Facebook page for updates I also encourage you to visit the recreation page on the Township's website especially the section dedicated to information about sports camps for this summer season fire department news the department responded to multiple fire and Co alarms gas left onto the house a traffic crash on the Parkway and one standby in paramis for a working fire they were also put on standby for a bomb threat which was most likely a swatting incident the department held its annual inspection they thanked me the administrators and the council members who attended it is an annual tradition that was stopped during covid and construction of the new building and they are happy it is back the department also held its annual Memorial Day service at their newly renovated Memorial I am thrilled to report that the department is restarting its annual pancake breakfast on Father's Day Sunday June 16th from 8 a.m. to 1: p.m. what better way to give your dad a special treat on Father's Day than taking him to this fundraiser for the Department DPW news they had new mulch installed at all the playgrounds the old stone dust at Clark and Gardner Fields baseball warning tracks was replaced they built a new storage bin for warning track Stone dust at clarkfield the next Metal Goods pickups collection is scheduled for June 13th they continue to place new plantings at Town Parks new post and rail fences were installed at both sherfield and senior's Park one employee was called out after hours for a Fallen Tree on Van urg a they took delivery of a new rack truck they placed Lantern Fly Traps at Town parks and properties old and Faded signage was replaced along Woodfield Road Ridgewood Boulevard North Sussex Road and at senior's Park American flags were placed along Ridgewood Road Washington EV and pasak Road and they rebuilt the Memorial Day float and assisted with the event preparation zoning office the office was busy last month reviewing and processing 51 zoning applications Library lots of great programs took place at the library in May social stitching Outreach efforts to our new residents at the Chelsea yoga crafts book club groups and many more they are eagerly eagerly preparing for the summer reading kick off on Friday June 14th last summer they had over 550 residents joined the summer reading challenge and over 918 books were read please keep an eye out for summer reading club registration information and our amazing summer programs Municipal Alliance News Footprints for life has wrapped up at Washington School in May and pre-prime anti-drinking events are planned for the high school in June Recreation Advisory board and the swim club property I am pleased to have a concept plan of the property and a letter from the rec Advisory Board available this evening for the public and the council I will discuss it further during the conference session part of the meeting I also plan on soon conducting a public meeting with members of the rec Advisory Board and a representative from Boswell engineering to answer questions and accept suggestions from the residents on the concept police and DPW space we also have updated Concepts and prices that will be discussed during the conference Session Court we have closed our violations window those transactions are now now being managed by and at Saddle River we also continue to explore a shared service for our court system emergency Waterway Bank stabilization we continue to work with representative gimr's office to secure a grant for this important and costly project that completes my report thank you thank you Mr Mayor report of the council Mr L thank you all right um so I'll start off with Memorial Day as the mayor said uh the parade was cancel but I think councilman seers did a fantastic job with the indoor ceremony so thank you um I'm happy to have been a part of it on the other side of it this time around so that was a nice change of pace for me um thank you to all those that still came out and attended the the ceremony and to our emergency service departments and finally a big thank you to our heroes and our veterans um thank you for your service the with that being said our veteran Banner program is up it looks awesome um councilman and I have been working for quite some time on this project if you haven't noticed please take a drive down pasak and you'll see the amazing banners we're really happy with the results a big thank you to the administration and support staff for their help on this big project there is a lot of moving parts so thank you so much for that um we also councilman seers and I would also like to thank Heather Henry for all the time and the technology Mastery that she brings to this um to help us get the vision up and running and printed and lastly to all the residents who participated in this first round there is another round taking place right now all the information is available online on the website um so please take a look if you're interested um you don't want to miss the next round of banners the fire department inspection dinner that was my first time attending it and it was I found it very informative thank you gentlemen for the tour it was a lovely event on Friday May 31st first I attended an information session on something called film Ready New Jersey this is this was about communities in Bergen County on how they can become film ready um and drive Revenue into the community I will be looking more into it and see if this is something that is worthwhile for our community the building department I've reported a couple of times on this um May was a a good month a lot of process progress was made I will have more details of that during the conference agenda an update on where that stands but good stuff is happening and then just make sure I didn't miss anything and then last but not least and this is really exciting um as you know the 5K that took place in April was successful we've had two really successful years for the 5K run walk and health fair so after speaking with the administration and folks the folks in charge of finances the mayor councilman seers and I are happy to announce we will be offering two $500 scholarships to Township resident High School seniors graduating this year and entering a health related field um information on the deadline and all the details will be available on the website sometime later this week you're also welcome to contact me for any details so that's really exciting that we are able to do that it's a positive event and now we want to you know give back and do something positive with the results and that is my report thank you m thank you Mr Sears thank you council president uh start out with the green team um 90% of the bridge work has been completed we have about 10% left and then most of the work will be done uh I still have no information from the police department uh on any investigation or any pictures that were taken we still have the $1,000 reward out there um new Planters were installed in front of town hall by the Green Team uh bicycle safety will be this Saturday at 9:00 a.m. uh what the council president stated behind Bethany Community Center uh we did a clock field cleanup and tree maintenance went very well we're working uh I'm working on a charging station with Easy Ride some grants and locations uh to see if um uh the best spot for a charging station would be for within the township Mr Ser I'm through up how would that work How would how would people use that charging station and who pays the electric to well there's there's two ways there's actually three ways of doing it they would have to pay with a credit card okay uh basically it's paid with a credit card put a credit card yeah and we were trying to find the best location I I reached out to the shopping center to see if um we could place one in there maybe share the cost um there's a location on finity we were looking at um we're looking at Town Hall but it really doesn't make sense because mostly everybody spends about 10 minutes up here 15 minutes so uh we're just looking for locations a fast charger excuse me is this a fast charger um they have two different types there is a fast charger and then there is just a regular triple charge and which one are we get we trying to I'm looking for the fast charger do we do we do we have cost I've installed I've installed about a dozen no the last year the last cost I got was $770,000 just to install one up here in our parking lot we better we may want to look at that cuz well there's some out there cost the buying the unit was 70,000 the last one I put in so there are grants out there from Public Service Gas and Electric yeah uh okay uh then we're going back up to Lincoln Park to plant some trees and do a a quick summer cleanup up there for the Green Team uh let's move on um the Montclair State Water Project the mayor the administrator and myself uh we went to Montclair State University and we met with the five graduate students or intern students that will be doing our water maintenance project for flooding uh doing an overall idea on you know conditions within the township uh we have five students from five different colleges all with specialized degrees in computer science uh water maintenance uh it it was um a great three or four hours that we all spent talking to these students we are going to start Monday morning we have them coming down here for a meet and greet and then we're going to do a tour of our flood areas so they can get a general idea some of these students are carrying two and three Majors they are um really amazing and very smart students um and then we're going to um have a weekly Zoom meetings and then after the zoom meetings they will come and do a full presentation to the council okay on their findings on Memorial day I want to thank everybody that came out uh the VFW members um uh Rada uh uh she did a wonderful job uh helping us and assisting us for that day and so I want to shout out to her and hether Hendry uh councilwoman valz everybody that that took a good part in that uh again the mayor mentioned the fire department pancake breakfast uh and Council woman valz mentioned the banners our second part we we start June the 1st and under the VFW I would like to recognize and this I just got this the other day uh from the superintendent of schools the Veterans of Foreign Wars um hereby recognize and select teachers to receive the VFW National citizen teacher award the Westwood Regional uh school teacher ell Mars was selected in December 23 as the receipt of the VFW na National citizen education teacher award very well done by her very happy that we met her and um uh just want to give a shout out uh the CSA program that's the um Community Support of uh a farm our program just started um it's at the library every Tuesday there will be a box of fresh vegetables that were grown at this Farm Flocka Farm will be dropped off and you can pick them up between 4: and 6:30 so we are now doing that until November and that is my report thank you Council Mr Casco thank you council president uh pretty much everything has been said but I want to bring some things up um I want to thank the fire department for running us down to the inspection it was interesting to uh see what the equipment they have and how it's used um we have a lot of equipment and hopefully we don't have to use it thank goodness um also want to thank Daisy and Tom for the banner program they really look fantastic I know you put a lot of work into it and it's greatly appreciated from the families that have veterans thank you um it came out really nice um the other thing I want to mention is uh Mike and myself are working on the bot ball tournament for the fall to get that going uh we'd like to do it for um the elderly people in the in the community 55 and over because something that uh we can probably still do I don't qualify yet but you you could be the youthful uh youthful supervisor all right um the other thing that has come to my attention a couple of people have mentioned that um on some roads the line of sights are hindered by trees and uh vegetation as well as sidewalks they're impassible so I want to work with the administration uh to see if we can get something going on with can ordinance with that for all the stuff that's overgrown so we can have a safety pass passageways um it was nice to see that we're working on a dog park uh in the plans for the uh swim uh swim uh Club at this time but again as we've stated before up here on the council there's still a problem with doog waste that people not picking up after themselves so I hope we can um do something with that and uh Tom wrote up they have the bicycle safety um program going on I notice a lot of people and adults not wearing helmets yes when they're out on skateboards and uh Razor electric bikes it's an issue it's unfortunately head injuries are serious and there's very they're very difficult to recover from so please please please please wear a helmet and all your safety devices very important and that basically concludes my report for tonight thank you Mr C thank you M will be brief since I think everything's been covered um Mr Sears uh thank you for a wonderful ceremony indoors um I hope you know I got the beetle ready for the the the kns of Columbus members and we didn't get to drive in it this year so I hope they'll all be here next year to go in for a ride got brand new seats in it for everybody and we didn't get to use them so but we did but we did a wonderful job being indoors it was a fantastic ceremony honoring all our heroes and Veterans of Foreign Wars um the fire department inspection was a wonderful experience uh my 10-year-old of course enjoyed it more than I did but uh that's that's that's the life we live right so um but it was a wonderful experience again thank you the banners look beautiful down pasak Road uh the flags look beautiful on all the other roads so the town really looked very uh Memorial dayish if if that's a true term but we look patriotic patriotic I'm tired it's I know I like your butori dayish come on so uh but the town looked great uh the fields are looking wonderful thank you to the DPW for the great job they're doing uh with the parks and the fields um that's all I really have I think everything else was covered by everyone else so may I just ask a question sure the Easy Ride do the children um should the children bring their bikes or yes you have to bring your bike down they're going to do an inspection on the bike and if the child doesn't have a helmet we should have extra helmets to give okay so they have to bring a bike okay good to know thank you thank you so 9:00 a.m. at the of the Bethany Center on Saturday will be the uh safe bicycle uh inspection by Easy Ride okay budget comments and questions Mr Vincy if you can come up if you want to come up to the podium or you want to sit down whatever's easier whatever's easier for you Mr vincey good evening good evening thank you Mr President uh good evening everybody uh tonight uh the council will have the budget hearing for the budget that you introduced uh on April 30th uh the budget for 2024 actually is a increase of about 660,000 over last year's original budget uh but the impact to the tax levy is a lot less the tax levy right now will increase about $337,000 uh and when you look at an average home in the town Township that increase equates to a $75 increase for your operations keep in mind on top of that the library also has a minimum that you are required to contribute uh and as the valuations of the township increase the um amount of money that you must uh provide them also increases so that impact is about $14 again to an average home um so $90 total about $90 total correct for us yes uh I do have the school number um the school budget has been adopted and your school tax levy actually is calculated based on a percentage from the division of taxation in Trenton and actually the valuation of the township the equalized valuation increase greater at a rate greater than the bar of Westwood so occasionally there is a slight shift the burden of the increase in calendar year 24 actually would be greater in the township than in the burrow that does happen periodically uh and again that's a calculation that's done by the state um the budget is within both the appropriation and tax levy cap um I believe the appropriation cap you're about 250,000 under and the tax levy you're about 3 90,000 under the tax levy cap you can um bank for three years and it rotates each year one falls off and the other one is added uh appropriation cap is two years uh the budget also provided uh a plan for your Capital program it's not a spending plan yet until the council decides to introduce and adopt a capital ordinance uh right now you provided a three-year Capital plan the projects total about $3.9 million the 2024 plan is just under $1 million most of that is Recreation as well as the uh Brook stabilization if there's any questions you also one other item um the state only reviews your budget once every three years this year the budget will be certified by John corkran your CFO it is not under State review uh so that is a common practice as I mentioned uh it's an off year for the state to review it so that resolution I think is before uh the council tonight also any questions for Mr viny Mr viny what was the number for the increase for the school taxes for hous I I have the estimate to be $183 okay thank thank you you're welcome and we have an estimated County so the county has adopted the budget but I do not believe the equalization table is out okay so the allocation by Community is not available there are adjustments that the county does make so I do not have a county estimate at this point in time thank you you're welcome when do we anticipate to see that historically that doesn't really come out till the uh first or second week of July usually comes out the estimated tax bill in August it's right before that that's right before the estimated tax bill in August MV as it's guaranteed for that bill they won't miss that date I do know that the county budget did increase I think they went up two and a half per. correct thank you Mr viny you're welcome engineer comments questions um we going to do it now or it's on conf we moved it up so Mr beckmar doesn't have to sit here all night if we don't mind we're g to move Mr beire to now okay Mr vinc where you'd like spr on the floor [Music] good evening good evening council president councilman mayor administrator clerk so I was asked to come tonight to discuss the road program that we're doing and uh the relationship of ADA accessibility with concerns to the side BS on the roads that we're doing and other things so um I want to just go through I have you know I'm probably going to bore a lot of people with what I'm going to be reading I'm going to be reading stuff from btim from these papers that's put out by the do and it's Department of Justice Ada is not strictly a DOT concern it's also a Department of Justice uh that's where the Ada originated from and um I'm going to go through some papers just to go through and read some sections off each one and then I try to summarize what I'm getting so we receive every year a letter from the state from the do and they basically tell you we're going to pay having grants this year we're going to have grants Municipal Aid Transit Village you know Safe Streets uh Transit pikeway stuff and in this letter they say all projects funded through the transportation trust fund must comply with the American Disability Act Ada right um and then they say you go get the information through dot at this website okay so right off the bat when we put in for a grant we have to make this roadway Ada compant okay or at least to the point of what they say is compliant to them okay so that's one now we just did uh Calvin we put in for Calvin and actually we open the bids up and hopefully next month at next meeting we're going to award that okay in the review letter when we we usually get a review letter A lot of it boil a plate some of it has things you know they'd like to see something different okay number 11 in this review letter says please verify and confirm that all existing trip points from raised or broken sidewalks or driveways within the project limits are eliminated or repayed by the project now I never in the years I've been doing this received a message quite like that so we've been talking to the area m manager assistant project manager of a bureau of local Aid District 2 which is where we are and we've been on a phone a long time going back and forth what really that meant right and originally said well you got to make it ADA Compliant so we would turn around and say okay where does it say that give us the law because I have to come back to the May Council say hey you got to do this and the reason is it's by law right well it's not really by law yet or maybe yet okay but it's something that everyone would like to see okay so the 8 war came out years ago right I was a young no like 914 9194 right and it was basically centered around buildings that's what was for buildings historical buildings Mr beckmar can you just move one of the microphones because I have a hard time hearing you oh really tell me to be quiet okay and uh so um as as years went by they realize okay we're doing the buildings people can't get to the buildings because the rideways are a mess and we can't people can't TR uh travel on the rideways so they were trying to expand it into the rideways as well but that's not what the Ada law originally was was written so they tried to do a new they set up a council it was called proac it was public RightWay accessibility ex accessibility Council right and they did this huge study and I think it came out in like 2007 that's this okay and it didn't be become War until I think 2021 or 22 and once it became War then they called it proag and the only difference is it's guidelines instead of counsil okay now I went into the proac and basically what they say is if you don't have uh sidewalks on the street you do not have to put sidewalks on a street to make it accessible right if the general public is using the street well that's where people with disabilities should use the street basically that's what they're saying however if you do have sidewalks right then they required to be accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities you know that's how what it say at the intersections what at the intersections well yes or no so what happens is then they came out with different things and they came out with a thing uh with this paper here was uh Department of Justice right US Department of Transportation joint technical assistant of title 2 of the American Disability Act and they're saying in here that once you repave a road that's considered an alteration once you repave a road you have to put curve ramps on a corner if you have a sidewalk right you have to then make it okay so that by La is what we do we put the curve bramp in now curve ramp a curve brand B can you get from A to B A lot of times you can't because sidewalks are broken sidewalks are raised trees are pushing and stuff like that right so they do not come out and say and I could read your thing they do not come out and say once you put the ramps in you are required to do the sidewalks they don't say that right what they do say is once you put the rans in that's considered the facility travel path that should be accessible okay what they also then say is it's not the towns necessarily the town's responsibility to fix the sidewalks themselves however they are the ones who should oversee that it is fixed so in other words in town we say homeowners need to fix their sidewalks this doesn't say the homeowner is responsible of fix the sidewalks but our ordinance does our ordinance does so so why wouldn't we have you inspect the sidewalks from point A to point B okay and tell us to tell the property maintenance officer which sidewalks are not in conformance and issue a letter and it would be in that that that we could do I I just want to go through the whole thing so so it's basically putting the owners on the agency the township to make sure it's done and to be done in a timely manner they say 60 days and the reason that was one of the reasons why this guy kept putting this in because you once they put out the prag and I'm not saying we should avoid doing what's right and uh not do our share you know because keeping sidewalks unpassable is is a discrimination against people with disabilities under the Civil uh Ada under the uh government's that's Department of Justice right so they need someone to come come after to make sure it's done and where the agency that would be right why I think there guys put this the do I put this in is I think once proag was done and it's out there you have Advocates that go around checking this and then suing the towns because well we we got we paid you to put these in and it's been four years and we can't it's not an accessible path you're absolutely correct right so but if we if we like I don't know if what you've done in your other towns Mr beckme but we we handled this two ways in in the towns where I current used to serve we we had we went out we went out and we we had the property maintenance officer write a letter within 60 days you needed your sidewalks replaced if it wasn't done in 60 days we would replace them and put a lead on your property that is and that is the only way it ever gets done because it is it is a it is a nuisance it is a burden on the property maintenance officer that he or she has to do this but I totally agree with you because I've done projects and 10 years later those same sidewalks are broken the same way right they don't come back right and and I think the feeling is now that with the being approved and out there as law people are going to start checking up absolutely and you know I was in I'm in you know another town and uh people actually came sued through an attorney to town not only we had to pay the attorney fees we then had to fix the things we should have fixed in the first place so but I guess you know Mr Cassio was asking before have a meeting with the administration about the the sidewalks that are blocked by overblown bushes cuz you know when when you ride your bike around town and you walk around town there was a lot of sidewalk that are completely impassible because the bushes and the trees or whatever or the tree stumps raising them well we do have just not to get off this subject but to uh uh vice president casio's comment on Cor is we do have a what they call a site triangle triangle at the corner at roadways that you shouldn't be building like putting anything 20 25 ft I think in this here it's not so much structur it's more vegetation more vegetation is in violation of it at the corner of the Parkway and uh there's there's a couple there's there's you you can't see uh on on on Ridgewood and the block next to the so there's actually two types of s s there site sit which is for the corner of the property that you shouldn't do anything in that corner but then there is a site SI say I got to look down 300 it all depends on the miles hour of the roadway and determines how far down you have to be able to see if there's anything in the way you should have it under 3 ft right just one on the exit of the shopping center there's a tree right there when you look to the left you almost have to come into the road but I do have a question if I may ask sure uh Mr becm just so I have a clear understanding if we have a road Pro project and we go out and we're going to pave this street and we find defective sidewalks can that street still be paved or do we have to wait until the sidewalks are fix you can PVE the road if you're getting grant money and I again I confirmed this a matter of fact this afternoon with the guy from DT because I was worried that we would not get we would get withheld like the last 25% you know because we didn't do that and he said no only if you had those Corrections on the plans that they inspected we didn't have it on the plans we I'll be honest walked it down already I know I have on Calvin Street these are the plan by the way for the sidewalks for cuz usually we do this on all our jobs uh what I'm sorry take your time yeah I'm nervous I'm not usually up here usually up here yeah uh where did I write it was like but you have a list compiled I have a list of every house and how many square feet that we would have to fix at each house um and I basically have a cost you know what we think it is now these would be cost if it went through a a program like we would run because we get better number than if a guy gets a contracted by himself you know is the paper right there I think I see it under your book Thank you look at those eyes across thead so Calvin street we have 44 properties 44 properties that have properties now you ask what I do in my other towns the other towns uh what are their are their ordinances like ours they yeah they all have the same ordinance everyone has to fix their own sidewalk there they they for this they do away with that just because they want to get it done but how's that fair to everybody else that's done their own side that's the problem I have it council president I don't I'm just letting you you know that's not c a discussion well that was that's that's the question I always got when I was sitting in your seat well how's it fair to me that I put 125 ft of sidewalk on myself and now again somebody's gonna get it for free I think you'd have to date it say as of you know ex you know the other the other thing I could be done is you can offer them to do their own or use the contractor use a contractor under the contract and then use that number to do the lean because you don't you'll get better number correct the other thing is you know if someone and again because the way our our ordinances are written someone wants to come do a sidewalk they have to go for a zoning permit they have to go this they have to do they have to pay this fee that fee where I think you would save that if you just went and did it under the town right you know so there are savings now maybe you can say if you do this because it's 488 it's for good cause right uh we'll weigh these fees I I you know again that's I think if they I think I think the way the Mr Po I think if we had the contractor do it under Mr beckme contract price that he got we could wave the fees right I don't know no to look at it all right yeah so is that something it's more cost effective if they do it under your contract versus going out yeah and some people may fix it themselves I mean you know like well they they have that they have that choice but then we would still have to come out inspect it because just because they do it doesn't mean it's right I'm not disag you understand that and and you know if you sent this out and then we say we have two months to do it and all a sudden I got 44 different contractors biging up the sidewalks at willy-nilly any schedule first the police will rip their because they have to come out and give you know Direction traffic control I'm Calvin uh up we'd have to talk to the safety director on that yeah I think we'd have to talk about that because you know so again that's another option I'm just here to point out things um so what is your recommendation as a whole well you know what I it eats into the a Paving budget that's what it does t that's well you know if we went if we went under the project these 44 properties would be about 35,000 to do R property you know so I don't you know but I think I I think we'll have a lot of residents up there saying well what are you going to reimburse me from my sidewalks when I P you pave my street and I did it myself that's the that's what I for see happening you know see so you know in other places where I I do this right everyone has sidewalks so basically whatever goes around comes around soon sooner or later if you're liveing in town here we well we got a lot of properties that don't have sidewalks so they could turn around and say hey I don't have a sidewalk why am I putting into this you know yeah um but but but at the same time there are responsibilities when you move to certain locations right if you're by a school you're going to get traffic if you are with sidewalk you know if the again I'm reading through this and if you want I could start reading through more of this good stuff but you know they talk about if you know a school is anywhere nearby you're you're discriminating against someone with a disability to get to the school well you're discriminating just walking down your street that's that's what the law says you know like they could be on Tom's side of beach street with no sidewalks and on my side of beach street with sidewalks and you know they could say well he doesn't have sidewalks I got to walk in the street by his house and and the other thing I want to point out which I really didn't mention is the um the fact that this isn't just for Grants let's let's Public Service comes in or violia comes in and puts a new water line in and they repay the road we have to upgrade the ramps CU it doesn't say who do does the work it just as if the alteration is done to the street they have to be upgraded so you know it's a case where it's more than just grant money or roads we do outside grants we need to upgrade our Ada facilities that's a very important you know thing um I think you know going back councilwoman uh Val asked about what my my thing I'm not saying who should be paying would I like to see it in the contract that one guy is doing all the work and under control of my eyes and I know exactly because he'll probably be in and out quicker than having 44 guys come absolutely with it that's yeah now how that gets paid off or who pays that or leans or you know that's that's more I mean Mr May counil Mr Mayor could we take Mr bm's list and send the owners that have the violations and say hey like what is one of the costs for one of the properties Mr beckmar give me the address what is one of the bills for one of the properties that you're all right so the the most I'm not going to give you no don't give me the address yeah just give me what the the most one is 2,300 bucks and what's the least one 143 so the 143 we sent hey you you know please please uh we're going to fix your sidewalk you ow the town $143 is that legal to do Mr Mr B can we do that I have to see what the ordinance is say look yeah I do have one concern with that and it's going to fall on the administrator and the engineer there are 30 some people on there even though they pass your inspection it's going to be oh I don't like the color it's different than my and I'm not willing to put that on you or the administrator to handle all these residents complaints if the town takes it over okay um unfortunately the color is always going to be different the color is always different I understand that but not every you know what I've been in in places where I've had homeowners complain that the color wasn't okay and if you saw the picture the the sidewalker is 8 in higher than the next to it that was okay but the color isn't good on this one correct you know so there has to be a disclaimer saying like these are well it's going to be a brand new sidewalk slab versus a 30-year-old s however old it is you know like you know like I'm going to make Mr beckme laugh my sidewalks in 1997 when they were put in I got a little bit of a refund because they used ocean sand with seashells in it you so I have I have I have muscle shells I have mest the muscle shells all along my side you know that ER 1997 98 you're not the only one I know I'm not iell on my very decorative very decorative if I was in Seas extra for that but I agree with you Mr but I think I think if we if we if we get the list for Mr beckmar and put the people on notice and give them the option of paying the cost that is included in the contract or getting it done um and get a set a timeline once Mr once Mr Paul confirms that we're even allowed to do that yeah and again not to you know well to burden Mr pa uh to come up with the right wording that says once it passes Town inspection like that ends the town's responsibility yes that's it yeah that's fine I'm okay every okay with that the one issue council president we have is this went out the bid Yep this was not included in so it's going to be a change so after it's awarded then it would have to be a change order can't do it beforehand I'd have to do it after it's awarded and then to get pricing and then hopefully the guy work with come close I'm not going to award it just to if I think he's gouging us okay and members of the council and do we're addressing Calvin because it has the do Grant but do we plan on doing this for our own Road programs also and like this is going to be an infinite thing every year that're we're getting into the business of doing sidewalks every year Well I and I'm not saying I just want to make sure but Mr Mayor last time I was on Council I believe we had the property maintenance officer go voting District by voting district and compile a list which I'm sure you still have yeah and we were supposed to notify those people back you know four five years ago six years ago um to fix their sidewalks I don't know if that ever went out um I some of it did uh some of it did not if I'm remembering correctly so Mr beckme would you I know we used to go voting district by voting district so it's always C you know we're always right this way it helps when you're doing your road resurfacing that we've gotten all the voting districts hope you know we've gotten to the voting districts where you're doing your resurfacing and then the sidewalks are already repaired uh but we did that that was you know proactive not reactive yeah like this is reactive but if we re if we proactively send them out to say hey anything over a quarter inch or 38 of an inch they need to repair and then we get a letter to them saying hey you have 60 days to repair this or you're in violation and we go that you know that's what we always did by voting districts it kind of council president is decided Baron council is fine with me I just need direction from I guess we're going to have to wait for Mr per to come back to make sure it's what we were asking to do is and how are we going to handle if a tree is causing the sidewalk to be uprooted it's their tree yeah but so they're going to do the tree and then we would do the sidewalk um what if the tree has to come down because in a conversation with Glenn once you start cutting tree roots if that's what's upending the sidewalk the tree is dead well yeah I would't recommend cutting tree roofs I've had a tree fall down in another town contract that did it he went to the wrong tree oh oh sh and it was supposed to come down and then like three days later the tree fell in windall so they a lot of liability cutting roots and then the tree falls um what what we what we do in other places council president is we try to see if if the tree can stay and I could wack the side all the way over into the RightWay line and without disturbing it if that doesn't work and they don't want to take the tree down or can't afford to take the tree down I've also have asked for easement on the property and move the sidewalk onto the easement and leave the tree um well how many Tree on your list does it tell you how many trees I think on this one here I think believe it or not on this list I think there one tree oh okay so it's not a common so it's not a on this block it's that's what I'm saying that's why how many we have you might have a couple more you know now can we just address the for those people that feel like well the town paid for it and now I'm paying for it well who what do you mean the town paid for it you had made a comment that the people being like myself like I I replaced my own sidewalks right had my cost cuz I had 8 in of upheaval near my trees so we had the trees taken out we had the 100 foot sidewalk on at our own cost so we do a a cut off day like as of July 1st 2024 blah blah blah going forward I don't I don't like that idea I just think we have to get out there and proactively have them repair performance to becm gets there just wanted to be clear on what the game plan was with because like you said there's a lot of places in town that have no sidewalks so you know why should we burden the taxes for every you know CU then technically the taxpayers are paying for the sidewalk repair that's in our ordinance right now on the homeor so Mr per I guess with the mayor's language you asked for and if you could riew and then we'll get back to Mr beckme Mr I will send you everything I have I'll get it scanned and just send it over [Laughter] really any other questions from Mr beire thank you Mr beire thank you thank you Mr Liden you're up next Mr Liden will have a fair share of housing presentation for us if I may introduce Mr lien sure so as um and again I'll I'll update the council in the conference agenda but as we are working on the different building aspects and speaking with Mr Burgess um the master plan and how everything kind of comes all together um it's you know it's no secret but the affordable housing is changes are coming so we thought that it would be important for to bring um Mr Leiden in to help us understand how the affordable housing deadlines and what's coming down from the state is going to impact the township there are a lot of changes as I'm sure Mr lden will go into so that's why we asked them to come here and present for us thank you thank you Mr Li good evening so good evening and and I'm glad to be here um last time affordable housing legislation in New Jersey was changed was about 2006 and then a few months ago Governor Murphy signed new legislation and it some people call it Landmark legislation I don't know if I considered that groundbreaking but it is significant in a number of different ways first it officially abolishes the Council on affordable housing which was a result of the first uh Mount Laurel uh bill so Council affordable housing is gone although it hasn't worked for the last 15 years anyway um it does this bill which is now signed into law establishes dramatically tight time frames for municipalities to uh to take action to adopting a final housing plan um the legislation also establishes something called the affordable housing dispute resolution program which is a mouthful I don't who came up with that and that is uh populated by between three and seven retired or U current Superior Court judges and they have n they have filled those positions about two weeks or so ago and there are seven judges uh split between retired and an act of Judges um it also effectively uh eliminates the concept of full and complete immunity in the old days when like when watch Township got your 2017 um judgment propose and compliance you had full immunity now what you get instead of full immunity you get a presumption of validity not nearly as strong and uh the presumption of validity can be challenged by any interested party and at least three different mile poost along the way once when a town determines its affordable housing obligation and that has to come pretty much by the end of uh by the fall of this year when you adopt a house a housing plan and fair housing element and fair share plan or as you go to implement your ordinances so there are a couple of different places where uh anybody could um challenge uh your your plan the um the legislation also imposes cost cly new responsibilities on towns as far as data and responses to challenges uh it restructures the Avail available housing boat it restructures available bonus credits that the old plans allowed for um it also does increase the percentage of senior housing that towns can use in your affordable housing plan goes up from 25 to 30% because guess what we're all getting older in New Jersey bad secret um and then also create creates this previously mentioned affordable house affordable housing dispute resolution program which they established in the legislation but they haven't yet adopted the regulations as to how it's going to work and that's going to be done by the administrative judge or that person may be and um we're not sure when those are coming out um and it also establishes very aggressive uh time frames and we put together a hand out because there are too many of them don't have yes council president I'd like to uh provide you with uh we think are the more Salient and prominent uh deadlines that uh legislation actually in the language of the legislation and the bill I have it thank you the first one you'll notice is is less than two weeks away and that's a requirement for the uh the municipality the township uh to provide DCA with detailed accounting on your residential development uh on your affordable housing trust fund yesterday in Tron the bill was uh submitted to change that deadline to sometime in the fall whether it gets adopted or not we won't know of course um have we completed this exercise Mr deara or no number one and two yes yes I spoke with Community grants Community grants and housing Aon from CB g& I think it is spoke with her this afternoon had a meeting with our uh Central cashier and our building department um and we are going to get them the information by this week yeah that's good to hear I would recommend that all the municipalities anticipate this bill will not be adopted in that's that's why I asked Mr Dar Carlo we were because I KN I don't think it's going to get adopted it's adopted in tre exactly it's gonna die so um so that's the first deadline by SE by September 16th there's a lot of work that needs to be done part of it is the uh additional accounting to DCA on your residential development fees how you've collected them and how they've been spent and then also on your implementation of your plan such as the number of affordable housing units actually that have been constructed the characteristics associated with this housing when they were started when cosos were issued start and end dates of um the D restrictions so there's a lot of data GCA is looking for now you may say well hasn't this law been provided to them in the past and the answer is of course but you know Tren wants you to do it four times the fifth time to charge so they are looking for that additional information in September now I I was kind of flippant there um I don't mean to be because a municipality that doesn't meet these deadlines can you can lose your presumption of validity or even according to the legislation the um Judgment of repose that you currently have now there are two different documents there two different processes I'm not an attorney I don't pretend to know how that work we have a judg of repose right Mr yes you do for sure yeah that's saying we definitely have a judgment to propose so um so so that's September 26th uh key date is October 20th DCA is now required by then to publish their estimates for every municipality's affordable housing obligation for the next 10 years and that's going to include rehabs of existing units it's going to include uh prior round obligations which we think will just be adopted from the old documents and your presumptive obligation going forward they need to do that using what's called The Jacobson after Superior Court Judge Jacobson's methodology that she used in 2018 to settle the Princeton and West Windsor uh cases it is a complicated methodology um judge Jacobson I think she's retired now is one of the uh judges on that affordable housing dispute resolution program so um she's going to be watching DCA very closely I'm sure um and then by January uh the end of January next month next year the township has to adopt either its own numbers based on the Jacobson methodology um because you know you get to change in numbers but you can't change the methodology so unless there's a real mistake in the DCA numbers which could happen um you you're pretty much I think stuck with the DCA numbers um the municipality has to adopt a binding resolution saying that you're accepting them and you'll develop a plan around those numbers or you come up with your own Washington Township numbers the problem with doing it that way is that it's very expensive and it's timec consuming to do to do your own analysis now you may recall in the after the Supreme Court Jus uh Supreme Court decision of 2015 a lot of municipalities got together and hired somebody to produce their own numbers um and those were in fact litigated in front of Judge uh Jacobson um there has been talk about doing something similar to that again um I'm not sure what's going to happen I think I suspect that a lot of towns weren't real happy with the Jacobson's decision because they feel like there was a lot of money that was spent and there wasn't a whole lot of bang for the dollars so I expect a lot of communities are going accept the DCA numbers um then by January 31 uh to 2025 um or by by February 28th you have to come up with a new plan so it gives you two gives you a a long four weeks to develop a housing plan using the DC numbers I'm sorry to interrupt can you help me understand a little bit more on that you have 48 hours to pass yeah this resolution I mean that just seems well January by January 3 January 31st you have to pass the governing body has to pass a resolution and then within two days 48 Hours it has to be transmitted to DCA and uh in a format that can be put up on their website and it may requireed to be put up on the township website I'm not sure um I believe that is correct yeah um otherwise you lose your immunity your judgment of Republican yeah so it it's uh it's serious to do that um I would not wait to the to the exact date of January 31st but you might want to pencil in a a special meeting late in January to adopt that resolution and then uh the township would in have a month to prepare a housing plan consistent with the TCA regulations which have not been yet adopted of course for the fourth round um and and get that filed as well after February objectives if there are any and fair share housing center will be one has a month to file an objection they have to file an objection um de dealing with particularity how the municipal calculation or dca's calculation fails to comply with the regulations so it's not just that this site is better than someone else's site they're have to show show there calculations or reject the calculations but since it's right in the legislation I don't think they can do that I think they have to prove there was some sort of mistake in the way DCA or the municipality uh drafted uh the numbers um do do calcul it does have of validity so they have to an object you would have to have the the burden of proving that it was wrong and you just have to defend that it's correct and then by June 30th so again only a few months later um well they have till March 31st to to to file an OB objection if is not by then the the numbers are considered valid and you develop a plan to uh a draft plan to um number to resolve that issue and then again within 48 Hours of adopting a plan uh it has to be filed with the the DCA for the program I'm not sure which um and then after the after the township adopts something by by the end of June objectors have to August 31st to challenge the plan uh and if the plan is not challenged then the program would look at it and deter and do a very brief review to determine if it complied with uh the regulations or not and then finally um by March 15 of 2026 municipalities have to have all the implementing ordinances adopted so there are a lot of benchmarks um there are a lot of people looking over Municipal shoulders and I suspect the fair share housing center um which is an advoc advocacy group um is going to be holding townships and Burrows Feats to the fire because that's what they've done that's what they do so these dates are are very important um and um the process so the whole process is one where it seems like DCA adopts numbers and distributes them to municipalities and the municipalities have to come up with a plan to solve for that uh PL that uh that obligation so but those numbers haven't come out they haven't come out yet but but in the intern before those numbers come out they're still allowing larger cities to build you know like you know large cities like Jersey City and Hoboken to build without an affordable housing share and giving these developers huge tax breaks and forcing the affordable housing onto Us in the suburbs of of Washington Township while they don't have to build any affordable housing in a 300 unit skyrise and now we're going to end up with all those extra units in Washington Township or wherever because they're letting them do that there so I was going to ask Mr L have you had any uh or have you done any resolutions for any of the other municipalities objecting to what's going on in the urban cities you know cuz they're getting they're getting brand new you know multi-million dollar ratables and no affordable housing and don't have to accommodate any affordable housing and our little sub you know our little nice little Washington Township is getting it slammed down their throat and it's not fair and I I know there's been a there's been a bunch of articles I know the mayor of Montville is very big on it um he's a big proponent which I I I Mr Mayor if we can meet with him I'd like to get more input from him because he is he is very on on the ball about this it's a topic at our monthly mayor's meeting and I don't know because the council saw the Pas for this fing Federal lawsuit because they feel they can't get anything from the state corre they're filing a federal lawsuit council president you're absolutely right there's something called the uh Urban Aid communities yep there's 66 of them believe that's more than more than more than the total New Jersey municipalities there's only 72 yeah they are exempt from affordable housing obligations so how is that fair to our nice little suburb of watching it's not and that's where we need to figure out how do we how do we speak up for ourselves because it's not fair that we're not one of those 66 Urban Aid areas well what's really goaling to me since we're talking about it is towns like Monclair and Nutley and Hoboken are Urban a community so Hoboken right across the street the ver from Manhattan has zero obligation Nutley and Monclair are fairly wealthy communities how are they in there why Ison why is Washington Township in there that's what and that's where I'd like to find out like if we could meet with the mayor of montale and figure out how he's proposing to go against them because I think it's something we need to fight because it's not fair to us that you know they're building you know thousands of units with zeros and and and i' I've done I've done so much research this I couldn't believe when somebody said they built zero units of affordable housing in these 6 and6 massive communities some of the biggest in the states and here we are you know Washington Township's getting all this affordable housing slammed down its throat because we have to make up for those 66 communities not having any share which I have no problem with affordable housing I'm not but but to make our numbers go you know escalate so much because of these 66 communities is not fair to us it's a burden on our on our on our town it's a burden on our way of of doing things it's just it's a big deal well I just GNA say that there may be some relief in sight if you're an optimist because under the new regulations you're supposed to achieve consistency with the state development and Redevelopment plan the state development Redevelopment plan has gone through a couple of iterations but they looked at where is the investment in New Jersey in education facilities like colleges and universities in roads in mass transit culture institutions and they found they were in the urban areas and so that's where they encouraged development to occur in the urban area but no affordable Howard well that's the wrong they want to bring it over this way I'm sorry no I just had a question I didn't see it here but I read um that and I think I spoke to Mr Burgess about this a 25% imagine imagined space that you had to satisfy a 25% imagined space imag well should somebody some location like let's say Bethany huge tomorrow they sell bethan one bethan bethan over so they but they had increased it to 25% I think well yeah it's actually something new the old Washington Township relied on 's called the VAC land adjustment corre to not so much lower your number but to divide your number into two categories one is the realistic development potential which is the number that COA and then the courts expected the municipality to solve and you did and then there's the unmet need which you deal with overlay zones and mandatory set asde ordinances and it's not necessarily so pressing as the RDP with the new with the new reg legislation which just got adopted uh municipalities B land municipalities now need to identify sufficient Parcels likely to redevelop during the the next 10 years to address at least 25% of the prospective need obligation that has been adjusted what it doesn't say that 25% of the adjusted need obligation is that the overall obligation is that the RDP obligation is the vacant land is unmet need that's on purpose council president Man U sir you mentioned that senior housing is going to be part of the obligation yes so we're going to meet what happens if we have a partial on land and we Zone it for 55 or above housing would that fit into this scenario there probably I would raise the age though because there are different age designations for senior housing I think the one that the DC is used is 62 so I would up that to 62 one member of the household and then I'd have a pro prohibition on anyone under 18 as a permanent resident so municipalities can now increase the percentage of senior housing but in the past I used to get uh bonus credits for rental housing rental housing bonus credits are going away in the earlier days of COA it seemed like they were trying to encourage rental housing correct especially um Family rentals now you get more credits more bonus credits if you produce uh four sale units so it's an interesting change and if you produce larger but it's it's a huge economic disparity to the developer so you know like when you're building rental units versus you know so it's a big it's a big disparity for them to construct these units so it is I've SE CU I've seen these rental units AT3 $4,000 saying how is that an affordable housing unit but it is because that's where they built it and it it doesn't make sense but that's how they got away with it it doesn't make a lot of sense but but you're right the economics of the last 15 years have favored uh rental housing yep um that may change it may not but um and and municipalities were looking originally didn't want Rupal housing for a lot of reasons that General need to go into and Co required at least 50% of the units be family run so so that's kind of changing um the uh the other thing I want to mention is uh the credits are all changing um what you do get a lot of credits for one for one our special need Supportive Housing which that is a good thing for the state to produce um there are lot of people are well I'll say my age who uh have uh disabled children and they've aged out of the education programs and there's really not a lot of place for them to go and Mom and Dad are now getting too old to handle 225 pound you know Sun so the special needs and affordable uh special needs and Supportive Housing is very important another way for a municipality to get credit uh the maximum amount of credit is to do 100% uh affordable housing units and United Way in Tom T Tom Tarantino has done a lot of projects in the pasac valley and elsewhere in Berton County and he may be in the agency that the township wants to talk to and I wouldn't stop there I would talk to other uh Supportive Housing I know I'm not a Lutheran but I know the Lutheran Church of Lutheran Church of America does has a very active affordable housing program so there are religious organizations the township can talk to because that's about the only way really to get 100% credit or the one the one for one bonus credit that you used to get for rentals well I just to just to ask Mr Li I think the 25% Mrs valz was talking about is for there's a lot of office uh space in New Jersey that is no longer office space that's true so what the what the intent of the law I believe speaking to a bunch of planners is to be able to reclaim all the office buildings that are sitting empty all over the place and the shopping centers that are sitting empty and convert them into affordable housing units and and it would be a slam dunk for these developers then to come in and take over an office Park and convert it into rentals or or affordable housing units but how's that fair to a municipality that now is going from you know everybody's gone at 5:00 to having 300 units now in an office Park it's it's it's a dangerous thing they're playing with this 25% and that's where it really just to answer you know I know the answered it also but from what I'm reading that's what it's really about is trying to re repurpose all this office stock and this and this empty building stock that we have in New Jersey and there is a tremendous amount of that was built during the 80s and 90s correct just and the developers thinking office building from the 90s is Obsolete and they want to tear it down or repurpose it for housing and and you're seeing that in a lot of the office Parks out in Mars County for instance y um the other thing that's really important I think with the getting back to the uh time frame Nam is uh municipalities by February have to um February next year uh no by by January you're required to adopt a binding resolution as to how you're going to meet your obligation um or that you are going to meet your obligation uh objectors have one month to object to your plan or every other plan and then the affordable housing dispute resolution program has one month to resolve every objection filed in the state of New Jersey against every I can see a deadline being extended on that one if they're actually going to review them they have to uh we're PR we're planners in precip they had 15 objections filed wow one community so um and all this has to be done by June 30th yeah everything has to be squared away in a year yes yeah yes um and that's not going to happen if New Jersey's past history is any guidance but the township has to ignore in my estimation what the other obligation obligations of others are and stick to the guidelines that have been established for municipal action because if you don't you run your risk of losing immunity and you really I don't think you want to do that that's a bad position to be no um I just have one one more question sure um so how does this how does this affect our town where there isn't a lot of vacant money ah I was just going to get to that oh okay we're on the same page yes when when you this was true for the third round and the second round as well but when you did your vacant land adjustment you were supposed to look at properties which could reasonably be redeveloped during the life of this of the plan so if you look Washington Township uh you've got some restaurants which may not be around in 10 years you've got some commercial space that I know I know one of them just got uh change from a bridal shop to a dental office that might have been a site uh that would be considered for affordable housing now that's a small site yes but maybe the township could partner with a religious group or a nonprofit developer and put up a small three-bedroom three unit building on that site at that intersection oh you'd be surprised with the shoehorn in um the good thing about affordable housing generally speaking they don't those units don't generate a lot of traffic because besides housing the second most expensive thing in New Jersey is Cars and auto insurance so generally affordable housing um sites have less traffic and less cars than a market rate Housing Development would and in fact uh the residential side Improvement standards allow you a lower number once an affordable housing project so um I think it's important as the township looks at doing its next plan is to really examine the commercial sites in town and see which ones are viable for the next 10 years and and I'm not suggesting have to reone them all for affordable housing but you may put an overlay on some of them um that would at least address the UNM need obligation so I think the towns do need to um recognize that this next round especially depending with the numbers that Coop that Department of Community Affairs comes out with is is going to be um it's going to be a struggle so so my biggest question is I know Mr parer and our former Township planner spent many years at the vivano property because we have not broken ground is there a a possibility that this will reopen our requirements to not the vivano property since they have not broken ground is there any way like COA not COA DCA can come back and say hey you guys you know you had an agreement the court Master approved the agreement but you haven't Broken Ground so therefore we want to come back and get another slice of of of their pie and up the anti at Viviano is that a possibility or is anything possibility at this point in time I would not be at all surprised if things like that happen I say anything's a possibility because possibility well anything a possibility see what what's going on yeah no that's why I'm asking that's why I'm asking the question it makes me nervous because we have you know 25 uh kind you know low affordable housing units going down there but could they come back and say well now you guys did break ground in 20 years so therefore now we want 50 units down there and I'm I'm worried that that's a problem cuz that's a big you know it's 11 acres of un you know undeveloped land and we can't say it's it's being developed because it hasn't been in 20 something years since we started Kaa and you know the last round then the second round and the third round and what's likely to happen quite frankly you might say something along the lines of well it didn't happen because it wasn't economical so I need more that's what I'm worried about yeah but the problem in New Jersey is the idea that we have a constitutional obligation to provide affordable housing came from the courts and anytime you have a dispute it ends up in the courts more and often times it doesn't end up well for the municipality correct and none of our ordinance or anything can change this cu no exactly so that's my worry is com out of our control you know we have this agreement we spent you know hundreds of thousands almost millions of dollars getting it done and it's going to go boom you know it's gone overnight and we end up with a new standard that's going to be a lot more possibly which it seems the way everything is being written that's what's going to happen well don't forget you know I don't want to sound too doom and gloomy we don't know the numbers yet I know but they don't sound optimistic well not you I said just read you know that's why I thought it was you know the mayor and I in discussing that is important that our residents be aware of what's coming because not everybody is you know up to speed so I really appreciate you coming and educating us yeah the first thing is to get those numbers down to threaten by uh mid June and then the second thing is to wait and see how they're going to come out with those numbers their numbers yeah um but in the meantime uh some of the information that's due September 18th can be uh accumulated and compiled and and checked to make sure it's correct okay so there's things to do before October certainly but that October deadline is going to come for TCA and by the way I have a legislation here um it says if the state fails to meet any of the guidelines in here it doesn't leave the municipalities of their obligations um so New Jersey for you they're kind of putting the municipalities in the in the target of the the Bulls Eye thank you thank you for your one I have two questions and then a quick statement um you just mentioned about potential rezoning um if we do that and then fair share housing looks at that are they going to say hey you rezoned just to try and avoid your obligation only if well I I under that situation may if if the town took residential zones and converted them to non-residential zones that may be a response that fair share would do but if the township took commercial space and and put it into an overlay or resid IAL Zone uh I think more likely than not fair share might object to some of the details but they wouldn't object to the concept okay um second question is um as everyone knows we're working on updating the master plan um how much of any of this is tied into the master plan uh should we be rushing that per se to meet any of these or these are all Standalone for the most part from the master plan well there Standalone but part of okay um what what the DCA and this resolution board are going to look for is an updated housing plan and uh housing element and fair share plan which is an element in your master plan but that's also going to cause some changes I believe to the land use element which has been updated in quite some time and and that land use element I think you want it to be strong because of the tieing with the state uh development plan state devel state development development plan um which DCA is supposed to um require an analysis of that plan and see how the the municipality complies with it now most of buron count is in planning area one that calls for a lot of new development it's probably the second most developed section of the state other than Urban centers so um but there is language in there talking about clean environment clean Waters clean air and I think are the kind of things that you're going to have to focus on I think yeah and and the flooding issues in the township throughout the valley but I think one of the things we have to there's some statements in our current master plan that allow for uh evaluating different uses in different zones and I think Mr Burg just knows he's eliminating that so we'll leave it at that but that's a that's something we that that's why I was all 100% going for the new reval a new master plan because there's a lot of statements in there that date back a long time ago and we need to get rid of those statements yeah those that your master plan land you goes back before Co existed correct 76 so it B so it does need to take some of that language out and you look at it through the prism of affordable housing correct yeah and then Mike just my statement um we have a meeting of the pasak valley mayor Association next week I just got the agenda uh this early this afternoon I'll read you a sub quick subset of it our speaker will be land use planner Joe Burgess to speak on the topic of affordable housing round four obligations so I may have the pleasure of hearing this all over again which is fine we will also discuss with a potential additional speaker the pending Montvale challenge of the New Jersey round four obligations as well so it's obviously an active traffic among all pasc Valley would you be able to report back to us Mr May on the round on the on the MAF actions of course maybe we want to join you know following their footsteps join more the better I you know unfortunately state New Jersey forces everything down the municipality throats and sometimes recourses to go to above above the state to Federal level and I have no problem doing that that's what the that's what they're there for thank you Mr Li so much thank you for a great presentation thank you do I have a motion to open the meeting up to the general public second all in favor I uh there is no one in the audience for here is there anyone on Zoom good night thank you there is no one on Zoom motion to close the public comment portion second all in favor I thank you ordinances adoption second reading an ordinance under chapter 87 of the code of the township of Washington setting forth the rate of compensation a matter of payment of employees for the year 2024 resolution number 24268 authorizing reading and opening of public hearing for Ordinance 24-12 do I have a motion so move second roll call councilman Casio yes councilman Sears yes Council blz yes council president sen yes motion to close the public hearing for Ordinance 24-12 do I have a motion so move second roll call councilman Casio yes councilman here yes Council BL um to closing the public hearing okay I just had a comment oh after okay yes before you adop yes coun president yes motion to adopt ordinance number 24-12 at second reading by title so move second you have a comment Mr yeah I just um from the mayor's email regarding the salary um that he had sent for the 1800 if I can interrupt you um I'd like to uh read just for the record uh the email I sent to all the council uh so if you'll indulge me for just a moment okay thank you a situation has occurred with the salary ordinance that I will be asking you to formally address at the council meeting before passage the finance director position is listed in the proposed ordinance for 900 that would mean I could only authorize paying the current person 450 $50 for half a year of service in the position less than the position currently pays I do not believe that is the council's intent as discussed during the budget therefore I will be requesting that the amount in the ordinance be changed to $1,800 since there is $900 budgeted for the position it will enable me to pay 900 for the half a year of service the person has worked so thank you for to read that in so do we just is it just a quick change you have to make a motion to go back to the salary ordinance to increase it uh well you have to make a motion well you have to make a motion on an amendment to the salary ordinance and as long as it's not substantial which that's not a substantial change no because we have to be able to pay the full amount could do it tonight okay anybody want to make a motion I'll motion I'll second well you got tell us what Mo motion for 1800 I'm sorry for who specific be specific oh be specific um Finance director Finance director I'm sorry I thought you wanted me to no no no no the finance director who have a second second roll call councilman cassum no councilman Sears yes Council valz yes council president to sen yes motion to so we're now we're going to take the roll call to adop motion to adopt motion to adopt uh ordinance number 24-12 at second reading by title with the adjustment of 1800 as amended through the finance director do I have a roll call please oh do I have a motion I'm sorry motion motion second roll call councilman no councilman C yes Council bz yes counc president to s yes introduction first reading none Mike can I just make a real quick comment about that um and I didn't say it ahead of time um I think it's against the law to that you can't retroactively cut someone's pay um so I'm glad the majority of the council approved it otherwise we're inviting a potential lawsuit thank you Mr May budget resolutions resolution number 24258 wave the reading in full of the 2024 budget please note that a copy of the 2024 budget Township budget was posted on the township website on May 1st 2024 published in the Bergen Record May 5th 2024 and made available at the township of Washington public library and town hall and by contacting the Township Clerk during normal business hours do I have a motion so move second second roll call councilman Casio yes councilman Sears yes Council bz yes counc president the sener yes public hearing of the 2024 Township budget as advertised M to open the public hearing on the 2024 Township budget so move second all in favor I uh there is no one in the audience and no one on Zoom motion to close the public hearing on the 2024 Township budget so move all in favor I 2024 budget adoption resolution number 24259 adoption of the 2024 Township budget do I have a motion don't move second roll call councilman CIO yes councilman Sears yes Council valz yes council president the sen yes resolution number 24-26 self-examination 2024 Municipal budget do I have a motion sh move second R call councilman cassum yes councilman Sears yes councilman sorry councilwoman yes council president s yes resolutions 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 items removed from the consent agenda does anyone have any items they'd like remove from the consent agenda for individual uh consideration seeing none I will read all of them resolution number 24261 authorized refund of overpayment of quarter 2 2024 taxes block 2101 lot to core Logic the amount of not to exceed $2,883 resolution number 24262 authorize refunds of engineering escrow block 4206 Lot 25 in the amount of not to exceed $726 resolution number 24- 263 authorized refund of engineering escrow block 4426 lot 7 and the amount not to exceed $1,000 resolution number 24264 authorize refund of engineering escrow block 2305 lock in the amount of not to exceed $311 resolution number 24265 authorize refund of engineering escrow block 4419 Lot 27 in the amount of not to exceed $1,000 resolution number 24266 authorized submission of njbpu community energy plan Grant application the amount of $10,000 resolution number 24267 confirmation of acquisition by of the of by the purchaser 450 pasak road block 2325 Lot 2 in the amount of $750,000 resolution number 24- 269 authorize approval of decreased change order number 001 final commuter parking and drainage in the amount of $ 5,291 6 credit motion to approve consent your agenda resolutions as presented don't move second roll call councilman CIO yes coun yes Council BL yes council president to yes adjournment to conference agenda do I have a motion so move second all in favor I I Mike I don't know if I'm beating you too can we take five minutes I was just going to ask thank you we take a five minute recess please ladies and gentlemen thank you I don't have a conern e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e training session we're going to have several more for the the members and their families we are due to go effective July 1st uh the GSP intersection of Washington Avenue still waiting for a followup meeting uh with the state and the Turnpike Authority um see Memorial Field you know it's back open we were able to secure a less expensive price so all the fields were mulched appropriately our ms4 storm water mapping you were updated I was waiting for an update from Northgate I did not have a new one for today but they had um anticipating getting their storm water project done by the end of May I saw there's no equipment there so they must be done good that's a good sign the parking lot looks empty now where they had all that Storage storage equipment and stuff great and then the swim club the mayor is going to update you this evening and our storm water pollution plan has been completed along with our annual submission of our annual report for storm water uh for capital projects the 23 Road program is complete uh the commuter lot you know where that is that's done it looks good we're just waiting waiting for the stencils to come in and uh we'll be working on the signs the DPW facility Police Department Renovations that will all be discussed this evening uh Town Hall elevator anticipated work to begin July 15th we'll make sure the Public's aware uh made aware well in advance when we get a more definitive date uh Calvin Street bid opening was on 529 as you heard from Mr Beck Meer tonight we uh strong strongly anticipate providing the uh the bid award to the council for approval on the next meeting as far as the brook um there has been no more obstructions that have been cleared but we are just waiting uh for the uh major project to begin so we have received signed permission from all Township Property Owners along the impacted sections of the brook in order to access their property if needed to conduct the work this is a requirement of njd this certification has been signed by mayor calamary and returned to Boswell engineering I spoke with Frank Ry from Boswell engineering today for an update and they are working on what they need to do in order to submit uh for the mjdp permit are we going out for an emergency permit or we going still a several month process so Mr Ross you told me it takes several weeks for them to prepare it um in order to go to D and then they're expecting the 3 to four month turn around um once DP has it in their hands to start getting it done and that concludes my project tracker update thank you thank you uh DPW Police Department ambulance building Mr Mayor Mr car yes um thank you I'll take the lead on that um WCTV if you can put up the sk1 diagram please that was the one that uh Council saw last time uh converting the uh old ambulance building into a potential uh Council chamber um this plan uh will not work in my opinion because um the dayis would be shorter than what we have now um so the sk2 uh rendering if you can put that up uh that was spinning it yeah that's what we had asked for so made it handicapp accessible correct yeah uh well he said everything he does would be handicapped accessible even if it's not drawn on these plans uh but this gets us to day is uh pretty much the same size we have here uh so IT addresses that issue all also um so again we just like to get uh council's opinion um if you agree with this layout um Mr iino will take it to the next level I think Mark and get us some cost estimates yes correct I like I like that layout I just have one comment for the storage we had mentioned potentially adding a door should we ever need to turn that into a a judge chamber M yep that was my only and ex yes correct an exterior exit door Mr Mayor it's another exit route yeah that would be like can we make that like a safe room exit route out the building yeah of course yeah that would be like a safe right you can get to it okay so I will uh give him the okay to move ahead with cost estimates for this um now um if you can put up the DPW floor plan please and again members of the council I believe you have the but it's just so the public can see it also This was um the original plan um I foret it's dated February 21st 2023 um if we move ahead with the ambulance building converting that to council chamber um we see this plan uh being workable again with the uh five Bays for garage and offices up above and uh then we had uh Mr iino update the call for that plan uh because as I said this went back over a year so uh DP um WCTV if you can go to the DPW cost slide thank you very much um you can see that the uh total estimated cost for the building is 5.2 million what was it do you recall what it was in 2023 I think it was just under five okay if I'm remembering correctly yeah I don't and just to be clear is will this house our equipment or we still will not be able to it will house whatever can fit in the five BS on a nightly basis uh but no way will house all of the equipment so we will still need to find yeah unless we can manufacture space somewhere we're not going to solve that problem on this plot of real estate up here and is there a wash bag uh yes one of these um is a wash bay um I forget which one but yes one is a wash bay okay and then um if you can put up the police sketches slide please um again this uh this goes back um to I can't read that date it looks like June of 23 um where we spoke about the police taking over this room and uh going out the side to add uh a sally port processing area and a couple of holding areas and then uh doing a renovation on the basement space Also are we taking the uh P the violations area and all that in this plan Mr Mayor um it it's not factored into here um but we should be right it I mean it can be yes yeah because that's going to be gone I I would hope so I hope to have a shared service agreement you know in place or if not in place at least uh well along its way by the end of the year does this include the chambers the current chamber yes the police taking over this yeah if you look at uh the first page um where it to the left where it says Chief office detective office Sergeant office and meeting briefing that would be this area would be broken up into those four offices what is that space between the break room or right to the left of the break room um it's just an empty space um yeah off hand I don't know if it's just an open space to the corridor and stairway uh going up um can certainly find out okay and then uh we had him all o update the costs on doing that um so it's uh just under 1.6 million to uh add on the new sallyport area and do the renovation to um the basement this area and their existing space um as as we said before um that's a very favorable plan because the police uh can operate uh in their existing space um they don't have to relocate to uh to any other space while this would be going on uh obviously the conversion of this room would take place first that would give them space to come in here and then renovate their existing space uh but the the chief just walked in I don't know how familiar you are with this but I think you said um that it would enable you to continue operating in your existing space yes that is correct okay the on the second the basement level mhm where it says new building above so is that just like craw space or that's the sallyport area to slam on gra cuz you're going to right yes okay this doesn't cut into any property correct it does not okay and so U you know taking these two numbers rolled up uh the 5.2 million and the 1.6 you know gets us to 6. um you know personally I think that's a very good cost for what we would be getting for the DPW and the police and the council um sorry the council Still Remains to be seen correct my bad yes um yes um you know especially you know U when towns like River Bale are spending 20 million just on a new Emergency Services complex um so again I think all our departments always keep that in mind and come up with the uh most uh efficient space needs that they can come up with so that ends what I have to say on the dwpd and ambulance building I guess Swim Club head at you left the first day Mr Mayor yes uh does anyone else have any questions on DPW police ambulance building just one more question the women's locker room I it shows four that should be adequate right let me just get back there that instant the basement I'm assuming those are four lockers uh yes I woulde Lockers in comparison yes lockers right now okay but this preliminary SK discuss expanding that actually into the room next to it excuse me Chief you know what have I to sit up here sure please thank you sorry about that no it was acknowledge that that room was too small okay so as part of the renovation we would see to expand it into the room next to it since we could accommodate what's in that room other places now the evidence or this office the other office okay go that the pul of the room you referred to before with the regard to the break room is right now the judges Chambers which is right down that Vault so what would that become because it would be such a a thorough Fair through there we wouldn't put anything permanent in that space uh because that would be what would connect the administrative offices to sort of the the front Des area so whoever was there wouldn't get much let's say privacy or anything like that we discussed a lot of different uses we could put our secretary in there uh so there's a bunch of different options for that okay is that break room sufficient is that the same size you have right now it's it is sufficient because it wouldn't be doing double duty anymore uh because we would have a meeting briefing room right now with those double is okay thank you so um again just to keep this moving um I would hope that we can get cost estimates from the architect to convert the ambulance building for the next meeting um you know this has been dragging out quite some time our departments are making due uh but I'd really like to Fast Track this so uh you know I would ask any questions you have on what you know what you see here if you would review it and please make sure to ask me any questions at the next meeting or beforehand uh because I'd like to you know get this moving our DPW deserves a more permanent home than what they have and uh our police are very tight for space as everyone knows thank you thank you swim club Mr Mayor yes or Mr was yeah me on that one also please um WCTV can you put up the uh Swim Club letter and uh if it's okay I'd like to read this letter into the record uh it will go quickly it's from The recre Advisory Board we the members of the recreation Advisory Board representing a cross-section of our residents unanimously recommend the accompanying layout of the former Swim Club property for the following reasons it maximizes passive recreational use it allows flexibility for young children and senior citizen activities on the Great Lawn it provides an alternative space for movies concerts and other events that preserves Memorial field it provides a convenient dog park that is within walking distance for many residents it includes a secure walking and cycling path around the lawn it stays with the open space Concept in keeping with the conditions of the grant we receive to acquire the property the Simplicity of it minimizes costs and ongoing maintenance we look forward to working with the public and the council to bring this property online to serve all the residents for the decades to come respectfully submitted by myself uh the director aan Tumi Rec superintendent Dan scary and all of the members of the rec Advisory board so Mr Mayor you it makes a statement it minimizes costs we don't have a cost attached to this is there one that could be made available well it says the Simplicity of it minimizes it should probably read a little better cost of ongoing maintenance oh okay I'm sorry yeah no quite all right quite all right the way it was to minimizes cost cost of construction right um but we don't have a cost for this yet we do not I'm getting to that momentarily um if you can put up the oh thank you very much um so just so the public can see um there is what uh what Boswell is calling a great lawn of 51,000 square ft that is mostly where the existing pool and adjacent building are all around that is a proposed 10- foot wide biking and walking circuit um hence you see the broken lines in there 5 ft for each activity a proposed Plaza area um what does that mean Mr Mayor proposed Plaza yeah yeah that's uh pretty much just a concrete slab that we can use to put a screen for um summer movies or a band if we're going to have summer concerts there so type type of uses like that um as you can see moving toward the left from that there's the proposed restrooms um which Boswell checked and we can move those to that place without jeopardizing the grant um the proposed parking lot you know pretty much the same as the existing one um below the parking lot is proposed pickle ball courts they said um if if the town decides they can probably squeeze another two in there to get six uh we move that activity very close to the parkway to hopefully mitigate any noise because pickle ball is known for its noise then moving to the right of that there's a proposed 6200 ft playground and then just above that a proposed 2800 sqt dog park um what is not shown in here is uh there would be um an a uh walking path to Garder field envisioned here um and then you know the big open space underneath the Great Lawn um as many people know that's where the topography gets a little tight um and you know slopes a lot and also um the open space people would like to see us leave as many trees there as possible in keeping with the uh open space and uh I know I hope the Tom seers and the green team will be very happy with keeping as many trees as we can obviously we need to go in and clean up that area but that would be part of happy with keeping the trees but I'm not happy with the the plan okay the filter building remains Mr Mayor it says no um says one story building and asphalt remains I I I don't think that would stay Mark right correct it's penciled in with the existing yeah yeah I don't believe that would stay Mike I think they just penel it in as an existing but uh in our conversations I can't remember talking about it staying may we ask questions I welcome your questions okay so I'm going to pull the teacher card I'll start with the positives um I'm happy to see plans you know I know it's been um quite some time and a lot of back and forth so I'm happy that we're we have something in front of us um I do agree that you know I'd be lying if I said wasn't disappointed that I don't see fields on here um so I wonder if it's possible to down the road reconfigure this field this Great Lawn into Fields is that something on the horizon we got the bike path and everything built around it so you're limited by well I'm saying if we you know right this is the first draft that we're seeing yes um but you've gone through many iterations we've been working on this for few years so this is not the recreation Department's first draft because we this is the first one we've actually seen yeah yeah no but no we saw one two I was here two years ago we had a a plan showing two diamonds and some soccer fields yeah I mean that was the original so there's been I'm sure many iterations of this right um I wouldn't say many I would say maybe five okay five yeah okay um so uh to answer your question um yeah that that's the area that we're kind of limited to again because of the topography the thinking among the members of the board was yes leave it open as a great lawn for the first year or two uh see what type of use it gets that way and then uh it can always be changed later uh what cannot be changed uh even now without going into heavy construction costs and uh and putting a big dent in that topography um is the size of the Great Lawn as a matter of fact they had proposed two one was a 4 ,000 foot one but they said to go to this one um they just threw out an approximate cost of 50,000 uh to go from the 41 to I mean from 40,000 to 51,000 uh with just small retaining walls in some areas so so my concern is um the parking is 15 ft lower than the Great Lawn so if we're making a path for Passive recreational use somebody's going to have to park that car and then go up a 15t incline yeah again you know because of the Topography of that land and that that was the same thing with the swim club you know people wanted to use the pool and like that they still basically had that so uh again in talking with the board and with Boswell there's really no good way to move that parking lot because it's also grandfathered in um I don't know that we could move it too much without being in violation of the uh open space gra just for seniors for seniors parking their car down there and then walking up a 15t incline that did come up and uh toward the top of the Great Lawn Boswell said they could probably get more um handicap spots in there than what is being shown but isn't it currently aren't there currently parking spots on that pathway pathway yeah why can't we just mimic that again because it it decreases the size of your loan M correct two statements one why did this thing go to Boswell number one number two we were looking for a Rec Center we're looking at a a lawn and you think the dogs are not going to be running around on this lawn we were supposed to have basketball courts a councilwoman said a field some type of baseball field or or hockey field um this is not what I call a Rec Center this is well and and I think they should go back to the original plan and take another look at redesigning this and I am still concerned over Boswell getting the contract for this with his fees that he charges that's my opinion okay um let me try and answer those questions um it it went to Boswell um because they had already put a lot of work in on it and we at least want them to see it through uh in light of that work to getting a concept done I opposed to starting some with over with a new engineering firm on that I'm not I'm not overly I'm not overly uh worried about bazo's fees because they they're they're in line with everybody else U but I am concerned about we we've gone to a vanilla we've gone can I just answer Tom's other question before M I'm sorry um as far as uh what did you say Tom a Community Center rec center um we cannot put any new buildings on here um we and renovate the existing one um but it was the rec advisory board's opinion and again this is all opinions uh there's nothing set in stone yet obviously um that the town would be better served by a uh you know a big outdoor space to hold uh activities on and you know let kids run around freely um so again that that was just every everyone has the opinion uh but that was the opinion of the rec Advisory Board I you have any other questions Mr serus no so I I I I I like it's a vanilla plan right and we're trying to cut costs and I don't like that because we were presented two years ago you know and the residents were all excited because we thought we were going to have new Playing Fields not a great lawn um I you know it's it's it's fine if we had enough fields to to you know for all our children in town but to build this Great Lawn and have no ability and we're not putting up lights so we can't use it at night either Mr Mayor correct that's that's currently the uh plan yes there's no lights no lights so we couldn't have a a movie night there or a or or a concert there because we have no way to light up the field and well well you you could uh with the emergency lights for just events like that but we only own two of those we would need dozens of them so we'd be renting lights um well again you you may know better than me Mike I don't know about dozens but you know we can always borrow some from the county and our neighbors uh also I I just I don't know how we went from that that plan two years ago providing well well yeah a lot of a lot of it just you know when they did the survey and looking at the topography um it it didn't fit any longer but I I said that from I don't mean to be the one I told you so I I we brought that up I said it's either a 50ft wall on one side or two 25 foot walls and everybody said I was crazy but now that's what we're finding out and it's upsetting because we waited this long and to you know to go back to our constituents and say we're getting a great lawn but we don't have any more fields for you to go play soccer or football or basketball or basketball or you know that's what we were looking for can you know so the dog park I mean my opinion is that needs to be moved you don't want it next to a playground you don't want it next to a playground you're also going to get barking dogs so you want them as far away from the people the smell that can do you think nobody's going to let their dog on the great loan so the I I would suggest that that dog park be moved and perhaps that space be reconfigured to a basketball court something like that so that you get more recreational use okay again just one thing I'll point out um you know this this pretty much lays out all the usable land according to Boswell um without getting into you know pretty extensive cost to put up bigger retaining walls um and they're not even sure if the D will allow that because of so close to Wetlands also but but again you know please this this is a starting point it is nowhere near an ending point no and then I have another one I'm sorry I have a couple because I did have a different Vision as as well um the when I was down at the leagues I think not last year the year maybe the year before they you know I mentioned our how this was a swim club and I thought perhaps we could do a splash pad of some sorts by the Children's Park so that you know we already had the tubing or the piping I'm sorry the piping and they said it would be easier to configure since since we already had the system in place so if we had a splash pad you know near next to the playground that would give the township children an opportunity to kind of not be in a pool that we have to maintain per se but still an opportunity in the summer months to you know go out and stay cool I'm not I'm not disagreeing this fles park would be a nice addition but the existing infrastructure that's there now would not support that so you'd be building a splash bark from scratch Miss as I just it's a it's another idea it's another idea it's another idea because the piping's already there but it's it's it's it hasn't been it hasn't been used now for three or four years it's probably you're going to have an issue with it you know what happens when things is yeah the sizing to support a pool like that as opposed to yeah it's not a pool it's no what was there I mean oh okay yeah it's it's a totally different animal but I but I I'm I need to digest this a little more it's the first time seeing it tonight and it's totally different than what we saw originally and I just I just I I just need to digested I think everybody else does up here too is this going to be posted on the township website absolutely the proposed Plaza area is did you say that that would be like a Band Shell uh or not a shell but just a concrete pad right now is there any way to incorporate a Band Shell because that would save a lot I'm gonna say we can do anything almost based on how much appetite the council has to spend money on this project and What the residents have to say you know we're up here to represent the residents uh as I said in my monthly report uh I want to get together a meeting with a representative from Boswell and the members of the public uh because I just don't think a council meeting is the proper thing because you know a council meeting has to be done very defined ways and people can only speak five minutes so I I think it's just out done outside a council meeting uh but I believe you know I don't think we're violating any law if the council members attend that meeting uh because you're not making any decisions that night but you know I want to you know get your comments we able to speak at that meeting Mr P as residents I'm sorry I was so the mayor so the mayor so the mayor so the mayor wants to uh have a meeting with the residents and the recreation committee about this plan and he said that it would be it would be done that way this way it's not as formal as a council meeting and he said council members could attend and I asked would we have the right to speak as residents at that meeting then or Would we not and could we all go like I know I would be there what if Miss Val C show do we have a quorum then and itat a problem well you're not you're not going to be like together meeting right it's just it's just you like well if we all get up on the on the on the microphone you talking about here a meeting here or in the senior center or something right yeah yeah probably in the senior center we could sh as I want make sure to me it's almost like we attend social events together and you know we're not making any decisions or anything in those meetings all right I just want to make sure no kind right okay now if we let's just say we love this what would be the anticipated time or something like this we don't even have a cost so I know I'm saying what does yeah um Council can't predict that right now unfortunately just wondering if this gets it up and going soon talked about this a lot we got the chief here whove been sitting through this can we move on to his report yeah well we got we got School Street coming up in task force so he's here for task force so I I just want to you know point out the last thing that was on there was uh Boswell's estimate of their cost yes uh and so again not looking for any decisions tonight but please review that um you know because they don't want to take this any further other than the uh public meeting I spoke about unless we're ready to approve some more money for them in these costs okay Mr Dar Carlo can you give us an accounting of what money we have available to pay their costs and uh if you could Mr may allow you to give us like I know we just got some grants so would some of those grants cover the initial phases that there yes so if you could just let us know where we'd fall if you don't mind Mr May no no yes right if we could have that for the next meeting I can get it to you School Street traffic flow Direction um that that's on here just to say um we we've restarted the talks about it and uh to expect a more formal presentation at the next council meeting uh but we will be presenting uh changing the one-way direction of School Street uh to go I always get confused but I'll say up the hill instead of down the hill and with exits on uh both Wayne and uh what's the other one white bir yeah thank you yeah but that but that creates a handicap accessibility problem at the field because all your handicap ramps all your handicap parking is on me one way it better be going the other way right now you park and you exit the passenger side of a handicap vehicle or van you'd be exiting onto live traffic coming up at you the wrong way correct so that I hope somebody looked at that because that'd be a big no no for me I didn't have the traffic officer review it yet okay yeah you understand what I'm saying like right now the handicap spots are on the uh Northern curb line and a handicapped accessible vehicle would exit through that sliding door on the sidewalk side they would now be facing the opposite way exiting into live traffic right which also uh you know we'll be bringing uh engineer BM in on this also to uh you know get an engineering opinion on it so that's but again it was more just a placeholder to let you know that we'll discuss it in more detail at the next okay uh the next uh thing is Task Force officer I guess uh Chief you're here for that correct yes thank you uh so a couple years ago when the former Chief and I approach the council with the Command Staff with regard to increasing the size of the police department from 20 to 22 offic uh we discussed at that time when we were proposing it one of the reasons for it was to take advantage of certain opportunities am I good now better sorry about that that's okay the cord doesn't give uh this was one of the things that we discussed in terms of increasing the size of the department in order to take advantage of certain opportunities uh and one of them being exploring the possibility of sending out an officer on loan uh to one of the federal agencies uh which is commonly known as a test Force officer program uh since becoming Chief I've had the opportunity to speak to several uh pasak Valley towns as well as other towns in buron County who have officers on loan to these various programs uh I wanted to discuss and and and present to the council uh this because you did authorize the increase of us from 20 to 22 officers and when we discussed this a couple years ago uh my intent was if we were going to so the former Council approved the new table of command for 22 correct that was done I wasn't on coun yeah that was done I believe two years ago uh but with hiring constraints Etc it took us up until now to get up to that full strength of 22 which we now have so okay and that does include me uh so again this was uh proposed back then and now that we've finally gotten up to 22 officers it's something uh that I would like to explore but I wanted to inform the council and I asked you know the permission of the mayor administrator uh to address you with regard to it I've spoken to them and uh while no concrete decision is made I wanted to get your uh feedback and input and also give you the opportunity to ask any questions with regard to it uh so generally the way it works is an officer is loaned out to a Outside Agency a federal Agency on a full-time basis so they they report to that agency they work for that agency they're fully deputized Etc they are still our employee we pay their salary we pay their benefits Etc uh so you might say the next logical question is okay well where is the benefit uh those federal agencies are involved in a lot of so specifically one agency that that I uh explored with is the drug enforcement agency the DEA and obviously those agencies get a lot of uh seizures and because when you have an officer assigned to the task force the the seizure money is split up and divvied up upon the uh eventual completion of the due process Etc and the towns who have officers on these task force share in the seizure money now I've spoken to every agency that has had an officer on loan and it has far exceeded the officer's salary the money that has come back to the agency uh and So that obviously is a is a big attraction and a big draw and a primary reason that I wanted to come to you there are other advantages uh opportunities because having an officer on loan to these agencies allows you to take advantage of free training with these agencies Etc because you're now a contributor to their cause and they like to give back and several departments have taken advantage of of significant things like firearms training investigative trainings things like that uh so that was I I wanted to present that and give the the council any opportunity to to ask questions or you know to to provide any feedback or their thoughts or their input on it uh because of the fact that you did very recently you know again authorize the increase of the size of the department and it's significant enough that it has a budget component obviously because that officer uh you know whose salary we're paying for the time that they're on loan you know comes out of our budget and since you you know manage and control the budget I wanted to make you aware and uh and get your input and feedback so John is that the same thing when we loan an officer to uh the county completely different completely different yeah we have several officers on loan to various count uh Bergen County prosecutor's office uh squads and agencies but that's a very very limited part-time basis uh it it would come out to maybe the most busy of those officers devotes I think less than 16 hours a month to that organization uh convers conversely there's no funding or feedback that comes back to us back from but correct we get access we get spe specialized training we get an officer who's uh who let's say is is highly trained in those specific areas which comes in very handy it's coming in extraordinarily handy with uh those those swatting and bomb threats and things like that we've been able to Washington Township has played a significant role in pushing forward successful uh charging and hopefully prosecution on those things so those are the so it's a very different thing because they're still here they're coming to work to Washington Township sorry regarding the training is that just for the one officer is that where we can send other officers to them to get training correct we can send other officers on training so yes uh neighboring towns who spent two and three officers for like I said primarily firearms training but that was based on the unit they have an officer with uh ATF so that was based on their obvious specialty uh but all these other agencies conduct training all within this area the tri-state area and uh and it's always provided free of charge uh we have to provide for firearms we provide our own ammunition but uh and the training has been fantastic for those officers that have come back I've spoken to a few of them and and training with the federal agencies with those things have been uh have been really invaluable and the daa is is one of your top picks or there other picks that you would to send them to or uh I've done my homework and I've spoken to them and speaking with the other agencies the DEA is my preference correct thank you so so my my concern is being an officer in Washington Township is a is a great job and I thank you for all your service but being an officer in Washington Township and going on a DEA drug raid is two separate anims agreed so where does the liability start God forbid our officer gets hurt or even worse cuz he's on a DEA raid and not going up and down Colonial looking for Speeders but he's involved in a DEA raid and you know he gets hurt or Worse what happens then who's is Are We Now is it like who covers like I I would I don't want it to happen but that's that's having two friends that I graduate high school and da and hearing all their crazy it ain't being a cop in Washington Township I'll tell you that and I'm not taking that away from you because you J but it's not going into the interner cities and going on these drug raids with crazy people that you know want to kill you the officer on loan receives a minimum of six months of specialized training with that agency to be trained to the level of of that agency's performance yeah I would not allow it otherwise uh and and I was assured and that is part of the contract uh so yeah I I completely understand what you're saying it would be a completely volunteer basis the officer would not be ordered in any way the officer would volunteer for the service and uh but yeah that that does come down on us we do uh we we cover the officer same as we cover every one of our officers go ahead Mr yeah so here's my take on this we gave you two offices to patrol Washington Township now you're telling you you're going to take one of the offices away that we gave you to support Washington Township I am against any federal corrupt agency and this is my opinion DJ FBI we're going to send one of our good officers to get in the mix with a corrupt federal system we gave you two offices for Washington Township now you're going to take saying well we're going to take one of the officers and give them to somebody else maybe we sec consider reducing one officer so we could keep the officer here I just find that we gave you two officers for the township that you needed and now you're telling us uh we want to give one away I really don't care about dea's money or anything like that what I care about is the residents in Washington Township and taking a qualified officer and getting them in the mexs with a federal agent right now and again that's my opinion and that's exactly when I said the last time this was brought up oh I wasn't here for that's why I asked when this was done I don't remember the table of command will not take a a um two officers that we gave you and give one away that was not what we voted for on this Council to give you two officers that's my opinion thank you thank you anyone else have any comments for the chief sure this go I was going to ask M how much do the other towns get so obviously there's no guarantees it's based on the workload Etc uh I can say that the surrounding agencies have all at the minimum doubled the officer's cost and salary for those years some years have been more lucrative than others uh obviously uh several surrounding agencies have been involved in the program for six years and longer uh so to average it out though wouldn't even be fair because during uh 2020 and 2021 those agencies were almost at a standstill uh the officers can't you know the assignments were thin and so those are a poor representation but uh speaking to the other Chiefs the other departments they have been extraordinarily happy with the uh with the financial aspect of it so much so that it's allowing them to do things that were often covered under Capital budgets uh things like alprs uh you know you know this year that the department received no no Capital funding you know I I understand you guys have budget constraints and financial constraints but I explored this as a means of of achieving those goals um you know and and trying to maximize value you know I I don't I don't enter into something like this lightly because obviously Wasington Township and its residents are clearly my priority uh and I know it sounds cold asking how much they get but it does you know but it covers their salary it covers the salary and if you can get another police officer if we're covering with someone else's salary correct then you're at Force want to be with 22 or Tom would say you know we have another body patrolling the streets so it's you know that's that's where I'm going for Tom so I can tell you that other agencies have been so happy with the the program that their governing bodies increase the size of their to by one just to continue to to take advantage of it I'm not Sur would that same officer stay there or it would be a REV like how what's the minimum you would have to offer the the officer would have to leave to go to that agency there is no minimum because we can call them back at any time if we were to have some sort of Manpower issue if I were to have several officers go out sick or something like that I snap my fingers and they come back to us full-time and our commitment is there's no downside but isn't there a minimum there's not a contract with there is and that's part of the contract I can tell you this that very few Chiefs would sign off on a contract that would say otherwise Washington our home agencies are our priority and while there is a financial benefit there's certainly a training benefit no Chief is going to sign off on on losing their Manpower with any sort of downside or any sort of uh because you're at six months of training of them being paid by them so like you know like right the training is paid but our Sal we're paying their salary the training costs are paid but we're paying their salary agency correct yeah no that's what I'm saying so there's got to be like like if you take a class now and then you quit you owe us the money for that class like you know what I'm saying there was no caveat like that there is not and it's not just that officer it's two or three other officers that can go for that training that can so there's man there's mandatory training for the officer assigned but other trainings that come up that other officers can can piggy back on and get uh if it's available yeah yeah signed up for is available I mean that's a cost savings right there as well correct uh so again to point to an actual dollar amount uh I can tell you that there are there are agencies that have not had a capital budget in four and five years since they've started the program and they've been able to achieve things like uh some building Renovations some uh some alprs things like that uh the money is I want to be clear about something the money does not go back into any sort of general fund or budget it's because it's forfeit your funds it is spent at at the chief's discretion uh you know but we all know that that dollars and cents are a big picture and that's a it's a report that the governing body gets as to how much the office is receiving and and and that report is a public record and you know I I would assume through the mayor and the administrator would keep you aware uh you know of those things and excuse me again it's something you know that that I would like to to be able to explore or to at least look into and that's why I wanted feedback you know I I appreciate where councilman seies is coming from uh you know and that's that I want input not just you know I'm not here to argue for or against it I want your I truly want your input and feedback so can can you do this on a probational period so we you know we give this a shot for a year two years and if it doesn't work for our town because of the nature of it which is there's not even a probational period because we can we can cease it at any time I'll say this that there's a six-month training period where while the officer is assigned to the task force they're not involved in the field and that limits the amount of you know money that would that would be coming back because they're not involved directly in the cases once they're once they're involved in the cases to get the funds it has to go through the due process and the courts and the case has to so to give it less than a one to twoe period to to evaluate the effectiveness would do it a disservice because that makes sense we we wouldn't know for sure and and that's the problem with with a short time period like that the other agencies have all been involved in three plus the shortest in the valley has been uh three years and uh and it's been Progressive it's been progressively more success F but again I have to you know throw in the fact that Co was was during those time periods so uh so the flexibility is tremendous which again I wouldn't go forward if it wasn't so what's the benefit to the agencies besides having another officer by us to the federal agency or or the department where's their where are they benefiting not paying salaries and benefits okay it's very simple just what's in it for them okay yeah by keeping T So by keeping task force like this going the benefit for them is if there's an influx of workload they can bring in additional Manpower T to handle it and manage it funding is big for them their agencies they can get training but salaries and things like that can be hard to manage in the short term and by being able to pull Task Force officers in like this it's kind of like how I had to come to you a few years ago and try to get us from 20 to 22 for them to increase the size of their agencies can often be a challenge but if their workload increases how do they cover it they cover it through this type of program it's like Consultants that work so that we would be down to 21 officers we would have we would be a 22 man 22 officer Department uh but there would be 21 officers working full-time in Washington Township and one working full-time outside of Washington Township okay that's enough to cover the 21 is enough to cover right with with Comfort I'm I'm confident we can still manage it yes uh I I don't like the I don't like giving up a person but what I'm trying to do is is provide the best law enforcement product I can and while I'm willing to to provide this officer because of the benefits that it would bring in that are otherwise not being achieved uh I and you and you got to get a volunteer that's going to do it no there's no out of the 22 people all 22 may say no correct I imagine well 21 because you're one of them and you can't go I'm not going I imagine that there's somebody showing interest or okay the again coming coming back to it I don't like giving up the person uh and and like I said I understand budget constraints and all but I believe that I do the residents of the Town a law enforcement disservice by not having something like alprs available to them and like I said I understand budget constraints so I'm shifting resources is what I'm doing with this and and it's something that that I don't like to do but we're all faced with hard decisions and shifting those resources in it in this capacity I think is uh is prudent it's something that that's worth trying worth exploring and uh and like I said well I'm given finite resources to handle an infinite number of issues and problems I think this is a a potential would we be privy to your spending since it's at your discretion spending in terms of spending the money that comes in yes absolutely yeah that that to me is is that's transparency and and that's I'm here being proactive in that capacity and I hope that that giv me credibility in that area that it's not something that you know I don't because it's considered a day-to-day operation this is totally and completely within the chief's authority to to unilaterally but but I don't believe in that I don't think that that's right like I said when I sat before you a few years ago and asked you to increase a size of a department we mentioned this as a program so I believe it's responsible to bring it back to you and say now's the time that we're looking to explore that program you know so when when would you want to start this uh soon we just hit we finally got up to uh 20 as as the mayor announced uh our newest officer finally completed the academy so we finally reached our our table of organization and so I would look to to undertake it as soon as possible all right my my only my only concern joh is the you know the schedule's going be filled because we don't want to spend money on overtime having someone in wherever they C wherever they are right okay so that's that's that's my major concern with the issue that is something I also wanted to address thanks you actually for bringing that up the uh with regard to the DEA specific program uh the officer the one thing that they do kick in on salary-wise is the officer's overtime uh they pay up to $20,000 for the officer overtime while they're assigned to the unit per year and the other agencies have made uh arrangements with the officer that that that's what they're capped at so okay yeah I I would not actually that officers overtime that's in the task force it's overtime if we're short correct you reminded me to bring that up that's all it was one I I totally agree and understand and if I if I thought that Manpower was becoming an issue or that overtime was was becoming excessive as a result of this again that's why it was so important uh to me to find out that I can cancel at any time you know that is extremely important because again an officer or two goes out on some sort of long-term term sick leave I I can't support it would be it would be irresponsible to leave someone to leave the town short staff like that I wouldn't I wouldn't do it so and that's you know I also want you you all to hear I I think I don't I'd like to you know digest this a little bit more because it's the first time hearing of it tonight so I guess we'll keep it on the agenda soon for the next meeting and if it's okay with the council we'll leave it and we'll discuss it again at the next meeting if that's okay yeah all right thank you Chief any spe I mean I if any specific questions come up between now and them so it's timely if you can just get them to the mayor ad to okay I can forward them this way you get the information as soon as possible so thank you very much under Council ordinances and legislations update ordinance prohibit sale of dogs Mr par okay so I look into this a bit there's no you're GNA be Clos okay I just want to make sure so there's no enabling statute which uh you know authorizes these kind of ordin is to begin with that's number one other states do have it but not a lot of States New York has one uh the puppy mill pipeline act but New Jersey it does not uh now that doesn't say that you can't uh enact an ordinance under police powers and under different powers things of that nature I tried to go around and find other towns I couldn't find any neighboring towns that have it uh M CLA does have one by the way which was it was you know well written that kind of a thing uh so I can't tell you that if you enacted the ordinance it would be enforceable um I can't say it's not going to be enforceable either it's it's just not normal uh Municipal uh work or or enactment of of legislation I'm not saying you can't do it or have it uh but you know uh you could you could enact it and see what would happens with it but there's no enabling um aspect of the uh State statutes or or anything anything else and I did not see a lot of towns have it okay M how would you like to proceed no I mean I think we you know we explored it I presented it Mr PA explored it so I say we just you know wait on that wait on until moreing ordinances in the area that we need okay you know it was brought to our attention multiple times so it's good to just bring it yeah we did we did we did it we did our due diligence on it and uh now is not the time to do anything about it correct is that a fair statement a fair Jud it's a fair judgment thank you Mr per for looking at um under Financial is a 10-year Financial Outlook plan or a capital for Capital plan I'd asked to put this on there I know with tonight uh you know the millions add up quickly and you know you start you know talking about 6.8 for the uh police department and the uh DPW building plus the renovations of the um ambulance the old the former Ambulance Corp building plus the renovations of the swim club parking lot plus the renovations of 450 um you know the rest of the stream restoration all that I really we really need to get some kind of financial Outlook plan of what the town needs for the next 10 years and I i' I'd like to ask the administration if if the rest of the C is okay to really prepare something because we can't just keep sitting on this day is and say oh it's $18 it's a million dollar it's $18 um it never works that way and you know I think tonight we talked about you know 7 6.8 million and then you know plus the am plus the ambulance renovation 7.5 probably another 5 million for the swim club parking lot with the vanilla plan um so I'd like to I'd like to get all our numbers plus all the the outstanding debt we have out there that you know we have to eventually bonds um and see what that really is going to do to our resident tax base so that that's just my you know conference agenda item I don't know how anybody else feels about it but I think we really need to move forward you know if we're going to move forward we need to have some kind of plan of what we're spending and how much it's going to really cost us to pay it back all right my only comment to that is you know I don't disagree with the cost but we need a DPW I'm but I I I want to know what else we need M because it's it's not just a DBW you know we need the police Renovations we need the ambulance and then in in the grand scheme of things is we're not buying property by doing it in house in order to facilitate the DPW the police you know so we're we're eliminating that cost and my concern is the longer we wait everything continues to rise the cost so we're looking at for round number 7 million you know in a year or two years is it 9 million so I don't disagree we need a plan but and I'm not saying this plan do take this the pl but it shouldn't this plan shouldn't take more than you know it's just a financial Outlook plan that you know lists every single liability we currently have that has to be eventually turned into a bond and every future liability we will have if these projects proceed and what that amount is and what that's going to do to our tax you know our tax base it's we're talking a lot it's it's a lot of money yeah you know we could we you know we have we have the ability on this Council right now to spend 10 to2 million in the next year or two years that's that's a lot of money and I'm not I'm not going to I'm not going to just say well you know it's $18 it's $11 it's $12 like I I want to have something in writing so we can say to the residance hey this is what we're doing this is what it's going to really cost and you know and have them know before we proceed that's all I'm asking uh under miscellaneous missv you had building department update thank you so I'll try to keep this quick um there's been a lot of meetings happening um some that I've been able to attend but I know the building department has been working really hard to get everything up and running and streamlining it I will say I haven't come across one building person that's not excited about this endeavor um so I just want to share some information some updates uh the and I'm just reading off some emails the amount of applications going to engineering have have been significantly reduced saving the residents unnecessary costly time and resource es so this is great because we certainly want to encourage our residents to improve their homes um only major projects uh will be reviewed by engineering new homes large additions large scale Patio Pool projects um so this is going to cut out a lot of the review process um they are working on streamlining all the permitting process and in fact yesterday it went live that the uniform construction Cod inspections can now be requested in writing um and submitted to a newly created email so I it's all on the website it's up it's running it's a UCC inspections atwp of washington. us um this is a a way to save time for both the residents and the staff that are working on this uh application projects application packages sorry are being updated as well so basically long story short these changes are happening um they're moving in phas phases and we're really looking to streamline anything everything so that we can help the residents same save time and um also cost um on the horizon we will be tackling some of the ordinances which I will be presenting to the council that way we can modernize them and you know bring them more to our current you know World St U status um including some of like soil moving for example so just wanted to update the council and say that a lot of good things are happening in the building department they've been working really hard and thank you Mr Dar Carlo for your support and everybody on the team that's making this happen thank you thank you zoom discussion continuation um Mr PA and Miss wowski um I I just want to throw it out there again I I think the way Zoom is running tonight with Mr corkin on and I know Mr Alman tried to get on but he is in a in a work meeting so he probably couldn't get on I I think for and when Mr par is is unavailable and he can come into Zoom I think having a link for our professionals and ourselves is acceptable presume but I am all I I believe that if the public wants to speak to us they need to be here upfront and Center if they can't can't make it here I will make I will I will I'm going to ask Sue and the rest of the counil I'm going to ask the rest of the council to add a little caveat at the beginning of my opening statements just like I talk about people with disabilities and special needs or whatever in the beginning statement that if anybody is unable to attend the council meeting to please email us at our email addresses and we will reach out to them get the information and present it for them at the next council meeting and eliminate the ability for anybody other than the professionals or the council m MERS or the mayor and the administration to be on Zoom that's my recommendation I don't know how else feels about this but I don't think there's a reason you know Co is over I I think the zoom link is great because I've been on vacation a couple times when I was on Council last time and I had to miss a meeting but I was sitting by a pool I could have got on my laptop and called in um but for the public I think they need to be here at that at that Podium and speaking to us rather than hiding behind you know fake fictitious names and bringing topics we don't need to talk about ever on I'll second that long we have a little caveat in here for seniors that if the senior calls us 100% behind you yeah let me just let me just I mean the one thing I don't think is a good idea I don't think you could allow somebody else to speak on Zoom no other words a senior or no no no that's what I'm saying I'm going to make I want I want to ask the council change to email us to say hey for any any any uh any resent who cannot make a meeting discuss please email us at our email address that's all I'm going to add that's all as far as participation absolutely can't differentiate no I did not that's not what I met Mr car thank you yeah so I I made the motion um Mr sear second it any discussion yes discuss um so there's a motion and a second to eliminate Zoom other than for the professionals and the administration of the C I understand your thought process behind it um but I you know obviously I totally disagree with everything that went down with that call but of all the years that we've been doing Zoom I believe correct me if I'm wrong that's the first and only time that that has occurred I don't so I I don't know I can't I think there was other times so it has been far and few in between and your ability to them or hang up on them is there so while I do understand your thought process behind it I think we're also leaving some individuals our residents out of the opportunity that modern technology offers so you know it could be somebody that has a cold that doesn't want to bring it you know wakes up doesn't feel that great just come to the next week or we discuss something something comes up and they they're listening and they want to you know provide some input you know I don't know you know so many different situations but my and I'll just say it here cuz I I understand where where you're coming from but are we always going to allow one situation or very few situations to change the entire makeup of what we can offer our residents I I've been asking i' I when I was on zoning board I had asked a bunch of times to eliminate uh also because I don't think it's it's oh i' love to see the people I'd rather have the people come here you know we are we are eliminating some folks I but I think the the the few that do call us on Zoom is very few and limited and far between like you know we've done well there's less of ones that's it that was just my my opinion all right roll call can we discuss oh you thought I thought you I didn't know you got well as you see the last few meetings no one's in the audience and nobody's on Zoom no one's on Zoom so if you can't make the effort to get on Zoom for meetings or in the audience come come I I don't see the need for Zoom Zoom was only used because of an emergent situation okay now there's been times where the courtrooms have been packed with people and there's been a lot of people on zoom and other times there's no one you know if you have really something to say come come to the meeting and it gets involvement yes some people may be limited mo mobility wise but if it's that important we'll find a way to get and if they are limited Mobility we're going to give them an option to reach out to us and we'll take care of it we'll we'll have put it on a discussion topic and if we have to make arrangements I you know I'll pick them up and bring you [Music] know and there have been more than one occasion where the the comments were uh what's the word in inop so it's not just the one time but anyway we do have the ability to shut them down well you know but that was just my opinion that's it yeah I know you want to shut them down but then it becomes an issue like you're cutting off their free speech and then we have the First Amendment issue we can't do that either they're here or either going to let them speak all the way through or they're not speaking at all and that by eliminating Zoom that would eliminate that issue the First Amendment right and speaking of Mr could have been that you know when we we hung up on those people or when the when the zoom disconnected on those people I'll put it that way Zoom somehow disconnected at the minute um you know we could have violated their free speech rights but you know Zoom decided to disconnect that minute so I don't know what happened like I don't I don't run the telephone line so will this also apply to zoning and planning this is for us they'd have to make the same okay understood do they still Zoom they still do Zoom they so I think once I I'll talk to I'll Mr Mayor if you can uh I know you're on planning with Mr Alman I know Mr alman's not here tonight can you just advise them of what we've done hopefully at the council meeting that we've eliminated Zoom to the public but we're still letting the professionals join yeah I was waiting for you to vote on it because like I said I want to keep things standardized and and we'll call the zoning board also we can't force them but we did we vote on it to begin with and start with zoom cuz I don't think that happened no choice because we weren't here there was no choice so I don't think you have to vote on well I think you should vote on discuss councilman Casio yes councilman Sears yes Council bz no council president the Senate yes thank you um motion to go into close session to discuss safety procedures and property acquisition resolution number 24270 motion to go into close session some second all in favor thank you let Ricky know who I chicken wing he probably knows already we are not coming back from Clos it's still recording recording we still recording ladies and gentlemen